The weariness of the months of strain claimed him and he nodded in his chair, waiting. She got up and beckoned to him, and beyond the first door she opened was a chamber, a bed made on the floor of soft hand-made quilts, silken and lovely. He fell across the bed in a heap and she went out, closing the door softly.
Hours later he awoke, and darkness had come. He lay there, trying to remember what She had been wearing, feeling a little pang of jealously that She must have a man, must be knitting that mate's child's clothing.... She had worn some kind of clinging trousers, slacks—something ... and across her perfect bosom had been crossed two wide bands of white that ended in a girdle around her small waist. Her throat and the cleft of her breasts had had a sheen like mother of pearl, and her bare arms soft and lovely as two dreams. Dreams! He cursed a little. Too many dreams had tormented him, these last starving months, eking out his dwindling food supply, waiting for something to come ... some planet to appear in the endless black void where he could set his fuel-dry ship down and rest.
The door opened, and she came in, carrying a lamp—a primitive thing with a tiny flame. She set it down and stood smiling at him, and there was a magic on her, in her eyes and on her bare graceful arms, in the lovely curves of her body under the clinging garment.
Donay sighed. A man went to the stars seeking perfection, adventure, magic ... and when he found it, he found it was very like home, only better. It was like a perfect wife and a perfect farm and peace and contentment—bucolic magic—why had he left Earth?
As he got to his feet, one foot slipped on the smooth tile floor and he lurched suddenly against her. His first thought was—"My God, her condition ..." but his second was a vague horror that began to grow in his mind. For her body was solid as a rock, unyielding. And the hand with which she seized his arm and steadied him was like the grasp of a pair of tongs of heavy steel!
The more he looked at her perfection, the more his mind worried at the problem—How can she be so beautiful and yet be made of metal ... yet be not human, yet be—yet be.... His mind would not accept it—yet be a robot? She could not be of flesh and blood like himself, not ... like that.... He shuddered, inwardly.
The evening meal was a feast of berries and thick cream, fresh bread and the beautiful yellow butter, slabs of something fried ... fried ... he remembered, like panhaus, like scrapple—like the Dutch cooked.
He ate and leaned back satisfied. Then she brought a heavy blue wine from a door he guessed was a cellar way, and he drank. And the wine opened his lips, and he asked, "How can we understand each other, strange woman of steel?"
She smiled at the weird sounds of his mouth, and answered, "Ven nu da, uman. En nu see me."