Her thoughts plunged on—he had to listen—"You think we are dead robots because you do not see our life. You cannot see it, until you are one of us. Then it becomes quite clear, our life is more than before."
Steve's thoughts, unlocked from sad introspection and loneliness, plunged suddenly into a swirl of desire. He could not help wishing to see her body without the sleek rippling film of silk. He could not help wondering if the bodies of these machine-like people were as perfect as their faces were perfect. She laughed as the machine augmented his inadvertent wish ... and she zipped down her side, tossed off the one piece jumper of silken stuff. She stood there, perfect and desirable.
Steve flushed. "That wasn't necessary, baby," he heard himself say, embarrassed. "I couldn't help wishing."
"More you can never have, while you are made of flesh. My arms would crush you, my lips burst your soft flesh lips. But if you underwent the treatment ..." she smiled. Her meaning was unmistakable, too much so and Steve flushed, guiltily.
He heard his own thought on the augmenter, going on and on inexorably, against his own will: "There was a woman, the first I knew in this world. I stayed there too long. She wanted me, but we could not even speak. Somehow, I feel drawn back to her. And the thing that puzzled me, that terrified me ... she was knitting baby clothes, yet there was no man! No man ever came, there was only me. And I never even touched her, except by chance."
The girl slipped her jumper on, zipped it up. Her face was suddenly grave, empty, and somehow sorry. Steve stopped thinking, listened to the augmenter and her thoughts. "Oh, no! I am sorry I intruded."
Steve shook his head. He was trying hard not to understand the meaning of what he heard. It was like being led by the hand, like a child trying to break away from his mother's restraining hand.
"What do you mean, you're sorry you intruded?"
She smiled, a very peculiar smile, one of those female smiles that madden men so much, because they show him that sometimes women know things that men can never know.
"You will understand one of these days, why I am sorry. I should have known. If I had looked I would have seen it in you already. It changes a man ... but you could not understand. It was inevitable. You were doomed when you set foot on this world." She laughed, and repeated, "Doomed, doomed," and she went out the door, a silvery laugh like a glass bell struck with a felt hammer.