He stopped in his tracks, both literally and figuratively. It simply hadn't occurred to him that a woman would respond to the Company's request for volunteers, and even if it had occurred to him, the possibility of the Company's installing a woman's brain in a M.A.N. would not have.
"I am not a M.A.N.," she said, seemingly sensing his thoughts. "I am a W.O.M.A.N.—a Weld Operating, Mining, Adapting Neo-processor."
He hardly "heard" her. "I don't understand it," he said. "With such a high incidence of arrowway fatalities, and with so many bequeathed brains to choose from, why should the Company have chosen a woman's?"
"You're overlooking the fact," she pointed out, "that in the majority of arrowway fatalities, the brain itself is in some way damaged, and you're overlooking the additional fact that ninety percent of the brains that have been bequeathed to the Company are intellectually and vocationally unsuited for symbiosis. I happened to be a qualified engineer, and apparently I possessed the requisite intelligence. In any event, I qualified, and here I am."
"How old were you when you were killed?" he asked her.
"Twenty-four. And you?"
"I was twenty-six. The way I went in for arrowway travel, it was a wonder I lasted that long." He was thoughtful for a moment. Then, "I wonder if we got ourselves killed deliberately."
"Probably. Most arrowway drivers do. And yet we hunger after immortality. It's a paradox, isn't it?"
He realized to his surprise that he rather liked her. "What will you do after the base is completed?" he asked.