The rise, the big hiss of the final airlock, and Inglewood. Joe stood on the platform a second, looking for his car, and then realized she wasn't there. She hadn't been there for a week, and he'd done that every night. Silly thing, habit. Human trait.
Tonight, he'd know. The flesh had been in the mold for two days. The synthetic nerves were plump and white under the derma-ray, the fluxo heart was pumping steadily, the entire muscular structure kept under pneumatic massage for muscle tone.
He'd thought of omitting the frowning muscles, but realized it would ruin the facial contours. They weren't, however, under massage and would not be active.
And the mind?
Well, naturally it would be tuned to his. She'd know everything he knew. What room was there for disagreement if the minds were the same? Smiling, as she agreed, because she couldn't frown. Her tenderness, her romanticism would have an intensity variable, of course. He didn't want one of these grinning simperers.
He remembered his own words: "Is this love something you can turn on and off like a faucet?" Were his own words biting him, or only scratching him? Something itched. An intensity variable was not a faucet, though unscientific minds might find a crude, allegorical resemblance.
To hell with unscientific minds.