"Then what are you?" Martha asked tensely.

"I'm the crew of the _Endore_," Ren said softly. "I'm Ren Gravenard here and now because that is the only thing you can accept at present.

I'm--Her, the incomprehensible."

A question rose in Martha's mind. She drew back from the question as from the brink of the Abyss, yet felt drawn magnetically toward it. Ren watched and knew what that question would be. She opened her lips.

"Who--am I?" she asked.

"Look at your hands," Ren said.

Martha looked down at her hands resting on the edge of the table. They were large, gnarled, strong--the hands of a man. She flexed them. They were smooth and skillful.

Wonderingly she raised her eyes to look at her companion across the table. Her companion was--herself and she was Ren Gravenard. Anything else would have been--unthinkable.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In 2027 A.D., just seventy-five years after the first s.p.a.ce flight, a dangerous disease was brought to Earth which wiped out almost a million lives before a cure was found. Immediately an elaborate quarantine procedure was developed to take care of any possible eventuality. This also included the psych screening routine to check on the sanity and normalcy of returning s.p.a.ce crews.

One feature of emergency quarantine was the creation of the s.p.a.ceport zone, an area with a radius of fifty miles about the s.p.a.ceport, which during quarantine was to be blocked off with nothing permitted to go either in or out.

For all-out quarantine as in this present case, a temporary planet quarantine was to be imposed, preventing the landing or taking off of any s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p at all.

Other measures would take effect if and when they became necessary, such as national quarantine, continent quarantine, and even harsh measures if they became necessary.--ED.