He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;
tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to
match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many
people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the
pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it
was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful
student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from
time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he
might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of
the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though
not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the
police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital
punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the
man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,
nor whom the police intended to capture easily.
_This might be a lucky break for me after all_, the new tenant thought,
as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious
rude health, was not a very comfortable fit. _I can do a lot with a
hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe
I'll be able to get away with it._
IV
"Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you
too well. And I know you have that man's--the real Gabriel
Lockard's--body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she
watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Lockard--Lockard's body, at any rate--sat up and felt his unshaven
chin. "That what he tell you?"
"No, he didn't tell me anything really--just suggested I ask you
whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he
obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to
see his body spoiled."
"It _is_ a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles
and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved
at having someone with whom to share his secret.
"Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking
at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.
Gabe, why don't you...?"
"Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be _his_ wife then. That would be
nice--a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little
more than you deserve?"
"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for
she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd
go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ...
old body back."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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