Not quite, though; Helen Ramsey's face was sharper, more distinct--all of the features stood out more clearly. And when Corriston's stunned mind began to function normally again, he realized that the old woman's face was--had to be--a plastic mask. It took him only an instant to remove the ghastly thing from features which he could not bear to see defaced. He had to pry it loose, but he did so very gently, exactly as a sculptor might have pried loose a life mask from the face of a recumbent model. He held it in his hand and looked at it, and a little of the horror crept back into his mind. It was the merest fragment, as he had thought. Thin, flexible, a tissue-structure of incomplete, aged features, and with an inner surface that was very rough and uneven, as if something had been torn from it. He could have crumpled it up in his hand, but he did not do so. With a lack of foresight which he was later to regret--a lack which was to prove tragic--he simply flung it from him, as though its ugliness had unnerved him so that he could no longer endure the sight of it. Helen Ramsey was a dead weight in his arms, and for a moment he feared that she had stopped breathing. So great was his fear, so paralyzing, that his hand on her pulse became rigid, and for a moment he could neither move nor think. Then he felt the slow beat of her pulse and a great thankfulness came upon him. He knew then that he must get help as quickly as possible. He eased her gently to the floor, walked to the door and locked it securely. Then he returned to her and took her into his arms again. He spent several minutes trying to revive her. But when she did not open her eyes, did not even stir in his arms, he knew that he could not wait any longer. 8 An inexorable kind of determination enabled Corriston to get to the Station's central control compartment, and confront the commander, when the latter, absorbed by matters of the utmost urgency, had triple-guarded his privacy by stationing executive officers outside the door. Commander Clement was a small man physically, with a strangely bland, almost cherubic face. But his face was dark with anger now--or possibly it was shock that he was experiencing--and the heightened color seemed to add to his dignity, making him look not merely forcibly determined, but almost formidable. His white uniform and the seven gold bars on each epaulet helped a good deal too. It was impossible to determine at a glance just how great was his inner strength, but Corriston knew that he could not have gotten where he was had he not possessed unalloyed resoluteness. He was standing by a visual reference mechanism which looked almost exactly like a black stovepipe spiraling up from the deck. There was a speaking tube in his hand, and he was talking into it. He seemed completely unaware that he was no longer alone.