"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 space 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 space crews.
One feature of emergency quarantine was the creation of the spaceport
zone, an area with a radius of fifty miles about the spaceport, 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 space ship 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.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ April 1949. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical
errors have been corrected without note. Variant spellings have been
retained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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