Her hair is wildly tangled. She is covered with small scratches. A thin line of blood runs down from her right nostril. And she is smiling at him, a superior, chilling smile, as if she had won the real battle.
"Why are you so pleased about my dream?" Hawley asked. "You weren't even in it."The girl turned on her side, facing him and answered. "Oh, I was in it. You just didn't recognize me."
He let that line slide by. He was becoming accustomed to her playful sense of the cryptic.
He thought for a moment and said, "Seriously, do you know what I was going to do out there, when you first saw me?""Yes," she answered without concern.
"I was going to kill myself," he said. Then he realized how she'd answered. "What do you mean -- you knew?"
"I know everything about you, Mr. Hawley. I know what you tried to do, why you did it, and what you'll do next. You're a very important man, Mr. Hawley, too important to waste because of a little delay in results."
"Delay?"
"Of course. I...we knew from the very start that your experiment would be a success. I wouldn't be here if it weren't. A slight delay, however, was necessary, for purposes of timing."
"Timing?"
"Yes, timing. You're a very important part, but only one part, of a tightly organized plan. Your work had to be synchronized with other events."
"Really? And do you know how much your little 'synchronization' is going to cost in human life once the backers of my experiment come here to collect on their debts?"
"I wouldn't worry about them, they're probably already dead by now."
"What?!"
"Yes, dead. I suppose you've been too preoccupied with your own little problems, but you should now that your homeland has already fallen under the first wave of anarchy and revolution. A certain airplane will be shot down when it passes over a certain mountain range, if it hasn't already, and all traces of impropriety in your past will disappear."
"This is outrageous!"
"Yes, but true. And I wouldn't worry about your lawyer friend either. He'll be coming around tomorrow, just bursting with apologies and all sorts of news about the world. Be generous and forgiving; he hasn't outlived his usefulness yet."
Hawley shook his head. "You seem to have everything planned out to the smallest detail."
"An excellent choice of words!" she cried out, laughing. "All that's left that you need to know about is, as you put it, the 'smallest detail.' You're going to become a father."
"I don't think that's very funny."
"Of course not. I'm deadly serious. Your wife's inability to conceive was merely another necessary delay. We wanted your first child to be special."
"And how is this 'blessed event' going to be engineered?"
"I shall be the carrier of your sperm to your wife's seed."
"That's witchcraft," he said derisively, "or something like it, at least."
"Maybe something like it. I hope you aren't for a moment arrogant enough to think that you've created a new science. You've made a few important innovations, but others have preceded you on your path, and gone much further."
She rose from the bed, the muscles beneath her skin beginning to ripple with an unexplained excitement: soft, round skin gave way to harder, more angular musculature; ripe, firm breasts became hard, firm pectorals; vaginal lips swelled and telescoped into an erect penis.
In place of this dark young girl now stood an athletic, almost godlike man with dark, shoulder-length hair.
"I shall be back in a more pleasing guise," he said in a low yet still familiar voice, "after I've made a delivery...to your wife. In the meantime, you won't be needing these."
He picked up Hawley's clothes and put them on. They fit remarkably well.
"Now, go back to sleep," he said in a voice quiet with its own self-confidence.
Despite the shock, Hawley felt an overpowering urge to obey.
The last words he heard as he drifted into forgetful unconsciousness were, "By the way, Mr. Hawley, it's going to be a girl."