“That’s no answer.”
“I am telling you that right now I am human, that I am everything you need. Isn’t that enough?”
“Are you a shape-changer?” I asked.
“No, Gregory, I am not.”
“Then how can you look like this?”
“This is what you want to see,” she said.
“What if I want to see you as you really are?” I persisted.
“But you don’t,” she said. “This”—she indicated herself—“is what you want to see.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Gregory, Gregory,” she said with a sigh, “do you think I created this face and this body out of my imagination? I found it in your mind.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I never met anyone who looked like you.”
A smile. “But you wish you had.” And a pause. “And if you had, you were sure she would be called Rebecca. I am not only everything you need, but everything you want.”
“Everything?” I asked dubiously.
“Everything.”
“Can we…uh…?”
“When you slipped you caught me off-guard,” she answered. “Didn’t I feel like the woman you want me to be?”
“Let me get this straight. Your clothes are as much of an illusion as you are?”
“The clothes are an illusion,” she said, and suddenly they vanished and she was standing, naked and perfect, before me. “I am real.”
“You’re a real something,” I said. “But you’re not a real woman.”
“At this moment I am as real as any woman you have ever known.”
“Let me think for a minute,” I said. I stared at her while I tried to think. Then I realized that I was thinking all the wrong things, and I lowered my gaze to the ground. “That thing that drove the Nightstalker away,” I said. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“It was what you needed at that instant,” she answered.
“And whatever pulls the leaves down from the treetops—a snake, a bird, an animal, whatever—that’s you too?”
“You need a mixture of the leaves and the herbs to combat your infection.”
“Are you trying to say that you were put here solely to serve my needs?” I demanded. “I didn’t think God was that generous.”
“No, Gregory,” said Rebecca. “I am saying that it is my nature, even my compulsion, to nurture those who are in need of nurturing.”
“How did you know I needed it, or that I was even on the planet?”
“There are many ways of sending a distress signal, some of them far more powerful than you can imagine.”
“Are you saying that if someone is suffering, say, five miles away, you’d know it?”
“Yes.”
“More that five miles?” I continued. She simply stared at me. “Fifty miles? A hundred? The whole damned planet?”
She looked into my eyes, her face suddenly so sad that I totally forgot about the rest of her. “It’s not limited to just the planet, Gregory.”
“When you ran off for a few minutes, were you saving some other man?”
“You are the only man on the planet,” she replied.
“Well, then?”
“A small marsupial had broken a leg. I alleviated its suffering.”
“You weren’t gone that long,” I said. “Are you saying that an injured wild animal let a strange woman approach it while it was in pain, because I find that very difficult to believe.”
“I did not approach it as a woman.”
I stared at her for a long moment. I think I half-expected her to morph into some kind of alien monster, but she just looked as beautiful as ever. I visually searched her naked body for flaws—make that errors—some indication that she wasn’t human, but I couldn’t find any.
“I’ve got to think about all this,” I said at last.
“Would you like me to leave?”
“No.”
“Would it be less distracting if I recreated the illusion of clothing?”
“Yes,” I said. Then “No.” Then “I don’t know.”
“They always find out,” she said. “But usually not this quickly.”
“Are you the only one of…of whatever it is that you are?”
“No,” she replied. “But we were never a numerous race, and I am one of the very few who remains on Nikita.”
“What happened to the others?”
“They went where they were needed. Some came back; most went from one distress signal to another.”
“We haven’t had a ship here in six years,” I said. “How did they leave the planet?”
“There are many races in the galaxy, Gregory. Humans aren’t the only ones to land here.”
“How many men have you saved?”
“A few.”
“And Patrukans?”
“Patrukans too.”
I shrugged. “Why the hell not? I suppose we’re all equally alien to you.”
“You are not alien,” she said. “I assure you that at this moment I am every bit as human as the Rebecca of your dreams. In fact, I am the Rebecca of your dreams.” She flashed me a smile. “I even want to do what that Rebecca wants to do.”
“Is it possible?” I asked curiously.
“Not while you have a broken leg,” she answered, “but yes, it’s not only possible, but natural.” I must have looked doubtful, because she added, “It would feel exactly the way you hope it would feel.”
“You’d better bring the clothes back before I do something really stupid that’ll mess up my arm and leg even worse,” I said.
And instantly she was clothed again.
“Better?” she asked.
“Safer, anyway,” I said.
“While you’re thinking deep serious thoughts, I’ll start making your breakfast,” she said, helping me to the shade of the tree, then going back into the bubble to find some H-rations.
I sat motionless for a few minutes, considering what I had learned. And I came to what seemed, at least at the time, a surprising conclusion. She was my dream girl. She was drop-dead gorgeous—to me, anyway. We shared dozens of interests, and she was as passionate about them as I was. I felt comfortable with her, and knowing that she was really something else didn’t disturb me half as much as I’d thought it would. If she was Rebecca only when I was around, that was better than never having a Rebecca at all. And she cared for me; she had no reason to say so if it wasn’t true.
She walked over and handed me a plate filled with soya products that were designed to look and taste like anything except soya products. I put the plate on the ground and took her hand in mine.
“You don’t shrink from my touch,” I noted, stroking her arm gently.
“Of course