Her voice trailed off. An expression of vast surprise spread across her face. Her pudgy hands sagged to her sides.
And then, incredibly, she was changing, changing. Before the others' very eyes, wrinkles began to fade, the slackened skin to firm and fill.
Her body, too--a youth, a slim litheness, came to replace the sagging rolls of flesh not even corsetry could successfully conceal. The auburn hair lost its dull, artificial glitter and, rippling, took on a glow, a natural sheen.
Ross sagged back against the table. The livid scar on Cheng's cheek twitched and quivered.
Astrell laughed aloud; and now, for the first time in the hearing of those present, the sound held warmth and vibrance ... the laugh of a woman, not a crone. Rising on tiptoe, she lifted her hands high above her head, stretching. Her face, her lips, her eyes, her whole body--they were suffused with a stunning, dazzling beauty.
"Do you wonder now that they married me?" she cried triumphantly, pirouetting. "Seven of them, the richest men in all the outer planets! And lovers--how many lovers did I take? Now I'll have more--more husbands, more lovers! Because I'm young again; I'm beautiful...."
Without warning, her voice trailed off. Her lovely face mirrored sudden shock.
Disregarding Cheng's leveled gun, Ross stepped in quickly; caught the woman's arm. "Astrell! What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. As swiftly as they had come, the gayness, the buoyancy, seemed to have gone out of her. Flat-footed, she stumbled towards the table.
Only then her knees hinged. She started to fall.
His hands seemed to slip, to slide away. The woman sprawled on the floor. Her breath came in hoarse, labored gasps.
Blankly, Ross looked from her to his hands.
Where his fingers had touched Astrell, slime now dripped from them ... the same hideous, stinking ooze that had marked the corpse of Zoltan Prenzz, the death of Sanford Hall....
Ross' eyes lifted to stare momentarily at Cheng and Veta in numb, dumb horror, then flicked back to Astrell once more.
Astrell, a beauty no longer. The features of her face sagged loose and shapeless. Her body seemed to dissolve into the floor.
Choking, Ross stumbled to a corner and tried to scrub the slime from his hands with a ragged jacket that hung there.