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?You can live with it,?he told her, ?or…?He rubbed his naked pate and smiled regretfully.

Her expression twisted. ?There’s no other way??

He shook his head. ?If there was we’d have found it by now. Not that there’s been much impetus to do so. Vanity’s one of the first casualties of assignment to Fiorina. You might as well be comfortable. It’ll grow back after you leave, and if you don’t do anything in the meantime the bugs’ll eat the stuff right down to the roots anyway. They may be tiny, but they have large appetites and lousy table manners. Believe me, you’ll look worse if you try to ignore it, and you’ll scratch yourself silly.?

She slumped. ?All right. Which way to the beauty parlor??

The tech was apologetic. ?I’m afraid you’re talking to it.?

The line of shower stalls was stark and sterile, pale white beneath the overheads. Presently all were deserted save one. As the hot, chemically treated water cascaded down her body, Ripley studied herself in the mirror that formed part of one wall.

Strange to be without hair. It was such a slight, ephemeral part of one’s body. The only aspect of one’s appearance that could be altered easily and at will. She felt herself physically diminished somehow, a queen suddenly bereft of her crown. Yet it would grow back. Clemens had assured her of that. The prisoners had to shave themselves regularly. There was nothing about the bugs or the air that rendered the condition permanent.

She soaped her bare scalp. It was a strange sensation and she felt chilled despite the roaring hot water. The old mining and smelting facility might be short of many things, but water wasn’t one of them. The big desalinization plant

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down on the bay had been built to provide water for all installation functions and its full complement of personnel as well. Even at minimal operational levels it provided more than enough water for the prisoners to waste.

She shut her eyes and stepped back under the full force of the heavy spray. As far as she was concerned the past ten thousand years of human civilization had produced three really important inventions: speech, writing, and indoor plumbing.

Outside the stalls, old death and new problems awaited, though the latter seemed insignificant compared to what she’d already been through. Clemens and Andrews and the rest didn’t, couldn’t, understand that, nor did she feel it incumbent upon herself to elaborate for them.

After what she’d endured, the prospect of being forced to spend a few weeks in the company of some hardened criminals was about as daunting as a walk in the park.