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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40965 ***
+
+                          TIME and the WOMAN
+
+                          By Dewey, G. Gordon
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 number
+2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+[Sidenote: HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY--BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER.
+AND FOR IT--SHE'D DO ANYTHING!]
+
+[Illustration ]
+
+
+Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike
+in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her
+couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight.
+There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements.
+
+It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness
+in them, but only _she_ knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her
+polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth
+they once had, only _she_ knew that, too. _But they would again_, she
+told herself fiercely.
+
+She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a
+frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns--just one
+frown--could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle.
+One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and
+there--the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing
+them.
+
+Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial
+surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the
+stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a
+figure where they were beginning to blur and--sag.
+
+No one else could see it--yet. But Ninon could!
+
+Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the
+back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and
+destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as
+circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved.
+Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old
+philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt.
+
+Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to
+feel that sureness of power in her grasp--the certain knowledge that
+she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She
+would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like
+a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of
+the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew
+how.
+
+Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment
+through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the
+lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of
+endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them
+contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave
+them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years.
+
+There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A
+book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic
+record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his
+postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her
+was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For
+Ninon!
+
+The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch--Robert
+was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was
+behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her
+figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and
+opened it.
+
+A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with
+the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step
+forward to clasp her in his strong young arms.
+
+"Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily.
+
+Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed
+her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the
+years, it had deepened.
+
+"Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm
+resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening
+flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such
+experiences with men had given her.
+
+Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been
+waiting for you."
+
+She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready
+for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed
+the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside
+the young spaceman on the silken couch.
+
+His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced
+each other.
+
+"Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long
+time--to carry your image with me through all of time and space."
+
+Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny
+pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...."
+
+Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there
+were only room. But this is an experimental flight--no more than two can
+go."
+
+Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer.
+
+"Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back.
+
+"Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running
+out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn--three hours from now."
+
+Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert."
+
+"But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should
+rest a little."
+
+"I'll be more than rest for you."
+
+"Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes."
+
+"Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me
+about the flight tomorrow."
+
+The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you
+before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little
+time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...."
+
+Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away
+from him. But he blundered on.
+
+"... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you
+know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only
+rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind
+of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light--how many times
+faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the
+first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it
+works, the universe is ours--we can go anywhere."
+
+"Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her
+voice.
+
+Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this
+time tomorrow."
+
+"What of you--of me--. What does this mean to us--to people?"
+
+Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think
+that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...."
+
+"... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?"
+
+"Well ... yes. Something like that."
+
+"And I'll be--old--or dead, when you get back? If you get back?"
+
+Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair
+which swept down over Ninon's shoulders.
+
+"Don't say it, darling," he murmured.
+
+This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right,
+and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no
+wrinkles--there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and
+flexible, of real youth.
+
+She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three
+buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of
+glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact
+rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body.
+
+Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?"
+he asked.
+
+Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a
+little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...."
+
+The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not
+quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The
+lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all
+that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's
+tousled hair and shook him gently.
+
+"It's time to go, Robert," she said.
+
+Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he
+mumbled.
+
+"And I'm going with you," Ninon said.
+
+This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up
+and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he
+reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair.
+
+Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert.
+
+"Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice.
+"How old are you?"
+
+"I've told you before, darling--twenty-four."
+
+"How old do you think I am?"
+
+He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to
+think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say."
+
+"Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two."
+
+He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the
+smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he
+chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You
+can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking."
+
+Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I
+knew your father, before you were born."
+
+This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy
+to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help
+me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low,
+bitter, accusing.
+
+Ninon slapped him.
+
+He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her
+fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and
+said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be
+respectful to my elders."
+
+For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand
+sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds
+of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand.
+
+"Robert!" she said in peremptory tones.
+
+The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to
+conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?"
+
+Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!"
+
+Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains
+at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life
+on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and
+color and sound and dimension, she--and Robert--projected themselves,
+together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the
+three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in
+the hair falling over her shoulders....
+
+The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's
+it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose.
+But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be
+gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it,
+permanently--at your age--before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and
+you have nothing to gain."
+
+Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the
+contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain,
+more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were
+to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business
+to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He
+too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A
+third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are
+supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of
+Space Research knew that you had not...."
+
+"I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less
+than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to
+make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...."
+
+Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen
+changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the
+couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance,
+uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were
+around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording
+run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights.
+
+To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five
+minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously
+affects the success of the flight."
+
+The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long
+moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You
+scheming witch! What do you want?"
+
+There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later.
+Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out
+through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street
+where his car waited.
+
+"We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship
+ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from
+Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his
+place."
+
+Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and
+waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the
+curb and through the streets to the spaceport.
+
+Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from
+Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it
+would still be running but it would never show later time?"
+
+The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory."
+
+"And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light,
+wouldn't it run backwards?"
+
+The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to."
+
+"Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?"
+
+Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from
+Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...."
+
+Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people
+travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't
+they?"
+
+Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with
+parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in
+the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too,
+into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...."
+
+"I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert."
+
+Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute,
+his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he
+said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which
+poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And
+added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will."
+
+The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did
+not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and
+almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth;
+and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in
+her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No
+more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or
+frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and
+again....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into
+the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy
+asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale
+Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless,
+flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on
+out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars
+were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes--eyes
+staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay,
+stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling.
+
+The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon
+lip of a vast Stygian abyss.
+
+Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of
+the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already
+seated at the controls.
+
+"How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh.
+
+"Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six
+thousand miles a minute."
+
+"Is that as fast as the speed of light?"
+
+"Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle.
+
+"Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster--hurry!
+What are we waiting for?"
+
+The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and
+drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon
+could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She
+felt tired, hating herself for it--hating having this young man see
+her.
+
+He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is
+plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can
+do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time."
+
+"Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!"
+
+Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of
+audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a
+nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning
+fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and
+up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she
+stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was
+still there. The light drive!
+
+She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving
+now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the
+galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant
+slingshot.
+
+She asked, "How fast are we going now?"
+
+Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the
+speed of light."
+
+"Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!"
+
+She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them--and saw shining
+specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness
+of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars
+dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed.
+
+"Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was
+stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones.
+
+"Nearly twice light speed."
+
+"Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again.
+Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel
+younger yet?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and--she
+knew--youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again.
+How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She
+would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the
+stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again--it was just from
+lying in the sling so long.
+
+She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast,
+now, Robert?"
+
+He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light."
+
+"I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it
+too?"
+
+He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been
+going, Robert?"
+
+He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are."
+
+"It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I
+am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good
+appetites, don't they, Robert?"
+
+He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it
+ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. _It's the excitement_, she
+told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the
+years to be young again....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day
+when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the
+springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through
+the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to
+wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the
+halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth,
+uncounted light-years behind them--or before them. And she would still
+continue to grow younger and younger....
+
+She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the
+far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are
+looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming
+quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance."
+
+He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said.
+
+"I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much
+younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...."
+
+"There is no mirror," he told her.
+
+"No mirror? But how can I see...."
+
+"Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors
+are not essential--to men."
+
+The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my
+mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not
+becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable
+of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now."
+
+He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting
+data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin
+to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as
+comfortable as possible."
+
+Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?"
+
+Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year
+of your fifty-two!"
+
+Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And
+watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike
+the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which
+rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only
+a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as
+its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship,
+discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film
+of dust over all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the
+wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make
+the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She
+polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection
+of her face in the rubbed spot.
+
+Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time
+was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that
+Robert was gone--there would be many young men, men her own age, when
+she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and
+be ready.
+
+The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it
+found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its
+way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the
+port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she
+could not see that they had--only she had changed--until Saturn loomed
+up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it.
+But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment,
+frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell
+behind. Next would be Mars....
+
+But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen
+before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids
+had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a
+mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had
+plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong?
+
+But no matter--she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And
+wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she
+told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men!
+
+She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it,
+closed her eyes, and waited.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar
+of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame
+died away--and the ship--and Ninon--rested, quietly, serenely, while the
+rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe
+distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the
+brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where._
+
+_There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation._
+
+_"The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said._
+
+_And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is
+pitted--it has traveled from afar."_
+
+_An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all."_
+
+_A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for
+safety, watching with alert curiosity._
+
+_Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar
+to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is
+obviously not of our Aerth."_
+
+_And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a
+parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples
+like us."_
+
+_Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid
+forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd
+attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their
+ground. And the braver ones moved closer._
+
+_But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At
+last the crowd surged forward again._
+
+_Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot
+of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each
+other._
+
+_She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far
+space on such a ship as that."_
+
+_He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will
+come, in our time, they've always said--and there is the proof of it."_
+
+_The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be
+one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?"_
+
+_He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our
+scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light
+one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space,
+very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!"_
+
+_Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the
+ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and
+Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report._
+
+_They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one
+alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired
+lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have
+lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant,
+indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy--for there is a smile
+on her face."_
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Time and the Woman, by G. Gordon Dewey
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40965 ***