He?d begun the statue days earlier, working long into the night. Moonlight had danced over the slowly shaping marble; sunlight had revealed its fine grain. His modifications made short work of the tedious large cuts that usually took so much of a sculptor?s time. His fingers passed through the stone as easily as if it were clay, and it was only when he got down to the level of detail finer than his fingertips that he had to switch to more traditional tools, small chisels and narrow rasps.

The hardest part about this statue had been deciding on a pose, and once he had that fixed in his mind, every stolen moment had gone into working on it. The rough form had taken shape, a woman almost completely surrounded with flowering bushes, a lute resting by her feet, one hand raised in a gesture that could be beckoning, could be pleading. The small chisels had shaped the expression on her face, eyes half-closed, full lips slightly parted ? about to kiss, about to sing ? who could say?

The bushes had gained fine detail first, the flowers taking shape as wild roses, thorns on the stems, leaves looking ready to rustle in a passing breeze. Slow, careful work with finer and finer sandpaper had polished the marble to an almost-living glow. The lute had followed the same level of attention to detail, reproducing every feature unerringly.

The silver film over his eyes was only the visible portion of one of his more extensive modifications, allowing him, when he activated it, to see finer and finer levels of detail, down to the molecular level of the materials he was working with. It was one of his advantages when he was sculpting, and he was using that to its fullest extent. Memories curled his lips into a smile as he worked on refining the woman?s shape, her flowing dress, the tangled mass of her hair where it caught and spilled over one shoulder.

Those memories shaped the way a small wire pendant of a wild rose rested on her collarbone, brought life to the curl of her long fingers. The silky smoothness of the marble was nothing compared to the feel of the soft skin of her cheek, but it was as close as cold stone could come to flesh and blood. The marble shone with rich luster when he was finished. It was as close to perfection as he could get ? it held, and displayed, all the confused, headlong rush of his feelings for her.

He had just stepped back, the work complete, a little smile of satisfaction on his face, when a runner from the Spaceport brought word that the many boxes his family had sent ahead had arrived.