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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32906-h.zip b/32906-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ef92a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/32906-h.zip diff --git a/32906-h/32906-h.htm b/32906-h/32906-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae29672 --- /dev/null +++ b/32906-h/32906-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1568 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thy Name Is Woman, by Kenneth O'Hara. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thy Name Is Woman, by Bryce Walton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thy Name Is Woman + +Author: Bryce Walton + +Illustrator: Zimmerman + +Release Date: June 20, 2010 [EBook #32906] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY NAME IS WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>Thy Name Is WOMAN</h1> + +<h2>By Kenneth O'Hara</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by Zimmerman</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction March 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3><i>There wasn't a woman left on earth. They had just packed their bags and left.</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Women of earth had finally attained their objective: a new +world all their own and—without men! But was it?</i></div> + + +<p>After the Doctor gave him the hypo and left the ship, Bowren lay +in absolute darkness wondering when the change would start. There +would be pain, the Doctor had said. "Then you won't be aware of +anything—anything at all."</p> + +<p>That was a devil of a thing, Bowren thought, not to be aware of the +greatest adventure any man ever had. He, Eddie Bowren, the first to +escape the Earth into space, the first man to Mars!</p> + +<p>He was on his back in a small square steel cubicle, a secretly +constructed room in the wall of the cargo bin of the big spaceship +cradled at the New Chicago Port. He was not without fear. But before the +ship blasted he wouldn't care—he would be changed by then. He would +start turning any minute now, becoming something else; he didn't know +exactly what, but that wouldn't matter. After it was over, he wouldn't +remember because the higher brain centers, the cortex, the analytical +mind, would be completely cut off, short-circuited, during the +alteration.</p> + +<p>The cubicle was close, hot, sound-proofed, like a tomb. "You will +probably make loud unpleasant noises," the Doctor had said, "but no one +will hear you. Don't worry about anything until you get to Mars."</p> + +<p>That was right, Bowren thought. My only problem is to observe, compute, +and get back into this dungeon without being observed, and back to +Earth.</p> + +<p>The idea was to keep it from the women. The women wouldn't go for this +at all. They would object. The women would be able to bring into effect +several laws dealing with spaceflight, among them the one against +stowaways, and especially that particular one about aberrated males +sneaking into space and committing suicide.</p> + +<p>A lot of men had tried it, in the beginning. Some of them had managed +it, but they had all died. For a long time, the men's egos hadn't been +able to admit that the male organism was incapable of standing the +rigors of acceleration. Women had had laws passed, and if the women +caught him doing this, the punishment would be extreme for him, +personally, and a lot more extreme for Earth civilization in general. If +you could call it a civilization. You could call it anything, Bowren +groaned—but it didn't make sense. A world without women. A birthrate +reduced to zero.</p> + +<p>A trickle of sweat slid past Bowren's eyes, loosening a nervous flush +along his back that prickled painfully. His throat was tense and his +heart pounded loud in the hot dark.</p> + +<p>A sharp pain ran up his body and exploded in his head. He tried to +swallow, but something gagged in his throat. He was afraid of retching. +He lay with his mouth open, spittle dribbling over his lips. The pain +returned, hammered at his entrails. He fought the pain numbly, like a +man grappling in the dark.</p> + +<p>The wave subsided and he lay there gasping, his fists clenched.</p> + +<p>"The pain will come in increasingly powerful waves," the Doctor had +said. "At a certain point, it will be so great, the analytical mind will +completely short-circuit. It will stay that way enroute to Mars, and +meanwhile your body will rapidly change into that of a beast. Don't +worry about it. A catalytic agent will return you to normal before you +reach the planet. If you live, you'll be human again."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A male human couldn't stand the acceleration. But a woman could. Animals +could. They had experimented on human males and animals in the giant +centrifuges, and learned what to do. Animals could stand 25 "G" +consistently, or centrifugal forces as high as 120 revolutions a minute. +About 10 "G" was the limit of female endurance. Less for men.</p> + +<p>It had never been thoroughly determined why women had been able to stand +higher acceleration. But human females had the same physical advantages +over men as female rats, rabbits, and cats over males of the same +species. A woman's cellular structure was different; her center of +gravity was different, the brain waves given off during acceleration +were different. It was suspected that the autonomic nervous system in +women could function more freely to protect the body during emergency +situations. The only certainty about it was that no man had ever been +able to get into space and live.</p> + +<p>But animals could so they had worked on it and finally they decided to +change a man into an animal, at least temporarily. Geneticists and +biochemists and other specialists had been able to do a lot with +hormones and hard radiation treatment. Especially with hormones. You +could shoot a man full of some fluid or another, and do almost anything +to his organism. You could induce atavism, regression to some lower form +of animal life—a highly speeded up regression. When you did that, +naturally the analytical mind, the higher thought centers of a more +recent evolutionary development, blanked out and the primal mind took +over. The body changed too, considerably.</p> + +<p>Bowren was changing. Then the pain came and he couldn't think. He felt +his mind cringing—giving way before the onslaught of the pain. Dimly he +could feel the agony in his limbs, the throbbing of his heart, the +fading power of reason.</p> + +<p>He retched, languished through flaccid minutes. There were recurring +spasms of shivering as he rolled his thickened tongue in the arid cavity +of his mouth. And then, somewhere, a spark exploded, and drowned him in +a pool of streaming flame.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Consciousness returned slowly—much as it had gone—in waves of pain. It +took a long time. Elements of reason and unreason fusing through +distorted nightmares until he was lying there able to remember, able to +wonder, able to think.</p> + +<p>Inside the tiny compartment were supplies. A hypo, glucose, a durolene +suit neatly folded which he put on. He gave himself a needle, swallowed +the tablets, and waited until energy and a sense of well-being gave him +some degree of confidence.</p> + +<p>It was very still. The ship would be cradled on Mars now. He lay there, +relaxing, preparing for the real challenge. He thought of how well the +Earth Investigation Committee had planned the whole thing.</p> + +<p>The last desperate attempt of man to get into space—to Mars—a woman's +world. At least it was supposed to be. Whatever it was, it wasn't a +man's world.</p> + +<p>The women didn't want Earth anymore. They had something better. But +what? There were other questions, and Bowren's job was to find the +answers, remain unobserved and get back aboard this ship. He would then +hypo himself again, and when the ship blasted off to Earth, he would go +through the same transition all over again.</p> + +<p>He put on the soft-soled shoes as well as the durolene suit and crawled +through the small panel into the big cargo bin. It was empty. Only a dim +yellow light shone on the big cargo vices along the curved walls.</p> + +<p>He climbed the ladders slowly, cautiously, through a gnawing silence of +suspense, over the mesh grid flooring along the tubular corridors. He +wondered what he would find.</p> + +<p>Could the women have been influenced by some alien life form on Mars?</p> + +<p>That could explain the fact that women had divorced themselves +completely from all men, from the Earth. Something had to explain it.</p> + +<p>There was one other possibility. That the women had found human life on +Mars. That was a very remote possibility based on the idea that perhaps +the Solar system had been settled by human beings from outer space, and +had landed on two worlds at least.</p> + +<p>Bowren remembered how his wife, Lora, had told him he was an idiot and a +bore, and had walked out on him five years before; taken her three +months course in astrogation, and left Earth. He hadn't heard of her or +from her since. It was the same with every other man, married or not. +The male ego had taken a beating for so long that the results had been +psychologically devastating.</p> + +<p>The ship seemed to be empty of any human being but Bowren. He reached +the outer lock door. It was ajar. Thin cold air came through and sent a +chill down his arms, tingling in his fingers. He looked out. It was +night on Mars, a strange red-tinted night, the double moons throwing +streaming color over the land.</p> + +<p>Across the field, he saw the glowing Luciferin-like light of a small +city. Soaring spherical lines. Nothing masculine about its architecture. +Bowren shivered.</p> + +<p>He climbed down the ladder, the air biting into his lungs. The silence +down there on the ground under the ship was intense.</p> + +<p>He stood there a minute. The first man on Mars. Man's oldest dream +realized.</p> + +<p>But the great thrill he had anticipated was dulled somewhat by fear. A +fear of what the women had become, and of what might have influenced +their becoming.</p> + +<p>He took out a small neurogun and walked. He reached what seemed to be a +huge park that seemed to surround the city. It grew warmer and a soft +wind whispered through the strange wide-spreading trees and bushes and +exotic blossoms. The scent of blossoms drifted on the wind and the sound +of running water, of murmuring voices.</p> + +<p>The park thickened as Bowren edged into its dark, languid depth. It +seemed as though the city radiated heat. He dodged suddenly behind a +tree, knelt down. For an instant he was embarrassed seeing the two +shadowy figures in each others arms on a bench in the moonlight. This +emotion gave way to shock, anger, fear.</p> + +<p>One of them was a—man!</p> + +<p>Bowren felt the perspiration start from his face. An intense jealousy +surrendered to a start of fearful curiosity. Where had the man come +from?</p> + +<p>Bowren's long frustration, the memory of his wife, the humiliation, the +rejection, the abandonment, the impotent rage of loneliness—it all came +back to him.</p> + +<p>He controlled his emotion somehow. At least he didn't manifest it +physically. He crept closer, listened.</p> + +<p>"This was such a sweet idea," the woman was whispering. "Bringing me +here to the park tonight. That's why I love you so, Marvin. You're +always so romantic."</p> + +<p>"How else could I think of you, darling," the man said. His voice was +cultured, precise, soft, thick with emotion.</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet, Marvin."</p> + +<p>"You're so beautiful, darling. I think of you every minute that you're +away on one of those space flights. You women are so wonderful to have +conquered space, but sometimes I hate the ships that take you away from +me."</p> + +<p>The woman sighed. "But it's so nice to come back to you. So exciting, so +comfortable."</p> + +<p>The kiss was long and deep. Bowren backed away, almost smashing into the +tree. He touched his forehead. He was sweating heavily. His beard +dripped moisture. There was a hollow panicky feeling in his stomach. Now +he was confused as well as afraid.</p> + +<p>Another couple was sitting next to a fountain, and a bubbling brook ran +past them, singing into the darkness. Bowren crouched behind a bush and +listened. It might have been the man he had just left, still talking. +The voice was slightly different, but the dialogue sounded very much the +same.</p> + +<p>"It must be wonderful to be a woman, dear, and voyage between the stars. +But as I say, I'm glad to stay here and tend the home and mind the +children, glad to be here, my arms open to you when you come back."</p> + +<p>"It's so wonderful to know that you care so much. I'm so glad you never +let me forget that you love me."</p> + +<p>"I love you, every minute of every day. Just think—two more months and +one week and we will have been married ten years."</p> + +<p>"It's so lovely," she said. "It seems like ten days. Like those first +thrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again."</p> + +<p>"I'll always love you, darling."</p> + +<p>"Always?"</p> + +<p>"Always."</p> + +<p>The man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "Darling, +let's go for a night ride across the desert."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you darling. You always think of these little adventures."</p> + +<p>"All life with you is an adventure."</p> + +<p>"But what about little Jimmie and Janice?"</p> + +<p>"I've arranged a sitter for them."</p> + +<p>"But darling—you mean you—Oh, you're so wonderful. You think of +everything. So practical, yet so romantic ... so—"</p> + +<p>He kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and her +laughter bubbled back to where Bowren crouched behind the bush. He kept +on crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple had +left in the shadows. "Good God," he whispered. "After ten years—"</p> + +<p>He shook his head and slowly licked his lips. He'd been married five +years.</p> + +<p>It hadn't been like this. He'd never heard of any marriage maintaining +such a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for very +long. Of course the women had always expected it to. But the men—</p> + +<p>And anyway—<i>where did the men come from?</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through air +saturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. He walked +cautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. The +appearance of those men remained in his mind. When he closed his eyes +for a moment, he could see them.</p> + +<p>Perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned, +delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered, +Bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree of +aggressiveness without being indelicate.</p> + +<p>Why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men.</p> + +<p>He dodged behind a tree. Here it was again. Same play, same scene +practically, only the players were two other people. A couple standing +arm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwing +upward a subdued bluish light. Music drifted along the warm currents of +air. The couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. The pose is +perfect, he thought. The setting is perfect.</p> + +<p>"You're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and I get so lonely +without you. I always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how long +you're away."</p> + +<p>"Do you? Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Always. Your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights. +Your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. Your +nose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too much +sometimes. Your mouth so red and full. Your skin so smooth and dark. And +you're ageless, darling. Being married to you five years, it's one +exciting adventure."</p> + +<p>"I love you so," she said. "You're everything any woman could want in a +husband. Simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. I still +remember how it used to be. Back there ... with the other men I mean?"</p> + +<p>"You should forget about <i>them</i>, my dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm forgetting, slowly though. It may take a long time to forget +completely. Oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting after +a while. So inconsiderate, so self-centered. He wasn't romantic at all. +He never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. He +never thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home at +night, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinner +from the cafelator. He didn't care whether he used hair remover on his +face in the mornings or not. He was surly and sullen and selfish. But I +could have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every day +that he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. The things that +you do and say, darling."</p> + +<p>"I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you. But please, let's not +talk about <i>him</i> anymore. It simply horrifies me!"</p> + +<p>Bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. The +description. Now the slight familiarity of voice. And then he heard the +man say, murmuring, "Lois ... darling Lois...."</p> + +<p>Lois! LOIS!</p> + +<p>Bowren shivered. His jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by the +powerful clamp of his jaws. His body seemed to loosen all over and he +fell into a crouch. Tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressed +emotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression and +frustration came back in a wave. He yelled. It was more of a sound, a +harsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation.</p> + +<p>"Lois ..." He ran forward.</p> + +<p>She gasped, sank away as Bowren hit the man, hard. The man sighed and +gyrated swinging his arms, teetering and flipped backward into the pool +among the lights and the weird fish. A spray of cold water struck +Bowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passion +enough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees. +He turned desperately.</p> + +<p>Lois cringed. He scarcely remembered her now, he realized. She was +different. He had forgotten everything except an image that had changed +with longing. She hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe she +had. It didn't matter now.</p> + +<p>He tried to run, tried to get away. He heard Lois' voice, high and +shrill. Figures closed in around him. He fought, desperately. He put a +few temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were always +more. Men, men everywhere. Hundreds of men where there should be no men +at all. Well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. It gave him +intense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. To hurl the gun, +smash with his fists.</p> + +<p>Then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smiling +fragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men.</p> + +<p>He tried to move. A blow fell hard and his head smashed against the +rocks. He tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he was +glad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but because +it curtained off the faces of men.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>After a time it was as though he was being carried through a dim +half-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes. +He remembered how the men of Earth had rationalized a long time, making +a joke out of it. Laughing when they hadn't wanted to laugh, but to +hate. It had never been humorous. It had been a war between the sexes, +and the women had finally won, destroying the men psychologically, the +race physically. Somehow they had managed to go on with a culture of +their own.</p> + +<p>The war between the sexes had never really been a joke. It had been +deadly serious, right from the beginning of the militant feminist +movements, long before the last big war. There had always been basic +psychological and physiological differences. But woman had refused to +admit this, and had tried to be the "equal" if not the better of men. +For so long woman had made it strictly competitive, and in her +subconscious mind she had regarded men as wonderful creatures, capable +of practically anything, and that woman could do nothing better than to +emulate them in every possible way. There was no such thing as a woman's +role unless it had been the same as a man's. That had gone on a long +time. And it hadn't been a joke at all.</p> + +<p>How ironic it was, there at the last! All of man's work through the ages +had been aimed at the stars. And the women had assumed the final phase +of conquest!</p> + +<p>For a long time women had been revolting against the masculine symbols, +the levers, pistons, bombs, torpedoes and hammers, all manifestations of +man's whole activity of overt, aggressive power.</p> + +<p>The big H-bombs of the last great war had seemed to be man's final +symbol, destructive. And after that, the spaceships, puncturing space, +roaring outward, the ultimate masculine symbol of which men had dreamed +for so long, and which women had envied.</p> + +<p>And then only the women could stand the acceleration. It was a +physiological fact. Nothing could change it. Nothing but what they had +done to Bowren.</p> + +<p>All of man's evolutionary struggle, and the women had assumed the +climax, assumed all the past wrapped up in the end, usurped the effect, +and thereby psychologically assuming also all the thousands of years of +causation.</p> + +<p>For being held down, being made neurotic by frustration and the +impossibility of being the "equal" of men, because they were +fundamentally psychologically and physiologically different, women had +taken to space with an age-old vengeance. Personal ego salvation.</p> + +<p>But they hadn't stopped there. What had they done? What about the men? A +man for every woman, yet no men from Earth. That much Bowren knew. +Native Martians? What?</p> + +<p>He had been transported somewhere in a car of some kind. He didn't +bother to be interested. He couldn't get away. He was held fast. He +refused to open his eyes because he didn't want to see the men who held +him, the men who had replaced him and every other man on Earth. The men +who were destroying the civilization of Earth.</p> + +<p>The gimmicks whereby the women had rejected Earth and left it to wither +and die in neglect and bitter, bitter wonderment.</p> + +<p>He was tired, very tired. The movement of the car lulled him, and he +drifted into sleep.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes and slowly looked around. Pretty pastel ceiling. A +big room, beautiful and softly furnished, with a marked absence of +metal, of shiny chrome, of harshness or brittle angles. It was something +of an office, too, with a desk that was not at all business-like, but +still a desk. A warm glow suffused the room, and the air was pleasantly +scented with natural smelling perfumes.</p> + +<p>A woman stood in the middle of the room studying him with detached +interest. She was beautiful, but in a hard, mature, withdrawn way. She +was dark, her eyes large, liquid black and dominating her rather small +sharply-sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red. She had a +strong mouth.</p> + +<p>He looked at her a while. He felt only a deep, bitter resentment. He +felt good though, physically. He had probably been given something, an +injection. He sat up. Then he got to his feet.</p> + +<p>She kept on studying him. "A change of clothes, dry detergent, and hair +remover for your face are in there, through that door," she said.</p> + +<p>He said: "Right now I'd rather talk."</p> + +<p>"But don't you want to take off that awful—beard?"</p> + +<p>"The devil with it! Is that so important? It's natural isn't it for a +man to have hair on his face? I like hair on my face."</p> + +<p>She opened her mouth a little and stepped back a few steps.</p> + +<p>"And anyway, what could be less important right now than the way I +look?"</p> + +<p>"I'm—I'm Gloria Munsel," she said hesitantly. "I'm President of the +City here. And what is your name, please?"</p> + +<p>"Eddie Bowren. What are you going to do with me?"</p> + +<p>She shrugged. "You act like a mad man. I'd almost forgotten what you men +of Earth were like. I was pretty young then. Well, frankly, I don't know +what we're going to do with you. No precedent for the situation. No laws +concerning it. It'll be up to the Council."</p> + +<p>"It won't be pleasant for me," he said, "I can be safe in assuming +that."</p> + +<p>She shrugged again and crossed her arms. He managed to control his +emotions somehow as he looked at the smooth lines of her body under the +long clinging gown. She was so damn beautiful! A high proud body in a +smooth pink gown, dark hair streaming back and shiny and soft.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was torture. It had been for a long time, for him, for all the +others. "Let me out of here!" he yelled harshly. "Put me in a room by +myself!"</p> + +<p>She moved closer to him and looked into his face. The fragrance of her +hair, the warmth of her reached out to him. Somehow, he never knew how, +he managed to grin. He felt the sweat running down his dirty, bearded, +battered face. His suit was torn and dirty. He could smell himself, the +stale sweat, the filth. He could feel his hair, shaggy and long, down +his neck, over his ears.</p> + +<p>Her lips were slightly parted, and wet, and she had a funny dark look in +her eyes, he thought. She turned quickly as the door opened, and a man +came in. He was only slightly taller than Gloria and he nodded, smiled +brightly, bowed a little, moved forward. He carried a big bouquet of +flowers and presented them to her.</p> + +<p>She took the flowers, smiled, thanked him, and put them on the table. +The man said. "So sorry, darling, to intrude. But I felt I had to see +you for a few minutes. I left the children with John, and dashed right +up here. I thought we might have lunch together."</p> + +<p>"You're so thoughtful, dear," she said.</p> + +<p>The man turned a distasteful look upon Bowren. He said. "My dear, what +is <i>this</i>?"</p> + +<p>"A man," she said, and then added. "From Earth."</p> + +<p>"What? Good grief, you mean they've found a way—?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. You'd better go back home and tend the yard today, Dale. +I'll tell you all about it when I come home this evening. All right?"</p> + +<p>"Well I—oh, oh yes, of course, if you say so, darling."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, dear." She kissed him and he bowed out.</p> + +<p>She turned and walked back toward Bowren. "Tell me," she said. "How did +you get here alive?"</p> + +<p>Why not tell her? He was helpless here. They'd find out anyway, as soon +as they got back to Earth on the cargo run. And even if they didn't find +out, that wouldn't matter either. They would be on guard from now on. No +man would do again what Bowren had done. The only chance would be to +build secret spaceships of their own and every time one blasted, have +every member of the crew go through what Bowren had. It couldn't last. +Too much injury and shock.</p> + +<p>As he talked he studied the office, and he thought of other things. An +office that was like a big beautiful living room. A thoroughly feminine +office. Nor was it the type of office a woman would fix for a man. It +was a woman's office. Everything, the whole culture here, was feminine. +When he had finished she said, "Interesting. It must have been a very +unpleasant experience for you."</p> + +<p>He grinned. "I suffered. But even though I've failed, it's worth all the +suffering, if you'll tell me—where did all the ah—men come from?"</p> + +<p>She told him. It was, to say the least, startling, and then upon +reflection, he realized how simple it all was. No aliens. No native +Martians. A very simple and thoroughly logical solution, and in a way, +typically feminine.</p> + +<p>Hormone treatment and genetic manipulation, plus a thorough +reconditioning while the treatment was taking place.</p> + +<p><i>And the women had simply turned approximately half of their number into +men!</i></p> + +<p>She paused, then went on. "It was the only way we could see it, Mr. +Bowren. Earth was a man's world, and we could never have belonged in it, +not the way we wanted to. Men wouldn't stand it anyway, down there, +having us going into space, usurping their masculine role. And +anyway—you men of Earth had become so utterly unsatisfactory as +companions, lovers, and husbands, that it was obvious nothing could ever +be done about it. Not unless we set up our own culture, our own +civilization, our way."</p> + +<p>"But meanwhile we die down there," Bowren said. "Logic is nice. But mass +murder, and the death of a whole world civilization seems pretty cold +from where I'm standing. It's pathological, but it's too late to think +about that. It's done now."</p> + +<p>"But we're happy here," she said. "For the first time in a long, long +time, we women feel like ourselves. We feel truly independent. The men +around us are the kind of men we want, instead of us being what they +want us to be, or even worse, the men being what we want them to be but +resenting it and making life unbearable for both. All through the +process of being changed into men, our women undergo such a thorough +conditioning that they can never be anything else but model men in every +sense. Their attitude as women with which they started treatment helped. +They knew what they wanted in men, and they became what we wanted them +to be, as men."</p> + +<p>"Very logical," Bowren said. "It smells to heaven it's so logical." It +was purely impulse, what he did then. He couldn't help it. It wasn't +logical either. It was emotional and he did it because he had to do it +and because he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't.</p> + +<p>He put his arm out suddenly, hooked her slim waist, and pulled her to +him. Her face flushed and his eyes were very wide and dark as she looked +up at him.</p> + +<p>"Listen," he said. "The whole thing's insane. The lot of you are mad, +and though I can't help it, I hate to see it happen this way. What kind +of men are these? These smiling robots, these goons who are nothing else +but reflections in a woman's mirror? Who'd want to be a man like that. +Who would really want a man like that? And who would want a woman who +was just what a man wanted her to be? Where's the fire? Where's the +individuality? Where's the conflict, the fighting and snarling and +raging that makes living. All this is apathy, this is death! You don't +grow by being agreeable, but by conflict."</p> + +<p>"What are you trying to sell now?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>He laughed. It was wild sounding to him, not very humorous really, but +still it was laughter. "Selling nothing, buying nothing." He pulled her +closer and kissed her. Her lips parted slightly and he could feel the +warmth of her and the quick drawing of breath. Then she pushed him away. +She raised her hand and brushed it over his face.</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly. "It feels rather interesting," she said, +"your face. I've never felt a man's face before, that wasn't smooth, the +way it should be."</p> + +<p>He laughed again, more softly this time. "Why reform your men? You women +always wanted to do that."</p> + +<p>"We don't reform men here," she said. "We start them out right—from the +beginning."</p> + +<p>She backed away from him. She raised her hand to her face and her +fingers touched her lips. Wrinkles appeared between her eyes and she +shook her head again. Not at him, but at something, a thought perhaps, +he couldn't tell.</p> + +<p>Finally she said. "That was an inexcusable, boorish thing to do. A +typical thoughtless egomanical Earth-male action if there ever was one. +Our men are all perfect here, and in comparison to them, you're a pretty +miserable specimen. I'm glad you showed up here. It's given me, and +other women, a good chance for comparison. It makes our men seem so much +better even than they were to us before."</p> + +<p>He didn't say anything.</p> + +<p>"Our men are perfect! Perfect you understand? What are you smiling +about? Their character is good. They're excellent conversationalists, +well informed, always attentive, moderate, sympathetic, interested in +life, and always interested in <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>"And I suppose they are also—human?"</p> + +<p>"This is nonsense," she said, her voice rising slightly. "You will take +that door out please. The Council will decide what's to be done with +you."</p> + +<p>He nodded, turned, and went through the door. There were two men there +waiting for him. They were both blond, with light blue eyes, just medium +height, perfectly constructed physically, perfectly groomed, impeccably +dressed. They smiled at him. Their teeth had been brushed every morning. +One of them wrinkled his nose, obviously as a reaction to Bowren. The +other started to reach, seemed reluctant to touch him.</p> + +<p>"Then don't touch me, brother," Bowren said. "Put a hand on me, and I'll +slug you." The man reached away, and it gave Bowren an ecstatic +sensation to send his fist against the man's jaw. It made a cracking +sound and the man's head flopped back as his knees crumbled and he swung +around and stretched out flat on his face on the long tubular corridor.</p> + +<p>"Always remember your etiquette," Bowren said. "Keep your hands off +people. It isn't polite."</p> + +<p>The other man grunted something, still managing to smile, as he rushed +at Bowren. Bowren side-stepped, hooked the man's neck in his arm and ran +him across the hall and smashed his head into the wall.</p> + +<p>He turned, opened the door into Munsel's office, dragged both of them in +and shut the door again. He walked down the corridor several hundred +feet before a woman appeared, in some kind of uniform, and said. "Will +you come this way please?"</p> + +<p>He said he would.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was a small room, comfortably furnished. Food came through a panel in +the wall whenever he pressed the right button. A telescreen furnished +entertainment when he pushed another button. Tasty mixed drinks +responded to other buttons.</p> + +<p>He never bothered to take advantage of the facilities offered for +removing his beard, bathing, or changing clothes. Whatever fate was +going to befall him, he would just as soon meet it as the only man on +Mars who looked the part—according to Bowren's standards, at least—at +least by comparison.</p> + +<p>He thought of trying to escape. If he could get away from the city and +into the Martian hills, he could die out there with some dignity. It was +a good idea, but he knew it was impossible. At least so far, it was +impossible. Maybe something would come up. An opportunity and he would +take it. That was the only thing left for him.</p> + +<p>He was in there for what seemed a long time. It was still, the light +remaining always the same. He slept a number of times and ate several +times. He did a lot of thinking too. He thought about the men on Earth +and finally he decided it didn't matter much. They had brought it on +themselves in a way, and if there was anything like cause and effect +operating on such a scale, they deserved no sympathy. Man had expressed +his aggressive male ego until he evolved the H-bombs and worse, and by +then the whole world was neurotic with fear, including the women. Women +had always looked into the mirror of the future (or lack of it), of the +race, and the more she had looked, the more the insecurity. The atomic +wars had created a kind of final feeling of insecurity as far as men +were concerned, forced them to become completely psychologically and +physiologically self-sufficient. They had converted part of their own +kind into men, their own kind of men, and theoretically there wouldn't +be any more insecurity brought on by the kind of male psychology that +had turned the Earth around for so long.</p> + +<p>All right, drop it right there then, he thought. It's about all over. +It's all over but the requiem. Sometime later he was in a mood where he +didn't mind it when an impersonal face appeared on the screen and looked +right at him and told him the Council's verdict. It was a woman, and her +voice was cold, very cold.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Eddie Bowren. The Council has reached a verdict regarding what is +to be done with you. You are to be exterminated. It is painless and we +will make it as pleasant as possible."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," Bowren said. A woman's world was so polite, so mannerly, so +remembering of all the social amenities. It would be so difficult after +a while to know when anyone was speaking, or doing anything real. +"Thanks," he said again. "I will do all in my power to make my +extermination a matter of mutual pleasure." By now he was pretty drunk, +had been drunk for some time. He raised his glass. "Here's to a real +happy time of it, baby."</p> + +<p>The screen faded. He sat there brooding, and he was still brooding when +the door unlocked and opened softly. He sat there and looked at Gloria +Munsel for a while, wondering why she was here. Why she would look so +provocative, so enchanting, so devastating, whatever other words you +cared to dream up.</p> + +<p>She moved toward him with a slight swaying motion that further disturbed +him. He felt her long white fingers rubbing over the stiff wiry beard of +his face. "I dreamed about the way that beard felt last night," she +said. "Silly of me wasn't it? I heard of the way you smell, of the way +you yelled at me, so impolitely. Why did I dream of it, I said this +morning, so now I'm here to find out why."</p> + +<p>"Get out and let me alone," Bowren yelled. "I'm going to be +exterminated. So let me alone to my own company."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I heard about that verdict," she said. She looked away from him. +"I don't know why they made that choice. Well, I do in a way, they're +afraid of you, your influence. It would be very disruptive socially. +Several of our men—"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter why," Bowren said. "What matters is that it will be +as pleasant as possible. If you're going to kill a man, be nice about +it."</p> + +<p>She stared down at him. Chills rippled down his back as her warm soft +fingers continued to stroke his bearded chin and throat. He got up. It +was too uncomfortable and it was torture. He said, "Get out of here. +Maybe I'm not a conformist, but I'm damn human!"</p> + +<p>She backed away. "But—but what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>He got up and put the flat of his hands cupping her shoulder blades. Her +eyes stared wildly, and her lips were wet and she was breathing heavily. +He could see the vein pulsing faster in her slim throat. She had an +exciting body.</p> + +<p>He saw it then, the new slow smile that crept across her face. His left +hand squirmed at the thick piled hair on her shoulders and he tugged and +her face tilted further and he looked at the parted pouting lips. The +palm of his right hand brushed her jaw and his fingers took her cheeks +and brought her face over and he spread his mouth hard over her mouth. +Her lips begged. Hammers started banging away in his stomach.</p> + +<p>Music from the screen was playing a crescendo into his pulse. They +swayed together to the music, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. She +stepped back, dropped her arms limply at her sides. There was the clean +sweet odor of her hair.</p> + +<p>"I'd better go now," she whispered. "Before I do something that would +result in my not being President anymore."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He wiped his face. Don't beg, he thought. The devil with her and the +rest. A man could lose everything, all the women, not one, but all of +them. He could live alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, at the North +Pole like Amundsen, and it didn't matter. He could be killed pleasantly +or unpleasantly, that didn't matter either. All that mattered was that +he maintain some dignity, as a man.</p> + +<p>He stood there, not saying anything. He managed to grin. Finally he +said, "Goodbye, and may your husband never say a harsh word to you or do +anything objectionable as long as you both shall live, and may he love +you every hour of every day, and may he drop dead."</p> + +<p>She moved in again, put her arms around him. There were tears in her +eyes. She placed her cheek on his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered. +"I know that now."</p> + +<p>He felt a little helpless. Tears, what could you do with a woman's +tears?</p> + +<p>She sobbed softly, talking brokenly. Maybe not to him, but to someone, +somewhere. A memory, a shadow out of a long time back....</p> + +<p>"Maybe it's ... it's all a mistake after all ... maybe it is. I've never +been too sure, not for a while now. And then you—the way you talked and +looked—the excitement. I don't know why. But the touch of your +beard—your voice. I don't know what happened. We've carried it to +extremes, extremes, Eddie. It was always this way with us—once we were +sure of our man, and even before, when he was blinded by new love, we +tried to make him over, closer to <i>our</i> idea of what was right. But now +I know something ... those faults and imperfections, most of them were +men's, the real men's chief attractions. Individuality, that's the +thing, Eddie, that's it after all. And it's imperfections too, maybe +more than anything else. Imperfections.... Oh, Eddie, you're close, much +closer to human nature, to real vitality, through <i>your</i> imperfections. +Not imperfections. Eddie—your beard is beautiful, your dirt is lovely, +your yelling insults are wonderful—and...."</p> + +<p>She stopped a minute. Her hands ran through his hair. "When you get a +man made over, he's never very nice after that, Eddie. Never—"</p> + +<p>She sobbed, pulled his lips down. "Eddie—I can't let them kill you."</p> + +<p>"Forget it," he said. "No one can do anything. Don't get yourself in a +jam. You'll forget this in a little while. There's nothing here for a +guy like me, and I'm not for you."</p> + +<p>She stepped way, her hands still on his shoulders. "No—I didn't mean +that. I've got to go on living in the world I helped make, among the men +we all decided we would always want. I've got to do that. Listen, Eddie, +how did you intend to get back to Earth?"</p> + +<p>He told her.</p> + +<p>"Then it's just a matter of getting back aboard that same ship, and into +this secret room unobserved?"</p> + +<p>"That's all, Gloria. That and keep from being exterminated first."</p> + +<p>"I can get you out of here. We'll have to do it right now. Take that +beard off, and get that hair smoothed down somehow. I hate to see it +happen, but I've got to get you out of here, and the only way to do it +is for you to be like one of the men here."</p> + +<p>He went to work on his face and hair. She went out and returned with a +suit like the other men wore. He got into it. She smiled at him, a +hesitant and very soft smile, and she kissed him before they left the +room and cautiously went out of the City.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The way was clear across the moonlit field and under the deep dark +shadow of the ship. He kissed her and then took hold of the ladder. She +slipped a notebook of velonex, full of micro-film, into his hands. +"Goodbye, Eddie," she said. "Take this with you. It may give you men +down there a way out. I never thought much before of how mad it must be +for you."</p> + +<p>He took the folder. He looked up at the double moons painting the night +a fantastic shifting wave of changing light. And then he looked down at +Gloria Munsel again, at the glinting shine of her hair.</p> + +<p>"Goodbye," he said. "I might stay after all—except that a lot of men on +Earth are waiting for me to tell them something. They'll be surprised. +I—" He hesitated. Her eyes widened. Warmth of emotion moved him and he +said, or started to say, "I love you," and many other things, but she +interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Don't please, Eddie. Anything you said now would sound just like what +my devoted husband says, every day. I'd rather you wouldn't say anything +at all now, Eddie, just goodbye."</p> + +<p>"Goodbye then," he said again.</p> + +<p>He looked back from the opened door in the ship's cargo bin. Her face +was shining up at him, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks wet. It was +a picture he would never be able to forget, even if he wanted to.</p> + +<p>"When you forget to shave in the mornings, Eddie, think of me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Bowren stood up and addressed the investigation committee which had sent +him to Mars. He hadn't made any statements at all up to this moment. The +ten members of the Committee sat there behind the half-moon table. None +of them moved. Their faces were anxious. Some of them were perspiring.</p> + +<p>Eddie told them what he had seen, what he had heard, his own impressions +about the whole thing, about his escape. He left out certain personal +details that were, to him, unnecessary to this particular report.</p> + +<p>The Committee sat there a while, then started to talk. They talked at +once for a while, then the Chairman rapped for order and stood up. His +face had an odd twist to it, and his bald head was pocked with +perspiration.</p> + +<p>Eddie Bowren took the book of micro-film from under his arm, the one +Gloria Munsel had given him. He put it on the table. "That has been +thoroughly checked by scientists, and their report is included. I +thought it surely was a false report, until they checked it. The first +page there gives a brief outline of what the micro-film contains."</p> + +<p>The Chairman read, then looked up. He coughed. He mopped at his head.</p> + +<p>Eddie said. "As I saw it up there, this is the way it's going to stay. +We'll never get into space, not without using the methods that were used +with me. And they're too destructive. I've been examined. I could never +go through it again and live. And that's the only way Earth men can ever +get into space. The women aren't coming back to us. They have husbands +of their own now. Believe me, those women aren't going to leave their +perfect husbands. They've set up a completely feminine culture. It's +theirs, all theirs. They'll never give it up to return to a masculine +world, and that's what Earth will always be to them. There are only a +few women left on Earth, and they're of such subnormal intelligence as +to be only a menace to any possible future progeny. Our birthrate has +stopped. We are living under extremely abnormal circumstances without +women. I have, as I said before, but one recommendation to this +Committee, and you take it for what it's worth. I personally don't +care—much—and that isn't important either."</p> + +<p>"What is your recommendation, Bowren?"</p> + +<p>"I assure you that the formulas in that book will work for us, Mr. +Chairman. Will you accept the reports of the scientists who investigated +those formulas?"</p> + +<p>"I will," the Chairman said hoarsely. "I'll accept it. Why not—?"</p> + +<p>Bowren grinned thinly at the ten men. "There's the secret of doing what +the women have done. It'll work for us too. Our only chance for survival +is to follow their procedure. We've got to start turning at least a +percentage of ourselves into women."</p> + +<p>One man leaned forward and put his head on his arms. The others sat +there, in a kind of stunned numb attitude, their eyes drifting vaguely.</p> + +<p>The Chairman coughed and looked around the silent hall, and at the other +ten men in it.</p> + +<p>"Any volunteers?" he whispered.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thy Name Is Woman, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY NAME IS WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 32906-h.htm or 32906-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/0/32906/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thy Name Is Woman + +Author: Bryce Walton + +Illustrator: Zimmerman + +Release Date: June 20, 2010 [EBook #32906] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY NAME IS WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Thy Name Is WOMAN + + By Kenneth O'Hara + + Illustrated by Zimmerman + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction March 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Illustration: _There wasn't a woman left on earth. They had just packed +their bags and left._] + + +[Sidenote: _Women of earth had finally attained their objective: a new +world all their own and--without men! But was it?_] + + +After the Doctor gave him the hypo and left the ship, Bowren lay +in absolute darkness wondering when the change would start. There +would be pain, the Doctor had said. "Then you won't be aware of +anything--anything at all." + +That was a devil of a thing, Bowren thought, not to be aware of the +greatest adventure any man ever had. He, Eddie Bowren, the first to +escape the Earth into space, the first man to Mars! + +He was on his back in a small square steel cubicle, a secretly +constructed room in the wall of the cargo bin of the big spaceship +cradled at the New Chicago Port. He was not without fear. But before the +ship blasted he wouldn't care--he would be changed by then. He would +start turning any minute now, becoming something else; he didn't know +exactly what, but that wouldn't matter. After it was over, he wouldn't +remember because the higher brain centers, the cortex, the analytical +mind, would be completely cut off, short-circuited, during the +alteration. + +The cubicle was close, hot, sound-proofed, like a tomb. "You will +probably make loud unpleasant noises," the Doctor had said, "but no one +will hear you. Don't worry about anything until you get to Mars." + +That was right, Bowren thought. My only problem is to observe, compute, +and get back into this dungeon without being observed, and back to +Earth. + +The idea was to keep it from the women. The women wouldn't go for this +at all. They would object. The women would be able to bring into effect +several laws dealing with spaceflight, among them the one against +stowaways, and especially that particular one about aberrated males +sneaking into space and committing suicide. + +A lot of men had tried it, in the beginning. Some of them had managed +it, but they had all died. For a long time, the men's egos hadn't been +able to admit that the male organism was incapable of standing the +rigors of acceleration. Women had had laws passed, and if the women +caught him doing this, the punishment would be extreme for him, +personally, and a lot more extreme for Earth civilization in general. If +you could call it a civilization. You could call it anything, Bowren +groaned--but it didn't make sense. A world without women. A birthrate +reduced to zero. + +A trickle of sweat slid past Bowren's eyes, loosening a nervous flush +along his back that prickled painfully. His throat was tense and his +heart pounded loud in the hot dark. + +A sharp pain ran up his body and exploded in his head. He tried to +swallow, but something gagged in his throat. He was afraid of retching. +He lay with his mouth open, spittle dribbling over his lips. The pain +returned, hammered at his entrails. He fought the pain numbly, like a +man grappling in the dark. + +The wave subsided and he lay there gasping, his fists clenched. + +"The pain will come in increasingly powerful waves," the Doctor had +said. "At a certain point, it will be so great, the analytical mind will +completely short-circuit. It will stay that way enroute to Mars, and +meanwhile your body will rapidly change into that of a beast. Don't +worry about it. A catalytic agent will return you to normal before you +reach the planet. If you live, you'll be human again." + + * * * * * + +A male human couldn't stand the acceleration. But a woman could. Animals +could. They had experimented on human males and animals in the giant +centrifuges, and learned what to do. Animals could stand 25 "G" +consistently, or centrifugal forces as high as 120 revolutions a minute. +About 10 "G" was the limit of female endurance. Less for men. + +It had never been thoroughly determined why women had been able to stand +higher acceleration. But human females had the same physical advantages +over men as female rats, rabbits, and cats over males of the same +species. A woman's cellular structure was different; her center of +gravity was different, the brain waves given off during acceleration +were different. It was suspected that the autonomic nervous system in +women could function more freely to protect the body during emergency +situations. The only certainty about it was that no man had ever been +able to get into space and live. + +But animals could so they had worked on it and finally they decided to +change a man into an animal, at least temporarily. Geneticists and +biochemists and other specialists had been able to do a lot with +hormones and hard radiation treatment. Especially with hormones. You +could shoot a man full of some fluid or another, and do almost anything +to his organism. You could induce atavism, regression to some lower form +of animal life--a highly speeded up regression. When you did that, +naturally the analytical mind, the higher thought centers of a more +recent evolutionary development, blanked out and the primal mind took +over. The body changed too, considerably. + +Bowren was changing. Then the pain came and he couldn't think. He felt +his mind cringing--giving way before the onslaught of the pain. Dimly he +could feel the agony in his limbs, the throbbing of his heart, the +fading power of reason. + +He retched, languished through flaccid minutes. There were recurring +spasms of shivering as he rolled his thickened tongue in the arid cavity +of his mouth. And then, somewhere, a spark exploded, and drowned him in +a pool of streaming flame. + + * * * * * + +Consciousness returned slowly--much as it had gone--in waves of pain. It +took a long time. Elements of reason and unreason fusing through +distorted nightmares until he was lying there able to remember, able to +wonder, able to think. + +Inside the tiny compartment were supplies. A hypo, glucose, a durolene +suit neatly folded which he put on. He gave himself a needle, swallowed +the tablets, and waited until energy and a sense of well-being gave him +some degree of confidence. + +It was very still. The ship would be cradled on Mars now. He lay there, +relaxing, preparing for the real challenge. He thought of how well the +Earth Investigation Committee had planned the whole thing. + +The last desperate attempt of man to get into space--to Mars--a woman's +world. At least it was supposed to be. Whatever it was, it wasn't a +man's world. + +The women didn't want Earth anymore. They had something better. But +what? There were other questions, and Bowren's job was to find the +answers, remain unobserved and get back aboard this ship. He would then +hypo himself again, and when the ship blasted off to Earth, he would go +through the same transition all over again. + +He put on the soft-soled shoes as well as the durolene suit and crawled +through the small panel into the big cargo bin. It was empty. Only a dim +yellow light shone on the big cargo vices along the curved walls. + +He climbed the ladders slowly, cautiously, through a gnawing silence of +suspense, over the mesh grid flooring along the tubular corridors. He +wondered what he would find. + +Could the women have been influenced by some alien life form on Mars? + +That could explain the fact that women had divorced themselves +completely from all men, from the Earth. Something had to explain it. + +There was one other possibility. That the women had found human life on +Mars. That was a very remote possibility based on the idea that perhaps +the Solar system had been settled by human beings from outer space, and +had landed on two worlds at least. + +Bowren remembered how his wife, Lora, had told him he was an idiot and a +bore, and had walked out on him five years before; taken her three +months course in astrogation, and left Earth. He hadn't heard of her or +from her since. It was the same with every other man, married or not. +The male ego had taken a beating for so long that the results had been +psychologically devastating. + +The ship seemed to be empty of any human being but Bowren. He reached +the outer lock door. It was ajar. Thin cold air came through and sent a +chill down his arms, tingling in his fingers. He looked out. It was +night on Mars, a strange red-tinted night, the double moons throwing +streaming color over the land. + +Across the field, he saw the glowing Luciferin-like light of a small +city. Soaring spherical lines. Nothing masculine about its architecture. +Bowren shivered. + +He climbed down the ladder, the air biting into his lungs. The silence +down there on the ground under the ship was intense. + +He stood there a minute. The first man on Mars. Man's oldest dream +realized. + +But the great thrill he had anticipated was dulled somewhat by fear. A +fear of what the women had become, and of what might have influenced +their becoming. + +He took out a small neurogun and walked. He reached what seemed to be a +huge park that seemed to surround the city. It grew warmer and a soft +wind whispered through the strange wide-spreading trees and bushes and +exotic blossoms. The scent of blossoms drifted on the wind and the sound +of running water, of murmuring voices. + +The park thickened as Bowren edged into its dark, languid depth. It +seemed as though the city radiated heat. He dodged suddenly behind a +tree, knelt down. For an instant he was embarrassed seeing the two +shadowy figures in each others arms on a bench in the moonlight. This +emotion gave way to shock, anger, fear. + +One of them was a--man! + +Bowren felt the perspiration start from his face. An intense jealousy +surrendered to a start of fearful curiosity. Where had the man come +from? + +Bowren's long frustration, the memory of his wife, the humiliation, the +rejection, the abandonment, the impotent rage of loneliness--it all came +back to him. + +He controlled his emotion somehow. At least he didn't manifest it +physically. He crept closer, listened. + +"This was such a sweet idea," the woman was whispering. "Bringing me +here to the park tonight. That's why I love you so, Marvin. You're +always so romantic." + +"How else could I think of you, darling," the man said. His voice was +cultured, precise, soft, thick with emotion. + +"You're so sweet, Marvin." + +"You're so beautiful, darling. I think of you every minute that you're +away on one of those space flights. You women are so wonderful to have +conquered space, but sometimes I hate the ships that take you away from +me." + +The woman sighed. "But it's so nice to come back to you. So exciting, so +comfortable." + +The kiss was long and deep. Bowren backed away, almost smashing into the +tree. He touched his forehead. He was sweating heavily. His beard +dripped moisture. There was a hollow panicky feeling in his stomach. Now +he was confused as well as afraid. + +Another couple was sitting next to a fountain, and a bubbling brook ran +past them, singing into the darkness. Bowren crouched behind a bush and +listened. It might have been the man he had just left, still talking. +The voice was slightly different, but the dialogue sounded very much the +same. + +"It must be wonderful to be a woman, dear, and voyage between the stars. +But as I say, I'm glad to stay here and tend the home and mind the +children, glad to be here, my arms open to you when you come back." + +"It's so wonderful to know that you care so much. I'm so glad you never +let me forget that you love me." + +"I love you, every minute of every day. Just think--two more months and +one week and we will have been married ten years." + +"It's so lovely," she said. "It seems like ten days. Like those first +thrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again." + +"I'll always love you, darling." + +"Always?" + +"Always." + +The man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "Darling, +let's go for a night ride across the desert." + +"Oh, you darling. You always think of these little adventures." + +"All life with you is an adventure." + +"But what about little Jimmie and Janice?" + +"I've arranged a sitter for them." + +"But darling--you mean you--Oh, you're so wonderful. You think of +everything. So practical, yet so romantic ... so--" + +He kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and her +laughter bubbled back to where Bowren crouched behind the bush. He kept +on crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple had +left in the shadows. "Good God," he whispered. "After ten years--" + +He shook his head and slowly licked his lips. He'd been married five +years. + +It hadn't been like this. He'd never heard of any marriage maintaining +such a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for very +long. Of course the women had always expected it to. But the men-- + +And anyway--_where did the men come from?_ + + * * * * * + +Bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through air +saturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. He walked +cautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. The +appearance of those men remained in his mind. When he closed his eyes +for a moment, he could see them. + +Perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned, +delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered, +Bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree of +aggressiveness without being indelicate. + +Why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men. + +He dodged behind a tree. Here it was again. Same play, same scene +practically, only the players were two other people. A couple standing +arm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwing +upward a subdued bluish light. Music drifted along the warm currents of +air. The couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. The pose is +perfect, he thought. The setting is perfect. + +"You're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and I get so lonely +without you. I always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how long +you're away." + +"Do you? Do you?" + +"Always. Your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights. +Your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. Your +nose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too much +sometimes. Your mouth so red and full. Your skin so smooth and dark. And +you're ageless, darling. Being married to you five years, it's one +exciting adventure." + +"I love you so," she said. "You're everything any woman could want in a +husband. Simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. I still +remember how it used to be. Back there ... with the other men I mean?" + +"You should forget about _them_, my dear." + +"I'm forgetting, slowly though. It may take a long time to forget +completely. Oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting after +a while. So inconsiderate, so self-centered. He wasn't romantic at all. +He never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. He +never thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home at +night, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinner +from the cafelator. He didn't care whether he used hair remover on his +face in the mornings or not. He was surly and sullen and selfish. But I +could have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every day +that he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. The things that +you do and say, darling." + +"I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you. But please, let's not +talk about _him_ anymore. It simply horrifies me!" + +Bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. The +description. Now the slight familiarity of voice. And then he heard the +man say, murmuring, "Lois ... darling Lois...." + +Lois! LOIS! + +Bowren shivered. His jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by the +powerful clamp of his jaws. His body seemed to loosen all over and he +fell into a crouch. Tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressed +emotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression and +frustration came back in a wave. He yelled. It was more of a sound, a +harsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation. + +"Lois ..." He ran forward. + +She gasped, sank away as Bowren hit the man, hard. The man sighed and +gyrated swinging his arms, teetering and flipped backward into the pool +among the lights and the weird fish. A spray of cold water struck +Bowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passion +enough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees. +He turned desperately. + +Lois cringed. He scarcely remembered her now, he realized. She was +different. He had forgotten everything except an image that had changed +with longing. She hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe she +had. It didn't matter now. + +He tried to run, tried to get away. He heard Lois' voice, high and +shrill. Figures closed in around him. He fought, desperately. He put a +few temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were always +more. Men, men everywhere. Hundreds of men where there should be no men +at all. Well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. It gave him +intense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. To hurl the gun, +smash with his fists. + +Then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smiling +fragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men. + +He tried to move. A blow fell hard and his head smashed against the +rocks. He tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he was +glad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but because +it curtained off the faces of men. + + * * * * * + +After a time it was as though he was being carried through a dim +half-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes. +He remembered how the men of Earth had rationalized a long time, making +a joke out of it. Laughing when they hadn't wanted to laugh, but to +hate. It had never been humorous. It had been a war between the sexes, +and the women had finally won, destroying the men psychologically, the +race physically. Somehow they had managed to go on with a culture of +their own. + +The war between the sexes had never really been a joke. It had been +deadly serious, right from the beginning of the militant feminist +movements, long before the last big war. There had always been basic +psychological and physiological differences. But woman had refused to +admit this, and had tried to be the "equal" if not the better of men. +For so long woman had made it strictly competitive, and in her +subconscious mind she had regarded men as wonderful creatures, capable +of practically anything, and that woman could do nothing better than to +emulate them in every possible way. There was no such thing as a woman's +role unless it had been the same as a man's. That had gone on a long +time. And it hadn't been a joke at all. + +How ironic it was, there at the last! All of man's work through the ages +had been aimed at the stars. And the women had assumed the final phase +of conquest! + +For a long time women had been revolting against the masculine symbols, +the levers, pistons, bombs, torpedoes and hammers, all manifestations of +man's whole activity of overt, aggressive power. + +The big H-bombs of the last great war had seemed to be man's final +symbol, destructive. And after that, the spaceships, puncturing space, +roaring outward, the ultimate masculine symbol of which men had dreamed +for so long, and which women had envied. + +And then only the women could stand the acceleration. It was a +physiological fact. Nothing could change it. Nothing but what they had +done to Bowren. + +All of man's evolutionary struggle, and the women had assumed the +climax, assumed all the past wrapped up in the end, usurped the effect, +and thereby psychologically assuming also all the thousands of years of +causation. + +For being held down, being made neurotic by frustration and the +impossibility of being the "equal" of men, because they were +fundamentally psychologically and physiologically different, women had +taken to space with an age-old vengeance. Personal ego salvation. + +But they hadn't stopped there. What had they done? What about the men? A +man for every woman, yet no men from Earth. That much Bowren knew. +Native Martians? What? + +He had been transported somewhere in a car of some kind. He didn't +bother to be interested. He couldn't get away. He was held fast. He +refused to open his eyes because he didn't want to see the men who held +him, the men who had replaced him and every other man on Earth. The men +who were destroying the civilization of Earth. + +The gimmicks whereby the women had rejected Earth and left it to wither +and die in neglect and bitter, bitter wonderment. + +He was tired, very tired. The movement of the car lulled him, and he +drifted into sleep. + +He opened his eyes and slowly looked around. Pretty pastel ceiling. A +big room, beautiful and softly furnished, with a marked absence of +metal, of shiny chrome, of harshness or brittle angles. It was something +of an office, too, with a desk that was not at all business-like, but +still a desk. A warm glow suffused the room, and the air was pleasantly +scented with natural smelling perfumes. + +A woman stood in the middle of the room studying him with detached +interest. She was beautiful, but in a hard, mature, withdrawn way. She +was dark, her eyes large, liquid black and dominating her rather small +sharply-sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red. She had a +strong mouth. + +He looked at her a while. He felt only a deep, bitter resentment. He +felt good though, physically. He had probably been given something, an +injection. He sat up. Then he got to his feet. + +She kept on studying him. "A change of clothes, dry detergent, and hair +remover for your face are in there, through that door," she said. + +He said: "Right now I'd rather talk." + +"But don't you want to take off that awful--beard?" + +"The devil with it! Is that so important? It's natural isn't it for a +man to have hair on his face? I like hair on my face." + +She opened her mouth a little and stepped back a few steps. + +"And anyway, what could be less important right now than the way I +look?" + +"I'm--I'm Gloria Munsel," she said hesitantly. "I'm President of the +City here. And what is your name, please?" + +"Eddie Bowren. What are you going to do with me?" + +She shrugged. "You act like a mad man. I'd almost forgotten what you men +of Earth were like. I was pretty young then. Well, frankly, I don't know +what we're going to do with you. No precedent for the situation. No laws +concerning it. It'll be up to the Council." + +"It won't be pleasant for me," he said, "I can be safe in assuming +that." + +She shrugged again and crossed her arms. He managed to control his +emotions somehow as he looked at the smooth lines of her body under the +long clinging gown. She was so damn beautiful! A high proud body in a +smooth pink gown, dark hair streaming back and shiny and soft. + + * * * * * + +It was torture. It had been for a long time, for him, for all the +others. "Let me out of here!" he yelled harshly. "Put me in a room by +myself!" + +She moved closer to him and looked into his face. The fragrance of her +hair, the warmth of her reached out to him. Somehow, he never knew how, +he managed to grin. He felt the sweat running down his dirty, bearded, +battered face. His suit was torn and dirty. He could smell himself, the +stale sweat, the filth. He could feel his hair, shaggy and long, down +his neck, over his ears. + +Her lips were slightly parted, and wet, and she had a funny dark look in +her eyes, he thought. She turned quickly as the door opened, and a man +came in. He was only slightly taller than Gloria and he nodded, smiled +brightly, bowed a little, moved forward. He carried a big bouquet of +flowers and presented them to her. + +She took the flowers, smiled, thanked him, and put them on the table. +The man said. "So sorry, darling, to intrude. But I felt I had to see +you for a few minutes. I left the children with John, and dashed right +up here. I thought we might have lunch together." + +"You're so thoughtful, dear," she said. + +The man turned a distasteful look upon Bowren. He said. "My dear, what +is _this_?" + +"A man," she said, and then added. "From Earth." + +"What? Good grief, you mean they've found a way--?" + +"I don't know. You'd better go back home and tend the yard today, Dale. +I'll tell you all about it when I come home this evening. All right?" + +"Well I--oh, oh yes, of course, if you say so, darling." + +"Thank you, dear." She kissed him and he bowed out. + +She turned and walked back toward Bowren. "Tell me," she said. "How did +you get here alive?" + +Why not tell her? He was helpless here. They'd find out anyway, as soon +as they got back to Earth on the cargo run. And even if they didn't find +out, that wouldn't matter either. They would be on guard from now on. No +man would do again what Bowren had done. The only chance would be to +build secret spaceships of their own and every time one blasted, have +every member of the crew go through what Bowren had. It couldn't last. +Too much injury and shock. + +As he talked he studied the office, and he thought of other things. An +office that was like a big beautiful living room. A thoroughly feminine +office. Nor was it the type of office a woman would fix for a man. It +was a woman's office. Everything, the whole culture here, was feminine. +When he had finished she said, "Interesting. It must have been a very +unpleasant experience for you." + +He grinned. "I suffered. But even though I've failed, it's worth all the +suffering, if you'll tell me--where did all the ah--men come from?" + +She told him. It was, to say the least, startling, and then upon +reflection, he realized how simple it all was. No aliens. No native +Martians. A very simple and thoroughly logical solution, and in a way, +typically feminine. + +Hormone treatment and genetic manipulation, plus a thorough +reconditioning while the treatment was taking place. + +_And the women had simply turned approximately half of their number into +men!_ + +She paused, then went on. "It was the only way we could see it, Mr. +Bowren. Earth was a man's world, and we could never have belonged in it, +not the way we wanted to. Men wouldn't stand it anyway, down there, +having us going into space, usurping their masculine role. And +anyway--you men of Earth had become so utterly unsatisfactory as +companions, lovers, and husbands, that it was obvious nothing could ever +be done about it. Not unless we set up our own culture, our own +civilization, our way." + +"But meanwhile we die down there," Bowren said. "Logic is nice. But mass +murder, and the death of a whole world civilization seems pretty cold +from where I'm standing. It's pathological, but it's too late to think +about that. It's done now." + +"But we're happy here," she said. "For the first time in a long, long +time, we women feel like ourselves. We feel truly independent. The men +around us are the kind of men we want, instead of us being what they +want us to be, or even worse, the men being what we want them to be but +resenting it and making life unbearable for both. All through the +process of being changed into men, our women undergo such a thorough +conditioning that they can never be anything else but model men in every +sense. Their attitude as women with which they started treatment helped. +They knew what they wanted in men, and they became what we wanted them +to be, as men." + +"Very logical," Bowren said. "It smells to heaven it's so logical." It +was purely impulse, what he did then. He couldn't help it. It wasn't +logical either. It was emotional and he did it because he had to do it +and because he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't. + +He put his arm out suddenly, hooked her slim waist, and pulled her to +him. Her face flushed and his eyes were very wide and dark as she looked +up at him. + +"Listen," he said. "The whole thing's insane. The lot of you are mad, +and though I can't help it, I hate to see it happen this way. What kind +of men are these? These smiling robots, these goons who are nothing else +but reflections in a woman's mirror? Who'd want to be a man like that. +Who would really want a man like that? And who would want a woman who +was just what a man wanted her to be? Where's the fire? Where's the +individuality? Where's the conflict, the fighting and snarling and +raging that makes living. All this is apathy, this is death! You don't +grow by being agreeable, but by conflict." + +"What are you trying to sell now?" she whispered. + +He laughed. It was wild sounding to him, not very humorous really, but +still it was laughter. "Selling nothing, buying nothing." He pulled her +closer and kissed her. Her lips parted slightly and he could feel the +warmth of her and the quick drawing of breath. Then she pushed him away. +She raised her hand and brushed it over his face. + +She shook her head slowly. "It feels rather interesting," she said, +"your face. I've never felt a man's face before, that wasn't smooth, the +way it should be." + +He laughed again, more softly this time. "Why reform your men? You women +always wanted to do that." + +"We don't reform men here," she said. "We start them out right--from the +beginning." + +She backed away from him. She raised her hand to her face and her +fingers touched her lips. Wrinkles appeared between her eyes and she +shook her head again. Not at him, but at something, a thought perhaps, +he couldn't tell. + +Finally she said. "That was an inexcusable, boorish thing to do. A +typical thoughtless egomanical Earth-male action if there ever was one. +Our men are all perfect here, and in comparison to them, you're a pretty +miserable specimen. I'm glad you showed up here. It's given me, and +other women, a good chance for comparison. It makes our men seem so much +better even than they were to us before." + +He didn't say anything. + +"Our men are perfect! Perfect you understand? What are you smiling +about? Their character is good. They're excellent conversationalists, +well informed, always attentive, moderate, sympathetic, interested in +life, and always interested in _us_." + +"And I suppose they are also--human?" + +"This is nonsense," she said, her voice rising slightly. "You will take +that door out please. The Council will decide what's to be done with +you." + +He nodded, turned, and went through the door. There were two men there +waiting for him. They were both blond, with light blue eyes, just medium +height, perfectly constructed physically, perfectly groomed, impeccably +dressed. They smiled at him. Their teeth had been brushed every morning. +One of them wrinkled his nose, obviously as a reaction to Bowren. The +other started to reach, seemed reluctant to touch him. + +"Then don't touch me, brother," Bowren said. "Put a hand on me, and I'll +slug you." The man reached away, and it gave Bowren an ecstatic +sensation to send his fist against the man's jaw. It made a cracking +sound and the man's head flopped back as his knees crumbled and he swung +around and stretched out flat on his face on the long tubular corridor. + +"Always remember your etiquette," Bowren said. "Keep your hands off +people. It isn't polite." + +The other man grunted something, still managing to smile, as he rushed +at Bowren. Bowren side-stepped, hooked the man's neck in his arm and ran +him across the hall and smashed his head into the wall. + +He turned, opened the door into Munsel's office, dragged both of them in +and shut the door again. He walked down the corridor several hundred +feet before a woman appeared, in some kind of uniform, and said. "Will +you come this way please?" + +He said he would. + + * * * * * + +It was a small room, comfortably furnished. Food came through a panel in +the wall whenever he pressed the right button. A telescreen furnished +entertainment when he pushed another button. Tasty mixed drinks +responded to other buttons. + +He never bothered to take advantage of the facilities offered for +removing his beard, bathing, or changing clothes. Whatever fate was +going to befall him, he would just as soon meet it as the only man on +Mars who looked the part--according to Bowren's standards, at least--at +least by comparison. + +He thought of trying to escape. If he could get away from the city and +into the Martian hills, he could die out there with some dignity. It was +a good idea, but he knew it was impossible. At least so far, it was +impossible. Maybe something would come up. An opportunity and he would +take it. That was the only thing left for him. + +He was in there for what seemed a long time. It was still, the light +remaining always the same. He slept a number of times and ate several +times. He did a lot of thinking too. He thought about the men on Earth +and finally he decided it didn't matter much. They had brought it on +themselves in a way, and if there was anything like cause and effect +operating on such a scale, they deserved no sympathy. Man had expressed +his aggressive male ego until he evolved the H-bombs and worse, and by +then the whole world was neurotic with fear, including the women. Women +had always looked into the mirror of the future (or lack of it), of the +race, and the more she had looked, the more the insecurity. The atomic +wars had created a kind of final feeling of insecurity as far as men +were concerned, forced them to become completely psychologically and +physiologically self-sufficient. They had converted part of their own +kind into men, their own kind of men, and theoretically there wouldn't +be any more insecurity brought on by the kind of male psychology that +had turned the Earth around for so long. + +All right, drop it right there then, he thought. It's about all over. +It's all over but the requiem. Sometime later he was in a mood where he +didn't mind it when an impersonal face appeared on the screen and looked +right at him and told him the Council's verdict. It was a woman, and her +voice was cold, very cold. + +"Mr. Eddie Bowren. The Council has reached a verdict regarding what is +to be done with you. You are to be exterminated. It is painless and we +will make it as pleasant as possible." + +"Thanks," Bowren said. A woman's world was so polite, so mannerly, so +remembering of all the social amenities. It would be so difficult after +a while to know when anyone was speaking, or doing anything real. +"Thanks," he said again. "I will do all in my power to make my +extermination a matter of mutual pleasure." By now he was pretty drunk, +had been drunk for some time. He raised his glass. "Here's to a real +happy time of it, baby." + +The screen faded. He sat there brooding, and he was still brooding when +the door unlocked and opened softly. He sat there and looked at Gloria +Munsel for a while, wondering why she was here. Why she would look so +provocative, so enchanting, so devastating, whatever other words you +cared to dream up. + +She moved toward him with a slight swaying motion that further disturbed +him. He felt her long white fingers rubbing over the stiff wiry beard of +his face. "I dreamed about the way that beard felt last night," she +said. "Silly of me wasn't it? I heard of the way you smell, of the way +you yelled at me, so impolitely. Why did I dream of it, I said this +morning, so now I'm here to find out why." + +"Get out and let me alone," Bowren yelled. "I'm going to be +exterminated. So let me alone to my own company." + +"Yes, I heard about that verdict," she said. She looked away from him. +"I don't know why they made that choice. Well, I do in a way, they're +afraid of you, your influence. It would be very disruptive socially. +Several of our men--" + +"It doesn't matter why," Bowren said. "What matters is that it will be +as pleasant as possible. If you're going to kill a man, be nice about +it." + +She stared down at him. Chills rippled down his back as her warm soft +fingers continued to stroke his bearded chin and throat. He got up. It +was too uncomfortable and it was torture. He said, "Get out of here. +Maybe I'm not a conformist, but I'm damn human!" + +She backed away. "But--but what do you mean?" + +He got up and put the flat of his hands cupping her shoulder blades. Her +eyes stared wildly, and her lips were wet and she was breathing heavily. +He could see the vein pulsing faster in her slim throat. She had an +exciting body. + +He saw it then, the new slow smile that crept across her face. His left +hand squirmed at the thick piled hair on her shoulders and he tugged and +her face tilted further and he looked at the parted pouting lips. The +palm of his right hand brushed her jaw and his fingers took her cheeks +and brought her face over and he spread his mouth hard over her mouth. +Her lips begged. Hammers started banging away in his stomach. + +Music from the screen was playing a crescendo into his pulse. They +swayed together to the music, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. She +stepped back, dropped her arms limply at her sides. There was the clean +sweet odor of her hair. + +"I'd better go now," she whispered. "Before I do something that would +result in my not being President anymore." + + * * * * * + +He wiped his face. Don't beg, he thought. The devil with her and the +rest. A man could lose everything, all the women, not one, but all of +them. He could live alone, a thousand miles from nowhere, at the North +Pole like Amundsen, and it didn't matter. He could be killed pleasantly +or unpleasantly, that didn't matter either. All that mattered was that +he maintain some dignity, as a man. + +He stood there, not saying anything. He managed to grin. Finally he +said, "Goodbye, and may your husband never say a harsh word to you or do +anything objectionable as long as you both shall live, and may he love +you every hour of every day, and may he drop dead." + +She moved in again, put her arms around him. There were tears in her +eyes. She placed her cheek on his shoulder. "I love you," she whispered. +"I know that now." + +He felt a little helpless. Tears, what could you do with a woman's +tears? + +She sobbed softly, talking brokenly. Maybe not to him, but to someone, +somewhere. A memory, a shadow out of a long time back.... + +"Maybe it's ... it's all a mistake after all ... maybe it is. I've never +been too sure, not for a while now. And then you--the way you talked and +looked--the excitement. I don't know why. But the touch of your +beard--your voice. I don't know what happened. We've carried it to +extremes, extremes, Eddie. It was always this way with us--once we were +sure of our man, and even before, when he was blinded by new love, we +tried to make him over, closer to _our_ idea of what was right. But now +I know something ... those faults and imperfections, most of them were +men's, the real men's chief attractions. Individuality, that's the +thing, Eddie, that's it after all. And it's imperfections too, maybe +more than anything else. Imperfections.... Oh, Eddie, you're close, much +closer to human nature, to real vitality, through _your_ imperfections. +Not imperfections. Eddie--your beard is beautiful, your dirt is lovely, +your yelling insults are wonderful--and...." + +She stopped a minute. Her hands ran through his hair. "When you get a +man made over, he's never very nice after that, Eddie. Never--" + +She sobbed, pulled his lips down. "Eddie--I can't let them kill you." + +"Forget it," he said. "No one can do anything. Don't get yourself in a +jam. You'll forget this in a little while. There's nothing here for a +guy like me, and I'm not for you." + +She stepped way, her hands still on his shoulders. "No--I didn't mean +that. I've got to go on living in the world I helped make, among the men +we all decided we would always want. I've got to do that. Listen, Eddie, +how did you intend to get back to Earth?" + +He told her. + +"Then it's just a matter of getting back aboard that same ship, and into +this secret room unobserved?" + +"That's all, Gloria. That and keep from being exterminated first." + +"I can get you out of here. We'll have to do it right now. Take that +beard off, and get that hair smoothed down somehow. I hate to see it +happen, but I've got to get you out of here, and the only way to do it +is for you to be like one of the men here." + +He went to work on his face and hair. She went out and returned with a +suit like the other men wore. He got into it. She smiled at him, a +hesitant and very soft smile, and she kissed him before they left the +room and cautiously went out of the City. + + * * * * * + +The way was clear across the moonlit field and under the deep dark +shadow of the ship. He kissed her and then took hold of the ladder. She +slipped a notebook of velonex, full of micro-film, into his hands. +"Goodbye, Eddie," she said. "Take this with you. It may give you men +down there a way out. I never thought much before of how mad it must be +for you." + +He took the folder. He looked up at the double moons painting the night +a fantastic shifting wave of changing light. And then he looked down at +Gloria Munsel again, at the glinting shine of her hair. + +"Goodbye," he said. "I might stay after all--except that a lot of men on +Earth are waiting for me to tell them something. They'll be surprised. +I--" He hesitated. Her eyes widened. Warmth of emotion moved him and he +said, or started to say, "I love you," and many other things, but she +interrupted him. + +"Don't please, Eddie. Anything you said now would sound just like what +my devoted husband says, every day. I'd rather you wouldn't say anything +at all now, Eddie, just goodbye." + +"Goodbye then," he said again. + +He looked back from the opened door in the ship's cargo bin. Her face +was shining up at him, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks wet. It was +a picture he would never be able to forget, even if he wanted to. + +"When you forget to shave in the mornings, Eddie, think of me." + + * * * * * + +Bowren stood up and addressed the investigation committee which had sent +him to Mars. He hadn't made any statements at all up to this moment. The +ten members of the Committee sat there behind the half-moon table. None +of them moved. Their faces were anxious. Some of them were perspiring. + +Eddie told them what he had seen, what he had heard, his own impressions +about the whole thing, about his escape. He left out certain personal +details that were, to him, unnecessary to this particular report. + +The Committee sat there a while, then started to talk. They talked at +once for a while, then the Chairman rapped for order and stood up. His +face had an odd twist to it, and his bald head was pocked with +perspiration. + +Eddie Bowren took the book of micro-film from under his arm, the one +Gloria Munsel had given him. He put it on the table. "That has been +thoroughly checked by scientists, and their report is included. I +thought it surely was a false report, until they checked it. The first +page there gives a brief outline of what the micro-film contains." + +The Chairman read, then looked up. He coughed. He mopped at his head. + +Eddie said. "As I saw it up there, this is the way it's going to stay. +We'll never get into space, not without using the methods that were used +with me. And they're too destructive. I've been examined. I could never +go through it again and live. And that's the only way Earth men can ever +get into space. The women aren't coming back to us. They have husbands +of their own now. Believe me, those women aren't going to leave their +perfect husbands. They've set up a completely feminine culture. It's +theirs, all theirs. They'll never give it up to return to a masculine +world, and that's what Earth will always be to them. There are only a +few women left on Earth, and they're of such subnormal intelligence as +to be only a menace to any possible future progeny. Our birthrate has +stopped. We are living under extremely abnormal circumstances without +women. I have, as I said before, but one recommendation to this +Committee, and you take it for what it's worth. I personally don't +care--much--and that isn't important either." + +"What is your recommendation, Bowren?" + +"I assure you that the formulas in that book will work for us, Mr. +Chairman. Will you accept the reports of the scientists who investigated +those formulas?" + +"I will," the Chairman said hoarsely. "I'll accept it. Why not--?" + +Bowren grinned thinly at the ten men. "There's the secret of doing what +the women have done. It'll work for us too. Our only chance for survival +is to follow their procedure. We've got to start turning at least a +percentage of ourselves into women." + +One man leaned forward and put his head on his arms. The others sat +there, in a kind of stunned numb attitude, their eyes drifting vaguely. + +The Chairman coughed and looked around the silent hall, and at the other +ten men in it. + +"Any volunteers?" he whispered. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thy Name Is Woman, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THY NAME IS WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 32906.txt or 32906.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/0/32906/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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