"Next desk, please," the officer said shortly.
I moved on to the medics at the next stop. A gray-clad nurse checked my
pulse and respiration. She smiled at me.
"Excited?" she asked. "Don't be." She indicated the section of the
checking station where the breeders were being processed. "You should
see how the bulls take it," she said with a laugh.
She picked up an electrified stamp. "Now don't worry. This won't hurt
and it won't disfigure you permanently. But the ship's guards won't let
you aboard without it. Government regulations, you know. We cannot load
personal dossiers on the ships and this will tell the officers all they
need to know about you. Weight limitations, you see."
I almost laughed in her face at that. If there was one thing all Earth
could offer me that I wanted, it was that stamp on my forehead: a
passport to the stars....
She set the stamp and pressed it against my forehead. I had a momentary
fear about the durability of the flesh mask that covered my face, but
it was unnecessary. The plastiskin took the temporary tattoo the way
real flesh would have.
I felt the skin and read it in my mind. I knew exactly what it said.
I'd dreamed of it so often and so long all my life. My ticket on the
_Martian Queen_. My pass to those lands in the sky.