"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!"