"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.