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