Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/75

Rh spreading dissension, suspicion and doubt among your planners. We would find a key spot for you right in the Pentagon! After you have been trained by us, you could do the work of your famous Mata Hari!"

Her legs would not move. She tried to move the toes of her feet and found herself powerless.

"Let me go," she said in a wooden voice. And as she spoke the words, she felt the pull toward him, the magnetism and the force.

"You do not want to go, Sara. You could do vital work set back the plans of your government by possibly a hundred years! Or," he cocked his head on one side and studied her. "Possibly you should prefer being equipped for a journey to the home planet. On Euphoria, there is no aging process, Sara, On Euphoria, we have no unhappy, childless women "

"Stop " she choked out the word, looking down with an impersonal detachment as she wrung her hands.

"At birth," he continued, "each infant is inoculated for one hundred years of fruitful living. Change in our physical appearance stops at the age of twenty-five," he rubbed his chin. "I have been on Earth for eight years and the toll is great. I am but thirty-four but I appear to have passed half a century. How vastly different it is at home. Think of a life without fatigue or pain. At the end of one hundred years, each individual is found in his bed, at peace and without consciousness. Only then when his breathing has stopped is there outward change. Since his encasement of vigor and firm flesh is no longer of use, the sheath shrivels and creases as befits one who is Completed, Among us, Sara, there are no dead. Only those who have happily reached Completion."

There was a mist before her eyes. He knew that she had always feared old age and loneliness and the special loneliness of dying in the knowledge there was no one to shed tears on her passing away

"Why do I stay here and listen to you?" she cried.

"You are perceptive," he said. "You know that I may have a message of importance for you. We do not wish a great exodus of our people to do this prevention work for us. The purpose of recruiting is to make possible our retaining of our population on Euphoria. Many are fearful of leaving the home land, you see. You might take on the task of disspelling fear of Earth. Should our needs grow greater, and the difficulties of recruiting increase, possibly you can persuade a number of Euphorians to migrate. Oh, there would be much for you to do, Sara. And if you choose to remain here as a recruit, you would be excellent as a floating agent."

"A floating agent," she repeated