Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/100

 side the spaceport, and Cross wandered over to the fringe of the crowd to listen. The Pandora didn't have clearance till tomorrow, and his passenger wouldn't be coming on board till shortly before blastoff. In a way, he was glad of that. He had always felt guilty about escorting fallen ladies of the stars to Gomorrah, and this time it would be worse, for, on his last stop there, he had visited the settlement beyond the mountains and seen the monsters

The evangelist was an emaciated young man with dark, tortured eyes. As he talked, he waved his arms and paced back and forth. The night sky of Thais arched incongruously above him, and the ithyphallic structures of WineWomenandSong formed an ironic backdrop for his imprecations.

"They brazenly walked the streets of Earth, and now they brazenly walk the streets of the new worlds—and you, you scum, you dregs of humanity, fawn at their feet like dogs, waiting for their meretricious favors, waiting for the contemptible privilege of spending your hard-earned dollars in order to experience the appetites they feed but never satisfy—"

"How do you know?" someone in the crowd shouted.

There was a scattering of laughter, but the evangelist continued, unperturbed: "I tell you that happiness does not lie in such lascivious pursuits, that nothing but misery can result from consorting with the ladies of the stars! They have come to you, not to heal your loneliness, but to deprive you of your earnings, your respect, your—"

"But at least they came!" the heckler shouted again. "That's more than you can say for the women sitting self-righteously in their suburban houses back on Earth, patting themselves on the back for having given birth to the children they were afraid not to have!"

"But let me ask you this," the evangelist said, singling out his antagonist and pointing at him with his finger. "Why did they come?"

"First I'll tell you why we came," the heckler answered. "We came because we were basically insecure and needed to prove to others that we were something more than they thought us to be, and thereby prove to ourselves that we are something more than what we really are. And yet, for all our bravado, we remain mere men, terrified, in 100