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 our hearts, of the abysses we claim to have conquered, alone, afraid, unwanted—Now is it wrong for a woman to feel the same as a man, to have the same frustrations, the same needs? And is it wrong if she fulfills herself in the only way modern society has left open for her, especially when by so doing she supplies a factor without which there could be no space travel, no raw materials for the stay at homes on Earth to turn into mechanical gadgets, ornate wigwams and four-wheel golden calves—"

"But they're prostitutes!" the evangelist screamed. "Prostitutes!"

"Sure, they're prostitutes—to you, and to the people on Earth. But to us, they're women, the only women we can ever know, can ever have. And if you must have something to condemn, then condemn the prostitution corporations, for they, and they alone, are responsible for the cold, loveless efficiency of their products!”

"Prostitutes—"

An ugly murmur began in the crowd, rose swiftly into a roar. Cross felt himself being drawn into the maelstrom, heard his own voice blending with the voices of the others. He saw the whiteness of the evangelist's face, saw the silhouette of the descending police copter, and then the frightened figure on the shaking pulpit fumbling for the lowered rope ladder. When he was firmly secured on the ladder, and the copter was rising, the evangelist shook his fist at the mob he had created, shouting: "Armageddon is on hand, and every sinning one of you, every glorified streetwalker and her lover, shall perish in the flames!"

There were some things you knew without quite knowing how you knew them, and the moment she had seen him standing in the lock of the Pandora she had known that he was the one.

But it was impossible, she had kept telling herself. Utterly impossible. And then, after escorting her to her cabin, he had mentioned A Priori, and she had remembered a spaceman telling her once that, in A Priori, almost anything was possible, and that, during an A Priori storm, everything was possible.

She still didn't quite understand, standing in the shower now, the misted spray gently bombarding her skin. But she had acted, and would continue to act, on the assumption that PASSAGE TO GOMORRAH