Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/104

 had imposed upon it, was like a little girl's.

He knew her, now, almost as well as she knew herself—

And she—she knew him almost as well as he knew himself—

As he sat there, watching her, a feeling of tenderness he had never known before, came over him, and then he thought—But she's a lady of the stars—

And then—But she's a woman, too, the only kind of woman I can ever know, or have—the mother of my child-to-be—

And then—She tricked me. She knew, she must have guessed—

And then—No, she had no more free will, really, than I did. There is no free will in an A Priori storm, any more than there is decency or compassion or love in a civilization created and maintained by opportunists—

And then—But this—this may be love, and if it isn't love, could it not be turned into love, under the right circumstances, in the right environment—

On Gomorrah?—

"Gomorrah, my lady."

Her bags were packed and setting just inside the door. She picked one up and he took the other. She was wearing a white morning dress, and her hair made him think more than ever of Martian maize, but her eyes no longer reminded him of the ice lakes of Frigidia. The ice lakes of Frigidia never melted

She followed him down the spiral companionway to the open lock. He heard her gasp when she looked out over the unexpected vista of fields and farmhouses, of hills and woods and rivers. "But this can't be Gomorrah," she said. "Where—where's the spaceport?"

"On the other side of the mountains," Cross said. "They will be coming for us soon, and we'll have to go back and go through all the red tape ports are noted for. But first, I wanted you to see the monsters."

She lowered her eyes to the fields surrounding the ship, her face pale. Presently he heard her gasp again, and then he heard the whir of the children's wings and their gay morning laughter. "Why—why they aren’t monsters at all," she said. She gazed wide-eyed at the sight before them.

"Their parents and their parents' parents are," Cross said. "At least in the eyes of the Earth Council and the prostitution corporations. But 104