Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/94

 longed exposure to it causes certain genic changes in both male and female chromosomes. Interplanetary travel, thanks to A Priori, occasioned only relatively brief periods of exposure; but interstellar travel is something else. Even with A Priori, the journeys between the stars sometimes require weeks, even months. As a result, no woman can ever enter interstellar space without first forfeiting her function as a woman—unless she wants to give birth to a mutant, or, to call a spade a spade, a monster.

"You are probably familiar with the Earth Council's famous Dual Decision of two generations ago: the decision to confine all interstellar personnel, during their sojourn on Earth, to the port areas; and the decision to set aside Polaris 2 as a haven for the monsters that had already been born and for those that might yet be born. But, however commendable it might have been in other respects, the Dual Decision evaded the most vital aspect of the problem—the need of men in space for the women they could no longer have.

"There was only one solution, and it was obvious from the first. But it was a solution which a sex-conscious, sex-ridden, sex-frightened, sex-bewildered people, whose various religous credos classified sex, per se, as a sin, could not accept—except by degrees.

"The first free lance ladies of the stars were of French, Swedish and Japanese descent. They were followed by most of the other racial strains. Eventually their numbers increased to a point where the Earth Council could no longer ignore their activities and was forced either to combat the star-wide spread of the profession, or to legalize it and to encourage its function along with the time-honored lines of private enterprise. Legalization was inevitable, but still, had it not been for the lobbyists, it might have been irreparably delayed. I am proud to say that the founder of Camellias, Inc., was one of the most articulate and influential of those lobbyists, and it was probably due more to his efforts than to the efforts of the others, that the Prostitution Act of 2340 finally became a reality.

"The creation and maintenance of an interstellar red light system was a complex undertaking, but we need not go into it here. You'll be ade- 94