Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/97

 bling, in the harsh fluorescent light.

"Excellent!" the female instructor said, entering the room. "A splendid performance, Berenice. It may seem cruel, at first, to employ real victims in our exercises, but there's no other way to learn how to defend yourself effectively—and beasts like this marine here are just the sort of creatures that forget, in their drunkenness, the inflexible rules of our profession, and the sanctity of a lady of the stars. We did not invite him here, you remember. We merely left the force-fence deactivated long enough for him to enter of his own accord, the door ajar, the light burning, so he could see it."

Berenice shuddered. She saw the ecstatic expression on the instructor's ancient, raddled face and she remembered that she herself would be an instructor some day—or a house-mother or a liaison lady—when her beauty had dimmed and her flesh had lost its firmness and not even the lowliest longstarman would want her. She shuddered again. "Isn't—isn't that an invitation, in a way?" she asked.

"Of course not!" the instructor said. "Come, we'll call his ship and have him removed. He should be sober by the time he gets out of sick bay—if he ever does"

"But where are the monsters?" Cross asked, leaning over the rail of the observation platform and gazing across the tarmac.

"There's a settlement of them on the other side of the mountains," Obronski said. "They're not permitted inside the port area."

"And we're not permitted outside—"

"That's right. So forget about them."

"But there must be some way to see them."

"Sure, there is. If you had your own ship you could land near the settlement. But the port authority would be pretty tough on you if you got caught. Besides, why should you want to see them? I know I wouldn't."

"I guess I wouldn't either," Cross lied.

He lowered his eyes, idly watched the payload of fallen ladies of the stars filing out of the lock, accompanied by their lovers.

"I keep wondering," Obronski said. "You'd think they'd have more sense."

"Who?"

"The ladies of the stars, who else? They've got the whole galaxy at their finger- PASSAGE TO GOMORRAH