Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/99

 when he was a cabin boy on the Perseus, and he welcomed the words into his mind, let them flow softly through his thoughts—

I am lonely with the loneliness that comes to all men in womanless ships, whether they be ships at sea or ships in space; and if there be no woman to greet me when my ship reaches continent or planet, then I shall be lonely beyond all loneliness, beyond all capacity to endure

A girl standing on the balcony just above caught his eye, perhaps because of the way the starlight touched her face, perhaps because of her wistful smile. He paused in the street, in the cool night, looking up at her. Her hair was black, and deftly piled into an elaborate coiffeur. Her eyebrows made him think of birds in flight. She touched her breast. "Hisako," she said softly, and he went back to the foyer he had just passed and told the mama san whom he wanted.

She could tell by the coldness of her cheeks that her face had gone white, and she could tell by the look in the examiner's eyes that it would be futile to protest his indictment, that no matter what she said, Gomorrah was going to be her next—and last—port of call.

But the charge was so monstrous, so untrue, that she had to dispute it. "You must be mistaken," she said. "I can't possibly be—be that way!"

"Who is your lover?" the examiner asked coldly.

"But I have no lover. I'm trying to tell you that. I've always used my field!"

The examiner shrugged. "Be a fool and protect him then, if you want to. I should think, though, that you'd want to expose him, that you'd want him to share the responsibility."

"But I'm not protecting him. There simply isn't any such person. You must be mistaken, or else my field is defective."

"I've been in this business a long time," the examiner said. "I don't make mistakes. And I've never heard of a defective field." He opened the door. "Book passage to Gomorrah for the Lady Berenice and confiscate her C-field," he told his assistant. "And put her in custody till her ship leaves."

"Passage for one?"

The examiner looked at the Lady Berenice. "Well?"

She returned his gaze defiantly. "One," she said.

The evangelist had set up his portable pulpit just out- PASSAGE TO GOMORRAH