ural smelling perfumes.

A woman stood in the middle of the room studying him with detached
interest. She was beautiful, but in a hard, mature, withdrawn way. She
was dark, her eyes large, liquid black and dominating her rather small
sharply-sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red. She had a
strong mouth.

He looked at her a while. He felt only a deep, bitter resentment. He
felt good though, physically. He had probably been given something, an
injection. He sat up. Then he got to his feet.

She kept on studying him. "A change of clothes, dry detergent, and hair
remover for your face are in there, through that door," she said.

He said: "Right now I'd rather talk."

"But don't you want to take off that awful--beard?"

"The devil with it! Is that so important? It's natural isn't it for a
man to have hair on his face? I like hair on my face."

She opened her mouth a little and stepped back a few steps.

"And anyway, what could be less important right now than the way I
look?"

"I'm--I'm Gloria Munsel," she said hesitantly. "I'm President of the
City here. And what is your name, please?"

"Eddie Bowren. What are you going to do with me?"

She shrugged. "You act like a mad man. I'd almost forgotten what you men
of Earth were like. I was pretty young then. Well, frankly, I don't know
what we're going to do with you. No precedent for the situation. No laws
concerning it. It'll be up to the Council."

"It won't be pleasant for me," he said, "I can be safe in assuming
that."

She shrugged again and crossed her arms. He managed to control his
emotions somehow as he looked at the smooth lines of her body under the
long clinging gown. She was so damn beautiful! A high proud body in a
smooth pink gown, dark hair streaming back and shiny and soft.

* * * * *

It was torture. It had been for a long time, for him, for all the
others. "Let me out of here!" he yelled harshly. "Put me in a room by
myself!"

She moved closer to him and looked into his face. The fragrance of her
hair, the warmth of her reached out to him. Somehow, he never knew how,
he managed to grin. He felt the sweat running down his dirty, bearded,
battered face. His suit was torn and dirty. He could smell himself, the
stale sweat, the filth. He could feel his hair, shaggy and long, down
his neck, over his ears.

Her lips were slightly parted, and wet, and she had a funny dark look in
her eyes, he thought. Sh