r number into
men!_

She paused, then went on. "It was the only way we could see it, Mr.
Bowren. Earth was a man's world, and we could never have belonged in it,
not the way we wanted to. Men wouldn't stand it anyway, down there,
having us going into space, usurping their masculine role. And
anyway--you men of Earth had become so utterly unsatisfactory as
companions, lovers, and husbands, that it was obvious nothing could ever
be done about it. Not unless we set up our own culture, our own
civilization, our way."

"But meanwhile we die down there," Bowren said. "Logic is nice. But mass
murder, and the death of a whole world civilization seems pretty cold
from where I'm standing. It's pathological, but it's too late to think
about that. It's done now."

"But we're happy here," she said. "For the first time in a long, long
time, we women feel like ourselves. We feel truly independent. The men
around us are the kind of men we want, instead of us being what they
want us to be, or even worse, the men being what we want them to be but
resenting it and making life unbearable for both. All through the
process of being changed into men, our women undergo such a thorough
conditioning that they can never be anything else but model men in every
sense. Their attitude as women with which they started treatment helped.
They knew what they wanted in men, and they became what we wanted them
to be, as men."

"Very logical," Bowren said. "It smells to heaven it's so logical." It
was purely impulse, what he did then. He couldn't help it. It wasn't
logical either. It was emotional and he did it because he had to do it
and because he didn't see any reason why he shouldn't.

He put his arm out suddenly, hooked her slim waist, and pulled her to
him. Her face flushed and his eyes were very wide and dark as she looked
up at him.

"Listen," he said. "The whole thing's insane. The lot of you are mad,
and though I can't help it, I hate to see it happen this way. What kind
of men are these? These smiling robots, these goons who are nothing else
but reflections in a woman's mirror? Who'd want to be a man like that.
Who would really want a man like that? And who would want a woman who
was just what a man wanted her to be? Where's the fire? Where's the
individuality? Where's the conflict, the fighting and snarling and
raging that makes living. All this is apathy, this is death! You don't
grow by being agreeable, but by conflict."

"What are y