ad flopped back as his knees crumbled and he swung
around and stretched out flat on his face on the long tubular corridor.

"Always remember your etiquette," Bowren said. "Keep your hands off
people. It isn't polite."

The other man grunted something, still managing to smile, as he rushed
at Bowren. Bowren side-stepped, hooked the man's neck in his arm and ran
him across the hall and smashed his head into the wall.

He turned, opened the door into Munsel's office, dragged both of them in
and shut the door again. He walked down the corridor several hundred
feet before a woman appeared, in some kind of uniform, and said. "Will
you come this way please?"

He said he would.

* * * * *

It was a small room, comfortably furnished. Food came through a panel in
the wall whenever he pressed the right button. A telescreen furnished
entertainment when he pushed another button. Tasty mixed drinks
responded to other buttons.

He never bothered to take advantage of the facilities offered for
removing his beard, bathing, or changing clothes. Whatever fate was
going to befall him, he would just as soon meet it as the only man on
Mars who looked the part--according to Bowren's standards, at least--at
least by comparison.

He thought of trying to escape. If he could get away from the city and
into the Martian hills, he could die out there with some dignity. It was
a good idea, but he knew it was impossible. At least so far, it was
impossible. Maybe something would come up. An opportunity and he would
take it. That was the only thing left for him.

He was in there for what seemed a long time. It was still, the light
remaining always the same. He slept a number of times and ate several
times. He did a lot of thinking too. He thought about the men on Earth
and finally he decided it didn't matter much. They had brought it on
themselves in a way, and if there was anything like cause and effect
operating on such a scale, they deserved no sympathy. Man had expressed
his aggressive male ego until he evolved the H-bombs and worse, and by
then the whole world was neurotic with fear, including the women. Women
had always looked into the mirror of the future (or lack of it), of the
race, and the more she had looked, the more the insecurity. The atomic
wars had created a kind of final feeling of insecurity as far as men
were concerned, forced them to become completely psychologically and
physiologically self-