modest dress shops and
bought herself a conservative brown suit.

"You have a very nice figure," the clerk told her.

"Thank you." She studied him critically and then shook her head sadly.
He wouldn't do.

I've got to be sure I get the right one, she thought. I'll know him when
I see him, she reassured herself. It certainly isn't this one.

There ought, she thought, to be a lot of eligible bachelors in
Hollywood. The movies ought to attract them.

* * * * *

Two days later she walked down to the bank and instructed the teller to
transfer $5,000 of her money to a checking account in her name at the
Security First National Bank in Los Angeles.

She told her father she was going to take a little vacation.

"There's plenty of eligible bachelors here," he said.

"Why dad!" she exclaimed indignantly. "... And anyway, none of them ever
has asked me."

"God help the man you set your mind on, that's all I can say."

CHAPTER II

Out beyond the orbit of the moon there was a huge, wheel-shaped space
station. Its rapid spin pressed the equivalent of one Earth gravity
against its broad, thick rim. Once when the distortion field failed, the
Mt. Palomar telescope tracked it for the better part of an hour, but
earth astronomers attributed the track either to an irregularity in the
photographic plate or to some peculiarity in the atmosphere.

Near the hub where the gravity was weak, the nine aliens lived; in the
two rim compartments lived the mutants. There were almost a thousand of
the latter--both male and female--in the larger compartment; and fewer
than thirty--all male--in the smaller one.

"Soon, now," the mutants told each other with growing excitement, "we
shall go down and kill them."

The aliens stepped up the power in the larger of the two transmitters.
"Our indoctrination is perfect," they reassured themselves. "The mutants
will not get out of hand."

CHAPTER III

Julia bought a round trip ticket on the Greyhound Bus and carried her
bag to the waiting room. A few minutes later the bus drew up outside,
bringing with it the exciting travel-smell of hot rubber and gasoline.
Most of the passengers climbed out to stretch in the winter sunlight.

"Fifteen minutes," the driver said.

Julia picked up her bag and carried it outside. She gave her ticket to
the driver, who was standing by the door, smoking a cigarette. Half way
back in the bus she found an empty sea