flipped backward into the pool
among the lights and the weird fish. A spray of cold water struck
Bowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passion
enough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees.
He turned desperately.

Lois cringed. He scarcely remembered her now, he realized. She was
different. He had forgotten everything except an image that had changed
with longing. She hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe she
had. It didn't matter now.

He tried to run, tried to get away. He heard Lois' voice, high and
shrill. Figures closed in around him. He fought, desperately. He put a
few temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were always
more. Men, men everywhere. Hundreds of men where there should be no men
at all. Well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. It gave him
intense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. To hurl the gun,
smash with his fists.

Then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smiling
fragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men.

He tried to move. A blow fell hard and his head smashed against the
rocks. He tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he was
glad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but because
it curtained off the faces of men.

* * * * *

After a time it was as though he was being carried through a dim
half-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes.
He remembered how the men of Earth had rationalized a long time, making
a joke out of it. Laughing when they hadn't wanted to laugh, but to
hate. It had never been humorous. It had been a war between the sexes,
and the women had finally won, destroying the men psychologically, the
race physically. Somehow they had managed to go on with a culture of
their own.

The war between the sexes had never really been a joke. It had been
deadly serious, right from the beginning of the militant feminist
movements, long before the last big war. There had always been basic
psychological and physiological differences. But woman had refused to
admit this, and had tried to be the "equal" if not the better of men.
For so long woman had made it strictly competitive, and in her
subconscious mind she had regarded men as wonderful creatures, capable
of practically anything, and that woman could do nothing better than to
emulate them in every possible way. There was no