r
example. When they're trying a case, do they talk about evidence? They
do not. They call in a legal astrologer--there's all kinds of branches
in the profession--and this joker all by himself determines the guilt
or innocence of the accused. By checking the aspects. Take a wedding.
Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Does boy go see girl? No. He heads
straight for an astrologer. The girl's horoscope is on file in the
local city hall, just like everybody else. The astrologer compares the
charts and determines whether the marriage will be a good one. He is,
naturally, a marital astrologer. He gives the word. If he says no they
don't marry.

"I could go on for hours. But you really have to see it. Take the case
of people who want to have children. They want them born, naturally,
at the time of the best possible aspects, so they consult an
astrologer and he gives them a list of the best times for a baby to be
conceived. These times are not always convenient, sometimes it's 4:18
in the morning and sometimes it's 2:03 Monday afternoon. Yet this is a
legitimate excuse for getting out of work. A man goes in, tells his
boss it's breeding time, and off he goes without a penny docked. Build
a better race, they say. Of course the gestation period is variable,
and they never do hit it right on the nose, and also there are still
the natural accidents, so quite a few are born with terrible
horoscopes--"

"Holy smoke!" Travis muttered. The possibilities of it blossomed in
his mind. He began to understand what was coming.

"Now you begin to see?" Horton went on gloomily. "Look what an
Earthman represents to these people. We are the unknown, the
completely capital U Unknown. Everybody else is a certain definite
quantity, his horoscope is on file and every man on Mert has access to
all his potentialities, be they good, bad or indifferent. But not us.
They don't know when we were born, or where, and even if they did it
it wouldn't do them any good, because they haven't got any system
covering Mars and Jupiter, the planets at home. Everybody else is
catalogued, but not us."

"And just because they believe so thoroughly in their own astrology
they've gotten used to the idea that a man is what his horoscope says
he is."

"But us? What are we? They haven't the vaguest idea, and it scares
hell out of them. The only thing they can do is check with one of the
branches, what they call Horary Astrology, and make a horoscope of the
day we lande