Alfred Coppel

“ Their smooth faces and cropped hair and softly molded bodies looked strange against the functional steel angularity of the astrogation blister.
I staggered to my feet, long strips of plastic flesh dangling from me.
The Queen was in space. I was in space, no longer Earthbound.
"Yes," I said, "I lived! Look at me!"
I stripped off the flesh mask, peeled away the red, full lips, the long transformation.
"I've done it. Others will do it, too. Not breeders—not brainless ornaments to a hyper-nymphoid phallus! Just ordinary men. Ordinary men with a dream. You can't keep the sky for yourselves. ”

“ If there was one thing all Earth could offer me that I wanted, it was that stamp on my forehead: a passport to the stars....
She set the stamp and pressed it against my forehead. I had a momentary fear about the durability of the flesh mask that covered my face, but it was unnecessary. The plastiskin took the temporary tattoo the way real flesh would have.
I felt the skin and read it in my mind. I knew exactly what it said. I'd dreamed of it so often and so long all my life. My ticket on the Martian Queen. My pass to those lands in the sky. ”

“ The speaker suddenly snapped:
"There is an illegal passenger on board! All persons will remain in their quarters until he is apprehended! Repeat: there is an illegal passenger on board! Remain in your quarters!" ”

“ Flesh, hair, clothes. Everything.
"What the hell," I said. "It's good, isn't it?"
"Very good. In fact, you make me uncomfortable, it's so good. But it's too damned insane."
"Insane enough to work," I said. "And it's the only chance. How do you think I'd stack up with the Eugenics Board? Not a chance. What they want out there is big muscle boys. Tough breeders. This is the only way for me."
"Well," Kane said. "You're big enough now, it seems to me." ”