Arthur J. Burks

“ The triumvirate would bid the ‘selected’ ones travel outward with Parlece. Cala nodded.
“You will discover the meaning of the conference. If there be many males among the peoples come to that conference from other planets, and they be like ourselves in structure, strong, virile, brimming with health... you will use your wit – aided by the better wit of the ‘rulers’ we shall send with you – to fill your space-ship with males on the return. Then, if those males be pleasing to us – you shall be slain for your impudence of this moment.” ”

“ Parlece moved on among the women. As streams flow into lakes, increasing their size until they become vast seas, so the streams of women moved in the center of the plain, until it became a sea of ravishing beautiful humanity. ”

“ A mere male to be so bold as to select the women of his choice! For a thousand years no male had ever dared so greatly. Males were chattels to be used when needed, as one used garments. And here was one who dared suggest selection! That it was an ultimatum, the triumvirate knew – nor could they do aught but give permission. For them to risk any of themselves in any journey into space was unthinkable. ”

“ The prongs were moveable in the mechanism of the space-ship, could be managed by the hand of Parlece himself. He had slanted the flanges – like thick wings on the sides of the cylinder – for the lightning fast take-off. The inner part of the cylinder was so arranged that its passengers might be seated and take the jar of the sudden anticipated start without injury.
In the control room of the space-ship, Cala, by request of Parlece, had permitted him to install the finest instruments of navigation evolved on Callisto. No ship of space was ever better equipped for a frightful journey. ”

“ Women had, by sheer force of will, been able, down the ages, to overthrow the men in the strangest warfare ever waged in the Universe. By experimenting they had almost been able to make the male entirely unnecessary. But always there was the bugaboo of the seventh generation, when males were necessary. The comparatively few males on Callisto, who were carefully kept apart from one another, were then in vast demand. ”

“ When he saw the black aperture he had opened he shifted his light instantly so as not to destroy anything the cylinder might contain. When a piece of the cylinder, smoothly cut as any agency of humanity could cut it, fell to the ground, he pressed the stick’s grip again – and the light went out of the prongs, and the sputtering flames of the lightning darted back into the cloud, their work finished.
Now the ‘children’ moved back as Parlece thrust his hand into the aperture. Cala was beside him. ”

“ Had there been sounds only an intelligent being of another planet would have understood them – and then only if that being possessed the ability to read the thoughts of other beings. For it was a form of thought transference – swift and intangible as lightning. ”

“ But why the call now since Callisto would not need its males until twenty years hence unless they believed the light a discovery?
And so Parlece marched in among the women of Callisto, gorgeous creatures whose angelic faces did not hide from Parlece the innate danger he braved in appearing among them – for to the very least of them they resented the necessity of men. ”

“ It had become a race between the rapidly diminishing males, and the discovery, deemed inevitable by male and female alike, of the secret which would free Callisto of the bugaboo of the seventh generation. ”