Robert Sheckley

“ Garvey thought of the packing crate in the after cabin, and its human-shaped, not-yet-living contents. Damning, absolutely damning. What a fool he'd been!
He turned back to the control panel. Hanging from a corner of it, in a cracked leather holster, was his revolver. Rather than face twenty years breaking pumice on Lunar, he would shoot, then try—
"The Sexual Morality Act isn't a blue law, Garvey," the inspector continued, in a voice like steel against flint. "Violations can have a catastrophic effect upon the individual, to say nothing of the race. ”

“ They came back to Earth after their tours of duty, these pioneers, and they brought their surrogates with them. Loud and long they praised the substitute women, and pointed out their obvious superiority to neurotic, nervous, frigid human women. ”

“ The Algolians, raised in this physical environment, have a markedly superior musculature to that of the typical Earthman. Colloquially, they are strong as rhinos.
"But the surrogate, of course, does not know this. She has a powerful and indiscriminate mating drive. That's where the danger lies! So I say to the customer—give yourself up now, while there's still time. And remember: crime does not pay."
The radio crackled static, then hummed steadily. Garvey turned it off. ”

“ As soon as she was dead, he would jettison her, crate and all, into space. Then he would get good and drunk. And at last, he would return to Earth a sadder and wiser man. No more substitutes for him! Plain, old-fashioned girls were good enough. Yessir, Garvey told himself, if women were all right for my father, they're all right for me. ”

“ Later there would be a place for women. Later—but not now.
So here and there, light-years from Earth, were little worlds without women—and not happy about it.
The men grew sullen, quarrelsome, violent. They grew careless, and carelessness on an alien planet was usually fatal.
They wanted women.
Since real women could not go to them, scientists on Earth developed substitutes. Android females were developed, the surrogates, and shipped to the colonies. ”

“ Very nice. You must be rich indeed, old buddy."
"I get by," Garvey said. He handed Starbuck a drink, and poured one for himself. They talked for a while about old times at Michigan State.
"And now you're a Customs inspector," Garvey said.
"Yeah," said Starbuck, stretching his long legs. "Always had a yen for the law. But it doesn't pay like transistors, eh?"
Garvey smiled modestly. "But what's all this about the Sexual Morality Act? A gag?"
"Not at all. Didn't you hear the news this morning? The FBI found an underground sex factory. ”

“ I've got some unfinished business." ”