Through the speaker, the captain's talker snapped orders: "_Abandon pursuit! Too late to dump him now. Pick him up after acceleration is completed._" And then maliciously, knowing that I could hear: "_Scrape him off the deck when we're in space._ That _kind can't take much_." I felt a blaze of red fury. _That_ kind. The Earthbound kind! I wanted to live, then, more than I had ever wanted to live before. To make a liar out of that sneering, superior voice. To prove that I was as good as all of them. "_It is H minus one_," said the timer. Orders filtered through the speaker. "_Outer valves closed. Inner valves closed._" "_Minus thirty seconds. Condition red._" "_Pressure in the ship. One-third atmosphere._" "_Twenty seconds._" "_Ship secure for space._" "_Ten, nine, eight_--" I lay prone on the steel deck, braced myself and prayed. "_Seven, six, five_--" "_Gyros on. Course set._" "_Four, three, two_--" The ship trembled. A great light flared beyond the curving transparency of the blister. "_Up ship!_" A hand smashed down on me, crushing me into the deck. I thought: _I must live. I can't die. I won't die!_ I felt the spaceship rising. I felt her reaching for the stars. I was a part of her. I screamed with pain and exaltation. The hand pressed harder, choking the breath from me, stripping the plastiskin away in long, damp strips. Darkness flickered before my eyes. I lay helpless and afraid and transfigured with a joy I had never known before. Distorted, half-naked, I clung to life. * * * * * When I opened my eyes, they were all around me. They stood in a half-circle, trim, uniformed. 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. It belongs to all of us." I stood with my back to the blazing stars and laughed at them. "In the beginning it was right that you should be given priority over us. For centuries we kept you in subjection and when the Age of Space came, you found your place. Your stamina, your small stature, everything about you fitted you to be mistresses of the sky.... "But it's over. Over and done with. We can all be free--" I peeled away the artificial breasts that dangled from my chest. I stood swaying drunkenly, defiantly. They came to me, then. They took me gently and carried me below, to the comfort of a white bunk. They soothed my hurts and nursed me. For in spite of it all, they were women and I was a man in pain.