At first, nostalgically, the crew harked back to happier times on Earth. Soon not one young lady of their collective acquaintance had escaped the most minute analysis. They were young men—the oldest, Blunt, was only twenty-six—and several of them had married young, greatly limiting their activities so that even their cumulative memories could not last forever. After several weeks, repetition began to set in. Once all successes had been lovingly remembered, down to the last, exquisite detail, they began recalling their failures. The master strategist, the unofficial referee of these seminars, was Dick Blunt. "Now where you went wrong there," he would tell a fledgling reporting complete zero with a YWCA resident, "was in making her feel that you were interested. Your line with a girl like that should be one of charity. Pure charity. You impress on her that you’re doing her a terrific favor. You offer to bring to her dull life romance, adventure, tenderness." "I couldn’t even get my hands on her," complained the reproved failure, Herbert Banks. "I’ve always found that type the easiest ones of all," Blunt said indifferently. "Dull, of course." The testiness, the self-pity, the shortness of temper and the near-riots over stolen packages of cigarettes, were not improved after the Doctors, having surveyed the situation thoroughly, decided that it would do no harm to let the men of the crew go out on Liberty. Fraternizing with natives was, of course, strictly forbidden. They were not to drink off premises. (Nor on, for that matter.) They were exhorted not to steal, not to engage in fights. Still, they could walk around, take pictures of the strange pink houses and the dazzling cities. They could watch a covey of children swim in the municipal pools. They could look at the fountains, the so-called "miraculous fountains of Engraham", or climb the strange, glassy mountains. The natives, although shy of them, were most polite, and some smiled enchantingly—especially the women. ———— This was the worst rub of all: there were women, and they were gorgeous. A little smaller than most Earth women, with bright eyes, and high, arched eyebrows, looking forever as if they had heard the most priceless joke. Their faces conformed to the most rigid standards of Caucasian beauty. Their legs, so delicate, so tapering, so fantastically small of ankle, were breath-taking. Their clothes, which would have driven a Parisian designer to suicide, were draped carelessly over the most exquisite figures. True, they were a little deficient in one department, and this was explained, before they were granted liberty, by Dr. Flandeau. The women of Engraham, he said, did not bear children. This announcement was not received with special gloom, for until then, none of the crew had seen an Engrahamite woman. But Willy Lanham, a dark-haired, skinny boy from Tennessee, asked, unhappily, "Don’t they even go in for games or nothin’?"