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the Mistress of Information. Her eyes were expressionless and her long triangular face was swarthy and serpentine. "There is no need to look bewildered, my dear. I am merely reciting government policy. All human remains identified as male are incinerated without delay."

"But why?" asked Aubretia, not understanding. "Surely the discovery of . . . of a man . . . is a matter of priority news."

The Mistress of Information shook her head slowly. It was the lethargic motion of a pendulum in the padded vastness of the pastel office. "Please believe me when I say that it has no news value whatever. I am not permitted to explain why. So far as the contemporary world is concerned, the male sex ceased to exist some five thousand years ago."

"I agree. That is recognized. But surely the body of a man has some historic, some scientific value."

"None whatever."

The Mistress of Information stood up and walked idly around the room, making no sound on the thick white pile of the carpet. She moved like a phantom among the slender fragile shapes of the furniture. Occasionally she glanced obliquely at her visitor, but there was no warmth or sympathy in her eyes, only a cold calculating shrewdness.

"There is such a thing," she said quietly, "as the parthenogentic adaptation syndrome. It has been a reality for five thousand years and it determines the pattern of our life, of our existence. We have to recognize its influence and comply with its requirements in terms of social behavior."

"I'm afraid I don't understand . . ."

"Then I'll try to explain, in so far as my terms of reference will allow me. Long, long ago the human race was split into two sexes—male and female—just as are the lower animals at the present day. Sex, of course, is a mechanism designed to achieve perpetuation of the species. More than that, it is a mechanism whose purpose is to produce variants in the spe-