Page:World Without Men (HT osu.32435053364535).pdf/34

She switched on the videophone and dialed 'B'. The broadcast pilot lamp flashed three times. She paused uncertainly, uncomfortably aware that what she was about to say would be recorded by memory banks in every newspaper office and television newsroom in the land. And, more ominously, on the monitor bank in the office of the Mistress of Information.

She dictated slowly. "General release. The body of a man in well-preserved condition has been discovered buried deep in the polar ice by the Fourteenth Arctic Geophysical Expedition. After a preliminary examination the body has been removed to a secret laboratory for further research."

A pause—five seconds.

"Statistics show that there are virtually no natural parthenogenetic births. All births are induced surreptitiously . . ."

A red light winked on the video control panel. The circuit went dead. She realized abruptly that her broadcast had been cut off by a master circuit. Pale and motionless she waited for the inevitable noise of the videophone buzzer. It came ten seconds later.

She pressed the contact button. The square face of the Mistress of Information peered at her from the small screen.

"Don't move," said the Mistress. "And don't worry. You will be all right. We shall come for you in about two minutes."

They came in one minute and forty seconds.

Birm was a beautiful city, in many ways more beautiful than Lon. It was more spacious, and the air seemed cleaner and fresher. From her apartment Aubretia could look down a wide tree-lined avenue that receded to a hazed horizon four or five miles away. Vehicles more than twenty storys below crawled along the highway like tiny multicolored beetles. The buidings were slender ethereal columns of chrome, white concrete and glass, and at night they were outlined in rainbow neon.