“Stop it, Jacobsen,” Venner said after they had listened for a little while. “You’ll have us crying into our tea in a minute, thinking.” There was no unkindness in his voice.

Jacobsen played another verse before he put the zither aside. “Sometimes it’s a good thing to think,” he said.

It was two days or so after this that Neil, coming in to lunch with the crew, attracted their attention by his air of supressed excitement. His normal game-cock aggressiveness seemed to have doubled. His small black moustache bristled, his teeth and eyeballs had a gleam like glass. None of them wanted to ask him questions. But by the time the dessert course--one small sweet biscuit per man--was served, they were all watching him.

Neil pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Captain Ambarzumian,” he said formally. “I suggest you break out the stores of medicinal liquor. We have something to celebrate.”

Captain Ambarzumian’s normally ruddy color had paled. “Please explain yourself, Dr. Neil,” he said with equal formality.

“I cannot be quite certain,” Neil replied. He paused for dramatic effect. “But I believe--it is my sincere belief--that the future of the race is safe.”

* * * * *

There was a moment of dead silence. Somebody coughed. “The difficulties still to be overcome are enormous,” Neil continued. “Getting something as complicated as a human embryo to go through the later stages of its development in vitro is almost impossible. Almost. We will have to work very hard. The first human beings we produce from our artificial egg cells will almost certainly be monsters. But I believe that within fifty years--perhaps even within twenty-five--young human beings like ourselves will again walk the surface of our earth.”

Another silence. It was as if they couldn’t assimilate what he had told them. Then Jacobsen struck a wild burst of notes on his zither; his face had lit up like a sign-board. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” he sang with the full strength of his rich baritone voice.

The leaping exultation of the old words, if not their bellicosity, expressed what they all felt. By the time Jacobsen came to the full-throated chorus, they were all singing.

“_Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah!_”

They sang with their heads thrown back, “The truth is marching on!” The song came to an end with another burst of notes from Jacobsen’s zither. “First time I ever heard that song really sung,” he observed to nobody in particular. “Sung right, I mean.”

* * * * *

The cabin began to fill with the babble of excited talk. Neil put up his hand as if to stop it. “There’s just one thing,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me, but some people might consider it a drawback. You’d better know about it now.” He seemed to have forgotten his suggestion that the captain break out the liquor to celebrate.

“You mean--you said they’d be monsters at first. Will they always be deformed in some way?” Clancy asked. Very softly, Jacobsen played the first few notes of a song that had been popular when the ship had left earth. Its title was A Cross-Eyed Girl Would Be a Pretty Girl.

“No, nothing like that. We’ll be able to get them straight and well-formed. But I haven’t been able--and there are strong theoretical reasons for thinking nobody will ever be able--to produce an artificial human zygote that doesn’t contain the X-chromosome.”

“We’re not cytologists, Dr. Neil,” said Captain Ambarzumian. “Please explain yourself.”

“Very well.” Neil sat down in his place at table again. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

* * * * *

“Only spermatozoa contain the X-chromosome,” he said. “Ova do not. If it were possible to get a human ovum before the meiotic division occurred, and induce it to go through its embryonic development to maturity without fertilization, it would give rise to a female.

“Spermatozoa are of two kinds, those which contain the X-chromosome and those which do not. They are produced in the testes in approximately equal quantities. That is why human males and females are born--used to be born--in approximately equal numbers.

“As I said, I have been unable to produce an artificial human zygote that does not contain the X-chromosome. Apparently there is such an antipathy between the cell walls of two sperms, neither of which contains the X-chromosomes, that it is impossible to get them to pair their chromosomes properly. Only X and non-X will pair. Nor does it appear feasible to eliminate the X-chromosome from the zygote after it has come into existence. Any such attempt makes the artificial human fertilized egg break down completely.

“It looks as if our zygotes were all going to have to contain the X-chromosome.” They looked at each other blankly. Neil’s words seemed to mean something; they weren’t sure what it was. They weren’t sure they wanted to know.

“Can’t you put it in nontechnical terms, Neil?” asked Captain Ambarzumian. “What does that mean?”

“We’ll be able to produce human beings. But they’ll all have to be produced from zygotes that contain the X-chromosome. So they’ll all be males.”

* * * * *

What they talked about was whether Neil might be lying. “But why would he lie?” somebody--it might be Venner--would say. “He’s a scientist. He wouldn’t tell lies in a thing where he’d be caught out.”

“Did you see the expression on his face when he was telling us the bad news?” somebody--it was usually Adams--would answer. “He enjoyed it; he likes the idea of a world without women. He could perfectly well be lying. Look whose son he is.”

It was during one of these discussions that Adams asked, “What happened to old man Neil, anyhow? I know he’s dead, but I never heard the real details. Some people say one thing and some another. I was only twelve when the plague killed ... everybody.”

“He was torn to pieces by a mob about two months after the last woman in North America died,” Venner answered. “I mean, literally torn to pieces. The authorities didn’t even try to stop the mob; I saw a telecast of his death.”

“That must have been good watching,” said Adams.

“Well....”

* * * * *

“He was the worst man who ever lived,” Adams said. He turned in his bunk. They all spent a good deal of time in their bunks now; it was as if they didn’t have enough energy to sit up. “To kill off all the enemy’s women to win a war isn’t war: it’s murder.”

“Of course his idea wasn’t to kill all of them,” Venner answered. “He was trying--what was that expression they used?--trying to negotiate from a position of maximum strength. If the enemy didn’t want all their women killed, they’d have to surrender. Then they’d be given the vaccine.

“They did surrender; but by that time, the virus had mutated in the enemy women’s tissues. It was a lot faster and more deadly than it had been; it swept over the whole world. The vaccine wasn’t any use against it in its new form, and that was that.”

“He was the worst man who ever lived,” Adams repeated.

“He was a bad man, certainly,” answered Venner, “but he wasn’t much worse than a lot of others. That bomb they used to have--they kept on testing it, even though they knew there was a good chance their tests were damaging human germ plasm permanently. They came within an inch of using the bomb in battle. In fact, one of the arguments in favor of bacteriological warfare was that it was more humane.”

“Humane,” said Clancy.

“That’s what they said. No, in the end we’re none of us much different from Neil. We’re all of us responsible.”

* * * * *

Adams raised himself on one elbow and looked at Venner. “How am I responsible?” he asked. “I was twelve years old at the time of the plague. Twelve years! How am I responsible?”

“We’re all of us too aggressive,” Venner replied. “Have we still learned to take a blow and not strike back, even if striking back means ruining ourselves as well as the enemy? Put it another way. Have we yet learned there are some things you mustn’t do even to win?”

Adams made a disgusted noise. “I wish you’d shut up. Be saintly, if you want to. When somebody hurts me, I want to hurt him back. You make me sick.”

“I know. That’s just it.”

* * * * *

As the discussions continued, their apathy increased. Finally Ambarzumian called Jacobsen in for a conference.

“Can’t you do something to cheer them up, Jacobsen?” he demanded. “Play some on your zither. Morale was never this bad before. If they get much more depressed, they’ll be making suicide tries.”

“I don’t feel like cheering anybody up, Sir,” Jacobsen said shortly. Since Neil had made his announcement, his big frame seemed to have shrunk in on itself. He looked considerably older and smaller than he had two weeks ago.

“None of us feels very well,” Captain Ambarzumian answered, “but we’ve got to have our full crew to get home at all. When it comes to our landing, even Neil will have his duties. If we’re short-handed, landing will be very ... difficult.”