Double Standard

By ALFRED COPPEL
Illustrated by MAC LELLAN
He did not have the qualifications to go into space—so he had them manufactured!
It was after oh-one-hundred when Kane arrived at my apartment. I checked the hall screen carefully before letting him in, too, though the hour almost precluded the possibility of any inquisitive passers-by.
He didn't say anything at all when he saw me, but his eyes went a bit wide. That was perfectly natural, after all. The illegal plasti-cosmetician had done his work better than well. I wasn't the same person I had been.
I led Kane into the living room and stood before him, letting him have a good look at me.
Well, I asked, will it work?
Kane lit a cigarette thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off me.
Maybe, he said. Just maybe.
I thought about the spaceship standing proud and tall under the stars, ready to go. And I knew that it had to work. It had to.
Some men dream of money, others of power. All my life I had dreamed only of lands in the sky. The red sand hills of Mars, moldering in aged slumber under a cobalt-colored day; the icy moraines of Io and Callisto, where the yellow methane snow drifted in the faint light of the Sun; the barren, stark seas of the Moon, where razor-backed mountains limned themselves against the star fields—
I don't know, Kim; you're asking a hell of a lot, you know, Kane said.