The Mating Center
by FRANK BELKNAP LONG
Copyright 1961
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A Chariot Book
EXCITING READING FOR MEN
Printed in the U. S. A.
The characters in this book are entirely fictitious
and are the products of the author's imagination. They
in no way represent actual people.
TELEMAN BEGAN TO TREMBLE....
The lovely woman approaching him on the travel strip wasnon-sex-privileged—he could tell by her attire—but she looked at himboldly.
As she came abreast of him she stumbled, and he instinctively flungout his arm to catch her. The feel of her body against his sent a shockthrough his system.
She was trembling also, and she whispered strange words to him. "It isbreaking down! Can't you feel it? The love instincts are returning—"
"No," he protested.
She clung to him, grinding her body against his. "Love me," shewhispered. "I know you want me. I can see it in your eyes."
He tried to push her away.
"Look at me," she pleaded. "Am I not beautiful?" She unbuckled thegolden belt at her waist so that the brief, diaphanous garment hungfree, revealing the generous curves of her body. She stood verystraight, her full red lips slightly parted, her jutting breastsheaving with the intensity of her emotion....
PROLOGUE
The Guiding Specialist paused, as if to stress the importance of whathe was about to say. "Love," he went on, his voice rising slightly,"must be stripped of all artificial romantic glamour and exposed forwhat it is: a necessary biological technique for the propagation of therace. Its exercise must be confined to a rigorously selected few menand women whose sole function in our society is to further that aim."
A murmuring arose in the hall and ran back and forth between the tiers.
The speaker paused again and his features took on a harsher aspect, sothat his image on the lighted screen no longer seemed beneficent butresembled more that of a man passing inexorable judgment.
There was a murmuring in the seven-tiered speaker-guidance hall, aheightening of tension, a drawing together of many thoughtful minds.
The hall had a seating capacity of eight thousand, and every seat wastaken. Every seat was occupied by Ruling-Caste Monitors, the guardiansof the most powerful and complex World State that Earth had ever known.
It was a society of gigantic industrial plants and researchlaboratories, of vast agricultural projects, of inland waterway andharbor-spanning bridges, of atomic generators and throbbing powerturbines, of parks and playgrounds and athletic arenas where recreationwas carefully supervised.
It was the first experiment in survival on a planetary scale tosanction taboos which previous ages would have rejected with horror,and to punish the violation of those taboos with the sternest kind ofrepressive measures and personality-transforming techniques.
"Far back in the twentieth century," the speaker went on, "the kindof social control which we have succeeded in exercising would haveseemed a folly and a madness. It would not even have been achievableon a purely scientific basis, for our remote ancestors did not havesufficient scientific knowledge to subdue and regulate the love impulseand keep it from becoming a danger to the entire social fabric.
...