Venus Is a Man's World
 
 
 BY WILLIAM TENN
 
 Illustrated by GENE FAWCETTE
 
 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
 
 

 Actually, there wouldn't be too much difference if women took over the Earth altogether. But not for some men and most boys!
 
 
 
 I've always said that even if Sis is seven years older than me—and a girl besides—she don't always know what's best. Put me on a spaceship jam-packed with three hundred females just aching to get themselves husbands in the one place they're still to be had—the planet Venus—and you know I'll be in trouble.
 
 Bad trouble. With the law, which is the worst a boy can get into.
 
 Twenty minutes after we lifted from the Sahara Spaceport, I wriggled out of my acceleration hammock and started for the door of our cabin.
 
 "Now you be careful, Ferdinand," Sis called after me as she opened a book called Family Problems of the Frontier Woman . "Remember you're a nice boy. Don't make me ashamed of you."
 
 I tore down the corridor. Most of the cabins had purple lights on in front of the doors, showing that the girls were still inside their hammocks. That meant only the ship's crew was up and about. Ship's crews are men; women are too busy with important things like government to run ships. I felt free all over—and happy. Now was my chance to really see the Eleanor Roosevelt !
 
 

 
 It was hard to believe I was traveling in space at last. Ahead and behind me, all the way up to where the companionway curved in out of sight, there was nothing but smooth black wall and smooth white doors—on and on and on. Gee , I thought excitedly, this is one big ship !
 
 Of course, every once in a while I would run across a big scene of stars in the void set in the wall; but they were only pictures. Nothing that gave the feel of great empty space like I'd read about in The Boy Rocketeers , no portholes, no visiplates, nothing.
 
 So when I came to the crossway, I stopped for a second, then turned left. To the right, see, there was Deck Four, then Deck Three, leading inward past the engine fo'c'sle to the main jets and the grav helix going purr-purr-purrty-purr in the comforting way big machinery has when it's happy and oiled. But to the left, the crossway led all the way to the outside level which ran just under the hull. There were portholes on the hull.
 
 I'd studied all that out in our cabin, long before we'd lifted, on the transparent model of the ship hanging like a big cigar from the ceiling. Sis had studied it too, but she was looking for places like the dining salon and the library and Lifeboat 68 where we should go in case of emergency. I looked for the important things.
 
 As I trotted along the crossway, I sort of wished that Sis hadn't decided to go after a husband on a luxury liner. On a cargo ship, now, I'd be climbing from deck to deck on a ladder instead of having gravity underfoot all the time just like I was home on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. But women always know what's right, and a boy can only make faces and do what they say, same as the men have to do.
 
 Still, it was pretty exciting to press my nose against the slots in the wall and see the sliding panels that could come charging out and block the crossway into an airtight fit in case a meteor or something smashed into the ship. And all along there were glass cases with spacesuits standing in them, like those knights they used to have back in the Middle Ages.
 
 "In the event of disaster affecting the oxygen content of companionway," they had the words etched into the glass, "break glass with hammer upon wall, remove spacesuit and proceed to don it in the following fashion."
 
 I read the "following fashion" until I knew it by heart. Boy , I said to myself, I hope we have that kind of disaster. I'd sure like to get into one of those! Bet it would be more fun than those diving suits back in Undersea!
 
 
 And all the time I was alone. That was the best part.
 
 

 
 Then I passed Deck Twelve and there was a big sign. "Notice! Passengers not permitted past this point!" A big sign in red.
 
 I peeked around the corner. I knew it—the next deck was the hull. I could see the portholes. Every twelve feet, they were, filled with the velvet of space and the dancing of more stars than I'd ever dreamed existed in the Universe.
 
 There wasn't anyone on the deck, as far as I could see. And this distance from the grav helix, the ship seemed mighty quiet and lonely. If I just took one quick look....
 
 But I thought of what Sis would say and I turned around obediently. Then I saw the big red sign again. "Passengers not permitted—"
 
 Well! Didn't I know from my civics class that only women could be Earth Citizens these days? Sure, ever since the Male Desuffrage Act. And didn't I know that you had to be a citizen of a planet in order to get an interplanetary passport? Sis had explained it all to me in the careful, patient way she always talks politics and things like that to men.
 
 "Technically, Ferdinand, I'm the only passenger in our family. You can't be one, because, not being a citizen, you can't acquire an Earth Passport. However, you'll be going to Venus on the strength of this clause—'Miss Evelyn Sparling and all dependent male members of family, this number not to exceed the registered quota of sub-regulations pertaining'—and so on. I want you to understand these matters, so that you will grow into a man who takes an active interest in world affairs. No matter what you hear, women really like and appreciate such men."
 
 Of course, I never pay much attention to Sis when she says such dumb things. I'm old enough, I guess, to know that it isn't what Women like and appreciate that counts when it comes to people getting married. If it were, Sis and three hundred other pretty girls like her wouldn't be on their way to Venus to hook husbands.
 
 Still, if I wasn't a passenger, the sign didn't have anything to do with me. I knew what Sis could say to that , but at least it was an argument I could use if it ever came up. So I broke the law.
 
 I was glad I did. The stars were exciting enough, but away off to the left, about five times as big as I'd ever seen it, except in the movies, was the Moon, a great blob of gray and white pockmarks holding off the black of space. I was hoping to see the Earth, but I figured it must be on the other side of the ship or behind us. I pressed my nose against the port and saw the tiny flicker of a spaceliner taking off, Marsbound. I wished I was on that one!
 
 Then I noticed, a little farther down the companionway, a stretch of blank wall where there should have been portholes. High up on the wall in glowing red letters were the words, "Lifeboat 47. Passengers: Thirty-two. Crew: Eleven. Unauthorized personnel keep away!"
 
 Another one of those signs.
 
 

 
 I crept up to the porthole nearest it and could just barely make out the stern jets where it was plastered against the hull. Then I walked under the sign and tried to figure the way you were supposed to get into it. There was a very thin line going around in a big circle that I knew must be the door. But I couldn't see any knobs or switches to open it with. Not even a button you could press.
 
 That meant it was a sonic lock like the kind we had on the outer keeps back home in Undersea. But knock or voice? I tried the two knock combinations I knew, and nothing happened. I only remembered one voice key—might as well see if that's it, I figured.
 
 "Twenty, Twenty-three. Open Sesame."
 
 For a second, I thought I'd hit it just right out of all the million possible combinations—The door clicked inward toward a black hole, and a hairy hand as broad as my shoulders shot out of the hole. It closed around my throat and plucked me inside as if I'd been a baby sardine.
 
 I bounced once on the hard lifeboat floor. Before I got my breath and sat up, the door had been shut again. When the light came on, I found myself staring up the muzzle of a highly polished blaster and into the cold blue eyes of the biggest man I'd ever seen.
 
 

 
 He was wearing a one-piece suit made of some scaly green stuff that looked hard and soft at the same time.
 
 His boots were made of it too, and so was the hood hanging down his back.
 
 And his face was brown. Not just ordinary tan, you understand, but the deep, dark, burned-all-the-way-in brown I'd seen on the lifeguards in New Orleans whenever we took a surface vacation—the kind of tan that comes from day after broiling day under a really hot Sun. His hair looked as if it had once been blond, but now there were just long combed-out waves with a yellowish tinge that boiled all the way down to his shoulders.
 
 I hadn't seen hair like that on a man except maybe in history books; every man I'd ever known had his hair cropped in the fashionable soup-bowl style. I was staring at his hair, almost forgetting about the blaster which I knew it was against the law for him to have at all, when I suddenly got scared right through.
 
 His eyes.
 
 They didn't blink and there seemed to be no expression around them. Just coldness. Maybe it was the kind of clothes he was wearing that did it, but all of a sudden I was reminded of a crocodile I'd seen in a surface zoo that had stared quietly at me for twenty minutes until it opened two long tooth-studded jaws.
 
 "Green shatas!" he said suddenly. "Only a tadpole. I must be getting jumpy enough to splash."
 
 Then he shoved the blaster away in a holster made of the same scaly leather, crossed his arms on his chest and began to study me. I grunted to my feet, feeling a lot better. The coldness had gone out of his eyes.
 
 I held out my hand the way Sis had taught me. "My name is Ferdinand Sparling. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.—Mr.—"
 
 "Hope for your sake," he said to me, "that you aren't what you seem—tadpole brother to one of them husbandless anura."
 
 " What? "
 
 "A 'nuran is a female looking to nest. Anura is a herd of same. Come from Flatfolk ways."
 
 "Flatfolk are the Venusian natives, aren't they? Are you a Venusian? What part of Venus do you come from? Why did you say you hope—"
 
 He chuckled and swung me up into one of the bunks that lined the lifeboat. "Questions you ask," he said in his soft voice. "Venus is a sharp enough place for a dryhorn, let alone a tadpole dryhorn with a boss-minded sister."
 
 "I'm not a dryleg," I told him proudly. " We're from Undersea."
 
 " Dryhorn , I said, not dryleg. And what's Undersea?"
 
 "Well, in Undersea we called foreigners and newcomers drylegs. Just like on Venus, I guess, you call them dryhorns." And then I told him how Undersea had been built on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, when the mineral resources of the land began to give out and engineers figured that a lot could still be reached from the sea bottoms.
 
 

 
 He nodded. He'd heard about the sea-bottom mining cities that were bubbling under protective domes in every one of the Earth's oceans just about the same time settlements were springing up on the planets.
 
 He looked impressed when I told him about Mom and Pop being one of the first couples to get married in Undersea. He looked thoughtful when I told him how Sis and I had been born there and spent half our childhood listening to the pressure pumps. He raised his eyebrows and looked disgusted when I told how Mom, as Undersea representative on the World Council, had been one of the framers of the Male Desuffrage Act after the Third Atomic War had resulted in the Maternal Revolution.
 
 

 
 He almost squeezed my arm when I got to the time Mom and Pop were blown up in a surfacing boat.
 
 "Well, after the funeral, there was a little money, so Sis decided we might as well use it to migrate. There was no future for her on Earth, she figured. You know, the three-out-of-four."
 
 "How's that?"
 
 "The three-out-of-four. No more than three women out of every four on Earth can expect to find husbands. Not enough men to go around. Way back in the Twentieth Century, it began to be felt, Sis says, what with the wars and all. Then the wars went on and a lot more men began to die or get no good from the radioactivity. Then the best men went to the planets, Sis says, until by now even if a woman can scrounge a personal husband, he's not much to boast about."
 
 The stranger nodded violently. "Not on Earth, he isn't. Those busybody anura make sure of that. What a place! Suffering gridniks, I had a bellyful!"
 
 He told me about it. Women were scarce on Venus, and he hadn't been able to find any who were willing to come out to his lonely little islands; he had decided to go to Earth where there was supposed to be a surplus. Naturally, having been born and brought up on a very primitive planet, he didn't know "it's a woman's world," like the older boys in school used to say.
 
 The moment he landed on Earth he was in trouble. He didn't know he had to register at a government-operated hotel for transient males; he threw a bartender through a thick plastic window for saying something nasty about the length of his hair; and imagine !—he not only resisted arrest, resulting in three hospitalized policemen, but he sassed the judge in open court!
 
 "Told me a man wasn't supposed to say anything except through female attorneys. Told her that where I came from, a man spoke his piece when he'd a mind to, and his woman walked by his side."
 
 "What happened?" I asked breathlessly.
 
 "Oh, Guilty of This and Contempt of That. That blown-up brinosaur took my last munit for fines, then explained that she was remitting the rest because I was a foreigner and uneducated." His eyes grew dark for a moment. He chuckled again. "But I wasn't going to serve all those fancy little prison sentences. Forcible Citizenship Indoctrination, they call it? Shook the dead-dry dust of the misbegotten, God forsaken mother world from my feet forever. The women on it deserve their men. My pockets were folded from the fines, and the paddlefeet were looking for me so close I didn't dare radio for more munit. So I stowed away."
 
 

 
 For a moment, I didn't understand him. When I did, I was almost ill.
"Y-you mean," I choked, "th-that you're b-breaking the law right now? And I'm with you while you're doing it?"
 
 He leaned over the edge of the bunk and stared at me very seriously.
"What breed of tadpole are they turning out these days? Besides, what business do you have this close to the hull?"
 
 After a moment of sober reflection, I nodded. "You're right. I've also become a male outside the law. We're in this together."
 
 He guffawed. Then he sat up and began cleaning his blaster. I found myself drawn to the bright killer-tube with exactly the fascination Sis insists such things have always had for men.
 
 "Ferdinand your label? That's not right for a sprouting tadpole. I'll call you Ford. My name's Butt. Butt Lee Brown."
 
 I liked the sound of Ford. "Is Butt a nickname, too?"
 
 "Yeah. Short for Alberta, but I haven't found a man who can draw a blaster fast enough to call me that. You see, Pop came over in the eighties—the big wave of immigrants when they evacuated Ontario. Named all us boys after Canadian provinces. I was the youngest, so I got the name they were saving for a girl."
 
 "You had a lot of brothers, Mr. Butt?"
 
 He grinned with a mighty set of teeth. "Oh, a nestful. Of course, they were all killed in the Blue Chicago Rising by the MacGregor boys—all except me and Saskatchewan. Then Sas and me hunted the MacGregors down. Took a heap of time; we didn't float Jock MacGregor's ugly face down the Tuscany till both of us were pretty near grown up."
 
 I walked up close to where I could see the tiny bright copper coils of the blaster above the firing button. "Have you killed a lot of men with that, Mr. Butt?"
 
 "Butt. Just plain Butt to you, Ford." He frowned and sighted at the light globe. "No more'n twelve—not counting five government paddlefeet, of course. I'm a peaceable planter. Way I figure it, violence never accomplishes much that's important. My brother Sas, now—"
 
 

 
 He had just begun to work into a wonderful anecdote about his brother when the dinner gong rang. Butt told me to scat. He said I was a growing tadpole and needed my vitamins. And he mentioned, very off-hand, that he wouldn't at all object if I brought him some fresh fruit. It seemed there was nothing but processed foods in the lifeboat and Butt was used to a farmer's diet.
 
 Trouble was, he was a special kind of farmer. Ordinary fruit would have been pretty easy to sneak into my pockets at meals. I even found a way to handle the kelp and giant watercress Mr. Brown liked, but things like seaweed salt and Venusian mud-grapes just had too strong a smell. Twice, the mechanical hamper refused to accept my jacket for laundering and I had to wash it myself. But I learned so many wonderful things about Venus every time I visited that stowaway....
 
 I learned three wild-wave songs of the Flatfolk and what it is that the native Venusians hate so much; I learned how you tell the difference between a lousy government paddlefoot from New Kalamazoo and the slaptoe slinker who is the planter's friend. After a lot of begging, Butt Lee Brown explained the workings of his blaster, explained it so carefully that I could name every part and tell what it did from the tiny round electrodes to the long spirals of transformer. But no matter what, he would never let me hold it.
 
 "Sorry, Ford, old tad," he would drawl, spinning around and around in the control swivel-chair at the nose of the lifeboat. "But way I look at it, a man who lets somebody else handle his blaster is like the giant whose heart was in an egg that an enemy found. When you've grown enough so's your pop feels you ought to have a weapon, why, then's the time to learn it and you might's well learn fast. Before then, you're plain too young to be even near it."
 
 "I don't have a father to give me one when I come of age. I don't even have an older brother as head of my family like your brother Labrador. All I have is Sis. And she —"
 
 "She'll marry some fancy dryhorn who's never been farther South than the Polar Coast. And she'll stay head of the family, if I know her breed of green shata. Bossy, opinionated. By the way, Fordie," he said, rising and stretching so the fish-leather bounced and rippled off his biceps, "that sister. She ever...."
 
 And he'd be off again, cross-examining me about Evelyn. I sat in the swivel chair he'd vacated and tried to answer his questions. But there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. Evelyn was a healthy girl, for instance; how healthy, exactly, I had no way of finding out. Yes, I'd tell him, my aunts on both sides of my family each had had more than the average number of children. No, we'd never done any farming to speak of, back in Undersea, but—yes, I'd guess Evelyn knew about as much as any girl there when it came to diving equipment and pressure pump regulation.
 
 How would I know that stuff would lead to trouble for me?
 
 

 
 Sis had insisted I come along to the geography lecture. Most of the other girls who were going to Venus for husbands talked to each other during the lecture, but not my sister! She hung on every word, took notes even, and asked enough questions to make the perspiring purser really work in those orientation periods.
 
 "I am very sorry, Miss Sparling," he said with pretty heavy sarcasm,
"but I cannot remember any of the agricultural products of the Macro Continent. Since the human population is well below one per thousand square miles, it can readily be understood that the quantity of tilled soil, land or sub-surface, is so small that—Wait, I remember something. The Macro Continent exports a fruit though not exactly an edible one. The wild dunging drug is harvested there by criminal speculators. Contrary to belief on Earth, the traffic has been growing in recent years. In fact—"
 
 "Pardon me, sir," I broke in, "but doesn't dunging come only from Leif Erickson Island off the Moscow Peninsula of the Macro Continent? You remember, purser—Wang Li's third exploration, where he proved the island and the peninsula didn't meet for most of the year?"
 
 The purser nodded slowly. "I forgot," he admitted. "Sorry, ladies, but the boy's right. Please make the correction in your notes."
 
 But Sis was the only one who took notes, and she didn't take that one. She stared at me for a moment, biting her lower lip thoughtfully, while I got sicker and sicker. Then she shut her pad with the final gesture of the right hand that Mom used to use just before challenging the opposition to come right down on the Council floor and debate it out with her.
 
 "Ferdinand," Sis said, "let's go back to our cabin."
 
 The moment she sat me down and walked slowly around me, I knew I was in for it. "I've been reading up on Venusian geography in the ship's library," I told her in a hurry.
 
 "No doubt," she said drily. She shook her night-black hair out. "But you aren't going to tell me that you read about dunging in the ship's library. The books there have been censored by a government agent of Earth against the possibility that they might be read by susceptible young male minds like yours. She would not have allowed—this Terran Agent—"
 
 "Paddlefoot," I sneered.
 
 Sis sat down hard in our zoom-air chair. "Now that's a term," she said carefully, "that is used only by Venusian riffraff."
 
 "They're not!"
 
 "Not what?"
 
 "Riffraff," I had to answer, knowing I was getting in deeper all the time and not being able to help it. I mustn't give Mr. Brown away!
"They're trappers and farmers, pioneers and explorers, who're building Venus. And it takes a real man to build on a hot, hungry hell like Venus."
 
 "Does it, now?" she said, looking at me as if I were beginning to grow a second pair of ears. "Tell me more."
 
 "You can't have meek, law-abiding, women-ruled men when you start civilization on a new planet. You've got to have men who aren't afraid to make their own law if necessary—with their own guns. That's where law begins; the books get written up later."
 
 "You're going to tell , Ferdinand, what evil, criminal male is speaking through your mouth!"
 
 "Nobody!" I insisted. "They're my own ideas!"
 
 "They are remarkably well-organized for a young boy's ideas. A boy who, I might add, has previously shown a ridiculous but nonetheless entirely masculine boredom with political philosophy. I plan to have a government career on that new planet you talk about, Ferdinand—after I have found a good, steady husband, of course—and I don't look forward to a masculinist radical in the family. Now, who has been filling your head with all this nonsense?"
 
 

 
 I was sweating. Sis has that deadly bulldog approach when she feels someone is lying. I pulled my pulpast handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my face. Something rattled to the floor.
 
 "What is this picture of me doing in your pocket, Ferdinand?"
 
 A trap seemed to be hinging noisily into place. "One of the passengers wanted to see how you looked in a bathing suit."
 
 "The passengers on this ship are all female. I can't imagine any of them that curious about my appearance. Ferdinand, it's a man who has been giving you these anti-social ideas, isn't it? A war-mongering masculinist like all the frustrated men who want to engage in government and don't have the vaguest idea how to. Except, of course, in their ancient, bloody ways. Ferdinand, who has been perverting that sunny and carefree soul of yours?"
 
 "Nobody! Nobody! "
 
 "Ferdinand, there's no point in lying! I demand—"
 
 "I told you, Sis. I told you! And don't call me Ferdinand. Call me Ford."
 
 "Ford? Ford? Now, you listen to me, Ferdinand...."
 
 After that it was all over but the confession. That came in a few moments. I couldn't fool Sis. She just knew me too well, I decided miserably. Besides, she was a girl.
 
 All the same, I wouldn't get Mr. Butt Lee Brown into trouble if I could help it. I made Sis promise she wouldn't turn him in if I took her to him. And the quick, nodding way she said she would made me feel just a little better.
 
 The door opened on the signal, "Sesame." When Butt saw somebody was with me, he jumped and the ten-inch blaster barrel grew out of his fingers. Then he recognized Sis from the pictures.
 
 He stepped to one side and, with the same sweeping gesture, holstered his blaster and pushed his green hood off. It was Sis's turn to jump when she saw the wild mass of hair rolling down his back.
 
 "An honor, Miss Sparling," he said in that rumbly voice. "Please come right in. There's a hurry-up draft."
 
 So Sis went in and I followed right after her. Mr. Brown closed the door. I tried to catch his eye so I could give him some kind of hint or explanation, but he had taken a couple of his big strides and was in the control section with Sis. She didn't give ground, though; I'll say that for her. She only came to his chest, but she had her arms crossed sternly.
 
 "First, Mr. Brown," she began, like talking to a cluck of a kid in class, "you realize that you are not only committing the political crime of traveling without a visa, and the criminal one of stowing away without paying your fare, but the moral delinquency of consuming stores intended for the personnel of this ship solely in emergency?"
 
 

 
 He opened his mouth to its maximum width and raised an enormous hand. Then he let the air out and dropped his arm.
 
 "I take it you either have no defense or care to make none," Sis added caustically.
 
 Butt laughed slowly and carefully as if he were going over each word.
"Wonder if all the anura talk like that. And you want to foul up Venus."
 
 "We haven't done so badly on Earth, after the mess you men made of politics. It needed a revolution of the mothers before—"
 
 "Needed nothing. Everyone wanted peace. Earth is a weary old world."
 
 "It's a world of strong moral fiber compared to yours, Mr. Alberta Lee Brown." Hearing his rightful name made him move suddenly and tower over her. Sis said with a certain amount of hurry and change of tone, "What do you have to say about stowing away and using up lifeboat stores?"
 
 

 
 He cocked his head and considered a moment. "Look," he said finally,
"I have more than enough munit to pay for round trip tickets, but I couldn't get a return visa because of that brinosaur judge and all the charges she hung on me. Had to stow away. Picked the Eleanor Roosevelt because a couple of the boys in the crew are friends of mine and they were willing to help. But this lifeboat—don't you know that every passenger ship carries four times as many lifeboats as it needs? Not to mention the food I didn't eat because it stuck in my throat?"
 
 "Yes," she said bitterly. "You had this boy steal fresh fruit for you. I suppose you didn't know that under space regulations that makes him equally guilty?"
 
 "No, Sis, he didn't," I was beginning to argue. "All he wanted—"
 
 "Sure I knew. Also know that if I'm picked up as a stowaway, I'll be sent back to Earth to serve out those fancy little sentences."
 
 "Well, you're guilty of them, aren't you?"
 
 He waved his hands at her impatiently. "I'm not talking law, female; I'm talking sense. Listen! I'm in trouble because I went to Earth to look for a wife. You're standing here right now because you're on your way to Venus for a husband. So let's."
 
 Sis actually staggered back. "Let's? Let's what ? Are—are you daring to suggest that—that—"
 
 "Now, Miss Sparling, no hoopla. I'm saying let's get married, and you know it. You figured out from what the boy told you that I was chewing on you for a wife. You're healthy and strong, got good heredity, you know how to operate sub-surface machinery, you've lived underwater, and your disposition's no worse than most of the anura I've seen. Prolific stock, too."
 
 I was so excited I just had to yell: "Gee, Sis, say yes !"
What is the plot of the story?
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Ferdinand is a young man accompanying his sister Evelyn on a spaceliner called the Eleanor Roosevelt with 300 hundred other women. The final destination of the spaceship is Venus, where the women hope to find a husband. Although women are in charge, the crew of the ship is all men. Ferdinand decides to explore the ship, and he encounters a large red sign forbidding passengers from entering the next deck. Despite being hesitant at first, he decides to break the law anyway because he is technically not a passenger on the ship. Ferdinand is amazed to see the stars, the moon, and another spaceliner take off in space. Unfazed by the next sign that tells unauthorized personnel to leave, he goes to the porthole and tries to figure out a way to open it by trying various methods. Suddenly, the door opens, and a large man plucks him inside by the throat. The man recognizes him as a brother to one of the Anura, which he defines as a herd of women looking for mates. Ferdinand explains his childhood in the Undersea and his parents, to which the other man listens intently. He also mentions that he and his sister have left Earth because she realized there would be no future there. All men have either died in wars, become negatively affected by radioactivity, or gone off to the planets. Then, the older man explains that there are little to no women on Venus, and he had no idea that women were in charge when he first went to Earth to find a wife. He had been arrested and was charged but decided to become a stowaway instead. The man, who introduces himself as Alberta (Butt) Lee Brown, gives Ferdinand the nickname Ford and talks more about his past. Eventually, he asks more about Evelyn, and Ferdinand does not overthink his intentions when he answers. Later, Evelyn then forces Ferdinand to go to a geography lecture with her, where she continuously asks questions and takes notes. However, she does not write down his answer after he corrects the purser and instead takes him back to the cabin to lecture him. They begin to debate, and Ferdinand begins to use the words and knowledge he learned from Butt. Evelyn is suspicious that somebody has been feeding him rebellious opinions, and she begins to hound him for answers after seeing he has a photo of her in his pocket. He then takes Evelyn to see Butt, and she begins to lecture him about breaking the law. While the both of them debate over Butt’s status as a criminal and stowaway, he suddenly suggests that they should get married. Evelyn is surprised by his proposal, and Ferdinand eagerly urges her to accept it. 
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Ferdinand Sparling is accompanying his older sister, Evelyn, on a trip to Venus. Society on Earth is ruled by women, and there are barely enough men for each, so many women take a trip to Venus, where men are in surplus, to find a husband. Ferdinand and Evelyn are aboard the Eleanor Roosevelt. Ferdinand decides to explore the ship alone, coming across rooms and areas that passengers are not allowed to go past; he notes that he wasn't really a passenger, because men weren't citizens, and explores them anyway. Ferdinand comes across Lifeboat 47, whose doors are voice activated. He tries to open the doors, and is then pulled inside by a strange, large man with long hair. Ferdinand introduces himself, and quickly learns that the man is a Venusian. Ferdinand tells him about Undersea, where he and Evelyn are from, and his family, including the death of his parents and Evelyn's decision to migrate in search of a husband afterwards. The man tells Ferdinand about growing up on Venus, about how there, it was still a man's world. He had visited Earth to find a wife, but unaware of society there, was quickly in trouble and sentenced to prison. To avoid going broke, he stowed away on the ship. The man introduces himself as Butt, his full name being Alberta Lee Brown, and begins calling Ferdinand "Ford". Butt continues telling stories of Venus, such as stories of his brothers, Venusian songs and vocabulary, and Butt's blaster, a weapon that he does not allow Ford to touch. Ferdinand begins visiting Butt regularly, bringing him fresh fruit from the dining hall. Butt starts to gain interest in Evelyn, and Ferdinand answers questions about her for him. One day, Ferdinand and Evelyn are in a geography lecture, where Ferdinand discusses dunging, a concept that has been censored by Earth's libraries. This makes Evelyn suspicious, and she interrogates Ferdinand about where he got the information. Ferdinand digs his hole deeper, using Venusian vocabulary and sharing ideas of male dominance. Evelyn then finds a picture of her in Ferdinand's pocket, and demands to know what man he is speaking to. Ferdinand confesses and tells Evelyn about Butt, and he takes her to visit him. There, she yells at Butt, and threatens legal action, and Butt then makes a surprising proposal; he suggests the two get married.
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Ferdinand is on a spaceship with his elder sister. The ship is jam-packed with females going to Venus in search of husband and he exits the cabin while the women are still in their hammocks. The women at his times have all the rights and do all the important things since the Male Desuffrage Act, so the boy is admitted to the ship on behalf of his sister. He explores the empty ship in search of portholes and after some hesitation enters a forbidden area. There he looks at the stars and then tries to open a lock on the lifeboat. A huge scary man appears with a blaster and frighteningly cold gaze. Ferdinand explains that he comes from Undersea, an area on Earth, and tells his family story - his parents being one of the first married couples in Undersea and dying a while ago, leading to his sister's decision to migrate to Venus. The stranger, Butt, tells about the lack of women on Venus and his travel to Earth in search of a wife without any idea "it's a woman's world". So he got in trouble with the law and stowed away on this ship. His many brothers were killed in a rising and only one is left. From that day on Ferdinand keeps visiting the stowaway bringing fruits and listening to stories about Venus. Butt teaches the boy to use the blaster without giving it not hold and constantly asks about Evelyn, the sister. Once, Ferdinand attends a geography lecture on the ship with his sister and corrects the lecturer about Venusian geography. Evelyn starts eliciting where the boy learned that and the boy tells about real men working on Venus. Sis gets angry with those masculine ideas and doesn't believe them to come from a little boy. Ferdinand tries to lie but Sis suppresses him into confession and he leads her to Butt. She tells Butt about all the laws he has broken while the least responds with an appeal to sense. Suddenly, Butt simply proposes a mutually beneficial marriage to stop the debate. 
106
72fa5efbd31643e3afb5e38234f6a66b
Ferdinand Sparling is a passenger aboard that spaceship Eleanor Roosavelt. He lives in a future society in which only women are citizens of Earth, and he is traveling to Venus with his sister Evelyn where she is in search of a husband. Women are seen as intellectuals and the only ones fit to work in positions like the government. As everyone sleeps just after the ship has taken off, Ferdinand decides to explore the ship. He comes to the hull of the ship, the crew are still asleep. In the hull are multiple doors leading to lifeboats. Ferdinand manages to open one of them, and is pulled into the lifeboat by a huge, intimidating looking man. He relates to Ferdinand how he is from Venus and had traveled to Earth to find a wife. Once he got to Earth, he realised that the planet was run by women, and when he didn't realise he has to book into a government run hotel for transient males, assaulted a barman and resisted arrest and was held for contempt in court, he decided to escape back to Venus as a stowaway. When Ferdinand attends a geography lecture with his sister, and reveals the knowledge that he has acquired from spending his days with the Venusian Butt Lee Brown, his sister becomes suspicious. He eventually gets the information that he has been spending time with a stowaway out of him. He takes her to see Butt, where she interrogates him. He tells her how he has enough money for a ticket, but doesn't want to get caught and face charges back on Earth. He tells her how he has admired her from the stories that Ferdinand has told of her, and asks her to marry him. THE END. 
Who is Evelyn Sparling, and what are her traits in the story?
107
24f00a90d37d46bf81347bab6cf11d8f
Evelyn Sparling is the older sister of Ferdinand Sparling. She is seven years older than him and was born in the Undersea. Her parents were one of the first people to get married in the Undersea, and her mom was an Undersea representative in the World Council. Furthermore, her mom was heavily involved in the Male Desuffrage Act and the Maternal Revolution before being blown up in a surfacing boat alongside her husband. Evelyn herself is proficient in operating sub-surface machinery, believes firmly in the ideals of women leading politics, and is also very focused on affairs that other women do not care much about. She is also skilled at detecting lies, seeing past Ferdinand’s lies that he spoke of to protect Butt’s identity. Moreover, she has a very assertive personality. She did not back down from correcting Ferdinand about the opinions he picked up from Butt, which she classifies as masculinist and anti-socialist. Even if Butt is an intimidating man, her righteousness still shines through when she begins to scold him for escaping Earth on the Eleanor Roosevelt and about how he is also implicating Ferdinand in breaking the law by having the younger boy deliver fruit to him. Despite Evelyn’s forceful nature, she does care for her younger brother and tells him what women appreciate in men. 
101
174bacf66234475ea95da8348816b37c
Evelyn Sparling is the older sister of Ferdinand by seven years. She watches over Ferdinand and takes on almost a maternal role, scolding him and directing him throughout the story. Evelyn is strong-minded and intelligent, well-versed in politics. She represents the typical woman in the societal structure of Earth, and advises her brother to be the ideal man. Evelyn is extremely cautious and abides by the rules; when she finds out that Ferdinand has been talking to Butt, she panics and tries to put an end to it as soon as possible.
105
5600e0f74b444194bf3e9c69f81dc165
Evelyn Sparling is Ferdinand's sister. She is migrating to Venus as many other women in search of a husband. She is bossy, lecturing and the head of the family of two - her and her brother. She is described as healthy, she is a careful student who listens and takes notes of every word. She is very serious and concentrated. She follows the law and enjoys politics, she wants to lead. She is a feminist, as most women on Earth, and she is very insistent. 
106
72fa5efbd31643e3afb5e38234f6a66b
Evelyn Sparling is the sister of Ferdinand Sparling. She is on the way to Venus, aboard the spaceship "Eleanor Roosavelt '', in search of a husband. She is an intellectual woman, constantly reading. She hopes to work in a government position some day, after she has found a husband. She realises that there are only three men to every four women on Earth, so she must look elsewhere. She teaches Ferdinand to be intellectually driven, and well spoken, as women will admire those characteristics when he enters the marriage market. She is the only girl in the geography lecture who takes notes, making sure to keep her mind in shape. To Butt, Ferdinand describes Evelyn as a "healthy girl". When she realises what Feridinand was up to, she promises not to turn Butt in, showing her kind side. She interrogates Butt, interrogating him and scorning him for breaking the law. She does seem to let him off in the end though after he has explained his case. She is a very learned, intelligent and fair person. 
Who is Alberta Lee Brown, and what are his traits in the story?
107
24f00a90d37d46bf81347bab6cf11d8f
Alberta Lee Brown, nicknamed Butt, is the man from Venus who Ferdinand meets when he explores the spaceliner. Butt used to have a very large family, and his father immigrated in the eighties after being evacuated from Ontario. His family also consisted of many brothers, also named after Canadian provinces, Unfortunately, all of his brothers except Saskatchewan and him were murdered  by the MacGregor boys in an incident known as the Blue Chicago Rising. He is not one to usually act brutally, but he has not hesitated to pull the trigger on people who have wronged him. Butt has great knowledge of his blaster and is capable of explaining everything about it to Ferdinant. Additionally, he tells Ferdinand that he has killed twelve people, excluding the five government personnel, and that he considers his brother as someone who is much more willing to resort to violence. Although he is usually level-headed, Butt is also a very blunt person. He is not afraid to tell Ferdinand what he thinks of Earth, and his actions of breaking the law as a criminal on the run show that he is more than willing to take dangerous risks if he disagrees with something. Butt also tends to act rashly, suggesting to Evelyn that they get married during their first meeting despite never having interacted with her before and only having an impression of her based on what Ferdinand told him earlier. 
101
174bacf66234475ea95da8348816b37c
Alberta Lee Brown, nicknamed Butt, is a native Venusian man who is currently stowed away aboard the ship. Initially unaware of the women-ruled society on Earth, he had visited in search of a wife, gotten into trouble, and snuck onto the ship to avoid bankruptcy and legal punishment. Butt is a skilled man in combat, though he believes that violence is usually not the answer. He has long hair, something never seen on an Earthman and catching Ferdinand by surprise. Butt tells Ferdinand stories of Venus and their people, and in return he takes an interest in Evelyn, asking questions about her.
105
5600e0f74b444194bf3e9c69f81dc165
Alberta Lee Brown or Butt is a huge man from Venus. He was born in a huge family with lots of brothers who were all but one killed in a rising. He was living on some lonely little islands on Venus and searching for a wife. He came to Earth for that purpose and soon got in trouble as he didn't know it was a women's world. He was used to men being the main figures and soon was brought to court, eventually he escaped and hid on this spaceship going back to Venus. He has a dark tan, huge body and long hair. He turns out to be an interesting storyteller and starts caring about the boy. He is also interested in the boy's sister as she fits an image of a good wife - strong, healthy and knowledgeable. He is straightforward and appeals to sense rather than law. 
106
72fa5efbd31643e3afb5e38234f6a66b
Alberta Lee Brown is the stowaway aboard the "Eleanor Roosavelt". He was born on Venus and travelled to Earth in search of a wife. He had no idea that Earth was run by women, and only realised this when he got there. He gets in trouble immediately, not following protocol for travelling to Earth as a man from another planet, assaulting a bartender, resisting arrest and "sassing" a judge in court. He was enraged that he had female attorneys, as on Mars, men speak for themselves, and women only walk by their side. He was sentenced to jail.He has many brothers, and he has killed many men, but doesn't consider himself "violent". He is very gruff and blunt. He clearly hates the idea of women having power. He asks about Ferdinand's sister, and gets annoyed at the idea of her marrying someone else. When Evelyn finds him in the lifeboat, he uses his astute skills to convince her that he hadn't really done anything wrong. He then takes on a straightforward demeanour, immediately asking her to marry him. 
How do the societal structures on Earth differ from Venus in the story?
107
24f00a90d37d46bf81347bab6cf11d8f
Women are generally given positions of power and have significant influence over political matters on Earth. Most of the hard labor is left to the men instead of the women. Ferdinand mentions that the crews on the spaceliner ships are always men, as women fulfill the more important tasks of running governments. It is also revealed that only women can become Earth Citizens because of the Male Desuffrage Act, which means that men cannot get an interplanetary passport. In many situations, women have the final say as well. When Butt was arrested on Earth, he could only use a female attorney to communicate his thoughts. Compared to the women, the men on Earth face much more restrictions and must follow what they say at all times. The number of men on Earth has greatly diminished, and the population primarily consists of women. 

On the other hand, Venus is primarily male-inhabited, and there is a scarcity of women there. Butt says that he is unused to the saying "it's a woman's world" because women do not run Venus, unlike Earth. He also told his attorney that on Venus, a man could speak freely if he wanted to, and a woman's role is to support him. Men can also make a law whenever they wish with their own guns and that they should not wholly be subservient to the rule of women. 
101
174bacf66234475ea95da8348816b37c
Earth is a planet where women dominate. There are a surplus of women on Earth, way more than men, and men are not citizens on Earth as a result of the Male Desuffrage Act. Women rule the government and its decisions on Earth. Venus is quite the opposite, where men still remain prominent and in control while women are scarce. Venus is much more primitive than Earth, with the men being skilled in battle. Because of the complementary differences between Earth and Venus, many Earthwomen travel to Venus in search of a husband. 
105
5600e0f74b444194bf3e9c69f81dc165
After previous political structure had failed, Earth became ruled by women. Women are citizens and have all the rights, they are in every important sphere and they are the majority. They are the leaders and there is even an Act diminishing men and their rights. Men can only move as women's plus ones and are simply needed for reproduction. On Venus, on the opposite, there are more men and they seek for women. Women are searching for mild and steady men to support females in their careers. Men on Venus are in charge, they are building Venus with masculine jobs to start a civilization there, as the conditions on the planet are difficult and require real men. 
106
72fa5efbd31643e3afb5e38234f6a66b
The society on Earth is run by women. The "Male Suffrage Act" was put in place after the third atomic war. Men were seen to not be fit to work in positions such as the government anymore. Only women are eligible to be citizens. There aren't as many men anymore on Earth as most of them have died due to various wars. All intellectual and important roles are filled by women. There are also a number of cities which lie under water on Earth, they are mining communities. A lot of women leave Earth in search of a husband, as there are so few left on Earth. 
Mars seems to be the opposite to this. Men still hold the power and women, stand by their side, still silent. Venus is also a newer civilisation, and it seems as if it's citizens are freer to partake in violent, criminal acts which would be punished on Earth. 
Describe the main setting of the story.
107
24f00a90d37d46bf81347bab6cf11d8f
The story is mainly set on the Eleanor Roosevelt spaceliner. The ship is a luxury liner, and there are purple lights in front of the doors that light up when a girl is inside on her hammock. Ferdinand describes the ship as being very large, consisting of smooth black walls and white doors that seem to go on endlessly. There are multiple numbered decks and steam jets. The engines and machinery are all properly oiled. Multiple portholes line the hulls, and there is the feeling of gravity underfoot. Many emergency-use spacesuits in glass cases also line the crossways. Some of the decks also have signs with glowing red letters that warn passengers not to enter further. The portholes are described to have no knobs, switches, or even a button to press to open them. Inside the portholes, there are also bunks for the lifeboats. Some of the other amenities on the ship include a dining salon, library, and numbered lifeboat sections for passengers to go to if there is an emergency. 
101
174bacf66234475ea95da8348816b37c
The story takes place aboard the Eleanor Roosevelt, a spaceship leaving from Earth to Venus. The spaceship is large, and Ferdinand explores it throughout the story. The ship contains many decks, including a hull with portholes, where the view of space and stars is visible. From the portholes, Ferdinand can see the Moon and another spaceship headed towards Mars. Ferdinand then finds Lifeboat 47, where he meets Butt, who had been staying there. The ship also contains a dining room, a lecture hall, and a salon.
105
5600e0f74b444194bf3e9c69f81dc165
The story begins on a huge spaceship packed with over three hundred females traveling to Venus. All of them have their cabins with hammocks along the corridor. Pictures of stars are everywhere in the corridor but no actual portholes. There is an outside level under the hull though and it has portholes, but the  area is prohibited to enter for the passengers. From there opens a great view at the stars and the Moon. There was also a lifeboat. The rest of the story takes place either in the cabin with Sis or in the lifeboat with Butt. Once, the setting moves to a class with a geography lecture. 
106
72fa5efbd31643e3afb5e38234f6a66b
The main setting of the story takes place on the "Eleanor Roosavelt''. It is a starship headed for the planet Venus. It holds three hundred women, all of whom seem to share cabins. Everyone has their own acceleration hammock. There are lights on the cabin doors, which glow purple when the occupants are sleeping. The corridor that holds all the doors to the cabins curves out of sight, with its black walls and white doors. The ship seems to be huge. There are pictures of stars on the walls. There is a crossway, which leads to various decks , the main engine, the main jets and the gravity helix and the hull. We also know that there is a dining salon and a library. Along the walls are spacesuits cased in glass, in case of emergency. There is a huge notice sign passed deck twelve telling passengers to not go any further. Past this sign is the hull. Every twelve feet is a porthole. Farther down the corridor is the entrance to lifeboat 47, with a voice activated lock. 