Could mankind hope to survive a galactic war that left boys aged cripples in a few short years? Who would replace them when there were—

NO SONS LEFT TO DIE!

By Hal Annas

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy September 1953 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Susan Wildress knew that what she was about to do might mean death.

She stopped eating and stared at the ration of ground cedar bark, rabbit, and a hydroponic which tasted like eggplant. She pushed back her plate and glanced around at the tense girl faces in the huge dining hall. She lifted a small strong hand and ran it inside her sweater. She brought out a locket, snapped it open.

The flesh grew tight around her dark brown eyes and in her olive cheeks. The memory was still as clear as the day it happened. Three years. She was just fourteen, sitting in the groundcar and watching the preparations which were always dramatic.

Darth Brady had lied about his age. He was supposed to be nineteen but was just past seventeen. She had known and so had everyone else, but the Centers needed boys, needed them desperately.

She remembered how her face got wet as she watched him go out to the ship. He looked very tall and broad and strong, a man. His jaw was firm and his features grim. He looked toward her but didn't wave, for, since she could first remember, there had been a stringent rule against making close ties with boys at the Centers.

Replacing the locket, she rose and walked casually to the exit. She glanced right and left, hurried to the entrance to the factory, reached down her time card and punched in. Then she hurried back across the space to the dining hall, around behind it and on out to the rows of cedar trees.

The penalty, she knew, might be endless restriction, even death, but she didn't hesitate. With trees concealing her movements, she hurried along to the dormitory groundcar ramps. She went more cautiously now.

A moment later she heard masculine voices and a shiver ran down her spine. It was not the voices themselves, but the words they used. Zeehites. She had heard the term many times, never without a shudder. Men could be put to death for 

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