In a rigidly stratified future society of 2061, human reproduction and sexuality are controlled by an authoritarian ruling class called the Monitors. Only one in fifty individuals is designated "sex-privileged," meaning they alone are permitted to experience desire and reproduce in state-run mating centers. All others have had sexual impulses genetically suppressed over four generations of selective breeding. Teleman is a non-sex-privileged construction engineer who begins experiencing inexplicable sexual desire, finding himself compulsively watching women on public transit strips. He recognizes this as both biologically impossible and criminally unlawful. While struggling with these forbidden urges, he is approached by Alicia, a non-sex-privileged emotional therapy specialist who has been experiencing the same awakening. They give in to their mutual attraction openly on a public strip, witnessed by Monitor 6Y9, a senior authority figure of severe disposition, and a security guard. When the guard attempts to intimidate and demean Alicia, Teleman attacks him. The two fugitives flee the transit strip into nearby forest, pursued by para-guards and aerial surveillance machines. During their flight they take refuge in an isolated woodland dwelling, discovering it occupied by a sex-privileged couple who have illicitly left their mating center to enjoy privacy together. Despite the awkward intrusion, the couple generously agree to provide Teleman and Alicia with their garments and identity insignia, enabling the fugitives to pass as sex-privileged. The dwelling is subsequently bombed by pursuing forces, and the woman of the couple is killed by flying glass shards. Meanwhile, Monitor 6Y9 pursues the fugitives with obsessive personal animosity, deploying ground-scanning robots and aerial machines. Her vendetta draws the concern of colleagues who warn her that personal hatred is a punishable offense in a Monitor. The story reveals the Monitor's emotional repression and inner torment as a manifestation of her own denied desires. Separately, aboard a pleasure vessel, another pair of non-sex-privileged lovers kills an undercover security guard who attempted to coerce the woman sexually, and the ship attempts to sail to freedom. The Monitors destroy the vessel and all aboard with aerial bombardment. In a research laboratory, surgeons attempt to create a new form of human being entirely devoid of sexual impulse through radical glandular surgery, producing a grotesque giant. The experiment fails disastrously when the subject, though physically altered, still responds violently to a woman brought in to test him. Teleman and Alicia, disguised in their borrowed identities, enter a mating center hoping to hide among the sex-privileged population. Inside, they discover a vast nursery of infants separated from their mothers, cared for entirely by the state. A sex-privileged woman named Leguria is found weeping over one of the cribs, confronted and struck by Monitor 6Y9 before Alicia intervenes and physically subdues the Monitor. Leguria reveals that widespread discontent has been building throughout the mating centers, and that the two fugitives have become symbols of resistance. Leguria arranges for Teleman and Alicia to broadcast to sex-privileged populations across all mating centers via screens in the recreational halls. Their testimony ignites a general uprising. Fires and explosions break out across the city as rebellion spreads. Monitor 6Y9 commandeers an aerial squadron to bomb the mating centers and crush the revolt. However, a pilot within her own squadron, revealed to be Teleman, systematically destroys the other machines while directing his bombs away from civilian targets and onto administrative and communications infrastructure. He shoots down the Monitor's machine last, and she falls to her death, glimpsing his face and his expression of pity in her final moments. In a brief epilogue, Leguria declares the revolt unstoppable and a new world forthcoming. Teleman and Alicia, having survived and contributed decisively to the uprising, lie together under the stars, finally free.
By Frank Belknap Long · First published 1961 · Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Speculative Fiction · 17 chapters