Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Transcriber's Note:

   This etext was produced from the September 1960 issue of If. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

   Star Performer

   By ROBERT J. SHEA

   Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

    Blue Boy's rating was high and his fans were loyal to the
 death—anyone's death!

   Gavir gingerly fitted the round opening in the bottom of the silvery
 globe over the top of his hairless blue skull. He pulled the globe
 down until he felt tiny filaments touching his scalp. The tips of the
 wires were cold.

   The moderator then said, "

    Dreaming Through the Universe

   tonight
 brings you the first native Martian to appear on the dreamwaves—Gavir
 of the Desert Men. With him is his guardian, Dr. Malcomb Rice, the
 noted anthropologist."

   Then the moderator questioned Malcomb, while Gavir nervously
 awaited the moment when his thoughts would be transmitted to millions
 of Earthmen. Malcomb told how he had been struck by Gavir's
 intelligence and missionary-taught ability to speak Earth's language,
 and had decided to bring Gavir to Earth.

   The moderator turned to Gavir. "Are you anxious to get back to Mars?"

    No!

   Gavir thought. Back behind the Preserve Barrier that killed you
 instantly if you stepped too close to it? Back to the constant fear of
 being seized by MDC guards for a labor pool, to wind up in the MDC
 mines?

   Mars was where Gavir's father had been pinned, bayonets through his
 hands and feet, to the wall of a shack just the other side of the
 Barrier, to die slowly, out of Gavir's reach. Father James told Gavir
 that the head of MDC himself had ordered the killing, because Gavir's
 father had tried to organize resistance to the Corporation. Mars was
 where the magic powers of the Earthmen and the helplessness of the
 Martian tribes would always protect the head of MDC from Gavir's
 vengeance.

   Back to that world of hopeless fear and hatred?

    I never want to go
 back to Mars! I want to stay here!

   But that wasn't what he was supposed to think. Quickly he said, "I
 will be happy to return to my people."

   A movement caught his eye. The producer, reclining on a divan in a far
 corner of the small studio, was making some kind of signal by beating
 his fist against his forehead.

   "Well, enough of that!" the moderator said briskly. "How about singing
 one of your tribal songs for us?"

   Gavir said, "I will sing the

    Song of Going to Hunt

   ." He heaved
 himself up from the divan, and, feet planted wide apart, threw back
 his head and began to howl.

   He was considered a poor singer in his tribe, and he was not surprised
 that Malcomb and the moderator winced. But Malcomb had told him that
 it wouldn't matter. The dreamees receiving the dreamcast would hear
 the song as it

    should

   sound, as Gavir heard it in his mind.
 Everything that Gavir saw and heard and felt in his mind, the dreamees
 could see and hear and feel....

   I
   t was cold, bitter cold, on the plain. The hunter stood at the edge
 of the camp as the shriveled Martian sun struck the tops of the Shakam
 hills. The hunter hefted the long, balanced narvoon, the throwing
 knife, in his hand. He had faith in the knife, and in his skill with
 it.

   The hunter filled his lungs, the cold air reaching deep into his
 chest. He shouted out his throat-bursting hunting cry. He began to run
 across the plain.

   Crouching behind crumbling red rocks, racing over flat expanses of
 orange sand, the hunter sought traces of the seegee, the great slow
 desert beast whose body provided his tribe with all the essentials of
 existence. At last he saw tracks. He mounted a dune. Out on the plain
 before him a great brown seegee lumbered patiently, unaware of its
 danger.

   The hunter was about to strike out after it, when a dark form leaped
 at him.

   The hunter saw it out of the corner of his eye at the last moment. His
 startled sidestep saved him from the neck-breaking snap of the great
 jaws.

   The drock's long body was armored with black scales. Curving fangs
 protruded from its upper jaw. Its hand-like forepaws ended in hooked
 claws, to grasp and tear its prey. It was larger, stronger, faster
 than the hunter. The thin Martian air carried weirdly high-pitched
 cries which proclaimed its craving to sink its fangs into the hunter's
 body. The drock's huge hind legs coiled back on their triple joints,
 and it sprang.

   The hunter thrust the gleaming knife out before him, so that the dark
 body would land on its gleaming blade. The drock twisted in mid-air
 and landed to one side of the hunter.

   Now, before it could gather itself for another spring, there was time
 for one cast of the blade. It had to be done at once. It had to be
 perfect. If it failed, the knife would be lost and the drock would
 have its kill. The hunter grasped the weapon by the blade, drew his
 arm back, and snapped it forward.

   The blade struck deep into the throat of the drock.

   The drock screamed eerily and jumped clumsily. The hunter threw
 himself at the great, dark body and retrieved the knife. He struck
 with it again and again into the gray twitching belly. Colorless blood
 ran out over the hard, tightly-stretched skin.

   The drock fell, gave a last convulsion, and lay still. The hunter
 plunged the blade into the red sand to clean it. He threw back his
 head and bellowed his hunting cry. There was great glory in killing
 the drock, for it showed that the Desert Man and not the drock, was
 lord of the red waste....

   Gavir sat down on the divan, exhausted, his song finished. He didn't
 hear the moderator winding up the dreamcast. Then the producer of the
 program was upon him.

   He began shouting even before Gavir removed his headset. "What kind
 of a fool are you? Before you started that song, you dreamed things
 about the Martian Development Corporation that were libelous! I got
 the whole thing—the Barrier, the guards, the labor pools and mines,
 the father crucified. It was awful! MDC is one of our biggest
 sponsors."

   Malcomb said, "You can't expect an untrained young Martian to control
 his very thoughts. And may I point out that your tone is hostile?"

   At this a sudden change came over the producer. The standard Earth
 expression—invincible benignity—took control of his face. "I
 apologize for having spoken sharply, but dreamcasting is a
 nerve-wracking business. If it weren't for Ethical Conditioning, I
 don't know how I'd control my aggressive impulses. The Suppression of
 Aggression is the Foundation of Civilization, eh?"

   Malcomb smiled. "Ethical Conditioning Keeps Society from Fissioning."
 He shook hands with the producer.

   "Come around tomorrow at 1300 and collect your fee," said the
 producer. "Good night, gentlemen."

   As they left the Global Dreamcasting System building, Gavir said to
 Malcomb, "Can we go to a bookstore tonight?"

   "Tomorrow. I'm taking you to your hotel and then I'm going back to my
 apartment. We both need sleep. And don't forget, you've been warned
 not to go prowling around the city by yourself...."

   As soon as Gavir was sure that Malcomb was out of the hotel and well
 on his way home, he left his room and went out into the city.

   In a pitifully few days he would be back in the Preserve, back with
 the fear of MDC, with hunger and the hopeless desire to find and kill
 the man who had ordered his father's death.

   Now he had an opportunity to learn more about the universe of the
 Earthmen. Despite Malcomb's orders, he was going to find a seller of
 books.

   During a reading class at the mission school, Father James had said,
 "In books there is power. All that you call magic in our Earth
 civilization is explained in books." Gavir wanted to learn. It was his
 only hope to find an alternative to the short, fear-ridden,
 impoverished life he foresaw for himself.

   A river of force carried him, along with thousands of
 Earthmen—godlike beings in their perfect health and their impregnable
 benignity—through the streets of the city. Platforms of force raised
 and lowered him through the city's multiple levels....

   And, as has always happened to outlanders in cities, he became lost.

   He was in a quarter where furtive red and violet lights danced in the
 shadows of hunched buildings. A half-dozen Earthmen approached him,
 stopped and stared. Gavir stared back.

   The Earthmen wore black garments and furs and metal ornaments. The
 biggest of them wore a black suit, a long black cape, and a
 broad-brimmed black hat. He carried a coiled whip in one hand. The
 Earthmen turned to one another.

   "A Martian."

   "Let's give pain and death to the Martian! It will be a new
 experience—one to savor."

   "Take pain, Martian!"

   The Earthman with the black hat raised his arm, and the long heavy
 lash fell on Gavir. He felt a savage sting in the arm he had thrown up
 to protect his eyes.

   Gavir leaped at the Earthmen. He clubbed the man with the whip across
 the face. As the others rushed in, Gavir flailed about him with long
 arms and heavy fists.

   He began to enjoy it. It was rare that a Martian had an opportunity to
 knock Earthmen down. The mood of the

    Song of Going to Hunt

   came over
 him. He sprang free of his attackers and drew his glittering narvoon.

   The man with the whip yelled. They looked at his knife, and then all
 at once turned and ran. Gavir drew back his arm and threw the knife
 with a practiced catapult-snap of shoulder, elbow, and wrist. To his
 surprise, the blade clattered to the street far short of his
 retreating enemies. Then he remembered: you couldn't throw far in the
 gravity of Earth.

   The Earthmen disappeared into a lift-force field. Gavir decided not to
 pursue them. He walked forward and picked up his narvoon, and saw that
 the street on which it lay was solid black pavement, not a
 force-field. He must be in the lowest level of the city. He didn't
 know his way around; he might meet more enemies. He forgot about the
 books he'd wanted, and began to search for his hotel.

   When he got back to his room, he went immediately to bed. He slept
 late.

   Malcomb woke him at 1100. Gavir told Malcomb about the
 strangely-dressed men who had tried to kill him.

   "I told you not to wander around alone."

   "But you did not tell me that Earthmen might try to kill me. You have
 told me that Earthmen are good and peace-loving, that there have been
 no acts of violence on Earth for many decades. You have told me that
 only the MDC men are exceptions, because they are living off Earth,
 and this somehow makes them different."

   "Well, those people you ran into are another exception."

   "Why?"

   "You know about the Regeneration and Rejuvenation treatment we have
 here on Earth. A variation of it was given you to acclimate you to
 Earth's gravity and atmosphere. Well, since the R&R treatment was
 developed, we Earthmen have a life-expectancy of about one hundred
 fifty years. Those people who attacked you were Century-Plus. They are
 over a hundred years old, but as healthy, physically, as ever."

   "What is wrong with them?"

   "They seem to have outgrown their Ethical Conditioning. They live
 wildly. Violently. It's a problem without precedent, and we don't know
 what to do with them. The fact is, Senile Delinquency is our number
 one problem."

   "Why not punish them?" said Gavir.

   "They're too powerful. They are often people who've pursued successful
 careers and acquired a good deal of property and position. And there
 are getting to be more of them all the time. But come on. You and I
 have to go over to Global Dreamcasting and collect our fee."

   The impeccably affable producer of

    Dreaming Through the Universe

   gave Malcomb a check and then asked them to follow him.

   "Mr. Davery wants to see you. Mr.

    Hoppy

   Davery, executive
 vice-president in charge of production. Scion of one of Earth's oldest
 communications media families!"

   They went with the producer to the upper reaches of the Global
 Dreamcasting building. There they were ushered into a huge office.

   They found Mr. Hoppy Davery lounging on a divan the size of a
 space-port. He was youthful in appearance, as were all Earthmen, but a
 soft plumpness and a receding hairline made him look slightly older
 than average.

   He pointed a rigid finger at Malcomb and Gavir. "I want you two to
 hear a condensed recording of statements taken from calls we received
 last night."

   Gavir stiffened. They

    had

   gotten into trouble because of his
 thoughts about MDC.

   A voice boomed out of the ceiling.

   "That Martian boy has power. That song was a fist in the jaw. More!"

   A woman's voice followed:

   "If you let that boy go back to Mars I'll never dream a Global program
 again."

   More voices:

   "Enormous!"

   "Potent!"

   "That hunting song drove me mad. I

    like

   being mad!"

   "Keep him on Earth."

   Hoppy Davery pressed a button in the control panel on his divan, and
 the voices fell silent.

   "Those callers that admitted their age were all Century-Plus. The boy
 appeals to the Century-Plus mentality. I want to try him again. This
 time on a really big dream-show, not just an educational 'cast. Got a
 spot on next week's Farfel Flisket Show. If he gets the right
 response, we talk about a contract. Okay?"

   Malcomb said, "His visa expires—"

   "We'll take care of his visa."

   Gavir trembled with joy. Hoppy Davery pressed another button and a
 secretary entered with papers. She was followed by another woman.

   The second woman was dark-haired and slender. She wore leather boots
 and tight brown breeches. She was bare from the waist up and her
 breasts were young and full. A jewelled clip fastened a scarlet cape
 at her neck. Her lips were a disconcertingly vivid red, apparently an
 artificial color. She kissed Hoppy Davery on the forehead, leaving red
 blotches on his pink dome. He wiped his forehead and looked at his
 hand.

   "Do you have to wear that barbaric face-paint?" Hoppy turned sad eyes
 on Gavir and Malcomb. "Gentlemen, my mother, Sylvie Davery."

   A Senile Delinquent! thought Gavir. She looked like Davery's younger
 sister. Malcomb stared at her apprehensively, and Gavir wondered if
 she were somehow going to attack them.

   She looked at Gavir. "Mmm. What a body, what gorgeous blue skin. How
 tall are you, Blue Boy?"

   "He's approximately seven feet tall, Sylvie," said Hoppy, "and what do
 you want here, anyway?"

   "Just came up to see Blue Boy. One of the crowd dreamed him last
 night. Positively manic about him. I found out he'd be with you."

   "See?" said Hoppy to Gavir. "The Century-Plus mentality. You've got
 something they go for. Undoubtedly because you're—forgive me—such a
 complete barbarian. That's what they're all trying to be."

   "Spare me another lecture on Senile Delinquency, Our Number One
 Problem." She walked to the door and Gavir watched her all the way.
 She turned with a swirl of scarlet and a dramatic display of healthy
 young flesh. "See you again, Blue Boy."

   After Sylvie left, Hoppy Davery said, "That might be a good
 professional name—Blue Boy. Gavir doesn't

    mean

   anything. Now what
 kind of a song could you do for the Farfel Flisket show?"

   Gavir thought. "Perhaps you would like the

    Song of Creation

   ."

   "It's part of a fertility rite," Malcomb explained.

   "Great! Give the Senile Delinquents another workout. It's not quite
 ethical, but its good for us. But for heaven's sake, Blue Boy, keep
 your mind off MDC!"

   The following week, Gavir sang the

    Song of Creation

   on the Farfel
 Flisket show, and transmitted the images which it brought up in his
 mind to his audience. A jubilant Hoppy Davery called him at his hotel
 next morning.

   "Best response I've ever seen! The Century-Plussers have been rioting
 and throwing mass orgies ever since you sang. But they take time out
 to call us up and beg for more. I've got a sponsor and a two-year
 contract lined up for you."

   The sponsor was pacing back and forth in Hoppy Davery's office when
 Malcomb and Gavir arrived. Hoppy introduced him proudly. "Mr. Jarvis
 Spurling, president of the Martian Development Corporation."

   Gavir's hand leaped at the narvoon under his doublet.

   Then he stopped himself. He turned the gesture into the proffer of a
 handshake. "How do you do?" he said quietly. In his mind he
 congratulated himself. He had learned emotional control from the
 Earthmen. Here was the man who had ordered his father crucified! Yet
 he had managed to hide his instant desire to strike, to kill, to carry
 out the oath of the blood feud then and there.

   Jarvis Spurling ignored Gavir's hand and stared coldly at him. There
 was not a trace of the usual Earthman's kindliness in his square,
 battered face. "I'm told you got talent. Okay, but a Bluie is a Bluie.
 I'll pay you because a Bluie on Dreamvision is good publicity for MDC
 products. But one slip like on your first 'cast and you go back to the
 Preserve."

   "Mr. Spurling!" said Malcomb. "Your tone is hostile!"

   "Damn right. That Ethical Conditioning slop doesn't work on me. I've
 lived too long on the frontier. And I know Bluies."

   Iwill sign the contract," said Gavir.

   As he drew his signature pictograph on the contract, Sylvie Davery
 sauntered in. She held a white tube between her painted lips. The end
 of the tube was glowing and giving off clouds of smoke. Hoppy Davery
 coughed and Sylvie winked at Gavir. Gavir straightened up, and she
 took a long look at his seven feet.

   "All finished, Blue Boy? Come on, let's go have a drink at Lucifer
 Grotto."

   Caution told Gavir to refuse. But before he could speak Spurling
 snapped, "Disgusting! An Earth woman and a Bluie! If you were on Mars,
 lady, we'd deport you so fast your tail would burn. And God help the
 Bluie!"

   Sylvie blew a cloud of smoke at Spurling. "You're not on Mars, Jack.
 You're back in civilization where we do what we damned well please."

   Spurling laughed. "I've heard about you Century-Plussers. You're all
 sick."

   "You can't claim any monopoly on mental health. Not with that
 concentration camp you run on Mars. Coming, Gavir?"

   Gavir grinned at Spurling. "The contract, I believe, does not cover my
 private life."

   Hoppy Davery said, "Sylvie, I don't think this is wise."

   Sylvie uttered a short, sharp obscenity, linked arms with Gavir, and
 strolled out.

   "You screwball Senile Delinquent," Spurling yelled after Sylvie, "you
 oughtta be locked up!"

   Lucifer Grotto was in that same quarter in which Gavir had been
 attacked. Sylvie told him it was

    the

   hangout for wealthier New York
 Century-Plussers. Gavir told her about the attack, and she laughed.
 "It won't happen again. You're a hero to the Senile Delinquents now.
 By the way, the big fellow with the broad-brimmed hat, he's one of the
 most prominent Senile Delinquents of our day. He's president of the
 biggest privately-owned space line, but he likes to call himself the
 Hat Rat. You must be one of the few people who ever got away from him
 alive."

   "He seemed happy to get away from me," said Gavir.

   An arrangement of force-planes and 3V projections made the front of
 Lucifer Grotto appear to be a curtain of flames. Gavir hung back, but
 Sylvie inserted a tiny gold pitchfork into a small aperture in the
 glowing, rippling surface. The flames swept aside, revealing a
 doorway. A bearded man in black tights escorted them through a
 luridly-lit bar to a private room. When they were alone, Sylvie
 dropped her cape to the floor, sat on the edge of a huge, pink divan,
 and smiled at Gavir.

   Gavir contemplated her. That she was over a hundred years old was a
 little frightening. But the skin of her face and her bare upper body
 was a warm color, and tautly filled. She had lashed out at Spurling,
 and he liked her for that. But in one way she was like Spurling. She
 didn't fit into the bland, non-violent world of Malcomb and Hoppy.

   He shook his head. He said, "Sylvie, why—well, why are you the way
 you are? Why—and how—have you broken away from Ethical
 Conditioning?"

   Sylvie frowned. She spoke a few words into the air, ordering drinks.
 She said, "I didn't do it deliberately. When I reached the age of
 about a hundred it stopped working for me. I suddenly wanted to do
 what

    I

   wanted to do. And then I found out that I didn't

    know

   what
 I wanted to do. It was Ethical Conditioning or nothing, so I picked
 nothing. And here I am, chasing nothing."

   "How do you chase nothing?"

   She set fire to a white tube. "This, for instance. They used to do it
 before they found out it caused cancer. Now there's no more cancer,
 but even if there were, I'd still smoke. That's the attitude I have.
 You try things. You live in the past, if you're inclined, adopt the
 costumes and manners of some more colorful time. You try ridiculous
 things, disgusting things, vicious things. You know they're all
 nothing, but you have to do something, so you go on doing nothing,
 elaborately and violently."

   A tray of drinks rose through the floor. Sylvie frowned as she noticed
 a folded paper tucked between the glasses. She picked it up and read
 it, chuckled, and read it again, aloud.

   "Sir: I beg you to forgive the presumption of my recent attack on
 you. Since then you have captured my imagination. I now hold you to be
 the noblest savage of them all. Henceforward please consider me, Your
 obedient servant, Hat Rat."

   "You've impressed him," said Sylvie. "But you impress me even more.
 Come here."

   She held out slim arms to him. He had no wish to refuse her. She was
 not like a Martian woman, but he found the differences exciting and
 attractive. He went to her, and he forgot entirely that she was over a
 hundred years old.

   In the months that followed, Gavir's fame spread over Earth. By
 spring, the rating computers credited him with an audience of eight
 hundred million—ninety-five percent of whom were Century-Plussers.
 Davery doubled Gavir's salary.

   Gavir toured the world with Sylvie, mobbed everywhere by worshipful
 Century-Plussers. Male Century-Plussers by the millions adopted blue
 doublets and blue kilts in honor of their hero.

   Blue-dyed hair was now

    de rigueur

   among the ladies of Lucifer
 Grotto. The Hat Rat himself, who often appeared at a respectful
 distance in crowds around Gavir, now wore a wide-brimmed hat of
 brightest blue.

   Then there came the dreamcast on which Gavir sang the

    Song of
 Complaint

   .

   It was an ancient song, a Desert Man's outcry against injustice,
 enemies, false friends and callous leaders. It was a protest against
 sufferings that could neither be borne nor prevented. At the climax of
 the song Gavir pictured a tribal chief who refused to make fair
 division of the spoils of a hunt with his warriors. Gradually he
 allowed this image to turn into a picture of Hoppy Davery withholding
 bundles of money from a starving Gavir. Then he ended the song.

   Hoppy sent for him next morning.

   "Why did you do that?" he said. "Listen to this."

   A recorded voice boomed: "This is Hat Rat. Pay the Blue Boy what he
 deserves, or I will give you death. It will be a personal thing
 between you and me. I will besprinkle you with corrosive acids; I will
 burn out your eyes; I will—"

   Hoppy cut the voice off. Gavir saw that he was sweating. "There were

    dozens

   like that. If you want more money, I'll

    give

   you more
 money. Say something nice about me on your next dreamcast, for
 heaven's sake!"

   Gavir spread his big blue hands. "I am sorry. I don't want more money.
 I cannot always control the pictures I make. These images come into
 my mind even though they have nothing to do with me."

   Hoppy shook his head. "That's because you haven't had Ethical
 Conditioning. We don't have this trouble with our other performers.
 You just must remember that dreamvision is the most potent
 communications medium ever devised. Be

    careful

   ."

   "I will," said Gavir.

   On his next dreamcast Gavir sang the

    Song of the Blood Feud

   . He
 pictured a Desert Man whose father had been killed by a drock.

   The Desert Man ran over the red sand, and he found the drock. He did
 not throw his knife. That would not have satisfied his hatred. He fell
 upon the drock and stabbed and stabbed.

   The Desert Man howled his hunting-cry over the body of his enemy, and
 spat into its face.

   And the fanged face of the drock turned into the square, battered face
 of Jarvis Spurling. Gavir held the image in his mind for a long
 moment.

   When the dreamcast was over, a studio page ran up to Gavir. "Mr.
 Spurling wants to see you at once, at his office."

   "Let him come and find me," said Gavir. "Let us go, Sylvie."

   They went to Lucifer Grotto, where Gavir's wealthiest admirers among
 the Senile Delinquents were giving a party for him in the Pandemonium
 Room. The only prominent person missing, as Sylvie remarked after
 surveying the crowd, was the Hat Rat. They wondered about it, but no
 one knew where he was.

   Sheets of flame illuminated the wild features and strange garments of
 over a hundred Century-Plus ladies and gentlemen. Gouts of flame
 leaped from the walls to light antique-style cigarettes. Drinks were
 refilled from nozzles of molded fire.

   An hour passed from the time of Gavir's arrival.

   Then Jarvis Spurling joined the party. There was a heavy frontier
 sonic pistol strapped at his waist. A protesting Malcomb was behind
 him.

   Jarvis Spurling's square face was dark with anger. "You deliberately
 put my face on that animal! You want to make the public hate me. I pay
 your salary and keep you here on Earth, and this is what I get for it.
 All right. A Bluie is a Bluie, and I'll treat you like a Bluie should
 be treated." He unsnapped his holster and drew the square, heavy
 pistol out and pointed it at Gavir.

   Gavir stood up. His right hand plucked at his doublet.

   "You're itching to go for that throwing knife," said Spurling. "Go on!
 Take it out and get ready to throw it. I'll give you that much
 chance. Let's make a game out of this. We'll make like we're back on
 Mars, Bluie, and you're out hunting a drock. And you find one, only
 this drock has a gun. How about that, Bluie?"

   Gavir took out the narvoon, grasped the blade, and drew his arm back.

   "Gavir!"

   It was the Hat Rat. He stood between pillars of flame in the doorway
 of the Pandemonium Room of Lucifer Grotto, and there was a peculiar
 contrivance of dark brown wood and black metal tubing cradled in his
 arm. "This ancient shotgun I dedicate to your blood feud. I shall hunt
 down your enemy, Gavir!"

   Spurling turned. The Hat Rat saw him.

   "The enemy!" the Hat Rat shouted.

   The shotgun exploded.

   Spurling's body was thrown back against Gavir. Gavir saw a huge ragged
 red caved-in place in Spurling's chest. Spurling's body sagged to the
 floor and lay there face up, eyes open. The Senile Delinquents of
 Lucifer Grotto leaned forward to grin at the tattered body.

   Still holding the narvoon, Gavir stood over his dead enemy. He threw
 back his head and howled out the hunting cry of the Desert Men. Then
 he looked down and spat in Jarvis Spurling's dead face.

   END

Question and Possible Answers:
Why did the Earthmen attack Gavir intially?

 (A) The Earthmen were older citizens who had outgrown their ethical conditioning
 (B) They were members of the MDC
 (C) Earthlings were very prejudiced against Martians
 (D) Gavir had offended them by staring

Answer:

Output: A


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Open Access: Policies

                                             4.1 OA Policies at Funding Agencies and Universities

Authors control the volume and growth of OA. They decide whether to submit their work to OA journals (gold OA), whether to deposit their work in OA repositories (green OA), and how to use their copyrights. But scholarly authors are still largely unfamiliar with their OA options. It’s pointless to appeal to them as a bloc because they don’t act as a bloc. It’s not hard to persuade or even excite them once we catch their attention, but because they are so anarchical, overworked, and preoccupied, it’s hard to catch their attention.

Fortunately, funding agencies and universities are discovering their own interests in fostering OA. These nonprofit institutions make it their mission to advance research and to make that research as useful and widely available as possible. Their money frees researchers to do their work and avoid the need to tie their income to the popularity of their ideas. Above all, these institutions are in an unparalleled position to influence author decisions.

                                             Today, more than fifty funding agencies and more than one hundred universities have adopted strong OA policies. Each one depends on the primacy of author decisions.

                                             One kind of policy, better than nothing, requests or encourages OA. A stronger kind of policy requires OA or makes it the default for new work. These stronger policies are usually called OA

mandates

                                              and I’ll use that term for lack of a better one (but see section 4.2 on how it’s misleading).

Request or encouragement policies

                                                      These merely ask faculty to make their work OA, or recommend OA for their new work. Sometimes they’re called resolutions or pledges rather than policies.

Encouragement policies can target green and gold OA equally. By contrast, mandates only make sense for green OA, at least today when OA journals constitute only about one-quarter of peer-reviewed journals. A gold OA mandate would put most peer-reviewed journals off-limits and seriously limit faculty freedom to submit their work to the journals of their choice. This problem doesn’t arise for green OA mandates.

                                             Fortunately, this is well understood. There are no gold OA mandates anywhere; all OA mandates are green. Unfortunately, however, many people mistakenly believe that all OA is gold OA and therefore mistake proposed green OA mandates for proposed gold OA mandates and raise objections that would only apply to gold OA mandates. But as more academics understand the green/gold distinction, and understand that well-written green OA mandates are compatible with academic freedom, more institutions are adopting green OA mandates, almost always at the initiative of faculty themselves.

At universities, there are roughly three approaches to green OA mandates:

Loophole mandates

                                                      These require green OA except when the author’s publisher doesn’t allow it.

Deposit mandates

                                                      These require deposit in an OA repository as soon as the article is accepted for publication, but they separate the timing of deposit from the timing of OA. If the author’s publisher doesn’t allow OA, then these policies keep the deposited article dark or non-OA. If the publisher allows OA, immediately or after some embargo, then the deposit becomes OA as soon as the permission kicks in. Because most publishers allow OA on some timetable, this method will provide OA to most new work in due time.

                                             Deposit mandates generally depend on publisher permission for OA, just like loophole mandates. The difference is that they require deposit even when they can’t obtain permission for OA.

Rights-retention mandates

                                                      These require deposit in an OA repository as soon as the article is accepted for publication, just like deposit mandates. But they add a method to secure permission for making the deposit OA. There’s more than one way to secure that permission. At the Wellcome Trust and NIH, which pioneered this approach for funding agencies, when grantees publish articles based on their funded research they must retain the nonexclusive right to authorize OA through a repository. At Harvard, which pioneered this approach for universities, faculty members vote to give the university a standing nonexclusive right (among other nonexclusive rights) to make their future work OA through the institutional repository. When faculty publish articles after that, the university already has the needed permission, and faculty needn’t take any special steps to retain rights or negotiate with publishers. Nor need they wait for the publisher’s embargo to run. Harvard-style policies also give faculty a waiver option, allowing them to opt out of the grant of permission to the university, though not out of the deposit requirement. When faculty members obtain waivers for given works, then Harvard-style mandates operate like deposit mandates and the works remain dark deposits until the institution has permission to make them OA.

Many OA policies are crossbreeds rather than pure types, but all the policies I’ve seen are variations on these four themes.

First note that none of the three “mandates” absolutely requires OA. Loophole mandates allow some work to escape through the loophole. Deposit mandates allow some deposited work to remain dark (non-OA), by following publisher preferences. Rights-retention mandates with waiver options allow some work to remain dark, by following author preferences.

Loophole and deposit policies defer to publishers for permissions, while rights-retention policies obtain permission from authors before they transfer rights to publishers. For loophole and deposit policies, permission is contingent, because some publishers are willing and some are not. For rights-retention policies, permission is assured, at least initially or by default, although authors may opt out for any publication.

                                             When loophole policies can’t provide OA, covered works needn’t make it to the repository even as dark deposits. When deposit and rights-retention policies can’t provide OA, at least they require dark deposit for the texts, and OA for the metadata (information about author, title, date, and so on). Releasing the metadata makes even a dark deposit visible to readers and search engines. Moreover, many repositories support an email-request button for works on dark deposit. The button enables a reader to submit a one-click request for a full-text email copy and enables the author to grant or deny the request with a one-click response.

We could say that rights-retention policies require OA except when authors opt out, or that they simply shift the default to OA. Those are two ways of saying the same thing because, either way, faculty remain free to decide for or against OA for each of their publications. Preserving this freedom and making it conspicuous help muster faculty support, indeed, unanimous faculty votes. Because shifting the default is enough to change behavior on a large scale, waiver options don’t significantly reduce the volume of OA. At Harvard the waiver rate is less than 5 percent, and at MIT it’s less than 2 percent.

Loophole policies and rights-retention policies both offer opt-outs. But loophole policies give the opt-out to publishers and rights-retention policies give it to authors. The difference is significant because many more authors than publishers want OA for research articles.

Many institutions adopt loophole policies because they believe a blanket exemption for dissenting publishers is the only way to avoid copyright problems. But that is not true. Deposit policies don’t make works OA until publishers allow OA, and rights-retention policies close the loophole and obtain permission directly from authors at a time when authors are the copyright holders.

                                             OA policies from funding agencies are very much like OA policies from universities. They can encourage green and gold OA, or they can require green OA. If they require green OA, they can do so in one of the three ways above. If there’s a difference, it’s that when funders adopt a rights-retention mandate, they typically don’t offer waiver options. On the contrary, the Wellcome Trust and NIH require their grantees to make their work OA through a certain OA repository on a certain timetable and to retain the right to authorize that OA. If a given publisher will not allow grantees to comply with their prior funding agreement, then grantees must look for another publisher.

There are two reasons why these strong funder policies don’t infringe faculty freedom to submit work to their journals of their choice. First, researchers needn’t seek funds from these funders. When they choose to do so, then they agree to the OA provisions, just as they agree to the other terms and conditions of the grant. The OA “mandate” is a condition on a voluntary contract, not an unconditional requirement. It’s a reasonable condition as well, since public funders, like the NIH, disburse public money in the public interest, and private funders, like the Wellcome Trust, disburse charitable money for charitable purposes. To my knowledge, no researchers have refused to apply for Wellcome or NIH funds because of the OA condition, even when they plan to publish in OA-averse journals. The OA condition benefits authors and has not been a deal-breaker.

                                             Second, virtually all publishers accommodate these policies. For example, no surveyed publishers anywhere refuse to publish work by NIH-funded authors on account of the agency’s OA mandate. Hence, in practice grantees may still submit work to the journals of their choice, even without a waiver option to accommodate holdout publishers.

We should never forget that most toll-access journals already allow green OA and that a growing number of high-quality, high-prestige peer-reviewed journal are gold OA. From one point of view, we don’t need OA mandates when authors already plan to publish in one of those journals. But sometimes toll-access journals change their positions on green OA. Sometimes authors don’t get around to making their work green OA even when their journals allow it. And sometimes authors don’t publish in one of those journals. The final rationale for green OA mandates, then, is for institutions to bring about OA for their entire research output, regardless of how publishers might alter their policies, regardless of author inertia, and regardless of the journals in which faculty or grantees choose to publish.

Green OA mandates don’t assure OA to the entire research output of a university or funding agency, for the same reason that they don’t require OA without qualification. But implementing them provides OA to a much larger percentage of the research output than was already headed toward OA journals or OA repositories, and does so while leaving authors free to submit their work to the journals of their choice.

                                             I’ve only tried to give a rough taxonomy of OA policies and their supporting arguments. For detailed recommendations on OA policy provisions, and specific arguments for them, see my 2009 analysis of policy options for funding agencies and universities.

                                             I’ve also focused here on OA policies for peer-reviewed research articles. Many universities have adopted OA mandates for theses and dissertations, and many funder OA policies also cover datasets. A growing number of universities supplement OA mandates for articles with a sensible and effective policy to assure compliance: When faculty come up for promotion or tenure, the review committee will only consider journal articles on deposit in the institutional repository.

                                             4.2 Digression on the Word “Mandate”

The strongest OA policies use words like “must” or “shall” and require or seem to require OA. They’re commonly called OA “mandates.” But all three varieties of university “mandate” above show why the term is misleading. Loophole mandates don’t require OA without qualification: when publishers dissent, articles are either not deposited in the repository or not made OA. Deposit mandates don’t require OA without qualification: when publishers dissent, articles are deposited in a repository but are not made OA. Rights-retention mandates with waiver options don’t require OA without qualification: authors may obtain waivers and sometimes do. I haven’t seen a university OA “mandate” anywhere without at least one of these three kinds of flexibility.

                                             That’s the main reason why no university policies require OA without qualification. There are a few more. First, as Harvard’s Stuart Shieber frequently argues, even the strongest university policies can’t make tenured faculty comply.

                                              Second, as I’ve frequently argued, successful policies are implemented through expectations, education, incentives, and assistance, not coercion. Third, even the strongest policies—even the no-loophole, no-deference, no-waiver policies at the Wellcome Trust and NIH—make OA a condition on a voluntary contract. No policy anywhere pretends to impose an unconditional OA requirement, and it’s hard to imagine how any policy could even try. (“You must make your work OA even if you don’t work for us or use our funds”?)

Unfortunately, we don’t have a good vocabulary for policies that use mandatory language while deferring to third-person dissents or offering first-person opt-outs. Nor do we have a good vocabulary for policies that use mandatory language and replace enforcement with compliance-building through expectations, education, incentives, and assistance. The word “mandate” is not a very good fit for policies like this, but neither is any other English word.

                                             By contrast, we do have a good word for policies that use mandatory language for those who agree to be bound. We call them “contracts.” While “contract” is short, accurate, and unfrightening, it puts the accent on the author’s consent to be bound. That’s often illuminating, but just as often we want to put the accent on the content’s destiny to become OA. For that purpose, “mandate” has become the term of art, for better or worse.

I use “mandate” with reluctance because it can frighten some of the people I’m trying to persuade and can give rise to misunderstandings about the policies behind the label. When we have time and space for longer phrases, we can talk about “putting an OA condition” on research grants, in the case of NIH-style policies, or “shifting the default to OA” for faculty research, in the case of Harvard-style policies. These longer expressions are more accurate and less frightening. However, sometimes we need a shorthand term, and we need a term that draws an appropriately sharp contrast with policies that merely request or encourage OA.

If anyone objects that a policy containing mandatory language and a waiver option isn’t really a “mandate,” I won’t disagree. On the contrary, I applaud them for recognizing a nuance which too many others overlook. (It’s depressing how many PhDs can read a policy with mandatory language and a waiver option, notice the mandatory language, overlook the waiver option, and then cite the lack of flexibility as an objection.) But denying that a policy is a mandate can create its own kinds of misunderstanding. In the United States, citizens called for jury duty must appear, even if many can claim exemptions and go home again. We can say that jury duty with exemptions isn’t really a “duty,” provided we don’t conclude that it’s merely a request and encouragement.

                                             Finally, a common misunderstanding deliberately promulgated by some publishers is that OA must be “mandated” because faculty don’t want it. This position gets understandable but regrettable mileage from the word “mandate.” It also overlooks decisive counter-evidence that we’ve had in hand since 2004. Alma Swan’s empirical studies of researcher attitudes show that an overwhelming majority of researchers would “willingly” comply with a mandatory OA policy from their funder or employer.

                                             The most recent evidence of faculty willingness is the stunning series of strong OA policies adopted by unanimous faculty votes. (When is the last time you heard of a unanimous faculty vote for anything, let alone anything of importance?) As recently as 2007, speculation that we’d soon see more than two dozen unanimous faculty votes for OA policies would have been dismissed as wishful thinking. But now that the evidence lies before us, what looks like wishful thinking is the publishing lobby’s idea that OA must be mandated because faculty don’t want it.

Finally, the fact that faculty vote unanimously for strong OA policies is a good reason to keep looking for a better word than “mandate.” At least it’s a good reason to look past the colloquial implications of the term to the policies themselves and the players who drafted and adopted them. Since 2008, most OA “mandates” at universities have been self-imposed by faculty.

                                             4.3 Digression on the Historical Timing of OA Policies

Some kinds of strong OA policy that are politically unattainable or unwise today may become attainable and wise in the future. Here are three examples.

                                                     Today, a libre green mandate (say, one giving users the right to copy and redistribute, not just access for reading) would face serious publisher resistance. Even if the policy included rights retention and didn’t depend on publishers for permissions, publisher resistance would still matter because publishers possess—and ought to possess—the right to refuse to publish any work for any reason. They could refuse to publish authors bound by a libre green policy, or they could insist on a waiver from the policy as a condition of publication. Policies triggering rejections hurt authors, and policies driving up waiver rates don’t do much to help OA. However, publisher resistance might diminish as the ratio of OA publishers to toll-access publishers tilts toward OA, as spontaneous author submissions shift toward OA journals, or as the number of institutions with libre green mandates makes resistance more costly than accommodation for publishers. When OA policies are toothless, few in number, or concentrated in small institutions, then they must accommodate publishers in order to avoid triggering rejections and hurting authors. But as policies grow in number, scope, and strength, the situation could flip over, and publishers will have to accommodate OA policies in order to avoid hurting themselves by rejecting too many good authors for reasons unrelated to the quality of their work.

Today, a gold OA mandate would limit faculty freedom to submit work to the journals of their choice. But that’s because today only about 25 percent of peer-reviewed journals are OA. As this percentage grows, then a gold OA mandate’s encroachment on academic freedom shrinks. At some point even the most zealous defenders of faculty freedom may decide that the encroachment is negligible. In principle the encroachment could be zero, though of course when the encroachment is zero, and gold OA mandates are harmless, then gold OA mandates would also be unnecessary.

Today, faculty voting for a rights-retention OA mandate want a waiver option, and when the option is available their votes tend to be overwhelming or unanimous. But there are several circumstances that might make it attractive for faculty to abolish waiver options or make waivers harder to obtain. One is a shift in faculty perspective that makes access to research more urgent than indulging publishers who erect access barriers. Another is a significant rise in publisher acceptance of green OA, which gives virtually all authors—rather than just most—blanket permission for green OA. In the first case, faculty might “vote with their submissions” and steer clear of publishers who don’t allow author-initiated green OA. In the second case, faculty would virtually never encounter such publishers. In the first case, they’d seldom want waivers, and the second they’d seldom need waivers.

                                             It’s understandable that green gratis mandates are spreading faster than green libre mandates, that green mandates in general are spreading faster than gold mandates, and that rights-retention policies with waiver options are spreading faster than rights-retention policies without waivers. However, there is modest growth on one of these fronts: green libre mandates.

The case against these three kinds of OA policy is time-sensitive, not permanent. It’s circumstantial, and circumstances are changing. But the strategy for institutions wanting to remove access barriers to research is unchanging: they should adopt the strongest policies they can today and watch for the moment when they could strengthen them.

As researchers become more familiar with OA, as more institutions adopt OA policies, as more new literature is covered by strong OA policies, as more toll-access journals convert to OA, as more toll-access journals accommodate OA mandates without converting, and even as more OA journals shift from gratis to libre, institutions will be able strengthen their OA policies without increasing publisher-controlled rejection rates or author-controlled waiver rates. They should watch the shifting balance of power and seize opportunities to strengthen their policies.

The moments of opportunity will not be obvious. They will not be highlighted by objective evidence alone and will call for some self-fulfilling leadership. Institutional policy-makers will have to assess not only the climate created by existing policies, and existing levels of support, but also the likely effects of their own actions. Every strong, new policy increases the likelihood of publisher accommodation, and when enough universities and funders have policies, all publishers will have to accommodate them. In that sense, every strong new policy creates some of the conditions of its own success. Every institution adopting a new policy brings about OA for the research it controls and makes the way easier for other institutions behind it. Like many other policy issues, this is one on which it is easier to follow than to lead, and we already have a growing number of leaders. A critical mass is growing and every policy is an implicit invitation to other institutions to gain strength through common purpose and help accelerate publisher adaptation.

Question and Possible Answers:
In which situations does truly unconditional OA policy apply?

 (A) When publishing work in a journal
 (B) When working for a university
 (C) There are no situations where unconditional OA applies
 (D) When working in the field of Physics

Answer:

Output: C


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Transcriber's Note:

   This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April-May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

   MARS CONFIDENTIAL!

   Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer

    Illustrator

   : L. R. Summers

    Here is history's biggest news scoop! Those intrepid
 reporters Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, whose best-selling
 exposes of life's seamy side from New York to Medicine Hat
 have made them famous, here strip away the veil of millions
 of miles to bring you the lowdown on our sister planet. It
 is an amazing account of vice and violence, of virtues and
 victims, told in vivid, jet-speed style.

    Here you'll learn why Mars is called the Red Planet, the
 part the Mafia plays in her undoing, the rape and rapine
 that has made this heavenly body the cesspool of the
 Universe. In other words, this is Mars—Confidential!

   P-s-s-s-s-t!

   HERE WE GO AGAIN—Confidential.

   We turned New York inside out. We turned Chicago upside down. In
 Washington we turned the insiders out and the outsiders in. The howls
 can still be heard since we dissected the U.S.A.

   But Mars was our toughest task of spectroscoping. The cab drivers
 spoke a different language and the bell-hops couldn't read our
 currency. Yet, we think we have X-rayed the dizziest—and this may
 amaze you—the dirtiest planet in the solar system. Beside it, the
 Earth is as white as the Moon, and Chicago is as peaceful as the Milky
 Way.

   By the time we went through Mars—its canals, its caves, its
 satellites and its catacombs—we knew more about it than anyone who
 lives there.

   We make no attempt to be comprehensive. We have no hope or aim to make
 Mars a better place in which to live; in fact, we don't give a damn
 what kind of a place it is to live in.

   This will be the story of a planet that could have been another proud
 and majestic sun with a solar system of its own; it ended up, instead,
 in the comic books and the pulp magazines.

   We give you MARS CONFIDENTIAL!

   I

   THE LOWDOWN CONFIDENTIAL

   Before the space ship which brings the arriving traveler lands at the
 Martian National Airport, it swoops gracefully over the nearby city in
 a salute. The narrow ribbons, laid out in geometric order, gradually
 grow wider until the water in these man-made rivers becomes crystal
 clear and sparkles in the reflection of the sun.

   As Mars comes closer, the visitor from Earth quickly realizes it has a
 manner and a glamor of its own; it is unworldy, it is out of this
 world. It is not the air of distinction one finds in New York or
 London or Paris. The Martian feeling is dreamlike; it comes from being
 close to the stuff dreams are made of.

   However, after the sojourner lands, he discovers that Mars is not much
 different than the planet he left; indeed, men are pretty much the
 same all over the universe, whether they carry their plumbing inside
 or outside their bodies.

   As we unfold the rates of crime, vice, sex irregularities, graft,
 cheap gambling, drunkenness, rowdyism and rackets, you will get,
 thrown on a large screen, a peep show you never saw on your TV during
 the science-fiction hour.

   Each day the Earth man spends on Mars makes him feel more at home;
 thus, it comes as no surprise to the initiated that even here, at
 least 35,000,000 miles away from Times Square, there are hoodlums who
 talk out of the sides of their mouths and drive expensive convertibles
 with white-walled tires and yellow-haired frails. For the Mafia, the
 dread Black Hand, is in business here—tied up with the
 subversives—and neither the Martian Committee for the Investigation
 of Crime and Vice, nor the Un-Martian Activities Committee, can dent
 it more than the Kefauver Committee did on Earth, which is practically
 less than nothing.

   This is the first time this story has been printed. We were offered
 four trillion dollars in bribes to hold it up; our lives were
 threatened and we were shot at with death ray guns.

   We got this one night on the fourth bench in Central Park, where we
 met by appointment a man who phoned us earlier but refused to tell his
 name. When we took one look at him we did not ask for his credentials,
 we just knew he came from Mars.

   This is what he told us:

   Shortly after the end of World War II, a syndicate composed of
 underworld big-shots from Chicago, Detroit and Greenpoint planned to
 build a new Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. This was to be a plush
 project for big spenders, with Vegas and Reno reserved for the
 hoi-polloi.

   There was to be service by a private airline. It would be so
 ultra-ultra that suckers with only a million would be thumbed away and
 guys with two million would have to come in through the back door.

   The Mafia sent a couple of front men to explore the desert. Somewhere
 out beyond the atom project they stumbled on what seemed to be the
 answer to their prayer.

   It was a huge, mausoleum-like structure, standing alone in the desert
 hundreds of miles from nowhere, unique, exclusive and mysterious. The
 prospectors assumed it was the last remnant of some fabulous and
 long-dead ghost-mining town.

   The entire population consisted of one, a little duffer with a white
 goatee and thick lensed spectacles, wearing boots, chaps and a silk
 hat.

   "This your place, bud?" one of the hoods asked.

   When he signified it was, the boys bought it. The price was
 agreeable—after they pulled a wicked-looking rod.

   Then the money guys came to look over their purchase. They couldn't
 make head or tail of it, and you can hardly blame them, because inside
 the great structure they found a huge contraption that looked like a
 cigar (Havana Perfecto) standing on end.

   "What the hell is this," they asked the character in the opera hat, in
 what is known as a menacing attitude.

   The old pappy guy offered to show them. He escorted them into the
 cigar, pressed a button here and there, and before you could say "Al
 Capone" the roof of the shed slid back and they began to move upward
 at a terrific rate of speed.

   Three or four of the Mafia chieftains were old hop-heads and felt at
 home. In fact, one of them remarked, "Boy, are we gone." And he was
 right.

   The soberer Mafistas, after recovering from their first shock, laid
 ungentle fists on their conductor. "What goes on?" he was asked.

   "This is a space ship and we are headed for Mars."

   "What's Mars?"

   "A planet up in space, loaded with gold and diamonds."

   "Any bims there?"

   "I beg your pardon, sir. What are bims?"

   "Get a load of this dope. He never heard of bims. Babes, broads,
 frails, pigeons, ribs—catch on?"

   "Oh, I assume you mean girls. There must be, otherwise what are the
 diamonds for?"

   The outward trip took a week, but it was spent pleasantly. During that
 time, the Miami delegation cleaned out Chicago, New York and
 Pittsburgh in a klabiash game.

   The hop back, for various reasons, took a little longer. One reason
 may have been the condition of the crew. On the return the boys from
 Brooklyn were primed to the ears with

    zorkle

   .

    Zorkle

   is a Martian medicinal distillation, made from the milk of
 the

    schznoogle

   —a six-legged cow, seldom milked because few Martians
 can run fast enough to catch one.

    Zorkle

   is strong enough to rip
 steel plates out of battleships, but to stomachs accustomed to the
 stuff sold in Flatbush, it acted like a gentle stimulant.

   Upon their safe landing in Nevada, the Columbuses of this first flight
 to Mars put in long-distance calls to all the other important hoods in
 the country.

   The Crime Cartel met in Cleveland—in the third floor front of a
 tenement on Mayfield Road. The purpose of the meeting was to "cut up"
 Mars.

   Considerable dissension arose over the bookmaking facilities, when it
 was learned that the radioactive surface of the planet made it
 unnecessary to send scratches and results by wire. On the contrary,
 the steel-shod hooves of the animals set up a current which carried
 into every pool room, without a pay-off to the wire service.

   The final division found the apportionment as follows:

    New York mob

   : Real estate and investments (if any)

    Chicago mob

   : Bookmaking and liquor (if any)

    Brooklyn mob

   : Protection and assassinations

    Jersey mob

   : Numbers (if any) and craps (if any)

    Los Angeles mob

   : Girls (if any)

    Galveston and New Orleans mobs

   : Dope (if any)

    Cleveland mob

   : Casinos (if any)

    Detroit mob

   : Summer resorts (if any)

   The Detroit boys, incidentally, burned up when they learned the
 Martian year is twice as long as ours, consequently it takes two years
 for one summer to roll around.

   After the summary demise of three Grand Councilors whose deaths were
 recorded by the press as occurring from "natural causes," the other
 major and minor mobs were declared in as partners.

   The first problem to be ironed out was how to speed up transportation;
 and failing that, to construct spacious space ships which would
 attract pleasure-bent trade from

    Terra

   —Earth to you—with such
 innovations as roulette wheels, steam rooms, cocktail lounges, double
 rooms with hot and cold babes, and other such inducements.

   II

   THE INSIDE STUFF CONFIDENTIAL

   Remember, you got this first from Lait and Mortimer. And we defy
 anyone to call us liars—and prove it!

   Only chumps bring babes with them to Mars. The temperature is a little
 colder there than on Earth and the air a little thinner. So Terra
 dames complain one mink coat doesn't keep them warm; they need two.

   On the other hand, the gravity is considerably less than on Earth.
 Therefore, even the heaviest bim weighs less and can be pushed over
 with the greatest of ease.

   However, the boys soon discovered that the lighter gravity played
 havoc with the marijuana trade. With a slight tensing of the muscles
 you can jump 20 feet, so why smoke "tea" when you can fly like crazy
 for nothing?

   Martian women are bags, so perhaps you had better disregard the
 injunction above and bring your own, even if it means two furs.

   Did you ever see an Alaska

    klutch

   (pronounced klootch)? Probably
 not. Well, these Arctic horrors are Ziegfeld beauts compared to the
 Martian fair sex.

   They slouch with knees bent and knuckles brushing the ground, and if
 Ringling Bros, is looking for a mate for Gargantua, here is where to
 find her. Yet, their manner is habitually timid, as though they've
 been given a hard time. From the look in their deep-set eyes they seem
 to fear abduction or rape; but not even the zoot-suited goons from
 Greenpernt gave them a second tumble.

   The visiting Mafia delegation was naturally disappointed at this state
 of affairs. They had been led to believe by the little guy who
 escorted them that all Martian dames resembled Marilyn Monroe, only
 more so, and the men were Adonises (and not Joe).

   Seems they once were, at that. This was a couple of aeons ago when
 Earthmen looked like Martians do now, which seems to indicate that
 Martians, as well as Men, have their ups and downs.

   The citizens of the planet are apparently about halfway down the
 toboggan. They wear clothes, but they're not handstitched. Their
 neckties don't come from Sulka. No self-respecting goon from Gowanus
 would care to be seen in their company.

   The females always appear in public fully clothed, which doesn't help
 them either. But covering their faces would. They buy their dresses at
 a place called Kress-Worth and look like Paris

    nouveau riche

   .

   There are four separate nations there, though nation is hardly the
 word. It is more accurate to say there are four separate clans that
 don't like each other, though how they can tell the difference is
 beyond us. They are known as the East Side, West Side, North Side and
 Gas House gangs.

   Each stays in its own back-yard. Periodic wars are fought, a few
 thousand of the enemy are dissolved with ray guns, after which the
 factions retire by common consent and throw a banquet at which the
 losing country is forced to take the wives of the visitors, which is a
 twist not yet thought of on Earth.

   Martian language is unlike anything ever heard below. It would baffle
 the keenest linguist, if the keenest linguist ever gets to Mars.
 However, the Mafia, which is a world-wide blood brotherhood with
 colonies in every land and clime, has a universal language. Knives and
 brass knucks are understood everywhere.

   The Martian lingo seems to be somewhat similar to Chinese. It's not
 what they say, but how they say it. For instance,

    psonqule

   may mean
 "I love you" or "you dirty son-of-a-bitch."

   The Mafistas soon learned to translate what the natives were saying by
 watching the squint in their eyes. When they spoke with a certain
 expression, the mobsters let go with 45s, which, however, merely have
 a stunning effect on the gent on the receiving end because of the
 lesser gravity.

   On the other hand, the Martian death ray guns were not fatal to the
 toughs from Earth; anyone who can live through St. Valentine's Day in
 Chicago can live through anything. So it came out a dead heat.

   Thereupon the boys from the Syndicate sat down and declared the
 Martians in for a fifty-fifty partnership, which means they actually
 gave them one per cent, which is generous at that.

   Never having had the great advantages of a New Deal, the Martians are
 still backward and use gold as a means of exchange. With no Harvard
 bigdomes to tell them gold is a thing of the past, the yellow metal
 circulates there as freely and easily as we once kicked pennies around
 before they became extinct here.

   The Mafistas quickly set the Martians right about the futility of
 gold. They eagerly turned it over to the Earthmen in exchange for
 green certificates with pretty pictures engraved thereon.

   III

   RACKETS VIA ROCKETS

   Gold, platinum, diamonds and other precious stuff are as plentiful on
 Mars as hayfever is on Earth in August.

   When the gangsters lamped the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy
 fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch
 out; something is twitching.

   The locals were completely honest. They were too dumb to be thieves.
 The natives were not acquisitive. Why should they be when gold was so
 common it had no value, and a neighbor's wife so ugly no one would
 covet her?

   This was a desperate situation, indeed, until one of the boys from
 East St. Louis uttered the eternal truth: "There ain't no honest man
 who ain't a crook, and why should Mars be any different?"

   The difficulty was finding the means and method of corruption. All the
 cash in Jake Guzik's strong box meant nothing to a race of characters
 whose brats made mudpies of gold dust.

   The discovery came as an accident.

   The first Earthman to be eliminated on Mars was a two-bit hood from
 North Clark Street who sold a five-cent Hershey bar with almonds to a
 Martian for a gold piece worth 94 bucks.

   The man from Mars bit the candy bar. The hood bit the gold piece.

   Then the Martian picked up a rock and beaned the lad from the Windy
 City. After which the Martian's eyes dilated and he let out a scream.
 Then he attacked the first Martian female who passed by. Never before
 had such a thing happened on Mars, and to say she was surprised is
 putting it lightly. Thereupon, half the female population ran after
 the berserk Martian.

   When the organization heard about this, an investigation was ordered.
 That is how the crime trust found out that there is no sugar on Mars;
 that this was the first time it had ever been tasted by a Martian;
 that it acts on them like junk does on an Earthman.

   They further discovered that the chief source of Martian diet
 is—believe it or not—poppy seed, hemp and coca leaf, and that the
 alkaloids thereof: opium, hasheesh and cocaine have not the slightest
 visible effect on them.

   Poppies grow everywhere, huge russet poppies, ten times as large as
 those on Earth and 100 times as deadly. It is these poppies which have
 colored the planet red. Martians are strictly vegetarian: they bake,
 fry and stew these flowers and weeds and eat them raw with a goo made
 from fungus and called

    szchmortz

   which passes for a salad dressing.

   Though the Martians were absolutely impervious to the narcotic
 qualities of the aforementioned flora, they got higher than Mars on
 small doses of sugar.

   So the Mafia was in business. The Martians sniffed granulated sugar,
 which they called snow. They ate cube sugar, which they called "hard
 stuff", and they injected molasses syrup into their veins with hypos
 and called this "mainliners."

   There was nothing they would not do for a pinch of sugar. Gold,
 platinum and diamonds, narcotics by the acre—these were to be had in
 generous exchange for sugar—which was selling on Earth at a nickel or
 so a pound wholesale.

   The space ship went into shuttle service. A load of diamonds and dope
 coming back, a load of sugar and blondes going up. Blondes made
 Martians higher even than sugar, and brought larger and quicker
 returns.

   This is a confidential tip to the South African diamond trust: ten
 space ship loads of precious stones are now being cut in a cellar on
 Bleecker Street in New York. The mob plans to retail them for $25 a
 carat!

   Though the gangsters are buying sugar at a few cents a pound here and
 selling it for its weight in rubies on Mars, a hood is always a hood.
 They've been cutting dope with sugar for years on Earth, so they
 didn't know how to do it any different on Mars. What to cut the sugar
 with on Mars? Simple. With heroin, of course, which is worthless
 there.

   This is a brief rundown on the racket situation as it currently exists
 on our sister planet.

    FAKED PASSPORTS

   : When the boys first landed they found only vague
 boundaries between the nations, and Martians could roam as they
 pleased. Maybe this is why they stayed close to home. Though anyway
 why should they travel? There was nothing to see.

   The boys quickly took care of this. First, in order to make travel
 alluring, they brought 20 strippers from Calumet City and set them
 peeling just beyond the border lines.

   Then they went to the chieftains and sold them a bill of goods (with a
 generous bribe of sugar) to close the borders. The next step was to
 corrupt the border guards, which was easy with Annie Oakleys to do
 the burlesque shows.

   The selling price for faked passports fluctuates between a ton and
 three tons of platinum.

    VICE

   : Until the arrival of the Earthmen, there were no illicit
 sexual relations on the planet. In fact, no Martian in his right mind
 would have relations with the native crop of females, and they in turn
 felt the same way about the males. Laws had to be passed requiring all
 able-bodied citizens to marry and propagate.

   Thus, the first load of bims from South Akard Street in Dallas found
 eager customers. But these babes, who romanced anything in pants on
 earth, went on a stand-up strike when they saw and smelled the
 Martians. Especially smelled. They smelled worse than Texas yahoos
 just off a cow farm.

   This proved embarrassing, to say the least, to the procurers.
 Considerable sums of money were invested in this human cargo, and the
 boys feared dire consequences from their shylocks, should they return
 empty-handed.

   In our other Confidential essays we told you how the Mafia employs
 some of the best brains on Earth to direct and manage its far-flung
 properties, including high-priced attorneys, accountants, real-estate
 experts, engineers and scientists.

   A hurried meeting of the Grand Council was called and held in a
 bungalow on the shores of one of Minneapolis' beautiful lakes. The
 decision reached there was to corner chlorophyll (which accounts in
 part for the delay in putting it on the market down here) and ship it
 to Mars to deodorize the populace there. After which the ladies of the
 evening got off their feet and went back to work.

    GAMBLING

   : Until the arrival of the Mafia, gambling on Mars was
 confined to a simple game played with children's jacks. The loser had
 to relieve the winner of his wife.

   The Mafia brought up some fine gambling equipment, including the
 layouts from the Colonial Inn in Florida, and the Beverly in New
 Orleans, both of which were closed, and taught the residents how to
 shoot craps and play the wheel, with the house putting up sugar
 against precious stones and metals. With such odds, it was not
 necessary to fake the games more than is customary on Earth.

   IV

   LITTLE NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL

   Despite what Earth-bound professors tell you about the Martian
 atmosphere, we know better. They weren't there.

   It is a dogma that Mars has no oxygen. Baloney. While it is true that
 there is considerably less than on Earth in the surface atmosphere,
 the air underground, in caves, valleys and tunnels, has plenty to
 support life lavishly, though why Martians want to live after they
 look at each other we cannot tell you, even confidential.

   For this reason Martian cities are built underground, and travel
 between them is carried on through a complicated system of subways
 predating the New York IRT line by several thousand centuries, though
 to the naked eye there is little difference between a Brooklyn express
 and a Mars express, yet the latter were built before the Pyramids.

   When the first load of Black Handers arrived, they naturally balked
 against living underground. It reminded them too much of the days
 before they went "legitimate" and were constantly on the lam and
 hiding out.

   So the Mafia put the Martians to work building a town. There are no
 building materials on the planet, but the Martians are adept at making
 gold dust hold together with diamond rivets. The result of their
 effort—for which they were paid in peppermint sticks and lump
 sugar—is named Little New York, with hotels, nightclubs, bars,
 haberdashers, Turkish baths and horse rooms. Instead of
 air-conditioning, it had oxygen-conditioning. But the town had no
 police station.

   There were no cops!

   Finally, a meeting was held at which one punk asked another, "What the
 hell kind of town is it with no cops? Who we going to bribe?"

   After some discussion they cut cards. One of the Bergen County boys
 drew the black ace. "What do I know about being a cop?" he squawked.

   "You can take graft, can't you? You been shook down, ain't you?"

   The boys also imported a couple of smart mouthpieces and a ship of
 blank habeas corpus forms, together with a judge who was the brother
 of one of the lawyers, so there was no need to build a jail in this
 model city.

   The only ones who ever get arrested, anyway, are the Martians, and
 they soon discovered that the coppers from

    Terra

   would look the
 other way for a bucket full of gold.

   Until the arrival of the Earthmen, the Martians were, as stated,
 peaceful, and even now crime is practically unknown among them. The
 chief problem, however, is to keep them in line on pay nights, when
 they go on sugar binges.

   Chocolate bars are as common on Mars as saloons are on Broadway, and
 it is not unusual to see "gone" Martians getting heaved out of these
 bars right into the gutter. One nostalgic hood from Seattle said it
 reminded him of Skid Row there.

   V

   THE RED RED PLANET

   The gangsters had not been on Mars long before they heard rumors about
 other outsiders who were supposed to have landed on the other side of

    Mt. Sirehum

   .

   The boys got together in a cocktail lounge to talk this over, and they
 decided they weren't going to stand for any other mobs muscling in.

   Thereupon, they despatched four torpedoes with Tommy guns in a big
 black limousine to see what was going.

   We tell you this Confidential. What they found was a Communist
 apparatus sent to Mars from Soviet Russia.

   This cell was so active that Commies had taken over almost half the
 planet before the arrival of the Mafia, with their domain extending
 from the

    Deucalionis Region

   all the way over to

    Phaethontis

   and
 down to

    Titania

   .

   Furthermore, through propaganda and infiltration, there were Communist
 cells in every quarter of the planet, and many of the top officials of
 the four Martian governments were either secretly party members or
 openly in fronts.

   The Communist battle cry was: "Men of Mars unite; you have nothing to
 lose but your wives."

   Comes the revolution, they were told, and all Martians could remain
 bachelors. It is no wonder the Communists made such inroads. The
 planet became known as "The Red Red Planet."

   In their confidential books about the cities of Earth, Lait and
 Mortimer explored the community of interest between the organized
 underworld and the Soviet.

   Communists are in favor of anything that causes civil disorder and
 unrest; gangsters have no conscience and will do business with anyone
 who pays.

   On Earth, Russia floods the Western powers, and especially the United
 States, with narcotics, first to weaken them and provide easy prey,
 and second, for dollar exchange.

   And on Earth, the Mafia, which is another international conspiracy
 like the Communists, sells the narcotics.

   And so when the gangsters heard there were Communist cells on Mars,
 they quickly made a contact.

   For most of the world's cheap sugar comes from Russia! The Mafia
 inroad on the American sugar market had already driven cane up more
 than 300 per cent. But the Russians were anxious, able and willing to
 provide all the beets they wanted at half the competitive price.

   VI

   THE HONEST HOODS

   As we pointed out in previous works, the crime syndicate now owns so
 much money, its chief problem is to find ways in which to invest it.

   As a result, the Mafia and its allies control thousands of legitimate
 enterprises ranging from hotel chains to railroads and from laundries
 to distilleries.

   And so it was on Mars. With all the rackets cornered, the gangsters
 decided it was time to go into some straight businesses.

   At the next get-together of the Grand Council, the following
 conversation was heard:

   "What do these mopes need that they ain't getting?"

   "A big fat hole in the head."

   "Cut it out. This is serious."

   "A hole in the head ain't serious?"

   "There's no profit in them one-shot deals."

   "It's the repeat business you make the dough on."

   "Maybe you got something there. You can kill a jerk only once."

   "But a jerk can have relatives."

   "We're talking about legit stuff. All the rest has been taken care
 of."

   "With the Martians I've seen, a bar of soap could be a big thing."

   From this random suggestion, there sprang up a major interplanetary
 project. If the big soap companies are wondering where all that soap
 went a few years ago, we can tell them.

   It went to Mars.

   Soap caught on immediately. It was snapped up as fast as it arrived.

   But several questions popped into the minds of the Mafia soap
 salesman.

   Where was it all going? A Martian, in line for a bar in the evening,
 was back again the following morning for another one.

   And why did the Martians stay just as dirty as ever?

   The answer was, the Martians stayed as dirty as ever because they
 weren't using the soap to wash with. They were eating it!

   It cured the hangover from sugar.

   Another group cornered the undertaking business, adding a twist that
 made for more activity. They added a Department of Elimination. The
 men in charge of this end of the business circulate through the
 chocolate and soap bars, politely inquiring, "Who would you like
 killed?"

   Struck with the novelty of the thing, quite a few Martians remember
 other Martians they are mad at. The going price is one hundred carats
 of diamonds to kill; which is cheap considering the average laborer
 earns 10,000 carats a week.

   Then the boys from the more dignified end of the business drop in at
 the home of the victim and offer to bury him cheap. Two hundred and
 fifty carats gets a Martian planted in style.

   Inasmuch as Martians live underground, burying is done in reverse, by
 tying a rocket to the tail of the deceased and shooting him out into
 the stratosphere.

   VII

   ONE UNIVERSE CONFIDENTIAL

   Mars is presently no problem to Earth, and will not be until we have
 all its gold and the Martians begin asking us for loans.

   Meanwhile, Lait and Mortimer say let the gangsters and communists have
 it. We don't want it.

   We believe Earth would weaken itself if it dissipated its assets on
 foreign planets. Instead, we should heavily arm our own satellites,
 which will make us secure from attack by an alien planet or
 constellation.

   At the same time, we should build an overwhelming force of space ships
 capable of delivering lethal blows to the outermost corners of the
 universe and return without refueling.

   We have seen the futility of meddling in everyone's business on Earth.
 Let's not make that mistake in space. We are unalterably opposed to
 the UP (United Planets) and call upon the governments of Earth not to
 join that Inter-Solar System boondoggle.

   We have enough trouble right here.

   THE APPENDIX CONFIDENTIAL:

    Blast-off

   : The equivalent of the take-off of Terran
 aviation. Space ships blast-off into space. Not to be
 confused with the report of a sawed-off shot gun.

    Blasting pit

   : Place from which a space ship blasts off.
 Guarded area where the intense heat from the jets melts the
 ground. Also used for cock-fights.

    Spacemen

   : Those who man the space ships. See any comic
 strip.

    Hairoscope

   : A very sensitive instrument for space
 navigation. The sighting plate thereon is centered around
 two crossed hairs. Because of the vastness of space, very
 fine hairs are used. These hairs are obtained from the
 Glomph-Frog, found only in the heart of the dense Venusian
 swamps. The hairoscope is a must in space navigation. Then
 how did they get to Venus to get the hair from the
 Glomph-Frog? Read Venus Confidential.

    Multiplanetary agitation

   : The inter-spacial methods by
 which the Russians compete for the minds of the Neptunians
 and the Plutonians and the Gowaniuns.

    Space suit

   : The clothing worn by those who go into space.
 The men are put into modernistic diving suits. The dames
 wear bras and panties.

    Grav-plates

   : A form of magnetic shoe worn by spacemen
 while standing on the outer hull of a space ship halfway to
 Mars. Why a spaceman wants to stand on the outer hull of a
 ship halfway to Mars is not clear. Possibly to win a bet.

    Space platform

   : A man-made satellite rotating around Earth
 between here and the Moon. Scientists say this is a
 necessary first step to interplanetary travel. Mars
 Confidential proves the fallacy of this theory.

    Space Academy

   : A college where young men are trained to be
 spacemen. The student body consists mainly of cadets who
 served apprenticeships as elevator jockeys.

    Asteroids

   : Tiny worlds floating around in space, put there
 no doubt to annoy unwary space ships.

    Extrapolation

   : The process by which a science-fiction
 writer takes an established scientific fact and builds
 thereon a story that couldn't happen in a million years, but
 maybe 2,000,000.

    Science fiction

   : A genre of escape literature which takes
 the reader to far-away planets—and usually neglects to
 bring him back.

    S.F.

   : An abbreviation for science fiction.

    Bem

   : A word derived by using the first letters of the
 three words: Bug Eyed Monster. Bems are ghastly looking
 creatures in general. In science-fiction yarns written by
 Terrans, bems are natives of Mars. In science-fiction yarns
 written by Martians, bems are natives of Terra.

    The pile

   : The source from which power is derived to carry
 men to the stars. Optional on the more expensive space
 ships, at extra cost.

    Atom blaster

   : A gun carried by spacemen which will melt
 people down to a cinder. A .45 would do just as well, but
 then there's the Sullivan Act.

    Orbit

   : The path of any heavenly body. The bodies are held
 in these orbits by natural laws the Republicans are thinking
 of repealing.

    Nova

   : The explosive stage into which planets may pass.
 According to the finest scientific thinking, a planet will
 either nova, or it won't.

    Galaxy

   : A term used to confuse people who have always
 called it The Milky Way.

    Sun spots

   : Vast electrical storms on the sun which
 interfere with radio reception, said interference being
 advantageous during political campaigns.

    Atomic cannons

   : Things that go

    zap

   .

    Audio screen

   : Television without Milton Berle or
 wrestling.

    Disintegrating ray

   : Something you can't see that turns
 something you can see into something you can't see.

    Geiger counter

   : Something used to count Geigers.

    Interstellar space

   : Too much nothing at all, filled with
 rockets, flying saucers, advanced civilizations, and
 discarded copies of

    Amazing Stories

   .

    Mars

   : A candy bar.

    Pluto

   : A kind of water.

    Ray guns

   : Small things that go

    zap

   .

    Time machine

   : A machine that carries you back to yesterday
 and into next year. Also, an alarm clock.

    Time warp

   : The hole in time the time machine goes through
 to reach another time. A hole in nothing.

    Terra

   : Another name for Earth. It comes from

    terra

   firma
 or something like that.

    Hyperdrive

   : The motor that is used to drive a space ship
 faster than the speed of light. Invented by science-fiction
 writers but not yet patented.

    Ether

   : The upper reaches of space and whatever fills them.
 Also, an anaesthetic.

    Luna

   : Another name for the Moon. Formerly a park in Coney
 Island.

Question and Possible Answers:
What is not true about the relationship between Martians and humans?

 (A) Humans are happy to bring their women to Mars as another manipulation tactic against the race.
 (B) Martians find no value in the things humans do, such as gold and diamonds, making humans feel
 (C) Humans are more interested in giving Martians sugar than they are in any other sort of drug.
 (D) Martians value what humans bring to their planet, including teaching them new ways to do things like conduct business and build structures.

Answer:

Output: D