m virtually to the condition of slaves.

Each had her own apartment in the Lower City, with but a single small
viewplate, very limited "visitation" facilities, and a minimum credit
for food and clothing. This apartment was assigned to her on graduation
from the State School, in which she had been placed as an infant, and it
remained hers so long as she lived, regardless of whether she occupied
it or not. At the conclusion of her various "marriages" she would return
there, pending her endeavors to make a new match. Naturally, as her
years increased, her returns became more frequent and her stay of longer
duration, until finally, abandoning hope of making another match, she
finished out her days there, usually in drunkenness and whatever other
forms of cheap dissipation she could afford on her dole, starving
herself.

Men also received the same State pension, sufficient for the necessities
but not for the luxuries of life. They got it only as an old-age
pension, and on application.

* * * * *

When boys graduated from the State School they generally were "adopted"
by their fathers and taken into the latter's households, where they
enjoyed luxuries far in excess of their own earning power. It was not
that their fathers wasted any affection on them, for as I have explained
before, the Hans were so morally atrophied and scientifically developed
that love and affection, as we Americans knew them, were unexperienced
or suppressed emotions with them. They were replaced by lust and pride
of possession. So long as it pleased a father's vanity, and he did not
miss the cost, he would keep a son with him, but no longer.

Young men, of course, started to work at the minimum wage, which was
somewhat higher than the pension. There was work for everybody in
positions of minor responsibility, but very little hard work.

Upon receiving his appointment from one or another of the big
corporations which handled the production and distribution of the vast
community (the shares of which were pooled and held by the
government--that is, by San-Lan himself--in trust for all the workers,
according to their positions) he would be assigned to an
apartment-office, or an apartment adjoining the group of offices in
which he was to have his desk. Most of the work was done in single
apartment-offices.

The young man, for instance, might recline at his ease in his apartment
near the top of the city, and for three or