m their more remunerative light
flirtations. Eugenic standards also were a handicap.

As a matter of fact, San-Lan had under consideration a revolutionary
change in economic and moral standards, when the revolt of the forest
men upset his delicately laid plans, for, as he had explained to me, it
was no easy thing to upset the customs of centuries in what he was
pleased to call the "morals" of his race.

He had another reason too. The physically active men of the community
were beginning to acquire a rather dangerous domination. These included
men in the army, in the airships, and in those relatively few civilian
activities in which machines could not do the routine work and
thinking. Already common soldiers and air crews demanded and received
higher remuneration than all except the highest of the Ki-Ling, the
industrial and scientific leaders, while mechanics and repairmen who
could, and would, work hard physically, commanded higher incomes than
Princes of the Blood, and though constituting only a fraction of one per
cent of the population they actually dominated the city. San-Lan dared
take no important step in the development of the industrial and military
system without consulting their council or Yun-Yun (Union), as it was
known.

Socially the Han cities were in a chaotic condition at this time,
between morals that were not morals, families that were not families,
marriages that were not marriages, children who knew no homes, work that
was not work, eugenics that didn't work; Ku-Lis who envied the richer
classes but were too lazy to reach out for the rewards freely offered
for individual initiative; the intellectually active and physically lazy
Ki-Lings who despised their lethargy; the Man-Din drones who regarded
both classes with supercilious toleration; the Princes of the Blood,
arrogant in their assumption of a heritage from a Heaven in which they
did not believe; and finally the three castes of the army, air and
industrial repair services, equally arrogant and with more reason in
their consciousness of physical power.

* * * * *

The army exercised a cruelly careless and impartial police power over
all classes, including the airmen, when the latter were in port. But it
did not dare to touch the repair men, who, so far as I could ever make
out, roamed the corridors of the city at will during their hours off
duty, wreaking their wills on whomever they met, without let or
hindra