dred years your family has run a slave pen. Your
fortune is based upon it. And you have perpetuated this traffic in flesh
on the specious reasoning that a court judgment of half a millennium ago
is as good today as when it was handed down. Never once did anyone have
the moral courage to re-examine that old decision. Never once did any
human question the rightness of that decision. None of us are immune.
We all based our conduct upon an antiquated law and searched no further.
Everyone was happy with the status quo--or at least not so unhappy that
they wanted to change it. Even I would have been content had it not been
for Copper."

"Yet I do not feel that it was bad that I hired you," Alexander said.
"Even though you have shown me that I am a slaver, and made me see
faults I never knew I had." His face was drawn--harsh lines reached from
nose to lips, from eyes to chin. Suddenly he looked old. "I can accept
censure if censure is just. And this is just. No--I'm not sorry I hired
you even though the thought of what I have helped do to the Lani makes
me sick to my stomach."

"Well--" Kennon said. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Alexander said. "At the first smell of trouble, the
Family will turn tail and run. You can break the company, and I won't
stand in your way. It's only just. You're the one who's carrying the
ball. Now run with it."

"That damned blind spot," Kennon said. "You realize, of course, that
you're not legally liable. It was a mistake. All you have to do is admit
the error and start from there. Naturally--no reasonable intelligence
would expect that you change the older Lani. They're too old for either
agerone or change. It would be both cruel and inhuman to turn them
loose. It's with the youngsters that you can work--those who are
physically and physiologically young enough to derive benefit from
agerone and education.

"As I remember, you bought a planet called Phoebe. Now why don't you--"

"Phase out! Of course! But that means that you can't press charges."

"Why should I? I'm not one of these starry-eyed reformers who expect
to change things overnight. It's the future of the Lani race that's
important, And Brainard agrees with me. A phase-out is the proper
solution. Change the education, let males be born--teach the young to
think instead of to obey. Give them Phoebe for a home--they never owned
all of Kardon anyway. And within a century or two we will have a new
group of th