nned category you know about--medicine. This is the one
thing I cannot understand, that makes me burn with hatred with every
death they might have prevented."

"I know their reasons," Jason said.

"Then tell me, because I can think of none."

"Survival--it's just that simple. I doubt if you realize it, but they
have a decreasing population. It is just a matter of years before they
will be gone. Whereas your people at least must have a stable--if not
slightly growing population--to have existed without their mechanical
protections. So in the city they hate you and are jealous of you at the
same time. If they gave you medicine and you prospered, you would be
winning the battle they have lost. I imagine they tolerate you as a
necessary evil, to supply them with food, otherwise they wish you were
all dead."

"It makes sense," Rhes growled, slamming his fist against the bed. "The
kind of twisted logic you expect from junkmen. They use us to feed them,
give us the absolute minimum in return, and at the same time cut us off
from the knowledge that will get us out of this hand to mouth existence.
Worse, far worse, they cut us off from the stars and the rest of
mankind." The hatred on his face was so strong that Jason unconsciously
drew back.

"Do you think we are savages here, Jason? We act and look like animals
because we have to fight for existence on an animal level. Yet we know
about the stars. In that chest over there, sealed in metal, are over
thirty books, all we have. Fiction most of them, with some history and
general science thrown in. Enough to keep alive the stories of the
settlement here and the rest of the universe outside. We see the ships
land in the city and we know that up there are worlds we can only dream
about and never see. Do you wonder that we hate these beasts that call
themselves men, and would destroy them in an instant if we could? They
are right to keep weapons from us--for sure as the sun rises in the
morning we would kill them to a man if we were able, and take over the
things they have withheld from us."

* * * * *

It was a harsh condemnation, but essentially a truthful one. At least
from the point of view of the outsiders. Jason didn't try to explain to
the angry man that the city Pyrrans looked on their attitude as being
the only possible and logical one. "How did this battle between your two
groups ever come about?" he asked.

"I don't know," Rhes said