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score of revolutions. It dominates the younger, more dynamic, Pest which stretches out on the flat plains to the east so that though you stand on the Harmashatarhegy hill of Buda and strain your eyes, you are hard put to find the furtherest limits of Pest. The jetport was on the outskirts of Pest, and the craft carrying Nadine Haer, Joseph Mauser and Max Mainz, settled in for a gentle landing, the autopilot more delicate far than human eye served by human hand. Max, his eyes glued to the window, said, "Well, gee, it don't look much different than a lotta the other towns we passed over." Nadine looked at him and laughed. She alone of the three of them had ever been outside the boundaries of the West-world having attended several international medical conventions. Over the years, the Frigid Fracas had laid its chill on tourism, so that now travel between West-world and Sov-world was all but unknown, and even visiting the Neut-world was considered a bit far out and somewhat suspect of going beyond the old time way of doing things--even among the Uppers. Securing a passport for a Middle's trip, not to speak of a Lower's, involved such endless bureaucratic red tape as to be nonsensical. Nadine said to Joe's batman, "What did you expect, Max?" "Well, I don't know, Miss Haer. I mean, Dr. Haer. Kind of gloomier, like. Shucks, I've seen this here town on Telly a dozen times." "And seeing is believing," Joe muttered cynically. "It looks as though we have a reception committee." He looked at Nadine. "Are we supposed to know each other?" She shrugged and made a moue. "It would be somewhat strange if we didn't, seeing that we flew over in the same aircraft, and were the only passengers to come this far." He nodded and as the plane came to a halt, helped her from her chair, even as the plane's ladder slipped out and touched to the ground. Joe grunted and said, as though to himself, "You realize that for all practical purposes there hasn't been any improvement in aircraft for a generation?" Nadine looked at him from the side of her eyes, even as they descended. "That's what I keep telling you, Joe. We've become ossified. When a society, afraid of change, adopts a policy of maintaining the _status quo_ at any cost, progress is arrested. Progress _means_ change." He grinned at her. "Sure, sure, sure. Please, no more lectures, teacher. Let what's already in my head stew a while." * * *
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