our people. Nine out of ten of us spend our lives sitting before the
Telly, sucking tranks. Meanwhile, the motivation for continued progress
seems to have withered away. Our Upper political circles are afraid some
seemingly minor change might avalanche, so more and more we lean upon
the old way of doing things."

Joe had put up mild argument. "I've heard the case made that the Lowers
are fools and the reason our present socio-economic system makes it so
difficult to rise from Lower to Upper is that you cannot make a fool
understand he is one. You can only make him angry. If some, who are not
fools, are allowed to advance from Lower to Upper, the vast mass who are
fools will be angry because they are not allowed to. That's why the
Military Category is made a channel of advance. To take that road, a man
gives up his security and he'll die if he's a fool."

Nadine had been scornful. "That reminds me of the old contention by
racial segregationalists that the Negroes _smelled_ bad. First they put
them in a position where they had insufficient bathing facilities, their
diet inadequate, and their teeth uncared for, and then protested that
they couldn't be associated with because of their odor. Today, we are
born within our castes. If an Upper is inadequate, he nevertheless
remains an Upper. An accident of birth makes him an aristocrat;
environment, family, training, education, friends, traditions and laws
maintain him in that position. But a Lower who potentially has the
greatest of value to society, is born handicapped and he's hard put not
to wind up before a Telly, in a mental daze from trank. Sure he's a
fool, he's never been _allowed_ to develop himself."

* * * * *

Yes, Joe reflected now, it had been quite an evening. In a life of more
than thirty years devoted to rebellion, he had never met anyone so
outspoken as Nadine Haer, nor one who had thought it through as far as
she had.

He grunted. His own revolt was against the level at which he had found
himself in society, not the structure of society itself. His whole
_raison d'etre_ was to lift himself to Upper status. It came as a shock
to him to find a person he admired who had been born into Upper caste,
desirous of tearing the whole system down.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening and the face of Max
Mainz grinning in at him. Joe was mildly surprised at his orderly not
knocking before opening the door. Max evidently