"What sort of a game? Tell me about it."

Smith went into a long description of the sport. He drew diagrams of plays, describing tackling, blocking, forward passing. He described the crowds and spoke of gate receipts. "It sounds very colorful," Hamilton admitted. "How many men get killed in an engagement?"

"Killed? You don't hurt anybody-barring a broken collar bone, or so."

"We can change that. Wouldn't it be better if the men defending the ball handlers were armored? Otherwise we would have to replace them with every maneuver."

"No, you don't understand. It's-well..."

"I suppose I don't," Hamilton agreed, "I've never seen the game played. It's a little out of my line. My games are usually mechanicals-wagering machines."

"Then you aren't interested?"

Hamilton was not, very. But he looked at the youth's disappointed face and decided to stretch a point. "I'm interested, but it isn't my line. I'll put you in touch with my agent. I think he could work something out of it. I'll talk with him first."

"Say, that's white of you!"

"I take it that means approval. It's no trouble to me, really."

The annunciator warned of a visitor-Monroe-Alpha. Hamilton let him in, and warned him, sotto voce, to treat Smith as an armed equal. Some time was consumed in polite formalities, before Monroe-Alpha got around to his enthusiasm. "I understand that your background is urban industrial, sir."

"I was mostly a city boy, if that's what you, mean."

"Yes, that was the implication. I was hoping that you would be able to tell me something of the brave simple life that was just dying out in your period."

"What do you mean? Country life?"

Monroe-Alpha sketched a short glowing account of his notion of rustic paradise. Smith looked exceedingly puzzled. "Mr. Monroe," he said, "somebody has been feeding you a lot of cock-and-bull, or else I'm very much mistaken. I don't recognize anything familiar in the picture."

Monroe-Alpha's smile was just a little patronizing. "But you were an urban dweller. Naturally the life is unfamiliar to you."

"What you describe may be unfamiliar, but the circumstances aren't. I followed the harvest two summers, I've done a certain amount of camping, and I used to spend my summers and Christmases on a farm when I was a kid. If you think there is anything romantic, or desirable per se, in getting along without civilized comforts, well, you just ought to try tackling a two-holer on a frosty morning. Or try cooking a meal on a wood-burning range."

"Surely those things would simply stimulate a man. It's the primitive, basic struggle with nature."

"Did you ever have a mule step on your foot?"

"No, but-"

"Try it some time. Honest-I don't wish to seem impertinent, but you have your wires crossed. The simple life is all right for a few days vacation, but day in and day out it's just so much dirty back-breaking drudgery. Romantic? Hell, man, there's no time to be romantic about it, and damned little incentive."

Monroe-Alpha's smile was a little bit forced. "Perhaps we aren't talking about the same thing. After all, you came from a period when the natural life had already been sullied by over-emphasis on machines. Your evaluations were already distorted."

Smith himself was beginning to get a little heated. "I hate to tell you, but you don't know what you're talking about. Country life in my day, miserable as it was, was tolerable in direct proportion to the extent to which it was backed by industrialization. They may not have had electric light and running water, but they had Sears Roebuck, and everything that implies."

"Had what?" asked Hamilton.

Smith took time out to explain mail-order shopping. "But what you're talking about means giving up all that-just the noble primitive, simple and self-sufficient. He's going to chop down a tree-who sold him the ax? He wants to shoot a deer-who made his gun? No, mister, I know what I'm talking about-I've studied economics." (That to Monroe-Alpha, thought Hamilton, with a repressed grin.) "There never was and there never could be a noble simple creature such as you described. He'd be an ignorant savage, with dirt on his skin and lice in his hair. He would work sixteen hours a day to stay alive at all. He'd sleep in a filthy hut on a dirt floor. And his point of view and his mental processes would be just two jumps above an animal."

Hamilton was relieved when the discussion was broken into by another chime from the annunciator. It was just as well-Cliff was getting a little white around the lips. He couldn't take it. But, damn it, he had it coming to him. He wondered how a man could be as brilliant as Monroe-Alpha undoubtedly was-about figures-and be such a fool about human affairs.

The plate showed McFee Norbert. Hamilton would have liked not to have admitted him, but it was not politic. The worm had the annoying habit of dropping in on his underlings, which Hamilton resented, but was helpless to do anything about-as yet.

McFee behaved well enough, for McFee. He was visibly impressed by Monroe-Alpha, whose name and position he knew, but tried not to show it. Toward Smith he was patronizingly supercilious. "So you're the man from out of the past? Well, well-how amusing! You did not time it very well."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah, that would be telling! But ten years from now might have been a better time-eh, Hamilton?" He laughed.

"Perhaps," Hamilton answered shortly, and tried to turn attention away from Smith. "You might talk to Monroe-Alpha about it. He thinks we could improve things." He regretted the remark at once, for McFee turned to Monroe-Alpha with immediate interest.

"Interested in social matters, sir?"

"Yes-in a way."

"So am I. Perhaps we can get together and talk."

"It would be a pleasure, I'm sure, Felix, I must leave you now."

"So must I," McFee said promptly. "May I drop you off?"

"Don't trouble."

Hamilton broke in. "Did you wish to see me, McFee?"

"Nothing important. I hope to see you at the Club tonight."

Hamilton understood the circumlocution. It was a direct order to report-at McFee's convenience. McFee turned back to Monroe-Alpha, adding, "No trouble at all. Right on my way."

Hamilton watched them leave together with vague discomfort.

"Burn him down at once-"

LONGCOURT PHYLLIS showed up for a moment in the waiting room of the development center and spoke to Hamilton. "Hello, Filthy."

"H'lo, Phil."

"Be with you in a moment. I've got to change." She was dressed in complete coveralls, with helmet. An inhaler dangled loose about her neck.

"Okay."

She returned promptly, dressed in more conventional and entirely feminine clothes. She was unarmed. He looked her over approvingly. "That's better," he said. "What was the masquerade?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean the aseptic uniform. I'm on a new assignment-control naturals. You have to be terrifically careful in handling them. Poor little beggars!"

"Why?"

"You know why. They're subject to infections. We don't dare let them roll around in the dirt with the others. One little scratch, and anything can happen. We even have to sterilize their food."

"Why bother? Why not let the weak ones die out?"

She looked annoyed. "I could answer that conventionally by saying that the control naturals are an invaluable reference plane for genetics-but I won't. The real point is that they are human beings. They are just as precious to their parents as you were to yours, Filthy."

"Sorry. I didn't know my parents."

She looked suddenly regretful. "Oh-Felix, I forgot!"

"No matter. I never could see," he continued, "why you want to bury yourself in that cage of monkeys. It must be deadly."