"I speak now of the ordinary run of men and women. In some cases a man may be a sufficient companion in every way for more than one woman, in which case the situation is reversed but is otherwise similar."

"Do you mean to say that such combinations as you have described are the usual order today?"

"Not at all. Not at all. We Americans in 2086 remain, by and large, monogamous. If for no other reasons, the approximate fifty-fifty balance of the sexes, habit, and convenience would make it so. In addition to that, it takes time for a rich love to mature and one does not lightly throw away such a possession. You think that you are in love with Diana today, my boy, but if you are still with her ten years from now, you will wonder why you graced so thin and feeble an emotion with that name! No, we pair off and stay paired on the average, but that does not preclude the formation of other associations either more temporary, or less deep, or both. No one partner in life can supply all the possible richnesses of living to another. I speak now not only of physical sexual associations, but also of associations mental and spiritual, such as I observe that you are forming—You'll pardon me saying so—with our good friend Olga."

Perry blushed to his hair roots.

"No, no, son. No cause for embarrassment. I invaded your private sphere because I am your physician and have occasion to. Olga is a fine woman, finer than you now imagine. Your association with her is bound to do you good in every way. I am happy to see it." Master Hedrick yawned and glanced at the chronometer. "If I don't turn in fairly soon I shall need a stimulant in the morning to attend properly to my duties. I've just one more thing to say; I want you to make a list of the things you expected to protect or obtain by driving this other young buck away from Diana. Be as explicit as possible and mind how you use your terms. Take as long as necessary and let me see the result. By the way, when do you expect her back?"

"Tomorrow, probably. She just ran up to Chicago for a special broadcast."

"That's good. There's a rather interesting job over in surgery tomorrow that she would like to see. Diana's mother is coming here to perform a dexter cerebrectomy. You might drop in too, if such things interest you. Accident case. Very sad. Young rocket pilot."

"Thank you, sir. I think I will if Diana is back."

Hedrick arose and knocked out his pipe.

"Just a minute, sir. Doesn't anyone maintain a lifetime monogamy anymore?"

Hedrick desisted from tickling Captain Kidd's belly and considered this. "Very possibly. There are a lot of possibilities in a hundred and ninety million people. Seems unlikely though. You might try your hand at working out the equation of probability involved, if it amuses you. I think you'll find enough data on file over in the Archives to give it a try. Well, good night."

"Good night, sir."

"Would have come to see you sooner, but the problem presented unusual features that required study." The speaker was a little stoop-shouldered man with a bulging bald head. He addressed Perry over a glass of sherry in the latter's cottage. "When Master Hedrick told me that he wanted me to explain the theory and practice of our present economic system to a man with the point of view of America 1939,Ithought that he was in need of some of his own treatment. But when he elucidated I realized that I was confronted with the most startling problem in pedagogy I had ever undertaken. I wasn't able to undertake it without preparation. I had to search out and read much of the literature of your period and then spend several days in meditation in order to try to feel the period, understand the point of view, evaluations, and the fallacies of your time."

Perry shifted uneasily in his chair. "I didn't intend to cause you so much trouble, Master Davis."

"No trouble at all. You have done me a service. This is a most fascinating approach to the subject that has been my principle interest. By preparing to explain it to you, I understand it better myself. First tell me what you know of the present system."

"Well, in the first place it has retained private enterprise in industry. There I suppose it's a form of capitalism."

Davis nodded. "An inadequate word, but let it stand."

Perry continued, "However, although production, and so forth, is private enterprise, each citizen receives a check for money, or what amounts to the same thing, a credit to each account each month, from the government. He gets this free. The money so received is enough to provide the necessities of life for an adult, or to provide everything that a child needs for its care and development. Everybody gets these checks—man, woman, and child. Nevertheless, practically everyone works pretty regularly and most people have incomes from three or four times to a dozen or more times the income they receive from the government. There is no such thing as unemployment because there is always a demand for more production. Consequently wages are high. However prices are low, and to make the situation even more confusing, merchants regularly sell goods at less than cost, and the government pays them the difference. That is the general set up, if I understand what I have been told. It sounds impossible, an Alice-in-Wonderland business, filled with contradictions that deny common sense. It disturbs me. It challenges my reason. I'd be less annoyed at a perpetual motion machine."

Davis smiled. "I appreciate your difficulty. It is necessary first to clean your mind of a number of the errors, superstitions, and half truths that went by the name of 'economics' in your day. Consider for a moment the physical facts of the situation that you see around you. Disregard the money aspect for a moment and think in terms of goods, people, production and consumption. What then is the situation?"

"Well—I see that everyone has a pretty high standard of living, they live in good houses, and eat plenty of good food, and they have plenty of the comforts of life. That's the consumption side. On the production side I see factories and farms, and so forth, that produce at a high rate with lots of labor saving machinery. Nobody has to work very hard unless he really wants to. Anybody that does gets a big return for it in terms of goods and services."

"Do you see any difficulty in the picture now—still leaving money out of it?"

"Well, no. The physical wealth is there and the work done is enough to turn it into a high standard of living."

"Now describe 1939 in terms of physical economy—again leaving out money. Be careful not to use any term that implies money, such as wages, debt, price, and so forth."

Perry grinned. "You're preparing a trap for me. I can see it coming."

Davis was serious. "It's not a trap. It's a necessary expedient to lead your mind around its ingrown economic errors and enable it to think correctly. Go ahead and describe it."

"Okay. The country was just as rich in natural resources—richer as a matter of fact. We had plenty of factories to fabricate raw materials, but lots of them were shut down. Our farms produced liberally, plenty of good food, enough to feed everybody well. We had the technical knowledge, tools and materials to produce an abundance of luxuries and comforts, and in fact we did, for our retail stores were stocked to the ceilings with every sort of desirable article. That is the production side. On the consumption side about half of the population had less to eat than it needed and that of poor quality and wrong variety. In other respects they were worse off, living in houses that were fire traps, and disease breeders, frequently without running water and with primitive heating systems. Most of them had no medical or dental attention and were rotten with disease. My dentist once told me that four-fifths of the population never received dental care in their lives. The next third or so of the population just barely got by. They lived in fair comfort but in the fear of slipping back into squalor. A small group at the top had more than they needed of everything. While I'm speaking of consumption I suppose I should mention that we made a practice of destroying annually a large part of our production, especially food. Some people considered this wasteful, and we devised means to produce less rather than destroy part of what we had produced. But it came to the same thing."