Thea Alexander - 2150 A.D.

Our transair landed near a small town that reminded me of a rural community back in the middle 1900s. Elgon opened the door for us and said, "We want you to go talk to the people of this village or any village you wish. We won't go with you, so you'll know that people aren't lying to you just to please us."

While I had my doubts about how free the people would be to talk with us, we quickly accepted this offer and were soon knocking on one of the first doors on the village outskirts. An elderly woman who looked to be about seventy opened the door. She said she had seen our approach on TV and was proud to be the first we visited. She invited us into a small, sparsely furnished living room and when we were seated on the hard metal chairs, invited me to ask any questions I wished.

"Tell me about your life," I said.

She, smiled broadly, revealing ugly twisted teeth, as she said, "We live honest, decent, God-fearing lives. Our men and women get married and stay married and have lots of children and live in a home by themselves, not in some huge evil hotel like they do on the mainland."

"Why do you dye your skin yellow?" I asked.

"Because," she explained, "my ancestors had yellow skin until the Macro society polluted us with interracial marriage. Now we must dye our skins to remember our glorious racial heritage. You'll find our yellow state with its yellow religion and yellow language is the nicest state on our island."

"Wait a minute," I said. "You're speaking the universal language of the Macro society, not the yellow language."

"We learn the president's language in our schools and on television," she replied proudly, "but we speak only the yellow language in our homes and in our state activities."

"But why do you want two languages?" I asked.

"People," she replied," can't be proud and hold their heads up if they have abandoned the language of their ancestors. Our yellow language makes our yellow people in our yellow state with our yellow religion the most unique people in all the world"

"Tell me about your yellow religion," I requested.

She gave me another snaggle-toothed smile and said, "According to our yellow religion, when God created, man he used five colors to distinguish the five different kinds of people. The yellow people God created last and best; and ever since, the yellow race has been God's chosen race to show all the other races the God-like way to live."

Up to now Carol had been deliberately allowing me to ask the questions, but now she said, "I recognize that you honestly believe what you are saying, and I feel that you have an intense dislike for us."

"Only for you of the Macro society, not for this man," she said, looking scornfully at Carol. "He has come from the great age of micro man when the yellow race had a greater population than any other race. Elgon Ten, our president, says that he hopes you of the Macro society have not yet corrupted Jon beyond saving. It is our responsibility to show him the truth."

Leaving Carol with a look of disgust she turned to me and smiled maternally as she continued, "We remain true to the ancient virtues of religion, race, language, and the micro family with its decent and respectable moral standards."

Now she pointed at Carol with a gnarled finger and said, "There stands the whore of ancient Babylon living only for licentious pleasure-godless, childless, parentless, and doomed never to know the holy decency of marriage and the rearing of her own children. She and all her kind are an abomination to this earth. Soon God will destroy these wicked blasphemers."

"Thank you for-talking with us," I said, "but we'd better leave now. Your president is outside and we wouldn't want to keep him waiting."

She walked us to the door wishing happiness and truth for me and ignoring Carol. We returned to the transair and I asked to visit another state. We were soon in the air. A transparent top had been raised over the car so that we could travel at a very-high rate of speed. On our journey to the next state it was Sela's turn to regale us with the marvels of Micro Island.

She began by pointing out to me that every individual had the right to have children and that women were faithful to their husbands.

"Tell me, Sela Nine," I said, "are you faithful to Elgon Ten?"

She laughed and then said, "I am not married, because the Macro society destroyed my ability to have children."

"According to C.I., Sela Nine, you chose permanent sterilization, and you could still choose otherwise," Carol inserted. "C.I. also said that women who can't or won't bear children are treated as prostitutes here on Micro Island."

Sela gave Carol a look of revulsion and then turned back to me with a smile and said, "The Macro society developed the greatest store of lies in all history and then built a machine called C.I. to disseminate them."

"Then you don't have prostitutes?" I asked.

"Of course we have prostitutes," she replied. "Micro man has always needed sexual variety. It's the oldest profession women have ever known. We are true to the ancient micro customs which permit man to have anything he's willing to pay for. Of course, like many other pleasures, it's illegal to patronize a prostitute."

"What do you mean, 'like other pleasures'?" I asked.

"We have laws against many pleasures so that our people will appreciate them and work hard to earn enough money to afford them," Sela answered.

"You mean you encourage crime bypassing laws that you know will be broken?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course," she replied. "Hasn't it always been so? It's one of our best sources of revenue. Besides, look at the history of the world. Crime is an essential ingredient in micro life. It makes life exciting and interesting. After all, you can't have conflict and competition if you don't have the right kind of laws."

"You seem to mean that you and Elgon Ten have organized crime so that it benefits you and your followers," I commented.

"That's right, Jon Ten. That's how it's always been," she answered with a shrug of her shoulders that set her lush bare breasts to jiggling in a way I struggled to ignore. "But it benefits everyone because our organized crime provides everyone who is willing to pay for it the most delicious pleasure of all-rebellion and revolt-which is what breaking a law is all about. Micro man has always thrived on it."

"It's hard for me to believe that the two of you could have grown up in the Macro society, attained high levels of Macro awareness, and then given it all up for this," I remarked.

"But, Jon Ten," Sela cried out, "we didn't give up our awareness. We developed it further. I am now level nine; Elgon is ten. You don't understand. What we left behind was only boredom. Here there is the delicious excitement of forbidden fruits being fought over and taken by the strong and courageous. I tell you, Jon Ten, without pride and conflict life is so deadly dull that it's not worth living."

"You must have forgotten," I said, "that I came from the world of 1976 where conflict and competition were polluting and destroying this planet."

"We haven't forgotten," she replied, "that as long as competition and conflict were allowed free reign there was no great danger of pollution or overpopulation because the strong survived and the weak perished or lived lives of minimum consumption and pollution."

"But," I said, "aren't all your assistants with Macro powers called controllers, and aren't you limiting and controlling conflict and competition for your own interests?"

"Of course we are," she replied candidly, "because we are the strong, and the strong always control if they aren't shackled by a mythology of love, equality, and unity."

"You must recognize that no social, organization, including your micro society, can survive without cooperation," I stated.