Thea Alexander - 2150 A.D.

"It seems to me," I said, "that this is a terribly regimented and over structured society if everybody remains a student for the first thirty years of his life and must live in a student Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. One of the problems of the 1970s is that most young people in the industrial societies are kept much too long as students-'nonproductive' members of society."

"Yes, that's true. But our students are learning how to live satisfying, productive lives. They're not wasting their time memorizing facts and studying irrelevant materials which they'll soon forget because they don't use them in their daily life. Perfect examples would be memorization of historical or geographical details, or your society's devotion to learning foreign languages, algebra, and geometry, which most people never need to use.

"In order to survive," Lea continued, "we learned that we had to remove from out lives the nonessentials and the divisive concerns of micro man. These included his micro family, economic class, religion, nationality, language, cultural and racial divisions."

"That's what I meant by massive regimentation," I said. "There's no freedom left!"

"You mean," Lea answered, "freedom to feel separate from and better than others. Freedom to be selfish and to put your own welfare above that of others. Freedom to compete, to fight, to destroy others. Freedom to pollute by over consuming and overpopulating and by refusing to cooperate."

She looked at me searchingly for a few seconds, then continued. "You see, Jon, for man to survive on this planet in these bodies he had to learn to cooperate, which meant giving up his micro freedoms. I know you feel our society is too regimented; but live in it for a while and see if our Macro society doesn't supply freedoms that your micro society could never guarantee. Freedom from fear, disease, hunger, loneliness, crippling frustrations, and self-hate."

"If it can do all that, I sure want to see-how it works!"

We were surrounded by the beauty of a day filled with sunshine, a sparkling blue lake, a cool breeze, and the lovely park replete with shade trees.

"Who does all the work to keep this paradise running?" I asked.

"Servo-mechanisms," Lea answered. "What you would call robots do all of our repetitious, boring tasks. However, helping things grow is a joy to many people. We do the work that pleases us, so you'll find some of us working in the gardens."

We approached the first of the large residence buildings, and Lea informed me that this was the student Gamma building in which I would be staying.

"I'll introduce you to your Alpha mate," Lea said, "then I must leave you to return to my own work. You'll learn about 2150, then you can decide whether or not you want to make the effort to stay here."

"Wait a minute," I said. "You mean I'm actually going to live in an Alpha and share a bedroom with some other. girl?"

"Of course, Jon. If you're going to learn how to live in our Macro society you've got to experience it."

"Yes, but I thought I'd be living with you," I objected.

"You can't live with me until you've reached at least seventh level and finished your tenth student triad."

"My God!" I exclaimed. "That'll be years from now, Lea!"

Lea laughed and said, "Wait until you meet Carol, your Alpha mate, and I'm sure you'll soon be happy at the prospect of sharing a bed with her for the next few years."

"But... but," I sputtered, "you can't be serious. I love you. I don't want to bed down with some other woman."

"Love," Lea replied," is determined by the level of one's awareness. With a micro level of awareness love is a neurotic dependency relationship characterized by jealous possessiveness."

"Oh, great," I growled. "The classic rationalization for free love, otherwise known as promiscuity."

"Contrary to your micro society," Lea responded, "sex is not a dirty word in 2150. You'll find we share much more than just an orgasm. And we don't use another person as a sex object.

"But please, Jon, before you condemn us as moral degenerates, get to know us. Treat us just As fairly and without prejudice as you would a research-'hypothesis.

"Now, are you ready to meet your Alpha mate?"

I had been so preoccupied with our conversation that I had been only vaguely aware of entering the building, passing several young, children, swiftly ascending to the seventh floor, and walking down a long, glass-enclosed' outer hall. It was lighted both by the outside sunshine and by overhead lighting which seemed to radiate equally from all parts of the ceiling. We had turned down an interior hallway and were now standing before a large blue door. I recalled that all the doorways we passed had been the same electric blue, while the walls were a pleasing shade of green. I remembered that we were on the seventh floor which held the seventh triad student Beta and that green was the seventh level color.

To postpone answering Lea's question about my readiness to meet my Alpha mate I asked about the blue doors.

"Blue is the eighth-level color," Lea answered, "and the seventh level is the door to the eighth level, so, doors on the seventh level are blue. Of course, these are student triad levels, which are entirely different from levels of awareness, but they share the same colors."

"Do the colors themselves have any special meaning?" Lea smiled her tantalizingly mischievous smile and said, "Carol will be glad to explain it to you."

I was startled when the door in front of us slid silently open. Lea, sensing my surprise, drew my attention to a button beside the door saying, "Most of us use the Macro power of psycho kinesis (PK) to activate electronic circuits. You'll have to push the buttons until you develop PK."

I wanted to think about Lea's statement but the unusual room before us commanded my attention.

We entered the huge deeply carpeted Alpha common room, thirty feet by ninety feet long. I was impressed by the three-dimensional murals on the walls depicting outdoor scenes so realistically that I felt I was looking through windows instead of at works of art.

The absence of furniture contributed to this feeling of oneness with the out-of-doors, for the only furniture in this gigantic room was a circle of ten large sitting devices at one end of the room. They didn't look much like chairs, but their purpose was obvious. The fifteen foot ceiling was lit by some concealed source, creating a luminescence closer to that of sunshine than any I have ever experienced. The fact that there was no one in this room reminded me that we had seen no one since we reached the seventh floor.

"Where is everyone?" I asked.

"It's such a lovely day," Lea answered, "almost everyone is outdoors. We don't confine learning to the inside of classrooms as your society does."

A moment later a door at the end of the room opened, and a young girl came running toward us. It was Carol. She was wearing the universal short tunic and, while Lea and I were wearing our stocking-like boots, her feet were bare.

She placed her right hand on Lea's face. Lea returned the gesture, and they looked into each other's eyes for what seemed to be a very long time as I grew increasingly self-conscious. Then, without speaking, Carol touched my face and began the same smiling, but silent, encounter. I felt as if I was drowning in her magnificent hazel eyes, set in as pretty a face as I have ever seen. Reluctantly I broke our eye contact to become aware of a beautifully formed body cast from a giant mold. Carol was as tall as I, and I'm six feet three!

Suddenly Lea was gone and L was alone with Carol. Why did I feel so nervous? I hadn't felt that way with Lea. What was it about Carol that made me feel like a gawky adolescent on his first date?