2150 A.D.

Carol couldn't help but insert, "Micro Island is the only place in the world where police are needed, because it's the only place in the world where crime exists. If you didn't place so much importance on personal properties, you wouldn't need to waste all that manpower on policing your people."

The fat red face of our host grew even redder as he glowered at her saying, "Great personal wealth has always gone to the strong, courageous, and clever people who are willing to take risks and live exciting and rewarding lives."

Now he sneered openly at Carol as he said, "Your Macro society has destroyed all sense of decency or pride in its members by encouraging every vice imaginable and by denying all the virtues-courage, loyalty to one's race, accumulation of personal wealth."

Getting to his feet and waddling furiously about the room he shouted, "Never in the history of our world has such evil, wicked, godlessness been permitted to flourish. But God is not mocked forever! You and all your godless, cowardly breed will soon perish from the face of this earth"

I figured we'd better leave before our host worked himself into some sort of apoplectic stroke. I thanked him for his time and we hastily took our leave, and arrived back at the transair feeling rather depressed at what our host had revealed to us. There was no doubt in our minds that he fervently believed the things he had told us. No one had forced us to choose his home to visit.

Once we were airborne again, Elgon began questioning me about my impressions so far. When I told him quite honestly that I had been depressed by what I had seen, he seemed genuinely sad and shook his great head of long, curly black hair back and forth a number of times before he said, "I'm sorry to hear that the Macro society has already so poisoned your mind against us that you can't see how proud and happy our people are, living free and decent lives."

"Elgon Ten," I asked, "do you really think that everyone-even the poor and unhealthy-is happy here on Micro Island?"

Elgon replied in an extremely sincere and persuasive ma

He paused now to let this sink into my mind before continuing, "We here on Micro Island have provided man with many opportunities for personal pride; his own family, his own race, his own religion, his own language, his own property, and his own state. All of these the Macro society has denied man and, by so doing, reduced the life of its members to a state of such monumental boredom that they don't care whether they live or die. They come to Micro Island and break our laws so they can have at least the satisfaction of dying in an exciting way even if they can't live that way."

Now it was my turn to shake my head. "I'm sorry, but I just can't see it that way, Elgon."

"I don't ask you to believe what I say," he responded. "Just believe what your eyes and ears tell you. Talk to more of our people. Talk to the poor ones. Talk to what you call the losers in our system. Why, I tell you, the most miserable cowardly loser on our island has more self-pride and joy in living than any person you'll ever meet in the Macro society. But don't take my word for it, see and hear for yourself."

I agreed to do as Elgon suggested and talk with some more people, so he dropped us off beside a village in the Brown State. Here Carol and I talked with a mother and father of 18 children. The mother was only 36. She had married at 12 and had her first child at 14 followed by the birth of one child each year thereafter-18 of them lived.

This family was very poor. Their house was small and they slept seven to a bed. However they were very proud of their family and the fact that the five eldest sons were in training to be gladiators. The whole family worked as tenant farmers, which did not supply them with enough money to survive, so the two eldest daughters had been working as prostitutes for the past several years to supplement the family income. The whole family was very proud of these two girls.

Their health, by Macro society standards, was atrocious. The mother with two babies at her breasts looked a pale and sickly 50, yet she had told me proudly that she was 14 years younger than that. The father at 39 looked younger than the mother, though most of his teeth were rotten stumps and his body looked bloated with unhealthy fat. In contrast, most of the-swarming children looked very ski

When we arrived at their home, they were all happily watching the gladiators fighting on TV, which I learned every family purchased even if it had money for nothing else. They were pathetically proud of their dyed-brown skin, their brown religion, and their brown language, their brown state, which had the bravest and strongest gladiators in the world-according to them.

Once again we got the bit about God creating four races and being disappointed, so he created the brown race to show all the others how to live loyal, courageous, and God-fearing lives. They believed it, and were pathetically happy that they had had the great good fortune to be born as God's chosen people.

Instead of being scornful of Carol, this family were genuinely sorry for her great misfortune at having been born into the Macro society. They honestly pitied this beautiful and healthy young girl.

When I asked them if they weren't unhappy with their poverty, the father said, "We pity the rich, for they no longer have the glorious hope of obtaining riches. We have the exciting incentive of gaining wealth, and soon when our sons enter the games the money will begin rolling in. You see, we have every reason to be happy with our lives."

Carol and I left on that note feeling again depressed but no longer surprised that Elgon would want us to visit as many people as possible. It was becoming obvious that he was showing off the results of the most successful propaganda machine ever created.

Later as we were flying to the Black State I asked Elgon if he had any idea what the average life-span was on Micro Island.

"Yes," he replied. "Men live on the average of about 53 years and women about 52. Of course, you think that's terrible, but, again, let me remind you, Jon Ten, that it is not how long you live, or how much comfort and security you have that really counts. No, in the long run, it's how much pride you can take in your life and how much excitement you've had along the way."

"I don't deny," I said, "that you've been successful at persuading your people into believing what you are saying. My wonder is that even a hundred a year leave your island."

"Those are the older ones," Elgon explained, "who haven't had the advantages of all the improvements that Sela Nine, I, and our thousand controllers have instituted in the past 30 years. I spent the first 40 years here just getting things organized, but now our micro society is more exciting and interesting for everyone."

"You mean it's taken you 70 years to set up an almost perfect propaganda machine that persuades everyone to think as you want them to think," I observed.

Elgon merely smiled his imperious smile and suggested that I visit with more of his people. This we did, but the next two families, one black and one white, gave us the same old story. They were proud of their skin color, their religion, their language, their family, and their glorious state. Naturally they were happy to be God's chosen people and they were out to produce as many of their race as possible. The black family had 18 children, while the white family, due to multiple births, was the recordholder with 53 children.

The incredibly prolific white mother mentioned the growing problem with outlaws who refused to accept the wisdom of Elgon Ten and entertained the blasphemous ideas of the Macro society. She said it was the other states that had the biggest problem with this (naturally).