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.
"Yes," she agreed, "we cooperate so that we can better enjoy the fruits of conflict and competition."
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by our landing near a small town in the red state. Carol and I got out and this time walked all the way through this community of generally small unattractive houses. There were, however, a few larger homes, so we selected one of the largest and most ostentatious in the community. Before we knocked on the door Carol commented on the very few people we had seen in, the streets, which were almost deserted. Before I could knock on the door it was opened by a short middle-aged man with a large well-fed stomach and bright red skin. He welcomed us into a large and lavishly appointed living room saying that everyone was watching our progress on the TV, interspersed with the gladiator games from the capital city of Elgonia.
"Well," I said as we sat down in luxuriously comfortable form-hugging chairs, "I suppose that accounts for the absence of people outside. But tell us about the gladiator games you mentioned."
His face lit up and he grinned broadly, revealing a beautiful set of obviously false teeth. "They're great!" he said. "Our state gladiators represent us in the games. This gives us a chance to demonstrate our superiority."
"You mean red gladiators fight gladiators of other colors?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "but we have many types of competition besides the individual sword fights, fist fights, or wrestling that gladiators performed in the past. We have team conflicts that include football, baseball, and basketball as well as larger conflicts such as capture the flag."
"Well," I said, "I remember playing a game by that name when I was a boy. How does your version go?"
"When we practice it locally," he explained, "we use fewer gladiators, but when it involves interstate-competition the standard team size is 100 men who play on a standard size C.F. field of 1,000 square yards. The object of the conflict is to capture the other state's flag. We use both sword teams and bare-handed teams."