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soon would.
    Sung-wu gazed up at the sky and gave thanks to Elron; here, suffering was unusually severe; trials of exceptional vividness lay on every hand. These men and women were being tempered in a hot crucible; their souls were probably purified to an astonishing degree. A baby lay in the shade, beside a half-dozing mother. Flies crawled over its eyes; its mother breathed heavily, hoarsely, her mouth open. An unhealthy flush discolored her brown cheeks. Her belly bulged; she was already pregnant again. Another eternal soul to be raised from a lower level. Her great breasts sagged and wobbled as she stirred in her sleep, spilling out over her dirty wraparound.
    “Come here,” Sung-wu called sharply to the gang of black-faced children who followed along after him. “I’m going to talk to you.”
    The children approached, eyes on the ground, and assembled in a silent circle around him. Sung-wu sat down, placed his briefcase beside him and folded his legs expertly under him in the traditional posture outlined by Elron in his seventh book of teaching.
    “I will ask and you will answer,” Sung-wu stated. “You know the basic catechisms?” He peered sharply around. “Who knows the basic catechisms?”
    One or two hands went up. Most of the children looked away unhappily.
    “First!” snapped Sung-wu. “Who are you? You are a minute fragment of the cosmic plan.
    “Second! What are you? A mere speck in a system so vast as to be beyond comprehension.
    “Third! What is the way of life? To fulfill what is required by the cosmic forces
    “Fourth! Where are you? On one step of the cosmic ladder.
    “Fifth! Where have you been? Through endless steps; each turn of the wheel advances or depresses you.
    “Sixth! What determines your direction at the next turn? Your conduct in this manifestation.
    “Seventh! What is right conduct? Submitting yourself to the eternal forces, the cosmic elements that make up the divine plan.
    “Eighth! What is the significance of suffering? To purify the soul.
    “Ninth! What is the significance of death? To release the person from this manifestation, so he may rise to a new rung of the ladder.
    “Tenth—”
    But at that moment Sung-wu broke off. Two quasi-human shapes were approaching him. Immense white-skinned figures striding across the baked fields, between the sickly rows of wheat.
    Technos—coming to meet him; his flesh crawled. Caucs. Their skins glittered pale and unhealthy, like nocturnal insects, dug from under rocks.
    He rose to his feet, conquered his disgust, and prepared to greet them.
    Sung-wu said, “Clearness!” He could smell them, a musky sheep smell, as they came to a halt in front of him. Two bucks, two immense sweating males, skin damp and sticky, with beards, and long disorderly hair. They wore sailcloth trousers and boots. With horror Sung-wu perceived a thick body-hair, on their chests, like woven mats—tufts in their armpits, on their arms, wrists, even the backs of their hands. Maybe Broken Feather was right; perhaps, in these great lumbering blond-haired beasts, the archaic Neanderthal stock—the false men—still survived. He could almost see the ape, peering from behind their blue eyes.
    “Hi,” the first Cauc said. After a moment he added reflectively, “My name’s Jamison.”
    “Pete Ferris,” the other grunted. Neither of them observed the customary deferences; Sung-wu winced but managed not to show it. Was it deliberate, a veiled insult, or perhaps mere ignorance? This was hard to tell; in lower classes there was, as Chai said, an ugly undercurrent of resentment and envy, and hostility.
    “I’m making a routine survey,” Sung-wu explained, “on birth and death rates in rural areas. I’ll be here a few days. Is there some place I can stay? Some public inn or hostel?”
    The two Cauc bucks were silent. “Why?” one of them demanded bluntly.
    Sung-wu blinked. “Why? Why what?”
    “Why are you making a survey? If you want any information