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stratify into cities and villages within the building leads to a good deal of inbreeding, which they say isn’t healthy for the species on a long-term basis. But if we take five thousand people from each of fifty urbmons, say, and toss them together into a new urbmon, it gives us a pooled gene-mix of 250,000 individuals that we didn’t have before. Actually, though, easing population pressure is the most urgent reason for erecting new buildings.”
    â€œKeep it clean, Siegmund,” Memnon warns.
    Siegmund grins. “No, I mean it. Oh, sure, there’s a cultural imperative telling us to breed and breed and breed. That’s natural, after the agonies of the pre-urbmon days, when everybody went around wondering where we were going to put all the people. But even in a world of urban monads we have to plan in an orderly way. The excess of births over deaths is pretty consistent. Each urbmon is designed to hold 800,000 people comfortably, with room to pack in maybe 100,000 more, but that’s the top. At the moment, you know, every urbmon more than twenty years old in the Chipitts constellation is at least 10,000 people above maximum, and a couple are pushing maximum. Things aren’t too bad yet in 116, but you know yourselves that there are trouble spots. Why, Chicago has 38,000—”
    â€œ37,402 this morning,” Aurea says.
    â€œWhatever. That’s close to a thousand people a floor. The programed optimum density for Chicago is only 32,000, though. That means that the waiting list in your city for a private apartment is getting close to a full generation long. The dorms are packed, and people aren’t dying fast enough to make room for the new families, which is why Chicago is offloading some of its best people to places like Edinburgh and Boston and—well, Shanghai. Once the new building is open—”
    Aurea says, steely-voiced, “How many from 116 are going to be sent there?”
    â€œThe theory is, 5,000 from each monad, at current levels,” Siegmund says. “It’ll be adjusted slightly to compensate for population variations in different buildings, but figure on 5,000. Now, there’ll be about a thousand people in 116 who’ll volunteer to go—”
    â€œVolunteer?”
Aurea gasps. It is inconceivable to her that anyone will
want
to leave his native urbmon.
    Siegmund smiles. “Older people, love. In their twenties and thirties. Bored, maybe stalemated in their careers, tired of their neighbors, who knows? It sounds obscene, yes. But there’ll be a thousand volunteers. That means that about 4,000 more will have to be picked by lot.”
    â€œI told you so this morning,” Memnon says.
    â€œWill these 4,000 be taken at random throughout the whole urbmon?” Aurea asks.
    Gently Siegmund says, “At random, yes. From the newlywed dorms. From the childless.”
    At last. The truth revealed.
    â€œWhy from us?” Aurea wails.
    â€œKindest and most blessworthy way,” says Siegmund. “We can’t uproot small children from their urbmon matrix. Dorm couples haven’t the same kind of community ties that we—that others—that—” He falters, as if recognizing for the first time that he is not speaking of hypothetical individuals, but of Aurea and her own calamity. Aurea starts to sob. He says, “Love, I’m sorry. It’s the system, and it’s a good system. Ideal, in fact.”
    â€œMemnon, we’re going to be
expelled
!”
    Siegmund tries to reassure her. She and Memnon have only a slim chance of being chosen, he insists. In this urbmon thousands upon thousands of people are eligible for transfer. And so many variable factors exist, he maintains—but she will not be consoled. Unashamed, she lets geysers of raw emotion spew into the room, and then she feels shame. She knows she has spoiled the evening for everyone. But Siegmund and Mamelon are kind about it, and