Now we're free to think and free to grow

Under the sky so blue

Down in the fields where the flowers blow,

Part of a world made new.

Ay-di-doh, ay-di-doh dah-day

Ay-di-doh, ay-di-day-dee.

Now Devil-on-your-Back can't make you pay

And your children will be free.”

As the last words of the song died away on the still night air the dancers drew back from the fire and sat in a circle about it. In the brooding silence that followed, Ruth's eyes slid from face to face. What was going to happen? Each face looked as if it were carved from stone, or from the trees. The only movement was the flickering of the fire.

At length it was Swift who broke the silence. He began to tell the story of the End of Oil and the coming of the Age of Confusion. Another voice followed with the story of the Ark. It was similar to the story Ruth had learned in History, and yet it was different. This story was told stiffly, as if it had been memorizcd and handed down from generation to generation like a kind of myth, rather than something that was discussed in class and read about and that you had to write essays on.

Another voice added to the story, and then another. A fifth voice took up the thread. By now the blaze had died to a heap of glowing embers, by whose light Ruth could only dimly see the faces of the people. The story began to change.

“Then came a shameful night when a group of scientists decided in secret that it would be more 'useful' if they could spend all their energies on their studies, leaving those who were less successful or less powerful to do the menial work of the city. Thus was the community divided into Lords and workers. Already sockets had been grafted to the necks of both Lords and workers, sockets into which information packs could be plugged. The Lords gave themselves all the knowledge of the central computer, until their backs were bowed with the weight of the infopaks, but the workers were given only what they needed to function in their designated task and no more.”

“How dreadful!” The exclamation burst from the Initiator. “Why did they accept such a life?”

“That was the terrible part about the new experiment. The infopaks taught the workers to be happy with their life, however boring it might actually be and however menial their tasks. It was a great success - at first. Then something went wrong. Some people's bodies rejected the implant that was necessary to connect the infopak. So these people were not like the workers. The computer could not force them to be happy. So what was to be done? They were both ignorant and free. Soldiers were trained by the computer to keep them in order and under control. Now this classless society had two more classes. Soldiers and slaves.”