His eyes stung. The polite rain was done. It was all sham. The plastic trees didn’t need nourishment. They didn’t grow. Psychologists thought that the Earth-type environment helped man feel secure. Proteus knew this, but now he stared angrily at the meticulous street and went back inside.

Mithias was waiting for him. “There’s no way that you could set up natural life conditions inside a subite, son,” he said. “You know that. Don’t torment yourself. You’d have to go to Earth.”

“Well, people do go there,” Proteus said. His face flushed. He lowered his eyes.

“But they don’t live there—”

“A few do! Microfilms mention them. Historians go down; scientists. They have to make repairs on their equipment sometime.”

“So what?” his father said. “There’s no future on Earth. The whole place is drained dry, useless, stripped of anything worthwhile. It’s just a husk.” He paused and said more gently: “And Proteus, you are a boy, not a girl. It’s true that your opportunities aren’t as extensive as they might be, but there are plenty of places for you to fit into, here. Even if there were opportunities on Earth, and there aren’t, then they’d go to women.”

Proteus looked out the window. The sidewalk was already dry. The suction equipment had absorbed all the water so that none was wasted. He turned so that his father couldn’t see his face. “Everything’s the same all the time,” he said, dully. “Don’t you ever think about how fantastic it must have been? Just people with all colors of skin. That alone. Now we’re all homogenized.”

At this Mithias laughed. “What’s wrong with everyone having olive skin?” he asked. “You’re just arguing for the sake of it now. There’s all kinds of variations if you want to look for them, from yellow-olive to brown-olive to—”

“Olive-olive,” Proteus said. “You just don’t understand at all. Centuries ago there were black men and white men and yellow men—”

“And they all fought with each other,” Mithias said, wearily. “Now there’s one less thing to fight about. The races merged. What’s so wrong about that? Will you stop trying to pick an argument with me, and find something constructive to do?”

Proteus nodded, but he realized suddenly that he was finished arguing. His father wanted him to do something constructive, and he would. Somehow he’d get to Earth. Somehow he’d re-create an ancient farm there. Instead of dreaming and being frustrated, he’d act. Someday he’d stand on real ground, while real rain fell, and then this would seem like the dream.

“You’re going to have trouble with that one,” Cyprus said to Oversoul Seven. They were conversing in the further reaches of the room’s plastic dome.

“Well, he’s not one of my favorites,” Seven said. “He’s so gloomy half the time.”