I started on a mixture containing cubes of meat and exotic vegetables. The people at the large table had stopped eating and fixed me with disconcerting stares. I said, "It's hard to tell you people apart."

"Those are children, grandchildren, in-laws," Rasmussen explained. "All true Maggiese resemble each other. Is the Joe Nordo Plan. Someday, except for age and sex, all Maggiese will be alike."

"I thought Planet Maggie had only been settled two centuries. You surely must have developed new genetic techniques for everyone to be this much alike so soon."

"No. Hereditary Controls Council hunts new ways. Attempt to count and identify human genes with devices they invented. Plan all marriages and calculate appearance of offspring. Much guessing. Still have Mongoloids, blonds, even red hair." Rasmussen glanced at my red hair.

I ate coarse bread and drank juice with unknown flavors. I asked, "Why make such a bother over looks?"

Rasmussen frowned. "Joe Nordo said, 'To be alike is to be free.' When men are exactly the same, envy, suspicion, prejudice, other evils vanish. Already Planet Maggie stands alone. Only true democracy in the Explored Galaxy. Jury is chosen by the people. Ordinances these men provide must pass in referendum with a ninety per cent majority. Farmers, of course, do not vote. His Perfectness the Joe Nordo Ideal is but an honored figurehead, the man who most resembles Joe Nordo."

I said, "The people actually vote for these stu—uh, for these Ordinances?"

"Of course. Their right."

Outside, the sky was now completely dark except when streaked with chains of lightning. Rumbling thunder rattled the windows.

VII: FIVEDAY NIGHT

After dinner, Rasmussen led me to his "den." I had expected a cave, but it was another wooden room. The advance winds of the gathering storm stirred the cloth around an open window and ruffled papers on a carved desk. I turned left, jumped convulsively, and clawed for imaginary weapons.

A pair of tiny red eyes peered from beneath flopping ears. From either side of a truncated snout, two yellow tusks jutted upward. Grayish-brown, creased, tuberculated skin sprinkled with stiff hairs covered a monstrous head at least a meter and a half wide and two meters long.

I recovered enough to see that the 

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