wasn't any chance for a man to get his tax debt paid off, not a chance in the world. Now we all have that chance, every one of us. That's what's important!"

The fat man sat down, breathing hard as if he had been running. He nodded with emphatic triumph at Hendley and RED-498. "This Merger is the greatest thing that could happen," he declared. "You'll see if it isn't!"

Others spoke. A tall, broad-shouldered man in the respected beige coverall of a 1-Dayman, adorned with the stitched emblem of an athlete, rose to deliver a speech which was quickly diverted from the Merger to the virtues of competitive sports as one of the Organization's finest forms of recreation. A plaintive voice wondered if maybe the Organization wasn't just getting so big that it oughtn't to get bigger. A woman with the calm, crisp voice of an intellectual pointed out that the Eastern and Western Organizations had for many years been moving steadily toward the Merger—had actually been merged in innumerable ways, not the least of which was the Executive Exchange Program, of which she could speak personally as one who had been proud to work for a year in the Eastern society. And there was one voice from the back of the hall, from someone who remained seated so that Hendley could not see him, whose words made Hendley stiffen and listen attentively.

"What we're trying to do," the unknown man said, "is to pretend that history never was. We're saying it doesn't mean anything to be born a Westerner. Maybe it's right that we should forget that our ancestors fought against the East, and a lot of them died to make sure we wouldn't all be swallowed up. But that doesn't mean we should let ourselves get swallowed up now...."

The fat man beside Hendley had growled with anger. Even RED-498 had been indignant, her ordinarily placid face flushed. "That's silly!" she had cried. "Tell him, TR! Tell him!"

But Hendley had remained silent. The unseen speaker's words had touched a sensitive nerve. We shouldn't let ourselves get swallowed up. By what? What difference did it make to the bottom of the mountain when the banks of snow shifted on a peak perpetually shrouded by clouds? In its immediate effects that's all the Merger really meant—a reshuffling of men at the top. Down at the bottom you wouldn't feel it. You would go on eating the same food, catching the same copter or sidewalk, pushing the same buttons, paying off the same tax debt. Nothing would change.

Hendley had left that meeting deeply disturbed. When RED-498 somewhat surprisingly took 

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