"Well, they did. And, of course, the obvious thing happened. Since
they cooperated in some things, they cooperated in a lot of things,
even fighting. That's how they could make war, you know--not the nice,
social sort of fighting we do now. And you can imagine what happened.
You can kill an awful lot of people awful fast, if a gang gets
together on it like that. If they didn't have the artificial bodies
and the psi transfer transmitters to make them come alive, there
wouldn't have been anybody left after a while. That cooperation is
rough stuff."

"Obviously," she commented dryly.

"Well, that's the reason for everything, then. Pretty soon the
factories couldn't turn out hypnobodies fast enough and people had to
fight in their protobodies sometimes. But after a few centuries, the
leaders began to get civilized, and decided to put an end to all this
cooperative killing. I guess they all got together and agreed not to
cooperate with each other in anything in the future."

"It stands to reason," Mark concluded, "people had to learn to be
civilized. They weren't just born that way. It's--it's culture."

"Pouf," said Jennette critically.

"All right," he growled, biting viciously into a pomegranate. "Let's
hear your big story if it's so good."

* * * * *

Jennette stretched out her legs and contemplated her wiggling toes.
"Oh, I don't know. I don't have any real ideas. But I know better than
to believe that sort of nonsense. People just aren't like that, and
you know it." She hesitated thoughtfully, then continued. "Maybe a few
of them got together now and then for a party or something like this.
But not hundreds of them."

When Mark did not reply, she laughed and said, "I guess I'm just
feeling risque tonight."

"You sure are," he mumbled.

"Of course there are parts of the old mythology that seem rather
interesting--beautiful, even--"

"It's not mythology."

"Like the part that deals with marriage."

She waited. Mark dutifully echoed, "Deals with what?"

"Marriage."

Mark considered it. Then he shook his head. "What's that?"

"See?" she taunted him. "You don't know everything like you think you
do. Marriage," she explained, "was a sort of cooperative agreement
that the ancient people were supposed to have entered into."

"Sure, just like I said," Mark stated with assurance. "Hundreds of
people did it. They got involved in this marriage agreement, and made
war on each