ne was thrown on the walls of an
apartment, the effect was precisely the same as if one were gazing
through a vast window at the scene itself.

It was possible too, for a slightly higher fee, to make a mutual
connection between apartments in the same or different cities, so that a
family in Lo-Tan, for instance, might "visit" friends in Fis-Ko (San
Francisco) taking their apartment, so to speak, along with them; being
to all intents and purposes separated from their "hosts" only by a big
glass wall which interfered neither with vision nor conversation.

These public view and visitation projectoscopes explain that utter depth
of laziness into which the Hans had been dragged by their civilization.
There was no incentive for anyone to leave his apartment unless he was
in the military or air service, or a member of one of the repair
services which from time to time had to scoot through the corridors and
shafts of the city, somewhat like the ancient fire departments, to make
some emergency repair to the machinery of the city or its electrical
devices.

* * * * *

Why should he leave his house? Food, wonderful synthetic concoctions of
any desired flavor and consistency (and for additional fee conforming to
the individual's dietary prescription) came to him through a shaft, from
which his tray slid automatically on to a convenient shelf or table.

At will he could tune in a theatrical performance of talking pictures.
He could visit and talk with his friends. He breathed the freshest of
filtered air right in his own apartment, at any temperature he desired,
fragrant with the scent of flowers, the aromatic smell of the pine
forests or the salt tang of the sea, as he might prefer. He could
"visit" his friends at will, and though his apartment actually might be
buried many thousand feet from the outside wall of the city, it was none
the less an "outside" one, by virtue of its viewplate walls. There was
even a tube system, with trunk, branch and local lines and an
automagnetic switching system, by which articles within certain size
limits could be despatched from any apartment to any other one in the
city.

The women actually moved about through the city more than the men, for
they had no fixed duties. No work was required of them, and though
nominally free, their dependence upon the government pension for their
necessities and on their "husbands" (of the moment) for their luxuries,
reduced the