sort of socialistic system," I said thoughtfully.
"Even a sort of communism?"

"In a sense. Rather it is an automatic life. The soul of the machine
pervades us all, and the machines are beautiful. Our lives are logically
and inevitably directed by environment and heredity just as the
machines are inevitably directed by their functions and capabilities.
When a child is born, we know already what he will do throughout his
life, how long he will live, what sort of children he will have, the
woman he will marry. The Bureau could tell you at this moment when my
great-grandson will be born, when he will die, and what his life will do
for the State. There are never any accidents in our lives."

* * * * *

"But how did you develop so highly technical a civilization?" I asked.

"We came to it gradually from the last government system. It was called
the _phrenarchic system_--the rule of the mind. It was neither democracy
nor monarchy nor dictatorship. We found that we could tell the
temperament and characteristics of a child from his early years, and we
trained certain children for government. They were given power according
to the qualities of their minds and according to the tasks for which
they were fitted. We even bred them for governing. Later, when the
machine began to usurp the place of labor all over the world and gave
men freedom and peace and beauty, the task of government dwindled away
little by little, and the phrenarchs turned gradually to other
occupations."

* * * * *

I learned innumerable details of that life from Edvar, and occasionally
Selda would add some fact. They are not important now. It is the
narrative which I must tell, not the details of a social system which,
as I would discover later, was purely hypothetical.

The three of us spent the morning in conversation there, until the
entrance of another man I had not seen before. He came in without
knocking, but Edvar and Selda did not seem to be surprised. He was the
representative of the Bureau.

"You are Baret?" he said, looking at me keenly.

"Yes," I replied.

"I have been directed to tell you that your visit here is temporary, and
that you will be returned to your previous life at the end of a certain
period of time which we have not yet calculated precisely. You have been
registered with the Bureau, and you are free to come and go as you see
fit, but you are not to interfere wi