orted them out. "There's one thing wrong," he said. "What
about us? We live on the surface of Pyrrus without perimeters or guns.
Why aren't we attacked as well? We're human, descended from the same
people as the junkmen."

"You're not attacked," Jason told him, "because you don't identify
yourself as a natural disaster. Animals can live on the slopes of a
dormant volcano, fighting and dying in natural competition. But they'll
flee together when the volcano erupts. That eruption is what makes the
mountain a natural disaster. In the case of human beings, it is their
thoughts that identify them as life form or disaster. Mountain or
volcano. In the city everyone radiates suspicion and death. They enjoy
killing, thinking about killing, and planning for killing. This is
natural selection, too, you realize. These are the survival traits that
work best in the city. Outside the city men think differently. If they
are threatened individually, they fight, as will any other creature.
Under more general survival threats they co-operate completely with the
rules for universal survival that the city people break."

"How did it begin--this separation, I mean, between the two groups?"
Rhes asked.

"We'll probably never know," Jason said. "I think your people must have
originally been farmers, or psionic sensitives who were not with the
others during some natural disaster. They would, of course, act
correctly by Pyrran standards, and survive. This would cause a
difference of opinion with the city people who saw killing as the
answer. It's obvious, whatever the reason, that two separate communities
were established early, and soon separated except for the limited amount
of barter that benefited both."

"I still can't believe it," Kerk mumbled. "It makes a terrible kind of
truth, every step of the way, but I still find it hard to accept. There
_must_ be another explanation."

Jason shook his head slowly. "None. This is the only one that works.
We've eliminated the other ones, remember? I can't blame you for finding
it hard to believe, since it is in direct opposition to everything
you've understood to be true in the past. It's like altering a natural
law. As if I gave you proof that gravity didn't really exist, that it
was a force altogether different from the immutable one we know, one you
could get around when you understood how. You'd want more proof than
words. Probably want to see someone walking on air."

"Which isn't such a b