hich eliminates the
old-fashioned home, family circle, and social pattern. And the more we
must conserve dwindling natural resources for people, the less we can
expend on experimentation with robots and machinery. As for the
psychologist-dominated society, there are just too many patients and
not enough physicians. I don't have to remind you that the military
caste lost its chance of control when war disappeared, and that
religion is losing ground every day. Class-lines are vanishing, and
racial distinctions will be going next. The old idea of a World
Federation is becoming more and more practical. Once the political
barriers are down, miscegenation will finish the job. But nobody
seemed to foresee this particular future. They all made the mistake of
worrying about the hydrogen-bomb instead of the sperm-bomb."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, although Wade couldn't see his response.
"But isn't it true that there's a little bit of each of these concepts
in our actual situation today?" he asked. "I mean, government and
business _are_ virtually one and the same, and they do use propaganda
techniques to control all media. As for scientific research, look at
how we've rebuilt our cities and developed synthetics for food and
fuel and clothing and shelter. When it comes to medicine, there's
Leffingwell and his inoculations. Isn't that all along the lines of
your early science fiction?"

"Where's your Underground?" Richard Wade demanded.

"My _what_?"

"Your Underground," Wade repeated. "Hell, every science fiction yarn
about a future society had its Underground! That was the whole gimmick
in the plot. The hero was a conformist who tangled with the social
order--come to think of it, that's what _you_ did, years ago. Only
instead of becoming an impotent victim of the system, he'd meet up
with the Underground Movement. Not some sourball like your friend
Ritchie, who tried to operate on his own hook, without real plans or
system, but a complete _sub rosa_ organization, bent on starting a
revolution and taking over. There'd be wise old priests and wise old
crooks and wise old officers and wise old officials, all playing a
double game and planning a _coup_. Spies all over the place, get me?
And in no time at all, our hero would be playing tag with the top
figures in the government. That's how it worked out in all the
stories.

"But what happens in real life? What happened to you, for example? You
fell for a series of stupid tricks