planet in these bodies he had to learn to cooperate, which meant giving up his micro freedoms. I know you feel our society is too regimented; but live in it for a while and see if our Macro society doesn't supply freedoms that your micro society could never guarantee. Freedom from fear, disease, hunger, loneliness, crippling frustrations, and self-hate.'
'If it can do all that, I sure want to see-how it works!'
We were surrounded by the beauty of a day filled with sunshine, a sparkling blue lake, a cool breeze, and the lovely park replete with shade trees.
'Who does all the work to keep this paradise running?' I asked.
'Servo-mechanisms,' Lea answered. 'What you would call robots do all of our repetitious, boring tasks. However, helping things grow is a joy to many people. We do the work that pleases us, so you'll find some of us working in the gardens.'
We approached the first of the large residence buildings, and Lea informed me that this was the student Gamma building in which I would be staying.
'I'll introduce you to your Alpha mate,' Lea said, 'then I must leave you to return to my own work. You'll learn about 2150, then you can decide whether or not you want to make the effort to stay here.'
'Wait a minute,' I said. 'You mean I'm actually going to live in an Alpha and share a bedroom with some other. girl?'
'Of course, Jon. If you're going to learn how to live in our Macro society you've got to experience it.'
'Yes, but I thought I'd be living with you,' I objected.
'You can't live with me until you've reached at least seventh level and finished your tenth student triad.'
'My God!' I exclaimed. 'That'll be years from now, Lea!'
Lea laughed and said, 'Wait until you meet Carol, your Alpha mate, and I'm sure you'll soon be happy at the prospect of sharing a bed with her for the next few years.'
'But... but,' I sputtered, 'you can't be serious. I love you. I don't want to bed down with some other woman.'
'Love,' Lea replied,' is determined by the level of one's awareness. With a micro level of awareness love is a neurotic dependency relationship characterized by jealous possessiveness.'
'Oh, great,' I growled. 'The classic rationalization for free love, otherwise known as promiscuity.'
'Contrary to your micro society,' Lea responded, 'sex is not a dirty word in 2150. You'll find we share much more than just an orgasm. And we don't use another person as a sex object.
'But please, Jon, before you condemn us as moral degenerates, get to know us. Treat us just As fairly and without prejudice as you would a research-'hypothesis.
'Now, are you ready to meet your Alpha mate?'
I had been so preoccupied with our conversation that I had been only vaguely aware of entering the building, passing several young, children, swiftly ascending to the seventh floor, and walking down a long, glass- enclosed' outer hall. It was lighted both by the outside sunshine and by overhead lighting which seemed to radiate equally from all parts of the ceiling. We had turned down an interior hallway and were now standing before a large blue door. I recalled that all the doorways we passed had been the same electric blue, while the walls were a pleasing shade of green. I remembered that we were on the seventh floor which held the seventh triad student Beta and that green was the seventh level color.
To postpone answering Lea's question about my readiness to meet my Alpha mate I asked about the blue doors.
'Blue is the eighth-level color,' Lea answered, 'and the seventh level is the door to the eighth level, so, doors on the seventh level are blue. Of course, these are student triad levels, which are entirely different from levels of awareness, but they share the same colors.'
'Do the colors themselves have any special meaning?' Lea smiled her tantalizingly mischievous smile and said, 'Carol will be glad to explain it to you.'
I was startled when the door in front of us slid silently open. Lea, sensing my surprise, drew my attention to a button beside the door saying, 'Most of us use the Macro power of psycho kinesis (PK) to activate electronic circuits. You'll have to push the buttons until you develop PK.'
I wanted to think about Lea's statement but the unusual room before us commanded my attention.
We entered the huge deeply carpeted Alpha common room, thirty feet by ninety feet long. I was impressed by the three-dimensional murals on the walls depicting outdoor scenes so realistically that I felt I was looking through windows instead of at works of art.
The absence of furniture contributed to this feeling of oneness with the out-of-doors, for the only furniture in this gigantic room was a circle of ten large sitting devices at one end of the room. They didn't look much like chairs, but their purpose was obvious. The fifteen foot ceiling was lit by some concealed source, creating a luminescence closer to that of sunshine than any I have ever experienced. The fact that there was no one in this room reminded me that we had seen no one since we reached the seventh floor.
'Where is everyone?' I asked.
'It's such a lovely day,' Lea answered, 'almost everyone is outdoors. We don't confine learning to the inside of classrooms as your society does.'
A moment later a door at the end of the room opened, and a young girl came running toward us. It was Carol. She was wearing the universal short tunic and, while Lea and I were wearing our stocking-like boots, her feet were bare.
She placed her right hand on Lea's face. Lea returned the gesture, and they looked into each other's eyes for what seemed to be a very long time as I grew increasingly self-conscious. Then, without speaking, Carol touched my face and began the same smiling, but silent, encounter. I felt as if I was drowning in her magnificent hazel eyes, set in as pretty a face as I have ever seen. Reluctantly I broke our eye contact to become aware of a beautifully formed body cast from a giant mold. Carol was as tall as I, and I'm six feet three!
CHAPTER 4: Alpha Mates
Suddenly Lea was gone and L was alone with Carol. Why did I feel so nervous? I hadn't felt that way with Lea. What was it about Carol that made me feel like a gawky adolescent on his first date?
I suddenly remembered that, as a telepath, Carol could read my mind. I found myself blushing. In my desperate attempt not to think anything embarrassing, I became inundated with thoughts about Carol's magnificent body which her pink well-fitted tunic did little to hide.
'You're discovering,' said Carol, 'that it's impossible not to think of something by trying not to think of it. In fact, the more you try not to think of my body, the more you think of it.'
My voice seemed to be strangled as I croaked out, 'I... uh, I'm sorry.'
'You certainly needn't be. It would be sad, indeed, if you didn't appreciate the beauty of our bodies!' With these words Carol tugged the top of her tunic, which caused it to fall to the floor, leaving her wondrously naked.
'Carol!' I gasped.
'Please, Jon, go ahead and look at my body,' she said-as if I could have looked at anything else!
'I know it's difficult and embarrassing for you. Your being a Virgo-the virgin of the Zodiac-only multiplies your 20th-century sex guilts, so we might as well deal with them right now if you're going to live comfortably in a 22nd-century Alpha. Let's see, bathing together should be the perfect beginning for a Virgo.'
'You believe in astrology, then?' I jumped at a safe topic to diminish my self-consciousness.
'Only as an influence, Jon-not as a determinant. Now, about that bath.' She took my hand and we entered the most spacious bedroom I've ever seen.
The room was thirty feet square. In one corner was a huge nine-foot-square pad about a foot high, while in the opposite corner was a sunken pool ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. A couple of soft oval cushions in the center
