"Yes, I know," persisted the prison official. "But doesn't it seem strange that of all the inmates and guards at the prison, the Earth archaeologist alone is missing?" "Nevertheless, we can assume that virtually all of those missing are dead, buried forever under the debris of the municipal disaster." "Still, you know how important this Earthman is, what trouble he can cause...." "_I_ know," snapped the Director arrogantly, "But do you?" "Well, I have been told...." "Told! Told what you had to know, told to furnish the Earthman with a maximum security cell, and so forth. You know nothing!" "I still...." With a wave of his hand, the Director dismissed the warden. Then, sitting alone at his desk, he lit a cigarette. It was an Earth-cigarette, and a good one. These things, the Director mused, we accept from the outworlders. Their little luxuries. But their way of life, he told himself, never. Whatever threatens our way of life, we seek out and destroy. He leaned on a corner of the desk's surface and in a moment a serving girl came obsequiously into the room with a tray. Patting her rump playfully, as you might stroke the head of a dog, the Director selected the bottle he wanted from the tray, indicating that she should make him a drink. He waited, watching her graceful movements as she set down the tray and poured the liquid into a delicate glass of Regan crystal. The drink, heady and delicious, was Aldeberanean fire wine. He savored it slowly, then with a gesture indicated that the girl, who wore nothing but a kirtle to cover the nakedness of her loins, should depart. He leaned back and thought: This too--not the wine, but the woman. Because the woman would be impossible if the Kedaki way of life were changed. A system, he went on thinking, founded on bedrock as strong as the pull between the planets. Metempsychosis.... Do you believe in reincarnation? he asked himself. He chuckled, the sound deep in his throat. He was no fool and did not hold a fool's belief. But the others? The servant classes, the slaves? Yes, they believed. All their lives, they were indoctrinated to believe. Reincarnation was the stuff of which their dreams were fashioned, and so it was that they accepted the hard lot of lifelong servitude with the hope that in their next birth, had they led a good, loyal life, they would be born to a higher station.