Again she shook her head. "No, they were right, they were betrayed. Some of those people had their life's saving of luxury pay invested in the corporation-men, and when those men failed them, they lost their savings and their futures. Poverty is a treacherous catalyst, it makes men do weird and horrible things. Common tricks of psychology added to that, make the whole mess into a primitive society of revenge and hatred." Florin saw he had her on the right track, but ran his hand through his hair in bewilderment as he asked, "But why? We can see the result, but nobody is willing to tell the cause. I've got to know." She looked at him, barely discernable in the dark cabin, then said, "Why are you so interested? Why did you help us?" "I told you. I was a student of Tomlin, and a believer in the principles of this planet. I saw it produce a society where intelligence and virtue were manifest--whether for mercenary or other reasons is inconsequential. It worked, and it made a wonderful world. I wanted to do my part in that world--my world. "Now I want to know _why_ my world has crumbled into a screaming madhouse of violence." "Yes, I can understand all too well how you feel. It's really horrible when you have grown up in a society, learned about its every intricacy, its principles, and come to have faith in it--then see it suddenly disintegrate. "You come to think of your society as the universe, nothing else is as permanent as your world, your people. You make plans and move through that society, believing in it with a faith stronger than any religious faith--for you can see and understand it constantly. "Then something like this happens. The familiar still exists, but palled with suffering and horror. People you have known suddenly become beasts. Your world has collapsed. And even if you know the reason, it doesn't seem possible, the reason is out of a textbook and unreal, but the disillusionment and despair are all too real. "And from such a disintegration, you learn one important thing--how abysmally ignorant you are of the society that you've lived in, and of people in general." There was a long silence. Finally she said, "I believe in you, and I believe you should know the reason." It was a strange scene as the two people, dirty and tired, sat in the crude cabin by the moonlight and discussed the fate of a world. "When this planet was colonized," Yma began, "everyone laughed at us, and said that our radical socio-economic system couldn't work. All types of people started here. Some were merely looking for a final refuge, some were criminals and confidence men out to 'take' this 'starry-eyed flock of crackpots'. Most of them, though, were solid citizens, who believed that this system of paying a man for his intelligence and virtue on a carefully regulated basis was the proper compromise between reality and altruism to achieve a Utopia.