"What we're trying to do," the unknown man said, "is to pretend that history never was. We're saying it doesn't mean anything to be born a Westerner. Maybe it's right that we should forget that our ancestors fought against the East, and a lot of them died to make sure we wouldn't all be swallowed up. But that doesn't mean we should let ourselves get swallowed up now...." The fat man beside Hendley had growled with anger. Even RED-498 had been indignant, her ordinarily placid face flushed. "That's silly!" she had cried. "Tell him, TR! Tell him!" But Hendley had remained silent. The unseen speaker's words had touched a sensitive nerve. We shouldn't let ourselves get swallowed up. By what? What difference did it make to the bottom of the mountain when the banks of snow shifted on a peak perpetually shrouded by clouds? In its immediate effects that's all the Merger really meant--a reshuffling of men at the top. Down at the bottom you wouldn't feel it. You would go on eating the same food, catching the same copter or sidewalk, pushing the same buttons, paying off the same tax debt. Nothing would change. Hendley had left that meeting deeply disturbed. When RED-498 somewhat surprisingly took the initiative in suggesting that they visit a nearby Public Intercourse Booth for the weekly hour allowed to Assigned, he had pleaded fatigue. Back in his room alone, unaccountably tired, he had drifted into and out of the fringes of uneasy sleep. He could recall thinking that they were taking away the last symbol of personal identity. Everything was to be reduced to One, like those ancient religions in which man strove to lose himself completely in his God and be One with Him. But the new god was one vast, all-encompassing, impersonal Organization.