Of course it meant alteration of personal relationships. All too often the so-called "love" of one another was founded on deliberate deception, or self-delusion fostered by fiction. "Love" letters, and with them the extravagant posturings of romance, ceased almost to exist, through postal censorship under the Edict. All but known truth was eliminated from schoolbooks, to the detriment only of the romanticized, and thus probably false, past. Surrounded by fact, human relationships have become factual. Hypocrisy, deceit, exaggeration are against the law. Granted, the per capita ratio of marriages, and weddings once a desired child is to be born, have decreased. But so have the divorces, both overt and covert, that once resulted from disillusion. In the same way, parents and children assess their true feelings toward each other and, sometimes, rearrange themselves--or on application are rearranged. It makes for a far more practical allotment, often, than the hit-or-miss distribution of children previously. Life, freed from the phantoms and fairies inspired by spurious children's tales, by adult daydreams, deception and delusion, is less complex, more direct than it was 50 years ago. It permits a far greater attention to the details of present existence; for once you realize how little good it does to dwell on an unknowable future, the immediate and provable present becomes important indeed. If sometimes this present seems to lack a luster that older people say they remember, at least no flaws have been concealed by that luster. At last mankind can see exactly what he is, and where he stands. Myth, prediction, speculation, promise, aspiration, hope: these fog the mind with illusion and paralyze the hand with doubt. The present suffices for itself. V All the wrong things were in the face of the man I saw approaching now, through the tube from the elevator. You know how you can spot the dreamers? I could see it on this one 50 yards away, and I swore, because it was almost time for my shift to end. He came on, hurrying with that expression in his eyes, a little girl trotting after him. They were father and daughter. Both had the look, though he seemed a little old to have a young child. He passed the outer gate well enough, fumbling his ID against the lockplate and fidgeting during the seconds it took for preliminary verification to come. The lock clicked and he burst in, pulling the girl after him. "We wish to report ..." he began. I waved at him to shut up. "Name, number and duty," I said. "That's the routine." Of course the information had typed out from the banks before he got in. "Oh. I'm sorry." I think he really was. "My name is Karl Onlon, professor of elementary biology, downstairs." That meant he tended a teaching machine at the center mid-town branch of the university. "Number ... my number is--" and he peered at his ID "--ah, US1006-929 113 274CE."