"Statistics!" Wolzek said it like a dirty word. "Your life-expectancy isn't determined by statistics any more. I say you don't have sixty months left. Perhaps not even sixty days." "What are you trying to hand me?" "The truth. And don't go looking for a silver platter underneath it, either." "But I mind my own business. I don't hurt anybody. Why should I be in any danger?" "Why does a government subsidy support one rental manager to sit here in this building every day--but ten guards to patrol it every night?" Eric opened his mouth wide before shaping it for speech. "Who told you that?" "Like I said, I know the setup." Wolzek crossed his legs, but he didn't lean back. "And in case you haven't guessed it, this is a business call, not a social one." Eric sighed. "Might have figured," he said. "You're a Naturalist, aren't you?" "Of course I am. We all are." "Not I." "Oh yes--whether you like it or not, you're a Naturalist, too. As far as the Yardsticks are concerned, everyone over three feet high is a Naturalist. An enemy. Someone to be hated, and destroyed." "Think I'd believe that? Sure, I know they don't like us, and why should they? We eat twice as much, take up twice the space, and I guess when we were kids we gave a lot of them a hard time. Besides, outside of a few exceptions like ourselves, all the younger generation are Yardsticks, with more coming every year. The older people hold the key positions and the power. Of course there's a lot of friction and resentment. But you know all that." "Certainly." Wolzek nodded. "All that and more. Much more. I know that up until a few years ago, no Yardstick held any public office or government position. Now they're starting to move in, particularly in Europasia. But there's so many of them now--adults, in their early twenties--that the pressure is building up. They're impatient, getting out of hand. They won't wait until the old folks die off. They want control now. And if they ever manage to get it, we're finished for good." "Impossible!" Eric said. "Impossible?" Wolzek's voice was a mocking echo. "You sit here in this tomb and when somebody tells you that the world you know has died, you refuse to believe it. Even though every night, after you sneak home and huddle up inside your room trying not to be noticed, ten guards patrol this place with subatomics, so the Yardstick gangs won't break in and take over. So they won't do what they did down south--overrun the office buildings and the factories and break them up, cut them down to size for living quarters." "But they were stopped," Eric objected. "I saw it on the telescreen, the security forces stopped them--" "Crapola!" Wolzek pronounced the archaicism with studied care. "You saw films. Faked films. Have you ever traveled, Eric? Ever been down south and seen conditions there?" "Nobody travels nowadays. You know that. Priorities."