ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes, Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large skull merely rattles.
STERN: Just the same the point is well taken.
PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes.
PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...?
SALLY MARINO: Don't you--now, maybe this is a foolish question--don't you have to work awfully hard--I mean, with so few technical aids? The--oh, oil lamps, the necessarily primitive--of course, you've done miracles to have as much as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time and effort that it--well, wears you down?
PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat--
PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults or more. Shelter, food--the basic needs are supplied by each family working for itself; the large family unit distributes the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of beginning industries in textiles, sugar--
MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their nests where--Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I love you....
ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice people....
MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked somebody, earlier.
NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the olifants.
PAUL: In textiles, for instance--Nisana does no housework because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny community where everyone knows and respects everyone else, where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of differences before they become serious. And so far, work has never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring, unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to say things you could say better--