several weeks elapsed before rocsates requested that the conclave meet. i called the meeting at dawn and so it was yet early in the afternoon when formalities were concluded and rocsates granted leave to speak.
"some of those among you are she's," he began. "and you know you are different from the rest of us. to the advantage, your skin is fairer and your features more often handsomer than ours. to the disadvantage, your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. and, you may say, why should this not be so? there is, indeed, no reason why we should all be identical. perforce you have the advantage, perforce we do. yet there is one other distinction.
"some among you she's have the swelling of the breasts. and does there exist no reason for this? was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a cause for this? do you not wonder, she's, whence you come and for what reason?"
"rocsates," i interrupted. "all this is fascinating, of course. but if you could be quick—"
"of course," he replied. "in the course of my reading i have read many books, and while they are all vague on the subject, this i have discovered:
"that there was indeed a time before the machines, in fact the books were created in that time, for not one of them mentions the machines. then reproduction was carried on by individuals, without help of the then nonexistent machines. the she's are not wanderers from another land, but they have lived with us for all time; they are not another race, but we are all types of one race. and the fact of reproduction is somehow intimately related to the physical distinctions of the she's!"
these last sentences were shouted to be heard above the roar of the crowd. yet when rocsates stopped, so also did the noise, so shocked and amazed at his words were they. and i confess, myself also.
"in fact," rocsates added, sitting down, "this process of reproduction seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of over-population."
order was lost among the conclave as each man turned to speak to his neighbor, and for some time i could not restore order. i realized that something had to be done to save rocsates before the outrage of the assembled overwhelmed him.
"it seems," i shouted, "that there is a flaw in your logic." for if such there was, i was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with no harm done. "for if people reproduced too often, why then this reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do; otherwise they would not have done so to excess. and if it was a pleasant thing to do, where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?"
rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon xeon, who together with melia were at the conclave without permission, shouted, "perhaps the process of reproduction was of such a pleasure that the conclave ruled it to be a sin? and therefore the machines were necessary!"
at this impudence the conclave dissolved in an uproar, and i was beyond power to restrain them from placing xeon under arrest. privately, however, i had to admit that his supposition was a possibility, and thus i authorized rocsates to continue his search.
