02. The Shadow Dancers by Jack L. Chalker Page A

thought sheer numbers would have populated a lot of this," Sam replied. "Or is the population stable?"
    "It's stable, but reasonably large. We keep it worldwide at about a billion, which is more than adequate to preserve what should be preserved. It's not that we're restrictive, but we have many outlets for a population, both in settling and preserving certain other Earths that are truly wonderful places to live but which never developed a higher race and also the planets and to a limited extent the stars."
    Even I was startled at that one. "You mean you don't just go next door, you're also up there?"
    He smiled. "Getting to the near planets is no great trick, nor is colonizing a place like Mars. The stars are trickier, and we're still in our infancy regarding them, but who is better qualified to go than we if there are in fact alien civilizations out there? It provides us with a limitless and exciting future, you see. The parallel worlds go from infinity to infinity, and each universe is in itself so vast and varied it will end before anyone can explore more than a fraction of it. That's the secret to keeping a civilization as successful and prosperous as ours from rotting and decaying, you see. There is always someplace new to go, something new to learn, something wonderful waiting to be discovered. We have never become jaded or yielded to rot."
    Yeah, it sure sounded like one of them-what'cha call it?-Utopias, all right, and maybe it was about as close as we get, but I couldn't help think that we'd gotten sucked into all this 'cause some folks with real power, probablyright here on this planet, ran at least one and maybe many rebel groups that tried to sucker and screw up and take over parts of the Corporation's territories and worlds, and we was here at all 'cause there was at least one known traitor and he had some boss higher up. They was askin' me to risk my mind and my neck against them folks, so I figured I had a right to bring that up, and did.
    Aldrath shrugged. "Humanity is by nature imperfect, and so perfection is not attainable without also costing humankind the things that are most important to it. Creativity, a measure of freedom, curiosity, drive, willpower. We can remove these things, but then we make not perfect humans but perfect automatons. In spite of the fact that the lowest of the low here have things your richest and most powerful people would envy, we have classes. It is a part of our culture and our heritage. Our very language, our accents, are differentiated by class so that merely by a person's speech we know their station. Our very names are actually descriptives chosen for their poetry, their symmetry, and their meaning. My name is actually-" He gave one of them pretty songs. "The names we give you are rough transliterations of these sounds according to English rules. The corporate chiefs are the highest class and marry only among their own families. The professional, or managerial class does the same. The working, or common class is likewise separated not merely by name and accent but by family and society. As always, this causes strains."
    "And I don't suppose there's anyone really anxious to let people move up," Sam commented.
    "Not many. I, for example, am from the professional class and would not be anything else. The big limits are all on the corporate class-the people you will be meeting. They have all the real policy-making power, but they can not abrogate that power or that responsibility. That's determined almost from birth. They have very little choice in their lives and much of it is quite boring. I, on the other hand, am what I am because that's what I wanted to be. I could have chosen any profession I liked, and if I made the grade I'd have gotten it. If I didn't, or found I hated it, I could have chosen another. I work as hard as I like to work-and I very much like working-and get tremendousbenefits. I don't have a private estate here or elsewhere, but I can avail myself of the