“Well,” Benton answered, “I don’t want it to go to waste.”

The Controller looked past his visitor and through the transparent plastic walls. Beyond were the largest single rooms in the City of Lightness. They extended as far as his eyes could see, and farther. Each was—

“What did you want to see me about?” Benton interrupted. The Controller coughed and rattled some metal paper-sheets.

“As you know,” he began, “Stability is the watchword. Civilization has been climbing for centuries, especially since the twenty-fifth century. It is a law of nature, however, that civilization must either go forward or fall backward; it cannot stand still.”

“I know that,” Benton said, puzzled. “I also know the multiplication table. Are you going to recite that, too?”

The Controller ignored him.

“We have, however, broken that law. One hundred years ago—”

One hundred years ago! It hardly seemed as far back as that when Eric Freidenburg of the States of Free Germany stood up in the International Council Chamber and announced to the assembled delegates that mankind had at last reached its peak. Further progress forward was impossible. In the last few years, only two major inventions has been filed. After that, they had all watched the big graphs and charts, seen the lines going down and down, according to their squares, until they dipped into nothing. The great well of human ingenuity had run dry, and then Eric had stood up and said the thing everyone knew, but was afraid to say. Naturally, since it had been made known in a formal fashion, the Council would have to begin work on the problem.

There were three ideas of solution. One of them seemed more humane than the other two. This solution was eventually adopted. It was—Stabilization!

There was great trouble at first when the people learned about it, and mass riots took place in many leading cities. The stock market crashed, and the economy of many countries went out of control. Food prices rose, and there was mass starvation. War broke out… for the first time in three hundred years! But Stabilization had begun. Dissenters were destroyed, radicals were carted off. It was hard and cruel but seemed to be the only answer. At last the world settled down to a rigid state, a controlled state in which there could be no change, either backward or forward.