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“Earth? Nope. By careful self-restraint, I’ve managed to forego that pleasure so far, Larry. Why?”

“Brrr! It’s the feel of the place that I can’t stand. I don’t mean the constant high-gee; I take my daily exercise spin in the centrifuge just like anyone else, and you soon get used to the steady pull on Earth. I mean the constant, oppressive psychic tension, if you see what I mean. The feeling that everyone hates and distrusts everyone else. The curious impression of fear underneath every word and action.

“I’m older than you are, George, and I’ve lived with a kind of fear all my life–just as you and everyone else in the Belt has. A single mistake can kill out here, and the fear that it will be some fool who makes a mistake that will kill hundreds is always with us. We’ve learned to live with that kind of fear; we’ve learned to take steps to prevent any idiot from throwing the wrong switch that would shut down a power plant or open an air lock at the wrong time.

“But the fear on Earth is different. It’s the fear that everyone else is out to get you, the fear that someone will stick a figurative knife in your back and reduce you to the basic subsistence level. And that fear is solidly based, believe me. The only way to climb up from basic subsistence is to climb over everyone else, to knock aside those in your way, to get rid of whoever is occupying the position you want. And once you get there, the only way you can hold your position is to make sure that nobody below you gets too big for his britches. The rule is: Pull down those above you, hold down those below you.

“I’ve seen it, George. The big cities are packed with people whose sole ambition in life is to badger their local welfare worker out of another check–they need new clothes, they need a new bed, they need a new table, they need more food for the new baby, they need this, they need that. All they ever do is need! But, of course, they’re far to aristocratic to work.

“Those who do have ambition have to become politicians–in the worst sense of the word. They have to gain some measure of control over the dispersal of largesse to the mob; they have to get themselves into a position where they can give away other people’s money, so that they can get their cut, too.

“And even then, the man who gets to be a big shot doesn’t dare show it. Take a look at Tarnhorst. He’s probably one of the best of a bad lot. He has his fingers in a lot of business pies which make him money, and he’s in a high enough position in the government to enable him to keep some of his money. But his clothing is only a little bit better than the average, just as the man who is on basic subsistence wears clothes that are only a little bit worse than the average. That diamond ring of his is a real diamond, but you can buy imitations that can’t be told from the real thing except by an expert, so his diamond doesn’t offend anyone by being ostentatious. And it’s unfaceted, to eliminate offensive flash.

“All the color has gone out of life on Earth, George. Women held out longer than men did, but now no man or woman would be caught wearing a bright-colored suit. You don’t see any reds or yellows or blues or greens or oranges–only grays and browns and black.

“It’s not for me, George. I’d much rather live in fear of the few fools who might pull a stupid trick that would kill me than live in the constant fear of everyone around me, who all want to destroy me deliberately.”

“I know what you mean,” said Alhamid, “but I think you’ve put the wrong label on what you’re calling ‘fear’; there’s a difference between fear and having a healthy respect for something that is dangerous but not malignant. That vacuum out there isn’t out to ‘get’ anybody. The only people it kills are the fools who have no respect for it and the neurotics who think that it wants to murder them. You’re neither, and I know it.”