 What seems to be true about the world Rikud lives in?
Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watch the great changeless sweep of space. But ever since the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone, from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had grown. The stars—it was a meaningless concept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the bright pinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were not apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Often Rikud had dreamed of the time he would be thirty and a father. Rikud knew that something which he could not explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had departed almost before Chuls knew of its existence. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch the one new bright star. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real authority to stop him. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the people against the elders, and it said the people had won. He could see the look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of medicine. Rikud often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future, not without a sense of alarm. "You know," Rikud said, sitting up now, "the stars in the viewport are changing." The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses leap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, and where Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe of light, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt his eyes to look. Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer's book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Something big and round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud had no name. It seemed neatly sheered down the middle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green, and on the other, blue. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could see nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more confusing than ever.
 It's run by machines, and no longer run by people. There is no room for decisions.
 It's run by machines, and no longer run by people. There is no room for decisions.  Change never happens. It's a concept that's been erased.  Women and men are segregated, because they can't live with one another.  It's run by machines, and no longer run by people. They remember a time when they could make decisions, but no longer can.