"Well, they did. And, of course, the obvious thing happened. Since they cooperated in some things, they cooperated in a lot of things, even fighting. That's how they could make war, you know—not the nice, social sort of fighting we do now. And you can imagine what happened. You can kill an awful lot of people awful fast, if a gang gets together on it like that. If they didn't have the artificial bodies and the psi transfer transmitters to make them come alive, there wouldn't have been anybody left after a while. That cooperation is rough stuff."
"Obviously," she commented dryly.
"Well, that's the reason for everything, then. Pretty soon the factories couldn't turn out hypnobodies fast enough and people had to fight in their protobodies sometimes. But after a few centuries, the leaders began to get civilized, and decided to put an end to all this cooperative killing. I guess they all got together and agreed not to cooperate with each other in anything in the future."
"It stands to reason," Mark concluded, "people had to learn to be civilized. They weren't just born that way. It's—it's culture."
"Pouf," said Jennette critically.
"All right," he growled, biting viciously into a pomegranate. "Let's hear your big story if it's so good."
ennette stretched out her legs and contemplated her wiggling toes. "Oh, I don't know. I don't have any real ideas. But I know better than to believe that sort of nonsense. People just aren't like that, and you know it." She hesitated thoughtfully, then continued. "Maybe a few of them got together now and then for a party or something like this. But not hundreds of them."
When Mark did not reply, she laughed and said, "I guess I'm just feeling risque tonight."