Joseph Krieg had not cried openly since childhood, and yet now there were tears in his eyes. "This has always been my dream...."
Consolator Steen placed a friendly arm around the man's shoulders. "Yes, now you have seen it. Your dream has come true." He paused for just a moment, then said, "And now, Joe, perhaps we had better go."
Joseph Krieg turned towards the man with an abrupt motion. "Go? Why should we go? We've been here scarcely ten minutes."
"Because the longer you stay, the harder it will be for you to leave, Joe. And the less attractive the other parks will seem to you. So, I'd like for us to leave at once." His voice became businesslike. "First, I'd like to show you Hong Kong, and then...."
"I don't want to see Hong Kong, or any place else. This is where I want to be buried, Steen. Whatever the price is, I'll pay."
Consolator Steen sighed deeply. "I don't think you understand, Joe. It isn't a matter of price. Manhattan is simply not available to you, for the reason that it is not for sale. I know that you have heard otherwise; I am sure that rumors have reached your ears that burial in Manhattan could be effected for a mere trillion credits. But these fantastic tales are incorrect—for two reasons.
"The first reason, Joe, is a financial one. To the average man, a mere million credits is such a gigantic, unobtainable sum that he is sure anything in the Galaxy could be obtained for a trillion. This is not so, as you and I both know. Why, a million credits will scarcely get you a burial in a two-inch-square cube in the bottom floor of one of our huge buildings. Remember? I called those huge bargain basements 'pauper's fields.' And that they are—available to those poor people throughout the Universe who have only a few millions to their names. Incredible, isn't it?
"A trillion credits? Why, it takes a hundred billion to make you eligible for burial under one of the buildings, where you're packed in like a sardine with millions of other bodies. And how many people in the Galaxy can lay their hands on a hundred billion credits? The answer, Joe, is too many people indeed. Some of them have so much more money than that, they can actually afford to be buried in one of the Parks.
"A trillion credits? Yes, that will get you buried in Hong Kong Park, or in Frogner, or Amundsen. But not for long. You can rent a temporary grave in Hong Kong, for example, for a mere billion credits a day. At that rate, for a trillion credits, you'd stay buried on Earth for less than three years, and then your body would have to be moved elsewhere. Very few people can afford to purchase a permanent plot in one of these parks. But they are available—at a cost of something like one quadrillion credits. And just how many men in the Galaxy have a quadrillion credits or so?"
Consolator Steen knew the answer to this question exactly—he also knew that Joseph Krieg was one of these men. Krieg could have afforded a quadrillion credits, but it would have exhausted his fortune. Steen waited until he was sure that the other man was deep in mental turmoil and then he continued, his voice now softer, less commercial sounding. "And having given you 'the prices,' so to speak, of the lesser treasures, I will now surprise you by saying that the entry ticket to Manhattan Park is free."