"Well, I'm not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don't know much
about Terran politics," Verkan Vall replied. "I know that the
Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of
the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same
opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe
that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor
continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and
private profit under a system of free competition. And that's about
all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of
nobility, I'm a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization
issue isn't important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land
there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
attractive to anybody."

"Well, that's about it," Zortan Brend told him. "I'm not enough of a
psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona's been doing, but she's
knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation,
and that's the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we'll
find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever
happened to her."

Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then
addressed Verkan Vall:

"Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this
matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not
possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone
somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many
qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means