- George grieves over a review of his latest stage production and decides he can't stand passive television audiences anymore.
- He wants to go back to live theater and thinks that New Athens seems like a swell place to try.
- Jean, now his wife, says she thinks those people are a bunch of cranks but agrees to go check it out with George if he promises their children won't grow up to be savages.
- George says they won't. He's right—but not in the way he had intended (15.18).
- They receive the grand tour. Sparta is a rocky, wild island while the colony itself is on the much calmer and fertile Athens Island.
- The tour guide says the colony was designed to "save something of humanity's independence, its artistic traditions" (15.23).
- Jean agrees the colony looks to be an interesting place to live. Better yet, they have an always valid get-out-of-jail-free card if they decide they don't like it.
- The Greggson family moves six weeks later and adjusts to a life without all the bells and whistles—but this is the future we're talking about, so they've got plenty of bells and no shortage of whistles.
- Grab your notebooks, the narrator's about to give us a little history lesson.
- A man named Ben Salomon came up with the idea for Athens. He believed Karellen was doing what the Overlord thought was best for humanity, but Ben saw humanity declining under the Overlords' manipulation.
- By drawing in thespians, artists, and literary types, New Athens saw a growth in the arts and artistic experiments.
- But, the narrator points out, it was too early to tell if the experiment was a success.