a week or so later

I ran into Kato in the mall outside of that shop that sells flavored teas and incense and stuff like that......he asked me if I remembered Miss Wen.....I asked him how she was getting along. He said he thought she was doing fine....a very intelligent and intense young lady who was just having a little trouble with our clean-cut and sterile society, with it's hard lines and standard definitions of everything. Her elders were taking her to Mars to become a member of the Han Pure State.....they were strict New Party loyalists, secular to the core. The ethnic and religious minorities that had torn China to pieces in the Thirties were very devils to them. A sensitive young person could feel that he or she were being pressed into a tight mold in the Pure State, where strict adherence to proper guidelines constituted the highest value.....Kato had given her a reading list, and obtained permission from her family for her to attend his Tuesday evening sessions, which was mostly people close to her age. He promised them no religion, only traditional philosophy. We stopped at a cafe and had some coffee, and talked for a while about the plight of space age humanity......