Far away, Hartog’s voice. “What’s happened? Why has he stopped talking?”
And the major’s voice, barely audible. “He’s resisting. I warned you, Captain.”
“You seem to have all the answers, Major. Maybe you can tell me why he remembers this rubbish about me and about his father when I asked him what was in that box.”
“I think it’s quite clear,” the major said. “There’s something about the box he doesn’t want us to know. Perhaps it’s connected with his wife—and you’ve given him reason enough not to remember such recent details. We mentioned his father, and you said you weren’t interested in him, so Clayborne’s mind took refuge in that memory, something he could tell us safely.” He paused. “In addition, of course, he was recalling the moment when he fell in love with Alda. A desirable memory, one which he wants to hold onto.”
Petr tried to pull himself out of the well to reach the voices. He grew tired, and the effort didn’t seem worth while, but he fought against this weakness, concentrating on the goal of climbing out the well of darkness toward the voices and the light.
Hartog’s voice raged again, close to his ear. “Answer me, damn you! Answer me!”
A strange elation seized Petr. He heard himself laughing. Something crashed against his mouth—and abruptly he was awake. He opened his eyes. His body, inside the plastic film molded to his skin, was drenched with sweat. Beads of it cooled on his forehead and trickled down his cheeks.
“Give him another shock!” Hartog said harshly. “He won’t hold out again.”
“He won’t be able to talk either,” Major Porter said quietly. “We’ll have to wait a few minutes anyway. And he may be able to keep on resisting. I don’t know.”
There was a suggestion of wonder in the thin doctor’s voice. His eyes were appraising as they studied Petr’s face.
“Well, what do you suggest?” Hartog snapped. “You’re supposed to be an expert at this.”
“We’ll have to try another injection,” the Major said. “It’s risky, but some of his will to resist has to be broken. We have to restore the desire to please.”
“All right, give him the injection. We’re losing time, Major. Every minute brings us closer to five o’clock, and after that the sub will be gone.”
Petr followed the doctor’s glance toward the slots in the wall. They read: MARCH 11, 2240, and 1:04 A.M.
The doctor nodded toward one of the young PCC corpsmen near the door of the cell. The door slid upward, and the soldier disappeared. A moment later he returned with a small vial of fluid and an injection needle. Petr twisted his head to watch. The tube attached to the needle slowly filled with yellow liquid.
When the doctor had tested the needle he turned to Petr, who lay helpless, unable to resist. A small hole was cut in his imprisoning jacket. The needle poised briefly. Major Porter hesitated, his eyes resting on Petr’s. His hand moved, and the needle plunged into a vein in Petr’s arm.
Slowly a familiar languor stole over Petr, a delicious feeling of well-being. His body relaxed. It seemed to be free of its bonds, free to rise and soar unsupported in the air.
“That’ll take a moment to have its full effect,” Major Porter said. “It may not be enough in itself, however. You have two other prisoners outside, Captain—people he knows. I think it’s time to use one of them as a prop to force open a door in his memory.”
Hartog frowned. He turned to the PCC sergeant. “Bring in the first prisoner, Sergeant.”
Petr heard their voices, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. He felt no curiosity about the prisoner who was being brought in. He would be a friend. Petr smiled. Everyone was a friend.
The two young corpsmen half-carried a slumping figure into the cell. Hartog pointed toward Petr, and they dragged the man over to the slab table.
“Release him,” Hartog said.
Swaying, the man stood by the table. A hopeless fear glazed his eyes.
“Don’t you recognize your co-conspirator?” Hartog asked.
The man’s eyes turned to Petr’s face. For a moment they stared lifelessly. Then a spark of recognition leaped into the dark eyes which were suddenly bright with hope.
“Petr!” the man said hoarsely. “Petr, it’s you!”
Petr frowned anxiously. Somewhere in the back of his mind a memory struggled to emerge. He wanted to remember this man who was a friend. He tried to pin-point his attention on the memory, to force it into the open, but it was useless.
“It’s me, Petr. Len! Len Horton!”
Petr shook his head helplessly. Len. Then he saw the faces at the party where he had met Alda. The worn, pleading face above him was different, but it was a face at the party.
“Petr, you’ve got to remember. You don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve taken Gina away, and the kids. You’ve got to tell them I had nothing to do with it, Petr.”
“I want to remember,” Petr said.
Len Horton slumped to his knees beside the slab table. His fingers clutched at Petr’s arm. “I’m innocent,” he whispered. “I’m loyal to Our Leader. You’ve got to tell them, Petr. Tell them I’m innocent. I don’t know where Gina is.” He was babbling now, almost incoherent. “They’ve done something to her and they won’t tell me. They came to the house and they dragged her away and they wouldn’t tell me anything. The boys. They took the boys and they’ve tried to tell me I was an enemy of the state. It’s not true. Not true. Please, Petr. Please tell them.”
Hartog shoved the cringing figure away. He sprawled on the floor, moaning. The big captain bent over Petr.
“You want to help him, don’t you? You’ll have to tell us everything, Petr. Everything!”
The thin-faced major hovered over his instruments, watching.
“Who helped you to escape?” Hartog said. “Who is in the party on the submarine? You can tell us, Petr. We’re friends. You and me and Len. Tell us about Len, Petr. He helped you, didn’t he?”
Deep inside Petr’s mind a conflict raged, but he felt strangely drawn to the big man who bent over him. His body floated in the air, and the sense of well-being was overpowering.
Hartog picked up the limp figure from the floor and held him erect. Petr stared at the pleading face of his friend. He frowned with concentration.
“Please, Petr,” Len Horton whispered. “Tell them I’m not a criminal.”
“A criminal?” Petr said. Something stirred in his mind. “A criminal.”
Major Porter’s hand moved, and the familiar shock seized Petr’s body. The ball of light soared through the canopy of his mind. He waited for the explosion—eagerly.
2
Light came, and in the brightness of early morning he flew over the city. Below him the giant egg shape of the Propaganda Section’s main building thrust upward, and Petr moved into a vertical lane to bring his ’copter down smoothly onto the flat roof which decapitated the egg.
He taxied over to the small, crowded space reserved for writers, the space at the far end of the roof, away from the moving staircase which spiraled around the outside of the building.
In the long walk across the landing area to the staircase he went through the morning ritual of dodging landing ’copters, muttering at their drivers. But this morning, his thoughts filled with images of Alda Gray, Petr looked amiably at the careless maneuverings of the ’copters. His good humor couldn’t be disturbed.
He hopped onto the moving stairs and watched with casual interest as they carried him down, past thirty-six floors of the main offices of the Propaganda Section, down to the second floor from the street level—the copy writers’ floor.
Height meant achievement in the Propaganda Section. The staircase wound first past the Director’s own offices on the top floor, and the writer’s position near the bottom was an index of his importance in the machinery of the Leader government.
Looking in the windows, Petr could see the whole complex machine of propaganda slowly beginning to turn. From the thirty-third floor to the twenty-fifth, the tele-radar studios, already transmitting tearful dramas of sinners who had violated the Population Code, sending them out to eager housewives. On the floors just below the visual arts departments, the central source from which the heavy trade in public pornography flowed, where painting, sculpture, and all those arts of design which were not useful were practiced. On the fifteenth floor began the Teachers’ Preparatory School offices. From the twelfth to the eighth were the publisher’s offices, where all books were released. And from the seventh floor to the second was the advertising department, whose activities were no less strenuous or hysterical because the government was competing only with itself.
Petr smiled wryly at the signs of frantic activity. The fact was always forgotten that, however vital propaganda might be in honoring the name of Malthus, the first Leader, and in maintaining a stable leadership, the propagandist was nevertheless a despised tool in the government’s machinery. The propagandist was just a salesman, hawking the wares which someone else made possible.
He stepped off the stairs onto the second-floor landing. The corridor was crowded with young men and women hurrying to their offices, afraid of being late. Petr moved languidly. The door to his office was open. Len Horton was already at his desk.
“Glad you got here in time,” Len said. “Joe’s calling us on the screen in a few minutes.”
“What’s up?” Petr removed the cover from his electronic audio-typewriter.
“A new assignment,” Len said. “Got to dig up promotional ideas for the new honeymoon center in Hawaii.”
“If I were superstitious that would make me wonder,” Petr said with a smile. “I just met a girl last night …”
“Another one?” Len grinned. A tall, lean man of sixty, he had married his childhood sweetheart almost ten years before, and Petr’s romantic escapades had for years provoked his indulgent smiles.
“This is different,” Petr said.
“This is different!” Len echoed scornfully. “Another Leader deb, I suppose? This Hawaiian project should be just right for the two of you.”
“As a matter of fact, she’s not a Leader debutante,” Petr said. “Her father is a propagandist in the college division. A teacher.”
“A teacher? You’re losing your grip, old man.” But Len was surprised and obviously pleased. “Associating with us rabble isn’t your style. First thing you know you’ll be falling for one of the copy girls—once you start looking at them.”
Petr grinned at him. Len’s wife Gina had been a copy girl. Like Len’s, her family was of pure Propagandist stock for several generations. They accepted their social level without question. Len might joke about his work in the Section but he was proud of it. Sometimes Petr wished that he had been planted as firmly in a determined plot of ground.
Yet the Propaganda Section was right for him, too, Petr thought. It existed on the fringe of Leader society, with a purpose and function that were artificial. It glorified the Population Code—which was mandatory in any event. It celebrated the name of Malthus, father of the principles of the code—and he was dead. It served as the voice of the Leader party—which always said the same things.
And Petr played out his role in the wings of Leader society, never going on stage. It was not just that his father had been a classified enemy of the state. Whatever his origins, Petr would never have been mistaken for a Leader. He lacked the aggressiveness, the physical prowess, the serious dedication to the useful and productive. He was a pagan in a society which worshipped no god but ruthless strength and material good.
“Joe wants a preliminary campaign layout this morning,” Len said, his soft drawl slipping quietly into the stream of Petr’s thoughts. “He’s got an idea this honeymoon center can be a really big thing for the office. Can you guess what he said when he gave me the outline this morning?”
“Think BIG,” Petr said without hesitation.
“How’d you guess?” Len grinned. “Think BIG is what he said. Try to see the picture as a whole. Don’t get your mind tied up with petty ideas. Expand with this thing. Let your mind be BIG.”
“I presume this assignment is going to make us all noticed if we just do it in a BIG way?”
“That’s right. This is the one that can do it, the answer to all our problems.”
“A honeymoon center in Hawaii!” Petr laughed. “I can just imagine how big the Director thinks this project is. The only way this campaign will ever get any notice is by having worse copy than usual.”
“I think we can manage that,” Len said, “if we just let our minds expand.”
“Let’s dwell on that for a while,” Petr said. “Maybe we can come up with something.”
“Swell on it, you mean,” Len murmured and an amiable silence fell between them.
Len began to write down random ideas for a campaign theme. Petr walked over to the window and looked down at the busy pattern of movement on the ramps below him, where figures hurried in and out of holes in the egg-shaped building like bees around a hive.
He thought of Joe Hurley, the office manager, and of his endless and self-defeating pursuit of favor. The really big projects in the section—those having to do directly with the Population Code, with Our Leader, or with the innumerable pageants, anniversaries, and celebrations dedicated to Malthus—never came to Joe’s office. They had never come in his forty-four years as office manager. But Joe greeted each new assignment with a phoenixlike rebirth of enthusiasm and confidence. This was the assignment that would make him known and respected, the one that would enable him to rise in the section to a position more in keeping with the Leader blood in his veins.
For Joe’s mother had been from a Leader family. In a moment of reckless passion she had married beneath her, deserting the splendid yacht of Leadership for a propagandist’s rowboat. The fact circumscribed Joe Hurley’s life with an enveloping frustration. He deserved to be a Leader. He could not believe that he would never be one.
Petr scorned Joe’s hopeless ambition—and Joe knew it. He defended himself against Petr’s indifference. Petr just didn’t think BIG, Joe said. If you thought BIG you would become BIG. There was a whole library of films on the subject, and Joe had viewed every one. Even Our Leader himself had made the point in a speech.
“I’ve got an idea for the honeymoon campaign,” Petr said, turning away from the window.
“Is it a BIG one?” Len asked. “All my ideas are little ones this morning. I guess it’s the association with honeymoons.”
Petr groaned. “That’s horrible,” he said. “But how’s this idea? ‘Love Like a Leader … On Your Honeymoon in Hawaii.’ ”
Len pursed his lips. “Not bad,” he said. “What’s the rest of it?”
“Carry the idea right down the line. Show pictures of Leader homes in Malibu beside pictures of the Hawaiian hotels modeled after them. Shots of a Leader’s tropical garden next to the natural beauty of a Hawaiian landscape. It’s a natural.”
“My boy, you’re a genius. You’re thinking BIG.” Len looked at him inquiringly. “How’d you get the idea? Just expand?”
Petr grinned. “I was thinking about Joe and Leadership.”
Buzzers rang suddenly on the two desks in the room, and the telescreen built into the wall flashed on. Joe Hurley glared at them from the three-dimensional screen, his round shoulders hunched over his desk, his jaw jutting out in a suggestion of dynamic strength. The pose was always marred, Petr thought, by Joe’s bad yellow teeth. Joe was always conscious of his teeth. When he talked, he tried to do so without opening his mouth too much. And when he smiled he pulled his lips back tightly to keep the decaying yellow teeth from showing. All he succeeded in doing was calling attention to them, which was the last thing he wanted to do. For Joe’s bad teeth were symbolic of his fall from Leadership. Leader society prided itself on the universal whiteness, brightness, and freedom from infection of its teeth.
“I hope you two have come up with something BIG,” Joe said, his voice rapping out authoritatively. “We’ve got to think BIG if we’re going to accomplish BIG things. And we can do BIG things. It all depends on us.”
His lips drew in, not too far, in an enigmatic smile, and he waited for their response.
“I think Petr has the answer,” Len said.
“You think so? Don’t you know, boy? Len, you know we can’t be negative. We can’t just think so. We have to be positive in our thinking. We have to KNOW.” Joe’s face loomed larger as he leaned forward. “This campaign can make us, boy. It can make us if we just use the resources at our disposal.” The cliché rolled sonorously from his lips, and he looked at Petr with an air of triumph. “What’s your idea, Petr?”
“It’s simple but it’s BIG,” Petr said soberly. “Sometimes the simplest things are the biggest things.”
Joe nodded. “I like that,” he said. “You’re riding straight on a moonbeam there, boy. Keep it simple, keep it big.” He wrote the phrases down on a pad. He kept a record of his memorable ideas, many of which were mounted and hung on the wall of his office.
“It’s this,” Petr said. “We use the slogan, ‘Love Like a Leader,’ and tie it to the honeymoon in Hawaii. We make every young married couple able to start life in a bona fide setting of Leadership.” Petr warmed to his subject. Like any good propagandist, he was moved to sell his idea. “And we can adapt the slogan for variety. ‘Follow the Leader for a Fortnight in Hawaii,’ for instance.”
“Hmmmm.” Joe looked dubious. “Have you thought this thing through? Have you tried to see the whole picture?”
Petr grinned. “It fits in beautifully with the whole picture,” he said. “Hasn’t Our Leader himself said that the cup of Leadership is constantly overflowing, spilling its benefits down to the very floor of society?”
“And we can get a lot of Leader backing,” Len interrupted. “We can use their homes as illustrations of the life you can live on your Hawaiian honeymoon. And we can——”
“No, no, no, no!” Joe waved his hands, warding off the words. “Don’t let me get bogged down in petty details. We can work this deal if it’s right. It’s got to be right! Let me just look at the whole picture. I’ve got to keep my mind open.” He pressed his palms against his temples, as if the pressure would keep his mind open. “We’ve got to be sure,” he said, and his fear of being wrong showed in the tension of his voice.
“What do you think of the idea yourself?” Petr asked innocently.
Joe stirred uneasily. “My only question is,” he finally said, “Is it BIG enough?”
“I know it is,” Petr said with emphasis. “As a matter of fact, I got the idea from something you said the other day. You remember, about the touch of Leadership being restricted to those with Leader blood in their veins, but the benefits extended down to every citizen?”
Petr knew the imaginary conversation would sound familiar to Joe. The balding head was nodding before Petr finished.
“Yes, yes, of course.” Joe began to nod more vigorously. “I believe this is it, Petr, boy. That’s using your head. Just keep your ears open, boy, and don’t forget anything you hear. That’s the way to grow.”
He leaned forward until his face filled the telescreen, and his sharp, pointed nose poked out at them like a spear. His voice was husky with a quickly manufactured emotion that would soon become real because he would believe in it.
“This idea is BIG, boys,” he said. “Now let’s make it GROW!”
As the word rang in the room the screen switched off dramatically. Petr and Len stared at the blank screen.
“You really made a hit with this one,” Len said.
“I think there’s a place for me here.”
“Yes, old man. This is where you belong.”
Petr smiled wryly. It was just what he had been thinking earlier.
3
Petr leveled the ’copter for a vertical landing. Alda stood near the landing strip below him, her face upturned to follow each circling aircar, like a white flower on a slender stem bending toward the sun. Petr felt a tightening in his chest.
He landed a few feet away from her. She looked cool and fresh in a mint-green suit with a fashionably low neckline. Petr grinned as he hopped out of the ’copter.
“Hello again,” he said.
“Late again,” she said. An answering smile warmed the eyes and mouth so serious in repose.
“If it happens again I’ll quit my job,” Petr said, and they both laughed. No one could quit an assigned position and hope to eat. There would be no reprisals. The guilty just couldn’t earn food coupons.
They stood looking at each other, and Petr felt absurdly gay and young and carefree. He had been meeting her like this for two weeks, and each moment of greeting brought a fresh exhilaration.
“That’s a fashionable suit, young lady,” Petr said finally.
Her cheeks reddened slightly. “I wasn’t sure about it,” she murmured.
“It merits a meal. Come on.” He led her to the ’copter and helped her step in. “I have a bottle of wine and a jar of sirloin capsules,” he said casually.
“Sirloin capsules!”
“A man of influence, you know.”
He took the ’copter straight up and headed out over the city toward the coast line. The late afternoon sun reflected from thousands of glass domes and the louvered eyebrows of millions of windows, throwing a glittering halo over the city. Through it, catching its glitter like a host of dancing fireflies, droned the evening air traffic. Petr signaled and swung up to a through lane going west. He set the automatic pilot and relaxed.
Alda stared from the ’copter’s window at the city which had become the capital of the world. In the tightness at the corners of her mouth, the shadows under her eyes, Petr saw signs of strain. When she sensed that he was watching, she raised her head and smiled.
“Where are we going tonight?” she asked.
“I thought of drifting up the coast and eating in the ’copter,” he said. “Are you too tired?”
She shook her head. “No. I’d like that.”
“Just lean back and relax,” he said. “I’ll let you know when we get there.”
“No, really, Petr, I’m not tired. Just a little—worried.”
“About your father?”
“Yes. Partly that.”
Petr’s smoldering anger about her father’s attitude flared. “Did you talk to him again?”
“He won’t talk about it.” She looked away. To the right the sun was settling down into the cover of the purple mountains which fringed the city. “It’s strange, Petr. For years he’s been so busy with his work he hardly seemed to know I was alive. I could have lived with any man in the city, and he wouldn’t even have known.”
“What about Kurt Hartog?”
She frowned. “That’s even stranger. Recently I was transferred to the Sociological Section in the PCC offices. Then suddenly Father started taking an interest. He began to encourage me to be polite to the PCC officers there, even to go out with them.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. It has something to do with the university, I think, and his position there. You know his views, Petr, and how outspoken he is. I think there’s been talk about him.”
“And the talk would be silenced if his daughter was seen dating PCC officers.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
They fell silent. The white edge of the shore line was visible now as they passed over the last glass dome that marked a trading center. Dusk was creeping into the city from the hills, and the filtered rays of the sun were no longer warm.
They flew over the wide expanse of the beach, and Petr took the ’copter down to a point a hundred yards above the sand. He set the controls to guide the ship roughly along the curve of the bay. Reaching into the food box in the back of the cabin, he pulled out a chilled container of the government’s local wine and a small bottle of brown capsules.
“Steak tonight,” he said. “And wine to cheer you up.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry to be so gloomy, Petr. Don’t let me spoil the evening.”
His eyes rested on the soft curve of her mouth. “I don’t think that would be possible,” he said gently.
Much later, after the meat and the wine, in the stillness of night as the ’copter hovered above the water about fifty miles up the coast, Alda stirred in his arms.
“Petr,” she said. “Tell me what’s been going on throughout the universe since I first met you.”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I’ve been living in a little enclosed world of my own, and we’re the only ones in it.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said in a pleased voice. “Give me the news.”
“I’ll just have to make it up.”
“I won’t know the difference.”
“All right.” He pondered the problem for a moment. “Let’s start with Monday of this week. What usually happens on Mondays? There was a meeting at the summit. The heads of the various provisional governments met solemnly and approved an agreement outlawing all civil wars. That was in the morning. In the afternoon there were civil outbreaks in Hungary, Chile, and Nepal.”
“Were they successful?” Alda murmured, savoring the ridiculous.
“The rebellions were promptly crushed by the PCC,” Petr said. “Before six o’clock, in time for Our Leader’s Secretary of Peace to read a prepared statement in which he promised immediate and drastic reprisals against the families of those involved in the insurrections. He warned of sterner measures in the future and denied emphatically that widespread famine had been the cause of the rebellions.”
“What was the cause?”
“Widespread famine,” Petr said. “A rebel in Nepal won his followers by claiming the Leader government had destroyed the products of huge experimental farms where Venusian and Martian plants were being cultivated. In Chile there was a similar rumor involving experiments with algae foods.”
“And in Hungary?”
“They were just hungry,” Petr said soberly.
“I’ve heard of the experimental farms,” Alda said. “They’ve always failed.”
“So we’ve been told,” Petr said, and he was silent for a moment. “I had a friend, Tom Hardy by name, who worked on one of the farms for a while. He used to write about how their experiments were getting on. They had something to do with getting vast quantities of food from the surface of bodies of water. He wrote a very excited letter once. He thought they were very close to the answer.”
“Did they find it?”
“I never heard,” Petr said. “He stopped writing suddenly and after that he disappeared. No one ever heard from him again.”
“Petr, that’s horrible.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
“Do you think it means the experiments were successful?”
Petr smiled. “You know me better than that,” he said. “I only report the news. I don’t think about it.”
She didn’t answer. Below them the rhythmic beat of the surf rose and fell in peaceful monotony.
“What would it do to the Population Code,” Alda said at last, “to the Leader government’s power, if the world suddenly found out there could be enough food for everyone after all?”
“Our Leaders will make sure we never get the answer to that,” Petr said. “But let me get on with the news. There was an even more important event Monday night.”
“What was that?”
“We met, we kissed, and nobody gave any speeches.”
Alda smiled. “Perhaps no one knew about us.”
“On Tuesday,” Petr went on, “there were two major items in the news. First there was the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of something-or-other connected with Malthus. No one quite knew what the occasion was, not even Our Leader himself. Someone in the Propaganda Section just decided it was time to give the old boy’s name another plug. The highlight of the day’s festivities came in a ceremony, duly covered by tele-radar, in which Our Leader presented a gold watch to a resident of Paris who had reached his 250th birthday. Our Leader hoped that the old man (who, by the way, looked rather disdainfully at the gold watch) would live to celebrate his 500th birthday and implied that His Benevolence himself hoped to be around to give him another watch.”
Alda laughed. “He’ll need a new watch by then.”
“Our Leader concluded with a little speech pointing out that this old man’s age was a symbol of the Leader party’s success in prolonging and sustaining life. The speech was widely applauded in the tele-press, which always vigorously applauds Our Leader’s speeches. That night, as I remember, you pretended to be working. You were really out with another man.”
“I was not!” She turned her head away in a dignified protest, which was foiled because her cheek came to rest against his arm.
“Shall I go on?”
“You’re doing fine so far.”
“I’d make a great reporter. Let’s see. On Wednesday the Leader government announced that successful landings had been made on Saturn, that several members of the landing party were believed still alive, that signs of intelligent life (not the landing party’s signs, that’s sure) had almost certainly been found, and that the flag of Leadership had been raised in the new territory. The head of the Exploratory Section made a speech in which he praised the bravery of the landing party and promised new and greater discoveries were imminent. There was no hint as to what these new discoveries would be, but we know that they will involve great expense, great loss of life—and little else. The speech, by the way, was widely applauded in the tele-press.”
“It goes without saying,” Alda said.
“That night we met, you wore a tantalizing red dress carefully chosen for the occasion, I was captivated, we kissed, and there were no speeches.”
“I picked the first dress I put my hands on.”
“Liar,” he said. “On Thursday twenty-six ’copters collided in a series of accidents over Los Angeles, and the head of the Traffic Section made a speech in which he deplored this unnecessary loss of life but hinted that if accidents continued at the present rate we might hope for an increase in the food ration. He promised that a new traffic pattern would soon go into effect.”
“Oh no!”
“Yes. At the news three hundred tired and confused flyers smashed their ’copters into the mountains. The speech, by the way, was ignored by the tele-press, the head of the Traffic Section being currently a bad propaganda subject. That night we met and withdrew into our little world, where we kissed. There were no speeches.”
Alda began to laugh.
“Drunk on government champagne,” Petr said. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“I am not!” she said. “It’s such a silly report.”
“It’s a silly world. Now let me get on. I’m just warming up to things. Friday. Friday morning the Underground sabotaged three rocket projects and distributed leaflets all over London, Moscow, and Los Angeles. The PCC commander-in-chief announced that the Underground had been completely smashed, except for scattered fragments of lesser members who would soon be hunted down. This announcement created considerable confusion, since Our Leader himself had reported just a week ago that the Underground did not exist. To make things even worse, that afternoon the rumor spread that the revolutionary colony on planet “U” had made a successful seizure of one of the spaceships moored on Mars and escaped with it. The rumor was not mentioned in the tele-press, which was in such a state of uproar that it didn’t even go on the screen for the regular evening news program. That night we withdrew again into the seclusion of our little world—”
“It’s not true,” Alda said. She sat up suddenly and looked at Petr, her gray eyes wide and serious. “It’s not true at all.”
“It was just a rumor,” Petr said.
“I don’t mean that. I mean about withdrawing into our own separate world. Darling, don’t you take anything seriously?”
“I take you seriously.” He tried to pull her to him.
“No, Petr. How can we joke about the Underground, about people fighting and dying and being hunted?”
“Are you a member?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
“It’s not funny, Petr. I wouldn’t think you’d find it funny. I mean—”
“Because of my father?” He was silent for a moment. “I suppose that’s a good, normal reason but I’ve never been sold on it.”
“We can’t withdraw into our own little world, darling. It doesn’t work.”
“Why not? Why must we get involved in someone else’s useless fight?”
“I don’t mean deliberately getting involved. I mean the real world comes after you, in a way. What we do doesn’t affect only us.”
“Your father, for instance?” His voice was bitter. “Fathers have a way of following you.”
“We have more to be concerned about than Father’s anger.” She tried to speak calmly but she was smoothing the folds of her skirt with nervous fingers. “Kurt called again today.”
Petr smiled. “Ah, the avenger.”
“He’s curious, Petr. He kept asking about you.”
“It’s nice to be remembered.”
“Don’t joke about it, Petr. You know how dangerous he can be.”
“Why should it mean so much to him? Is he in love with you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he just isn’t used to being denied what he wants.”
“That’s true enough.”
“Darling, he frightens me.”
Her words gained impact from their casual directness. In the still darkness of the ’copter, hovering over a peaceful ocean, with the city glowing dimly and remotely in the distance to the south, withdrawal from a world of conflict and hunger seemed possible, even actual—her fear unreal. But at that moment Petr knew that she was right. Escape was an illusion, independence a snare.
He gazed at the familiar softness of her mouth, at the line his fingers had often traced from her high cheekbones to the pointed chin, at the dark serious eyes, and he knew he was in love. The word had always come lightly to his lips. Now it was slow, reluctant, carrying the burden of a commitment.
“I love you,” he said.
“No, Petr. Don’t say it.”
“I’ve already said it and I’ll go on saying it.”
“Please, darling.” She looked away quickly. “Let’s keep it the way it’s been.”
“Are you saying you don’t love me?” For the first time since childhood Petr felt a twinge of panic.
Her eyes searched his face. She shook her head like a child dumbly denying guilt. “I do love you, Petr,” she said.
They stared at each other in the isolation of the cabin’s little world. They kissed, and there were no speeches.
4
It was late afternoon when they found her father in the garden, pruning a big green plant whose leaves looked like elephants’ ears. He glanced up at the sound of the glass doors of the living room sliding open to Alda’s touch. He rose slowly to his feet. Stiff and erect, he stood without moving while they walked across the green dichondra carpet. Until they stopped a few feet away from him, and Alda spoke, his eyes never left Petr’s face.
“I’m glad we found you in, Father,” Alda said. “We’ve been looking for you.” Petr was relieved to note her voice was calm.
“I’m always happy to see you, my dear.” He looked at her when he spoke in his formal way, then turned again to Petr. “But I have no wish to speak to Mr. Clayborne. I thought I had made that quite clear.”
“I have something important to talk to you about.”
“Whatever you have to say is of no importance to me.”
“I believe this is, Dr. Gray.”
“Please listen, Father.” Alda was not pleading. The words seemed a casual, polite request.
“If you choose to ignore my wishes and continue to see Mr. Clayborne, Alda, that is your decision. That does not mean I must see him or listen to him.”
The old man turned away. He picked up the shears lying beneath a giant leaf of the plant he had been trimming. In the brightness of the late afternoon sun he looked older to Petr than he had in the diffused light of his living room two weeks before. There was more than a dignified withdrawal in the stiffness of his movements. There was something of the weight of his 170 years.
“Dr. Gray,” Petr said, quietly, “I’ve asked Alda to marry me.
Petr thought her father flinched at the words, but when he turned the smooth-skinned and sharp-featured face had the set coldness of a plaster cast.
“And you have accepted him, my dear?” he said to Alda.
“Yes, Father.”
“Then I don’t see …” The old man’s words broke off. He seemed to draw himself erect, his whole body hardening. “If you have decided, why is it so important that you come to me?”
“Because we’d like your approval,” Petr said.
The whole scene was unreal. Petr spoke stiffly, fighting down the impulse to raise his voice.
“Alda would be happier marrying with your blessing,” he said.
Her father looked at Petr stonily. “You are of age, both of you. You need only Our Leader’s blessing.”
“Why, Father?” Alda’s protest was scarcely more than a whisper. “Why must you persist this way?” Her hand waved in an aimless gesture.
“You know my opinions. He’ll only make you unhappy.” The old man spoke dispassionately of Petr, as if he and Alda were alone.
“You didn’t seem to mind her being out with Captain Hartog,” Petr said sharply. “Your encouragement of that is hardly consistent with your objections to me.”
“I had my reasons.”
“They were your reasons. You weren’t thinking of Alda.”
“Petr, please.” Alda’s eyes were moist, and her voice trembled. “Don’t.”
“I don’t have to answer to you for my relations with my daughter, Mr. Clayborne.” The old man turned to Alda. “You seem to express some feeling for my opinion, my dear. If you do, you will not marry a man who is a traitor to everything I’ve taught you to believe in.”
“Petr isn’t a crusader, Father. That’s all.”
He looked at her steadily. When he spoke again his voice was old and bitter.
“If you can speak of crusaders with contempt, Alda, there is nothing more to be said.”
She turned to Petr. “I think we’d better leave,” she said. “Good-by, Father.”
“If you leave with him now, Alda …”
“I won’t be coming back.”
She turned and walked across the lawn, her steps direct and firm. She did not look back.
Petr hesitated, staring at her father’s face with a mixture of anger and pity. “I didn’t want it this way,” he said.
The old man didn’t answer. Petr followed Alda out of the garden.
In the ’copter she broke down. Even her tears were subdued, smothered under the protective cover of her hands. Petr felt helpless. What could he say or do? He put his arm over her shoulders, and she buried her head against his chest.
5
They arrived at the Marital Bureau, which was housed in the huge Population Control Center, just after nine o’clock. Alda wore white, in the old-fashioned style of wedding dresses with the skirt reaching over the knees and a single slit up to the waist. The brightness of the sun shone in her eyes, and her smile was too wide, too honest.
Though it, too, wore white, the cool white of moonstone, the building seemed cold for a wedding. The architect had drawn on the moon for his design, a sphere on stilts with its windows inverted and circular, cut into the sphere like craters. An elevator took Petr and Alda up through one of the stilts.
The line of applicants ahead of them was already long but it moved forward steadily. The Marital Bureau was designed for efficiency, planned for a single purpose: to make sure that not a single worry should disturb the smooth entry of a betrothed couple into matrimony. What in ancient times had been done by the bride’s parents was now taken care of by the Great Benevolent Parent, the Leader state.
A few minutes before ten o’clock they reached the door of the Bureau. A velvet red cord blocked their way. After a moment’s wait an attendant pulled back the cord, and they slipped through. A desk confronted them. Behind it a man bent over some papers, checking off each entry.
“First marriage?” he asked without looking up.
“First,” Petr said. “And last.”
“Fill out the application blank and go to Window 4.”
It took a half hour to fill out the application form, which called for details of birth, relatives back to their grandparents, occupation and military history, education, residence record, and credit standing. At Window 4 the form was checked for completeness, and the physical examination cards were given to them.
Petr went to Room 7 and Alda to Room 14 for the physical examination, which was impersonal and thorough. At 11:45 Petr reported back to Window 4 to find that Alda’s application had been cleared, but his own was delayed. An appointment was made for them at 1:00 p.m. in Room 3. The marital counselor. At noon the Bureau closed for lunch.
The cafeteria was at the base of the sphere. It had a clear plastic floor, through which they could look down at lush tropical flowers in the gardens below and at the lines of pedestrian traffic, bustling back and forth like ants in formal procession.
“This is a relief,” Alda said when they found a table. “My feet hurt.”
“Getting married and all she can think of is her feet,” Petr said, addressing no one. “Very romantic.”
“It isn’t a very romantic process,” Alda said. She looked at the salad leaves and vegetable tablets on her plate with distaste. “It must have been nicer in the early Atomic Ages, with the formal ceremonies and the wedding rings.”
“People used to get married in church in those days,” Petr said, remembering his history. “And the wife promised to obey her husband. That has merit.”
He pulled a sugar cube from his pocket and dropped it into Alda’s cup. Her eyes widened.
“Working in the Propaganda Section has its advantages,” Petr said casually. “Grateful clients, you know.” He sipped his coffee, bitter without sugar. “Of course those old ceremonies didn’t mean much,” he said, abruptly returning to Alda’s thought. “People got married five or six times in less than a hundred years.”
“At least they could marry without the government’s permission.”
Automatically Petr glanced at the adjoining tables to make sure no one had overheard. “But look what it led to. Chaos.”
Alda leaned forward. “Petr, is it true there are still priests in the Underground and they still perform marriages?”
“I don’t know,” Petr said slowly. “You don’t know how much to believe of the stories you hear.” He smiled. “It could be Underground propaganda.”
“I wonder.”
Petr started to sip his coffee. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder. His arm jerked, spilling coffee on the table.
“Nervous, Petr?”
Kurt Hartog looked down at them, his lips drawn back over gleaming white teeth. Petr was aware that a hush had fallen over the cafeteria.
“But of course you are,” Hartog said. “It’s your wedding day. Are you all atremble too, Alda?”
There was only polite surprise in her face. “Just impatient,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Kurt.”
“I was afraid of it,” Petr said. “It was a risk we had to run.”
“A risk? You’re joking, aren’t you, Petr? I’m glad to see you in such good humor.” The PCC captain’s smile did not falter. “I haven’t congratulated you, have I? You must be very happy.”
Petr said nothing. The silence held in the cafeteria.
“You want to be alone? I understand, of course.” Hartog turned as if to leave. After one step he halted, as if a thought had struck him. “I’ll be seeing more of both of you from now on. As a happily married couple you’ll come under the direct control of my branch, you see.” The announcement seemed to give him undue pleasure. “That’s especially important in cases like yours, eh, Petr?” He bowed slightly to Alda. “I’ll be looking forward to our next meeting.”
They watched him thread his way easily, gracefully, through the cluster of tables. As he passed each table eyes moved furtively to follow him. As soon as he disappeared through the exit, the babble of conversation burst forth again as if it had never stopped.
“Petr,” Alda said suddenly. “Why should there be any delay in clearing your application?”
“I don’t know,” Petr said honestly.
“What did Kurt mean about cases like yours?”
Petr smiled. “He’s just playing officer-and-enemy as if he was a kid again.”
“No, he wasn’t, Petr.” She hesitated, fumbling for words in a way quite unlike her. “Darling, is there anything against your security record?” Her gray eyes were anxious.
“Why should there be?”
“Your application should have gone through as fast as mine. It’s all done mechanically.”
Petr shifted uncomfortably. He had thought of that. “I’ve never been in official trouble,” he said, “outside of a couple of flying tickets. I put in my five years of honorable military service. What could be against my record? My father’s, yes, but that has nothing to do with me.”
“I know, but he meant something.” She forced a smile. “I guess I’m overanxious.”
“Let’s go and get married,” he said.
Because they were early for their appointment with the marital counselor, they had to wait. The official arrived promptly at one. He was an overfriendly man with a confidential smile and a soothing voice. He led them into his office.
“Well, now,” he said, rubbing the edges of his words together, “I’m sure you young people understand the importance of the step you’re taking.”
“We’re old enough,” Petr said.
“Yes, yes, of course, I quite believe it. Now it’s my job to refresh your memories about the pertinent facts of married life.” He laughed easily and startled Petr by winking at them. “Not the more intimate facts, of course. I’m sure you won’t need any help.”
Alda looked helplessly at Petr.
The counselor went on, his voice more official. “As you know, marriage is permitted only between the ages of fifty and seventy-five, with childbirth restricted to those years. There is a limit of two children for all except Leader families.”
“We’re both propagandists,” Petr said.
“Fine, fine. I’ll just get your papers in here.” More at ease again, the counselor pressed a button on his desk. “We’ll soon have you through here,” he said encouragingly.
A girl appeared and placed some papers on the desk.
“Thank you, my dear,” the counselor said, beaming. “A lovely girl,” he added loudly before she had got out of earshot. “Now let me see. Two children, then, for your classification, unless there’s a security question involved.” He laughed once more, and Petr wondered if the man’s mouth didn’t ache after a hard day of laughing at the office.
But the counselor looked at their papers, and the laughter shut off like a faucet, leaving an awkward silence. He tapped the papers together on his desk. “I see,” he said, and he ruffled the papers again.
“What is it?” Petr asked, suddenly tense.
“You should have told me,” the counselor said. “Your name is Petr Clayborne?”
“Yes,” Petr said, his throat tight. “What does that have to do with it?”
“A great deal, a great deal.” The smile returned, irrepressible. “Of course it won’t hold up your marriage but it does make a difference.”
“In what way?” Alda’s voice was low and even.
“Well, as the son of a classified enemy of the state, Mr. Clayborne has automatic birthright limitations.”
“What do you mean?” Petr was on his feet, leaning over the desk, his words hot and angry.
“Now, now, there’s no need to get excited.” The counselor’s hands waved excitedly, warding off Petr’s anger. “You’ll still be able to have children but you’ll have to wait.”
“We’ll wait on a comet’s tail,” Petr snapped. “If this is true, why haven’t I been informed of it before?”
“We don’t publish security information, as you know. And this regulation is a delicate matter. It’s not generally made known for the protection of … well, of people like you. No one will know but yourselves. However, the law is there. It states that the immediate offspring of classified criminals, as well as violators themselves who are released from imprisonment, must undergo a probationary period before receiving full birthright privileges.”
“Probationary period! I’m fifty-two years old! Isn’t that time enough for the state to find out if I’m a security risk?”
“Petr, please.”
“It’s a question of probation after becoming old enough to marry. Otherwise there would be no restraining effect in the law.” The counselor smiled gratefully at Alda. “But it’s just for fifteen years from the date of eligibility, which means less than thirteen years in your case, Mr. Clayborne.” He looked unhappily at Petr.
Petr sat down. Alda put her hand on his arm, but he didn’t respond to the touch.
“What you’re saying is, we couldn’t have children until I’m sixty-five,” he said tonelessly.
“That’s right. That’s it, exactly it. Of course there is one way of shortening the probationary period.” The counselor beamed at them.
“What’s that way?” Petr leaned forward. The muscles tightened in his jaw.
“You could volunteer for the Exploratory Branch of the Armed Forces, which would be considered extraordinary service to the state. Your probationary status comes up for review five and ten years from the effective date. I’m sure the board would look favorably on your case if you could point to outer-space service.”
“You think that would make a difference.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. Absolutely.”
“So that’s how you get so many volunteers for the Exploratory Branch,” Petr said bitterly. “I’ve often wondered about that.”
“You misunderstand.” The counselor became briskly official again. “This is purely voluntary, and it’s quite possible that you could win release from probationary status anyway, at the end of ten years perhaps. Of course it would be unusual.”
Alda’s hand tightened on Petr’s arm. “It doesn’t matter, darling,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!” Petr’s voice was rough. “To you and to me. Don’t you think I know how much this means to you?”
“I’m sure you two would like to talk this over privately,” the marital counselor suggested, solicitous and kind in his official role. “You could step into the next room alone.”
“Thank you.” Alda rose and walked over to the door. She looked at Petr, who followed slowly.
When the door closed behind them Alda pressed against Petr, her arms tightening around his neck.
“I want you, Petr,” she said. “We can wait for a child. I can’t wait for you.”
“You don’t have to marry me,” Petr said, the anger welling in him, fighting against the longing stirred by the warmth of her body, her breath against his cheek. “I didn’t know or I never would have asked you to marry me. I suppose your father knew,” he added bitterly. “And he was right all along. I will make you unhappy.”
“He didn’t know or he would have told me. No one knew. Don’t you see? It’s a secret provision.”
“A secret provision! They can just make up the rules as they go along, as it suits them.”
“It isn’t forever, Petr.”
“No, and I can always go space exploring.”
“You don’t have to. We’ll wait, if it’s necessary, for a child.”
Petr stared at her. He knew how much that statement had cost her. A century of denial under the rigid limitations of the Population Code, the source and secret of the Leader party’s power, had made the right of bearing children so desired that no promise, no threat, no punishment matched its terrible influence over the minds and bodies of men.
He put his hands on her shoulders and held her off at arms’ length. “You’d still marry me, even now?”
“I love you, Petr.”
The anxiety in her eyes brought an answering ache to his chest. All his life the inflexible machinery of the Leader party had meshed with his actions, restraining him. But this was the first time he had become strongly aware of its pressure forcing him to move against his will. And the movement touched her. In that moment he understood that he had never been free—and that he was no longer alone.
Her mouth smothered the anger on his lips. When she stepped back she smiled. “What was it you said at lunch?” she said. “Let’s go and get married.”
The ceremony took place in Room 20, the last one at the end of the long corridor. Their final papers arrived shortly after them. Across the birthright certificate, stamped in large red letters, was one word: LIMITED.
A harried official called them over to his desk. “Let’s get this over with,” he snapped. “Do you take this woman to be your wife?”
“I do,” Petr said.
“Sign here, please.”
He repeated the question to Alda. “I do,” she said.
“That’s all.”
They signed the papers in triplicate. The official tore off the third copies and handed them to Petr. He and Alda stood awkwardly, staring at each other.
“Next, please.” The official looked up impatiently.
They walked blindly from the room.
6
During the flight to Laguna Beach, where an apartment had been assigned to them, they were silent. Petr thought of the Population Code, of the birth control which was its first law, and his anger grew. An emergency proclamation, he thought savagely. A code invoked for a crisis and continued as a principle of power.
He glanced at Alda and he faced the question she had not asked. Would she, in thirteen years, be able to bear the two children she might be allowed? Men and women might now live for two centuries or more—but it was the young who were fruitful. And Petr knew that the years of restricted liberty to have children had been carefully charted, with the aim of granting the privilege when there was little time left for it to bear fruit. Natural controls aiding the unnatural, he reflected grimly.
As they neared the apartment development in Laguna Beach the ’copter passed over the orderly squares of the vegetable gardens which served the community—and with a jolting shock of insight Petr remembered Tom Hardy, the chemical technician who had worked on the experiments to create new foods and on the brink of discovery had disappeared.
Slowly Petr spelled out to himself the fact which he had known for years. The state of controlled famine which gripped the world, maintaining the existence of the Population Code, was deliberate. It was planned. He had joked about the fact as words. Now he knew it as a motive.
He was still brooding on this thought when they reached the landing strip whose number corresponded to that on his apartment lease. Sensing his mood, Alda kept glancing at him as they entered the apartment building. Her fingers pressed nervously against his arm. When he picked her up to carry her over the threshold, forcing a smile, there were tears in her eyes.
The apartment had been freshly decorated. It was furnished with the exotic modern which was judged right for a propagandist’s taste. The patness of it, the precise cataloguing of his mind and personality, added heat to Petr’s simmering anger. The hot, bright colors incited him. The bonelike texture of the furniture jarred his senses like a cold rebuff.
He glared at the ready-made patterns of beauty. Follow the Leader, he thought savagely. Follow him into your home, into your bathroom, into your bedroom. If you don’t follow him, he’ll follow you. No. No, that was wrong. He’ll be there ahead of you, carefully turning back the covers and smoothing the sheets. Printing instructions on the wall beside the bed. Watching benevolently as the first flush of passion betrays itself under the surface of your skin. He didn’t need a telescreen to watch you. He was there first, extending a paternal, a gently warning hand.
You could go on for years, Petr thought, hardly conscious of the hand’s caress. Or you could laugh at it, as he had laughed, knowing the hand was large, believing it could never close over you. Why should it? Why not welcome the touch of that hand? It promised security and comfort and protection against the need to think and act for yourself. It lifted the burden of human responsibility off your back, and in your relief at shedding the burden you didn’t even notice that you had shed your freedom as well. You could simply follow the Leader. That was much better, much easier, much safer than finding your own way.
“So this is home,” Petr finally said, his words brittle in the cold room.
“At least it’s ours,” Alda said. “It’s ours, darling.”
“It’s only leased to us,” Petr corrected her abruptly. “It’s not ours at all. Nothing in it is ours.”
“We can change that.”
Petr laughed harshly. Alda drew her hand away from his arm, a small gesture of withdrawal. She turned away and walked to the long windows that filled one wall.
“Do you think they’d let us change it?” His voice pursued her. “Don’t you know every stick of furniture, every piece of fabric, every dish and towel is rented with the apartment? We’d have to get permission to rearrange the furniture!”
“I wasn’t thinking of furniture,” Alda said.
His anger turned on himself. He had been punishing her, as if a childless marriage brought less pain to her than to him. He crossed to her quickly. His hands reached out to close over her shoulders and pull her to him.
“We can make it ours by living in it together,” she said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” he said, but his voice was gentle. “That’s not enough. We can’t live in it as we want to. At least that’s what they think. That’s what they’re trying to tell us.”
“We can wait for a child, Petr,” she said, understanding.
“Why should we? How do we know there won’t be another restriction when this so-called probationary period is over? What are the other laws that we don’t know about?” He paused. “How do we know we’ll be able to have a child when I’m sixty-five and you’re close to it?”
A shadow darkened her gray eyes. She tried to read his face. “There’s nothing else we can do,” she said.
“Isn’t there?”
His words filled the room. Their urgent vitality dominated the inanimate furnishings that impressed Our Leader’s stamp indelibly upon the room.
“Do you mean it, Petr?”
His fingers dug sharply into the unresisting flesh of her shoulders. He wasn’t being carried along in the wash of anger any more. He weighed each word.
“We’re married, aren’t we? We love each other. Who has a right to tell us ours should be a limited marriage?”
“We can love without a child.”
“You can play in the yard, children,” he said. “But don’t climb over the fence.”
Her full smile startled him. “I want your children, Petr,” she said.
Unaccountably he was embarrassed. The cynical ladies’ man, he thought wryly. An excitement began to whisper in his blood.
“You know what this means,” he murmured.
She nodded. She moved in under the pressure of his hands, her arms coming up slowly to encircle his neck. She knew and she didn’t care.
The act was a deliberate flouting of the supreme law of the Population Code. It was an act so criminal its import was hard to grasp. It would embark them on a journey of flight and fear and unknown danger. If the action’s visible symbol was a child, that child could not lawfully exist. It could not be registered or in any way acknowledged. If found, it would immediately be put to death—and Petr and Alda would become official enemies of the state.
But Alda didn’t care. They wanted a child. They were husband and wife. Nothing else mattered.
“We haven’t looked at our new bedroom,” Petr said softly.
He carried her through the door. He didn’t even see the furnishings.