The guards at Stark Falls were under strict orders not to talk. Each
prisoner here was exercised alone in a courtyard runway, and meals
were served in the cells. The cells were comfortable enough, and while
there were no telescreens, books were available--genuine, old-style
books which must have been preserved from libraries dismantled fifty
years ago or more. Harry Collins found no titles dated later than
1975. Every day or so an attendant wheeled around a cart piled high
with the dusty volumes. Harry read to pass the time.
At first he kept anticipating his trial, but after a while he almost
forgot about that possibility. And it was well over a year before he
got a chance to tell his story to anyone.
When his opportunity came, his audience did not consist of judge or
jury, doctor, lawyer or penologist. He spoke only to Richard Wade, a
fellow-prisoner who had been thrust into the adjoining cell on the
evening of October 11th, 2013.
Harry spoke haltingly at first, but as he progressed the words came
more easily, and emotion lent its own eloquence. His unseen auditor on
the other side of the wall did not interrupt or question him; it was
enough, for Harry, that there _was_ someone to listen at last.
"So it wasn't a bit like I'd expected," he concluded. "No trial, no
publicity. I've never seen Leffingwell again, nor Manschoff. Nobody
questioned me. By the time I recovered consciousness, I was here in
prison. Buried alive."
Richard Wade spoke slowly, for the first time. "You're lucky. They
might have shot you down on the spot."
"That's just what bothers me," Harry told him. "Why didn't they kill
me? Why lock me up _incommunicado_ this way? There aren't many prisons
left these days, with food and space at such a premium."
"There are _no_ prisons left at all--officially," Wade said. "Just as
there are no longer any cemeteries. But important people are still
given private burials and their remains secretly preserved. All a
matter of influence."
"I've no influence. I'm not important. Wouldn't you think they'd
consider it risky to keep me alive, under the circumstances? If
there'd ever be an investigation--"
"Who would investigate? Not the government, surely."
"But suppose there's a political turnover. Suppose Congress want to
make capital of the situation?"
"There is no Congress."