"I don't know. Love takes odd forms, under pressure. But it's still
love. Though, of course, I don't know anything about it."
"You bastard, I hate you more than any man alive."
"You do."
"I--no...!" She began to cry. "Why do you have to be like this? Why
can't you be what I want--what you can be?"
"I can't. Even though you love me." He sat in his dark corner, and his
eyes brooded at her.
"And what do you feel?"
"I love you," he said. "What does that change?"
"Nothing," she said bitterly. "Absolutely nothing."
"All right, then."
She turned away in unbearable frustration, and her eyes rested on the
dinner table, where the animal haunch waited. "Eat your supper."
He got up, washed at the sink, went over to the table and broke open
the joint on the roast. He gave her half, and they began to eat.
"Do you know about the slaughtering detail?" he asked her.
"What about it?"
"Do you know that two days ago, one of the animals deliberately came
into the trap in the dome? That it had help?"
"How?"
"Another animal purposely stayed in the doorway, to jam it. I think
they thought that if they did that, the killing block couldn't fall.
I think they watched outside--perhaps for months--and thought it out.
And it might have worked, but the killing block was built to fall
regardless, and it killed them both. The slaughtering detail dragged
the other one in through the doorway before any more could reach them.
But suppose there'd been a third one, waiting directly outside? They'd
have killed four men. And suppose, next time, they try to wedge the
block? And then chip through the sides of the trap, which are only
a few feet thick? Or suppose they invent tools with handles, for
leverage, and begin cutting through in earnest?"
"The children will be out there before that happens."
Brendan nodded. "Yes. But we're running it narrow. Very narrow. This
place would never hold up through another generation."
"What difference does it make? We've beaten them. Generation by
generation, we've changed to meet them, while all they've done is
learn a little. We've bred back, and mutated, and trained. We've
got a science of genetics, we've got controlled radioactivity, gene
selection, chromosome manipulation--all they've got is hate."
"Yes. And listen to it."
Grinding through the dome, the gnaw and chip came to them clearly.
They began to eat again, after one long moment.