"Just a moment." The nurse went away and came back with a memorandum.
"Betty Wildress is listed as age thirty-six. That would put her on the
eightieth level. None survived above the hundred and seventeenth."
Sue buried her face in the pillow. She had held back the tears so long
that now they would not come. She thought of her father and turned
again to the nurse.
"Craig Wildress?" the nurse said. "Logistics? Just a moment." She
checked through records. "He was here two days ago, stayed by your
side. He received a high priority message, had to leave. He left word
for you that he would be on Mars for some time."
"Alfred Wilson?"
"Your betrothed or kin?"
Sue shook her head. "An instructor at the Center. He went out the night
of the strike."
"There are many Centers. Many went out that night and not so many came
back. You will have to inquire of the Council."
"This place? Where am I?"
"Recovery Fourteen Hundred One."
"Is it near--?"
"Site of Factory Eight Ninety-six? Yes. About a hundred and twenty
miles east. You must rest now. Girls from devastated areas are to go to
factories in the East. You must regain your strength quickly."
From the local Council she learned only that the full extent of the
losses would not be known for weeks. Fighting had been intense between
Earth and the orbit of Mars and there was still some confusion. It
appeared that Mars, the Moons of Jupiter and the stations beyond
Saturn's orbit had suffered heavily. The brunt of the strike, she was
told, had been absorbed inside the orbit of Mars, and Earth and its
satellite escaped what might have been fatal blows.
That was as much as the Council could tell her. No one should expect
them, they explained, not without sympathy, to halt assessments and try
to learn what had happened to one man in a cosmic operation.
They denied her permission to return to the site of former Factory
Eight Ninety-six. They pointed out that such excursions were
morale-shattering and that she was needed immediately in the East.
Production had to be increased in preparation for further strikes.
They did permit her to view the site on a screen. And then she was
sorry. Where the factory, the dormitory, the cedars, the vale, the wood
had been was now a crater twice as large as the lake.
As she studied the scene, an uncontrollable surging rose in her breast.
At last tears came. She hardly remembered going out to the atmosphere
craft that was to take her to the eastern factory.
The craft was jampacked with girls and older women. Their talk was
puzzling.
"Do they lose their spirit out in the void?"
"Maybe it's that stuff shot into them at the Centers."
"But that stuff makes them stronger. Besides, it isn't their strength.
Maybe it's us. Maybe we have some hidden psychological reason not to
bring more children into existence."
"When I was growing up," said an older woman, "boys and girls were
expected to fall in love. Now they discourage it. You can't expect the
laws of nature--"
"But that," another pointed out, "is to prevent heartbreak. When a girl
is madly in love and the boy goes out and doesn't come back or comes
back gray and wrinkled and broken--"
"It isn't our problem," somebody said peevishly.
"If bearing children isn't our problem, whose is it?"
"I meant fertility."
Sue hoped that it was just girl talk, and tried to dismiss it, but
half-formed thoughts stirred restlessly and plucked at the strings of
some dormant longing inherent in her sex. With the others she wondered.
The new factory differed from the old, and it was several days before
she became adept at operating the improved machines. The Center was
closer and work was going on to merge the two dining halls.
Word spread that romance might no longer be discouraged. This made her
wonder more.
* * * * *
On the first day of spring a thin blonde girl at the next machine
fell unconscious. As Sue rushed to help her, she saw the two ribbons
clutched in the thin hand. A chunky brunette whispered, "Her husband's
posthumous award. She got them last night, probably didn't sleep."
Work on the dining halls was finally finished. When young men milled
into the vast room the girls were silent and shy. The boys likewise. It
was the first time many of them had ever eaten in the presence of the
other sex.
The shyness wore off and they mingled. It was then that Sue learned
that men were fed differently. They got more meat and heaping portions
of vegetables. She no longer wondered why they grew so big and strong.
The men stared at what the girls were eating and seemed to lose their
appetites. Finally one offered to share with a girl and then others,
all over the room. For the first time Sue tasted beef.
Then a rule was posted that food was not to be shared. The men ignored
it, but the girls, fearing both for themselves and the men, stopped
sharing.
Word spread that the men had complained to the Council and that
something was to be done. Days went by and the men grew irritable. One
day the men, looking grim and determined, got their plates and each sat
at a table with a girl. When the meal was over they marched out, and
not a man had touched his food.
The instructors at the Center declared an emergency, issued orders
superseding the local Council that the same food was to be given both
workers and trainees. They justified it on the grounds that it was to
sustain morale.
Men were allowed in the dorm two hours a day. Sue took the opportunity
to ask one how ships were able to traverse vast distances in comparably
brief time. His explanation was incomprehensible. Finally he paused,
studied her wondering features.
"Oh, I see!" he said. "You girls don't take much math. Think of it
this way. Time is a concept of motion in relation to motion. Picture a
motionless planet in a void. There is no motion on the planet or off
it. Without motion, plus a concept, there can be no time. Now give the
planet motion. Nothing else but the planet is moving in that void.
There is nothing to which it is relative. So it can move billions of
miles in time zero. Am I making it clear?"
She nodded. She hadn't begun to grasp it, but knew that she would in
time.
"So actually we effect a displacement," he went on. "It is something
like moving into another dimension, but it isn't precisely that. In
reality it is a different kind of motion from motion as we know it
ordinarily. But here comes the dorm mother to send us back to the
Center. Tell you more next time."
* * * * *
She tried time and again to get news of Alfred Wilson, but didn't know
what ship he was on and couldn't learn even what Sector he might be in.
All of the sectors now were between Earth and the nearest stars and
news of the fighting came more often. There was talk that Sector
Four might pull back within the Solar System, and its vast chain of
defenses, and thus release thousands of ships to build Sector One back
up to strength.
News from her father came indirectly. A Tibetan sent word from halfway
around the planet that he had worked with her father on Mars and
promised to bring a message to her. He was in good health and thought
of her daily. He was leaving for the vicinity of Jupiter and from there
would go to the stations beyond Saturn. He hoped to see her before
winter and bade her be of good spirit and firm faith that the big job
would soon be done.
Early in June one of the girls on the overlapping shift told her that a
man in uniform had asked for her. She couldn't imagine who it might be,
for the men she knew at the Center were aware of her hours and would
look for her in the dining hall.
Crossing the distance to the hall, she studied the tall man in the worn
uniform who stood near the entrance. The hair at his temples was gray
and he wore a single ribbon tied at his throat. As she drew near, she
saw the light of long and terrible experience in his eyes.
For a moment she could hardly stand. Black spots came before her eyes
and the world seemed to spin beneath her. Then she knew she was rushing
to him.
A minute passed before he spoke. "I've had a devil of a time finding
you. Searched half the continent."
"Al," she breathed and couldn't say any more.
Lunch was forgotten. She wouldn't have returned to work if he had not
insisted.
That evening he ate with her in the dining hall and afterwards led
her out to a groundcar. In the car they rose above the factory and up
through a snowbank cloud. When they broke clear and could see Luna at
thirty degrees in the southeast and Venus sparkling like a jewel in the
west, he set the robot controls to hold the car motionless.
After a long moment of gazing at her he said. "I thought of you a lot
up there." He pointed toward Saturn. "Long hours of waiting for orders
to move to counter some other move. The realization of the vastness,
the inconceivable immensity, of space, and how tiny and feeble man is.
It made me wonder why the breath of life had been breathed into my
body, and I thought of you, and I think it made me understand that our
Creator intends for life to go on and upward, and because of that He
endowed us with love."
She moved closer to him, but he remained silent so long that she felt
a need to bridge across. She said, "Tell me about the night of the
strike."
Lines of pain came into his features. "Don't ask me about that, Sue.
So many of the boys I had trained died that night."
"Oh!"
There was a longer silence. At last his arm came about her. Moments
passed and then she understood that no bridge would ever be needed.
Words were no longer necessary. She no longer tried to guard her own
thoughts.
And when he asked the question it brought no new excitement. She had
known that he would ask it, and gave the answer with her lips against
his.
"And the date?" he said.
She counted on her fingers. "My birthday comes on the fifteenth. I'll
be eighteen. Is it too long? Girls eighteen get special training to
prepare them for marriage."
"I can't imagine what sort of training," he said. "Besides, I don't
think you need it. Nobody taught you to kiss like that. I've a hunch
you have some special aptitude for being a wife. But if your heart is
set on waiting--"
"It won't be long. Let's set the date for the twenty-fifth of June."
"It's pretty long for an old spaceman, but maybe I can hold out if I
can see you often enough."
"Every evening--"
Sue hardly slept that night. At first she planned not to mention it,
but the excitement of keeping it to herself was too much. She told her
roommate.
"You shouldn't have made him wait," said the girl. "Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"That Sector Four is moving back into the Solar System with
headquarters on Earth. That means a lot of ship movements here. He
might be called back to his any moment."
"And I didn't even ask him the name of his ship!"
* * * * *
It was well into the morning when sleep came and then she awoke long
before daylight. She studied the bulletin board early and was among
the first in the dining hall. She asked a man from the Center what the
movement of Sector Four meant.
"It's like this," he said. "All sectors move in perfect coordination.
Four is the Supreme Command and Strategy Sector. Planning is done there
and the Supreme Council on Earth is kept informed. If they pull back to
Earth they can use the ships kept in reserve to protect this planet and
release many of the Fourth Sector ships to replace losses in Sectors
Three, Two and One. And it is a wise move. Fighting has been extensive
of late and more strength is needed far out."
"Does it mean that men on leave may be called back suddenly?"
"Never can tell. Men on leave are always subject to immediate recall."
It seemed that the morning would never pass. At lunchtime she ran out
of the factory, looked everywhere, waited at the entrance to the dining
hall. At last she went in and ate.
The afternoon dragged. She hardly dared hope when she came out. Then
she saw him.
He hadn't priority for a car tonight, and as they sat in a corner of
the lounge of the dorm she tried to think of some way to tell him. For
a time she hoped that he would bring up the subject, but he didn't, and
at last she made up her mind.
Then he said, "Sue, you've forgotten so soon that your husband-to-be
has a special faculty. You were in so much confusion I couldn't make
out what it was at first. But now it's fairly clear. We'll make it
tomorrow or next day or any day you wish."
Her cheeks stung so that she was afraid to look up. Finally she said,
"Monday. That's three days from now. And Sunday is a short working day.
It will give me time to adjust my thoughts to the idea of being your
wife."
"Sure. And I understand they give you three days for a honeymoon."
She nodded. "I've been wondering what it will be like to be free for
three days."
Sunday came. They spent the meditation hours together. The news on the
bulletin board was ignored.
In the evening he seemed preoccupied. "They have begun calling men
back," he explained. Then: "But don't think for a moment that I'll let
them call me before we're married. Still, I wish I hadn't studied up so
on the new weapons. They're putting the new ships in service, and--But
I'm not supposed to talk about it."
Early Monday morning she drew her wedding issue of clothes: tan linen
blouse and slacks; nylox underthings and pajamas; woven sandals and
nylox anklets.
As she dallied under the shower she felt guilty, for production had to
go on, and every moment she lost had to be made up somewhere.
He came for her at mid-morning and they went before the Council and
said their vows. Afterwards they flew above plains and ruins until they
reached a city that had not been wholly destroyed. She waited while he
filed their identification with the Council and the command post, and
then went with him to a huge building which seemed almost devoid of
life.
Their suite was luxurious beyond her imagining, and it increased the
sense of guilt and unrest in her being. During the next day and part
of the third, as they wandered through galleries and planetariums and
stellar-domes, she thought often of the girls at the machines in the
factories.
His orders came in the afternoon. She returned to the factory alone.
If such were possible, she worked harder now. Her birthday had come and
gone and she was on a sixteen-hour shift. She didn't mind because she
wanted the men to have everything they needed to win and hasten the day
when the big job would be done.
Food rations became less each day. At first there was grumbling among
the trainees, but it died out in the knowledge that sacrifices were
necessary and that boys and girls were sharing alike.
The uniforms of the trainees began to look worn. The men no longer
seemed quite as big and handsome and vital as they once had.
And then the orders came for clinical tests. The Supreme Council sought
an answer to why children were not being born.
* * * * *
Through June she had hoped, and again in July, but in August she was
convinced that she wasn't going to become a mother. And when the
request came for volunteers to work eighteen and twenty hours, she
took twenty. There were times when she couldn't sleep and wanted to be
doing something. This feverishness was shared by others. They seemed
almost hysterically eager to produce more, to provide everything the
men needed.
The man who registered the volunteers was grim and his eyes were
blood-rimmed. As she came out she heard him mutter to another, "There's
a breaking point somewhere. We're driving them far beyond their
strength."