“The lodge is closed.” That was true, he remembered. The Park was closed; they were not supposed to be there. He started to ask her if she had a skycar there, or had she come up through the tunnel, but checked himself. Either way, she would be leaving him. He did not want that; he himself was not pressed for time-his forty-eight hours would not be up until the morrow. “I saw some cabins as I came this way,” he suggested.
They found them, nestling half hidden in a hollow. They were unfurnished and, quite evidently out of service, but strong and weather-tight. He rummaged around in the cupboards and found a little glow-heater with more than enough charge showing on its dial for their needs. Water there was, but no food. It did not matter.
There were not even cushion beds available, but the floor was warm and clean. She lay down, seemed to nestle out a bed in the floor as an animal might, said, “Good night,” and closed her eyes. He believed that she went to sleep at once.
He expected to find it hard to get to sleep, but he fell asleep before he had time to worry about it.
When he awoke it was with a sense of well-being such as he had not enjoyed in many days-months. He did not attempt to analyze it at once, but simply savored it, wallowed in it, stretching luxuriously while his soul fitted itself, catlike, back into its leasehold.
Then he caught sight of her face, across the cabin floor, and knew why he felt cheerful. She was still asleep, her head cradled on the curve of her arm. Bright sun flooded in through the window and illuminated her face. It was, he decided, not necessarily a beautiful face, although he could find no fault with it. Its charm lay more in a childlike quality, a look of fresh wonder, as if she greeted each new experience as truly new and wholly delightful-so different, he thought, from the jaundiced melancholy he had suffered from.
Had suffered from. For he realized that her enthusiasm was infectious, that he had caught it, and that he owed his present warm elation to her presence.
He decided not to wake her. He had much to think of, anyhow, before he was ready to talk with another. He saw now that his troubles of yesterday had been sheer funk. McFee was a careful commander; if McFee saw fit to leave him off the firing line, he should not complain or question. The Whole was greater than the parts. McFee’s decision was probably inspired by Felix, anyhow-from the best of intentions.
Good old Felix! Misguided, but a good sort anyhow. He would have to see if he couldn’t intercede for Hamilton, in the reconstruction. They could not afford to hold grudges-the New Order had no place for small personal emotions. Logic and science.
There would be much to be done and he could still be useful. The next phase started today-rounding up control naturals, giving them their choice of two humane alternatives. Questioning public officials of every sort and determining whether or not they were temperamentally suited to continue to serve under the New Order. Oh, there was much to be done-he wondered why he had felt yesterday that there was no place for him.
Had he been as skilled in psychologies as he was in mathematics he might possibly have recognized his own pattern for what it was-religious enthusiasm, the desire to be a part of a greater whole and to surrender one’s own little worries to the keeping of an over-being. He had been told, no doubt, in his early instruction, that revolutionary political movements and crusading religions were the same type-form process, differing only in verbal tags and creeds, but he had never experienced either one before. In consequence, he failed to recognize what had happened to him. Religious frenzy? What nonsense-he believed himself to be an extremely hard-headed agnostic.
She opened her eyes, saw him and smiled, without moving. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning, good morning,” he agreed. “I neglected to ask your name yesterday.”
“My name is Marion,” she answered. “What is yours?”