TO: Fredk. Ramsbotham FROM: John Harrison SUBJECT: The daily paper Now you've torn it. Unless you think we can make money selling weapons to be used against our own people on Fruyling's World. I've sold out my shares as of this morning, Fred. I'm through. I think you are, too--whether you know it or not just yet. 12 "That old-time religion." Dodd heard the words echoing in his mind that night, and the next night, and the next. All that she had said: "We set up a nice pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, all according to the best theory, just the thing to keep the Alberts happy and satisfied and working hard for us. It started right after the first setup here, and by now I guess the Alberts think they invented it all by themselves, or their Great Elder came down from a tree and told them." "It's horrible," he had said. "Of course it is." There was a silence. "But you said it yourself: what can we do? We're here and we're stuck here." "But--" Norma didn't want to argue, but the argument went on in Dodd's mind, and it still continued, circling in his mind like a buzzard. There was nothing he could do about it, nothing Norma could do about it. He avoided even the thought of seeing her for a few days, and then he found himself making an excuse to go over to Building One. He met her there, after lounging about for hours. And what she had disclosed to him, what they spoke of, made no difference that he could see in what he felt. He was happy. Slowly he realized that he had hardly ever been happy before. He even forgot, for a time, about the rumors, the threat of Confederation troops that had hung over her words like a gray cloud: all he could think of was Norma, and the terrible thing in which they were both bound up. He told himself grimly that it would never have bothered Albin, for instance. Albin would have had his fun with Norma, and that would have been that. But it bothered Johnny Dodd. He was still worrying over it, and in spite of himself finding happiness, when the escape came, and the end. 13 "There's nothing to be done about it." Dr. Haenlingen delivered the words and sat down rigidly behind her desk. Norma nodded, very slowly. "I know that," she said. "I started out--I started to do just what you wanted. To talk to him, draw him out, find out just what he did feel and what he planned." "And then something happened," Dr. Haenlingen said tightly. "I know." Norma paced to the window and looked out, but the day was gray: she saw only her own reflection. "Something happened," she murmured. "I--guess I had too much to drink. I wanted to talk." "So I understand," Dr. Haenlingen said. "And you talked. And--whatever his situation--you managed to increase his tension rather than understand or lessen it." Norma shook her head at the reflection. "I'm sorry." "I have often found," Dr. Haenlingen said, "that sorrow following an action is worse than useless. It usually implies a request to commit the same action again."