But Dodd did not reach for punishment. "I can't," he said again. "If I help Dara, it's the jungle for me, or worse. And I can't live there. I need what's here. It's a matter of--a matter of necessity. Understand?" His eyes opened, bright and blind. "It's a matter of necessity," he said. "It has to be that way, and that's all." Cadnan stared at him for a long second. He thought of Dara, thought of the punishment to come. The master had said there was nothing to do: but that thought was insupportable. There had to be something. There had to be a way.... There was a way. Shouting: "Dara!" he found himself in the corridor, somehow having pushed past Dodd. He stood, turning, and saw another master with a punishment tube. Everything was still: there was no time for anything to move in. He never knew if the tube had done it, or if Dodd had hit him from behind. Very suddenly, he knew nothing at all, and the world was blank, black, and distant. If time passed he knew nothing about it. When he woke again he was alone again: he was back in the dark and solitary room. 17 The office was dim now, at evening, but the figure behind the desk was rigid and unchanging, and the voice as singular as ever. "Do what you will," Dr. Haenlingen said. "I have always viewed love as the final aberration: it is the trap which lies in wait for the unwary sane. But no aberration is important, any more...." "I'm trying to help him--" Norma began. "You can't help him, child," Dr. Haenlingen said. Her eyes were closed: she looked as if she were preparing, at last, for death. "You feel too closely for him: you can't see him clearly enough to know what help he needs." "But I've got to--" "Nothing is predicated on necessity but action," Dr. Haenlingen said. "Certainly not success." Norma went to the desk, leaned over it, looking down into the still, blank face. "It's too soon to give up," she said tensely. "You're just backing down, and there's no need for that yet--" "You think not?" The face was still. "There are lots of rumors, that's true," Norma said. "But--even if the worst comes to the worst--we have time. They aren't here yet. We can prepare--" "Of course," the voice said. "We can prepare--as I am doing. There is nothing else for us, not any more. Idealism has taken over, and what we are and what we've done can go right on down the drain. Norma, you're a bright girl--" "Too bright to sit around and do nothing!" "But you don't understand this. Maybe you will, some day. Maybe I'll have a chance--but that's for later. Not now." Norma almost reached forward to shake some sense into the old woman. But she was Dr. Haenlingen, after all-- Norma's hand drew back again. "You can't just sit back and wait for them to come!" "There is nothing else to do." The words were flat, echoless. "Besides," Norma said desperately, "they're only rumors--"