As reason asserted itself--and the drinks took effect--he began to feel better. He was able to sip his third drink slowly, enjoying it, savoring with it his first full view of twilight, painting a stark black filigree of leaf and branch against a luminous sky. The spectacle left him breathless. What overwhelming grandeur the world offered! And here in the Freeman Camp it was continuously on display. The sky itself seemed to thunder the joys of freedom. Against this awesome splendor the overzealous enthusiasm of a group of swimmers, the sexual whim of an impressionable girl, even the petty violence of a deranged mind shrank into insignificance. There was so much to enchant the eye and ear. A man would never have his fill of it. If freedom meant no more than the opportunity--and the leisure--to enjoy all this to his heart's content: the beauty of a bird soaring, the sparkle of a sunlit pool, the intricate texture of a tree trunk, the cool sweep of a green lawn, the vaulting leap of sky from horizon to horizon--it would be enough. Endless pleasure. No need to devour it hungrily (except for him, Hendley thought, checking his rapture). For the others, the truly free, there would never be the necessity to hurry away to the appointed task, the appointed recreation hour, the appointed woman. (He hadn't thought of RED-498, his Assigned, with quite that cold objectivity before, but it was true.) Darkness came. The insistent beat of the crowded pleasure centers caught first his ear and then his need to participate, to discover more of the lures of freedom. He was drawn along the crowded streets, looking, smiling as the groups grew more boisterous and here and there an early drunk reeled from a bar, absorbing the sights and sounds as he had savored his last whiskey. Only occasionally--passing near the dark, silent, empty places--did he shiver, as if he sensed there the lurking shadows of pain and insensate cruelty. At last he was hungry. There were many restaurants to choose from, but he remembered the reception official's reference to the main Rec Hall on the hill. He had no trouble locating the hill or identifying the massive yellow building, whose walls were thrown into sharp relief by a battery of lights in its spacious gardens. As Hendley rode a moving walk up the steep incline he could feel the lifting pressure in his thighs. It had been a long day with far more physical activity than he was accustomed to.