Intermission Time

He watched it and hated it. That was the only emotion he could find within him. He hated Planet 7; he hated Human Developments. But most of all, he hated himself. He should be taking some wild and violent action to defend his position and win him Lora.

But he didn’t know what such action might be. He couldn’t tear at the very walls of the ship, and he couldn’t smash his white fist into Bronson’s implacable face. It wasn’t that kind of a fist; he was trapped and bound.

The door opened behind him. Doris came up quietly. “We’re coming in. Have you got everything ready?”

“Everything but me.” He nodded toward the jungle now visible through the slanting sheets of rain. “I'll die out there,” he whispered.

“That’s not where we’re going,” exclaimed Doris. “You’ve seen the pictures; you know what Alpha Colony is like. We’re not going to that jungle. That’s where the Control-colonies are.”

She tried to bite the words off even as she said them. John’s face became even more bitter.

“They’ll send her out there. What kind of fanatics are they?”

“Remember: it’s what she wants,” said Doris kindly. “She volunteered as a Control. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing at all.”

“I’ll find something. I’ll make something to do!”

5

They never felt the wetness of the storm. A covered gangway reached out from the protection of the terminal, and clamped its warm mouth to the hull of the spaceship. Through it the passengers moved into the dry pleasantness of the terminal building. John did not get a glimpse of Lora; his group was herded quickly away under Bronson’s supervision.

At the opposite side of the building they climbed into a bus that sped them across a paved highway splitting the Jungle. Unreality increased for John, as the car nosed through the curtains of rain. It was like going deeper and deeper into a dream — so deep that he might never wake up.

After an hour’s ride they slowed. As they made a sharp turn he caught a glimpse of a vast, shining bubble that seemed to shoulder aside the jungle. Its gentle curvature hinted at staggering vastness. Then they halted at another terminal building at the edge of the bubble.

There was no talk from any of his companions. They marched machinelike into the building, as if they had already consigned away all will and initiative. But he sensed that actually they were as stunned as he by the impact of arrival at their final destination. It had been adventure and daring when they signed their names to the contract binding them to Planet 7 forever; it had been so far away then. Now —

John and Doris were shown to adjacent apartments once again. He sat down on the luxurious bed and patted it with finality. “So now we’re supermen,” he said.

The bitterness of his voice cut off any response that Doris might have made. She turned away and walked to the windows, drawing aside the expanse of curtains. She gave a gasp as she looked beyond.

“What is it?” Then John saw beyond the window also. He saw the landscape whose impact was like the sound of some sweet chord struck softly on a great keyboard.

He got up slowly and stood beside Doris. It was ancient Greece; it was an English countryside, the great forests of old Germany.

“It’s worth it,” said Doris. “It's worth it, John. We’ll never have to fight this world.”

There were no streets, only footpaths crossing the grassy expanse. No mechanical vehicles could be allowed to break that scene. The buildings, the houses — they belonged. The whole scene would have been faulty if any one had been removed.

Statuary as glorious as the Age of Pericles was spotted on the vast lawns. Beside this, Earth’s cities as John remembered them were but great slums.

“It’s our home,” Doris murmured, barely whispering. “We’ll never have to leave it; we’ll never have to be tired again.”

There was some strange mood upon her, which he had never seen before, and which he did not understand. It seemed as if he were watching her shed a burden, which he had never known she carried.

But his own could not be dropped. Somewhere in the jungle beyond the great transparent dome that housed Alpha Colony was Lora, unprotected and in savage surroundings.

John was called early next morning for the expected interview with Dr. Warnock, director of Alpha Colony. He was faintly shocked by the initial appearance of the director; Warnock looked like anything but the head of such a group.

He was immense and his eyes were almost hidden in the great roundness of his face. A dead cigar projected from between his fingers. The office was business-like, far removed from the glory that was visible from the apartment windows.

“Sit down, John,” Dr. Warnock said.

A second surprise lay in his voice, which was soft and kindly, and John found himself hastily changing his first estimates.

“Have you ever done anything useful in your life?” said Warnock suddenly.

John hesitated, flushing, “I — I don’t know —”