"Nothing in particular." He couldn't very well tell her he thought a government-sponsored commercial was amusing. That was the equivalent of treason, for which the Lunar Prison Colony had been constructed.
Not that Helen wasn't understanding. Their marriage had been lacking in many things, true, but she was inclined to be fair and broadminded on most issues which were not controlled. But when it came to things like the State and its directives, most people got emotionally patriotic. It was something like trying to discuss religion a century earlier, except that in the present case arguments could be easily won by sending the "treasonous" person to the prison satellite. The law made plain what was right and what was not.
"I was just thinking," he said, hoping to explain the grimace, "about a fellow at the office. He suggested that we should get a rebate on the airtax, because we don't utilize all the air we breathe in."
"You reported him, of course."
"Worse than that. We told him if he didn't like it he could stop breathing. Crime doesn't pay anymore."
"I should hope not," she said, and she seemed perfectly serious.
There was no point in arguing with Helen, so he didn't. She apparently had little interest in politics other than a layman's desire to see justice prevail, and if the government wanted to tax the air they breathed, why—let them; they were taxing everything else.
That's why he found himself drawn irresistibly to Julie; she wasn't a slave to convention. That's why he liked to meet her in the darkness of the outside, when the curfew forbade anyone venturing into the night—at least, that was one reason. She was part of the forbidden fruit he secretly desired and vowed would have.
A government official's benign face appeared on the television screen to announce the Super State program. The World Flag materialized, waving in a studio-inspired breeze, and a chorus chanted: "Super State, Super State, Simply great is Super Sta-a-ate!"
"Sixty minutes of uninterrupted commercial," Arthur Dunlop thought with distaste. Plays and songs subtly presented to show that contemporary living was equivalent to a golden age. He was careful, however, not to let his face reveal his mind's opinion.