Joe turned around, swiftly, leaping for the door.
"Joe! Wait a minute, Joe!" But he was gone. The sound of his feet came back, the sound of them running down the corridor, heading for the escalator that would take him to the living levels.
Running back and going down to cry up the pack. To send them tonguing through the entire ship hunting down Jon Hoff. And when they caught Jon Hoff…
When they caught Jon Hoff that would be the End for always. That would make the End the kind of unknown End that was spoken of in the chapel. For there would be no other—there would never be another who would know the Meaning and the Purpose and the Destination.
And because of that, thousands of men and women would have died in vain. The sweat and genius and longing of the people who had launched the ship would have been for nothing.
It would be a terrible waste. And wasting was a crime.
You must not waste. You must not throw away.
And that meant human lives and dreams as well as food and water.
JON'S hand reached out and grasped the gun and his fingers tightened on it as the rage grew in him, the rage of desperation, the last-hope rage, the momentary, almost blinded madness of a man who sees the rug of life being deliberately jerked from beneath his feet.
Although it was not his life alone, but the lives of all the others—Mary's life, and Herb's and Louise's and Joshua's as well.