She returned on the third day, without a word of explanation to me of where she had been or what she had done. She greeted me and disappeared again, this time only for hours. Then she came back and said, "Now I am through, for a time. How have you liked our little hideaway?"
I said, "It gets lonesome."
"Lonesome?" Her brown eyes were wide and perfectly serious. "I had thought it would be otherwise, Tom. So many of us in this little space, how could you be lonesome?"
I took her hand. "I'm not lonesome now," I told her. We found a place to sit in a corner of the communal dining hall. Around us the life of the underground movement buzzed and swirled. It was much like a branch of the Company, as I have said; the work of this secret section seemed to be mostly a record-keeping depot for the activities that took place on the surface. But no one paid much attention to Rena and me.
What did we talk about? What couples have always talked about: Each other, and everything, and nothing. The only thing we did not talk about was my basic beliefs in regard to the Company. For I was too troubled in my mind to talk about them, and Rena sensitive enough not to bring them up.
For I had, with all honor, sworn an oath of allegiance to the Company; and I had not kept it.
I could not, even then, see any possibility of a world where the Company did not exist. For what the Company said of itself was true: Before the Company existed, men lived like beasts. There was always the instant danger of war and disease. No plan could be made, no hope could be held, that could not be wiped out by blind accident.
And yet, were men better off today? I could not doubt the truths I had been told. The Company permitted wars—I had seen it. The Company permitted disease—my own wife had died.
Somewhere there was an answer, but I couldn't find it. It was not, I was sure, in Slovetski's burning hatred of everything the Company stood for. But it could not be, either, in the unquestioning belief that I had once given.
But my views, it turned out, hardly mattered any more; the die was cast. Benedetto appeared in the entrance to the dining hall, peering about. He saw us and came over, his face grave.