"But I couldn't do anything else, could I?" Her voice sounded hurt.
The horse's feet clopped in the muddy road. Heidekopfer made a sound like the beginning of speech, then stopped.
"Beg pardon?" said Rosa.
"I just wondered—why didn't you come with us to see the school today? I should have thought you'd find it interesting."
"Oh, there's plenty of time. Besides, if I hadn't gone out to see the country with Kazetzky, I wouldn't have met Dubrassov."
Lanzerotti stirred in his place and said, "By the way, Bob, while you and Ann were looking over that farm this afternoon, I addressed myself to the matter of communications. They don't have to have any, except by word of mouth; the society is so static that there isn't anything requiring quick action by a large number of people, and they can afford to wait."
"Find out anything more about the governmental system?"
"They're disinclined to talk, but I gather it's an almost unchanged adaptation of the Soviet system. Which might be expected, seeing their ancestors came from there, and there's nothing in Tolstoi that would conflict with the system. As a matter of historical process, I'm a bit surprised that there should have been so little evolution—"
"Hell!" said Heidekopfer. "Vincent, when you get to talking theory, you're three parsecs over my head. I just want to know what makes things tick in a practical way."
"The difference is doubtless one of the reasons why we were associated in this mission," said Lanzerotti evenly, and that seemed to put a period to the conversation in the dark until Rosa said, "This must be it. See that light in the tent?"