“Not forced?”
“I swear not. He was more sincere than I’d ever thought. He believed in Cavesway.” How naturally she said that word which she had so desperately tried to keep from ever existing. We had not once alone referred to the murder of Cave, both acting, for different reasons, as though his death had been, as the world now thought, his own doing.
“You had really planned to go away?” I asked.
She looked at me, suddenly alert, impersonal: “That’s all finished, Gene. We must keep on in the present. I never think now of anything but Cavesword and Cavesway. It does no good to think of what might have been.”
And that was the most we were ever to say to one another about the crisis in our lives. We talked of the present; we made plans. Stokharin had disappeared at the same time Paul flew to Dallas and we both decided it was wisest to forget him: certainly he would not trouble us again. There was no talk of vengeance.
The committee members, important and proud, joined us and we took up the day’s problem which was, by some irony, the standardization of facilities for Cavesway in the different Centers. Quietly, without raising our voices, in a most good-humored way, we broke neatly in half on Cavesway. I and one other Resident objected to the emphasis on death. Dallas and the fourth member were in favor of expanding the facilities, both physically and psychologically, until every Cavite at the moment when he felt his social usefulness ebbing could take Cavesway. We argued reasonably with one another until it became apparent that there was no possible ground for compromise.
It was put to a vote and Iris broke the tie by endorsing Cavesway.
4
This morning as I finished the above lines I suffered a mild stroke ... a particularly unusual one since I did not become, as far as I know, unconscious. I was rereading my somewhat telescoped account of the Council of Dallas when, without warning, the blow fell; a capillary burst in my brain and I felt as though I were losing my mind in one last fantastic burst of images. The pain was negligible, no worse than a headache, but the sensation of letting go one’s conscious mind, one’s control was terrifying. I tried to move from my work-table, to call for help, but I was too weak. For one long giddy moment I thought: I am dying; this is the way it is and, even in my anguish, I was curious, waiting for that approach of winged darkness which years ago I once experienced when I fainted and which I have always since imagined to be like death’s swift entrance.
But then my body recovered from the assault: the wall was breached, the enemy is in the city but the citadel is still intact and yet I live.