They denied her permission to return to the site of former Factory Eight Ninety-six. They pointed out that such excursions were morale-shattering and that she was needed immediately in the East. Production had to be increased in preparation for further strikes.
They did permit her to view the site on a screen. And then she was sorry. Where the factory, the dormitory, the cedars, the vale, the wood had been was now a crater twice as large as the lake.
As she studied the scene, an uncontrollable surging rose in her breast. At last tears came. She hardly remembered going out to the atmosphere craft that was to take her to the eastern factory.
The craft was jampacked with girls and older women. Their talk was puzzling.
"Do they lose their spirit out in the void?"
"Maybe it's that stuff shot into them at the Centers."
"But that stuff makes them stronger. Besides, it isn't their strength. Maybe it's us. Maybe we have some hidden psychological reason not to bring more children into existence."
"When I was growing up," said an older woman, "boys and girls were expected to fall in love. Now they discourage it. You can't expect the laws of nature—"
"But that," another pointed out, "is to prevent heartbreak. When a girl is madly in love and the boy goes out and doesn't come back or comes back gray and wrinkled and broken—"
"It isn't our problem," somebody said peevishly.