I was poor company when I got there. Sara tried every trick she knew to find out what the trouble was, for naturally I told her there was trouble. But I couldn't yet make myself tell her how I'd been duped, by a professor and a child.
Finally she dragged me off to the Milbry Community Room to, as she said, "dissolve my unwept tears in humanity's soothing sea." Knowing full well it was Crimmuseve didn't help me a bit.
As I feared, the gaiety of Crimmus was rank in the room: a lot of excited talk, snatches of humming. And even, when the Fotofax bell sounded, somebody said, "Ring out, wild bells," and a few people laughed out loud. Though most looked around guiltily.
I got up automatically to get our copies of the Sun as the cubeo announcer went into the WPA opening format:
"An informed people is a free people. Read your Sun and know the truth. Stand by now for an official synopsis of the day's happenings prepared by the World Press Association." That was the standard formula. But then he departed from standard, and it rattled him. I sat next to Sara and watched, interested.
"I have been directed," he said, "to call your full attention to the editorial on the front page of your Sun." Good grief, I thought: Church! Surely not the Onlon thing! The announcer looked around him rather wildly, then blurted: "I now turn you over to the Orator, for a direct-voice proclamation of this editorial."
The vocal unit of Church, highest level of the WPA and the actual voice of Congris! The last time it spoke, 2 years ago, it was the Pan-asian War—this couldn't be the Onlon thing. The announcer's image faded from the cubeo prism and was replaced by a soft light, and an organ note as the local station engineers patched to the nationwide WPA circuit. Everyone in the room stared into the light, even Sara, waiting for the voice.
When it came, deep and resonant, I could feel it in my own chest. I could feel too the tension go out of Sara, and feel the sigh she and everyone else sighed, at the end of waiting.
The voice said: