"You are no burden, Father. You are my life. And now that your life is threatened—"
He knew what had upset her. He had heard the newscasts too—yes, the video still operated, controlled by the people. He had heard the names of his old friends—Fredrikson, Tomlin, Masschau—all dead by violence.
"Why do you keep silent?" his daughter asked with a little child's pleading. "Where is the protection you were offered? Why don't you tell the people?" The world was mad and destructive in the eyes of the child—the woman who was a child in the face of this dilemma.
He gently quieted her with a large, steady hand that pressed her head to him.
"It would do no good. Arnson tried it."
She looked up with hope in her eyes.
"He spoke to a special meeting of his stockholders and tried to tell them. They scorned it as a wild fantasy to excuse his betrayal. They issued him an ultimatum—work! He said that they would have to believe him; he couldn't work. They killed him."
The hope slid away and her eyes assumed the depths of despair and bitterness.
Despair for the future, and bitterness for the past. And she thought of the past—for she dared not think of the future.
Where does violence start, she wondered. Trace it to its roots; what's its source, what's its manifestation?