He bent over her, holding onto her hands. Her skin was cold and faintly moist. "You're not scared now, are you?"

"No," she managed. "Not with you here."

"We'll stay here tonight," he told her. "That's what you want?"

She nodded forlornly.

"Then tomorrow morning we'll go back?"

Twisting, she answered painfully: "Don't ask me. Don't make me say. I'm afraid to say, now."

"All right." It hurt, but he didn't press for an answer. "We can decide tomorrow, after we have a good sleep and breakfast. After we get all this stuff out of our systems. This poison—this rot."

There was no answer. Nina had fallen into a partial doze; eyes shut, she lay resting against the wall, chin down, body relaxed.

For a long time Cussick sat immobile. The room grew cold. Outside, in the hall, there was only silence. His watch told him it was four-thirty. Presently he bent down and slid off Nina's shoes. He placed them on the floor by the bed, hesitated, and then unfastened the snaps of her dress. The dress was intricately held together; it took him some time. Twice, she woke slightly, stirred, and sank back into sleep. At last the dress came apart; he maneuvered one section over her head, laid it over the back of a chair, lifted her hips, and struggled the remaining part away from her.

It was surprising how really small she was. Without the ornate, expensive dress, she seemed unusually bare, defenseless, open to injury. It was impossible to feel rancor toward her. He pulled up the blankets around her shoulders and tucked them under her chin. Her heavy blonde hair spilled out over the wool fabric, thick honey streaks against the checkered pattern of red and black. Smoothing her hair back from her eyes, he seated himself beside her on the bed.

For an endless time he sat, his mind blank, gazing into the shadows of the room. Nina slept fitfully; now and then she turned, twisted, made faint unhappy sounds. Struggling in an invisible darkness, she fought lonely battles, without him, without anybody. In the final analysis, each of them was cut off from the other. Each of them suffered alone.

Towards morning, he became aware of a distant, muffled sound: a noise coming from a long way off. For a time he paid no attention; the noise beat uselessly against his dulled consciousness. And then, finally, he identified it. A human voice, harsh and loud, a voice he recognized. Stiffly, shaking with cold, he got from the bed and made his way to the door. With infinite care he unlocked it and stepped out into the chill, deserted corridor.

The voice was the voice of Jones.

Cussick walked slowly down the corridor. He passed closed doors and side passages, but saw nobody. It was five-forty a.m.; the sun was beginning to show. Through an open window at the end of the hall he caught a glimpse of bleak, gray sky, as remote and hostile as gun-metal. As he walked, the voice grew louder. All at once he turned a corner and found himself facing a great storeroom.

It wasn't Jones, not really. It was a tape recording. But the presence, the vital, cruel spirit, was there. In rows of chairs, men and women sat intently listening. The storeroom was filled with bales, boxes, huge packages heaped everywhere. The corridor had carried him to a totally different building; it linked various establishments, a variety of businesses. This was the loading stage of a commercial house.

On the wall were plastered posters. As he stood in the doorway listening to the furious, impassioned voice, he realized that this was an official meeting hall. This was a before-dawn gathering; these were working people, coming together before their work-day began. At the far end, where the speakers blared, hung Jones' emblem, the crossed flasks of Hermes. Scattered through the groups were various uniforms of the Patriots United organizations: both the women's and youth groups, armbands, badges and insignia. In a comer lounged two helmeted Security police: the meeting was no secret. The meetings were never secret: there was no necessity.

Nobody interfered with Cussick as he made his way back up the corridor. Now the building was beginning to stir; outside, rumbling commercial trucks were beginning to load and unload. He found Nina's room and entered.

She was awake. As he turned from the door she sat up, eyes wide. "Where did you go? I thought—"

"I'm back. I heard sounds." The distant snarl of Jones' voice was still audible. "That."

"Oh." She nodded. "Yes, they're meeting. That's part of this. My room."

"You've been working for them, haven't you?"

"Nothing important. Just folding papers and writing addresses. The sort of thing I used to do. Giving out information. Publicity, I guess you'd call it."

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Cussick picked up his wife's purse and opened it. Papers, cards, lipstick, a mirror, keys, money, a handkerchief... he poured everything out onto the bed. Nina watched quietly; she had pulled herself up to sit leaning on one bare elbow. Cussick pawed through the contents of the purse until he came to what he wanted. "I was curious," he said. "The specific grade and date."

Her membership card in Patriots United was dated February 17, 2002. She had been a member for eight months, since before Jack was born. Code symbols with which he was familiar identified her as a full-time worker, at a fairly responsible level.

"You're really involved in this," he commented, shoveling the contents back into the purse. "While I've been busy, you've been busy, too."

"There's a lot of work," she agreed faintly. "And they need money. I've been able to help there, too. What time is it? It's about six, isn't it?"

"Not quite." He lit a cigarette and sat smoking. Amazingly, he was collected and rational. He was conscious of no emotion. Maybe it would come later. Maybe not. "Well?" he said. "I suppose it's too early to leave here."

"I'd like to sleep some more." Her eyelids drooped; she yawned, stretched, smiled at him hopefully. "Could we?"

"Sure." He stubbed out his cigarette and began unlacing his shoes.

"It's sort of exciting," Nina said wistfully. "Like an adventure—the two of us here, the locked door, the secrecy. Don't you agree? I mean, it's not—stale. Routine." As he stood by the bed unbuttoning his shirt, she went on: "I get so bored, so darn tired of the same thing, day after day. The drab ordinary life; a married woman with a baby, a frowsy housewife. It's not worth living... don't you feel that? Don't you want to do something?"

"I have my work."

Saddened, she answered: "I know."

He clicked off the light and approached her. White, cold sunlight filtered into the darkened room, past the edges of the window shade. In the stark luminosity, his wife's body was clearly-etched. She pushed the covers aside for him; at sometime or other she had taken off the rest of her clothes, got out of bed and neatly hung her dress up in the closet. Her shoes, her stockings, her underclothes were gone, probably into dresser drawers. Moving aside for him, Nina reached out hungrily, arms avid, demanding.

"Do you think," she said tensely, "this will be the last time?"

"I don't know." He was conscious only of fatigue; gratefully, he eased himself down onto the bed, hard and narrow as it was. Nina covered him over, smoothed the wool blankets tenderly down around him. "This is your little private bed?" he asked, with a trace of irony.

"It's sort of—like in the Middle Ages," she answered. "Just this little room, just the single bed—like a cot. The dresser and wash stand. Chastity, poverty, obedience... a sort of spiritual cleansing, for me. For all of us."

Cussick didn't try to think about it. The sensual, orgiastic vice of the earlier evening, the drugs and liquor and floor show, the degenerate spectacle—and now this. It made no sense. But there was a pattern, a meaning beyond logic. It fitted.