John and Doris were shown to adjacent apartments once again. He sat down on the luxurious bed and patted it with finality. “So now we’re supermen,” he said.
The bitterness of his voice cut off any response that Doris might have made. She turned away and walked to the windows, drawing aside the expanse of curtains. She gave a gasp as she looked beyond.
“What is it?” Then John saw beyond the window also. He saw the landscape whose impact was like the sound of some sweet chord struck softly on a great keyboard.
He got up slowly and stood beside Doris. It was ancient Greece; it was an English countryside, the great forests of old Germany.
“It’s worth it,” said Doris. “It's worth it, John. We’ll never have to fight this world.”
There were no streets, only footpaths crossing the grassy expanse. No mechanical vehicles could be allowed to break that scene. The buildings, the houses — they belonged. The whole scene would have been faulty if any one had been removed.
Statuary as glorious as the Age of Pericles was spotted on the vast lawns. Beside this, Earth’s cities as John remembered them were but great slums.
“It’s our home,” Doris murmured, barely whispering. “We’ll never have to leave it; we’ll never have to be tired again.”
There was some strange mood upon her, which he had never seen before, and which he did not understand. It seemed as if he were watching her shed a burden, which he had never known she carried.
But his own could not be dropped. Somewhere in the jungle beyond the great transparent dome that housed Alpha Colony was Lora, unprotected and in savage surroundings.
John was called early next morning for the expected interview with Dr. Warnock, director of Alpha Colony. He was faintly shocked by the initial appearance of the director; Warnock looked like anything but the head of such a group.
He was immense and his eyes were almost hidden in the great roundness of his face. A dead cigar projected from between his fingers. The office was business-like, far removed from the glory that was visible from the apartment windows.
“Sit down, John,” Dr. Warnock said.
A second surprise lay in his voice, which was soft and kindly, and John found himself hastily changing his first estimates.
“Have you ever done anything useful in your life?” said Warnock suddenly.
John hesitated, flushing, “I — I don’t know —”
“That’s good enough. I don’t know if I have, either. Some people have the most fantastic views of their own accomplishments. I wondered about you.
“We were all pleased to learn you were coming. Papa Sosnic especially. He wants to hear you; he’ll be around this afternoon.”
“Papa Sosnic?”
“The dean of the group; claims to be the first member. He’s almost ninety years old. He’s looking for the Great Musician and the Great Music before he dies. He claims the colonies are sterile and have never produced any. But you’ll hear all of that from his own lips. Tell me about your music.”
John shrugged. “It has been a living.”
“Is that all? Don’t you like your music?”
He smiled wanly and told Warnock about his childhood with Doris, who had a dream for them both. He told how she had beat him into submission and forced him to endless practice when he was little.
“And so you hate your music,” said Warnock.
“No.” John shook his head. “That’s the strange part of it. I should, but I don’t.”
“Why?”
“That’s hard to say. I’ve never tried to tell anyone, especially Doris; she would never understand why I go on playing.”
“Can you tell me?” said Warnock.
John found himself doing that, without understanding why. Warnock seemed to him as vast in comprehension as in physical body, and John’s feelings spilled.
“The writers, the poets, and the artists have all been men,” he said. “The great ones, that is. A woman can’t be a great artist. But I could never tell Doris that. It’s a man’s way of crying and laughing, and saying that the world is a good and happy place; that’s why he makes music and writes books and paints pictures.
“A woman doesn’t have to do that; she can’t. She has a thousand other ways. But a man is supposed to be a mute dumb animal who never thinks of these things. Some of us stumble onto the acceptable way of saying what we have inside.”
“Your sister,” said Warnock, “why do you suppose she plays?”
John shook his head and smiled. “She doesn’t understand music. She plays through her head — not her heart.”
“She takes the lead in all your work. Why do you let her do that?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell her how I want to play; I guess I’m afraid that no one else would understand either.”
“I think Papa Sosnic will understand,” said Warnock. He arose suddenly and extended a hand. “He will be around to see you. And your housing-assignments are being made. We will let you know.”
John felt guilty as he walked back to the apartment. He had said things that should not have been said; he had no right to speak of Doris as he had. But his regret faded before the recurring thought of Lora.
He had almost burst out his problem to Warnock, so strongly had the director invited confidence. But he felt relief now that he had not. Warnock had received Bronson’s report of the incident, of course; but if he chose to ignore it, John could do no better.
But it left him no one at all to speak with about Lora, and in this there was panic and loneliness. From the apartment window he contrasted the Elysian peace of the landscape with the hateful jungle beyond the dome. He had to get Lora out of there, and he had no idea how it might be done.
Doris was out. Papa Sosnic came in the afternoon. He knocked once, bird-like, and entered without waiting for John to open the door.
White-haired and white-bearded, he was a wispy little man as old as an elf. The skin of his hands was like webbing. There was a squeakiness in his voice, but it still held a patriarchal authority.
He introduced himself. “I want to hear you play. I want to know if you are a musician, or just another babbler.”
John smiled in friendly regard for the bustling little old man. “You’ve heard my records,” he said. “You know how I play.”
“But I know nothing,” said Sosnic. “How much of a man’s soul can be put on plastic? And besides, all I’ve heard has been with your sister taking the lead. A wee, timid little boy walking in the shadows where the sun won’t scorch and the rain won’t wet. Sit down and let me hear you play.”
All at once John found himself trembling, ever so slightly, as if a great secret had been found out and he had no place in which to hide.
Then he sat at the keyboard and his fear was gone. He felt in the presence of a friend with whom he could talk as he had never talked before. He began playing softly, a Beethoven Sonata. But after a dozen measures Papa Sosnic threw up his hands.
He almost screeched. “Play! Doris is not here now. Play the music.”
John began again. He held nothing back; he did not play as if Doris were there with her cold, intellectual timing, criticizing his every stroke. He altered the timing, and modulated his touch so that the music no longer drew a diagram with mathematical precision.
It painted a picture new, and told a story. And somehow it became the story of Lora. He sketched the fine sweet lines of her profile as he had seen her in the dim light of the engineer’s catwalk.
He told Papa Sosnic all about it with his music. He told him what it meant to be lonely and what it meant to find an end to loneliness, if only for a moment.