He sat eating, thinking of Joshua in the ponic gardens, pottering around, fussing with his plants. As a boy, he'd gone there, along with the other boys, Joe and George and Herb and all the rest of them. Joshua then had been a man of middle age who always had a story and some sage advice and a smuggled tomato or a radish for a hungry boy. He had, Jon remembered, a soft gentle way of talking and his eyes were honest eyes and there was a gruff, but winning friendliness about him.
It had been a long time, he realized, since he'd seen Joshua. Guilt, perhaps, he told himself.
But Joshua would be one who could understand the guilt. For once before he had understood.
It had been he and Joe, Jon remembered, who had sneaked in and stolen the tomatoes and been caught and lectured by the gardener. Joe and he had been friends ever since they had been toddlers. They had always been together. When there was devilment afoot the two of them were sure, somehow, to be in the middle of it.
Maybe Joe ...
Jon shook his head. Not Joe, he thought. Even if he were his best friend, even if they had been pals as boys, even if they had stood up for another when they had been married, even if they had been chess partners for more than 20 years—even so, Joe was not one he could tell about this thing.
"You still are thinking, dear," said Mary.
"I'll quit," said Jon. "Tell me about your day."
She told him. What Louise had said. And what Jane had said. And how foolish Molly was. The wild rumor and the terror and the slow quieting of the terror with the realization that, whatever came, it was for the best.
"Our Belief," she said, "is a comfort, Jon, at a time like this."
"Yes," said Jon. "A great comfort, indeed." She got up from the bed.
"I'm going down to see Louise," she said. "You'll stay here?" She bent and kissed him.
"I'll walk around until meeting time," he said.
He finished his meal, drank the water slowly, savoring each drop, then went out.
HE headed for the hydroponic gardens. Joshua was there, a little older, his hair a little whiter, his shuffle more pronounced, but with the same kind crinkle about his eyes, the same slow smile upon his face.
And his greeting was the joke of old: "You come to steal tomatoes?"
"Not this time," said Jon.
"You and the other one."
"His name is Joe."
"I remember now. Sometimes I forget. I am getting older and sometimes I forget." His smile was quiet. "I won't take too long, lad. I won't make you and Mary wait."
"That's not so important now," said Jon.
"I was afraid that after what had happened you would not come to see me."
"It is the law," said Jon. "You and I, nor Mary, had anything to do with it. The law is right. We cannot change the law."
Joshua put out a hand and laid it on Jon's arm. "Look at the new tomatoes," he said. "They're the best I've ever grown. Just ready to be picked." He picked one, the ripest and the reddest, and handed it to Jon.
Jon rubbed the bright fruit between his hands, feeling the smooth, warm texture of it, feeling the juice of it flow beneath the skin.
"They taste better right off the vine. Go ahead and eat it."
Jon lifted it to his mouth and set his teeth into it and caught the taste of it, the freshly-picked taste, felt the soft pulp sliding down his throat.
"You were saying something, lad."
Jon shook his head.
"You have not been to see me since it happened," said Joshua. "The guilt of knowing I must die before you have a child kept you away from me. It's a hard thing, I grant—harder for you than it is for me. You would not have come except for a matter of importance."
Jon did not answer.
"Tonight," said Joshua, "you remembered you could talk to me. You used to come and talk with me often, because you remembered the talk you had with me when you were a kid."
"I broke the law," said Jon. "I came to steal tomatoes. Joe and I and you caught us . . ."
"I broke the law just now," said Joshua. "I gave you a tomato. It was not mine to give. It was not yours to take.
"But I broke the law because the law is nothing more than reason and the giving of one tomato does not harm the reason. There must be reason behind each law or there is no occasion for the law. If there is no reason, then the law is wrong."
"But to break a law is wrong ..."
"Listen," said Joshua. "You remember this morning?"
"Of course I do."
"Look at those tracks—the metal tracks, set deep into the metal, running up the wall."
Jon looked and saw them.
"That wall," said Joshua, "was the floor until this morning."
"But the tanks! They . . ."
"Exactly," said Joshua. "That's exactly what I thought. That's the first thing I thought when I was thrown out of bed. My tanks, I thought. All my beautiful tanks. Hanging up there on the wall. Fastened to the floor and hanging on the wall. With the water spilling out of them. With the plants dumped out of them. With the chemicals all wasted. But it didn't happen that way."
He reached out and tapped Jon on the chest.
"It didn't happen that way—not because of a certain law, but because of a certain reason. Look at the floor beneath your feet."
Jon looked down and the tracks were there, a continuation of the tracks that ran up the wall.
"The tanks are anchored to those tracks," said Joshua. "There are wheels enclosed within those tracks. When the floor changed to the wall, the tanks ran down the tracks and up the wall that became the floor and everything was all right. There was a little water spilled and some plants were damaged, but not many of them."
"It was planned," said Jon. "The Ship . . ."
"There must be reason to justify each law," Joshua told him. "There was reason here and a law as well. But the law was only a reminder not to violate the reason. If there were only reason you might forget it, or you might defy it or you might say that it had become outdated. But the law supplies authority and you follow law where you might not follow reason.
"The law said that the tracks on the wall, the old wall, that is, must be kept clear of obstacles and must be lubricated. At times we wondered why, for it seemed a useless law. But because it was a law we followed it quite blindly and so when the Mutter came the tracks were clear and oiled and the tanks ran up them. There was nothing in the way of their doing so, as there might have been if we'd not followed law. For by following the law, we also followed the reason and it's the reason and not the law that counts."
"You're trying to tell me something," Jon said. "I'm trying to tell you that we must follow each law blindly until we know the reason for it. And when we know, if we ever know, the reason and the purpose, we must then be able to judge whether the reason or the purpose is a worthy one. We must have the courage to say that it is bad, if it is bad. For if the reason is bad, then the law itself is bad, for a law is no more than a rule designed for a certain reason or to carry out a purpose."
"Purpose?"
"Certainly, lad, the purpose. For there must be some purpose. Nothing so well planned as the Ship could be without a purpose."
"The Ship itself? You think the Ship has Purpose? They say . . ."
"I know what they say. Everything that happens must be for the best."
He wagged his head.
"There must have been a purpose, even for the Ship. Sometime, long ago, that purpose must have been plain and clear. But we've forgotten it. There must be certain facts and knowledge . . ."
"There was knowledge in the books," said Jon. "But they burned the books."
"There were certain untruths in them," said the old man. "Or what appeared to be untruths. But you cannot judge the truth until you have the facts and I doubt they had the facts. There were other reasons, other factors ...