Death Is The Penalty

You come to a twisting path in the still shade of the giant trees, through random patches of green and brown coolness. A last sudden turn delivers you into the clearing, and waves of heat shimmer before you. The sun's rays are too white, the little stream impossibly blue. Squinting, your eyes seek relief and find it.

By the side of the stream, the two black figures have made an island of quiet for themselves. The area inside the unrepaired old fence is filled with the calm inwardness of their tender cold embrace.

The guide will stop here and wait, until everyone is in the clearing, until each face has turned questioningly toward the dark mystery. And when he speaks, the guide's voice will be quiet. Under the great trees he shouted, but in the presence of the lovers, a man does not speak too loudly.

"The permanents here," the guide will tell his crowd of sightseers, "are a memorial to the Boundaries." Over to the left, high above even the giant trees, a Boundary rises white in the sun. Nobody looks at it; all eyes are on the black figures in the clearing. But it is there, always there, a thing no one ever forgets completely.

"The incident," he says, still quietly, "was the last of many that resulted finally in the erection of the Boundaries. The permanents were left here, guarded by a fence for the visitor's safety, instead of being disposed of in the usual fashion. They are safe now, so you may examine them as closely as you like. The names of these two were David Carman and Janice Block ..."

". . . . David wandered down the path between the trees, his thoughts on the stream ahead, remembering its brilliant blueness; his body, hot and sticky, even in the shade, remembering the tingle of the water. It was a long walk from the lodge — but worth it when you got here. He came out in the clearing, and immediately disappointment struck at him. On the bank there was a book and a robe. From somewhere around the curve splashing sounded. He had wanted to be alone.

He walked over slowly, and stood over the swimmer's possessions on the shore. Then he saw the book, recognized it, and smiled a little.

He stripped off his own robe, and entered the water noisily, deliberately, to let the earlier swimmer know he was there. And in a moment, a brown arm flashed around the bend, cleaving through the bright blue. And then they met, for the first time.

It was a girl. A girl with brown limbs glistening from the fresh water, and bright brown hair tumbling in loose waves out of her bathing cap. A girl in a yellow bathing suit. A girl with a diffident, uneven-toothed smile and snapping brown eyes, lashes wet still from the water. They both stood up, facing each other in the water, and the magic must have hit them both at once, because neither one spoke a word.

They stood, a few feet apart, and then he laughed aloud, in delight, and she began to laugh, too. They both turned and walked up to the shore. He treasured the seconds, the feel of water pulling against his legs, the shore waiting ahead, the girl walking near him, the water pulling at her the same way, the shore looking the same to her. They sat down where she had left her robe, and he pulled cigarettes out of the pocket of his own. He handed her the pack, took one himself, and they smoked quietly, companionably.

She leaned back resting on one elbow, watching the man's face as he dragged deep on the cigarette. He was thin, tall and too thin, and when he sucked in the smoke, the concavities of his cheeks became deep hollows. His hair was tousled, sandy-colored, and she wondered about his eyes, shadowed under the bony brow-ridge. He was altogether a bony man, his cheek-bones standing out in sharp relief from the long planes of his face, his jaw a stubborn angular challenge to the world, his long lean hands thin enough to reveal the fine structure of tiny bones and veins. She watched him, quietly, not wanting to talk, to find out something that might spoil it, just thinking, "This is how it is. This is how it hits you, and some day, the man is the right one, and you stay hit."

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, held it in front of him watching the blue smoke turn white in the hot air, and disappear, and she knew he would speak. Desperately, she willed him not to.

Let him not say anything wrong. Please, please, let him not spoil it. Let him sit quiet for me to look at and pretend with.

"What do you think of his theory on the correlations on mass and individual reactions?"

She had been so afraid for him to speak that she didn't really hear the words at first. "His?" she said, stupidly.

"Mercken's." His voice was impatient. He turned toward her slowly, and she saw a shadow of disappointment fall over his face. "I saw the book," he said, now politely. "I thought it was yours — Psychology of The Mass —

Intelligence came into her eyes, and she saw the smile return in answer to his face. "It is mine," she said, breathless now. This was too much, too good. "You don't mean," she rushed on, not answering him, "it's your field, too? You… "

"Of course!" He was impatient again. "How far are you. . . "

She let herself breathe again. She stopped wondering and willing anything. She let go, and they were talking. She never remembered afterwards what they talked about that first half-hour. Some of it was psychology, and some of it themselves. Some of it was the woods, the trees and the sun and the brook. But when she began to think clearly again, she knew his name was David, and she was talking shop — again. She stopped, abashed.

"You have your own worries," she said. "I can handle my own job — I guess," then, because she wanted to tell him, she rushed on to explain. Maybe she'd been saying stupid things, and it was important to explain. She was telling him how she had worried about his talking, how she had been afraid whatever he said would spoil the wonderful minute. She could say that without worry; she knew he'd felt it, too. And then how impossibly perfect it was when he did begin to talk. He listened gravely. He didn't say anything; he nodded but in the nod she saw he knew about all the years, and all about the men who were just a little silly, a little juvenile, who came running when she smiled, but backed off in fright when she talked.

He listened, and nodded, and understood, and then as soon as she was done, he said, "I've been thinking about that problem of yours. We've been using inferentials on our work. Have you tried applying them to the quiz-reactions, to test ... "

"Inferentials?" she broke in, puzzled.

He took a stick, sketched the math of it quickly in the sand, and she watched with delight, as the simplicity and beauty of it emerged.

He moved the stick rapidly, wiped out what he had and started again. "You take the first four symbols… "

And then he stopped. "Janice," he said quickly, very low, and a deathly stillness fell, "Janice, where did you say you worked?"

"I didn't." She was sober. She didn't know, she didn't want to know, but she did know, even before she answered him. "California Open Labs," she said, letting each word fall flat to the ground, letting it ring with its leaden weight as it fell. There had had to be something; she'd known there would be something; so this was it. "You're at the Restricted Lodge?" It was a question as she said it, but it needed no answer. She knew.

Without looking at him, she stood up. "I'll try to forget it," she said, watching the shadows of the treetops on the ground, "I'll try not to let it —" She stopped. "You better go now," she said. Then she pulled the bathing cap down hard over her ears, and dashed for the water.

She ran, but he was faster than she. He caught her by the shoulders, roughly, before she got to the bank, swung her around, and waited till she lifted her eyes to his. His mouth opened but there was no word in it. There was nothing he could say. So instead of speaking, he pulled her close, and she was floating away from facts up into a world he brought her with the pressure of his lips.

He let her go slowly, and they sat down again, both of them shaken, too much moved to look at each other, or touch each other.

They tried.

They didn't ask any more questions, and they made no plans. It was the last time they would see each other — only it wasn't. Each of them came back alone, again and again, to the brook in the woods, came and sat alone and thought of how it might have been. And the day came, as it had to, when, rounding the twisting path through the trees, they were face to face again.

They stood without moving, and took no step toward each other. Then from both of them came a curious sigh, an exhalation as if each had held his breath too long. He reached out an arm, slowly, as if to make certain that this time his mind was not playing tricks. The shining brown hair, the sparkling brown eyes — this time they were real. His hands touched her shoulder, lightly, seeking, and then not so lightly, and they were wrapped in each other's arms, alone in a pounding beating universe, a private world of safety and companionship.

It could have been a minute or an hour, when, finally, he said, "Janice, I think I love you. It's crazy and it shouldn't have happened, but I love you."

Then she turned and met his eyes once more. "I love you, David." She heard the melody in her own voice, and wondered how it could sound that way when the world was crashing around her ears. "There's nothing we can do, is there?" she said facing it, putting it in words, the fact, for both of them.

"Nothing," he said.

The words were right. The words were true, but the music was wrong. Wrong because it was happy. Because all the truths in the world couldn't pull them apart now.

They walked back to the brook, arms entwined like children, and sat on the edge of the bright blue water for the rest of the afternoon, savoring each other's presence, talking only a little.

Still they made no plans. Not even an agreement — but after that they met every week. They met and sat there close by the edge of the brook, almost afraid to talk for fear of the things that might pass from him to her, but still not able to stay away altogether.

But it went on, and after a while the first fear slipped away. They were still cautious. They talked about themselves, their hopes, their dreams, anything but work. Once they thought they had found a safe subject. Something he had worked on that had since been released for Open research, and was now a problem in her hands. But that led them dangerously close to the borderline — the things he knew, that she could not. So they shied away, and talked again about themselves.

For Janice it was the first time. She knew he had understood from the beginning, so she poured out to him now all the lonely years. She told him how the exams in Secondary had just barely passed her by for Restricted work, how she was left among men who were pleasant, friendly, good at their work. But always, when she met someone, he stayed a little while, then went away. She was too good — too smart, too quick. A man doesn't want a woman who is greater than he is.

Janice had subjected them, one by one, to the hot inquiring searchlight of her intellect, probed at their minds, and, when she was not herself discarded, she had discarded them, each in turn. Because a woman doesn't want a man who is less than she is.

After a while, they all knew she was cold, that she somehow had missed the secret of soft womanliness — and then she was alone. Until David.

Now something had happened, the hot intensity of the searchlight had diffused as the sun did when you left the clearing for the woods. She had found a man, the man; she had stopped picking and judging and weighing, and she was learning to be still, to watch, to lean back. There was also, obscurely, a new vitality to her, and though she had never been beautiful, a kind of beauty. She worked well, too. The inquiring light played now sharply only on her work, and the job gained from it, as her personality gained from the gentle radiance it reflected. And it did not seem to impede her efficiency that she would stop sometimes for a moment to think of the warm spot in the clearing, of David, and of the sheltered loneliness of their love.

Clinically, she was curious about the happiness they had gathered from the total impossibility of their being together. Objectively, she knew it could not last, but resolutely, she shut her mind, as he was doing, to what the end must be.

Each week she went to the brook and sat, talking a little, close by David's side, telling him her secrets, listening to his. Each time she came back renewed in a daze of happiness. But each time, also, she came back troubled, aware of the consciousness that she had shut out, knowing things could not go on as they were, not forever. Some day there would have to be resolution — or an end.

The day came, of course, as it had to come, when they met, and suddenly let loose on each other the growing misery of the weeks, the unhappiness they had each hidden even from themselves. It was noon when they met. They talked, and she sobbed a little, on the bank of the stream, until the sun was half-way down in the sky. And by that time they knew what they had known at the start. There was no way, no possible way, that they could ever have more than what they had now — and even that much was too dangerous.

For Janice there was a new realization. "But I'm not risking a thing, David," she said. "It's all you. You're the only one who'll be punished. If I were — but I'm not. So they won't do a thing to me, when they — if —"

"When was closer, Jenny." He smiled, a very tired smile, that did nothing to relieve the drawn tension of his lean face. "You were right the first time. They will find out if we keep this up. Shall we stop?"

Abruptly, she stood up. "Yes," she said. "Yes, we will stop. This isn't worth it. Not worth what they'd do. . . "

Seated at her feet, he heard the words, and knew how completely right they were. It would be harder to stop, harder all the time. And as long as they continued, there were only two things that could happen. The best was a lifetime of this, years and years of secret meetings at the brook. His mind tricked him into a grin as he wondered what they'd do if it rained? He jumped to his feet, still grinning.

"I'll carry you off," he said. "I'll take you in my arms and run over the edge of the world and hide you there. I'll make a club and bow to catch your food — and manufacture a movie machine to keep you amused. We'll have a huge arsenal of b-bombs, and never let any one near. We'll ...

She stopped him, a firm hand pressed over his mouth. The old joke was no good now. Tears stood still in her eyes, waiting to move, as she tried to match his smile.

"No, darling, no, you won't. We shouldn't even talk about it, because if we do, some day we might try it. And there's no hiding place. Not in this world. There's no hiding place at all."

He took the hand that was pressed over his mouth, held it in both his own, and let his kiss fall into the container of the cupped palm, let it linger there, and then let the hand drop, nerveless, to her side. His arms went about her swiftly, needing her close for warmth, for support — and they never heard the footsteps.

"In the name of Security!"

Long habit sent them whirling apart. Lifelong conditioning put them both alertly at attention. And only in full view of the Security officer and his three assistants did either of them realize that they were on the wrong side of the Law, that they could not this time prepare to aid an officer of the State in the adjustment of Security. They were themselves a menace to all that held the nation safe.

The officer drew a warrant from his pocket, while a deputy held the gun on them steadily. "In the name of Security," he read, now, "David Carman, and Janice Block are hereby accused of infringement of Special Rule No. 107 of the Regulations as amended in the year 2074 A.D. 'That under these covenants, and in view of the necessity for preventing any possible leakage of information, it shall be especially forbidden to Restricted officers in the service of the State to engage in social intercourse in any shape, or form, or manner, with scientists in the Open fields, who shall in any way be capable of understanding, or retaining, or utilizing, any part of the Restricted information held by such Officers."

He stopped, dramatically. "You know the regulations, Mr. Carman?"

"Yes." What else could he say?

"Miss Block, you have been aware of the risk you were taking? You knew the occupation of this man?"

"Yes!"

"And you had informed him of your occupation?"

There was a way out. "No!" she shouted. "No, no, no!" She heard her own voice, thin and screaming. "No, I never told him. I wanted to see him, so I never ..."

David's hands on her shoulders stopped her. "It's no use, Jan." His voice was absurdly quiet, relaxed. "I investigated you. I had to, you see. I put through a query, saying I read your paper, the one you did last fall. I thought you should be reconsidered for Restricted, on the basis of the work you had done. I thought . . . well, it doesn't matter now, does it?"

They stood quiet, and the Security Officer read on. They knew what was coming. " . . . paper by Miss Block contained mathematical equations suspiciously similar to work in progress in the California Restricted Laboratories." Jan glanced up sharply, taken by surprise. But she had never used — and then of course she knew, her mind had tricked her. David had never finished showing her, but the hint was enough. She found a different way to the same result — a result her own background would never have found for her. So she had betrayed them, betrayed them while she worked, while she was happy, while she thought about coming here to this brook to see David again.

Again he took her hand, and pressed it. Just a little, but the little was enough. He knew, too, how it had happened, and he didn't blame her. She could let him die, not blaming her, and could she live — live the rest of her life — not blaming herself?

She wanted to laugh, to laugh, and laugh, but she knew better. Her own training warned her, held her. There might still be a chance, somehow, and she couldn't throw it away.

". . . David Carman is hereby indicted for treason, and Janice Block is commended to the care of a Refreshment Home until such time as the memories of this incident may have passed from her."

Janice's breath caught, whistled in through her teeth. Amnesiac shock, then! She was to lose David, lose him in the flesh, and let them wipe out his memory as well. No, no, NO!

"Are you prepared to accompany us, Mr. Carman?"

The formal words, the expected question. No! They couldn't take him. No! She wouldn't lose him! No!

She heard him breathe in deeply, saw his mouth open to form the word of acceptance. She reached out, clutched his arm with her own hand.

"No!" she screamed. "David, no! If they want to kill you, they'll have to kill both of us! You can't . . . you can't . . .!"

He had turned and his arms were around, disregarding the officers. He held her against him, without passion or strain, held her like a child, and waited till she was calm.

"I must, Jan. I have to." Again the awful quiet, complete resignation.

"I love you, Jan. You're the only woman I ever loved." He turned to the officers, and it was they who had trouble meeting his eye. "I'm ready,'' he said, and he took his arms from the girl.

"No." She wasn't screaming now. She was quiet, too. His touch, his arms about her, had given her that. She had to be quiet, or he wouldn't understand.

"David," she pleaded, "don't leave me. Don't go away and send me back to my loneliness. Stay with me." She nodded toward the pistol the man held. "Stay with me forever. David, I want it that way."

He turned from the men and faced her, searched her eyes. He took one step closer to her. Then, as they had in the water, they smiled at each other, and he put his arms out to her again.

"Officer!" she cried giddily. "Officer, can't you see? This man is resisting arrest!"

"They never knew," the guard will tell you, "when the immobilizer hit them. At that time," he will go on, "atomics were not well enough developed to make blast-pistols safe. The transmutation pistol was always used when Security officers had to display force in public.

"Ordinarily the permanents so created were safely dumped, to prevent radioactive effects. But it was directly resultant on this case that the force-boundaries" — all eyes wandered a little to the left — "were erected, to divide the social territories of the Restricted officers. So these two were left here as a memorial for visitors to the park."

There is much more to see, but you walk away thinking, and do not listen. You are wondering about the old days, when things were wild and free — before Civilization, before the Boundaries — before even Security.