"Justin said that to you?" Elizabeth asked in
amazement.

I nodded soberly. "Every word," I assured her.

The two of us sat close together on the smaller sofa in our living room, an
hour or so after dinner. We were quite alone in the apartment for once: Timothy
was off at his guitar lesson, Martin was in the gym, and both Teresa and
Cynthia (I was glad to see) were off with their friends. The room was all but
dark, the only light coming from the cheerfully-burning fireplace. For a little
while we had sat silent, staring into the flames, "dreaming the fire"
(to use a phrase I once heard), our arms around each other and Elizabeth's head
resting comfortably on my shoulder. But my wife knew my moods too well; and
when she finally asked what was bothering me, I'd had little choice but to tell
her. Even more than four hours later, the incident still troubled me deeply.

Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't believe it," she said flatly.

I looked quickly over at her, and she made a face. "You know what I
mean," she said. "Of course I know you're telling me the truth. I
suppose what I should say is, I don't understand it. Has he ever said anything
like that to you before?"

I shook my head firmly. "No, never," I said. "We've been
friends since the day we escaped from NIMH, and he caught me when the
ventilation fans were about to suck me in. I suppose we must have had a few
harsh words since then, but none that I really remember."

"So why this now?"

"That's exactly what's been driving me crazy for hours," I said.
"I mean, leaving aside for the moment the fact that I truly was in the
wrong..."

She glanced at me quizzically, and I shrugged, making her head bounce up and
down. "I was," I said simply. "He is my boss, and he did
give me a job to do. I should have been doing it instead of running around
pursuing my own agenda."

She smiled thinly. "From what I understand," she said, "you
didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. And a large part of that is my
fault, I know."

"No," I told her, as I leaned over to kiss her on the nose.
"Not at all. I've just got to learn how to say 'no,' even to those big
blue eyes."

"But," Elizabeth said, "even if you were in the wrong to some
extent, it's hard to understand why Justin would get that angry about
it. I mean, always before he's given you a lot of latitude to choose how you do
your job. And he is supposed to be your best friend."

"Maybe that's the problem," I said sadly. "Maybe I shouldn't
have tried to be his assistant in the first place. He and I are a lot
alike--maybe too much so for this boss-employee relationship to work."

Elizabeth stared into the fire for a moment. Then she said, "I hate to
say this, darling, but you might be right." She looked at me and smiled.
"As a matter of fact you don't take orders very well."

This time it was my turn to look away. In that she was absolutely correct:
for better or worse, I always had been far too independent. It had always been
my boast that the rats didn't control me. I could--and did--move out of their
old community when I felt that they were taking me for granted; and in doing so
I darn well proved that I could make my own way in the world. I always figured
that they needed me more than I needed them. But now...well, I'd known what I was
doing; with both eyes open and a full understanding of the consequences, I'd
agreed to become a part of this new community. And it was a place where there
was--could only be--one leader. I'd traded in a good part of my
independence, true; but at the time it had seemed like a fair exchange.

"But," Elizabeth said, "he didn't even give you a chance to
explain what had happened, and that's not like Justin at all."

"You're right, it isn't," I agreed readily. "He wouldn't let
me get a word in."

"So--what did you do afterwards?"

I shrugged. "I went up to the third level and tried to start that
job." I grinned faintly. "No one interrupted me this time. But I'm
afraid I didn't get much counting done. My heart wasn't in it at all."

"I'm not surprised," Elizabeth said. She stroked her whiskers
thoughtfully. "And Justin didn't show up for dinner."

"So that's what's wrong with him?" I asked with a grin.
"Poor nutrition?"

She smiled in return. "Not exactly," she said. "But it is
part of the problem. Justin works far too hard. Having you for an assistant was
supposed to help cut his workload--but it hasn't. He works through lunch and
late into the night; I don't even want to guess how much distance he covers in
a day. A mile or more, maybe. If you ask me, dear, what's wrong with him is
mostly stress, and it's of his own making."

I nodded slowly, looking into the glowing embers. "He told me once, not
too long ago," I said, "that he sometimes feels as if Nicodemus is
looking over his shoulder, judging him and his leadership."

"Exactly," Elizabeth said. "And that has given him a tendency
to...oh, what's the word I'm looking for?"

"Micromanage?" I supplied.

"That's it," she said. "Micromanage." She pronounced the
word carefully, and I could almost see it being filed away in her
rapidly-expanding vocabulary. "I don't think he needs to--I think this
community would run just fine if he backed off a little. But he feels
responsible for what happened to Nicodemus, and more than anything else, that's
what is driving him."

Again I nodded. I didn't want to say so--I didn't want to embarrass her--but
as a matter of fact I was astounded to hear that depth of analysis from her.
Truly, she was changing. "And if I'm not mistaken," I said wryly,
"that's why you were glad to see him take up with Judith."

"Among other reasons, yes," she said flatly. She didn't need to
elaborate on that. We both knew perfectly well how Justin felt about my wife: he
had been in love with her since the moment he set eyes on her, close to eight
months ago now. He hadn't tried to keep that a secret; in fact he freely
admitted it to me, just as Elizabeth had admitted that, in the days before my
return, she had begun to reciprocate those feelings. I certainly could not
blame either of them. Justin had neither pursued nor encouraged her; while she,
thinking me dead, had known no reason why she shouldn't turn her affections
elsewhere.

"Seeing the two of them together," Elizabeth said quietly,
"made me hope that he'd finally given up on the impossible. And of course
he's been procrastinating far too long. I know he's still young, physically,
but by the calendar he's been alone for a very long time."

I drew her a little closer. "I agree with you there," I said.
"And yes, I've been trying to tell him that for years. But always before
he just laughed it off."

"Jonathan," she said thoughtfully, "was Judith at dinner
tonight?"

"Hmmm?" I thought about that for a moment. "Yes, she
was," I decided. "I seem to remember that she was sitting with Eileen
and Philip. Why do you ask?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But I wonder if perhaps something
happened between her and Justin, and that's why he lashed out at you."

I glanced sidelong at her. "Meaning that you agree with Hacker
now?"

She shook her head. "Not at all," she said. "If--if--there
was a problem between them, it wasn't necessarily caused by her. It might just
as easily have been caused by him."

I gazed at her curiously. "You really believe that there's a heart
under that flinty exterior of hers, don't you?" I asked.

"I really do," she replied. She paused, and then she went on,
"Because I've seen it. I keep telling you, she's been perfectly friendly
to me since I met her. For two reasons: because I wasn't a threat to her, and
because she saw that we were kindred spirits."

"Let's take those one at a time," I said. "What do you mean,
you weren't a threat to her? Who is?"

"No one, really," Elizabeth said. "But in her mind, almost
everyone. Judith's problem isn't arrogance, darling. It's a lack of
self-confidence. The arrogance is a mask. It's a kind of pre-emptive challenge
to the world. She attacks first because she's afraid she's about to be
attacked."

"Attacked for what?"

"Name it," Elizabeth said. "Her work, her right to have the
job she has, her opinions. Of course we know that she is qualified for
her job, and that she does it well...but she doesn't know that. Not deep
down. I was an outsider--at least I was when I first met her--and so I wasn't a
threat. She could let down her guard with me."

"So tell me, Sigmund," I said, "why doesn't Eileen recognize
this?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "That I don't know," she said. "I don't
know Eileen quite as well as I do Judith. But from what you've told me, Eileen
doesn't have any serious self-confidence problems--"

I smiled wryly. "Not hardly."

"--And that means, maybe, that she can't really understand them. In
fact she might even be the cause. If as children she got the better grades, or was
better at...well, better at anything, and got more attention than
Judith..."

I thought back...and found myself nodding. I had no doubt that it was
accidental; that neither Henry nor Margaret, nor Hacker herself, had any idea
what had been happening. Maybe even Judith had not. Yes, that might explain
quite a lot... "And how are you and Judith kindred spirits?"

"Judith loves Eileen," Elizabeth said. "Despite everything,
and probably all the more because they're twins. When I met Judith, Eileen was
gone, vanished, presumed dead. To Judith it was as if a part of herself was
gone." She looked intently at me. "And that's what she and I
had in common when we met, my darling, and why we hit it off so well."

I looked into the fire. "And if Judith isn't treating Eileen very well
right now," I said, getting into the spirit of things, "it's because
Judith is angry at Eileen for vanishing...and she--Judith--probably isn't even
aware of it."

"Exactly."

I smiled. "But we're a little off the subject," I said. "I'm
guessing that in your view, Judith responded to Justin because deep down she's
as lonely as he is?"

She nodded. "Obviously," she said. "The way she keeps almost
everyone at arm's length would take its toll. But I'm afraid he isn't going
about it the way I hoped he would. I think he might be trying to wedge their
relationship into his busy schedule...and that isn't going to work. She might be
trying to do the same, for all I know. And all that can do is cause them both
more stress. A real relationship isn't a spare-time project."

"But of course this is all guesswork."

She shrugged again. "True," she said. "But there's an easy
way to find out for certain."

The implication in her words and voice was clear enough, even without the
significant glance she shot me sidelong. I sighed. "I know," I said.
"I'll have to talk to him. I will, I promise."

"When?" she asked challengingly.

I drew her a little closer into the circle of my arms, and peered deep into
her eyes. "Later," I said. "Later."

At that moment we were interrupted, as the apartment door opened and Timothy
entered. Our younger son was toting his guitar case in one hand and a folio of
sheet music in the other, and as he entered he was humming quietly to himself,
the same few notes over and over, as if trying to get them clear in his mind.
As he saw his mother and me he paused, there in the doorway; and then he
grinned broadly, knowingly, and winked. "Don't mind me," he said, and
he headed quickly for his bedroom.

The next morning dawned clear, but it didn't stay that way very long.

During the night the storm departed Thorn Valley. Exactly when I don't know;
but I did come half-awake sometime after midnight, just long enough to steal
some blankets back from Elizabeth, and I remember being vaguely troubled by the
silence. I had grown accustomed to the wind's shrill scream. By dawn the clouds
were gone and the wind totally stilled, and when I looked out the window a few
minutes before sunrise I saw dark-blue sky and the setting moon.

But as I said, it didn't last. As soon as the sun rose over the eastern
ridge and warmed the farmland a little, a mist began to rise from the saturated
ground. Thin and wispy at first, it soon thickened; and by the time my family and
I arrived at our table for breakfast, the dining hall windows were enveloped in
impenetrable grey fog. I doubt seriously whether the layer of mist would have
reached as high as a human's shoulders; the community's fourth level might even
have been in sunlight. But the first level, at least, was socked in. By midday
it would no doubt burn off, and then the valley would have another of those
glorious autumn afternoons that I loved so well. Not that I was likely to get
much of a chance to enjoy it; I rather doubted I'd manage to make it outside.

Sitting there at the breakfast table (it was waffle day) near a window that
seemed to have been wrapped in gauze, I peered closely at my three older
children, startled--but not really surprised--by the announcement they had just
made. "So," I said, "today's the day, is it?"

They exchanged a glance; and it was Timothy, as usual, who was elected
spokesman. "Yes it is, Dad," he said, nodding firmly. He looked at
his brother and sister. "We've decided that it's time. All of our friends
have graduated and gone to work already. Hack--I mean, Eileen--agrees with us:
there isn't any point in our studying any more." He grinned suddenly.
"And we're sick and tired of it anyway."

Beside him, Cynthia rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head; but she
kept silent. Teresa and Martin, though, were nodding their agreement.

"Timothy is right, Father," Teresa said. "It's past time for
us to grow up."

Not too surprisingly, the Rats of NIMH placed a very high value on
education, both for its own sake and for more practical reasons: to make our
people better citizens and better workers. I've already mentioned the
unfortunate, but vital, necessity of our rigorous school schedule. It was the
rats' intention that their children achieve at very least a minimum standard in
subjects such as math, reading, writing, science, history, civics and so on;
though of course the great majority of the youngsters ended up far exceeding
those minimums. As they progressed through school the children were constantly
evaluated, and remedial action taken when necessary (which was actually very
seldom); and so, by the time they graduated, the children were more than ready
to begin the apprenticeships that formed the second, vocational part of their
education. And certainly a great many went beyond even that, pursuing higher
knowledge either independently or with the help of a mentor. For those of my
generation, the Original 22, education had been a piecemeal process at best; we
had been determined from the start that our kids would have better
opportunities.

My own children, however, had unfortunately managed to fall through the
cracks; all except Cynthia that is. I had of course long known about their
intelligence; I had recognized that they were capable of achieving every bit as
much as the rats. But unfortunately, I had never managed to develop a coherent
plan for helping them accomplish it. In fact I sometimes felt myself wondering
if doing so was even desirable, given the kind of life they seemed destined
for. I have no real excuse for my failure; I can only say that my confusion on
that matter became entwined with my confusion about many other things. And
where that led is well-known.

But anyway, my children. By the time it was decided that our family would
remain in Thorn Valley and become citizens of the rats' community, it was
already far too late for the older two to begin school. The children in
Teresa's age-group were just then graduating, and Martin's peers were not far
behind. Even Timothy's peers were all but finished. Only in Cynthia's case had
it seemed worthwhile to put her in school. In retrospect that decision was
probably correct; but it had not been easy for her, or indeed for any of us.

So--chronologically, Teresa and Martin were adults, and Timothy was not far
behind them. But academically all three of them lagged far behind their
friends. The solution we eventually came up with was painstakingly negotiated,
by Justin, Alice, Elizabeth, Martin, Teresa and myself, with Arthur and Eileen as
advisors. It was decided to give my kids a deadline: a certain amount of time
to bring themselves up to the level of academic performance that was expected
from all our school graduates. This was to be determined by a set of
equivalency exams devised and administered by Alice. They were not of course
just tossed in without assistance, sink or swim; in fact they were offered
every resource the education department had. As it turned out, though, almost
the only resource they had needed was their tutor, Eileen. We had settled on
six months as the maximum time; but in fact, with Hacker's help, the kids had
managed to make themselves ready in a little more than four. And even shorter
than that, really, because for the last several weeks they had been spending part
of their time working, getting a head-start on their careers. And today, it
seemed, was to be the culmination of all their--and her--hard work.

None of them, possibly, heard the tiny, tragic sigh that their mother gave
vent to then. Under the table I reached across and clasped her hand
reassuringly. Teresa was right, of course; it was time for the three of
them to join the adult world, to begin earning the share of necessities and
luxuries that the community gave them. But that didn't make it any easier. Just
yesterday, so it seemed, I had bounced them on my knee; now they were grown up;
and--if you will forgive a bit of parental pride--grown into strong,
intelligent, attractive young adults.

"Eileen was telling me just yesterday that she thinks you're ready,"
I told them. "I know you'll do fine."

Beside me, Elizabeth murmured words of agreement; but the three of them were
looking a little troubled. "I hope so," Timothy said. "It's an
awful lot to remember."

In addition to the help Eileen had given them, they had of course all helped
each other, sibling rivalries temporarily suspended. They each had their
strengths and weaknesses, like anyone. Timothy, for example: he'd be done with
the math section in five minutes, I had no doubt; but history and civics had
very little hold on his mind: there he might struggle. Teresa was just the
opposite, though she didn't have as much trouble with math as Cynthia did.
Martin was more the generalist. Math was a good subject for him too; his grasp
of it was just a little less than his brother's. But unlike Timothy, Martin
seemed to have no major blind spots; his performance in all other subjects was
about equally solid. In that way he was much like me: where the others of the
Original 22 had specialized--Nicodemus in metaphysics, Arthur in engineering,
Ralph in farming, and so on--I had always remained what someone once called an
"intellectual jackdaw," constantly pecking at the brightest and
shiniest bits of knowledge. In my current job that was a positive boon: I could
bluff my way through a conversation with anyone in the community.

"How long is it going to take, dear?" Elizabeth asked Timothy.

"Probably all day," he told her gloomily. "That's what Alice
said, anyway. And it'll take her a few days to score the tests." He looked
up at the clock above the door, and then down at his own empty plate.
"Think we're got time enough for another round?" he asked hopefully.

After breakfast, stuffed to the gills with waffles and full of
determination, I made my way directly to the third level. I can't say whether
word of my previous day's misfortunes had gotten out, or if the alignment of
the planets was more in my favor that morning, but I made it to the warehouse
without anyone stopping me. In fact the corridors I traversed seemed unusually
deserted, almost as if they had been deliberately cleared. That, however, was
almost certainly my imagination.

On my way up I tried to keep my mind fixed tight to the job I had to do, and
which I intended to complete that day or die trying. But it was difficult to
keep my thoughts from wandering just a little bit. Of course it was my three
older children who were uppermost in my mind. Practically speaking, there was
nothing more I could do for them. Already, no doubt, Alice had locked them in a
room somewhere in the heart of the school department, and sat them down at a
table stacked high with papers and sharp pencils. No, there was nothing I could
do for them now; what occupied my thoughts, as I made my way through corridors
and up-ramps, was how much more I could have done. I tried not to live
my life in a state of guilt; my entire family, and all my friends, had been
unanimous in telling me how useless that would be. But there were times when,
despite St. John's Wort, the guilt rose up like a huge black wave and
threatened to drown me; and that morning, try as I might to fight it, was one
of those times.

Stop that, I told myself sharply, as I made my way through the second
level and into the up-ramp to the third. There's no going back. What I
had to do--in fact it was all I possibly could do--was to focus on what
they had achieved, and would continue to achieve. Their childhood was lost; but
I had plenty of time left to enjoy their adulthood. And there's always
grandchildren.

...But even as I managed to thrust that line of thought aside, another came to
take its place, and it was still in possession of my mind even as I pushed open
the huge, solid, and very heavy doors of the food storage warehouse. The
subject of that new line of thought, not surprisingly, was Justin.

At that moment the warehouse was deserted except for little me. Very soon
that would no longer be true; in less than an hour, give or take, members of
the kitchen staff would arrive and begin carting away supplies for lunch. But
for a little while I could work in peace. I found the clipboard and pencil I'd
left there the night before, lying atop a pile of flour sacks near the door,
and I looked down at the topmost sheet. I shook my head. I really must
have been preoccupied yesterday; I had gotten done almost exactly nothing. I'd
definitely have to hurry today.

The food warehouse was yet another tribute to Arthur's incredible
engineering skills. I could never enter there without a brief wave of dizziness
overtaking me; it was, in fact, the single largest enclosed space I had ever
been in that was not built by humans. If you wanted to get technical, the
warehouse was not just part of the third level but the fourth as well. The
ceiling was almost five feet above my head, and was supported by massive
pillars placed at regular intervals. The floor was flat and even; Arthur had
taken special care to make it so, so that carts and hand-trucks could roll over
it easily. I could not see the back wall, but I knew that it was nearly twelve
feet away from me as I stood near the door. The side walls were six feet away,
to the right and left respectively. The place was not brightly lit, but far
overhead, skylights admitted enough illumination to work by. (And yes, as I had
predicted, what I saw through those skylights was blue sky and sunshine.) Yes,
the place was almost mind-bogglingly big, especially for a mouse; but at the
moment it was no more than one-quarter full.

Much of the floor-space was taken up with huge systems of shelves, racks and
bins, some of them reaching almost to the ceiling, reachable only with ladders
which would have been far too big and heavy for me to handle. The great
majority of those shelves, racks and bins were empty. The full ones were
clustered in just a very few aisles near the doors, and it was toward those
that I made my way, clipboard in hand and pencil behind ear.

The foodstuffs stored in that warehouse were of many types. First and
foremost were the sacks of grain: wheat, corn, millet, oats and rice mainly.
They alone would account for more than half of my inventory, as they accounted
for the bulk of our diet. A certain amount of each had been milled into flour
or meal; but our kitchen staff preferred to do so only a little at a time, as
needed; because the whole grains kept better. A certain amount, especially of
the wheat and dried corn, would never be milled, but would be served whole, for
the sake of our teeth. It's a "rodent" thing.

Next to the sacks of grain, the most abundant foodstuffs were vegetables of
various types, "canned" (actually put up in Mason jars) or otherwise
preserved. I've already mentioned how successful the zucchini vines had been;
they were just one example of how fecund our vegetable patch had proved. Here
in the warehouse there were a truly phenomenal number of jars of stewed
tomatoes; and even that was only the beginning. There were also jars full of
string beans, cucumbers (in the form of pickles, mainly) okra (which I loathe,
but some people actually like); and others. There were also many sacks of
onions and potatoes, and hanging twists of garlic. There was a diminishing
supply of fresh vegetables too: radishes, carrots, and lettuce, to name a few;
but that was too ephemeral to concern me and my inventory. And even if I'd been
in the mood to count it, I would have had to leave the warehouse and go some
ways down the corridor to another of Arthur's triumphs: his water-powered
refrigerated storage lockers.

...And then there were the incidentals: sacks of seeds, such as sunflower and
safflower (useful chiefly for their oil); sacks of walnuts and peanuts (and
jars of peanut butter); jars of fruit preserves and honey (we had several hives
of bees by then); jars and sacks of dried herbs and spices...It seemed like a
lot, and just being there was enough to make me ravenously hungry, even though
I was still stuffed with waffles. And in fact it was a lot; but even as
I started to count, it was clear that Justin was correct. It wasn't the
quantity, but the consumption, that really mattered. We wouldn't starve, that
much seemed clear; but belts would indeed have to be tightened before this
winter was over. At very least, our meals were going to become somewhat
monotonous. Well, there's always trout and crayfish.

Though I had somewhat dreaded this particular job when Justin assigned it to
me, because I feared it would be stupifyingly boring, actually I was finding
out that it wasn't too bad--as essentially brainless work goes. After a few
minutes it settled into a routine. Count, make a notation, move over a shelf,
and repeat. The shelves weren't stacked high, which was good, because as I
mentioned, the really tall ladders were far to heavy for me. I found a small
stepladder with rungs that weren't too far apart, and which was light enough
for me to pull from row to row. (Sometimes it can be a real pain, being a mouse
in a rat's world.) I counted, and gradually my papers filled with scribbled
figures; later, at home, I would convert my scrawls into a nice neat
spreadsheet. A job that would have taken considerably less time if I'd had the
computer that Hacker dreamed of.

The benefit of--or perhaps the trouble with--such automatic, no-brainer work
is that it leaves the greater part of your mind free to wander. And where mine
wandered that morning was to thoughts of my boss and supposed best friend.

Justin had not shown up for breakfast either, which was quite a surprise: he
had never before missed waffle day. Judith, though, did put in
appearance, albeit a very brief one: just long enough to grab a muffin and a
mug of tea, and depart with both. She'd been wearing her work clothes, and the
look on her face...well, let's just say everyone got out of her way very quickly.
Seeing that, Elizabeth had nudged me in the ribs and nodded knowingly.

I think my dear wife expected me to go find Justin that morning; and in fact
I'd had the same intention myself when I woke up. But somehow, between then and
the end of breakfast I had changed my mind. I think the plain truth is that I
was afraid to. Not because I feared that he would harm me, or anything so
ridiculous: never in a million years would that happen. No; I think I
feared that our conversation would turn into an argument, as it had the
previous afternoon; and I simply did not know how to handle that. Arguing with
Justin--in the sense of an emotionally-charged sharp disagreement, as opposed
to a friendly intellectual debate--was something that I just wasn't equipped
for.

So what was the burr under his saddle? I wondered, as I totted
up jars of peas. Stress due to overwork; or a fight with Judith; or
justifiable anger at an insubordinate employee? Or maybe a little of all
three? The first two I could sympathize with; the third I could only feel
guilty about. Always before we'd been able to discuss our problems calmly and
rationally; if this boss-employee relationship had ruined that, I didn't quite
know what to do. Find another job, perhaps? But where could I find one that
suited me so well?

About that time I became aware that I wasn't alone; that someone else had
entered the warehouse. I kept working, not even bothering to see who it was; I
figured that it was probably one of the kitchen workers, come for a few jars of
vegetable stock or some such. They all knew what I'd been assigned to do; he or
she would get what was needed and depart.

Except it didn't happen that way: whoever it was, didn't leave. I was just
about to climb down and move my ladder when a quiet voice spoke from just
behind me. "Jonathan?"

I turned...and I almost fell off the ladder as I saw who was standing there,
looking up at me for once. "Justin," I said cautiously.

The look on his face was unreadable; neither happy, nor sad, nor apologetic.
He just looked...tired. He gazed silently at me for a moment, then he said
quietly, "Can you leave that for a little while? You and I need to
talk."

I almost refused. Why, I'm not sure; perhaps as a subtle form of revenge.
But there was something about the look in his eye...I left my clipboard on the
shelf, to mark my place, and I scrambled down the ladder to stand before him.
"What can I do for you, boss?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Not here," he said. "This might take some
time. Let's go to my office, please."

Without even waiting for a reply he turned, and I fell into step beside him.
It was a long way down, but during that walk neither of us spoke a word. As I
walked--taking two or three steps to every one of his--I peered up sidelong
into his face, and what there was left of anger in me drained away. Truly, I
had never before seen him look so tired and drawn. Stress and poor nutrition,
I thought; but somehow those two things didn't seem quite adequate to account
for it. No; something else was going on here--something more serious.

Justin's office was a study in contrast, almost as much as was my family's
living room. What struck me first--what always struck me first, every
time I entered there--was the somewhat mismatched furniture, a combination of
items from Justin's old quarters under the rosebush and some (much simpler)
things that had once belonged to Nicodemus. The second thing--almost as
startling--was the contrast between the almost obsessive neatness of the rest
of the room, against the jumbled, stacked-to-the-sky chaos of his desk and file
cabinets. I guess that says something about Justin's personality. He was a good
soldier--he would have lined up his shoes every night, if he'd owned any--but
he still had a lot to learn about being an administrator.

The office was somewhat dark as he ushered me inside; the curtains were wide
open, but down here on the first level the windows were still wrapped in
clinging mist. He made no move to light a lamp, though. He waved me to the
sofa, and then he sank down into his big old armchair. He'd had it so long that
its curves and hollows were molded exactly to the contours of his body.

For a moment there was silence, as he stared into space. Then he peered
earnestly into my eyes. "There are several things I want to say to you,
Jonathan," he began quietly. "The first and most important is: I'm
sorry. You and I have known each other almost all our lives, and I've never had
occasion to speak to you as I did yesterday. Not even on the worst of the
Wandering Days. I had no cause yesterday either, and I am sorry."

I looked away. "I'm the one who should be apologizing," I said.
"If I'd been doing what you'd told me to, it never would have
happened."

He smiled faintly. "I've been asking around," he said. "It
seems you were repeatedly shanghaied, if you'll forgive an archaic phrase. In
fact Elizabeth tried to take all the blame herself, when I spoke to her a
little while ago."

She would, I thought wryly.

"...And I ought to have at least listened to what you had to say,"
he went on. "It occurred to me--after I'd spoken to your wife--that
I'd entirely forgotten one of the reasons why I hired you in the first place:
because I can trust you to work independently, and make decisions on
your own. That inventory is important; but does it change anything if
it's done yesterday, or today? Not really. I guess what I'm saying is, if you
hire someone specifically because you trust his judgment, then you've got to
step aside and let him exercise it."

I grinned. "Frankly, my friend, you are one of the very few people I
know who places any faith in my judgment. But I do appreciate the thought."

"So," he said hopefully, "apology accepted?"

"Of course it is," I told him. I paused for a moment, peering
closely at him; and then I said, "Justin--what's wrong?"

He chuckled bitterly. "You want that alphabetically or
numerically?" he asked. "I'm trying to lead a community through its
first winter in a totally new and unfamiliar environment. You of all people
should know what that means, Jonathan. We have no electricity, no space heaters,
no light bulbs, no natural gas, no inexhaustible food supply. We're on our own,
with only ourselves to depend on, for the first time in our history. And that's
frightening. You remember what Jenner used to say."

I nodded tiredly. "Yes I do," I said. I took a deep breath and
quoted, trying to mimic our late "friend's" oily tones: "'If you
do this you'll all be dead before the first winter ends. Starved or frozen to
death in the wilderness.'"

"Exactly," Justin said.

"You can't be telling me that you believe that?" I asked
incredulously. "From Jenner? You know that his agenda was."

"Yes, of course I know," Justin replied. "And I've been
trying very hard not to believe those words. All this last summer I was
successful; but now that winter is staring us in the face..." He paused and
shook his head. "And it doesn't really matter what I believe. It's
what they believe that counts." He swept his arm in a wide circle,
encompassing the entire community. "All of them heard Jenner say that
too--he didn't restrict his speechmaking to the council chamber. It's got to be
on their minds too, a lot of them; and I don't know if I can combat it."

"Justin," I said firmly, "excuse me for saying this, but what
I'm hearing here is far too much 'I.' We will get through this winter,
together. You, me, Elizabeth, Arthur, everyone. Nicodemus is dead, God rest his
soul, and I miss him as much as you do. But there is absolutely no reason for
you to bear the entire weight of this community on your shoulders. Nicodemus
wouldn't have wanted you to. You have department heads, you have friends. All
of us want to see this community succeed. Obviously; we're not crazy about
freezing or starving to death either. But you have to let us help
you."

He turned away and nodded. "I know," he said simply.

"But," I went on, "I still don't believe that's all that is
bothering you. When's the last time you ate?"

"Yesterday morning," he said. "I was too late for breakfast,
but I grabbed some bread and some tea." He sighed. "But you're right.
You're always right."

"So?"

"So..." He sighed again. "I really didn't want to go into this
with anyone...but I guess that if there's anybody I can trust, and who'll
understand, it would be you."

"I'm flattered, I think."

"You know that for the last few weeks I've been seeing Judith..."

"I don't think there's anyone who doesn't know," I told him
dryly. My mind was racing ahead of the conversation: so he has broken
up with her, and he doesn't know how to handle it. Well, neither do I! The
first girl I became involved with, I married. "I think we all thought
you'd taken on a bit of a...challenge."

"No," he said, shaking his head vigorously. "No, that's not
true at all. When you get to know her, Judith is nothing at all like her public
persona. In fact we have a lot more in common than I expected. The number-one
thing, of course, being that we were both lonely but didn't want to admit
it."

I very much doubt whether there was anyone else in the world but me to whom
he would have spoken those words. "So--what happened?" I asked
gently.

"Nothing," he said. "Or--well, no, that's not quite true. I
mean we didn't break up, not in the usual sense. But there is
a...difficulty." He stood then, explosively, and crossed the room to stare
out the window. The mist was just beginning to part, allowing dim, ghostly
outlines of objects outside to appear. "As a matter of fact," Justin
said a moment later, "I think--I know--that I'm very much in love
with her." He chuckled hollowly. "Never thought you'd heard me say that,
I'll wager."

"I...had begun to wonder," I admitted. "Excuse me for saying
so, boss, but for someone in love you don't sound particularly happy."

"There's been a...complication," Justin said. Abruptly he pounded
his fist down on the stone windowsill. "It wasn't supposed to happen this
way!" He whirled around. "I'm the elected leader of the community,
for God's sake! I've got an image to project, don't I? I'm supposed to be a
role model for the kids..."

"Justin my friend," I said patiently, "I have absolutely no
idea what you're talking about."

He smiled humorlessly, and crossed the room to collapse into the chair
again. "Then I'll spell it out for you, Jonathan," he said flatly.
"The fact is--or maybe I should say the indications are--that Judith is
currently carrying my child."