"Oh—" he began, but "hell" was the next word, and he changed it. "Oh, that's it, then." He took her hand tenderly, ready to be her sword and shield in this catastrophe; but the look on her face was confusing. Her eyes were not cool, not loving, either; they were serene. Then he thought. "Oh! Tonight's meeting! It's going to be pretty awful, unless—Well, maybe they won't have your records yet—"
"Don't be so silly," she flared, "of course they'll have the records. The diagnosis was ready this morning."
"I see." He thought that over until, looking around the room, he realized why he didn't see. "But it looks as though you just came in."
"I did. I was in the screen room," she said. "And other places. Come on, it's time for dinner."
The dinner might have been an ordeal, but there was a distraction. The director tottered up to the front of the room to announce that, obedient to a Renmin "request"— that was the word she used, "request," though there was no history anywhere of the village ever refusing one—all electrical machinery would be off for seventy-five minutes, reason not given. So the last half hour of the dinner was eaten by candlelight, and by candlelight the cleanup crews whisked away the scraps and lugged the tables and chairs to make the hall ready for the evening meeting. With the light poor there was plenty of opportunity for the idle and heedless to chatter, wasting time, so the work went slowly. The chatter was about the murder, about the thrilling discovery of most of the body in another commune (removing the worry, leaving the excitement of the crime), most of all about the terrible annoyance of having the power off. It was a rare event, and there were many guesses about the reason for the order; but as no one, really, had any facts to go on, they were quite wild.
What there was no gossip about at all was the impending problem of Castor and Maria, and that, thought Castor gloomily after the lights were on again and the meeting had come to order, was a very bad sign. They were saving themselves for the meeting.
For movies, the little stage at the end of the room held the holo projectors and mirrors. For meals, the projectors sank into their safe, covered wells, and buffet tables were lined up to serve the diners. For criticism the platform held a single chair, with all the others arranged in arcs before it and below.
Castor looked at the hot seat as a condemned felon might view the electric chair of old. To sit there was not an honor. To sit there was to be hopelessly and painfully alone. The man or woman sweating in the hot seat matched three hundred pairs of accusing eyes with his own abashed ones, heard three hundred condemning voices with his solitary pair of shamed ears, spoke in self-criticism or (foolishly, vainly) in defense in his own single, stammering voice—and then heard it roar back at him over the heads of the three hundred from the row of speaker-buttons along the walls. It was not a prominence anyone sought.
Since there was no point in trying to avert the storm anymore, Castor led his wife to the very first row and sat proudly, holding her hand. She did not resist. She was relaxed and calm, and for all one could tell from her face she might have thought this evening would pass without ever hearing her own name.
Indeed, at first she did not, for the first person in the hot seat at criticism meetings was almost always a team head. Production was what the village was all about, after all. Tonight it was Fat Rhoda, summoned by name by the wrathful voice of the assistant director from his desk at the side of the room. "You, Pettyman Rhoda!" he thundered. "You are two hectares behind plan. How is this possible, in view of the fact that food is the foundation of socialism?"
But he had no scared novice victim in Fat Rhoda. Wise in the skills of the hot seat, she hurried forward to the seat, beginning to criticize herself on the way. "I have been too lenient with the team," she confessed. "I have failed to give proper leadership in volunteer work to achieve the plan. I have allowed Pettyman Castor to withdraw from today's extra-duty work without clarifying for him the importance of political understanding—" She didn't stop there, but she might as well have as far as Castor was concerned. He was furious. Just like her, to start blaming him when she knew, must know, what was coming next!
So did everyone else, and the criticism of Rhoda was no more than perfunctory. When she had finished abasing herself she was let go with no more than a promise to work and study diligently.
Then the assistant director waved a hand, and a second chair was brought to the stage, and it began.
Ten minutes was the usual length of time in the hot seat. The vilest of criminals sometimes were there an hour—the hard cases whose deeds could be expiated only by expulsion from the village. Or worse. Yet an hour later Castor and Maria were still there and the crowd just seemingly getting warmed up. Every last member seemed to want to be heard—not just about the pregnancy, but about every misdeed anyone could remember—
"Why did you study Chinese and astrophysics instead of something useful to the village, like soil chemistry or accounting?"
"You showed vanity, Castor, and pride! You should learn your place!"
"You spoke impudently to a high state official, Castor. Why are you so arrogant?"
"Did you not think, Castor, of what may happen to the village if we exceed birth limits? Do you want us sprayed like the Africans?"
"If you were loyal to the village, why did you ask for a transfer?"
"Vanity, Castor! Pride, arrogance, vanity! You should be more humble."
—and always it was Castor this and Castor that, but what about Maria, who had got them into this trouble in the first place? Oh, not without complicity, Castor admitted to himself, his jaw grim and eyes fierce as he stared back at the accusing villagers. But it was Maria who had decided that if a child was to happen then it should happen, and he had merely agreed—who could blame him for that, six months married and still hungry every night? Should he answer back? Denounce her? Criticize them both and get off as Fat Rhoda had done? But he couldn't do that; pride—yes, he had pride; maybe arrogance, too, but whatever the reason he sat mute and glowering and let them say what they liked. He wished the two chairs were closer. He would have liked to reach out and hold Maria's hand to comfort her—or to comfort himself, more likely. But actually she seemed to have no need of comforting. She was sitting quietly with her hands folded calmly in her lap and that serene and untroubled gaze in her eyes.
At last the assistant director clapped his hands for the microphone, and as the automatic sound-seekers turned toward him he said, "Speak, Castor! Answer the people's just anger!"
Castor ground his teeth. Angrily he said, "I was wrong. I did not fulfill my obligations to the people."
"And?" demanded the assistant director. Castor did not speak; he could not make himself. "And what else?" the man went on remorselessly. "What of this pregnancy you have caused? What steps are you willing to take?"
Castor, raging, opened his mouth to answer, he had no idea what. But it never came out. Maria clapped for the mikes and said clearly, "Castor has nothing to say about it."
The assistant director's mouth opened. It hung that way until he recovered enough to croak, "What? What did you say?"
"I said it is not Castor's decision. I am divorcing him. I have applied for divorce through the screens, and it will be granted in twenty-four hours unless he protests."
"But I protest!" Castor croaked, managing at last to speak.
"No," she said, turning toward him calmly, "you will not, because I will not abort my child. I have done one other thing. I have volunteered for service in a prairie grain commune, where there are no birth limits, and I have been accepted."