Without looking back, THX said, “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving! Leaving what?” Then, “Yes, I see! Wait a minute!”
Clutching the four food cubes to his chest with one arm, SEN ran after THX and grabbed at his arm. “Wait! Just for a moment… wait.”
THX stopped. SEN turned to the other prisoners.
“After long deliberation, I have decided to go out and personally examine the barrier. To see first-hand what difficulties are involved and decide how to overcome them. I realize that there is an element of risk, even danger, but moments such as this require that a choice be made and action taken regardless of the danger involved. We will return soon, but we will be gone long enough to form an accurate and functional plan of escape, and I will have an honest idea of how best to organize us into a working unit.”
After the first half-dozen words of SEN’s speech, THX began walking slowly outward, away from the beds. In the direction opposite the one he had taken last time.
SEN finally noticed that THX was leaving, cut his speech short, and hurried after him. But after only a few steps he dashed back to his bed, tore off the mattress, pulled out a double armful of food cubes and started after THX, he raised one hand in a victory sign to the other prisoners, dropping some food cubes in the process. He nearly tripped over them.
“The new alignment!” he shouted, and then ran after THX.
“Incredible,” said PTO.
Chapter 16
Hurrying as fast as he could, food cubes slipping out from his arms and leaving a Hansel- Gretel trail behind him, SEN called after THX:
“Wait! Hold up… give me a chance…”
THX looked back and slowed slightly so that SEN could catch up with him.
“Just the thing to put them on their feet,” SEN chortled. “Show them who their leaders are. When we go back, they’ll be right there!” He held out the palm of his right hand, dropping three more cubes.
“There’s no question about it,” he said. “Even old PTO was taken aback.” He turned and looked back. “How long before they can’t see us anymore?”
THX didn’t answer. He merely kept walking.
SEN began to stuff his remaining food cubes into the pockets and waistband of his clothes.
“You’re sure this isn’t far enough? Maybe we’d better stop here and rest a minute.”
But THX kept right on. They walked in silence for quite a while. At last SEN stopped and looked back in the direction they had come in. He raised a hand to shade his eyes from the glareless, even light.
“I can’t see them anymore… all we have to do is wait here for a while and then head back.”
SEN looked backward again, and suddenly realized that he wasn’t sure of their direction back. There was nothing to be seen.
“Back,” he muttered. Then, to THX, “Did… did you come this far last time?”
THX didn’t answer. He started walking again. With eyes widening in sudden understanding, SEN scrambled after him and asked, “You didn’t believe all that nonsense about escaping, did you? You can’t escape. No one can escape.”
“We can try.”
“No! No, don’t you see? The authorities… the State… they wouldn’t permit it. They wouldn’t have built this elaborate prison in such a way that it could be escaped from. Escape is just a hope, a carrot dangling before the fools back there, to keep them in line.”
THX said, “The State doesn’t always do things right. Machines don’t work, computers break down. Maybe this prison isn’t escape-proof. We’ll never know if we don’t try.”
With mounting fear, SEN babbled, “You’ll be killed! You’ll be stopped. Why do you think no one has ever done it? There’s no place to go…”
“How do you know no one’s ever done it? Do you think they’d tell you about it?”
“But… but… but… we don’t have enough food.”
THX shook his head and kept walking.
“Here… stop.” SEN rummaged through his pockets and came up with a brown food cube. He trotted up to THX, who had kept going at his steady pace, and offered the food to him.
THX refused it with a brisk wave of his hand. SEN gnawed on it himself for a while. Then he realized something.
“LUH!”
That stopped THX.
“You’re going after LUH, aren’t you?” He saw the answer in THX’s pain-filled eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Be careful what you say,” THX told him severely. He resumed walking.
SEN had to hurry to keep pace beside him. “Listen, stop. I knew there was something I’d been meaning to tell you. Stop, will you? LUH, the other LUH, the one who came to our group… he said he saw her!”
THX looked at him without slowing down.
A little breathless, SEN went on, “Yes. He saw her before he came to our group. She’s going to be coming here, too. Yes.”
“How is she?” THX asked.
“Fine, fine. Very good health. Just as you left her.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not…”
THX pushed him away and kept walking. Staggering slightly, SEN called, “You’re a fool. You’ll never find her and you’ll never know…”
SEN stood there, alone, watching THX plod onward. He turned back, but could see nothing. Spinning around, looking in every direction, he could see nothing but whiteness. Except for the dwindling figure of THX.
“You can’t…” he shouted. “You can’t do it!”
THX’s figure was getting smaller and smaller. Soon it would disappear altogether.
“Wait!” SEN screamed. “Don’t leave me alone! Wait for me!”
They walked, with SEN usually trailing THX. Most of the time they were both silent. Occasionally they rested, and SEN would pull out a food cube and share it with THX, wordlessly. SEN seemed stunned, morose, afraid. THX didn’t know what he felt—he thought about LUH but realized that probably SEN was right. He’d never see her again, never know. But I’ll never go back to their prison, he told himself. Never!
When they walked, SEN’s comments grew rarer and rarer. But he was trying different tacks now.
“The air is getting thinner,” he said at one point. “Or the pressure’s getting greater. It’s the pressure. How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“My ears feel funny… Are you sure this is the right direction?”
“No one’s stopped us yet.”
They kept walking, but SEN dragged farther and farther behind. Finally he sank to his knees and just fell over on his side. He gasped out, “Uhh…”
THX stopped and looked back, then went to him.
“It’s the air,” SEN said weakly as THX bent over him. “It’s closing in. I can’t stand it any longer. There’s no room… no air.”
Squatting beside him, THX felt like an impatient teacher with a balky child. “I haven’t got time. You can stay here if you want.”
He got up and started off again.
“No!”
SEN scrambled to his feet. He ran, stumbling slightly, after THX.
Hours later, SEN was mumbling, “It shouldn’t be this far.”
But he walked alongside THX. Suddenly THX stopped short.
“What? What is it?”
“Look!” THX said.
There was something out there in the white blankness. A spot, a pinpoint, a landmark against the emptiness.
“Oh, no,” SEN murmured.
THX squinted hard, trying to make it out.
“It doesn’t seem to be moving,” he said.
“It’s an optical illusion,” SEN said.
“Or maybe a policeman.”
SEN’s eyes went round with fright. “You don’t think…”
THX laughed at him. “What can they do to us? Put us in prison? Kill us?”