Part 5 (1/2)

”No--” she said in a low voice, ”no....”

”But Selda!” I stammered, ”I love you--I want to marry you.” She shook her head.

”No,” she said again, ”didn't you understand? I am scheduled to marry Edvar.”

At first I didn't know what she meant.

”Scheduled?” I repeated dully. ”I don't understand.”

”It has been arranged for years. Don't you remember what Edvar told you about our marriages here, the very first day you came? I was destined to marry Edvar long before any of us were born, before our parents, even, were born. It's the way they order our lives.”

”But I love you,” I cried in amazement. ”And you love me, too. I know you love me.”

”That means nothing here,” she said. ”It happens sometimes. One has to accept it. Nothing can be done. We live according to the machinery of the world. Everything is known and predetermined.”

Suddenly, in the midst of what she was saying, close behind me there sounded even above the roaring of the waterfall a raucous noise like the hooting of a taxi horn. It was followed by a shrieking of brakes, and a hoa.r.s.e voice near by shouted something angry and profane. A rush of air swept by me, and I heard faintly the sound of a motor moving away, with a grinding of gears. I looked at Selda.

”Did you hear that?”

She nodded, with wide, frightened eyes. ”Yes. It's not the first time.”

Suddenly she rose, frowning, as if with pain. ”Come,” she added, ”now we must go back.”

There was nothing else to do. We went back silently to the airs.h.i.+p, and turned its nose toward the city.

But when I left her at her apartment, promising to see her later, I had one last hope in my mind. I went to the Bureau.

The Bureau was a vast system of halls and offices, occupying two floors of the great building. I was sent from one automatic device to another--there were no human clerks--in search of the representative who had spoken to me before. Finally I found him in his apartment, down the corridor only a hundred feet or so from my own. He was pouring over a metal sheet on his table, where innumerable s.h.i.+fting figures were thrown by some hidden machine, and he was calculating with a set of hundreds of b.u.t.tons along its edges. He spoke to me without pausing or looking up, and throughout my interview he continued with his figuring as if it had been entirely automatic--as perhaps it was.

”What is it, Baret?” he said I felt like a small child before the princ.i.p.al of the school.

”I have come to ask you whether it is necessary for me to go,” I answered. He nodded slightly, never looking up.

”It is necessary,” he said. ”Your visit was pre-arranged and definite.”

I made a gesture of remonstrance.

”But I don't want to go,” I insisted. ”I like this place, and I am willing to fall into its life if I can remain under any conditions.”

”It is impossible,” he objected angrily.

”I have never been told why or how I came here. You said you would tell me that.”

”I have never been told myself. It is a matter known to the men who handled it.”

”If I went to them, surely they could find some way to let me stay?”