Farnham's Freehold

Kitten went silently to bed. Hugh hid the knife in its usual place (much too high for Kitten), then went into his living room and found the child crying. He petted her, soothed her, said he had not meant to sound harsh, and fed her a bonus dose of Happiness-sat with her while she drank it, watched her go happily to sleep.

Then he did not even try to get along without it himself. Kitten had gone to sleep with one hand outside her cover. It looked to Hugh exactly like a forlorn little hand he had seen twelve hours earlier on the floor of a butcher shop.

He was exhausted and the drink let him go to sleep. But not to rest. He found himself at a di

Hugh moaned and could not wake up.

Kitten did not chatter at breakfast, which suited him. Two hours of nightmare-ridden sleep was not enough, yet it was necessary to go to his office and pretend to work. Mostly he stared at the print framed over his desk while his scroll reader clicked u

Barbara's note that night applauded the idea of a literary discussion club by mail and discussed Mark Twain. Hugh was interested only in how it read diagonally:

"Did

I

read

it

correctly

darling

question

mark"

Chapter 19

"Darling

we

must

escape

next

six

days

or

sooner

be

ready

night

after

letter

has

phrase

Freedom

is

a

lonely

thing-"

For the next three days Hugh's letters to Barbara were long and chatty and discussed everything from Mark Twain's use of colloquial idiom to the influence of progressive education on the relaxation of grammar. Her answers were lengthy, equally "literary," and reported that she would be ready to open the hatch, confirmed that she understood, that she had a little stock of food, had no knife, no shoes-but that her feet were very calloused-and that her only worry was that the twins might cry or that her roommates might wake up, especially as two of them were stifi giving night feedings to their babies. But for Hugh not to worry, she would manage.

Hugh drew a fresh bottle of Happiness, taped it near the top of the shaft closest to her billet, instructed her to tell her roommates that she had stolen it, then use it to get them so hopped up on the drug that they would either sleep or be so slaphappy that if they did wake, they would do nothing but giggle-and, if possible, get enough of the drug into the twins that the infants would pass out and not cry no matter how they were handled.

Making an extra trip through the tu

He found that it was difficult but not impossible to carry a baby in this fashion through the tu

But it could be done and he got back to his rooms without waking Kitten-he had increased her evening bonus of Happiness. He replaced the scrolls, hid his knife and spherical lamp, washed his knees and elbows and anointed them, then sat down and wrote a long P.S. to the letter he had written earlier to tell Barbara how to find the bottle. This postscript added some afterthoughts about the philosophy of Hemingway and remarked that it seemed odd that a writer would in one story say that "freedom is a lonely thing" and in another story state that-and so on.

That night he gave Kitten her usual amplified nightcap, then said, "Not much left in this bottle. Finish it off and I'll get a fresh one tomorrow."

"Oh, I'd get terribly silly. You wouldn't like me."

"Go ahead, drink it. Have a good time, live it up. What else is life for?"

Half an hour later Kitten was more than willing to be helped to bed. Hugh stayed with her until she was snoring heavily. He covered her hands, stood looking down at her, suddenly knelt and kissed her good-bye.

A few minutes later he was down the first manhole.

He took off his robe, piled on it a bundle of what he had collected for survival-food, sandals, wig, two pots of deodorant cream into which he had blended brown pigment. He did not expect to use disguise and h~d little faith in it, but if they were overtaken by daylight before they were in the mountains, he intended to darken all four of them, tear their robes into something resembling the breechclout and wrap-around which he had learned were the working clothes of free peasant farmers among the Chosen-"poor black trash" as Joe called them-and try to brazen it out, keeping away from people if possible, until it was dark again.

He tied one baby sling to him with the other inside it and started. He hurried, as time was everything. Even if Barbara managed to pass out her roommates promptly, even if he had no trouble breaking out at his preferred exit, even if the crawl back through the tu

He made fast time to sluts' quarters, punishing his knees and elbows.

The bottle was missing, he could feel the tacky places where he had fastened it. He settled himself as comfortably as possible and concentrated on quieting his pounding heart, slowing his breathing, and relaxing. He tried to make his mind blank.

He dozed off. But he was instantly alert when the lid over him was raised.

Barbara made no sound. She handed him one of their sons, he stuffed the limp little body as far down the tu

But he did not kiss her until they were down inside-only seconds after he had wakened-and the lid had clicked into place over them.