Chapter 6

For a jail cell, the chamber was quite commodious. The walls were of bare stone, like most of the buildings on Greenhaven which Maria Ringstad had visited during her short period of sightseeing. She thought that it must have entailed a great deal of extra labor to provide such large rooms in a stone building, especially when the materials had to be quarried by relatively primitive means.

On Greenhaven, everything had evidently been done the hard way. She had heard about that facet of the Greenie character before leaving the ship, and she now wished that she had listened more carefully. It was difficult to picture in her mind just how far away that spaceship was by this time.

That had been the worst, the feeling of having been abandoned.

Meanwhile, having turned up her nose at the sewing chores they had assigned to her but having nothing else to occupy her, she sat on the edge of the austere wooden shelf that doubled as a bed and a bench. The Greenie guard standing in the doorway looked as if he had expected to find the sewing done.

“Can’t you understand, honey?” said Maria lightly. “You can cart that basket of rags away. I have no intention of sticking my fingers with those crude needles you people use.”

The Greenie was a short, sturdy young man, uniformed in the drabbest of dun-colored clothing. A shirt with a high, tight collar starched like cardboard held his chin at a dignified elevation. It also seemed to keep his eyes wide open, Maria thought, unless that was his naturally naive expression.

“Did anyone ever tell you those hats would make good spittoons?” she asked.

“It is forbidden to speak vainly of any correction official,” said the young man stiffly.

“Correction official!” echoed Maria. “Look, honey, don’t kid with me! I bet you’re just a janitor here. If I thought you were a real official, who might be cuddled into letting me out of this cage, I’d be a lot more friendly.”

She gave him an amiable grin. It was not returned.

The Greenie stood gripping the thick edge of the blank wooden door until his knuckles whitened. He looked like a man who had just discovered a worm in his apple. Half a worm, in fact.

“Now, I may be pushing thirty-five,” said Maria, “but I know I don’t look that bad. Actually, alongside your Greenie girls, I stack up pretty well, don’t you think? For one thing, I’m shorter than you are. For another, I fill out my clothes and don’t look like a skinny old horse.”

“You ... you ... are not ... dressed as an honest woman,” the guard got out.

Sitting on the edge of the wooden bunk, Maria crossed her knees--and thought he would choke. She tugged slightly at the short skirt that had attracted so many lowering stares when she had strolled down the main street of First Haven. She was used to being among men, but this poor soul was outside her experience.

Maria Ringstad was aware of both her visual shortcomings and attractions. After a month here, her hair was beginning to grow in darker and less auburn. She was a trifle solid for her five-feet-four, but that came of having a durable frame. Her face was squarish, with a determined nose, and her hazel eyes looked green in some lights. On the other hand, she had a nice smile, and she had spent much time in places where few women went. She was used to being popular with the opposite sex, even in face of competition from members of her own. In the Greenie women, with their voluminous, drab dresses and hangdog expressions devoid of the least make-up, she saw little competition.

“Really,” she said, “no one else would think of me as a criminal. I just tried to buy a picture in that little shop. Then the heavens fell in on me.”

“The heavens do not fall on Greenhaven,” said the guard firmly.

“Well, anyway, some very sour characters trumped up all sorts of charges against me, and here I am. But I didn’t do anything!”

“The attempt is equal to the deed!”

Maria shook her head and sighed. She stood up and took a few steps toward him.

“You must keep your place,” ordered the young man, with an undercurrent of panic in his tone. “I have not come to debate justice with you. You have sinned and you have been sentenced.”

I bet he’d faint if I threw my arms around him, thought Maria.

“But what was the sin, honey?” she demanded. “You’d think I’d written a bad article about Greenhaven for my syndicate. Honestly, I didn’t even have time to see the place.”

The young man released the edge of the door, but still looked worried.

“Greenhaven was founded by colonists who sought liberty and were willing to create a haven for it by the sweat of their brows,” he informed her. “Conditions were inhospitable. There were plagues to test their faith and ungainly beasts to test their courage. What has been built here has been built by a great communal struggle, and it is not to be hazarded by the sinful attitudes of old Terra, and--you should have paid the listed price.”

“But he wouldn’t sell me one at that price when I offered it!”

“Then he did not have one. You attempted to bribe him.”

“Well, it was just a friendly offer,” said Maria, straightening her skirt. “It didn’t amount to anything.”

“On the contrary, it amounted to bribery, immorality, and economic subversion. Procedures such as purchase and merchandising must be strictly regulated for the good of the community. We cannot permit chaos to intrude upon the peace of Greenhaven.”

“You know, honey,” she remarked, studying him with her head cocked to one side, “you talk like a book. A very old book.”

The guard rolled his eyes toward the hall. He relaxed for the first time, in order to lean back and listen to something in the corridor.

“I must caution you to cease addressing me as ‘honey, ‘“ he said in a lower voice. “I hear the steps of my superior.”

Maria laughed, a silvery ripple that made the young man grit his teeth.

“Maybe he’s jealous,” she suggested. “Or bored. What do you fellows have to do, anyway, except go around handing out cell work and picking it up?”

“There is no place on Greenhaven for idle hands,” said the young man, eyeing the untouched sewing with disapproval.

“Isn’t there ever any excitement? How often does someone try to escape?”

“It is forbidden to escape,” said the guard soberly. He looked as if he wished that he himself could escape.

Heavy steps halted outside the door of the cell to signal the arrival of the chief warden. The latter turned a severely inquiring stare upon the young man, who hastily stepped aside to admit his chief.

“Have you been conversing with the prisoner?” asked the older man.

He was clad in a similar uniform with, perhaps, a slightly higher collar. His dark-browed features reflected greater age and asceticism. Otherwise, Maria thought ruefully, there was little to choose between them. He seemed to have a chilling effect upon the guard.

“Only in the line of duty, sir,” the young man responded.

The warden spotted the basket of undone work. He frowned.

“This should have been attended to long ago,” he said. “What excuse can there be?”

Maria planted both hands on her hips.

“Plenty!” she announced. “In the first place, you have no right to hold a Terran citizen in a hole like this. In the second, that ridiculous five year sentence is going to be appealed and cancelled as soon as the Terran consul gets things moving.”

“That is at least doubtful,” retorted the warden, favoring her with a wintry smile which raised the corners of his mouth an eighth of an inch. “Meanwhile, there are methods we can use to enforce obedience. Would you rather I summon some of the women of the staff?”

“I’d rather you’d explain to me what was so awful about trying to buy a picture of the city in that little shop? If they weren’t for tourists to buy, why did they have them?”

“Such nonsensical objects are provided for tourists and others who must from time to time be admitted to Greenhaven. That does not excuse flouting our laws and seeking to cause dissatisfaction through the example of bribery. The city of First Haven has been wrung from the wilderness, but the struggle to complete our building of the colony must not be hindered or subverted. It is necessary--”