Page 95 - BraveNewWorld

Nine

LENINA felt herself entitled, after this day of queerness and horror, to a com-
plete and absolute holiday. As soon as they got back to the rest-house, she
swallowed six half-gramme tablets of soma, lay down on her bed, and within
ten minutes had embarked for lunar eternity. It would be eighteen hours at the
least before she was in time again.
Bernard meanwhile lay pensive and wide-eyed in the dark. It was long after
midnight before he fell asleep. Long after midnight; but his insomnia had not
been fruitless; he had a plan.
Punctually, on the following morning, at ten o’clock, the green-uniformed oc-
toroon stepped out of his helicopter. Hemard was waiting for him among the
agaves.

“Miss Crowne’s gone on soma-holiday,” he explained. “Can hardly be back
before five. Which leaves us seven hours.”

He could fly to Santa Fé, do all the business he had to do, and be in Malpais
again long before she woke up.
“She’ll be quite safe here by herself?”

“Safe as helicoplers,” the octoroon assured him.
They climbed into the machine and started off at once. At ten thirty-four they
landed on the roof of the Santa Fé Post Offiee; at ten thirty-seven Bernard had
got through to the World Controller’s Office in Whitehall; at ten thirty-seven
he was speaking to his fordship’s fourth personal secretary; at ten forty-four he
was repeating his story to the first secretary, and at ten forty-seven and a half
it was the deep, resonant voice of Mustapha Mond himself that sounded in his
ears.
“I ventured to think,” stammered Bernard, “that your fordship might find the
matter of sufficient scientific interest .”

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