Part One Involved as she was with Mira's grief, Nogah's interest in Lee's murder was purely academic; the thought of it caused her to reflect on the possibility of the corruption in Gardenland's customs, which could have allowed one man to kill another.
Gardenland's whole archive, used for the purpose of recording and study, was kept inside the central computer, a descendant of the one that had survived Earth's Catastrophe. That survivor was used in the Shelter where a few hundred scientists and scholars were occupied in a research of human survival during that time, the people who later created Gardenland. In her studies of social history, Nogah had made much use of the Central Computer, as a limited source of information of the social relationships among the various human groups previously inhabiting the planet. This information caused her to form a mixed approach toward killing in various circumstances, and she was not sure how the present case - so rare in Gardenland's experience - would seem to Earth's peoples before its destruction.
In some of its main rules, the new society of Gardenland emphasized it's absolute stand against crimes than harm people, or society as a whole; with the help of basic education, and an absolute insistence on preserving those rules, a situation was created of minimizing the number of such crimes. Nogah was the ideal figure representing the best attitude of those ideas. The killing of one man by another caused her to ponder on the motives for such an unacceptable action, and the consequence it could have for society as a whole.
Mira's complaint interrupted her musing. "Nogah," she said in a weak voice, "what're you thinking about?"
It was afternoon, and they were in the living-room - Mira, having come back from the Medic Center after her miscarriage, was stretched on the couch; Nogah, in her last stage of pregnancy, lolled in a chair. It was not her custom to loll, but her physical state was affecting even her placid nature...
There was no point of taking Mira's poetical mind into her own rational reflections. "D'you think we can get something out of the poetry channel?" she asked instead.
She moved her chair nearer the wall and fumbled with the button until it produced a soft reciting voice: "I flew into the pink, soft cloud, it wrapped me with its warm moisture; Earth was heavy on my breast, my lance broke it to bring forth a green plant..."
"That's Lee's poem, I'd know his style everywhere," Mira cried out, raising her head and stretching her hand toward the voice.
"Shall I make it louder for you to hear?" Nogah asked with concern.
"No! Shut it off! I can't bear to listen to it!" The sick woman fell back, closed her eyes, gasping, breathing hard.
