o not think me mad. I'll confess to you--and
to you only--that I've been so deeply disturbed by these experiences
with The Brain that I've thought to myself: "Lee you're going crazy."
The Brain as it has revealed itself to me, is a tremendous reality; the
world outside The Brain is another reality and the two seem mutually
exclusive of one another; they just don't mix. Now: either The Brain is
an absolute reality--in that case I should not wish to have anything to
do with this god of the machines who wants to enslave mankind ... if I
cannot fight this monster I would rather flee before its approach to the
end of the world--or else: I'm suffering hallucinations, I'm hearing
voices, I'm obsessed. In that case I'd be unfit for the service of The
Brain, I'd be unworthy to be in your company and I also ought to run and
hide where I belong, out there in the wilds of Australia."

He had been talking faster and faster as if in fear that she would
interrupt him before he came to the end.

"In other words, I'm damned both ways; damned if I'm right and damned if
I'm wrong; and you know why Oona; you have known it all along: that I
love you."

* * * * *

She did not look at him. She stared upward into the rainbow vortex of
the jet which held the ship in the air. There was a smile on her face, a
kind smile which men do not often see, infinitely wise and infinitely
sad, full of a secret knowledge older than Man's.

It worried Lee, as the unknown of woman always worries man; but at least
she didn't take her hand away; softly, soothingly the fingers of that
hand caressed his shoulder as if possessed with a life of their own.

"No; I would not follow you into your wilderness if that's what you
mean," she said at last. "That hasn't got anything to do with you; I'll
tell you later why. But I don't think that you should go there either;
it wouldn't help--it never helps a man to run away from unsolved
problems." She had sounded strangely dull and dry, but now the beautiful
deep resonance reentered the contralto voice as she continued:

"I know your record, Semper; I know just why you ran away and became an
expatriate the first time--way back in '49. Her name was Ethel Franholt
and just because she happened to be a little bitch and worst of all:
jilted you for old money-bags Carson's son, you took it hard. Granted
that it was a fierce letdown, those postwar years were a nasty picture
generally; did it so