,
whether it would stop The Brain; that was a different question, but at
least he had his plan.

He marvelled at the ease and at the lightning speed with which the great
decision had come. It had been at the sight of the senseless
robot-monsters, at the blood-spattered assembly line that the sense of
sacred mission had come over him. It had been at the moment when, in
Scriven's grip upon his arm, he had read his condemnation that he had
hit upon the plan.

He must take an awful chance and a terrific responsibility. For this he
had to be morally certain that The Brain was a liar, that Scriven was a
liar and that war was being provoked by The Brain despite all its
assertions to the contrary because The Brain could assume power only
over the dead bodies of millions of men like Gus; Gus whom The Brain had
butchered like a guinea pig because he had refused to obey the Gogs and
Magogs of the Machine God.

Now that he had this moral certainty Lee felt that strange and mystical
elation which comes to the soldier at the zero hour in war. The worst
was really over; the terrible waiting, the uncertainty, the struggle of
morale in "sweating it out." Now his nerves were steady, exhaustion and
fatigue had vanished; in its place was that wonderful feeling of full
mastery over all faculties which comes to fighting men as the battle is
joined. There was that upsurge of the blood from fighting ancestors
which obliterates the cowardice of the intellect, that inspired
intoxication which sharpens the intellect into a battle axe. By his
quick-witted postponement of the fateful appointment with the
psychiatrists he had gained thirty hours. Whether this would be enough
he didn't know, but he felt in himself the strength to fight on
endlessly.

The elevator stopped at Apperception 36 and Lee stood for a moment at
the door of his lab for a last breath, a briefing addressed to himself:

"This is like walking into a mine field," he thought; "one false step
and things go Boom. All the sensory organs of The Brain are in action
behind this door and some of them are pretty near extrasensory in their
mind-reading capacities. I've got to walk back and forth amongst those
observation screens; there may be other radiations too, following me,
penetrating into the recesses of my mind without my knowing it. That
means I must make my mind a blank. It's like being quizzed by a
lie-detector, only more so. I must not only seem normal and at ease, I
actual