"I'd--like to ask a question."

The Superfather nodded.

"What--what use," went on Twenty-three, "is all this--work being put
to--that we do--along the machine lines--every day? We don't, seem to
really be _making_ anything. Just working."

The Superfather's eyes narrowed. "You're kept busy. You get paid. You
live. The city is here. That's all. That's enough."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Twenty-three turned abruptly, marched to the
door and stepped into the empty, silent corridor.

* * * * *

Twenty-three looked up at the glowing dome of the city that curved away
to the horizon. He wondered if there really was a white ball beyond it
sometimes and tiny dots of light, set in blue black. And at other times
did a ball of fire flame up there, giving light and heat and life? And
if there was this life and light up there, _why_ the great dome over the
city? _Why_ the factories and machine lines replacing it section after
section, generation after generation? The slabs that the workers fused
together this year and the next and the next, pushing back this life and
light and heat. Why not let it pour down into the city and warm all the
people? Why not go to the space out there and the depth and freedom? Why
this great shell that closed them away? For the sake of the Superfathers
maybe? And the Superfathers-plus? For the sake of the ones, like himself
maybe who worked and built? For the sake of them, so they wouldn't
become dangerous maybe and tear the great wall down and rush out into
whatever was beyond? Why else?

But it could be all a farce. They could all be working in the great dome
because they didn't know what was beyond. Who could know if they'd never
been beyond?

And so they were held under the domes with the buildings and the
machines that carried them all around in the city; held with the
plumbing and the theatres and all the intricate mechanisms that spoke to
them and fed them, that washed them and poured thoughts into their
minds, that healed them when they were sick and rested them when they
were tired. The same as they were held with the great dome. Held and
shackeled with the replacing of parts that didn't need replacing; the
making over and over again of the tiny and large pieces of the
mechanisms and the taking of the old mechanisms and the melting of them
or smashing of them to powder so that this dust or molten metal could be
fashioned again and again into the same pie