Quick admiration filled his eyes at sight of Stefanie, and his gruff voice was soft, the voice the radio brought them when he was the Father of the State, or when he was telling them of the new plans for more food and better living. "Sit--I'm only one of you, you know. Ah, Johann, this is the little Stefanie. I've wanted to meet you, to see the one Johann has spoken of so often." His language was perfect, but with the queer stilted effect it always had when he was not reading a prepared speech. Watching Stefanie stammer over the honor of the Director's presence, and then relax gradually as the spell of the man took over, Johann began to smile more naturally. The Director was talking of his own beginnings--in much less than this--and the moving they would soon be doing, into a newer apartment, a fine new suburb. And surprisingly, he was talking of his own wife and children, and Stefanie was answering. * * * * * Remembering stories of the Director, Johann found it hard to recognize this as reality. The man had come up from the lowest ranks, an iron hand leading him up the ladder of Centralia's autocratic bureaucracy. But now the hand was sheathed, and even Stefanie began to smile. Then it was over, and the Director was rising. Johann kissed his wife quickly, embarrassed slightly at the Director's approving smile, and they were out in the elevator, heading toward the big, waiting cars. "Now I trust you, Johann Volcek," the Director told him. "Now I can go with you to this test. With such a wife waiting you, there can be no trickery against the State. No--don't say it! It is not you I could distrust--it is everyone I must distrust. But not now. What does the doctor say?" "Another year." For a time they had been afraid that Stefanie could never have children again, but the new treatments had apparently been effective. Centralia's progress in all phases of gynecology had been spectacular. The Director nodded. "Good. The State needs such children as you will have. And a man has need of little ones. But tell me--you still feel sure of this test?" Then the talk became technical. Johann was sure. There had been smaller tests, during the two years the project had been going on, and all of them had been effective. Then cold fingers ran over him, tingling at the ends of his nerves, as he realized the trick semantics was playing on him. Test? It had been the name they had given it, and in time it had come to be no more than that in his mind--a test of his theories. But this was _not_ just a test. This was the feat itself, the step that would bring an end to half the world, the culmination of the hopes of Centralia, and the final, positive proof of the ideas of Volcek. He had been almost unaware of the power that had grown from his idea, but now it hit him. It wasn't easy to do that to half a world, even in these days. But it had to be done.