Oktav reacted. All his earlier doubts and flashes of rebellion were suddenly consolidated into a burning desire to shake the complacency of the others. He gave his ironic thoughts their head, sent them whipping through the dark. "Who are you to tell whether or not there's pain in instantaneous obliteration? Oh yes, the botched worlds, the controls, the experiments that failed--they don't matter, let's put them out of their misery, let's get rid of the evidence of our mistakes, let's obliterate them because we can't stand their mute accusations. As if the Earthlings of the botched worlds didn't have as much right to their future, no matter how sorry and troubled, as the Earthlings of the main trunk. What crime have they committed save that of guessing wrong, when, by your admission, all was guess-work? What difference is there between the main trunk and the lopped branches, except your judgment that the former seems happier, more successful? Let me tell you something. You've coddled the main-trunk world for so long, you've tied your limited human affections to it so tightly, that you've gotten to believing that it's the only real world, the only world that counts--that the others are merely ghosts, object lessons, hypothetics. But in actuality they're just as throbbingly alive, just as deserving of consideration, just as real." "They no longer exist," thought Prim crushingly. "It is obvious that your mind, tainted by Earth-bound emotions, has become hopelessly disordered. You are pleading the cause of that which no longer is."