"I don't know what made me look at his dreams," she cried. "Maybe it was when I asked him if he'd taken the prescribed dreams and he didn't answer.... Anyway, I tested his machine. It was insane!" "Dreams made by some twisted mind," the Superfather said. "Remember. They've no real existence. Nothing lives or moves outside the city. There were old myths but they've been dead for countless generations." He paused. "Where _are_ the pictures?" "I burned them." "Good." He motioned to the men behind him. They came forward and stood on each side of Twenty-three. "Twenty-three," said the Superfather, "we may have to erase your memories and your present individuality." He cleared his throat. "Our records show that some two thousand people have disappeared in the last five years. Your case has much to do with it.... Where'd you get the new cards?" Twenty-three was silent. The Superfather pulled out a pack of cards. "Before we leave this room, you'll be a different man. If you tell us,"--he waggled the cards in his right hand--"this'll be your new life. You'll have dreams of outdoing every man on the machine lines and fix your body so you'll have the capacity to do it. You _will_ do it. You'll become a Superfather. You'll burn to excel them. You'll push on up, become a Superfather-plus. You'll work with ideas, ways of increasing efficiency, pushing the workmen faster and faster. And you'll find ways of conditioning them to meet the greater and greater demands for speed. The city and people'll be at your fingertips. There'll be rooms of marble and gold for you. Soft carpets and buttons to push that'll give you any desire instantly. You'll _have_ everything and _be_ everything!" He paused and took a deep breath. "All this'll be yours if you'll tell us where you got the cards, without forcing us to probe your mind with the electric-scalpel...." With an effort, Twenty-three raised his eyes to the Superfather's face. "And if I don't tell you?" "Moving a lever back and forth twice a minute hour after hour, year after year. Living in a bare cubicle. No entertainment. No desires." He paused. "And no _memories_." Twenty-three looked over the Superfather's shoulder. The last card, he thought, is in the machine. Escape from the city. They said that, from outside. I've got to know. No matter what they put in the machine, that card will show first. Even if it's only for ten seconds or thirty or sixty, or however long--I'll know. "No," he said, "I won't tell you...." The woman gasped and hid her face. The Superfather, scowling, made a motion. The two dark men took hold of Twenty-three. They lifted him into the tube. The Superfather dropped the second pack of cards into the panel and pressed the button. The top closed silently, like a mouth. Twenty-three's eyes closed; his body waited. * * * * *