The picture blew away while the voice continued: "She is a woman, not a woman who half resembles a man." A pause. "When you wish to leave the city, ask for the final card. You are welcome." There was silence and darkness. Twenty-three stirred. He opened his eyes. The glow from the city outside filtered into the room through the translucent walls. He lay motionless. Paul. He was Paul. Not Twenty-three. A man with a name. Wonder came into him, and a sense of strength, and a willingness to remember without fear. His mind ran back to the first mistake, almost a year past. He remembered the horror of failure then and the terror at his being subjected to a mistake. He remembered the inference from the Superfather that there might be a bad strain in his blood line. He remembered taking the dream cards that were to have set him straight, that were to have shown him working over the machines with super speed, moving up along the production line to its pinnacle and on up to the position of Superfather and on up to Superfather-plus and on up to the place of Father of The City. But the cards had been sabotaged, so that from them into his mind had come the dreams of the trees and the oceans and the green earth spreading off to the horizon and the expanse of blue sky. And then the words had directed him to the little man who had given him the cards on the street corner. They had known him, the words had said, through what was called telepathetic screening, for ones suitable to leave the city. He was one of those chosen, because he, like a few others, had been unable to adjust completely to the demands of the city. He was one of those in whom a rebellious nature had been passed down from generation to generation, by attitudes and acts of his ancestors, by a word spoken here and one there, by an intangible reaching out toward the sky and the green growing things and the need to understand who and what he was. But in him now this feeling was weak and close to death and would die in him if it were not brought out into life of the Earth. Now the memories receded; he lay motionless, listening to his breathing and his heartbeat, feeling his body press against the softness that held him. * * * * * Suddenly a shaft of light fell on him through the transparent square. Opening his eyes, he saw his wife's face staring down at him. She moved her hand. The lid of the tube raised. He lay watching her, feeling naked and, for a moment, helpless. "I talked for a long while with your Superfather," she said. "I feel better. He told me you'd promised to take the prescribed dreams tonight." Twenty-three turned his face away from her. She began to undress. "I'm going out for a walk." He stepped from the machine. She watched him dress, her look a mixture of curiosity and fright. When he left it was as though he were leaving an empty room and she watched him as though he were not quite human.