And so it was no dream. O'Hara returned the book to his jacket. He crossed the room and bent over Anstruther. Would it be a betrayal now to awaken him and lead him as the remembered voice of the Father had commanded? Yet it was true, his reason told him, that he himself could enforce the Father's promise neither to destroy Anstruther nor to detain him from the fate he wished for himself. "Anstruther," he whispered. The Sons stirred sluggishly upon the floor. One of them hunched himself up to his feet. Another fumbled for the shining tube of his authority. "Anstruther," said O'Hara, shaking him. The Sons were focusing upon him now with their weak eyes, and moving toward him silently, their faces blank, seeming malignant in their utter lack of expression. "Anstruther!" cried O'Hara, whirling toward the Sons. "Wake up, Anstruther!" And Anstruther leaped up. The pale blue of his eyes was swallowing the pupils. "Yes--yes, now!" he cried. "The hour!" The Sons fell back, as silently as they had advanced, their hands loose on the shining tubes they swept in little arcs. O'Hara said, "I can lead you to the Father." "Yes--I know--" "But you risk your life. The Father may destroy you." "Yes." "The choice is yours." "I have no choice. I seek him." "Then follow me," O'Hara said, and turned into the corridor. Anstruther and the Sons came after him. Beyond the blasted wall a panel opened in the seamless bright magnesium, and when all had passed through it and began to climb the steps, the panel shut them into darkness. O'Hara halted now and turned again. "You have your atom guns. You can blast your way back into the corridor. I must tell you that the Father knows that you are approaching. He asked me to lead you." "Yes. Lead on." "I will not do it, Anstruther. Despite his pledge and despite the logic of his argument to support it, I will not lead you further into what is certainly a trap for you." "What is the way to go?" Anstruther asked impatiently. "But what do you hope to accomplish?" "All that any man can accomplish--to meet with evil and combat it." "Regardless of whether the Father is evil, you cannot combat him. Your only chance of ultimate success is to avoid him until the Sons and the masses everywhere will rise against him." "But unless I meet him, they will never rise." "You mean unless you die?" In the darkness their voices had sunk to whispers. The turgid, thick-nosed breathing of the Sons made hearing difficult, yet neither of them noticed it. For each of them knew both the questions and the answers that must come. "Yes. Unless I die." O'Hara knew now that Anstruther could not be stopped. He had set for himself this course toward inevitable death; he had been constantly seeking it; he meant to give the Sons whom he had taught and the masses that he had not yet been able to teach, and might never have been able to teach, a martyr.