More and more, observing the Degraded--the only less than bestial stupidity of the horde and the derived intelligence or trained reflexes of the Sons--O'Hara was conscious of feeling that it was indeed a sublime intelligence that guided them, something they accepted without challenge as infallible, which in the inevitable pattern of such conceptions that spoke of as the Father but which more probably was a cabal of the more superior of the Sons, a ruling organism probably not unlike the Twelve Old Men of Geneva. But to Nedra such reflections were not only senseless, they were silly. The masses of the Degraded, the Sons and even the Father were only varying terms for describing a loathsome people--worms, the clansmen called them. And only his curiosity kept O'Hara from tending to agree with that. "You see?" said Nedra. "You should have killed me earlier, in the mountains, for this is the way it goes when you deal with the Degraded--you are passed from band to band, always deeper into the contamination in which they live, always with less and less chance of escaping them. They will be taking us now down into this city of theirs, Emporia, and how then, O'Hara, do you propose that we shall ever get away?" There was truth in this. But O'Hara could not see that they were really worse off than before. "Let me coin a phrase or two," he said ironically. "While there's life, there's hope, and we can only die once." "Those are the worst of lies," Nedra answered, her chin set stubbornly. "You can die a thousand times, each time more horribly than the times before, and while there is life it sometimes happens that it's only life to die again. Are you afraid to die, O'Hara?" "Not afraid, but reluctant." "Why? Are better nights coming in our lives than those we passed together in our cavern?" "Not better, Nedra--but as interesting, perhaps, and certainly I would not wish to cancel out that possibility. A man who is dying of thirst in the middle of the desert does not seek death because the water that he may reach will not be sweeter than the water that he once had drunk. But it's more than that--more than the carrot dangled always just beyond the donkey's nose. In my world, beyond the Curtain, we cling to the belief that life itself is sacred and that always, finally, we may achieve redemption." "What is redemption?" "Life after death--a finer life than we have lived." "You think only of yourselves," said Nedra, "and thinking only of yourselves, that notion may be true. But what of the clan? Have you forgotten, O'Hara, what the sickness does? We have got it now, you and I, as the Degraded have always had it--and what it has made of them it will make of the child that I am carrying." "That you--?" he said, and gave it up, for there was no answer. None at all in logic, and Nedra had no concept of religion. Instead, he touched his lips against her face, a quick caress before she spoke again.