O'Hara hesitated. But he knew already that there was no way of returning through the Tube to Emporia and through subterranean city to the plains and beyond the photosynthetron to the mountains. There were no odds at all. It was impossible. His only path was forward to the Father. He turned, and passed through the panel which closed instantly behind him, shutting off the sight of the kneeling Son. The floor of the shaft now began rising swiftly. When at last it stopped, another panel opened, and O'Hara with Nedra in his arms walked out into the radiance of the sun itself. He was uncertain how long he stood there, his sightless eyes aching. And if this brilliance also had the purpose of humbling him, it failed, for anger became defiance, the crazy courage of all trapped animals. "If I could see," he cried aloud. "If only I could see--" "You shall see, O'Hara," said the voice. "And I rejoice that you have chosen me above death." As the sentence was done, the volume of the voice was dropping so swiftly that the final words seemed no more than a whisper, close. The brilliancy too was diminishing, and light was taking form and shape. "When you have seen," the voice was whispering, "you will no longer be angry, O'Hara. You too will rejoice. Consider this, all your adult life you have constantly wondered what would lie beyond the Atomic Curtain, what had transpired in these two hundred and seventy years within the two Lost Continents, and here particularly, within the United States--within its Capital of Washington. Now you are going to know. I am going to show you. To teach you, O'Hara. I have wished so often in these years that it could be told to someone who could understand it. I have thought at times that the man had come, a real Son, O'Hara, for you are not the first to cross the Curtain. But the others were inadequate. They failed me, and I--perhaps I too was not quite adequate. Now you are here. Can you see, O'Hara?" The glare was gone, but utter darkness had succeeded it. "I can see nothing. These tricks of light and dark are stupid, Father. If you intend by them to frighten me--" "It is only the contraction of the pupils of your eyes," the Father said. "They will adjust. Surely I have not brought you here to frighten you. Do you see yet?" "I cannot--wait!--a wall--" "You are now at the bottom of a pit. I cannot always trust those who come to me." "--above me, twenty feet, and on the parapets of it--a bearded man, as fragile as the Twelve Old Men--" "Yes, I am old. You see me now?" "I see you now," O'Hara answered. "Very dimly, I see you. They call you the Father?" "It was wise to have them call me that. But you need not. My name is Bryce--Stephen Bryce--Stephen Bryce, how very odd that sounds! I have not heard my name for better than a century. Let me hear it now--" "Stephen Bryce."