"You see, O'Hara?" the voice was saying from all corners of the immense hall, although O'Hara now was standing close beside the bed. "At this moment it is you who have the privilege to do what could not be accomplished by the Muscovite--you can destroy these continents. For if I die, these people die." The lids were closed above the blazing youthful eyes and Stephen Bryce had thus become a wasted, ancient skull, alive but only that. His blue-veined hand lay fragilely upon the coverlet, close to a metal panel that was studded countlessly with unmarked keys. "You pass the privilege?" the Father said ironically, his voice a whisper within inches of his lips, yet booming from the corners of the hall, an acoustical arrangement that O'Hara did not notice for the first few seconds, so intent was he upon the substance of his words. "I have delayed for your arrival," the Father was saying, "the Deluge at Emporia. But these ten additional months of life have not surprised them, or are they grateful. My people," he said, and his eyes seemed to burst open, "are incapable of either surprise or gratitude, which limits the satisfaction that I get from playing God. As you observe, I'm not a god--not quite, I suppose, any longer a creature of flesh and blood, but certainly not a god. Few here, behind the Atomic Curtain, are aware of that. Yourself, and Anstruther--and it was also Anstruther who restored to me the realization that neither am I quite immortal. I'd almost forgotten that. You heard, perhaps--a matter of two broken arms and the debilitation that resulted from the shock of it. That is why I am here, upon this grandiose bed, the old lion bearded, O'Hara--the old stag at bay at last. Done for, O'Hara." The hand rose slowly, fluttering. "And now, the decencies of life. I have things to show you that a woman might not wish to see. And things to tell you that no child should hear, whether it comprehends or not. Send them away--send them toward the wall upon your left, it is prepared for them. At any time you can recall them if you wish, for the slightest whisper on this dais is magnified to thunder--oh, you've noticed that? Send them--at once--the decencies; I have not forgotten." The eyes were closing. The hand had dropped upon the coverlet. It was as if the Father were already dead. For a moment O'Hara remained beside the bed, then he turned and descended the steps of the dais to Nedra, and after explaining what the Father had requested--Nedra left at once, without a glance at him--he returned again to the bedside of Stephen Bryce.