Lee put the lid back on the "Lignin-Filler-Spout." He closed the panel so the wall looked whole again. He gathered the sticks of cordwood from the floor and piled them neatly to their stacks again. All this he did like a child putting its things away after a long day's play; a grey-haired child, weary, with the sandman in its eyes. He looked around and found everything done and over with. On the fluorescent screens all curves The Brain described had dropped to the bottom. Like dead things they lay flat. On the visi-screens some stay-behinds of the great exodus were looming large, a hapless little ant-king scurrying about; a few disabled workers, their blind eyes staring into the face of death. It would come soon to them; their work on earth was done.... Lee looked at the clock: 10 p.m. He put out the lights and locked the door behind that yawning emptiness which once had been his lab, which he would never see again. As he descended in the elevator he felt very tired. CHAPTER IX Incessant shrieks of the phone aroused Lee from the deep well of his sleep. He didn't know the female voice which fairly jumped at him. "Is this Dr. Lee? Dr. Semper F. Lee from Canberra; am I at last connected with Dr. Lee?" "Lee speaking." "I've been phoning for you all over The Brain Lee. Have you forgotten you had an appointment with us? Checking up on your broad aptitude test. The doctors are waiting. This is Vivian Leahy speaking; don't you remember me?" "Yes, of course." The picture of the loquacious angel who had guided him to the medical center on his first trip flashed back into his mind. "I know I have an appointment for this afternoon; I'll be there." "But, Dr. Lee, this _is_ this afternoon; it's four p.m. already. You aren't ill, Dr. Lee, are you? You sound so strange." Lee assured her that he wasn't and that he would be over right away. "It's a miracle they left me undisturbed that long," he thought as he shaved and dressed. His personal fate would be decided within the next two hours he knew; it would be the end. But even as the tension mounted in his consciousness he thought triumphantly. "I've had sixteen hours of sleep; that's marvelous. Nobody can take that away. The body has recharged its energies. Now I can stand the gaff." Down at the desk they handed him a Western Union. It was from Washington and bore no signature. "Mission completed," it read. It made him feel fine. "Father has done it; he is a better man than I," he thought. While the car streaked though the desert Lee scanned the morning papers. "No Trace Of President Vandersloot," still was the headline. But below new havocs were listed as they had developed overnight. This time the West coast was the zone of catastrophes; the hostile power seemed to be bent upon the closing of all ports in the U.S.A. Lee gnashed his teeth as he read the number of new casualties, women and children, too, who had become the victims of The Brain.