Lee had been talking intensely, almost desperately for quite some time, watching her as she lay back in her seat, her eyes half closed, hands folded behind her neck, the perfect hemispheres of her breasts caressed by the rainbows as they rose slowly with the even rhythm of her breath. "And now you know everything, Oona," he ended, "do you think I'm mad?" "No." Her eyelids fluttered like wings of a butterfly as she turned to him. Her right arm came down upon Lee's shoulder in a gesture of confidence. He breathed relief as he saw no fear, not even uneasiness in the blue depths of those beautiful eyes. Her hand upon his shoulder felt soothing and at the same time electrifying; like the purple descending upon the shoulder of a king. "No," she repeated slowly: "the fact that you feel The Brain is alive and possessed with a personality of its own, doesn't make you mad. I've always felt that way about machines; even the simple ones like automobiles. It was in the mountains north of San Francisco where I grew up; whenever we went to town in winter time and the car came roaring down those serpentines into the heavy air moist with fog and soft rains, I could feel that engine breathe deeper and rejoice over its added power. There was no doubt in my mind that it was a living thing. I often went to the garage when I was little to talk to that car; to children of another age their dolls were alive, for our generation it's the machines. It's natural that this should be so. There's a child in every man, no matter how adult. There is in Howard Scriven, too; in all the scientists I've come to know, and the greater they are the more it is distinct. You identify yourself with your work and in the degree you do that it becomes a living thing; it is through vital imagination that we become creators of anything, be it love or a machine. You needn't worry, Semper; let The Brain be alive, let it be a personality, that doesn't make you mad. All it indicates is that you're doing excellent work." Lee blinked. With an effort he turned his eyes away from those breasts which seemed to strive for the light of the sun from under the restraint of her Navajo Indian sweater dress. He felt the utter inadequacy, the devastating irony of words as now he was alone with Oona, up in the clouds in a plane with nobody to interfere for the first time. "You fool," a voice whispered in him, "you damned, you helpless fool. Why don't you take her into your arms now? Isn't this the fulfillment of all your dreams; what are you waiting for?" But: "No," his ration answered, "that wouldn't do. Maybe she would give in to the mood of some enchanted hour, maybe she would let herself be kissed. But if she did, it would be 'one of those things'; the glory of the sunset, God's great masterpiece, the Canyon spread below, the intensity of my desire. They are bound to enter, bound to confuse the issue."