"I know your record, Semper; I know just why you ran away and became an expatriate the first time--way back in '49. Her name was Ethel Franholt and just because she happened to be a little bitch and worst of all: jilted you for old money-bags Carson's son, you took it hard. Granted that it was a fierce letdown, those postwar years were a nasty picture generally; did it solve your problem to sulk out there in the desert like Achilles in his tent? You know it didn't. You were _not_ through with civilization be it good or bad. You were _not_ through, as now it turns out, even with the other sex. That human problem which was the immediate reason why you left, the one named Ethel, has traveled back and forth to Reno three or four times and is currently married to one Padraic O'Conner, a Chicago cop. Don't you think that it was good riddance when she married old man Carson's son? Do you think your leaving made one iota of a difference or altered a solution as ordained by fate?" "No," he said humbly. "Then why are you trying that selfsame escapist solution now? Maybe you're right about The Brain and maybe you're wrong; that I wouldn't know. I've been working with scientists for too long to rule out anything as impossible. But that's exactly it. You have not _solved_ this problem one way or another yet, not even to your own satisfaction. To abandon it now, to flee from it in self preservation; why that would be almost like desertion in the face of the enemy. You have got to see this thing through to the end. If it turns out that you are suffering from a neurosis, there still will be time to do something about it. If you are right and some machine-god has indeed descended upon this earth, then it is your plain duty to stay on because you are its prophet whether you like it or not and would know better how to handle it than anybody else. Perhaps our mechanized civilization _is_ going to the dogs; as Scriven suspects and you and maybe I myself. But even so we cannot abandon it; we belong, we are part of it, we're in it to the bitter end." Lee nodded slowly. "Yes, I see what you mean. Please forgive me, Oona; The Brain, has a terrific force of attrition, it's been wearing me down--Keeping everything to myself and thinking that you would shrink from me as from a madman. Tell me then, what shall I do? Should I tell Scriven or anybody else about this thing?"