Gasping, he asked, "What happened? Where have I been? How did we get here? Why don't I remember coming here?" "Don't repeat my question," the last philosopher said, "or he may be trapped by it again." Slurring over the crux of the matter, Pat gently tried to bring Comstock up to date. The guards recovered some of their equanimity and brutally shoved all three of them out of the car. The last philosopher, still bound, crashed to his face as they evicted him. Pat hurried to untie him, and help him to his feet. Then, inside a living square formed by the R.A.'s they were ushered back into the ante-room which Comstock, Grundy and Helen had escaped from a month earlier. Surprise was piled on surprise for Comstock. When the R.A.'s shoved him into the room he saw, waiting, sitting in chairs, Helen and Grundy. Standing, pacing back and forth was Bowdler, his heavy face set with thought. Helen cried, "We thought you were dead!" Then there were introductions, and explanations, and it was only when Bowdler finally interrupted and said, "Hold everything. You realize it is late at night, and it is only because of the uniqueness of the situation that the Board of Fathers is sitting in extraordinary session, in order to decide what to do with you all, that I am here." This sufficed to let Comstock and Pat know that Bowdler was still playing his double game. Helen whispered in Comstock's ear. "Bowdler pretended that he had captured us and brought us here and then invoked the special session of the Fathers." Just as the door that led into the Board of Fathers began to open, Bowdler said, his voice harsh with urgency, "I want you to go in there, not as prisoners come to judgment, but as stalwarts who demand a fitting place in the government of our world. "Audacity, my little ones, audacity is the order of the day!" Bowdler smiled as he saw the puzzlement spread over Comstock's and Pat's faces. "Follow the lead of Grundy and Helen. I've had time to tell them a little more than I have told you two!" The door was open wide now, and as Comstock girded his loins preparatory to what he was sure would be a battle to the death against impossible odds, the R.A. who had entered, bowed to Bowdler and said, "The Fathers request your presence, Father Bowdler." Then their last prop was gone, and they just sat and waited, staring at the door which had closed behind Bowdler. * * * * * The three who had endured so much sat and waited. The three plus Pat and the last philosopher. When you have fought for as long as they had against forces strong almost beyond imagining, when you have struggled in despair, lived without daring to think, hope, when it finally comes is almost anti-climactic. At least Comstock found it so. Despite the traps, the violence, the hurts, the fear, they were now where they wanted to be.