They sat quietly, their hands folded, and if any feeling of triumph was in them, it was so muted as not to be observable. At that precise moment, when they sat in the ante-room, waiting for their reward, if reward it were to be, the only common emotion they shared was that they had fought a good fight. Fought as hard as it is in a person to fight for what they consider right. Then the door opened and instead of the summons to come before the Board of Fathers which they had expected, The Grandfather entered the room. The Grandfather, with his high hooked nose, his broad forehead, deep set harsh old blue eyes, focussed on the middle distance, his strong old hands crossed on his stomach just below his patriarchal beard, his tremendous height forcing him to look down at them. It was hard to believe. Hard to believe that they, or anyone below the rank of Father would ever actually behold Him in the flesh. When He spoke His voice was all the things they had known it would be... Deep as an organ base, calm, full of authority, stern, yet with a leavening of those other things that make up the whole man, his voice was almost gentle as he said, "Follow me, please." They rose, and feeling like little children, followed his preposterously tall, spare back, out of the ante-room, into that other room where the Board awaited them. There was no fear in them now as there would have been earlier. For they were not coming before the Board for judgement, but to be rewarded. At least that's what Grundy and Helen had been told by Bowdler. The Grandfather pointed out Comstock, Helen and Grundy, and said, "These three are the original ones. The other two," his gesture pointed out the last philosopher and Pat, "are the newer recruits." There was silence. "They have come to join us," The Grandfather said. The silence expanded. "Gentlemen, Fathers all, these are three new Fathers." The Grandfather's voice faded away and there was no other sound. Some of the men who made up the Board of Fathers said a word. But the ones who had fought their way up to this eminence stood in silence and looking about them, examined the men with whom they would now share the control of their whole world. This was the moment of their triumph. CHAPTER 13 When Bowdler and Grundy had first sounded out Comstock and had asked him the questions that had led him so far from the normal law-abiding life that had been his, one of the mainsprings of his conduct had been envy mixed with disgust that the Fathers whom formerly he had so revered had become monsters in his mind. Monsters who had used the whole planet as a breeding ground for their harems. For when the thought that only the Fathers were really fathers had struck Comstock he had resolved that he too would like to take part in such noble work.