"Steven, I want to talk to you."
"It's no use, sir!"
"You're headstrong, Steven. You pit a few years' research against my work of a lifetime. Once I respected you. I thought you would carry on for me as I've carried on for the generations that came before me."
"I am, sir."
"You are not." The old man clutched at the boy's tunic and spoke intensely. "You betray all of us. You will cut short a line of research that promises the salvation of humanity. In five minutes you will wipe out five centuries of work. You owe it to those who slaved before us not to let their sweat go in vain."
The boy said: "I have a debt also to those who may die."
"You think too much of death, too little of life. What if a thousand more are killed—ten thousand—in the end it will be worth it."
"It will never be worth it. There will never be an end. The theory has always been wrong, faultily premised."
"You fool!" the old man cried. "You damned, blasted young fool. You can't go in there!"