Ahead of them the odd buildings that housed the Board and The Grandfather rose up in their way. The globular buildings inside of which were both the Elders and the Fathers were dwarfed by the height of the shaft of The Grandfather's residence.
The R.A.'s were as silent and seemingly unthinking as machines. Their first visible emotion had been one of jubilance at having caught Pat and Comstock but that had faded under the fear of punishment for not having caught them sooner.
They sat statue still, their hands on their guns as the car drove up to the entrance of the buildings.
One of the R.A.'s left the machine to go for further orders from his superior officer.
In the car the last philosopher said softly, "Perhaps whatever little nobility there is in man is best served by dying with one's eyes open. I shall not again retreat into the lie of the Picaroon." He smiled gently at Pat, and said, "I think I will like dying as one of you, as a rebel."
But all Pat's attention was on her beloved who had never stirred from the curled up position into which his thoughts had forced him.
Seeing this, the last philosopher said, "There is one chance, and only one that I can think of that may revive him. Perhaps love, an emotion of which I know very little, may be strong enough to pull him out of that place to which he has run for safety."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"To me," the man said, "as a philosopher, the charms of love and sex were never very strong. But I should imagine, just as pure speculation, that the two must be very tightly entwined."
Deep, deep down inside the thing that Comstock had become he felt a stirring of some kind of interest. He did not yet know what was causing the sensation, he could not hear the love words that Pat was whispering in his ear, he was not really conscious of her soft hands caressing him, but something was taking place, something that seemed to have reality in a place where there was no such thing.