Greg's numbness was filtering away beneath Pat's warm glad eyes. He raised his hand. The heat-blaster was still gripped in his fingers. It evidently hadn't been fired.
"It was all illusion," he said. "The scene in the cavern. It never happened?"
Merrol's care-lined face nodded. "It happened, but in your mind, Greg. We rescued you and Drakeson from the cannibal plant. We brought you here. You had lost consciousness. We put you under the hypnosene rays, and put you through an experience that was quite real to you. We proved something to ourselves, and to you. Greg—you're sane now."
Greg tried to understand. The thing didn't make sense yet, but the glimmerings of the truth were beginning to solidify in his aching brain.
"Sane? But I killed. I wanted to kill. I wanted to destroy, and I did. That's hardly the actions of a—sane man."
Merrol smiled thinly. "From our point of view it is, Greg. We consider ourselves sane. We consider the Cowled Cities, and the Codes insane. It's relative I supposed, but I think we can convince you, if we haven't already."
Greg looked at Pat. She smiled. He smiled back. "Justified or not," he whispered. "I'm here. Sane or insane, I'm one of the Colonists now I guess. Unless I want to return to the Cowls, be probed and re-conditioned."
Pat whispered. "Do you, Greg?"
He shook his head. "Not now. I'm tired. I don't want to now. Maybe I never will. All I want now, is rest."
Merrol leaned across the desk. "Before you rest, you'd better get a few things straight, Greg. We want you to be convinced that you're doing the right thing. We feel that the big Chain blow-up shocked the whole human race into a mass psychosis, comparable to individual cases of hysteria, schizophrenia, escape from reality. That's why the non-change, non-aggressiveness Codes were established. Also, the anesthesia, the Dream Continuity Scale—nothing but hysteria on a mass and planned basis."