It was dark when he arrived in the upper valley.
Theta was sitting at a table. She sprang up and rushed into his arms with a glad cry.
"It worked! They let you go?"
He looked about. "You turned the power back on?"
"No. The plant and these buildings have a separate power source of their own. I wasn't going to touch it until I knew you were safe."
He drew an apple from a bin and munched it. "We'd better turn things on again before the fruit spoils. Come on...."
The button, Henry knew, turned on as well as off. Henry pressed down the button, stepped back to watch the large battery of lights flash on, but nothing happened. Had Theta somehow wrecked—ah! The red buttons all began to glow again. Then, a minute later, a bank of lights switched to green, then another and another. But Henry noted that an occasional light did not change.
Within the hour the board was lighted up completely.
Henry could barely stumble back to his quarters as the reaction set in compounded with disappointment. He flung himself on his bed.
"I have failed," he kept muttering. "I have failed in everything. They won't listen. No one will!"