Lee let the heavy shears come down and leaned upon the handles, panting as after a hand-to-hand death struggle with a Samurai. Now that it was all over, complete exhaustion left him weak, saddened and vaguely wondering:
What had he done? He had destroyed the SUPERMAN, the MASTERMIND, the powers of a GOD. Why had he done it? For no good reason excepting entirely personal ideas of his own—because a friend had been murdered cruelly. Because his own concepts of freedom and human dignity had been violated. Because he personally loathed seeing Man-domineering machines....
What did all this amount to in the eyes of the absolute? To nothing; to nothing at all. For milleniums the struggle of human freedom versus tyranny had raged; and it was undecided to this day. Who was he to take sides? A nobody, a little fellow, a termitologist whose work meant nothing to the world. How had he dared to sit in judgment over The Brain, how had he dared to slay The Brain—a little David with nothing more but "three smooth pebbles" in his hands....
Down at his feet the spilled lignin formed a widening pool; it threatened to envelope his feet. It looked like blood. He shivered. Now he had killed The Brain he thought of it again as a child. Man had created it in his own image. Man had ruthlessly exploited his Brainchild. If this titanic intellect turned toward evil things, the fault was Man's. The Brain was innocent. He felt no remorse, but a great sadness, a sense of tragedy as he stepped around the pool and closed the door of the pineal gland.
"What a pity," he murmured. "Maybe it could have built us a better world."
Nobody stopped him as he joined a group of firemen who had just returned from the parietal region, partly gassed; he looked as begrimed and as green in the face as any of them.
Nobody stopped him or his group as orders came through for them to evacuate; as they were packed on glideways first and then transferred down at Grand Central into ambulances which raced through all controls at a great rate of speed.
Nobody stopped him at Cephalon airport where the ambulance jetticopters already were lined up to lift the victims over the Sierra to big West Coast hospitals. He simply walked away in the confusion, out of the red glare of the whirling jets into the darkness where Oona's little jetticopter stood. He stripped the heavy asbestos suit and left it on the frozen ground. It felt strange to feel the easy movement of every limb again. It was strange to stand under the infinity of sky again; a free man.
Would he be followed? He felt no anxiety about that. He felt that he was guided and protected by some higher power, be it that of God or simply Fate. What he had done was destined, was ordained. Besides: Dad knew the inside story about The Brain; proof was abundant now that it was the truth. Washington would take every precaution that the secret should not become known to the world. Dad's friend, the Secretary of War, would be rather relieved to learn that the one man who knew the truth in its whole extent had retired into the wilderness of Australia's never-never lands. Chances were excellent that they would leave him alone amongst his termite mounds. A great wave of nostalgia swept over him—the wilderness; that was where he belonged. "Mission completed," he murmured. "Now let's get out of here."