At 5 p.m. the Flying Greyhound dropped on Cephalon airport and there was Oona looking very pale, but very beautiful in the gathering dusk. She grabbed Lee by the arm leading him to the other side of the hangar where stood her little jetticopter plane. "Let's get in here," she said. "I'm freezing and I don't want you to be seen around here."
She didn't put on the lights, yet even in the dark Lee could see the golden helmet of her hair shimmering like the pale gold in the halo of the Virgin as the primitive art of Tuscany presented her a thousand years ago. She nestled the soft fur of her coat against Lee's shoulders and as she did he felt her shivering. He put a protecting arm around her, careful to do it as a friend, careful to suppress the surge of blood which started burning in his veins. She seemed to be groping for words; it took a little while before she began to speak, with clarity and simplicity as she always did but with an audible effort to keep composed:
"I've brought you a suitcase, Semper, with a few necessities. And I brought you some money, later you can send me your check. And here are the keys of the plane. Fly over to Mexico; go back to Australia from there or anywhere you want, but do get out of this country and do it quick. I couldn't tell you that over the phone and I shouldn't be telling this to you now, but I feel I must.
"You're in danger and it's serious. Why? I don't know, but Howard seems to suspect your loyalty. He also seems to think that you've gone out of your mind. And Howard has taken measures; he has ordered re-examination of your broad aptitude test. He has voiced his suspicion as to your sanity to Bondy and Mellish and you know what kind of yes-men those fellows are in the face of an authority like Scriven's. Trust them to discover something wrong with you, trust them to give the test some kind of a convenient twist. They're going to have you certified, they're going to put you into a mental institution, Semper.
"Do you get that? Do you realize that it's fate worse than death? Do you understand that there is nothing you can do to escape that fate except by flight? I have no idea when it's going to be, this trap they're going to spring on you; but for God's sake, Semper, get going as long as there's still time. Any moment now some plainclothesman might grab you by the arm and then...."
It was she who had grabbed him by the arm, Oona who looked into his face, her big eyes moist.
Lee strained his willpower so it would control the tremor of his voice:
"Oona; there's one thing I have got to know: What made you tell me this—and do all this so I could get away?"
The girl's eyes didn't waver from his. "I remember," she said slowly, "I remember that I felt as if I could throw conventions into the wind at the very first time we met. I've always been frank with you, as much as I could be in my position. So then I don't mind telling you now that ... I like you immensely, Semper."
As if agitated by some electric shock, Lee's arm tightened around the girl's waist. "Oona, I have asked you once before to be my wife. You said you couldn't and I thought it was because you didn't like me well enough. But now, after what you've just told me, now that we both know about The Brain and that I wasn't insane in my observations, I'm asking you again: Be my wife, Oona, and then let's go together—anywhere—away from all this, to the end of the world."