"W-what?" Andra asked, nervous before his excitement.
"What if the question should be, not what is the Hive, but why is the Hive!" the young man gasped.
"Do you really think it could give you the reasons for the Hive's existence, the absence of hospitals, everything?"
"I don't know," said Lloyd, swiveling in the chair to face the keyboard once more. "But I mean to find out...."
He typed, carefully, the words: Why is the Hive? Andra stood and watched, anxiously, as he depressed the starter-button beside the keyboard again. Again the lights and the eerie whistlings of the Brain arose in maddening crescendo all about her, while Lloyd twitched and shuddered, his eyes clamped rigidly closed, in the chair. And then there was calm again, and silence, and the lights ceased their dance.
Lloyd tore off the headband and spun to face Andra. His eyes were wide with shock, and his jaw gaped imbecilically.
"Lloyd!" Andra took him by the shoulders and shook him, her heart thudding painfully at the apprehension in her breast. "Lloyd, what is it! What happened!"
He blinked, shook his head, and then seemed to see her for the first time. His mouth worked, and then he said, "I know, Andra! I know what the Hive is all about!"
"It must be terrible, something terrible," she said, frightened at his intensity. "Your face—your eyes—"
"No!" he said. "Not terrible. Awesome, perhaps, and stunning, but not terrible. Sit down, Andra. I'm going to tell you something that will chill you to the bones—And you're going to like what you hear."