And Nedra said, "Wait now, O'Hara."
"Yes," said Anstruther, "wait. This is my hour."
One of the Sons was now pressing his shining weapon against O'Hara's back, but his eyes were moving irresolutely, watching both Anstruther's upraised hand and O'Hara's half-crouched body and aware—constantly and fearfully aware—of the silent small form prostrate on the enormous bed above them. And the miracle of the vast hall, that the Father's voice was a senile whisper when heard upon the dais but an overwhelming and godlike roar a few feet from it, gave those Sons further from the bed the strange obsession of listening to a deity's words come thundering from dying lips.
"It is indeed Anstruther's hour," said Stephen Bryce, and the Sons pressed forward to the steps of the dais.
Anstruther lowered his hand. "You have brought me here at last, Stephen Bryce," he said, "into this hall which is the symbol and the origin of your power. It was for this meeting that my craft was guided by a power more sublime than yours through the Atomic Curtain into Patagonia, and that the Sons then sent me northward through the Tube, that I might meet you here and take from you those keys and their control of the integrocalculators I might once again restore these people to the dignity of men—"
"You hear, O'Hara?" said the Father. "None of this springs from Anstruther's will. This is the classic attitude of the Messiah. Avoid this attitude, never believe that what you do is not the fruit of your own thinking and your volition."
Anstruther's own voice now again was audible, but he was looking past the Father and the keyboard now, toward Nedra.
"—and to restore the dignity of woman's motherhood, the peopling of the earth, the sacred adoration of their sons—"
"Worship comes from within," the Father said. "It does not need Messiahs to restore it. This is emotion speaking, blind emotion."
"—deliver to me now the keyboard of the integrocalculators. The weapons of the Sons whom you debased are turned upon you now—"