"You are watching, Father? You understand about the gun?"
"Yes, I understand—I watch, as I watch everything. As I know everything. That uniform of yours—the International Patrol. You were based on Wrangell Island north of the Siberian Coast. Before that, you were based in the Falklands, flying southward to Antarctica. Born an Englishman of émigré descent—of American descent. Your ancestors were from this continent, before the establishment of the Curtain. You see, O'Hara? I know!" The reflected light now glowed as would the sun itself, and O'Hara was remembering the clansman's myth—the Sun Beneath the Earth. "You are afraid of me now, O'Hara?" asked the voice. "Afraid of knowledge?"
"I am not afraid of knowledge."
"Then you will come, you and your woman—now. I need you here."
The power of that voice, matched by the sunlike intensity upon the surface of the giant mirror, lent a sublimity to these words that kept the Sons in postures of obeisance, yet to O'Hara the tone seemed instead beseeching, as if the Father were himself afraid—as if dreading lest O'Hara might destroy himself. What else could possibly be the purpose of that display of knowledge of events beyond the Curtain? And that last phrase—"I need you here."
The Father needed him. He knew, as he considered it, that he was going. And Nedra knew it.
"O'Hara—no!"
Thrusting the .38 inside his jacket, he whirled, and seizing Nedra's hands, he lifted her, then going quickly down the steps and through the hatch into the cylinder. The Sons were leaping toward it all at once, and then the hatch snapped shut.
With a tremendous thrust, the cylinder shot forward, hurling O'Hara backward through the space inside. Both he and Nedra fell, landing upon the soft resilience of the foamlike rubber material that had lined the wide bunks of the slumber chambers of Emporia. The interior of the cylinder was barren of all else—a long, completely cushioned projectile that now glided smoothly with the sensation of motion eliminated by the lack of any way of reckoning it, no openings, no vibration, until within seconds as O'Hara managed to regain his balance and got up, seeing Nedra lying motionless six feet away, the cylinder began to lose acceleration rapidly. O'Hara again was jerked off his feet.
And as immediately, the hatch above them opened. The face of a Son appeared.