"You're learning to think, Nedra, and I'm not sure that it's desirable. Yet less than half an hour ago the fear that you might never think again was terrifying me. What does a man really want?"
"I know what you want. To talk."
"Why, yes," he said. "To talk—"
The opalescent light was dying out. The music now faint.
"To talk," O'Hara said, "and sleep, and wake again. Yes, Nedra, if we can be sure to wake again. Eternal life! Remind me to explain to you—though later on—"
But it was the Father who reminded him, and much later. For when O'Hara awoke the room was filled once more with that opalescent light that symbolized day, for actually, in this city of the Father, this capital of the Lost Continents behind the Atomic Curtain, there was neither day nor night. It was true that there were fourteen hours of synthetic light, radiating from the ever-present tubing recessed into the ceilings of the great halls and subterranean avenues, and these fourteen hours were succeeded by ten hours of darkness in the chambers used for sleep. But there was no real night.
O'Hara, then, awakening into this synthetic day, and finding Nedra still asleep beside him, was in no hurry to arise, but lay there staring toward the vaulted ceiling, remembering Nedra's bitter accusation, "We can only sink deeper and deeper into these slick abominations."
But even if they were forever to remain here, prisoners, would it be unendurable? If their cavern in the mountains had been pleasant, why was it less so here? Suppose that door were never to be unlocked?
Never?
The thought of it was smothering. It was in that instant as if he were strapped down upon the bed, and a cold sweat burst out on his body and he clenched his fists, crying aloud, "Father, Father—"