O'Hara looked steadily into Anstruther's pale, straining eyes. What was he searching for in them, he asked himself. For arrogance? For the bright marsh fires of insanity? For weakness? None of these were there. For Anstruther, once the charming and imaginative boy, had gained stature, and the boyishness was gone. And even as with Stephen Bryce, himself facing the same approaching certainty of death, the purpose of his being now was solely the future of the hemisphere.
It was impossible to doubt Anstruther's motives. To question his methods, yes—but not the motive behind them. Which was true also of the Father. O'Hara could loathe the individual acts of each, yet at the same time he respected their sincerity. It was a cosmic irony that these two men, instinctive enemies, opposites, should be working toward a goal that was identical, yet by their natures working toward it through irreconcilable methods. For Stephen Bryce meant to breed out the race of the Degraded, both masses and Sons, while Anstruther believed the elimination of the Father, as a move toward a new environment, would solve the problems of the continents.
As for O'Hara himself, he could not choose between the cold science of the Father and the emotional approach of Anstruther, but stronger at the moment in his heart remained the horror of Emporia. He held out his hand.
"I believe you, Anstruther."
"You mean, don't you, that you want to believe me?"
"That's it," O'Hara answered simply. "I do mean that. I want to believe you."
"Good! For it is more important to me that you should want to believe me, despite any uncertainty in your mind, than that you should believe without question. Faith itself can be shattered, but the yearning after faith is indestructible." He took O'Hara's hand, and at last got up from the bunk. "Tomorrow," he said, "or when we next awaken, we resume. Now tell me, for you must have come recently from Stephen Bryce, which was the direction and what the distance? Back along this corridor how far?"
"I cannot tell you, Anstruther."
"But you came into this room—"
"Unconscious," said O'Hara, which was the truth as far as it went. He did not dare to mention the integrocalculators. Yet as warily he drove from his mind the memory of Nedra and his son sinking down toward the bottom of that water-filled room. His path in this struggle seemed obscure—his feeling was to follow Anstruther, to help him and these sleeping Sons, and yet he could not bring himself to follow absolutely, he could not reveal the Father's purpose, or could he permit himself to think of Nedra and the baby, for agitation would defeat him. He must grope through this, betraying neither Anstruther nor the Father. Nor himself.