(B) A student, in which case the machine was a type of spacecraft.
The question was: Which?
If it were (A), then he and the world around him were real, living, working out their own destinies toward the end point represented by the man in the gray globe.
But if it were (B)—
Then this was the Shrine, and he and all the rest of Earth were nothing but glorified textbooks!
And there would come crises on the Shrine, duplicates of the crises on old Earth. Except that they wouldn't be permitted to happen. The poor ignorant people on the Shrine had to be coddled, like the children they were. Damn!
Karnes crumpled the sheets of paper in his hands, twisting them savagely. Then he methodically tore them into bits.
When the first dawnlight touched the sea, Karnes was watching it out the east window. It had been twenty-four hours since he had seen the superman walk into his gray globe and vanish.
All night, he had been searching his brain for some clue that would tell him which of the two choices he should believe in. And he couldn't bring himself to believe in either.