"Which do you want?" Holder answered. "If I fall down, I'll never get up. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in this kind of a world, where you will become the plaything of barracks soldiers. Do you want—"
"John!"
"Do you want the kids to be raised as wards of the state, where they will be conditioned into accepting the idea that this world is right?" Holder gestured toward the windows.
Marie's face revealed mute agony. "N-no. But—isn't there some other way?"
"Sure," the scientist said. He set the kids on the floor.
Marie's face gleamed with sudden hope like a rainbow seen at the world's end.
A knock sounded on the door.
The rainbow vanished from her face. She looked toward the door.
"Get the hell out of my sight!" Holder said to her.
She went as Nocher and the commandant had gone. Except that she went smiling. Her smile seemed to linger in the air, like a bright gleam from some far-off heaven, after she had gone.