From his own experience Earl knew that one part of Glassman was raging against his mental prison, perhaps feeling the sadistic torture with which the Cyberene kept him chained.
By a supreme effort Earl pulled himself away from thinking about what had happened. It multiplied his determination to free himself enough to defeat the Cyberene and destroy it. But raging impotently against the Brain's control wouldn't accomplish a thing.
Little by little he willed himself back to a frame of thought where he could reach out into his conscious mind again, matching his thoughts and moods with it. It had somehow "forgotten" much of what had happened to Basil and Irene and Glassman. It was thinking about Nadine.
Earl thought about her too. She loved him. She didn't know what love was, but it was there, revealed in the brief moment she had been free to express herself. Was that love now making her try to overthrow the slavery of the Cyberene? Probably not. She was conditioned to accept that inhuman intellect as her master.
Earl shoved the real Nadine from his thoughts and dwelt on the Nadine that was manifest. She was easy to love too—and why not? She was everything that the true Nadine was—except that she was not the complete Nadine. She was falling in love with him too. And his own conscious mind was in love with her. Why not make the most of it?
He inserted the idea into his conscious thoughts, and to his delight no alarm bells rang. The Cyberene didn't interfere.
"Let's go to a dance tonight after work," he said.
"A dance? I don't know how to dance."
"I'll teach you. It isn't hard to pick up."
"All right," Nadine said.