But you've got something there; good lord, what a complex world we're living in."

The face she turned toward his suddenly was wet with tears.

"Forget it," she cried, "oh please, forget everything I said about staying in this country and seeing this thing through to the end. Go, go away, back to the never-never land, stay there and be safe. You cannot cope with this thing, its too big and it's too involved with all those politics behind. Get out of it as long as there's still time. You're a child, you're a Don Quixote riding against windmills and it's going to kill you--you--you innocent."

Anger and contempt were in her voice as she flung this last at him. She hastily withdrew her hand from Lee; now it fingered for something in her bag. He sat appalled; this was so unexpected, this was a different woman from the composed and balanced Oona he had known. What had he done to provoke this sudden reversal of opinion, this contempt, this tearing away the king's purple from his shoulder, the purple which had been her hand.

"She must think I'm a coward," he thought.

"This is awful." Aloud he said:

"Oh no; believe me, I never would have gone back to the never-never in any case, Oona. Not without you that is. You said you couldn't follow me there for some reasons which have nothing to do with me. Does that mean, could I hope perhaps that you would--be my wife--later, when The Brain problem is all done and over with?" He paused: "It wouldn't necessarily mean to bury you in any desert, Oona," he added eagerly.

"No, Semper," she cried. "It's very good of you and I'm proud you asked me, but it cannot be, never." Almost violently she repeated: "Never--it is too late. Some day, I promise I'm going to explain; right now I cannot, Semper. Please understand at least this one thing that right now I cannot explain."

"It's horrid," Lee thought. "I'm always saying the wrong things at the wrong time with Oona. I don't seem to have any understanding of a woman's psychology at all; I'm hopeless."

"Of course" he said aloud. "It shall be as you wish."

The girl still didn't look at him. Her face under the transparent rainbow umbrella of the swooshing jet again was radiant with that strange smile which women preserve for their newly born after the pangs of birth or for their men when unseeing they lie in fever deliriums; the old, the knowing smile as she starts on the road to pain. Still smiling she gripped the controls with her firm, capable hands.

"From the first minute," she said, "we've been friends, Semper. Let's stay that way. This afternoon I made a fool of myself by telling you first to stay on and then to go away. I was a little unnerved; I'm sorry, Semper, it won't happen again. I, too, am living under a considerable strain. You won't leave, I can see that now; it's partly my fault and partly the perversity of the male. Promise me as a friend that you'll be careful, understand? _Very, very_ careful in all matters concerning The Brain and above all: discreet. Will you do that?"

It buoyed Lee up no end.

"Of course, Oona," he said. "You know that I trust your judgment. You know that I think the world of you."

"That's wonderful," she exclaimed, "and now: look down; see the last act before the curtain falls."

Down in the canyon deeps the dream cities and castles which millions of years and the river built were changing contours and colors as the big fireball dived into the Sierra Mountains. And then the shadows raced like a ferocious hunt out of the deep, chasing away the last iridescence of that awesome beauty and drowning it in the rising tide of the night.

The girl had flicked on the dashboard lights; the radio started humming the tune of the Cephalon sound-beam, a deft turn of the wheel set the jetticopter upon its course. They were alone under the stars; all the other pleasure craft had returned before darkness from the fashionable sunset-c.o.c.ktail hour over the Grand Canyon. Now it was Lee's arm which eased itself around the shoulder of the girl feeling with a delight in its every nerve the slight pressure by which she answered it.

"I'm going to kiss her now," he thought, "at last, at last!"

There was a buzz in the phone and Lee lost contact with her shoulder as suddenly she bent forward to take the receiver:

"Oh h.e.l.lo, Oona; this is Howard. Saw your plane over the canyon."

"Where are you?"

"Right behind you," chuckled Scriven's voice. "On the maiden trip with my new ship. Took her over in Los Angeles this afternoon straight from the a.s.sembly line. She's got everything. Oona, I don't wish to spoil your evening for you but there are a few things right now I wish I could consult with you about. Do you think you could spare me a minute? Would you feel terrible if you did? Who's with you now; I don't mean to be personal, you understand."

"Why it's Dr. Lee, of course."

"That's fine. He's the very man I want to see. Perhaps you two would like to come over for c.o.c.ktails in my ship? We could both land at the top of the Braintrust building; it would be more comfortable than up in the air. Besides, we would have all our working material right there."

With her hand on the receiver Oona turned to Lee: "How about it, Semper?"

"Do you want me to go?" he asked.

"Frankly I do," she said earnestly. "He needs your aid. He's in a terrible fix right now."

He tried to hide the bitterness of disappointment by a smile. "Why then of course," he said.

Uncovering the receiver Oona spoke aloud again: "Okay, Howard, we'll be seeing you."

"Fine, fine," came the delighted voice: "I'll phone the tower immediately."

With Scriven's big ship flying behind Oona's, only a few miles behind, the broken spell did not return. Already like a white table cloth laid in the sky, the landing platform of the Braintrust tower gleamed under the floodlights, and as the two ships descended almost side by side into the clearing behind the cabin, plain-clothes men materialized from under the shadows of the trees. Under the strong lights their smiles were as well-bred as those of trained diplomats and their poise was perfect. Six of them kept Lee, the stranger, covered while the seventh quickly frisked him under the disguise of a polite bow.

Bearing it all with a grin, Lee thought: "I never knew home would be like this. Never suspected it would be this kind of an America we were fighting for. The Brain, it's got a private army too. Funny that I should have known that all the time and yet not realized...."

Scriven took him warmly by the arm. "I'm awfully sorry Lee, it's plain folly of course. I don't feel as if I need all this protection, but the government does. Don't blame it on these men, they merely obey orders.

Now, out with those lights--and let's go over to the "Brain Wave." I seem to hear a pleasant tinkling of gla.s.ses from within."

There was. With her remarkable ability of living up to an emergency, Oona had taken possession of the strange ship. As the two men approached, she stood at the door, unhurried hostess of an established home with the soft glow of an electric fireplace behind her, ice cubes and c.o.c.ktail shakers already glittering on the little bar.

It was a s.p.a.cious cabin. On Scriven's orders it had been equipped somewhat like the captain's stateroom on an old "East-Indiaman" sailing ship.

"I like your ship, Howard," she said. "She's swaying a little on her shock absorbers in this breeze, but that makes one feel like really being at high sea."

Scriven heaved a big sigh. "Thank you Oona, my dear. And you have no idea how right you are. We _are_ at high sea; in fact, we're lost--at least I am. Unless you save my life tonight, you and Dr. Lee."

Oona laughed and even Lee couldn't help smiling. There was something irresistible comic in the puzzled and worried expression of that leonine face. "Come on in, you need a drink," the girl said.

The aluminum steps creaked, and then the settee by the fireplace, under the surgeon's mighty frame. "More than one. Tonight, so help me, I would be justified, I would even have a right to get roaring drunk."

Lee began to wonder whether the great Scriven had already made some use of his right in Los Angeles, which would account for the startling change in the man. The drink, however, which Oona handed him, seemed to do a lot of good. He sighed relief.

"This, briefly, is the story: I ran into General Vandergeest at the airplane factory. He was there to take over some stuff for the Army and he tipped me off. We are going to be invaded, Oona, a full scale invasion mounted by a Congressional Committee."

"Oh G.o.d," there was sincere grief in the girl's voice. "And couldn't you ward it off?"

With a gesture of despair, Scriven waved that away. "I know, I know. But after all The Brain _is_ a military establishment and I am only the scientific director of it. Yes, of course I protested, I protested vehemently, but--" he shrugged his shoulders, "it was no good. You know how the military are." He drained his gla.s.s and swung around.

"To put you into the picture, Lee, we have under construction at this present time the 'Thorax.' That's a vast cavity underneath The Brain, just as is the thorax in the human body. It's strictly hush-hush of course, but since you were good enough to say that you're going to help me out, I might as well tell you. The Thorax is going to house the 'motoric organs' of The Brain. It already contains the living quarters for guards, maintenance engineers, and the general staff and so on in the event of war emergency. It also contains the first fully automatic factories for the production of spare parts which would make The Brain self-sufficient. Eventually it is going to contain a great many developments such as 'Gog and Magog' as I call them--fascinating little beasts, I tell you, even if at present they are still in the nursery stage. Anyway, for the completion of its Thorax The Brain needs another billion dollars, and for the operation of the Thorax Congress has to pa.s.s the Brainpower-Extension-Bill. For eventually, of course, all war-essential traffic and all war-essential industries have to be brought under the centralized control of The Brain if the country is going to win the Atom-war. Naturally this Brainpower-Extension-Bill has been very carefully edited by the War Department so as to appear a peacetime project for the technological improvement of transportation and so on. Even so we have great reason to fear that one of those blind mice which we elect for our law-makers might accidentally fall over a kernel of truth and start a great big squeak over it.

"So that's why I'm faced with this invasion. That's why I'm pushed up front while the bra.s.s cautiously retires behind the ramparts which I'm supposed to hold. Please Oona, let me have another drink."

From the Sierra Mountains the nightwind came in gusts, making the "Brainwave's" hull vibrate like the body of a cello, over its rubber tires it trembled, from time to time it bent a little in its hydraulic knees. Almost in tune with the wind, gusts of wild thought whirled through Lee:

"The Brain.... So it was already possessed of some motoric organs.... So it already _had_ some means to exert its will ... so it wasn't The Brain's wishful thinking, that full automatization which would lead to the auto-procreation of machines. It was reality.... Most ominous of all, why had The Brain concealed from him the work which must have been going on for months, for years in this mysterious "Thorax", seat of motoric organs.... Why, unless--had it not been for tonight's accident, the sudden emergency and Scriven a little the worse for liquor under the pressure of it.... Would he ever have learned _what_ was going on before it was too _late_?"