for his words to take effect. "We go along
together that far."

She stood, clasping her hands. "Of course. Of course."

"Look. I know you've finished that damned contraption of yours that'll
take you into the atoms. I know you've been working on it for years. But
I've been working too. My ship's been ready to take off into super-space
for two days. But I haven't gone. I've been waiting for you. To wait at
a time like this is to ask for death or worse. Now I demand you give up
this insane idea of going into the atoms. You've got to come with me."

"I've told you I can't escape with you out into the macrocosm. It's not
my _way_!"

"The word 'escape' doesn't apply," he snapped, "to what I'm doing.
_You're_ escaping. You'll creep into the microcosm and sit there like a
seed that won't grow. You can't fight the Authority from the microcosm.
That way is utter passivity and death. _My_ way is fighting back. I'm
going into hyper-space. My ship and I'll become so huge and powerful
I'll throw suns around like snowballs. I'll toss meteors around like
grains of corn. I'll upset gravities and warp time. I'll stretch and
straighten space. I'll turn dimensions inside out--"

"Yes. You'll destroy. You'll ruin everything, you'll break the innocent
as well as the guilty."

"I'll have to take that chance," he said grimly. "But I'll destroy the
Authority and everything that goes with it."

She pulled from his grasp. "Violence and destruction are not my way.
They never have been." Slowly now she sank into the chair, looked past
him as she spoke. "You've always worshipped spaces and vacuums and
voids. I've always been happy working with flowers and trees, the life
of the meadow and valley, the rain and the new, small buds in
springtime. We have always gone in opposite directions."

She paused and smiled a bit wistfully. "It's funny. Now we find, too
late to help our marriage, that there's a whole universe between us. You
refuse, or perhaps you're afraid, I don't know, to go to the source of
everything--this table, this chair, this gown, your own flesh. You don't
want to understand life; any more than you want to understand me. You
must conquer it--or destroy it. You must be a giant that can kick the
earth around like a football. But I _do_ want to understand, for in
understanding lies the cure. My machine will take me into the atoms.
I'll become part of the fabric and tapestry of the very warp and woof of
our world. By becoming a _