solemnly swear:

"That I will serve The Brain with undivided loyalty and with all my
faculties.

"That I will at all times obey the orders of the Brain Trust on behalf
of The Brain.

"That I will never betray or reveal any secrets of The Brain's design or
work, be they military or not, neither to the world outside nor to any
of my fellow workers except by special permission...."

It had been almost like taking holy orders. There had been mystery in
the atmosphere of the vast crypt, something medieval in the
unconditional surrender to The Brain.

* * * * *

Lee looked up from the charts on which he had been working; his eyes
were tired and so was his mind after ten hours of hard concentration.
That was probably what set his thoughts wandering. But strange that they
should always wander to those blind spots in his mental vision so
intriguing because he knew there was something there that he could not
lay a finger on.

The first of these blind spots hovered somewhere between Scriven's words
and Scriven's deeds; between The Brain as an ideal of science and The
Brain's reality as in instrument of national defense. Somehow the two
didn't connect; there was a break, some layer of thin ice, a danger zone
which nobody seemed willing to discuss or tread, not even Oona Dahlborg.

Oona; she was that other white spot on Lee's mental map and to him it
was much bigger and more dangerous than the first. He loved her as can
only a man who discovers loves secret with greying hair and after the
loneliness of a desert hermit. He understood, or thought he understood,
that because he had failed to live his life to the full in its proper
time, this love had come to him as a belated nemesis. His brain knew
that it was hopeless; every morning when he shaved, his mirror told him
very plainly one big reason why. But then, as the brain told the heart
in unmistakable terms what was the matter, the heart talked back to the
brain to the effect that the brain didn't know what it was talking
about. It was a new thing and a painful thing for Lee to discover that
he knew very little about himself and less about the girl.

He had seen Oona on and off over these last months, mostly at the hotel,
but he had never been really alone with her. She always seemed to be on
some mission, always the center of some group or other of "very
important persons", senators from Washington, ranking officers in
civvies, big business