gs and the bursts of green. People, dressed in
white, flowing robes or black tights, walked the streets. He could hear
their footsteps on the stone or grassy walk, could hear the hum of
vehicles rolling along the streets or flying through the air. They were
long and streamlined or short and round, or they were curved like
gondolas or squat like saucers. And they were moving at many speeds. Yet
there was order. And the air was sweet and clean. A black line of clouds
was rising across the horizon. Soon there would be lightning and thunder
and cool rain.

The deep voice touched him again. "This is the city that can be. A city
of life, open to the sky and the earth, a city in which people can find
and follow their own lives. After the wars, the cities were built to
shut out the death of Earth. But the Earth has come to life again. And
so can the cities."

The silence came while the picture changed and Twenty-three stirred,
waiting.

A figure grew in his mind, wavered, and became a woman. Twenty-three saw
the long body and the softness; saw the flowing hair and the smile as
she watched him. He saw the gentleness in her face; saw a strength under
the softness, like the storm that lies below the charged quiet of a
summer evening. Her lips moved.

"Paul. Dream your dreams for _us_." The words seemed to fall on him. He
trembled and cried out. And he felt a violent stirring in his body and a
breaking away as though he had flung himself through the walls of a
tomb.

The picture blew away while the voice continued: "She is a woman, not a
woman who half resembles a man." A pause. "When you wish to leave the
city, ask for the final card. You are welcome."

There was silence and darkness. Twenty-three stirred. He opened his
eyes. The glow from the city outside filtered into the room through the
translucent walls. He lay motionless. Paul. He was Paul. Not
Twenty-three. A man with a name. Wonder came into him, and a sense of
strength, and a willingness to remember without fear.

His mind ran back to the first mistake, almost a year past. He
remembered the horror of failure then and the terror at his being
subjected to a mistake. He remembered the inference from the Superfather
that there might be a bad strain in his blood line. He remembered taking
the dream cards that were to have set him straight, that were to have
shown him working over the machines with super speed, moving up along
the production line to its pinnacle and on