showed, when you first began to work, ten years ago, that you were capable of going to the head of your production line. But you're not doing it. Also your normal dreams should correspond to the ones on the cards. And they don't.... Are you using the standard cards every other night?"

Twenty-three lied. "Yes."

"And the nights you don't use them, you have a dream like the one you just told me."

"That's right."

"Incredible." The Superfather shook his head. "It just doesn't add up. As you know, you get the prescribed dreams every other night and that's supposed to condition your mind to dreaming those same dreams, by itself, on the nights you don't use the machine. The prescribed dreams merely show you the true way of life. And when you're on your own you're supposed to follow that way of life whether you're asleep or awake. That's what the dream machine is for. I'm sure you're aware of all this?"

"Yes," said Twenty-three. "Yes."

"Now we Superfathers never have to use the dream machines. We're so filled with the way of life they advocate and it's become such an integral part of us, we simply are what our prescribed dreams are. And the more successful a person is in the city, the less he has to use the dream machine. Now you have to use it every other night. That's entirely too much for a man of your potential. You realize this, of course.

"Oh I do," said Twenty-three shaking his head sadly.

"Well now," said the Superfather, "that means something's wrong. Very wrong." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "Your prescribed dreams show you working faster and faster on the machines, going on month after month year after year, with one hundred percent accuracy. They show you happy in your work, driven by ambition on up to the end of your capabilities. They show you contented there to the end of your working life." He paused. "And you're doing just the opposite ... I suppose your wife is—concerned?"

Twenty-three nodded.

"After all, the marriage center assured her your index was right for her. Her sleep cards were coordinated with yours. The normal dreams of both of you, without the machine, should be identical.... Yet you come up with this horror—running through the city, alone, falling, dying."

Twenty-three's mouth twitched.

"Well." The Superfather stood. "If you can't adjust to normal, we'll simply have to send you to the pre-frontal lobotomy men. You wouldn't want that."

"Oh no!"

"Good!" The Superfather held out another packet of cards. "Use these tomorrow night. It's a concentration pattern which should be dense enough to make you dream of being, well—perhaps even President, eh?"

"Yes." Twenty-three hesitated.

"Well?" said the Superfather.

"I'd—like to ask a question."

The Superfather nodded.

"What—what use," went on Twenty-three, "is all this—work being put to—that we do—along the machine lines—every day? We don't, seem to really be making anything. Just working."

The Superfather's eyes narrowed. "You're kept busy. You get paid. You live. The city is here. That's all. That's enough."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Twenty-three turned abruptly, marched to the door and stepped into the empty, silent corridor.

Twenty-three looked up at the glowing dome of the city that curved away to the horizon. He wondered if there really was a white ball beyond it sometimes and tiny dots of light, set in blue black. And at other times did a ball of fire flame up there, giving light and heat and life? And if there was this life and light up there, why the great dome over the city? Why the factories and machine lines replacing it section after section, generation after generation? The slabs that the workers fused together this year and the next and the next, pushing back this life and light and heat. Why not let it pour down into the city and warm all the people? Why not go to the space out there and the