Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/93

121 Sphere would call a miracle oh, yes, we are closer to your stupid minds than your sphere dreams of. Miracles of a like kind, do not happen twice."

"So what?" he demanded.

Even now, he could not quite bring himself to believe he was not dreaming all this. It was too utterly fantastic. Some corner of interstellar space, perhaps—maybe one of the many unchartered dark stars known to be in the Jupiter satellite belt. Yes, he could understand that. But all this talk of spheres and vibrations where did that get him? He managed a grin, as he recalled how hotted-up most of them had been at the bit of a party held in the Vibrant's Spacelectricians' Mess the evening before. Some party. He had a faint memory of Ben Jaguers helping him into his bunk this could be a sort of hangover  probably Ace Torquil, and the space lock jam, and all the rest of it, had got mixed up in his head. He came from his musings to find he was once more alone. The two Elementals he decided to call them that  had somehow just faded out. Well, he was rid of that part of it, anyhow. Maybe, the rest of it would fade out too, and he'd wake up in his bunk to hear old Ben yelling at him the duty bell had gone.

Suddenly he felt very tired. He went over to the couch and stretched himself on it. Supposing he was asleep, could he go to sleep again inside the first sleep? Sort of dreaming you went to sleep, when you were asleep? He grinned and closed his eyes

The four men in the Cupola on E. S. P. Seven roused themselves One by one. They were more composed now, more used to the amaze of the thing; they were better able to think and plan and come to grips with the enormity of the problem. Each, in his own way, showed his determination to do all that was humanly possible to reduce the incredible to terms of the credible, so that it could be handled with some approach to the sane and practical.

Dr. Walstab said: "While we are waiting, it will help if I try to put together what we have so far learnt of the conditions now holding Chris Sommers."

"The province of the mind, yes," Grant said. "To begin with, what do you understand by spheres? Ideas elementals ?"

"That's it," the Ace Commander put in. "Where is Sommers? How can we get to him, if we don't rightly know where he is? Elemental? The Elementals? Where is Elemental? The navigating charts don't list the name. Maybe some asteroid "

Walstab shook his head.

"We'll begin there, Ace. If you know anything of what we call occultism, you'll know that there is a great body of evidence to prove the intrusion into our system of a class of beings of a low state of spiritual development, but not necessarily of