expect to end that way in our trade. If we don't,we'll be able to take back something with us to prove what we've runinto. Maybe it will vindicate you and make you a reputation. You'll getall the credit I can turn your way."
"Thank you, sir," Ren said, his voice choked with gratitude. In hisheart he knew that he would have sold his soul to the devil for thiscoming experience that had been given him without his asking.
He had spent years preparing for this--years that his teachers had feltwere wasted. He had explored all the crazy systems of logic abandoned inthe march of progress. He had even devised systems of his own,synthesized from undefined symbols according to strange patterns outsidethe field of logic.
Yes. He felt that even if the basics of natural law in operation herewere purely nonsense laws, he would be able to penetrate to a rationalmanipulation and control of things. Perhaps he might even set up thepattern operating, and join it in some way with so-called normalscience.
Commander Dunnam came to attention, a twinkle in his eyes.
"At your command, sir," he said, saluting.
"Not that," Ren objected. "Let me just play the part of a scientistunder your command, whose part it is to advise only."
"No," Hugh Dunnam said. "Until we leave this part of space you're insole command. Call it what you want--a hunch maybe; but I feel thatthere is a purpose in things, and it wasn't chance that gave you thetype of mind you have and threw you under my command on this trip."
"Very well, sir," Ren said, returning the salute. He smiled. Behind hissmile his analytical mind was working rapidly.
"The commander's reactions are not normal," his thoughts said. "Theycould not be dictated by anything in his past. Therefore they aredictated by something outside him--something on that planet below!"
It was a wild conjecture. The more he thought of it the more certain Renbecame that there was some _intelligence_ down there that had alreadymade contact with the minds in the ship.
Strangely, this didn't alarm him. He felt that "it" was friendly. Hefelt that "it" had plumbed the minds of all on board and chosen him totake over and lead the others.
Eagerly he "listened," but no faintest whisper or flavor of thought cameto support his feeling of an alien contact. In spite of this he wentahead with his study of things with a confidence that "something" waswatching and would see them through all right.
* * * * *
His eyes turned again to the image of the cold planet below. That imagereturned his stare blankly, its inscrutable surface devoid of any hintof mystery.
"I'd suggest we keep circling the planet until I have a chance to form afew definite conclusions," Ren said. "If that can't be done I'd suggestwe retreat far enough so we can."
"Yes sir," Commander Dunnam said quietly. He repeated the suggestion inthe form of an order to the first mate.
Ren studied the image of the planet. He left the pilot room and wanderedover the ship aimlessly. He talked to the members of the crew he raninto.
He slept at his usual time. He ate his meals as usual. He stoppedtalking to the crew and just wandered about, occasionally going to thepilot room and studying the strange sphere of matter.
After three days he ordered the ship dropped to an orbit about fivethousand miles from the surface. Almost as soon as the ship reached itsnew orbit changes began to be noticed.
Ren had the commander issue an order that every crew member was toreport all unusual happenings within the ship. Twenty-four hours laterhe issued an order that each crew member was to write out a brief reportof his movements during the past twenty-four hours as he rememberedthem.
Ren studied these reports. And gradually he was building up a picturethat was wilder than the wildest of fantastic imaginative creation.
He and Commander Dunnam had grown very close to each other. Finally Renbroke his long silence and talked to him about what he was discovering.They were in the dining room. Crew members were eating their "evening"meal. They listened as Ren tried to explain.
"I think I've formed a few permanent conclusions about things here," Renbegan. "They aren't an EXPLANATION of things, but just a description ofthe way things are behaving. I'll try to make it clear as I go along."
He chewed his food slowly while trying to think of a good way to begin.
"Take any number, for example," he said. "Take the number five. Back onEarth you can count five apples and say there are five apples. You cancount out five eggs and place them in a box, and say there are the samenumber of eggs as there are apples. There are five of each. Actuallythat isn't true. There aren't five of either. There is no such thing asthe number five. The number is a mental thing, a concept. The appleshave a basic property which would more accurately be called a'fiveness'. The eggs also have a basic property called a 'fiveness', andthe fiveness of the eggs and the fiveness of the apples are NOT thesame. They are peculiar to each group. The human race invented a conceptcalled the number five, and formulated a theory that all fivenessesbelong to a class, called the number five. In nature this theory actedas though it were true. If you have five apples and five eggs you haveten objects. A fiveness placed with another fiveness makes a tenness. Soarithmetic merely describes the behavior of a basic property of realityin a consistent manner. Arithmetic is NOT a basic law. It's merely aDESCRIPTION of a basic law.
"That basic doesn't seem to hold where we are now. But there are otherbasic things that seem to be violated here, too, and will probably beviolated even more when and if we land on this planet.
"I've pretty well concluded that number doesn't exist here in the sameway it does ordinarily. Take the strength of gravity, for example.Instead of being a single value it is equally a broad range of values,and is all of them at the same time. How that can be I don't know.
* * * * *
"It's the same way with the number of objects. Instead of having fivefingers I have three, four, five, six and so on, fingers all at the sametime. But my mind can't see that. It can only grasp a single number. Myeyes look at my fingers and see the many simultaneous numbers offingers, but my mind can't grasp that, so _it conjures up a singlenumber at random_. It RATIONALIZES what it gets, and so we have a realproblem--the devising of some method of helping the mind deal with whatit can't grasp because it hasn't the equipment to grasp it as it reallyis.
"There are sixty of us on board--or rather, there WERE sixty. Now thereare three, four, and so on, to some number above sixty. The last reporthanded in by the crew shows eighty-three men on board! I can't prove it,because if I handed you the report sheets you would count more or lessthan that number.
"So what we must realize is that now there isn't any NUMBER of crewmembers, but a 'something else' that is different than a number,corresponding to an INTERVAL of numbers. It is real. It's a metaphysicalbasic for this part of space around this planet.
"It's subtle, too. For example, right now there may be more than one meon this ship, depending on whether there are more than sixty people onboard or not. I don't quite understand about that yet. There are a lotof things I don't understand about it. If there is more than one of anyperson on board, is it a reality, or is it a trick of rationalization ofthe mind to fit something utterly incomprehensible into at least asemblance of something comprehensible? If it is the latter, then why dothe two who are supposedly the same person hand in DIFFERENT reports onwhat the supposedly one person did, and why do the reports check withother reports?
"I have a theory which might account for part of all this. Our ship andall in it belongs to the universe of the metaphysics we know of and useas the thought process. It is hovering on the borders of a regioncontaining this planet we are to land on--a region operating on otherbasics. In some way both sets of basics operate in either conflict orcompromise. Besides mental confusion there is actual physical confusion.
"But maybe it's better that way. If we make the transition in steps theactual noumenal confusion may guide our minds correctly into a correctunderstanding of t
he new basics of this system by the time we land."
Ford Gratrick had come into the dining room unnoticed at the beginningof this. He spoke now.
"Then you claim that the laws of nature are different here than we areaccustomed to, and that our minds are not equipped to deal with them?"he asked.
Ren frowned. Not at the words but at something he had not mentioned,about people and identities.
"They are different, yes," Ren returned. "But as to our minds dealingwith them--human minds have dealt with things without trulycomprehending them since the dawn of time."
"Things that were sane," Ford said.
"These are sane, too," Ren