unlimited sensory data would be.”
“Maybe his is limited too,” I said. I chased some peas around my plate, caught them and ate a forkful. “But in different ways.”
“Anything is possible,” the Master said. “He said ‘these spaces’ are his ship—that is, these spaces are where he now resides, and through which, or by which, he now travels. These three—or four—spatial dimensions.”
“As opposed to what?”
“Other dimensions?” he said. “I say that very hesitantly, Gerald—and, indeed, without any clear idea of what such a phrase might in fact mean to us.” He shook his head. “I sound as if I were talking about a very bad piece of science-fiction. A dimension is a heuristic convenience; it is not, if we except the ones we normally live in, an object, a thing one can point to and so define.”
“Space-four can’t be pointed to,” I said.
“And space-four is a dimension by definition only,” he said at once. “We cannot in fact point to time, Gerald. We can define, practically, so to speak, three dimensions of space, and those only.” He drank off some wine. “What do we mean by ‘dimension’—and what can it possibly mean to say that this creature, this voice, this Folla lives in some other one or ones?”
I poured out the last of the wine for him, and emptied my own glass. “Damned if I know,” I said.
There was quite a lot to be dug out of the comparatively few words I’d had with Folla, whoever or whatever he was. (He, she or it, I suppose—but “it” doesn’t seem to cover the case, somehow, and since Folla is not really a nice sort of being, I’d rather include him in my own gender than insult my companions of another g.) It was somewhere after midnight by City Two clocks, and positively into early morning by mine, when the Master sighed: “This shall have to be continued. I must leave.”
I agreed that it was getting late. He got up, grabbed his cane from beside his chair—he’d had it leaning against the portable table—and headed for the door. He wastes very little time on polite goodbyes.
But at the door—I trailed him by a few feet, politely—he turned. “Gerald,” he said, “I would like you to talk to a psychiatrist. An expert in Psychological Statics.”
I took a second to digest that. “Well,” I said, not wanting to burst out with objections, of which I had several hundred on immediate call, “why would you want me to do that? If we’re to accept the experience as objectively real—”
“That is why,” he said. “Euglane has an interest in such matters. He may prove quite valuable, if we are to inquire into what has happened at all. We could of course simply drop the whole matter.”
“And spend the rest of my life wondering what the Hell had happened,” I said. “Thanks. But why a psychiatrist? I may have a few bats in my personal belfry, but—”
“Your bats are your affair,” the Master said, “as mine are my affair; that is what it means to be human, and adult. But I believe you will find his insights helpful, as regards this particular problem.”
I was doubtful—but he was, after all, the Master. “If you say so,” I told him.
“I do,” he said. “I will call him in the morning, and he will then call you. By the way, Gerald—he’s a Giell.”
I blinked. “A what?”
He gave me his chuckle—a dry sound, part muted trumpet and part creak. “Not a gel,” he aid. “A Giell. You may not have heard of the race. There has been very little contact as yet between humans and Gielli, though they have found a place here. In City One they are become, even, fashionable.”
“A new race?”
“New to humans,” he said. “Or to most of them.”
He chuckled again. I said: “I can hardly wait.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Euglane explained a little about the Gielli to me, after we’d had a chance to talk about my problem, and when we met the next evening. He’d had, he told me, appointments right through the day, “and it would be unkind in me to break them, if I can avoid doing that,” he said. “There’s a certain dependence, you know.” His voice was middle-register for a male human, pleasant and even and just a little gruff.
I nodded at that, and I didn’t press it. I agreed to meet him at his home at what Ravenal calls eighteen-thirty and I call six-thirty P. M. I was there about eight minutes early, but when I thumbed the entry switch the little bell-announce had barely stopped chiming inside when he opened the door. He was smiling, or he looked as if he were smiling. With a face like his, it was hard to tell, and mostly in the eyes.
Two eyes, a rather small head, and a beak. The head was tan, the beak dark and glossy, either brown or black. His eyes were large, looked almost human—the irises were narrow upright ovals—and bright blue.
Imagine a koala with the head of an eagle. Wearing, by the way, a short-sleeved white shirt, a pair of shorts, and slippers, and standing about five feet eleven inches tall. That isn’t it— Euglane wasn’t as puffy as a koala, and his head was larger and longer than an eagle’s—but it will give you a fast idea. I said: “Mr. Euglane?” and he said:
“Euglane, please. You’re Knave?”
Despite its hard, glossy appearance, the beak was mobile enough to shape vowels. “I am,” I said. He stepped aside, and I went in, to a small, light entry hall panelled in expensive dark wood. He shut the door—which was also wood; apparently this particular Giell was doing all right for himself financially—and then led the way to a big, airy living room. There were couches, tables, overstuffed chairs; he indicated a small couch and I sat down, and he dropped into a big chair nearby.
“I don’t know what Master Higsbee has told you about me,” he said.
“Not a lot,” I said. “To be frank, I’d never heard of the Gielli till he mentioned you last night. He said you might be helpful.”
“Well,” he said, “I will be if I can. That’s my nature, being helpful. It’s what I do, you know.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “A psychiatrist, after all.”
At that point he remembered his manners, or something, and offered me drinks. I said fruit juice, to be friendly, and he went away and came back with a couple of tall glasses on a tray. I took one, he sat down again and said:
“Do you mind if I relax?”
“Not at all,” I said.
He nodded, put his own glass on the tray, which sat on a nearby small table, and sighed. A second went by.
Then his arms and legs started to extend.
When each limb was about four feet long, he sighed again. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s a strain, but it is best to seem as non-threatening as possible. Long arms mean a long reach, long legs an overpowering height. Not always the best or most reassuring picture for a human.”
Accordion limbs? They seemed to be boneless, with strong muscles for motion. Expandable cartilage? Standing
