Fred sit up straight, his eyes shining
with excitement. So far he had been safe mainly because he habitually
didn't attach belief to anything. His other facet of difference might be
the means of his testing this without real danger of vanishing.

Could he dredge up from the deepest layers of unconscious thought, the
threads leading directly to the matrix that held him in his surroundings
and learn consciously what it was?

A thought. He reflected on it, then decided before he made any decisions
he would explore the other avenue, the one the police had naturally
thought of.

Was there some person or persons unknown in back of the disappearances?
Some non-human, perhaps? It could fit into the same theory of
disappearance. Another universe, beings in that universe. Beings who
perhaps didn't want knowledge of their universe to become known on this
side of the veil.

If so, why hadn't _they_ snatched him too? Maybe they didn't know he
knew about the theory. He'd never talked about it to anyone. But his
father had drilled it into him as a supreme example of the reasons why
belief in anything was a trap.

He shook his head. It didn't seem likely that the disappearances had
been engineered by anyone. They smacked too much of an inner pattern, an
inner mechanism.

So he came back to the other theory. What could he try to accomplish by
exploring into his deepest substratum of thought? The ideal he could aim
for would be conscious transfer into the other system with the assurance
before-hand that he could transfer back again. If he could do that, and
if he could find those who had vanished, maybe he could teach them how
to return.

It was something that might take a long time, he realized. His first
objective was to penetrate deeper into his mind than anyone had ever
consciously gone before. That alone could take a lifetime. Or it might
be accomplished overnight.

How would he begin? Where would he begin? he shrugged. It didn't matter.
He would have to systematically extend his ability to be aware in every
direction, physical and temporal, until he could be conscious of his
individual blood cells if it were possible, and completely and vividly
conscious, at will of every second of his past life. If that didn't lead
him to his objective, it might at least point the way and increase his
ability to reach his goal.

That evening, Fred arrived home to find a stranger seated in the
library. There was the usual moment of clum