l
law hasn't been canceled. We still have light radiation, heat radiation,
gravity, water still flows, the planet still turns. Trees still grow and
fruit still ripens. We can talk and be understood, using our tongues and
minds as tools. We can still eat and drink. We can still know.

"This is no chaotic co-ordinate system that defies all natural law. This
is a deliberate manipulation of some natural laws to get a result. Man
manipulates natural laws by the use of tools and materials, but he
doesn't suspend them. Here, apparently without tools, at least tools we
can perceive, natural law is manipulated, but not suspended.

"When the village disappeared, no one was hurt. A lot of people were
caught in awkward positions and fell, some of them several feet. There
should have been at least a few broken bones, pulled ligaments. There
weren't. Our ship landed safely. We were a long time in the atmosphere
of Eden, and for a few minutes there on the ground we were still using
tools of a high order. It was only when danger of real harm to us was
past that the ship disappeared."

"I reckon it's comfortin' to know we ain't meant to be hurt," Jed said,
and looked at his two companions. "I guess it is," he repeated
doubtfully. "Maybe it ain't something as nice and familiar as a cyclone,
or a den of rattlesnakes, something you could understand, but you got
to admit we ain't been hurt yet." It was as if he were arguing the point
with his companions.

"Something I've been noting, Jed," Ahmed spoke up. "A discrepancy of a
sort that has me puzzled. Sun reckoning, we've been able to keep our
minds on this subject for over two hours now. As if, whatever this is
manipulating natural laws can also manipulate the way our minds work."

"Yeah," Jed admitted slowly, his face thoughtful. He turned to Cal.
"Like I said at the start. Our minds have sort of wandered of late.
Start to do something, and first thing y'know, we're doin' something
else. Can't keep our minds on one thing very long--like animals."

"That might be no more than the aftermath of deep shock," Cal said.

"It's for a purpose!"

Startled at the outburst, they all turned and looked at Louie.

"It's for a purpose," Louie repeated in a kind of rapture. "They want us
to understand we are being watched over, cared for. That colonist you
all laughed at was right. This is the first Garden of Eden, where man
lived in complete innocence. Now man has been returned to it, to live
a