proof.

_The sparkling fog is mind stuff._

I will not defend that statement. I will not rationalize it. But I
will seek explanations; consider possibilities.

Known: This sparkling fog through which we drift is intelligent
matter; the stuff of thoughts; the basic material from which
consciousness springs. It is consciousness itself.

Supposed: It is probably electronuclear in composition, and appears to
be completely innocent. By that I mean it has no intention to harm,
perhaps because it does not understand the difference between good and
evil, harm and help, pain and pleasure.

It has only one urge; the basic urge of all creation. To evolve, to
develop. As the tree has but one basic urge--to grow and greaten; the
flower but one desire--to bloom, to improve; to assert itself through
evolution and become better.

Perhaps--and who can successfully deny it?--this great space cloud
could be a storage place of the Creator Himself; a storage place for
mind stuff. When an infant or an animal or a plant is touched with the
magic thing called life--where does that magic come from? Is it
created at the very moment or does it come somehow from a source-pile?
Is this cloud a source-pile of life itself? No one can say. But I
think I've hit on a limitation of this mind stuff. I'm going to try an
experiment and pray to God it works.

I'm going to find Murdo and knock him unconscious.

I have solved the mind-stuff. What just happened is the last bit of
proof I need. I went to the galley. Murdo had wandered away. I found
him in the lounge. I stepped casually in front of him, set myself, and
drove a straight right to his jaw. He went down like a log.

I closed my eyes and counted to twenty praying to God to make me right
in my belief--in the crazy theory I evolved. I opened my eyes and
turned to the storage locker. I looked inside.

The dead leopard was gone.

I went to the port and looked out. The huge ice bear had been ravening
insanely among the shreds of the water buffalo's body. As I watched
both bear and buff began fading.

Before my eyes, they disappeared, evolved back into the stuff of the
sparkling fog. I had proved my theory.

Now all the parts dropped into place. The mind stuff has only the
ability and the urge to evolve--nothing else--no imagination. It can
evolve only if given something to reproduce.

This it can get only from a human mind. It is able to see an image
pictured in the human memory and re