des, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of
hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the
crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had
devised to determine the nature of the radiation between the crystals.

He did not find the gimmick.

By the end of the day Ellerbee seemed beat, as if he'd been under a
heavy strain all day long. And then Fenwick realized that was actually
the case. Ellerbee wanted desperately to have someone believe in him,
believe in his communication device. Not only had he used all the
reasoning power at his command, he had been straining physically to
induce Fenwick to believe.

Through it all, however, Sam Atkins seemed to remain bland and utterly
at ease, as if it made absolutely no difference to him, whatever.

"I guess we've just about shot our wad," said Ellerbee. "That's about
all we've got to show you. If we haven't convinced you by now that our
communicator works, I don't know how we can accomplish it."

Had they convinced him? Fenwick asked himself. Did he believe what he
had seen or didn't he? He had been smug in front of Baker after the
first demonstration, but now he wondered how much he had been covered by
the same brush that had tarred Baker.

It wasn't easy for him to admit the possibility of nonelectromagnetic
radiation from these strange crystals, radiation which could carry sight
and sound from one point to another without any transducers but the
crystals themselves.

"You have to step out of the world you've grown accustomed to," said Sam
Atkins very quietly. "This is what we have had to do. It's not hard now
to comprehend that telepathic forces of the mind can be directed by this
means. This is a new pattern. Think of it as such. Don't try to cram it
into the old pattern. Then it's easy."

A new pattern. That was the trouble, Fenwick thought. There couldn't
really be any new patterns, could there? There was only one basic
pattern, in which all the phenomena of the universe fit. He readily
admitted that very little was known about that pattern, and many things
believed true were false. But the Second Law of Thermodynamics. _That_
had to be true--invariably true--didn't it?

If there was a hoax, Baker would have to find it.

"I'll be back with Dr. Baker in a couple of days," Fenwick said. "After
that, the one final evidence we'll need will be to construct these
crystals in our own laboratories, entirely on o