arem."

"No, Red," I said. "Those funny things we saw, your book pages turning;
the cockeyed balance; maybe your loss of weight. They aren't natural.
Something is here and what I just saw makes me think it's human and it's
trying to get in touch with us."

Red's stomach muscles squeezed with laughter and he held onto a guard
rail to keep from being sent across the room by the exertion.

"What I saw was a woman, Red," I went on.

Red laughed out loud and hung on again. "I could use a babe," he said.
Suddenly he jerked. "Who hit me?" he asked. Across his face was a red
welt, the shape of a woman's hand.

* * * * *

We called them "manifestations" after that and Red called her his ghost
sweetheart, although the slap had convinced him it wasn't a ghost. Red's
getting slapped was the first indication that perhaps this thing did
have matter of some sort, but its ability to remain invisible made it
appear that the matter wasn't the ordinary kind.

Finally I came up with some sort of an answer. It was just a crazy idea
and there was no way to prove that I was right. I tried to explain it to
Red, who didn't know much about atomic physics, but he seemed to get the
idea.

"You see, Red, it could be _negative_ matter," I explained.

"What's that?"

"Well, you know what an electron is, I suppose, a negatively charged
sub-atomic particle?"

Red nodded.

"And a proton, which is positively charged?"

Again he nodded.

"Well, scientists have learned that there could be positive electrons,
as well as negative, and negative protons. In other words each
sub-atomic particle has a 'minus quantity' counterpart."

"You're saying it, I'm believing it," said Red. "A guy's gotta believe
something."

"Well, this leads to a great deal of speculation. If these minus
quantities got together they might form a minus matter."

"You've got me in a hole, so I'm minus too."

"You don't have to understand it, but try to imagine that two universes
could exist side by side, one minus, one plus, and that neither could be
aware of the other. Every star, every planet and every speck of matter
could have its counterpart, but neither would be aware of that
counterpart's existence."

Red grinned and shook his head. "Crazy," he said.

"Yes, crazy. But dig this, supposing that some sixth sense made it
possible for one of our minus counterparts to get in contact with us
through extra-sensory perception."

"Ho