‘We live in the Other World?
‘How else could we live? The mind – not the brain, but the mind – is in the Other World, and reaches this world through the body. That is one true way of looking at it, though there are others.
‘Is there more than one way of looking at deKalb receptors?
‘Certainly.
‘If I had a set which is not working right brought in here, would you show me how to look at it?
‘It is not needful,’ said Schneider, ‘and I do not like for machines to be in my house. I will draw you a picture.
Waldo felt impelled to insist, but he squelched his feeling. ‘You have come here in humility,’ he told himself, ‘asking for instruction. Do not tell the teacher how to teach.
Schneider produced a pencil and a piece of paper, on which he made a careful and very neat sketch of the antennae sheaf and main axis of a skycar. The sketch was reasonably accurate as well, although it lacked several essential minor details
‘These fingers,’ Schneider said, ‘reach deep into the Other World to draw their strength. In turn it passes down this pillar’ – he indicated the axis – to where it is used to move the car.
A fair allegorical explanation, thought Waldo. By considering the ‘Other World’ simply a term for the hypothetical ether, it could be considered correct if not complete. But it told him nothing. ‘Hugh Donald,’ Schneider went on, ‘was tired and fretting. He found one of the bad truths.
‘Do you mean,’ Waldo said slowly, ‘that McLeod’s ship failed because he was worried about it?
‘How else?
Waldo was not prepared to answer that one. It had become evident that the old man had some quaint superstitions; nevertheless he might still be able to show Waldo what to do, even though Schneider did not know why. ‘And what did you do to change it?
‘I made no change; I looked for the other truth.
‘But how? We found some chalk marks-
‘Those? They were but to aid me in concentrating my attention in the proper direction. I drew them down so,’ – he illustrated with pencil on the sketch – ‘and thought how the fingers reached out for power. And so they did.
‘That is all? Nothing more?
‘That is enough.
Either, Waldo considered, the old man did not know how he had accomplished the repair, or he had had nothing to do with it – sheer and amazing coincidence. He had been resting the empty cup on the rim of his tank, the weight supported by the metal while his fingers merely steadied it. His preoccupation caused him to pay too little heed to it; it slipped from his tired fingers, clattered and crashed to the floor
He was much chagrined. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Grandfather. I’ll send you another.
‘No matter. I will mend.’ Schneider carefully gathered up the pieces and placed them on the desk. ‘You have tired,’ he added. ‘That is not good. It makes you lose what you have gained. Go back now to your house, and when you have rested, you can practise reaching for the strength by yourself.
It seemed a good idea to Waldo; he was growing very tired, and it was evident that he was to learn nothing specific from the pleasant old fraud. He promised, emphatically and quite insincerely, to practise ‘reaching for strength’, and asked Schneider to do him the favour of summoning his bearers
The trip back was uneventful. Waldo did not even have the spirit to bicker with the pilot
Stalemate. Machines that did not work but should, and machines that did work but in an impossible manner. And no one to turn to but one foggy-headed old man. Waldo worked lackadaisically for several days, repeating, for the most part, investigations he had already made rather than admit to himself that he was stuck, that he did not know what to do, that he was, in fact, whipped and might as well call Gleason and admit it
The two ‘bewitched’ sets of deKalbs continued to work whenever activated, with the same strange and incredible flexing of each antenna. Other deKalbs which had failed in operation and had been sent to him for investigation still refused to function. Still others, which had not yet failed, performed beautifully without the preposterous fidgeting