"It means that if we can develop this commercially, space travel to the farthest star will be as easy as walking across the street."
Dr. Rawlings' annoyance rose higher at this. Space travel again, after only a few weeks ago he had convinced a woman from Mars that such things were impossible. Oh, well.
"This is very interesting," he lied, "but—ah—just what is the nature of your difficulty?"
"My ideas used to be only theoretical," Moore told him. "But through some quirk of fate I've advanced beyond that stage to a point where I'm actually capable of crossing the barrier."
The psychiatrist nodded. "You mean you think you can actually do this?"
Moore shook his head emphatically. "I mean I have done it," he insisted. "Mind control."
"I see," the doctor said. On his pad he wrote 'hallucinations,' although he was jumping the gun slightly on that. Still, he felt sure of himself, and the pencil still had some eraser left on it. Under the word he drew a crude and rather vulgar picture of a rooster chasing a hen.
"That's why I came to you, Dr. Rawlings," Moore went on. "It's not that I'm neurotic or anything. It's just that I can't control this power, and I'd like to." He shuddered slightly. "I'd better."
"And you want me to help you," the psychiatrist said. "Which, of course, I'll be only too happy to do. But first, do you have any outward signs that you have—eh—crossed the barrier. That is, do you—well, see things, for example."
"Yes, I do," Moore said, remembering, and the psychiatrist pencilled two triumphant lines beneath the word 'hallucinations' on his deskpad. "It began about two weeks after I first made my mathematical discovery. I was lying awake in bed thinking of my theories and how, if ever they could be applied directly to the physical world, doors would be opened to any part of the universe. Just about then a knock came at the door."