III
An invisible force seemed to twitch at Johnson's skin, nipping it here and there with a multitude of tiny pinches, like invisible fleas biting him.
"This is it!" a voice whispered in his mind. "This is what you came to Venus to see. This ... this...." The first voice went into silence. Another voice took its place.
"This is another damned vision!" the second voice said. "This ... this is something that is not real, that is not possible! No Venusian Dreamer, and no one else, can levitate, can defy the laws of gravity, can float upward toward the ceiling. Your damned eyes are tricking you!"
"We are not tricking you!" the eyes hotly insisted. "It is happening. We are seeing it. We are reporting accurately to you. That Venusian Buddha is levitating. We, your eyes, do not lie to you!"
"You lied about the space ship!" the second voice said.
"We did not lie about the space ship!" the eyes insisted. "When our master saw that ship we were out of focus, we were not reporting. Some other sense, some other organ, may have lied, but we did not."
"I—" Johnson whispered.
"I am your skin," another voice whispered. "I am covered with sweat."