The farther this thing went along the less sense it made. A compulsion, to be any good at all, ought to be logical and coherent. It should fit into every corner and cranny of the subject's experience and knowledge. This one did not fit anything or anywhere. It didn't even come close. Yet, technically, it was a marvelous job. He couldn't detect a trace of it. This grass looked and felt real. The pebbles hurt his tender feet so much that he had to wince as he walked gingerly to the water's edge. He drank deeply. The water, real or not, was cold, clear, and eminently satisfying.
"Listen, you misguided what-is-it," he thought probingly, "you might as well open up now as later whatever you've got in mind. If this performance is supposed to be nonfiction, it's a flat bust. If it is supposed to be science-fiction, it isn't much better. If it's a space-opera, even, you're violating all the fundamentals. I've written better stuff myself—Qadgop and Cynthia were a lot more convincing." He waited a moment, then went on:
"Whoever heard of the intrepid hero of a space-opera as big as this one started out to be getting stranded on a completely Earth-like planet and then having nothing happen? No action at all? How about a couple of indescribable monsters of superhuman strength and agility, for me to tear apart with my steel-thewed fingers?"
He glanced around expectantly. No monster appeared.
"Well, then, how about a damsel in distress for me to rescue from a fate worse than death? Better make it two of them—safety in numbers, you know—a blonde and a brunette. No redheads. I'll play along with you part way on that oldie—up to the point of falling for either of them."
He waited again.
"QX, sport, no woman. Suits me perfectly. But I hope you haven't forgotten about the tasty viands. I can eat fish if I have to, but if you want to keep your hero happy, let's see you lay down here, on a platter, a one-kilogram steak, three centimeters thick, medium rare, fried in Tellurian butter and smothered in Venusian superla mushrooms."
No steak appeared, and the Gray Lensman recalled and studied intensively every detail of what had apparently happened. It still could not have occurred. He could not have imagined it. It could not have been compulsion or hypnosis. None of it made any kind of sense.
As a matter of plain fact, however, Kinnison's first and most positive conclusion was wrong. His memories were factual records of actual events and things. He would eat well during his stay upon that nameless planet, but he would have to procure his own food. Nothing would attack him, or even annoy him. For the Eddorian's binding—this is perhaps as good a word for it as any, since "geas" implies a curse—was such that the Gray Lensman could return to space and time only under such conditions and to such an environment as would not do him any iota of physical harm. He must continue alive and in good health for at least fifty more of his years.