"I've known of this power since last night," he said slowly. "We were at Mrs. Gordon's bridge, remember? I was sitting there with that blamed cup on my knees wishing I didn't have to drink it, when my mind went blank. Absolutely blank.
"It was like being suspended in a dark vault, with someone working on your mind. I could feel what they—or it, was doing to me. Oh, it didn't hurt. It was just a sense of—awareness. As though someone were operating on me with instruments of telepathy. Knowing just what to do, and going there and getting it over with, quickly. When the feeling went away, I was still sitting there. I hadn't moved, and no one had noticed anything. It had been accomplished in an incredibly short space of time.
"I recall looking at the tea in the cup, and wishing with all my heart it was a stiff drink. And when I put it to my lips, it was just that—the best liquor I've ever tasted in my life.
"I needed that drink. Especially in view of the fact that it was a drink. Then I thought I heard a voice, whispering to me from far away. I sat still and listened. But the voice, or whatever it was, couldn't get through to me. It tried desperately to tell me something, but the connection was wrong. It gave up after a while."
Jonathan took the cigarette the doctor handed him and puffed in on it, standing in a patch of sunlight, gazing down at the flooring.
"On the way home, I got to wondering about what had happened. I thought, maybe somebody's made a present to me of terrific mental powers. I looked up at the moon, and wondered about it.
"The idea came to me: why not concentrate on the moon, and see what would happen. It was to be a test, you see.
"I concentrated, all right.
"The next thing I knew I was standing on it. And oh, boy! the Earth is damn big, looking up, or down, at it."
The Chief choked on cigarette smoke. He gasped finally, "You mean to tell me you were on the moon?"