"He shot at me with some sort of energy weapon. This is a burn, not a bullet-hole!"
Majors shook his head. "Not a chance. Admitting that what you sent out was an energy-beam, it is still impossible to believe that a hand-sized energy weapon is practical."
"Granted," said Carroll. "But then there's this evidence. Explain this, will you? I don't mind getting my arm burned badly if it will only make you believe."
Doctor Pollard shook his head with a smile. "Stigmata," he said. "The 'Bleeding Madonna' who exhibits wounds and bleeding from hands, feet, sides and forehead on Good Friday. A sheer mental phenomenon—psychosomatica. This is the same. You are so convinced as to the positiveness of these aliens that your mind produced this burn as evidence."
"Brother, this ain't no mental mirage," snapped Carroll.
"No one said it was. But the power of the human mind is such that the cellular structure of the body will exhibit burn-trauma when the mind believes it so. So one of them creased your arm and you reacted as though it were the burn your mind believed it to be.
"We've been through all this before. It's just cause and effect and result. This time it is only the latter that counts. You've destroyed the menace that drove you insane."
"Look," said Carroll, "I've been through it."
"And nothing you've turned up with can be construed as any evidence beyond the manufacture of your own mind. And nothing that you will ever find—"