Pillbot's expression indicated that the scientific attitude was slowly replacing his former fright. He snapped his fingers.
"Imitation again!" he said, half to himself. He looked at Harper. "When you bent the paper figure this—this fourth dimensional entity imitated your action by bending the Professor. Now, as you started to peel the orange, your action was again imitated—in a four dimensional manner—by this entity turning the other orange inside out."
His voice dropped, as he muttered, "Imitativeness—the mark of a mind of low evolutionary order, or of ..." his words faded off, his expression thoughtful.
More white showed around Harper's eyes. "You—you mean I am being specially watched by this Being—that He—It—imitates everything I do...?"
"That's it," clipped Pillbot. "Because you possess this strange perception of Its realm the Being has been especially attracted to you, imitates whatever you do, but in a four dimensional manner. A Being of inexplicable powers and prerogatives, with weird power over matter, but with a mentality that is either very primitive, or—"
Harper leaped into the air with a yell, as Professor Gault's abbreviated body sidled up to him from behind. As he leaped, the inside out orange flew out of his grasp.
"I just know," he quavered, "that Professor Gault wants me to do something, is probably barking orders at me from that other dimension—oh dear, I've dropped the orange on the Professor's—where his stomach should be!"
The squashy orange had landed on the area of Gault that was the line of demarkation between his visible and invisible portions—the area that his stomach would occupy normally. It rested there in plain sight of the two startled men.
"I—I'd better remove it," said Harper weakly. He moved with a dreadful compulsion toward the swaying half-figure, one slender hand extended tremblingly toward the inverted orange.
Abruptly, the orange vanished. Harper halted like he'd run into a brick wall. Staring blankly ahead, he put his hands to his stomach, moaning faintly.