"Very well," the voice almost sighed. "Will you submit, Captain Hastings, to the use of the concentric screen? We wish to know more of the circumstances surrounding several pertinent dates."
His face was the color of picked bones. "Yes, I will submit."
Two men advanced carrying a mesh complexity between them. Placing it over the defendant's head they allowed it to fall to his shoulders.
"Are you ready, John Hastings?"
"Yes." It seemed he was already gone from the place.
"Then concentrate. Remember. Permit your mind to have freedom." The voice washed over him in waves. "It is a day in December ... the fourteenth.... Take my words and let them carry you...."
The screen above the defendant's head began to cloud and draw in.
"It is cold outside ... the snow is falling. There is a warm room. A fire is burning...."
The mists opalesced and formed a nucleus.
"There is a pool of light on the desk, unexpected flowers in a bowl, the odor of duck, roasted brown...."