"Yes," agreed Will readily. "And you surprise me with constant similarities to my own world. We believe our own thoughts to be vibrations of some substance intangible. And when you speak of creating an appearance of substance by imparting motion to something otherwise unsubstantial, that too we see in our world. Water is a fluid. A stream of water slowly flowing from a pipe offers no solidity to a blow from a rod of iron. But if that water comes from the pipe with a swift enough motion, a blow struck against the jet with an iron bar seems to be repulsed.
"That seems not actually the creation of new matter, but we have another effect which is this. A tiny rod of steel—a needle the length of my finger—may hang motionless balanced upon a pivot. It is a material body which we would call three or four inches long, by one-hundredth of an inch thick and broad. We set it swinging—vibrating—whirling in a circle with the pivoted end as the center. With a swift enough movement that circle is impenetrable. In effect, out of that needle, we have created a steel disc, one-hundredth of an inch thick, with a diameter of say eight inches. An area of material substance hundreds of times greater than the needle—yet the mass is not increased."
"Quite so," Thone agreed. "Our thought-waves have a mass infinitesimal. But like your steel disc, they can momentarily become very tangible to our Ego-senses. A tangibility very different, yet comparable to our bodies themselves. Less mass, yet more power. Under some circumstances they may alter an inert substance, as I have made transparent to our vision that segment of the globe over there, beyond which we see the city. Or they can enmesh a material organism—your body, for instance—I had meant to demonstrate that."
He moved away from Will, stood quiet; and about Will he flung his wave of thoughts, so that Will was drawn irresistibly to him—as Bee and I were even then enmeshed by Brutar's thought-substance.
Thone laughed. The net of his thoughts dissolved. "You see? It is a very tangible substance. Yet elusive as well. We understand partially its uses. Yet only partially. Its nature is varied from a tenuosity impalpable, to the physical substances which form the entities of our universe. Like that thing you described as your Light-waves, our Thought-substance can traverse Space with tremendous velocity. Not a finite, measurable velocity, as with your Light, but with a speed infinitely rapid.
"A thought may travel to infinity and back in an instant. That—understand me—relates only to its most tenuous form, impalpable to our physical senses—perceived only dimly and only occasionally by a mind other than that from which it originates. In more solid forms its velocity is slower. But it is all under control of our Ego-willpower. Do I confuse you?"
"A little," Will admitted. "I am trying to hold a clear conception of it all. I understand you have a void of Space. Must it not be filled with something besides these Thought-entities? Some all-pervading, impalpable fluid?"
"We do not know," said Thone frankly. "There are emanations from our immobile organisms. Thus we breathe and eat—the substance of our bodies is renewed—but of that I shall tell you more at another time. You were saying—"