Will went on: "This realm then is filled with your material bodies. This globe we are in—the globes that make your city—the Ego which is you—and myself—other Egos like us—What holds us where we are?" He smiled. "I'm groping, I'm trying to say, is there no gravitation? No gigantic material body holding us where we are: Out there in the open—" He gestured. "We walked upon something. A surface—a slope. What is it?"
"You ask me many questions at once," Thone replied quietly. "Gravitation, as you call it—yes, with us it is the inherent desire of every particle of thought-matter to cling to its fellows. Thus everything of substantiality tends to cluster at the center of the void. Only motion enables it to depart, which is why it must always move in a curved path—a balancing of the two conflicting forces.
"You question me about some gigantic material substance—like your Earth. There is none. You asked me upon what you walked out there in the open. You walked upon the curvature of Space. Upon a false, a mere semblance of solidity which was the resultant balance of the forces moving you. This globe—this city—it lies immobile upon a solidity equally false—immobile because there is nothing to move it."
"I think I understand a little better," Will said slowly. "All force then, as well as all matter, has its source in the Ego-mind."
"Of course. We create matter, and movement of matter, by our own volition. We have been originally created by the Divine-thought; after which we construct and maintain our Universe by Ego-thought of our own. Inert substance—the mind laboriously creates it; flings it out, solidifies it, moulds it to our diverse purposes. Living organisms—the reproduction of the Ego-species—is similarly of our Ego-mind origin. Yet there is a difference there. For me to reproduce myself in Ala, the Divine-Thought—the assistance shall I say of the Great-Creator—again is necessary. We have not been quite able to fathom why it is so—but it is. There is a difference between an Ego and a thing inert—a vital something which only the Great-Creator can supply."
Ala suddenly interrupted; and upon her face I saw fear. "Your friends—those whom you called Bee and Rob—they are in danger. She—that girl as you called her—that girl Bee—is sending out thoughts of danger. I can feel it."
Thone said: "Try, Ala—could you find her? Where has she gone?"
"I don't know. Her thought-matter is streaming back here. I can feel it—very faintly—but it has reached here. She is with Rob—and there is Brutar."
Thone was upright, with Will beside him. Will was surging with fear. "Danger to them? To my sister—to Rob—"
Thone said: "He has entrapped them—Brutar has entrapped them—all unwary since they do not know how to use these new minds which are themselves. We must try and get them—Oh, my friend, there is so much that I would tell you—but another time—not now. For if they are in danger we must go to them. That Brutar is a Mind very powerful.—"