I was puzzled. There was no instinct to guide me; or if there was, my puzzled reason subverted it. I described my feeling to Eo.
"It seems physical," I said. "I had forgotten my body—but there seems a pang there."
"Thirst," he said readily. The word he used, gave me the thought of thirst. And this was water, or its equivalent.
I knelt beside the white layers of mist. Did I inhale it, or drink it? I have no means of knowing; but I know that the pang left me, and that the experience was vaguely pleasant.
We moved on. Came at last to the great field. Behind us the opposite side of the encampment—the enclosure wherein I had seen the creation of thought-material—was now almost over our heads. The ground of the field was soft and flaky—it seemed as though it might have been a black soil lying in flakes. Things were rooted within it—growing things set in long orderly rows that stretched up the concave surface into the dimness of distance. They appeared to be plants; in height about to my knee. A central stalk; branches bent outward like gesturing arms. A bud, or flower, at the top. It seemed to carry features—a face. My imagination? Something that had been said or suggested to me? Possibly. But the things bent aside as we advanced upon them. They seemed eyeing us; suddenly I was conscious of a myriad eyes from everywhere fixed upon me.
I said to Brutar, "This black ground—is that thought-material?"
"Yes," he said. "Made from the same substance you saw created. But many mental processes were necessary to bring it to this final state."
"And then you planted these—things in it?" I asked. "They look as though they had an intelligence. I don't understand that. Are they growing here—or what?"
Brutar hesitated. I think that the man's learning was not very great. Eo said:
"I believe I can explain it, Rob. All things in our world are divided into two classes. One—the inert, material bodies. These we create from nothingness to their final perfected state. The other class—living organisms—is very different. The addition of a Creator-Thought is necessary. These plants—to be specific—are called lolos. The lolos plant. To create it we must have a spore—an infinitesimal something already existing. With this spore, others like it may be created by our own mentalities. And nurtured by our mentalities through a period of growth. But that latter process can be simplified by the production of this soil in which the plants are then nourished. It is basically an identical process."