"That I do not know," he returned earnestly. "Nor do you. We can only see, think, imagine for ourselves. Our conscious universe is our own; it exists of our own creation, and what it is of itself apart from us, I do not know."
"We have on Earth," Will said, "a school of philosophical thinking which believes that nothing exists apart from the mentality perceiving it. Believes that without a consciousness of existence, nothing can exist."
"That may be so," Thone replied gravely.
Bee was still puzzled. She said to Thone, "Ala, to me, looks different from you. She looks, as Will says, like a girl. Won't you tell us how she looks to you?"
He thought a moment. "She looks—like Ala," he said slowly. "I think we mould our images from the individual itself—not upon a generality of sex. She looks to me like Ala, as I know her to be. Very gentle. Very keen of reasoning. Very quick—" He smiled. "Yet not always so very logical. She looks like the Ala of my creation—mine and that other mentality whom you would call her mother—" His voice turned solemn, with a singular hush to it. "Her mother—who has long since gone into that realm of mystery."
At other times they talked of practical subjects. Brutar's coming invasion of Earth; my own fate, since I still was missing, unheard from. And they talked of what could be done to overcome Brutar and his horde of followers.
Thone, it seemed to Will, had accomplished very little. He had learned of Brutar's purpose; and of the establishment of his realm. Thone had sent—by the aid of the lolos plant—an adventurer into the Borderland who had seen Brutar and some of his cohorts experimenting with the Earth-state. Then Ala had gone into the Borderland; had met Will; had arranged to bring him, Bee and myself back to see her parent.
Little of accomplishment! A public meeting of protest, which we had attended; and which Brutar invaded. But now Thone was organizing his Thinkers—his army, as it might have been called on Earth. Their purpose was to seek out Brutar's realm by concerted effort of thought; to find it while Brutar's preparations were still incomplete; and to destroy it.
The very conception of warfare of this kind was difficult for Will to encompass. There were no weapons—nothing of the sort we on Earth would call weapons. Will showed Thone his broad belt, and the contents of its pouches. He drew out a revolver and a knife. Thone inspected them curiously—shadowy, glowing objects which almost floated when tossed into the air, so imponderable were they.