"Look," she said to us, "maybe there isn't any super intelligence sucking us into outer space. Maybe it's our own thoughts. I don't know how the rest of you have been feeling, but for several days now I have had a fear of outer space that has been growing simply terrific. Something like the fear of falling as you look over the edge of a cliff. Could that have anything to do with what's going on?"
"Maybe that's it!" Jud exclaimed. "We don't know half enough about this stuff. It could be that such a fear would make it do the very thing feared."
As if in answer, the ship stopped accelerating.
"That MUST be it!" Mallory shouted.
"We have a clue I hadn't thought of," Jud added. Looking at me he went on, "When you think of a chicken with its head being wrung, what thought goes with it?"
"Why," I hesitated, "I think of a swell chicken dinner."
"I think of how awful it is to kill!" Jud exclaimed. "It doesn't react to the idea but to the emotion."
We experimented from that basis—without result. The tellecarbon was in complete revolt. It paid no attention to us.
Two more days and we had to admit we were licked. Jud voiced what we had all begun to suspect.