Ye of Little Faith
By Rog Phillips
Illustrated by TOM BEECHAM
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It matters not whether you believe or disbelieve. Reality is not always based on logic; nor, particularly, are the laws of the universe....
The disappearance of John Henderson was most spectacular. It occurred while he was at the blackboard working an example in multiple integration for his ten o'clock class. The incompleted problem remained on the board for three days while the police worked on the case. It, a wrist watch and a sterling silver monogrammed belt buckle, lying on the floor near where he had stood, were all the physical evidence they had to go on.
There was plenty of eye-witness evidence. The class consisted of forty-three pupils. They all had their eyes on him in varying degrees of attention when it happened. Their accounts of what happened all agreed in important details. Even as to what he had been saying.
In the reports that went into the police files he was quoted with a high degree of certainty as having said, "Integration always brings into the picture a constant which was not present. This constant of integration is, in a sense, a variable. But a different type of variable than the mathematical unknown. It might be said to be a logical variable—"