“But you cannot reduce your theory to fact, Sir Basil!”
“No?” Again came that frightful grin to his cadaverous face. “Can you withstand shock?”
“If you mean shock to the eye, let me remind you that I served two years in the big fight.”
“Then come to my laboratory. Better take another drink.”
While Hale helped himself again from the masata bottle, Sir Basil swallowed another pellet.
Then the two went into the adjoining apartment.
Sir Basil, his hand over the doorknob, paused.
“Before we go in,” he said, “I want you to remember that we call natural that which is characteristic of the physical world. Everything alive in this laboratory was produced by nature. I merely made available the materials, or, rather, I made the conditions under which matter was able to enslave mind-electrons.”
He opened the door, slipped his body through, and, with his ugly, teeth-revealing grin, gestured for Hale to follow him.