Threshold

1

"P eter, we are losing Armageddon . . . ! the girl whispered intensely. You must aid us! Tears sparkled in her eyes. Only with your help do we have any chance of prevailing. Unless you join us . . . her breath caught, perhaps even if you do— the galaxy is doomed . . . !"

All right, so Dr. Zarkov, at the peak of his career, couldn’t have improved on it; so Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, would have blushed; so Captain Video, rather than live with the stigma of having such a declaration attributed to him, would have fallen on his sword.

But that’s what she said.

And I believed her. . . .

2

Of course I believed her—I defy any live, practicing heterosexual male to gaze into those eyes and not believe. Least of all one who has been a compulsive Rescuer of Itinerant Distressed Damsels since . . . Well, I guess I knew I had a predisposition toward that sort of thing even before I knew what one saved them for. (Learning the answer didn’t relieve the condition one bit.)

Anyway, it all started with . . .

Hmm. Certainly I know how it started. But, come to think of it, I’m not sure precisely when, nor even what it was, specifically, that alerted me to the fact that my tranquil, solitary vacation—not to mention the entire first chapter of my life—were about to be terminated. Rudely.

The blue-white glare, shining through my eyelids with ever-increasing intensity, would have gotten my attention eventually. Likewise, the nearly subsonic rumble, imperceptible at first but waxing steadily to the point where (despite determined efforts) I could no longer ignore it, undoubtedly would have been enough sooner or later. I suspect, however, that what actually did the job was the audibly hurried departure of the Resident Pelican.

But by then, of course, the question was moot.

My eyes snapped open just a fraction too late to focus on whatever it was that flashed from the sky to impact the beach not ten feet away. Later I was able to reconstruct the visual afterimage of what appeared to be a huge, blazing fireball whose flaming wake seemed to trail out to infinity

. . . And—somehow—beyond.

But at that precise moment, my only conscious impression was of being picked up, cartwheeled, and deposited in disarray upon the sand some fifty feet away.

I kept my head down and covered with my arms until the hail of sundry unidentifiable objects tapered off. Then, cautiously, I looked up to see how much of the island remained.

I goggled, shook my head, blinked sand from my eyes, and stared again. But the vision persisted. . . .

As a child, I always clapped my hands to a rosy blister when Peter Pan implored children everywhere to Believe, to save Tinker Bell’s life, and Walt Disney’s conception of the tiny fairy’s appearance substantially paralleled my own.

Before my eyes, Tinker Bell stood knee-deep in the water which was already seeping in to fill the shallow crater at whose center she stood. . . .

TO: Project Director/Monitor’s Log

FROM: G’lLhytl, Tenth Order

SUBJECT: Project Extremis

Preliminary readings suggest that the transuniversal shunt functioned properly once again, although study of data recorded during translation will be required to verify this conclusively. Further, no evidence of the shunt’s brief existence remains detectable either in this space or any of the others into which it impinged.

Our team is now on Earth; safely, according to the necessarily limited data available to viewer-compatible instrumentation. Their passage through adjacent spaces was without apparent side effects. By visual examination as well, their condition is grossly normal.

With the collapse of the shunt, viewers once again function normally and depict the target area. This temporary interference represents a potentially serious problem. On this occasion, and despite elaborate precautions, our team emerged in close proximity to the subject. Fortunately, for our purposes, he was not injured. A solution is needed, and most urgently.

The subject’s initial readings show emotional shock and mental disorientation commensurate to the stimuli. However, I do not expect this to interfere with the progress of the mission. Indeed, his condition probably will work to our advantage.

Automatic recorders were triggered the moment viewer reception cleared, and will operate continuously for the duration of the mission, enabling anyone to watch developments which may be missed due to scheduling conflicts. Likewise, all instruments capable of functioning through the viewer channel are discharging into the Data Field for further analysis.

The mission profile calls for uninterrupted monitoring of our team’s progress, as it has been anticipated that remote intervention may prove necessary.

Incidentally, those responsible for its development (Third through Fifth Order practitioners all) are to be commended for their work on the new Project Director/Monitor’s Log mindlink equipment. As specified in the Council’s research directive, the mechanics of operation are very nearly instinctive, and, unlike the earlier data-entry system, which required both a high degree of manual dexterity and intense concentration upon the keyboard, not at all distracting. Memorialization of personal observations proceeds at the speed of thought, and with no more effort. In my judgment, this system would seem to fulfill all design criteria.

3

Tinker Bell had almost cobweb-fine, straight blonde hair, evenly cropped to just over an inch in length. Her eyes were enormous, startlingly deep blue, asparkle with a knowing, merry devilment; and something about them, or the shape of her cheekbones, hinted at an exotic slant and imbued her gaze with an almost feline quality. Between a little snub nose, which crinkled when she grinned, and a finely chiseled but firm chin was a small, well-shaped mouth, clearly placed there by Nature for the express purpose of smiling. Her ears were tiny, delicate shells which rose to points.

The girl was not quite five feet taller than the three-quarters of an inch attributed to Tinker Bell, however; and as my scrutiny continued downward the illusion faded: Tink was almost terminally modest—this girl was stark naked and patently unconcerned about it. Indeed, she seemed almost to flaunt it.

She had delicate, almost fragile shoulders, arms, and hands, and a slender, graceful neck. Her breasts were perfect, rose-tipped swellings the size of tangerines. Her waist was very slender; her hips slim; her pubic area devoid of hair. Her legs were astonishingly long, straight, and shapely, ending in remarkably tiny feet.

I recall feeling relieved to note that she did not have lacy wings.

My first startled impression was of a beauty transcending description. This lasted only until she grinned, when it became obvious that actually the girl was just too darned cute for words. And regardless of her expression, or the state of her attire, she radiated an assurance which quite belied her almost childlike appearance.

As I gaped, the girl moved lithely up out of the crater, followed much more slowly by an amazingly obese, yellow- and black-striped, drippingly wet tomcat, in whose baleful golden eyes burned an almost spiritual hatred for all things liquid. The cat heaved himself over the rim of the crater and sat heavily, visibly wheezing from the effort of the three-foot ascent. Aloof to his surroundings, he began to dry himself; while the girl crossed the intervening beach, took my hand in hers, and, with no visible effort, hoisted me bodily to my feet, oblivious to the fact that I outweighed her by at least two-to-one.

"Oh, Peter, I’m sorry!" she murmured, brushing sand and fragments of sea shells from my face and hair. A small, still-barely coherent portion of my brain noted that her voice complemented her appearance to perfection: low, sweet, somehow musical, with the faintest hint of something which might have been an accent but wasn’t. Quite.

"We calculated so carefully! she continued. I can’t imagine what could have gone wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that; we weren’t supposed to emerge so close. . . ."

I couldn’t imagine what could have gone wrong either, but of course I had an advantage: I had no idea what was supposed to have gone right. I volunteered as much.

The girl ignored my babblings with grace. She retrieved the lounge, righted it, placed it behind my jellylike knees, and gently eased me down onto it. She sat close and took my hands in hers. We were to have come out at least two hundred yards from your cottage, she explained, down by the water, the clear beach area south of the piers . . .

Abruptly she paused. She looked around quickly, then frowned. "Say . . . ! she blurted in aggrieved tones. That’s right where we are! What are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here; you always fish from the end of the piers. Don’t you know you might have been killed?"

Perhaps midway through a stumblingly contrite explanation of how and why I had come this day to be fishing from the beach, instead of the pier where I belonged, it occurred to me to wonder . . .

Just what right had this girl to an explanation? What did it matter what she thought? For that matter, who was she? Where had she come from? How had she gotten here? Where were her clothes? Why was she naked? What was that flaming thing that nearly had landed on me? Where was it? What was her connection with it?

Anger and curiosity, each keeping pace with the other, gained momentum rapidly, sweeping the fog from my shock-blunted mental processes. My mind raced, considering varied possibilities, but never straying far from the central issue: What the hell was going on here . . . ?

As I paused in my ruminations, the girl opened her eyes, cautiously removed the fingers from her ears, straightened her shoulders, and turned back to gaze at me reproachfully.

The cat, however, merely glanced up briefly from his ablutions. Mildly he said, You don’t have to shout.

4

The day had begun routinely enough: I woke early to perfect weather, breakfast turned out well, and soon I was outside fishing under an unnaturally deep blue, unbelievably clear sky. The sun, looming huge and red, low on the eastern horizon, felt warm and soothing. A gentle hint of sea breeze wafted the scent of the Caribbean across the crystal lagoon to where I sprawled on a lounge at the juncture of glistening white sand and the water’s edge. A frost-covered glass of lemonade stood in a slowly spreading puddle of condensate on a small table nearby. A surf rod lay beneath limp fingers across my lap. On a nearby piling, the Resident Pelican drowsed, confident that I would tire of fishing soon and dispose of my remaining bait.

However, RP’s confidence was misplaced. Granted, I had a line in the water, but the fish were treating my bait with a respect bordering upon religious taboo. And it didn’t take long for the warmth, the hour, and my full belly to exact their toll: Gradually my eyes closed. Soon I drifted in a contented reverie: not asleep, not quite awake.

It had appeared that nothing stood between me and a morning of sloth fully commensurate to the occasion, which was the start of my third day of vacation, and which had given every promise of being an especially fine example of its type.

Until then. . . .

Well, I’d had good reason to relax: I was The Boss. I had to make the most of every opportunity—genuine, all-out vacations didn’t come along that often. My schedule called for a minimum of sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, which, in combination with my customary holidays, would have brought the typical working man—those sturdy, independent souls whose unions guaranteed them a day or two of leisure each week, and an eight-hour workday—to profanity, tears, and alcohol. I’d give a resistant subject about two months before he started gazing moodily over the penthouse railing, three to five before he jumped.

Which is not to imply that I didn’t enjoy life. No, indeed! I cruised, fished, snorkeled, partied, raced, rallied, competed in trials, partied, flew, soared, sky-dived, partied, dabbled in amateur athletics, partied, and so forth—said so forth encompassing all the delights predictably available to any indecently wealthy, healthy male whose appearance doesn’t actually terrify small children.

However, apart from those rare all-out vacations, I was never off-duty: I was on seven-days-a-week, ’round-the-clock call. No matter where I was, regardless of with whom (and regardless of what we might be doing), my staff had instructions to call me if a business crisis arose. To that end, there were phones and computers in all my offices, in every room of my houses, condos, and apartments, in my motorhomes, boats, and in each car and plane. My secretaries (six—they worked overlapping five-hour shifts, ensuring that the one on duty at any given moment would be sharp and informed) all carried phones and laptops in their briefcases.

Hell’s bells, I had telephones in my shower stalls . . . !

(Once, for instance, I negotiated a multimillion-dollar merger from forty thousand feet up in an eighteen-meter sailplane over Minden. Ideal soaring conditions in the lee wave had placed an altitude record within my grasp—I couldn’t quit—but neither, on the other hand, could I ignore a sudden opportunity to make a couple hundred million dollars.)

But I wasn’t complaining. Far from it. I liked what I was doing; I enjoyed working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.

Had it ever ceased to be fun—well, getting by on the income from a multibillion-dollar principal wouldn’t have entailed cutting too deeply into my standard of living. . . .

5

Awisp of a smile played at the girl’s features, and her eyes sought mine earnestly, but she began cautiously, as if expecting another explosion. My name is Megonthalyä—‘Meg’ for short—and this is Memphus, she said, indicating the cat.

Her eyes were astonishingly wide. And very blue. It would have been easy to forget everything but those eyes. Even the shock of—wait, what shock was that, anyway? Oh, yes, the cat . . .

Did . . . did I just hear that . . . that cat . . . I stammered haltingly, only to be cut off as Meg brushed the question aside.

"We are going to answer all your questions, Peter. At least we’re going to try. But there’s so much to tell you, and so much of it is going to be very hard for you to understand, to say nothing of believe . . . ."

Actually, I concluded, her eyes were almost sapphire. But it was difficult to give them the attention they deserved, under the circumstances. . . .

I’m sure I heard that cat . . . I ventured again—again unsuccessfully.

That’s something we’ll have to sort of work up to, the girl continued diffidently. With your present, uh, knowledge, there isn’t any way that I can make you understand how we got here. You simply don’t have the background to comprehend it. And I’m equally certain that you’re not ready yet to learn where we came from or why we’re here.

An unfortunate choice of words: Rapidly mounting blood pressure began sweeping away the mists enshrouding my brain. Now, see here . . . ! I began hotly.

That seems to leave the weather and fishing, observed the cat, without looking up, after which you’re going to be in trouble.

Memphus . . . the girl began ominously.

Of course there’s always sex, he continued blithely.

Meg sighed. And you certainly aren’t ready for an explanation of Memphus, she stated emphatically, regarding the cat with fond indulgence.

That did it, of course. True, I was still at least partially in shock; not more than a fraction of my brain cells were back in service. But those that were saw red.

Even as a child I had never liked being talked down to. As one of the most powerful capitalists in the world, I simply didn’t put up with it. Not ever. Not from anyone.

Least of all from a skinny, naked trespasser who not only talked down but in circles . . . !

Young lady, I snarled, "I don’t care who you are. I’m not particularly interested in where you came from. But I do care a great deal about how you got here and what you’re here for. This is my island; I come here for privacy! Now you’d better have some good answers, and I’d better start hearing them, or I’m going up to the house and calling security and you can answer their questions. The choice is yours. You have ten seconds. . . ."

I’m tired of this, interjected the cat in bored tones. All he does is stutter and yell.

He’s just as he should be, returned the girl almost defensively. He’s a leader: a take-charge type; resourceful, authoritative, accustomed to making decisions, accepting responsibility—accustomed to obedience. . . .

True enough, replied the cat grudgingly; "else the compudicters wouldn’t have selected him. They are necessary characteristics—but I don’t have to like them," he finished grumpily.

Ordinarily I’m not so easily diverted, but I still hadn’t recovered completely. I responded to what sounded like one of my favorite words like a trout rising to a mayfly: What are you talking about? I demanded. What computers?

Not ‘computers,’ said the girl, in tones most people reserve to explain how the sum of two plus two is arrived at. "The computers you’re familiar with are machines; our compudicters are people; a group of adepts back on Isis who were bred for compudiction, which is a gnäa’q, or talent—partly extra-sensory, partly mathematical, partly the pwW’r, which means ‘art’—to access and experience the Data Field in its entirety, and then reach conclusions of a very high order of probability concerning future events. Naturally, the more data the Field has, the closer their predictions come to perfection. Here on Earth they would be considered prophets."

The cat nodded. He said, The compudicters are the ones who selected you for . . .

"Memphus!" The sweet voice throbbed with the sudden lash of an unquestionable authority, overlaid with a momentary hint of real anger. The cat subsided like a punctured balloon.

For what? I couldn’t help it; curiosity nibbled at the edges of my wrath.

Meg cast me a long, searching, sidelong gaze over steepled fingers. I really should start at the very beginning, she said. Meaning no disrespect to your background, education, and knowledge—yes, I know that’s how I set you off before, and I’m sorry—but this is going to be completely foreign to your experience. Unless you absorb it in a reasonably coherent sequence, you’ll never keep it straight, which means you won’t understand it, which means you won’t believe it.

And that would be very bad, interjected the cat, regarding me for the first time with something approximating interest. For you, for us, for Mankind . . .

"For everyone," Meg finished emphatically.

I’m listening.

The girl eyed me calculatingly. I hope you are, she muttered. She took a deep breath, hesitated, then the words tumbled out in a rush: "I’m a wWyh’j and Memphus is my fmMl’hr. . . ."

Even self-made multibillionaires need a break once in a while. Despite all the success (or perhaps because of it?), occasionally I found myself growing a little tired of it all, weary of the chase. The only cure was to get away—completely away: a true vacation, not just a holiday with a phone stuck in my ear. But in the beginning, that wasn’t easy.

Not from a purely business standpoint, of course; my executives were well trained and capable. My presence no longer was vital to day-to-day operations; only to continued disproportionately rapid growth. And by that time, money itself had ceased to be the goal; work had become a game, played for its own sake—purely for the challenge. There was little real significance to earning a couple hundred million dollars on any given day when it constituted only a fractional increase in my net worth.

(Goodness knows the staff enjoyed life more with me absent; without weekly or even daily crises as I took aim and let fly—my holding company did not constitute a comfortable environment for conventionally market-wise professionals. Incidence of stress-related illness among my executive ranks was about twice that of any other conglomerate, even though I was known as an easygoing martinet.)

Nor was the problem indecision on my part; I knew precisely what I was looking for: clean water, white sand, warm sunshine, soothing forest, and peace and quiet. Nothing fancy; a nice little waterfront cottage slightly set back under the trees; the sort of place available all over the country in one form or another at terms so reasonable that even lower middle-income families could afford them. One merely plunked down a deposit, signed the papers, and relaxed to the tune of easy monthly payments—

And the blare of the neighbors’ stereo; the metallic scream of outboards tracing high-speed designs all over the water; the relentless banging of the inveterate skeet shooter who owned the place down the shoreline; the staccato "ring-ding-ding-ding!" of trail bikers popping wheelies on the beach (gouging ruts into every surface in sight); roaring engines, screeching tires, and honking horns on the road behind the houses; barking dogs, squalling and fighting cats and children, and arguing adults; the roar of the game warden’s floatplane landing and taking off—not to mention the litter strewn by all those devotees of life in the unspoiled wilderness.

No. By that point in history, if one’s needs included water, sand, sunshine, forest—and privacy—the problem had become much more complex, and the solution was very much more expensive.

(Particularly if one also happened to be at risk from terrorists the world over, all hoping to fatten their war chests with billion-dollar ransoms.)

Unless one owned the entire shoreline—a whole lake—one couldn’t control the activities taking place upon it. And even if one were able to purchase an entire lake of the requisite dimensions—an expensive proposition even for the very rich—problems of trespass and security remained: No one was rich enough to purchase enough surrounding land to prevent hikers, trail bikers, four-wheel-drive hobbyists, all-terrain-vehicle enthusiasts, and indomitable explorers of the wilderness (of whatever stripe) from finding their way in, despite all the No Trespassing signs ever posted. Without actual, impenetrable, physical barriers, and/or distance, one’s privacy was only as good as others’ respect for it.

Buying an entire shoreline was a potentially viable solution, however, if turned inside out: An island, surrounded by a thousand or so miles of salt moat, could be private indeed. True, an occasional yacht or plane might find its way there. But with proper (i.e., cost-no-object) detection equipment, one was never caught by surprise. And yachts, with few exceptions, were owned and operated by the rich, who, aware (from their own arrangements) of the potential consequences of trespass, tended to approach violation of the privacy of others of their kind with caution.

Besides, the isolated setting allowed dealing summarily and without witnesses with the few exceptions, and the still fewer nonrich trespassers (drug smugglers in stolen yachts or planes, or fishermen hoping to augment their income with a little piracy—and even single-minded, would-be kidnappers): The spray raised by Gatling cannon fire stitching the water across their bows, or flak bursting in the air around them, generally was sufficient to instill in most unwanted visitors a high regard for others’ privacy.

We seldom had to launch the laser-guided ground-to-air missiles, and we’d never been forced to use the heavy stuff.

One would have thought that, from a security standpoint, we’d covered every eventuality. . . .

I learned the proper spellings later, of course, but at that moment what I heard were sounds resembling English words with which I had a passing acquaintance: witch and familiar.

Right . . .

I allowed the ensuing silence to lengthen to the point of gravidity before replying: Your ten seconds ran out two minutes ago. You’re on borrowed time, and you have yet to come up with a reason why I shouldn’t call security and have you thrown to the fish.

Meg glanced down at the cat. Her smile was almost a grimace. Memphus, she said slowly, "I was afraid of this. And I’d rather handle it almost any other way. . . ."

"I don’t think there is any other way, replied the cat gently. He turned to glare at me coldly and added, Not under the circumstances, anyway."

The girl sighed. She looked me squarely in the eye and said, "I’m really sorry; you haven’t left me any other choice. We must convince you, and you won’t even listen. And we have to finish before your security people’s next regular patrol."

My expression and tone were grimly scornful. After that explosion? Don’t be silly. The only reason you’re not in custody right now is because security has standing orders never to interrupt me here unless I’m in obvious danger. They’re watching from concealment at this very moment, waiting for my sig—

I broke off as my brain replayed Meg’s statement: " ‘Any other choice’ but what—and how do you know about security’s regular patrols?"

"I’m going to put on a limited demonstration of the pwW’r, the girl replied, to establish our credibility."

She means she’s going to show off, explained the cat in a resounding stage whisper. And don’t worry about interruptions, he added comfortably. Your security people didn’t notice our arrival. He paused for effect; then added smugly, For some reason . . .

I looked around. I couldn’t see them, of course, but then one never did. Not until they acted—one of the advantages of luring into one’s service the very crème of Israel’s antiterrorist security specialists. I made an inconspicuous signal with my left hand.

Nothing happened.

The tip of Memphus’ tail twitched; the cat managed to look even smugger.

We’re empty-handed, of course, Meg continued, ignoring the by-play; all I have is you. It won’t be a very impressive demonstration.

Peter Cory is the product of a barbarian civilization, replied the cat without malice. It won’t take much, by our standards, to get the point across.

That’s true. Do you feel up to summoning one of the lesser Däa’mn?

Of course. That would be ideal for our purposes.

Meg’s attention returned to me; she studied me closely. "Peter, if I summon a Däa’mn, will that convince you that I am a wWyh’j? Then will you stop interrupting? This is important."

My mouth was open; I was on the verge of snarling What’s a Däa’mn? when I hesitated. The girl’s tone was impatient; there was an underlying note of tension. However, she didn’t sound as if she were making this up—

Not consciously, I hastened to add. Of course! What I had here was a mental case; that was the only logical explanation.

Quickly I changed tacks: "Why, sure! I soothed unctuously—then cringed inside. Talk about obvious; this was not developing into one of my better days for silver-tongued deviltry. I tried again: Golly, that would convince anybody, all right." My teeth ached—I wouldn’t have bought that in my sleep.

I thought fast, groping for inspiration. You go ahead; give it your best shot, but—oh, I won’t do it on purpose, but I’ve heard that the presence of an unbeliever is supposed to throw magic out of kilter. Why don’t I go up to the house and wait while you’re doing your stuff? And hit a security button—where the hell were they? And when you’re done, you call me to come and look. Okay? Without waiting for an answer, I started toward the house.

I got a step and a half, barely time in which to wonder whether I might have laid it on a little too thick, before stopping midstride. It took full two seconds to realize that I physically couldn’t move—I was paralyzed!

But Meg gave me no time to worry about it, or even to wonder; she was back in front of me before the shock had time to sink in. Her expression, as our eyes met, was something between contempt and pity, but mostly sheerest outrage.

Memphus, she breathed, originally I had intended summoning KjJnyrb’n. Now, however, upon due reflection, I think we’ll save time in the long run by calling upon The Gäar´m.

The cat had been reclining on the warm sand. Now he sat up very straight and regarded the girl intently. Isn’t that a little extreme? he asked, sneaking me an anxious look. "I thought you just wanted to convince him. Meg, are your feelings that hurt?"

The girl glared at me a moment longer; then she hesitated. Her expression turned sheepish. You’re right, she grudged.

Peter, she continued, "I’m sorry. I’ve got a disposition like a väarz’fing. It’s probably the trip—translation-lag, you know."

I didn’t know, of course, but no one seemed to care. Besides, being paralyzed sort of limited my potential responses.

Meg took my hand and pulled. Come on, she said. I need flat, damp sand and a stick to draw with. Suddenly I could move again. I followed meekly, my heart racing as delayed shock set in.

I thought fast. I couldn’t imagine how she’d done it, but she had my undivided attention. No one who can paralyze a man, even momentarily, is to be taken lightly—

Regardless whether she’s hell-bent on continuing a pointless charade involving wWyh’js and fmMl’hrs—and Däa’mn, whatever they might be—or whether she happens to look like an underaged Pini illustration. . . .

Besides, security still hadn’t arrived! I began to wonder whether a touch of worry mightn’t be appropriate at this juncture.

I debated my options. Obviously the fact that I was bigger and stronger than she didn’t hold much water. Still, being paralyzed hadn’t hurt. And I was starting to get angry again—I resented the living hell out of being pushed around on my own island! If I didn’t turn my back, she probably couldn’t zap me again without letting me see how she did it. That might lead to an opportunity to disarm her; if not then, perhaps later. (If a weapon were involved at all, of course—the current state of her attire made it difficult to envision where she might be hiding it).

Well, it was worth a try.

I planted my heels and dragged us to a stop. Fixing her with a steely glare, I said, This has gone far enough. I’m not taking another step until you tell me what this is all about.

I started to tell you, Meg replied coolly. You didn’t believe me.

Of course not! What do you take me for?

Memphus smiled privately but said nothing.

Meg’s tone was patient: Your opinion was formed without knowing all the facts. We’re going to supply them.

"I don’t believe in wWyh’js," I said flatly.

Fulton’s neighbors didn’t believe in steam engines, Meg retorted. She paused. Her eyes narrowed; then she added thoughtfully, "I’m not sure I