phonetic delusions . . . So you have decided to obstruct us? That will avail you nothing, Chris Sommers."
"Maybe. What is this place?"
"I have told you. This is the Second Sphere."
"You mean . . . another dimension? I've heard about that."
"Another vibration. Another plane. We are not concerned with what you call dimension."
He said, drawing what comfort he could from his natural cheekiness: "Just as you like, Mister. You still haven't told me how I got here, or where you come into things? Or maybe you don't know, any more than I do?"
The other man, Azard, answered him this time.
"You fell on the platform of one of Elemental's ships. Doubtless from some ship of your own. No matter. As I assume, gamma particles from Sphere 1, sufficiently impregnated your substance to raise your vibrations to the point where we were each of us en rapport with each other's spheres. You were accordingly given an injection of an elemental drug which immediately raised your vibrations to the point of entry into the Second Sphere."
"That was the pain in my foot?"
"Pain! I do not know the word, pain. The injection was given in one of your feet—yes. It is a temporary treatment. It will be repeated when seven eons have gone. Your vibrations will then be fixed permanently to those of this sphere."
He thought over this, staring at the twin and ghastly faces.
"I see. And . . . if I don't get this other dose?"
"There is no escape, Chris Sommers. We have a definite need of your Sphere 1 body. It is your great fortune to give yourself to the science of Sphere 2—the Second sphere . . . whose Great and Glorious God and Ruler is Elemental Pan."
"I daresay you know. Still . . . supposing what you call my vibrations did run down to . . . to what they were before? I can be curious, can't I?"
Zwat, who, with Azard, had bowed his head deeply to the sounding of the name of the God Pan, straightened again.
"In the event of such impossibility, you would find yourself in whatever position we found you. Assuming that you had, indeed, fallen from your ship, you would perish in your own surroundings, in circumstances of which I have no doubt you are fully aware. You would merely exchange one disintegration for another."
"What does that mean?" he asked, with a constriction of his heart. For a single wild instant, he wondered what his chances would be if he made a dash for the open. "What's your game? This could be some place in the solar system."
Zwat looked at him with suddenly cruel eyes.
"Your coming here, Chris Sommers, was what you in the First
