body, instinctively.

A fact obvious to all of them was that their own communication with
Earth had been shut off. In this daylight they could not see the
observer ship hovering out in space, but its occupants had no doubt seen
them, seen what had happened. It, no doubt, was telling Earth what it
had seen--the attorney general's office, at any rate. Doubtful that it
was including E.H.Q. in its report. Problematical that the attorney
general would tell E.H.Q. what had happened.

Cal hoped the observers would have enough sense not to try to land.

12

A second shock, powerfully magnified, hit him then. Because he was
personally involved?

For what seemed an interminable time, Cal's mind ceased to function
rationally, and like an animal suddenly faced with the unknown he froze,
shrank within himself, stood motionless. Yet far down within his mind,
there was still detached observation, as if a part of him were removed
from all this, still in the role of disinterested observer.

The crew behind him was likewise frozen in tableau. And the colonists in
front of him. A balance in number, with himself in between, a still
picture from a modernist ballet.

Or a charade. Guess what this is!

He felt laughter bubbling to his lips, recognized it for the beginning
of hysteria, and the impulse was washed away.

With that portion of detached curiosity he watched his mind functioning,
darting frantically here and there for rational explanation, and
momentarily taking refuge in irrationality. It was all being done with
trick photography! Such a sudden transition could take place in a motion
picture, a transition from reality into a dream sequence lying discarded
on the cutting-room floor.

Reversion to the primitive, accounting for the phenomena by devising a
mind more powerful than his own. The childhood view of the omnipotent
parent, reality's disillusionment, the parent substitute, the creation
of a god in his parent's image without the weakness of his parent, so
that he might go on in perpetual irresponsibility since he could now
place responsibility outside himself.

Or this was a fairy story in which he lived. This was the spell of
enchantment. This was magic. And at the first concept of magic, the
first lesson of E sharpened into focus once more.

"Anything is magic if you don't understand how it happens, and science
if you do."

In that odd, detached portion of his mind he deliberately used the
statement