ed absently. "Not yet."

And was brought abruptly to full alertness, vigilance, by the flame of
rage that filled the eyes thrust so close.

"Lead back," I directed curtly. He slid the door into place, turned
sullenly. I followed, wondering what were the sources of the bitter
hatred he so plainly bore for us; the reasons for his eagerness to be
rid of us despite the commands of this woman who to him at least was
goddess.

And by that curious human habit of seeking for the complex when the
simple answer lies close, failed to recognize that it was jealousy of
us that was the root of his behavior; that he wished to be, as it would
seem he had been for years, the only human thing near Norhala; failed
to realize this, and with Ruth and Drake was terribly to pay for this
failure.

I looked down upon the pair, sleeping soundly; upon Ventnor lost still
in trance.

"Sit," I ordered the eunuch. "And turn your back to me."

I dropped down beside Drake, my mind wrestling with the mystery, but
every sense alert for movement from the black. Glibly enough I had
passed over Dick's questioning as to the consciousness of the Metal
People; now I faced it knowing it to be the very crux of these
incredible phenomena; admitting, too, that despite all my special
pleading, about that point swirled in my own mind the thickest mists of
uncertainty. That their sense of order was immensely beyond a man's was
plain.

As plain was it that their knowledge of magnetic force and its
manipulation were far beyond the sphere of humanity. That they had
realization of beauty this palace of Norhala's proved--and no human
imagination could have conceived it nor human hands have made its
thought of beauty real. What were their senses through which their
consciousness fed?

Nine in number had been the sapphire ovals set within the golden zone of
the Disk. Clearly it came to me that these were sense organs!

But--nine senses!

And the great stars--how many had they? And the cubes--did they open as
did globe and pyramid?

Consciousness itself--after all what is it? A secretion of the brain?
The cumulative expression, wholly chemical, of the multitudes of cells
that form us? The inexplicable governor of the city of the body of which
these myriads of cells are the citizens--and created by them out of
themselves to rule?

Is it what many call the soul? Or is it a finer form of matter, a
self-realizing force, which uses the body as its vehicle just as