ark greens, bright yellows, and all the
shades in between. He hurried forward, eager to explore what lay ahead.
But as he drew closer, becoming more excited over its possibilities, he
struck a cold hard surface which repelled him. It was like glass and
through it Bart could see a poorly defined figure some distance away.
Bart was intrigued. This was a mental barrier thrown up by the fellow on
the other side. Well, he'd give the guy some competition. Bart
concentrated on cracking the wall, building a visual picture of the
break-through in his mind.

* * * * *

"It's useless. You can't enter here."

"Why do you oppose me?" Bart tested the unseen wall, but found no
weakness in its structure.

"We don't care for your sort."

"Is that so. And how have you classified me?"

"As a coward. A suicide. A man of meager resources."

"I'm nothing of the kind. In the first place, I did not commit suicide."
Bart wished he could kick at the invisible wall. "I willed myself away
from an imperfect shell. I severed the mind from the body."

"Why?"

"Because I had cancer of the larynx, and I'd never have been able to
talk again. I'd be less than a man."

"You are less than a man now." There was a long period of no exchange.
Bart decided he had not made himself clear. "I didn't want to live
without being able to communicate with other men and women."

"Communicate. Communicate. There are a million ways to communicate.
Michelangelo communicated, Bach, Beethoven, yes, Elvis Presley
communicates. Hemingway, Martha Graham, actors, dancers, even a baby
communicates!"

"But speech ..."

"Speech is the least dependable method of all. Few people can explain
their love, their pain, their innermost feelings in words. And often a
man speaks his thoughts, and having spoken them, finds he really thinks
the opposite. No, this is second-rate expression and my opinion of you
has not been altered by your feeble argument."

The other fellow's thoughts came over the wall, pounding against Bart's
sub-conscious. "You consider yourself a man of great intelligence," it
went on, "but your lack of imagination makes you less than mediocre. And
as for your mind-power, well, you see you cannot cross my mental
barrier."

"That's not entirely conclusive. There may be a catalyst here in this
area which works in conjunction with your thought-processes and not
mine. You're familiar with conditions here, while I only know th