d it.
As a matter of fact I didn't. I retrieved it just today."

I put the knife down. Sweat was coming on my forehead now, I could
feel it. I was remembering. I was remembering the knife and what was
scaring me even more was I was remembering the very day I had lost it.
In the attic.

I said very carefully, "All right. You've made your point. You can
take it from there."

"Quite so, Mr. Anders. You now admit I exist, that I have
extraordinary powers. I am your own creation, Mr. Anders. As I said
before you have exceptional senses, including imagination. And yes,
imagination is the greatest of all the senses.

"Some humans with this gift often imagine ludicrous things, exciting
things, horrifying things--depending don't you see, on mood, emotion.
And the things these mortals imagine become real, are actually,
created--only they don't know it, of course."

He stopped. He was probably giving me time to soak that up. Then he
went on. "You've forgotten to keep trying to remember where you put
that Luger, Mr. Anders. I just picked up the abandoned thought as it
left your consciousness just now."

I gulped down something that tried to rise in my throat. I didn't like
this guy.

"You created me when you were fourteen, Mr. Anders. You imagined me as
a swashbuckling pirate. The only difference between me and the others
who have been created in times past is that I have attained the ninth
dimension. I am the first to do that. Also the first to capture the
secrets of your own third dimension. Naturally then, it would be a
pity for me to die."

"Get out," I said.

"Forgive me, Mr. Anders. My time is short. I die tomorrow."

"That's swell. Now get out."

"We're not immortal, you see. When our creators die their imaginations
die with them. We too die. It follows. But for some time I've had an
idea."

"Out," I said again. "Get the hell out of here!"

"You're going to die tomorrow, Mr. Anders, in that new flying saucer.
And I must die with you. Except that I've had this idea."

There are times when you look yourself in the eye and don't like what
you see. Or maybe what you see scares the living hell out of you.
When those times come along some little something inside tells you
you'd better watch out. Then the doubts creep in. After that the
melancholy. And from that instant on you aren't very sane anymore.

"_Out!_" I yelled. "Out, _out_, OUT! Get the hell out!"

"One moment, Mr. Anders. Now as to this idea of min