of us had any idea.
I'll be glad to settle for half the blame."

* * *

"Will you please stop talking Sanskrit?" James asked. "Or lep it, so we
two innocent bystanders can understand it?"

"Will do," and Garlock went on in thought. "Remember what I said about
this drive not being conditioned to anything? I was wrong. Belle and I
have conditioned it, but badly. We've been fighting so much that
something or other in that mess down there has become conditioned to
her; something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except
Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call
it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk."

"Oh, hell!" James snorted. "Talk about gobbledygook! You are still
saying that that conglomeration of copper and silver and steel and
insulation that we built ourselves has got intelligence, and I still
won't buy it."

"By no means. Remember, Jim, that this concept of mechanical
teleportation, and that the mind is the only possible controller, are
absolutely new. We've got to throw out all previous ideas and start new
from scratch. I postulate, as a working hypothesis drawn from original
data as modified by these tests, that that particular conglomeration of
materials generates at least two fields about the properties of which we
know nothing at all. That one of those properties is the tendency to
become preferentially resonant with one mind and preferentially
non-resonant with another. Clear so far?"

"As mud. It's a mighty tough blueprint to read." James scowled in
thought. "However, it's no harder to swallow than Sanderson's Theory of
Teleportation. Or, for that matter, the actual basic coupling between
mind and ordinary muscular action. Does that mean we'll have to rebuild
half a million credits' worth of ... no, you and Belle can work it,
together."

"I don't know." Garlock paced the floor. "I simply can't see any
_possible_. mechanism of coupling."

"Subconscious, perhaps," Belle suggested.

"For my money that whole concept is invalid," Garlock said. "It merely
changes 'I don't know' to 'I can't know' and I don't want any part of
that. However, 'unconscious' could be the answer ... if so, we may have
a lever.... Belle, are you willing to bury your hatchet for about five
minutes--work with me like a partner ought to?"

"I certainly am, Clee. Honestly. Screens down flat, if you say so."

"Half-way's enough, I think--you'll know when