Rog Phillips

“ To be sure, our telescopes bring us data from stars that are so far away the human race will never reach them—but is not our telescope a "screen" that brings us only the one-inch rocks?
There may be and probably is a vast realm of reality co-existent with the reality we know, right around us; but it is "screened" from us. It may be possible that we know less than ten percent of actual reality around us due to the screening of our senses and our instruments that blocks completely, or permits to pass completely, every energy pattern that can't pass through the "holes" of our "screen." ”

“ In the last analysis the universe of normalcy is incomprehensible. We have made progress in comprehending it because we have isolated it into small bundles of events that can be dealt with by the human intellect.
We have arrived at certain basic pictures of the behavior of the incomprehensible. We have found a certain stability existing in the picture we have built up. We have searched the heavens and found that stars are made up of the same elements as the Earth—with a few exceptions. ”

“ He can only derive a picture of reality from what he sees. He can only see a foot in front of him. In all his existence he has seen only one type of thing—rocks about an inch in diameter. He therefore concludes that all reality is rocks an inch in diameter.
He is unable ever to learn that he is situated at a place where the one-inch rocks leave a screen with seven-eighths-inch holes that let every smaller pebble and all the sand through, and that seven-eighths-inch screen is the catch-all for a higher screen with one-inch holes that kept everything larger from coming through. ”

“ Martha waved her hand vaguely. "It must have been caused by something about the Endore, mustn't it?"
Ren nodded, holding the door open for her. They walked along the corridor to the revolving doors, his hand tucked protectively under her arm.
"Is it mental?" Martha asked when they were on the sidewalk.
"No," Ren answered. "But let's wait until we eat. I'm starved to death. If you run into any trouble I'll help you out. You see, I know how to work things."
"Like finding page twenty-six in the book I'm reading?" Martha asked. ”

“ It may be that if the human race eventually reaches out and encounters other intelligent races it will find that the basic principles which result in thought as we know it are the ONLY basic principles that can give rise to thinking intelligence, so that wherever we find civilization we will find creatures that think the same as we do, and have seen the same pattern in nature that we have.
There is another possibility besides the encountering of incomprehensible minds. That is the possibility of encountering incomprehensible "islands" of reality. ”

“ It is real. It's a metaphysical basic for this part of space around this planet.
"It's subtle, too. For example, right now there may be more than one me on this ship, depending on whether there are more than sixty people on board or not. I don't quite understand about that yet. There are a lot of things I don't understand about it. If there is more than one of any person on board, is it a reality, or is it a trick of rationalization of the mind to fit something utterly incomprehensible into at least a semblance of something comprehensible? ”

“ There's no way of knowing ahead of time whether we'd be killed on landing or not."
"Look, Ren," the commander said seriously. "I like you. You—you're just about like my son would have been today if he had lived. I'm just a spaceman. I depend on instruments. They don't work here. All of us are just as helpless as if we didn't know the first thing about our trade. We can't go back without landing on this stray planet. If we tried to tell them the reasons, I'd be retired and the whole crew would be stuck on various routine tub runs. ”

“ Commander Dunnam said sympathetically. "One of the most unjust rules of modern education in the opinion of many, but no way of changing it unless the educators themselves did it. Since they all passed O.K. in stability, they think everyone else should. Maybe they're afraid they would be considered unstable if they wanted to make such a major change."
Ren glanced toward the screen that showed the magnified image of the interstellar wanderer, and back again to the commander.
"Of course," he said, "I'm trying to use ordinary basics transposed onto the basics of this system, which is wrong. ”

“ Ford snorted. "If you decide to drop the ship any closer to this mad planet you're going to have trouble with the men."
"Meaning you've been talking to them?" Commander Hugh Dunnam asked softly.
"Talking WITH them," Ford Gratrick said, matching Hugh's softness. "Don't try to put me in the position of being a leader of any rebellion that might develop. I'll confess quite frankly, though, that I want no part of landing on this God-forsaken hunk of matter, and a good many of the crew agree on that. It's suicidal. ”

“ If it went every speed from zero to twenty miles an hour it would have to become an infinite number of cars, and occupy every position from the starting point to a twenty-mile distance at the end of an hour. That would be the conventional conclusion to the abstract problems. With the new basics it does just that—except that it is still just one car, and yet never was just one car and never will be. It CAN'T be, because there is no such thing, in the new system, as a one thing. ”

“ They are peculiar to each group. The human race invented a concept called the number five, and formulated a theory that all fivenesses belong to a class, called the number five. In nature this theory acted as though it were true. If you have five apples and five eggs you have ten objects. A fiveness placed with another fiveness makes a tenness. So arithmetic merely describes the behavior of a basic property of reality in a consistent manner. Arithmetic is NOT a basic law. ”

“ He rationalizes what his Universe presents him, and postulates that ALL reality is identical to what he can experience. He can NOT conceive of what is utterly beyond his range of experience and imagination—which is merely the re-arrangement of reality or of thoughts derived from reality. ”

“ Ren took one of the report sheets and figured rapidly on its back.
"Unless I'm radically wrong," he said, "our speed of impact will be every speed from zero to a thousand miles a minute. Not only that, no matter how we try to land that will be the set of values for our speed. Naturally the thousand miles a minute will smash us flat, but the zero speed will let us down easy." ”

“ That was the usual result of forced delay in quarantine. The crew of the Endore hadn't let a peep out of them.
Martha Ryan, the receptionist, glanced knowingly at the closed door. She knew that Nale was sitting at his desk, his legs crossed carelessly, his long fingers holding the report on the Endore and the report of the psych observer. He was probably frowning slightly over the unusual behavior of the crew.
She had her own list of names of the crew on the desk before her. Heading the list was the name, Comdr. Hugh Dunnam. Dr. Nale would ordinarily call him first. ”

“ Ford looked out the viewport at the round object in the distance and shook his head.
"I've got a hunch he knows it already," he said slowly. "The ship is probably on a nonsense track and the automatic tracker is either trying to find out what the law of gravity is, or is exploring for clues to light aberration. One gets you ten he'll give me a buzz in another minute."
He was right. The phone rang almost at once. It was Hugh Dunnam himself, asking for the gravy reading.
"You'll have to see it to believe it," Ford Gratrick said over the phone. "The manual swing is uniform over the whole range. ”

“ Our ship and all in it belongs to the universe of the metaphysics we know of and use as the thought process. It is hovering on the borders of a region containing this planet we are to land on—a region operating on other basics. In some way both sets of basics operate in either conflict or compromise. Besides mental confusion there is actual physical confusion. ”

“ The Endore had arrived during the night. Usually crews that had to wait hours before passing through psych raised a big fuss. Quarantine wasn't exactly designed for comfort. A man couldn't be expected to enjoy sitting on a bench and reading a worn-out magazine after looking forward to visiting his old haunts on Earth after months or years in space. ”

“ The incomprehensible is harder to portray in a story than is merely the unknown. If we denote anything incomprehensible by the symbol X, we can describe what X is to a certain extent by knowing what it is not. ”

“ Ford Gratrick and his fellow objectors were killed in the ship that crashed. They also were on the ship that came back to Earth. They're alive and they're dead."
Martha's face was a mask of confusion. She was trying to understand and not knowing how. Ren saw this and tried again.
"Suppose we try from this angle," he said patiently. "If a car is going ten miles an hour it will be ten miles farther on at the end of an hour. If it goes twenty miles an hour it will be twenty miles farther on. But suppose it goes both ten miles an hour and twenty miles an hour. ”

“ I think that when they check the records they'll find that the Endore also came back to Earth and reported that it hadn't actually landed on Metapor. It did all those things—returned over a year ago, landed safely, and was crushed in landing. If you could see HOW it could do all those things—it's like the page in a book; you pass it if you look for it, and find it if you don't look for it.
"It's happening here on Earth right now and will keep on happening until the old basics that contradict the new ones are no longer operating. You see, Martha, we knew that would happen. ”

“ Bemis that I be confined with the crew of the Endore—just in case."
His heels made loud noises on the marble floor of the corridor. He pushed through the revolving doors to the sidewalk.
There was an argument going on between a small newsboy and an elderly gentlemen type of man.
"I tell you there's only two pennies," the boy insisted.
"There's four," the man insisted just as strongly. "See?"
He pried open the boy's fingers and looked.
"Sorry," he said. "You're right." His hand went into his pocket to make up the deficit.
"Hey! Wait a minute," the boy said. "I was wrong. ”

“ At least, I had already realized that it was different than would be, for example, the difference in operational principle of a gas engine and an electric transformer.
"If you've ever studied any abstract mathematical system you'll be able to understand how the changing of one basic axiom can alter the whole structure almost beyond recognition. ”

“ Hargrave has been taken to observation," he said without warning. "So has the crew of the Endore. I—ah—believe you may take an indefinite leave from the office until further notice. With full pay, of course."
"Dr. Hargrave?" Martha asked, not hearing the last.
"Yes!" Dr. Bemis's voice changed from harsh tenseness to contriteness. "I'm sorry, Miss Ryan, but I feel it inadvisable to discuss it just now. All I can say is that full quarantine measures are now in force as of fifteen minutes ago. There will be no landing or taking off from Earth until it is lifted ”