The mind receives a multitude of impressions in an instant. I was conscious of myself. My body was an entity wholly vague--yet there seemed a tingling in it; a _weight_ to it, for I was standing upright. Will and Bee--and the girl Ala--were beside me. I saw them now in their old familiar form, but with a queer sense of _flatness_ to them. Flat; unnatural of outline; not grotesque, merely strange, unreal. Almost indescribable; and though distinctly it was not a two-dimensional aspect, I think that _flatness_ best describes it. A something about them which was lacking; or perhaps a something added--I do not know. And inherent to this whole realm as soon I was to see it, was this same queer flatness. Things without _depth_; yet to view them sidewise, the depth was there, with the flatness still persisting. And I saw color; nameless colors which I might call blue, or red, or green and the words would have no meaning. Men, women--houses, or at least habitations; the words are all I can command, but they are grotesquely meaningless. It was all so incomparably strange; and paradoxically, the strangest of it all was the fashion in which my mind began to accept it. I could think of Ala as nothing but a girl. A frightened, likable girl--with thoughts and feelings similar to my own. This realm was real--a new country; with friends, enemies--a struggle going on within it in which I must play a part. The whole seen and thought of in terms of my own world. And I realized that I--to these others of this other realm--must have seemed a stranger, but not so very strange. Thought of by them in their own terms--each of us upon a common ground, an equality of material state, to visualize the other in terms of ourselves. CHAPTER IX THE ATTACK ON THE MEETING HOUSE Ala was saying, "At last--it is so good to be back." For her the struggle was wholly past; she was smiling, relieved, and upon her face there was solicitude for us. "You are not injured? At rest--now?" "Yes," said Will. "It is over." His hand touched Bee affectionately. "The strangeness will soon be gone, I think. You all right, Rob?" "Yes," I said. In truth, every moment a rationality of being was coming to me. And curiosity, of itself evidence of normality, made me ask, "Where are we going? What are we going to do?" "Going with Ala," said Will briefly. "Her people are friendly to us--deploring the threatened invasion of our world." I realized that he and Ala at their first meeting must have exchanged knowledge, and planned what we now were to do. Bee asked, "Are we going far? Will it take long?" Ala seemed puzzled. "Far"--"long." The words involved Space and Time. I saw that at first they had no meaning to her. "We are going there," she answered. Her gesture was vaguely downward ahead of us. "Come," she added.