Unnameable time; and then Will found that they were there, hovering; and a realm, a place--a something he knew not what--lay spread above them. Earnestly he groped for it. Not with his physical hands; but with his senses. His thought went there and back. He thought he saw shapes up there. Hovering, glowing shapes in a great light space. And with futile, childish imagination he endowed them with beautiful, ethereal qualities; transfigured them into glowing human shapes of beauty and peace. And thought he saw them; and that they might speak to him. Or that perhaps, because Thone might be more than human, they might communicate with Thone, and thence to him. And then he laughed. It was all so childish! Thone said, "Eo is there, in the darkness and the light. You can think of him. Your thought will go there. And it will come back to you, fraught with what qualities your imagination may lend it. But nothing else." "No," said Will, "nothing else. I understand that now." CHAPTER XV THE BIRTH OF A THOUGHT They turned away in the void--away from the dark-light mystery of the realm of death, and drove themselves back to the Big-City. The search for Brutar's encampment was at the moment futile; they knew they could not reach it. And though Bee had escaped with Eo, she did not know whether I escaped or not. They hoped to find me safely returned to the Big-City. But I was not there. But still Thone felt that I might come. To Will--with his inherent, instinctive conception of a placid, measured Time--the delay seemed dangerous. He was impatient; anxious to do something. But there was nothing which of himself he could do; and Thone was an Intelligence very keen. Will decided that upon Thone he must rely. They went back to the home globe, to rest and to wait for my possible arrival. Will in a way was glad of the inactivity, for he remembered that of Thone's plans he knew almost nothing. He would learn all he could; and with something definitely arranged, they could act to better purpose. Will felt the pangs of hunger. They brought a glowing brazier wherein something smouldered. He ate--inhaled, there is no word for it. Satisfied his pangs; and drank of the silver mist which came flowing into the globe at a word of command.... And slept; lost consciousness, to find himself in blackness with Time wholly gone. But still I did not come back to the Big-City. There were times when with Thone, Will journeyed about the city streets, gazing at this strange life. He saw thought-workers, as I had seen them in Brutar's encampment. Saw the water being created; saw the thought-matter moulded and spun into new globes--moulded to all the diverse purposes of this Ego-life. He slept again; several times; and ministered to the slight wants of his tenuous body. A great length of time seemed passing; and still I did not arrive.