Hanlon had been concentrating so deeply he had not heard anyone come up, and the voice, speaking so suddenly right before him, startled and befuddled him. He looked up, and his mind felt sluggish and weak, almost as though he had been doped. "Huh?" he asked stupidly. "I asked," the man's tone was a little sharper, "if there was anything I could do for you?" "Oh, no. No thanks." Hanlon forced himself to pay attention. "I just like dogs and came down here to watch them. Must have dozed off." "Do you have a dog of your own here?" "No, I have no dog at present." "What were you doing to that white bull. He's been acting very peculiar since you've been here." "Me?" Hanlon made himself look surprised. "Why, nothing. I've just been sitting here; haven't said a word to any of them." "Well, I'm not too sure it's proper for you to be here as long as you have no dog kennelled here." "Sorry. If it bothers you, I'll leave." Hanlon started away ... then stopped short. He had wondered at that curiously sluggish feeling in his mind. Now, with a start he had trouble concealing, he suddenly realized a mind-numbing fact! He had seen and heard that exchange of conversation from two separate and distinct points! And now he was watching himself leave! _He had heard and seen both from his own ... and from the dog's mind!_ Yes, he suddenly comprehended that the dog had heard and _understood_ every word of that brief conversation--not as a dog might, _but as a man would_! Suddenly drenched with a cold sweat, Hanlon knew he had not merely been inside the dog's mind, observing and controlling, but that he had actually _transferred_ a portion of his own mind into the dog's brain! No wonder his own mind--what was left in his own brain--had felt somewhat inadequate and lacking for the moment. It was not his complete mind. When the steward startled him, he had forgotten to withdraw from the bull's brain. Now he carefully did so, and with senses reeling, almost ran back to his stateroom. Hanlon threw himself onto the bed and lay there, trembling with awe at realization of the immensity of what he had done. How in the name of Snyder was such a thing possible? Reading a mind's impressions, even the surface thoughts, was well within the realms of possibility he knew, for he had done it himself. Even hundreds of years before, such things had been believed possible, and had been studied extensively and scientifically. Many people throughout the centuries had claimed the ability to read minds, though only a few had ever proven their powers satisfactorily under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. He himself, until the past day or so, had not been able to read a mind directly, nor could he do it perfectly even yet, with humans.