Certain as he was that he looked rather like a scarecrow in a snowstorm Lee felt grateful for the praise. Besides she was right; the boa constrictor which he rode calmed down a little, marching with a dignity more in accordance with its size. Momentarily the luminous nerve cables, flying as they did toward him, threatened sudden death, however, they merely brushed the transparent cylinder, wrapping it up in a rainbow and then winged away again. Below acres of space streamed by, seed beds one could imagine to be young typewriters, millions of them, all ticking away with dainty precision, sparkling with myriads of tiny lights as they did. * * * * * Then there came more acres teeming with fractional horsepower motors; he could hear their beehive hummings even through the plexiglass. The things they drove Lee couldn't make out because the adjoining acres of this underground hothouse for mushrooming machines were again shrouded in darkness except for sparks which crossed the unfathomable expanse like tracer bullets. Struck with a sort of word blindness caused by the sensory impressions barrage, Lee could no longer grasp the meaning of Vivian's voice as it went on and on explaining things like "crystal cells," "selenoid cells," "grey matter pyramidal cells," powered somehow by atomic fission, "nerve loops" and "synthesis gates" which were not to be confused with "analysis gates" while they looked exactly the same.... Apart from this at least one half of his mental and physical energy had to be expanded in suppressing nausea and bracing himself against the gyrations which still jerked his feet from under him and made friction disks of his shoulders as his body swayed from side to side. All of a sudden he felt that he was being derailed. There was an opening in the plastics wall of the cylinder; a curved metal shield like the blade of a bulldozer jumped into his path, caught him, slowed down his momentum and delivered him safely at a door marked "Apperception-Center 24." It opened and within its frame there stood an angel neatly dressed in the uniform of a registered nurse. "_There_," said the angel, "at _last_. How did you like your little Odyssey through The Brain, Dr. Lee?" Lee pushed a hand through the mane of his hair; it felt moist and much tangled up. "Thanks," he said. "It was quite an experience. I enjoyed it; Ulysses, too, probably enjoyed his trip between Scylla and Charybdis--after it was over! It's Miss Leahy, I presume." The reception room where he had landed, the long white corridor, the instruments gleaming in built-in recesses behind crystal glass, the nurse's uniform; all spelled clinic, a private one rather for the well-to-do. Since the procedure was routine he might as well submit to it, Lee thought. He felt the familiar taste of disinfectant as a thermometer was stuck into his mouth and then the rubber tube around his arm throbbing with the vigorous pumpings of the efficient Vivian.