The method employed an ability that had been evolving in the human mind
for millennia--the ability to project oneself into a past moment--or,
to use Trevor's term, a past "place-time." Considerable practice was
required before the first transition could be achieved, but once it
was achieved, successive transitions became progressively easier.
Entering another person's mind-world was of course a more difficult
undertaking, and could be achieved only after an intensive study of
a certain moment in that person's past. In order to return to the
objective world, it was necessary in both cases to locate the most
recently materialized place-time and take one step beyond it.
By their very nature, mind-countries were confusing. They existed on
a plane of reality that bore no apparent relationship to the plane
of the so-called objective universe. In fact, so far as was known,
this secondary--or subjective--reality was connected to so-called
true reality only through the awareness of the various creators. In
addition, these countries had no outward shape in the ordinary sense of
the word, and while most countries contained certain parallel images,
these images were subject to the interpretation of the individual
creator. As a result they were seldom identical.
* * * * *
It was inevitable that sooner or later some criminal would hit upon
the idea of hiding out in his own mind-world till the statute of
limitations that applied to his particular crime ran out, and it was
equally inevitable that others should follow suit. Society's answer was
the psyche-police, and the psyche-police hadn't been in action very
long before the first private psycheye appeared.
Blake was one of a long line of such operators.
So far as he knew, the present case represented the first time a
criminal had ever hidden out in the pursuer's mind. It would have been
a superb stratagem indeed if, shortly after her entry, Sabrina York
had not betrayed her presence. For her point of entry she had used
the place-time materialization of the little office Blake had opened
on Ex-earth at the beginning of his career. Unaccountably she had
ransacked it before moving into a co-terminous memory-image.
Even this action wouldn't have given her away, however, if the office
hadn't constituted a sentimental memory. Whenever Blake accepted a case
he invariably thought of the bleak and lonely little room with its
thin-gauge steel desk and battered filing cabinets, and when he had
done so after accepting his case--or was it before? He couldn't quite
remember--the mental picture that had come into his mind had revealed
open drawers, scattered papers and a general air of disarray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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