Joan paused, as though she didn't quite know how to make the complexity of the problem clear to her husband. "I can't explain the power," she said; "I know so little about 'time', far less than the physicists think they know. Mutants, they tell us, can visualize 'time' as a stationary dimension, freezing all event objects in 'the past' and in the 'probable future'. They can travel along 'time' in either direction at will." "But you do not think of it as an actual journey?" Langford asked; "you merely shut your eyes and see?" Joan shook her head. "It isn't quite as simple as that. Clairvoyance is never simple; it's accompanied by an intense inward illumination. It's a little like staring at something through a long vista of converging prisms. Objects get in the way and there's doubt, uncertainty. Sometimes it's sheer torment. "Sometimes I can't see at all. And even when I can see there's a curious, almost terrifying sense of _wrongness_ about it." "You mean you feel guilty?" Joan smiled slightly. "Did Alice feel guilty when she went through the looking glass? Perhaps she did! But I didn't mean that kind of wrongness, not a moral wrongness. It's as though the strange tensions will get you if you don't watch out. Rush in upon you and project you forcibly into another place. As though you were a jet of steam imprisoned in a bottle that's much too tight and forced in the wrong direction by a power you can't begin to understand. "You keep fearing you'll get caught in the neck of the bottle and wake up screaming." "Good Lord!" Langford muttered. "I've never got caught," Joan said. "Now make your mind a blank, darling. _We're going to find that ship!_" * * * * * A moment later Langford stood holding his wife's hand, a sharp apprehension in his stare. Joan seemed slightly agitated. She sat gripping the arms of her chair, her bandaged eyes turned from the light. Suddenly her lips moved. "Ralph, I can see the ship! It's coming straight toward the viewport. You didn't tell me it was so beautiful, so--so huge!" "I was waiting for _you_ to tell _me_!" Langford said, quickly. "Well, I'm telling you, darling! I'm glad you didn't completely visualize it. Now I'm sure I'm not just reading your mind. It must be three hundred feet long; it's hard to tell where the illumination comes from." Joan straightened suddenly. "It's no longer just a ship," she said. "I'm still outside, but I've moved closer to it. And I can sense a rustling deep inside the hull, a vague stir of activity that's not entirely physical." While Langford held his breath Joan pressed her palms to her temples. "The rustling is becoming clear. There are swift, abrupt movements, accompanied by thoughts. But I'm not sure whether the thoughts come from one mind or many minds. The thoughts are swift, piercing. _Darting_ thoughts. That's the only way I can describe them."