His only fear was that they would some time try to shoot him to see if he were ghost or human. He could avoid a seen shot, which would come at no more than two and a half times his own greatest speed. But an unperceived shot could penetrate dangerously, even fatally, before he twisted away from it. He had fathered legends of other ghosts, that of the Central Library, that of University Library, that of the John Charles Underwood Jr. Technical Library. This plurality of ghosts tended to cancel out each other and bring believers into ridicule. Even those who had seen him as a ghost did not admit that they believed in the ghosts. He went back to Dr. Mason for his monthly checkup. "You look terrible," said the Doctor. "Whatever it is, you have changed. If you can afford it, you should take a long rest." "I have the means," said Charles Vincent, "and that is just what I will do. I'll take a rest for a year or two." He had begun to begrudge the time that he must spend at the world's pace. From now on he was regarded as a recluse. He was silent and unsociable, for he found it a nuisance to come back to the common state to engage in conversation, and in his special state voices were too slow-pitched to intrude into his consciousness. Except that of the man whose face he had never seen. "You are making very tardy progress," said the man. Once more they were in a dark club. "Those who do not show more progress we cannot use. After all, you are only a vestigial. It is probable that you have very little of the ancient race in you. Fortunately those who do not show progress destroy themselves. You had not imagined that there were only two phases of time, had you?" "Lately I have come to suspect that there are many more," said Charles Vincent. "And you understand that only one step cannot succeed?" "I understand that the life I have been living is in direct violation of all that we know of the laws of mass, momentum, and acceleration, as well as those of conservation of energy, the potential of the human person, the moral compensation, the golden mean, and the capacity of human organs. I know that I cannot multiply energy and experience sixty times without a compensating increase of food intake, and yet I do it. I know that I cannot live on eight minutes' sleep in twenty-four hours, but I do that also. I know that I cannot reasonably crowd four thousand years of experience into one lifetime, yet unreasonably I do not see what will prevent it. But you say I will destroy myself." "Those who take only the first step destroy themselves." "And how does one take the second step?" "At the proper moment you will be given the choice." "I have the most uncanny feeling that I will refuse the choice." "From present indications, you will refuse it. You are fastidious." "You have a smell about you, Old Man without a face. I know now what it is. It is the smell of the pit." "Are you so slow to learn that?"