Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net VIEWPOINT. BY RANDALL GARRETT Illustrated by Bernklau [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _A fearsome thing is a thing you're afraid of--and it has nothing whatever to do with whether others are afraid, nor with whether it is in fact dangerous. It's your view of the matter that counts!_ There was a dizzy, sickening whirl of mental blackness--not true blackness, but a mind-enveloping darkness that was filled with the multi-colored little sparks of thoughts and memories that scattered through the darkness like tiny glowing mice, fleeing from something unknown, fleeing outwards and away toward a somewhere that was equally unknown; scurrying, moving, changing--each half recognizable as it passed, but leaving only a vague impression behind. Memories were shattered into their component data bits in that maelstrom of not-quite-darkness, and scattered throughout infinity and eternity. Then the pseudo-dark stopped its violent motion and became still, no longer scattering the fleeing memories, but merely blanketing them. And slowly--ever so slowly--the powerful cohesive forces that existed between the data-bits began pulling them back together again as the not-blackness faded. The associative powers of the mind began putting the frightened little things together as they drifted back in from vast distances, trying to fit them together again in an ordered whole. Like a vast jigsaw puzzle in five dimensions, little clots and patches formed as the bits were snuggled into place here and there. The process was far from complete when Broom regained consciousness. * * * * * Broom sat up abruptly and looked around him. The room was totally unfamiliar. For a moment, that seemed perfectly understandable. Why shouldn't the room look odd, after he had gone through-- What? He rubbed his head and looked around more carefully. It was not just that the room itself was unfamiliar as a whole; the effect was greater than that. It was not the first time in his life he had regained consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings, but always before he had been aware that only the pattern was different, not the details. He sat there on the floor and took stock of himself and his surroundings. He was a big man--six feet tall when he stood up, and proportionately heavy, a big-boned frame covered with hard, well-trained muscles. His hair and beard were a dark blond, and rather shaggy because of the time he'd spent in prison. Prison! Yes, he'd been in prison. The rough clothing he was wearing was certainly nothing like the type of dress he was used to.