Fred smiled. "I see what you mean. No, I don't. It's just that no other alternative seems probable, so...." "So you work with the one that does," Curt said, nodding. "All right, let's work with it for the moment. You have probably done some thinking on what mechanism might be involved in the process of vanishing. Would you care to tell me about it?" "There's no reason why not, sir. It takes time for conscious beliefs to sink into the subconscious and integrate there. The time varies with the person and the emotions involved." "That makes sense," Curt said, nodding. "I postulated that down underneath even the subconscious, at the very roots of being, is what I named the basic thought matrix. In order for us to be here in this existence at all it must have a certain form. Change that form and, presto, the person slips out of this existence, perhaps into another." "I see." Curt drummed his fingers on the desk for a long minute. "I see," he repeated. "Has it occurred to you that you have already rejected your theory? It's quite obvious you have, you know." "How is it obvious?" Fred asked, wondering what Curt meant. "Because you told me the theory. You wouldn't have, of course, if you believed it would cause me to vanish like the others." Fred opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to cope with this. It was unexpected. "We've gotten to the root of your trouble," Curt went on. "It was a real trouble, to you. In a few months you will look back on it and marvel at it. Right now it seems real. You feel that somewhere your father still exists. You would like to go to him, or perhaps bring him back. Believe me, such mysterious vanishings aren't uncommon. The history of the world is full of such incidents. In some cases whole groups have vanished. Authenticated cases. In southeast Asia the people of an entire city of over a million inhabitants vanished overnight. In the last century an entire trainload of people, including the train, vanished while going from one city to another a few miles away. And there have been vanishments with reappearances, too. In England there was an old woman who suddenly vanished before the eyes of her family. At the same instant she reappeared in a room in London, miles away, in front of other people. Did she know your father's theory? Did the train that vanished know that theory?" Curt was smiling. "No. You see, it's something unrelated to your father's theory." Fred was nodding. "You may be right," he said. "I didn't know about those." "You may go now, son," Curt said. "I'll be out around eleven o'clock in the morning." Fred rose quickly. "Okay, Curt," he said. "I'll see you." He hurried out. It was too much of an effort to hide the sudden trembling. He hadn't known about other cases of vanishing. They provided data to expand the whole thing, while not in the slightest detracting from the validity of anything else.