"Yes," Horbit said thoughtfully, "yes. I must try to curb my tendency for telling off-color jokes. My wife is always nagging me about that."

Paulson was only a few doors away from Horbit. I found him with his long, thin legs stretched out in front of him, staring dismally into the gloom of the room. No wonder he found reality so boring and depressing with so downbeat a mood cycle. I wondered why they hadn't been able to do something about adjusting his metabolism.

"Paulson," I said gently, "I want to speak with you."

He bolted upright in his chair. "You're going to put me back to sleep."

"I came to talk to you about that," I admitted.

I pulled up a seat and adjusted the lighting so only his face and mine seemed to float bodiless in a sea of night, two moons of flesh.

"Paulson—or should I call you Pinkerton?—this will come as a shock, a shock I know only a fine analytical mind like yours could stand. You think your life as the great detective was only a Dream induced by some miraculous machine. But, sir, believe me: that life was real."

Paulson's eyes rolled slightly back into his head and changed their luster. "Then this is the Dream. I've thought—"

"No!" I snapped. "This world is also real."

I went through the same Fourth Dimension waltz as I had auditioned for Horbit. At the end of it, Paulson was nodding just as eagerly.

"I could be destroyed for telling you this, but our leader is planning the most gigantic conquest known to any intelligent race in the Universe. He is going to conquer Earth in all its possible futures and all its possible pasts. After that, there are other planets."

"He must be stopped!" Paulson shouted.

I laid my palm on his arm. "Armies can't stop him, nor can fantastic secret weapons. Only one thing can stop him: the greatest detective who ever lived. Pinkerton!"

"Yes," Paulson said. "I suppose I could."

"He knows that. But he's a fiend. He wants a battle of wits with you, his only possible foe, for the satisfaction of making a fool of you."

"Easier said than done, my friend," Paulson said crisply.

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