felt doubly irritated at the reminder. It looked very different from the globes he'd seen picturing the planet. It looked almost—alive. From this height, great forests resembled tiny hairs, mountain ridges and canyons were skin blemishes and pores; the great oceans looked like giant mouths, open and hungry.

Cantrell laughed nervously. It was ridiculous. Yet the more he looked, the more Earth receded below him, the more the resemblances increased. He stared at the planet. It was ridiculous, but there were even several portions below that looked like great eyes staring at him. As he watched, one blinked.

Cantrell screamed. The sound was shrill in the narrow control chamber. Then he cursed and felt ashamed.

"I'm going crazy," he told himself. His voice was hoarse. "Jarvis was right."

But the thought failed to help. The sudden feeling of terror was still with him, and he found himself trembling. It was only a cloud, he told himself, only a cloud passing over a section of land that from this distance looked like an eye. He tried to laugh away the fear, but the sound stuck in his throat. He felt his heart beating faster than it should.

"No," he said desperately, looking away, "no, I'm okay. My mind is clear, and I'm all right. It's just being up here that gives a guy the jitters. Fear of the unknown. Things look different when you're not close to them. Got to calm down. Take it easy."

His hands trembled.

"Scientists don't have all the right answers even about our Earth here," Jarvis had said. "We know as much about Earth as a flea knows about the dog or the cat he's on."

The words echoed in Cantrell's memory, and he forced himself to look down at Earth. It was a planet, that was all, an inanimate mass and nothing more. "... as much as a flea knows ..." But was it possible that a flea might not realize the animal he was on was an animal?

He had a headache, and he shook his head in an effort to clear it. His vision blurred, refocussed with astounding clarity. Lines flowed together with sudden meaning. Before his gaze rivers became veins, eyes stared at him curiously, ocean-mouths yawned. The truth burst upon him then, with a sudden flash that drove his blood coursing through his body, with a realization that jerked him as though he had been struck with a whip. He laughed insanely at the thought, and the laughter exploded in the narrow 

 Prev. P 7/10 next