"You were right," Evans said bitterly, putting down the radiophone with a gesture of helplessness. "Now, what do we do?"

Jarvis shrugged. "Start over," he said. "What else is there to do? Find someone else to pilot another rocket."

"Someone without Cantrell's hallucinations," Jarvis ammended.

"And pray that they were hallucinations," Jarvis amended further.

Evans looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

Jarvis said calmly, "My favorite theme, Colonel—simply that we don't know much about this blob of matter we're on. One factor disturbs me: while Cantrell was afraid of animals, he never imagined he saw them. Outside of his one idiosyncrasy, he was a very sound person."

"What are you getting at?" Evans demanded irritably.

"That it's unfortunate Cantrell had this animal fear; it's much too easy to blame that for what he saw. As a psychiatrist, I suppose I should say that's the reason for it; I might be right. But it has also occurred to me I might be rationalizing." He leaned forward, intensely serious. "Suppose, just suppose for a minute that maybe we're the ones who are wrong, that maybe we're really parasites on an alien organism, that maybe we're under a kind of mass auto-hypnosis to protect our pride, and that maybe space restores our sanity—for awhile anyway, until another form of insanity takes over."

"Anyone who supposed that would be crazy," Evans blurted.

"Perhaps," Jarvis admitted, "but who's to tell? I wonder, does the flea know the true nature of the dog, or does he think he's living on some kind of world built just for him?"

Evans sputtered, searching for words. Finally he managed, "See here, Captain, this is nonsense, and I order you to stop such talk immediately."

Jarvis sighed. "I hope so, Colonel, I really hope it is nonsense. Man is a proud animal; it's interesting to consider how such knowledge would affect him." He shrugged helplessly and turned to leave the room. "At any rate, the only way to find out is to send up another man in another rocket and hope he doesn't report the same thing; if he does, we'll just blame it on one of his psychological quirks, and try again. But for all we know about this universe, Earth might be a space-animal, a type of life so 

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