what are you up to these days?" He looked down at Jill and she smiled back at him.

"This is Miss DeVille," said Render.

"Jill," she acknowledged.

He bowed slightly, finally releasing Render's aching hand.

". . . And this is Professor Maurice Bartelmetz of Vienna," finished Render, "a benighted disciple of all forms of dialectical pessimism, and a very distinguished pioneer in neuroparticipation-although you'd never guess it to look at him. I had the good fortune to be his pupil for over a year."

Bartelmetz nodded and agreed with him, taking in the Schnapsflasche Render brought forth from a small plastic bag. and accepting the collapsible cup which he filled to the brim.

"Ah, you are a good doctor still," he sighed. "You have diagnosed the case in an instant and you make the proper prescription. Nozdrovial"

"Seven years in a gulp," Render acknowledged, refill- ing their glasses.

"Then we shall make time more malleable by sipping it."

They seated themselves on the floor, and the fire roared up rhnnigh the great brick chimney as the logs burned themselves back to branches, to twigs, to thin sticks, ring by yearly ring.

Render replenished the fire.

"I read vour last book." said Bartelmetz finally, casu- ally, "about four years ago."

Render reckoned that to be correct.

"Are you doing any research work these days?"

Render poked lazily at the fire.

"Yes," he answered, "sort of."

He glanced at Jili, who was dozing with her cheek against the arm of the huge leather chair that held his emergency hag, the planes of her face all crimson and flickering shadow.

"I've hit upon a rather unusual subject and started with a piece of jobbery I eventually intend to write about."

"Unusual? In what way?"

"B ind from birth, for one thing."

"You're using the ONT&R?"

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"Yes. She's going to be a Shaper."

"Verfluchteri-Are you aware of the possible reper- cussions?"

"Of course."

"You've heard of unlucky Pierre?"

"No."

"Good, then it was successfully hushed. Pierre was a philosophy student at the University of Paris, and was doing a dissertation on the evolution of consciousness.

This past summer he decided it would be necessary for him to explore the mind of an ape, for purposes of comparing a moins-nausee mind with his own, I suppose.

At any rate, he obtained illegal access to an ONT&R and to the mind of our hairy cousin. It was never ascertained how far along he got in exposing the animal to the stimuli- "bank, but it is to be assumed that such items as would not be immediately trans-subjective between man and ape- traffic sounds and so weiter-were what frightened the creature. Pierre is still residing in a padded cell, and all his responses are those of a frightened ape.

"So, while he did not complete his own dissertation,"

he finished, "he may provide significant material for someone else's."

Render shook his head.

"Quite a story," he said softly .-"but I have nothing that dramatic to contend with. I've found an exceedingly sta- ble individual-a psychiatrist, in fact-one who's already spent time in ordinary analysis. She wants to go into neuroparticipation-but the fear of a sight-trauma was what was keeping her out. I've been gradually exposing her to a full range of visual phenomena. When I've fin- ished she should be completely accommodated to sight, so that she can give her full attention to therapy and not be blinded by vision, so to speak. We've already had foul sessions."

"And?"

". . . And it's working fine."

"You are certain about it?"

"Yes, as certain as anyone can be in these matters."

"Mm-hm," said Bartelmetz. "Tell me, do you find her excessively strong-willed? By that I mean, say, perhaps an obsessive-compulsive pattern concerning anything to which she's been introduced so far?"

"No."

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"Has she ever succeeded in taking over control of the fantasy?"

"No!"

"You lie," he said simply.

Render found a cigarette. After lighting it, he smiled.

"Old father, old artificer," he conceded, "age has not withered your perceptiveness. I may trick me, but never you.-Yes, as a matter of fact, she is very difficult to keep under control. She is not satisfied just to see. She wants to Shape things for herself already. It's quite understand- able both to her and to me-but conscious apprehen- sion and emotional acceptance never do seem to get together on things. She has become dominant on several occasions, but I've succeeded in resuming control almost immediately. After all. I urn master of the bank."

"Hm," mused Bartelmetz. "Are you familiar with a Buddhist text- -Shankara's Catechism?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then 1 lecture you on it now. It posits-obviously not for theraputic purposes-a true ego and a false ego. The true ego is that part of man which is immortal and shall proceed on to nirvana: the soul, if you like. Very good.

Well. the false ego, on the other hand, is the normal mind, bound round with the illusions-the consciousness of you and me and everyone we have ever known profes- sionally. Good?-Good. Now, the stuff this false ego is made up of they call skandhas. These include the feelings, the perceptions, the aptitudes, consciousness itself, and even the physical form. Very unscientific. Yes. Now they are not the same thing as neuroses, or one of Mister Ibsens life-lies, or an hallucination-no, even though they are all wrong, being parts of a false thing to begin with.

Each uf the five skandhas is a part of the eccentricity that we call identity-then on lop come the neuroses and all the other messes which follow after and keep us in busi- ness. Okay?-Okay. I give you this lecture because I need a dramatic term for what 1 will say, because 1 wish to say something dramatic. View the skandhas as lying at the bottom of the pond; the neuroses, they are ripples on the top of the water; the 'true ego,' if there is one, is buried deep beneath the sand at the bottom. So. I'he ripples fill up the-the-zwischenwelt-between the object and the subject. The skaodhas are a pan of the subject, basic,

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