He was trying to breach the confines of his mind with the tools he had available. But he couldn't do it all at once, he was constrained by countless fields of rationality. Instead, he focused on its individual complexes, the centers of islands of condensed psychic energy, nodal areas underlying his fabricated identity. He met each kernel head on and unraveled its message, revealing its hidden secret. Untying the tangle strand by strand, it finally would dissipate, dissolve into the background of pure random thought. They'd stood like beacons directing traffic, and now, one-by-one, their lights went out and their power over him ceased. With each successful release, he felt lighter, the mental strain he'd become accustomed to lessened in intensity with each new realization. The physical sensations and emotions associated with their separate energies no longer had a source, an anchor in the psychic domain. But despite no longer being psychically supported, they remained as residue. He saw them now objectively, however, coupled with forces that directed behavior and told him who he was, informed him as to what he was capable of, a point of view. They defined him, like pencil grooves in wood, drawing him like a magnetic field attracts iron filings. Once there, he would feel the comfort of familiarity for better or worse. But at the same time, they limited him; he could not go above and to fall below--or outside of the lines--brought on insecurity and doubt.

After a significant loss, restraints and inhibitions become suspended. Orientation shifts. Our sense of duty towards regulating attitudes falls by the wayside, is detached from, is seen as irrelevant and meaningless. We change, we transform, we adapt new perspectives that may be closer to reality or relegated to being merely personal: tolerance can turn to hate, compassion to contempt, cooperation to competition. In either case, life takes on a different frame of reference, but these frames are localized in time and space--where they have their origin--and dependent on immediate circumstances for meaning. Ultimately, they are archetypes only.

New experiences of a positive nature can also alter previous ways of seeing things, of appreciating life itself. That's what he needed, he decided. To get outside his mind he had to get outside his self, his ordinary life. Maybe then the problem will look different.

Finally, he reached the bottom tier, the bedrock of his identity. Immersed now in a realm he'd gradually become familiar with, he came upon the foundation stone--black, dense, ominous. It was enshrouded in a membrane of fear, covered by a seemingly impenetrable film. He kept his distance, studying it from several angles. Suddenly a dim light appeared deep within. As he refined his point of view, it sharpened to an almost painful pinprick of brilliance.

As he willed himself towards it, the atmosphere thickened, the terror embraced him. Abruptly, he became ensnared, unable to move in any direction. He tried to remember what advice he'd heard from old masters practiced in the art of traversing inner space, but his mind was a jumble of incoherent thoughts. "Don't resist," a voice cried out finally. Believing his instincts had taken over, he ceased struggling.

At once, slowly, helplessly, he was drawn into the foundation stone as though caught in an undertow. The bright white light grew until that's all there was, he was surrounded. He'd done the unthinkable, the unimaginable. Now what? There was nothing objective to perceive, not even thoughts about his situation surfaced. He was lost in a world of empty light but was unafraid. Instead, he felt a warmth and sensibility he never knew existed.

Traveling through quantum space took only as much time for the material of the ship and occupants to stretch out along the many trajectories available and then synthesize at the destination point. The predominance of the non-local force disposes Q.S. to behave topologically, not geometrically; as a result, distance has little meaning. From there emerge into spacetime hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light years away. The mathematics mapping coordinates in spacetime to their equivalents in quantum space--dependent on speed and intitial course, mainly--had been worked out a century ago. So in the scientific community, interests had shifted.

Doctor Jacob Marcus and his team were on the frontier of exploration into inner space. He was convinced that within the realm of the human mind--the psyche--existed dimensions of reality and, indeed, other universes just waiting to be discovered. How that would expand the mind of man exponentially to whatever end no one was able to say. As they always have, understanding how things work in ways that reveal properties of physical reality, and of life itself, not known before changes our worldview. But with regard to inner space, he believed those changes would be fundamental. New forces and inner dimensions that always existed but were hidden, never realized, not only discovered but internalized. Humanity would evolve.

He was convinced as a matter of faith, and so was Doctor Harry Hartman, the scientist now enclosed in a sensory deprivation cocoon and plugged into a supercomputer through a helmet composed of a mineral not found on Earth, an exotic import from one of the colony planets. A mineral whose properties were yet to be fully understood. Nonetheless, what they did learn of it made it the optimal choice: the helmet insulated neural activity from any outside quantum interference. The cocoon was actually a tube made from the same mineral. It blocked out all ambient high-frequency energy fields, and, although because of its mass it was susceptible to local gravity, it acted as a shield to external gravitational waves; consequently, Hartman had to be strapped down. To cancel as much vibrational energy as possible, it floated in a large pool of heavy water in which globules of sound-absorbing puffballs were suspended.

Over dinner and drinks they'd discussed the project. They agreed they'd done all they could as far as preparation was concerned, it was time to test it. But the subject had to be well-versed in the principles involved and know what, exactly, they were attempting. The best and only choices, they realized, were themselves. So they drew straws, Hartman won.

The research facility at the university was sparsely populated on saturdays. They had breakfast together and worked out the details, checking them off one by one. At their lab Hartman changed into the special suit they'd designed and entered the tube. Oxygen was checked and tightness of hull, the off-world mineral sealing seamlessly. He was put into deep sleep by the gradually lessening pulse of probes attached to his temples. At the precise micro-instant of falling unconscious, however, the unexpected happened, an unlikely possibility, its probability so negligible, in fact, that its includion in the field equations was only for the sake of completion.

To state it simply: a temporal dimension opened parallel to his, like two tramlines running close together. Consequently, a transposition occurred, a mutual resonance, between Hartman and a being from another world. Usually ignored, it was a tenet of the initial theory: all beings share a common psychic reality and can shift through equivalent resonance when and if the circumstances allow. The fact that the being was immersed in psychic space and had reduced his identity markers to the foundation stone, the nexus and the entanglement of the essence of all lifeforms, apparently qualified as those peculiar circumstances.

Doctor Hartman had gone elsewhere and in his stead, a being who was confounded by a seemingly intractable problem of survival that needed resolution. A transdimensional--spatial and temporal--substitution through the timeless zone--the void--interfacing consciousness and the unconscious mind had exchanged Hartman's self-identity with that of another being.

At the time, Marcus was pacing in front of a long table covered with devices and monitors. In the middle, a 3-D hologram of Hartman's neural network projected above a generating disc. He scanned each monitor, checking for atmosphere, oxygen level, seam integrity, bodily functions, cellular activity, and a host of parameters overseeing the senses. At the micro-instant Hartman drifted off to sleep, the master computer induced a mathemtical description of quantum space similar to, albeit on a greatly reduced scale, the induction by a quark drive of a bubble into and around the material of a ship and all it contains, including the occupants, thereby generating a quark bubble. The hologram of Hartman's synaptic pathways and intricate neural circuitry altered subtly. The difference in appearance was so minute that the computer monitoring the ensemble of instruments attributed it to expected fluctuation.

Quantum inner space is where they believed, based on hard quantum archetypal science, they would discover the realm of pure thought energy, the mythical psychic field underlying all that is, the precursor of the properties of spacetime. They hoped to transcend the limits of the mind to find patterns of thought that underpinned dimensions of space residing within the psyche. It never occurred to them, or rather, they didn't dream these patterns of irreducible thought energy would also manifest as actual spacetimes in the macro world. Alternate universes made accessible through the psychic domain. A portal to a multidimensional space never before experienced. Its nonmaterial basis was not, however, thoroughly understood.

The sensation of being pulled along having ceased, he assumed he reached the center of the foundation stone. His identity was no longer his alone but had become a single state of being in an ocean of entangled minds. All remaining vestiges supporting his separate selfhood vanished. He felt buoyant, the solution had to now be a possibility within his grasp.

His planet and people hadn't much time before the initial effects of the black hole would begin. Coming their way, nothing known by him or anyone else could be done about it. But he refused to accept that, to give in to what seemed inevitable. His intuition told him there must be a congruence, an embedding, between the timeless source of the hole and that of the psychic field containing its essence. The architecture of the universe was well-known but the fundamental domains awaited more serious exploration. Those engaged in that pursuit were a special breed of scientist with special talents. Most notably, the shamanistic ability to delve into the world of the mind along dimensions and pathways unknowable to most of the rest of the populace.

Captured by the light, he was unable to think clearly about things, to reason, to construct the problem logically and then find a solution. It wouldn't come. Frustrated, he thought, of what use was this? Why have I bothered? He saw the hole as an adversary about to destroy his world. He willed to be near it, to end its existence. Immediately, his mind perceived a vision of it in all its awesome and terrifying form. He was just outside its influence but could see space and time being squeezed together, compacted into so much emptiness. A hole, a void, opening onto what?

He dove down into the psychic sea searching for the source. Deeper and deeper through layers of matter torn apart over and over, shredded, until nothing remained. There, he found it. The aperture so tiny, so minimal in its spacetime extension, showed itself as it meandered along, devouring everything in its path.

Instead of accessing the entry portal to inner space, Hartman may have been dreaming for all he knew. He sensed himself emerging physically like those dreams that feel so real, but there was something different about this. Too much detail, for one, and the edges were sharp. He found himself sitting on a pillow on a decorative rug in the middle of a wide circular room, about twenty feet in diameter; the ceiling was a good 12 to 15 feet high and of the same light-green material as the walls. What seemed like large gemstones were attached where they and the ceiling met giving off a rose-colored hue. The curved walls depicted paintings interspersed with light brown scrolls of some fabric. On them he could just make out pictographs, geometric symbols, and what looked like numbers. A pleasant aroma permeated the air. He was wearing strange clothing: a long-sleeve tan shirt covered with embroideries of what might be animals and birds. His leggings were soft leather to the touch. His hands were rough and large. He felt his face. He now had a beard, short and stiff, his eyebrows were bushy and his cheeks more pronounced. He ran a hand through his hair, it was thin, yellow, and down to his shoulders.

Scanning the curve of the wall, he could find no doorway. Suddenly claustrophobic, he stood, feeling the muscles in his legs in a strong yet unfamiliar way. He was convinced this was no dream; nonetheless, they hadn't expected an event of this kind. He almost laughed at their blind hubris, realizing that in fact they'd never actually thought through what it meant to enter an alternate reality in inner space. What would be the practical outcome? "Is that a contradiction?" he asked out loud. The sound of his voice startled him. It was a rough undertone, barely above a whisper. The paintings were apparently landscapes. In one he could see two suns, one orange and the other smaller one white, above a jagged, snow-covered mountain range. The symbols on the scroll next to it were at first so much jibberish, but as he stared, their intent became clear. They had a familiar ring to them, a blend of theories, principles, and definitions describing a paradigm invoking another world, an alternate reality. How he knew that he couldn't guess. At least a dozen more of varying lenghts and character forms draped the walls. From his vantage point he noticed a series of concentric circles of yellow inlaid into the rug's faded burgundy background, at the center was the pillow.

Across from him he spotted a dark vertical seam in the wall. He stepped around the pillow to investigate, his body moving like a cat. He felt the cool, smooth texture of the wall around the crack; impulsively, he pushed. The hinged side appeared from nowhere and the door opened. At first, he saw nothing but the blackest emptiness, the dim light from within too faint to reach beyond the threshold. He thought perhaps it might be nightfall and the door led to the outside, or could he be in an interior room of a darkened house? Gradually, stars popped out randomly; the collective light was not enough, however, to illuminate what lay on the other side.

He thought to will the hole to close, to end its spiralling vortex of consumption, its insatiable appetite. If only he could look inside to see the mayhem, the wild chaos of sub-atomic particles being crushed into oblivion. Order rendered into total disorder from which nothing can emerge.

Nothing. Not a thing. But what is nothing? he wondered. Is it the opposite of something or is it something in itself? It can't be pointed at. It can't be delimited, contained, constrained, encompassed. There is no location in space and time where it exists. Yet, there it is before me. A well wherein the nothingness of the universe resides.

But there are many black holes of every size and mass imaginable. Are they linked in some way? Do they form a network of some sort? Are they embedded in a reality all their own? Once formed when a star of sufficient mass collapses, do they tear through spacetime to a deeper strata already waiting for them?

As he tried to envision what the nature of that might be, he was abruptly yanked inside the well of neverending time, falling freely towards the opening, which now didn't look all that tiny. Fearful, he willed himself to return to his former position, but to no avail. He tried to think of what he could've done to have caused this rush to emptiness, then recalled wishing to look inside. He told himself he was not in this physical universe but rather within that of the psychic realm. He was not bodily present and his mind dwelled within the foundation stone and thus no harm could come to him. Or could it?

Space and time no longer joined as one in this domain. He watched the elementals of space shimmer as they tried to resist being deconstructed to one-dimensional strings and the time elementals compressed to single granules, their orientation orthogonal to the direction of flow. Getting closer to the threshold he could tell it was not the simple energy membrane it had appeared to be. Its outer edge was a violent ring of sub-atomic fluctuations which transitioned across an invisible discontinuity to become a fluid of shifting identities. Beyond that, on the inner rim, patterns of invariant properties blended together, then disassembled into pure disassociated thought.

He could say the words, the formula engraved in the mind energy of the psychic field and return to his meditation room and corporeality, but he was determined to pursue his quest. The destroyer of worlds lay just ahead, the object of his attention and a menace to his world. Although in his ultimate state as pure mathematical thought, as a gesture of the mind he bit down on his lip as he stepped over the threshold.

Hartman decided to chance it, for the good of science, he told himself, if not for curiosity's sake. He ventured forth, but as the momentum carried him forward, he separated from the body he'd been occupying and was propelled into utter blackness. Stars enclosed him in a great sphere of twinkling lights. Desperately, he turned for the safety of the room, but it was gone, replaced by more fields of stars. Vertigo chilled him. He needed to feel the sensation of standing but quickly realized that it didn't matter. He wasn't going anywhere, he was just there. Adrift. Not falling, but if he were, where would he fall to? The strongest gravity well in his vicinity? But he was massless and the only energy he radiated was of a nature not susceptible to the forces of ordinary spacetime. At least, the one he was familiar with, but what were the forces of this alternate universe? He hadn't a clue.

So what was he to do? He knew eventually the experiment would time out and he'd awaken inside the cocoon floating in a pool. Or would he? They were exploring innner space, which, he knew now, contained spacetimes of its own with, no doubt, rules of their own. But what has happened? In the room, he was in a bona-fide physical reality. He possessed another body which he could move. Was he drawn there by accident? Was the person a gateway available at the precise instant he entered inner space? Is that how it works? he wondered.

When you enter inner space you have to first occupy the body of another residing in a particular universe? But he'd sensed no other mind present, there was no one home. A handy vacuum that needed filling? Or was it not quite so happenstance but somehow relevant, significant, purposeful? What could that mean? Did it happen out of time, a span of time that never really took place, a separate looping timeline? But it felt so real.

Groping for understanding, his thoughts followed themselves as though they were speaking to him from a source other than his mind. He was an explorer breaking trail in a universe of infinite possibilities, and this was only one.

Absorbed as he was he only just noticed the tight star cluster getting closer. He couldn't tell, of course, if it was coming towards him or if he was, by some method, moving towards it. But he did know what it signified. A dense plane of stars circling a much denser object, like a black hole. At some point he could tell by the changing panorama that he was caught up in the mass swirling about the center. Using those as reference, he determined he was sliding downhill as well.

Doctor Marcus scanned the displays. Everything seemed to be in order, the integrity of the tube maintained. The holograph of Hartman's neuronal arrangement had altered however. Fluctuations indicating new connections were being formed settled down to a pattern that was far removed from his profile. Even though it was anticipated, owing to the resonance effects of novel perception, he hadn't expected it to be so dramatic. It crossed his mind that something could be amiss. Despite their thoroughgoing theories and scope of imaginative hypotheses, it was all new. Inner space within the deepest root of the mind was bound to possess properties unforseen. They were traveling in uncharted territory, the unexpected was right around the corner. Risks were always involved.

Should he pull the plug? he thought. His colleague and friend might be in trouble. Theories only go so far. The nonlinearity inherent in any form of complexity can surprise with emergent phenomena, add to that unknown sets of interconnections and what can be considered as probable expectation diminishes appreciably. Nonetheless, he resisted his instinct to cut the experiment short and satisfied himself with the fact that Hartman was physically okay. Knowing his partner would be upset if he stopped the program prematurely, his suspension in time would not be interrupted. Marcus decided, despite misgivings, to wait until its completion.

He stepped over the threshold, that was as far as he got. Gravity itself having been squeezed out, the utter silence tampered with his calm. From a previous yet still present, he saw a plane that went off in all directions. Etched into it were islands of thought energy interfacing with other similar islands across boundaries empty of time elementals. Each island formed a distinctive pattern, but with each a commonality stood out, an archetype. It spoke to him as though in greeting. Could these patterns of thought energy be reflections of his own mind? he wondered. A tesselation of selves spread out over a vast field of psychic energy? Memories of events significant and meaningful, more pronounced than others? He felt a familiar resonance, an intimacy on multiple levels.

He recalled when the black hole was first discovered approaching their system. He remembered the fear and panic that ensued. The belief among the population that doom was on the way, irresistible and catastrophic. How he and other scientists around the world went to work trying to figure a way out. And why he embarked on the course of action he presently found himself.

He continued to fall through the timeless zone. Something told him that just beneath the surface he'd find the event that caused the black hole dragging along, attached by purpose. As he concentrated on the calculated time when the supenova spawned the destroyer, envisioning as best he could what that must've looked like, the inscribed plane of self images was replaced by one of cosmic events. Space having become inconsequential, he was immediately drawn from the timeless zone to a specific island amongst others of a similar nature. He hovered over its writhing, churning mass, surveying it from border to border. How something two-dimensional could convey such depth of reality was a mystery he had no time to consider. Though static in time, it yet had a life of its own. It throbbed, in fact, with violent, intense energy, almost snarling its ferocity. He was here, where he wanted to be. There was no going back.

He willed immersion, to bind with it, to mirror its nature and uncover its source. His plan was to undermine its identity by bringing it into the foundation stone where the light of creation can render it harmless and as a consequence, its expression in ordinary spacetime. In order to accomplish that end, he would have to become one with it. He knew it was possible. In olden times, other practitioners with the gift to travel the byways of the mind had done as much. There were legends. Now, it was his turn and the only hope to save his world and his people.

Doctor Harry Hartman was completely at a loss as to what to do. They hadn't devised a failsafe for quick extraction if the occasion were to call for it. He had a feeling that occasion was now.

He was racing downhill as if on a sled descending a mountain slope, but without the wind or gravity or any other sensation. Dozens of stars, planets, moons, and debris swirled about a hub like vehicles of every size stuck on an urban traffic circle jockeying for position. It occurred to him again that he might be dreaming. From possession of another in that strange circular room to a disembodied consciousness floating in empty space. And now this. If it is a dream, he thought, nothing harmful can happen. Right? Even if it isn't, he was mind only, a consciousness of self and an identity, an organized collection of thoughts and memories. Why then, he had to ask, do I appear influenced by gravity?

He had no control over his trajectory. He passed close to suns and watched planets break apart into millions of chunks, some extremely large. It was carnage, a wild free-for-all of intense gravitational forces tearing asunder what it once held together. Monstrous flares and twisted matter flew in every direction.

He passed through it all, heading for the black hub. He couldn't help thinking that this would be a great time for the experiment to end. But would he have the courage to ever try it again? The black emptiness at the heart of this orgy of destruction drew him ever faster. The heaviness of his surroundings abruptly shifted to a buoyant lightness. He slowed, or at least he was no longer rushing pell mell. Caught in the timeless zone, he collected himself and examined what lay within.

Immersion would've been more than sufficient for the memory representative of an ordinary cosmic event, like an asteroid crashing into a planet or a comet passing nearby, but a black hole of these dimensions was proving too difficult to control. The transition of quantum particle fluctuations to pure thought energy forms went through a series of fractional subdivisions before transcending dimension itself. The sheer number of details to be mindful of exceeded the number he was capable of comprehending. He needed to get past it, to the psychic field beneath, the original universe where consciousness was born. There he would find a calm sea and the ultimate generator of the hole's existence.

He willed to do that, but nothing changed. He couldn't unbind; his infusion, although incomplete, held him fast. Trapped within the static memory of his enemy's creation, he thought to free himself by focusing on his own identity, separate and unique. Desire was all he had, it consumed him, the desire to be free of this clinging mass.

Without any effort on his part, Hartman remained stationary in the midst of the empty blackness that was the hole. Before him lay a vast plane of intricate patterns arranged like a mosaic of juxtaposed geometric shapes, two-dimensional figures describing an event. One caught his eye off in the distance, if distance made any sense here. It seemed to move or pulse. Its behavior was strange and he was drawn to it by dint of curiosity. It was enormous, its edge barely discernable. He wondered at its movement. It didn't possess the quality of an existence, it was memory only. He didn't know how he knew this, but in this space of the mind he was getting used to thoughts arising unbidden. Staring at the assemblage below, a voice cried out to him.

Startled, he scanned the plane but saw only the wide range of patterns curving off to infinity. Again, the voice, calling to him directly, "Who are you and how do you come to be here?"

Hartman was terrified. Was this normal here? Other invisible minds traveling about, exploring, searching?

"Do you also seek the dark one to destroy?"

Hartman hesitated. He was about to make contact with a being from another universe. Not something you did every day.

"I don't know what you mean," he replied. Not exactly a quote worthy of a commemorative plaque.

Now there was hesitation on the other end. "I am from Nalina, my home world. I am a scientist of the inner worlds, the Order of Practitioners. The black hole's path leads through our system. I am determined to stop it from doing that. If you do not seek the dark one, then why are you here?"

Hartman explained who he was and how he managed to be here, at least as much as he understood. It was uncomfortable telling him about the possession part, walking around, seeing things with another's eyes. He didn't know, of course, that he was conversing with that other. His description of the meditation room elicited an immediate interruption of his narrative.

"That was my room, my body." He wasn't annoyed by it, only curious. Hartman, taken aback by the intimacy that engendered and, of course, the impropriety, nonetheless asked why he separated from his body when he stepped over the threshold of the room. The practioner had no response for that except to say he could not have followed him any other way.

"What do you mean, followed?"

"Well you must have; otherwise, why in this expansive universe would you be here and not elsewhere?"

Good point. "But why, how?"

"The how is easy, the why, I don't know. You didn't come here through the foundation stone. You entered quantum space at the point where inner and outer spacetimes intersect. A conduit opened connecting your world and mine. I can see it about you now like a cloak of mist."

"How do you know of outer spacetimes? Different-scaled universes? That they exist?"

"For every spacetime there are inners and outers. They recede unendingly and forever. Alternate universes are stacked on top of one another and at the same time, all universes are within any given one. They can reverse relationship, invert it, turn it around. My world is within yours and yours within mine. Did you believe the universe you live in could not be among the inner space of another universe, of another's mind?"

Hartman didn't know what to say to that. It'd always seemed obvious that his universe, the one that contained the Milky Way and Earth, was on a grand scale, the largest beyond which there was no other, born 14 billion years ago in a Big Bang and forever expanding. Relativity of size. Nested universes in both directions. Fractals of inclusion of time and space. It simply never occurred to him.

"What's this... foundation stone?"

"A paradox. Although only one exists, it lies at the heart of each and every universe up and down the string of pearls. The archetype. Consciousness itself, unconditioned. The stone is not more readily accessible in any single, unique universe than in any other. When we rid ourselves of our personal identity, we discover our self-nature resonating from the ultimate self of the stone, one with it, you might say. That's how I got here, traveling along the psychic web."

"But I didn't travel through any foundation stone. How am I here?"

"My universe is within the mind of yours. You accessed a portal to other dimensions of mind, where they intersect. Something coincidental, but, I don't think, entirely accidental, happened when you did that as I entered the stone. Something that brought you to me. Something that we share. Perhaps we're the same person."

"The same person? How can that be?"

"I don't know. Could we discuss this some other time, do you think?" asked a frustrated practioner. "I'm stuck here and can do nothing. I need to drop out of this middle ground into the psychic universe where this thing has its root. Can you help me, help my people? Will you?"

Hartman stared hard into the abyss, trying to find the being. Permeated throughout the murky memory of crushed space, time, and matter he noticed a continuously connected brightness vibrating, albeit ever so feebly. Nonetheless, he could now see clearly the difference.

"What would you have me do?" he asked.

The practitioner explained what he was attempting to do, emphasizing the dire need for success, and that he had become ensnared by the extent of his undertaking and the resistance inherent in the nature of the compacted gravity ball.

"What I would like you to do. You're enclosed in an energy bubble keeping you coherent and protected. What you see before you is the epitome of entropy, exhausted time and space. I have mingled with it in order to join identities. Unfortunately, it is more than I can handle. With your protective shell, you can offset that disorder enough so that I can reaffirm my separateness and together we can enter its psychic source. Is that clear enough for you? Is any of this going in?"

"Okay," said Hartman, feeling the full force of his newfound friend's impatience. He had no idea, really, what he was getting himself into. But it did seem odd that after entering this space the way he did, occupying the body of another, that he would end up here with the mind of that body. Followed. Same person. He didn't understand how that could be. But there was something going on beyond his radar that involved him, accidentally or on purpose, and the next step was in front of him.

"I'm not really sure I understand what the hell you're talking about, but I'm willing to help. What do I do exactly?"

"Empty your mind. Let go of everything to do with yourself. Open to your surroundings, to what you see. Will to know it, to experience it, to be one with it. Time and place have no meaning. Concentrate on the unconnected. Let go."

Hartman did as he was instructed. In moments, he found himself being tossed about like a cork in the ocean. It was all he could do to keep from panicking. But he managed to hold fast. Abruptly, the seething memory let them go and they dropped into the strata of thought reality only, the underlying realm of all that is, has been, or ever will be. The psychic field. The mind level of nature.

Doctor Marcus tendered the instrument bay, checking and rechecking physical readouts. A beeping sound drew his attention to the hologram of Hartman's neural network. The arrangement of interconnections had altered considerably and the computer indicated new synaptic growth. Now he was genuinely concerned. Is this what they expected? He wasn't sure anymore. They were tampering with realities no one had ever investigated before. It was all unknown. His colleague was going through something no one had ever experienced and he had no way of knowing if it was good or bad.

He studied the hologram, looking closely for anomalies that might represent damage of some kind. But what he saw instead was an increase in degree of complexity and activity. He decided he'd cut the experiment short if it leapt again to something that was preposterous for a human being. But time was running out anyway. The experiment was almost at an end.

All pressure had ceased as though a switch had been pulled. The calm tranquility overwhelmed Hartman; he might've shed a tear had he been able. Beside him he could see an organized, coherent sphere of thought patterns, which collectively was the mind of the practitioner. In this realm, thought was visible; that is to say, what could be seen was thought's intrinsic manifestation, its corresponding materiality, only without the physical properties. The psychic reality of the black hole swirled about them, quietly, unhurredly spiraling into the center where they seemed to float unaffected by their surroundings.

Hartman realized at that moment that necessarily he was viewing everything from a multi-dimensional perspective. Seeing before and after, backward and forward, simultaneously. He also couldn't help but notice that the essence of the black hole was spiraling about them counter-clockwise in a flat plane, its edges indiscernable, a fact he thought might be important somehow. As far as he could see was black space, what his universe would look like without stars. The whirlpool encircling them was equally black but the strands that composed it had definite form confined within an energized membrane or sheath.

The practitioner scanned the area, searching for something. He could barely contain himself. Here he was, in the heart of the creative energy that came into being at the same instant as the implosion that established the maw of destruction. He could join its identity inherent in the mathematics of its nature and withdraw to the foundation stone where all separate identities are neutralized and obliterated. He knew that trick would work with memory inscribed into the surface, but, due to its ethereal constitution, wasn't completely certain about pure thought. It might very well slip through his fingers and there'd he be, back within the stone by himself, hopelessly out of touch with where he was now.

Hartman said, "Okay, we're here. Now what? You gotta plan?"

The practitioner had also observed that the swirling energy circled counter-clockwise. He recalled that the black hole in spacetime rotated clockwise. He pointed it out to Hartman as though the solution to his problem had just presented itself.

"We have to stand on our head."

"Say what?"

"We're part of this now. We are the fixed point at the center. This wheel extends from us but rotates around us. If we can flip upside down, so will it. Don't you see?"

Hartman was lost. What science or magic this man was talking about was well outside his expertise. So he had to confess that he didn't.

"The black hole in real material spacetime rotates clockwise. Spacetime is a mirror image of the psychic field. If we can force the hole's psychic counterpart to rotate the same way as it--counter-clockwise--it'll neutralize it, cancel its motion. It will evaporate into the nothing of empty space. They are mirror images of each other with memory inscribed into the surface of the psychic field acting as an intermediary, locking the two. A static reflection. It would be reversed."

Hartman didn't understand how that would work, but he was new here in this bizarre arena so he took the wizard's word for it. The practitioner could see his doubt, so added, "It'd be like throwing a stick into a bicycle wheel. Then it would simply dissipate like a tornado come to the end of its life."

"How do you know this?" he had to ask.

"I don't," the practitoner said. "No one's ever tried this before. But it has to. Mind affects matter. Consciousness alters material structure. We need to try." He was going on faith and what he knew of his universe. Theories that had never been tested yet made sense based on fundamental principles. "It has to work," he said softly, hope in his voice.

"So what do we do? How do we proceed? How do we flip upside down?"

"I don't know," he said, exasperated, "I'm brainstorming here." While he thought about it, Hartman let himself feel the deep, utter stillness surrounding them. There was no color to it or absence thereof, it wasn't black. Time before motion, space out of nothing poured forth from a tear, a breach in a dam, a membrane, life breaking free, looking for new ground to be in. A presence without beginning.

"I do know another way however that amounts to the same thing and is more certain," the practioner declared. "We first identify with it as with its memory. Then will to return to the timeless zone in the midst of the core. Immersion will follow. That will bring them into contact spinning in opposite directions." Pausing for a moment, he finished with, "I don't expect the effect to be pleasant."

Hartman pretended not to have heard that last part. Together they focused their energies, quelled random flights of thought, and fused with the psychic pattern that reinforced the reality of the black hole. Hartman felt a rush of intense energy coursing through him like an electric shock, bathing him with its white heat. He wanted to scream. Thought itself, the content of his mind, reformed to reflect the convoluted complex patterns of the black hole's psychic template. In other words: he and it had become one and the same, thought mapping to thought. The singularity, the region of nonlinearity separated from its surrounding body by a vacant discontinuity, offered the only dissonant note, just to let them know they were dealing with something unworldly. The whole defined a uniqueness, an identity more than the sum of its parts.

Sounds. Acoustic waves. He was back in material space. If he had eyes, he would've been blinded. Suns of all sizes and types were being torn apart as they swirled, the rainbow of colors smeared like finger paints across a cone-shaped wall of utter blackness. Rivers and streams of braided light thinned to strands and spears of endlessly elongated photons resembling miniature comets, all coming directly towards them, racing ever faster as time slowed. Ceasing to exist some distance away as though sliding into a pocket in space. It was positively glorious to behold and more than a little terrifying. How could anything absorb such incalculable energy, consume and crush it into nothingness? A whirpool of annihilation, with them at the center. The black hole was draining life-giving energy from the universe; it had to be stopped.

A deep, harsh grinding noise was followed by a hard klunk. He felt pressue building, constrained pressure that grew without any hint that it might stop at a limit. He knew it was coming, and he also knew nothing in the universe was powerful enough to keep it from doing so.

A soundless explosion sent tsunamic gravity waves flooding in all directions, separating him from the practitioner. He was carried like a feather by steep waves moving fast. Bright streaks of light flared off ahead and behind and giant boulders--chunks of planets and moons--hurtled along but were unable to keep up with the light speed of the waves. In time, the compressing and expanding of space elementals slowed to what could be considered normal quantum activity. The flux of the undulating fabric of spacetime relaxed and set him free. Free to be where he began this journey, in the void surrounded by stars and, off in the distance, galaxies and nebulae. Collecting his wits, he searched for his partner in crime, but to no avail. He wished him good fortune and that they were successful in eliminating the threat to him, his people, and their world.

Drifting through this alien landscape, he had plenty of time to think. He wondered if he could exist like this indefinitely. Personal memories seemed to be fading away, sloughed off like so much dead skin. He tried remembering particular events: his college days, the vacation to the Southwest last year, his daughter's wedding, Christmas, his birthday. They'd come and then as quickly dissolve like snow flakes on the palm of your hand.

As a disembodied mind, he had no idea how he was able to see stars and whole systems and galaxies without eyes. He was conscious of these celestial objects without benefit of the required sensory apparatus. How could that be? In a universe of thought, his mind must be projecting corresponding images. But why is that necessary? Wouldn't I still know what I'm looking at? he wondered. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The attributes of a something--a red dwarf star, my daughter's wedding gown--can be caught in thought alone, but in order to see them in the mind's eye, the image needs to be visualized in the four dimensions of ordinary spacetime. But, I'm not in ordinary spacetime, not mine at least, and yet I see material objects as they actually appear in this universe. My interactions are limited to psychic properties, aware of everything around me, yet unable to interact with any of it on the physical level. I am immune to the natural forces, yet I follow the shifting contours that structure it--its gravity, its web of filaments--like a pinball. And if that were not the case, I would fall through to the invisible realm of thought only.

Could I eventually get trapped in a timeless zone of another black hole? Could I will myself out of it? Could I go through a sun without being burned?

If inner space resides soley in my imagination, then where am I? Who am I? We always think that things of our imagination are not real. You're only imagining it, we say. Yet, here I am. And what I experienced with the practitioner seemed quite real; although, what took place, what we did, could never've been done in my world. It was real, yet completely fanciful. Is fantasy life real? Do we dream it up or discover it? Is inner space all that is?

It was magnificent to behold, but that wasn't enough. He had a life back on Earth he wanted to live, and the aloneness here was too much to bear. He feared losing himself, of being swallowed up by the sheer enormity of other, of not being able to act on his own. This vast mystery with its countless planes of existence, its nooks and crannies, its corridors into other universe, other realms, cannot surpass its own will to be. The practitioner knew this and used it, and showed him how to do the same.

The dense silence was interrupted by a beep-beep-beep. He opened his eyes to find himself inside the cocoon. He could feel it being gently lifted out of the pool and placed on the platform next to it. The lid popped open and Marcus stood over him, a strained look of concern on his face. He removed the helmet and monitoring receptors taped to his torso and arms. Carefully, he helped Hartman out of the pod and over to the couch. He lay down with a pillow under his head and stared blankly at the ceiling. Marcus sat on a chair nearby and waited, giving his friend time to revive.

Hartman's eyes blinked, his eyelids fluttered, color returned to his face, he was coming around. Marcus studied him lying on his back, legs straight, feet several inches apart, arms resting across his chest. He seemed to be floating, his body light, every muscle relaxed.

"Harry, what did you see?" He asked barely above a whisper. "Was it all we hoped for? Can you tell me what happened? According to the hologram, you've been through a lot. Your neural net fluctuated often and in ways I found alarming; they were not indicative of normal activity. We have to record your experience before you forget. But for right now, do you feel up to talking about it?"

"I don't think I'm likely to forget anything, Jacob; it wasn't exactly like driving down the road absently looking at the scenery." He rubbed a hand over his face, then smiled, "You ever get hit in the face with a water balloon?"

"A what?"

"When we were kids we'd have water balloon fights. Boy, getting smashed in the side of the head with a good size..."

"Harry," Marcus interrupted, "we don't have time for this right now."

"Sure we do. We have nothing but time. Memories, Jacob. Memories, happy and sad, are what we are, they make us up. Have you ever wonderd what keeps memories alive? Is it the mind or the brain? Why do we remember certain events, people, places and things but not others? Strength of feelings. Associations. Meaning. They mean something to us, something important to our lives. A time in our lives. Even the ones where we caused pain and unhappiness in another. We learn from our mistakes when we reach an age where we see them that way. Get me a cup of coffee, would you?"

Marcus rose immediately, apologizing, and returned with a cup. Hartman smelled it, savoring its dark, rish aroma, then took a sip and placed it on the table in front of the couch. "Memories have a life of their own. They live between the experience, the event, and the consciousness that gives them life in the first place."

He thought about the practitioner. He'd said he followed him and that they were the same person. How else would you be here and not somehwere other? he asked. He could not have done the unimaginable without his help. Was something, some force, orchestrating that? Directing him? Purpose. He was there purposefully, he was sure. He was certain in the same way he knew things about what he saw before him without understanding how.

Hartman smiled, looked over at his friend and colleague, and said, "Jacob, our minds are not just ours, they belong to a continuum of infinite entanglements. I'm basing this on scant evidence, you understand, but I met another being there, another mind, another person. He seemed to know how things worked. I started off inside his body, moving it around like it was my own."

Marcus stared, his mouth agape. He was about to say something when Hartman cut him off. "We seemed to have, or rather, I was somehow drawn to him, to his mind in space at just the right moment. Uncanny." Recalling the vastness and his aloneness in it, his voice trembled with emotion, "You can get lost in there, Jacob. Your self searching for but never finding a place to be. Mind needs expression, manifestation, and, apparently, manifestation needs mind to work in concert, else there could be an explosion."

He paused, recalling the wild surf ride on the giant gravity waves and the spectacular fireworks of suns ripped apart and the shotgun of broken planets. Marcus, seeing the awe and amazement in his eyes was about to inquire, but Hartman stopped him with, "I was involved in something I never could have imagined. It seemed, on one level, to be normal, a normal thing to do. But it could only have happened in that space of the mind. Power to control events out of all proportion to what we know here in our universe. We have to interact through the physical medium. But he was in his universe, not an inner one."

"Who?"

"The practitioner, a scientist of the Order of Practitioners." Hartman smiled. "That's whose body I entered, the portal to that universe."

Who's this practitioner?"

"I'll tell you later. He mentioned the foundation stone. Knew I hadn't come from it. Apparently, he did. It was all going on inside his head, his mind, his psyche. That's how I was able to possess his body. His mind was elsewhere, searching for the black hole."

"What's this foundation stone?"

"I don't know, I can only infer based on what he said about it. You didn't come from there. he said. If we could find our own foundation stone in our universe, what that would mean."

"He was looking for a black hole? Why?"

"He willed to be near it. You can move around like that; although, it doesn't always work. There's more to it. We have to figure out what that is."

He closed his eyes. Remembering the practitioner telling him they had to stand on their head in order to reverse the polarity of the black hole's psychic imprint, he opened them, sat up and laughed. "It made so much sense then."

"What did?"

Hartman turned to put his feet on the floor and face Marcus, smiling. "I need to tell you everything, Jacob, from the beginning. Get the recorder and a bottle of that fancy French stuff, if you would please. This is going to be a good one."