I keep on taking this sort of treatment — the old, familiar and repetitious anger patterns began to flow redly on the surface of his mind — but how much is a man supposed to take? I have a wife who complains night and day because I spend too much time at the office, but when I do take an evening off — this is what I get. Phony spiritualists and another king-sized dose of her damned, stinking indifference. To think I wept — yes sir, actually wept with relief — because she was safe that night they found her with Spiedel’s brains scattered through her hair. I didn’t know it then, but Spiedel was trying to do me a favor. I know it now, though. If only I could…

Breton chopped the thought off in alarm as he realized he was setting himself up for a trip.

But he was too late.

Without getting smaller, the subdued orange lights and white-mortared stone chimney of the living room began to recede into planetary, stellar, galactic distances. He tried to speak, but the transparent overlay of language was shifting across the face of reality, robbing nouns of their significance, making predication impossible. Strange geometries imposed themselves on the perspectives of the room, snapping him sickeningly from pole to alien pole. A face in the group turned towards him — a pale, meaningless free-form — man or woman, friend or enemy? Ponderously, helplessly, over the edge we go…

Breton slammed down the hood of the Buick so savagely that the big car moved like a disturbed animal, rocking on its gleaming haunches. In the darkness of its interior Kate was waiting, immobile, Madonna-like — and because she showed no anger, his own became uncontrollable.

“The battery’s dead. That settles it — we can’t go.”

“Don’t be silly, Jack.” Kate got out of the car. “The Maguires are expecting us — we can phone for a taxi.” Her party clothes were completely inadequate against the night breezes of late October, and she huddled in them with a kind of despairing dignity.