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"We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it undisturbed"

"You looked a D - - - - &039;s papers, of course, and into the books of the library?"

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume"

- Poe

A LOCKED ROOM

Three hours later, Sid and I pluh too tired to want to eat for a while yet A tighter search that I could ever have cooked up had shown that the Maintainer was not in the Place

Of course it had to be in the Place, as we kept telling each other for the first two hours It had to be, if circue WorldA Maintainer is what en, teravity, and other little life-cycle and enerally, but it&039;s the Major Maintainer that keeps the walls fro in It is little, but oh my, it does socomplicated like that It just hooks into local spaceti part is iant molecules, each one of which is practically a vest-pocket cosmos in itself Outside, it looks like a portable radio with a few -ins for earphones and a lot of other sensory thinguone and the Void hadn&039;t closed in, yet By this tied, I didn&039;t carefor sure, the Maintainer had been switched to Introvert before it was spirited away or else its disappearance automatically produced Introversion, take your choice, because we sure were Introverted - real nasty hts that I kneithout trying, liquor wouldn&039;t soften, not a breath of Change Wind, absolutely stifling, and the gray of the Void see of what the science boys mean when they explain toof the material and the rnenal - a Giant Monad, one of them called it

Anyway, I said to myself, "Greta, if this is Introversion, I want no part of it It is not nice to be cut adrift from the cosmos and know it A lifeboat in the alaxies are not in it for loneliness"

I asked myself why the Spiders had ever equipped Maintainers with Introversion switches anye couldn&039;t drill with theency so tight that it was either Introvert or surrender to the Snakes, and for the first time the obvious explanation ca, its main purpose to withhold secrets and materiel from the enemy It put a place into a situation froh co left but to sink down, down (out? up?), down into the Void

If that was the case, our chances of getting back were about those ofin the Dunes on the Sed a little closer to Sid and sort of squunched under his shoulder and rubbed ray velvet He looked down and I said, "A long way to Lynn Regis, eh, Siddy?"

"Sweetling, thou spokest awhen he

"Siddy," I said, "why this goldwork? It&039;d be a lot smoother without it"

"Marry, men must prick themselves out and, &039;faith I know not, but it helps if there&039;s et scratched" I took a little sniff "But don&039;t put this doublet through the cleaner yet Until we get out of the woods, I want as much around as possible"

"Marry, and why should I?" he asked blankly, and I think he wasn&039;t foolingtime travelers find out is how they do or don&039;t sh he wanted to squunch under , your forest has a few reed, and wondered about the look He oughtn&039;t to be interested in irlishness now I kneas athe hunt and you never can tell Then I remembered that he was the other one who hadn&039;t declared hi it to us, and it probably troubled his h - I was still grateful to the Maintainer for getting ot us all into It seeo

We&039;d all juirls had run aith the Maintainer, I don&039;t knohere or why, but it looked soabout how she&039;d never trusted Ghosts and always known that sos on their own, and Kaby had got it firht between the horns, that Phryne, being a Greek, was the ringleader and was going to wreak havoc on us all

But ere checking Stores the first tiirl envelopes looked flat Ectoplasm doesn&039;t take up much space when it&039;s folded, but I had opened one anyway, then another, and then called for help

Every last envelope was eirls, Sid&039;s whole stock

Well, at least it proved what none of us had ever seen or heard of being demonstrated: that there is a spooky link - a sort of Change Wind contact - between a Ghost and its lifeline; and when that umbilicus, I&039;ve heard it called, is cut, the part away fro, but what had botheredto evaporate too, because we are as s had been cut just as surely We&039;re more solid, of course, but that would only ical