I couldn't bear the roof and the walls - I've had a place arranged up at the top of the house, open to the sky, with no furniture or carpets, or any stifling things... But even then the houses all round are nearly as bad.
It's open country I want, somewhere where one can breathe..." He looked across at Seldon. "Well, what do you say?
Can you explain it?"
"H'm," said Seldon. "Plenty of explanations.
You've been hypnotized, or you've hypnotized yourself.
Your nerves have gone wrong.
Or it may be merely a dream."
Hamer shook his head.
"None of those explanations will do."
"And there are others," said Seldon slowly, "but they're not generally admitted."
"You are prepared to admit them?"
"On the whole, yes!
There's a great deal we can't understand which can't possibly be explained normally.
We've any amount to find out still, and I for one believe in keeping an open mind."
"What do you advise me to do?" asked Hamer after a silence.
Seldon leaned forward briskly.
"One of several things. Go away from London, seek out your 'open country.'
The dreams may cease."
"I can't do that," said Hamer quickly.
"It's come to this that I can't do without them. I don't want to do without them."
"Ah! I guessed as much.
Another alternative, find this fellow, this cripple.
You're endowing him now with all sorts of supernatural attributes.
Talk to him.
Break the spell."
Hamer shook his head again.
"Why not?"
"I'm afraid," said Hamer simply.
Seldon made a gesture of impatience.
"Don't believe in it all so blindly!
This tune now, the medium that starts it all, what is it like?"
Hamer hummed it, and Seldon listened with a puzzled frown.
"Rather like a bit out of the overture to Rienzi.
There is something uplifting about it - it had wings.
But I'm not carried off the earth! Now, these flights of yours, are they all exactly the same?"
"No, no." Hamer leaned forward eagerly. "They develop.
Each time I see a little more.
It's difficult to explain.
You see, I'm always conscious of reaching a certain point - the music carried me there - not direct, but by a succession of waves, each reaching higher than the last, until the highest point where one can go no further.
I stay there until I'm dragged back. It isn't a place, it's more a state.
Well, not just at first, but after a little while, I began to understand that there were other things all round me waiting until I was able to perceive them.
Think of a kitten.
It has eyes, but at first it can't see with them. It's blind and had to learn to see.
Well, that was what it was to me.
Mortal eyes and ears were no good to me, but there was something corresponding to them that hadn't yet been developed - something that wasn't bodily at all.
And little by little that grew... here were sensations of light... then of sound... then of colour... All very vague and unformulated.
It was more the knowledge of things than seeing or hearing them. First it was light, a light that grew stronger and clearer... then sand, great stretches of reddish sand... and here and there straight, long lines of water like canals -"
Seldon drew in his breath sharply.
"Canals!
That's interesting. Go on."