Of course. Now he noticed the gaslight fixtures on the house walls. He sighed, turned his inner attention to Dr. Brainbridge and his proper 1985 time, and waited. But nothing happened. Moreover, something in the atmosphere of the house seemed strange in a way that Seven sensed, but couldn’t pinpoint. A consciousness was … wandering, perhaps slightly off course. He could almost feel a consciousness bumping up against concepts too big for it.

Oversoul Seven paused. His job was to get back to the right time, not to go wandering off by himself. But his curiosity was aroused, and his sense of adventure. Staying where he was, he let his mind travel throughout the house. Downstairs was a small dentist’s office. To the left, bits of late sunlight glinted on the instruments. A smell of cloves and camphor … ugh … and chloroform. A waiting room was at the front of the house with two work shops and a kitchen of sorts to the rear.

Three bedrooms, a parlor, and kitchen took up the floor Seven was on. He was becoming impatient, until his mind suddenly caught a commotion on the floor above. He rushed upstairs. There in an attic room, on a cot, lay a man of about thirty. His consciousness was wandering berserk all over the place. Oversoul Seven saw the man’s dream body, which had no stability at all, but was changing images constantly even while the man was hallucinating other images—so that the room seemed full of dragons and demons, with the poor fool, Seven thought, caught in one battle after another.

A demon with a wolf’s jaws rose threateningly in front of the man’s dream body. The man yelled out, started trembling and closed his dream eyes in terror, just as Oversoul Seven turned into the image of an old wise man, told the demon to disappear, and led the frightened dreamer back toward the cot.

It was then that Seven noticed the paraphernalia—hidden partially behind a chair—and saw how the dreamer had come to such a predicament. “You’ve been sniffing gas,” Seven said.

The two of them sat side by side on the cot. The man was still in his dream body. “I do it all the time, up here alone, while my wife and son are away for the summer,” he said. “I’m experimenting. But who are you? I must still be under.”

“You’re under, all right,” Oversoul Seven said. “By the way, what year is it, and who are you?”

“Why, I’m George Brainbridge. Dr. Brainbridge,” the man said, in a surprised voice, as if he thought that his name was a household word. And as he spoke he leaned toward Seven rather formally, and held out his hand.

Oversoul Seven was dumbfounded. “Dr. George Brainbridge? You’re sure?”