When we had made an end of sketching—out on the grounds of Saint Dennis, during a period of rest and meditation—we separated and returned to our cells. As I walked back to my cell which was also my workshop, many other priests met me, spoke my name, Father Wulstan, and asked for my blessing. I was a priest with a future in the church, in the world. I was a man of importance as a man as well as a priest.

I remembered the faces of those who met and were blessed by me, there on the grounds and in the austere halls of Saint Dennis, and when I reached my cell-workshop, I made sketches of each of them. Like the first three, Fathers Dennis, Paul and Elihu, there was a familiarity about them that did not stem from daily acquaintance, but from something else, from some elder world, or older time.

I did not understand it, or anything about it, except that the urge to make the sketches was as strong as the urge had always been since the dream, to complete the metal bird model. Such urges, I had always been sure, came from God. Thus I explained my urges, which I never allowed at any time to interfere with the manifold duties of my ministry.

It was a beautiful setting, rural England in 792 A.D., and the church of Saint Dennis one of the saintliest in the land. Many saintly priests, many advanced spirits, came to Saint Dennis for what we could teach them there—and there were many who were taught earthly things by me in my workshop. In some way my fame as a builder of things had traveled in Christendom, so that others wished to know.

When the devotions of the day were over, and it was time to sleep, I lay back on my rough cot with a sigh, fell intently to sleep. No sooner had today, and England, and Saint Dennis' church, vanished from my conscious memory, than a terrifying variation of my dream of the metal bird descended upon me.

I was inside the metal bird, and it was more than large enough to hold me, and the metal bird was flying at vast, awesome speed, speed that was as the speed of spirit, or of sound. Yes, I knew the speed of sound, and of light. The metal bird did not travel with the speed of light but it did travel faster than sound, for far behind me as I flew, with my hands fast on the odd instruments which guided the bird, I heard an awesome noise. It pursued me.

"Now I understand that if I had traveled faster than sound, the sound would never have reached my ears, but I heard it anyway and allowed a little for the oddity, the inconsistencies of dreams, as I trusted others would also make allowances."

I flew far above the earth, and was terrified, so that I pointed the bill of the metal bird downward, to return me to earth as quickly and safely as possible. I aimed the bill at the gleaming brightness of a doomed building that looked to be a cathedral, though shaped somewhat like a skull. It seemed to be all windows, and on each window—all were small—the light of the sun was reflected. Surely even I could make my way to a spot so bright with God's sunlight.

When I aimed the bill of the metal bird at the "cathedral" however, I found I could not swerve it again. I saw that I was going to plunge into that Golgothic building, at this vast speed I was making. That it would destroy me I knew, but that did not seem to matter as much as the sure knowledge that it would also destroy the metal bird which thus would be lost to mankind forever.

I crashed through the building, and felt no pain. I hurtled completely through the Building of the Skull, heard the crashing about me of the destruction I wrought with the body of my metal bird. I passed through the building, emerged into the open again, low above the ground, and saw another building flashing to meet me for further destruction.

It was a rectangular building of gray stone, granite I thought, and there was a kind of fence around it, of metal I did not know. There were men in garments strange to me, guarding the place by their behavior, against attackers. Or else it was a prison, and the guards were there to see that no prisoners escaped.

I passed over the fence, crashed into the squat building, like none I had ever even dreamed of before.

This time there was no emergence. Only the crash, and silence, and utter darkness. In the darkness I felt hands upon me, shaking me, and so, shortly, I came out of the darkness, and found myself facing Doctor A. His face was alight with excitement which he seemed scarcely able to contain. I sat in my electric chair, feeling none the worse for my strange transition into the unknown. The hood no longer hid my head, the electrodes had been removed—if electrodes they were.

The other eleven scientists were assembled about Doctor A, and they were as excited as he was. One thing struck me instantly as I remembered Saint Dennis, for I did remember it now, in every detail. The faces I had sketched in Saint Dennis were all represented right here in The Lab, in the faces of these scientists. Was that why they were all so excited? But of course they could not know what I had experienced, unless they had participated in it. Maybe, by the magic of the diminutive cyclotron, they had done exactly that.

"Just how long," I asked, "have I been away from you delightful gentlemen?"

"You've been sitting in that chair for twelve hours, Hale," said Doctor A. "And during that time you may well have altered the course of military progress in the world. Have you any idea what you've been doing? Do you remember, as I commanded you to remember?"

"Father Wulstan," I said slowly. "I was Father Wulstan. There were other priests, three in particular. I remember: Fathers Dennis, Paul and Elihu." I grinned. "Father Dennis was your twin, Doctor A, as Paul and Elihu were twins of Doctors D and F."

"Look at this," said Doctor A, thrusting a sketch into my hands. "Tell me what it is!"

"A sketch," I said. "By Father Wulstan, of the church of Saint Dennis."

"Which church has been lost to the world for ten centuries!" said Doctor A. "We've checked on it since you began telling us what you were doing. A great church stood on the site in the Fifteen Hundreds, but it was destroyed, and though religious antiquarians believed there was another church below it, and below that a crypt, the lost crypt of Saint Dennis, it was not proved to be a fact until yesterday. We've been in contact with the archeologists who have been excavating for several years on the site—in contact by telephone. They have found the crypt, thanks to questions I asked you while you were away, Hale. Now take a look at this."

He showed me a sketch, of which "Father Wulstan" must have made hundreds, of Father Wulstan's "metal bird." His excitement was greater than ever it had been.

"We have made photostats of it, basing details on your sketch, made right here while you were away, and flown them to Washington, to the Bureau of Aeronautics. Jan Rober took them. This is a jet plane, far in advance of anything aviation has had to date. It is faster than sound. It will pass easily through the wall of compressibility and will not go out of control. The design has been given to the nation, and shortly there will be a practical, full sized jet plane, as here specified."

I began to sink into myself, to feel a horrible depression.

"Then this is all folderol," I said. "I make sketches of priests who have the faces of Doctors A, D, F and perhaps L, only because those faces impressed themselves on me at the moment I went away. And the fact that I have designed, on paper, a jet plane that promises to be faster than any yet made, what does that prove? That I, perhaps, this nameless one whom the police called Dean Hale, whom I called Father Wulstan in my unconsciousness—or whatever the state was which that cyclotron induced—was an architect or a plane designer. All that I need to find out now, is what plane designer has been missing for how long!"

"Not so fast, Hale," said Doctor A, not one iota of his excitement dissipating under the words of my disappointment. "For there is something else you must know."

"Yes, what?"

"In the crypt of Saint Dennis a red painted cross was found on a rectangle of stone set into the solid rock. The stone was removed, and what do you suppose was found behind it?"

I grinned wryly as I answered, excitement mounting in me in spite of myself:

"A tiny hangar, just big enough for a clay model of a metal bird."

"Right! A model airplane done in clay. From the description we had over the telephone, it followed your specifications which we have just given to the Bureau of Aeronautics, exactly, to the letter."

"A hoax!" I said. "A gag!"

"There was a date on the stone hangar," said Doctor A. "The date was Seven-Ninety-Two, A.D.!"

"That could be a gag, too," I insisted, though by now I didn't believe it myself. "It could have been put there by pranksters at any time."

Doctor A gave me a keen glance and then shook his head.

"The crypt of Saint Dennis has been lost to the world for centuries," he said softly. "That's a proved fact. Even if the prank as you call it, was brought about, that metal bird of yours was tucked away in the crypt before fifteen hundred A.D. at which time, if records serve, the world did not use the airplane, especially the jet plane."

"Then," I said, feeling the awe my voice must have expressed, "I, whom you call Dean Hale, and Father Wulstan, are one and the same person. If true, reincarnation is a fact. What does that mean, after twelve hundred years?"

"The answer to that question is the answer to why The Lab was first established, Hale. You wished to remember. You are remembering."

"I'm remembering a lot I didn't bargain for," I said. "Dean Hale is Father Wulstan, or was, and Father Wulstan is now Dean Hale. Now, if you'll just tell me who Dean Hale is, I'll be satisfied!"

"Dean Hale," said Doctor A, "whoever he may turn out to be, is the total of all his past. If reincarnation is true, he has lived countless lives, many useless, many evil, many good. Thus have all men lived, if reincarnation is true. If it is, and we prove it, we as scientists are interested only in your past scientific lives."

"You mean you want me to go through more Father Wulstan stuff?" I demanded.

"You've already remembered Father Wulstan," said Doctor A, "and we are interested only in your past lives which contributed to human progress. There'll be many lives that will remain closed books to you, and to us."

"How many do I re-live?" I asked groaning. "Or even the good ones, if any there were, how many must I re-live?"

"Who knows?" asked Doctor A. "How many profitable doors are there in the walls, dome and roof of the House of the Skull?"

One thing I insisted on, before I went "back" again. I didn't go for the name of Dean Hale, if Hale were a murderer.

"Then we'll call you Everyman," said Doctor A, "since every man, in this same situation, would bring us about the same story, if his proper past lives were chosen. You are Adam Everyman. Now let's get on with the next excursion."