Tarhe was a kindly man and a scholar. He gave Two Hawks permission to use his library, in which Two Hawks spent hours each day learning about this world, or Earth 2, as he was beginning to call it. There were books in every major language and many in the minor tongues and over a hundred volumes of reference material. There was also a multilingual dictionary which Two Hawks used frequently. His education leaped ahead like a hare with a fox on its trail.

Occasionally, Tarhe called him in for brief therapeutic sessions. Tarhe was a busy man, but he considered Two Hawks’ case a challenge. As time went on, he allotted an hour a day to his patient, although for Tarhe it meant losing an hour of sleep or of study for himself.

“Then you think that I had some experience on the western front that was so terrible that my mind snapped?” Two Hawks said, “I retreated from reality into the fantasy world of this Earth I claim to be from? I found this world unendurable?”

Two Hawks grinned at Tarhe and said, “If that is true, why would O’Brien have exactly the same psychosis? The same down to every minute detail? Don’t you find it strange, indeed incredible, that we could agree on a thousand details of this fantasy world?”

Tarhe said, “He found your psychosis attractive enough to want to get into it. No wonder. He obviously depends upon you a great deal; he would feel shut out, absolutely alone, if he were not in this... this Earth 1.”

Tarhe did not use the term psychosis or anything like it. His word, translated literally, meant “possession”. It was used because a latoolats treated the insane as if they were actually possessed by a demon or an evil ghost. The demons, however, were dealt with scientifically; they had been categorized. One of Tarhe’s medical books gave a list of one hundred and twenty-nine types of evil spirits. Two Hawks was supposed to have been taken over by a teotya’tya’koh (literally, his body is cut in two).

Suspecting that Tarhe was too intelligent and too basically incredulous to believe in the existence of ghosts and demons, Two Hawks questioned him. Tarhe replied with a smile and some carefully chosen ambiguous phrases. They satisfied Two Hawks that Tarhe used the terms only to conform to the scientific terminology of his profession. There may have been a time when the categorizations were literal and not figurative, but men like Tarhe no longer put credence in them. However, the belief in demons was a living force among the common people and the priests of the state religion. It might be dangerous to publicly profess disbelief. So, Tarhe went along with public opinion.

The amazing thing was that the principles of treating the mentally sick were much the same as those used by the Freudian practitioners of Earth 1. The Iroquoian explanations for the genesis and cure of warped minds might be different, but the therapy was similar.

“How do you account for our ignorance of your language?” Two Hawks said to Tarhe.

“You’re an intelligent man. Your teotya’tya’koh is cunning. It decided to go all the way into this dream world. So it made you forget your native tongue. Thus, you are even more secure from being forced back into this world.”

“You have a rationalization for everything I say,” Two Hawks said. “In fact, you rationalize so much, one might think you were the patient and I the doctor. Have you ever considered, even for one second, that I might be telling the truth? Why not conduct an experiment to determine this; take a truly scientific nonprejudicial approach? Question O’Brien and myself separately about our world. We could have agreed on a story in its broad outlines. But if you delve into it, break it down to very minor details—oh, about a thousand things: language, history, geography, religions, customs, etcetera—you’ll find an absolutely astonishing agreement.”

Tarhe removed his glasses and polished them.

“That would be a scientific experiment. It’s true you couldn’t create an entire language in all its complexities of sound, structure, vocabulary, and so forth. Or agree on details of history, architecture, and so on.”

“So why don’t you test us?”

Tarhe replaced his glasses and looked owlishly at Two Hawks.

“Some day, I may. Meanwhile, let’s work on your possession, find out how the demon managed to invade you. Now, what were your feelings—not thoughts -- when I contradicted you a moment ago?”

Two Hawks was furious at first, then he began to laugh. After all, he could not blame Tarhe for his attitude. If he were in his place, would he believe such a story?

Much of Two Hawks’ time was taken up with the routine of the asylum. There were the daily sweatbaths, so long and hot that if a demon were inhabiting his body, it would have been too uncomfortable to remain. There were daily religious ceremonies, during which the priests from a nearby temple tried to exorcise the demons. Tarhe absented himself during these; apparently, he had had trouble concealing his impatience with priests. He must have felt that they were wasting time that could be better spent. It was an indication of the power of the Iroquois church that he dared not interfere with it. Two Hawks made some inquiry about the state religion and found that it was indigenous. It was based on the primitive religions of the Iroquois and had been formalized and put into writing some four hundred years ago by a prophet, Kaasyotyeetha. The founder of the religion had made the vaguely pantheistic belief into a monotheistic one. And he had incorporated various concepts and creeds of the Western European religion into the new faith. However, all the borrowings had an Iroquoian flavor.

There was, however, religious toleration in the nation of Hotinohsonih.

In his leisure time, Two Hawks went to the library or practised conversation with the patients and staff. He intended to escape some day and would thus have to know this world well if he were to operate effectively. A children’s book, printed by a house in ‘Estokwa, gave him an outline of Earth 2’s prehistory and history. The planet was now in the terminal stage of an ice age, just entering a warm period. This was a good thing for Europe, otherwise all of the northern half and part of the southern would be under a permanent icecap. The lack of a Gulf Stream to heat up the continental climate had made a big difference in man’s technological development and in his expansion. A good part of the Scandinavian peninsula and of northern Russia was icebound most of the year. The lack of horse and camel also seemed to have slowed man’s travel and communication.

Over the course of several thousand years, large migrations of Amerinds (generally referred to by Westerners as anthropophagi) from central Asia and Siberia had wandered into Europe and conquered or been conquered. The conquerers had usually been absorbed into the defeated peoples, who had then regained their national identity and integrity.

But in fairly recent times, during the past 800 years, several of the later invaders had succeeded in imposing their language and some cultural traits on the white aborigines. The area of Czechoslovakia of Earth 1 was here called Kinukkinuk. The Algonquian word for this state had originally meant mixture and had referred both to the differing dialects of the various conquerors and also to the fact that the Amerinds had miscegenated with the white natives.

This reminded Two Hawks of Hungary of Earth 1, where a semi-Mongolian people, speaking a Uralic tongue, had defeated the whites, imposed their language upon the whites, and then had been absorbed, losing their racial identity. Here, the Huns had never been heard of.

The Finnish speakers had been diverted eastwards, invaded and settled down in Japan, known on Earth 2 as Saariset. The Japanese, repelled when they had tried to conquer the islands, had turned instead to the area of what Two Hawks’ planet knew as southern China. Northern China was inhabited by a Mongolian-type people speaking an Athabaskan tongue similar to Navaho and Apache.