One of the chief purposes of psychiatry is to separate fantasy from reality. It is reasonable to expect that future psychiatrists will know more about this borderline than the most learned doctors of today. Yet now and again even the best of them may encounter situations that defy all logic.
How could a man tell the difference if all the reality of Earth turned out to be a cosmic hoax? Suppose it turned out that this was just a stage set for students of history?
It was a strange and bitter Earth over which the Chancellor ruled--a strange and deformed world. There were times when the Chancellor suspected that he really was a humanistic old fool, but this seemed to be his destiny and it was difficult to be anything else. Human, like all other organic life on Earth, was dying. Where it spawned, it spawned monsters. What was to be the answer?
A five-year-old boy can communicate with his dog via think-talk. The little boy finds another friend, a panda, to make their trio dependent only on themselves, not to include his parents. His mother goes nuts, thinking they can read her mind, his father isn't so sure at first. How independent the little boy, dog, and panda become is the shocking and creepy ending you won't forget.