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risks involved in Swapping are statistically unimportant, assuming that you stay out of the Twisted World.'
    'I don't know very much about the Twisted World,' Marvin said.
    'Nobody does,' Blanders said. 'That's why you're supposed to stay out of it. That's reasonable enough, isn't it?'
    'I suppose so.' Marvin said. 'What else is there?'
    'Nothing to speak of. Just paperwork, waivers of special rights and immunities, that sort of thing. And, of course, I must give you the standard warning about metaphoric deformation.'
    'All right,' Marvin said. 'I'd like to hear it.'
    'I just gave it,' Blanders said. 'But I'll give it again. Watch out for metaphoric deformation.'
    'I'd be glad to,' Marvin said, 'but I don't know what it is.'
    'It's really quite simple,' Blanders said. 'You might consider it a form of situational insanity. You see, our ability to assimiliate the unusual is limited, and these limits are quickly reached and surpassed when we travel to alien planets. We experience too much novelty; it becomes unbearable, and the mind seeks relief through the buffering process of analogizing.
    'Analogy assures us that
this
is like
that
; it forms a bridge between the accepted known and the unacceptable unknown. It attaches the one to the other, imbuing the intolerable unknown with a desirable familiarity.
    'However, under the continued and unremitting impact of the unknown, even the analogizing faculty can become distorted. Unable to handle the flood of data by the normal process of conceptual analogizing, the subject becomes victim to
perceptual
analogizing. This state is what we call "metaphoric deformation". The process is also known as "Panzaism". Does that make it clear?'
    'No,' Marvin said. 'Why is it called "Panzaism"?'
    'The concept is self-explanatory,' Blanders said. 'Don Quijote thinks the windmill is a giant, whereas Panza thinks the giant is a windmill. Quijotism may be defined as the perception of everyday things as rare entities. The reverse of that is Panzaism, which is the perception of rare entities as everyday things.'
    'Do you mean,' Marvin asked, 'that I might think I was looking at a cow, when actually it was an Altairian?'
    'Precisely,' Blanders said. 'It's simple enough, once you apply yourself. Just sign here and here and we will get on with the examinations.'
    There were many tests, and endless questions. Flynn was poked and probed, lights were flashed in his face, sudden noises were broadcast at him, and strange smells assailed his nostrils.
    He passed everything with flying colours. Some hours later he was taken to the Transfer Room, and was seated in a chair that looked alarmingly like an old electric chair. The technicians made obligatory jokes: 'When you wake up, you'll feel like a new man.' Lights flashed at him, he was getting sleepy, sleepier, sleepiest.
    He was thrilled by the imminence of travel, but appalled by his ignorance of the world beyond Stanhope. What was the Open Market, anyhow? Where was the Twisted World located, and why was he supposed to avoid it? And finally, how dangerous was metaphoric deformation, how often did it occur, and what was the recovery rate?
    Soon he would find the answers to these questions, as well as the answers to many others that he hadn't asked. The lights were hurting his eyes, and he closed them for a moment. When he opened them again, everything had changed.

Chapter 4
    Despite a bipedal frame, the Martian is one of the strangest creatures in the galaxy. Indeed, from a sensory viewpoint, the Kvees of Aldeberan, despite their double brains and special-function limbs, are closer to us. Accordingly, it is a disturbing thing to Swap directly and without initiation into the corpus of a Martian. And yet, no amelioration is possible.
    Marvin Flynn found himself in a pleasantly furnished room. There was a single window; through it, he gazed with Martian eyes upon a Martian landscape.
    He closed his eyes, since he could register nothing except a dismaying confusion.