The Mind Thing Read online

  “God damn,” Hoffman said. “I’d hoped—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He’d hoped the clothes would be gone, that Tommy would have returned here after Charlotte had left. He didn’t know what that would have meant—since Tommy hadn’t come home—but it seemed less dangerous than the alternative, Tommy being out there somewhere and still naked, whatever else might have happened to him. At any rate, he was more frightened now than when he had first heard the girl’s story. The clothes looked so—empty. Until now this had seemed like a bad dream; it was becoming nightmare.

  Buck was sniffing eagerly at the clothes and then at the grass where Tommy had lain. Then, circling, he started for the bushes, at a different point this time.

  Hoffman let him through and went through behind him. “Come on, Jed,” he said. “He’s got the trail again, the way Tommy left.”

  Garner said, “Shall I bring the clothes?”

  Hoffman hesitated. “All right,” he said. “When we find him, he’ll need ’em and no use our having to come back.”

  He waited, holding Buck back, until Garner had made a bundle of the clothes and rejoined him with them.

  Then he started following the pull of the leash. Back to the path first and then off it at a diagonal, toward the north-west.

  Buck was straining hard at the leash now. Not only was the trail fresher, but a man wearing only socks leaves a stronger scent than one wearing shoes. Also, on the path, there had been other if fainter human scents. Now there were none.

  “Easy, boy,” Hoffman said, as he and Garner followed the straining dog.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The mind thing rested now. He had neatly catalogued and indexed, mentally, everything in the mind of his present host.

  He knew everything about this planet Earth that Tommy knew, which was enough to give him a rough overall picture. He knew its approximate size, although not in figures, and he knew that it was mostly salt water but had considerable land area too, in several continents. He knew roughly how the world was divided into countries and the names and approximate locations and sizes of the most important of those countries.

  His knowledge of local terrain and geography was much better. He knew that he was in wild country, hunting country, but only about four miles north of the nearest town. Its name was Bartlesville, and it had about two thousand inhabitants. It was in a state called Wisconsin, which was a part of a country called the United States of America. The nearest large town, or small city, about forty-five miles to the southeast, was Green Bay. Something over a hundred miles south of Green Bay was Milwaukee, the nearest large city. And ninety miles or so south of Milwaukee was a much larger city, one of the largest, Chicago. He could visualize those places; Tommy had been to them. But no farther; Chicago was as far from home as Tommy had been. But Bartlesville and the country around it he knew very well. And that was good, for this area might have to be the mind thing’s scene of operations for some time. In addition to its geography, he now knew its flora and fauna. The flora didn’t interest him, but the fauna did. He had mental pictures now of all the creatures of the countryside, wild and domestic. And he knew their abilities and limitations. If he should have to use an animal host again he would know which to choose for the job at hand.

  Most important, he knew that man was the only intelligent species on Earth, and that man had science, apparently a fairly advanced science. While Tommy’s knowledge of science was almost nil (he knew a little about elementary electricity, enough to wire a doorbell), he knew that science and scientists existed, and that (this was of major importance) science included electronics. The meaning of the word electronics was vague to him, but he had seen (and owned) a radio set. He had seen television. And he knew what radar did, if not how it worked. Where these things existed there was knowledge of electronics.

  And the mind thing’s eventual goal was to obtain control of an electronicist, one who not only knew the subject but who had or could obtain access to equipment and components. It would probably take him several steps—several intervening hosts—to get there, but he knew now that it could be done if he planned properly. And he had to do it. He wanted to go home.

  He came from a planet of a sun seventy-three light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Andromeda, a sun too faint from Earth ever to have been named, although it has a number in Earth’s star catalogues.

  He had not come voluntarily; he had been sent. Not as a scout or as the spearhead of an invasion (although it could turn out that way if he could get back), but as an exile. He was a criminal. To explain what his crime had been would require the explanation of a social system so utterly alien to ours as to be almost incomprehensible; suffice it to say that he had committed a crime and that his punishment was exile.

  He had not come in a spaceship. He had been sent along a—call it a force beam; that’s a poor description of it but is as nearly accurate as any other simple phrase, in our language, would be. Transmission had been instantaneous; one second he was in the projector back home, the next second he was lying beside a path in the woods north of Bartlesville, Wisconsin, having experienced no impact on arrival.

  The planet of his exile had been chosen at random, and with no knowledge of whether it was inhabited or inhabitable, out of the billions of planets in the galaxy which his race had charted but had never got around to investigating; there were so many billion planets that they never would get around to investigating more than a small fraction of them. The reason why they were able to chart planets as readily as we chart stars was that their equivalent of a telescope, based on magnification of the sense of perception instead of the far inferior sense of sight, enabled them to “see” planets almost as far as we are able to see stars.

  So now he was here, and now he wanted to go home. It was far from impossible, for two reasons.

  First, he had been extremely lucky in having come to a planet that had not only reasonably intelligent beings, but a science and a technology, however inferior to his own. The chances had been, say, a hundred thousand to one against it. If he had been sent to an uninhabited planet, he would have been completely helpless. If to a planet that had life but had not yet developed intelligence (like Earth of a million years ago) he might have been able to construct a projector to send himself back but the odds, were against it. (Can you imagine the difficulties of a dinosaur, even with intelligent direction, in finding and refining germanium and then using it to make a transistor?)

  Second, he would be welcomed home and pardoned—even honored—if he could get there. The exiles always had that chance, and one out of hundreds of them made it.

  A returned exile was honored very highly indeed, and became a hero, if he brought back with him news of a species better fitted for hosts than the ones in current use. And that the mind thing could do. In having Tommy carry him he had discovered the opposable thumb and it was, as far as he knew, unique in the galaxy. It made grasping and handling things so much easier. Quite possibly he could make his projector big enough to let him take a sample human host back with him. If he did that he would save them sending a scouting expedition; they could make their first slave raid in full force.

  All that was within his grasp if he worked slowly and carefully and made no mistakes. He had made one already, he now realized. He had lessened his present host’s value to him by making him act in a manner against human mores, thereby attracting attention to him. For a while at least Tommy Hoffman would be an object of curiosity and suspicion, which would somewhat limit his usefulness. People would be watching him to see if he did anything else that seemed strange to them.

  What he should have done, and would have done if he had taken a few minutes to study Tommy’s thoughts, was this: He should have had Tommy come to him and move him from his dangerously exposed position, but not all the way to the cave. Tommy could have moved him to a place of temporary concealment—the high grass only a few feet off the path would have been good enough and then returned and lain down beside the sleep
ing girl and pretended to sleep himself. That would have given him time to learn enough about Tommy and the girl, about human actions and emotions, so that when they awakened, he could have appeared to her to be perfectly normal. Possibly he could even (again to use the euphemistic phrase from Tommy’s mind) have “gone another round” with her. The mind thing wouldn’t have enjoyed it, of course; when in a host he felt no pain when he had it killed, but neither did he share any of its pleasurable sensations. He would have had intercourse with the girl simply because it would have been the natural thing for Tommy to have done.

  Then they would have dressed and returned home as they had intended to do. (Once inside a host, he could control it at any reasonable distance.) In the morning Tommy could have come back, alone, and moved him to this much better place of concealment in the cave, and then returned home without having aroused anyone’s curiosity.

  That’s what he should have done, but it was too late by the time he realized it. His alternate plan would have to suffice. It was based on the concept of something called amnesia that he had found in Tommy’s mind.

  Tommy could stay here on guard in front of the cave entrance all night. Early in the morning he could go back and get his clothes (the girl would have left when she got worried enough, but she wouldn’t have taken them) and walk home. His story would be simple. He and the girl had got tired and lain down to rest. He’d gone to sleep. And at dawn he’d waked up in a different place, over a mile away and with no recollection of how he got there. He could hardly have walked that far in his sleep—and besides Tommy had never sleep-walked—so he must have had some reason for going there, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It must be amnesia. They’d have him talk to a doctor a time or two, but nothing would come of that. And henceforth Tommy would, at least in the sight of others, appear to act completely normal—until his usefulness as a host came to an end; then he would either kill himself or, if possible, arrange his own death in some manner that would make it seem accidental.

  Besides its simplicity and incontrovertibility, Tommy’s story had another advantage; it would not cross up the girl’s story, whichever way she told it. She might have been frightened enough to tell her family the whole truth—that she and Tommy had slept naked and that he had gone off in that state, or she might well have left that part out. If his first story didn’t mention clothes at all, and if she hadn’t, then their stories would match. If taxed with the fact that she had told the story differently, he could sheepishly admit that, yes, he had been naked when he had gone to sleep and had awakened the same way in the morning. His original omission of that part of the story would be entirely understandable to everyone.

  Short- and long-range planning were suddenly interrupted. Through Tommy’s eyes peering through the bushes that masked the cave entrance, the mind thing saw two bobbing lights coming; through Tommy’s ears it heard the excited baying of a hound on a scent, and recognized the dog’s voice as that of Buck, Tommy’s father’s dog.

  Immediately he realized what had happened. Tommy’s father had been much more worried than Tommy could have realized. (Probably Charlotte had told the whole truth—Tommy’s leaving her without his clothes would have been more puzzling and frightening than if he had wandered off clothed.) And Tommy had thought (or rather, Tommy’s mind would have thought if Tommy himself had been the one using it) that they might come to look for him tomorrow but not tonight, after dark. Tommy’s mind simply hadn’t thought at all of the possibility of Buck’s being used to track him down.

  But now they were coming, two men and the dog. One of the men would be Tommy’s father, the other probably Charlotte’s father.

  And the dog would lead them straight to the cave!

  He had to distract them, lead them away. Even if it cost him his present host, he couldn’t let attention be drawn to the cave. They were less than a hundred yards away and were heading straight for it, the dog following Tommy’s trail.

  Tommy, or Tommy’s body, jumped up and ran around the bushes and toward the approaching lanterns. He ran until he was within the circle of light of the first one and then stopped. Buck barked joyously and strained at the leash to run to him. Gus Hoffman shouted, “Tommy! What the hell—?”

  Too near the cave. He turned and started to run again, diagonally away from the cave. He heard them start after him, still calling. “Tommy! Tommy, stop!” He heard Garner say, “Slip the dog’s leash. Buck can catch him.” And his father’s reply, “Sure, and run with him. We’d just lose both of them.”

  He couldn’t run in a straight line because he had to keep to open areas where the moonlight would let him see. Occasionally, while they were still close enough to follow him by sight, they could take short cuts through shadow because of their lanterns, but he could run much faster and was soon outdistancing them. Then he was definitely out of their sight and knew they’d have to let Buck do the trailing again and follow his roundabout course; that would slow them down still more.

  He was able to rest a moment then, to catch his breath, and when he started again it was at a fast trot instead of a sprint. He knew where he was going now, and he began to circle to take himself back to his starting point.

  And from there to the place, only a very short distance away, where he had perceived the artifact (he knew now what it was, a jackknife) before the two humans had come along the path.

  It was in deep grass, and in shadow. Tommy’s sense of sight didn’t help at all now, and he had to have Tommy’s hands grope and feel. It was awkward, but he knew where it was, within inches, and finally Tommy’s fingers closed over it and picked it up.

  He broke one of Tommy’s thumbnails trying to open the half-length rusted blade, but finally he got it open with the other nail.

  Without hesitation Tommy slashed one of his wrists, changed the knife to his other hand, and slashed the other wrist. Both cuts were deep, almost to the bone, and blood, spurted freely. He didn’t lie down, but within a minute loss of blood blacked him out and he fell heavily.

  He was dead when the two men and the dog reached him. And the mind of the mind thing was safely back within itself, buried under nine inches of sand in the cave.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It had been a bad night for Gus Hoffman.

  He had waited with the body while Jed Garner had gone back for help. While he waited he dressed Tommy’s body in the clothes Garner had been carrying. Not because he had any intention of lying to the sheriff about how they had found Tommy, but because it just didn’t seem decent for the body to be taken in naked.

  Garner went straight home. After reaching the road he passed three other farms before he came to his own, but he wanted Charlotte to be the first to know and didn’t want to tell her over a phone. She took the news more quietly than he had dared to hope, mostly because she was ready for it; she had felt instinctively from the moment she’d had to start home alone that she’d never see Tommy alive again.

  Then Garner phoned the sheriff at Wilcox, the county seat, twenty miles away. The sheriff came in an ambulance to carry the body into town and, so the body could be examined quickly, he brought the coroner with him. Garner took them to the spot, and the four men, taking turns, carried Tommy out of the woods on a stretcher. Buck stayed with the party until the engine of the ambulance started; then he bolted home across the fields.

  At the mortuary in Bartlesville the coroner examined the body while the sheriff talked to Hoffman and Garner. The coroner joined them to report that there was no doubt about the cause of death—loss of blood from the slashed wrists—and that the only other marks on the body were briar scratches on the legs and cuts and bruises on the bottoms of the feet. He was willing to do an autopsy if the sheriff requested it but said he didn’t see what an autopsy could possibly bring out that wasn’t already obvious.

  The sheriff had gone along with that, but he said he thought an inquest should be held. There’d be no doubt about the verdict, suicide while of unsound mind, but he hoped something migh
t be brought out that would help clear up the mystery of the reason for sudden and violent insanity in a boy who had never shown the slightest symptom even of instability. Also there was a minor mystery in the suicide weapon, the rusty, broken pocketknife. Hoffman was positive that it had never been Tommy’s. And both Hoffman and Garner swore that when they had seen Tommy briefly before he ran away from them he could not possibly have been carrying anything; his hands had been open at his sides. He must have picked up the knife where he had used it, but how could he have known it was there, or found it in the dark?

  “All right,” the sheriff said, “we’ll set the inquest for two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. That okay with everybody?”

  Hoffman and Garner nodded, but the coroner asked, “Why so soon, Hank?”

  “Had this in mind, Doc. Something just might come out at the inquest that might change our minds about an autopsy. Of course if there is an autopsy, the sooner the better. We’ll have the inquest right here at the mortuary, good a place as any here, and there’s no use moving it over to Wilcox. And, Gus, right after the inquest you can go ahead and make funeral arrangements. As soon as convenient if there’s not going to be an autopsy—and I doubt if there will be. Who was Tommy’s doctor? Doc Gruen?”

  “Yeah,” Hoffman said. “Not that Tommy saw him often. He was pretty healthy.”

  “We’ll put him on the stand anyway. And maybe some of Tommy’s teachers—but I’ll check with them first, see if they ever noticed anything unusual that ought to go in the record. No use calling them if they haven’t.”

  He turned to Garner. “Uh—Jed. Charlotte’ll have to testify. I’ll go as easy on her as I can, but it’ll have to be brought out that Tommy was naked when he went off. To show he was—uh—off his rocker even then and didn’t leave her for any sane reason like being mad at her, and then go off his rocker after. But what I’m getting at is—I can clear the court, except for the coroner’s jury, while we take her testimony. Want me to?”