Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  They followed instantly, with a furious lust for destruction which wasn’t unexpected but which shocked him nevertheless. They came like daggers of thought, completely reckless, and if they succeeded in touching him in the same way he had touched the sea-thing, the struggle would be over in an instant.

  It became obvious immediately that he could prevent them from doing it, which—since he was a stronger, more fully developed specimen of their own class—was only to be expected. What concerned him was their utter lack of consideration for their own survival. The car they were in hadn’t stopped moving; in less than half a minute now it would be approaching the sharp curve above the Bay.

  He had counted on the driver’s attention being forced away from him momentarily, either to stop the car or to manipulate it safely around the curve; in that instant, he would bring the other one under his control as completely as he had trapped Paylar, and he would then be free to deal at his leisure with the driver.

  INDIVIDUALLY, any one of the Guides was weaker than a New Mind natural; it had looked as simple as that! He wanted to save what was left of the group, to operate through them very much as Old Mind had been doing, but with a very different purpose.

  The two who attacked should be withdrawing by now, dismayed at not having found him paralyzed by Paylar’s “pictures,” as they must have expected. They might be waiting for her to come to their assistance in some other manner, not knowing that she was no longer even aware of the struggle. However, within seconds the need of controlling the car would become urgent enough to settle the issue—

  In an instant, he felt himself drawn down, blinded and smothered, in the grasp of a completely new antagonist! It was not so much the awareness of power immensely beyond that of the Guides that stunned him; it was a certainty that this new contact was a basically horrible and intolerable thing. In the fractional moment of time that everything in him was straining simply to escape from it, the New Minders drove through their attack.

  Pain was exploding everywhere through his being, as he wrenched himself free. Death had moved suddenly very close! Because the third opponent wasn’t Paylar, never had been Paylar. He had miscalculated—and so there had been one he’d overlooked.

  Now they had met, he knew he wasn’t capable of handling this third opponent and the two New Minders together.

  Then without warning the New Minders vanished out of his awareness, like twin gleams of light switched off. Seconds later, from somewhere far out on the edge of his consciousness, as if someone else were thinking it, the explanation came: The car! They weren’t able to stop the car!

  With that, the last of them drove at him again; and for a moment he was swept down into its surging emotions, into a black wave of rage and terror, heavy and clinging. But he was not unprepared for it now, and he struck at the center of its life with deadly purpose, his own terrors driving him. Something like a long, thin screaming rose in his mind . . .

  In that moment, complete understanding came.

  As in a dream scene, he was looking down into the yard of the Temple of Antique Christianity. It was night-time now; and on the dais he’d investigated the day before, a bulky, shapeless figure twisted and shook under a robelike cloth which covered it completely.

  The screaming ended abruptly, and the shape lay still.

  XIV

  COMMAGER sat up dizzily.

  He discovered first that he was incredibly drenched with sweat, and that Paylar still sat in an unchanged position, as she stared at the thing he’d set before her mind to fix her attention. Down on the Bay Road, there was a faint shouting.

  He stood up shakily and walked forward till he could look down to the point where the road curved sharply to the left to parallel the Bay. The shouting had come from there. A few people were moving about, two of them with flashlights. Intermittently, in their beams, he could see the white, smashed guard railings.

  A brief, violent shuddering overcame him, and he went back to where Paylar sat, trying to organize his thoughts. The reason for her confident expectance of his defeat was obvious now.

  The unsuspected opponent—the gross shape that had kicked about and died on the dais, the woman he’d known as Mrs. Lovelock—had been another New Mind natural. Or, rather, what had become of a New Mind natural after what probably had been decades of Old Mind control! But that part wasn’t the worst of it.

  I met her and talked to her! he thought in a flash of grief and horror. But I couldn’t guess—

  He drove the thought from his mind. If he wanted to go on living—and he realized with a flicker almost of surprise that he very much did—he had other work to complete tonight. A kind of work that he’d considered in advance as carefully as the rest of it—

  And this time, he thought grimly, he’d better not discover later that he’d miscalculated any details.

  He sat down and rolled over on his side in the exact place and position in which he’d been lying before. Almost the last thing he saw was the sudden jerky motion of Paylar’s body, as he dissolved the visual fixation he’d caught her attention in. Then, as she turned her head quickly to look at him, he closed his eyes.

  WHEN Commager’s mind resumed conscious control of his body, there was a cloudy sky overhead and a cool gray wetness in the air. Paylar stood nearby, looking thoughtfully down at him.

  He looked back at her without speaking. The terrifying conviction of final failure settled slowly and dismally on him.

  “You can wake up fully now,” she told him. “It’s nearly morning.”

  He nodded and sat up.

  “What I shall tell you,” her voice went on, “are things you will comprehend and know to be true. But consciously you will forget them again as soon as I tell you to forget. You understand?”

  Commager nodded again.

  “Very well,” she said. “Somewhere inside you something is listening to what I am saying; and I’m really speaking now to that part of you—inside. Here and tonight, Alan, you very nearly won, though of course you could not have won in the final issue. But you must understand now, consciously and unconsciously, that you have been completely defeated! Otherwise, you would not stop struggling until you had destroyed yourself—as thoroughly as another one, very like yourself, whom you met tonight, did years ago!”

  She paused. “You know, of course, that the New Mind natural you killed tonight was your mother. We counted on the shock of that discovery to paralyze you emotionally, if all else failed. When it happened, for the few seconds during which the shock was completely effective, was released by others of the Old Mind from the trap in which you had caught me.”

  She smiled. “That was a clever trap, Alan! Though if it hadn’t been so clever, we might not have needed to sacrifice your mother. In those few seconds, you see, I planted a single, simple compulsion into your mind—that when you pretended afterward to become unconscious—as it appeared you were planning to do to deceive the Old Mind—your consciousness actually would blank out.”

  HE TRIED TO remember.

  Something like that had occurred! He had intended to act as if the struggle with the New Minders had exhausted him to the point where it was possible for Paylar to take him under complete control, since only in that way could he be safe from continuing Old Mind hostility. But then—

  He had no awareness of what had happened in the hours that followed till now!

  “You see?” Paylar nodded. There was a trace of compassion, almost of regret, in her expression. “Believe me, Alan, never in our knowledge has a functioning human mind been so completely trapped as you are now! I have been working steadily on you for the past six hours, and even now; would be impossible for you to detect the manner in which you are limited. But within minutes, you will simply forget the fact that any limitations have been imposed on you, and so you will remain free of the internal conflicts that destroyed your mother.”

  She paused. “And here is a final proof for you, Alan, of why this was necessary for us. You recalled that your f
ather drowned in this Bay when you were a child. But as yet you seem to have blocked out of your memory the exact manner in which he died—”

  Her voice changed, grew cold and impersonal. “Let that memory come up now, Alan!”

  THE MEMORY came. With it came memory of the shocking conflict of emotion that had caused him to bury the events of that day long ago. But it aroused no emotional response in him now. It had been a member of an alien, hostile species he had compelled to thrust itself down into the water, until the air exploded from its lungs and it sank away and drowned . . . of the same hostile species as the one talking to him now.

  “Yes,” she said. “You drowned him, Alan, when you first became aware of the mental controls he had imposed on you. And then you forced yourself to forget, because your human conditioning made the memory intolerable. But you aren’t truly human, you see. You are an evolutionary mistake that might destroy the life of all Earth if left unchecked!”

  She concluded, “It has taken all these years to trap you again, under conditions that would permit us to impose controls that no living mind, even in theory, could break. But the efforts and the risks have been well worthwhile to Old Mind! For, you see, we can use your abilities now to make sure there will be no trouble from others of your kind for many years to come. And we can, as the need arises, direct you to condition others of your kind exactly as you have been conditioned . . . But now”—a flat, impersonal command drove at him again through her voice—“forget what I have told you! All of it!”

  And, consciously, the mind of Commager forgot.

  HE HAD DONE, he thought, as he watched his body stand up and follow the woman up the path to his cabin, a superbly complete job of it!

  What identity might be remained an intriguing problem for future research, though perhaps not one that he himself would solve. For practical purposes, at any rate, the identity of Alan Commager was no longer absorbed by the consciousness that rose from and operated through his brain and body.

  And that was the only kind of consciousness Old Mind knew about. He was hidden from Paylar’s species now because he had gone, and would remain permanently, beyond the limits of their understanding.

  He directed an order to the body’s mind, and the body stumbled obediently, not knowing why it had stumbled. Paylar turned and caught its arm, almost solicitously, steadying it.

  “You’ll feel all right again after a few hours rest, Alan!” she told it soothingly.

  Species as alien almost as a cat or a slender, pretty monkey, but with talents and purposes of her own, Paylar was, he thought, an excellent specimen of the second highest development of Earth evolution.

  He reached very carefully now through the controls he had imposed on her consciousness to the core of her being, and explained gently to her what he had done.

  For a few seconds, he encountered terror and resistance, but resignation came then, and finally understanding and a kind of contentment.

  She would help him faithfully against Old Mind now, though she would never be aware of doing it.

  And that, he thought, was really all for the moment. The next step, the development of New Mind psi in others, was an unhurried, long-term project. In all the area within his range, Old Mind control had stifled or distorted whatever promise originally had been present.

  BUT THE abilities were ever-recurring. And here and there, as he became aware of them now, their possessors would be contacted, carefully instructed and shielded against Old Mind spies. Until they had developed sufficiently to take care of themselves and of others. Until there were enough of them.

  Enough to step into the role for which they had been evolved—and which the lower mind had been utterly unable to, comprehend. To act as the matured new consciousness of the giant Earth-life organism.

  1956

  SOUR NOTE ON PALAYATA

  For every advance in exploring the macrocosmic, Man has made an advance in exploring the microcosm. The farther out we go—the farther inward we may have to explore, too!

  Bayne Duffold, Assistant Secretary of the Hub Systems’ Outposts Department, said that the entire proposed operation was not only illegal but probably unethical. Conceivably, it might lead to anything from the scientific murder of a single harmless Palayatan native to open warfare with an opponent of completely unknown potential.

  Pilch, acting as spokesman for the Hub’s Psychological Service Ship stationed off Palayata, heard him out patiently. “All that is very true, Excellency,” she said then. “That is why you were instructed to call in the Service.”

  Assistant Secretary Duffold bit his thumbtip and frowned. It was true that the home office had instructed him, rather reluctantly, to call in the Service; but he had made no mention of that part of it to Pilch. And the girl already had jolted him with the information that a Psychological Service operator had been investigating the Palayatan problem on the planet itself during the past four months. “We figured Outposts was due to ask for a little assistance here about this time,” was the way she had put it.

  “I can’t give my consent to your plan,” Duffold said with finality, “until I’ve had the opportunity to investigate every phase of it in person.”

  The statement sounded foolish as soon as it was out. The remarkably outspoken young woman sitting on the other side of his desk was quite capable of reminding him that the Psychological Service, once it had been put on an assignment, did not need the consent of an Outposts’ assistant secretary for any specific operation. Or anybody else’s consent, for that matter. It was one reason that nobody really liked the Service.

  But Pilch said pleasantly, “Oh, we’ve arranged to see that you have the opportunity, of course! We’ll be having a conference on the ship, spaceside”—she glanced at her timepiece—“four hours from now, for that very purpose. We particularly want to know what Outposts’ viewpoint on the matter is.”

  And that was another reason they were disliked: they invariably did try to get the consent of everyone concerned for what they were doing! It made it difficult to accuse them of being arbitrary.

  “Well—” said Duffold. There was really no way for him to avoid accepting the invitation. Besides, while he shared the general feeling of distaste for Psychological Service and its ways, he found Pilch herself and the prospect of spending a half day or so in her company very attractive. The Outposts Station’s feminine complement on Palayata, while a healthy lot, hadn’t been picked for good looks; and there was something about Pilch, something bright and clean, that made him regret momentarily that she wasn’t connected with a less morbid line of work. “Kidnaping and enforced interrogation of a friendly alien on his own world!” Duffold shook his head. “That’s being pretty heavy-handed, you know!”

  “No doubt,” said Pilch. “But you know nobody has been able to persuade a Palayatan to leave the planet, so why waste time trying? We need the ship’s equipment for the investigation, and it might be safer if the ship is a long way out from Palayata while it’s going on.” She stood up. “Will you be ready to hop as soon as I’ve picked up Wintan?”

  “Hop? Wintan?” Duffold, getting to his feet, looked startled. “Oh, I see. Wintan’s the operator you’ve had working on the planet. All right. Where will I meet you?”

  “Space transport,” said Pilch. “Ramp Nineteen. Half an hour from now.” She was at the office entrance by then; and he said hurriedly, “Oh, by the way—”

  Pilch looked back. “Yes?”

  “You’ve been here two days,” Duffold said. “Have they bothered you at all?”

  She didn’t ask what he meant. “No,” she said. Black-fringed gray eyes looked at him out of a face from which every trace of expression was suddenly gone, as she added quietly, “But of course I’ve had a great deal of psychological conditioning—”

  There hadn’t been any need to rub that in, Duffold thought, flushing angrily. She knew, of course, how he felt about the Service—how any normal human being felt about it! Wars had been fought to prevent the psyc
hological control of Hub citizens on any pretext; and then, when the last curious, cultish cliques of psychologists had been dissolved, it had turned out to be a matter of absolute necessity to let them resume their activities. So they were still around, with their snickering questioning of the dignity of Man and his destiny, their eager prying and twisted interpretations of the privacies and dreams of the mind. Of course, they weren’t popular! Of course, they were limited now to the operations of Psychological Service! And to admit that one had, oneself—

  Duffold grimaced as he picked up the desk-speaker. He distributed sparse instructions to cover his probable period of absence from the Station, and left the office. There wasn’t much time to waste, if he wanted to keep within Pilch’s half-hour limit. In the twelve weeks he had been on Palayata, he had avoided direct contact with the natives after his first two or three experiences with the odd emotional effects they produced in human beings. But since he had been invited to the Service conference, it seemed advisable to confirm that experience once more personally.

  The simple way to do that was to walk out to Ramp 19, instead of taking the Station tube.

  The moment he stepped outside the building, the remembered surges of acute uneasiness came churning up in him again. The port area was crowded as usual by sightseeing Palayatans. Duffold stopped next to the building for a few moments, watching them.

  The uneasiness didn’t abate. The proximity of Palayatans didn’t affect all humans in the same way; some reported long periods of a kind of euphoria when around them, but that sensation could shift suddenly and unaccountably to sharp anxiety and complete panic. Any one of several dozen drugs gave immunity to those reactions; and the members of the Station’s human personnel whose work brought them into contact with the natives were, therefore, given chemical treatment as a regular procedure. But Duffold had refused to resort to drugs.

  He started walking determinedly toward the ramp area, making no attempt to avoid the shifting streams of the Palayatan visitors. They drifted about in chattering groups, lending the functional terminal an air of cheerful holiday. If his jangling nerves hadn’t told him otherwise, Duffold could have convinced himself easily that he was on a purely human world. Physically, Palayatans were humanoid to the nth degree, at least as judged by the tolerant standards of convergent evolution. They also loved Hub imports, which helped strengthen the illusion. Male and female tended to wander about their business in a haze of Hub perfumes; and at least one in every five adults in sight wore clothes of human manufacture.