Or was it? Abruptly he knew it wasn’t. His last words with Thomas had been that he would be back again tonight. Why then, wasn’t Thomas awake and waiting for him?
Alert and ready to act instantaneously, Mark snapped the switch. But apparently there was nothing wrong. The room was unoccupied except for the sleeping Thomas. Mark looked at the sleeping man, then dashed to his side and shook him.
Jan Thomas opened his eyes, alarm in his expression. Alarm, but no recognition.
His face looked pinched because of a peculiar night-cap he was wearing. The thing fitted tightly over his skull and covered the back and both sides of his head. Gathered tightly around his neck, it terminated in a wide, elastic collar which fit snugly under the chin. It was this contrivance which had caused Mark to awaken the man so roughly.
Before Mark could act to prevent it, Jan Thomas reached up and pulled a cord which was fastened to the head-board of the bed. The raucous whine of a siren split the night with its terrifying wail. As the sound was augmented by that of running feet in the corridor outside, Thomas struck feebly, but persistently, at Mark’s face. The sounds of approaching feet converged at the door of the room.
Without hesitation Mark snatched up Jan Thomas bodily and slung him over a shoulder. The futile thumps of Thomas’ fists on his back didn’t slow him in the least as he made for the window.
A second was lost in maneuvering his burden out of the window. In that second the door burst inward. Bullets smacked against the frame of the window, and several others whizzed past his head.
Mark felt a momentary burning sensation along the skin of a thigh as he cast himself outward, but paid it no heed. His greatest fear was that one of the bullets had found a resting place in the body of Jan Thomas.
For a breath-taking hundred feet Mark and Thomas dropped toward the ground. Then, with scarcely twenty feet to spare, they swooped out of the fall and sped through the grove of trees, gaining altitude as they went.
Thomas kept up his incessant hammering, which made it pretty clear that he hadn’t been hit by any of the flying bullets. The scratch on his own thigh, Mark knew, was already healed. But Thomas didn’t have any of the remarkable blood which healed wounds almost as soon as they happened.
High above the city, Mark halted his mad flight. He twisted Thomas around in front of him and gave him the full blast of his hypnosis wave. Thomas only reached out with an intended haymaker and landed on his nose.
Abruptly Mark realized what was wrong. The night-cap was a shield! Holding Thomas with one hand, he ripped it off. The futile pummeling ceased immediately.
Jan Thomas was seized with a fit of trembling as he looked down at the city.
“Imagine you’re in an airplane,” suggested Mark. “Papa won’t let you down... What happened?”
Chapter 17: Plan for Pulling Teeth
THOMAS forced himself to look up. “Vargo must have guessed. As soon as the search for you ended — zingo! He shoved all five of us into a hypnotic trance. I was the last and he must have discovered that you had released me from his influence. I don’t know anything after that. Only that when I woke up it seemed urgent that I pull that cord.”
But Mark knew how to get the information he sought. It was locked in Thomas’ subconscious, whether he knew it or not. And Mark found it quickly.
When Bach had told Vargo that someone had tried to gain entrance at his window, Vargo knew that the only man who could have been there was Mark. He guessed why, and investigated to find if Mark had already reached any of his Ancestors.
Thomas, unwittingly, had told him. Vargo had then placed Thomas in a state of hypnotic sleep and left him in his bed to provide a trap when Mark returned. He had impressed only one suggestion; that Thomas pull the cord if anyone attempted to arouse him. Of the helmet, Thomas knew nothing.
Mark guessed that the thing had been devised by one of the other Ancestors, at Vargo’s direction. Work had probably been started on it the instant that Vargo was aware that there existed a greater hypnotic power than his own. And Mark had shown him that, the previous afternoon.
By now there were probably several of the gadgets, inasmuch as Vargo was warned that Mark intended to strike at him through the Ancestors. It was conceivable that he would have all the palace attendants equipped with them.
Mark examined the thing and found it to consist of an extremely fine wire mesh, woven as a lining to the cloth exterior of the helmet. At a glance he couldn’t tell what metal had been used, but guessed that it was lead. Whatever it was, it had effectually screened his hypnosis wave.
Once more his plans went a-glimmering. His greatest weapon was nullified by the existence of the screen. Morosely he carried Jan Thomas to the thieves’ headquarters.
Several more caravan guards had been brought in during his absence. He treated them without enthusiasm. There was now a total of forty-two of the emancipated guards, and more were coming in. Before long Vargo’s army would be practically bereft of officers.
But the measure was at best temporary.
The war would be delayed, but not called off.
Nor would the postponement be of great duration, either. Vargo was resourceful and it wouldn’t take him long to realize that there was another class of men who were conversant with the ways of the nomads and thoroughly familiar with the layouts of the various cities on the conquest list.
Caravan guards weren’t the only ones who had traveled to the lands which must be conquered. Every caravan carried a host of porters, laborers and ox-drivers. On occasion many of these were fighters as well.
And even those who had never been called upon to bear weapons in protection of their caravans had observed the methods of the regular guards. They were also familiar with the characteristics of the trails, and would know how to avoid ambushes. And they were familiar with the defenses of other cities.
It would be only a matter of days before they would be pressed into service, and trained for the job of directing the army.
THE night wore on, and in the intervals between the treating of new arrivals, Mark studied the problem of working out a complete plan for the frustration of Vargo’s dream of conquest. He wracked his brain thoroughly.
And having had no little practice in wracking, he eventually devised a plan. At first glance, the difficulties attending its accomplishment made it appear useless and impractical. But he went on with it just the same.
The afternoon before, he had kicked himself for passing up the opportunity to operate hypnotically on Vargo himself. Well, it was still an idea, and he worked it in. Of course, that was one of the things which made his plan slightly on the impractical side, especially now that Vargo had a screen against hypnotism.
Mark remembered that he had conceived the thought after it was too late to put it into practice. The recollection had brought to mind the fact that such a course of action wouldn’t be so simple as it had first appeared.
From a purely academic standpoint he considered its difficulties. In the first place, Vargo had accomplished his subjugation of the citizens of Detroit over a period of thirty years. It would take almost as long to unhypnotize the same people.
And he doubted that Vargo would live that long, even if he were able to make Vargo suddenly want to undo his life’s work.
In the second place, some of the hypnotic suggestions which Vargo had impressed would cause disaster if erased. You couldn’t dehypnotize a man who had been happily engaged in a certain occupation for a number of years and let him realize that he had no consuming passion for that kind of work.
Cases like that would have to be handled carefully. For those who got their only fun out of manufacturing war materials, a substitute suggestion would have to be made such as the delightfulness of making bridges or whipping up batches of insect spray. Otherwise a host of people would be left ambitionless and without any driving urge to live.
These things would take some time, of course, but Mark did solve the problem of removing the insane desire for a
war of conquest.
And what a problem! Hypnotic suggestion was impressed on a timid mind by verbally repeating the desired suggestion. So-o — it was going to take plenty of time even to begin to undo the things that Vargo had accomplished over such an extended period. Verbal counter-suggestions would have to be given individually to each person who had been hypnotized.
Nice and easy, like pulling one tooth after another.
That, Mark knew, was what he would have to do if he tackled the job himself. And, reflecting dourly on such a state of affairs, he had an idea. It was, he told himself, a pushover. But perfect!
The thing was tailor-made. When Tolon went before the Vocation Board, Vargo had dwelt upon the suggestion that Tolon must believe that he was a wise and benign ruler and was therefore to be obeyed without question henceforth and forevermore. The clue was right there:
Almost the entire population of Detroit would react immediately and obediently to the voice of Vargo!
Mark remembered how much had been accomplished in his own day by certain European dictators, who used the hysterical qualities of their voices without even possessing the gift of hypnotic power. Radio! A science in which Mark was an expert and with which he could force Vargo to tell his people that war was no longer to be desired.
All he had to do was re-invent it.
COMPLETELY ignoring the fact that he must first hypnotize Vargo and make him really the selfless individual he preferred to be, Mark asked Ira to call in some electrical experts.
“At this time of night?” Ira exclaimed.
Mark nodded. “Rout them out of bed.” he ordered. “Pick men who have authority in the plants where they are employed. And be ready to sign a lot of checks. I’m liable to bankrupt the fraternity before the night’s over. But I’ll make you rich as a result. Detroit is going to have a new industry.”
Mark didn’t wait for the experts to arrive. He called for paper and drawing pencils, and went to work. Under his practiced hand plans began to take shape. He filled sheet after sheet of paper with detailed instructions on the construction of various items which go into the manufacture of a radio broadcasting station and a receiving set.
His memory went back six thousand years for the desired information, but in a matter of a few hours he was finished.
Long before the task was completed, the experts arrived and were immediately placed in an hypnotic trance. Mark trained their minds in this state far more easily than he could have done if they were conscious. Each fact that he taught them would be immediately available when it was needed.
Also was impressed the desire for secrecy in the manufacture and fabrication of the finished product. Co-workers of the various experts must be made to believe that the strange articles which each expert would develop in his laboratory were designed for different purposes altogether. Each man left with his plans and plenty of money to cover expenses, fully educated for his task.
Work was to be started immediately. A broadcasting outfit of moderate power would be in operation in less than two weeks. A hundred receivers would be ready for installation in halls and meeting places. The people of Detroit would soon hear from Vargo himself that war was no longer desirable, that there were other methods of lifting the rest of the world to Detroit’s cultural status.
That heroic task completed, Mark all of a sudden felt considerably deflated. He had started the ball a-rolling; a ball which promised to bounce off the stone wall of Vargo’s impregnability. And there was no sense in trying to plan a way past the man’s defenses. Any plan he might devise had too many jokers in it.
There were too many ways in which Vargo might circumvent anything he might think up. Attack by way of The Ancestors was out. Similarly it might be useless to show himself at the palace. He already had sufficient proof that Vargo had ordered him shot on sight...
Mark suddenly remembered that he didn’t look quite the same as the fellow who had first aroused the dictator’s ire. Vargo had ordered a bronzed young man with a winged helmet shot on sight. Then he had shown up at the palace as an old man. Vargo had forced that from the mind of Jan Thomas. And he had ordered the old man shot.
Suppose he assumed a new disguise?
Mark growled suddenly, remembering the helmets. Then abruptly he cast the whole subject from his mind, realizing that when the time came he would have to meet a set of conditions which couldn’t be planned for now. He would probably have to organize a battalion from the membership of the thieves’ fraternity, and take the palace by storm. His mind, momentarily unoccupied, reverted to more personal problems.
Omega — that blasted, meddling, lovable old remnant of a disfranchised spider...
Chapter 18: Let’s go to Prison
HIS eye fell upon the slight form of the one Ancestor he had managed to free. Jan Thomas, refreshed from an entire day and night of sleep, was busily chatting with a pair of the older thieves. In them, it seemed, he had found kindred souls.
Both had been technicians, before they had joined the fraternity, and still were intensely interested in scientific research. One of them was a chemist; the other a biologist who had once had a hand in the growth ray’s early development. The latter was responsible for the perfection of the nutrition solutions which were constantly fed to the abnormally fast-maturing vegetation.
Mark walked over to the three and listened for a few minutes. They were talking over plans whereby they would collaborate on some obscure research in which all three were interested, it gave Mark an idea.
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “I’ve got a job for you. Especially you, Thomas. Get a syringe. I want to give you a sample of my blood to work on.”
Ira, Jan Thomas and the two old men gasped in unison as the glass tube of the syringe slowly filled itself with his blood.
“Duplicate that,” said Mark. “Find a liquid which, when injected into the veins of a healthy animal, will cause its blood to become like mine. Experiment on animals only, and let me know the instant you achieve success. Don’t use it on a human being. I must first test the animal which you have changed.”
To be certain that his orders would be obeyed. Mark once more used his power. Jan Thomas and the two old men would be unable to do other than obey. Ira watched and listened as he repeated the order. He was impressed by the repetition, but didn’t realize that the three were under Mark’s hypnotic wave. Even as Mark released them, Ira was none the wiser.
“What is its particular value?” he asked — “other than the value of ordinary red blood?”
For answer Mark took a dagger and sliced deeply into the flesh of his arm. A smear of blue blood appeared — and then the wound healed, leaving no trace. Ira’s eyes betrayed his astonishment.
“If they succeed,” Mark said, “certain worthy ones will be injected. It has other valuable properties as well.”
Mark sat down at a table and dismissed the entire contents of the room from his consciousness. He wanted to think; to think more deeply than he had done for some time. Ira, several of the new converts, and a half dozen of the older members of the fraternity were present, but he cast them completely out of his mind.
He had made an initial step in a course of procedure which would have never occurred to him under other circumstances. Inwardly, the thought of his own temerity made him cringe with apprehension.
OMEGA had been his guiding angel since the moment of his awakening, and it wasn’t easy suddenly to take a course completely at variance with the omniscient being’s wish. He was knowingly running counter to the desire of one who could destroy him in an instant. Destroy the whole earth, for that matter.
It was like flying in the face of a god more mighty than Jupiter. Except that instead of a legendary deity, of doubtful potency, and only rumored authenticity, Mark was contemplating the defiance of a very real entity, one of proven and adequately demonstrated power.
Mark thought. He thought, because it wasn’t too late to back out of his decision. He could easily stop the three scientist
s from analyzing the sample of his blood. He could erase the memory of it from their minds, and Ira’s as well. And as he thought, he became more apprehensive as to the reaction of the unpredictable Omega.
Omega liked him. But he liked Mark because he thought Mark was considerably different from the average, emotion-ridden human. He had revived him because Mark was a man of logic, as well as a man of good character. Omega had always insisted that emotion was all right in its place, but that its place was subordinate to cold, rational logic. Where the two conflicted there was no room for compromise.
Mark knew that he was right, and yet he was human enough to refuse to apply the rule in his own case. And there, he greatly feared, was a point where Omega might forget that he liked Mark.
Mark might be placing himself, in Omega’s mind, as just another human: worthy of sublime contempt, and to be treated accordingly.
And “accordingly” might take on some obnoxious forms. For Omega had a peculiar sense of humor, as Mark well knew. When he found that his pet plan for populating the earth with the superior descendants of Mark and Nona had been tampered with — indeed, wrecked completely — it was hard to say what he might not do.
Mark might find himself transformed permanently and irrevocably into a loathsome reptile. Most anything could happen, and probably would.
Mark suddenly jumped to his feet and laughed. Let Omega fry! He liked the old duffer and valued his friendship. But Mark was a man, and a man had to stand on his own feet, come what may. He’d go through with it.
If the scientists succeeded in duplicating his blood, he’d inject it into quite a few people before he turned up his toes. He’d be careful and pick out only those he knew had few vicious instincts, and then hope for the best.
And unless he was very much wrong, it would come out all right.
AT THAT moment the outer door opened and another caravan guard was brought in, this one feet first. He was either very intoxicated or one of the boys had massaged his scalp with a club.
The Best of Argosy #7 - Minions of Mercury Page 13