Space Beagle- the Complete Adventures

by A. E. van Vogt

  Grosvenor opened the elevator door on the control-room level, and then drew back hastily. A heat projector was pouring flame along the corridor. The metal walls burned with a harsh, sizzling sound. Within his narrow field of vision, three men lay dead. As he waited, there was a thunderous explosion. Instantly, the flames stopped. A blue smoke hazed the air, and there was a sense of suffocating heat. Within seconds, both the haze and the heat were gone. It was obvious that at least the ventilating system was still working.

  He peered out cautiously. At first sight, the corridor seemed deserted. Then he saw Morton, half hidden in a protective alcove less than a score of feet away. At almost the same moment, the Director saw him and beckoned him over. Grosvenor hesitated, then realized he had to take the risk. He pushed his vehicle through the elevator doorway and darted across the intervening space. The Director greeted him eagerly as he came up.

  “You’re just the man I wanted to see,” he said, “We’ve got to get control of the ship away from Captain Leeth before Kent and his group organize their attack.”

  Morton’s gaze was calm and intelligent. He had the look of a man fighting for the right. Nor did it seem to occur to him that an explanation for his statement was required. The Director went on. “We’ll need your help particularly against Kent. They’re bringing up some chemical stuff I’ve never seen before. So far, our fans have blown it right back at them, but they’re setting up fans of their own. Our big problem is, will we have time to defeat Leeth before Kent can bring his forces to bear?”

  Time was also Grosvenor’s problem. Unobtrusively, he brought his right hand up to his left wrist and touched the activating relay that controlled the directional-sending plates of the adjuster. He pointed the plates at Morton as he said. “I’ve got a plan, sir. I think it might be effective against the enemy.”

  He stopped. Morton was looking down. The Director said, “You’ve brought along an adjuster, and it’s on. What do you expect from that?”

  Grosvenor’s first tense reaction yielded to a need for a suitable answer. He had hoped that Morton would not be too familiar with adjusters. With that hope blasted, he could still try to use the instrument, though without the initial advantage of surprise. He said in a voice that was taut in spite of himself, “That’s it. It’s this machine I want to use.”

  Morton hesitated, then said, “I gather from the thoughts coming into my mind that you’re broadcasting—” He stopped. Interest quickened his face. “Say,” he said presently, “that’s good. If you can put over the notion that we’re being attacked by aliens—”

  He broke off. His lips pursed. His eyes narrowed with calculation. He said, “Captain Leeth has twice tried to make a deal with me. Now we’ll pretend to agree, and you go over with your machine. We’ll attack the moment you signal us.” He explained with dignity. “You understand, I would not consider dealing with either Kent or Captain Leeth except as a means to victory. You appreciate that, I hope?”

  Grosvenor found Captain Leeth in the control room. The commander greeted him with stiff-backed friendliness. “This fight among the scientists,” he said earnestly, “has placed the military in an awkward position. We’ve got to defend the control room and the engine room and so perform our minimum duty to the expedition as a whole.” He shook his head gravely. “It’s out of the question, of course, that either of them be allowed to win. In the final issue, we of the military are prepared to sacrifice ourselves to prevent the victory of either group.”

  The explanation startled Grosvenor out of his own purpose. He had been wondering if Captain Leeth was responsible for aiming the ship directly at a sun. Here was at least partial confirmation. The commander’s motivation seemed to be that victory for any group but the military was unthinkable. With that beginning, it was probably only a tiny step to the concept that the whole expedition must be sacrificed.

  Casually, Grosvenor pointed the directional sender of the adjuster at Captain Leeth.

  Brain waves, minute pulsations transmitted from axon to dendrite, from dendrite to axon, always following a previously established path depending on past associations—it was a process that operated endlessly among the ninety million neuron cells of a human brain. Each cell was in its own state of electro-colloidal balance, an intricate interplay of tension and impulse. Only gradually, over the years, had machines been developed that could detect with some degree of accuracy the meaning of the energy flow inside the brain.

  The earliest encephalo-adjuster was an indirect descendant of the famous electroencephalograph. But its function was the reverse of that first device. It manufactured artificial brain waves of any desired pattern. Using it, a skilful operator could stimulate any part of the brain, and so cause thoughts, emotions, and dreams, and bring up memories from the individual’s past. It was not in itself a controlling instrument.

  The subject maintained his own ego. However, it could transmit the mind impulses of one person to a second person. Since the impulses varied according to the sender’s thoughts, the recipient was stimulated in a highly flexible fashion.

  Unaware of the presence of the adjuster, Captain Leeth did not realize that his thoughts were no longer quite his own. He said, “The attack being made on the ship by the images makes the quarrel of the scientists traitorous and unforgivable.” He paused, then said thoughtfully, “Here’s my plan.”

  The plan involved heat projectors, muscle-straining acceleration, and partial extermination of both groups of scientists. Captain Leeth failed even to mention the aliens, nor did it seem to occur to him that he was describing his intentions to an emissary of what he regarded as the enemy. He finished by saying, “Where your services will be important, Mr. Grosvenor, is in the science department. As a Nexialist, with a co-ordinative knowledge of many sciences, you can play a decisive role against the other scientists . . .”

  Weary and disheartened, Grosvenor gave up. The chaos was too great for one man to overcome. Everywhere he looked were armed men. Altogether he had seen a score or more dead bodies. At any moment the uneasy truce between Captain Leeth and Director Morton would end in a burst of projector fire. Even now he could hear the roaring of the fans where Morton was holding off Kent’s attack.

  He sighed as he turned back to the captain. “I’ll need some equipment from my own department,” he said. “Can you pass me through to the rear elevators? I can be back here in five minutes.”

  As he guided his machine into the back door of his department a few minutes later, it seemed to Grosvenor that there was no longer any doubt about what he must do. What had seemed a far-fetched idea when he first thought of it was now the only plan he had left.

  He must attack the aliens through their myriad images, and with their own hypnotic weapons.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Grosvenor was aware of Korita watching him as he made his preparations. The archaeologist came over and looked at the array of electrical instruments he was attaching to the encephalo-adjuster, but he asked no questions. He seemed to be fully recovered from his experience.

  Grosvenor kept wiping the perspiration from his face. And yet it was not warm. The room temperature stood at normal. By the time his preliminary work was done, he realized that he had to stop to analyst his anxiety. He just didn’t, he decided finally, know enough about the enemy.

  It was not sufficient that he had a theory about how they were operating. The great mystery was an enemy who had curiously womanlike bodies and faces, some partly doubled, some single. He needed a reasonable philosophic basis for action. He needed that balance for his plan which only knowledge could give him.

  He turned to Korita, and asked, “In terms of cyclic history, what stage of culture could these beings be in?”

  The archaeologist sat down in a chair, pursed his lips, and said, “Tell me your plan.”

  The Japanese grew pale as Grosvenor described it. He said finally, almost irrelevantly, “How is it you were able to save me, and not the others?”

  “I got to you r
ight away. The human nervous system learns by repetition. For you, their light pattern hadn’t repeated as often as for the others.”

  “Is there any way we could have avoided this disaster?” he asked grimly.

  Grosvenor smiled a wan smile. “Nexial training could have done it, since that includes hypnotic conditioning. There’s only one sure protection against hypnosis, and that is to be trained in it in exactly the right way.”

  He broke off. “Mr. Korita, please answer my question. Cyclic history?”

  A thin, wet line of moisture formed on the archaeologist’s brow. “My friend,” he said, “surely you can’t expect a generalization at this stage. What do we know about these beings?”

  Grosvenor groaned inwardly. He recognized the need for discussion, but vital time was passing. He said indecisively. “Beings who can use hypnosis over a distance, as these can would probably be able to stimulate each other’s minds, and so would have naturally the kind of telepathy that human beings can obtain only through the encephalo-adjuster.”

  He leaned forward, abruptly excited. “Korita, what effect would the ability to read minds without artificial aids have on a culture?”

  The archaeologist was sitting up. “Why of course,” he said. “You have the answer. Mind reading would stultify the development of any race, and therefore this one is in the fellahin stage.”

  His eyes were bright as he stared at the puzzled Grosvenor. “Don’t you see? The ability to read another’s mind would make you feel that you know about him. On that basis, a system of absolute certainties would develop. How could you doubt when you know? Such beings would flash through the early periods of their culture, and arrive at the fellah period in the swiftest possible time.”

  Alertly, while Grosvenor sat frowning, he described how various civilizations of Earth and galactic history had exhausted themselves, and then stagnated into fellahdom. Fellah people resented newness and change. They were not particularly cruel as a group, but because of their poverty they all too frequently develop an indifference toward the suffering of individuals.

  When Korita had finished, Grosvenor said, “Perhaps their resentment of change is responsible for the attack on the ship?”

  The archaeologist was cautious. “Perhaps.” There was silence. It seemed to Grosvenor that he had to act as if Korita’s total analysis was correct. He had no other hypothesis. With such a theory as a starting point, he could try to obtain verification from one of the images.

  A glance at the chronometer tensed him. He had less than seven hours to save the ship.

  Hastily, he focused a beam of light through the encephalo-adjuster. With quick movements, he set a screen in front of the light, so that a small area of glass was thrown into shadow except for the intermittent light that played on it from the adjuster.

  Instantly, an image appeared. It was one of the partially doubled ones, and because of the encephalo-adjuster, he was able to study it in safety. The first clear look astounded him. It was only vaguely humanoid. And yet it was understandable how his mind had leaped to the woman identification earlier. Its overlapping double face was crowned with a neat bun of golden feathers. But its head, though now unmistakably bird-like, did have a human appearance. There were no feathers on its face, which was covered with a lacework of what seemed to be veins. The human appearance resulted from the way those markings had formed into groups, to give the effect of cheeks and nose.

  The second pair of eyes and the second mouth were in each case nearly two inches above the first. They almost made a second head, which was literally growing out of the first. There was also a second pair of shoulders, with a doubled pair of short arms that ended in beautifully delicate, amazingly long hands and fingers—and the overall effect was still feminine. Grosvenor found himself thinking that the arms and fingers of the two bodies would be likely to separate first. The second body would then be able to help support its weight. Parthenogenesis, Grosvenor thought. Reproduction without sex. The growth of a bud from a parent body, and the final separation from the parent into a new individual.

  The image in the wall before him showed vestigial wings. Tufts of feathers were visible at the “wrists”. It wore a bright blue tunic over an astonishingly straight and superficially humanlike body. If there were other vestiges of a feathery past, they were hidden by the clothing. What was clear was that this bird didn’t, and couldn’t, fly under its own power.

  Korita spoke first, in a helpless tone. “How are you going to let it know you’re willing to be hypnotized in exchange for information?”

  Grosvenor did not answer in words. He stood up and tentatively drew a picture of the image and of himself on a blackboard. Forty-seven minutes and scores of drawings later the bird image suddenly faded from the wall, and a city scene appeared in its place.

  It was not a large community, and his first view of it was from a high vantage point. He had an impression of very tall, very narrow buildings, clustered so close together that all the lower reaches must be lost in gloom for most of each day. Grosvenor wondered, in passing, if that might possibly reflect nocturnal habits in some primeval past. His mind leaped on. He ignored individual buildings in his desire to obtain a whole picture. Above everything else, he wanted to find out the extent of their machine culture, how they communicated, and if this was the city from which the attack on the ship was being launched.

  He could see no machines, no aircraft, no cars. Nor was there anything corresponding to the interstellar-communication equipment used by human beings, which, on Earth, required stations spaced over many square miles of land. It seemed likely, therefore, that the origin of the attack was nothing like that.

  Even as he made his negative discovery, the view changed. He was no longer on a hill but in a building near the center of the city. Whatever was taking that perfect color picture moved forward, and he looked down over the edge. His primary concern was with the whole scene. Yet he found himself wondering how they were showing it to him. The transition from one scene to another had been accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. Less than a minute had passed since his blackboard illustration had finally made known his desire for information.

  That thought, like the others, was a flashing one. Even as he had it, he was gazing avidly down the side of the building. The space separating it from the near-by structures seemed no more than ten feet. But now he saw something that had not been visible from the hillside. The buildings were connected on every level by walks only inches wide. Along these moved the pedestrian traffic of the bird city.

  Directly below Grosvenor, two individuals strode towards each other along the same narrow walk. They seemed unconcerned by the fact that it was a hundred feet or more to the ground. They passed casually, easily. Each swung his outside leg, wide around the other, caught the walk, bent his inside leg wide out, and then they were by, without having broken pace. There were other people on other levels going through the same intricate maneuvers in the same nonchalant manner. Watching them, Grosvenor guessed that their bones were thin and hollow, and that they were lightly built.

  The scene changed again, and then again. It moved from one section of the street to another. He saw, it seemed to him, every possible variation of the reproductive condition. Some were so far advanced that the legs and arms and most of the body was free. Others were as he had already seen them. In every instance, the parent seemed unaffected by the weight of the new body.

  Grosvenor was trying to get a glimpse inside one of the dim interiors of a building when the picture began to fade from the wall. In a moment, the city had disappeared completely. In its place grew the double image. The image fingers pointed at the encephalo-adjuster. Its motion was unmistakable. It had fulfilled its part of the bargain. It was time for him to fulfill his.

  It was naive of it to expect that he would do so. The trouble was, he had to. He had no alternative but to carry out his obligation.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I am calm and relaxed,” said Grosvenor’s
recorded voice. “My thoughts are clear. What I see is not necessarily related to what I am looking at. What I hear may be meaningless to the interpretive centers of my brain. But I have seen their city as they think it. Whether what I actually see and hear makes sense or nonsense, I remain calm, relaxed, and at ease . . .”

  Grosvenor listened carefully to the words, and then turned to Korita. “That’s it,” he said simply.

  The time might come, of course, when he would not consciously hear the message. But it would be there. Its patterns would impress ever more firmly on his mind. Still listening, he examined the adjuster for the last time. It was all as he wanted it.

  To Korita, he explained, “I’m setting the automatic cutoff for five hours. If you pull this switch”—he indicated a red lever—“you can break me free before then. But only do so in an emergency.”

  “How do you define emergency?”

  “If we’re attacked here.” Grosvenor hesitated. He would have liked a series of breaks. But what he was about to do was not merely a scientific experiment. It was a life-and-death gamble. Ready for action, he put his hand on the control dial. And there he paused.

  For this was the moment. Within a few seconds, the group mind of countless individual bird folk would be in possession of parts of his nervous system. They would undoubtedly try to control him as they were controlling the other men on the ship.

  He was fairly positive that he would be up against a group of minds working together. He had seen no machines, not even a wheeled vehicle, that most primitive of mechanical devices. For a short time, he had taken it for granted that they were using television-type cameras. Now he guessed that he had seen the city through the eyes of individuals. With these things, telepathy was a sensory process as sharp as vision itself. The enmassed mind power of millions of bird people could hurdle light-years of distance. They didn’t need machines.