The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  But actually, you know, I was a cribber! Yes, perhaps the world’s greatest cribber—a kind of human blotting pad for soaking up knowledge. Put me next to a student with a good grasp of mathe­matics and at the end of the examination you would find him chewing his penholder to shavings while I sat complacently with all the answers written on the dotted lines…

  “Henry Parker,” the Head would say benignly, squinting through his glasses in that owlish way he had, “you are a credit to Mulhaven! You are one of the cleverest scholars we have ever had…”

  I would stand before him full of meekness, and since I was pretty young then I took all the credit and wondered how in blazes I had done it. For it was an undoubted fact that I had a knack of stealing other people’s knowledge and secrets right away from them if I sat near them for long enough. I had only to concentrate—really hard—and the thing was done! It was quite disturbing…

  When I was twenty my people died and that seemed to upset the whole routine of my life. I had a little money, but by no means a lot, and since my job in Birmingham did not appeal to me particularly I threw it up and came to London. It had become suddenly evident to me that I had to face the world.

  I had forgotten all that I had ever cribbed at school. The immediate task then seemed to be to find a job—and that quite logically suggested it was time to bring my ‘kink’ into action.

  For some reason I had always had a deep inner urge to either drive an engine or a motor omnibus. I think the urge can be traced back to my tricycle days: whatever the basic reason, I had never com­pletely suppressed the urge. Suppose, then, I could get a sort of ‘on approval’ idea of how fascinating a bus driver’s life could be?

  That decided me. Once I had moved into my London rooms I set about exploring the potentiali­ties of the gentlemen who sit all day over a massive steering wheel…

  I boarded my experimental bus in the Strand and took good care to get the seat immedi­ately behind the driver. I do not think the girl on the same seat quite liked the idea, somehow. You see, the bus was almost empty, and that I should squeeze her up into the corner in order to sit beside her no doubt suggested sundry unethical intentions.

  I caught a glance from her cold grey eyes—then, with a high-powered sniff, she went on reading her magazine. Me? I sat gazing at the back of the driver, taking in a view of white dust coat and sandy bristles margined by the back of his greasy regula­tion cap. I had to be near him in order to ‘absorb,’ you understand. But I could not explain that to the girl squashed beside me, could I? Not that she looked too unfriendly, only I’m modest…I think.

  Off we went. Nothing much happened at first. We picked up a woman with three bawling brats, an Italian with a string of onions round his leathery neck, and a man who sat as erect as a gravestone and looked about as cheerful. I saw all these travellers in the reflection from the glass partition between myself and the driver. In a kind of side­ways haze I saw the girl next to me was twisting her ankles round each other and generally shifting arid squirming. I knew why—and it was rather sur­prising.

  A midge—an ordinary summer midge—was biting her ankle. I could not see the thing, but her mind was beating into mine and telling me all about it. I also appreciated that she thought I was the frozen limit and needed shooting without trial… Behind all this, in her mind, I saw a certain maze of com­plexity that seemed to hover between a beautiful flat full of mellow furniture and etchings, class­rooms full of young men and women with earnest faces, and a laboratory with odds and ends of apparatus… She was twenty-two, single, a teacher of psychology, adored salads, and loathed young men who sat too close to her.

  There was I, storing up all this information and did not want to! I even knew her size in shoes and gloves, that she had had measles, mumps and whooping cough. June Cranby—that was her name. Then, with -a deliberate effort, I switched her out of my mind and continued to concentrate on the back of the driver’s head. What was it like to be a bus driver? For me, the conception had a fascinat­ing intrigue all its own.

  At first I was disappointed. I saw betting slips and stop press news of what had won the previous day’s 2.30. Damnit, the man was not concentrat­ing on the job of driving at all! Then it occurred to me that perhaps he knew the job so well he did it automatically. His mind shifted sud­denly to a rather unlovely block of cheap lodgings. In front of the block was a mangy dog with a bone, children in grubby frocks and frayed jerseys playing with a whiskery skipping rope. His kids? Judging, from the beatific grin now on his profile, yes. But where was the glamour? Was he not proud to drive this great vehicle, to feel that hundreds of people a day trusted to him? Somehow I did not think he was. And I did not like his private life either.

  Then to my delight he suddenly came to thinking about his job. I saw the bus gears in detail—the clutch, brake and accelerator. In a flash I knew the whole method of controlling this swift, fumy conveyance. I knew exactly how much pressure to put on that foot brake to stop the bus running into that taxi right ahead—

  But at that identical moment something went wrong. The driver clapped a hand to his head and fell forward over the steering wheel. Instantly our few passengers gave hoarse shouts. June Cranby looked up in startled wonderment… Then the entire vehicle, missing the taxi by inches, slewed round on to the pavement, sending people scattering in all directions. Two inches from a plate-glass window we stopped dead.

  The conductor started yelling out directions—then he subsided as there was a rush for the exit. I just sat where I was, staring mystifiedly, until June Cranby’s voice—and a very pleasing one it was too—floated to me from a great distance.

  “When you have finished sitting there with your mouth open you won’t mind, perhaps, if I pass?”

  “Eh?” I said, staring at her. Then I compre­hended. I raised my hat in apologetic confusion and stood up. She brushed past me with obvious in­dignation and hurried outside to the pavement. I followed her, and I assure you it was pure coinci­dence which brought us together again in the gathered crowd.

  “Cheeky blighter!” her thoughts were saying. “Not so bad looking, though. Looks sleepy—else scared. Never can tell with men…”

  People were all around us, crowded into the hot glare of sunshine. A police officer, looking very greasy and officious, was taking notes and talking to the driver. The driver was waving his arms about like a prize-fighter.

  “I didn’t faint!” was his indignant protest. “Something went funny. All of a sudden I forgot all I ever knew about driving this thing. The steer­ing, brakes-and clutch didn’t even—even enter me mind. Me mind was a blank—a total blank.”

  The officer closed one eye and said, “Yes?” It had a nasty ring about it too.

  “You just couldn’t forget everything!” protested the man who looked like a gravestone.

  The driver swung round to glare at him. “Swipe, me, mister, it’s the honest truth. I forgot how to drive! What’s more, I still don’t know how to drive. Call me crazy if you like.”

  “Perhaps temporary amnesia,” suggested June Cranby surprisingly.

  “You on the bus too, miss?” the officer asked sharply, then, as she nodded, he went on: “Better give me your name and address. All of you who were on the bus will be wanted as witnesses.”

  So we gave our names and addresses. At the end of it the woman with the brats opined that we ought to send for an ambulance to take the driver away.

  “The Company’s own ambulance will be here any moment, madam,” responded one of the officials, looking very stiff and very hot. “A fresh driver will take over this bus and—”

  “But I tell you I’m well!” our driver broke in suddenly. “Never felt better—only I just don’t seem to remember how to drive… Funny, I don’t think I know me way home either.”

  “Definitely neurotic amnesia,” said June Cranby’s thoughts. “Wonder if that mystical owl who calls himself Henry Parker knows anything about it? Hypnotism, maybe. He stared at this poor fellow an awful lo
t, right on his neck nerve centres…”

  She turned to look at me and her words certainly did not match her thoughts. Her coolness had gone. “Amazing happening, isn’t it, Mr. Parker?”

  “I suppose it is,” I admitted.

  Her thoughts said, “He looks as though he might be capable of anything, but I don’t think he’s crazy. Eyes rather like a codfish, come to think of it. Drink perhaps…”

  Aloud she resumed: “I have seen cases like this before, but in different circumstances. The brain centres suddenly refuse to act—a form of paralysis. I’m interested in this sort of thing: I teach psychology, you see. My hobby is telepathy, or any­way its possibilities.”

  I smiled wryly. “Glad you don’t think I’m crazy, anyhow,” I murmured. “Sorry, too, my eyes look like a codfish’s.”

  The amazement on her face was almost comical. “But—but you’ve read my thoughts!” she breathed, having the sense to keep her voice low. Far from being ashamed of her mental tabulations she went on: “It’s astounding! Revolutionary! How do you do it? Do you use the Branner or the Curt-Walford System?”

  “I don’t use anybody’s system. It just happens—and it enables me to find out exactly what people think of me… So I’ll say good morning, Miss Cranby.”

  I turned away with studied finality, but she caught my arm.

  “My name, too!” she cried—then she gave a little gesture. “Of course, you heard me give it to the officer. … Wait just a minute, please. You’re too good to miss.”

  “Am I?” It was my turn to be cool.

  She stopped, thinking swiftly. Her mind went round ideas of lunch, so I said it for her.

  “I could tell you a lot more over a café table if you are really interested…”

  She said nothing to that, but we finished up with salad at Frascati’s.

  * * * *

  It was surprising how much June Cranby broke down under the influence of lettuce and tomato, or else it was the fact that she believed I was a freak and right in her line of attack. Anyway, after studying me for a time—time in which I had had the opportunity to observe that she had a plain, honest face and chestnut hair—she said:

  “To look at you one would never suspect you have telepathic power.”

  I knew she meant what she said, because her thoughts verified it.

  “Well, I have, and there it is.… I’m just wandering round the city trying to decide what job to take up. I can take a job on a sort of trial, you see. See which job I like best by learning about it first… That bus driver, for instance…” I wrinkled my nose. “No, I don’t think I want to be a bus driver after all. I don’t like the back­ground. No glamour, and a vast, frightening sense of confinement.”

  “I suppose you realise you have done him out of a job?” she asked quietly. “You absorbed his knowledge, so what is he going to do now?”

  That aspect of the matter rather dismayed me, for, to tell the truth, I had never given it a thought.

  “Hmm, it’s a problem,” I. admitted ruefully.

  “A bigger problem than I think you imagine. Do you realise that in running round testing jobs you are liable to put quite a few good men out of work? A gift like yours is only fit for examination by expert psychologists. I know plenty who could help you if—”

  “No thanks,” I broke in hastily. “I don’t trust ’em… And anyway, I don’t see that a few more unemployed really matter. I’m unemployed myself, so it is them or me if it comes to that.”

  She munched tomato reflectively. “Seems a selfish viewpoint. And anyway, why stop at being a bus driver or something like that? Why don’t you aim high? Become—become a politician or something.”

  “I don’t want to be something high: it entails too much heavy responsibility. I don’t want to be a politician—I want to be something brainy, like—like an engine driver, a driver, a lion tamer or something… See?”

  “Hanged if I do!” she said frankly. “You can have all the world—you are unique—and you either want to be an engine driver or go down in the sea and hunt wrecks. It just doesn’t make sense that a man with such mighty power should not want to use it… I know what I would do,” she added significantly, and her thoughts registered a vista of total franchise for all women, crushing of every male and to hell with wedlock.

  “It’s serious, you know,” she added pensively. “I think I know what is wrong with you and how you could be cured—if you want. This kink of yours will get you into trouble sooner or later if you don’t watch out. Can’t I persuade you to let either myself or some other psychologist examine you?”

  I shook my head adamantly. “I like my gift, Miss Cranby, and I’m sticking to it. What is more, I need a regular job and I’ll find it in my own way.”

  “Perhaps he is crazy after all,” observed her thoughts. Then she got to her feet. “You don’t need my address,” she said quietly. “You have it already. If you ever want to change your mind come and see me…I’m glad to have met you.”

  Before I could say anything more she shook my hand and was gone. I was left to pay the bill, and I cannot repeat what the waiter thought about me when I found I had no change left for a tip…

  * * * *

  I nust admit that June Cranby had done something to me. She certainly had precious little sex appeal, but behind her sharp, incisive manner I had detected a good deal of firmly grounded com­mon sense, enough anyway to make me think about her quite a lot after our conversation. I liked her independence, suspected her motives for wanting to examine my grey matter, and inwardly smouldered at the remembrance of eyes like a codfish.

  And was I crazy? That remained to be seen… As a matter of fact, I rather wondered if she could have explained my abnormal condition. At that time I was not prepared to forgo my ability, but I would have liked to know what made me able to soak up other people’s knowledge… I could have ruled the world, yes—but who in hell wants a world anyway? Only dictators and madmen. No: give me a steady job and I’d be entirely satisfied. I was sorry about that bus driver: the accident was reported briefly in the next day’s paper and it seemed they had whisked the poor chap off to a mental home for examination. On the other hand, here was I, knowing exactly how to drive a bus and yet quite uninterested in the accomplishment. I felt inclined for something harder—so I boarded a local train and sat in the compartment nearest the engine so that I could contact the driver’s thoughts from the cab.

  Since the compartment was empty it was the ideal spot for good concentration. Rather too good, as a matter of fact, for I got the driver’s and stoker’s private lives as well, together with a knowledge of how to drive and coal a railway engine.

  Did I like the knowledge now I had got it? I could not be sure. There was something fascinating about driving down that gleaming ribbon of rail, of course, about holding the power of steam under your fingers—but there, I felt, the fascination ended. No, engine driving was still not quite what I wanted. It had not that certain kick I was looking for…I lay back in my seat, deciding to get off at the next station. Being a local, the train would stop there anyway.

  But it did not! The station whisked by at quite a smart pace and we rattled over the points to good effect. If anything, we were gathering speed instead of losing it. Vague, disturbed notions passed through my mind: they changed to positive alarm when we hurtled through the next station in a cloud of dust, whirling papers and shouts from the porters on the platform…

  Dropping the window, I stared outside, wind and steam lashing my face. The driver was leaning out of his cab, staring ahead of him.

  I bellowed at him, but it was no good, of course. I was trying to talk against the wind. Then he turned his head suddenly and caught sight of me. By pantomiming, I think I made him understand that I wanted to know what was wrong, for he shouted:

  “Brakes! I’ve forgotten how to use ’em! Guard’s emergency brake not enough, and I can’t stop the damned train…”

  I withdrew my head, stunned realisation pouring ov
er me. Of course, I had taken all his knowledge, same as I had with the bus driver. This was darned serious—a runaway train. Up to me to put things right. … I do not claim my next actions represented heroism. I performed them through sheer fear of consequences if I did not do some­thing quick.

  I climbed out of the window on to the running-board, eased my way along against the wind and steam to the tender, while the driver and fireman watched me in baffled hope and alarm. It was hard going all right—toe and finger hold, but at last I managed to drag myself over the coal and down to the footplate.

  The rest was simple. I closed the throttle, applied the brakes gradually, and we pulled up at the next station without mishap. The guard came running up, swearing, as the driver, stoker and myself dropped down.

  “What in blazes is the idea?” the guard roared. “Don’t you even know that we—”

  “I know that I’ve forgotten how to drive this train!” the driver broke in. “Let me alone, can’t you? Same with Jim, here,” and he nodded to the stoker. “We’ve both forgotten what to do… This gent here saved us by climbing from the first carriage.”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” I protested.

  But they would have none of that. It seemed that people collected from nowhere off the train, whirled me off into the general waiting room and started to thank me profusely. What happened to the driver and his mate I did not have the chance to discover. My main realisation was of being mighty thankful when I at last escaped.

  * * * *

  I took good care to take a bus back to London, and I did not try any fancy stuff on the way either. Matter of fact, I was getting alarmed. The drastic completeness of my knowledge-absorbing trick was getting startling to say the least of it. It would not have been so bad had I been interested in what I had discovered—but I was not. Bus and engine driving were now relegated to my not wanted de­partment. I had got to try something else.

  I wandered about the city most of the day, went into a café for tea and opened up my evening paper. The first column I read gave me the shock of my life. It was headed: