Suddenly my mind was free of the grip that had been strangling it. I flung back my head and laughed—a peal of triumphant laughter that rang through the silence like a trumpet. The man stared at me now quietly, with the same concentration, but without attempting to interfere with my mind. He seemed to be trying to understand the situation, but there was no expression of anger or fear or any emotion in his eyes. Except for the fact that they were full of concentration, they were empty of all expression.
“Why did you do this thing to me?” I cried out to him, in Latin.
He made no answer, merely staring fixedly at me. I turned to the men. They were staring through me, seemingly indifferent to the struggle that had taken place. I now understood what had happened to them. They were slaves in mind as well as in body.
I felt inclined to cry out to them to save themselves, but the sight of those empty eyes, mere pits of nothingness, brought me to my senses. I looked back at the man. He was no longer there. The space in the cabin was empty. Where he had stood, there was now nothing but a wall covered with some sort of soft tapestry.
I turned. The men were advancing towards me. Suddenly I felt exhausted. I began to tremble, and a cold sweat poured over me. The reaction had come. I don’t think that, even now, if the man had come back to attack, he would have won, for I was too full of loathing of what he had tried to do, but I felt no power to resist the mere physical force of the men. I dropped my hands to my sides, and stood quietly. Two of them took me by the arms and gently led me away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Absorbed”
WE WERE on the deck of the ship—a long floor-like space that glittered with a phosphorescent polish. In the middle of it, half-way to the bow, a number of men were standing like statues. Otherwise the deck seemed empty, but I could not see clearly beyond the group of men.
A short distance away, the island lay glimmering under the upper lights. As I looked at it, it seemed to me incredible that it was not even an hour since I had come running down to its shores calling eagerly on the ship. The man who had done that seemed to me now to have been a man in some former life, far away, so remote did his hopes and fears now appear.
I felt a gentle pressure on my arms. I had stopped involuntarily, and they were moving me forward. I went with them, because there was nothing else that I could do, and I felt exhausted. The situation was so incomprehensible that there was nothing I could plan except to steel my will to face whatever further horror tried to seize it. The struggle was not to be won on the physical plane—that was clear; but beyond that I could make no guess. Perhaps they would now beat me down by physical attack and seize my mind while I was stunned, or they might try to drug me or deprive me of my senses in some other way.
They led me through an opening in the deck, down two flights of stairs, and back into the large cabin, where the men had been eating. Here they placed me again, sitting on a bunk against the wall.
I looked round at the men who were in the cabin. I was seeing them differently now, in the light of my own experience. I was beginning to grasp what had happened to them. The man that I had encountered, and others of his kind, had done to them what he had tried to do to me. They had entered into these men’s minds, substituted their own will for the life force of their victims, and made them what they were. The men had been murdered mentally while kept physically alive—not merely dominated completely in their minds, but deprived of them!
The realisation of this came on me with a sudden shock. None of these men had any individual life. None of them existed except in and through the will of the commander. None of them existed as a person for himself or for the others. In the guardroom, perhaps in the whole ship, I alone existed personally, besides the master who owned their souls.
At this moment a man came into the cabin and came over to me. He made a sign to follow him, and I did so. I thought that I was being brought back to face the commander, and I steeled my mind for the ordeal, but, instead of going up the stairs that led to the deck, my guide turned down a corridor at the side of the vessel and stepped aside before a cabin to let me enter it. I did so. It was a bathroom, with a long trough, full of water, in the middle of the floor, and strange-looking toilet utensils. I put my hand into the water. It was hot. They evidently wanted me to take a bath.
For a moment I paused. Possibly this was some way of drugging me. Then I thought that, even if it were, I could not avoid it. If they wished to drug me, they could do it, no matter what I did. A bath was a very unlikely method, in any case. I began to take off my clothes. My guide left me and shut the door.
That first bath of mine, in that extraordinary world, was a strange experience. I lay in the hot water as if I were at home—so stunned by the incredible turn of fate’s wheel that I was in some way suddenly at rest. I looked round at the strange utensils—the metal mirror, the soap that looked as if it was made of some sort of yellow earth, the curious brushes and scrapers, the soft phosphorescent light that glowed from the ceiling and the walls—and I found it hard to believe that the whole thing was not a dream. It seemed incredible that in a day, or a few days, I might be dead or mad. Incredible: yet I knew that it was not only possible but probable.
Suddenly I sprang up out of the bath. My father—during the last hour I had forgotten him. Where was he? What was he, in this terrible world? Was he dead, or mad, or a prisoner? I could not believe that he had become an automaton. My mind shrank away from the possibility of such an end for him. No; he, of all men, could not have fallen to be one of the living dead—it was not thinkable. But, if he hadn’t fallen into that grave, where was he? What was he?
The door opened, and a man walked in with a bundle of clothes, which he put on a low table, and then went out again, taking my clothes with him. I called to him to leave them, but he was gone and the door shut.
I dried myself and took up the clothes. They were of a soft delicate material. When I shook them out, I found that they consisted of a shirt or tunic, and a pair of short trews. I put them on. They were as delicate to feel as the finest silk.
My mind kept running on my father. Where could he be in this world? If he was not dead, where could he be? If he had resisted, as he surely would have done, they might merely have made him a prisoner. But that was several years ago. My mind was in a whirl of anxiety and questioning.
The door opened, and a man came in and put his hand on my arm. I went with him, back to the guardroom, and to a vacant place at the table. In front of me there was a large dish of assorted foods, like those I had seen before. One piece of meat on the dish looked exactly like a stewed beefsteak. There was a knife and a wooden platter beside me. I cut off half the beefsteak, put it on my platter, and put a piece in my mouth. It was not meat, but a rich sort of fungus, and tasted quite good. It made me feel hungry and I began to eat heartily. A man came up behind me and put a jar beside my platter, and a tall narrow mug. I looked into the jar. It was full of liquid, which I was evidently intended to drink. Each of the other men at the table had a similar jar beside him. Possibly mine was drugged.
I felt that the struggle with the commander of the ship had only begun, and that, having felt my power when awake, he would probably try to put me into a drugged sleep and so deal with my mind while I slept. Then I thought that, even if this were so, I should have to face it some time or other. As well now as later. If I could only screw up my will to resistance before I slept, I should still baffle him, for my mind, when asleep, had its own power, if only it were moved beforehand to resistance.
I took the jar, poured some of its contents into the mug, and tasted it. It was insipid but not unpleasant. I drank a mouthful and watched its effects. It warmed the back of my throat rather pleasantly, but otherwise I could feel nothing, nor was there any sudden stupor or exhilaration.
I went on with my meal. As I did so, a deep sound vibrated through the vessel like the booming of a heavy gong. It rose, fell, died away. Then it boomed again, and once again. At the third stroke the
ship rushed forward, trembling under the sweep of its banks of oars. At the same time a soft music began, with a rowing rhythm in it. We had started for our unknown destination.
My mind began to see things with lucidity. This people had taken an entirely different road from our people on earth. Whatever the powers of the rulers, they evidently did not include any scientific knowledge of methods of propulsion such as ours, for the ship, as far as I could see, was merely a repetition of those used by their ancestors two thousand years before. Since they had not made any discovery in method of transport, it seemed unlikely that they had made any other discovery in the regions of material science—at least, any discovery that mattered.
They had acquired some great powers which I didn’t understand, but these new powers were over mind, not matter, and, judging by their methods of driving the ship, they were probably in the physical world feeble and imitative compared to the white races on earth.
As these thoughts poured through my mind I felt more confident. I had powers and knowledge that they did not possess.
Then I sat up. If they could lay hands on my mind they would seize that knowledge, those powers, or, if they could not do that, they could force me to use my powers for them. Perhaps that was what the commander of the vessel had already been trying to do when he had sought to invade my mind.
My father, if he had fallen into their hands, could have given them little, for he had an entirely unscientific mind, and no interest in science, either applied or theoretical. He knew, in fact, no more than they did; but I was different. In plundering my mind they would gain rich loot of knowledge, if they could apply it. Even if they could not, they might be able to force me to use my knowledge for their benefit—by consent if I would agree; if not, by reducing me to the condition of a scientific robot.
After the first shock of the thought, my mind began to contemplate the position with calm. Now that it was beginning to grasp things and arrange the facts, it did not shrink from this strange world that was emerging to its view. Indeed, I felt restful, almost sleepy. A drowsy ease was beginning to come over me.
I realised that I had been drugged after all. I tried to rouse myself, but struggled in vain. A sea of sleep was pouring over me. With one last effort I fixed my mind on the idea of resistance—resistance—resistance to invasion of my personality, and so sank into a gulf.
I woke with a feeling of restfulness and well-being. A long rhythmical movement was rocking me pleasantly. I lay on my back looking at the roof of the cabin. The rhythmical movement was the sweep of the oars of the Roman galley. I looked round me. I was on a low couch in a narrow cabin dimly lit with phosphorus. I stood up. What had happened to me?
I stood listening, collecting my mind. A soft music was keeping time to the rhythmical hum of the vessel as she rushed forward under the sweep of the oars.
I sat down again and tried to think out the position. What had happened during my sleep? Had my mind been explored by the searchlight mind of the commander?
I could not remember my dreams, nor did I feel like a man who had been through a struggle, yet I had a strong conviction that an attempt had been made to get into my mind and find out my purpose, my thoughts, and my powers.
But why, if they wanted to discover my intentions, had the commander not questioned me? These men were Romans. No matter how changed they were, they were Romans. They had kept the Roman ship, the Roman dress. It was unlikely that they had not, in some way, kept the knowledge of the Latin speech. The natives of European countries on earth, even those who were not descended from Rome, had kept Latin as a language to be learned by their educated people. It was hardly credible that a mind as powerful as that of the commander could not know something about Latin. Yet, if he had known, he had made no sign when I spoke to him.
I looked round the cabin. It was a strange place, with its green phosphorescence that came from roof and walls with a hypnotic effect of repose and confused edges. Everything was soft and slightly blurred when seen through this dim radiance.
My mind swung back to my father. Where was he? Where was I being brought? This ship’s commander could only be a comparatively minor man in their State, yet he had shown a power of attack on my mind such as I had never conceived possible. Were the powers behind him so much greater that I should have no chance before their attack? Had my father gone down before them? Had they reduced him to a pitiful automaton like those men on the ship? Was that to be my fate also? If I was perfectly honest with them, and told them everything, could I avoid the worst, or would I merely put them on their guard and so lose all chance of saving my father?
These questions went round and round in my mind, but I could see no answer to them, in my lack of all knowledge of the nature and extent of the powers and purposes of the beings into whose hands I had fallen.
I wondered if I could in any way get more information. It was fairly certain that I could not get it by remaining in the cabin, but I could see no door. The walls were perfectly smooth and undivided, except at the corners. I got up and began to feel them. They felt like satin, soft and yielding, yet they were as firm as hard wood.
I went over the surface of the wall opposite the couch. There was no slit or line of division that I could find as far as the right-hand corner. I tried the corner. It was not a curving corner, but an angle. It felt as if there was a division there between the two walls. If so, it was too narrow for my fingers to find it. I made an instinctive movement for my knife. Then I realised that I had no pockets; I was dressed in the tunic. All my belongings had been taken from me. I tried to move the wall at the corner with the flat of my hands, in the hope that it was a sliding panel, such as I had heard of in Japanese houses. I could not move it. I began to work backward along it. Nothing happened until I had got to the middle of the wall, when suddenly it slid back, leaving a wide space opening on a big cabin.
I stepped into the guardroom. Men were lying and sitting on bunks and benches round the room, but no one took any notice of me. It was as if I had stepped into one of the dens of opium-eaters that I had read of.
Across the room there was an opening. I began to move towards it. Still nobody moved. It was impossible to know whether those automatons were aware of me. Then I saw that two of them had arisen and were coming towards me. I waited. They put their hands on my arms and led me out of the room.
We went along the same corridor, up the same flights of stairs, and emerged at the cabin where I had met the commander. The curtains parted. He was sitting there again, staring at me with his concentrated glance. At once I was on the defensive, but this look had none of the domination that had outraged me before. Instead of searching my mind, it seemed to be trying to tell me something. I got a feeling that there was something he could not understand, and that he was trying to express this to me. I dropped my attitude of hostile defence. Yes, he was trying to convey to me that he did not understand what I had done to him. The message came to my mind through his eyes, as if he had allowed me to read his thoughts. He wanted to know why I had acted to him as I had. The question surprised me. I thought that it must be as clear as light to anyone that I had to resist the violation of my mind. Yet the man in front of me did not understand it. Again he was asking me insistently why I had done it. I couldn’t let him into my mind again to read the answer. I could allow no being to enter there. But how was I to establish contact with him?
Instinctively I began to speak in Latin, since my mind associated him and his surroundings with the Latin speech. He stared steadily at me. His questioning of my mind stopped. His eyes were now full of a different sort of concentration. He was sending me some message again: “Slowly, slowly,” it said. “More slowly. Your speech is difficult to understand.”
My heart leaped up. He found me difficult to follow, but he was following me; he was trying to understand. I began to speak word by word, as if to a foreigner who knew little of the language. I tried to explain to him that, if he wanted information from me, the only way to get it wa
s by asking me, in which case I would tell him everything.
He showed no sign that he understood my answer. At first I thought he was unable to understand my words, then I knew that this was not so—that he had grasped my meaning, but that he could not understand my point of view. His mind was sending a message back to me—a question:
“Why, if you are willing to tell me everything, did you strike at me when I tried to see everything in your mind?”
I began to explain slowly, word by word, that no man had a right to enter into my mind or to try to take hold of my powers of will and thought. I must be free to give these or withhold them as I thought right.
“Free?” came back his query. “Free?”
The word and the thought were equally unintelligible to him. I saw that he could get no further in that way, and I began to speak again.
“Perhaps you would tell me what you want to know?” I said. “Then I shall tell you everything I can.”
There was a pause. Then my mind received the question:
“Why did you come?”
“My father had come here before me,” I answered. “I came to look for him.”
“Your father?” his mind said. “Your father?” Then he went on: “Why should you look for your father?”
This question amazed me, and for the first time, I think, I began to get some inkling of the impassable gulf that separated my mind from that of the man in front of me.
“I love my father,” I answered. “He has been lost to us. It was natural that I should come to look for him.”
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