Title: Think Yourself to Death
Author: Marlowe, Stephen, 1928-2008
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Think Yourself to Death" ***


                         THINK YOURSELF TO DEATH

                       A "JOHNNY MAYHEM" ADVENTURE

                             By C. H. THAMES

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]


[Sidenote: _If you've never read a Johnny Mayhem story before, you are
in for a treat. Johnny, who wears different bodies the way ordinary
people wear clothes, is one of the most fascinating series characters in
science fiction._]


When he reached Ophiuchus, Johnny Mayhem was wearing the body of an
elderly Sirian gentleman.

Nothing could have been more incongruous. The Sirian wore a pince-nez, a
dignified two-piece jumper in a charcoal color, sedate two-tone boots
and a black string-tie.

The loiterers in the street near the Galactic Observer's building
looked, and pointed, and laughed. Using the dignity of the dead Sirian,
whose body he wore like other people wear clothing, Johnny Mayhem
ignored them. They had a point, of course. It was hot and humid on
Ophiuchus IX. The loiterers in the dusty, evil-smelling streets wore
nothing but loin cloths.

Mayhem went inside the building, which was air-conditioned. Probably it
was the only air-conditioned structure on the entire planet. Mayhem
dabbed at his Sirian forehead gratefully, mopping at sweat. As near as
he could figure, his life expectancy in this body was down to three
days, Earth style. He wondered fleetingly why the Galactic League had
sent him here to Ophiuchus. He shrugged, knowing he would find out soon
enough.

The Galactic Observer on Ophiuchus IX, a middle-aged Indian from Bombay
named Kovandaswamy, wore an immaculate white linen loin cloth on his
plump body and a relieved smile on his worried face when Mayhem entered
his office. The two men shook hands.

"So you're Mayhem?" Kovandaswamy said in English. "They told me to
expect you, sir. Pardon my staring, but I've never been face to face
with a legend before. I'm impressed."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mayhem laughed. "You'll get over it."

"Well, at least as a Sirian gentleman, you're not very prepossessing.
That helps."

"It wasn't my idea. It never is."

"I know. I know that, sir." Kovandaswamy got up nervously from his desk
and paced across the room. "Do you know anything about Ophiuchus IX,
Mayhem?"

"Not much. It's one of the Forgotten Worlds, isn't it?"

"Precisely, sir. Ophiuchus IX is one of scores of interstellar worlds
colonized in the first great outflux from Earth."

"You mean during the population pressure of the 24th century?"

"Exactly. Then Ophiuchus IX, like the other Forgotten Worlds, was all
but forgotten. As you know, Mayhem, the first flux of colonization
receded like a wave, inertia set in, and the so-called Forgotten Worlds
became isolated from the rest of the galaxy for generations. Only in the
past fifty years are we finding them again, one by one. Ophiuchus IX is
typical, isolated from the galaxy at large by a dust cloud that--"

"I know. I came through it."

"It was colonized originally with Indians from southern and eastern
India, on Earth. That's why the Galactic League appointed me Observer.
I'm an Indian. These people--well, they're what my people might have
developed into if they'd lived for hundreds of years in perfect
isolation."

"What's the trouble?"

Kovandaswamy answered with a question of his own. "You are aware of the
Galactic League's chief aim?"

"Sure. To see that no outworld, however small or distant, is left in
isolation. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes," agreed Kovandaswamy. "Their reason is obvious. For almost a
thousand years now the human race has outpaced its social and moral
development with development in the physical sciences. For almost a
thousand years mankind has had the power to destroy itself. In isolation
this is possible. With mutual interchange of ideas, it is extremely
unlikely. Thus, in the interests of human survival, the Galactic League
tries to thwart isolated development. So far, the Forgotten Worlds have
cooperated. But Ophiuchus IX is an exception."

"And the League wants me to find out why?"

"Precisely."

"How are they thwarting--"

Kovandaswamy was sweating despite the air-conditioning, despite his
almost-naked state. "You have the right to turn this mission down, of
course. The League told me that."

"I'm here," Mayhem said simply.

"Very well, sir. Sooner or later, every outworlder who ventures out
among the Ophiuchans kills himself."

"I guess I didn't hear you. Did you say kills himself?"

"Suicide, Mayhem. Exactly."

"But how can you blame--"

"Like their ancestors from the Earthian sub-continent of India, Mayhem,
the Ophiuchans are mystics. The trance, the holy man who sits in
contemplation of his navel, the World Spirit--these are the things of
their culture most important to them. Mayhem, did you ever see a hundred
holy men of India working together?"

"Usually they don't work together."

"Precisely, sir. Precisely. Here on Ophiuchus, they do. And not merely a
hundred. All of them. Virtually all of them. Working together, their
minds in trance, unified, seeking their World Spirit, they can do
amazing things."

"Like mentally forcing the outworlders to kill themselves?"

"Yes, sir. Legally, they are innocent. Morally, they do not recognize
the outworlders as equals of themselves. The League wants to know what
they are trying to hide. It could be a threat to peace and--existence."

"You have a body for me?" Johnny would be ready with that provided.

       *       *       *       *       *

If anyone but Johnny Mayhem had asked that question, Kovandaswamy would
not have known what he was talking about, or would have thought him
insane, or both. But Johnny Mayhem was, of course, the legandary Man
Without a Body. How many corporeal shells had he inhabited in the past
half dozen years? He shrugged, not remembering. He couldn't remain in
one body more than a month: it would mean the final death of his _elan_,
his bodiless sentience. So far he had avoided that death.

The Galactic League would help him if it could. Every world which had a
human population and a Galactic League post, however small, must have a
body in cold storage, waiting for Johnny Mayhem if his services were
required. But no one knew exactly under what circumstances the Galactic
League Council, operating from the hub of the Galaxy, might summon
Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at the Hub and the
Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observers on primitive
worlds, knew the precise mechanism of Mayhem's coming. To others it was
a weird mystery.

Johnny Mayhem, bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had
been chased from Earth, a pariah and a criminal, almost seven years ago,
who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the
Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the
white magic of the planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as
a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a fresh
corpse or one which had been frozen properly ... an _elan_ doomed to
wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a
month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his
strange, lonely life to the service of the Galactic League because a
normal life and normal social relations were not possible for him....

"Then you'll do it?" Kovandaswamy asked on Ophiuchus IX. "Even though
you realize we can give you no official help not only because the
Galactic League approves of your work unofficially but can't sanction it
officially, but because an outworlder can't set his foot outside this
building for long or off the spacefield without risking death...."

"By suicide?"

"Yes. I'm practically a prisoner in Galactic League Headquarters, as is
my staff. You see--"

"What about the body?"

Kovandaswamy looked at him nervously. "A native, Mayhem. A native won't
be molested, you see."

"That figures. What kind of native?"

"In top shape, sir. Healthy, young, in the prime of life you might say."

"Then what's bothering you?"

"Nothing. Nothing, sir."

"Your technicians are ready?"

"Yes, sir. And vowed to secrecy."

Mayhem found a tiny capsule in the pocket of his Sirian jumper, and
popped it in his mouth.

"What--what's that?" Kovandaswamy asked.

Mayhem swallowed. "Curare," he said.

"Curare! A poison!"

"Paralysis," said Mayhem quickly. "Muscular paralysis. You die because
you stop breathing. Painless ... and...."

"But--"

"Call your technicians ... new body ... ready...." Gasping, the Sirian
gentleman, hardly Johnny Mayhem now, fell to the floor.

Trembling, Kovandaswamy pressed a button on his desk. A few moments
later, two white-coated technicians entered the office.

"Project M," Kovandaswamy said.

Grimly the technicians went to work.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mayhem awoke.

Ordinarily it was his _elan_ alone which journeyed between the worlds,
his _elan_ which was fed the information it would need in hypno-sleep
while the frozen body was thawed out. Sometimes, however, he came the
normal way in a body which still had some of its thirty days left, as he
had come to Ophiuchus IX in the Sirian gentleman.

Darkness. The body felt young and healthy. Mayhem wondered vaguely how
it had died, then decided it did not really matter. For the next thirty
days the body would live again, as Johnny Mayhem.

Recessed lighting glowed at the juncture of walls and ceiling. Mayhem
was reclining on a cot. A loin cloth and a large shawl had been laid out
for him. On the far wall of the room was a tinted mirror. Mayhem got up
and went over there.

What his new body looked like hardly mattered, he told himself. Youth,
health, strength--these were important. He could sense them internally.
He could....

He stared at the image in the mirror. His face turned beet red. He went
for the shawl and the loin cloth and put them on. Cursing, he went to
find Kovandaswamy.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" Mayhem demanded.

"You never asked what the--" Kovandaswamy began.

"How am I supposed to find out anything--like this?"

"It's a young body, a healthy body. It is also the one we were given
when the Galactic League first came here. It is the only one we were
given."

"Take it or leave it, eh?"

"I'm afraid so, Mayhem."

"All right. All right, I guess I shouldn't complain. It could probably
outrun and outfight and outthink the dyspeptic old Sirian gentleman, and
things turned out well enough on Sirius III. But it'll probably take
most of my time just getting used to it, Kovandaswamy. I'm supposed to
be conducting an investigation."

"At least as an Ophiuchan you won't arouse suspicion."

Mayhem nodded slowly, with reluctance. There was nothing else to say. He
shook hands with Kovandaswamy and, wearing the loin cloth and the shawl,
left the Galactic League building.

With, of course, a completely new identity.

Mayhem walked a mile and a half through hot, arid country. The League
building was isolated, as if its inmates might contaminate the native
Ophiuchans. Along the dusty road Mayhem passed a _guru_, the name for a
wise man or a holy man first in India and now here on Ophiuchus IX. The
guru sat in contemplation of the tip of his nose, legs crossed, soles of
feet up, eyes half-closed. The guru remained that way, without moving,
until Mayhem was out of sight. Then the guru behaved in a very
un-guru-like manner.

The guru got up quite nimbly, joints creaking, skin dry and cracked.
Three strides brought him to a tree with a partly hollow trunk. He
lifted a radio transmitter and began to talk.

       *       *       *       *       *

In twenty generations, the initially small population of Ophiuchus IX,
all colonists from India on Earth, had increased geometrically. The
colonized planet, now, was as over-populated as the teeming
sub-continent which long ago had sent the colonists seeking a new home.
As a result, unemployment was chronic, discontent widespread, and
whatever inner serenity mysticism might bring was widely sought after.
This did not stop the non-mystics, however, of whom there were many,
from seeking jobs that could pay money that could fill empty bellies....

[Illustration: The crazed mob was bent upon rapine and murder.]

A long line gathered outside the employment office of Denebian Exports
the morning after Mayhem had left the League building in his new body.
Denebian Exports was the largest outworld company currently on
Ophiuchus, a company which had solved the outworlder-suicide problem
quite simply by hiring no one but natives. Still, hoots and catcalls
surrounded those on the employment line. Other jobless Ophiuchans,
apparently preferring near-starvation to working for the outworlders,
threatened to make the situation dangerous.

Pandit Gandhi Menon, a lean, handsome Ophiuchan of perhaps thirty years,
wished there was some way he could shut his ears to the abuse. He needed
work. His father and mother were ill, his child was starving, his wife
already dead. The gurus offered their own unique solution, of course.
The body is nothing, they said. The mind is everything. But thus had the
gurus spoken for four thousand years, on Earth and on Ophiuchus. The
great majority of Ophiuchans, Pandit Gandhi Menon included, preferred
food for the body to food for mystic thought. Still, the crowds were
ugly, threatening to break up the line of job-seekers if Denebian
Exports didn't open its doors soon....

An unkempt little man, not old but with a matted growth of beard, an
unwashed body which gave the impression of wiry strength, and wild eyes,
abruptly flung himself at the young woman in line in front of Pandit.

Shouting, "Not our women, too!" the little man attacked the girl, trying
to drag her from the line. "It is bad enough our men, but not our
women!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Pandit caught the fanatic's wiry arm and brought it behind his scrawny
back in a hammerlock. "Leave her alone," he said. "If you try that
again, I'll break your arm."

The fanatic looked at Pandit with hate in his eyes, but stepped back and
stood to one side mouthing invective.

The girl, who was about twenty-five years old, had a livid mark on her
arm. She wore loin cloth and shawl, the usual garb. She was, Pandit
observed for the first time, quite pretty.

"Thank you," she said. "I--I'm not sure I like working for the
outworlders. But I need the money."

"Don't we all," Pandit told her. "But we're not hired yet. I am Pandit
Gandhi Menon."

"Sria Krishna," the girl said, smiling at him. "What sort of work is
it?"

"Don't you know, Sria Krishna?"

The girl shook her head and Pandit said: "Actually, I guess I don't
know, either. But there are rumors the outworlders want jet-pilots. Not
for rocketry. For jets. To fly to the Empty Places."

       *       *       *       *       *

"The Empty Places? Why?"

Pandit shrugged. "Because they are empty, perhaps. Because they are too
dry and too arid to support life. Because Denebian Export can claim
whatever it found there, for free export. So go the rumors. But surely
you can't pilot a jet."

"Can you?"

"Yes," Pandit said promptly with a faint show of pride.

"My father taught me. I want to thank you for what--"

"Nothing. Anyone in my position would have done it. This rabble--"

The rabble was still noisy. Occasionally they hurled offal at the
stragglers joining the rear of the long line. But Pandit and Sria
Krishna stood in the forefront, and presently the door opened. In a few
minutes Pandit watched the girl disappear inside. He waited nervously,
licking dry lips with a parched tongue. It was early morning, but
already very hot. He needed the work. Any work. He needed the money
which outworlders could pay so abundantly for honest work. He wondered
if the fanatic gurus ever thought of that. Then the door in front of him
opened again and a fat, unctuous-looking Ophiuchan came out. He seemed
to be an official of sorts.

"One more!" he said. "Only one! The rest of you begone."

Behind Pandit there was a general press of bodies, but he was first in
line and did not surrender his position. The unctuous-looking man
admitted him, half-expecting a bribe. Pandit passed him by; he didn't
have a single copper.

He approached a desk. The crowd noise outside was loud, those who had
not joined the line crowing because most of those on it had been turned
away. Behind the desk sat a small Denebian man of middle years. He
looked nervous.

"Can you fly?" he asked in a voice almost desperately thin.

"Yes," Pandit said. Then the rumors were right.

"How much experience?"

"Five years on and off."

"You have a license?"

"There are no licenses on Ophiuchus IX," Pandit pointed out.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. Habit. You people don't lie."

"We try not to."

"Your name?"

Pandit told him. The Denebian wrote it down on a form and said: "You'll
do. Pay is twenty credits a mission." It wasn't much, but it was more
than Pandit had expected.

"What do we fly?" he asked. Questions didn't seem welcome, but no harm
trying.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Denebian looked at him and laughed. "You want the job?"

"Yes, I want the job."

"Then don't ask questions."

Pandit nodded.

"Out through that door, then. The other new pilots are assembling."

And Pandit left the small office.

A moment later a buzzer sounded on the Denebian's desk. He spoke into a
grid: "Orkap here. Go ahead."

"The guru near the League building reports that a native Ophiuchan left
the building heading for the city."

"When was this?"

"Yesterday morning."

"And?"

"Draw your own conclusions. Natives don't go near the League
headquarters as a rule, do they?"

"No."

"And the League, of course, will want to know about the suicides?"

"Yes, but--"

"But nothing," said the radio voice, which belonged to the only other
Denebian currently on Ophiuchus IX. "We can assume this native is a spy.
For the League, Orkap."

"All right. I don't see any need to worry, though."

"Don't you? The gurus, like the other natives, can sham, but they can't
lie. Sooner or later a guru will be brought out of trance by the League,
questioned, and--"

"Tell them about us?" Orkap asked in a shocked voice.

"It could happen. Maybe it's happened already. There won't be any proof,
of course, but the League would send a spy. Suppose I describe this
native to you."

Orkap said, "Go ahead," and the radio voice did so.

In a shocked voice Orkap admitted: "I've given that Ophiuchan a pilot's
job this morning. There can't be any doubt about it."

"Ah, then you see? You see?"

"I can fix that. I can--"

"Orkap, Orkap. You'll do nothing now. Let the spy alone for now. Then,
in the Empty Places, you will merely announce to the pilots that there
is a spy among them. Don't reveal who it is." He could not believe his
ears.

"But--"

"They want work. They need work. They'll all be afraid the finger of
guilt may point at them. They'll work like dogs for you, and I wouldn't
be surprised if they uncovered the spy themselves."

"Yes," Orkap said. "Yes, I understand."

"All but one thing, Orkap. There is one thing you don't understand. The
spy's identity--"

"You already told me who the spy was."

"Yes. But there is another spy. Working for us, in the League building."

"I never knew," said Orkap.

"The spy among your pilots is more than appearance indicates. Did you
ever hear of Johnny Mayhem?"

Orkap's heart jumped into his throat. Who in the galaxy hadn't heard of
Mayhem? "But," he gasped, "a--"

"Nevertheless. It is Mayhem."

Orkap was suddenly afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his
life. The ubiquitous Mayhem.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fierce white sun of Ophiuchus IX broiled down on the Empty Places, a
featureless desert two-thousand miles across and as lividly white as
bleached bone. In all that burning emptiness, the jet cargo craft looked
very small and very insignificant, like black midges on the dead white
sand.

Midges among midges, the new pilots walked.

One said: "But I see no cargo."

Another: "These outworlders and their mystery...."

All were sweating, all uncomfortable, but all grateful for the twenty
credits a flight they would earn, whatever the cargo turned out to be.

"What do you think?" Pandit asked Sria.

"I think I've never been so hot in my life. I feel like I'm being
broiled alive."

"Here comes the Denebian now."

They had been driven into the Empty Places in a sand sled. The trip had
taken two days but because the sled was air-conditioned no one had
objected. When they saw the half dozen jets they knew why a sled had
taken them into the wilderness. The jets were small cargo-carriers with
room for pilot, co-pilot and perhaps a ton of cargo in each. Whatever it
was the Denebians wanted exported, it didn't take up much room.

Orkap of Deneb walked toward them past the first of the jets. He began
without preamble: "Your cargo is packed and ready to be moved in an
underground vault five hundred yards from here. You will break up into
pairs, a pilot and co-pilot for each jet." Sria Krishna and Pandit had
already paired themselves together. "You work on your own time, getting
the cargo with trundle-sleds, loading it, taking off, delivering it to
the Denebian freighter at the spaceport. When you are finished, you
collect your pay."

"Where do we sleep?" someone asked.

       *       *       *       *       *

Orkap smiled. "You didn't come out here to sleep. There is only a
limited amount of cargo. The jets are swift. You will be paid according
to the amount of work you do. Any other questions?"

"What about food?" a plump young Ophiuchan asked.

"You will be given energy tablets, as many as you wish. Any other
questions? No? Good. I have two additional things to say. First, you are
not to examine your cargo under any circumstances, either here, or in
transit, or on the spacefield. There are televid pick-up units in each
jet, so you will be watched at all times. Second--" Orkap paused and let
the silence grow and spread across the dazzling white expanse--"there is
a spy among you, wearing the body of an Ophiuchan but in reality--well,
I don't have to tell you who he is in reality." Orkap smiled grimly.
"There is only one body-changer in the galaxy, but one is quite enough."

One of the pilots said, a little breathlessly: "Johnny Mayhem!"

Orkap smiled again. "I am aware of Mayhem's identity," he said, "but I'm
not going to do anything about it."

The pilots waited. The sun glared down balefully. "You see," Orkap told
them, "we cannot be altogether sure that the rest of you are here simply
to earn your twenty credits a flight. Mayhem has unwittingly become our
insurance. Find Mayhem! Find the spy among you! A hundred credits bonus
to the man who does!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Pandit looked at Sria, who whistled. The girl said: "If they think we
can finish the job without sleep, picking up cargo and flying it to the
spaceport and returning for more, then a hundred credits is probably
more than any of us will earn. They'll all be looking like hawks for
this Mayhem."

"And," Pandit agreed, "if there's a native spy among them, he'd be
afraid to show himself for fear they'll think he's Mayhem. Very clever
of the Denebians."

"... to work at once," Orkap was saying. He wore a blaster on his hip,
the only weapon among them. They all trudged behind him through the
burning, faceless sands. Soon they reached a depression from which the
sand had been cleared, baring the white bedrock of the Empty Places. In
the rock a square opening had been cut, shielded on each side from the
shifting sands by an up-curving lip. A ramp led down into darkness.

"You will find your cargo down there. Also enough trundle-sleds to go
around," Orkap explained. "The cargo is crated. The crates must remain
intact. Is that understood?"

It was understood.

Their sudden mutual suspicion a pall worse than the heat, the Ophiuchans
descended the ramp. They needed the money or they wouldn't be here. The
money meant more to them than anything: this was no time to be
far-sighted. Yet one of them was a spy for the Galactic League--Johnny
Mayhem.

One of them, but which?

Pandit made a quick estimate of the number of crates. They were stacked
neatly against one wall, each about four feet by four by four. And from
the size of them, a single crate would fill the cargo bay of each of the
jets. Pandit made a rough estimate. Two dozen crates, perhaps. In the
dim light it was hard to tell. Two dozen crates, six jets, twelve
Ophiuchans. Four trips for each jet. A half hour to load, ten minutes to
unload, an hour and a half by jet to the spacefield. Three hours and
forty minutes, round trip. Say, four hours. Four times four, sixteen.
Sixteen hours of steady work for eighty credits. No time for mystery or
suspicion. Barely time for mistrust....

"You, there!" a voice called. "What are you doing?"

It was one of the other Ophiuchans, quite the biggest of the lot. Pandit
had seen him outside and remembered his name. He was Raj Shiva, a tall,
muscular, swarthy Ophiuchan, with small, alert, suspicious eyes and a
livid scar alongside his jaw.

"Nothing," Pandit said. "Nothing."

"No? The others are loading already. I'll be watching you."

For a hundred credits, Pandit thought furiously, but said nothing. Sria
touched his shoulder. "I have one of the trundle-sleds," she said.
"Let's get about it."

"Right," said Pandit.

Raj Shiva watched them a few moments longer, then drifted away with his
own partner. It took Pandit and Sria, sweating copiously in the
tremendous heat, a few minutes less than half an hour to load one of the
crates aboard their jet. Three of the other ships were already airborne,
whining away toward the spacefield.

Pandit looked at the crate. There were no markings on it anywhere. The
wood looked new, but that meant absolutely nothing. In the dry heat of
the Empty Places, wood would last a century, a millennium. They could
not tell how old it was.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Ready?" Sria Krishna called from the controls.

Pandit had secured the crate in the cargo bay. "Ready," he responded.

Moments later acceleration thrust them back in the twin pilot seats.

Sria leveled the jet at twenty thousand and they sped at eight hundred
miles an hour toward the city and the spacefield just beyond it.

"Do you wonder about it?" Sria asked after a while.

"About what?"

"The cargo."

"We aren't supposed to."

"I know." Sria laughed. "I'm a woman, you see."

Pandit grinned at her. "Curiosity," he said. "A woman's trait on any
world."

Sria got up from the pilot chair but Pandit placed his hand on her
shoulder and gently shoved her down again. "They have a televid unit
aboard," he said, "remember?"

Sria nodded. The jet sped on.

They landed at the spacefield. They were the fourth jet down and one of
the other three had taken off on the return leg of the flight. A
Denebian Pandit had never seen before was supervising the loin-cloth
garbed laborers loading the crates aboard a Denebian spaceship. With
Sria he delivered their crate on the trundle-sled, returned with the
sled to their jet, and took off.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just short of four hours from the time they started they returned to the
Empty Places. They had gained a little time and were the second team
down. From the jet ahead of them, Raj Shiva led a puny, middle-aged
co-pilot.

Orkap stood in the underground storage room. Looking at his wrist chrono
he said to the four Ophiuchans who came down the ramp: "You made fine
time." Raj Shiva's puny companion said something, but Raj Shiva grabbed
his arm and they began to load a second crate. Pandit and Sria loaded
theirs in silence.

They made their second round trip in four hours exactly. It was
completely dark when they returned to the Empty Places. Sria was worried
they would overshoot the cargo point, but Pandit brought the little jet
down within a few hundred yards of its takeoff point.

They could see nothing when they shut off the jet's running lights,
except for the glow which came from the underground room. They reached
it and went down the ramp. Pandit judged that half the crates were gone
now. He took a quick tour of the dimly-lit room while Sria got the
trundle-sled into position against one of the crates.

"Nobody here," Pandit said in a whisper. "The Denebian must be sleeping
in the sand-sled."

"Yes," Sria said a little breathlessly.

"I was thinking--"

"What?" Sria said. "Don't stop."

"If we wanted to examine one of the boxes, it would be suicide to open
the one we take. But we could open one of them down here, see what it
is, take another for ourselves--"

"You would do this?" Sria asked him. "Why?"

Pandit shrugged. "I have eyes," he said. "Our gurus did not broadcast
the death-wish to outworlders until the Denebians came. Then they
started. Have the Denebians sold them on the idea?"

"I don't know," Sria said.

"Well, let's assume they have. Why? Why would they do such a thing,
Sria?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Let me get this straight, Pandit. First, you think the gurus actually
are making the outworlders kill themselves?"

"Of course," Pandit said. "It's mental suggestion, on a scale only our
gurus are capable of. But don't you see, Sria, they wouldn't do it on
their own. The gurus are dirty, careless about their bodies--but
terribly arrogant. Left alone, they wouldn't think the outworlders
important enough to be concerned over one way or another. They certainly
wouldn't kill them."

"Go on," Sria urged.

"All right. The gurus have great knowledge of the mystical, but
externally they're naive. Let's suppose someone came along--the
Denebians in this case--and found something they wanted very badly on
Ophiuchus. These crates here, Sria. What would they do? They'd go to the
gurus and convince them--it wouldn't be difficult--that any intercourse
with outworlders would be harmful to Ophiuchus, that the outworlders
want to colonize and exploit our world, that sort of thing. While the
gurus are stewing it over, the Denebians could have prepared this
shipment here--whatever it is--for departure. But the gurus, too well
convinced by them, could have acted sooner than they expected, making it
all but impossible for the small handful of outworlders, the Denebians
among them, to go abroad without fear of taking their own lives. Perhaps
a few, like Orkap and that other Denebian, are not at all suicide-prone.
Perhaps a few can withstand it. As for the rest, it's indoors and away
from the mental influence of the gurus, or off Ophiuchus entirely. Which
would leave the Denebians with a problem they hadn't thought of." His
words made sense.

"Yes!" cried Sria excitedly. "Now that they have their valuable cargo
ready to go, how can they get it off Ophiuchus without help?"

"We," said Pandit softly, "are that help."

Sria asked: "What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't. I never had anything against the
outworlders. How could I? We're all progeny of outworlders who came here
almost five hundred years ago from a place called India on Earth. But
the gurus--"

"--have been deceived. You said so yourself."

Pandit was sweating, and it was more than the heat which made him sweat.
He paced up to the crates, then back again, then to the crates. Suddenly
he said, "All right. All right, I'll do it. Someone's got to find out
what the Denebians want here."

And Pandit began to pry at one of the boxes with a knife he carried in
his loin cloth. Sria said, "I'll keep watch. You call me when it's
opened."

"Maybe you ought to get out of here. In case anything happens, I don't
want to get you involved."

But Sria went up the ramp and crouched there, waiting, watching. The
desert was very quiet, entirely windless, and hot even at night. Stars
sprinkled the sky overhead and far off she thought she heard the distant
whine of a jet. "Hurry," she called. From below she heard the sound of
wood being pried away from wood. She heard, or imagined she heard, the
jet coming closer. "Hurry!" she called softly.

Finally three words drifted up to her. "Come here, Sria." She felt a
little relieved. Now that he'd finished.

       *       *       *       *       *

She listened for the jet. Now she heard nothing. She went swiftly down
the ramp.

Pandit stood before one of the crates, perspiring freely. He had pried
loose one of the side walls and a smooth metal surface with stenciled
lettering on it was exposed.

He said: "I can't read that. It's a language I never saw before."

Sria bent closer and looked at the stenciled lettering. A voice, not
Pandit's, said:

"I thought it would be you two.... No, don't move!"

A big muscular figure silhouetted against the starlight, and a smaller,
puny, thin-legged figure. Raj Shiva and his co-pilot.

"A hundred credits each, Handus," Raj Shiva said as he ran down the
ramp. "Can you keep the girl from getting away?"

Handus rushed down at his heels.

Pandit met Raj Shiva at the foot of the ramp. Pandit was a big man by
Ophiuchan standards, but Raj Shiva was bigger. "Run, Sria!" Pandit
cried, and met the giant with his knife.

Raj Shiva parried the blow with his forearm, then his big hands moved
swiftly and the knife clattered to the floor. Sria ran for the ramp, her
bare feet padding swiftly against the stone floor. Handus was waiting
for her at the foot of the ramp in an awkward crouch. She had a glimpse
of Raj Shiva and Pandit straining together, then Handus struck her with
his balled fist. It was a puny blow, but Sria staggered back, her jaw
numb. Laughing shrilly, Handus leaped at her. She was shoved back,
tripped over something, and fell. For a moment all the lights blinked
out inside her head.

Inside--no! Raj Shiva and Pandit stumbled about the room, struck
something, there was a loud popping sound, a tinkling, and the lights in
the storage room went out.

"Where is she?" Handus called. "I can't find her!"

She heard him groping about, heard the others struggling together. She
got to her feet and stood perfectly still, waiting for anything. She
wished she had a weapon--something--she was only a woman--

Then a voice whispered: "Hurry, Sria! Hurry!"

"Pandit?"

He took her arm in the darkness. She couldn't see him. They went to the
crates and wrestled one on their trundle-sled.

"Not the open one?" Sria gasped.

"No. No."

They heard footsteps.... Saw a figure for a moment silhouetted against
starlight. Handus was fleeing, probably for help.

They took their sled out into the night and dragged it across the sand
toward their waiting jet. They loaded the crate in the cargo bay. While
Pandit was finishing the job in the darkness, Sria sat down at the
controls.

"Ready?" she shouted above the whine of the jets.

Pandit said that he was. She hardly heard his voice.

A moment later, she took the small cargo jet up.

       *       *       *       *       *

She heard Pandit moving in the small cabin behind her. She said: "We
ought to take it to the League authorities, don't you think?" She had to
shout to be heard above the whining roar of the jets.

"Why?"

"I was able to read the writing. It's Procyonian, Pandit. Do you know
anything about the Procyonians?"

"Well, a few centuries ago, they were the most warlike people in the
galaxy. It was rumored they had a cache of thermonuclear bombs hidden
somewhere, after such weapons were outlawed in the twenty-fifth century.
The cache was never found, until tonight. We found it, Pandit."

"But Orkap and--"

"That's true. It was found by the Denebians first. Don't you see,
Pandit? Orkap and the others, private Denebian traders. It wasn't the
government. It never is the government these days. But unscrupulous
individuals, Pandit, armed with two dozen hydrogen bombs--why, they
could take over their own world on threat of imminent destruction, or
some outworld plum they had their eye on, or--"

"I see." Pandit's voice was barely audible above the whine of the jets.

"It's a job the Galactic League can handle," Sria went on. "Now that
it's out in the open--or will be as soon as we get to the spacefield.
You've done your work, Pandit, and your people won't forget you for it.
As for me, my work here is finished too."

"Your work?"

Above the roar of the jet, Sria shouted: "Yes. I am Johnny Mayhem." She
smiled in the darkness. Johnny Mayhem, she thought, in a girl's body.
Well, he'd been young men and old, weak and strong, sick and healthy,
human and alien outworlder--so why not a girl too?

       *       *       *       *       *

All at once Pandit's hand lay heavily on her shoulder. She turned around
and in the darkness but with the lights of the instrument board on it
saw the gleam of a knife blade. The face beyond the blade, leering from
darkness, was not Pandit's. She hadn't actually known it was Pandit. She
hadn't seen him. She'd hardly been able to hear his voice.

It was Raj Shiva.

"Fly us to Denebian Exports," he said, "or I'll kill you and do it
myself."

"You're making a mistake. Your people belong with the Galactic League,
not with a handful of adventurers who--"

"The Denebians are right," Raj Shiva said fanatically. "My people would
be better off left alone."

"I'm flying this jet to the spaceport--and the League."

"I'll kill you. I know all about you, Mayhem. You're not a woman,
really. You're not even a native. That's a dead body, isn't it? But if I
kill it--again--while you're in it, you die to. You'll do what I say!"

       *       *       *       *       *

This very night, unless something was done about it, the cache of
thermonuclear weapons would be space-bound, the first hydrogen bombs
loose in the galaxy for almost five hundred years. Wouldn't mankind ever
begin to learn? Mayhem-Sria thought wearily. He knew the answer, of
course: most men would, but the few who refused could bring destruction
to an entire galaxy....

Moments before, apparent success of a mission. Now, failure. Or death.
Or both.

Sria's hand flashed out suddenly and struck the instrument board. The
jet plummeted earthward with a loud whining sound. Sria felt herself
shoved back by the tremendous acceleration into the cushions of the
pilot chair. She heard a wild exclamation from Raj Shiva, but couldn't
turn around to see what had happened. Grim-lipped, she kept the ship
hurtling Earthward. She knew it was dangerous and might even prove
disastrous. Her body could take so much, then she would black out. But
if she didn't maintain the dive until the last possible instant, Raj
Shiva would get control of the ship and its vital cargo. She was only a
girl, but she was protected by the crash-padding of the pilot chair. Raj
Shiva, unprotected, was behind her somewhere....

Down through the thin upper atmosphere of Ophiuchus IX screamed the
small ship, its heat-dial blinking on and off in warning as friction
scorched its thin shell. The scream of air became more deep-throated as
the atmosphere became thicker....

Ten thousand feet.

Eight thousand.

Six.

Sria's eyes saw black. Her breath was labored. Needles of pain darted in
her skull, plucked at her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream but heard
nothing. She felt as if she must be forced clear through the protective
cushions of the pilot chair.

Five thousand feet.

Four thousand.

Blackness and peace and a settling lassitude....

Three thousand feet.

With hands that would barely function, Sria with supreme effort brought
the jet out of its death-dive. She slumped in the pilot chair for a long
time, too weak to do anything else.

Then she looked back at Raj Shiva.

Who lay slack and unconscious against the rear bulkhead of the cargo
ship.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mayhem-Sria brought the jet down and, middle of the night or no, saw
Kovandaswamy. Raj Shiva was taken into custody. A jet was sent out,
loaded with Leaguemen who had proved immune to the guru death-wish and
all armed to the teeth. It landed at the cache and stood guard over it.
Pandit was found, unconscious, one of his arms broken, but otherwise all
right. A second jet prevented the Denebian Export ship from blasting off
with the hydrogen bombs already loaded. Orkap and his companion were
taken into custody.

The rest, of course, is history. The gurus of Ophiuchus IX were shown
what had been taking place in the name of friendship between themselves
and Deneb and in the name of isolation. Most of the gurus retired
entirely from active life. The few who did not spent the rest of their
days working for cooperation between Ophiuchus and the rest of the
Galactic League. Orkap and his companion were sent back to Deneb for
punishment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two weeks later, Kovandaswamy shook Sria's hand.

"A girl," he said. "You did it as a girl. I still can't believe it. But
then, of such stuff is the Mayhem legend made."

Mayhem smiled. Already the Hub had a new assignment for him. He could
feel the old excitement, the wonder, stirring him. He smiled again and
told Kovandaswamy: "Better not tell that fellow Pandit. I think he had a
crush on Sria."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Think Yourself to Death" ***

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