Title: The Inhabited
Author: Wilson, Richard, 1920-1987
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Inhabited" ***


                         Transcriber's Note:

     This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1953.
     Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
     copyright on this publication was renewed.


    [Illustration: _Containing a foe is sound military thinking--unless
                    it's carried out so literally that everybody becomes
                    an innocent Trojan Horse!_]


                            The Inhabited


                                  By


                            RICHARD WILSON


                        Illustrated by ASHMAN

       *       *       *       *       *



Two slitted green eyes loomed up directly in front of him. He plunged
into them immediately.

He had just made the voyage, naked through the dimension stratum, and
he scurried into the first available refuge, to hover there, gasping.

The word "he" does not strictly apply to the creature, for it had no
sex, nor are the words "naked," "scurried," "hover" and "gasping"
accurate at all. But there are no English words to describe properly
what it was and how it moved, except in very general terms. There are
no Asiatic, African or European words, though perhaps there are
mathematical symbols. But, because this is not a technical paper, the
symbols have no place in it.

He was a sort of spy, a sort of fifth-columnist. He had some of the
characteristics of a kamikaze pilot, too, because there was no telling
if he'd get back from his mission.

Hovering in his refuge and gasping for breath, so to speak, he tried
to compose his thoughts after the terrifying journey and adjust
himself to his new environment, so he could get to work. His job, as
first traveler to this new world, the Earth, was to learn if it were
suitable for habitation by his fellow beings back home. Their world
was about ended and they had to move or die.

He was being discomfited, however, in his initial adjustment. His
first stop in the new world--unfortunately, not only for his dignity,
but for his equilibrium--had been in the mind of a cat.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was his own fault, really. He and the others had decided that his
first in a series of temporary habitations should be in one of the
lower order of animals. It was a matter of precaution--the mind would
be easy to control, if it came to a contest. Also, there would be less
chance of running into a mind-screen and being trapped or destroyed.

The cat had no mind-screen, of course; some might even have argued
that she didn't have a mind, especially the human couple she lived
with. But whatever she did have was actively at work, feeling the
solid tree-branch under her claws and the leaves against which her
tail switched and seeing the half-grown chickens below.

The chickens were scratching in the forbidden vegetable garden. The
cat, the runt of her litter and thus named Midge, often had been
chased out of the garden herself, but it was no sense of justice which
now set her little gray behind to wriggling in preparation for her
leap. It was mischief, pure and simple, which motivated her.

Midge leaped, and the visitor, who had made the journey between
dimensions without losing consciousness, blacked out.

When he revived, he was being rocketed along in an up-and-down and at
the same time side-ward series of motions which got him all giddy.
With an effort he oriented himself so that the cat's vision became
his, and he watched in distaste as the chickens scurried, scrawny
wings lifted and beaks achirp, this way and that to escape the
monstrous cat.

The cat never touched the chickens; she was content to chase them.
When she had divided the flock in half, six in the pea patch and six
under the porch, she lay down in the shade of the front steps and
reflectively licked a paw.

The spy got the impression of reflection, but he was baffledly unable
to figure out what the cat was reflecting on. Midge in turn licked a
paw, rolled in the dust, arched her back against the warm stone of the
steps and snapped cautiously at a low-flying wasp. She was a contented
cat. The impression of contentment came through very well.

The dimension traveler got only one other impression at the
moment--one of languor.

The cat, after a prodigious pink yawn, went to sleep. The traveler,
although he had never known the experience of voluntary
unconsciousness, was tempted to do the same. But he fought against the
influence of his host and, robbed of vision with the closing of the
cat's eyes, he meditated.

He had been on Earth less than ten minutes, but his meditation
consisted of saying to himself in his own way that if he was ever
going to get anything done, he'd better escape from this cat's mind.

He accomplished that a few minutes later, when there was a crunching
of gravel in the driveway and a battered Plymouth stopped and a man
stepped out. Midge opened her eyes, crept up behind a row of stones
bordering the path to the driveway and jumped delicately out at the
man, who tried unsuccessfully to gather her into his arms.

Through the cat's eyes from behind the porch steps, where Midge had
fled, the traveler took stock of the human being it was about to
inhabit:

Five-feet-elevenish, thirtyish, blond-brown-haired,
blue-summer-suited.

And no mind-screen.

The traveler traveled and in an instant he was looking down from his
new height at the gray undersized cat. Then the screen door of the
porch opened and a female human being appeared.

       *       *       *       *       *

With the male human impressions now his, the traveler experienced some
interesting sensations. There was a body-to-body togetherness
apparently called "gimmea hug" and a face-to-face-touching ceremony,
"kiss."

"Hmm," thought the traveler, in his own way. "Hmm."

The greeting ceremony was followed by one that had this catechism:

"Suppareddi?"

"Onnatable."

Then came the "eating."

This eating, something he had never done, was all right, he decided.
He wondered if cats ate, too. Yes, Midge was under the gas stove,
chewing delicately at a different kind of preparation.

There was a great deal of eating. The traveler knew from the
inspection of the mind he was inhabiting that the man was enormously
hungry and tired almost to exhaustion.

"The damn job had to go out today," was what had happened. "We worked
till almost eight o'clock. I think I'll take a nap after supper while
you do the dishes."

The traveler understood perfectly, for he was a very sympathetic type.
That was one reason they had chosen him for the transdimensional
exploration. They had figured the best applicant for the job would be
one with an intellect highly attuned to the vibrations of these
others, known dimly through the warp-view, one extremely sensitive and
with a great capacity for appreciation. Shrewd, too, of course.

The traveler tried to exercise control. Just a trace of it at first.
He attempted to dissuade the man from having his nap. But his effort
was ignored.

The man went to sleep as soon as he lay down on the couch in the
living room. Once again, as the eyes closed, the traveler was
imprisoned. He hadn't realized it until now, but he evidently couldn't
transfer from one mind to another except through the eyes, once he was
inside. He had planned to explore the woman's mind, but now he was
trapped, at least temporarily.

Oh, well. He composed himself as best he could to await the awakening.
This sleeping business was a waste of time.

There were footsteps and a whistling noise outside. The inhabited man
heard the sounds and woke up, irritated. He opened his eyes a slit as
his wife told the neighbor that Charlie was taking a nap, worn out
from a hard day at the office, and the visitor, darting free,
transferred again.

But he miscalculated and there he was in the mind of the neighbor.
Irritated with himself, the traveler was about to jump to the mind of
the woman when he was caught up in the excitement that was consuming
his new host.

"Sorry," said the neighbor. "The new batch of records I ordered came
today and I thought Charlie'd like to hear them. Tell him to come over
tomorrow night, if he wants to hear the solidest combo since Muggsy's
Roseland days."

The wife said all right, George, she'd tell him. But the traveler was
experiencing the excited memories of a dixieland jazz band in his new
host's mind, and he knew he'd be hearing these fantastically wonderful
new sounds at first hand as soon as George got back to his turntable.

They could hardly wait, George and his inhabitant both.

       *       *       *       *       *

His inhabitant had come from a dimension-world of vast, contemplative
silences. There was no talk, no speech vibrations, no noise which
could not be shut out by the turning of a mental switch. Communication
was from mind to mind, not from mouth to ear. It was a world of
peaceful silence, where everything had been done, where the struggle
for physical existence had ended, and where there remained only the
sweet fruits of past labor to be enjoyed.

That had been the state of affairs, at any rate, up until the time of
the Change, which was something the beings of the world could not
stop. It was not a new threat from the lower orders, which they had
met and overcome before, innumerable times. It was not a threat from
outside--no invasion such as they had turned back in the past. Nor was
it a cooling of their world or the danger of imminent collision with
another.

The Change came from within. It was decadence. There was nothing left
for the beings to do. They had solved all their problems and could
find no new ones. They had exhausted the intricate workings of
reflection, academic hypothetica and mind-play; there hadn't been a
new game, for instance, in the lifetime of the oldest inhabitant.

And so they were dying of boredom. This very realization had for a
time halted the creeping menace, because, as they came to accept it
and discuss ways of meeting it, the peril itself subsided. But the
moment they relaxed, the Change started again.

Something had to be done. Mere theorizing about their situation was
not enough. It was then that they sent their spy abroad.

Because they had at one time or another visited each of the planets in
their solar system and had exhausted their possibilities or found them
barren, and because they were not equipped, even at the peak of their
physical development, for intergalactic flight, there remained only
one way to travel--in time.

Not forward or backward, for both had been tried. Travel ahead had
been discouraging--in fact, it had convinced them that their normal
passage through the years had to be stopped. The reason had been made
dramatically clear--they, the master race, did not exist in the
future. They had vanished and the lower forms of life had begun to
take over.

Travel into the past would be even more boring than continued
existence in the present, they realized, because they would be
reliving the experiences they had had and still vividly remembered,
and would be incapable of changing them. It would be both tiresome and
frustrating.

That left only one way to go--sideways in time, across the dimension
line--to a world like their own, but which had developed so
differently through the eons that to visit it and conquer the minds of
its inhabitants would be worth while.

In that way they picked Earth for their victim and sent out their spy.
Just one spy. If he didn't return, they'd send another. There was
enough time. And they had to be sure.

       *       *       *       *       *

George put a record on the phonograph and fixed himself a drink while
the machine warmed up.

The interdimensional invader reacted pleasurably to the taste and
instant warming effect of the liquor on George's mind.

"Ahh!" said George aloud, and his temporary inhabitant agreed with
him.

George lifted the phonograph needle into the groove and went to sit on
the edge of a chair. Jazz poured out of the speaker and the man beat
out the time with his heels and toes.

The visitor in his mind experimented with control. He went at it
subtly, at first, so as not to alarm his host. He tried to quiet the
beating of time with the feet. He suggested that George cross his legs
instead. The beating of time continued. The visitor urged that George
do this little thing he asked; he bent all his powers to the
suggestion, concentrating on the tapping feet. There wasn't even a
glimmer of reaction.

Instead, there was a reverse effect. The pounding of music was
insistent. The visitor relaxed. He rationalized and told himself he
would try another time. Now he would observe this phenomenon. But he
became more than just an observer.

The visitor reeled with sensation. The vibrations gripped him, twisted
him and wrung him out. He was limp, palpitating and thoroughly happy
when the record ended and George got up immediately to put on another.

Hours later, drunk with the jazz and the liquor, the visitor went
blissfully to sleep inside George's mind when his host went to bed.

[Illustration]

He awoke, with George, to the experience of a nagging throb. But in a
few minutes, after a shower, shave and breakfast with steaming
coffee, it was gone, and the visitor looked forward to the coming day.

It was George's day off and he was going fishing. Humming to himself,
he got out his reel and flies and other paraphernalia and contentedly
arranged them in the back of his car. Visions of the fine, quiet time
he was going to have went through George's mind, and his inhabitant
decided he had better leave. He had to get on with his exploration; he
mustn't allow himself to be trapped into just having fun.

But he stayed with George as the fisherman drove his car out of the
garage and along a highway. The day was sunny and warm. There was a
slight wind and the green trees sighed delicately in it. The birds
were pleasantly vocal and the colors were superb.

The visitor found it oddly familiar. Then he realized what it was.

His world was like this, too. It had the trees, the birds, the wind
and the colors. All were there. But its people had long since ceased
to appreciate them. Their existence had turned inward and the external
things no longer were of interest. Yet the visitor, through George's
eyes, found this world delightful. He reveled in its beauty, its
breathtaking panorama and its balance. And he wondered if he was able
to appreciate it for the first time now because he was being active,
although in a vicarious way, and participating in life, instead of
merely reflecting on it. This would be a clue to have analyzed by the
greater minds to which he would report.

Then, with a wrench, the visitor chided himself. He was allowing
himself to identify too closely with this mortal, with his
appreciation of such diverse pursuits as jazz and fishing. He had to
get on. There was work to be done.

George waved to a boy playing in a field and the boy waved back. With
the contact of their eyes, the visitor was inside the boy's mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

The boy had a dog. It was a great, lumbering mass of affection, a
shaggy, loving, prankish beast. A protector and a playmate, strong and
gentle.

Now that the visitor was in the boy's mind, he adored the animal, and
the dog worshiped him.

He fought to be rational. "Come now," he told himself, "don't get
carried away." He attempted control. A simple thing. He would have the
boy pull the dog's ear, gently. He concentrated, suggested. But all
his efforts were thwarted. The boy leaped at the dog, grabbed it
around the middle. The dog responded, prancing free.

The visitor gave up. He relaxed.

Great waves of mute, suffocating love enveloped him. He swam for a few
minutes in a pool of joy as the boy and dog wrestled, rolled over each
other in the tall grass, charged ferociously with teeth bared and
growls issuing from both throats, finally to subside panting and
laughing on the ground while the clouds swept majestically overhead
across the blue sky.

He could swear the dog was laughing, too.

As they lay there, exhausted for the moment, a young woman came upon
them. The visitor saw her looking down at them, the soft breeze
tugging at her dark hair and skirt. Her hands were thrust into the
pockets of her jacket. She was barefoot and she wriggled her toes so
that blades of grass came up between them.

"Hello, Jimmy," she said. "Hello, Max, you old monster."

The dog thumped the ground with his tail.

"Hello, Mrs. Tanner," the boy said. "How's the baby coming?"

The girl smiled. "Just fine, Jimmy. It's beginning to kick a little
now. It kind of tickles. And you know what?"

"What?" asked Jimmy. The visitor in the boy's mind wanted to know,
too.

"I hope it's a boy, and that he grows up to be just like you."

"Aw." The boy rolled over and hid his face in the grass. Then he
peered around. "Honest?"

"Honest," she said.

"Gee whiz." The boy was so embarrassed that he had to leave. "Me and
Max are going down to the swimmin' hole. You wanta come?"

"No, thanks. You go ahead. I think I'll just sit here in the Sun for a
while and watch my toes curl."

As they said good-by, the visitor traveled to the new mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

With the girl's eyes, he saw the boy and the dog running across the
meadow and down to the stream at the edge of the woods.

The traveler experienced a sensation of tremendous fondness as he
watched them go.

But he mustn't get carried away, he told himself. He must make another
attempt to take command. This girl might be the one he could
influence. She was doing nothing active; her mind was relaxed.

The visitor bent himself to the task. He would be cleverly simple. He
would have her pick a daisy. They were all around at her feet. He
concentrated. Her gaze traveled back across the meadow to the grassy
knoll on which she was standing. She sat. She stretched out her arms
behind her and leaned back on them. She tossed her hair and gazed into
the sky.

She wasn't even thinking of the daisy.

Irritated, he gathered all his powers into a compact mass and hurled
them at her mind.

But with a swoop and a soar, he was carried up and away, through the
sweet summer air, to a cloud of white softness.

This was not what he had planned, by any means.

A steady, warm breeze enveloped him and there was a tinkle of faraway
music. It frightened him and he struggled to get back into contact
with the girl's mind. But there was no contact. Apparently he had been
cast out, against his will.

The forces of creation buffeted him. His dizzying flight carried him
through the clean air in swift journey from horizon to horizon, then
up, up and out beyond the limits of the atmosphere, only to return him
in a trice to the breast of the rolling meadow. He was conscious now
of the steady growth of slim green leaves as they pressed confidently
through the nurturing Earth, of the other tiny living things in and on
the Earth, and the heartbeat of the Earth itself, assuring him with
its great strength of the continuation of all things.

Then he was back with the girl, watching through her eyes a butterfly
as it fluttered to rest on a flower and perched there, gently waving
its gaudy wings.

He had not been cast out. The young woman herself had gone on that
wild journey to the heavens, not only with her mind, but with her
entire being, attuned to the rest of creation. There was a continuity,
he realized, a oneness between herself, the mother-to-be, and the
Universe. With her, then, he felt the stirrings of new life, and he
was proud and content.

He forgot for the moment that he had been a failure.

       *       *       *       *       *

The soft breeze seemed to turn chill. The Sun was still high and
unclouded, but its warmth was gone. With the girl, he felt a prickling
along the spine. She turned her head slightly and, through her eyes,
he saw, a few yards away in tall grass, a creeping man.

The eyes of the man were fixed on the girl's body and the traveler
felt her thrill of terror. The man lay there for a moment, hands flat
on the ground under his chest. Then he moved forward, inching toward
her.

The girl screamed. Her terror gripped the visitor. He was helpless.
His thoughts whirled into chaos, following hers.

The eyes of the creeping man flicked from side to side, then up. The
visitor quivered and cringed with the girl when she screamed again. As
the torrent of frightened sound poured from her throat, the creeping
man looked into her eyes. Instantly the visitor was sucked into his
mind.

It was a maelstrom. A tremendous conflict was going on in it. One part
of it was urging the body on in its fantastic crawl toward the young
woman frozen in terror against the sky. The visitor was aware of the
other part, submerged and struggling feebly, trying to get through
with a message of reason. But it was handicapped. The visitor sensed
these efforts being nullified by a crushing weight of shame.

The traveler fought against full identification with the deranged part
of the mind. Nevertheless, he sought to understand it, as he had
understood the other minds he'd visited. But there was nothing to
understand. The creeping man had no plan. There was no reason for his
action.

The visitor felt only a compulsion which said, "You must! You must!"

The visitor was frightened. And then he realized that he was less
frightened than the man was. The terror felt by the creeping man was
greater than the fear the visitor had experienced with the girl.

There were shouts and barking. He heard the shrill cry of a boy. "Go
get him, Max!"

There was a squeal of brakes from the road and a pounding of heavy
footsteps coming toward them.

With the man, the visitor rose up, confused, scared. A great shaggy
weight hurled itself and a growling, sharp-toothed mouth sought a
throat.

A voice yelled, "Don't shoot! The dog's got him!"

Then blackness.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Mersey." The voice summoned the visitor, huddling in a corner of the
deranged mind, fearing contamination.

The eyes opened, looked up at the ceiling of a barred cell.

"Dr. Cloyd is here to see you," the voice said.

The visitor felt the mind of his host seeking to close out the words
and the world, to return to sheltering darkness.

There was a rattle of keys and the opening of an iron door.

The eyes opened as a hand shook the psychotic Mersey by the shoulder.
The visitor sought escape, but the eyes avoided those of the other.

"Come with me, son," the doctor's voice said. "Don't be frightened.
No one will hurt you. We'll have a talk."

Mersey shook off the hand on his shoulder.

"Drop dead," he muttered.

"That wouldn't help anything," the doctor said. "Come on, man."

Mersey sat up and, through his eyes, the traveler saw the doctor's
legs. Were they legs or were they iron bars? The traveler cringed away
from the mad thought.

A room with a desk, a chair, a couch, and sunlight through a window.
Crawling sunlit snakes. The visitor shuddered. He sought the part of
the mind that was clear, but he sought in vain. Only the whirling
chaos and the distorted images remained now.

There was a pain in the throat and with Mersey he lifted a hand to it.
Bandaged--gleaming teeth and a snarling animal's mouth--fear, despair
and hatred. With the prisoner, he collapsed on the couch.

"Lie down, if you like," said Dr. Cloyd's voice. "Try to relax. Let me
help you."

"Drop dead," Mersey replied automatically. The visitor felt the
tenseness of the man, the unreasoning fear, and the resentment.

But as the man lay there, the traveler sensed a calming of the
turbulence. There was an urgent rational thought. He concentrated and
tried to help the man phrase it.

"The girl--is she all right? Did I...?"

"She's all right." The doctor's voice was soothing. It pushed back the
shadows a little. "She's perfectly all right."

The visitor sensed a dulled relief in Mersey's mind. The shadows still
whirled, but they were less ominous. He suggested a question, exulted
as Mersey attempted to phrase it: "Doctor, am I real bad off? Can...?"

But still the shadows.

"We'll work together," said the doctor's voice. "You've been ill, but
so have others. With your help, we can make you well."

The traveler made a tremendous effort. He urged Mersey to say: "I'll
help, doctor. I want to find peace."

But then Mersey's voice went on: "I must find a new home. We need a
new home. We can't stay where we are."

       *       *       *       *       *

The traveler was shocked at the words. He hadn't intended them to come
out that way. Somehow Mersey had voiced the underlying thoughts of his
people. The traveler sought the doctor's reaction, but Mersey wouldn't
look at him. The man's gaze was fixed on the ceiling above the couch.

"Of course," the doctor said. His words were false, the visitor
realized; he was humoring the madman.

"We had so much, but now there is no future," Mersey said. The visitor
tried to stop him. He would not be stopped. "We can't stay much
longer. We'll die. We must find a new world. Maybe you can help us."

Dr. Cloyd spoke and there was no hint of surprise in his voice.

"I'll help you all I can. Would you care to tell me more about your
world?"

Desperately, the visitor fought to control the flow of Mersey's words.
He had opened the gate to the other world--how, he did not know--and
all of his knowledge and memories now were Mersey's. But the traveler
could not communicate with the disordered mind. He could only
communicate through it, and then involuntarily. If he could escape the
mind ... but he could not escape. Mersey's eyes were fixed on the
ceiling. He would not look at the doctor.

"A dying world," Mersey said. "It will live on after us, but we will
die because we have finished. There's nothing more to do. The Change
is upon us, and we must flee it or die. I have been sent here as a
last hope, as an emissary to learn if this world is the answer. I have
traveled among you and I have found good things. Your world is much
like ours, physically, but it has not grown as fast or as far as ours,
and we would be happy here, among you, if we could control."

       *       *       *       *       *

The words from Mersey's throat had come falteringly at first, but now
they were strong, although the tone was flat and expressionless. The
words went on:

"But we can't control. I've tried and failed. At best we can co-exist,
as observers and vicarious participants, but we must surrender choice.
Is that to be our destiny--to live on, but to be denied all except
contemplation--to live on as guests among you, accepting your ways and
sharing them, but with no power to change them?"

The traveler shouted at Mersey's mind in soundless fury: "Shut up!
Shut up!"

Mersey stopped talking.

"Go on," said the doctor softly. "This is very interesting."

"Shut up!" said the traveler voicelessly, yet with frantic urgency.

The madman was silent. His body was perfectly still, except for his
calm breathing. The visitor gazed through his eyes in the only
possible direction--up at the ceiling. He tried another command. "Look
at the doctor."

With that glance, the visitor told himself, he would flee the crazed
mind and enter the doctor's. There he would learn what the
psychiatrist thought of his patient's strange soliloquy--whether he
believed it, or any part of it.

He prayed that the doctor was evaluating it as the intricate raving of
delusion.

       *       *       *       *       *

Slowly, Mersey turned his head. Through his eyes, the visitor saw the
faded green carpet, the doctor's dull-black shoes, his socks, the legs
of his trousers. Mersey's glance hovered there, around the doctor's
knees. The visitor forced it higher, past the belt around a tidy
waist, along the buttons of the opened vest to the white collar, and
finally to the kindly eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses.

Again he had commanded this human being and had been obeyed. The
traveler braced himself for the leap from the tortured mind to the
sane one.

But his gaze continued to be that of Mersey.

The gray eyes of the doctor were on his patient. Intelligence and
kindness were in those eyes, but the visitor could read nothing else.

He was caught, a prisoner in a demented mind. He felt panic. This must
be the mind-screen he'd been warned about.

"Look down," the visitor commanded Mersey. "Shut your eyes. Don't let
him see me."

But Mersey continued to be held by the doctor's eyes. The visitor
cowered back into the crazed mental tangle.

Gradually, then, his fear ebbed. There was more likelihood that Cloyd
did not believe Mersey's words than that he did. The doctor treated
hundreds of patients and surely many of them had delusions as fanciful
as this one might seem.

The traveler's alarm simmered down until he was capable of
appreciating the irony of the situation.

But at the same time, he thought with pain, "Is it our fate that of
all the millions of creatures on this world, we can establish
communication only through the insane? And even then to have only
imperfect control of the mind and, worse, to have it become a
transmitter for our most secret thoughts?"

It was heartbreaking.

Dr. Cloyd broke the long silence. Pulling at his ear, he spoke calmly
and matter-of-factly:

"Let me see if I understand your problem, Mersey. You believe yourself
to be from another world, from which you have traveled, although not
physically. Your world is not a material one, as far as its people
are concerned. Your civilization is a mental one, which has been
placed in danger. You must resettle your people, but this cannot be
done here, on Earth, except in the minds of the mentally ill--and that
would not be a satisfactory solution. Have I stated the case
correctly?"

"Yes," Mersey's voice said over the traveler's mental protests.
"Except that it is not a 'case,' as you call it. I am not Mersey. He
is merely a vehicle for my thoughts. I am not here to be treated or
cured, as the human being Mersey is. I'm here with a life-or-death
problem affecting an entire race, and I would not be talking to you
except that, at the moment, I'm trapped and confused."

       *       *       *       *       *

The madman was doing it again, the traveler thought
helplessly--spilling out his knowledge, betraying him and his kind.
Was there no way to muffle him?

"I must admit that I'm confused myself," Dr. Cloyd said. "Humor me for
a moment while I think out loud. Let me consider this in my own
framework, first, and then in yours, without labeling either one
absolutely true or false.

"You see," the doctor went on, "this is a world of vitality. My
world--Earth. Its people are strong. Their bodies are developed as
well as their minds. There are some who are not so strong, and some
whose minds have been injured. But for the most part, both the mind
and the body are in balance. Each has its function, and they work
together as a coordinated whole. My understanding of your world, on
the other hand, is that it's in a state of imbalance, where the
physical has deteriorated almost to extinction and the mind has been
nurtured in a hothouse atmosphere. Where, you might say, the mind has
fed on the decay of the body."

"No," said Mersey, voicing the traveler's conviction. "You paint a
highly distorted picture of our world."

"I theorize, of course," Dr. Cloyd agreed. "But it's a valid theory,
based on intimate knowledge of my own world and what you've told me of
yours."

"You make a basic error, I think," Mersey said, speaking for the
unwilling visitor. "You assume that I have been able to make contact
only with this deranged mind. That is wrong. I have shared the
experiences of many of you--a man, a boy, a woman about to bear a
child. Even a cat. And with each of these, my mind has been perfectly
attuned. I was able to share and enjoy their experiences, their
pleasures, to love with them and to fear, although they had no
knowledge of my presence.

[Illustration]

"Only since I came to this poor mind have I failed to achieve true
empathy. I have been shocked by his madness and I've tried to resist
it, to help him overcome it. But I've failed and it apparently has
imprisoned me. Whereas I was able to leave the minds of the others
almost at will, with poor Mersey I'm trapped. I can't transfer to you,
for instance, as I could normally from another. If there's a way out,
I haven't found it. Have you a theory for this?"

In spite of his distress at these revelations, the traveler was
intrigued, now that they had been voiced for him, and he was eager to
hear Dr. Cloyd's interpretation of them.

The psychiatrist took a pipe out of his pocket, filled it, lighted it
and puffed slowly on it until it was drawing well.

"Continuing to accept your postulate that you're not Mersey, but an
alien inhabiting his mind," the doctor said finally, "I can enlarge on
my theory without changing it in any basic way.

"Your world is not superior to ours, much as it may please you to
believe that it is. Nature consists of a balance, and that balance
must hold true whether in Sioux City, or Mars, or in the fourth
dimension, or in your world, wherever that may be. Your world is out
of balance. Evidently it has been going out of balance for some time.

"Your salvation lies not in further evolution in your world--since
your way of evolving proved wrong, and may prove fatal--but in a
change in course, back along the evolutionary path to a society which
developed naturally, with the mind and the body in balance. That
society is the one you have found here, in our world. You found it
pleasant and attractive, you say, but that doesn't mean you're suited
to it.

"Nature's harsh rules may have operated to let you observe a way of
life here that you enjoy, but to exclude you otherwise--except from a
mind that is not well. In nature's balance, it could be that the
refuge on this world most closely resembling your needs is in the mind
of the psychotic. One conclusion could be that your race is mentally
ill--by our standards, if not by yours--and that the type of person
here most closely approximating your way of life is one with a
disordered mind."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Cloyd paused. Mersey had no immediate reply.

The traveler made use of the silence to consider this plausible, but
frightening theory. To accept the theory would be to accept a destiny
of madness here on this world, although the doctor had been kind
enough to draw a distinction between madness in one dimension and a
mere lack of natural balance in another.

Mersey again seized upon the traveler's mind and spoke its thoughts.
But as he spoke, he voiced a conclusion which the traveler had not yet
admitted even to himself.

"Then the answer is inescapable," Mersey said, his tone flat and
unemotional. "It is theoretically possible for all of our people to
migrate to this world and find refuge of a sort. But if we established
ourselves in the minds of your normal people, we'd be without will. As
mere observers, we'd become assimilated in time, and thus extinguished
as a separate race. That, of course, we could not permit. And if we
settled in the minds most suitable to receive us, we would be in the
minds of those who by your standards are insane--whose destiny is
controlled by the others. Here again we could permit no such fate.

"That alone would be enough to send me back to my people to report
failure. But there is something more--something I don't think you will
believe, for all your ability to synthesize acceptance of another
viewpoint."

"And what is that?"

"First I must ask a question. In speaking to me now, do you still
believe yourself to be addressing Mersey, your fellow human being, and
humoring him in a delusion? Or do you think you are speaking through
him to me, the inhabitant of another world who has borrowed his mind?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The doctor smiled and took time to relight his pipe.

"Let me answer you in this way," he said. "If I were convinced that
Mersey was merely harboring a delusion that he was inhabited by an
alien being, I would accept that situation clinically. I would humor
him, as you put it, in the hope that he'd be encouraged to talk freely
and perhaps give me a clue to his delusion so I could help him lose
it. I would speak to him--or to you, if that were his concept of
himself--just as I am speaking now.

"On the other hand, if I were convinced by the many unusual nuances of
our conversation that the mind I was addressing actually was that of
an alien being--I would still talk to you as I am talking now."

The doctor smiled again. "I trust I have made my answer sufficiently
unsatisfactory."

The visitor's reaction was spoken by Mersey. "On the contrary, you
have unwittingly told me what I want to know. You'd want your answer
to be satisfactory if you were speaking to Mersey, the lunatic. But
because you'd take delight in disconcerting me by scoring a
point--something you wouldn't do with a patient--you reveal acceptance
of the fact that I am not Mersey. Your rules would not permit you to
give him an unsatisfactory answer."

"Not quite," contradicted Dr. Cloyd, still smiling. "To Mersey, my
patient, troubled by his delusion and using all his craft to persuade
both of us of its reality, the unsatisfactory answer would be the
satisfactory one."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mersey's voice laughed. "Dr. Cloyd, I salute you. I will leave your
world with a tremendous respect for you--and completely unsure of
whether you believe in my existence."

"Thank you."

"I am leaving, you know," Mersey's voice replied.

The traveler by now was resigned to letting the patient be his medium
and speak his thoughts. Thus far, he had spoken them all truly, if
somewhat excessively. The traveler thought he knew why, now, and
expected Mersey to voice the reason for him very shortly. He did.

"I'm leaving because I must report failure and advise my people to
look elsewhere for a new home. Part of the reason for that failure I
haven't yet mentioned:

"Although it might appear that I, the visitor, am manipulating Mersey
to speak the thoughts I wished to communicate, the facts are almost
the opposite. My control over either Mersey's body or mind is
practically nil.

"What you have been hearing and what you hear even now are the
thoughts I am thinking--not necessarily the ones I want you to know.
What has happened is this, if I may borrow your theory:

"My mind has invaded Mersey's, but his human vitality is too strong to
permit him to be controlled by it. In fact, the reverse is true. His
vitality is making use of my mind for its own good, and for the good
of your human race. His own mind is damaged badly, but his healthy
body has taken over and made use of my mind. It is using my mind to
make it speak against its will--to speak the thoughts of an alien
without subterfuge, as they actually exist in truth. Thus I am
helplessly telling you all about myself and the intentions of my
people.

"What is in operation in Mersey is the human body's instinct of
self-preservation. It is utilizing my mind to warn you against that
very mind. Do you see? That would be the case, too, if a million of us
invaded a million minds like Mersey's. None of us could plot
successfully against you, if that were our desire--which, of course,
it is--because the babbling tongues we inherited along with the bodies
would give us away."

The doctor no longer smiled. His expression was grave now.

"I don't know," he said. "Now I am not sure any longer. I'm not
certain that I follow you--or whether I want to follow you. I think
I'm a bit frightened."

"You needn't be. I'm going. I'll say good-by, in your custom, and
thank you for the hospitality and pleasures your world has given me.
And I suppose I must thank Mersey for the warning of doom he's
unknowingly given my people, poor man. I hope you can help him."

"I'll try," said Dr. Cloyd, "though I must say you've complicated the
diagnosis considerably."

"Good-by. I won't be back, I promise you."

"I believe you," said the doctor. "Good-by."

Mersey slumped back on the couch. He looked up at the ceiling,
vacantly.

       *       *       *       *       *

For a long time there was no sound in the room.

Then the doctor said: "Mersey."

There was no answer. The man continued to lie there motionless,
breathing normally, looking at the ceiling.

"Mersey," said the doctor again. "How do you feel?"

The man turned his head. He looked at the doctor with hostility, then
went back to his contemplation of the ceiling.

"Drop dead," he muttered.

                                          --RICHARD WILSON

       *       *       *       *       *





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