Alien Minds (6 page)

"I say kill the snake," Ran Auldin spat. "There's no sense taking chances with a man we know is a spy."

"No!" Hanlon was still quietly determined to save Ondo's life. He spoke as impressively as he could. "Such a killing, with a body to dispose of, would most certainly be traced back to you in time, nyer, and you would lose much of the respect the public holds for you. Your success in your . . . other . . . endeavors is largely due to the fact that everyone knows you for such a high-principled, public-spirited citizen, that no one suspects you of being anything else. Don't take chances on spoiling that reputation."

Yandor was swayed by this impassioned appeal, it was plain to be seen. His respect for Hanlon's quick good sense and sound judgment mounted, and he looked at the young man with new interest.

"Anlo's right, Ran," he told his lieutenant. "We mustn't have a killing on our hands that can be so easily traced to us."

He turned back to Hanlon, who was grinning inwardly at Yandor's almost-panic that made him forget for the moment that there were no real police detectives on this world who could so easily trace back a killing, especially if only ordinary precautions were used to dispose of the body.

“Well now, I thank you for saving me from the risk my temper might have caused. What would you suggest we do with this . . . this . . .”, he pushed at the body with his foot.

"It's easy to see that Ondo is only a scared rat, and when he wakes up he'll know he'd better keep away from you or he'll really be killed," Hanlon spoke carelessly. "Just have Auldin take him out and dump him on the next street. Ondo will never bother you again, I'm positive."

Auldin seemed about to protest, but Yandor forestalled him. "That's good advice. Take care of it, Auldin."

And after the gangster had left the house with his burden, Yandor resumed his seat and motioned Hanlon to take the one he had formerly occupied. But while they were doing this, the young SS man had sent his mind outdoors, found a sleeping bird and taken over its mind. He made it follow Auldin, so he would know where Ondo's body was taken. He would try to save the fellow's life if he could—he had got him into this predicament, it was up to him to get the chap safely out of it.

"Well now," Yandor was saying, "I'm beginning to believe you will be a valuable man in our group. I'll think
about it some more, and see you sometime tomorrow and we'll talk further about it. But I'm only promising to talk," he added hurriedly, "I'm not saying what my decision will be."

"That's all I could ask for now, for I know I can prove my worth." He rose and bowed courteously. "So I'll see you at your place of business in the morning."

"You know where it is?" surprisedly.

"But of course."

As soon as he was out of the house, Hanlon went carefully to the weed-infested vacant lot where Auldin had dumped Ondo's body. When he saw the gangster returning, Hanlon quickly hid behind a great flowertree.

Hanlon had brought the bird back to Yandor's house, and now made it perch where it could look through a win
dow. Through the bird's eyes he saw the two inside, talking together for some minutes, Yandor apparently very angry, Auldin on the defensive. Then the slender mobster slunk from the house, and started back toward the downtown section. Hanlon made the bird follow him, to make sure Auldin was really going home, and was not circling about to try to find out what Hanlon was doing or where he was going.

Then the SS man went to the vacant lot to find Ondo sitting up, holding his aching head. Almost roughly he jerked him to his feet.

"Look, you phidi," Hanlon made his voice deadly menacing, "I don't like people who go around trying to find out about me and my business. Yandor merely insisted that I see to it that you left town immediately, but I'm not that soft-hearted. I'm going to kill you, then I'll know you've done your last snooping."

He reached toward his pocket, as though for a knife or flamegun.

The man was a small, terror-stricken rat. But he was not entirely lacking in the universal will to live. Suddenly he half-stooped, then jumped forward, his shoulder crashing into Hanlon's body. The young Corpsman could have maintained his balance, but he let himself fall, as though he had been knocked down by the blow.

Ondo took off like a scared dara, and in brief seconds was out of sight. Hanlon waited several minutes, then went down the street toward his rooming house, grinning to himself. He was happy that it could be worked out this way.

He was sure this Ondo would leave Stearra without delay. Hanlon's hint about that was enough, he was sure—especially since he knew Ondo was convinced that he would be killed out of hand if he ever allowed himself to be seen hereabouts again.

As he walked swiftly along, Hanlon released the bird from its mental spell, for it was now apparent Auldin was really going downtown, or home. But before releasing the bird, Hanlon guided it back to a comfortable perch in a tree, and put it to sleep.

He could not help feeling gratitude—yet still with an awed sense of wonder—about his ability to control animal minds. He remembered so vividly that day on the great spaceliner
Hellene,
when he had discovered this tremendous ability with the little puppy . . . what was its name? . . . oh, yes, Gypsy. And the still greater thrill when he was experimenting later with the dogs on the kennel deck, and had found that he could not only read their complete minds and control their nerves and muscles to make them follow his bidding, but that he could also dissociate a portion of his mind, put it in their brains and leave it there, connected with t lie balance of his own mind merely by a slender thread of consciousness, yet able to think and act independently.

But it certainly came in mighty handy in his work as a secret serviceman, and he was thankful to whatever powers may be that had given him this ability to do these amazing things. Now if he could only learn how to read and control the whole mind and body of a human, instead of being able to read only their surface thoughts !

But he was trying to learn to be content with what he had, and to use it thankfully.

Yet he never ceased trying to learn more—to be able to do more along these lines.

Finally back in his room Hanlon grinned again to himself as he began undressing. He felt good. He had put it over again. He was sure he was "in".

He sat down on a chair and removed the special shoes he was wearing. These native Estrellans were very manlike in shape as well as mentality, but there were enough structural differences so it had taken the expert cosmetician many hours to fix him up to look like one of them. These shoes, for instance, because Estrellans had unusually large feet, were really shoes-within-shoes, to fit his feet correctly inside and yet appear large enough on the outside not to attract attention.

In the spaceship high above, intent thoughts had been coursing through the mind of the being. Finally, certain commands were impressed upon the mind of the Estrellan native the being controlled, that would set in motion a new train of events.

The native cringed as those thoughts came into his mind. They were not the kind of things he would ever consider, of himself. They outraged his every sense of right and justice. It made him actually, physically sick even to contemplate them, and he wondered briefly how he had ever come to get such ideas.

Yet something, he could not guess what, forced him to do them, despite his every struggling, heartsick effort not to obey the commands he did not even know were commands.

CHAPTER 5

As SSM GEORGE HANLON CONTINUED UNdressing, he recalled his parting with his father on Simonides.

"How soon do I start?" he had asked, boyishly eager, at the close of their interview. "Right away?"

"Whoa, son, not so fast," the admiral laughed. "You'll have to have a series of inoculation-shots against the EstrelIan diseases. Then you'll have to learn a lot, and especially, you'll have to be disguised to look like a native, which isn't easy. Here are reels of the language, customs and geography. Get a room in the hotel here and sleep-learn them. I think you'll find the language not too hard—it's a simple, uncomplicated one, outside of their habit of putting the verbs ahead of the nouns, and then the adjectives or adverbs. As to their way of thought—well, that's far different. Even with your ability to read their minds, I'll bet you have trouble in really understanding them for some time. I'm not always sure I do, even yet."

"Tough, eh?"

"That they are. You can't work them like you do humans—their concepts seem not at all like ours in so many things. We can get in serious trouble through misunderstanding their apparently straight-forward words. So go slow and easy."

"I'll watch for that, dad, and bone up on the rest as fast as I can. Meanwhile, how's about going out and wrapping ourselves around a couple of thick steaks—or some of that good
poyka
at the Golden Web? I'd like to see Hooper again."

"The grub I'll buy. But Curt isn't here—he's one of the boys working Estrella with me."

The lessons learned in time, Hanlon visiphoned Admiral Hawarden at Base, who sent the cosmetician to him at the hotel. The shoes had been only part of the job. There was the smock-coat, which Hanlon was now removing in his room in Stearra. Estrellans had narrow, sloping shoulders, so a tailor had made special clothes—the coat almost like a knee-length, slipover sweater only of a heavy cloth like homespun, with shoulders whose cut and padding gave them the proper sloping look. There was also the divided-skirt sort of pantaloons, that gathered at the ankle.

As he undressed Hanlon looked at himself in the mirror, and grinned. Trevor had dyed his skin all over—not the dark red of Terran Indians, not yet the black of negroes nor the brown of Malayans, but a sort of deep pink. Hanlon had been warned not to take either tub or shower baths, but had been supplied with a bottle of a special chemical.

Naked at last, he scratched luxuriously and stretched hugely. He poured a bowlful of water, added seven drops of the chemical, then gave himself a sponge bath.

As he was washing his face he noticed with amusement the way his ears had been built up with plastic to almost twice their natural size, and the way his nose had been made so much broader—like a giant ape's it spread over half the width of his face.

He was careful not to pull off any of the hair that had been so painstakingly glued to his body to simulate the general hairiness of the Estrellans. And, of course, he had neither shaved nor had a haircut since being assigned this job, and his beard was growing nicely. But it, and the body hair, was the most uncomfortable part of his imposture
—
the darned stuff itched, but bad. He scratched.

Anyway, he thought thankfully, Trevor had really done a job on him. No one yet met here had seemed to notice anything out of the way with him, as far as his looks went. He had easily passed everywhere as a real native.

A two-man speedster had brought him to this planet, and had landed him just outside this city they called Stearra, in the dead of night. His father, he knew, had preceded him by nearly two weeks, was here somewhere, as were Manning and Hooper, the two other SS men assigned here. A sneak boat came every two weeks, and stayed at a desig
nated spot near the principal city on each continent from midnight until three in the morning, in case any of the men wanted to send messages or needed assistance of any kind.

Undressed—and scratched—and washed—and scratched —Hanlon lay down on his bed and gave himself up to thoughts of the coming interview at Ino Yandor's office. He tried to analyze what he had learned and its possible connection with whatever it was that was keeping Estrella from joining the Federation of Planets; from becoming the fifty-eighth mem
ber of that far-flung union of self-governing worlds.

It seemed to him he had made a good start—although he was slightly dissatisfied with the speed at which he was
not
getting ahead. Yet he had felt all along—and still so thought—that with his way of working his best course lay through the criminal gangs of Stearra—that by working up through them he would eventually come to the ones who were behind all this. And he was sure this Ino Yandor was his best lead to date, even though it seemed strange that an entertainment agent would be the top man in the criminal world.

His father had not been too certain that this was a logical channel of investigation, but was quite willing to let Hanlon try it—the Corps
had
to have that information, and each man of the secret service should work the way that seemed best to him. Nor could the admiral argue against Hanlon's insistence that this sudden rise of hitherto-unknown criminal activity just at this time was not purely coincidental.

But the whole thing was such a seemingly insoluble puzzle. From his own investigation since he had arrived—from the "feel" of the city and its inhabitants to his sensitive perceptions — Hanlon knew the people on the whole were such swell folks; the kind that would make wonderful Federation citizens, even if they did look so peculiar and animal-like to Terrans. Any race with a religion and a code of living based on such common decencies and high-principled honesties as theirs, was bound to be a good one.

From all he had been able to learn, Hanlon thought the Ruler, Elus Amir, a decent fellow and extremely capable. Amir certainly had shown by his actions all during his tenure of office that while their system of government was a sort of limited autocracy, that he, at least, was trying to make it a benevolent one. Unless all the information Hanlon and the SS had gathered was haywire, this Amir was certainly not behind all this sudden opposition. He had seemed—especially at first—to be very much in favor of joining.