The Brain-Stealers

10

Morning again. Men on watch at every bridge. Men patrolling every highway. Baying bloodhounds in the hills, trailing a man who had killed a girl whose parents had befriended him—so the story ran—and then when her family left their house to attend her funeral, had robbed that house and wantonly set it on fire to burn to the ground. Fury went over the countryside wherever men repeated the story to each other. The Things made them believe it, of course, but they thought it their own conviction.

Rage filled every human being. Bitter, yammering hate of a man known only as "Jim"—Sally's father told so much—and who was described as thus-and-so in appearance, and who wore a foolish cap made out of iron wire. Maybe he was a lunatic. The cap seemed to indicate it.

Sane men didn't wear caps of iron wire. It was illogical and monstrous and immoral to wear caps made of iron wire. If a man wore a cap made of iron wire, though he were your father or husband or brother, he should be seized at any cost in bloodshed and taken at once to Clearfield. No man should ever wear caps of iron wire....

Throughout all the mountains the conviction spread with the speed of flickering, racing thoughts, that no man should ever wear iron wire anywhere about his head. It was the one illogical item in the consciousness of the folk who searched ragingly for Him. But small round hairless things sent out that thought as persistently as they drove the domestic animals called man upon the quest for Him. They could give commands and impose thoughts at any distance, upon their slaves. But men could not report back to the Things except by human speech.

That was the principal drawback to the search—that and the fact that only a verbal description of Jim was available. No Little Fella knew what Jim looked like, save by the description given by Sally's father and her two gangling brothers, and the other description given by two men who had been left bound with caps of iron wire upon their heads. Those two men were now dead. They had not protected the Thing that Jim destroyed so terribly. They had not obeyed Its orders. They had allowed themselves to be knocked unconscious and bound and—via the caps—to be made incapable of receiving orders. And there could be no excuse for failure to serve and protect their master. So they were dead, and two Things had greedily indulged their gluttony in bringing about their death.

But all the skill and wisdom of men and Things was directed to the quest for Jim. The Things sent thoughts to guide the search and keep it at fever heat. Men were told to hate him, and they hated. They were told that he was a monster of criminality, and they believed it. They searched and searched with unflagging zeal, though the bodies of many of them were over-thin and weakened by their masters' other demands upon their strength.

Fresh men arrived to join in the search. They came in heavy lumbering busses, which discharged their loads at first in Clearfield. They continued to arrive as the morning wore on to midday. Sometimes one bus-load at a time. Sometimes a fleet of three or four. Human headquarters were set up in the village. Then couriers were needed, and presently motorcyclists roared into the village, wearing police uniforms. All were raging. All were filled with bitter hate. And all were passionately convinced that any man who wore a cap of iron wire upon his head was somehow sub-human, somehow monstrous, somehow an individual to hate with a poisonous loathing.

Jim Hunt watched the arrival of these outside reinforcements for the hunt with, at first, a blank amazement He began to suspect the truth only when a fleet of six huge interurban busses lumbered down a dirt road on the way to Clearfield, and he saw them from the brushwood beside the highway. Every bus was jammed with men, civilians all. He saw their faces, and he had not seen too many of the Little Fellas' subjects, but he recognized a certain expression worn by every one. It meant that someone listened regularly to a soundless insinuating thought in his own mind, saying, "Nice.... Nice.... Everything is nice.... Everyone is happy...." It meant that a look of unearthly tranquility was a sign that its wearer served loathsome pinkish hairless monsters, and was passionately convinced that he did so of his own will.

But busloads of them! Hundreds of them! Maybe more than hundreds.... Commanding the service of fleets of busses at short notice.... And uniformed motorcyclists who acted as couriers, showing that there were also official police who served the Little Fellas....

Jim found it hard to believe the sum when he added the facts together. They added up to a certainty worse than he had even suspected. Here in the mountains, one could believe that the Little Fellas could seize a whole population without the outside world having the least inkling of the fact. But these hordes of men of all conditions—Jim saw worn, exhausted figures among those to be glimpsed through the bus-windows—meant more than a rural population enslaved. Either a town of middling size was utterly subject to the Things, or at the least a city was in process of being silently and insidiously conquered.

Sally's family had been subjugated instantly neighbors came bringing Things cradled in their arms. The neighbors stayed one hour, and went away again, and a Thing was nestled in a soft warm nest in the attic and Sally and all her family were joyously subject to him in their inmost thoughts. The same thing could be done in a city. A party of friends might readily carry small round Things from one house to another, and one family after another would be seized upon, and each would instantly be very, very glad that there was a Thing in some soft warm nest nearby, who told them that all the world was nice... nice... and that they wanted nothing more than to obey him in all things. They would keep the secret of his existence with a desperate loyalty. And they would open their veins to satisfy his gluttony and feel a shivering ecstasy as they made the sacrifice.

Even a guest in such a household might feel a nibbling glow of contentment, and a desire to return often to a place where such a feeling of joy was to be found. Sooner or later he would find himself irresistibly asleep— a voice in his own mind would whisper "nice... it is nice to doze off... just for an instant...."—and he would sleep and wake up very happy indeed. Permanently happy, provided only that he was allowed to obey the Thing in the soft nest—so cute!—and share the subjection of the others in all things.

Yes. A city could be taken in that way. House by house. Family by family. Neighborhood by neighborhood. And if the Things were wise and understood the civilization of men, they would surely make the leaders of the city their first subjects! The police, naturally. And the doctors too, of course! Perhaps especially the doctors, because sometimes a Thing was less than wary and forgot caution in its gluttony. A human might faint, or visibly be white and bloodless and exhausted though wearing a look of unearthly tranquility. The doctors should be enslaved first of all.

Two more busloads of men went by, to join in the search for Jim. It was then four in the afternoon. The Things were reckless in their need to capture him. He had defied them, and they could not subjugate him, and he had killed one of their number. They were mobilizing their slaves in overwhelming numbers to beat the mountainsides for him. He knew their secret. He knew that such things were, and he did not adore them. At any cost he must be destroyed, though it meant the use of a mob numbering thousands, drawn from many miles away, and though it was hardly convincing that the murder of an unknown mountain girl, the burning of her parents' home, would cause much stir except among her neighbors.

Even with the evidence of the busloads of men, it was not easy to accept the implications of their presence. Such an army, mobilized so swiftly, implied a deeper horror and a greater danger than even he had been willing to sacrifice himself to defeat. And then came a creepy panic on top of all the rest.

It was ironic. He'd defied Security to carry on research in a forbidden subject. He'd hated Security because it changed an ideal of safety into one of sheer stagnation. He'd rebelled against it because it tried to force an exchange of security in the place of hope. He'd been one of those who said bitterly that Security tried to make life so safe that everybody would die of boredom. But the terror that beset him now was not less real because it was ironic. He was afraid that Security itself was subject to the Things!

In his letter, he'd said he would contact the patrol-ships when they came to investigate the statements he had made. He would surrender himself to life imprisonment in exchange for the chance to prove a danger Security did not suspect. But now he no longer dared to think of keeping such a bargain.

He turned from the dusty roadside and plunged back into the woods. Far away, he heard the baying of hounds. But it would take much time for them to unravel the confusing trail he'd left. He had a resource, and now was the time to use it.

A hundred yards back, a man lay on the ground. He had been one of those who searched for Jim. He'd been white and exhausted even at the beginning, because the Thing he served was greedy, too. But he'd been commanded to join the search and he'd obeyed. He'd driven himself with ruthless resolution, spurred on by the fury he'd been commanded to feel. He'd gone to the limit of his strength and beyond it, using up every non-existent ounce of energy, stumbling when he could not walk erect, staggering when his muscles would not obey his commanded will. When he'd dropped, it had been because there was no strength left in him. Jim had found him in a coma caused by something far beyond fatigue. The man was apt to die of pure exhaustion, and it had been Jim's intention to carry him to the roadside and leave him in plain view, in the hope that sheer humanity might lead someone to pick him up. Of course, if he were brought back to health he would only return to impassioned loyalty to his gruesome master, but still...

Jim, though, could no longer practice humanitarianism. If he was the only living man who suspected the existence of the Things without being subject to them, and if their conquest had spread beyond the mountains as their mustered army showed,—why—his own life had to be preserved until he could give warning.

He did not feel heroic. He felt, rather, a sickening scoundrel. Bat he stripped the barely-breathing, unconscious man. He donned that man's clothing. He dressed the limp figure in the garments he had worn and that he knew would have been described to all who sought him. He dirtied the other's face and clothes with mud, as if he'd splashed through swamps and rivers in his flight. And then he added the final touch.

He put a new cap of iron wire on his substitute's head, and fastened it with a strand beneath the muddied chin. He took the other's headgear and put it on his own head. It hid the cap he still must wear or risk the subjugation of all of earth. And then, unhappily, he gauged his waiting-time by the sound of dogs baying urgently in the distance, and dared to wait till dusk.

At dusk he went out into plain view on the dusty highway. He carried the limp figure he had hoped to help, but now would quite possibly destroy, over his shoulder. He trudged along the highway's dusty length.

He had carried his burden almost a mile when he heard the soft turbine-purr of a bus behind him. He turned and waved. He pointed to the cap of iron wire on his victim's head.

That was enough. The bus stopped. Men dragged the muddy, unconscious figure within. Jim climbed aboard. No one asked him questions. Every man stared hatefully at the prisoner. There was such rage in their eyes that it seemed a tangible thing. They had been commanded to hate a man who had murdered a girl and wore a cap of iron wire on his head. A cap of iron wire! That had been commanded to be considered a greater crime than murder! It was loathsome beyond imagination! That kept every eye upon the feebly breathing prisoner while men panted hate of him.

When the bus reached Clearfield, Jim got out with the others. There were only three people who could recognize him if they saw him, though he counted on two others who now were dead. But in the crowd he went unnoticed.

He waited. The limp figure went swiftly out of the bus. It went swiftly to the place appointed for it. It had an iron-wire cap on its head. It wore Jim Hunt's garments. It was unconscious, and could not be questioned. But identification was complete. Just after sundown, the mob was told that the hunt was over.

Then, swiftly and smoothly and very promptly, the mobilization was reversed. Parked busses opened their doors to take on their loads of now-no-longer-raging men. Jim climbed into the first of them and took a place on the farthest-back seat. The bus filled to suffocation. Its turbine purred, and it rolled softly and gingerly over the uneven highway in Clearfield, and lurched cumbersomely over the narrow dirt-road beyond.

Presently it trundled down a ramp to a great trunk highway and picked up to its highest permitted speed. Jim leaned back against the end-wall and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He was very careful, though, not to let his iron-wire cap show.

In half an hour, the bus discharged its passengers in a city street. Early night grayed all the world. The bus's passengers melted away in as many directions as there were men. There had been no talk on the bus. There was none now.

Jim went to a pay-visiphone booth. He put a coin in the slot and said curtly, "Security."

The screen lighted, and he saw the reception-desk, with a uniformed Security Police officer looking uninterestedly at him.

"Business?" said the screen without animation.

"Look!" said Jim. "Here's something I found. I—don't know whether it means anything, but—"

He held out an object of which he had made several specimens, trying to arrive at one that would not be too uncomfortable for his own use. This, like the others, flattened out readily into a spiral disk of wire.

"It looks," said Jim, "like it was meant to be a cap. A sort of cap made out of iron wire—I wondered—"

Then he ceased to wonder. The face of the Security officer twisted with instant, commanded-reaction loathing. He reached quickly to press a button... Jim got out of the visiphone booth in a hurry. Even so, he was only a block and a half away when the patrols flashed into position from every direction and formed a cordon about all spaces within a block of the booth. Nobody would get out through that cordon without positive identification and a precise account of why he was at that particular spot at that particular time. If he wore an iron-wire cap-Jim had barely slipped through. He went on hastily, like everybody else when a Security cordon was thrown about an area. But he felt deathly sick and much more lonely than he had believed a man could be.

The Things had control of Security, too. At least here. If they had chosen to take over its very top levels— which was surely possible—if they controlled Security itself, there could be no hope for mankind.