The Brain-Stealers

22

He was in a court-room. In Security court, which of course was not at all like other courts. The evidence had been heard in secret, which was standard Security practice lest facts be revealed which it was unwise to have publicly known—the details of an illegal experiment, for example. The sentence, however, would be public. There was still news-interest in Jim Hunt. He had made a remarkable escape from a Security patrol-ship. He was an unusually desperate and resolute offender against Security. And he had worked a very clever publicity trick. But instead of the forty or fifty reporters and photographers who had waited to watch his surrender to Security, now there were just two to hear his sentence and both were very junior and correspondingly blasé.

Doctor Oberon sat on the judicial bench and beamed complacently. He was distinctly a third-rate man and did not often have the chance to bask in so much publicity. When there was silence—and with no spectators and only two reporters and the Security Police present that did not take long—Doctor Oberon cleared his throat. He said blandly, "Having been detailed by Security to determine this case, I have heard all that the prisoner has to say. If he denies that his defense has been heard, let him speak now."

"It was heard," said Jim Hunt, raging, "by an opinionated fool!"

Doctor Oberon looked piously forgiving.

"The prisoner," he said with pained charity, "was previously sentenced to Life Custody for experiments in a forbidden subject, against the public welfare. He was detected in possession of an elaborate laboratory and in conjunction with other yet unapprehended criminals, conducting this highly dangerous research."

Doctor Oberon lectured complacently on the need for the protection of the public against dangerous knowledge.

"His sentence—which I was unfortunate enough to have to impose—was Life Custody. I urged him to reveal his confederates—"

Jim Hunt said clearly, "There were no confederates! But the Things transmit thought!"

"Now," said Doctor Oberon regretfully, "he comes before this court again. He surrendered himself under most suspicious circumstances. He had announced publicly that he had captured an alien, non-terrestrial life form. He claimed that he would deliver this life form for study and the verification of statements he would make on its delivery. He appeared, seemingly with the life form in question, at a Security office. And then a band of persons who were apparently his confederates in a hoax upon Security dashed at him, seized the small supposed cage in which he ostensibly carried this most unlikely creature and fled. Since then, he has demanded that Security undertake an elaborate investigation of what he declares to be an invasion by extra-terrestrial creatures. He asserts that they have an entire section of this state under their —ah—hypnotic control. It is difficult to determine whether he is a deliberate imposter of extraordinary brashness, or a person subject to delusions."

Jim said bitterly, "The delusion is Security's, that you're qualified to make any decision that requires intelligence!"

But Doctor Oberon continued to be complacent.

"The decision of the court is that the prisoner has established no claim to a reconsideration of his sentence by reason of service to Security. His alleged information is either deliberate and unconvincing falsehood, or sheer delusion. This court orders that his sentence to Life Custody shall stand. However, since while at large he is alleged to have committed various crimes, including murder, this court orders that he be delivered to the criminal courts for trial under criminal charges, and returned to Security Custody for the servings of his Security sentence when or if he is released by the criminal courts."

Doctor Oberon posed for photographs. The photographers shot flash-bulb pictures of Jim. It was routine. Their paper had been caught off-base. Now, for a while, it would stoutly maintain that Jim had been railroaded; that he'd had valuable information to give to Security. But that would be only to cover up the fact that the paper had used him for a scarehead story. Ultimately, he'd be forgotten. The reporters and photographers alike know that to be the program. These pictures would go on the inside of the paper and the story, too. This was a matter of no importance at all....

Jim's face was gray. In time the Things would spread over the whole world. If they thought of the trick he'd thought of first, they'd be carried over the whole world by men. Joyfully. A sickly, beaten rage filled him. Everything was useless. The earth would become a paradise for Things. Humans would till its fields half-heartedly, because their only thoughts would be the utterly contented thoughts the Things would tell them to think. Humans would delightfully serve and admire and cherish the Things that fed on them....

"Nice to have wiser people from another world to tell us what to do.... It will be nice to have wise people to tell us what to do.... It is good that we have visitors from Mars.... we will be glad to do what we are told ... it will be good to have new rulers to tell us what to do ... our new rulers are nice ... everything is nice now that we have new rulers ... everybody is happy.... the PEOPLE FROM another world make everybody happy..."

The thoughts came into his head with crushingly convincing force, and dwindled to mere nibbling suggestions, and swelled and dwindled again as the Things established the linkage of their minds far away, and then suddenly swung into an overwhelming strength and certainty. Jim, of course, as a prisoner of Security, could no longer wear a cap of iron wire. The thoughts of thousands of Things, linked together, could not be held at bay by a single, unassisted human mind. Even rage was not enough.

He knew what was happening, but his thoughts were in a grip from which they could not escape. Uncontrollably, his mind repeated the phrases the Things sent out for all men to think.

"... now all humans will be happy for always...it is good to obey the little fellas.... what the little fellas tell us to do is always wise and good.... it is nice to love the little fellas.... it is horrible not to love the little fellas ... everyone is happy because they obey the little fellas.... one is happy to obey."

Monotonously, irresistibly, terribly, these thoughts arose in Jim's brain. They possessed a stunning intensity. The thoughts that were himself were blotted out by them. Revolt and rage were mere whispering wailings between the hammering thoughts; ".... we go about our business and wait for the orders of the little fellas.... we act as usual, but we are happy because the little fellas tell us what to do.... when we know the little fellas want us to do something, we stop everything else and do only that...."

On the judicial bench, Doctor Oberon said happily; "It is evident that the prisoner has tried to injure our new rulers. He actually boasted that he killed one and made another a captive in a cage. So of course our duty is clear. The prisoner will be taken to our new rulers, at once, for their judgment...."

It was a nightmare which Jim knew was a nightmare, but which he could not even pretend was unreal. Only, —instead of a nightmare's horror, he was filled with an insane exultation, a tragic sensation of excited happiness. Hammering thoughts pounded at him, and he knew he was going to his death or worse, but when the Security Police by his side began to lead him out of the room he went with them with his face—some remote corner of his brain knew despairingly—wreathed in a smile of utmost tranquility and peace.

He marched with them gladly while the thoughts he knew were not his own thoughts filled all his brain...

Then they dimmed a little. A very little more. They were muted to a mere insistent, insidious nibbling of suggestion.... He was being led through a corridor of iron cells. There was an iron floor underfoot. It was not enough to neutralize the thought-transmission entirely. In minds not previously conditioned by knowledge of the possibility and the horror of consciousness under outside control, the dimming of the transmitted thoughts would not even be noted. One would continue to contemplate them raptly, responding without suspicion to what seemed one's own inner consciousness.

But Jim was conditioned. Abruptly, with Security Police on cither side of him, he was filled with a strangling rage and a loathing horror that blanked the intruding thoughts to whispers. He raged. He choked with fury. And his own brain took quick, grim charge. He glanced swiftly at his guards. They wore expressions of rapt inner satisfaction. They were being told that they were happy. That the Little Fellas made everybody happy. That earth was become a paradise, now that the Little Fellas were here. There was no more sorrow or grief or pain, no more poverty or want or vain striving. Everything was nice ... nice.... nice....

Jim spoke, steadying his voice in the effort to keep the rage out of it.

"Everybody has to do what the Little Fellas tell them," he said quietly.

The guards beside him nodded. They smiled dreamy, tranquil smiles. One does not question one's own thoughts. To the guards, the things their own minds told them seemed utterly trustworthy. One does not question one's own reasoning, one's own conclusions, one's own beliefs. The Things' transmitted thoughts seemed to have risen from within, and hence to be infallibly true; not subject to scrutiny or to question.

"The Little Fellas," said Jim as quietly as before, "don't think I'm fit to serve them. I tried to harm them. I must die."

The guards nodded again.

"Everybody obeys the Little Fellas," said Jim in a still voice. "They tell me to kill myself. Give me a pistol. It is an order of the Little Fellas. I must kill myself."

The guards looked at him numbly. But their thoughts— the thoughts they believed their own—assured them that nobody could disobey the Little Fellas. Nobody could do anything the Little Fellas did not permit. Nobody could resist or even think of resisting an order of the Little Fellas. Everyone must-Jim reached out his hand without haste. Had he moved quickly, perhaps sheer habit would have made the guards react normally. But they were dazed by new and blinding revelation. They were absorbed in the thoughts which even Jim was still horribly aware of, here in this iron-walled, iron-floored corridor.

With tranquil certainty, Jim drew the pistol from the guard's holster. He raised it as to his own head—And struck with the raging fury of the madman he had become. The first guard reeled. Before he crashed to the floor, Jim had struck the second an equally terrible blow. He armed himself with their weapons, shaking all over with the fury he strove to make ever more overwhelming, hating so fiercely that he even allowed himself to imagine pumping bullets into the two still figures on the floor....

But the Things' thoughts still came into his mind. In this corridor, and for a certain while only, he could hold at bay their cumulative influence. But his wire cap was gone. If he moved from this corridor the thoughts of the Things would again fill all his brain, driving his own thoughts and his own will down and down and out of existence....

Then he saw a desk at the end of the corridor. There was an inkwell and pens on it, and a few odd papers, and a metal wastebasket beside it. Jim made a dash for the desk, panting to himself of his hatred of the Things.

At that almost he failed. The Things' thoughts filled every corner of his mind but one when he reached the desk. It was almost incredible that the pattern of action he had commanded his muscles to follow should be carried out. But it was.

Papers spilled all about him. Then he sobbed in mingled rage and relief. He had the pistols of two guards in his hands, and their cartridge-belts slung about his middle. And he was free of the Things' control. He was, at the moment, probably the only member of the human race not raptly absorbing the overwhelming rhythm of the thousands of Thing-minds, linked together.

He stood panting and raging and filled with despair, looking like a lunatic with an upside-down woven-wire wastebasket covering his head and resting on his shoulders —but the only really sane man in all the world.