by Eando Binder
He gathered a sheaf of maps. “We’ll take only those from the Pliocene onward into the Pleistocene and Neolithic eras. If Argyle’s dating is in this range, we’re in business.”
As they went down the hall, Merry’s brown eyes turned somberly to Hillory. “Thule, about that…that ‘poltergeist’ who animates dangerous things and tries to kill us? It’s so eerie, the way it makes lifeless things move and act like killers. And how can we guess what form the killer will take next? He may attack again and again…till he gets us. Can you really trap it somehow?”
“I think I can,” said Hillory hopefully. “Right after we pinpoint the four spots on the map—if we do—we’ll set up the mind-trap.”
Back at Argyle’s lab, the scientist was grinning like a pirate who had just looted a shipload of gold. “Got your dating, son.”
Hillory waited breathlessly.
Chapter 5
“The osmium foil sheet was etched 34,675 years ago, give or take 10 years, and not a year more,” said Argyle firmly.
In joy, Hillory began riffling through the maps he had brought along. “Great. That’s practically modem times. Hmm, that would be just before the Great Ice Age of 25,000 years ago, and earth would look like this.”
He held up a map that was strange at first glance. But then a second glance clearly showed the rough outlines of the continents, with various inner areas flooded. Conversely there was a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, and also from the Malayan peninsula to the Indonesian Isles. The shape of Europe was queerly distorted and Asia looked lopsided. But all modern mountain ranges were in existence and most coastlines had permanently formed.
“Like a surrealistic version of earth today,” said Hillory. “But the four spots chosen to bury or hide things, by the aliens, would still exist today with very little change.” He waved thanks to Argyle and was already racing to the computer lab, followed by Merry who picked up the other maps he had flung aside.
Barton looked at the map Hillory held up, stroking his mustache reflectively. “Not bad. What I’ll do is feed this data to Brains, giving him a broad view of earth’s surface configuration as of 35,000 years ago. From that he ought to be able to match it with the alien map.”
An hour later he finished tapping out his programmed code, and again fed the metal-foil sheet into the computer, with instructions to find any one of the four spots. The time screen flashed—11 MINUTES, 36 SECONDS.
“A breeze,” grinned Barton. “Yet it only takes 10 minutes on the average to solve the toughest research problems fed into it from Serendipity Lab experiments. This whole alien map bit is a plenty tough nut to crack.”
It was late afternoon now, and Hillory was dog-tired from his sleepless night and the fast-paced events of the day. He spent the 11 minutes munching down sandwiches that Merry had quietly brought him, along with steaming hot coffee.
He kept glancing at his watch, in between, staring as if it had stopped or slowed down somehow. But at last the bell clanged. The word had gone around and Argyle was there, also Chumley and Dr. Clyde. All of them were caught up in the fantastic wonder of a “treasure map” from outer space, made before civilization had dawned on earth.
Barton had switched on the voice read-out, and Brains almost seemed to have a triumphant inflection in his flat tones. “Based on the map of earth’s surface some 35,000 years ago, the alien chart now can be integrated with it, in rough fashion. Two spots were scanned but came out indecisively. However, the third spot became pinpointed as the tip of Mount Everest.”
Hillory, somewhat giddy, did a little jig.
Barton was more practical. “Brains,” he asked, “those two undetermined spots—can you pinpoint them with more work?”
“Affirmative—nearly.”
Barton raised his eyebrows and even his mustache twitched. “And the final spot?”
“It will be even more difficult to pinpoint. Since the map of earth 35,000 years ago is only theoretical, there are certain discrepancies that do not match well with the alien map. But with a different approach via analogue techniques, I may be able in time to reconcile the two maps and name the spots.” A pause. “Or, I may not.”
Barton reached over and patted the shiny main cabinet of the computer complex. “You’ll do it, old boy.” He turned. “Anyway, we’ve got one spot that we can mark X on the map. Wonder why the aliens chose the tip of Mount Everest?”
“Because it’s the highest mountain on earth,” supplied Hillory. “Then and now. We can assume the other spots are also unique or prominent on earth. After all, if aliens were burying things on a strange new world, they would pick the most outstanding planetary features, to make the later job of digging them up easier.”
Barton was shaking his head. “But who made the map? What did they hide here? Why have 35,000 years passed before the treasure map showed up? Why was it in the hands of flying saucer people? There’s a whole lot of pieces of this jigsaw puzzle missing, if you ask me.”
“All in good time,” spoke up Dr. Clyde, moving forward. “I’ve been wondering what to do if the map was analyzed successfully. It becomes a big thing now, bigger than we are. I suppose I should turn the whole thing over to the government….”
“No.” The word shot out from Hillory. His eyes held a gleam. “Look, I found the scroll-map. Let me finish the job—at least till the first spot is visited. Then we’ll know more about what this mystery leads to. As of now, we could only give the government a vague lead. And you know all the red tape that would wrap itself around the project before they acted on it. Why not keep this as a sort of top-secret project of Serendipity Labs?”
Hillory glanced around and saw approval in all their eyes, except for Clyde. “But how,” he said doubtfully, “can you or anybody here reach Mount Everest? If we request a special plane or helicopter or expedition, the cat will be out of the bag. How can you travel halfway around the world—presto?”
“Presto, just like that,” said Hillory evenly. “Remember my last report on my psi project? You’ll recall that…but let me talk to you in private, in my lab. Say tomorrow morning. What you see there may make up your mind whether Serendipity takes on this project or not.”
Clyde’s thoughts seemed to revolve and then remember something with a start. “All right, Hillory. Tomorrow at your lab.”
“Meanwhile,” said Hillory, taking the metal scroll out of the computer’s scanner, “I’ll keep this with me. The mind-entity seems to be after it, so if any further animations and attacks occur, they’ll be aimed at me.”
The others looked relieved. “Though it eases our worry,” said Barton frankly, “you’re sticking your neck out, old man.”
Hillory smiled deprecatingly. “Not as much as you think. I’m not playing here. Remember my specialty is psi phenomena, and I think I can handle the situation.” He did not want to say anything about using the metal foil as “bait” for a trap, in case the mind-entity could somehow read thoughts and be forewarned. In fact, he deliberately kept from thinking about it.
He gestured for Merry to follow him to his lab. “Are we going to set up—” Merry began, but Hillory shushed her warningly, then took two odd-looking helmets out of a closet, handing one to the girl. They were made of bands of silvery metal surmounted by a faceted crystal which began to glow softly.
“Now we can safely talk,” said Hillory, but he did not move his lips. His thought-words went directly into Merry’s brain and only to her.
“As you know,” Hillory beamed at the girl, “these helmets create what might be called closed-circuit telepathy. I devised them only as a means of establishing mutual telepathy between two people. But they serve admirably now to keep our thoughts concealed from the mind-entity.”
“You think he can read minds, if not sealed off?” said Merry in their weird non-vocal conversation.
Hillory nodded and pointed at the big chart on the wall. Besides the familiar electromagnetic spectrum, it showed a new and strange series of “octaves” labele
d the Psi Spectrum. Hillory’s avant-garde researches into this paranormal realm had revealed a whole new roster of ESP abilities hidden within the human mind. The conscious and subconscious minds known to conventional psychology were only the tip of the iceberg whose hidden bulk concealed vast mental powers that could be tapped by scientific means.
He had in one stroke vindicated all the psychic phenomena formerly held suspect. He had proved that at rare times the human psyche could dip into that supernormal pool in various ways, accounting for all the tales of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and the rest.
But Hillory’s great step ahead had been to bring the psi-powers within range of scientific instrumentation and to command them at will instead of by sheer accident. Yet oddly enough, he did not actually know how psi phenomena really worked. He was like Faraday using electricity to run an electric motor without knowing what electricity was at the time.
Hillory knew what the psi “spectrum” was not. It was not an ascending series of different wavelengths of energy waves. There were no detectable “waves” connected with psionics, no “beams”, no “photons” that could be projected from one point to another. Just how a telepathic thought could reach from one mind to another, Hillory did not know. However, he did know that the tektite crystals on top of their helmets, carefully faceted in a complex pattern, could somehow allow their thoughts to flow back and forth.
Hillory pointed at the top division of his psi-chart, labeled free mind. “That’s what our enemy is,” he informed Merry. “And this means he can control or utilize all the other psi-powers. He uses psychokinesis, of course, to animate objects. Fortunately, it probably takes a tremendous amount of PK power each time, so that in between he must ‘rest’ and ‘recharge’ his psi-batteries, so to speak. He must draw that power from the psi ‘pool’ that pervades the whole universe, as I’ve detected.” Hillory held up the metal scroll. “To trap the mind-entity, this will be the bait.”
“But what kind of trap,” queried Merry, “can possibly hold a free mind that can ooze through solid matter? No box nor cage could hold him.”
“An electro-psi cage will,” returned Hillory mysteriously. Without explaining further, he took a large copper-mesh net from a supply closet and fastened an electrical cable in the middle. Flinging the other end of the cable over a rafter above, Hillory pulled and the metal net was drawn to the ceiling. Hillory coiled up the other end of the cable for slack, then connected it to a power switchboard. Then directly underneath the hanging net he carefully placed the metal-foil scroll on a wooden box and beside it another psi-crystal.
“There,” said Hillory. “The idea is that when the mind-entity comes for the metal map—in whatever animated form he has chosen—I’ll drop the net over him while you turn on the power to 50,000 volts. The presence of the psi-crystal will act as a trigger to create an electropsychic ‘cage’ around him of great power—enough to ‘electrocute’ him in psi terms.”
Merry nodded. “I remember how you put a white rat in a wire cage, along with a psi-crystal, and the white rat’s brain literally exploded.”
“But it wasn’t the high voltage that killed him,” added Hillory. “It was a strange kind of electro-psi energy, a weird combination of electrical and mental power. Those are poor terms to use, but there is no vocabulary yet for those psi phenomena.”
“Will the mind-entity be killed in that trap?”
“No, I don’t think so if he stays within the space enclosed by the net. Being a free mind with no encumbering brain matter around it, no psi ‘explosion’ will occur. But he will undoubtedly perceive that if he touches the netting, he’ll get a terrific electro-psi ‘shock’ and be electrocuted. That will make him our prisoner. Then I’ll hook up to him telepathically and hear his story. We want to know who or what he is, why he’s after the metal map, and what the so-called treasure is. After that, we’ll decide what his fate should be—whether or not he’s too dangerous to exist”
“You can deliberately kill him?” asked Merry. “How?”
“Simply by lowering the net so its folds touch the floor—and the mind-entity. Then, poof, as an untold number of electro-psi ‘volts’ burn out his mentality.”
The girl shuddered a little at the gruesome picture.
Hillory stared at her grimly. “This is no game of patty-cake. The mind-entity is perfectly ready to kill. The name of the game is…superdanger.”
Merry forced a smile to her lips. “Okay, I won’t go woman on you. The trap is set. What do we do now?”
“We’ll pretend to be photographing the metal map, while it lies on the box. If we just left the lab, with the metal-foil unguarded, the mind-entity might be suspicious. As it is, even if he has been trying, he’s been unable to read our minds, so he doesn’t have the faintest idea we set up the trap. If he could somehow observe or see what we were doing, it would probably mean nothing to him. He’s an alien mentality from another world and earthly things or their uses would be obscure to him.” He grinned. “Or else I’m a damn fool optimist, and the trap will fail.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Merry. “With that invisible menace striking Serendipity Labs, everyone is getting unnerved. I almost wish…” She stopped.
“We hadn’t found the metal scroll?” finished Hillory. For a moment he was haunted too. The quiet air of scientific research at Serendipity Labs had been disturbed by the mind-alien’s blood-chilling invisible threat. And they did not need the “excitement” that came with this. Science research into the unknown was exciting in itself, to the nth degree.
Hillory felt all this and yet felt too the stirring challenge of what had been unfolded by the metal scroll—the search for an unknown and unearthly “treasure”, perhaps of immense scope. He wondered how to convey this to the girl, but she responded herself.
“I was being silly. What we may discover in terms of an extraterrestrial civilization far outweighs the danger involved.” Her brown eyes flashed, and she thumbed her nose at an undefined enemy.
Hillory chuckled, then spoke seriously. “We’ll continue to wear our ESP helmets to keep any telepathic leakage from warning Mr. Mind. But at the same time, I’m going to turn on my ESP-scope.”
“The one that acts like a radarscope and detects any mentality approaching?”
Hillory nodded and flipped the switch of an electronic box with a small screen on top which began to show a regular pattern of squiggles.
“When a ‘blip’ forms among those squiggles, we’ll know that another mind is creeping close,” whispered Hillory. “How long we’ll have to wait, I don’t know. Seems the mind-alien should be satisfied we’re alone and attack soon.”
They began their ritual of seemingly taking pictures of the metal scroll. Hillory handled the camera and took various shots, stretching the process out to consume time. When he felt himself drooping, going into his second night without sleep, he took a pep pill. They were a staple item in Serendipity Labs where the times and tides of research waited for no man and often kept them up around the clock.
Suddenly the ESP-scope reacted, its rhythmic squiggles broken up by a fuzzy blob that grew in the center and expanded.
Chapter 6
“Hsst,” said Hillory to the girl. She glanced fearfully at the door. In what animated guise would the mind-alien enter? The door opened and a tall figure came in. Merry gave a little shriek.
“Dr. Clyde…you?” Hillory gasped, almost as startled as if their enemy had arrived.
The director stared at them solicitously. “Saw your light on under the door and just wanted to be sure you two were all right.” It was Clyde’s habit to wander down the halls at night and check in on whoever might be working late.
“Just taking routine pictures of the metal scroll,” said Hillory, with a warning glance at Merry. They could not reveal their mind-trap without risking the mind-alien reading Clyde’s mind and being tipped off. Though Clyde seemed rather puzzled at the strange way they were going about their photogra
phy, he finally shrugged and left with a wave.
“What a let-down that was,” said Hillory, half annoyed. “Well, next time….”
The clock-hand did not creep much further before Hillory again pointed silently at the ESP-scope. Again a fuzzy blip grew there. Hillory tensed and glued his eyes on the door. Although the ESP-scope was non-directional, he expected intrusion by the normal means.
“The window!” screeched Merry suddenly.
And with a crash of glass, a large hawk came flying in. Though the blow might have knocked out a normal bird, this hawk appeared to be unharmed, its beady eyes glittering strangely.
Hillory’s mind whirled. The mind-alien had deliberately wafted himself up into the air to inhabit this flying creature for a sudden and unexpected attack through a window.
Without pause, the hawk swooped to the center of the lab and seized the metal scroll in its beak, ready to fly away with it. It was a ruse that might well have succeeded except for Hillory’s plan.
Hillory broke from a shocked trance and shoved Merry toward the power switches, as he himself began lowering the copper net. As Merry knifed the switch, the lowering net billowed around the hawk. The bird blundered into the netting and there was a flash, followed by the repulsive odor of burning feathers and scorched flesh.
The next moment, the charred body of the hawk lay on the floor, its beak still holding the metal scroll.
“The mind-alien won’t escape in the body he borrowed,” panted Hillory triumphantly. “Nor will his free mind.”
Hillory had lowered the net until its bottom folded upon itself over the floor, forming a misshapen bulging “cage”. In the center of it, invisible, must be the captured mind-alien.
Hillory had to be sure. He swept off his ESP helmet, no longer needing it for secrecy, and spoke aloud. The words might not be heard as such, but the thoughts behind them would reach the alien.
