The Voyage of the Space Beagle

by A. E. van Vogt

  The connection was so obvious that his mind trembled with excitement. There was another thing, also. Until now, he had concentrated on the notion of seeing and feeling with the nervous system of the individual. Yet the realization of his hopes depended on his establishing contact with, and control of, the group of minds that had attacked the ship.

  He saw his problem, suddenly, as one that would require control of his own brain. Certain areas would have to be virtually blacked out, kept at minimum-performance levels. Others must be made extremely sensitive, so that all incoming sensations found it easier to seek expression through them. As a highly-trained auto-hypnotic subject, he could accomplish both objectives by suggestion.

  Vision came first, of course. Then muscular control of the individual through whom the group was working against him.

  Flashes of coloured light interrupted his concentration. Grosvenor regarded them as evidence of the effectiveness of his suggestions. And he knew that he was on the right track when his vision cleared suddenly, and stayed clear.

  The scene was the same. His control still sat on one of the roosts inside one of the tall buildings. Hoping fervently that the vision was not going to fade, Grosvenor began to concentrate on moving the Riim’s muscles.

  The trouble was that the ultimate explanation of why a movement could occur at all was obscure. His visualization could not possibly include in detail the millions of cell responses involved in the raising of one finger. He thought now in terms of a whole limb. Nothing happened. Shocked but determined, Grosvenor tried symbol hypnosis, using a single cue word to cover the entire complex process.

  Slowly, one of the attenuated arms came up. Another cue, and his control stood up cautiously. Then he made it turn its head. The act of looking reminded the bird being that that drawer and that cabinet and that closet were “mine”. The memory barely touched the conscious level. The creature knew its own possessions and accepted the fact without concern.

  Grosvenor had a hard time fighting down his excitement. With tense patience, he had the bird being get up from a sitting position, raise its arms, lower them, and walk back and forth along the roost. Finally, he made it sit down again.

  He must have been keyed up, his brain responsive to the slightest suggestion, because he had barely started to concentrate again when his whole being was flooded by a message that seemed to affect every level of his thought and feeling. More or less automatically, Grosvenor translated the anguished thoughts into familiar verbalisms.

  “The cells are calling, calling. The cells are afraid. Oh, the cells know pain! There is darkness in the Riim world. Withdraw from the being — far from Riim…. Shadows, darkness, turmoil…. The cells must reject him…. But they cannot.

  They were right to try to be friendly to the being who came out of the great dark, since they did not know he was an enemy…. The night deepens. All cells withdraw…. But they cannot….”

  Grosvenor thought blankly, Friendly!

  It fitted also. He could see how, in a nightmarish fashion, everything that had happened so far could be explained as easily one way as the other. Dismayed, he realized the seriousness of the situation. If the catastrophe that had already occurred aboard the ship were the result of a misguided and ignorant attempt at friendly communication, then what damage might they not be able to do if they were hostile?

  His problem was greater than theirs. If he broke his connection with them, they would be free. Now that could mean an attack. By avoiding him they might actually attempt destruction of the Space Beagle.

  He had no recourse but to continue what he had planned, in the hope that something would happen that he could turn to his favour.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He concentrated first on what seemed the most logical intermediate stage: the transfer of control to another alien. The choice, in the case of these beings, was obvious.

  “I am loved!” he told himself, deliberately producing the sensation that had confused him earlier. “I am loved by my parent body, from which I am growing to wholeness. I share my parent’s thoughts, but already I see with my own eyes, and know that I am one of the group—”

  The transition came suddenly, as Grosvenor had expected it might. He moved the smaller, duplicate fingers. He arched the fragile shoulders. Then he oriented himself again to the parent Riim. The experiment was so completely satisfactory that he felt ready for the bigger jump that would take him into association with the nervous system of a more distant alien.

  And that, also, proved to be a matter of stimulating the proper brain centres. Grosvenor came to awareness standing in a wilderness of brush and hill. Directly in front of him was a narrow stream. Beyond it, an orange sun rode low in a dark purple sky that was spotted with fleecy clouds. Grosvenor made his new control turn completely around. He saw that a small roost building nestled among the trees farther along the stream. It was the only habitation in sight. He walked over to it and looked inside. In the dim interior he made out several roosts, one with two birds sitting on it. Both sat with eyes closed.

  It was quite possible, he decided, that they were participating in the group assault on the Space Beagle.

  From there, by a variation of the stimulus, he transferred his control to an individual on a part of the planet where it was night. The transition this time was even faster. He was in a lightless city, with ghostly buildings and catwalks. Swiftly, Grosvenor moved on to association with other nervous systems. He had no clear idea why the rapport was established with one Riim, and not with another who fitted the same general requirement. It could be that the stimulation affected some individuals slightly faster than it affected others. It was even possible that they were descendants or body relatives of his original parent control. When he had been associated with more than two dozen Riim all over the planet, it seemed to Grosvenor that he had a good over-all impression.

  It was a world of brick and stone and wood, and of a neurological community relationship that would probably never be surpassed. And so a race had by-passed the entire machine age of man, with its penetration of the secrets of matter and energy. Now, he felt, he could safely take the next-to-the-last step of his counter attack.

  He concentrated on a pattern which would characterize one of the beings who had projected an image to the Space Beagle. He had then a sense of a small but noticeable lapse of time. And then….

  He was looking forth from one of the images, seeing the ship through an image.

  His first concern was with how the battle was progressing. But he had to restrain his will to know, because coming aboard was only part of his necessary pre-conditioning. He wanted to affect a group of perhaps millions of individuals. He had to affect them so powerfully that they would have to withdraw from the Space Beagle and have no choice but to stay away from it.

  He had proved that he could receive their thoughts and that they could receive his. His association with one nervous system after another would not have been possible unless that were so.

  And so now he was ready. He projected his thoughts into the darkness. “You live in a universe; and within you, you form pictures of the universe as it seems to you. And of that universe you know nothing and can know nothing except for the pictures. But the pictures within you of the universe are not the universe….”

  How could you influence another’s mind? By changing his assumptions. How could you alter another’s actions? By changing his basic beliefs, his emotional certainties.

  Carefully, Grosvenor went on, “And the pictures within you do not show all about the universe, for there are many things which you cannot know directly, not having senses to know. Within the universe there is an order. And if the order of the pictures within you is not as the order of the universe, then you are deceived….”

  In the history of life, few thinking beings had done anything illogical — within their frame of reference. If the frame was falsely based, if the assumptions were untrue to reality, then the individual’s automatic logic could lead him to d
isastrous conclusions.

  The assumptions had to be changed. Grosvenor changed them, deliberately, coolly, honestly. His own basic hypothesis behind what he was doing was that the Riim had no defence. There were the first new ideas they had had in countless generations. He did not doubt that the impact would be colossal. This was a fellah civilization, rooted in certainties that had never before been challenged. There was ample historical evidence that a tiny intruder could influence decisively the future of entire fellahin races.

  Huge old India had crumbled before a few thousand Englishmen. Similarly, all the fellah peoples of ancient Earth were taken over with ease, and did not revive until the core of their inflexible attitudes was forever shattered by the dawning realization that there was more to life than they had been taught under their rigid systems.

  The Riim were peculiarly vulnerable. Their method of communication, unique and wonderful though it was, made it possible to influence them all in a single intensive operation. Over and over Grosvenor repeated his message, adding each time one instruction that had to do with the ship. The instruction was: “Change the pattern you are using against those on the ship, and then withdraw it. Change the pattern, so that they can relax and sleep… then withdraw it…. Your friendly action caused the ship great harm. We are friendly to you also, but your method of expressing friendship hurt us.”

  He had only a vague notion as to how long he actually poured his commands into that tremendous neural circuit. He guessed about two hours. Whatever the time involved, it ended as the relay switch on the encephalo-adjuster automatically broke the connection between himself and the image in the wall of his department.

  Abruptly, he was aware of the familiar surroundings. He glanced at where the image had been. It was gone. He sent a quick look toward Korita. The archaeologist was crumpled in his chair fast asleep.

  Grosvenor sat up jerkily, remembering the instruction he had given — to relax and sleep. This was the result. All over the ship, men would be sleeping.

  Pausing only to awaken Korita, Grosvenor headed out into the corridor. As he raced along, he saw that unconscious men lay everywhere but that the walls were bright and clear. Not once on his journey to the control room did he see an image.

  Inside the control room, he stepped gingerly over the sleeping form of Captain Leeth, who lay on the floor near the control panel. With a sigh of relief, he threw the switch that energized the outer screen of the ship.

  Seconds later, Elliott Grosvenor was in the control chair, altering the course of the Space Beagle.

  Before leaving the control room, he put a time lock on the steering gear and set it for ten hours. Thus protected against the possibility that one of the men might wake up in a suicidal mood, he hurried out to the corridor and began to give medical aid to injured men.

  His patients were, without exception, unconscious, and so he had to guess at their condition. He played safe. Where laboured respiration indicated shock, he gave blood plasma. He injected specific drugs for pain whenever he saw dangerous-looking wounds, and he applied fast-healing salves for burns and cuts. Seven times — with Korita’s help now — he lifted dead men on to loading mules and rushed them to resuscitation chambers. Four revived. Even after that there were thirty-two dead men who, after an examination, Grosvenor did not so much as attempt to revive.

  They were still tending the injured when a geology technician near by woke up, yawned lazily — and then groaned in dismay. Grosvenor guessed that a flood of memory had come, but he watched warily as the man climbed to his feet and came over. The technician glanced in puzzlement from Korita to Grosvenor; finally he said: “May I help?”

  Soon a dozen men were helping, with a strained concentration and an occasional word that showed awareness of the temporary insanity that had caused such a nightmare of death and destruction.

  Grosvenor was not aware that Captain Leeth and Director Morton had arrived until he saw them talking to Korita. Presently, Korita walked off, and the two leaders came over to Grosvenor and invited him to a meeting in the control room. Silently, Morton clapped him on the back. Grosvenor had been wondering if they would remember. Spontaneous amnesia was a common hypnotic phenomenon. Without their own recollections, it would be extremely hard to explain convincingly what had happened.

  He was relieved when Captain Leeth said, “Mr. Grosvenor, in looking back over the disaster, Mr. Morton and I were both struck by the attempt you made to make us aware that we were the victims of an outside attack. Mr. Korita has now told us what he saw of your actions. I want you to tell the departmental executives in the control room what exactly took place.”

  It required over an hour to give an orderly account. When Grosvenor had finished, a man said, “Am I to understand that this was actually an attempt at friendly communications?”

  Grosvenor nodded. “I’m afraid it was.”

  “You mean we can’t go over there and bomb hell out of them?” he said harshly.

  “It would serve no useful purpose.” Grosvenor spoke steadily. “We could drop in on them and make a more direct contact.”

  Captain Leeth said quickly, “It would take too long. We’ve got distance to cover.” He added in a sour voice, “It seems to be a particularly drab civilization.”

  Grosvenor hesitated. Before he could speak, Director Morton said quickly, “What have you to say to that, Mr. Grosvenor?”

  Grosvenor said, “I assume the commander is referring to the lack of mechanical aids. But living organisms can have satisfactions that do not require machines: food and drink, association with friends and loved ones. I suggest these bird folk find emotional release in the community thinking and in their method of propagation. Time was when man had little more, yet he called it civilization; and there were great men in those days as well as now.”

  “Still,” said physicist von Grossen shrewdly, “you did not hesitate to upset their mode of life.”

  Grosvenor was cool. “It is unwise for birds — or men — to live too specialized an existence. I broke down their resistance to new ideas, something which I have not yet been able to do aboard this ship.”

  Several men laughed wryly, and the meeting began to break up. Afterwards, Grosvenor saw Morton speak to Yemens, the only man present from the chemistry department. The chemist — second only to Kent now — frowned, and shook his head several times. Finally, he spoke at some length, and he and Morton shook hands.

  Morton came over to Grosvenor, and said in a low tone, “The chemistry department will move its equipment out of your rooms within twenty-four hours, on condition that no further reference is made to the incident, Mr Yemens—”

  Grosvenor said quickly, “What does Kent think of this?”

  Morton hesitated. “He got a whiff of gas,” he said finally, “and will be on his back in bed for several months.”

  “But,” said Grosvenor, “that will take us past the date of the election.”

  Once more Morton hesitated, then said, “Yes, it will. It means I win the election without opposition, since no one but Kent filed against me.”

  Grosvenor was silent, thinking of the potentialities. It was good to know that Morton would continue in office. But what about all the discontented men who had supported Kent?

  Before he could speak, Morton went on. “I want to ask this as a personal favour, Mr. Grosvenor. I persuaded Mr. Yemens that it would be unwise to continue Kent’s attack on you. For the sake of peace, I’d like you to keep silent. Make no attempt to exploit your victory. Admit freely that it was a result of the accident, if you are asked, but do not bring up the matter yourself. Will you promise me?”

  Grosvenor promised, then said hesitantly, “I wonder if I could make a suggestion.”

  “By all means.”

  “Why not name Kent your alternative?”

  Morton studied him with narrowed eyes. He seemed nonplussed. He said finally, “That’s a suggestion I wouldn’t have expected from you. I’m not, personally, very anxious to boost Kent’s m
orale.”

  “Not Kent’s,” said Grosvenor.

  This time Morton was silent. In the end, he said slowly, “I suppose it would release tension.” But he still seemed reluctant.

  Grosvenor said, “Your opinion of Kent himself seems to parallel my own.”

  Morton laughed grimly. “There are several dozen men aboard whom I would rather see director, but for the sake of peace, I’ll follow your suggestion.”

  They parted, Grosvenor with feelings more mixed than he had indicated. It was an unsatisfactory conclusion to Kent’s attack. Grosvenor had the feeling that, in getting the chemistry department out of his rooms, he had won a skirmish and not a battle. Nevertheless, from his own point of view, it was the best solution to what might have been a bitterly fought engagement.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ixtl sprawled unmoving in the boundless night. Time paced slowly toward the eternity, and space was fathomlessly black. Across the immensity, vague patches of light gleamed coldly at him. Each, he knew, was a galaxy of blazing stars, shrunk by incredible distance to shining swirls of mist. Life was out there, spawning on the myriad planets that wheeled endlessly around their parent suns. In the same way, life had once crawled out of the primeval mud of ancient Glor, before a cosmic explosion destroyed his own mighty race and flung his body out into the intergalactic deeps.

  He lived; that was his personal catastrophe. Having survived the cataclysm, his almost unkillable body maintained itself in a gradually weakening state on the light energy that permeated all space and time. His brain pulsed on and on in the same old, old cycle of thought — thinking: one chance in decillions that he would ever again find himself in a galactic system. And then an even more infinitesimal chance that he fall on a planet and find a precious guul.

  A billion billion times that thought had pounded to its unvarying conclusion. It was a part of him now. It was like an endless picture unrolling before his mind’s eye. Together with those remote wisps of shiningness out there in that gulf of blackness, it made up the world in which he had his existence. He had almost forgotten the far-flung field of sensitivity his body maintained. In past ages that field had been truly vast, but now that his powers were waning, no signals came to him beyond the range of a few light-years.