Man of Many Minds/Chapter 8

Chapter 8
George Hanlon withdrew from the puppy's mind, and thought seriously. Yes, this matter of controlling the minds of animals was one that would require a lot of thought and study, and a tremendous amount of practice. But it seemed important enough to justify those expenditures.

He hunted up his steward. “Where do the passengers keep their pets?”

“Some keep them in their staterooms, sir, but others in the kennels down on ‘H’ deck.”

“Thanks. Any rules against my going down there and looking at 'em? I like animals, especially dogs.”

“Oh, no, sir. Anyone can go down there. It's on the right hand side, about halfway aft.”

Arrived at the kennels, Hanlon found the cages contained about a dozen dogs of various breeds, ages and sizes. Here were plenty of animal minds for his experimentation and study.

After walking around and looking at them for some minutes, he sat down on a bench at one side of the cages, and concentrated on the dog nearest him. It was a large white bull, and he guessed its age to be about five or six years. That was just what he wanted—an adult mind to study, not that of an immature puppy.

He had no trouble getting into the dog's mind, and for over an hour he sat there, studying it line by line, channel by channel, connector by connector, while the dog lay as if asleep. Gradually Hanlon began to feel he was beginning to know something about a dog's mind-and-body correlation, and how it operated.

Then, and only then, he woke the dog and began experiment with control. He found it easy to make the dog do anything he wished that was within the animal's previous knowledge and experience. What he wanted was to see if he could make it perform motions and actions that were outside its previous conditioning and training. After some fumbling, he thrilled to find that now even some of the simpler of those things were not too difficult, although others his present knowledge was not up to handling.

His study taught him to some extent how to activate the brain centers which controlled the nerves that sent messages to the proper muscles that allowed the dog to do his bidding. But it still needed a lot of study. He knew he had only made a bare start at learning what had to be known to do it swiftly and easily.

The kennel steward must have noticed the strange antics of the bull and then, seeing Hanlon's intent concentration, figured there might be some connection between the two. For he came up to the bench and looked down somewhat hostilely at the man sitting there. But his voice, when he spoke, was very polite.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?”

Hanlon had been concentrating so deeply he had not heard anyone come up, and the voice, speaking so suddenly right before him, startled and befuddled him. He looked up, and his mind felt sluggish and weak, almost as though he had been doped.

“Huh?” he asked stupidly.

“I asked,” the man's tone was a little sharper, “if there was anything I could do for you?”

“Oh, no. No thanks.” Hanlon forced himself to pay attention. “I just like dogs and came down here to watch them. Must have dozed off.”

“Do you have a dog of your own here?”

“No, I have no dog at present.”

“What were you doing to that white bull. He's been acting very peculiar since you've been here.”

“Me?” Hanlon made himself look surprised. “Why, nothing. I've just been sitting here; haven't said a word to any of them.”

“Well, I'm not too sure it's proper for you to be here as long as you have no dog kennelled here.”

“Sorry. If it bothers you, I'll leave.”

Hanlon started away … then stopped short. He had wondered at that curiously sluggish feeling in his mind. Now, with a start he had trouble concealing, he suddenly realized a mind-numbing fact!

He had seen and heard that exchange of conversation from two separate and distinct points! And now he was watching himself leave!

He had heard and seen both from his own … and from the dog's mind!

Yes, he suddenly comprehended that the dog had heard and understood every word of that brief conversation—not as a dog might, but as a man would!

Suddenly drenched with a cold sweat, Hanlon knew he had not merely been inside the dog's mind, observing and controlling, but that he had actually transferred a portion of his own mind into the dog's brain!

No wonder his own mind—what was left in his own brain—had felt somewhat inadequate and lacking for the moment. It was not his complete mind. When the steward startled him, he had forgotten to withdraw from the bull's brain.

Now he carefully did so, and with senses reeling, almost ran back to his stateroom.

Hanlon threw himself onto the bed and lay there, trembling with awe at realization of the immensity of what he had done.

How in the name of Snyder was such a thing possible? Reading a mind's impressions, even the surface thoughts, was well within the realms of possibility he knew, for he had done it himself. Even hundreds of years before, such things had been believed possible, and had been studied extensively and scientifically. Many people throughout the centuries had claimed the ability to read minds, though only a few had ever proven their powers satisfactorily under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

He himself, until the past day or so, had not been able to read a mind directly, nor could he do it perfectly even yet, with humans.

Also, he conceded, it was a reasonable concept that if he had any mental ability at all with humans, it should be greater and more efficient with animals. For they had less actual brain-power; their minds were far less complex than human minds.

But to be able to transfer part of his mind … to separate it—dissociate it—and have it outside of his body and in some other body's mind!

“Ain't that sumpin'?” he whistled in awed amazement.

Pulling himself together with an effort of will, he set his mind to reviewing carefully the entire episode, and to figuring out where all this might fit in with the business at hand.

“I thought, when I first got into that pup's mind, that it would be a big help, and it will. But this will be even more so, if I can really control animals, and see and hear with their eyes and ears. And if I can send them where I want them to go, and send my mind, or part of it, along with them, and still know what it and they are doing, that will be tremendous!”

He remembered how he had been able to get into the puppy's mind after it had gone out of sight, so now he sent his mind down to the kennels. Again, without any trouble, without any delay or hesitation, he found himself inside the bull's mind, and could look out through the cage wires and see the rest of the kennel deck.

He withdrew and lay there, almost dumbfounded.

“How did I ever get such ability?” he wondered. “No one else in our family has it. Am I some sort of a mutant? But if so, how or why? I never heard Dad or Mother mention it.”

He had lots of questions, but no answers.

But thinking about this new ability and his job with the Secret Service suddenly reminded him of that potential murderer he had been watching. He realized with dismay that in his excitement over this latest development he had entirely forgotten that angle. He had better get back on the ball, but fast!

He got up, splashed cold water on his face, dried it, ran a comb through his hair, and went back to the lounge.

The man Panek was not in the Observation lounge, so Hanlon went seeking him. Just as he neared the game rooms on his rounds, he saw his man leaving them. Allowing the stranger to get some distance ahead, Hanlon trailed him as carefully as he could, all the time trying to read what the killer had in mind.

Not entirely to his surprise, Hanlon found he could now read the surface thoughts even more easily than formerly. Thus he soon knew, emphatically, that the man was definitely bent on that contemplated killing right now—that the victim was in his stateroom but was going to leave it shortly in response to a faked video-call.

Hanlon also learned that the murderer had a knife concealed in his sleeve—and was adept in its use.

The SS man's mind rocketed swiftly. What was he to do? He didn't want a murder done, but neither did he want this man killed nor jailed—at least not until he had learned a great deal more concerning him and his part in or knowledge of that “plot” on Simonides that Hanlon and the Corps were trying so desperately to solve.

“I've got to learn to consider mighty carefully all the angles about even the most apparently-insignificant things,” he thought carefully. “I can't take chances of gumming things up, but on the other hand, I want to get an ‘in’ with that gang if I can.”

A possibility occurred to the young agent—and he quailed a bit, then grinned wolfishly at the thought. It was plenty dangerous, but if he could put it over maybe it would give him that “in” he needed.

He hurried his steps and caught up with the big man just as the latter was stopping momentarily to peer cautiously around the corner and down a corridor which, Hanlon could read in his mind, led to the victim's stateroom.

Hanlon tapped the man on the shoulder, and as the fellow whirled, a snarl on his face, Hanlon stepped backward a pace and held up his hands in the “I'm not armed” gesture. Then, before Panek could speak, he stepped closer to whisper.

But the thug was both angry and frustrated at the spoiling of his carefully-worked-out plan, and in no mood for conversation. That lethal knife seemed to jump out of his sleeve and toward Hanlon, in the strong, swift, practiced hand of the killer.

The SS man jumped backward, then his own hands darted out and grabbed for the other's wrists in the manner he had been taught. He caught the right, or knife hand, but the big fellow was as dextrous as he, even if he didn't look capable of such fast action. His other hand eluded Hanlon's grasp, and with it Panek struck and jabbed—heavy blows to Hanlon's face and body.

Hanlon parried the blows as best he could, at the same time trying to make his low-voiced words penetrate.

“Cut it out, you fool! I'm trying to help you, not hinder you! Stop it, blast you, and listen!”

But he might as well have been talking to the metal walls. One eye was swelling rapidly, and he had a nick in his arm that he could feel was soaking his jacket sleeve. Seeing he couldn't make the fellow listen, Hanlon threw him with a super-judo trick, then sat on him.

“Shut up and listen to me, Panek!” he hissed urgently, using all his fighting technique meanwhile to keep the other's threshing form immobile. “I'm trying to warn you that the bozo you're after carries one of those new needle-guns, and the needles are poison-tipped. Also, he's the fastest man on the draw I've ever seen—I watched him practice. Just one of those needles and you'd be kaput before you could yell.”

“Why … how … what d'you mean, huh, what d'you mean?”

The man stopped his struggles for the moment, while his face showed plainly how aghast he was at this interfering stranger's apparent knowledge of his intentions.

“Who are you, huh, and what's your game, what's your game?”

Hanlon made his voice seem both friendly and calculating, and hurried on with his specious explanation before the fellow should start fighting again.

“I'd been tipped off there was something up, on Simonides, where a good hustler could make himself plenty of credits. And credits in quantity is what I'm after …”

“What's that got to do with me, huh, what has it?”

“… and I'm on my way there to see what my chances are of getting in on the game. So naturally I tried to learn all I could about it ahead of time. I was told this bird you're after was an important man there, so I studied him. One of the first things I found out about him was that he carried one of those needlers. If he's in your way, together we oughta be able to get rid of him … but let's play it safe, eh?”

The stranger gave him a cold, calculating going-over with those hard, suspicious eyes. “Let me up, Bub, let me up. I'll be good while we talk.”

Hanlon rose, but stood warily as the other slowly climbed to his feet. But he wasn't sharp enough—Panek's hand flashed out even before he seemed to be standing erect, and slickly grabbed the wallet from the inside pocket of Hanlon's jacket.

But the SS man, seeing what the other was after, stood there without making any resistance.

“Take your time looking at 'em, Pal,” he said easily. “I'm clean. Strictly on my own in this. Just got kicked out of that snake's nest of a Corps school on Terra …”

The killer's head snapped up at mention of the Corps, and he stared harder and more suspiciously than ever into Hanlon's eyes.

“… They said I cheated at exams, and wouldn't give me a chance to defend myself,” Hanlon continued quickly, but with heat. “That soured me on 'em, but good! So I says to myself, blast John Law! From now on I'm on the other side. Anything he's after must be worth plenty to any guy who can outsmart him. Knowing his side of it and how he works, I figure I'm just that good!”

He said all this with such a deadly serious voice, that although it was bravado Panek could see it was also confidence. Hanlon had figured this straight-forwardness was his best bet. Tell his side of it first, for if he got in with them—or any gang—they would be sure to check, and would find out he had been a cadet, anyway. “Beat 'em to the punch before they form any contrariwise conclusions,” was his judgment.

His plan seemed to be working, for as his explanation continued and was completed the killer looked at him with some measure of respect, although his eyes and manner were still filled with suspicion.

“Can't blame you for feeling sore, can't blame you, if they really did kick you out. But I don't trust nobody that's ever had any connection at all with the cops, don't trust 'em!”

“Look, Pal, use your head! If I was a John Law would I merely have stopped you? I'd be arresting you—or killing you for pulling that knife on me. I tell you I'm clean—and that I want an 'in' on Simonides.”

“I heard, too, there was good pickings on Sime,” the man said slowly. “'Course, I'm not in on anything special, myself, not in on it. This here's a purely personal grudge deal. But you prob'ly did me a good turn, a good turn, and if you want to look me up after we land, I maybe could introduce you to a man or two. I didn't know old Abrams carried one of them needlers, didn't know that.”

The thanks in his gruff voice showed his respect for those silent, deadly little guns.

That name—Abrams—rang a bell in Hanlon's mind, though he quickly decided he'd better let it lie for the moment—file it away for future investigation.

He smiled in comradely fashion. “The way you were walking into it made me sure you didn't know. And thanks. Maybe I will look you up. I don't know anyone on Simonides, and it doesn't hurt to have a friend or three. Where do I find you there?”

“Evenings I'm often at the Bacchus Tavern. And,” with a sinister grimace, “if you come, you'd better pray that ‘he’ likes you, you'd sure better!”