The Short Life Read online

  VIII

  The involuntary start that shook the pine cone from his hand freedPhil's nostrils of the anaesthetic. Rapidly clearing eyes watched thecone fall near his feet and roll a few inches. A hawk that had beenwheeling in the sky at the edge of his vision was still wheeling. Onlyseconds had elapsed, but this time there remained a clear recall of allthat had transpired in those few seconds of lost time--seconds in whichhe had lived another's memories as though they were his own.

  Reluctantly, impelled more by fascination than intent, he raised hishead and faced his companion. The compassionate eyes that met his didhold certain childlike qualities of freedom from suspicion or hardness,but the gaze was not that of a simple child, nor was the bearing.Incongruity sparked a scarcely-controllable impulse to hystericallaughter. A small boy seated on a log, regarding his elder with gentlekindliness and understanding! Phil made a sound deep in his throat andswung his head away, afraid he was going to be sick. "Timmy" made nomove. The silence endured, as it had to endure until one reaction oranother prevailed. Gradually Phil worked to a conclusion.

  "You call it a 'blunder,'" Phil said thickly. "You made a freak of anunborn baby for your own ends, and you call it a blunder. Anyone elsemight be content with a little innocent butchery, but not you ... youtake over children, body and soul!"

  "No."

  "What we've been calling Timmy is a secondhand suit of clothes for_you_! And you claim you're not a monster!"

  "Nor am I."

  Phil struggled for violent words to match his feelings, then sighedheavily. "No," he agreed, despite himself. "You are not. I know that.Maybe you've controlled me just as you tricked me into entering yourmind and living your memories but, sickened as I am, I still can't helpbelieving you more implicitly than I've ever believed anyone. Nor do Isee any reason to."

  "You've never known anyone as surely as you know me, now that our mindshave been in phase. Emotional reactions stemming from a dozen hiddencauses may mislead you, but at the back of your mind you _know_ me."

  "And you know--me."

  "I know only what I need to know about you. Your private memories areyour own and will always remain so unless you invite me to share them."

  "Yet you opened all yours to me?"

  "Far from it. At this point it would give you too much to digest all atonce. The major part of my concentration was required to maintain mentalcontact without any help from you, and to blanket the interference setup by the analytical part of your ego through its fixed, deep-rootedconviction equating the individual with mental isolation. Faced withabsolute proof to the contrary, your analytical mind still tries toinsist that what it has always believed to be true must still be true,otherwise everything is suspect and, therefore, anti-survival. In otherwords, on a survival level your mind tries to reject free telepathyas it would reject any other upsetting of the basic tenets of yourexistence. That and the disharmony existing in your mind is a large partof the 'protecting' aura of discordance that seals you off from me.The memories I shared with you I selected and edited for expediency.Unfortunately, your physical reaction to a startling thought caused youto break away before you had the full truth and left you with a falseimpression."

  "Either the memories you fed me were truth, or they were lies. Whichis it?"

  "The data was true, but your interpretation of it is false because youare still in a state of shock, still fighting for survival on a moroniclevel. What do you take me to be?"

  "You name it. By your own admission, at best 'you' are a falsepersonality forcibly impressed on a helpless mind that never had a ghostof a chance. In effect, you are a parasite living on a host, thereincarnation of an ego that should be eleven years dead."

  "Not eleven years dead--only eight."

  "What difference does ... _eight_?"

  "Eight years dead."

  Prickles crawled over Phil's scalp and his mind raced. A series ofmemories snapped into place.

  "Eight. And I laughed at Clancey!"

  "I know--I heard. You were getting too close for comfort so I distractedyou by giving you a headache."

  "Stop--let me get my breath!" His voice rose until it threatened tocrack. What am I talking to! A _dog_?"

  "Yes."

  "_Homer_? I don't believe it!"

  "Watch." The boy slipped from the log and sat beside it on the ground,his back braced. "Timmy would simply fall on his face," he explained,and with the words the face became empty and the mouth hung foolishlyopen. Control had been relinquished. The corner of Phil's eye caughtan answering movement that his senses wanted to reject, but he turned.Homer had raised his head painfully and was looking directly at him,unmistakable intelligence in the exhaustion-glazed eyes. The fringedlips curled back, the throat worked. Strange sounds were forced out,growling but not doglike.

  "Ar-ro ... ar-rik." It was a barely recognizable distortion of"Hello-Warwick." "Ok-all ... orr ... ron." Vocal-cords-wrong?"Im ... ork." Tim-talk?

  The gray-muzzled head sank back wearily. A scuffling sound drew Phil'sdazed eyes and he turned back in time to see Tim sit up again briskly,ignoring the old dog.

  * * * * *

  "I hate that mangled speech, don't you, Uncle Phil? I'll still call youthat, if you don't mind. You're still as much my uncle as you ever were,and I'm the only Tim you've known." He watched Phil anxiously. "Knocksthe wind out of you, doesn't it? But ordinary speech is painfullylimited to begin with, without trying to force it from poor old Homer."He chattered on nervously, giving Phil time to collect himself. "Yousee, Timmy is as mindless now as when he was born, three years before'my' ship crashed in the swamp over there. Look back through yournewspaper files and you'll find a brief mention of a mysteriousexplosion reported during a night of heavy rain. That was us." He wethis lips, watching the silent white face. "Look, I had nothing at all todo with Timmy being born an imbecile. He's like a car that functionswell enough if a driver takes over the physical controls that Timmy isincapable of handling for himself. Lacking a driver, the controls andthe car stand idle. It is only the body that I manipulate, not thedormant, disconnected mind. For myself, although I can't helpidentifying myself emotionally and subjectively as the Challon,Objective reason assures me that I am Homer, with a complete but falseset of memories and an artificially stimulated intelligence.

  "As the Challon, I realized that the embryo Homer was of low actualintelligence, but high potential intelligence. The dangerous peculiarityof this planet is that several of the higher species have no known orrecognized function for the most important portion of their brain. Itlies fallow, unused, blocked off much as Timmy's whole mind is blockedoff from his service. In eight years I have done no more than form themere skeleton of a theory to account for that, but the means ofcorrection was obvious from the start. Like the appendix that floatsfree at one end and serves no known purpose, the brain has an incompleteneural path of an unusual nature that has effectively camouflaged itstrue purpose. The intended function of the connection was the energizingof that prime center which you have not yet discovered and without whichyou differ from Timmy only in degree, for you cannot realize more than afragment of your incredible potential.

  "The same condition exists among the higher mammals. Releasing Homer'sblocked potential placed at his service the intellectual capacity of avery clever human--according to your false standards--but not of a humangenius. If I had not imposed my ego on him ... you see, I cannot helpthinking of myself as the Challon, although I know I am Homer ... ifI had not robbed Homer of his identity and self-will, of his rightto possess and control himself, he would have developed personality,characteristics and aptitudes of his own, appropriate to a canine ofhigh intelligence. As it is, there are false memories of aptitudes Homernever had nor could have. Physical limitations alone make some of themimpossible. How could a dog tinker with machinery, for example? Yet I'remember' working on machines of my own design. Homer's mind, in otherwords, remembers as first-person data experiences it never had.

  "I
n actual fact, 'I' who speak to you now am no more than the recordcontained in a book. In terms of personality, Homer is the hiddenstructure giving strength and substance to a false facade. 'I' am thefalse facade, faithfully copied from another structure. 'I' am asuperimposure of ephemeral data, governing its own employment by a mindthat has been restricted from developing its own data. The 'I' thatspeaks to you has no real existence, though its pattern is being subtlyand continuously altered by that which it cloaks. If you put a drop ofintense stain and a drop of powerful scent into a large tank ofdistilled water, you change the superficial character of the water, makeit seem to be other than what it is. But it remains essentially a tankfull of water, now containing an obtrusive trifle of alien matter inaddition to the hydrogen and oxygen that decide its most significantproperties. That is what the Challon did to Homer--he released thepotential, then accidentally but indelibly stained it with his ownpersonality.

  "To me, now, it merely _seems_ as though I first suffered death and thenan unwelcome resurrection, awakening in despair to find myself usurpingthe helpless body of an almost new-born animal. Nothing physical orspiritual of the Challon survived, but the embryo mind had been fed aready-made identity and so believed that it had already existed as aChallon before re-birth as a dog. Its brain received instantly all 'my'training, so that it became at once 'mature.' What I have endured inthese eight years--the isolation of mind and inadequacy of body--havebeen a blunderer's reward visited upon his victim as a further injury.Now that Homer lies near death--and 'I' with him, of course--I welcome'our' approaching release from an unhappy situation.

  * * * * *

  "Wait--let me finish. Your main concern is what will happen to Timmywhen 'we' die, but it will be simpler to understand if I explain as muchas I can first. Finding myself to be a rational mind in the helpless,immature body of an animal, I thought I was isolated forever. Inchoosing the embryo to begin with, I was driven by the need for hasteand had not understood the limitations of a canine in a human world, norwould I have had any alternative if I had fully understood. When it wastoo late, it was not difficult to predict my future. I had no means ofcommunicating with the dominant species, Man. In time, if I survivedthe hazards a puppy is exposed to, I could reveal my unusualintelligence--could even learn to communicate in some hopelessly laboredmanner. By using my store of inherited knowledge I could, if anyonewould take a dog seriously, advance your science. But I could do nothingtoward my main goals without exposing myself as an imitation Challon,and that I must never do lest I loose terrible consequences.

  "I knew that the life span of my new body was pitifully short. Thefemale had suffered repeated convulsions that affected the formation ofthe embryos and we were an ugly litter of little mongrels, doomed by ourphysical imperfections to a shorter-than-normal life if we were allowedto live and exposed to early drowning if we could not quickly charmourselves into a home.

  "The remainder of the litter--my brothers and sisters, if I could thinkof them as such--were callously placed in a weighted sack and tossedin the swamp, but by that time I had found a home. The Douglas home.Their child, Timmy, was an imbecile whose short-circuited mind layopen to me. I found by hasty experiments that Homer's mind was capableof controlling and manipulating the imbecile, like a puppeteer. Thedifficulties of controlling two bodies at once are tremendous, which iswhy Homer always struck you as clumsy and almost half-witted--he had toreceive the absolute minimum of concentration so that his exhaustion atclimbing the bluff this afternoon, for example, was not recognized intime. Well, there it is. I took over Timmy's helpless body eight yearsago--too abruptly and with many errors--but it insured my survival fora short time at least. Now that time is at an end and the greater partof what I must do is still to be done--"

  * * * * *

  Phil sat with his face averted, his hands clenched between his knees."The instinct to survive," he said in a muffled voice. "I can't blameyou for what you did, but it was cruel! What a damnable trick to playon the parents!"

  "Believe me, I know what you feel but there was no other way."

  "No other!" He swung around, his face mottled and his breathing heavy."Whatever you are, you made a Machiavellian puppet-master out of alousy, flea-bitten mongrel! Was it beyond _those_ powers to heal Timmy'smind?"

  "I am not a psychopathic criminal."

  "Do you imply that healing Timmy would involve repeating the swindle youworked on Homer?"

  "No. I could have by-passed the simple neural block that was leavingTimmy helpless, and so have given him what to you would have seemed hisnormal intelligence. In addition, I could have completed the work thatnature left incomplete in all of you, and so have released his full,enormous capabilities. I could have done all this--can still do it--andstill leave Timmy's ego untouched, to develop in its own way, among itsown kind, knowing nothing of me for what I am."

  "But you haven't done so. Why? Why!"

  "I dared not."

  "Danger? From a small boy?"

  "Deadly danger--danger of infection that might threaten everyintelligent race in the galaxy and even spread across the great gulfs ofspace beyond--"

  "All this from poor little Timmy?"

  "From what he might thereby become."

  "I'm licked." Phil threw out his hands angrily. "I try to get a straightanswer and all I get is implications. You tell me an outrageous story,and I believe you. You tell me you've neatly arranged to break thehearts of two of my best friends, and I respect your good intentions indoing so. Why? I love you like a brother, but I'm ready to take a rockand crush your skull in for a monster. I mean it! I could kill Homerwith a single kick! I could--"

  "I know, and I'm afraid of that hysterical impulse. I know the nature ofthe struggle going on in your mind better than you do, but only you canfight for control. I must wait for the outcome. When you have control ofyourself--"

  "You're so bloody sane and smug you with your secondhand suit andhand-me-down knowledge!" He jumped up in a fury and turned his back onTimmy, addressing himself directly to Homer whose patient, pain-filledeyes held undeniable understanding. "Look at you! The telepathic geniuswith personal immortality--at a price only you could stomach! Too badyou got caught short and had to live in a cur! Tough, isn't it, havingto wait for a mere moron to get control of himself! _You_ know all theanswers--why don't _you_ control the situation?"

  "Because the hand-me-down knowledge is no longer backed by the mentalcapacity of a Challon."

  Phil stiffened as Tim's answering voice sounded behind him, quiet andfriendly. Against his will, he turned back to the boy and seated himselfagain on the log. The boy's eyes caught and held his.

  "The morality and outlook of the Challon are my morality and outlook,whether I wish it so or not." Tim might have been making a pleasantlyinconsequential remark about the weather for all the importance heseemed to attach to his statement, yet his eyes held the strained,tight-lipped face. "The insight and understanding bequeathed by theChallon are sufficient to keep Homer's mind sane under long stress,and of course--"

  His soothing voice went on and on, and presently his lungs expelleda soft breath of relief as Phil relaxed a trifle, still breathingraggedly. Alert eyes watched him mop his damp forehead but the quietwords flowed in an unhurried stream, soothing, distracting, keeping thethread intact. At last the crises seemed behind them. "... So I can onlywait for you to absorb the emotional impact of what I've told you. I hadplanned to prepare you, to break it gently if I could, but ... youunderstand?" The voice paused, then repeated gently and insistently,"You understand, don't you?"

  "Uh ... yes. Homer--"

  * * * * *

  "He can't last much longer, and so of course I can't. I've landed onekick after another right smack in your emotional solar plexus and you'retrying to catch your wind." Tim's hand casually struck a match for thecigarette Phil had put unlit in his mouth and the man leaned forwardautomatically, puffed, and automatical
ly muttered a word of thanks. Thequiet voice went on, taking an even more casual note. "What with tryingto examine the implications of everything at once, you've stirred up afine old Irish stew of fears, resentments and envies, all of them tryingto reconcile the certain knowledge that I can be trusted and theessentially neurotic fear that I'm playing you for an almighty sucker.

  "Remember, it has been even harder for me to reconcile myself to youhuman beings than it can possibly be for you to accept the existenceof the Challon. The concept of telepathy is not a completely new oralien one to you, but the concept of a nontelepathic civilization wasdismissed by the Challon ages ago as a simple contradiction of terms,a self-evident absurdity such as lifting oneself by one's bootstraps.

  "It seemed so obvious that a civilized society could not develop withoutthe capacity for intelligent cooeperation, and intelligent cooeperation ofany real complexity was impossible without adequate communication. Whatmeans of communication could adequately replace the direct linking ofmind and mind? Failing any answers short of fantasy, the propositionalways remained a sort of classroom joke with us. In fact, severalclassic satires exist on the subject and one of the leastsuccessful--because it seemed too ridiculous--suggested an elaboratelycoded system of vocalizing. We have a very elementary spoken languageand a more complex code of inscriptions for essential records, butneither the written nor the spoken system could possibly be called anadequate means of communication.

  "I realize now that one of the satires was not the rather frighteningeffort that it seemed to be, but a brilliant scientific prediction ofthe probable development and history of a race of highly intelligentnontelepaths. The composer of the epic pointed out that where theculture and character of the Challon neither permitted nor desiredconcealment of any sort, a race that lacked adequate communication wouldhave no choice but to live as disharmonious groups of strangers, nevertruly knowing either their fellows or themselves. He postulated whatyou now call traumatic experiences which, unrecognized and, therefore,untreated, would fester in secrecy from childhood onward until theymanifested as compulsive drives or inhibitive complexes. He inventedderanged emotions which you describe as 'guilt' and 'shame' and heshowed how they would cause buried memories to erupt in changed form,lead to cankerous misunderstandings, cause unhealthy repressions, andfoster frustrations.

  * * * * *

  "But his master-stroke--and this was pure genius, for it was almostinconceivable--was when he traced the development of his 'nontelepathiccivilization' to the point where he predicted criminals, criminal andmoral codes of unbelievable complexity, and a great multitude of harmfuland illogical taboos, local customs, and regional superstitions.It was a superb achievement of creative imagination and scientificdeduction--but not even its creator thought it was more than an exercisein fantasy and perhaps not in the best of taste. The basic assumptionwas simply too absurd for serious consideration."

  "Yeah. I guess we were as indigestible to you as you are to me. MaybeI'm getting over it. Sorry ... uh ... Homer."

  "Call me Tim. I don't think of myself as Homer and my Challonidentification is a mental-verbal linkage. Even 'Challon' is acompromise simplification."

  "I guess it would be. Those cracks I made--"

  "Forget them. To what you call the hag-ridden moron jittering out ofsight in your mind, so many things equate to a threat to survival.And so many survival reactions outlast their usefulness, becomingessentially antisocial and antisurvival. For a telepathic race thereare no false fronts or motives or impulses. In a nontelepathic society,nothing but false faces are ever seen."

  "It's beginning to get home to me ... what about that night near theswamp?"

  "My poor Challonari. The shockwave of 'my' death left it alert butbewildered. It could not recognize nontelepathic intelligences and triedto turn them aside like the first one. Their deaths are on my head--oron the organic dust that eight years ago was a Challon. The Challonariwas confused by the contradictions of my present identity, subtlyaltered as it has been by Homer's channeling mind, and went insane whenfaced with a basic conflict of duties. It was like ... losing a simplechild."

  "So we return to Timmy."

  "And to you."

  "Me? I'm going downhill fast. Let's have it before I hit rock-bottom and_really_ get around to reacting. And let's have a few straight answers.You could have by-passed the first block that makes Timmy an idiot.O. K., why didn't you?"

  "I would have lost control of him at once, of course. For one thing, asan ordinary child his mind would be closed to me just as yours is and Iwould be a voiceless animal with no protector, my existence likely toend at the bottom of a river in a weighted sack."

  "No dice. Remember, I know you too well to believe you'd place your owninterests first, much as I hate to admit it."

  "As Homer I might, survival being a basic drive. As the Challon-Homer,however, I needed a better reason than simple self-preservation. I havethat better reason. It lies in you, in Timmy, and in all your kind.Perhaps you'll see the connection when I tell you that although theChallon are the most intelligent race yet known to exist, Homo sapiensis _at present_ not far behind them. Only more efficient communicationand the great strides that it makes possible has advanced the Challonculture and science so disproportionately far beyond your own."

  * * * * *

  "So the Challon are a bit brighter and a lot more advanced than we are.O. K., they seem like a good bunch ... or are they? Come to think of it,I saw them from your viewpoint which was predisposed to favor them."Another thought struck him and he fell silent for a moment. "You say weare almost their equal _at present_. What happens--if this inhibitedpotential you speak of--is released--if Man is made whole?"

  The answer came quietly.

  "You would have no equal in the known universe."

  Phil's face grew thoughtful, sober, while the Challon-Homer watchedthrough Tim's eyes the progress of a calculated gamble.

  "Would the Challon--resent--our becoming superior?"

  "For the same reason that the present Challon superiority is notresented by races of lower intelligence, they would not themselvesresent the appearance of intellects far greater than their own."

  "I have a feeling there's a lot more in that answer than meets the eye.Can you estimate to what extent we would surpass the Challon?"

  "If my Challon memory serves me, they had no knowledge of anymind-structure of a capacity remotely approaching that of Man. It isa maze, incredibly complex, with far-reaching resources I can onlyguess at. The Challon part of my mind has the profoundest admirationfor a superb mechanism it can only dimly comprehend, but beneath theChallon"--the voice dropped almost to a whisper--"beneath the Challon isthe dog, and the dog sees his god." The power of that factor he had notconsidered.

  Phil laughed uneasily, both shocked and repelled.

  "I hope you're joking. We sound like the sweet-smelling Flower ofCreation! When a dog reaches the level you ... um ... Homer has, itbecomes Man's equal, not his pet."

  "Until Man's advance thrusts the dog back to an even lower relativeposition, as it inevitably must when ... if ... Man comes into his own.I told you I dared not leave myself isolated and speechless by clearingthe simple short-circuit immobilizing Timmy. Now you see why I dared notgo even farther and release--untrained _and with no hope of adequatetraining_--the true Homo superior, the transcendent man."

  "That's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten! Give a man areally high-powered intellect and for all his shortcomings--"

  "The intellect is nothing. The data, the circumstances, the influences,the environment that shape the intellect, _these_ are what count. Yourtheorists say that although Man may some day create wonderful mechanicalbrains with a creative capacity almost equal to Man's own, you can nevercreate a brain that is your superior. That is true, and the reasoning isobvious. In a more limited sense, your body repairs itself daily but itcannot improve on itself, it cannot spontaneously develop function
s itnever had--_it cannot even repair severe damage without outside help_.The same applies to the mind. A sick mind cannot achieve the objectivityneeded to repair itself, if the damage is too great. No, the intellectis nothing until it learns. What would Timmy have learned, and fromwhom? Take a minute to think of _all_ the connotations." Phil thought ofsome of them, uneasily. "Assume that from the start his status as Homosuperior was recognized ... is that a fair assumption?"

  "It ... ah ... would sooner or later become apparent."

  "After how much damage had been done that could not be undone, sinceHomo sapiens cannot ever be competent to guide and train Homo superior?"

  "Well ... what about what he could learn from your Challon mind?"

  * * * * *

  "I would have no voice and no assurance that telepathy would bepossible. No influence that I could exert on him at any time could holdhim, if other factors impelled him to break free. A few months ago Irecalled a formula known to the Challon and with nothing more thanhousehold chemicals prepared the quick and harmless anaesthetic I usedwith you. What brought it to mind was a side-reaction reported as acuriosity in one of the scientific journals Jerr ... Dad subscribes to.It had an unexpected side-reaction for me, too, making direct telepathiccontact possible with you, but only under difficult and limitedconditions."

  "There's a fortune in that alone--"

  "That was an unworthy thought, Phil, typical of insecurity. I dare notturn loose an immature, untrained, Homo superior, the only one of hiskind."

  "But why the only one? Why not others as well so that they could workin unison?"

  "Don't you understand yet? _You are not sane!_ This planet is ahell-house of disordered personalities, a place of horror, aplague-spot. Suppose I had retained Timmy as my voice and planned onreleasing the inhibited potential of many people. I would have to startwith one man _and that one man would at once become my master_! If hewished, he could be the master of all the earth. Could I risk that?"

  "We have men of good moral character--"

  "By what standards acceptable to all? A good churchman, perhaps, whosefirst thought would be to bring everyone into the saving grace of hisreligion? Or an atheist, who would take care that no rascally churchmangot the upper hand? Can you think of any man who does not have strongopinions on at least one subject? Who does not have one thing that heis a little bit more afraid of than anything else? One man who couldbe raised to power first and not insist on at least one positive ornegative qualification for all who were permitted to follow? Somethingthey must either be or not be? Yourself, for example.

  "Would you suggest that a Russian be chosen first? Or a Frenchman or anEnglishman? Or am I wrong in thinking you would 'naturally' want one ofyour own countrymen to be chosen, purely as a precaution? But which oneof your countrymen? Among all your acquaintances, is there even one whomyou would trust not to react emotionally on at least one count, thusautomatically rendering him unfit to play god? Bearing in mind that thefirst human being to find his full potential placed at his command willbe a titan with the power to prevent any peer being raised to opposehim, would you feel safe with the choice of anyone except--yourself?"

  "Are we that bad?"

  "At birth, no, but from birth onward you are exposed to infection andyou sicken to a greater or lesser degree depending on the concentrationof infection around you. Let me answer you this way. Suppose thespaceship were found and examined, what would happen? Among other toolsthere is a prospecting instrument on board that is a rough approximationof a disintegration beam--it punches neat holes in solid rock by aprocess that leaves an exceedingly heavy dust behind--for a short while.Then something happens to the molecular bonds of the heavy dust, and thelittle holes become very big holes. Its principles would take you someyears to work out, but its manufacture and operation are fairly obvious.What would be the fate of that very useful tool?"

  "I can't deny that its possibilities as a weapon would be seized upon,but with such a weapon--"

  "Ah, yes--no one would dare to go to war. At any rate, not with thecountry possessing the weapon."

  "It could stop all war."

  "If your part of the world threatened the other part of the world andput a halo around the 'or else'. What would the other part of the worlddo when the first news of the spaceship leaked out, as it would doimmediately?"

  "O. K.--I guess you know as well as I do."

  * * * * *

  "I'm not trying to ride you, Phil, but I want you to see that Fearand a desire for the security you can never know in your presentstate dominate almost every important act. As a people, a race, aspecies, you are unsane. What am I to do? To die in peace, leaving youas you are, without hope or help, is against every Challon instinct.To leave unrealized the human potential with its tremendous promiseis unthinkable. Your race might destroy itself before your secret isrediscovered millennia from now, and the greatest wonder of creationbe lost forever. Even the spaceship which I have failed to destroywith its innocent secrets, could destroy you simply by being found.What am I to do?"

  "I ... think you already have an answer."

  "Yes, with your consent and only with your consent."

  "You have it."

  "You don't know--"

  "You have it, I said. I trust you."

  "Man puts his faith in Dog? Well, it will not be for the first time.Remember us, Man, when you come into your own. Now--I must invade yourmind, without reserve. You understand? Nothing known to you will beunknown to me. Are you willing?"

  "Another of those Mickey Finns?"

  "Yes, it is the only way. I will plant certain inflexible prohibitionswhich will forever destroy your self-will in regard to certain coursesof action--they will be ones which you might at some time feel to bewise, but which I know to be ultimately destructive. In return, I cangive you a measure of sanity greater than you have known. You will loseyour hags, but you will never be entirely your own master again. Youwill follow the course I have planned for you for the rest of your life.It is the best I can do with my limited ability, and I cannot guaranteethat I am doing what is right."

  "And Timmy?"

  "I have already seeded in his memory banks--a careful and painstakingjob this time!--all the memories and knowledge appropriate to the boyhis parents think him to have been, plus other information which willbecome available to him at the right time. Every day for eight years Igave him the memories for that day, planning for the time when I couldpay my debt by releasing him."

  "You take eight years that were otherwise useless to him and give himthe rest of his life for his own. Fair enough."

  "No, his life is not his own. It belongs to his whole race. Your workwill be to supervise his training until the time is ripe, and thento awaken the dormant memories that will tell him what has happenedbetween us."

  "How do I do that?"

  "Think of it as long-term posthypnotic suggestion. It is one of theleast complicated matters to arrange. A simple, spoken phrase that youwill not remember until the right moment will be sufficient to triggerthe memory release. We must hurry now. Homer's breathing--can you hearit? His lungs have almost failed. After I enter your mind, my last actwill be to release the simple block that makes Timmy an imbecile ...he will awaken and not know that he has slept all his life until thismoment when he becomes in actuality an ordinary, quite intelligent boy.He will not grieve unduly for Homer, and I who have two bodies and am athome in neither of them will be a record that will finally be erased.Are you ready?"

  * * * * *

  "No--wait. I must know what all this is leading to!"

  "We have so little time! Well, then, it is leading to broken hearts, tohatred, and to injustice. Perhaps to martyrdom, perhaps to glory. If myplans fail, your lot will be public anathema as a fool or a murderer,for I will prohibit you from ever clearing yourself by speaking thetruth about it."

  "Who would believe it!"

  "Enough would b
ecome curious. A little research along the right linesand you would prematurely learn your own secret. Then a race of maddemigods would be loosed through the void, an all-conquering scourgeinstead of a blessing. I would sooner have your whole race die with yourvery existence unsuspected, than have you live in infamy, the uncheckedtyrants of the stars. Not even the Challon could stand against you,nor could they coerce a single one of you whose whole potential had beenreleased."

  "Then what hope--"

  "Timmy's newly-awakened mind will be completely sane. The aids I havegiven it may keep it sufficiently sane for the next few years, despiteinfection on all sides. In those years you will watch over him andaccumulate the funds that will be needed. That will not be difficult.You must buy the lands surrounding the spaceship and build a laboratorywhere you will conduct some dangerous experiments, thus explaining theneed for an isolated location. The laboratory is only a blind. The shipmust be freed from the swamp and repaired in some minor respects, thenan 'accidental explosion' one night will destroy the buildings to coverthe take-off. Timmy will be presumed killed in the explosion. Hisparents will grieve, the public may blame you, and you will sink intoobscurity. You may live long enough to learn whether Timmy eversucceeded in reaching Challon in a spaceship not designed for his race.My memories and implanted commands will constantly guide and instructhim--"

  "How ... how old must he be?"

  "As young as possible. As soon as all is ready. Tomorrow, if that werepossible."

  "A child!"

  "For at least a little while he will be more than the equal of a 'good'man. Child, or youth, or man, I will free him from fear and lonelinesson the long voyage. If he reaches Challon, they will understand andperhaps not think I have blundered too badly. They will heal him, studyhim, free him. Then it will be his problem to free his race. If you arevery lucky, you may still be alive at that time."

  "And if he never reaches--"

  "You will never know. Are you ready?"

  Phil looked desperately at the setting sun and the long, long shadows,as though he were a doomed man awaiting execution.

  "Get on with it," he said huskily.

  * * * * *

  Very little happened. There was a small lapse of time during whichan observer would have seen certain lines of tension vanish almostmagically from the man's face--might even have thought that someyears seemed to drop from his age. Presently the man roused himself,stretching with the careless vigor of a youth as he experienced a serenepeace of mind that he had not known since he was very young indeed. Heglanced casually at the boy seated near him--a boy who looked at theworld with an air of fleeting puzzlement--then dropped on his knees andcradled an ugly, grizzled head in his arms. A last flicker enlivened theeyes and a dry tongue touched his hand just once.

  That was all.

  THE END

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]