Frank Belknap Long

“ An hour later I was climbing the stairs to his room. I'd dined alone in my tent, on canned salmon. But nothing could dim the bright glow that was in me. I like people who tinker—in dirt road garages, and big laboratories fitted up like a grease monkey's idea of paradise.
I was out of breath when I reached the second floor landing. But I've a sound heart and it wasn't the climb that started it jumping. It was the droning.
I was almost at the door of Rush's room when I heard it. It was loud, very loud, and somehow it scared me. ”

“ A man can think, act, plan, feel with only a walnut-sized part of his brain."
Rush nodded. "There's a big, quiet part which he doesn't seem to need. Some psychologists call it the quiet brain. It does its work without giving itself away."
"What kind of work?" I asked.
"Extra-sensory work," Rush said. "But telepathy, clairvoyance are just ground swells in the quiet brain. Just rudimentary stirrings, of no great importance in themselves. But where there are ground swells there must be a solid core of something tremendous, something that can move and shake. And build, Ralph." ”

“ You can build a new ship?"
He looked at me. "I think so, Ralph. All those experiments paid off. I've found out how to stimulate the quiet brain as it has never been stimulated on Earth. Our quiet brains, Ralph. Simply by studying the quiet brains of animals and a few humans. You were a great help to me, because you have something which humans lack." ”

“ Then I saw Rush. He was sitting on the inside platform, staring down at his palm. His big, bony hand looked like an upset spider, twining its legs around a little metal disk. The disk was smoking but he didn't seem to want to let go of it.
He was grimacing in an angry sort of way, as though he'd exploded a box of matches by accident and was furious with himself.
I can't explain it, but I had a hunch he'd done just that—exploded the disk by accident.
But suspecting that didn't lessen my terror. If you've never seen a Carny show fill with smoke you can't know how terrifying it is. ”

“ I like that word, build. New cells, new bodies even. But I'm after something more basic than that. You can change the body's structure, bruise it, burn it with the quiet brain, if you try hard enough. ”

“ Rush chuckled. "No, I suppose not."
He looked at me. "Tell me something, Ralph. How do you spend your spare time? I've often wondered."
My full name is "Tiny" Ralph Moffatt. But I like to be called by my middle name. I stand three feet two in my stockings, and you don't know what loneliness is if you've never had to climb on a chair to look into the eyes of a friend. Chances are, you'll have made the trip for nothing, for a midget doesn't have many friends. ”

“ No man, not even a midget, could be expected to take him seriously. But somehow I couldn't tear my eyes from his face. I can usually tell when a man's lying. I'm sensitive to the little facial quirks that mirror the mind's duplicity; I've trained myself to be. There was nothing evasive about Rush.
"It was easier with a small body, of course," he said. "A powerful mind acting on a small body can do more with it. It's curious, but even animals have a quiet brain. ”

“ There's a bald mountain in the Adirondacks that's like a big bare skull set down between spruce trees filled with black crows and a cawing that never stops.
But this mountaintop was twice as barren, twice as bleak. A gray-green slaty barrenness that stretched to a circle of dark green firs as stark as sentinel cranes standing guard over the ruins of a vanished race. ”

“ The quiet brain is the real evolutionary mechanism across the ages. It's stimulated by cosmic rays and it develops the brain you use, the active, walnut-sized part."
He looked at me. "That's just a fascinating bypath, of course. My big job just skirts it, and widens out into something more tremendous."
"What is—your big job?" I whispered.
I was taking him seriously now, despite myself. I felt bad though, really physically ill.
"That can wait, Ralph," he said. "Until tomorrow, eh? You must be tired. What you need is a little shut-eye." ”

“ I choked. "You think I'll sleep?"
"Why not, Ralph? Life isn't any stranger than the things we dream about. You've had quite a jolt tonight, but tomorrow you'll take it in your stride."
I'd started to turn when he picked up the helmet. "No sense in taking the town in your stride," he said. "It's a long trudge back to your tent. A real Carny never walks when he can travel in style!" ”

“ You know how it is when you've done something tremendous that shakes you to the depths. When you're through, you don't feel like saying much. You just feel humble and very little, and the bigness of the accomplishment takes away your breath. ”

“ But what I did to you was more vital, more in the line of what I'm trying to accomplish."
"What did you do to me?"
"Gave your quiet brain an electronic prod, and sent you right out through a solid wall. You can send the body anywhere, if the quiet brain is sufficiently stimulated. But that's just kindergarten stuff. With the right kind of electronic hookup I'll have my big job solved. I'm on the inside track now, thanks to you!"
Rush smiled. "Funny thing. When you wore that helmet your mind was open to telepathic suggestion. I made you want to come out in front of the animal cages. ”

“ They're mass-building cylinders, polarized to convert diffuse energy back into elementary matter, under the direction of our quiet brains. We have a better than even chance of building a ship as real as this mountaintop!"
"And we've a head start over humans," I said. "We know how to construct a ship just like the one that was smashed up, down to the minutest detail. ”