George O. Smith

“ There was an instant of foolish speculation on the fact that Johntha's clothing fit so well, but it was merely the product of his own mind, forgetting for the instant that this was not a case of being an impostor, a substitution. This was the masquerade perfect. The clothing and the life and the experiences of Johntha were his and valid.
Only the sentience, the personality, the ego, had changed and had taken with it the necessary bits of its own experience to maintain its own individuality. ”

“ Earth dwindled from a sphere into a lost mote in the distance, and the scintillating sun dwindled in minutes to where they could look into its disc without harming the eyes. Then it blacked out, disappearing with the rest of the stars and the Star Lady was arrowing through the vast reach of interstellar space. Time became meaningless as the velocity of the Star Lady mounted upwards into the unthinkable velocities that could only be expressed in multiplied functions of the speed of light. ”

“ She motioned him over.
"Johntha, this is Captain Trammlo. Captain, this is Johntha."
"Glad to have you aboard, young man," boomed the captain. "You're more or less of a celebrity, you know."
"Nonsense," answered Barry.
"You are," insisted Trammlo. "First, you are one of the very few to be cured of neurophasia, and secondly you are credited with the huge job of developing the sub-etheric bands for communications on a verbal basis between the planets. You don't read papers?"
"Of course I do," laughed Barry.
The captain of the ship shrugged. "I'm an old man," said Trammlo seriously. ”

“ Vella was the girl with the popularity-plus, with the longest date list, with the brightest look and the happiest future. Vella used to have light feet and a gay smile. Vella still has 'em, gal, but she's not using them."
"Helmond, I don't mind it a bit. I admit it looks odd, but somehow the idea of finding a life completely away from Johntha seems odious to me."
"Hang it, Vella! The man who marries you isn't going to marry your brother too!" ”

“ Although their separation in distance might have been anything from a few mere light years to a hundred mega-parsecs and there was no way of determining the distance, Barry Williams and Johntha slept simultaneously.
How fast is the propagation of thought? One can think about, really contemplate, Sirius and his dark companion without a wait. One may visualize in his mind the shape and size and distance of the Spiral Nebula in Andromeda, far outside of our galaxy. Thought, therefore, must propagate at an unthinkable velocity. ”

“ Get Lincoln Sanitarium on a Priority One and tell 'em that if they touch Barry Williams with a single volt, I'll burn their hides! Crass stupidity!"
"Now see here—"
"Yeah!" Jim Evans shouted harshly. "I mean your gang. So what?"
"I'll not have you interfering!"
"In this laboratory, you're a citizen, baffled and ignorant, see?" said Evans with his chin stuck out at Doctor Edwards. "I'm in a position here to call upon the services of the craziest idiot at large if he's useful. Do you realize that the man you've pronounced crazy holds within his mind the secret of interstellar travel?" ”

“ Physicist Tharmane laughed cheerfully. "As a mathematician, he is uninterested in anything that cannot be set to equations. If Johntha remembers anything of mathematical nature, we can set them down for Maradun, who will be just as happy at the cold paper as with the warm man."
Crenda, the psychologist, took objection. "You place too heavy a hand on Maradun's personality," he said. "Just because his mind is mathematically trained is no reason to charge him with preferring figures to people." ”

“ The other man, willingly giving up his position, his friends, and his life to the job of getting Earthmen to the stars, would live and die on Trenda, never knowing whether Earthmen would place their mark on the interstellar reaches. And then Barry's mind would live in torture of its own decision, for Johntha's mind in Barry Williams's body understood the instant and honest attraction that existed between Vella and the mind of Barry Williams. ”

“ Were he to persist in the transposition theme, he knew, his next habitation would have been a psychic ward under strict observation, and the possibility that, forever afterwards, his word and his judgment would be subject to critical scrutiny.
So he had failed. And he knew instinctively that his own failure would be mirrored by the man on Earth.
He had given up his Terra life on a gamble and he had lost. For all the benefit that either Earth or Trenda would derive, Barry Williams and Johntha might as well have returned to their own bodies. ”

“ Using your mind, I know atomics. I recall vague inklings of sub-etherics because I was trained in that field. The thought-pattern is like a pre-formed mold which tends to warp into that pattern though now conforming to the new shape. ”

“ The man's conscious mind takes in all the details. The subconscious mind looks over the data and says: If you remain, you will die. If you jump, you will die. There is but one escape and that is to fly like a bird, which is impossible. ”

“ And Barry's muscles fought against the inertia of his mass to get him into motion. In maddening slow-motion, he started to move away, but it was not enough.
Down upon Barry's cheek fell the copper wire, touching him ever so lightly.
Down upon his cheek fell the ribbon of copper wire. It was slightly greenish-black from the corrosion of rain and smoke, he saw, excepting the broken end, which was a copper-frosted area of crystallization. It landed.
Awareness came, a basic, unsatisfying awareness of time and space only. Time, in eons, and space in unthinkable infinities. ”

“ Johntha knew that Barry was honest and true. Vella was untouchable to the Earthman. Hence the secondary decision. Had they known about this upset in plan, Barry need not have placed himself in a position of mental torture, living so close to and yet so remote from Vella. At least, on Earth, Barry could have existed on hope. Hope that they'd perfect the atomic engine and eventually find Trenda. A vain, hopeless ambition, but none the less vital enough to drive a man into super achievement.... ”

“ Johntha nodded.
Once outside, Doctor Edwards said to Jim Evans: "Hallucination. The electrical shock has crossed up his memory momentarily and has given him a completely false replacement for it."
"That's difficult, isn't it?" wondered Jim Evans. "A complete memory?"
"Not at all. No memory is either complete or chronological. When the mind finds itself required to produce a memory in order to prove itself sane, it will produce very nicely. Electrical shock has fouled up Barry's memory badly. ”

“ Look, Johntha. You've been an hour in space. Look behind you. Every male on the promenade has paired himself off with some woman—or vice versa. You are traveling with your sister and you make no attempt to leave her; to introduce her to some eligible man; or even to go off seeking company yourself. So, therefore I assume that you are serious-minded, and won't mind a bit of technical gab. But you shouldn't assume that your sister is serious-minded too. She might like a bit of dancing."
That, thought Barry, is the main trouble with being attracted to a girl supposed to be your sister. ”

“ Then Vella sobered again and she looked at him wonderingly. "Doctor Kendon tried to recite your atomic theories to a couple of specialists last evening. They were quite puzzled, for your ideas follow a different track than the usual. Yet they admit that there might be something in it."
"Would you try to get me a couple of books on atomic engines?" he asked.
"Certainly," she answered quickly. "But Johntha, is there really something to the superspeed drive?"
"There is, but a few of the factors elude me at present. I must brush up before my ideas will take form." ”

“ There were few on the planet that were a match for Maradun. But in "fairy mathematics," using the distorted Terran symbols, Barry's additional training, however slightly remembered kept him abreast of Maradun. Barry knew that the reason was that the mathematician was forced to undergo considerable translation to interpret the symbols and the form; Barry thought that it might be like a man speaking a foreign language with a native some time removed. One thinks in his own language and translates, while the other man thinks and speaks in his own. ”

“ It's like mental telepathy right now. No one has been able to prove it exists to the satisfaction of everyone, but no one feels firm enough to stand up and say it does not exist because 'No, no,' has all too often been followed immediately by someone then demonstrating the idea in practise. Me, I'm an electronics engineer and I'd like to know more about such."
"I can imagine!" said the doctor. "Barry, can you give any details on this sub-etheric stuff?"
"I think so," said Johntha, and gave a rather sketchy picture of the complete sub-etheric wave mechanics. ”

“ The maze of the mind is complex."
Doctor Kendon nodded agreeably. To Barry he said: "This dream of yours is fading?"
"It seems to be," Barry said. "When I first awoke, it was quite clear. But I find myself slipping into the personality of Johntha by the moment."
Then Mathematician Maradun looked up from his paper and said: "Johntha, remember that any mathematician can set down an equation of considerable complexity, assign values, and solve it for all sorts of factors. Your equations are of this variety, what little I can make out of them. ”

“ Similarly, your atomic-trained mind is super-imposed upon my sub-etheric experience. If we return, the minds will be immediately re-molded into their intrinsic patterns and nothing will remain."
"Then to achieve interstellar flight I must remain on Trenda, where I may work as though I were really Johntha. I may accept only the sisterly affection of Vella."
"You will not achieve interstellar flight. I, as Barry Williams on Earth, will do that. You, as Johntha on Trenda, will achieve interplanetary communications of conversational rapidity." ”

“ Barry looked at Homarr. "You're an atomician," he said. "What do you think of using the total annihilation energy of the alpha particle as a means of power?"
Homarr's eyes glowed. "The sun makes alpha out of hydrogen. Total annihilation of alpha—what a wonderful dream!"
"Dream?"
"Certainly. It takes a lot of energy to make alpha out of hydrogen. Tremendous input is required to make that reaction go. ”

“ I can study interstellar traveling and I find that it offers more interest than communications. Your mind is filled with the knowledge of atomics, and though I find trouble in recalling the factors of sub-etheric wave propagation, the subject is not a complete blank. ”

“ I see your mind."
A great peace welled up in Barry Williams' soul. He said: "Yet it is a problem that I must solve. If I remain on Trenda, I may learn the answer to the atomic engines and sub-etherics. We, I should have said. I—would court Vella. Where is Trenda with respect to Earth?"
"Who can possibly tell. There are a million million stars." ”

“ He wanted to see the entire sky, and though he was no stranger to space travel, this was his first trip since the transposition of personalities and he wanted to see it with new eyes. But as always, there was not a single stellar formation that he found familiar. ”

“ The medical man stared thoughtfully at the scientist. "There's hope," said Edwards. "Not much, but some. Trouble is that he's been shocked before, by the falling car-line feeder."
"Maybe that gave him a bit of immunity."
"I doubt it. But speculation is futile now. Evans, I'll do anything I can."
"Good. Let's try everything."
With a worried look on his face, Jim Evans watched the completely inert form of Barry Williams, harboring the intelligence of Johntha, lifted to stretchers, and carried to the ambulance. ”

“ He built up a complete life, a new personality, a new field of endeavor.
"The new personality must be logical, for Johntha's mind is technically trained. It is quite possible that the uninhibited subconscious mind will accept a problem called impossible by a mind trained to accept the impossibility as such. It may be impossible because of natural causes in which case the entire thought-pattern is false. If it is impossible because of lack of data, then the mind may well leap to the right conclusion and produce something logical."
The mathematician grunted. ”

“ But Johntha and I have so very much in common."
"Look, little Vella! Intellectual companionship is very necessary to all intelligent people. That you find it with your brother makes it very convenient, but also it makes for not going places enough. You get into a nice, easy rut. Why enter a mental fencing bout with some guy you're not certain of when you can discuss the things you like with Johntha? I know how it is. But it isn't practical.
"I know. But I still don't mind."
Helmond stared at her, then waved his hand in an exasperated way. ”