Jr. L. J. Stecher

“ Alien the First shrugged. "They make interesting toys," he said. "But, of course, they are useless crutches in building a civilization. They bring good prices when peddled for the amusement of our children and the shallower-minded adults."
"Listening to your remarks about our spaceships," I continued, "I presume all of you teleported here. We Earthmen may not be very good at Mind Control, but I think we have a good grasp of the principles, and I don't see how you could teleport without some sort of terminal device. ”

“ Carter asked. "I don't know anything at all about these Aliens."
"Can't you use your mental training to help you learn to talk mind to mind?"
"I suppose so. That shouldn't take more than a few days. The techniques are well established with other new races we've encountered. But learning his language won't make him answer."
I looked at him with my most superior manner. "While you're learning his language, I suggest you learn some of his psychology. Then you can get some of our engineers to design you a machine that will function the way a polygraph does with humans—act as a lie detector. ”

“ The Aliens work by mental control. We've had everyone brought into this building, have double-checked them, and have sealed the doors with a time lock. It turned out that one of the men was missing—we'd only imagined he was among us when we assembled.
"We scoured the planet before we landed and saw no signs of the Aliens. We've seen no Alien ships land since we arrived. We have no idea where they are, except that there's one sizable area not far from here that we can't seem to penetrate. The only evidence we have that the Aliens arrived after we did is that they told us so. ”

“ The insurance company sent a first-class Mental Control Operator, I see, but it was a waste of talent. Maybe they didn't believe our reports. We've had our own operators here—good ones, too—and they haven't been able to find any solution. The Aliens are much better at all sorts of Mind Control than even our most talented men. I know our Policy says that you can keep us from calling in the military authorities for a week, but it's just a waste of time—and, more important, it's a waste of lives, too. ”

“ Those machines require gigantic amounts of power and skilled technicians. At ten thousand a pound, I saved the company five thousand by leaving my kilt behind, and even more when you consider my shoes. As for a protective suit—why, such an unnecessary cost would have been thrown out by our accountants in a minute."
Obadiah Jones sneered at me in disbelief, but I tolerantly ignored his attitude. "Let's admit, for the time being, that these Aliens are better at Mental Control than we are," I said. ”

“ The elf smiled. "You are very different from the others who lumbered to this planet in those clumsy artifacts. You are almost like a Person, in spite of your feverish rushing around. Several of our laboratories will bid very high for the right to examine you."
I bowed acknowledgment of his compliment. "I'm not in one of your laboratories yet," I said mildly.
"It will be very interesting to find out how you managed to get here in spite of our Mind Control," said the second elf. ”

“ Now, send out a party as fast as you can to bring back a sample of the building material that blocks out their minds. We'll ship it back to Earth and see if they can put it into mass production. Have the party bring back that second Alien, too. If we happen to spoil the one we've got making him talk, it would be nice to have a spare."
While the small group was away, I had Obadiah improvise some leg irons out of light chain and padlocks, and used them to hobble all of the Earthmen who remained in camp. Jones screamed like a holta whose mate has estivated, but it didn't do him any good. ”

“ Jones passed a suit out to me through the lock and I put it on. I wore it all the way to his office, and then he rustled me up one of his spare kilts—an ugly purple thing.
"Now, Obadiah," I said, after I'd lighted one of his stogies and settled myself into his most comfortable chair, "why this urgent call for help? Our records show that you've never hollered copper in your life, and you've had two expeditions nearly wiped out around you. You've got the best profit record in your organization."
"It's those Aliens," said Mr. Jones. "They arrived here on Sunder's Pride just a few days behind us. ”

“ Mentalists sometimes become purists and make fools of themselves by trying to do without machinery—something like the attitude of the Aliens.
When I had given Carter his instructions, I turned to the rest of the expedition. "I want all of your weapons," I said. "And don't try holding out on me. That's to include knives and scissors, too. We'll lock them up in Jones' vault."
"Now see here," said Jones. "Some more of those Aliens may show up any time. We can't afford to go out without our guns." ”

“ Since I had equally valid reasons for not wearing the suit, and since I didn't want to explain them, I refused to argue. I just took the thing off as soon as we were outside. I left the kilt on, though. I thought its ugliness might irritate the Aliens.
Obadiah Jones kept up a running patter of conversation as he led me toward the forbidden area. "We haven't been idle," he said. "We've learned a lot about the Aliens' Mind Control. For one thing, they work on our emotions. Several of us who are still alive have been exposed to that. ”

“ I sighed and started to go outside, but Jones hauled me back and made me put on a protective suit. He said he couldn't stand another whiff of that atmosphere.
Once outside, I had no trouble communicating with the Aliens. They were very anxious to talk. Apparently they were convinced that, since they believed my mental powers were at least as strong as theirs, there were probably many more Earthmen like me that they wouldn't be able to tackle. ”

“ And as soon as we have built up enough consumer demand for you creatures as house pets, we'll move in for the harvest."
"It might not be too bad at that," I said. "I've got a cat back home on Earth and she runs my household pretty much to suit her fancy. But I'm afraid it's not the same thing for Earthmen to be house pets."
"The ones we've got are doing a very good job at it," said Number Two. "And, as we indicated, you won't get the chance to be a pet." ”

“ As the days passed without any apparent action from the Aliens, dissatisfaction and grumbling grew. My precautionary action with the chains was very unpopular. At the end of the first week after my arrival on Sunder's Pride, Jones tried to invoke the Policy he'd signed with the company to call in the military, on the grounds that the situation hadn't been resolved in the prescribed time, and that the use of chains proved that the colony was in even greater danger than before I had arrived. ”

“ Jones was sitting on the snow, just on the other side of the tree with the marker on it. I strolled up toward him, crossed the invisible line, hiked up my kilt to keep it from getting damp, and sat down on the soft snow beside him.
"Hello," he said non-committally. "You made pretty good time. In fact, that's a new record for the course."
"Then I'm not the first man to take that walk?" I asked.
"Nope. Just the fastest. I'm glad you didn't try to turn around and come back along the path. That way, you'd have gotten lost. Well, shall we go back to the camp and call in the Navy?" ”

“ We've brought in some of mankind's best Mental Control Operators. People like you, who are able to walk around in a poisonous atmosphere in sub-zero weather without any protection or any clothes at all. ”

“ We see and hear what they want us to. It's perfect hallucination. But you'll know that for yourself in a few minutes."
I knew it already, of course. It had been in Jones' reports—all except the bit about their capturing his men. And I had come prepared. I must admit to feeling a distinct sensation of excitement as we approached the area. But it was not induced, I am sure, by the Aliens, and in any event it was not sufficiently intense to trigger my defense mechanisms.
"Here we are," said Obadiah Jones at last, pointing to a marker attached to one of the ice trees. ”

“ I commented mildly, "is another centralized force in space, in spite of what you say. It's widespread, it's profit-making, and it gets the job done. Nobody has to try to beg for voluntary appropriations from penurious planetary governments." ”

“ We couldn't go directly to any of your more populous planets, because the vast numbers of your untrained minds cause so much static that the noise level is too high to permit a sharp enough focus for teleporting. ”

“ I could detect no answer, but the room wavered a little before my eyes. I blinked and shook my head and my vision cleared.
"So you haven't been trained in the techniques of Mental Control of Earthmen," I commented. "That's interesting." ”

“ Their charter called for exclusive trading rights on any planet they opened for ten years. And they had the usual clause in their Policy against loss by "government" action, meaning the military, even at their own invitation. The military is fast, but it's not neat. The cost could run to billions for us, so my job was to try to find another way. ”

“ Of course, now that we're here, where you've set up a teleport terminal that connects into your foolish mechanical network and ties into all of your thousands of planets, we'll have no trouble going anywhere among your worlds that we want to. ”

“ These provincial types have an automatic feeling of horror at the thought of meeting some superior creatures that will replace man in the Galaxy. So I let him sit there for a couple of minutes to recover before I prompted him. ”

“ We used electronic techniques, and our Engineers said they could have done it years before, if Mentalists and they could have gotten together on the work.
By testing, we found that the stuff we had blocked out anything Carter could transmit, so I let the rest of our people take off their chains as long as they were inside camp—as soon that is, as we had it fully protected. They worked faster on that job than they ever had worked in their lives before. ”