He shook his head slowly. “Let’s dope it out, Beautiful. Let’s say something came in on that ship besides a dead mouse. What could it have been? What could it have done and be doing?”
“Let’s say that the mouse was a laboratory animal, a guinea pig. It was sent in the ship and it survived the journey but died when it got here. Why? I’ve got a screwy-hunch, Beautiful.”
HE SAT down in a chair and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. He said, “Suppose the superior intelligence—from Somewhere—that made that ship came in with it. Suppose it wasn’t the mouse—let’s call it a mouse. Then, since the mouse was the only physical thing in the spaceship, the being, the invader, wasn’t physical. It was an entity that could live apart from whatever body it had back where it came from. But let’s say it could live in any body and it left its own in a safe place back home and rode here in one that was expendable; that it could abandon on arrival. That would explain the mouse and the fact that it died at the time the ship landed.
“Then the being, at that instant, just jumped into the body of someone here—probably one of the first people to run toward the ship when it landed.”
“It’s living in somebody’s body in a hotel on Broadway or a flophouse on the Bowery or anywhere—pretending to be a human being. That make sense, Beautiful?”
He got up and started to pace again.
“And having the ability to control other minds, it sets about to make the world—the Earth—safe for Martians or Venusians or whatever they are. It sees—after a few days of study-—that the world is on the brink of destroying itself and needs only a push. So it could give that push.
“It could get inside a nut and make him assassinate the President, and get caught at it. It could make a Russian shoot his Number 1. It could make a Spaniard shoot the prime minister of England. It could start a bloody riot in the U. N., and make an army man, there to guard it, explode an A-bomb dump. It could—hell, Beautiful,’ it could push this world into a final war within a week. It practically has done it.”
He walked over to the window and stroked the cat’s sleek fur while he frowned ‘down at the gun emplacements going up under the bright floodlights.
“And he’s done it and even if my guess is right I couldn’t stop him because I couldn’t find him. And nobody would believe me, now. He’ll make the world safe for Martians. When the war is over, a lot of little ships like that—or big ones—can land here and take over what’s left ten times as easy as they could now.”
He lighted a cigarette with hands that shook a little. He said, “The more I think of it, the more—”
He sat down in the chair again. He said, “Beautiful, I’ve got to try. Screwy as that idea is, I’ve got to give it to the authorities, whether they believe it or not: That Major I met was an intelligent guy. So is General Keely. I—”
He started to walk to the phone and then sat down again. “I’ll call both of them, but let’s work it out just a little finer first. See if I can make any intelligent suggestions how they could go about ‘finding the—the being—
He groaned. “Beautiful, it’s impossible. It wouldn’t even have to be a human being. It could be an animal, anything. It could be you. He’d probably’ take over whatever nearby type of mind was nearest his own. If he was remotely feline, you’d have been the nearest cat.”
HE SAT up and stared at her. He said, “I’m going crazy, Beautiful. I’m remembering how you jumped and twisted just after that spaceship blew up-its mechanism and went inert. And, listen. Beautiful, you’ve been sleeping twice as much as usual lately. Has your mind been out—
“Say, that would be why I couldn’t wake you up yesterday to feed you. Beautiful, cats always wake up easily. Cats do.”
Looking dazed. Bill Wheeler got up out of the chair. He said, “Cat, am I crazy, or—” The Siamese cat looked at him languidly through sleepy eyes. Distinctly it said, “Forget it.”
And halfway between sitting and rising, Bill Wheeler looked even more dazed for a second. He shook his head as though to clear it.
He said, “What was I talking about, Beautiful? I’m getting punchy from not enough sleep.”
“He walked over to the window and stared out, gloomily, rubbing the cat’s fur until it purred.
He said, “Hungry, Beautiful? Want some liver?”
The cat jumped down from the windowsill and rubbed itself against his leg affectionately.
It said, “Miaouw.”
The New One
“PAPA, are human beings real?”
“Hush, child.”
“But are they?”
“Drat it, kid, don’t they teach you those things in Ashtaroth’s class? If they don’t then what am I paying them ten B. T. U. a semester for?”
“Ashtaroth talks about it, papa. But I can’t make much sense out of what he says.”
“Um-m-m…Ashtaroth is a bit— Well, what does he say?”
“He says they are and we aren’t; that we exist only because they believe in us, that we are fig…fig…something.”
“Figments of their imagination?”
“That’s it, papa. We’re figments of their imagination, he says.”
“Well, what’s hard about that? Doesn’t it answer your question?”
“But, papa, if we’re not real, why are we here? I mean, how can—”
“All right, kid, I suppose I might as well’ take time out to explain this to you. But first, don’t let these things worry you. They’re academic.”
“What’s ‘academic’?”
“Something that doesn’t really matter. Somethings you got to learn so you won’t be ignorant, like a dumb dryad. The real lessons, the ones you should study hard, are the ones you get in Lebalome’s classes, and Marduk’s.”
“You mean red magic, and possession and—”
“Yeah, that sort of thing. Particularly the red magic; that’s your field as a fire elemental, see? But to get back to this reality stuff. There are two kinds of…uh…stuff; mind and matter. You got that much clear now?”
“Yes, papa.”
“Well, mind is higher than matter, isn’t it? A higher plane of existence. Now things like rocks and…uh…like rocks are pure matter; that’s the lowest kind of existence. Human beings are a kind of fork between mind and matter. They got both. Their bodies are matter like rocks and yet they got minds that run them. That makes them halfway up the scale, understand?”
“I guess so, papa, but—”
“Don’t interrupt. Then the third and highest form of existence is … uh… us. The elementals and the gods and the myths of all kinds—the banshees and the mermaids and the afreets and the loups-garous and—well, everybody and everything you see around here. We’re higher.”
“But if we aren’t real, how—”
“Hush. We’re higher because we’re pure thought, see? We’re pure mind-stock, kid. Just like humans evolved out of nonthinking matter, we evolved out of them. They conceived us. Now do you understand?”
“I guess so, papa. But what if they quit believing in us?”
“They never will—completely. There’ll always be some of them who believe, and that’s enough. Of course the more of them believe in us, the stronger we are, individually. Now you take some of the older lads like Ammon-Ra and Bel-Marduk—they’re kind of weak and puny these days because they haven’t any real followers. They used to be big guns around here, kid. I remember when Bel-Marduk could lick his weight in harpies. Look at him today—walks with a cane. And Thor—boy, you should have heard him in a ruckus, only a few centuries ago.”