It was colorless, odorless and tasteless.
Best of all, it was not a poison.
Any unfortunate deaths that might occur could never be traced to its use.
The actual results were obscure yet devastating.
No, not insanity, just change. The recipients remained, outwardly, as before and quite rational and exhibited no symptom that a psychiatrist could pin down.
For example, a well-known business magnate sold his business outright and joined a religious organization.
It is, perhaps, fortuitous, that this got several financially involved directors off the hook.
Adam Wenstone was chief director and absolute owner of a large business complex in the East.
His father had escaped the normal Inheritance Tax by passing the business on to his son at the age of seventy.
It was a sound business, and making a steady profit but there were those among the directors who thought it could do better. The number of opportunities which had cropped up and had somehow been missed!
So great had been the opportunities that two of the Directors had seen fit to take secret gambles of their own — with the firm’s money.
Good God, who could have foreseen that Maxtrose investments would go down the pan overnight leaving nothing?
If only a greater part of the business was left to the other directors. With time and a little ducking and weaving they might have kept the inevitable at bay for long enough to recoup the loss but not with Wenstone in control. He checked and re-checked regularly and took painstaking computer surveys.
Desperate, Argyle and Martin, the two directors, snatched at the only straw which had become available to them.
“Are you absolutely sure this bloody stuff will work?” Martin wiped his sweaty palms with a handkerchief.
“For the tenth time man, not absolutely sure. Nothing is absolutely sure, you must know that.”
“Suppose it fails?”
“It has succeeded on twelve occasions so I see no reason for it to fail now. On the other hand, since you keep pushing it, I have taken alternative measures.”
Martin dabbed at his palms again. “What other alternative—?” He stopped, his face pale. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Can you think of anything better? After all, we only have to resort to it if this formula fails.”
Adam Wenstone was thirty-three, slim and fit. Outwardly gentle and easy-going; he had an astute mind and was interested in many things but riotous living was not one of them.
Yet he awoke on that particular morning with the smell and the distinct taste of liquor in his mouth.
He tried to open his eyes and they refused to open.
He was conscious again of the smells and tried to identify them. Horses, yes, no mistake about that; there was one near somewhere.
He came back to the liquor again. How? He was teetotal. Yet somehow in an odd way, his body felt as if it was used to it and liked it.
His senses returned to the smell, a disgusting mixture of horse, sweat and unwashed body.
It was his body and it stank.
His arm shifted but he hadn’t shifted it.
He thought: “God, I feel like hell this morning.”
They were his thoughts but he hadn’t thought them
He was suddenly very much afraid but he kept a grip on himself because it was clear that there was nothing he could do about it.
He was trapped somewhere and, at the moment there was nothing he could do to escape.
He tried to speak but could make no sound.
He tried to direct a thought message: “Can you hear me?” but there was no response.
His head itched. He could feel fingers scratch the itch and feel the fingers scratching but not by him.
He could feel every inch of his body, every twitch and breath but he had no control over it.
He thought: “That Mex is real fast, I’ll have trouble there.”
They were not his thoughts, they had not come from him, yet he understood what the thoughts implied. The dark skinned man from over the border had come in for a fight, a challenge.
Adam Wenstone was an intelligent man and already had an outline of his situation. Somehow — be it illusion or something else — he was occupying, and sharing, the body and mind of another man.
The other man was the host occupant while he, Adam, was the passenger.
The host was in absolute control. When he wanted to move, he moved
He, Adam, could feel and experience what was happening but that was all.
He knew every thought of the host knew everything the host knew but again, could do nothing about it.
On the other hand, the host had no idea that he had taken another intelligence on board, who was sharing his life with him.
The host opened his eyes and Adam saw that he was in a crude wooden shed. Two tethered horses shifted and stamped at the far end and he the host, was lying on a sort of crude shelf on the opposite side.
Adam knew, because his host knew, that this was Jake’s place.
The wide door swung open with a creaking sound and a man came in.
“I got you something to eat, bacon, beans and that. I’ll try and get you some coffee later when Mom’s place gets open.
“I’ll pay you back.”
“You always do, Limpy, but I’m worried about this Mex, he’s Godawful fast. Buxton is offering four to one against you.”
Adam, at the time, was only half listening. His host was fully awake and conscious and awake, his mind was open.
There was no need to see outside the shed, the whole picture was there, now part of Adam’s knowledge and memories.
Mentally Adam’s mind almost revolted. What was this, besides everything else — time travel?
This was a sleepy, one-horse town, settled in the curve of a wide rive yet close to the railroad.
It had a wide dirt street lined by wooden shacks with only a few rising to two stories.
Adam had seen a large number of such streets in Westerns but there the picture had stopped. The film could not convey the smell of horses, wood smoke and most certainly not the flies. Dear God, the flies! On some days they swirled so thickly they blurred the vision. They covered the face, explored the corners of the eyes and probed the mouth and nostrils.
It caused his host no great irritation, It was part of life, like the fleas, the lice and, at night, of course, the skeeters. One slapped a few and squashed them flat but, always, a fair number got through and sucked their fill of blood.
Adam realized suddenly that he was being biased. If this was, somehow, time travel, then the great cities of the world were very little different.
The majority of the inhabitants were also lousy. Most of the bedrooms were filled with cockroaches and excreted the sour and sickly smell of bed bugs. Many of the streets held open sewers and rats ran openly across the road.
Beyond this town, however, was the open country with the soft river smells, grasses, wild flowers and the scent of pine.
Adam’s host climbed to his feet and took a few uncertain steps. Limpy had broken his leg at the age of thirteen and had limped ever since. ‘Doc’ Munsen had fixed it as best he knew how but it was not one of his specialities. The broken bone had knit O.K. but somehow the leg had got shorter. Again the foot would not go flat to the ground properly.
Munsen, however, was still known as Doc because he had a half-breed woman who made concoctions out of herbs and suchlike. The stuff was very good for saddle sores, rope burns and things like that. Quite often — although his host had no knowledge of them — they stopped dangerous infections dead in their tracks.
His host ate then limped out into the street. Cotter, the local storeowner, had kindly taken his horse when he had been too drunk to find it, let alone mount the damn thing.