Ae Van Vogt Quotes

If I believe the same things today I did yesterday I've learned nothing.

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.

Science fiction is a field of writing where, month after month, every printed word implies to hundreds of thousands of people: 'There is change. Look, today's fantastic story is tomorrow's fact.

[He] had the hard eyes of the disciplinarian and the smile of a man who must be tactful and pleasant to many people.

And the more technically developed a nation or race is, the more cruel, ruthless, predatory, and commercialized its systems tend to become … all because we continue to think like animals and have not learned how to think consistently like human beings. A. K.

When a people lose the courage to resist encroachment on their rights, then they can’t be saved by an outside force. Our belief is that people always have the kind of government they want and that individuals must bear the risks of freedom, even to the extent of giving their lives.

In a completely unreligious sense, he longed for spiritual surcease.

People always have the kind of government they want. When they want change, they must change it.

When a people lose the courage to resist encroachment on their rights, then they can’t be saved by an outside force. Our belief is that people always have the kind of government they want

Era bueno saberlo. Las explicaciones despejaban la mente, eliminaban tensiones del sistema nervioso y liberaban al cuerpo de la servidumbre de las excitaciones negativas, permitiéndole una actividad más positiva.

His mind, grooved through the uncounted ages to ultimate despair, soared up insanely. His legs and arms glistened like tongues of living fire as they writhed and twisted in the light that blazed from the portholes. His mouth, a gash in his caricature of a human head, slavered a white frost that floated away in little frozen globules.

When a people lose the courage to resist encroachment on their rights, then they can’t be saved by an outside force. Our belief is that people always have the kind of government they want and that individuals must bear the risks of freedom, even to the extent of giving their lives.” There

You assume far too readily that man is a paragon of justice, forgetting, apparently, that he has a long and savage history. He has killed other animals not only for meat but for pleasure; he has enslaved his neighbors, murdered his opponents, and obtained the most unholy sadistical joy from the agony of others. It is not impossible that we shall, in the course of our travels, meet other intelligent creatures far more worthy than man to rule the universe.

The mist enveloped her form. She was lifted into it, then instantly dropped. Swiftly, the mist retreated to the window. It was gone. The old woman lay flat on her back, eyes open and staring; her mouth open, too, unprettily. That was the over-all effect - the utter lack of anything beautiful. ("The Witch")

THE VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE

There is nothing more futile than arguing with someone who has no basis for his opinions but a vague backlash of emotions.

Contentedly sat the old woman. Soon now, the sea would hold no terrors, and the blinds wouldn't have to be down, nor the windows shut; she would even be able to walk along the shore at midnight as of old; and they, whom she had deserted so long ago, would once more shrink from the irresistable energy aura of her new, young body. The sound of the sea came to her, where she sat so quietly; calm sound at first, almost gentle in the soft sibilation of each wave thrust. Farther out, the voices of the water were louder, more raucous, blatantly confident, but the meaning of what they said was blurred by the distance, a dim, clamorous confusion that rustled discordantly out of the gathering night. Night! She shouldn't be aware of night falling, when the blinds were drawn. ("The Witch")

I looked up its history, and, surprisingly, it has quite a history. You know how in Europe they make you study a lot of stuff about the old alchemists and all that kind of stuff, to give you an historical grounding.' 'Yes?' Kemp laughed. 'You haven't got a witch around your place by any chance?' 'Eh!' The exclamation almost burned Marson's lips. He fought hard to hide the tremendousness of that shock. Kemp laughed again. 'According to 'Die Geschichte der Zauberinnen' by the Austrian, Karl Gloeck, Hydrodendon Barelia is the modem name for the sinister witch's weed of antiquity. I'm not talking about the special witches of our Christian lore, with their childish attributes, but the old tribe of devil's creatures that came out of prehistory, regular full-blooded sea witches. It seems when each successive body gets old, they choose a young woman's body, attune themselves to it by living with the victim, and take possession any time after midnight of the first full moon period following the 21st of June. Witch's weed is supposed to make the entry easier. Gloeck says... why, what's the matter, sir?' His impulse, his wild and terrible impulse, was to babble the whole story to Kemp. With a gigantic effort, he stopped himself; for Kemp, though he might talk easily of witches, was a scientist to the depths of his soul. ("The Witch")

She said, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? The Great Judge always orders the death of the leaders of the territory he takes over. I want you to know that I am ready for death, but I wish to make one request of my conqueror.” It was not the moment to disillusion her about her fate. But there was no doubt that she was in a melodramatic state. He guessed he was about to have some sort of emotional appeal made to him. He said, in an even voice, “Any reasonable request, which does not conflict with my instructions, will be granted to your highness.” She came toward him, swaying a little, and there was a hint of imminent tears in the way she held her mouth, and in her voice, as she said, “General, to you this conquest of Jorgia may only be an episode, but for me it is the end of an era. In my death throes, I have wild thoughts about many things. To me, being the conquered is laden with symbolic meanings, and somehow the conqueror is interwoven into these symbols. I am woman, conquered, and you are man, conqueror. Although I had no more than a fleeting glimpse of you . . . earlier . . . I had then the feeling of fear and hate . . . and love.” He didn’t have to lock the door. That had been done automatically on his earlier instructions. He lifted the woman lightly into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. The fire that was in her made her reach for him. She had strength, this woman, at this moment, as she grasped at him and pulled him down. In the pale light of dawn, they lay side by side, exhausted but not asleep, and she said, “You’ll never forget me, will you?” “Never,” said Marin. “You may kill me now,” she said, sighing. “I feel a rightness in me. The defect is consummated.” And he thought, wonderingly, Perhaps it had been two condemned people clutching at a last fling of life. For, unless he could find a solution to his problem, he was really condemned. And she thought she was.

. . . Wasted. . . . Breakfast with the Great Judge was uneventful. They did not talk of the Jorgian war. Shortly after breakfast Marin winged away from the Judge’s Court. As he removed the Marin disguise from the face and body of Wade Trask, he could mentally list only two things that had occurred during his visit. The Great Judge had listened to his plea on behalf of Wade Trask. And Delindy had secretly come to him to arrange the details of her going with him to Asia. It seemed to him, who could leave nothing to chance, that either event could have been the main reason for his being invited to Court. He could well imagine that the conversation of the previous evening had been promoted by the Great Judge himself, and not by Edmund Slater. And Delindy’s coming to him had three possible explanations. On the one hand the Great Judge might be coolly using his own mistress to spy on her former lover, clearly confident that she would be loyal to the ruler of a planet rather than to some underling. On the other hand, Delindy herself might be a Jorgian spy using her body, first to ensnare a Group Master, and then the dictator, for her own country. The third possibility was that she loved David Marin. There was actually, Marin realized, a fourth consideration that he could have. She was a pawn of the Brain, unconsciously doing that mechanical being’s work and consciously just being whatever she normally was. Uneasily, Marin put that thought away from him. Not that it didn’t have substance or meaning. It was simply too bizarre and out of his control.

Over and above the nagging pain, Marin had a reaction to that. It was as if he had somehow been hoping all this time, and now, suddenly, there was no hope. He felt the letdown, a kind of apathy of acceptance, a dull conviction that the worst was true, and a great sadness. He looked toward where he remembered having seen Riva that first night, her nude, tanned body half covered by the sheets of the bed. And then he visualized the same body at the instant of the titanic explosion, charred and smoldering, quickly burned to a fine ash. And in the shattered buildings all around him the members of Group 814, who had offered Wade Trask their good will, had died in a flash of dissolving fire. What was immensely disturbing was that they had died because he had discovered a secret. As he walked stiffly over the broken floor, back to where the laboratory had been, he had another thought: Even if he could survive the sentence of death, the Brain would search ceaselessly for the individual—himself—who knew of its existence. And, accordingly, it was time to be logical. “Am I going to try to save myself?” Marin asked himself the question. He had been waiting, he realized tensely, for something to happen that would automatically get him out of his predicament. He thought, Suppose I handled this entire affair as if it were a military campaign—who is the enemy? The Brain? He felt restless and indecisive. He bent down painfully and pushed a charred metal bar out of the way. And then he was able to look at the spot where—if his calculation was correct—his own body had lain. Right here, two days ago, the awareness entity that was Wade Trask inhabiting the body of David Marin had met instant death. Because of that event, the issue was now confused, but not too much. If the enemy were truly the Brain, then he could treat everyone else as if they were but puppets. “They were . . .” He tried to think it with intense conviction. “They are!” How could any competent authority fail to find the Brain? All those who were looking must be agents of the Brain. The entire search for such a massive structure was a farce. It was impossible to fail. He recalled Slater’s words and attitude, the secrecy of the search. Every Control officer who sought with such apparent determination was sworn to silence, and somehow they had managed to create a mental attitude whereby it became dangerous for anyone to remember that the Brain existed.

He came forward. “Mr. Trask,” he said. “My name is Martin Carroll. I expect shortly to receive orders to obtain from you, by any means, a full account of your activities.” Marin studied the man’s face. He was remembering Carroll. He had seen him once or twice with Slater, he recalled. Carroll was a type. Strongly dedicated to duty, he was a dangerous adversary because he had no doubt about the rightness of the work he did. Marin had only a passing interest in the man. He knew his own needs in what was developing here. Only hate in all its violence could maintain the muscles and nerves of any living creature against torture. He had no time for kind thoughts or for reason—except at the far edge of his mind.

He was enormously relieved to hear the facts at last. Riva Allen was brought in. She entered the room with an air. She seemed intelligent, assured and quite gay. She had obviously abandoned her act of being an unregistered courtesan. She looked at Marin with a bright smile and said cheerfully, “Well—lover!” And she laughed, an easy, tinkling, relaxed laughter. Marin glanced questioningly at the women who had escorted his captive. He recognized them as skillful interrogators. He asked, “Get anything?” The older woman answered, “We’ve been with her ever since she was turned over to us at a quarter to nine. Everything we ask her, every persuasive method we use, just makes her laugh.” Marin nodded calmly. But there was no doubt of the defeat that was here. His guess the night before had been correct. Chemicals. Most likely, she had had the stuff concealed in a false tooth, which simply required her to bite down once, hard. He knew this “laughing” drug. It ended all fear. Threat of death, use of torture, were equally funny to the individual under its influence. The effect would last about twenty-four hours. By taking such a drug, this woman spy had removed herself as a participant during the decisive hours ahead. Marin said, reluctantly but with finality, “Take her away! Keep her under arrest!” His secretary came in. “Lieutenant David Burnley to see you, sir, by your instructions.” Marin said, “Send him in.

Later, as they climbed out of the car which had brought them to the official residence, and as they started along the walk, a young man who had been sitting in the garden alcove, evidently waiting, stood up and came forward. He was a big youth, and Marin recognized his son, David Burnley. He paused. For a moment he felt a desire not to have Delindy see this product of his loins. He had a father’s critical feeling toward a child that has somehow missed living up to the family potentiality. His own father had been one of the great soldiers of the early war period. He himself was certainly not to be discounted. And now, here was his oldest child a belowpar individual, or so it seemed. The young man came up and said respectfully, “Hello . . . uh . . . Dad.” Marin nodded, and turned to Delindy. “My dear, I want you to meet a young man whom I discovered just the other day. His mother sent me her token in the very first mating games ever held, and I was bold enough to dare to win her. It’s an amazing thing to realize what time can do.

Wait!” he told himself, “give it time. After all, a human being is complex and probably responds slowly.” He was still thinking that when a voice said right into his ears, “Emergency report: power be now used by a not known unit.” Marin jumped involuntarily and turned his head. The shock of that voice was throbbing inside him as he twisted his head and looked around wildly for the speaker. Except for the silent form, on the floor beside him, the laboratory was empty. Before he could think about that, a second voice said, “Directional find —did be find interfere unit—Group 814 area.” There was a pause, and once more Marin gazed around the room. It was still deserted. His mind began to work. He thought, Why, they’re speaking straight into my brain. Mental telepathy. But how—what? That was as far as he got. A third voice said, “No contact be possible. Receiving unit be human person. Further operation command be now necessary and include more data.” Other sensations—not verbal—were coming now. They seemed to be more on the level of automatic processes, partly below consciousness. Marin could feel a tugging at what seemed to be the base of his brain, and then, vaguely, stirrings inside his body: changes taking place, readjustments of functions, tiny manipulations of his glands and cells. The contact was as deep and thorough as that.

Here he was at long last, to participate in the games of the machine – the games which meant wealth and position for those partially successful, and a trip to Venus for the special group that won top honors.

What is all this games stuff, anyway? In a way, it’s easy enough to see what happens to winners who stay on Earth. They get all the juicy jobs; they become governors and such.

How much science fiction have you read?” “A little. Not much.” “Well, lucky for you, I’ve read quite a bit.” He grinned. “In fact, you could say that’s why I’m here. I got hooked on that stuff when I was a kid, and by the time I got out of college, I’d pretty much decided that I wanted to see Mars.” He became serious again. “Okay, try to follow me. Although people have been writing about Mars since the 1700’s, it wasn’t until the first Russian and American probes got out here in the 1960’s that anyone knew what this place is really like. That absence of knowledge gave writers and artists the liberty to fill in the gap with their imaginations… or at least until they learned better. Understand?” “Sure.” I shrugged. “Before the 1960’s, you could have Martians. After that, you couldn’t have Martians anymore.” “Umm… well, not exactly.” Karl lifted his hand, teetered it back and forth. “One of the best stories on the disk is ‘A Rose For Ecclesiastes’ by Roger Zelazny. It was written in 1963, and it has Martians in it. And some stories written before then were pretty close to getting it right. But for the most part, yes… the fictional view of Mars changed dramatically in the second half of the last century, and although it became more realistic, it also lost much of its romanticism.” Karl folded the penknife, dropped it on his desk. “Those aren’t the stories Jeff’s reading. Greg Bear’s ‘A Martian Ricorso’, Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Transit of Earth’, John Varley’s ‘In the Hall of the Martian Kings’… anything similar to the Mars we know, he ignores. Why? Because they remind him of where he is… and that’s not where he wants to be.” “So…” I thought about it for a moment. “He’s reading the older stuff instead?” “Right.” Karl nodded. “Stanley Weinbaum’s ‘A Martian Odyssey’, Otis Albert Kline’s ‘The Swordsman of Mars’, A.E. van Vogt’s ‘The Enchanted Village’… the more unreal, the more he likes them. Because those stories aren’t about the drab, lifeless planet where he’s stuck, but instead a planet of native Martians, lost cities, canal systems…” “Okay, I get it.” “No, I don’t think you do… because I’m not sure I do, either, except to say that Jeff appears to be leaving us. Every day, he’s taking one more step into this other world… and I don’t think he’s coming back again.

For Marin, the city had an almost medieval look. The effect was belied by the swarms of hopjets, and Taxi-Airs, and other aircraft, large and small. But his training had sharpened his ability to shut out extraneous material and to see essentials; and so, he saw a city pattern that had a formal, oldfashioned beauty. The squares were too rigid, but their widely varying sizes provided some of the randomness so necessary to achieve what was timeless in true art. The numerous parks, perpetually green and rich with orderly growth, gave an overall air of graceful elegance. The city of the Great Judge looked prosperous and long-enduring. Ahead, the scene changed, darkened, became alien. The machine glided forward over a vast, low-built, rambling gray mass of suburb that steamed and smoked, and here and there hid itself in its own rancorous mists. Pripp City! Actually, the word was Pripps: Preliminary Restriction Indicated Pending Permanent Segregation. It was one of those alphabetical designations, and an emotional nightmare to have all other identification removed and to find yourself handed a card which advised officials that you were under the care of the Pripps organization. The crisis had been long ago now, more than a quarter of a century, but there was a line in fine print at the bottom of each card. A line that still made the identification a potent thing, a line that stated: Bearer of this card is subject to the death penalty if found outside restricted area. In the beginning it had seemed necessary. There had been a disease, virulent and deadly, perhaps too readily and too directly attributed to radiation. The psychological effects of the desperate terror of thousands of people seemed not to have been considered as a cause. The disease swept over an apathetic world and produced merciless reaction: permanent segregation, death to transgressors, and what seemed final evidence of the rightness of what had been done: people who survived the disease . . . changed.

Marin hesitated. He was not disposed to pursue this discussion, which he regarded as fruitless. But he was recalling the period when he was first adjusting to Trask’s body. The dreamlike memories—that scene where what was evidently a dying man was asking for help. The incident could well be a clue to the mystery of Trask’s past associations. He described the scene to Trask briefly and said, “I gathered that he could have the help only if he could tell why he was ill. What happened to him?” Trask said, “One of my early experiments in self-sufficiency.” “What did the experiment prove?” The other man was scowling. “This is a lame-duck world, David. A large percentage of people are so deeply involved in the need for someone to tell them what to do, think, feel and believe that they will die rather than become aware of their own responsibility for illness, failure and other disabilities. We’ve got to change that. We’ve got to set up a system where people are interdependent, and where an authority on some subject is merely a source of information for his equals.” “This man died?” “No.” Trask shrugged. “After he fell into a coma, we fulfilled our role of father or mother substitute and saved him.

The effect of that was startling. Tears came into his son’s eyes. Silently, the young man shook his hand. Afterward—after the interview was over— Marin thought, What kind of future will we have, with an entire generation of over-emotional young people just now coming of age? He visualized future groups filled with adults who had been virtually fatherless in their childhood and youth—tearful people by the million influencing the pattern of group law on the basis of their own inner need for the missing male parent. Was that a true picture? he wondered. If it were, it did not augur well for the future of the land. While he waited for take-off time, he found himself uneasy and unhappy. The fact was he didn’t know what had been happening during his absence. They would unquestionably have turned on the pain circuit, the moment they discovered the connection between Trask and Group 814. The area covered would gradually be extended; better get drugs he could take when the rocket ship landed. He’d stand the pain until his arrival. He didn’t wish to appear doped before the officers who would meet him. As it turned out, the ship was already past the apex of its climb when, abruptly, he felt the stab of pain through his shoulder. As he silently fought the agony, one thing was clear to Marin: the crisis had arrived.

That’s right,” said Grosvenor, “stand up for your rights. The whole universe is in deadly danger, but your sense of dignity must be maintained.

The guard looked again at the card, and then said as he handed it back, “Nexialism? What’s that?” “Applied whole-ism,” said Grosvenor, and stepped across the threshold.

To the men, darkness made no difference. The Space Beagle crouched on a vast plain of jagged metal. Every porthole shed light. Great searchlights poured added illumination on rows of engines that were tearing enormous holes into the all-iron world. At the beginning, the iron was fed into a single manufacturing machine, which turned out unstable iron torpedoes at the rate of one every minute, and immediately launched them into space. By dawn of the next morning, the manufacturing machine itself began to be manufactured, and additional robot feeders poured raw iron into each new unit. Soon, a hundred, then thousands of manufacturing machines were turning out those slim, dark torpedoes. In ever greater numbers they soared into the surrounding night, scattering their radioactive substance to every side. For thirty thousand years those torpedoes would shed their destroying atoms. They were designed to remain within the gravitational field of their galaxy, but never to fall on a planet or into a sun.

After all, these days a man of sixty is practically a young man. (said in a 1947 SF story Centaurus II)

The creature crept. It whimpered from fear and pain, a thing, slobbering sound horrible to hear. Shapeless, formless thing yet changing shape and form with every jerky movement. It crept along the corridor of the space freighter, fighting the terrible urge of its elements to take the shape of its surroundings. A gray blob of disintegrating stuff, it crept, it cascaded, it rolled, flowed, dissolved, every movement an agony of struggle against the abnormal need to become a stable shape. Any shape! The hard, chilled-blue metal wall of the Earth-bound freighter, the thick, rubbery floor. The floor was easy to fight. It wasn’t like the metal that pulled and pulled. It would be easy to become metal for all eternity. But something prevented it. An implanted purpose. A purpose that drummed from electron to electron, vibrated from atom to atom with an unvarying intensity that was like a special pain: Find the greatest mathematical mind in the Solar System, and bring it to the vault of the Martian ultimate metal. The Great One must be freed! The prime number time lock must be opened!

To live and fulfill the purpose of its lusting and malignant creators.

The metal walls of the freighter grew red, then white-hot, but the creature, unaffected, continued its slow transformation into gray mass. Vague thought came to the thing, realization that it was time to act. Suddenly, it was floating free of the ship, falling slowly, heavily, as if somehow the gravitation of Earth had no serious effect upon it. A minute distortion in its electrons started it falling faster, as in some alien way it suddenly became more allergic to gravity. The Earth was green below; and in the dim distance a gorgeous and tremendous city of spires and massive buildings glittered in the sinking Sun. The thing slowed, and drifted like a falling leaf in a breeze toward the still-distant Earth.

It was ecstasy just to lie there, to be flat and to have shape, and to be so nearly dead that there was no pain. Death was so sweet, so utterly desirable. And life such an unbearable torment of agony, such a throbbing, piercing nightmare of anguished convulsion. If only the life that was approaching would pass swiftly.

All these thoughts crowded the creature’s brain, as it explored the memory cells of Jim Brender. With an effort that was a special pain, the thing wrenched its mind from the metal, and fastened its eyes on Jim Brender. It caught the full flood of the wonder in his mind, as he stood up. “Good lord,” said Jim Brender, “who are you?” “My name’s Jim Brender,” said the thing, conscious of grim amusement, conscious, too, that it was progress for it to be able to feel such an emotion. The real Jim Brender had recovered himself. “Sit down, sit down,” he said heartily. “This is the most amazing coincidence I’ve ever seen.” He went over to the mirror that made one panel of the left wall. He stared, first at himself, then at the creature. “Amazing,” he said. “Absolutely amazing.” “Mr. Brender,” said the creature, “I saw your picture in the paper, and I thought our astounding resemblance would make you listen, where otherwise you might pay no attention. I have recently returned from Mars, and I am here to persuade you to come back to Mars with me.” “That,” said Jim Brender, “is impossible.

Yes, Mr. Brender?” “Dave, get me all the data on the Tower of the Beast and the legendary city of Li in which it is supposed to exist.” “Don’t need to look it up,” came the crisp reply. “Most Martian histories refer to it as the beast that fell from the sky when Mars was young—some terrible warning connected with it—the beast was unconscious when found—said to be the result of its falling out of sub-space. Martians read its mind; and were so horrified by its subconscious intentions they tried to kill it, but couldn’t. So they built a huge vault, about fifteen hundred feet in diameter and a mile high—and the beast, apparently of these dimensions, was locked in. Several attempts have been made to find the city of Li, but without success. Generally believed to be a myth. That’s all, Jim.” “Thank you!

I know where the Tower of the Beast is; and I also know that the beast is still alive.” “Now, see here,” said Brender good-humoredly, “I’m intrigued by your resemblance to me; and as a matter of fact I’d like Pamela—my wife—to see you. How about coming over to dinner? But don’t, for Heaven’s sake, expect me to believe such a story. The beast, if there is such a thing, fell from the sky when Mars was young. There are some authorities who maintain that the Martian race died out a hundred million years ago, though twenty-five million is the conservative estimate. The only things remaining of their civilization are their constructions of ultimate metal. Fortunately, toward the end they built almost everything from that indestructible material.” “Let me tell you about the Tower of the Beast,” said the thing quietly. “It is a tower of gigantic size, but only a hundred feet or so projected above the sand when I saw it. The whole top is a door, and that door is geared to a time lock, which in turn has been integrated along a line of ieis to the ultimate prime number.” Jim Brender stared; and the thing caught his startled thought, the first uncertainty, and the beginning of belief.

It was natural, as he stood there looking out, that his gaze fall upon a structure that rested like a special penthouse upon the great Group Masters building. It was there, in six days, that Trask must report for execution. The main section of the protuberance was low-built, and unbeautiful in its square solidity. Barred windows gave the usual bleak, repressive appearance of a prison. At either end twin shafts of metal and concrete rose straight up several hundred feet. Here were the muffling chambers of the converters, where step by step the radioactivity of the secondary materials was either rechanneled or suppressed, or—if nothing else availed—the affected compounds were automatically packed in safe containers and removed to distant burial grounds. From where he stood, Marin could not see the powerhouse itself or the power broadcasting antennae. The former was an extension of the “penthouse” and the latter was located in a raised section that he could not see from this window. But he knew that somewhere in the vaulted underground of this structure was the relay which—when activated—could affect a burning sensation in the shoulders of Trask’s body, and so by the pain it created draw him inexorably to his doom.

Almost immediately his attention wandered into a world of mental pictures. They were like the pictures he had already had, but now it struck him that they depicted the life of Wade Trask—an intent, frightened boy, whose fears hardened into hidden ideals, which in turn motivated a strong power drive. There was one scene, sharply defined. He was kneeling or, rather, he knelt beside a bed on which lay a dying man. And he had the feeling that this was an experiment. To the ill man, he said, “All you have to do is ask, and then look, and then we’ll do what you tell us.” The man on the bed glared at him balefully. “You scoundrel! You have the knowledge. Help me!” Whoever he was in the dream spoke again. “Don’t let fear drive away your good sense. Tell me why you’re sick; then tell me what to do.” The dying man moaned. “But that’s what doctors are for. How would I know why I’m sick?” And Trask said, “Tell me—or die.” That scene faded like a wisp of fog. There was no continuity in it, or in what followed—only little scenes, scattered and disconnected. It was impossible to decide just when Trask had come upon the line of inquiry that had led to his great discovery. But the end result was definite. After an initial period of settling out, the interchanged mind-force gained complete control, and all of the invaded body’s memory was suppressed.

He dismissed the uneasy sensation finally. And he had time, then, to realize what would now happen to Wade Trask. The sentence of death would be formally delivered to him by Tilden Arallo, leader of Group 814. When that was done, Trask could theoretically spend his last week alive in any luxury he might choose. It was a point made much of by government propaganda. Civilization, it was said, had never before attained so high a level of freedom. Actually, escape was impossible. An electronic instrument was “printed” on the muscles of one shoulder of an individual. The device could be activated by any control station, which would start a burning pain of gradually increasing intensity. The device was selective. Every person in the Great Judge’s domain had his own combination registered at Control Center. There was a special combination for David Marin. And there was a separate combination for Wade Trask. Known only to a few, that was the secret of the Great Judge’s absolute power.

Hypnosis, mental control from a distance, weird use of electronic circuits directly onto the brains of human beings—we just couldn’t take any chances with most of the people who were connected even indirectly. I could tell you how many people were killed, but you wouldn’t like the figures. They sound unpleasant in the very total. But even as it was, we took pity on some of them, and merely keep an eye on them, or otherwise control them or their descendants.” Marin thought of Riva, and now the picture was clear indeed. Her story and his account fitted rather well. The only thing was that she would never know how narrowly she and her mother had escaped death. It would actually have been simpler to destroy them. The number of dead must be large for two men like the Great Judge and Slater to have finally paused in their executioner’s role and made alleviations.

Marin hesitated. It was time to leave, time to be at the meeting. Yet he didn’t want to go. If they brought David Burnley back to fife, he wanted to be present. The boy might say things that would arouse suspicion. Over at the desk young Burnley stirred. Marin didn’t think of it as a life movement but as an unbalancing of a dead weight. He jumped to catch the body before it could fall to the floor. As he grasped the youth’s arm, he felt the muscles tugging under the skin. The swiftness of the reintegration that followed nullified any advance thought about it. David Burnley sat up, looked blank for a moment, and then said in a frightened tone, “What was that thing in my mind?” Unexpected remark. Marin drew back. “Thing!” he said. “Something came into my mind and took control I could feel it I—” He stopped. Tears came into his eyes. The officer strode over. “Anything I can do?” Marin waved him away. “Get that doctor!” he said. It was a defensive action. He needed time here to grasp a new idea. He was remembering what Slater had said, about the use of electronic circuits directly into the brains of human beings as a method of control from a distance. . . . That boy was dead, Marin thought tensely. Dead without visible cause. Was it possible that, as the “circuit” connection was broken, or even dissolved, death resulted? Again, he had no time to think about it clearly. It seemed to mean that young Burnley was a victim, not a traitor. It seemed to mean that the “death” might have broken the connection, though that was not certain. Marin said gently, “How do you feel, David?” “Why, all right, sir.” He stood up, swayed, and then righted himself, smiling warmly. He braced himself visibly. “All right,” he said again.

His mind drifted oddly. . . . . . . Hard to imagine what moment would be right for a rebellion against so powerful an adversary as an immortal dictator. The group in Jorgia might delay their action too long; he couldn’t wait. Marin frowned sleepily. “Did I think that?” He had not ever before even considered rebellion. And what was that about a Jorgian group? Could it be that, just for an instant, here at the edge of sleep, a Trask plan had slipped through to his consciousness? But why rebellion? It didn’t fit. A man who could shift his awareness and his identity from one body to another didn’t need revolutions. Besides, it would be impossible. The group idea, combined with free enterprise, and pregnant with great ideas, was just beginning to take hold. Like a giant, it strode over the land, crushing all resistance and simultaneously inspiring hope. At such moments men did not listen easily to voices that warned against faraway disaster or urged the possibility of even greater creativity. Again his mind wandered. If they don’t act, he thought, I’ll have to act on my own. He felt relieved that he hadn’t told anyone of his invention. And so, all by himself, he was able to act—on the greatest scale. Marin slept uneasily, and his dreams were vague yet purposeful. He seemed to be permeated with secret plans that were not his own.

He was a man who had his own urgent problems, but he visualized the life of this rejected girl, and it hurt him. She seemed to be full of energy, and—despite her deadly existence —operating on a high level of liveliness and good spirits. He began to question her casually. What kind of jobs had she held? Where did she sleep when she didn’t have a Wade Trask to provide a temporary haven for her? What about mail? Had she ever tried living in the Pripp section of the city? What about moving to the country? . . . It was a long list of questions. Riva replied, sometimes vaguely, but she seldom hesitated. In about an hour he had her life in outline. Her early childhood was dim. She had recollections of being with parents who moved, drove, flew—always seeking remoter distances of escape. And always the reaching red tape of the Great Judge’s registrars followed them. They were among the minority who were invariably refused group status. Their past connection with the Brain dogged them, brought them to ruin and hopelessness. The finale came with crushing unexpectedness. The Control descended one day upon the hovel where they lived. The father, unbelieving and protesting, was led out and put against the wall of the shack, and shot. There was no explanation, no further direct interference—but the breadwinner was gone. For mother and daughter, the time of nightmare had come. The transition to woman of the town took place in direct proportion to the need for food.