The Mind Magnet by Paul Ernst Read online

  “There seems to be something here It was true enough. He was half a beside pure thought,” he shrugged.

  foot taller than I, eighty pounds heavier,

  “But perhaps,” I said, “in this curious with cordlike muscles on his heavy torso plane, thought becomes person as well as and limbs.

  personality. Thought is presumed to be He seemed more than a match, alone, electrical. So, in the last analysis, is matter.

  for the two reddish-black insects, or Perhaps our minds have taken on form again whatever they were, that came near with here—the form familiar to us on Earth, after their antennae turned toward us and their being wrenched from our bodies.”

  dull eyes staring with cold intelligence.

  Suddenly, a dozen yards away, a trap On they came until they were almost door opened in the ground. It had been within ou

  each, th

  r r

  eir icily demoniac eyes

  cunningly concealed, sodded over with the glaring hatefully. Farman crouched and red prairie grass so that I hadn’t dreamed of sprang—

  The Mind Magnet 7

  He dropped at the clawed feet of the This Thing was not one of the two ing. And it seem

  nearest Th

  ed to be some

  that had attacked us on the ground above. It discharge from the thick wire that had made was smaller than these, less vigorous in him drop.

  movement. It bent fearlessly over us, and I t mom

  The nex

  ent, before I had time

  thought I saw perplexity in the cold eyes so to gather my wits, the other creature jabbed fantastically set in the end of three foot-long its wire at me.

  stalks. Was it amazed at our conformation, That was all there was to it. For the second so different from its own? Or was it simply time within an hour I lost consciousness—

  considering how best to kill us?

  e instan

  but this tim

  tly, as if I had been struck

  “Shall I try and smash the Thing?”

  by lightning. There had been little enough to asked Farman tensely.

  the fight.

  But at the sound of his words, the And now we were in the power of strange creature stepped back. It made no these Things with three chitinous legs and sound itself—indeed, there seemed to be no three slim

  oiling ar

  ily c

  ms and three cold,

  mouth or other opening through which ellishly intelligent ey

  h

  es that waved on foot-

  sound could come. But it evidently heard ng antennae.

  lo

  sound quite well.

  “Wonder what it intends doing to us?” said Farman, rising to his feet. He CHAPTER III

  clenched his big fists. “What a nightmare The Thought Thieves

  this all is—”

  A quick move of the great insect—

  for I still think that’s what it was—made THE next tim

  o

  e I struggled back t

  him break off. The three-legged creature had consciousness, it was to face surroundings stopped watching us as though we had even more bizarre than I had the first time.

  suddenly ceased to exist. It teetered to a Farman and I lay in a large room. It small plate of metal set into the sidewall of was evidently underground for there were no one of the great cylinders. This it observed windows in the walls. It was illuminated in closely, as though it were a gauge and some concealed way by the same clear red some

  m

  thing ight be read in it. And, indeed, light as that which took the place of sunlight there was something! We could see that outside.

  ourselves.

  All about us was intricate looking Light. Rippling in waves over the metal as apparatus—laboratory apparatus most though trying to tell a story.

  certainly. Great, twisting coils of metal; odd Simultaneously both Farman and machinery; huge, serried cylinders like myself felt the ground quake.

  electric coils; me l con

  ta

  tainers of all shapes

  “One of the towers—it’s coming and sizes that, we saw later, were filled with back!” yelled Farman.

  varicolored fluids.

  Breathlessly we watched the great This I had time to observe. And I had insect—a competent scientist, we judged—if time to hear Farman’s moan of returning you could call such a creature by a human consciousness. Then one of our ghastly term. With equal tensity it glared at the skinny,

  looking captors teetered on its rippling light on the plate, which was chitin-covered legs around from behind a growing ever stronger now. One three-monstrous coil, and approached us.

  tendriled “hand” went out to a crooked lever

  Thrilling Wonder Stories 8

  extending from the coil beside the plate.

  The fact that these Things seemed to have Then the earth tremors subsided; the no way of making sounds indicated mental rippling light died on the plate; the tower telepathy.

  was going away again. W

  a gesture that

  ith

  It pointed upward toward the prairie rely indicated disappointm

  su

  ent, the Thing

  over our heads. Then it drew a large circle turned away from the lever.

  on the floor. Finally, into the circle it introduced a round tower. It rubbed this out FARMAN walked toward it. The creature instantly with a savage sweep of a boneless stepped back on its three clattering legs, arm, and waved its three tentacles upward.

  whipping up one of the thick wires from a

  “Do you see?” Farman said

  nearby stand. Farman smiled placatingly and excitedly. “A tower comes into the circle slowed his

  . The Thing lo

  pace

  wered its

  and is somehow made to vanish off the face weapon but stared warily out of three icy, of this planet. Is thrown clear away from it.

  malevolent eyes.

  But how, I wonder?”

  oesn’t look definitely

  “The Thing d

  As though reading his mind, though hostile,” Farman said to me. “I’m going to it may simply have been going on with the try to warm up to it.”

  gestured account, the Thing pointed to the He stopped, and smiled again. He crooked lever set in the coil. It went

  bent down and went through the motions of through the motion of pulling the lever far drawing diagrams on the floor. A hopeless forward. That was how it was done, the maneuver, I thought. But it was not movement said.

  hopeless. With a really wonderful quickness Farman swung toward me.

  of intelligence, the giant insect caught the

  “Do you see?” he almost shouted.

  meaning.

  “Do you see? That’s how we got here!”

  It went to a corner and returned with What did he mean?

  a piece of soft reddish rock. Farman tried it, Farman explained his idea rapidly.

  and it left a mark like red chalk on the floor.

  “The strange repelling coils

  “Smart,” breathed Farman. “We’ll connected with the lever and working see how far its brains can go.”

  through the great metal circle outside did not He crouched and applied the chalk to destroy a tower unfortunate enough to stray the smooth floor. He drew a tower—a round into the wrong spot,” he pointed out. “It one, and looked up questioningly.

  simply cast it forth into another sphere.

  The response was immediate and Conversely, if the lever were pushed in the violent. The Thing snatched the chalk opposite direction, beyond the neutral point, roughly away and drew a square tower.

  it might perhaps set up a reverse action and

  “We’ve been caught by the army of attract objects—pull them from outside into the Squares, or whatever they call it—and this sphere.”

  there’s plenty of patriotism on both si
des,”

  said Farman. I nodded, feeling as I had all MEANWHILE, with that lightning-quick along that I moved in a dream.

  mind it seemed to possess, the Thing Farman gazed at the Thing, pointed appeared to have thought to the same at the round tower he had drawn, and looked conclusion. It stared at us, at the lever, at the puzzled. The creature caught the thought diagram on the floor, with its cold, instantly—so quickly that I divined a bit of malignant eyes glittering dully.

  thought reading along with the pantomime.

  It teetered to the lever, made as if to

  The Mind Magnet 9

  push it in reverse, then stopped with its three enough to save our lives. Wouldn’t the same tentacles writhing in what appeared to be thing happen with the enemy?

  indecision and perhaps awe.

  Apparently the Thing thought it But if our theory was correct, how would. Whereby a plan had grown in its had the great mass of our bodies been cold brain—a plan that was fine for it but brought to this small globe? Well, from rather ghastly for us.

  Farman’s story, they hadn’t. Our bodies We were to wander into the Round were apparently back in the stratosphere encampment, where we would probably be shell. Only our minds, our consciousness, received under guard, but left alive as seemed to have been brought here by those curiosities. Once there we were to blow up relatively mighty coils,

  een

  and then have b

  ld with

  their strongho

  explosives hidden in

  ateria

  m

  lized again into our Earthly

  the hem of a sort of loin cloth, which we likenesses by some mysterious alchemy.

  were handed.

  But now our minds became occupied What would happen to us in the with speculations le

  d

  ss abstract—an more

  explosion? This was something that momentous. What were our fantastic captors obviously concerned them not at all.

  going to do with us?

  I shook my head frantically as the That, in addition to some basic facts meaning of the diagrams became clear.

  concerning this small red planet, was rm

  Fa

  an stood straight and defiant, arms divulged gradually to us by gestures and the folded across his chest.

  use of the bit of chalk. I won’t take time to

  “They can go to hell,” he said.

  language

  describe the ingenious sign

  “Walk into an enemy camp and blow evolved by the Thing to make its meaning s to

  ourselve

  bits with it just to help them clear; I’ll simply give the result.

  in this senseless war

  w

  ? Do they think we are

  This compact little globe had been fools?”

  scarred by war as long as it had had life.

  Constant war! Half the population against THE words, of course, meant nothing to the the other half. The towers were the latest Thing. But our defiant attitude was plain

  . Each aide had about a

  fighting engines

  enough. Its three dull eyes glinted hundred; one hundred square against a malignantly. It went to a flat bench, like a hundred round.

  table. On this were several cubic metal The repelling circle was a new one,

  containers. It opened

  thrust in a coiling

  invention. So new, indeed, that some of its tentacle, and drew out the most repulsive latent possibilities, like the peculiar action thing I’ve ever seen.

  resulting from the reversal of the lever, had It was a gigantic insect, nearly a foot not yet been learned. It seem offer an

  ed to

  in length, covered with coarse, black hair. It end to the ceaseless warring by giving licked

  had three sets of horn pincers, which c victory to the square-tower forces.

  ferociously in empty air as the Thing held it However, the Squares overlooked no carefully behind its round, ugly head.

  chances. Our strange appearance here had Several of these things, we were given the scientifically trained bug before us given coolly to understand, would be a grim idea. Startlingly alien and different as allowed to feast slowly on our living bodies we were, wouldn’t we be able to penetrate if we refused to obey. We had our choice.

  enemy territory? Our weird (to it) Instant death, blown to bits by powerful appearance had intrigued its attention long explosives—or slow death as our living

  Thrilling Wonder Stories 10

  flesh provided food for these terrible insects.

  were now forgotten. But if so, how could we Farman’s jaw squared. He glanced at find the headquarters we were supposed to e. I n

  m

  odded. I fear death as much as any destroy?

  man, but I prefer it quick, if it must come.

  “We’ll find it soon enough,” grunted The Thing seemed to give out some Farman. “We’ll be captured—or killed—

  soundless call. A panel in the wall opened before we get very close to it.”

  and four more of the great, chitin-covered We glanced at the four monstrosities Things teetered into the laboratory. Two of which guarded us, each with its deadly wire them bore metallic-looking squares of on us, and then started in the direction fabric, and two carried gingerly two small indicated. On and on we plodded, ears alert packets of tubes that looked like for one of the terrific, whistling sc am re

  s that

  firecrackers. The tubes seemed to be made i

  m ght indicate a tower nearby. But none was of metal, however, and had no fuses heard. The prairie seemed lifeless.

  dangling from their tiny ends.

  While the tubes were being folded AND now, with the hidden laboratory at into the cloths, and these being twisted into least a mile behind us, I thought to put into thick strips, like belts, we were given our execution the idea I had conceived before orders.

  we set out.

  We were to walk up to the enemy

  “Why not just leave these loin cloths, stronghold, which was only a short distance explosives and all, lying harmlessly here in away, and let ourselves be captured and the open fields?” I said to Farman. “Then taken to headquarters. There we were to we’ll go on as planned, get captured, but try blast that section of the red planet out of to convince the other side that we’re existence by simply slipping off the belts or harmless. If necessary we can pretend to be loin cloths and dashing them, explosives and willing to fight on their side. That way we’ll all, to the ground. Evidently horrible power live a while longer, even if we accomplish lay in the tiny, fire-cracker-like tubes.

  nothing else.”

  Sure death, of course, if we followed Farman nodded and stopped. We the command. But we had no intention of peered around. No sign of life broke the obeying.

  unending surface of the sea of red grass. We The trapdoor was opened. We were took off the belts.

  thrust up onto the prairie surface—two Almost at our elbow rose one of the human beings in a world of creatures such as four Things. Silent as shadows, having no human had ever seen before, bearing practiced all their lives at moving invisibly death for hundreds in the folds of our loin through this prairie grass, they had trailed us cloths. The four Things came with us. One to prevent this very move. Evidently they pointed with its middle arm the direction we eant

  m

  to keep us in sight until we were were to take.

  actually in the hands of the enemy.

  None of the moving towers was in At a menacing sweep of the Thing’s sight. Nor was there a sign of any of the wire, Farman and I put the cloths back on.

  Things moving in the waist-high grass.

  Hopelessly we started again toward the Seemingly this was a deserted planet.

  unseen enemy encampment. Beside us and Probably all on it lived under its surface, behind us we could hear, now that we knew driven there by the centuries of ceaseless we were
still guarded, occasional faint war, the very cause and reason for which rustles in the grass.

  The Mind Magnet 11

  I think we must have covered six was all jaws. If we had tried to, we could not miles when abruptly we heard the thing we have run fast enough to avoid it. In an had been dreading: the ear-splitting shriek of instant we were engulfed in it and were rs. A round tower, we saw,

  one of the towe

  to the tu

  being swept up

  rret, ten or twelve

  as it thrust itself over the horizon and rapidly stories above us. There, it opened and approached us.

  spewed us out.

  Straight toward us the thing came.

  Dozens of the Things, identical in We cowered down in the grass, but at a prod form and appearance with the Things that from one of the guarding Things, we stood had sent us to destroy them, surrounded us up again so we could be seen. The tower got in a circle, staring with their three eyes so close that we could distinguish moving on the foot-long stalks that individually the nightma

  enizens of this

  re d

  supported them—and with their weapons, lanet that stood in th

  p

  e fighting turret. And

  more of the thick wires, unanim ained

  ously tr

  en it was directly over us.

  th

  on us. Then there was a silent stir in their ranks and the tower galvanized to life.

  “Shouldn’t wonder if our four guards CHAPTER IV

  potted,” Farm

  have been s

  an said. “If so,

  Return to Earth

  they’ll pay for following orders so implicitly!”

  The tower moved faster, rushing WE stood in the very shadow of the tower nderous