Brandon blinked at him.
"Before what?"
"Before," raged Jim, "they think of something I've thought of! There's a trick they can pull off to end everything—like that!" He snapped shaking fingers. "If it occurs to them, they can subjugate every living human being, and probably us included, in seconds flat! Damn them, they'll be invulnerable if they—think of that trick before I can beat them—"
Then, panting with fury, he went back to his work. But fury does not lead to clear thinking, nor to meticulously accurate work with inadequate equipment. Jim worked on. His results-There weren't any.
19
The dominion of the Things looked no otherwise than all the rest of the world. On parts of it the sun shone, and on other parts the rain fell. Nowhere was there any sign of other than human occupancy, because the Things preferred to stay quietly and luxuriously in their nests. But a certain problem was developing. The Things reproduced by the division of their bodies into two individuals. The frequency of that reproduction was strictly controlled by the abundance of nourishment. In the mountains, where their craft had first descended, the human population was limited. A Thing took over a family and became its parasitic master. He—or It—could destroy them by unbridled demands upon their strength. Every beastly instinct urged just that But the manner of their reproduction involved just the retention in each individual of every memory of past generations. And the Things which had subdued two solar systems to their will had been wise Things. Wisely, if reluctantly, they had curbed their appetite for gluttony until it could safely be indulged. So the Things in the mountain area restrained themselves—somewhat.
When a Thing divided, the food-supply became plainly inadequate. So each divided Thing called upon others, and they joined together with a human slave for each. Half a dozen slaves carried half a dozen Things to a house where there was no Thing. The six overwhelmed the folks there. A Thing took up its residence as master and lord. The others went on to repeat. And the taking-over of a new household meant at least one orgy of feasting without stint because there were so many fresh animals—called men—to afford the means.
That process of distribution was adequate in a rural district for a while, but it was not enough when a city was absorbed. There were hundreds of thousands of humans to be subdued and ruled and preyed upon. The Things gorged themselves in such an ecstasy of feeding as perhaps the race had hardly known before. Their pink, hairless bodies swelled and glistened with their greed. They divided—and the abundance of domestic animals was such that one Thing had hardly become two before the two were gorged and already beginning the process of becoming four. The Things, in fact, multiplied with such incredible prolificacy that there was no time—there was no space, there were no nests—in which to spread their spawning numbers.
And that made the problem. Their instincts called for quiet and warmth and solitude for feeding. Now bickerings arose among them. Envenomed accusations and petty hatreds began. There was some danger that their crowding would actually produce physical discomfort for them! So they squabbled soundlessly, sending thoughts of hate to one another. But all, of course still impressed upon the humans the thoughts of "nice.... nice....nice...." which kept their slaves exalted and submissive and perpetually conscious of an enormous happiness.
But there was bickering. It went on even in the mountain country where they had first landed on this planet. And since the Things had no civilization of their own, nor considered the building which sheltered their nests of any consequence whatever, there was no difference of pride or position among them. Yet the Things in the rural area—if only because they dared not gorge so often —tended to think a little more clearly.
The quarrels went on for a long, long time. There were no parties, because they had no politics. They were a spawning horde of strict individualists, squabbling venomously among themselves but presenting a united front toward human beings because humans were mere domestic animals and the object of the quarreling.
Then, presently, an icy thought spread among them. It was cold and utterly factual. It was the thought of a Thing—such variants arose occasionally—who began to lose the frantic lustings of his race, and thought the more lucidly in consequence. As all Things knew, the variants of this type were doomed to grow old and to atrophy like the animals on which the Things fed. But the beginning of the disease was wisdom.
The icy thought said that now was the time for the Things to cease their foolish quarrels and cooperate so that they could quarrel in perfect freedom forever after. Six of them could control any animal, flooding its mind irresistibly with thoughts that blanked out its own consciousness. Even rage or fear or fury could not protect an animal against the linked minds of six of their race. Now they were thousands. If all their minds linked together, it would not be a simple addition of power to one. It would be a multiplication of the multiple power they gained by junction of their minds.
If every Thing linked its mind to every other, there would be such a surge of energy as even their race had never used before. The whole race of men, the whole planet would become subject at one stroke. Men would come and joyfully carry them to new subjects. The machines and the whole civilization of men would combine to distribute them everywhere over the planet, each surrounded by so many adoring slaves that they could gorge and gorge and gorge without ceasing.... And then there would be no need for secrecy or caution or thought for the future, because every human being would be passionately loyal to the superior race of Things.
This, said the icy thought, was necessary because men were intelligent. They must be subdued because otherwise they were possibly dangerous. They should be controlled to the last individual. Now! Immediately! Before any evil befell from their intelligence!
And it would require only a single concerted effort.
The Things in their nests did not cease their feeding, nor their quiverings of beastly enjoyment as they fed. But the squabblings lessened as the promise of the icy thought sank home. Unlimited gluttony....
The Things gradually ceased their mutual venom, for cooperation which would serve them all. Minds linked tentatively,—and squabbled and broke the linkage, and then linked again....
20
It would not work. The modulator in the vault simply would not pick up thoughts to enhance and impress upon the transmitter-field. Had Jim been less wrought up; less hag-ridden by a frantic feeling of urgency, he would have seen the completely simple reason for it. But as it was he tested and re-tested his equipment, and tried every possible re-arrangement, and was forced to the bitter conclusion that some small part bought for the device was subject to a factory defect.
He was made physically ill by the conclusion that nothing could be done. He looked at Brandon, the ashen taste of defeat in his mouth. He felt ashamed, because he had taken nearly a week to make something that was no good at all—though before his arrest by Security, exactly similar apparatus had worked admirably.
"It's tough!" said Brandon. "So now you go to Security?"
Jim nodded.