Presently she said in a choked voice, "He—he tol' me we was goin' to be m-married an'—an' so I was to be awful nice t' you...."
She buried her face in her hands. Abysmal shame overwhelmed her. She sobbed. And Jim, standing beside her in her humiliation, knew that whatever bond kept her subject had been broken. For a little while she could see clearly. But still she could not speak of what she was forbidden to speak....
Presently Jim soothed her as well as he could. He held her comfortingly close and told her gently that he'd only been curious. He didn't know anything about the Little Fella. It was all new to him. But she hadn't done anything wrong. Not in talking to him, because the Little Fella hadn't warned her. And of course when he, Jim, learned about the Little Fella and how people must do what he said, and of course when the Little Fella told him about their getting married....
Her tears dried, somehow. She grew radiant again and somehow maternal. They walked together back toward the farmhouse. Then, when it loomed dark before them with only a single tiny glimmer of light in one window, she whispered, "J-Jim, when we—get inside, you— you kiss me. So's the Little Fella'll hear an' think we' been—kissin' outside...." Her hand trembled on his arm. He nodded. He did kiss her, in the dark main room of the cabin, with no illumination save the dying coals of the fireplace. She gasped, "G-goodnight, Jim..."
Then Jim was left alone. And a murderous fury filled him. He had learned much, but not enough. He had not yet had time to sort out what he had learned, but he knew savagely that he had been right and Security wrong, and the danger Security feared had come true more horribly than any Security official could imagine. But his fury was because of the thin, weary, enslaved folk in this cabin. And for the girl Sally.
But he had been a night and two days without sleep, and his mind would not be clear. Also there was the danger that in his weariness the Little Fella—whatever thing devised in hell a Little Fella might be—might put soothing, convincing thoughts into his mind...
He went to the fireplace. There was a great iron pot beside it. At the moment it was empty. He held it in his hands. As cast-iron, its hysterisis-constant should be high. He raised it over his head and carefully let down his guard, fumbling in the back of his mind...
"Nice...." said the sly and insinuating and somehow loathsome thought. "Very nice.... Sally is nice.... Sally is fun....It will be nice to stay here....Sally—."
He lowered the iron pot carefully over his head. The thoughts dimmed. He lay down on the corn-husk mattress spread on the floor for him. For a time he was unwillingly alert. Presently he was calm again. He slipped his head partly out of the iron pot. Thoughts came to him once more.
He listened to them in stark horror. Before they could seize upon him—but his horror itself was a defense—he drew the pot down over his head again.
It was very uncomfortable, but ultimately he managed to sleep. And he woke in the morning with the certain knowledge that his mind had not been tampered with while he slumbered. It was quaint to think that he was able to think clearly and think clearly because he'd imitated the fabled ostrich—by hiding his head. But there was sound reason. He'd insulated his laboratory with quarter-inch plates of high hysterisis iron. Nothing his apparatus produced could go through that! An iron cooking-pot neatly if absurdly duplicated the insulation.
But his feelings were grim indeed. The few thoughts he'd dared listen to made him feel sick with fear for the rest of mankind. But it was humorous to know, from that listening, that the iron pot he'd worn had been not only a protection against the thought-field directed upon him, but had absorbed that field so it seemed that he had no protection.
6
Next morning it became clear that a change was assumed to have taken place in him. Sally's father looked at him with lack-lustre eyes at breakfast. He said heavily, "You' goin' to town today, Jim. When you come back you take over an' finish hoein' the field we were workin' in yesterday."
For an instant, Jim did not grasp it. Then Sally said softly, "Town's Clearfield, Jim. There's a—courthouse there."
Still Jim did not quite grasp it. Sally's mother said with a trace of wistfulness, "It'd be nice to've had it in church, though ... I always figured...."
Then it sank home. The ridiculous iron pot had protected him not only from transmitted thoughts, but from giving any sign of having been protected. Whatever or whoever the Little Fella might be, the thoughts that had been "told" to Sally and the rest were now believed to have been implanted in Jim's mind while he slept. He was assumed to have absorbed all needful instructions and commands during his slumber. He was believed to have waked with an entire pattern of behavior in his mind, and which had all the effect of his own decision and desire. This family had been told that he would stay in this cabin. That he would help in the fields. That he would marry Sally,—today. In a town called Clearfield. And Sally's mother accepted unquestioningly the fact that he and Sally were to walk into town and be married, and walk back, and that in the afternoon Jim would work in the fields....
They classed him as one of them now. As subject to the same force that made them pale and worn-out robots.
He went white as he realized. Then Sally said explanatorily to her parents, "Jim's goin' to have to talk to Mr. Hagger. I don't know how long that'll be."
Jim said nothing. His flesh crawled at the narrowness of his escape. If a human being knew what transmitted thought was like, he might repel the thought-field of the Little Fella while he stayed awake. Especially if he raged. A thought-field wasn't a radiation. It was a field of force, a strain in space like an electrostatic field. It could be repelled by another thought-field contained in a man's own skull. But during sleep it couldn't be fought off. It would be absorbed. Its absorption would be evident,—like the removal or neutralization of a static charge. And the iron pot that had stayed over Jim's head during the night had absorbed the thought-field directed upon him.
But it was assumed that thoughts had been implanted in his mind during his sleep. Had it happened, he could never again have fought off a transmitted thought by raging, nor have resisted commands transmitted to him even during the day. And if he'd been unaware of the danger he could have been subjugated even while he was awake. Only full advance warning and the iron pot during the night kept him from being, now, the completely abject slave of whoever transmitted orders by thought-field.
Jim found himself sweating profusely. He was to go into this village of Clearfield, since he was believed to be a robot, now. He was to marry Sally in the belief that it was his own desire. And he was to talk to a Mr. Hagger ... Maybe—maybe this Mr. Hagger was the operator of the transmitter. If so, he must be killed and the transmitter smashed
"You remember, don't you, Jim?" asked Sally.
He hesitated. The food in his mouth was tasteless as ashes. But while they thought he was a robot like themselves they would talk freely. Sally had been indiscreet last night because she hadn't known that he was free. On the way to town she might talk again.
"I—guess so," said Jim slowly. "When you say it, I remember. But—my head don't feel so clear this mornin'. Like I—dreamed a lot last night..."
"Paw was like that," said Sally wisely. "Sometimes he's like that now. It takes time for you to get used to the Little Fella tellin' you things." Then she said hopefully. "But you're—kinda glad, ain't you, Jim?"
He mumbled. He continued to sweat.
"What time do we start?"
"Soon's we finish breakfast," said Sally. "I'm glad, Jim!"
He felt sick inside. He was desperately sorry for Sally. But he was also desperately sorry for her family and for the others who were subject to this unthinkable tyranny. And there was the rest of the world, too. He, himself, was a criminal in the eyes of Security, but he had upon himself the responsibility for the security of all mankind against a menace Security knew nothing about. He could not yet guess at any plan behind the use of transmitted thought, but its effect upon those subject to it was not only abject mental slavery. There was a physical effect of terrible weakness and lethargy. Anyone who used such a thing could be nothing less than a monster. No ambition or even insanity could make the crime forgivable.