A. E. Van Vogt - Supermind

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Supermind
by A.E.Van Vogt
Version 1.0
Prologue
Take a sentient being—
Even Steve Hanardy could fit that description. He was a
short, stocky man, with the look about him of someone who
had lived too close to the animal stage. His eyes were per-
petually narrowed, as if he were peering against a bright
light. His face was broad and fleshy. But he was human. He
could think and act, and he was a giver and not a taker.
—Put this sentient person in a solar system surrounded by
a two billion light-year ocean of virtual nothingness beyond
which, apparently, is more nothingness—
Hanardy, a product of the Earth's migration to the moon
and to the planets of the solar system, was born on Europa,
one of the moons of Jupiter, before the educational system
caught up to the colonists. He grew up an incoherent roust-
about and a spacehand on the freighters and passenger liners
that sped about among the immense amount of debris—
from moons to habitable meteorites—that surrounded the
massive Jupiter. It was a rich and ever-growing trade area,
and so presently even the stolid, unimaginative Hanardy had
a freighter of his own. Almost from the beginning, his most
fruitful journeys were occasional trips to the meteorite where
a scientist, Professor Ungarn, lived with his daughter, Patri-
cia. For years, it was a lucrative, routine voyage, without in-
cident.
—Confront this sentient individual with the enigma of
being—
I
Indecision was dark in the man's thoughts as he walked
across the spaceship control room to the cot where the
woman lay so taut and so still. He bent over her. He said in
his deep voice:
"We're slowing down, Merla."
No answer, no movement, not a quiver in her delicate,
abnormally blanched cheeks. Her fine nostrils dilated ever so
slightly with each measured breath. That was all.
The Dreegh lifted her arm, then let it go. It dropped to her
lap like a piece of lifeless wood and her body remained rigid
and unnatural. Carefully, he put his fingers to one eye, raised
the lid, peered into it. It stared back at him, a clouded, sight-
less blue. He straightened. As he stood there in the silence of
the hurtling ship, he seemed the embodiment of grim, icy
calculation. He thought grayly: "If I revived her now, she'd
have more time to attack me, and more strength. If I
waited, she'd be weaker."
Slowly, he relaxed. Some of the weariness of the years he
and this woman had spent together in the dark vastness of
space came to shatter his abnormal logic. Bleak sympathy
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touched him, and he made his decision. He prepared an in-
jection, and fed it into her arm. His gray eyes held a steely
brightness as he put his lips near the woman's ear. In a
ringing resonant voice he said, "We're near a star system.
There'll be blood, Merla! And life!"
The woman stirred. Momentarily, she seemed like a gold-
en-haired doll come alive. No color touched her perfectly
formed cheeks, but her eyes grew alert. She stared up at him
with a hardening hostility, half questioning.
"I've been chemical," she said. Abruptly, she was no long-
er doll-like. Her gaze tightened on him, and some of the pret-
tiness vanished from her face. She said, "It's damned funny,
Jeel, that you're still O.K. If I thought—"
He was cold, watchful. "Forget it," he said curtly. "You're
an energy waster, and you know it. Anyway, we're going to
land."
The flamelike tenseness of her faded. She sat up painfully,
but there was a thoughtful look on her face as she said, "I'm
interested in the risks. This is not a Galactic planet, is it?"
"There are no Galactics out here. But there is an Observer.
I've been catching the secret ultra signals for the last two
hours"—a sardonic note entered his voice—"warning all
ships to stay clear because the system isn't ready for any kind
of contact with Galactic planets."
Some of the diabolic glee that was in his thoughts must
have communicated through his tone. The woman stared at
him, and slowly her eyes widened. She half whispered, "You
mean—"
He shrugged. "The signals ought to be registering full
blast now. We'll see what degree system this is. But you can
start hoping hard right now."
At the control board, he cautiously manipulated the room
into darkness and set the automatics. A picture took form on
a screen on the opposite wall. At first there was only a point
of light in the middle of a starry sky, then a planet floating
brightly in the dark space, continents and oceans plainly
visible. A voice came out of the screen:
"This star system contains one inhabited planet, the third
from the Sun, called Earth by its dominant race. It was
colonized by Galactics about seven thousand years ago in the
usual manner. It is now in the third degree of development,
having attained a limited form of space travel little more
than a hundred years ago."
With a swift movement, the man cut off the picture and
turned on the light, then looked across at the woman tri-
umphantly. "Third degree!" he said softly, and there was an
almost incredulous note in his voice. "Only third degree.
Merla, do you realize what this means? This is the oppor-
tunity of the ages. I'm going to call the Dreegh tribe. If we
can't get away with several tankers of blood and a whole
battery of 'life,' we don't deserve to be immortal."
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He turned toward the communicator; and for that exultant
moment caution was dun in the back of his mind. From the
comer of his eye, he saw the woman leap from the edge of
the cot. Too late, he twisted aside. The movement saved
him only partially. It was their cheeks not their lips that met.
Blue flame flashed from him to her. The burning energy
seared his cheek to instant, bleeding rawness. He half fell to
the floor. And then, furious with the intense agony, he fought
free. "I'll break your bones!" he raged.
Her laughter, unlovely with her own suppressed fury, floated
up at him from the floor where he had flung her. She said,
"So you did have a secret supply of 'life' for yourself. You
damned double-crosser!"
His mortification yielded to the realization that anger was
useless. Tense with the weakness that was already a weight
on his muscles, he whirled toward the control board, and
began feverishly to make the adjustments that would pull the
ship back into normal space and time.
The body urge grew in him swiftly, a dark, remorseless
need. Twice, he reeled to the cot in a fit of nausea. But each
time he fought back to the control board. He sat there finally
at the controls, head drooping, conscious of the numbing
tautness that crept deeper, deeper. He drove the ship too fast.
It turned a blazing white when at last it struck the atmo-
sphere of the third planet. But those hard metals held their
shape; and the terrible speeds yielded to the fury of the
reversers and to the pressure of air that thickened with every
mile.
It was the woman who helped his faltering form into the
tiny lifeboat. He lay there, gathering strength, staring
eagerly down at the blazing sea of lights that was the first
city he had seen on the night side of this strange world.
Dully, he watched as the woman eased the small ship into the
darkness behind a shed in a little back alley. And, because
succor seemed suddenly near, he was able to walk beside her
to the dimly lighted residential street near by.
He would have walked on blankly into the street, but the
woman's fingers held him back into the shadows of the alley.
"Are you mad?" she whispered. "Lie down. We'll stay here
until someone comes."
The concrete was hard beneath his body, but after a mo-
ment of the painful rest it brought, he felt a fault surge of
energy, and he was able to voice his bitter thought. "If you
hadn't stolen most of my carefully saved 'life,' we wouldn't
be in this desperate position. You well know that it's more
important that I remain at full power."
In the dark beside him, the woman lay quiet for a while.
Then her defiant whisper came. "We both need a change
of blood, and a new charge of 'life.' Perhaps I did take a
little too much out of you, but that was because I had to
steal it. You wouldn't have given it to me of your own free
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will, and you know it."
For a time, the futility of argument held him silent, but
as the minutes dragged, that dreadful physical urgency once
more tainted his thought. He said heavily:
"You realize, of course, that we've revealed our presence.
We should have waited for the others to come. There's no
doubt at all that our ship was spotted by the Galactic Ob-
server in this system before we reached the outer planets.
They'll have tracers on us wherever we go, and no matter
where we bury our machine, they'll know its exact location.
It's impossible to hide the interstellar drive energies; and
since they wouldn't make the mistake of bringing such
energies to a third-degree planet, we can't hope to locate
them in that fashion. But we must expect an attack of some
kind. I only hope one of the great Galactics doesn't take part
in it."
"One of them!" Her whisper was a gasp. She controlled her-
self, and snapped irritably, "Don't try to scare me. You've
told me time and again that—"
"All right, all right!" He spoke grudgingly, wearily.
"Time has proved that they consider us beneath their
personal attention. And"—in spite of his appalling weakness,
scorn came—"let any of the kind of agents they have in
these lower category planets try to stop us."
"Hush!" Her whisper was tense. "Footsteps! Quick, get to
your feet!"
He was aware of the shadowed form of her rising. Then
her hands were tugging at him. Dizzily, he stood up.
"I don't think," he began wanly, "that I can—"
"Jeel!" Her whisper beat at him; her hands shook him. "It's
a man and a woman. They're 'life,' Jeel, 'life!'"
Life!
He straightened. A spark of the unquenchable will to live
that had brought him across the black miles and the blacker
years burst into flame inside him. Lightly, swiftly, he fell into
step beside Merla, and strode into the open. He saw the
shapes of the man and the woman. In the half-night under
the trees of that street, the couple came towards them, draw-
ing aside to let them pass. First the woman came, then the
man—and it was as simple as if all his strength had been
there in his muscles.
He saw Merla launch herself at the man; and then he was
grabbing the woman, his head bending instantly for that
abnormal kiss.
Afterwards—after they had taken the blood, too—grim-
ness came to the man, a hard fabric of thought and counter-
thought, that slowly formed into purpose. He said, "We'll
leave the bodies here."
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Her startled whisper rose in objection, but he cut her short,
harshly. "Let me handle this. These dead bodies will draw to
this city news gatherers, news reporters, or whatever their
breed are called on this planet. And we need such a person
now. Somewhere in the reservoir of facts possessed by a per-
son of this type must be clues, meaningless to him but by
which we can discover the secret base of the Galactic Ob-
server in this system. We must find that base, discover its
strength, and destroy it if necessary when the tribe comes."
His voice took on a steely note. "And now, we've got to
explore this city, find a much frequented building under which
we can bury our ship, learn the language, replenish our own
vital supplies, and capture that reporter.
"After I'm through with him"—his tone became silken-
smooth—"he will undoubtedly provide you with that physical
diversion which you apparently crave when you have been
particularly chemical."
He laughed gently, as her fingers gripped his arm in the
darkness, a convulsive gesture. She said, "Thank you, Jeel.
You do understand, don't you?"
II
BEGIN I.Q. REHABILITATION
Behind Leigh, a door opened. Instantly the clatter of voices
in the room faded to a murmur. He turned alertly, tossing
his cigarette onto the marble floor and stepping on it, all in
one motion.
Overhead, the lights brightened to daylight intensity. In
that blaze he saw what the other eyes were already staring
at: the two bodies, the man's and the woman's, as they were
wheeled in. The dead couple lay side by side on the flat,
gleaming top of the carrier. Their bodies were rigid, their
eyes closed. They looked as dead as they were, and not at all,
Leigh thought, as if they were sleeping.
He caught himself making a mental note of that fact,
and felt shocked at himself. The first murders on the North
American continent in twenty-seven years. And it was only
another job. He was tougher than he'd ever believed.
Around him, the voices had stopped. The only sound was
the hoarse breathing of the man nearest him, the scrape
of his own shoes as he went forward. His movement acted
like a signal on that tense group of men. There was a general
pressing forward. Leigh had a moment of anxiety. And
then his bigger, harder muscles brought him where he wanted
to be, opposite the two heads. He leaned forward, absorbed.
His fingers probed gingerly where the incisions showed on
the neck of the woman. He did not look up at the attendant
as he said softly:
"This is where the blood was drained?"
"Yes."
Before he could speak again, another reporter interjected,
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"Any special comment from the police scientists? The mur-
ders are more than a day old now. There ought to be some-
thing."
Leigh scarcely heard. The woman's body, electrically
warmed for embalming, felt eerily lifelike to his touch. It
was only after a long moment that he noticed her lips were
badly, almost brutally, bruised.
His gaze flicked to the man. And there were the same
neck cuts, the same torn lips. He looked up. Questions
quivered on his tongue. They remained unspoken as the
calm-voiced attendant said:
"Normally, when the electric embalmers are applied, there
is resistance from the static electricity of the body. Curiously,
that resistance was not present in either body."
Somebody said, "Just what does that mean?"
"This static force is actually a form of life force, which
usually trickles out of a corpse over a period of a month. We
know of no way to hasten the process, but the bruises on the
lips show distinct burns, which are suggestive."
There was a craning of necks, a crowding forward. Leigh
allowed himself to be pushed aside. He stopped attentively as
the attendant said, "Presumably, a pervert could have
kissed with such violence."
"I thought," Leigh said distinctly, "there were no more per-
verts since Professor Ungarn persuaded the government to
institute Ms brand of mechanical psychology in all schools,
thus ending murder, theft, war, and all unsocial perversions."
The black frock-coated attendant hesitated, then said, "A
very bad one seems to have been missed." He finished, "That's
all, gentlemen. No clues, no promise of an early capture, and
only this final fact: We've radioed Professor Ungarn and,
by great good fortune, we caught him on his way to Earth
from his meteor retreat near Jupiter. He'll be landing shortly
after dark, a few hours from now."
The lights dimmed. As Leigh stood frowning, watching
the bodies being wheeled out, a phrase floated out of the
gathering chorus of voices:
"—The kiss of death—"
"I tell you," another voice said, "the captain of this space
liner swears it happened—the spaceship came past him at
millions of miles an hour, and it was slowing down, get that,
slowing down—two days ago."
"—The vampire easel That's what I'm going to call it—"
That's what Leigh called it, too, as he talked briefly into
his wrist communicator. He finished, "I'm going to supper
now, Jim."
"O.K., Bill." The local editor's voice sounded metallic.
"And say, I'm supposed to commend you. Nine thousand
papers took the Planetarian Service on this story, as com-
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pared with about forty-seven hundred who bought from Uni-
versal, who had the second largest coverage. And I think
you've got the right angle for today, too. Husband and wife,
ordinary young couple, taking an evening walk. Some devil
hauls up alongside of them, drains their blood into a tank,
their life energy onto a wire or something—people will be-
lieve that, I guess. Anyway, you suggest it could happen to
anybody; so be careful, folks. And you warn that, in these days
of supra atmosphere speeds, he could be anywhere tonight
for his next murder. As I said before, good stuff. That'll
keep the yarn alive for tonight. Oh, by the way—"
"Shoot!"
"A kid called half an hour ago to see you. Said you ex-
pected him."
"A kid?" Leigh frowned to himself.
"Name of Patrick. High school age, about sixteen. No,
come to think of it, that was only my first impression. Eigh-
teen, maybe twenty, very bright, confident, proud."
"I remember now," said Leigh. "College student Inter-
view for a college paper. Called me up this afternoon. One of
those damned persuasive talkers. Before I knew it, I was
signed up for supper at Constantine's."
"That's right. I was supposed to remind you. O.K.?"
Leigh shrugged. "I promised," he said.
Actually, as he went out into the blaze of the late after-
noon sunlit street, there was not an important thought in his
head. Nor a premonition.
Around him, the swarm of humankind began to thicken.
Vast buildings discharged the first surge of the five o'clock
tidal wave. Twice, Leigh felt the tug at his arm before it
struck him that someone was not just bumping into him.
He turned and stared down at a pair of dark, eager eyes
set in a brown, wizened face. The little man waved a
sheaf of papers at him. Leigh caught a glimpse of writing in
longhand on the papers. Then the fellow was babbling. "Mr.
Leigh, a hundred dollars for these .. . biggest story—"
"Oh," said Leigh. His interest collapsed. He said politely,
"Take it up to the Planetarian office. Jim Brian will pay you
what the story is worth."
He walked on, a vague conviction in his mind that the
matter was settled. Then, abruptly, there was the tugging at
his arm again. "Scoop!" the little man said. "Professor Un-
garn's log, all about a spaceship that came from the stars.
Devils in it who drink blood and kiss people to death!"
"See here!" Leigh began, irritated; then stopped. An ugly
chill wind swept through him. He stood, swaying a little
from the shock of the thought that was frozen in his brain:
The newspapers with those details of "blood" and "kiss"
were not on the street yet, wouldn't be for fifteen or twenty
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minutes.
The man said, "Look, it's got Professor Ungarn's name
printed in gold on the top of each sheet, and it's all about
how he first spotted the ship eighteen light years out, and
how it came all that distance in a few hours . .. and he knows
where it is now and—"
Leigh's reporter's brain, that special, highly developed de-
partment, was whirling with a little swarm of thoughts that
suddenly straightened into a hard, bright pattern. In that
tightly built design, there was no room for any such coinci-
dence as this man coming to him here in this crowded street.
He said, "Let me see those!" and reached as he spoke.
The papers came free from the other's fingers into his
hands, but Leigh did not even glance at them. His brain was
crystal clear, his eyes cold. He snapped, "I don't know what
your game is. I want to know three things, and make your
answers damned fasti One: How did you pick me out, name
and job and all, on a busy street that I just happened to be on
accidentally?"
The little man stammered incomprehensible words. Leigh
paid no attention. Remorselessly, he pounded on, "Two: Pro-
fessor Ungarn is arriving from Jupiter in three hours. How
do you explain your possession of papers he must have
written less than two days ago?"
"Look, boss," the man chattered, "you've got me all
wrong—"
"My third question," Leigh said grimly, "is how are you
going to explain to the police your pre-knowledge of the
details of murder?"
"Huh!" The little man's eyes were glassy, and for the
first time pity came to Leigh. He said almost softly, "All
right, fellah, start talking."
The words came swiftly, and at first they were simply
senseless sounds. Only gradually did coherence come.
"—And that's the way it was, boss. I'm standing there, and
this kid comes up to me and points you out, and gives me
five bucks and those papers you've got, and tells me what
I'm supposed to say to you and—"
"Kid!" said Leigh; and the first shock was already in
him.
"Yeah, kid about sixteen; no, more like eighteen or twen-
ty... and he gives me the papers and—"
"This kid," said Leigh, "would you say he was of college
age?"
"That's it, boss; you've got it. That's just what he was.
You know him, eh? O.K., that leaves me in the clear, and
I'll be going—"
"Wait!" Leigh called. But the little man seemed suddenly
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to realize that he need only run. He vanished around a
corner, and was gone forever.
Leigh stood, frowning, and read the thin sheaf of papers.
There was nothing beyond what the little man had already
conveyed by his incoherent talk. It was a vague series of
entries on sheets from a loose-leaf notebook. Written down,
the tale about the spaceship and its occupants lacked depth,
and seemed more unconvincing each passing second. True,
there was the single word "Ungarn" inscribed in gold on the
top of each sheet but—
The sense of silly hoax grew so violently that Leigh
thought angrily: "If that college kid really pulled a stunt
like this, it'll be a short interview." The thought ended. The
notion was as senseless as everything else that had hap-
pened.
And still there was no real tension in him. He was only
going to a restaurant.
He turned into the splendid foyer that was the beginning
of the vast and wonderful Constantine's. In the great door-
way, he paused to survey the expansive glitter of tables,
the hanging garden tearooms. Brilliant Constantine's, famous
the world over, but not much changed from his last visit.
Leigh gave his name, and began, "A Mr. Patrick made
reservations, I understand."
The girl said, "Oh, yes, Mr. Leigh. Mr. Patrick reserved
Private Three. He just now phoned to say he'd be along in
a few minutes. Our premier will escort you."
Leigh turned away, puzzled at the way the girl had gushed.
Then a thought struck him. He turned back to the girl.
"Just a minute," he said, "did you say Private Three? Who's
paying for this?"
The girl said, "It was paid by phone. Forty-five hundred
dollars!"
Leigh stood very still. Even after what had happened on
the street, this meeting seemed scarcely more than an irrita-
tion to be gotten over with. Now, abruptly, it was become
a fantastic, abnormal thing. Forty-five—hundred—dollars!
Could it be some fool rich kid determined to make a
strong, personal impression?
With cold logic, he rejected that solution. Humanity pro-
duced egoists on an elephantine scale, but not one who
would order a feast like that to impress a reporter. His eyes
narrowed on an idea. "Where's your registered phone?" he
asked curtly.
A minute later, he was saying into the mouthpiece: "Is
this the Amalgamated Universities Secretariat? I want to
find out if there is a Mr. Patrick registered at any of your
local colleges, and if there is, whether or not he has been
authorized by any college paper to interview William Leigh
of the Planetarian News Service. This is Leigh calling."
It took six minutes, and then the answer came, brisk,
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tremendous, and final: "There are three Mr. Patricks in our
seventeen units. All are at present having supper at their
various official residences. There are four Miss Patricks, sim-
ilarly accounted for by our staff of secretaries. None of the
seven is in any way connected with a university paper. Do
you wish any assistance in dealing with the impostor?"
Leigh hesitated. When he finally spoke, it was with the
queer, dark realization that he was committing himself.
"No," he said, and hung up.
He came out of the phone booth, shaken by his own
thoughts. There was only one reason why he was in this city
at this time. Murder! And he knew scarcely a soul. It seemed
incredible that any stranger would want to see him for a
reason not connected with his own purpose. He waited until
the ugly thrill was out of his system. Then he said to the
attendant, "To Private Three, please."
Presently, he was examining the luxurious suite. It turned
out to be a splendidly furnished apartment with a palace-
like dining salon dominating the five rooms. One entire wall
of the salon was lined with decorated mirror facings, behind
which glittered hundreds of bottles of liquor. The brands
were strange to his inexpensive tastes, the bouquet of several
that he opened heady but inviting. In the ladies' dressing
room was a long showcase displaying a gleaming array of
jewelry. He estimated that there was several hundred thou-
sand dollars' worth, if it were genuine. Leigh was not
impressed. For his taste, Constantine's did not supply good
value for the money they charged.
"I'm glad you're physically big," said a voice behind him.
"So many reporters are thin and small."
The tone was subtly different than it had been over the
phone in the early afternoon. Deliberately different. The dif-
ference, he noted as he turned, was in the body, too, the
difference in the shape of a woman from a boy, skillfully
but not perfectly concealed under the well-tailored man's
suit. Actually, of course, she was quite boyish in build,
young, finely molded. And, actually, he would never have
suspected if she had not allowed her voice to be so purpose-
fully womanish. She echoed his thought coolly.
"Yes, I wanted you to know. But now, there's no use wast-
ing words. You know as much as you need to know. Here's
a gun. The spaceship is buried below this building."
Leigh made no effort to take the weapon, nor did he
glance at it. The first shock was over. He seated himself on
the silken chair of the vanity dresser, leaned back against
the vanity dresser itself, raised his eyebrows, and said, "Con-
sider me a slow-witted newsman who's got to know what
it's all about. Why so much preliminary hocus-pocus?"
He thought deliberately: He had never in his adult life
allowed himself to be rushed into anything. He was not
going to start now.
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