The Inhabited Read online

been done, where the strugglefor physical existence had ended, and where there remained only thesweet fruits of past labor to be enjoyed.

  That had been the state of affairs, at any rate, up until the time ofthe Change, which was something the beings of the world could notstop. It was not a new threat from the lower orders, which they hadmet and overcome before, innumerable times. It was not a threat fromoutside--no invasion such as they had turned back in the past. Nor wasit a cooling of their world or the danger of imminent collision withanother.

  The Change came from within. It was decadence. There was nothing leftfor the beings to do. They had solved all their problems and couldfind no new ones. They had exhausted the intricate workings ofreflection, academic hypothetica and mind-play; there hadn't been anew game, for instance, in the lifetime of the oldest inhabitant.

  And so they were dying of boredom. This very realization had for atime halted the creeping menace, because, as they came to accept itand discuss ways of meeting it, the peril itself subsided. But themoment they relaxed, the Change started again.

  Something had to be done. Mere theorizing about their situation wasnot enough. It was then that they sent their spy abroad.

  Because they had at one time or another visited each of the planets intheir solar system and had exhausted their possibilities or found thembarren, and because they were not equipped, even at the peak of theirphysical development, for intergalactic flight, there remained onlyone way to travel--in time.

  Not forward or backward, for both had been tried. Travel ahead hadbeen discouraging--in fact, it had convinced them that their normalpassage through the years had to be stopped. The reason had been madedramatically clear--they, the master race, did not exist in thefuture. They had vanished and the lower forms of life had begun totake over.

  Travel into the past would be even more boring than continuedexistence in the present, they realized, because they would bereliving the experiences they had had and still vividly remembered,and would be incapable of changing them. It would be both tiresome andfrustrating.

  That left only one way to go--sideways in time, across the dimensionline--to a world like their own, but which had developed sodifferently through the eons that to visit it and conquer the minds ofits inhabitants would be worth while.

  In that way they picked Earth for their victim and sent out their spy.Just one spy. If he didn't return, they'd send another. There wasenough time. And they had to be sure.

  * * * * *

  George put a record on the phonograph and fixed himself a drink whilethe machine warmed up.

  The interdimensional invader reacted pleasurably to the taste andinstant warming effect of the liquor on George's mind.

  "Ahh!" said George aloud, and his temporary inhabitant agreed withhim.

  George lifted the phonograph needle into the groove and went to sit onthe edge of a chair. Jazz poured out of the speaker and the man beatout the time with his heels and toes.

  The visitor in his mind experimented with control. He went at itsubtly, at first, so as not to alarm his host. He tried to quiet thebeating of time with the feet. He suggested that George cross his legsinstead. The beating of time continued. The visitor urged that Georgedo this little thing he asked; he bent all his powers to thesuggestion, concentrating on the tapping feet. There wasn't even aglimmer of reaction.

  Instead, there was a reverse effect. The pounding of music wasinsistent. The visitor relaxed. He rationalized and told himself hewould try another time. Now he would observe this phenomenon. But hebecame more than just an observer.

  The visitor reeled with sensation. The vibrations gripped him, twistedhim and wrung him out. He was limp, palpitating and thoroughly happywhen the record ended and George got up immediately to put on another.

  Hours later, drunk with the jazz and the liquor, the visitor wentblissfully to sleep inside George's mind when his host went to bed.

  He awoke, with George, to the experience of a nagging throb. But in afew minutes, after a shower, shave and breakfast with steamingcoffee, it was gone, and the visitor looked forward to the coming day.

  It was George's day off and he was going fishing. Humming to himself,he got out his reel and flies and other paraphernalia and contentedlyarranged them in the back of his car. Visions of the fine, quiet timehe was going to have went through George's mind, and his inhabitantdecided he had better leave. He had to get on with his exploration; hemustn't allow himself to be trapped into just having fun.

  But he stayed with George as the fisherman drove his car out of thegarage and along a highway. The day was sunny and warm. There was aslight wind and the green trees sighed delicately in it. The birdswere pleasantly vocal and the colors were superb.

  The visitor found it oddly familiar. Then he realized what it was.

  His world was like this, too. It had the trees, the birds, the windand the colors. All were there. But its people had long since ceasedto appreciate them. Their existence had turned inward and the externalthings no longer were of interest. Yet the visitor, through George'seyes, found this world delightful. He reveled in its beauty, itsbreathtaking panorama and its balance. And he wondered if he was ableto appreciate it for the first time now because he was being active,although in a vicarious way, and participating in life, instead ofmerely reflecting on it. This would be a clue to have analyzed by thegreater minds to which he would report.

  Then, with a wrench, the visitor chided himself. He was allowinghimself to identify too closely with this mortal, with hisappreciation of such diverse pursuits as jazz and fishing. He had toget on. There was work to be done.

  George waved to a boy playing in a field and the boy waved back. Withthe contact of their eyes, the visitor was inside the boy's mind.

  * * * * *

  The boy had a dog. It was a great, lumbering mass of affection, ashaggy, loving, prankish beast. A protector and a playmate, strong andgentle.

  Now that the visitor was in the boy's mind, he adored the animal, andthe dog worshiped him.

  He fought to be rational. "Come now," he told himself, "don't getcarried away." He attempted control. A simple thing. He would have theboy pull the dog's ear, gently. He concentrated, suggested. But allhis efforts were thwarted. The boy leaped at the dog, grabbed itaround the middle. The dog responded, prancing free.

  The visitor gave up. He relaxed.

  Great waves of mute, suffocating love enveloped him. He swam for a fewminutes in a pool of joy as the boy and dog wrestled, rolled over eachother in the tall grass, charged ferociously with teeth bared andgrowls issuing from both throats, finally to subside panting andlaughing on the ground while the clouds swept majestically overheadacross the blue sky.

  He could swear the dog was laughing, too.

  As they lay there, exhausted for the moment, a young woman came uponthem. The visitor saw her looking down at them, the soft breezetugging at her dark hair and skirt. Her hands were thrust into thepockets of her jacket. She was barefoot and she wriggled her toes sothat blades of grass came up between them.

  "Hello, Jimmy," she said. "Hello, Max, you old monster."

  The dog thumped the ground with his tail.

  "Hello, Mrs. Tanner," the boy said. "How's the baby coming?"

  The girl smiled. "Just fine, Jimmy. It's beginning to kick a littlenow. It kind of tickles. And you know what?"

  "What?" asked Jimmy. The visitor in the boy's mind wanted to know,too.

  "I hope it's a boy, and that he grows up to be just like you."

  "Aw." The boy rolled over and hid his face in the grass. Then hepeered around. "Honest?"

  "Honest," she said.

  "Gee whiz." The boy was so embarrassed that he had to leave. "Me andMax are going down to the swimmin' hole. You wanta come?"

  "No, thanks. You go ahead. I think I'll just sit here in the Sun for awhile and watch my toes curl."

  As they said good-by, the visitor traveled to the new mind.

 
* * * * *

  With the girl's eyes, he saw the boy and the dog running across themeadow and down to the stream at the edge of the woods.

  The traveler experienced a sensation of tremendous fondness as hewatched them go.

  But he mustn't get carried away, he told himself. He must make anotherattempt to take command. This girl might be the one he couldinfluence. She was doing nothing active; her mind was relaxed.

  The visitor bent himself to the task. He would be cleverly simple. Hewould have her pick a daisy. They were all around at her feet. Heconcentrated. Her gaze traveled back across the meadow to the grassyknoll on which she was standing. She sat. She stretched out her armsbehind her and leaned back on them. She tossed her hair and gazed intothe sky.

  She wasn't even thinking of the daisy.

  Irritated, he gathered all his powers into a compact mass and hurledthem at her