Alien Minds by E. Everett Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

again.
    As he walked swiftly along, Hanlon released the bird from its mental spell, for it was now apparent Auldin was really going downtown, or home. But before releasing the bird, Hanlon guided it back to a comfortable perch in a tree, and put it to sleep.
    He could not help feeling gratitude—yet still with an awed sense of wonder—about his ability to control animal minds. He remembered so vividly that day on the great spaceliner Hellene, when he had discovered this tremendous ability with the little puppy . . . what was its name? . . . oh, yes, Gypsy. And the still greater thrill when he was experimenting later with the dogs on the kennel deck, and had found that he could not only read their complete minds and control their nerves and muscles to make them follow his bidding, but that he could also dissociate a portion of his mind, put it in their brains and leave it there, connected with t lie balance of his own mind merely by a slender thread of consciousness, yet able to think and act independently.
    But it certainly came in mighty handy in his work as a secret serviceman, and he was thankful to whatever powers may be that had given him this ability to do these amazing things. Now if he could only learn how to read and control the whole mind and body of a human, instead of being able to read only their surface thoughts !
    But he was trying to learn to be content with what he had, and to use it thankfully.
    Yet he never ceased trying to learn more—to be able to do more along these lines.
    Finally back in his room Hanlon grinned again to himself as he began undressing. He felt good. He had put it over again. He was sure he was "in".
    He sat down on a chair and removed the special shoes he was wearing. These native Estrellans were very manlike in shape as well as mentality, but there were enough structural differences so it had taken the expert cosmetician many hours to fix him up to look like one of them. These shoes, for instance, because Estrellans had unusually large feet, were really shoes-within-shoes, to fit his feet correctly inside and yet appear large enough on the outside not to attract attention.
    In the spaceship high above, intent thoughts had been coursing through the mind of the being. Finally, certain commands were impressed upon the mind of the Estrellan native the being controlled, that would set in motion a new train of events.
    The native cringed as those thoughts came into his mind. They were not the kind of things he would ever consider, of himself. They outraged his every sense of right and justice. It made him actually, physically sick even to contemplate them, and he wondered briefly how he had ever come to get such ideas.
    Yet something, he could not guess what, forced him to do them, despite his every struggling, heartsick effort not to obey the commands he did not even know were commands.
     

 
    CHAPTER 5
     
     
     
    As SSM GEORGE HANLON CONTINUED UNdressing, he recalled his parting with his father on Simonides.
    "How soon do I start?" he had asked, boyishly eager, at the close of their interview. "Right away?"
    "Whoa, son, not so fast," the admiral laughed. "You'll have to have a series of inoculation-shots against the EstrelIan diseases. Then you'll have to learn a lot, and especially, you'll have to be disguised to look like a native, which isn't easy. Here are reels of the language, customs and geography. Get a room in the hotel here and sleep-learn them. I think you'll find the language not too hard—it's a simple, uncomplicated one, outside of their habit of putting the verbs ahead of the nouns, and then the adjectives or adverbs. As to their way of thought—well, that's far different. Even with your ability to read their minds, I'll bet you have trouble in really understanding them for some time. I'm not always sure I do, even yet."
    "Tough, eh?"
    "That they are. You can't work them like you do humans—their concepts seem not at all like ours in so many things. We can get in