When They Come from Space by Mark Clifton Read Free Book Online Page A

only one other guy. But it's like a picture that's been exposed four times without moving only a little. One guy, only I could count him four times if you know what I mean."
    "I don't. And I don't think you do."
    "That's when I got outa there. He can have his lousy tip. Me, I'm sick at my stomach. I'm seein’ things. Maybe it's my stomach, I think. Maybe it's..."
    Mr. Thistlewaite breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing to spoil his nice report after all. This was elementary; purely elementary to any student of psychology, and every hotel employee is at least that.
    He glanced quickly out into the lobby to make sure that all was well, that no latecomers had stumbled into lobby chairs while they reoriented the swimming, tumbling world enough that they might find their way to the elevator. There were none. All was still serene. He faced the bellhop with a glow of anticipation. Now he could demonstrate why the bellhop was only a bellhop, while he, Mr. Thistlewaite, was a Night Manager.
    Reaching far back into the unfortunate lad's Freudian infancy, Mr. Thistlewaite took off with a running start, sprinted through a sophomore psychology class at Columbia, soared through a pocketbook course in hallucination, spread his own theories concerning double brain lobe nonsynchronization and/or nerve synapses breaking circuit and instantaneously reclosing to create illusion of superimposure of memory upon memory; came down to earth again with a few digs about the effects of alcohol upon kidneys creating swimming sensations before the eyes; and broke the running record with dissertation on the shooting-lights effects of cirrhosis of the liver.
    A terrible thought struck him just as he breasted the finish line, and his voice trailed off. He hardly heard the bellhop's admiring applause.
    "Can I go home now?” the boy was asking. “I don't feel so good. I think maybe it's something I ate."
    For although Mr. Thistlewaite might be an accomplished avocationist in psychology, he was primarily a Night Manager. And it is the business of the Night Manager to form a mental picture of the hotel floor plan, floor by floor; to know which rooms are occupied and which are not, so that when a registering guest states his wants, there need be no fumbling about to see what the hotel may have to offer.
    And he was pretty sure that Room 842 was empty. He rushed out of his office to the key rack. There were the two keys. He sped over to the empties list. The room was empty. He riffled through the day's registration cards. None showed a check-in to 842.
    He turned and stared suspiciously at the bellhop.
    The bellhop was not grinning.
* * * *
    In 842 the Five, unregistered guests, were communing. They had correctly sommed this structure as shelter for travelers, and this room as unoccupied by any such travelers; but it had not occurred to them that one must register and pay. They could not yet grasp the idea that anywhere in the universe a life form could actually expect repayment for extending hospitality to a stranger. Indeed, the entire concept of commerce was still beyond their grasp. They knew of cannibalism, of course, but to find intelligent life feeding upon each other...
    "What is this stuff you've chosen from the list of refreshments our host offers?"
    "Basically alcohol. Its purpose is to deaden the senses."
    "Why should any intelligent life wish to deaden its perceptions?"
    "Oh, I don't know about that. If I were human, I think I might want my perceptions deadened permanently."
    "You may have a point there. But then, have we found the intelligent species yet? In none of the random samples we've sommed..."
    "No concept of atomic science. Yet, vague knowledge that other planets of this little solar system have been reached. But really not much interest in it, and no knowledge at all of how it was done. Well, a vague recognition of space ships, but no appreciation whatever of how they work, to say nothing of how to build one."
    "Yet space ships are