Fredric Brown: The Mind Thing

At about that point the mind thing had Tommy put him down and then scrabble with his hands a hole in the sand. About nine inches down his/Tommy’s hands found rock. He had Tommy put him down in the hole and then cover him and smooth the ground carefully. Then, on hands and knees, back to the entrance Tommy went, smoothing away as he backed the marks he had made coming in. The sand was as smooth now as when he had entered.

And he had Tommy sit just outside the cave entrance—but screened and hidden by the same bushes that hid the entrance itself—and wait.

Now there was no hurry. He was safely hidden now and he could take his time to digest all the knowledge that was in Tommy’s mind, to catalogue it and, using it as a basis, to lay his own long-range plans.

And to lay short-range plans for his host. Already he knew that Tommy’s mind was not the one he needed, ultimately, to control. But Tommy would serve for a while. Tommy probably had an average—but no better than average—I.Q. for his race (at least that was the way Tommy thought of himself), but he was only partly educated and had no knowledge whatsoever of science beyond a very few and extremely elementary principles.

But Tommy could serve him—for a while.

Charlotte Garner awoke, as suddenly and completely as a kitten awakens, completely oriented even before she opened her eyes. Her naked body felt uncomfortably cool and she shivered a little and then, opening her eyes, saw why the coolness had wakened her. She’d gone to sleep in warm sunlight, now she was in shadow. That meant the sun was low in the west, down behind the thick bushes at that end of the open space. Startled, she held up her wrist watch to read it—and was even more startled. They’d slept three full hours. Even leaving this minute and walking fast, they’d be half an hour late at their respective homes for dinner. Probably their folks, or hers anyway, were beginning to worry a little already.

Quickly she turned over to waken Tommy. Tommy wasn’t there. But his clothes were there, just past where he’d been lying. After a brief shock, she realized what had happened, the only thing that could have happened. Tommy must have wakened a minute or so before she had, and before dressing himself or wakening her, he had gone out of the clearing somewhere nearby to answer a call of nature. He wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, gone any farther than that, for that or for any other reason, without his clothes. He’d be back in a minute.

And since he didn’t carry or wear a watch he probably didn’t realize quite how late it was. But she did. She stood up and brushed off the little grass that stuck to her body and then dressed quickly; there were only four garments: panties, bra, skirt, and sweater—and it didn’t take her long to get them on. Then she sat down and strapped on the barefoot sandals, and stood up again.

Still no sign of Tommy; and while she wasn’t worried yet, she wanted him to hurry, so she called out his name, but there wasn’t any answer. He’d hardly have gone out of hearing distance—but probably he was already on his way back and for that reason hadn’t bothered to answer. She realized that there was likely some grass in her hair, so she went to Tommy’s clothes and got out the little pocket comb he kept clipped in his shirt pocket, ran it a few times through her short bobbed hair, and put it back.

Still no Tommy, and now she was getting a little worried. Not that she could think of anything that could have happened to him. She called out his name again, much more loudly this time, and then, “Answer me. Where are you?”

She listened hard, but there was only the faint rustle of leaves in a breeze that had just sprung up. Could Tommy be trying to frighten her? No, he wouldn’t do anything like that.

But what could have happened? He couldn’t have gone anywhere, naked except for those bright blue short socks he hadn’t taken off. Could he have fainted, or had an accident? Fainting seemed impossible; Tommy was in perfect health. And if an accident—well, it would have to be the kind of accident that would make him unconscious (she didn’t dare think the word dead ). If he’d just turned an ankle or even broken a leg, he’d still have answered her. In fact, he’d have wakened her sooner by calling her. She was a light sleeper and would have heard him call her from any reasonable distance.

Really worried now, she went out of the clearing through the bushes and started to circle around it, looking everywhere, behind bushes and trees, even on the side toward the path, although he surely wouldn’t have gone that way; not for the purpose she’d originally thought of as his only reason for leaving her at all—and she still couldn’t think of any other.

From time to time she called his name, and she was shouting now. She spiraled out, and when she realized, half an hour later, that she was a hundred yards or so from her starting point and had thoroughly searched an area with a hundred-yard radius, she was really scared. He wouldn’t possibly have come this far.

She needed help, she realized. She hurried back to the path and started home, half walking, half running, keeping the fastest pace she thought she might possibly maintain for three miles. She’d have to tell them the truth, she realized, no matter what they thought about, or did about, Tommy and her jumping the gun and having premarital relations. No holding that back, since Tommy’s clothes would have to be the starting point of the search. But that didn’t matter now. Only finding Tommy mattered.

She was a tired, panting, disheveled girl when she stumbled into her parents’ living room. They were listening to the radio but her father turned it off quickly and glared at her. “Fine time! I was just about to—” Then he saw her face and said, “What’s wrong, Charl?”

She blurted it out. She was interrupted only once, by her mother’s shocked voice. “You mean you and Tommy have been—” But her father stopped that. “Worry about that later, Mom. Let her finish.”

Jed Garner stood up. “I’ll call Gus,” he said. “We’ll get out there right away. He can bring Buck.”

He went to the phone and called Gus Hoffman, who lived on the next farm, and started talking.

On the other end of the line, Gus Hoffman listened grimly. All he said when Garner had finished was, “Be right there.”

He hung up the phone and stood a moment thinking. Then he went to a hamper of dirty clothes and found a sock of Tommy’s, put it in his pocket. He’d want it to get Buck started on Tommy’s trail. Not that Buck didn’t already know Tommy’s scent, but he wouldn’t know he was supposed to follow it unless there was something of Tommy’s to hold in front of his nose while you said, “Find ’im, boy.”

He got Buck’s leash from its nail in the kitchen and put it in another pocket. Buck was a good dog on a trail but he had one fault. Once you started him tracking you had to put him on a leash and keep him on it. Otherwise, since at least part of the time he wouldn’t call back, he could get so far ahead you could lose him. Even following a trail, if it’s a fresh and hot one, a dog can sometimes go faster than a man can keep up with him.

He made sure that he had matches, got the lantern and checked that it was full, then went out the kitchen door.

Buck was sleeping not in but in front of the doghouse Tommy had built for him. Buck was a big liver-and-white-colored dog; he wasn’t all one breed, but he was all hound. He was seven years old, past his prime but still with a few good years in him.

“Come on, Buck,” Hoffman said, and the dog fell in behind him as he went around the house and cut across the fields to the Garner farmhouse. It was just dusk.