The Beasts in the Void

headless, its tail twitchingslightly. Then it was still.

  I didn't hesitate this time. I said, "Come on. We've got to get thisout of here before the others show."

  We put the dead leopard into the forward storage bunker. Then I pickedup poor Jane and carried her to her room. Murdo helped me up theladder. The others were in the companionway and they pressed back inhorror to let me pass. For the first time since we'd started, Keeblerwas sober. Ashen, shaking, stone sober. He broke; screamed and ran forhis bottle, the world of reality too terrible for him to bear.

  There was no huddle, no conference, no meeting of the minds. Everyoneelse went to the galley and sat staring into space; stared at thedancing little sparkles in the air.

  I went to my cabin.

  When confronted by a reality no matter how crazy and improbable, a manmust not turn from it. He can not carry the mangled body of a woman inhis arms and then say to himself: _This isn't real because it doesn'tmake sense._ It _does_ make sense--some kind of sense or it would notexist. A man must say rather: _I don't understand this and maybe Inever will but God gave me a brain and I must try. I can't sit backand deny reality. I must try to understand it._ I cleared my mind andtried to rationalize the things around us.

  Out in the darkness there was a terrible roaring and yammering. Thethuds and bellows of violence. I went to the port.

  There, in the light from the ship, the ice bear and the water buffalowere fighting. It was a terrible and magnificent thing but to me itwas anticlimax; a sideshow of almost casual interest.

  The ice bear outsized the water buff by too much to be in any danger,but the buff fought savagely and the ice bear had no easy time. Thebuff opened a long deep gash in the bear's throat when the bear misseda lunge and the Plutonian mammal fell back with a roar of pain andfury. They came together again and this time the bear got the buff ina hug and it was all over. The buff's spine broke and the bear bentthe body double, then tore it to pieces. I wondered if the others werewatching.

  I went back to pacing; back to my thinking.

  I have been thinking, thinking, thinking; wracking my brain. And ofone thing I am sure. Some invisible intelligence is trying to help me;trying to give me knowledge. The sparkling fog?

  * * * * *

  A great and wonderful thing has happened.

  _And I know._ Do you realize what that means? To know in a situationlike this? And to be wonderfully and wildly happy? The knowledge wasnot all given me. There was a thought process of my own developing.The thing given me was the basic knowledge upon which to build. Andproof of this knowledge. Absolute and indisputable proof.

  _The sparkling fog is mind stuff._

  I will not defend that statement. I will not rationalize it. But Iwill seek explanations; consider possibilities.

  Known: This sparkling fog through which we drift is intelligentmatter; the stuff of thoughts; the basic material from whichconsciousness springs. It is consciousness itself.

  Supposed: It is probably electronuclear in composition, and appears tobe completely innocent. By that I mean it has no intention to harm,perhaps because it does not understand the difference between good andevil, harm and help, pain and pleasure.

  It has only one urge; the basic urge of all creation. To evolve, todevelop. As the tree has but one basic urge--to grow and greaten; theflower but one desire--to bloom, to improve; to assert itself throughevolution and become better.

  Perhaps--and who can successfully deny it?--this great space cloudcould be a storage place of the Creator Himself; a storage place formind stuff. When an infant or an animal or a plant is touched with themagic thing called life--where does that magic come from? Is itcreated at the very moment or does it come somehow from a source-pile?Is this cloud a source-pile of life itself? No one can say. But Ithink I've hit on a limitation of this mind stuff. I'm going to try anexperiment and pray to God it works.

  I'm going to find Murdo and knock him unconscious.

  I have solved the mind-stuff. What just happened is the last bit ofproof I need. I went to the galley. Murdo had wandered away. I foundhim in the lounge. I stepped casually in front of him, set myself, anddrove a straight right to his jaw. He went down like a log.

  I closed my eyes and counted to twenty praying to God to make me rightin my belief--in the crazy theory I evolved. I opened my eyes andturned to the storage locker. I looked inside.

  The dead leopard was gone.

  I went to the port and looked out. The huge ice bear had been raveninginsanely among the shreds of the water buffalo's body. As I watchedboth bear and buff began fading.

  Before my eyes, they disappeared, evolved back into the stuff of thesparkling fog. I had proved my theory.

  Now all the parts dropped into place. The mind stuff has only theability and the urge to evolve--nothing else--no imagination. It canevolve only if given something to reproduce.

  This it can get only from a human mind. It is able to see an imagepictured in the human memory and reproduce it in a state of absolutereality.

  Witness: Jane saw a tiger in the companionway. Clear in her memory wasthe image of the tiger she had shot at in India. The mind-stuff saw itand reproduced it in reality. The water buffalo came from my own mind.I killed one exactly like it a year ago. The ice bear was out ofMurdo's memory as was the black leopard and the snake.

  Witness: The three animals created inside the ship did not appearuntil the mind stuff from outside penetrated the hull and entered theship. They were of normal size. But the animals created outside theship were far out of proportion, the ice bear especially. Why?Because, I believe, the mind stuff is denser in the void. There it hasmore strength.

  My defense against the mind stuff was formulated almost accidentally.I remembered the sequence of Jane's tiger. She saw it, entered mycabin, realized its significance, and fainted. I looked into thecompanionway and saw the tiger fading.

  So I knocked out Murdo for final proof and got it. As soon as helapsed into unconsciousness the recreations from his mind turned backinto sparkling fog. Obviously, and a heaven-sent phenomenon it is--themind stuff immediately loses its subject-image when the mind fromwhich it came goes unconscious. The mind-stuff has no memory of itsown and cannot hold its recreated image in the evolved form underconditions of unconsciousness. The answer now becomes simple.

  I drugged Murdo before he regained consciousness. I drugged the otherthree by means of whisky and food. They have been unconscious fortwelve hours. Nothing has happened. I shall keep them that way.

  The mind-stuff is trying to complain to me. Almost petulantly; as achild. I sense it sharply. It does not understand the wrong it hasdone and feels it has been deprived of its right.

  I have no time for the mind-stuff. I guard myself against it andignore it. There are other things on my mind. Shall I go back if weever escape from the sparkling fog? I don't know. I don't want to goback. I want to go on and on forever just like this. But the otherscannot go on like this. It would be murder. I don't know.--I don'tknow.

  I must keep awake. I use drugs. I must not sleep--not sleep.

  We have cleared the fog. The instruments are working again. Again thestars glow. What shall I do. _Melody...._

  * * * * *

  _Kennedy_ looked up from his reading. "As I said,"--and he spokeseverely--"you break off at an abrupt point. You did not complete thelog."

  Holloway's red eyes were glazed. "I had other things to do. I wastired of keeping a log."

  Mason sought to draw Kennedy off his quarry. "There's an odd point,"he said, looking at Holloway. "Only animals were recreated. Do youthink the mind stuff was capable only of recreating animals?"

  Holloway spoke in an exhausted monotone. "It took the clearest imagefrom the strongest minds. Murdo thought mainly of hunting. Hepondered on his more spectacular kills. Thus the mind-stuff used hisimages."

  "I see."

  Holloway seemed to sag--to shrink. He said, "The mind-stuff couldrecreate anything.
It brought Melody back to me."

  Kennedy sprang to his feet. "There is no reference in this log to--"

  Mason turned on him. "Shut up, you fool!" He laid a gentle hand onHolloway's shoulder. "Tell us about it, old chap."

  Holloway turned his burning eyes on the closed door to the next room."She's in there. I wanted to get rid of you. I was afraid you wouldtake her away from me. But it's no use. I can't hold my consciousnessmuch longer. Then she will vanish."

  Holloway tried weakly to rise from his chair. He called,"Melody--Melody baby!"

  The door opened. A beautiful girl in a blue dressing gown camegracefully into the room. She walked straight to Holloway and took histortured head into her soft hands. Her eyes pleaded with the men. "Hesuffers so. He will not sleep. I can't make him sleep. I--I don'tunderstand."

  Holloway's head dropped suddenly onto his chest. He slumped down inhis