A ribald young associate professor said hoarsely to a friend, loud enough for Dr. Mudge to hear, “He ought to imagine himself on Mars.”
Mudge didn’t even hear the laugh which started to greet that sally.
Whup!
He examined the sandy wastes which stretched limitlessly to all the clear horizons. Bewildered, he took a few steps and the sand got into his carpet slippers. A cold wind cut through the thin tweed jacket and rustled his tie.
“Oh, dear,” thought Mudge. “Now I’ve done it!”
A high, whining sound filled the sky and he glanced up to see a pear-shaped ship streaking flame across the sky. It was gone almost before it had started.
Dr. Mudge felt very much alone. He had no faith in his mental behavior now. It might fail him. He might never get away. He might imagine himself in an emperor’s palace with sentries—
Whup!
The diamond floor was hard on his eyes and lights blazed all around him. A golden throne reared before him and on top of it sat a small man with a very large head, swathed in material which glowed all of itself.
The diamond floor was hard on his eyes and lights blazed all around him. A golden throne reared before him and on top of it sat a small man with a very large head, swathed in material which glowed all of itself.
Mudge couldn’t understand a word that was being said because no words were being said, and yet they all hit his brain in a bewildering disarray.
Instantly he guessed what was happening. As a man’s intention can be telepathed to a dog, these superior beings battered him mentally as he had no brain wave selectivity. He had guessed the human mind would so evolve, and he was pleased for an instant to find he had been right. But not for long.
He began to feel sick in the midst of this bombardment. All eyes were upon him in frozen surprise.
The emperor shouted and pointed a small wand. Two guards leaped up and fastened themselves upon Mudge. He knew vaguely that they thought he was an inferior being—something like a chimpanzee, or maybe a gorilla, and, indeed, so he was on their scale of evolution.
The ruler shouted again and the guards breathed hard and looked angrily at Mudge. Another man came sprinting over the diamond floor, a flare-barreled gun gripped in his hand.
Mudge began to struggle. He knocked the guards aside with surprising ease.
Wildly he turned about, seeking a way out, too confused by light, thought waves and sound to think clearly and remember.
The man with the lethal-looking weapon braced his feet and leveled the muzzle at Mudge’s chest. He was going to shoot and Mudge knew that he faced a death-dealing ray. He was getting no more consideration than a mad ape, like that one in the Central Park Zoo. . . . The guard was squeezing the trigger—
Whup!
Weakly Dr. Mudge leaned on the railing of the Central Park Zoo in New York. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. Dully he gazed up, knowing he would see an orangutan in the cage. It was late, and the beast slumbered in his covered hut. Mudge could only see a tuft of fur.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
The night air was soothing. He was exhausted with all the crosscurrents which had battered his poor human mind, and the thin air of Mars.
He moved slowly along the rail. There was a sign there which said “Gorilla. Brought from the Mountains of the Moon by Martin—”
Whup!
Ohhh,” groaned Mudge pitifully as he sank down on a rock in the freezing night. “This can’t keep up. I would no more than start to eat when something would yank me away. I’d starve. And sooner or later I’ll think of a very dangerous place and that will be the end of me before I can escape. There’s one place in particular—
“NO!” he screamed into the African night.
The thought had not formed. One place he must never, never think about. NEVER!
From this high peak, he could see all Africa spread before him. Glowing far off in the brilliant moonlight was Lake Tanganyika.
Mudge was a little pleased with himself just the same. Back at the lecture—
Whup!
I am sorry and very puzzled,” the dean was saying, watch in hand. “Why Dr. Mudge should see fit to use a magician’s tricks, to appear in such strange attire and generally disport himself—”
“I can’t help it!” wailed Mudge at his side.
The dean almost jumped out of his shoes. He was annoyed to be startled out of his dignity and he scowled harshly at Mudge. “Doctor, I advise you strongly that such conduct will no longer be tolerated. If you are trying to prove anything by this, an explanation will be most welcome. The subject is philosophy and not Houdini’s vanishing tricks.”
“Ohhh,” moaned Mudge, “don’t say anything. Please don’t say anything more. Just keep quiet. I mean,” he said hastily, “I mean, don’t say anything else. Please!”
The young man who had suggested Mars was not quite so sure of himself, but the dean’s handy explanation of magic without paraphernalia restored his buoyancy.
“I was just . . .” began Mudge. “No, I can’t say where I was or I’ll go back, and I won’t go back. This is very terrifying to me, gentlemen. There is one certain place I must not think about. The mind is an unruly thing. It seems to have no great love for the material body as it willfully, so it seems, insists in this great emergency on playing me tricks—”
“Dr. Mudge,” said the dean, sternly. “I know not what you mean by all this cheap pretension to impossibilities—”
“Oh, no,” cried Mudge. “I am pretending nothing. If I could only stop this I would be a very happy man! It is terribly hard on the nerves. Out of Spinoza I wandered into Force equations, and at two today I caught a glimmer of truth in the fact that there was a negative dimension—a dimension which had no dimensions. I know for certain that mind is capable of anything.”
“It certainly is,” said the dean. “Even chicanery.”
“No, no,” begged Mudge, pushing his glasses high on his forehead and then fishing in his pockets. “In my notes . . .” He looked squarely at the dean. “Here! I have proof of where I have been, sir.” He stooped over and took off a carpet slipper. He turned it upside down on the lecture table and a peculiar glowing sand streamed out.
“That is Martian sand,” said Mudge.
“BOSH!” cried the dean. He turned to the audience. “Gentlemen, I wish you to excuse this display. Dr. Mudge has not been well and his mind seems to be unbalanced. A few hour’s rest—”
“I’ll show you my notes,” said Mudge, pleading. “I’ll show you the equation. I left them home in my study—”
Whup!
Lizzie Doolin was muttering to herself as she picked up the papers from the floor and stacked them. The professor was certainly a madman this evening. Poor little man— She was turning and she almost fainted.
Dr. Mudge was sitting in his chair getting his notes together.
“Doctor!” cried Lizzie. “What are you doing there? How did you get in the house? The doors are all locked and . . . Ohhhhh, it’s my eyes. Doctor, you know very well that you should be at that lecture—”
He barely had time to cram the papers in his pocket.
Whup!
The dean was fuming. “Such tricks are known— Oh, there you are! Doctor, I am getting very sick of this. We are too well versed in what can be done by trickery to be at all startled by these comings and goings of yours.”
“It’s not a trick!” stated Mudge. “Look, I have my notes. I—”
“And I suppose you’ve brought back some vacuum from the moon this—”
Whup!
It was so cold that Mudge was instantly blue all over. He could feel himself starting to blow up as the internal pressure fought for release. His lungs began to collapse, but his mind raced, torn between
two thoughts.
Here he was on the moon. Here he was, the first man ever to be on the moon!
And all the great volcanoes reared chilly before him, and an empty Sea of Dreams fell away behind him. Barren rock was harsh beneath his feet and his weight was nothing. . . .
All in an instant he glimpsed it because he knew that he would be dead in another second, exploded like a penny balloon. He visualized the thing best known to him—his study.
Whup!
Lizzie was going out the door when she heard the chair creak. She forgot about the necessity for aspirin as she faced about.
Mudge was in again.
“Doctor,” stormed Lizzie, an amazon of fury, “if you don’t stop that, I don’t know what will happen to me! Here a minute, gone again, here and gone, here and gone! What is the world coming to! It is not my eyes. It can’t be my eyes. I felt over the whole room for you and not so much as a hair of your head was here. What kind of heathen magic have you been stirring up? You’ve sold your soul—”
“STOP!” screamed Mudge. He sank back, panting. That had been close. But then, that had not been as close as that other THING which he dared not envision. He chopped the thought off and started back on another.
“Maybe,” said Mudge, thoughtfully, “maybe there isn’t . . . Oh, I’ve got the test right here. Can I throw myself back and forth between life and death?”
He had said the word.
“Death,” he said again, more distinctly.
And still nothing occurred. He breathed easier. He could not go back and forth through time, as he had no disconnection with the time stream. He could whisk himself about the universe at will—or against his will—but he was still carrying on in the same hours and minutes. It had been dark in Africa, almost morning in P—
“NO!” he yelled.
Lizzie jumped a foot and stared to see if Mudge was still in his chair.
“Whatever are you up to?” demanded Lizzie, angrily. “You frighten a body out of her wits!”
“Something awful is going on,” said Mudge, darkly. “I tried to tell you before dinner, but you wouldn’t listen. I can imagine I am someplace and then be in that someplace. This very instant I could imagine something and zip! I’d be someplace else without walking through doors or anything.”
Lizzie almost broke forth anew. But it awed her, a little. She had seen Mudge appear and disappear so often this evening that this was the only explanation which she could fit.
Mudge looked tired. “But I’m afraid, Lizzie. I’m terribly afraid. If I don’t watch myself, I might imagine I was in some horrible place such as—
“NO!” shouted Mudge.
“I might imagine I was someplace where I—
“NO!” he yelled again.
Those shouts were like bullets to Lizzie Doolin. But she was still awed—a little.
Mudge held his head in his hands. “And I’m in trouble. The dean will not believe what is happening to me. He calls me a cheat—
“NO!” he cried.
“What do you keep yelling for?” complained Lizzie.
“So I won’t go sailing off. If I can catch a thought before it forms I can stay put.” He groaned and lowered his head into his hands. “But I am not believed. They think me a cheat. Oh, Lizzie, I’ll lose my professorship. We’ll starve!”
She was touched and advanced slowly to touch his shoulder. “Never you mind what they say about you. I’ll beat their heads in, Henry, that I will.”
He glanced up in astonishment at her. She had never shown any feeling for him in all these ten years. She had bullied him and driven him and terrified him. . . .
She was conscious of her tenderness and brushed it away on the instant. “But don’t go jumping off like that again! Drive over to the university in your car like a decent man should.”
“Yes, Lizzie.”
He got up and walked toward the door. Her jaw was set again.
“Mind what I tell you,” she snapped. “Your car, now! And nothing fancy!”
“Yes, Lizzie. They’re waiting. . . .” He didn’t, couldn’t stop that thought and the hall was clearly envisioned and there he was—
Whup!
The dean had his hands on both hips as he saw that Mudge was here again. The dean wagged his head from side to side and was very angry, almost speechless. The audience tittered.
“Have you no respect?” cried the dean. “How dare you do such things when I am talking to you. I was saying that the next time you’ll probably—”
“SHUT UP!” shouted Mudge in desperation. He was still cold from his trip to the moon.
The dean recoiled. Mudge was a very mild little fellow, with never anything but groveling respect for everybody. And these words from him . . .
“I’m sorry,” said Mudge. “You mustn’t say things or you’ll send me off somewhere again. Now don’t speak.”
“Mudge, you can be assured that this performance this evening will terminate—”
Mudge was desperate. “Don’t. You might say something.”
The audience was delighted and laughter rolled through the hall. Mudge had not realized how his remark would sound.
The dean had never been anything but overbearing and now with his dignity flouted he turned white. He stepped stiffly to the president of the university and said a few words in a low voice. Grimly the president nodded.
“Here and now,” said the dean, stepping back, “I am requesting your resignation, Mudge. This buffoonery—”
“Wait,” pleaded Mudge, hauling his notes from his pocket. “First look at these and maybe you will see—”
“I care to look at nothing,” stated the dean frostily. “You are a disgrace.”
“Look,” pleaded Mudge, putting the papers on the lecture stand. “Just give me one minute. I am beside myself. I don’t mean what I say. But there is one thing I must not think about—one thing I can’t think to think about but which I— Look. Here, see?”
The dean scowled at the sheets of scribbled figures and symbols. Mudge talked to him in a low voice, growing more and more excited.
The dean was still austere.
“And there,” said Mudge, “right there is Equation C. Read it.”
The dean thought Mudge might as well be humored as long as he would be leaving in the morning for good. He adjusted his glasses and looked at Mudge’s reports. His glance fastened on Equation C.
The dean was startled. He stood up straight, his logical mind turning over at an amazing pace. “That’s very strange,” said the dean, bewildered. “My head feels . . .”
“Oh, what have I done?” cried Mudge, too late.
The assistant professor in the front row, a man of little wit but many jokes, chortled, “I suppose he will go to Mars now.”
Whup!
Whup!
Mudge was almost in control by now. He knew that a part of Equation C was missing which would make it completely workable and usable at all times without any danger. And he also knew that being here on this sandy plain was not very dangerous unless one happened to think—
“NO!” he screamed into the Martian night.
It was easy. All he had to do was visualize the classroom—
Whup!
Mudge took off his glasses and wiped them. Then he bent over and emptied the sand from his slippers. The hall before him was silent as death and men were staring in disbelief at the little man on the platform.
Mudge replaced the slipper. He took up a pencil and bent eagerly over his notes. He had to work this thing out before he imagined—
“NO!” he roared.
It would be awful if he dreamed it. Dreaming, he would have no real control and things would happen to him.
The president rose cautiously and tappe
d Mudge’s shoulder. “W-W-Where is the dean?”
Mudge glanced around. True enough, the dean was not there. Mudge chewed at the end of his pencil in amazed contemplation.
“Do you mean,” ventured the president, “that that statement about—”
“SHUT UP!” cried Mudge. “The dean may find out how to get back unless he thinks of something he . . .” He swallowed hard.
“Dr. Mudge, I resent such a tone,” began the president.
“I am sorry,” said Mudge, “but you might have said it, and the next time I might fall in a Martian canal—”
Whup!
He was strangling as he fought through the depths. He broke the surface like a porpoise and swam as hard as he could, terror surging within him as these dark waters lapped over him.
Ahead he could see a houseboat with a beautiful lady sitting at the rail. He swam breast stroke, raising himself up to shout for help. The cold suddenness of the accident had dulled his brain and he could not know what monsters lurked in these Martian depths.
The woman was strangely like an Earthwoman for all that. Perhaps there were colonies of these people much as there were colonies of chimpanzees on Earth. But the houseboat was silvery and the woman dressed in luminous cloth.
Strong hands yanked Mudge from the water and he stood blowing upon the deck, water forming about his feet in a pool. The woman was staring at him. She was a beautiful thing and Mudge’s heart beat swiftly. She spoke in sibilant tones.
He bowed to her. “No, I haven’t time for a visit or tea or anything,” said Mudge. “I am sorry, but I am busy at a lect— NO! I am busy on Ea— NO! I am busy.”
Oddly enough he knew that he could not speak her language, and yet he understood her perfectly as she placed her hand on his arm. It must be more telepathy, he thought.
“Yes, it is telepathy,” said her mind. “Of course. But I am astonished to see you. For years—ever since the great purge—no humans of our breed have been here. Alone with these yellow men as servants I am safe enough. My parole was given because of certain favors—”