Heavy Thinker
By Howard L Myers
* * * *
“Mind invasion!”
Hage Borat snapped out the alarm as quickly as he could tongue his toothmike. And at almost the same instant, the other nineteen members of Lontastan Exploration Squad 4710-Z were shouting the same words.
Their voices rang a ragged chorus in Borat’s right ear.
“Does everybody feel that?” he asked. “Sound off if you don’t!”
The squad was silent. Then Danta spoke. “I feel it, but I retract the word ‘invasion’. Something’s looking at my thoughts as I think them, but that’s all.”
“Same here,” several chorused.
“O.K.,” responded Borat, “does that hold for everybody? Good. Now, does anybody have a fix on whatever it is? Who can locate it?”
Again silence from the squad. Borat rotated his body slowly in space as his eyes scanned the planetary system in which they had broken out of warp less than fifteen seconds ago. It definitely was a system, not a planetless star. He could see two inners plus three more out at gas-giant range.
“Intelligent life, you suppose, after all these centuries?” grunted Orrson.
“It’s a weirdy, whatever it is,” piped up Baune in her whimsical little-girl voice. “A sure-nuff tele-path! I’m not sure I believe in it!”
“It’s a telepath all right,” Borat said, “and it has quite a range.” The squad members had come out of warp with an average separation of over three million miles, as was usual in approaching a previously unvisited star, which spread them over quite an area of interplanetary space. And the telepath was watching them . . . had started watching them, judging from their reactions, at practically the same instant.
“What I wonder,” Baune was saying, “is, does a telepath have to think? We think but don’t telepath. Maybe it don’t think, but does.”
Borat grinned. “Cagoline,” he snapped, “report this to headquarters, and keep it terse.”
“Right,” replied the communications man.
“My guess,” said Sherris, “is that anything alive in this system is on the outer of those two visible inners. It could be Earth-type.”
Borat had been thinking the same thing. Should he order part of the squad to approach the planet, or should he . . .
* * * *
“Welcome, thinkers!” came the powerful—but definitely pleasant— roar of thought. “Yes, I’m on the world you have in mind, Captain Borat, and any, or all, of you may come down if you like. Also, forgive the delay in my response to your presence. I had to learn your word-thought-symbols before I could address you.”
“Who . . . What . . . Who are you?” asked Borat.
“I have no identity symbol,” the telepath replied. “Presumably there must be two intelligent entities in association in order for the name-making process to begin.”
“There’s just you, in this whole system?”
“Yes, although my world has ample plant and lower animal life. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me to allow an intelligent animal species to develop here. Your existence, humans, is a lesson to me in enlightened self-interest. But without cognating the possibility of such beings as yourselves, how could 1 cognate their desirability?”
“In what manner do you find us desirable?” Borat asked cautiously.
“As fellow thinkers, as companions, as, perhaps, playmates,” came the thought. “No, Baune, this is not a spider-and-the-fly ruse. From your thoughts concerning the chemical composition of your bodies, I do not think I would find you digestible. In actuality, Baune, the man called Orrson finds you far more appetizing than do I.”
Baune giggled. “Naughty-minded Orry!” she chided. But her thoughts—suddenly perceptible to all—were wondering Why didn’t old Tall-and-Tough tell me?
“I’m omnivorous,” Orrson said with discomfited lightness while his thoughts ran Old is right! Too old to rate with that delightful little bundle of youth.
From Baune: He means I’m too young for him. And he probably thinks I’m too silly, too.
From Orrson: No! She’s not too young for me. I’m too old for her! Why’s she saying things like that with the whole squad listening? I don’t mind being kidded by her, but. . .
From Baune: Oh, damn, if I only were brazen enough to tell him! But he says I’m not too young, so maybe . . . I’m not say-ing anything! . . . Or kidding him, either! “Hey! What’s happening to me?”
From Orrson: Thoughts! Our thoughts are communicating! That creature down on the planet , . . Glowing Baune! Could you possibly mean it?
From Baune: Oh, you big mighty monstrous marvelous old supermale . . . WOW!
From Orrson: Tremendous! But . . . nine nines are eighty-one, nine elevens are ninety-nine; nine thirteens are . . .
Suddenly the thoughts of Orrson and Baune were no longer perceptible to the others.
* * * *
“You humans view mental communication as desirable,” the telepath apologized, “but with certain limitations. I believe I have the hang of it now.”
Borat’s mind was working furiously. Occasional humans had shown vague telepathic abilities, but nothing like this! The creature had inspected the thoughts of Orrson and Baune, decided to put them in close communication, and then, after belatedly discovering that such communion sought privacy, had closed off their thoughts from the rest of the squad!
What other capabilities the creature had—and how it might decide to use them—could not be guessed. Certainly the squad faced dangerous unknowns here.
But also unknown rewards. Functional telepathy! The Lontastan Federation needed something like that very badly in its econo-war with the Primgran Commonality.
And in any event, the being was apparently friendly and well-intentioned. The squad’s primary task, he decided, was to learn as much as possible about the creature and its telepathic ability.
He began by asking: “Are Orrson and Baune in permanent communication, or are you acting as a transceiver?”
“A difficult question,” commented the telepath. “I am not consciously transceiving for them now, but when I establish a linkage, such as theirs, it continues unless I break it intentionally. Perhaps my awareness of their presence has something to do with it.”
“You’ve linked minds before?” asked Borat.
“Not intelligent minds like yours, but life-flows of various types. That is one method of controlling the ecology of my world.”
Borat considered this. “What would happen,” he asked, “if Orrson and Baune traveled out of range of your awareness?”
“I have no idea,” the creature responded.
“All right, we’ll find out. Orrson! Baune!”
“Yes?”
“Warp away from this system in short jumps of increasing length. Start with light-minutes, and i lengthen from there. If your telepathic linkage breaks down, report back, and in any case come back after you’ve gone out two light-years.”
“Right.”
“Cagoline,” Borat continued “are you through to Nexal?”
“Sure am! My report’s raising a stir in headquarters!”
“O.K. Remain in space, Cagoline, and inform headquarters of developments as they occur. Danta take charge of Orrson’s crew and make a prelim of all planetary objects except the telepath’s. My crew will go there. Questions?”
There were none.
“Start, then!” he commanded.
The squad—minus Cagoline, Orrson and Baune—went through a sequence of microwarps to gather into crew clusters. When in formation, Borat’s crew warped once more to achieve entry position twenty thousand miles above the telepath’s world. At that point the crew went full-inert and plummeted downward.
“Your mobility is delightful to watch, and most educational,” observed the telepath. “But I catch thought fragments...
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