Four _Aarnian_ criminals--vicious and
deadly--fled silently into the Martian night;
and grimly the Patrol threw out an airtight
dragnet. Nothing human could have escaped ...
but what's human about an _Aarnian_?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories November 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sarah emerged from the surface of the Great Canal as sleek and brown
as a seal. Laughing and sputtering, she jerked her head once over each
round shoulder, parting her soaked hair and revealing her face.
"Try that once again!" she flung at Joe.
Joe Caradac ducked her again, and Kent shouted something from the bank
that wasn't quite audible over the squeals and splashes.
"What?" Joe held his wife's head firmly between his knees. "What'd you
say, Kent?"
His Senior Intendant's grin widened as he cupped his hands over it to
shout again:
"I said--you'll drown the poor thing!"
Joe grunted as Sarah cold-bloodedly located a nerve-center in his
thigh and bit it. "Not this thing--" he released her and she bobbed up
swearing in sand-coast Martian--"they had to rope it out of a canal to
teach it to walk!"
He narrowed his grey eyes humorously and poised for the attack, but
Sarah had conceded and was swimming toward the bank. The setting sun
struck a series of glowing V's in her wake. Joe rubbed his tingling leg
and followed. They reached the green slope at the same time and big
Kent handed them up with ease.
"Ray's watching the franks," he said, "and I've been watching Ray and
I think we'd better get up there or he won't be able to hold off much
longer. His inner man is showing through."
* * * * *
The pianist's dark, saturnine face peered at them over the fire as they
came up and he rose, wiping his hands carelessly on his sport tunic.
He had evidently gone into the canal-skimmer and changed out of his
bathing suit.
"How do," he greeted dourly; "the damned thing itched so I took it off."
[illus2]
Joe gave himself a last swipe with the towel and tossed it through
the open hatch of the skimmer. Sarah carried her towel into the boat
and came out presently in a suede skirt and bolero, looking rubbed
down and delectable. Joe's wife was half Martian, and it showed in her
long, slender eyebrows and delicately cleft nose and chin. She looked
worriedly at the three men busy with the frankfurters.
"There's something on the telaudio," she said. "Come in and listen."
"What is it?" Joe asked.
"Something about somebody escaping from Mars Detain."
Ray's humming stopped. He'd been practicing wrist octaves on a flat
rock and his long hand hung motionless for a moment as if he were
reaching for something. Kent set his frank across the top of his coffee
cup--he was always careful about everything--and stood up.
Joe looked at his wife, looked at her eyes. They were frightened.
"That's pretty near here, isn't it?" Sarah said. She moved back to let
the three men into the boat. They grouped around the telaudio.
"I don't think there's anything to worry about," Kent said slowly.
"They're bound to catch the men--"
"They aren't men."
The four listened.
"--ruthless _Aarnians_. This warning cannot be taken too seriously.
Detain is doing everything in its power to recapture the four criminals
but, as is known, the _Aarnian_ psyche is able to leave its body at
will and inhabit the body of another entity, subjugating the mind of
its host and contro--"
"My God," Ray whispered, "I've heard of those devils!"
"--in all likelihood will seek to escape from Mars. To prevent this,
all persons now holding tickets for interworld travel must submit to
being psycho-screened before entering liners. No more tickets will be
sold--"
Sarah's eyes were wide and round. "They'd have to leave their bodies
behind--here on Mars!"
Big Kent--because he was one of the Caradacs' oldest friends and could
do such things--put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. She was
shivering.
"--tenant Smith of Detain informs us that the _Aarnians_ are unable to
pronounce certain consonantal diphthongs such as jee and jay--even if
occupying bodies that can normally pronounce such sounds. This is very
important, as it may be an only possible means of identification, for
the _Aarnians_ will undoubtedly seek new bod--"
Sarah switched off the telaudio, her brown face openly sick. She bit
her lip and looked at each of the three men surrounding her.
"That gives me the shivers," she said. "Let's go home."
After that they didn't talk much. Under the red twilight, they packed
up the pots and pans, leaving the unwanted food for the night-crawling
_nolls_. They spent a lot of time looking over their shoulders as they
did this, although each tried to conceal it from the others. At last
the skimmer moved silently away from the bank and pointed its nose at
the distant haze that was Ofei, By the Great Canal.
* * * * *
At precisely seven o'clock the telaudio on the headboard of Joe's
bed turned itself on. Sounds pricked the balloon of his disturbed
slumber, tugged his mind out to wakefulness. He rolled over and sat up,
listening, rubbing his lanky legs.
Instead of the usual symphonic music, he heard an urgent voice,
obviously ad-libbing:
"--be very, _very_ careful. The criminals--the _Aarnians_--have still
not been found. All residents of Ofei and vicinity are warned--this
warning cannot be overemphasized--"
Joe reached out and clicked on the screen. The announcer's tunic was
wrinkled, his sash was awry. He looked as if he'd been up all night.
"--are advised to stay within the city limi--"
Joe snapped off the telaudio and glanced over at Sarah's bed. She was
snoring delicately, one smooth arm pillowing her mass of blue-black
hair. Better that she doesn't hear any more about that business, he
decided firmly.
Joe liked the simple life. No servants, no flunkies, although he could
have afforded a dozen. Five sunshiny rooms on the Great Canal, with a
nice view of Mars Memorial Park on the bank opposite. He robed himself
against the early morning chill and headed for the kitchen. His head
ached faintly and, to judge by what little he could remember of it,
he'd had a dilly of a nightmare. Something about ... being chased, or
something? Or smothered by a....
Even as he stopped in his tracks to try to pin it down, the memory
broke, dissolved as if in flight. Frowning, he pushed through the
kitchen door and crossed to the deep-freeze, slid it open and rummaged
in it.
The nightmare wasn't important surely, but he mulled it over with
interest as he prepared breakfast, for Joe, being rather well adjusted,
dreamed rarely, and then mostly about Iowa, back on Earth ... a
long-ago picture of a twelve-year-old boy, his first day in college;
the boy sitting under his shining Projector, surrounded by a group
of thunderstruck Psychologists; the quick death of their initial
skepticism, and in its place a growing wonder as it became evident
that, although a History spool was whirling in the scanner and the
thought-helmet functioning to perfection, the boy's mind was receiving
neither spoken text nor images....
"You don't feel anything?" a Psychologist asked skeptically.
Joe closed his eyes. There was a low, unmusical humming in his ears and
that was all. He tried to shake his head and couldn't, so he said: "No,
I don't."
"When was the World Federation formed?"
"I don't know."
"Are you lying?"
"No."
One of the other Psychologists standing nearby looked up from the
little box he held in his hand and said that Joe wasn't lying.
The first Psychologist raised his eyebrows. "We'll try another
Projector."
While Technicians dismantled Joe's Projector and examined it for shorts
or haywire, the Psychologists had Joe sit down under all the other
Projectors in 1stY-Cubicle 149. Then they tried 148 and 150.
"It's some kind of block," the first Psychologist said finally, looking
profound to cover up his tizzy. "There's some kind of barrier in his
mind."