The Mind Cage by A. E. van Vogt

Author:A. E. van Vogt [van Vogt, A. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agency Editions, Inc.
Published: 2014-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

20

The man groaned a little, and twisted, as if he were in a state of discomfort. His cheeks were pale under their tan. Once, his eyes opened, and it was visibly an action that had no consciousness in it, and no sight. The eyelids flickered shut, and then he lay still, stiffening slightly. Now there was no doubt. Thought was coming. The next instant Trask sighed and opened his eyes.

Marin waited. Such things as this could not be rushed, particularly after the body had been unconscious several times.

He waited. And then he began to talk. And all the while his indecision was a continuing tension. He explained about the “thing” in David Burnley’s mind, and what Edmund Slater had told him about the search for the Brain. He described what had happened two nights before with the luminous “rope.”

Trask, who had listened quietly till that instant, interrupted. “You mean, you think I triggered that when I fell against the back of the clock?”

“I have no idea,” said Marin. “I’m telling you what occurred, not why. Let me finish.”

Trask did not interrupt again. But his face had a strained expression on it as Marin described what had happened when he had tried to use the machine on the two of them a few hours earlier.

He lay silent when Marin finally finished. Then he said slowly, “David, have you considered the implications of what I did when I gave you my invention without asking anything from you in return?”

Marin, who had his own ideas on basic motives, said, “How do you mean?”

“I did it because it was the logical thing to do.”

Marin shook his head slightly, but he knew what Trask meant—logical that he would be compelled by his personal power drive to do with the invention what Trask had planned to do. Since he had as yet had no such thought, Trask’s logic was not as clearly reasonable as Trask believed. Still, the man had acted with decision. And it was a high-level action, unmistakably involving the risk of death. Marin waited.

Trask went on, urgently. “Can you be less logical? Release me.”

“What!”

He was astonished. His mind reached in every direction around the thought, considering . . . that Trask could be confined and controlled by the fact that the Brain existed.

Marin thought, I could take all models of the invention. I could use my equipment to disguise him as Trask. Despite the man’s immense know-how about things electronic, Trask would find it hard to break free of any “set” of appearance forced upon him by that method. Many an alien spy, sent back as an agent, had had only that one factor of altered appearance to force him to act as an agent of the Great Judge.

Marin’s thought wandered, then, for an instant. He had often speculated on the problems faced by such a spy, returned to his own country, looking like someone else, not daring to reveal himself, and with an activated pain circuit imprinted on his muscles as a constant reminder of what was expected of him.

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