Part 2

Whatever course of action he might have considered was lost. Di Costa took the initiative. He smiled and waved. Brent could hear his voice faintly through the street noises.

“Mr. Dalgreen, over here!”

Brent waved back and did the only thing possible. As he walked slowly forward he saw that Di Costa’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. Brent watched him open the note, read it--and change suddenly. The man’s arm dropped to his side, his body stiffened. Staring straight ahead, he stood on the walkway, eyes fixed and as full as a Roman portrait bust.

* * * * *

Dalgreen hurried toward the man. Events were going too fast. He had more than a suspicion that the note and the short man were somehow connected with the secret of the paintings. He stepped forward.

The man stared ahead, unseeing and unhearing. Brent felt justified in removing the mysterious note from between his fingers. One side was blank, but the other contained a single illegible character--queer sign made up of flowing curves crossed by choppy green lines. It resembled nothing Brent had ever seen in his entire life.

They rode uptown side by side. Brent leaned on the railing while Di Costa remained fixed in his strange trance. The note in Brent’s hand was tangible evidence that his suspicions had some basis in fact. As he examined it again, he was aware of an undefinable tingling in his hand. The note seemed to be vibrating, shaking free from his hand in some unknown way. Under his startled gaze it glowed suddenly and disappeared! One instant he had held it, the next his hand was empty.

He leaped back in surprise--passing through the space formerly occupied by Di Costa. Gone--while he had been studying the note! Leaning over the rail he had a quick glimpse of the stiff figure entering the Central Park Skyport. Cursing himself for his stupidity, Brent changed lanes and raced back to the Skyport entrance.

His luck still held. Di Costa was on the outgoing air cab line. It would take him at least ten minutes to get a cab this time of day. With a little speed and a few greased palms Brent could rent a Fly-Your-Own before the other man was airborne.

Shortly after, the orange and black cab flashed up from the take-off circle followed closely by Brent’s blue helio. The two aircraft flew north and vanished in the distance over the Hudson.

The air cab stayed at the 10,000 foot level. Brent cruised at 8,000, lagging slightly behind, keeping in the blind spot of the other ship. The entire affair was moving too fast for his peace of mind. He had the feeling that he was no longer a free agent, that he was being pushed into things before he decided for himself.

* * * * *

He suddenly felt elated. The strange symbol on the note, the note that disappeared in such an inexplicable fashion, _proved_ the existence of alien hidden forces. Every mile that rushed under his plane brought him closer to the answer. He didn’t fear death--it was no longer a stranger to him. The moments of time left to him might be made more satisfactory if he ferreted out this secret. He smiled to himself.

Fifteen minutes later the two ships grounded at the Municipal Skyport in Poughkeepsie. Brent parked the ship and followed his quarry down to the street level. Except for a certain stiffness in his movements, Di Costa seemed normal. He walked quickly and turned into an office building before Brent could catch up with him.

Throwing discretion aside, Brent broke into a run. He turned into the lobby just as the elevator door closed. He pressed the call button but the car continued to rise. The indicator stopped at four, then slowly sank down again.

He was too close to the end to even consider stopping now. He stepped into the self-service elevator and pressed four. The door closed and the car began to ... descend!

With the realization that he was trapped came the knowledge that there was very little he could do about it. Just wait and see who--or _what_--might be outside the car when the door opened!

The elevator dropped down to a level that must have been far beneath the basement floor. The door slid slowly back.

The room was _not_ what he had expected. Not that he had any idea of what there would be; it was just--just that this room was so ordinary!

Ordinary--except for the side wall. That was an impossibility. It was a glass wall looking into a vast tank of swirling water--only there was no glass! It was the surface of the ocean standing on its side. He felt himself drawn into it, falling into it.

The sensation vanished as the wall suddenly turned jet black. He became aware for the first time that he wasn’t alone in the room. There was a girl behind a chrome desk. A lovely girl with straight bronze hair and green eyes.

“An untrained person shouldn’t watch that machine, Mr. Dalgreen; it has a negative effect on the mind. Won’t you please step in?”

His jaw dropped. “How do you know my name? Who are you? What is this pl....”

“If you’ll be seated, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Brent saw that the elevator would stay here until he got out. He stepped into the room, and the door sliding shut behind him didn’t help his morale any. He was into it up to his neck, and the other team had taken complete charge. He sat.

The redhead pulled the sheet of paper out of her typewriter and pushed it into the strange wall. It once more had the undersea look. Brent kept his eyes averted until she turned to him with a slight frown furrowing her forehead.

“You have been very interested in Arthur Di Costa’s activities, Mr. Dalgreen. Perhaps there are some questions you would like to ask me?”

“That, lady, is the world’s best understatement! Just _what_ happened to him today ... and what is this place?”

She leaned forward and pointed. “You’re responsible for Mr. Di Costa’s visit here today. You were observed following him, so we brought him in, in the hope that you would come also. The message he received was a code word designed to trigger an automatic response planted in his mind. He came directly here, controlled by the posthypnotic suggestion.”

“But the note,” he exclaimed.

“A simple matter! It was written on a material made entirely of separate molecules. A small charge of energy held them together for a brief period of time. The charge leaked out and the material merely separated into its constituent molecules.”

* * * * *

The utter impossibility of the situation was striking home. The evidences of a superior culture were unmistakable. These people were his....

“Aliens, Mr. Dalgreen--I suppose you could call us that. Yes. I can read your mind quite clearly. That is why you are here today. A thought receiver in Arthur Di Costa’s study informed us of your suspicions when you first walked in. We have been following you ever since, arranging your visit here.

“I’ll tell you what I can, Mr. Dalgreen. We are not of Earth, in fact, we come from beyond your solar system. This office is, to be very frank, the outpatient ward of a sanitarium!”

“Sanitarium!” Brent shouted. “This is the office only ... then where is the sanitarium?”

The girl twirled her pencil slowly, her piercing stare seeming to penetrate his eyes--into his brain.

“The entire Earth is our sanitarium. Mixed in with your population are a great number of our mentally ill.”

The floor seemed to tilt under Brent’s feet. He clutched the edge of the desk. “Then Di Costa must be one of your outpatients. Is _he_ insane?”

The girl spoke quietly. “Not insane in the strictest sense of the word. He is congenitally feeble-minded; his case is incurable.”

Brent thought of the brilliant Di Costa as a moron, and the inference shook his mind. “That means that the average I.Q. of your race must be ...”

“Beyond your powers of comprehension,” she said. “To your people Di Costa is normal, really far above average.

“On his home planet he was not bright enough to take his place in that highly integrated society. He became a ward of the state. His body was altered to be an exact duplicate of homo sapiens. We gave him a new body and a new personality--but we could not change his basic intelligence. That is why he is here on Earth, a square peg in a square hole.

“Di Costa spent his childhood on his home planet, living in an ‘alien’ environment. These first impressions drive deep into the subconscious, you know. His new personality has no awareness of them--but they are there, nonetheless. When he is painting, these same impressions by-pass his conscious mind and operate directly on his thalamus. It takes a keen eye to detect their effect on the final work. May I congratulate you, Mr. Dalgreen?”

Brent smiled ruefully, “I’m a little sorry now that I did. What are your plans for me? I imagine they don’t include a return to my earthly ‘asylum’?”

The girl folded her hands in her lap. She looked down at them as if not wanting to look Brent in the eye when she made her next statement. However, he wasn’t waiting for it. If he could overpower the girl, he might find the elevator control--any chance was worth taking. He tensed his muscles and jumped.

A wave of pain swept through his body. Another mind--strong beyond comparison--was controlling his body!

Every muscle jerked with spasmodic activity, halting his plunge in mid-air. Crashing to the desk he lay unmoving; every muscle ached with the fierce alien control. The redhead looked up--eyes blazing with the strength she had so suddenly revealed.

“Never underestimate your opponent, Brent Dalgreen. I adopted the earthly form of a woman for just this reason. I find your people much easier to handle. They never suspect that I am ... more than what they see. I will release your mind from my control, but please don’t force me to resume it.”

* * * * *

Brent sank to the floor, his heart pumping wildly, his body vibrating from the unnatural spasm.

“I am the director of this ... sanitarium, so you see I have no desire to have our work exposed to the prying eyes of your government. I shall have to have you disposed of.”

Brent controlled his breathing enough to allow him to speak. “You ... intend to ... kill me then?”

“Not at all Mr. Dalgreen, our philosophy forbids killing except for the most humane reasons. Your physical body will be changed to conform to the environment of another of our sanitarium planets. We will of course remove all the radiation damage. You can look forward to a long and interesting life. If you agree to cooperate you will be allowed to keep your present personality.”

* * * * *

“What kind of a planet is it?” Brent asked hurriedly. He realized from the girl’s tones that the interview was almost at an end.

“Quite different from this one. It is a very dense planet with a chlorine atmosphere.” She pressed a stud on her desk and turned back to her typewriter.

Brent had a last, ragged thought as unconsciousness overcame him. He was going to _live_ ... and work ... and there must be some fine greens to paint on a chlorine planet....

Transcriber’s note:

This etext was produced from Rocket Stories, September 1953 (Vol. 1, No. 3.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.