Part 1

The Little Pets of Arkkhan

BY VASELEOS GARSON

Lovable little balls of fur, incongruous on this bleak asteroid, forlorn and lonely ... who could be blamed for picking one up to take along--or for what happened thereafter?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

At first, it was only a spider thread of sound. It was so soft, so caressing that it was like some healing unguent to the throbbing, burning boil that was Kent Knight's brain.

Tender and soothing as a wind-wafted melody in the first hush of evening, his grateful mind whispered. Then his mind was screaming as the spider thread grew jagged edges that clawed open the first pain wounds and tore them wider.

Knight lay on the hot rocky plain of the asteroid, sprawling convulsively where he was thrown when the first sharp hurt slashed at his mind.

_And it was such a lovely little beastie. All furry and round and soft. What awful power did it hold? I just touched it. Like an Earthly kitten, a little furry butterball. I should have known better, but it was like being on Earth again._

That faint wondering thought whispered through the pain. But it was flung from him as his pain-frantic brain raged at his nerves, knotted and twisted his muscles.

There was too much agony for his mind to absorb. Knight sensed the waning of his mind's last resources with relief. The mental shocks ceased, his nerves and muscles quieted, and he drifted into a gentle darkness where there was no pain....

... _It's gone_, his mind observed gleefully. The thankful knowledge that wakefulness did not bring renewed pain smothered the _other thing_. But only for a moment.

_Kent Knight. I am Kent Knight, I must remember that. I mustn't forget it. I mustn't let_ It _make me forget. I am a man. My shipmates and I crashed on this asteroid in the_ Star Climber.

The _other thing_ laughed at him--_in_ him. The wee bit of Kent Knight which the _other thing_ couldn't take or didn't want urged him to his feet. _It_ didn't seem to mind his doing that much.

Knight drew his lean, rawboned frame erect. His muscles didn't hurt any more, he realized. He ran his strong fingers--which were shaking now--through his brown hair, ruffling the rock dust out of it. He looked toward the green oasis on the far side of the rocky plain where his friends were.

_It's hard to remember that I am Kent Knight. It doesn't really matter anyway. No, Kent Knight, that's the_ other thing! _I am six feet tall. I weigh one hundred and seventy pounds. I have brown hair. My eyes are hazel with funny blue flecks in them. Remember? Looks like somebody punched at them with a sharp blue pencil--that's what Mary Jo said._

_I wonder if Sammy's drunk. That last time just before we crashed should have been a drunk to finish even Sammy, his big, broken nose, shiny, bald head and all._

_Yes, I know_ you _know my every thought, Thing! You've stolen my mind. But you cannot steal_ me. _I am Kent Knight. I am a man. You, Thing, are my enemy and man's enemy._

_It_ chuckled in Knight's mind.

"You are whistling in the dark, fool. Have you not wondered why you crashed on this wandering asteroid? We Arkkhans willed you here. There was nothing wrong with your ship--we willed you to crash because we wanted weak creatures like you.

"You are the first we found whose minds are strong enough to contain us without destroying the motor impulses."

The Thing filled Kent Knight's mind with a thousand scenes and chuckled as the horror spread like wildfire through the little that was left of Kent Knight.

"No!" Knight cried, the muscles in his lean throat convulsing.

* * * * *

Suddenly, Kent Knight began to run. He didn't want to, but his long sinewy legs drove him across the rocky plain at reckless speed, and his mind would not answer his frantic orders to stop. His lungs burned and screamed as they sucked in the asteroid's thin air, and his heart was a writhing, sobbing thing within his straining chest.

One ankle caught between two rough hands of rock and broke, but he did not stop running. Each time the weight of his body fell fully upon that fractured bone, it splintered a little more until the shards were sharp daggers biting into what mind still belonged to Kent Knight.

Then the other foot--the right one--stepped on a razor-edged rock that cut through flesh, bone and sinew, but still Kent Knight ran on. The Thing was chuckling at the stabbing pain signals.

Finally _It_ said, "No, Kent Knight?" _It_ released control, and Knight sprawled on the hurting rock, the blows and stabs of the rough plain against his body unfelt through the agony of his crippled feet.

"I hate you, Thing." Knight's deadly thought reached for the Thing within his mind. Then Kent Knight cradled his head in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably, his shoulders shaking convulsively, his whole body trembling with rage and agony.

"Why rebel, Earthling? You cannot prevail against us. So simple it was to hurt you. If you but accept your destiny as our hosts, it will be pleasant. Like this!"

The sense of peace which flooded through Kent Knight then was so deep and so full, he wanted to cry again--this time because he was happy and free of pain. For the agony in the broken ankle and the slashed foot was gone. The throb of the bruises, the aching loss of his individuality, of his will, the horror of his and mankind's destiny with the Arkkhans--all these were gone.

He stood up slowly and, for the first time since he picked up the strange furry little creature from its hiding place in a rock crevice, he felt like Kent Knight.

He lifted his dirty face, streaked with tears, to where he knew Earth must be circling its familiar old sun. He whispered, "Thing, all my life I have feared pain. Ever since I was a kid back on Earth and my pup dug his needle teeth in my hand, I have hated and feared it.

"But peace at your price is not for me. If you don't mind," and Knight's full, almost sensual lips which loved pleasure so well twisted wryly as he spoke, "I'll take the pain."

He got it....

* * * * *

It was Sammy's hoarse breath, saturated with liquor fumes, that was his first sensation when he finally crawled wearily back the molten road from his hell of pain.

His mind listened avidly, reaching out tenuous fingers, searching every nook and cranny of Kent Knight's brain, seeking out the Thing. The fingers grew surer, swifter as they worked through the brain, finding only pain. Then his desperate mind relaxed. Pain was something it understood; it could take care of that.

Knight opened his eyes. Sammy's blood-flecked black ones, popping as usual from his flushed face, stared into his eyes from only inches away.

"Cripes," muttered Knight. "Sammy, you're stinking drunk again!"

Sammy pulled his face back far enough so Knight could focus his eyes. He rubbed a huge blunt paw on his shiny pate, transferred the paw to his broken nose, tried unsuccessfully to straighten the sharp curve it made to the right before he answered, very slowly and very distinctly.

"You know, Kent, I do believe that you have made a highly astute and highly correct observation. I think, however, that you are guilty of an understatement when you say only stinking drunk. I have never in my binge-ridden life been as intoxicated as I am at this present moment."

He waved his paw at Knight.

"But, Kent, there is something very definitely wrong. Something is lousing up the usual beatific feeling I have after three quarts. Honest to gosh, Kent, I have been drinking for three days and three nights, but I can't go to sleep. I can't pass out. I can't get happy." He shook his bald head, and the wall-light made it gleam like a highly polished egg.

"Hell, Kent," he exploded suddenly. "All I do is drink and, honest to gosh, it gets tiresome lifting and dropping a bottle all the time, day and night. But I can't stop. My mind keeps nagging at me to stay drunk. It's just like there was somebody in me with me." He was shaking his head like a puzzled child.

Kent Knight sat up slowly, looked first at his feet, then wiggled them. They were healed all right. At last he looked at Sammy. _So_ they'd _got him, too. How many of the others have the parasites? And why has my Thing left me?_

Kent Knight stood up slowly, warily, fearing that the Thing would make his muscles flaccid, limp, uncontrollable by the wee bit of mind that still was his.

He looked around the sleeping cubicle he shared with Sammy. He looked at Sammy's bald pate, the harried black eyes, remembering.

"So I've been gone for three days and three nights, Sammy?" _I couldn't have been unconscious that long_, his trammeled mind thought, conscious of the unfelt shackles of the Thing. He walked slowly to the porthole. His eyes traveled out past the greensward to the rocky plain.

"Asteroid time?" he asked. That wouldn't be so bad but....

"Chron time," Sammy muttered. Three Earth days and nights! _Where have I been?_ His mind shuddered. _Its_ laughter was mocking.

Kent Knight delved through his memory.

_We were exploring, that was all, checking planets, planetoids and asteroids with an eye to colonization. We cracked up here. I went looking for lead to replace a burned-out rocket shield. I saw the pretty little beastie, a furry little ball. I touched it. And_ It _had me. I wonder if it got Sammy the same way?_

He started to put the question into words. But he didn't. The answer was there. A little butterball of fur came into view when Sammy shifted his seat on the floor. _Then where is mine?_ He looked around the floor, then turned to where he'd lain on the floor. It was there, still begging to be touched. He bent toward it, but the memory of pain rose up sharp. He looked at it instead.

Sammy coughed. "You nervous, Kent? Want to participate in a little snort?" Sammy took a swig out of the bottle and offered it to Knight.

"No, Sammy. That's what put me on this hellish little ship, remember? Five years of exile from Earth." Sammy nodded owlishly, and said, in the cruel honesty of men who have been broken by the same thing, "It's man's great curse, but women are worse, and you had them both."

"Not women, Sammy, a woman--but she loved another guy so I just walked out."

"Correction, please," Sammy said. "You floated out." Sammy looked sad. "That was the trouble, Kent. You should have never stopped floating. Look at me. I'm happy and I stay that way because of liquor. But you stopped, and now look at you. In the three years I've been on this ship with you, you never have smiled once. Come on, have a drink."

Kent Knight shook his head. Sammy took an extra long snort. "Honest to gosh, Kent, there must be something wrong with this stuff. It's sobering me up."

Knight looked at Sammy, thinking, _Just wait until_ It _starts talking to you_. He almost smiled at the thought. But his mind shuddered instead. Sammy was terror-stricken enough when the little D.T. imps talked to him. _It_ would drive him mad.

_As_ It _is doing to me. Huh-uh_, his mind whispered cautiously, _you don't trap me that easily._ Knight strode toward the cubicle door.

He followed the passageway to the outer lock and stepped out into the asteroid's thin but breathable air. _Hide our thoughts_, his mind urged, _and I will tell you something._ But _It_ was listening. _Two times two is four, two times three is six--what do you want to tell me, mind?--is eight, two times five is--Sammy, careful, careful, careful!--fourteen, two times eight is sixteen--Sammy what? Sammy what, mind!--I don't understand--ty-two, two times twelve is--We can't hide from_ It's _mind--twenty-eight._

_It_ was laughing! Knight's eyes flicked toward the spring where Captain Isaac Hansen was tasting the water.

"I know everything, Kent Knight," It chuckled. "I could tell you what your mind is trying to tell you but hide from me."

"Do you?" Knight's thought was listless. "Yes." The part that was still Kent Knight, though smothered by the Thing's presence, sighed, and Knight felt himself sigh almost in relief.

"No," Kent Knight said, and his lips were smiling. "You don't know what it's trying to tell me, Thing. We'll beat you. It will let me know and you won't know it."

"I _will_ know!" The Thing's thought was sharp, almost angry, and it struck again with pain. But Kent Knight had hope again, and the pain didn't matter ... too much....

* * * * *

When it was gone, leaving only the echoes behind, Kent Knight raised himself to his feet, walked slowly toward the tiny spring where Captain Hansen was still tasting the water.

Captain Hansen, his seamed face beaming, looked up as Knight approached. His blue eyes were sparkling. "We can make millions on this water, Kent! It's the fountain of youth that Ponce de Leon sought! Why, look, I've sipped only about three ounces and look at my old hands. They're smooth and young as yours! And my face--see the fresh new skin!"

Kent Knight looked at the Captain's hands. They were age-gnarled, the knuckles big against the wizened fingers. Knight looked at the Captain's face. It was lined and rough and _old_. He thought, _Another manifestation of your powers, Thing? Make a man's dream come true? That is the Captain's dream. He wants never to grow old._

But he said, and he actually put feeling into the words, "Why, you look like that picture of your son on your desk, Ike. But hadn't you better be careful? You don't know that water's strength. It might cause irreparable damage to you."

"That's right," Captain Hansen agreed. "I'm young enough now, don't you think?"

Knight twisted his lips into a smile he didn't feel, turned back toward the ship. Captain Hansen followed him, dancing.

_Damn you, Thing!_

_It_ chuckled.

Knight leaned against the wall of the spacemen's mess, his eyes searching the crew members eating at the long table. _You can tell which ones still are fighting_ Them. _They are the unhappy ones. But, God, so few of them!_

_And we're hurtling toward Earth--to bring these parasitic thought-things to feed upon the minds of mankind. The ship is filled with them. Everywhere I go, my Thing whispers to those bodiless ones promising, promising, promising! Thought-conquerors ... the power of thought had brought Man to the pinnacle of destiny. Now these--these_ Things--_were stealing his birthright!..._

"Do you see now how impossible it is, Earthman? We Arkkhans are so vastly superior to you, there is nothing you can do but bow to us? And you will be unutterably happy," his Thing thought.

Into Kent Knight's mind came the soft, sweet face of Mary Jo. _Mary Jo._ The thought was a caress--warm and tender as the touch of her hand. Mary Jo, whose warmth and brightness were life to him--even now when he had lost her forever.

He was remembering....

He'd known it for a long time, ever since the night when the big, flame-thatched space captain had swerved gracefully over to their table and said,

"So this is your Faith, Kent. You're right, she's magnificent. No wonder you're the best damn spacer in the system. With a Faith like that, you couldn't help it." He knew it when she leaned almost unconsciously toward him, as if she feared Bob Mallory's mocking green eyes, his lean, almost hawk-like face.

And as the weeks wore on, the memory stayed with her for she would ask this and that about Mallory. And he would answer.

He knew for sure the second time the two met. They fought--not in just words, but with their eyes, with movements of their bodies. And he knew that he could not fight that lightning with the slow-burning flame that was his love.

So he said, and with the memory came the pain again, "You love him quite a bit, don't you." Her blue eyes had looked startled at first, then almost soft, then harried, "I guess I do, Kent. I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry," he said. "This sort of thing happens all the time. I don't love you so much that life would stop without you. Besides, I like Bob, he's a good joe." I kissed her, he thought, and I knew I was a damn liar, or why did I go out and try to drink the distilleries dry? Sure, it was a hurt pride--but I still kind of like Mary Jo.

The last words he said came back. "This is it, then, Mary Jo. Good-night, good luck, goodbye."

"I will give her to you, Kent Knight," the Thing said. "Your love will be the lightning. You can hold her in your arms, feel the warmth and excitement of her, knowing that she is yours. Nothing can take her from you."

For a moment, Kent Knight was tempted to let that little bit of mind that still was his be swallowed up by the Thing. But he remembered in time.

"Like Captain Hansen's fountain of youth?" his mind asked, and he laughed.

* * * * *

Like a magnified echo to his laugh came the excited clamor of the alarm bells. The signal board in the mess began to pulse redly. Approaching mass! Asteroid, wandering star, spaceship? Knight waited.

The look-out's voice came excitedly over the intercom. "SP ship! SP ship! And her nose is red!"

And her nose is red! Cut rockets or we'll blow you out of the universe. This was no routine SP check--that would have called for a yellow signal at the Space Patrol ship's bow.

_It_ wanted to know what was the matter. Kent could feel its thought fingers searching hurriedly through his mind. And when it didn't find an answer it grew almost frantic in its headlong scrabbling. Kent Knight's mind was chuckling. He couldn't tell the Thing why, because he didn't know himself!

The muted thunder of the rockets to which his mind and ears had accustomed themselves suddenly cut out as Captain Hansen switched off the cycs. Then there was a long moment of almost hurting silence, then the bow rockets began to fire and slow the ship.

The bow rockets ceased too, finally, and the silence came again. But all the while, Kent Knight's Thing was trying to find an answer.

Sammy came plowing into the mess, a sloshing bottle in one hand, his bald head glistening, his big nose twitching.

He said to Kent, "I knew it was too good to be true. I was just sitting in my cubicle looking out and I saw the Moon. I conjectured that perhaps our exile had come to a premature end. But then that damn SP ship showed up."

Knight couldn't stop his mind quick enough. The Thing caught it in mid-flight, and stopped scrabbling. "So that is why. This is a prison ship and can come only so close to Earth. For a moment, I believed you Earthmen were stronger mentally than you are."

Hell, I should have known, Knight thought. This is the _Star Climber_. It's never been back to Earth since its maiden launching. It's not a prison ship exactly, just a place to live while you serve out your years of separation from Earth. And only an Earthman can know the poignant loneliness that comes when he is kept from seeing and smelling and hearing the loveliness of the planet that bore him. Five years of an indefinable torture--five years of loneliness and a sense of loss so deep that it brings you from sleep, screaming for Earth like a kid in the dark begs for his mother.

You go aboard the _Star Climber_ or one of her sisters. They load you and supplies aboard. They salute you even in your punishment--you and the others who are serving the same sentences. Just before you step through the spacelock, you look up and see the beauty of Earth above you. You look down at the Moon's dusty plain.

And you set forth on your Odyssey of punishment. You can go anywhere you please. You can settle anywhere--on any planet. You can do anything you damn please so long as you stay half a million miles from Earth for the period of your sentence.

If you come closer than that, the SP ships will blow you into eternity if you do not heed them when their noses are red.

Like now.

Kent Knight strode to the viewplate and clicked it on.

Her nose was red all right. But it was fading, now that the SP's warning was heeded. But there were going to be explanations--the SP commander would come jetting across in his space suit, his regulation four-man guard behind him. "Explain why you have crossed the line," he would say. _Our story will have to be good, Thing_, Kent Knight thought. Only an emergency will excuse the infraction. And it must be an honest-to-God emergency, or the _Star Climber_ becomes a satellite of some lonely star for twice our original sentence. That should stymie you, Thing.

"Will they take our eyes, Kent?" Sammy asked anxiously, "and tow us to some godforsaken spot and leave us?"

"I hope so, Sammy," Kent Knight breathed and the part of his mind that was his was chuckling at the Thing. _It_ chuckled, too. "An SP ship can go to Earth," it said.

The bright flame of hope that had flared up in Kent Knight's heart was blown out by despair. Of course, what _would_ stay the Things from taking over the minds of the SP crew?

"That is right," _It_ agreed. "Nothing can stop us. Even now the commander is coming across."

* * * * *

Kent Knight looked at the viewplate. A spacelock had opened, spewed forth five space-suited figures.

_So many times I have done exactly what they are doing. Push the stud at your belt, feel the kick as the tiny cycs take hold and spit their energy from the jets at your back. Wonder why this exile-ship came across the line? You think: Are they waiting with guns, ready to blow us up when we step into the airlock? Or is there something terribly wrong? Has the loneliness made them mad so they risk coming back just to see Earth at closer range? Or are all of them dead?_

_I used to think all those things, Kent Knight. Remember? Then I walked away from Mary Jo, got stinking drunk, and tried to hide it when I took a ship out on patrol. So now a commander comes to find out why we have crossed the line._

_Better help out Captain Hansen now. Don't want him to start talking about how young he looks._

Kent Knight strode out of the messhall, heading for the main airlock, Sammy and his bottle tagging along behind. All around him, Knight felt the excited whisper of the Things.

"I don't know what to tell them, Kent," Captain Hansen said anxiously. "I forgot all about the line. But something kept telling me, 'We're going home. We're going home ...' and I just set the course. It seemed so natural, Kent."

"I know, Ike," Knight said softly. Then, as the turning levers on the inner lock moved, he added, "Here they come."

The five figures, bulky in their lead and rubberoid suits, their transparent helmets almost opaque as the lights within the ship reflected from them, closed the lock behind them. Four moved silently aside, two to stand on either side of the lock, while the commander strode toward Knight and Captain Hansen.

_I must warn them_, Kent Knight thought. _They mustn't be taken by the Things. But I cannot move my lips. The Thing knows I want to speak. There is a way! he thought excitedly._ The Thing became angry, began scrabbling through his mind, seeking the way, found it. "You will not forget to do it," _It_ ordered. "Do it!"

With a sudden movement, Kent Knight's body grew taut. His left arm came up in a quick salute, and the SP commander suddenly stiffened, his four aides whipped atomic pistols out, held them at ready.

The left-handed salute! Knight's mind was laughing. _I fooled you, Thing! That's what I wanted to do, salute with my left hand. And you didn't catch the thought! We'll lick you now, Thing! Sure, you conquer by thought, but you can't conquer all of an Earthman's mind!_