The Mind from Outer Space Read online

  “Three,” said Hillory. “I can crank up enough PK power from my mind, through practice, to expand the levitation bubble to hold three persons and all their gear—heavy clothing, food, water, weapons, whatever is needed.”

  “Who is to go along with you? Any choices?”

  “Merry Vedec for one.”

  At the director’s instant negative reaction, the flashing-eyed girl had to go through the whole argument she had with Hillory.

  “What is this?” she finished passionately in what was not oratory but honest indignation. “Medieval times? The Victorian Age? Don’t you gentlemen know women won the vote long ago? Total indiscrimination of federal jobs? And equal rights before all courts? There’ve been women hunters, explorers, gold miners. Will you kindly leave sex out of this and just consider me member number two of this expedition to Mount Everest. Thank you. That’s settled.”

  Looking like a steamroller had run over him, Clyde switched and said, “Number three?”

  “Barton,” said Hillory. “I spoke with him before, and he’s set to go.”

  “Eager is the word,” put in Barton firmly. “Since Brains was used in breaking down the alien map’s code, I feel personally involved. Me, I’m ready.”

  “But you haven’t solved where the other treasure spots are yet,” persisted Clyde. “Shouldn’t you and Brains be working on that while Hillory is gone?”

  “No use,” said Barton. “Brains is completely stumped over the other spots. He can’t solve them until he gets the right map of earth 35,000 years ago. The map we used happened to be right only for Mount Everest to be located. But other spots around earth will take better maps. I sent out a call, through the Research Data Center, for any and all theoretical maps of ancient earth of that time. It’ll take some time before they’re hunted down, xeroxed, and sent to us. So I’m free to go with Hillory.”

  “What about all the other problems that come up with our science researches here? You’re the only one who can program Brains to solve them.”

  “Not any more,” denied Barton. “I got an idea and asked Brains if he could be rigged to take vocal instructions and program himself. He came through with the right twist in the circuit. Any of the boys can just pick up the mike and read off his problem to Brains.”

  Clyde smiled a bit maliciously. “Sounds like you’ve just jockeyed yourself out of a job.”

  Barton grinned. “Don’t worry. Brains is going to ask them to ‘rephrase’ their questions and ‘modify’ their equations and ‘clarify’ their points, over and over, until they get dizzy. They’ll be glad when I come back and do it all for them. Brains and I talk the same language.”

  “Then it’s settled that Merry and Jim Barton will go with me to Mount Everest,” said Hillory, his mind rapidly making plans. “Now we come to equipment. We’ll need blizzard suits and oxygen masks and all other things mountain climbers use, in case we have to search the tip of Mount Everest. Secondly, we’ll take along a week’s supply of food and water, just in case. Thirdly—weapons.”

  Barton glanced at him sharply. “Not against any wild beasts, which don’t exist on Mount Everest’s tip, but against Mr. Mind.”

  “Or rather, whatever forms he animates,” amended Hillory. “Ordinary guns might not be effective against, say, a moving rock. We need something more powerful.”

  “A laser gun,” said Clyde instantly. “Dr. Peabody has such a device which came out of his power-ray researches. I’ll see that you get one to take along. Hmm, to round up all the things you need will take a couple days….”

  “Make it 24 hours, chief,” interposed Hillory urgently. “The less time we waste the better, giving the mind-alien less chance to operate against us.”

  “Browbeater,” sighed Clyde accusingly. “Twenty-four hours it is.”

  Chapter 8

  All the staff of Serendipity Labs watched from the roof as the queer bubble wafted into the air with its three passengers.

  Hillory shifted his weight on the pile of supplies on which they sat. “Ready?” he said to Jim Barton and Merry Vedec. Both were somewhat tense now that the actual moment had arrived. The thought of being weirdly transported halfway around the world by pure mental forces was not restful on the nerves. But they both nodded firmly.

  Hillory’s rugged face took on an expression of concentration. His forehead furrowed as he built up psi power through the faceted crystal on his helmet. By some para-psi process that Hillory understood only vaguely, the tektite crystal was able to tap the vast universal pool of “mental ether” that existed all around limitlessly.

  As if he were a human receptacle, this psi-power flowed into his brain. When he felt as if his mind would burst, he gave the mental command for the bubble to move. Converted into PK energy, the psi-power whisked the bubble away. It vanished from the view of the watchers below.

  “I couldn’t make it an instantaneous flight,” gasped Hillory, easing back a little now that they had started. “Too much load.”

  “But we’ll get there faster than any jet plane,” observed Merry, looking down at the blurred landscape below.

  Barton tentatively poked out a finger to touch the side of the bubble. It felt rubbery and gave a little. “Just what is it made of?”

  Hillory shrugged. “Call it psi-plastic. It comes from my practice in using psi-transmutation, or the creation of mental material, living or nonliving.”

  “Sort of like firm ectoplasm,” put in Merry with an impish smile. “Ghost-stuff made tough.”

  Hillory nodded a bit wryly. The ectoplasm that spiritualists claimed to produce had always been scoffed at by orthodox science. Hillory did not scoff. He also produced and used the stuff. All his psi-feats were of this eerie nature at the borderland between material science and psychic manifestations.

  Yet the ectoplasmic bubble was real and remarkably tough, once formed. It protected them from all the howling wind resistance as it propelled them through the air at about mach 20.

  “But just how,” persisted Barton, “can you make something material out of pure mental forces?”

  Hillory sought for words. “In orthodox science, matter can be turned into energy and vice versa. In psi-science, the psi-ether or ‘energy’ can also be turned into psi-matter. Result, this bubble. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Simple,” snorted Barton, giving his handlebar mustache a twist. “And all you use to pull these psi-tricks is that small crystal on your helmet? How and why does that work?”

  Below, they were rushing over the Atlantic Ocean and coming up to the shoreline of northern Africa. Hillory had “set a course” in that direction, toward the Himalayas. There was time yet to talk.

  “My psi-crystal is made of tektite, a very mysterious substance. Scientists have never been agreed whether they are bits of volcanic glass formed here on earth or splashings of meteoric impacts on the moon that were hurled into space and reached earth. It so happens they’re both wrong.”

  Someday, Hillory would announce all this to the world. But it was still too soon. Orthodox science still stood as a solid block against all paranormal and psi phenomena as being “kook” concepts. Hillory knew that a paper on tektites, giving their true origin, could never be presented before any contemporary scientific society.

  “Tektites,” Hillory explained for Barton, “are crystallizations of the psi-ether. How or why it happens I don’t know. I only know that they are psi-energy turned into matter. As such, they act like ‘transistors’ for the flow of psi-power. They form a link between my mind—or anybody’s mind—and the all-pervading psi-ether pool of power. And that power is immense. I’ve only drawn off tiny amounts of it at times. So, in summary, the tektites are the trigger or valve or ‘switch’ that allow me to pull down psi-power and channel it in whatever way I need it.”

  Hillory stopped and switched to more practical matters.

  “We’re getting close to Mount Everest. Start putting on those parkas. When we step out of the bubble, we’ll be going from comf
ortable conditions into a bitter below zero climate with howling winds and maybe a blizzard.”

  They took turns dressing in the cramped interior of the bubble. Soon all were clad in the furred jumpers that covered all but face and hands. Heavy gloves were also ready, and oxygen masks.

  They peered down excitedly as the mighty ramparts of the snow-capped Himalaya mountains shouldered hugely over the horizon. Standing out majestically from the towering horde was aloof Mount Everest. Unerringly, guided by mental commands from Hillory, the bubble slowed and gently touched down on a barren patch of rock at the tip. All else was wind-whipped snow and tumbled ice.

  Hillory pointed his finger at the bubble’s side, outlining a round circle. Then, at the mental command, the material vanished to leave an open door. Instantly, a gust of frigid air came in that made them all gasp.

  They adjusted their oxygen masks, already feeling the lung-heaving thinness of air six miles high. Hillory lumbered out first, leaning into the wind and gesturing for the other two to follow. They looked around, hardly able to see more than ten yards in the swirls of snow that constantly eddied around in the fierce wind.

  Just what they were searching for they didn’t know. They had gone through it all before. Their only plan was to hike around and look for anything unusual—a rock hollow, a cave, anything that might be a cache for a “treasure”.

  The actual tip of Mount Everest, the highest point, was not a large area, just a few acres of flat rock and icy snow. On all sides were sheer drops or treacherous ridges of slanting ice. An occasional glimpse through the dancing snowflakes gave a giddy, soul-squeezing view down for long miles to the sea level valleys.

  Methodically, Hillory began tramping around the outer perimeter of the flat mountain tip and gradually spiraled inward. They saw nothing that could even remotely be considered a hiding place secure from the elements and the ravages of time.

  Where would the space pirates of long ago have hidden their unknown “loot” so as to be safe for centuries? Their search was blind.

  “Serendipity,” screeched Merry in the teeth of the wind. “It’ll take that to find it.”

  And serendipity, Hillory reflected, was something you couldn’t order forth or make come about. By definition it would have to be stumbling on it in the most unexpected place.

  Unexpected… Hillory mused on that. What if the hiding place were not anywhere in the rock and ice around them but somewhere else? Yet where would that be? He pondered the paradox, baffled.

  Before long they came upon the small stone shrine that had been constructed at the spot where the first conqueror of the world’s tallest peak had planted the flag. It was in honor of Sir Hillary—and for the first time, Hillory realized it was almost his namesake. A quirk of fate.

  But all else at the mighty mountain’s tip was bare. There was not even a rock niche in sight where a box or container might be stashed in reasonable safety for a length of time.

  The unexpected would be…it suddenly flashed on Hillory…up. Not on the tip but off. Barton and the girl stared wonderingly as they saw Hillory brace himself against the wind and gape upward.

  “No planes or eagles or anything fly up here,” shouted Barton. “What do you see, Hillory?”

  “Nothing…yet. Wait….”

  Hillory wiped his tearing eyes with the back of his furred glove and squinted upward again. Dimly through the eternal windblown snow chaff he saw something square. Something manmade and unbelievably hanging in mid-air a hundred feet up.

  Thoughts lanced through Hillory’s mind. “Up there,” he pointed. “Mountain climbers would never look for it and thus never see it. Besides, the never-dying wind blowing snow around would always make it obscure. Yet it would be plainly visible to people coming in a powerful flying saucer.”

  “A box,” screamed Merry, seeing it finally. “But how can it stay anchored there, in a hurricane-fast wind, for ages?”

  “A gravity anchor,” hazarded Hillory. “Some force beam or whatever holding it firmly in position, defying the worst winds.”

  “Well, we found it,” yelled Barton, in triumph mixed with dismay. “But how do we get it down?”

  Hillory was already fumbling in a large breast pocket to pull out one of his faceted tektite crystals. “I’ll try PK power,” he told them. He fastened his gaze on the glowing pseudo-gem as if it were a tiny crystal ball. From some great psi-reservoir psychic power flowed into his brain, then out from his mind and upward. An uncanny clutching force seized the floating box and tried to yank it down. But it did not move.

  “They set up a very strong gravity anchor,” said Hillory, sweating. “Got to pour in PK-power by the carload….”

  The very air seemed strained as two fantastic forces—gravity and psi—battled each other. Hillory gasped with the effort he threw into it, and his face became drawn. The psi-tektite in his hand was glowing fiercely now, almost like a hot coal. It was like an electrical cable sucking in megawatts of power and coming close to a short circuit that heated the wires within.

  Abruptly, an audible snap sounded in the air.

  “It’s moving,” shrilled Merry, dancing in joy. “It’s coming down.”

  The box drifted down now, under Hillory’s mental control. “Broke the gravity-anchor,” he crowed. “Psi-forces, in the end, are more powerful than any other known forces.”

  As the box bumped at their feet, Barton grabbed it up excitedly. It was made of metal that seemed uncorroded through the ages. But a thin patina of tarnish spoke of the tremendous length of time it had survived, some 35,000 years. No other details could be noticed on the box, not even the edge of a lid. It seemed like a sealed container.

  Barton hoisted it to his shoulder with a grunt. “Come on. We’ll open it in the bubble—if we can.”

  He started off, but Hillory grabbed his arm. After Hillory swung his face this way and that, he pointed. “The bubble’s that way. Used some psi-radar, so to speak.”

  Barton shivered. “Lucky you’ve got those weirdo powers, or we could get lost in this patch of frozen hell forever.”

  Passing a rocky edge, Merry suddenly screamed. “That hand! Something’s crawling up here.”

  The men whirled and saw the distorted shape that crawled over the edge and stomped toward them, looming hugely.

  “A yeti,” barked Hillory. “One of the legendary abominable snowmen—only he isn’t a legend. And he’s been animated—taken over mentally—by Mr. Mind, of course. Our enemy has struck.”

  Making queer guttural sounds in its throat, the hairy giant lumbered toward them, clawed hands outstretched. In panic, Barton tried to run but his foot slipped on a patch of ice. He sprawled on his face, the box sliding from his hands.

  Hillory darted toward the box, but Merry screamed a warning. The misshapen manlike creature had raised a huge chunk of ice in its hands and was hurling it straight at Hillory. Hillory dodged frantically, but the edge of the ice caught him in the shoulder and spun him about. He lost his footing and fell heavily, his breath knocked out.

  The grotesque monster-man now brushed Merry aside like a doll and stooped to pick up the heavy box like a toy. He began trotting away with it “The mind-alien…he’s getting away with it,” groaned Barton, standing groggily on his feet and lurching forward without hope of overtaking the yeti.

  On his knees, clearing his dizzy senses, Hillory thought fast. He fumbled the tektite crystal out of his pocket and concentrated. Piling up psi-power, he released it in one shattering stab of PK force. If his aim was right….

  Like the crack of doom, a tall pinnacle of ice broke off and thudded down squarely on the yeti’s head. The creature’s knees buckled, and it slowly crumpled into the snow. The metal box tumbled out of his limp hands.

  “Hope that gave Mr. Mind a good headache,” growled Hillory as he ran forward and picked up the box. The yeti itself lay dead with its skull crushed. But then, ghoulishly, it stirred…moved…staggered to its feet.

  “Good God,” cried Hillo
ry, shaken. “But of course, since he could animate that dead alien skeleton at the flying saucer, he can animate that yeti, dead or alive.”

  The ghastly undead monster, with blood dripping down its lifeless face and closed eyes, began lurching after Hillory. It turned then, to cut him off from reaching the bubble. Hillory stooped as Barton and Merry came up.

  “Can’t reach the bubble,” Hillory panted. “And I’m too drained of psi-power right now to use any psi-tricks on him.”

  As if aware that his quarry was trapped, the undead horror came stumbling toward them, hairy arms swinging as if to seize them and rip them apart. Barton broke from their horrified trance.

  “This way…a place to hide…”

  Following Barton, they came to a towering mound of ice with a crevice in front. It was just wide enough for the men to squeeze through, after Merry. Hillory managed to pull the box in with him. They stood in a cul-de-sac about six feet wide. Its only entrance was the crevice, too narrow for the giant monster-man to come through.

  “But we’re still trapped…cornered,” Merry half-whimpered. “And it’s trying to get at us.”

  Chapter 9

  They could hear the yeti’s powerful claw-hands ripping away at the ice crevice trying to widen it. Chunks of ice slowly began to fall away.

  “He’s got quite a job there,” rasped Barton. “And I haven’t had a chance to use this yet.” He pulled out his laser-gun. “I’ll shoot him and….”

  Barton choked and his eyes turned wild. “My God, what am I saying? He’s already dead.” He composed himself with an effort “Still, it’s worth a try.”

  He aimed the pistol-sized weapon through the crevice where the yeti’s hairy body could be seen. As he pulled the trigger, a ruby beam spat forth viciously and burned through the creature’s hide. The activities of the monster continued without a halt.