Page 48 - Astounding Pulp V2

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48 ASTOUN DING SCIE:'-,;CE-FICTION (
THE S MALLEST GOD 49
came in. Until then he forced thoughts "'.ith the master's mind and prepared
from his mind and succeeded m simu- his 0\\'n eyes for confirmation of \\'hat god. but he puzzled the general picture be slowed even below human level ;r I
lating sleep . he had seen by telepathy. out to his own satisfaction. can't have sotne soon.''
III. T anya \\'as a vision o( life and lon :li- \\' hen the experiment had gone wrong Arlington Brugh shook his head to
11ess. In the fleeting second it took her and created the tarry lump that formed clear it of a sudde11 buzz, but he had
A STRAXGE noise wakened Hermes in to cross the little god's range ·of siuht the real life of H ermes, there had been not · understood. Henries tried again,
the morning. From what he hi d seen he took in the soft. waving brown h"'ai -'. a myriad of compounds and odd ar- ltsing all the remaining thought power
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in Shep's mind, he knew it was the- the da rk. sparkling eyes, and the dim- rangements of atoms formed in it, and he could muster.
sound of ::mman speech, and listened in-- ple that lurked in tJ1e corner of her the tarry gum around them had acted "This is H ermes, Dr. Brugh. You
tently. ':'he people were talking at a mouth, and something happened to H er as a medium for their operations. T hen, brought me to life, and I want some
point behind him, but he was sure it mes. As yet he had· no word for it. when they ·were slightly softened by alcohol, please !''
was the master ai,d one of the little mis- but it was pure sensation that sped the addition of alcohol, they had begun Brugh heard this time. and swung
sies. H e tuned his mind in on that of throug h eYery atom of his synthet.1c soul. to work, arranging and rearranging suspiciously toward the end of the room,
the master and began soaking up im- H e began to appreciate that life \\'as themselves into an interacting pattern where his assistant was working. B ut
pressions. something more than the satisfaction of that was roughly parallel to human life the young man was engaged in his work,
"I \\'ish you'd stay away from young curiosity. and thought. and showed no sign of ha,·ing spoken
T homas," Dr. Brugh was saying. "I A · sound from Brugh, who was put- But there were differences. For one or heard. H ermes repeated his request,
think he"s the nephew of Hodges, though tering around with a cloudy precipitate thing. he could read i:ho~ghts accurately, squeezing out his fast failing energy, and
he won·t admit it. Your mother doesn't snapped him back to reality. The ques~ and for another he had a sense of per- the master jerked quickly, turning his
like him, either, Tanya." tions in his mind still needed answerino- ception· which could analyze matter di- eyes slowly around the room. Again
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Tanya laughed softly at her father's and the physicist was the log1cal one to rectly from its vibrations. For another, Hermes tried, and the other twitched.
suspicions, and Hermes felt a glow all answer them. Again he made contact what he called sight and sound were- Brugh grabbed for his hat and ad-
0Yer. It was a lovely sound. ''You with the other's mind. merely other vibrations, acting· directly dressed the assistant. " Bill, I'm going
never like my boy friends," she said. T his was infinitely richer than the on his life substance instead of by means for a little walk to clear my head. That
··r think you "·ant me to grow up into dog 's and cat's combined. F or one o[ local sensory organs. He ·realized session last night seems to have p ut
an old-maid schoolmarm. J ohnny's a thing, there ,vas a seemingly ine,,hausti- suddenly that he could see with his funny ideas in it." He paused. " Oh,
nice boy. T o hear you talk, a person ble supply of word thoughts to be mouth it1stead of his eyes, and hear all better toss that little rubber statue into ·
would think H odges and his whole g leaned. As h~ absorbed them, think- o~•er. Only the rubber casing prevented the can for the junkman. It's beginning
family \\"ere ogres." ing became easier, and the words pr 0 _ 111111 from a full three-hunclred-and-sixty- to get on my nerves."
'·1Iaybe they are." But Brugh knew vided a framework for abstractions, degree vision. But, because of the minds He turned sharply and walked out of
better than to argue with his older something utterly beyond the bounds of he had tapped, he had learned to inter- the room. H ermes felt the rough hands
daughter ; she al\\'ays won , just as lier the animal minds. F or halt an hour he pret those vibrations in a more or less of the assistant, and felt himself falling.
mother always did. '·Hodges tried to studied them, and absorbed ~he details conventional pattern. But his senses were leaving him, drained
5windle me out of my appropriations of human !ife gradually. Hermes analyzed the amount of radio- by the loss of alcohol and the strain of
again at the meeting last night. H e'd Then he set about finding the reasons active potassium in Brugh's body care- forcing his mind on the master. He
like to see me ruined." fo1- his own life; that necessitated learn- sa11k heavily into the trash can and his
" And you swindled him out of his inu the whole field of .physical che111is- fully and compared it with his own. mind grew blank.
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There was a great difference, which
tanks. Suppose J proYed to the presi- try, which occupied another half-hour, probably accounted for his more fully de-
dent \\'hO sent those anonymous vivisec- and when he had finished, he began put- veloped powers. Something ached IV.
tion letters to all the parents ?" tinu the knowledge he had gleaned to- vaguely inside him, and he felt giddy.
Brugh looked around hastily, but there geti1er, until it made sense. A SPLATTER of wetness against H er-
He t urned away from his . carefully or-
was no one listening. '·Are you trying dered thoughts to inspect this new sen- mes' mouth brought him back to con-
to blackmail me, Tanya?" ALL LffE, he had found, was probably sation. sciousness, and he saw a few drops fall
She laughed again at his attempt at electricity and radioactivity, the latter near him from a broken bottle that was
:mger. ''You know I won't tell a soul. supplied by means of a tiny amount of The alcohol inside him was drying tipped sidewise. Occasionally one found
"By, dad. I'm going swimming with potassium in the human body. But life out-almost gone, in fact, and his tarry its way through his mouth, and he
Johnny." H ermes felt a light kiss was really more than that. There were, interior was growing thicker. H e'd soaked it up greedily. Little as he got,
through Brugh's senses, and saw her actions and interactions between the two have to do something about it. the alcohol still had been enough to
start around the table to pass in front things that had thus far baffled all stu- "Dr. B rugh," he thought, fixing his start his dormant life into renewed ac-
of him. H e snapped the connection dents. Some of them baffled the rubber attention on the other, "could I have tivity .
'i . ome alcohol, please? My thoug-hts will - There was a pitch and sway to the