Chapter 2

So now SSM George Hanlon was here on this planet they called Estrella, trying to see what he could find out. It was hard, devilishly and maddeningly hard, to discern what these people were really thinking. It wasn’t their language--that had been fairly easy to sleep-learn from the reels. No, it was their mental processes--the way they thought. He was not too sure of himself yet, even with his ability to read their surface thoughts, for so often those thoughts held connotations he was not sure he understood.

For the Estrellan mind was so different from those of humans--its texture was coarser, for one thing, and the thought-concept symbols largely non-understandable to him so far. He had studied--he winced to think how hard he had studied--and he had practiced assiduously since arriving here. But he still could get only an occasional thought-idea of whose meaning he felt at all sure ... it was far worse than with humans. True, he was making some progress, but it was so--he grinned mirthlessly--”fast like a turtle.” Yet he did not allow discouragement to keep him from continuing with his work.

For during the week he had been here he had managed to pick up some facts of which he felt sure. He decided his best method of approach lay with this new criminal element, for he was convinced from his study of the problem that they were, somehow, tied in with whoever was behind all the opposition to Estrella’s joining the Federation of Planets. The tremendous increase in crime, so foreign to the general nature of these high-principled beings, and coming simultaneously with the development of that opposition, was not, he felt sure, coincidental. Working from the inside against a criminal gang had worked on Simonides--it might be equally successful here.

He had found what he felt was proof that a certain Ino Yandor, this world’s greatest purveyor of entertainment, was actually a ring-leader in the criminal web, in this city, at least. And he had figured that the best way to get acquainted with this man was to pose as an entertainer.

Because of his ability to control the minds and muscles of animals, he decided to be an animal trainer. Hence his apparently strange action in buying eight Estrellan roches, or dogs. He had figured out an act that he thought was a dilly.

“At least,” he grinned to himself, “it would knock ‘em in the aisles on Terra or the human planets. But with these folks...” he shrugged away the doubts.

Suddenly, as Hanlon was sitting there thinking all these things, he heard a tremendous commotion outside the house. There were the excited yells of many children, a terrific uproar of yelps and whines that he recognized as made by his roches, and the shrill complainings of the elders living in this and the adjacent houses.

“Oh, oh, my pups are being delivered,” Hanlon grinned, and ran out to meet the messenger. As soon as he was in sight of the crowd, he began touching one rochian mind after another, sending them calming thoughts, and quieting their frenzied yelpings. By the time the eight dogs were in his rooms, they were well under control, and lay down as soon as they were inside.

Hanlon good-naturedly answered many of the questions hurled at him by the inquisitive youngsters; assured the apprehensive neighbors that he would see to it that the roches did not bother them; dismissed the man who had delivered the animals, with thanks and a gold penta, then hurriedly closed the door against the crowd still in the hallway.

He then settled down into a comfortable seat, and proceeded to get acquainted with his new pets. He first had to learn the texture of their individual minds, which were like yet different from those of earthly animals. Then each roch’s individual characteristics had to be studied and learned, and the animal’s wild nature more or less tamed and subdued, which last he found quite easy to do--from within.

The animals, in turn, had to become used to Hanlon’s taking control of their minds and bodily functions, and of allowing him to handle them mentally without fighting back or trying not to obey.

This was eminently tricky work, but Hanlon’s previous practice with many animals, birds and insects, both here and on Simonides and Algon, had given him facility so he was able to do it fairly easily.

“Why, they’re really just nice little pooches at heart, in spite of that snout that looks like a pig’s, set in that flat face. But I like ‘em, and I think this’ll work out OK.” He fed and watered his pseudo-dogs, then let them go to sleep, as he was preparing to do.

Right after he and the roches had breakfasted the next morning, he set to work in earnest on their training for the special routines he had planned. As the day sped swiftly by he found his ideas working out even more satisfactorily than he had hoped. It would not be too long before he was ready to make contact with that Ino Yandor, the theatrical agent.

The following day Hanlon stayed in his room again, working with the animals, training them in group maneuvers, having learned how to handle them individually. It was a weird feeling, dissociating part of his mind and placing it in that of a roch, and with that portion of his mind consciously controlling the animal’s brain to direct its nerves and muscles to do what he wanted done. And when he did this to eight roches simultaneously--well, even though he had done similar things before, it was still hard to get used to the idea that it was possible.

So hard had he been working that he was surprised when he happened to notice how dark it was getting. He went over and looked out of the window in his room, and saw it was night outside. A glance at the Estrellan time-teller on the wall, and he saw it was the dinner hour.

He rose and stretched, yawning vigorously. “Better get out and get some fresh air,” he thought. He took the dogs for a half hour’s run outside, then brought them back, fed and watered them. He impressed on their minds that when they were finished they were to go to sleep. Then again he left the building.

He couldn’t help grinning a bit as he was walking down the street, thinking of the screwy way these people handled the problem of where to live. For the common, ordinary, not-too-rich people, there were apartment buildings, such as the one in which he lived, owned and operated by the government. When anyone wanted a room or an apartment, he merely hunted around in the district in which he wished to live until he found an empty place that suited him, then moved in. There was no landlord, no rent. Taxes paid for it.

You were supposed to take care of your own cleaning and minor repairs, or any special decorating you wanted done. Major repairs were handled upon request, by men paid by the government. If your furniture wore out, or no longer suited you, you simply moved to a place you liked better--and some other poorer person had to take what you had left, if all other rooms were occupied. Yet so considerate of others were the average Estrellans, that they seldom did this, preferring to replace the worn-out things themselves, if financially able to do so.

“Imagine the average Terran doing that,” Hanlon had thought, wonderingly, when he first heard of it.

He had been lucky enough to find a three-room apartment fairly close to the downtown section of the city, yet far enough away so the crowd-noise did not bother him. The building in which he lived was of four stories, and he was on the second floor, near the back.

It was the third place he had looked at when he first came to Estrella. He could not at first make himself believe that all the rooms had such bad smells in them. But he soon found it to be true, largely because these natives had nothing that could be called efficient plumbing. When he had finally picked these rooms, he spent a full day airing them out, cleaning them thoroughly, and using what disinfectants and smell-eradicators he was able to find and buy in the stalls here.

The peculiar-looking, five-sided rooms were comfortably furnished, by Estrellan standards, and not too bad even from Earthly ones. The walls and ceilings and floors were painted in fairly harmonious colors, and there was a sort of half-matting, half-carpet rug on the floors. What corresponded to the living room contained two of their low, backless stools, and one quite comfortable lounging chair. There was a large and a small table, and an empty case where one could store any reading scrolls he might possess.

The bedroom had a low, foot-high, five-sided bed, but it was hard and uncomfortable until Hanlon figured how to make it softer, and more to his liking. There were several pegs on the wall from which to hang his clothing, two more of the backless stools, and the open place--a sort of well running from roof to basement--that was the toilet. Hanlon found a large piece of heavy cloth something like canvas, in one of the stalls, and made a hanging to cover this in lieu of a door, which shut out some of the smell-source.

The kitchen had shelves, a stove, and table and backless stools. In one corner, suspended through the ceiling, was an open water pipe with a sort of concrete drain beneath. This was both the source of water for cooking or drinking, and the bathing place--a primitive shower.

The reels furnished by Survey had told Hanlon that few of the Estrellan buildings were more than five stories high. “Some, in the business districts, may run to six or seven stories. We have concluded that the main reason for this is that the natives do not have elevators, except a few crude rope-and-pulley freight elevators in some of the stores and office buildings.”

Now Hanlon sauntered slowly along the street, enjoying the fresh night air, warmed to about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, while he worked the kinks out of his tension-wearied body. This business of controlling the roches demanded such intense concentration that his mind and body were highly keyed up when he finished, and he had trouble relaxing.

He saw, almost without noticing this time, the primitive street lighting system that made flickering lights and shadows on the tree-shaded walks and roads. These people used natural gas for their nighttime outdoor illuminating--just semi-ornate standards with the flames rising a foot or so above them. Men went around at dusk to light them, and again at dawn to turn them off.