Chapter 8

George Hanlon withdrew from the puppy’s mind, and thought seriously. Yes, this matter of controlling the minds of animals was one that would require a lot of thought and study, and a tremendous amount of practice. But it seemed important enough to justify those expenditures.

He hunted up his steward. “Where do the passengers keep their pets?”

“Some keep them in their staterooms, sir, but others in the kennels down on ‘H’ deck.”

“Thanks. Any rules against my going down there and looking at ‘em? I like animals, especially dogs.”

“Oh, no, sir. Anyone can go down there. It’s on the right hand side, about halfway aft.”

Arrived at the kennels, Hanlon found the cages contained about a dozen dogs of various breeds, ages and sizes. Here were plenty of animal minds for his experimentation and study.

After walking around and looking at them for some minutes, he sat down on a bench at one side of the cages, and concentrated on the dog nearest him. It was a large white bull, and he guessed its age to be about five or six years. That was just what he wanted--an adult mind to study, not that of an immature puppy.

He had no trouble getting into the dog’s mind, and for over an hour he sat there, studying it line by line, channel by channel, connector by connector, while the dog lay as if asleep. Gradually Hanlon began to feel he was beginning to know something about a dog’s mind-and-body correlation, and how it operated.

Then, and only then, he woke the dog and began experiment with control. He found it easy to make the dog do anything he wished that was within the animal’s previous knowledge and experience. What he wanted was to see if he could make it perform motions and actions that were outside its previous conditioning and training. After some fumbling, he thrilled to find that now even some of the simpler of those things were not too difficult, although others his present knowledge was not up to handling.

His study taught him to some extent how to activate the brain centers which controlled the nerves that sent messages to the proper muscles that allowed the dog to do his bidding. But it still needed a lot of study. He knew he had only made a bare start at learning what had to be known to do it swiftly and easily.

The kennel steward must have noticed the strange antics of the bull and then, seeing Hanlon’s intent concentration, figured there might be some connection between the two. For he came up to the bench and looked down somewhat hostilely at the man sitting there. But his voice, when he spoke, was very polite.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?”

Hanlon had been concentrating so deeply he had not heard anyone come up, and the voice, speaking so suddenly right before him, startled and befuddled him. He looked up, and his mind felt sluggish and weak, almost as though he had been doped.

“Huh?” he asked stupidly.

“I asked,” the man’s tone was a little sharper, “if there was anything I could do for you?”

“Oh, no. No thanks.” Hanlon forced himself to pay attention. “I just like dogs and came down here to watch them. Must have dozed off.”

“Do you have a dog of your own here?”

“No, I have no dog at present.”

“What were you doing to that white bull. He’s been acting very peculiar since you’ve been here.”

“Me?” Hanlon made himself look surprised. “Why, nothing. I’ve just been sitting here; haven’t said a word to any of them.”

“Well, I’m not too sure it’s proper for you to be here as long as you have no dog kennelled here.”

“Sorry. If it bothers you, I’ll leave.”

Hanlon started away ... then stopped short. He had wondered at that curiously sluggish feeling in his mind. Now, with a start he had trouble concealing, he suddenly realized a mind-numbing fact!

He had seen and heard that exchange of conversation from two separate and distinct points! And now he was watching himself leave!

He had heard and seen both from his own ... and from the dog’s mind!

Yes, he suddenly comprehended that the dog had heard and understood every word of that brief conversation--not as a dog might, but as a man would!

Suddenly drenched with a cold sweat, Hanlon knew he had not merely been inside the dog’s mind, observing and controlling, but that he had actually transferred a portion of his own mind into the dog’s brain!

No wonder his own mind--what was left in his own brain--had felt somewhat inadequate and lacking for the moment. It was not his complete mind. When the steward startled him, he had forgotten to withdraw from the bull’s brain.

Now he carefully did so, and with senses reeling, almost ran back to his stateroom.

Hanlon threw himself onto the bed and lay there, trembling with awe at realization of the immensity of what he had done.

How in the name of Snyder was such a thing possible? Reading a mind’s impressions, even the surface thoughts, was well within the realms of possibility he knew, for he had done it himself. Even hundreds of years before, such things had been believed possible, and had been studied extensively and scientifically. Many people throughout the centuries had claimed the ability to read minds, though only a few had ever proven their powers satisfactorily under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

He himself, until the past day or so, had not been able to read a mind directly, nor could he do it perfectly even yet, with humans.

Also, he conceded, it was a reasonable concept that if he had any mental ability at all with humans, it should be greater and more efficient with animals. For they had less actual brain-power; their minds were far less complex than human minds.

But to be able to transfer part of his mind ... to separate it--dissociate it--and have it outside of his body and in some other body’s mind!

“Ain’t that sumpin’?” he whistled in awed amazement.

Pulling himself together with an effort of will, he set his mind to reviewing carefully the entire episode, and to figuring out where all this might fit in with the business at hand.

“I thought, when I first got into that pup’s mind, that it would be a big help, and it will. But this will be even more so, if I can really control animals, and see and hear with their eyes and ears. And if I can send them where I want them to go, and send my mind, or part of it, along with them, and still know what it and they are doing, that will be tremendous!”

He remembered how he had been able to get into the puppy’s mind after it had gone out of sight, so now he sent his mind down to the kennels. Again, without any trouble, without any delay or hesitation, he found himself inside the bull’s mind, and could look out through the cage wires and see the rest of the kennel deck.

He withdrew and lay there, almost dumbfounded.

“How did I ever get such ability?” he wondered. “No one else in our family has it. Am I some sort of a mutant? But if so, how or why? I never heard Dad or Mother mention it.”

He had lots of questions, but no answers.

But thinking about this new ability and his job with the Secret Service suddenly reminded him of that potential murderer he had been watching. He realized with dismay that in his excitement over this latest development he had entirely forgotten that angle. He had better get back on the ball, but fast!

He got up, splashed cold water on his face, dried it, ran a comb through his hair, and went back to the lounge.

The man Panek was not in the Observation lounge, so Hanlon went seeking him. Just as he neared the game rooms on his rounds, he saw his man leaving them. Allowing the stranger to get some distance ahead, Hanlon trailed him as carefully as he could, all the time trying to read what the killer had in mind.