Second, he would be welcomed home and pardoned—even honored—if he could get there. The exiles always had that chance, and one out of hundreds of them made it.
A returned exile was honored very highly indeed, and became a hero, if he brought back with him news of a species better fitted for hosts than the ones in current use. And that the mind thing could do. In having Tommy carry him he had discovered the opposable thumb and it was, as far as he knew, unique in the galaxy. It made grasping and handling things so much easier. Quite possibly he could make his projector big enough to let him take a sample human host back with him. If he did that he would save them sending a scouting expedition; they could make their first slave raid in full force.
All that was within his grasp if he worked slowly and carefully and made no mistakes. He had made one already, he now realized. He had lessened his present host’s value to him by making him act in a manner against human mores, thereby attracting attention to him. For a while at least Tommy Hoffman would be an object of curiosity and suspicion, which would somewhat limit his usefulness. People would be watching him to see if he did anything
What he should have done, and would have done if he had taken a few minutes to study Tommy’s thoughts, was this: He should have had Tommy come to him and move him from his dangerously exposed position, but not all the way to the cave. Tommy could have moved him to a place of temporary concealment—the high grass only a few feet off the path would have been good enough and then returned and lain down beside the sleeping girl and pretended to sleep himself. That would have given him time to learn enough about Tommy and the girl, about human actions and emotions, so that when they awakened, he could have appeared to her to be perfectly normal. Possibly he could even (again to use the euphemistic phrase from Tommy’s mind) have “gone another round” with her. The mind thing wouldn’t have enjoyed it, of course; when in a host he felt no pain when he had it killed, but neither did he share any of its pleasurable sensations. He would have had intercourse with the girl simply because it would have been the natural thing for Tommy to have done.
Then they would have dressed and returned home as they had intended to do. (Once inside a host, he could control it at any reasonable distance.) In the morning Tommy could have come back, alone, and moved him to this much better place of concealment in the cave, and then returned home without having aroused anyone’s curiosity.
That’s what he should have done, but it was too late by the time he realized it. His alternate plan would have to suffice. It was based on the concept of something called amnesia that he had found in Tommy’s mind.
Tommy could stay here on guard in front of the cave entrance all night. Early in the morning he could go back and get his clothes (the girl would have left when she got worried enough, but she wouldn’t have taken them) and walk home. His story would be simple. He and the girl had got tired and lain down to rest. He’d gone to sleep. And at dawn he’d waked up in a different place, over a mile away and with no recollection of how he got there. He could hardly have walked that far in his sleep—and besides Tommy had never sleep-walked—so he must have had some reason for going there, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It must be amnesia. They’d have him talk to a doctor a time or two, but nothing would come of that. And henceforth Tommy would, at least in the sight of others, appear to act completely normal—until his usefulness as a host came to an end; then he would either kill himself or, if possible, arrange his own death in some manner that would make it seem accidental.
Besides its simplicity and incontrovertibility, Tommy’s story had another advantage; it would not cross up the girl’s story, whichever way she told it. She might have been frightened enough to tell her family the whole truth— that she and Tommy had slept naked and that he had gone off in that state, or she might well have left that part out. If his first story didn’t mention clothes at all, and if she hadn’t, then their stories would match. If taxed with the fact that she had told the story differently, he could sheepishly admit that, yes, he had been naked when he had gone to sleep and had awakened the same way in the morning. His original omission of that part of the story would be entirely understandable to everyone.
Short- and long-range planning were suddenly interrupted. Through Tommy’s eyes peering through the bushes that masked the cave entrance, the mind thing saw two bobbing lights coming; through Tommy’s ears it heard the excited baying of a hound on a scent, and recognized the dog’s voice as that of Buck, Tommy’s father’s dog.
Immediately he realized what had happened. Tommy’s father had been much more worried than Tommy could have realized. (Probably Charlotte had told the whole truth—Tommy’s leaving her without his clothes would have been more puzzling and frightening than if he had wandered off clothed.) And Tommy had thought (or rather, Tommy’s mind would have thought if Tommy himself had been the one using it) that they might come to look for him tomorrow but not tonight, after dark. Tommy’s mind simply hadn’t thought at all of the possibility of Buck’s being used to track him down.
But now they were coming, two men and the dog. One of the men would be Tommy’s father, the other probably Charlotte’s father.
And the dog would lead them straight to the cave!
He had to distract them, lead them away. Even if it cost him his present host, he couldn’t let attention be drawn to the cave. They were less than a hundred yards away and were heading straight for it, the dog following Tommy’s trail.
Tommy, or Tommy’s body, jumped up and ran around the bushes and toward the approaching lanterns. He ran until he was within the circle of light of the first one and then stopped. Buck barked joyously and strained at the leash to run to him. Gus Hoffman shouted, “Tommy! What the hell—?”
Too near the cave. He turned and started to run again, diagonally away from the cave. He heard them start after him, still calling. “Tommy! Tommy, stop!” He heard Garner say, “Slip the dog’s leash. Buck can catch him.” And his father’s reply, “Sure, and run
He couldn’t run in a straight line because he had to keep to open areas where the moonlight would let him see. Occasionally, while they were still close enough to follow him by sight, they could take short cuts through shadow because of their lanterns, but he could run much faster and was soon outdistancing them. Then he was definitely out of their sight and knew they’d have to let Buck do the trailing again and follow his roundabout course; that would slow them down still more.
He was able to rest a moment then, to catch his breath, and when he started again it was at a fast trot instead of a sprint. He knew where he was going now, and he began to circle to take himself back to his starting point.
And from there to the place, only a very short distance away, where he had perceived the artifact (he knew now what it was, a jackknife) before the two humans had come along the path.
It was in deep grass, and in shadow. Tommy’s sense of sight didn’t help at all now, and he had to have Tommy’s hands grope and feel. It was awkward, but he knew where it was, within inches, and finally Tommy’s fingers closed over it and picked it up.
He broke one of Tommy’s thumbnails trying to open the half-length rusted blade, but finally he got it open with the other nail.
Without hesitation Tommy slashed one of his wrists, changed the knife to his other hand, and slashed the other wrist. Both cuts were deep, almost to the bone, and blood, spurted freely. He didn’t lie down, but within a minute loss of blood blacked him out and he fell heavily.
He was dead when the two men and the dog reached him. And the mind of the mind thing was safely back within itself, buried under nine inches of sand in the cave.
CHAPTER FIVE
It had been a bad night for Gus Hoffman.
He had waited with the body while Jed Garner had gone back for help. While he waited he dressed Tommy’s body in the clothes Garner had been carrying. Not because he had any intention of lying to the sheriff about how they had found Tommy, but because it just didn’t seem decent for the body to be taken in naked.
Garner went straight home. After reaching the road he passed three other farms before he came to his own, but he wanted Charlotte to be the first to know and didn’t want to tell her over a phone. She took the news more quietly than he had dared to hope, mostly because she was ready for it; she had felt instinctively from the moment
