The Mind Thing

utmost limit and within a minute or two they were within its range. It was the same trio that had come last night trailing Tommy —Tommy’s father, Charlotte’s father, and Buck, the dog, straining at the leash and heading straight for the cave. They were taking Tommy’s back trail to see where he had been before he had run toward them.

But why? He had recognized the possibility of their doing so, but had discounted it, not seeing any reason why they would be interested in where Tommy had been, once he was dead. Besides, since Tommy he had had no host or potential host capable of defending him or moving him. Nothing bigger than a rabbit. The sudden thought came to him of finding a rabbit, if one was sleeping near enough, and having it run across the trail to distract the dog. But as quickly, he realized that it wouldn’t work. The dog was on a leash and if he tried to run after a rabbit they’d hold him back and put him on the trail again.

He was completely helpless. If they found him there was nothing he could do about it, nothing at all. But he didn’t panic because the chance that they would find him was slight. They’d have no reason for digging. They’d find the cave, of course, and enter it. They’d wonder why Tommy had come here—but they wouldn’t dig, he felt almost sure.

Now Buck was leading them around the bushes into sight of the entrance. He paused briefly to sniff where Tommy had crouched behind the bushes, and then started into the cave. Hoffman pulled him back.

“Damn,” Garner said. “A cave, he came to. Wish now we’d of brought a gun or two and a flashlight or two. Size of that entrance, it’s just the kind of cave a bear might pick.”

Hoffman said, “If Tommy was in there last night, there wasn’t a bear there then. And a bear’s more likely to be to home by night than by day.”

The mind thing understood, for it now knew the language that was being spoken. Before it had had a human host, such words would have been only meaningless sounds—like the sounds Tommy and the girl had made to each other along the path and in their hiding place before they had gone to sleep.

“Just the same, I’m going in,” Hoffman said.

“Just a minute, Gus. I’ll go in with you. But we might as well be sensible. Take that leash off Buck’s collar and let him go in first. If there is anything dangerous in there, he’s got a hell of a lot better chance than either of us of getting out safe. He’ll be on his feet and we’ll be on hands and knees.”

“Guess that’s sensible.” Hoffman unsnapped the leash from Buck’s collar, and Buck darted into the cave. Halfway, as far as Tommy bad gone, and that was the end of the trail. He lay down.

The men listened for a while. “Guess it’s all right,” Hoffman said. “Nothing could of hurt him so fast he couldn’t of let out a yip. I’m going in.”

He entered on his hands and knees, and Garner followed.

When they reached the center of the cave where Buck lay, they found the ceiling high enough and stood up. It was dim, but they could see a little.

“Well, this is it,” Garner said. “Reckon this is as far in as he came, since Buck stopped here. And there’s nothing here, but it’s nice and cool. Let’s sit down and rest a minute before we go back.”

They sat down. The mind thing studied the dog. It was his first chance to do so, and thus far this was the biggest potential animal host he had had a chance to study.

Henceforth, Buck might be his if he ever needed a dog. Or the nearest other dog that happened to be asleep.

And now Buck, relaxed from his tracking, went to sleep. The mind thing considered, but waited. In Buck, he would have only Buck’s senses, not his own.

“I’m trying to figure why he came here,” Hoffman said.

“Anybody’s guess, Gus. He was out of his mind, that’s all. Probably discovered this cave when he was a kid and remembered it, came here to hide from—from whatever. You can’t figure what’s going through a guy’s mind when he’s out of his mind.”

“Could be, to hide. But what if he came here to hide something? Or dig up something he’d hid here before? Don’t ask me what, but this is soft sand, easy digging even with your hands.”

“What would he be hiding? Or going to dig up?”

“Dunno. But if we found anything here—”

The struggle was less negligible than that with the mind of a field mouse, but the mind thing was in Buck’s mind almost instantly. Buck lifted his head.

He—the mind thing in Buck—considered. He probably couldn’t kill both of these men, but he could manage with a sudden attack to get in bites on both of them before they could subdue or kill him. That would certainly distract them from digging, at least right away. Probably it would send them hurrying back to town and a doctor. If not because the bites themselves were bad enough, then because of the same fear of rabies that Tommy and the girl had felt.

Garner said, “Not now, Gus. Look, I don’t think we’ll find anything or learn anything, but I’ll go along on coming back with you and trying, tomorrow. Too dark in here, for one thing, to do a good job without flashlights or a lantern, and if we do it at all we might as well do a good job and be sure, huh? And it’ll go quicker if we have a spade and a rake. Besides, there isn’t time now. We won’t get home much before lunch as it is, and after lunch we got to get cleaned up and dressed, for the inquest.”

“Guess you’re right, Jed,” Gus said. “Okay, we might as well take off now. Least, we learned one thing we can tell at the inquest. Where Tommy went. And where he must of stayed till he saw our lanterns coming. If he’d left the cave here when he saw our lanterns he’d of met us just about where he did.”

Buck put his head down again. When the men left to crawl out of the cave, he followed them, trotted alongside Hoffman as the real Buck would have done, for the two miles back to the road.

There he bolted suddenly away from them—along the road, but east, in the opposite direction from the way they were headed. He did not go back into the woods toward the cave; he didn’t want them remotely to suspect that he might be going back there. Hoffman called after him, but he paid no attention and kept running.

When he was out of sight around a bend, he dropped to a trot and cut into the woods. There was no path here but, without regard to Buck’s senses or his knowledge of the terrain, the mind thing had perfect orientation; he went straight back to the cave.

Once inside, Buck dug through nine inches of sand and picked up the mind thing’s shell in his mouth, carried it out of the cave, and put it down gently. Then he went back into the cave and filled in the hole he had dug. When it was filled he rolled over it several times to eliminate all signs that there had ever been a hole there. Then he went outside and picked up the mind thing again in his mouth. It was no heavier than a partridge, and he was as soft- mouthed as he would have been in carrying a wounded bird.

He trotted into the woods, avoiding paths or even game trails, looking for the wildest, most secluded spot. In thick, high grass, screened by bushes, he found a small hollow log. It would serve, at least for a while. With his mouth he placed the mind thing in one end of the hollow log and with a paw pushed it in farther, completely out of sight.

Then he trotted on in the same direction—so that if anyone with another dog should follow Buck’s trail, he’d simply be led past the log—and a hundred yards away sat down while the mind thing considered.

He was safe now from being found when the men came back to the cave to dig. But did he want to keep Buck as a host for a while? He considered carefully and decided against it. Buck had served his purpose, and if he stayed in Buck he would have only Buck’s senses; he could not study other potential hosts and ready himself for them. He wanted to be able to get, when he wanted one, a hawk, an owl, a deer, other animals. And while he was in Buck he could not so ready himself by studying other creatures as they passed near him.

Buck trotted ahead, veering slowly till he was heading back toward the road.

At the edge of the road he waited until a car came along. Then, at the last moment, and before the driver could have time even to touch the brakes, he dashed forward, right under its wheels.

Back in himself in the hollow log one minute later (it had taken Buck just that long to die), the mind thing thought back over everything he had just done and decided that he had made no mistake this time.

Nor had he, except for one he could not possibly have foreseen. He should have let Buck wait for another car. The driver of the car that had killed Buck was Ralph S. Staunton, Ph.D., Sc.D., professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Doc Staunton did not look impressive. He was small, about five feet six, and weighed slightly under a hundred and twenty-five pounds. He was fifty, and his crew-cut hair was graying, but he had a wiry strength and an agile body and mind that made him seem younger. The first thing you’d have noticed about him was his eyes, because