“Do you know what it meant by saying it was a question of synapses?” she asked.
“That was queer!” The Doctor’s voice was puzzled. “That remark implies that the thing itself knew what it was. How? It must have possessed knowledge that the normal brain lacked.”
“Was it a question of synapses?”
“In a sense it was. The nerves from the two rival brains must have met in a synaptic juncture. The oftener the aberrant brain gained control, the easier it became for it to repeat the process, as the synapse, so to speak, wore thin. That’s why the attacks intensified so horribly toward the end; the habit was being formed.”
“Last night was the very worst!”
“Of course. As the thing itself pointed out, I made the mistake of drugging the normal brain and giving the other complete control of the body. At other times, there’d always been the rivalry to weaken whichever was dominant.”
“Does that mean,” asked Pat anxiously, “that Nick’s character will be changed now?”
“I think so. I think you’ll find him less meek, less gentle, than heretofore. More spirited, perhaps, since his energies won’t be drained so constantly by the struggle.”
“I don’t care!” she said. “I’d like that, and anyway, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me as long as he’s just—my Nick.”
The Doctor gave her a tender smile. “Let’s go home,” he said, pinching her cheek in his great hand.
“Can you leave him?”
“I’ll run back after a while, Honey. I think he’ll do.” He took her hand, drawing her after him. “Don’t forget to slip in unseen, Pat, and rumple up your bed.”
“Rumple it!” She gave him a weary smile. “I’ll be in it!”
“Good idea. You look a bit worn out, Honey, and we can’t have you getting sick now, or even pull a temporary faint like that one last night.”
“I didn’t faint!”
“Maybe not,” grinned Horker. “Perhaps the proceedings grew a little boring, and you just lay down on the couch for a nap. It was a dull evening.”
Colophon
The Dark Other
was published in 1950 by
Stanley G. Weinbaum.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Nicholas Czaban,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2015 by
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Distributed Proofreaders Open Library System.
The cover page is adapted from
The Demon Seated,
a painting completed in 1890 by
Mikhail Vrubel.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
October 26, 2019, 11:10 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/stanley-g-weinbaum/the-dark-other.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
Copyright pages exist to tell you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you, among other things, that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the U.S. public domain. The U.S. public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the U.S. to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Public domain items are free of copyright restrictions.
Copyright laws are different around the world. If you’re not located in the U.S., check with your local laws before using this ebook.
Non-authorship activities performed on public domain items—so-called “sweat of the brow” work—don’t create a new copyright. That means nobody can claim a new copyright on a public domain item for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, to dispel any possible doubt on the copyright status of this ebook, Standard Ebooks L3C, its contributors, and the contributors to this ebook release this ebook under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work they’ve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesn’t change the copyright status of the underlying works, which, though believed to already be in the U.S. public domain, may not yet be in the public domain of other countries. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much.
