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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3498efc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53089 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53089) diff --git a/old/53089-h.zip b/old/53089-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index cbc3e0b..0000000 --- a/old/53089-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/53089-h/53089-h.htm b/old/53089-h/53089-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index cd787cb..0000000 --- a/old/53089-h/53089-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1187 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Creature Inside, by Jack Sharkey. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Creature Inside, by Jack Sharkey - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Creature Inside - -Author: Jack Sharkey - -Illustrator: Bruno - Wallace Wood - -Release Date: September 19, 2016 [EBook #53089] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATURE INSIDE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="388" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>The Creature Inside</h1> - -<p>BY JACK SHARKEY</p> - -<p>ILLUSTRATED BY WOOD</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of Tomorrow December 1963<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">The room was small, but it held a whole<br /> -universe—and Norcriss had no place in it!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">I</p> - -<p>"How much did they tell you about the fix we're in?" said Dr. Alan -Burgess to his visitor.</p> - -<p>Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss shook his head. "They said you'd fill me in. -They said it was urgent."</p> - -<p>Burgess paused, lighted a cigarette, then belatedly offered one to -Jerry, who declined. "Well," he said, interspersing his words with -short nervous puffs of smoke, "about a year ago, I stumbled on a -way to reverse the process of an electro-encephalograph, to play -pre-recorded thoughts and experiences to a man's mind. You zoologists, -with your Contact process for penetrating newly discovered fauna's -minds, will be familiar with the process. Luckily for us."</p> - -<p>Jerry eyed him. "Go on."</p> - -<p>"My development involves an infinitely selective feedback. We give the -subject a saturating dose of inflowing concepts. His mind is free -to choose among them and to link them. Take 'bigness, affluence and -danger' for an instance. The subject puts them together and fleshes -them out. He could experience a large, expensive fission bomb falling -onto him, or he could be sacrificed to an immense golden idol, or—Or -anything that his inner mind chose."</p> - -<p>"I begin to understand," said Jerry. "The overlay influences all -the senses. The subject thinks he's <i>really</i> undergoing whatever he -conjures up—and you use it for therapy, letting him work off his -aggressions and frustrations in what seems to him an actual universe."</p> - -<p>"Correct, except for the tense," said Alan Burgess. "I <i>was</i> doing -that until Monday of this week." He leaned forward across the desk. -"We screen the subjects carefully, because certain psychoses could be -disastrous to the subject in my device. Paranoia, for instance. The -man would be amid unutterable horrors, with danger on every side; he'd -emerge a gibbering idiot, if he didn't die of heart failure first."</p> - -<p>"Emerge?" asked Jerry, frowning. "I'd assumed you used a helmet, such -as we do in Contact...."</p> - -<p>Burgess sighed. "Unfortunately, I am paying the penalty of lone-wolf -experimentation. I wish I'd had the sense to route the input to the -brain through a helmet, but I didn't. Instead I installed the person in -an observation room. The influencing factor was nutrition. Intravenous -feedings wouldn't have served the purpose of the observer; sometimes -the subject's choice of foodstuffs is significant. He had to be let -move about, his mind in a make-believe world, but his body actually -moving about a room we could see into. So—I had an atomic duplicator -installed. The hospital got one last year for making radium, turning -cancerous growths into normal flesh, regrowing bone and the like.</p> - -<p>"Should the subject then grow hungry, the duplicator would be triggered -by his conviction of eating. In his mind, he might be—hanging from -a branch by his tail, for instance. The duplicator's production of -bananas, coconuts or whatever would give us a further clue to his state -of mind. You see?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"So far, sound enough, Dr. Burgess," said Jerry. "So what went wrong? I -assume something did, or I wouldn't be here."</p> - -<p>"We made a terrible error. We tried observing a man named Anthony -Mawson in our gadget. I'd diagnosed his case as simple inferiority -complex. My fault. Wrong diagnosis. Mawson has megalomania, a gorgeous -case of it ... of course, he's not the first such case to fool -psychiatrists. You see, his outward shyness, soft-spoken voice and -general gawkishness is due to feeling superior to others, not the -reverse. He feels smarter, stronger, braver, etcetera, than everybody -else in creation—but he also feels that nobody knows it but himself. -Hence his indrawing, his brooding, taciturn gentility."</p> - -<p>Jerry Norcriss prodded. "What happened with Mawson when you put him in -your machine?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know," said Burgess. "No one's been able to see into the -machine since he entered it on Monday."</p> - -<p>"He couldn't have escaped?"</p> - -<p>"No! I wish he had. Anthony Mawson is still in that room, in his own -private universe, and we can't get him out of it. We've tried cutting -the power to the machine; the opacity inside the room remains. We sent -two men in after him. They never came out."</p> - -<p>"How could he possibly?" asked Jerry.</p> - -<p>Burgess shook his head. "We can only guess. Our theory is that he's -used the duplicator to make the entire room self-sustaining. Normally -we could wait till he runs out of material to feed the duplicator, -but—we can't wait on the lives of those two men. Nor can we chance his -expanding his universe."</p> - -<p>Norcriss frowned. "Expanding it?"</p> - -<p>Burgess nodded. "By, perhaps, feeding the duplicator with the room -itself. With a pickaxe, he can start hewing down the very walls, or -even have the duplicator build a robot that will take care of its -need for material to build with. Against this development, we have -surrounded the room completely with a force-shield, limiting his -outward progress to two feet of concrete in any direction. But the room -is approximately thirty feet square, and twenty feet high. With all -that mass he could exist in there for years."</p> - -<p>"And my job is to get him out," said Jerry.</p> - -<p>"Yes. The government feels that a Contact specialist's the only -kind of man to send into this madman's world. You men are used to -extra-somatic experiences—and you have learned to live with danger -without losing your heads."</p> - -<p>"Well," said Jerry, getting up, "I guess that sums up the situation -sufficiently."</p> - -<p>Burgess nodded, sadly. "Any further briefing is useless. Impossible, -really. I've told you the situation, and you can certainly imagine the -danger. But as for the solution, well.... You'll just have to feel your -way, and do whatever you think best."</p> - -<p>Jerry paused beside Burgess at the door to the hall. "One thing, -though, Doctor; when <i>I</i> get into the influence of the machine, what -kind of universe will I be in? Mine or Mawson's?"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="363" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"I can only theorize on that," said Burgess. "My guess would be that -you'll find both in there, one vying for supremacy over the other. This -fight won't be man to man. It will be universe against universe."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">II</p> - -<p>There had been no sensation at all as Jerry stepped through the flat -sheet of grayness in the doorway; no more physical awareness than -a blind man might feel when passing through the beam of a powerful -light. Perhaps there was a slight sensation of the mere presence of the -energies that kept the opacity in existence—but that sensation, Jerry -knew, was psychological, not actual.</p> - -<p>"Although," he realized, as his world became an infinity of opalescent -gray, "in this place, a psychological awareness will be no different -from a genuine physical sensation. Better be careful what I think about -in this psychokinetic fog...."</p> - -<p>The thought was barely formulated when the grayness changed. It became -moist against his flesh, and started swirling in tendrils about him. -"Damn it, be <i>careful</i>!" he belatedly cautioned his mind. "Now the -stuff <i>is</i> fog!" Ahead of him in the swirling mist a brighter-than-gray -glow led his footsteps forward.</p> - -<p>He found himself standing beneath an overhanging marquee. Its black -undersurface was runneled with condensed moisture amid the garish naked -bulbs that haloed the wet cement sidewalk.</p> - -<p>A red-coated doorman, resplendent behind rows of bright brassy buttons, -gave him a smile as he pulled open the door that led to the club. Jerry -nodded and went inside.</p> - -<p>Thick crimson carpet cushioned his footfalls as he moved cautiously -through an empty lobby, then down a white marble staircase toward the -ballroom. Dimly, he was aware that the band at the far end of the -mammoth room was playing music. What song he didn't know until a chance -chording reminded him of a popular song of the day ... at which point -that suddenly was the tune. The tables ringing the dance floor were -covered with bright linen and shining silver. The tables were empty -of patrons, however, until Jerry casually thought, "I should think -business would be better—"</p> - -<p>Suddenly a horde of laughing couples appeared in the chairs, with -hurrying waiters bringing champagne, trays and menus to their guests.</p> - -<p>The men wore tuxedos; the women were in evening dress. He looked -suddenly at himself, and saw that his uniform was now the official -dress uniform of the Space Corps. Before he could conquer it, his mind -voiced a quick wish that he shouldn't be dining alone; and then a girl -was rising from her place at a table beside the dance floor, hurrying -to greet him, hands outstretched.</p> - -<p>Her fingers were small and strong and warm. She smiled up at him. -"Jerry, darling."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Despite her being only arm's length from him, he could not see her -well at all. His impression was merely one of youth, loveliness and -girl-ness. But then, as he tried to ascertain precisely what she looked -like, hidden corners of his mind began to supply each detail an instant -before his conscious quest for it and Jerry, in a few moments, was -suddenly staggered with delighted shock.</p> - -<p>Very few men are privileged to find a girl who lives up to all their -dreams of perfection in a woman.</p> - -<p>Hair as soft as cobweb, as fluffy as dancing clouds, as golden as -flowing honey, cascaded down about a slender alabaster throat, and died -in golden ripples on smooth white shoulders. Eyes the rich brown of -raw chocolate gazed serenely at him from under red-gold brows and jet -lashes, their patrician serenity permeated with a touch of twinkling -impishness. Her lips were soft and not unlike berry-stained velvet, -sweet and warm and tempting; her mouth generous and tilted at the -corners into a smile of greeting—obviously the result of her subduing -a frank laugh of joy at seeing him. Geometrically perfect teeth flashed -white as porcelain between her lips. Her gown was a shimmering midnight -blue, highlighted with random sprinkles of brightly coruscating gems.</p> - -<p>Even as his lips parted to ask her name, Jerry knew it and spoke it -softly. "Carol."</p> - -<p>"Listen," she said softly, tilting her head toward where the band had -begun a new song. Swift, urgent and rapturous, it floated through the -room, surrounded the two of them, took possession of them. Then Carol -was in his arms, and Jerry was dancing out onto the floor with her. The -other couples were a blur of forgotten figures that swayed.</p> - -<p>Jerry knew the melody. It was their song, their own private love -song, the one that had been playing on the night when they both knew, -suddenly, that there could be no one else for either of them but the -other....</p> - -<p>As they returned to their table, Jerry realized that Carol was now -garbed in a white peasant blouse and bright flowered flaring skirt, and -that her hair was drawn back at the temples to expose her ears, now -adorned with golden hoops. The table was in a lattice-backed booth, -covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth. The inner surface of the -table held salt, pepper, grated cheese and breadsticks, matching cruets -of pale olive oil and dark vinegar. The band was now a five-man gypsy -ensemble.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Remember the first time we came here, Jerry?" asked Carol, her eyes at -once upon his face and distant, dreamy....</p> - -<p>As she smiled, Jerry noticed with dull horror that one of her eyes was -perceptibly lower than the other.</p> - -<p>The teeth she flashed his way were mottled with brown stains. She took -hold of his fingers with her own.</p> - -<p>"Carol!" he said shakily, staring at the knuckly, red-raw hands that -clutched at his. "What's happening?"</p> - -<p>"Happening?" she said, her voice a raucous croak of amusement. -"<i>Nothing's</i> happening! In fact, you're probably one of the dullest -guys I ever got stuck with." She tossed her head petulantly. Coarse, -straw-colored hair flipped away from her thick neck. Her breath was -sour with wine and miasmic with garlic.</p> - -<p>"Carol!" he cried.</p> - -<p>"Don't whine!" she snapped, viciously. "I hate a guy who whines!" With -that, she shoved out of the booth, and waddled toward the rear of the -coffeehouse, one hand scratching at a bulge of flesh that overhung -the too-tight girdle. Her black leotards were twisted and dull as she -passed the flashing rainbow lights of the brassy jukebox.</p> - -<p>Jerry shoved away from the table, overturning his coffee in its cracked -china cup, and he wove his way through the reek and smoke toward the -door through which she'd vanished.</p> - -<p>When he got there, the door was a peeling poster on a bare brick wall, -advertising some long-forgotten show. His fingers scrabbled on rough -mortar for a moment. Then he turned and paced back to his cot, where he -flopped on his back in the long shadows of the bars.</p> - -<p>"Norcriss!" said the guard, coming into the cell. "This is it!" The -brass uniform buttons flashed brightly.</p> - -<p>Strong hands were lifting him from the cot, dragging him down a long -corridor toward a steel door. As they got there, the door opened wide, -and Jerry saw the gaping maw of hungry steel gears, while behind him a -man's voice droned prayers.</p> - -<p>Then, before the guard could shove Jerry forward into that waiting -mechanical mouth, Jerry noticed the odd shimmer of grayness that lay -between himself and the waiting teeth, and he remembered that he was in -a world of illusion.</p> - -<p>At precisely that moment he knew beyond a doubt that those waiting -jaws were illusion in form only. An atomic duplicator does not have to -chew its intake. It merely dissolves the atomic bonds with the rays -that flash between its power plates on either side of the disruption -platform. The waiting mouth and teeth were mere symbols in Jerry's mind -of what was about to occur.</p> - -<p>They were unreal—but they could be fatal.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He shut his eyes, shoved backward with his feet, and thought of Carol -as he'd first glimpsed her.</p> - -<p>When he opened his eyes once more, she was standing before him in her -ballroom gown again, and the band was just beginning to play their -song once more.</p> - -<p>"Jerry," she said, taking his arm. "Dance with me."</p> - -<p>"No. We're in danger here. Come on, I'll get your coat. We've got to go -away quickly."</p> - -<p>A spark of alarm showed briefly in her eyes. Then she nodded wordlessly -and hurried up the marble staircase with him to the lobby. Jerry got -her coat from the check-room—a marvelous silvery fur that covered -her from neck to waist—and then they were heading out into the fog -together.</p> - -<p>"Good evening to you, sir," said the doorman, eyes and buttons bright.</p> - -<p>Jerry grunted and led Carol off down the street into the fog.</p> - -<p>"Where are we going?" she asked, breathlessly trying to keep pace.</p> - -<p>"Away, I hope," he said. Even their movement from the ballroom could -be sheer illusion. Jerry tried moving from the club entrance in the -exact reverse of the motion in which he'd first approached it, trying -to achieve the real doorway that led from the experimental room into -the antiseptic hospital corridor where Burgess waited. But the fog -continued to be fog. It would not take on the form of that intangible -gray shimmering that guarded the entrance to Anthony Mawson's -megalomaniac universe.</p> - -<p>"If I could only see where—" he began.</p> - -<p>Then every tendril of fog was gone.</p> - -<p>Before him lay the cold blackness of outer space, pinpointed with -hard, unwinking stars. Jerry recoiled from the viewplate, shaken, and -turned around to see Carol. Her eyes were wide and startled as she -glanced about at the metal confines of the control cabin. Jerry had -just time enough to think how incongruous she looked in her fur jacket -and long blueblack gown ... and then she was clothed in the neat gray -uniform of the WASP, trim short-sleeved shirt and sharply creased -shorts.</p> - -<p>"Jerry," said Carol. She slipped her arm through his, staring at the -infinite stars in the viewplate. "What are we running from?"</p> - -<p>He tried to think, but could not remember. "There's—some danger behind -us. We have to get away from it, Carol. It means complete destruction -if we're caught."</p> - -<p>Carol stared helplessly at the stars in the viewplate. "But where are -we running to?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Jerry shook his head. "Impossible to tell. Not without the help of a -good astrogator. Out in space, stars shift and magnitudes change. I'm -not even qualified to guess—"</p> - -<p>"Sire," said the astrogator, handing a clipboard to Jerry, "we can -reach any of these seven stars in a few hours. Just tell me where you'd -prefer to go."</p> - -<p>Jerry turned to the man, resplendent in his neat Space Corps uniform, -jacket bright with brass buttons. When he tried to focus upon the man's -features he could detect nothing.</p> - -<p>"We'd better choose the quickest trip," Jerry said, after a moment's -indecision. "No telling how much fuel we have left."</p> - -<p>The astrogator nodded. "I'm afraid that's out of my department, all -right, sir. But if <i>you'd</i> care to check the tanks?" Without waiting -for a reply, the man turned and began to pick his way carefully toward -the rear of the spaceship, stepping from girder to girder. The floor, -Jerry noticed idly as he followed, was exposed to open space between -the curving ribs of steel that formed the framework of the ship.</p> - -<p>"Careful, now," he said, helping Carol along from one to the other. -"That's vacuum out there. We don't want to fall through."</p> - -<p>Ahead of Jerry, the implacable man with the brass buttons was nearly to -the steel door masking the blast chamber where the components of fuel -were mingled and ignited. Jerry, giddly aware of every hazardous step -over the squares of star-speckled blackness, kept one hand on Carol's -arm, the other on her chessboard.</p> - -<p>"Don't spill any of the men!" she cautioned, as the diminutive plastic -figures danced and rattled on the board. "I don't intend to search the -whole cosmos for a pawn."</p> - -<p>"Here you go, sir," said the politely insistent astrogator, opening the -steel door. Before Jerry yawned an oval of intense white flame, the -radiating heat crisping against his skin and hair.</p> - -<p>"The fission rate," Jerry mumbled, consulting his wristwatch. "I've got -to time it, or I won't be able to calculate the amount of fuel still in -the bulkheads."</p> - -<p>"Count it by steps, sir," suggested the astrogator.</p> - -<p>"One," said Jerry, stepping out toward that blinding coruscation of -heat. "Two," he said, feeling carefully for the next girder.</p> - -<p>Then the toe of his boot slipped from the metal, and he realized, -with a horrible lancing of adrenalin through his abdomen, that he was -falling out the opening between the girders. The only salvation would -be a shove with his still-braced rear foot, but that would carry him -directly into the inferno of burning fuel. An eternity of falling -through icy vacuum against an instant of intolerable searing pain....</p> - -<p>"The fire—" gasped Jerry, toppling in inexorable slow motion toward -starry darkness, a cloud of twirling chess pieces orbiting about his -head. "I've got to make it into the fire...."</p> - -<p>He tensed the muscles of the laggard leg for the spring that would -carry him to destruction, and then he saw that the chess pieces were -shimmering gray, and the oval frame of the doorway to the flaming fuel -was shimmering gray, and even what had seemed hot white burning was -cold gray waiting mist, and with a yell of remembrance, Jerry clamped -shut his eyes and let himself plunge downward into nothingness....</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">III</p> - -<p>"Are you all right, Norcriss?" Jerry blinked slowly, then focused on -the face of Dr. Alan Burgess. He found himself lying on a narrow, -white-sheeted cart, in the corridor outside the room where all the -trouble had begun. "Mawson," he said groggily. "Is he—?"</p> - -<p>Burgess nodded wearily. "Still in there, in full control of his one-man -universe. What happened, Norcriss? You came tumbling out that door like -a wild man, clawing the air and yelling. Then you went into shock. -You've been unconscious for two hours."</p> - -<p>"I—I thought I was falling," Jerry admitted. "The last thing I -remember is stepping through the open space between a spaceship's -supporting girders."</p> - -<p>"What open space?" said Burgess, frowning curiously.</p> - -<p>Jerry shook his head. "There isn't any such thing. But something -happens to logic in that room. It's like having a dream, Doctor. Things -that would startle you in everyday life seem correct. Even familiar. -But there's a kind of pattern to events. At first, I'm in my universe, -and mostly in control. Then little fragments of my pseudo-reality start -slipping, changing into other things. The changes seem perfectly normal -to me. Then, all at once, the guy with the brass buttons turns up—and -I've managed in the nick of time, twice, to realize that I was about to -be sent or led between the disrupting plates of your atomic duplicator."</p> - -<p>"The man with the brass buttons," Burgess said slowly. "Do you think -it's Mawson?"</p> - -<p>"Either him or a robot he's made to keep his machine fed." When Burgess -scowled, Jerry shrugged and appended, "It is his machine, for all -practical purposes. He's the boss of that hungry electronic monster, -Doctor, however the hospital feels about it."</p> - -<p>"This Carol. Is she a real woman, or a figment of your imagination, -wishful thinking?"</p> - -<p>"She's real enough," Jerry sighed. "She's the personal secretary of the -entire Space zoology program. I take her out sometimes. There's nothing -special between us."</p> - -<p>"But you wish there were," said Burgess.</p> - -<p>Jerry stared at him. "What makes you think that?"</p> - -<p>Burgess tilted his head toward the room where Mawson still maintained -control. "Your visions in there. You must think a lot of her. You can -kid yourself consciously; but nearly all you underwent in there came -straight from your subconscious. And a subconscious just doesn't know -how to lie."</p> - -<p>Jerry changed the subject, "What's our next move? How soon can I go -back after Mawson?"</p> - -<p>"You can't. Mawson's knowledge of this Carol can easily be turned to -your disadvantage. He can use her to lead you to dissolution in there. -No, it's much too risky. You're lucky you got out when you did."</p> - -<p>"But what about Mawson, then?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Burgess tried to look confident. He failed. "We can ring up your -headquarters and ask for another man. Or, if worse comes to worse, we -can partition off this part of the hospital, and just sit it out until -Mawson runs out of atomic building blocks."</p> - -<p>"Which may take years," Jerry reminded him.</p> - -<p>Burgess turned his palms upward. "What else can we do?"</p> - -<p>"Send me again," said Jerry. "I know the score pretty well, now. I know -what to watch out for. I'm sure that with one more try I can get Mawson -out of there."</p> - -<p>"Sorry," Burgess said, shaking his head. "As a medical man, I cannot -permit it. You've had a bad shock. We'll try someone else, if your -outfit will send someone, and see what happens. If he fails, or if they -won't supply us with any more men, then—well, you can try again in a -few weeks, if you're still game. But not now."</p> - -<p>"Doctor, in a few weeks, Mawson will be so well in control of that -universe that he may find a way to block the entrance. Have you thought -of that?"</p> - -<p>"His universe is not a real one—" Burgess began.</p> - -<p>"But that duplicator is real enough. It can make anything he decides he -needs. And at any time he may get the bright idea of simply mounting -his machine right at the entrance, so anyone stepping into that gray -field will be powdered into atoms, instantly."</p> - -<p>"That's true enough," admitted Burgess. "But my diagnosis still -stands. For now, you are off this assignment. When I feel you're -ready—assuming nothing else has succeeded meantime—I'll contact you -at the base."</p> - -<p>"How do you know I won't be off on some other planet by then?" asked -Jerry bitterly.</p> - -<p>"I don't," said Burgess. "I hope you are not, but there isn't anything -further I can do about it. I'm sorry."</p> - -<p>"And what do I do in the meantime?"</p> - -<p>Burgess grinned. "Call up this Carol and go out on the town."</p> - -<p>Jerry shook his head at the last part. "No thanks. I prefer Carol to -know nothing about it."</p> - -<p>Burgess shrugged and gave it up. "All right, Norcriss. Rest here till -you feel stronger, then you're free to go." Then he was striding off -down the corridor.</p> - -<p>After a bit, Jerry sat up cautiously, let the slight giddiness subside, -then swung his legs off the side of the cart and got down.</p> - -<p>Behind him, the door to Mawson's universe stood open on its wall of -grayness. Jerry stared thoughtfully at it, then saw that the two -internes who were guarding the opposite ends of this section of the -hospital corridor were hesitantly half-starting toward him. Jerry knew -he could be through that doorway and into the grayness before they got -within ten feet of him....</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph4">IV</p> - -<p>Then his shoulders slumped, and he turned and walked toward the -elevators. Burgess was right. He felt worn out, and uninclined to make -grandstand plays. Besides, he thought, thumbing the elevator button, -it would be nice to see the <i>real</i> Carol again, after her nebulous -pseudo-self. He wanted very much to put his arms around a girl who -wouldn't suddenly turn into something horrible in his embrace.</p> - -<p>The steel doors slid open before him, and the elevator boy leaned out -to check the corridor for other passengers. "Down," he said. Jerry -nodded and started into the elevator.</p> - -<p>Then he hesitated, and looked back toward the room where Mawson reigned -supreme, then back at the elevator boy. "Say," he said, uncertainly, -"that's a strange outfit for an elevator attendant in a hospital. I'd -have expected an orderly in an all-white getup."</p> - -<p>The boy glanced down at his uniform, the bright blue pants, shined -black shoes, and scarlet jacket bright with twin rows of brass buttons. -"I suppose it is," he said. "But I don't usually run this elevator. I'm -from the hotel next door. I'm just doing this while the regular guy -takes his coffee break."</p> - -<p>Jerry hesitated, then stepped toward the waiting elevator with its -pale gray walls. And stopped again. His hand went to his forehead, -bewilderedly. "There's something—" he said.</p> - -<p>Then Carol was beside him, slipping her arm through his. "Come on, -Jerry," she said urgently. "We'll be late for our date."</p> - -<p>Jerry looked at her, then at the hotel corridor behind her, then again -at the waiting elevator.</p> - -<p>"I have the oddest feeling something's wrong," he said. "I—I don't -remember coming over here for you."</p> - -<p>"You didn't," she said promptly. "I came for you, Jerry. This is your -hotel, remember? Doctor Burgess said you'd had a bad shock, but I -didn't know how bad till now."</p> - -<p>"Shock?" said Jerry. "What shock? What was bothering me?"</p> - -<p>Carol smiled tightly. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Come on, Jerry, -darling." Again she drew him toward the elevator.</p> - -<p>"If I could only remember," he said, uneasily, on the brink of that -open cube of bright grayness. Then his eyes focused upon the brass -buttons fronting the boy's jacket, and at his own shadow as it passed -across those glowing hemispheres. As the shadow crossed a button, the -color would die, and the button would be dull crystal, and then glow -bright and brassy again when the shadow had passed.</p> - -<p>"Photoelectric cells!" said Jerry. "Light-sensitive cells. Those aren't -buttons, they're eyes! Multiple robot eyes!" He staggered away from the -boy. Carol stopped him.</p> - -<p>The elevator boy, suddenly half again Jerry's height, was towering -over him, long steel arms extending like hooked telescopes toward him. -"Get in, Jerry, get <i>in</i>!" cried Carol, struggling to push him forward -toward those invincible metal clamps.</p> - -<p>In a fury of fear, Jerry fought her, grappled with her, twisted to -avoid those extending robot hands that would drag him to destruction. -And suddenly Carol was screaming his name, and her eyes were pools -of terror and betrayal, and the leaping metal fingers had buried -themselves in the soft flesh of her shoulders and dragged her back into -grayness.</p> - -<p>Incredible energies came alive about her, and then there was only a -shimmer of dusty crystalline winds, and she was gone.</p> - -<p>Jerry found himself standing before the still-warm plates of the atomic -duplicator, in the room where Mawson had had his short-lived universe. -Beside the machine, a squat cubic box dangled limp steel arms, its rows -of photo-electric cells losing their golden glow.</p> - -<p>And then, as Burgess came hurrying in through the door, he toppled over -in a dead faint.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"So there is no such person as Carol?" said Burgess, standing at -the foot of the hospital bed. "She was only the figment of your -imagination?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," said Jerry dully. "And all along, it was Mawson I was really -with. He was clever, all right. She was certainly the last occupant of -that crazy place I was likely to attack. If he had not tried attacking -me himself—I might be atom dust by now. A little longer, and she—he, -I mean—might have <i>talked</i> me into that elevator."</p> - -<p>"Well," said Burgess, "I'm sorry this thing ended with Mawson's -dissolution, but that can't be helped. You did your job well, -Lieutenant."</p> - -<p>"Thanks," said Jerry, expressionlessly.</p> - -<p>"To come so near death so many times—" Burgess shuddered. "You have -a remarkable constitution, not to have cracked under such a strain. -Lieutenant, you're a lucky man."</p> - -<p>And Jerry, his mind still filled with a vision of golden hair, soft -brown eyes and warm, eager lips, could only echo wearily, "Very lucky."</p> - -<p class="ph4">END</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Creature Inside, by Jack Sharkey - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATURE INSIDE *** - -***** This file should be named 53089-h.htm or 53089-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/8/53089/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Creature Inside - -Author: Jack Sharkey - -Illustrator: Bruno - Wallace Wood - -Release Date: September 19, 2016 [EBook #53089] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATURE INSIDE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - The Creature Inside - - BY JACK SHARKEY - - ILLUSTRATED BY WOOD - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of Tomorrow December 1963 - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - The room was small, but it held a whole - universe--and Norcriss had no place in it! - - -I - -"How much did they tell you about the fix we're in?" said Dr. Alan -Burgess to his visitor. - -Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss shook his head. "They said you'd fill me in. -They said it was urgent." - -Burgess paused, lighted a cigarette, then belatedly offered one to -Jerry, who declined. "Well," he said, interspersing his words with -short nervous puffs of smoke, "about a year ago, I stumbled on a -way to reverse the process of an electro-encephalograph, to play -pre-recorded thoughts and experiences to a man's mind. You zoologists, -with your Contact process for penetrating newly discovered fauna's -minds, will be familiar with the process. Luckily for us." - -Jerry eyed him. "Go on." - -"My development involves an infinitely selective feedback. We give the -subject a saturating dose of inflowing concepts. His mind is free -to choose among them and to link them. Take 'bigness, affluence and -danger' for an instance. The subject puts them together and fleshes -them out. He could experience a large, expensive fission bomb falling -onto him, or he could be sacrificed to an immense golden idol, or--Or -anything that his inner mind chose." - -"I begin to understand," said Jerry. "The overlay influences all -the senses. The subject thinks he's _really_ undergoing whatever he -conjures up--and you use it for therapy, letting him work off his -aggressions and frustrations in what seems to him an actual universe." - -"Correct, except for the tense," said Alan Burgess. "I _was_ doing -that until Monday of this week." He leaned forward across the desk. -"We screen the subjects carefully, because certain psychoses could be -disastrous to the subject in my device. Paranoia, for instance. The -man would be amid unutterable horrors, with danger on every side; he'd -emerge a gibbering idiot, if he didn't die of heart failure first." - -"Emerge?" asked Jerry, frowning. "I'd assumed you used a helmet, such -as we do in Contact...." - -Burgess sighed. "Unfortunately, I am paying the penalty of lone-wolf -experimentation. I wish I'd had the sense to route the input to the -brain through a helmet, but I didn't. Instead I installed the person in -an observation room. The influencing factor was nutrition. Intravenous -feedings wouldn't have served the purpose of the observer; sometimes -the subject's choice of foodstuffs is significant. He had to be let -move about, his mind in a make-believe world, but his body actually -moving about a room we could see into. So--I had an atomic duplicator -installed. The hospital got one last year for making radium, turning -cancerous growths into normal flesh, regrowing bone and the like. - -"Should the subject then grow hungry, the duplicator would be triggered -by his conviction of eating. In his mind, he might be--hanging from -a branch by his tail, for instance. The duplicator's production of -bananas, coconuts or whatever would give us a further clue to his state -of mind. You see?" - - * * * * * - -"So far, sound enough, Dr. Burgess," said Jerry. "So what went wrong? I -assume something did, or I wouldn't be here." - -"We made a terrible error. We tried observing a man named Anthony -Mawson in our gadget. I'd diagnosed his case as simple inferiority -complex. My fault. Wrong diagnosis. Mawson has megalomania, a gorgeous -case of it ... of course, he's not the first such case to fool -psychiatrists. You see, his outward shyness, soft-spoken voice and -general gawkishness is due to feeling superior to others, not the -reverse. He feels smarter, stronger, braver, etcetera, than everybody -else in creation--but he also feels that nobody knows it but himself. -Hence his indrawing, his brooding, taciturn gentility." - -Jerry Norcriss prodded. "What happened with Mawson when you put him in -your machine?" - -"I don't know," said Burgess. "No one's been able to see into the -machine since he entered it on Monday." - -"He couldn't have escaped?" - -"No! I wish he had. Anthony Mawson is still in that room, in his own -private universe, and we can't get him out of it. We've tried cutting -the power to the machine; the opacity inside the room remains. We sent -two men in after him. They never came out." - -"How could he possibly?" asked Jerry. - -Burgess shook his head. "We can only guess. Our theory is that he's -used the duplicator to make the entire room self-sustaining. Normally -we could wait till he runs out of material to feed the duplicator, -but--we can't wait on the lives of those two men. Nor can we chance his -expanding his universe." - -Norcriss frowned. "Expanding it?" - -Burgess nodded. "By, perhaps, feeding the duplicator with the room -itself. With a pickaxe, he can start hewing down the very walls, or -even have the duplicator build a robot that will take care of its -need for material to build with. Against this development, we have -surrounded the room completely with a force-shield, limiting his -outward progress to two feet of concrete in any direction. But the room -is approximately thirty feet square, and twenty feet high. With all -that mass he could exist in there for years." - -"And my job is to get him out," said Jerry. - -"Yes. The government feels that a Contact specialist's the only -kind of man to send into this madman's world. You men are used to -extra-somatic experiences--and you have learned to live with danger -without losing your heads." - -"Well," said Jerry, getting up, "I guess that sums up the situation -sufficiently." - -Burgess nodded, sadly. "Any further briefing is useless. Impossible, -really. I've told you the situation, and you can certainly imagine the -danger. But as for the solution, well.... You'll just have to feel your -way, and do whatever you think best." - -Jerry paused beside Burgess at the door to the hall. "One thing, -though, Doctor; when _I_ get into the influence of the machine, what -kind of universe will I be in? Mine or Mawson's?" - -"I can only theorize on that," said Burgess. "My guess would be that -you'll find both in there, one vying for supremacy over the other. This -fight won't be man to man. It will be universe against universe." - - -II - -There had been no sensation at all as Jerry stepped through the flat -sheet of grayness in the doorway; no more physical awareness than -a blind man might feel when passing through the beam of a powerful -light. Perhaps there was a slight sensation of the mere presence of the -energies that kept the opacity in existence--but that sensation, Jerry -knew, was psychological, not actual. - -"Although," he realized, as his world became an infinity of opalescent -gray, "in this place, a psychological awareness will be no different -from a genuine physical sensation. Better be careful what I think about -in this psychokinetic fog...." - -The thought was barely formulated when the grayness changed. It became -moist against his flesh, and started swirling in tendrils about him. -"Damn it, be _careful_!" he belatedly cautioned his mind. "Now the -stuff _is_ fog!" Ahead of him in the swirling mist a brighter-than-gray -glow led his footsteps forward. - -He found himself standing beneath an overhanging marquee. Its black -undersurface was runneled with condensed moisture amid the garish naked -bulbs that haloed the wet cement sidewalk. - -A red-coated doorman, resplendent behind rows of bright brassy buttons, -gave him a smile as he pulled open the door that led to the club. Jerry -nodded and went inside. - -Thick crimson carpet cushioned his footfalls as he moved cautiously -through an empty lobby, then down a white marble staircase toward the -ballroom. Dimly, he was aware that the band at the far end of the -mammoth room was playing music. What song he didn't know until a chance -chording reminded him of a popular song of the day ... at which point -that suddenly was the tune. The tables ringing the dance floor were -covered with bright linen and shining silver. The tables were empty -of patrons, however, until Jerry casually thought, "I should think -business would be better--" - -Suddenly a horde of laughing couples appeared in the chairs, with -hurrying waiters bringing champagne, trays and menus to their guests. - -The men wore tuxedos; the women were in evening dress. He looked -suddenly at himself, and saw that his uniform was now the official -dress uniform of the Space Corps. Before he could conquer it, his mind -voiced a quick wish that he shouldn't be dining alone; and then a girl -was rising from her place at a table beside the dance floor, hurrying -to greet him, hands outstretched. - -Her fingers were small and strong and warm. She smiled up at him. -"Jerry, darling." - - * * * * * - -Despite her being only arm's length from him, he could not see her -well at all. His impression was merely one of youth, loveliness and -girl-ness. But then, as he tried to ascertain precisely what she looked -like, hidden corners of his mind began to supply each detail an instant -before his conscious quest for it and Jerry, in a few moments, was -suddenly staggered with delighted shock. - -Very few men are privileged to find a girl who lives up to all their -dreams of perfection in a woman. - -Hair as soft as cobweb, as fluffy as dancing clouds, as golden as -flowing honey, cascaded down about a slender alabaster throat, and died -in golden ripples on smooth white shoulders. Eyes the rich brown of -raw chocolate gazed serenely at him from under red-gold brows and jet -lashes, their patrician serenity permeated with a touch of twinkling -impishness. Her lips were soft and not unlike berry-stained velvet, -sweet and warm and tempting; her mouth generous and tilted at the -corners into a smile of greeting--obviously the result of her subduing -a frank laugh of joy at seeing him. Geometrically perfect teeth flashed -white as porcelain between her lips. Her gown was a shimmering midnight -blue, highlighted with random sprinkles of brightly coruscating gems. - -Even as his lips parted to ask her name, Jerry knew it and spoke it -softly. "Carol." - -"Listen," she said softly, tilting her head toward where the band had -begun a new song. Swift, urgent and rapturous, it floated through the -room, surrounded the two of them, took possession of them. Then Carol -was in his arms, and Jerry was dancing out onto the floor with her. The -other couples were a blur of forgotten figures that swayed. - -Jerry knew the melody. It was their song, their own private love -song, the one that had been playing on the night when they both knew, -suddenly, that there could be no one else for either of them but the -other.... - -As they returned to their table, Jerry realized that Carol was now -garbed in a white peasant blouse and bright flowered flaring skirt, and -that her hair was drawn back at the temples to expose her ears, now -adorned with golden hoops. The table was in a lattice-backed booth, -covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth. The inner surface of the -table held salt, pepper, grated cheese and breadsticks, matching cruets -of pale olive oil and dark vinegar. The band was now a five-man gypsy -ensemble. - - * * * * * - -"Remember the first time we came here, Jerry?" asked Carol, her eyes at -once upon his face and distant, dreamy.... - -As she smiled, Jerry noticed with dull horror that one of her eyes was -perceptibly lower than the other. - -The teeth she flashed his way were mottled with brown stains. She took -hold of his fingers with her own. - -"Carol!" he said shakily, staring at the knuckly, red-raw hands that -clutched at his. "What's happening?" - -"Happening?" she said, her voice a raucous croak of amusement. -"_Nothing's_ happening! In fact, you're probably one of the dullest -guys I ever got stuck with." She tossed her head petulantly. Coarse, -straw-colored hair flipped away from her thick neck. Her breath was -sour with wine and miasmic with garlic. - -"Carol!" he cried. - -"Don't whine!" she snapped, viciously. "I hate a guy who whines!" With -that, she shoved out of the booth, and waddled toward the rear of the -coffeehouse, one hand scratching at a bulge of flesh that overhung -the too-tight girdle. Her black leotards were twisted and dull as she -passed the flashing rainbow lights of the brassy jukebox. - -Jerry shoved away from the table, overturning his coffee in its cracked -china cup, and he wove his way through the reek and smoke toward the -door through which she'd vanished. - -When he got there, the door was a peeling poster on a bare brick wall, -advertising some long-forgotten show. His fingers scrabbled on rough -mortar for a moment. Then he turned and paced back to his cot, where he -flopped on his back in the long shadows of the bars. - -"Norcriss!" said the guard, coming into the cell. "This is it!" The -brass uniform buttons flashed brightly. - -Strong hands were lifting him from the cot, dragging him down a long -corridor toward a steel door. As they got there, the door opened wide, -and Jerry saw the gaping maw of hungry steel gears, while behind him a -man's voice droned prayers. - -Then, before the guard could shove Jerry forward into that waiting -mechanical mouth, Jerry noticed the odd shimmer of grayness that lay -between himself and the waiting teeth, and he remembered that he was in -a world of illusion. - -At precisely that moment he knew beyond a doubt that those waiting -jaws were illusion in form only. An atomic duplicator does not have to -chew its intake. It merely dissolves the atomic bonds with the rays -that flash between its power plates on either side of the disruption -platform. The waiting mouth and teeth were mere symbols in Jerry's mind -of what was about to occur. - -They were unreal--but they could be fatal. - - * * * * * - -He shut his eyes, shoved backward with his feet, and thought of Carol -as he'd first glimpsed her. - -When he opened his eyes once more, she was standing before him in her -ballroom gown again, and the band was just beginning to play their -song once more. - -"Jerry," she said, taking his arm. "Dance with me." - -"No. We're in danger here. Come on, I'll get your coat. We've got to go -away quickly." - -A spark of alarm showed briefly in her eyes. Then she nodded wordlessly -and hurried up the marble staircase with him to the lobby. Jerry got -her coat from the check-room--a marvelous silvery fur that covered -her from neck to waist--and then they were heading out into the fog -together. - -"Good evening to you, sir," said the doorman, eyes and buttons bright. - -Jerry grunted and led Carol off down the street into the fog. - -"Where are we going?" she asked, breathlessly trying to keep pace. - -"Away, I hope," he said. Even their movement from the ballroom could -be sheer illusion. Jerry tried moving from the club entrance in the -exact reverse of the motion in which he'd first approached it, trying -to achieve the real doorway that led from the experimental room into -the antiseptic hospital corridor where Burgess waited. But the fog -continued to be fog. It would not take on the form of that intangible -gray shimmering that guarded the entrance to Anthony Mawson's -megalomaniac universe. - -"If I could only see where--" he began. - -Then every tendril of fog was gone. - -Before him lay the cold blackness of outer space, pinpointed with -hard, unwinking stars. Jerry recoiled from the viewplate, shaken, and -turned around to see Carol. Her eyes were wide and startled as she -glanced about at the metal confines of the control cabin. Jerry had -just time enough to think how incongruous she looked in her fur jacket -and long blueblack gown ... and then she was clothed in the neat gray -uniform of the WASP, trim short-sleeved shirt and sharply creased -shorts. - -"Jerry," said Carol. She slipped her arm through his, staring at the -infinite stars in the viewplate. "What are we running from?" - -He tried to think, but could not remember. "There's--some danger behind -us. We have to get away from it, Carol. It means complete destruction -if we're caught." - -Carol stared helplessly at the stars in the viewplate. "But where are -we running to?" - - * * * * * - -Jerry shook his head. "Impossible to tell. Not without the help of a -good astrogator. Out in space, stars shift and magnitudes change. I'm -not even qualified to guess--" - -"Sire," said the astrogator, handing a clipboard to Jerry, "we can -reach any of these seven stars in a few hours. Just tell me where you'd -prefer to go." - -Jerry turned to the man, resplendent in his neat Space Corps uniform, -jacket bright with brass buttons. When he tried to focus upon the man's -features he could detect nothing. - -"We'd better choose the quickest trip," Jerry said, after a moment's -indecision. "No telling how much fuel we have left." - -The astrogator nodded. "I'm afraid that's out of my department, all -right, sir. But if _you'd_ care to check the tanks?" Without waiting -for a reply, the man turned and began to pick his way carefully toward -the rear of the spaceship, stepping from girder to girder. The floor, -Jerry noticed idly as he followed, was exposed to open space between -the curving ribs of steel that formed the framework of the ship. - -"Careful, now," he said, helping Carol along from one to the other. -"That's vacuum out there. We don't want to fall through." - -Ahead of Jerry, the implacable man with the brass buttons was nearly to -the steel door masking the blast chamber where the components of fuel -were mingled and ignited. Jerry, giddly aware of every hazardous step -over the squares of star-speckled blackness, kept one hand on Carol's -arm, the other on her chessboard. - -"Don't spill any of the men!" she cautioned, as the diminutive plastic -figures danced and rattled on the board. "I don't intend to search the -whole cosmos for a pawn." - -"Here you go, sir," said the politely insistent astrogator, opening the -steel door. Before Jerry yawned an oval of intense white flame, the -radiating heat crisping against his skin and hair. - -"The fission rate," Jerry mumbled, consulting his wristwatch. "I've got -to time it, or I won't be able to calculate the amount of fuel still in -the bulkheads." - -"Count it by steps, sir," suggested the astrogator. - -"One," said Jerry, stepping out toward that blinding coruscation of -heat. "Two," he said, feeling carefully for the next girder. - -Then the toe of his boot slipped from the metal, and he realized, -with a horrible lancing of adrenalin through his abdomen, that he was -falling out the opening between the girders. The only salvation would -be a shove with his still-braced rear foot, but that would carry him -directly into the inferno of burning fuel. An eternity of falling -through icy vacuum against an instant of intolerable searing pain.... - -"The fire--" gasped Jerry, toppling in inexorable slow motion toward -starry darkness, a cloud of twirling chess pieces orbiting about his -head. "I've got to make it into the fire...." - -He tensed the muscles of the laggard leg for the spring that would -carry him to destruction, and then he saw that the chess pieces were -shimmering gray, and the oval frame of the doorway to the flaming fuel -was shimmering gray, and even what had seemed hot white burning was -cold gray waiting mist, and with a yell of remembrance, Jerry clamped -shut his eyes and let himself plunge downward into nothingness.... - - -III - -"Are you all right, Norcriss?" Jerry blinked slowly, then focused on -the face of Dr. Alan Burgess. He found himself lying on a narrow, -white-sheeted cart, in the corridor outside the room where all the -trouble had begun. "Mawson," he said groggily. "Is he--?" - -Burgess nodded wearily. "Still in there, in full control of his one-man -universe. What happened, Norcriss? You came tumbling out that door like -a wild man, clawing the air and yelling. Then you went into shock. -You've been unconscious for two hours." - -"I--I thought I was falling," Jerry admitted. "The last thing I -remember is stepping through the open space between a spaceship's -supporting girders." - -"What open space?" said Burgess, frowning curiously. - -Jerry shook his head. "There isn't any such thing. But something -happens to logic in that room. It's like having a dream, Doctor. Things -that would startle you in everyday life seem correct. Even familiar. -But there's a kind of pattern to events. At first, I'm in my universe, -and mostly in control. Then little fragments of my pseudo-reality start -slipping, changing into other things. The changes seem perfectly normal -to me. Then, all at once, the guy with the brass buttons turns up--and -I've managed in the nick of time, twice, to realize that I was about to -be sent or led between the disrupting plates of your atomic duplicator." - -"The man with the brass buttons," Burgess said slowly. "Do you think -it's Mawson?" - -"Either him or a robot he's made to keep his machine fed." When Burgess -scowled, Jerry shrugged and appended, "It is his machine, for all -practical purposes. He's the boss of that hungry electronic monster, -Doctor, however the hospital feels about it." - -"This Carol. Is she a real woman, or a figment of your imagination, -wishful thinking?" - -"She's real enough," Jerry sighed. "She's the personal secretary of the -entire Space zoology program. I take her out sometimes. There's nothing -special between us." - -"But you wish there were," said Burgess. - -Jerry stared at him. "What makes you think that?" - -Burgess tilted his head toward the room where Mawson still maintained -control. "Your visions in there. You must think a lot of her. You can -kid yourself consciously; but nearly all you underwent in there came -straight from your subconscious. And a subconscious just doesn't know -how to lie." - -Jerry changed the subject, "What's our next move? How soon can I go -back after Mawson?" - -"You can't. Mawson's knowledge of this Carol can easily be turned to -your disadvantage. He can use her to lead you to dissolution in there. -No, it's much too risky. You're lucky you got out when you did." - -"But what about Mawson, then?" - - * * * * * - -Burgess tried to look confident. He failed. "We can ring up your -headquarters and ask for another man. Or, if worse comes to worse, we -can partition off this part of the hospital, and just sit it out until -Mawson runs out of atomic building blocks." - -"Which may take years," Jerry reminded him. - -Burgess turned his palms upward. "What else can we do?" - -"Send me again," said Jerry. "I know the score pretty well, now. I know -what to watch out for. I'm sure that with one more try I can get Mawson -out of there." - -"Sorry," Burgess said, shaking his head. "As a medical man, I cannot -permit it. You've had a bad shock. We'll try someone else, if your -outfit will send someone, and see what happens. If he fails, or if they -won't supply us with any more men, then--well, you can try again in a -few weeks, if you're still game. But not now." - -"Doctor, in a few weeks, Mawson will be so well in control of that -universe that he may find a way to block the entrance. Have you thought -of that?" - -"His universe is not a real one--" Burgess began. - -"But that duplicator is real enough. It can make anything he decides he -needs. And at any time he may get the bright idea of simply mounting -his machine right at the entrance, so anyone stepping into that gray -field will be powdered into atoms, instantly." - -"That's true enough," admitted Burgess. "But my diagnosis still -stands. For now, you are off this assignment. When I feel you're -ready--assuming nothing else has succeeded meantime--I'll contact you -at the base." - -"How do you know I won't be off on some other planet by then?" asked -Jerry bitterly. - -"I don't," said Burgess. "I hope you are not, but there isn't anything -further I can do about it. I'm sorry." - -"And what do I do in the meantime?" - -Burgess grinned. "Call up this Carol and go out on the town." - -Jerry shook his head at the last part. "No thanks. I prefer Carol to -know nothing about it." - -Burgess shrugged and gave it up. "All right, Norcriss. Rest here till -you feel stronger, then you're free to go." Then he was striding off -down the corridor. - -After a bit, Jerry sat up cautiously, let the slight giddiness subside, -then swung his legs off the side of the cart and got down. - -Behind him, the door to Mawson's universe stood open on its wall of -grayness. Jerry stared thoughtfully at it, then saw that the two -internes who were guarding the opposite ends of this section of the -hospital corridor were hesitantly half-starting toward him. Jerry knew -he could be through that doorway and into the grayness before they got -within ten feet of him.... - - -IV - -Then his shoulders slumped, and he turned and walked toward the -elevators. Burgess was right. He felt worn out, and uninclined to make -grandstand plays. Besides, he thought, thumbing the elevator button, -it would be nice to see the _real_ Carol again, after her nebulous -pseudo-self. He wanted very much to put his arms around a girl who -wouldn't suddenly turn into something horrible in his embrace. - -The steel doors slid open before him, and the elevator boy leaned out -to check the corridor for other passengers. "Down," he said. Jerry -nodded and started into the elevator. - -Then he hesitated, and looked back toward the room where Mawson reigned -supreme, then back at the elevator boy. "Say," he said, uncertainly, -"that's a strange outfit for an elevator attendant in a hospital. I'd -have expected an orderly in an all-white getup." - -The boy glanced down at his uniform, the bright blue pants, shined -black shoes, and scarlet jacket bright with twin rows of brass buttons. -"I suppose it is," he said. "But I don't usually run this elevator. I'm -from the hotel next door. I'm just doing this while the regular guy -takes his coffee break." - -Jerry hesitated, then stepped toward the waiting elevator with its -pale gray walls. And stopped again. His hand went to his forehead, -bewilderedly. "There's something--" he said. - -Then Carol was beside him, slipping her arm through his. "Come on, -Jerry," she said urgently. "We'll be late for our date." - -Jerry looked at her, then at the hotel corridor behind her, then again -at the waiting elevator. - -"I have the oddest feeling something's wrong," he said. "I--I don't -remember coming over here for you." - -"You didn't," she said promptly. "I came for you, Jerry. This is your -hotel, remember? Doctor Burgess said you'd had a bad shock, but I -didn't know how bad till now." - -"Shock?" said Jerry. "What shock? What was bothering me?" - -Carol smiled tightly. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Come on, Jerry, -darling." Again she drew him toward the elevator. - -"If I could only remember," he said, uneasily, on the brink of that -open cube of bright grayness. Then his eyes focused upon the brass -buttons fronting the boy's jacket, and at his own shadow as it passed -across those glowing hemispheres. As the shadow crossed a button, the -color would die, and the button would be dull crystal, and then glow -bright and brassy again when the shadow had passed. - -"Photoelectric cells!" said Jerry. "Light-sensitive cells. Those aren't -buttons, they're eyes! Multiple robot eyes!" He staggered away from the -boy. Carol stopped him. - -The elevator boy, suddenly half again Jerry's height, was towering -over him, long steel arms extending like hooked telescopes toward him. -"Get in, Jerry, get _in_!" cried Carol, struggling to push him forward -toward those invincible metal clamps. - -In a fury of fear, Jerry fought her, grappled with her, twisted to -avoid those extending robot hands that would drag him to destruction. -And suddenly Carol was screaming his name, and her eyes were pools -of terror and betrayal, and the leaping metal fingers had buried -themselves in the soft flesh of her shoulders and dragged her back into -grayness. - -Incredible energies came alive about her, and then there was only a -shimmer of dusty crystalline winds, and she was gone. - -Jerry found himself standing before the still-warm plates of the atomic -duplicator, in the room where Mawson had had his short-lived universe. -Beside the machine, a squat cubic box dangled limp steel arms, its rows -of photo-electric cells losing their golden glow. - -And then, as Burgess came hurrying in through the door, he toppled over -in a dead faint. - - * * * * * - -"So there is no such person as Carol?" said Burgess, standing at -the foot of the hospital bed. "She was only the figment of your -imagination?" - -"Yes," said Jerry dully. "And all along, it was Mawson I was really -with. He was clever, all right. She was certainly the last occupant of -that crazy place I was likely to attack. If he had not tried attacking -me himself--I might be atom dust by now. A little longer, and she--he, -I mean--might have _talked_ me into that elevator." - -"Well," said Burgess, "I'm sorry this thing ended with Mawson's -dissolution, but that can't be helped. You did your job well, -Lieutenant." - -"Thanks," said Jerry, expressionlessly. - -"To come so near death so many times--" Burgess shuddered. "You have -a remarkable constitution, not to have cracked under such a strain. -Lieutenant, you're a lucky man." - -And Jerry, his mind still filled with a vision of golden hair, soft -brown eyes and warm, eager lips, could only echo wearily, "Very lucky." - - -END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Creature Inside, by Jack Sharkey - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATURE INSIDE *** - -***** This file should be named 53089.txt or 53089.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/8/53089/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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