Man of Many Minds

by E. Everett Evans

Hanlon almost gasped in dismay, but stifled it. He knew only too well the efficacy of modern truth drugs. They would reveal every thought and bit of knowledge he had ever had—all about the Corps, the Secret Service and everything.

That hurt look came back into his face. "You sure are asking a lot, sir," he said. "I haven't anything to conceal from you, but no man likes to have his whole mind invaded that way—all his private thoughts and feelings. I don't see why you need suggest such a thing. I've told you the truth on matters you want to know about."

"You appear to have done so, and I honestly want to believe you. For you see, Hanlon, I want you with me. You're my kind of a man. I like you because you have tremendous drive and imagination and ability—yes, and perhaps a bit because you're the only man I've ever met who wasn't ... uh ... afraid of me. I have tremendous plans for the future—and I would like to have you as my chief aide in them. I would train you as you've never guessed it possible for a man to be trained. And then, together, Hanlon, we could rule the Universe!"

But George Hanlon was only half-listening, even to that last, that shocking, that totally unexpected proposition, his real goal. Here was the plot he had been seeking, the plot the Corps needed so desperately to know. Yet his personal crisis was, for the moment, more important if he was ever to be of any further benefit to the Secret Service or the Corps. To use his just-discovered knowledge, something else must come first.

His mind, therefore, was seeking a way out. He well knew that once the truth drug was administered—and this Highness would not now be satisfied with anything less—he was as good as dead. They would find out the truth in minutes, and then would have no other recourse but to kill him.

His spirits sank to nadir with the knowledge that he had failed ... failed the Secret Service and the Corps, failed his father, failed the Guddus, failed himself. Curiously, perhaps, at that moment the thought of failure was far more important to him than the imminence of death, as such.

He had half-consciously noticed when he first glanced about this room, that there was a small ventilator near the ceiling in one corner. Desperately he pushed his mind through it, and could sense that it opened onto a park-like place, probably around one of the city's palaces.

Hanlon finally heard His Highness call, "Panek, you and the others bring me the hypodermic. We'll have to give him the truth serum. I'm sorry, Hanlon," he addressed himself now to the young man, "but this is the only way. I hope we won't have to use enough to harm you, but that depends on your co-operation. If you will tell us the truth quickly and willingly I can, as I said ... uh ... use you, and you will profit greatly by it."

Hanlon didn't struggle when they bound him firmly in the chair with manacles on hands and feet. He knew it would be useless anyway. He let his body slump into his chair, and again directed his mind through that vent. He must not let them defeat him! He had to survive—to get word—to the Corps!

Then his searching mind contacted another—a weak, primitive one, but a mind. Avidly he fastened onto it, merged with it ... and found himself inside the brain of one of those Simonidean pigeons.