Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                              OUT OF MIND

                         By WILLIAM W. STUART

                  Nirva was a real bore. The food was
                  always great, the climate tediously
                  fine, the view monotonously lovely,
                    the girls relentlessly amiable.
                   But, oddly, everybody went there!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


"Vacation trip to Nirva?!?" snapped Secad Screed--Galactic Sector
Administrator J. Gomer Screed, a serious-minded man who rarely lost
his temper. That was a pity; it was a lousy temper. "A mindless
excursion, and completely outside my Sector at that! Woman, are both
you and Garten out of your minds? Who do you think is going to run my
administration with both Garten and I on a childish vacation to this
absurd 'Dream Planet' of yours?"

"Well--there is Deputy Assistant Prinot and--"

"Ha! And then what do you suppose would be left of my record here and
my prospects of promotion--after Depast Prinot and the others put in
five solid weeks wrecking all my work?"

Secast Garten, short, a little chubby, the opposite of his chief
(who looked like a deep-thinking, bald stork scheduled for delivery
of Siamese quintuplets in a typhoon,) grinned. He was seated out of
the direct line of verbal fire, on a rock-hard hassock at one side of
the barely furnished Screed apartment. He grinned, knowing what Secad
Screed would do with a similar opportunity at Division Hq.

"Oh, now, dear," soothed Mrs. Screed, a mousey, chronically anxious
little woman with five years experience as secretary and ten as wife in
learning to soothe her husband. "Prinot is such a nice man. Don't worry
so about things. Just put them out of your mind; they'll be all right."

"What?" Fifteen years experience she had soothing him, but she never
did seem to get the knack of it. Or, perhaps, it was a matter of
Screed's conscientiously refusing to be soothed, as a matter of
discipline. A wife should know her place. Women being what they were,
light minded, he felt it only fair that he should regularly point it
out to her. He didn't want to spoil her. And he didn't either--unless
it was in the matter of favoring her with his personal attentions
weekly, at 11:30 p.m., each Friday.

This was big of him. She was lucky. Secad Screed was a big man,
Administrative Officer in full command of a major sun system at only
56, wedded to his work and dedicated to becoming more and more
important. Mrs. Screed's position was, in a way, almost bigamous. She
had a rich, full fifteen minutes every Friday, and what more could any
woman want of life?

At the moment, this one imagined she wanted to take a vacation trip
to some nonsensical, little known, semi-mythical dream planet that
Garten--the fool!--had been telling her about. "Garten--"

"You are so right, J.G., so right. Give Prinot and those boys an inch
and they'll be measuring you out for a grave with it, while they
sharpen their knives. Half a chance and they'd foul up your whole
Sector Administration. But--you know, sir, after five straight years on
the job for both you and me, a five-week vacation is compulsory. We do
have our orders."

"Mf-f-f!" That was true and that was the rub. "But we don't have to
chase off so far we can't keep an eye on things!"

"Of course, sir. Or--an idea you gave me just the other day, sir--with
the recent Truad activity over in Sector Y, we could put this
whole system into an emergency invasion alert drill, sir. For the
duration--of our vacation. Then every move Prinot makes will have
to follow the book--or a court-martial when we get back. With you
presiding, eh?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Secad Screed smiled a thin smile. "I thought of that, of course,
Garten. Clever of you to see it. Given time, I may be able to make a
passably capable assistant of you after all."

Garten was necessarily more skilled at soothing Screed than was Mrs.
S., whose somewhat special status brought her very limited privileges
but considerable job security. Garten had hung on, sometimes narrowly,
for some five years now.

"Yes sir. I hope so, sir."

"But not as long as you come up with asinine suggestions for us to
throw away valuable time on some scarcely heard of 'dream planet.' Even
though Centrad does enforce these foolish compulsory vacations, there
is no reason why the time cannot be turned to some useful account."

"But, dear," murmured Mrs. Screed wistfully.

"No! Viola, you seem to have lost whatever few wits you once possessed.
Why in the Galactic Universe would I go to some tiny, sink-hole,
single planet system not even important enough to have a Service
Administration? Even I have scarcely heard of the place. Garten, what
ever got into you?"

"Uh--ah, well, sir. You see I--uh--have always admired so your report
on waste and extravagance on Primus that you made following your
last vacation five years ago just before coming here. The way you
toppled the entire Sector Administration, forced a dozen or more early
retirements and--"

"And got me my promotion to Secad."

"Yes, sir. A sensational job, and much talked of at Centrad, I know.
Well sir, I just thought that, since this Nirva is so little known,
something of a mystery you know, and something of a sore point with
Centrad too, perhaps it might be ripe for an expose."

"Mph. Nonsense, Garten. Not important enough--though, come to consider,
it is odd how little public information there is about the place.
Centrad is covering something.... Hm-m. Never bothered to check the
secret files on it myself. Just for curiosity, Garten, what _is_ the
detail on the thing?"

Mrs. Screed leaned back in her chair; glanced blankly about the bare
apartment; picked idly at a cuticle; tried, with apprehensively
expressive features, to register total disinterest. Once, before
discouragement set in, she had been a modestly pretty young woman. Now
she was merely modest.

"Viola," snapped Screed, "go fix some refreshment. Ice water,
crackers, something. Can't have you sitting there mooning over this
Nirva nonsense of Garten's. Your mind has too great an affinity for
nonsense."

"Yes, sir. Well, sir--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Screed threw him a fleeting, timid smile over her shoulder as she
left the room through the kitchen door, back of Screed's arm chair.
Inside of two minutes she was back, standing very quietly in the
doorway with a pitcher of water and a dish of plain, protein crackers
on a tray. Garten talked on.

"Nirva, as you know, is the single planet of a small sun off on the
fringes of this region of the Galaxy. It seemed so insignificant it
was never even visited until something like fifty years ago. Then a
questionable prospector ship had a minor breakdown and was forced to
come out of an inter-space jump near the Nirva system. The prospectors
had been ten years out. They were coming back empty-handed, nothing to
show, not one valuable planet found. There they were. Spectroanalysis
of Nirva didn't show much, but they decided to check anyway. They were
desperate, dreaming out of all reason of a last-ditch success--dreaming
of a civilized, friendly planet, hospitable natives, rich beyond
belief, foolishly ready for exploitation, eager to load them up with
fissionable minerals and so on. You know how those old space tramp
adventurers used to be, sir."

"Hmph. Tramps, yes. So?"

"So they landed and discovered Nirva; the Dream Planet. Of course they
didn't find that out at the time."

"What did they find?"

"They found a civilized, friendly planet, hospitable natives, rich
beyond belief, foolishly ready for exploitation, eager to load them up
with fissionable minerals and so on. There wasn't even a communication
problem. The people, handsome, human type, were telepathic. Well. Their
visit, although no two of the eleven men on the ship could agree on
the details, was one glorious celebration. Liquor and no hangovers.
Women, the most beautiful in the universe, competing with each other
to do everything--I mean _everything_--for the pleasure of the space
heroes. In fact, it seemed a space tramp's dream of heaven. They hated
to leave."

"If the place was such a degenerate's delight, why did they leave?"

"Just simple greed, apparently. Their ship was loaded with the most
valuable cargo in history. They couldn't resist the urge to take it
back and cash in; to strut around and be big heroes, men of wealth and
power back home. Finally, and with plenty of regrets, they blasted off.
A couple of jumps, six months--travel was slow then, of course--and
they landed at the regional capital. They reported their discovery and
claims, turned in the cargo for analysis and sale--and, listening for
the cheers, sat back to collect their fortunes. Instead of cheers, they
got the universal horse laugh."

"A laugh? At a fortune? Why--oh, yes. Of course; turned out they made a
pretty stupid mistake about that cargo, eh?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well, it seemed a funny mistake. Their whole cargo of rare,
fissionable elements was nothing but perfectly ordinary sand and rock.
Now, this crew was rough, but prospecting was their business. They
knew their business. It just wasn't possible that they could have made
such a mistake. At first the officials were inclined to drop the whole
thing as a pointless hoax. But it _was_ so pointless. Somebody was
sharp enough to push for an investigation on that account. They rounded
up the prospectors, who were all hustling around trying to promote
supplies to get them back to Nirva. They got a psychiatric team to run
them all through a complete check. The clues to the truth of the matter
turned up then; but they were not, at least not generally understood."

"What--?"

"The psychiatric team found that each of the eleven told a similar
story, and actually had a similar mental picture of Nirva. But,
examined closely, the detail, the artifacts, the--uh--types
and--ah--um--habits of the women were startlingly, if not
sensationally, different. So different that, in fact, the planet seemed
to be perfect. Perfect according to each crewman's idea of the perfect
planet. Some of them had pretty crude ideals of perfection, of course.
The psychiatric team pushed through an order grounding all members of
the crew. All of them ended badly, by the way--seven suicides, two
murders, two violent mental cases. The team submitted a completely
inconclusive report. Then they proposed that they all be sent to
examine Nirva."

"Well? Get to the point, Garten!"

"The expedition went out. It never came back. No word ever came back.
The administration jumped to a conclusion that the planet, Nirva, had
become hostile and the expeditionary force captured. A battle cruiser,
advised to expect resistance and with orders to use all force necessary
to pacify the planet and rescue prisoners, was sent out. The cruiser
went. It met resistance near Nirva and won a brilliant victory. The
Nirva forces surrendered. The ship landed and officers and crew were
feted by the defeated population. Prisoners were rescued. Finally, and
with some little reluctance the captain, a devoted family man, gave
orders and the cruiser headed back. But--at the first jump away, the
prisoners and something like two-thirds of the cruiser's crew vanished.
Naturally there was a good deal of excitement.

"Arrant nonsense."

"Yes, sir. Of course. But--two further rescue expeditions ran into much
the same thing. It seemed that only individuals with the most vital
and binding ties or absorbing interests back home ever came back from
Nirva. Others, especially anyone with the least trace of instability,
stayed there."

"A lunatic planet for the feeble-minded!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Uh--yes, sir. In a manner of speaking. At least the officially
approved conclusion regarding Nirva is this. No way to be certain but,
presumably, from sample materials and distance observation, it appears
a rather ordinary, Earth-type planet physically. It is inhabited by a
race, physical characteristics doubtful, probably humanoid, having,
unique mental properties. Imaginative, very powerful, hypnotic. And,
the theory goes, these people exercise a sort of group mind power with
individualistic overtones. To all intents and purposes, they modify
their physical--and social--surroundings to suit themselves. Each then
lives quite literally in a world of his own. The world of his dreams.
For visitors from outside, same thing. Each person who lands on Nirva,
or even approaches it without a powerful force shield, sees what he
imagines he should see. He finds whatever he may be looking for. A man
who has mental air castles, you might say, can go to Nirva and move
right into them. As they say, sir, the planet of dreams."

"Hallucinations!"

"Yes, sir. But controlled, pleasant--and having all the force, feel and
effect of reality. So the theory has it, that is. Of course, travel to
Nirva is so restricted as to be almost completely prohibited now and
the information wiped from public records. The administration could see
that it might become disastrously over popular."

"Why not wipe out the whole lunatic asylum of a system?"

"Ah--yes. Well--uh--perhaps some of the men at the top thought perhaps
it might turn out to be useful in--uh--some way."

"There have been rumors of mysterious disappearances of officials.
Weakness."

"Yes sir. Exactly."

"A haven for weak-minded idiots to be taken in by stupid, parlor
hypnotics. Why should I waste my time and talent exposing something so
totally and transparently stupid?"

"Of course, sir. It would be a difficult thing to try to manage. I'm
sure--in spite of the enormous publicity and promotional possibilities
in clearing up the mystery--that it's not the sort of thing a solid
administrator would care to get mixed up in."

The Secad looked interested.

"A perfectly horrible sounding place," interrupted Viola from her
doorway, "I had no idea it would be anything like that. It sounds
immoral, actually. I wouldn't go."

The Secad looked thoughtful.

"Besides," added Garten, "I'm certain, now I consider it, we couldn't
possibly manage to get a clearance to visit Nirva anyway."

"Well, then," said Viola firmly. "You know how the Secad needs a rest.
I do hope you can find something more suitable for our vacation than
that. Some place that's _quiet_ and _respectable_ and--"

The Secad looked convinced. "Oh, shut up, Viola. And you too, Garten.
If we must go on a vacation, we must--but I shall decide where we will
go. Is that clear?"

That was clear.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nirva stuck in the mind of Secad Screed. He was, certainly, the sanest,
soundest, solidest and most sensible of men. It was not possible to
trick him into any hasty, ill-considered action.

Still, it rankled to have Garten and, of all people, Viola tell him he
couldn't go to Nirva--and couldn't succeed in doing anything about it
if he did.

Of course, it is true that a man can trust no one but himself. It was
transparently obvious that Viola and that pip-squeek Garten were trying
to con him into taking them to Nirva. But it was an irritation. And
maybe the thing did, actually, offer the possibility for something
sensational in the way of a coup.

Naturally, Garten and Viola were interested only in the supposed cheap
thrills of the dream planet, the chance to escape from practical,
business-like reality into some degenerate make-believe. They both
needed a lesson. They should be shown how poor and weak a thing a
romantic dream is, when brought up short by the trained, superior,
analytical administrative mind.

The next day at work he set Garten to work drafting up orders for an
emergency invasion alert drill "just in case." He then consulted with
his Neuro-Surgeon General.

"Naturally, Dr. Treadmel, I would never dream of directing any illegal
actions within my own jurisdiction--where, of course, I am Secad
and therefore the judge of all questions of legality. And of your
Department too, Doctor, you may take note. However, the information I
am endeavoring to extract from you I shall apply, if at all, solely to
the planet Nirva. Not to any of ours."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, Doctor. Now. You are familiar with hypnotics, are you not?"

"Sir!" The Doctor was hurt. "One of the primary duties--"

"All right. You are familiar with hypnotics. You use them all the time
in legal questions, crime, employment interviewing in depth and so on.
Naturally. And you are also aware of various measures--yes, yes, I
know they are specifically barred by the Public Safety Amendment--some
mechanical and some narcotic, that may be taken to counteract or
prevent hypnosis. So. My question is this. Would such measures as your
low power, hyper-electronic broadcast and your anti-hypnotic drugs be
effective against the spell or illusion the inhabitants of Nirva use on
visitors and, perhaps, themselves?"

"Well, now, Secad Screed, that is an extremely interesting question."

"I am interested only in the answer, Doctor."

"Uf. Yes, sir. Well, I can see no reason why they wouldn't be
effective--always supposing the subjective hypnotic theory of the place
is correct. That is--in theory--this group mind, which is supposed
to provide the basis, should be totally disrupted by the random or
scrambling effect of the electronic broadcast. The drugs, on the other
hand, would render the individual who took the drug, during the period
of its effectiveness, totally un- or non-receptive to the impulse,
whereas--"

"All right, Doctor. You are trying to say, in your obfuscating manner,
that the measures would be effective. Right?"

"Subjectively, not taking into account the hypothetical possibility of
random foci--and, of course, barring circumstances outside the range
of--"

"Doctor! Yes? Or no?"

"Well--uh--yes."

"Doctor, when you have quite finished the duties I am about to assign
you, I suggest you visit my legal staff for a game of circumlocution.
In the meantime--get me that drug."

"Yes, sir. You understand the limitations--"

"And give Chief Engineer Barstow the specifics for an anti-hypnotic
electronic amplifier, suitable for placing in satellite orbit."

"But--"

"Around Nirva. _Good-by_, Doctor!"

And that would take care of that.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of course Nirva, the Dream Planet, was a fake. It was a fairy story
for childish minds, not capable of affecting the mature intellect. But
there was nothing like being doubly sure. Secad Screed was always sure.

The only thing that upset him more than being not quite sure was the
idea of something being wrong. But of course this never happened.

"All right, Viola," he said that night, after letting her sit, fidgety,
looking the question she didn't quite dare to ask all evening long. "So
you want to go to this ridiculous planet, Nirva. Don't you?"

"Dear, of course not! Not if you don't think--that is, you said it was
stupid. So of course we wouldn't--"

"Please, Viola. You should know better than to try to deceive me. And
so should Garten. It is completely and transparently clear to me that
both of you are trying to get me to take you to this so-called dream
world. Childish escapism. You know that?"

"Yes, of course, dear."

"Very well. We are going."

"Oh! How wonderful. Thank you!"

"Don't thank me now. Later, afterward, you can thank me. When I have
done you and Garten the service of showing you the infantile immaturity
of your own minds. I am, Viola my dear, going to expose to the Galaxy
this tawdry charlatanism for the little carnival illusion that it is. I
shall show you the superior mental power of a mind--mine--that can face
reality. You, and possibly even Garten, like drug addicts think you can
escape from fact into a dream world."

"Oh, no."

"You will learn that there is no escape. I shall show you to
yourselves. And you will see that run-down, sink-hole planet of lotus
eaters for the degenerate mental slum it truly must be and is."

"Oh? Well, it is good of you to go to so much trouble."

Smugly, "The expose may prove of some advantage in my Service career."

"Of course, dear."

Of course. Of course, there was a period of frantic, forced-draft
preparation by certain of the Administration Departments. Garten was
voluble in his admiration of the plan for the electronic broadcast,
anti-hypnotic satellite for Nirva. On the drugs, he had no comment.
He was not, in fact, informed of this part of the plan. Clearance for
Secad Screed and party to visit the "Limited Access" Planet, Nirva, was
obtained from Inter-Regional Headquarters with surprisingly, if not
suspiciously, little difficulty. Screed smiled a sour little smile.
Jealousy, perhaps. He would show them, too.

       *       *       *       *       *

In two weeks standard time, they--Secad Screed, Mrs. Viola Screed
and Secast Garten--were on the way. It was a small ship, with a crew
specially screened for the stop at Nirva, bound for the farther reaches
of the Galaxy. At the end of three inter-space jumps it would orbit in
to leave them on Nirva. Five weeks later, on the return trip, it would
put in again to pick them up.

At the end of the third jump, Secad Screed and party, VIP's certainly,
visited the ship's captain in the control room.

"We are coming in to the planet now, Captain," announced Screed
informatively. "I want to be certain that the satellite is functioning
properly and placed in planned orbit, regular, between sixty and ninety
minutes."

"Yes, sir," sighed the captain, a morose-looking man with an
anachronistic, drooping moustache, "Believe me, Secad Screed, within my
deplorably narrow limits I do know my business. Your satellite is being
attended to now. We are within the field of Nirva. We will make our run
in, fingers crossed, so you may debark."

"Fingers crossed, Captain? Hmph! Well--let's have a look at the thing
on the view screen."

"Sorry--but no, sir. We go in on automatic instruments, with special
electric power shield up all the way. I'll cut the shield just long
enough for you to land and back up she goes. Likely I'll lose a couple
of my crew at that."

"Nonsense! Have you no confidence in the satellite?"

The captain shrugged. "I take no chances."

This was a line of reason Screed could well appreciate--in himself.
From the captain it seemed foolishness.

"Surely, Captain, if you were to lose crewmen you could and would
insist upon their immediate return?"

"Insist, Secad Screed? How? You do not, I think, have quite the full
picture of this thing. Its appeal, the pull of your own personal
perfect dream world, is very strong. If I didn't have a wife and
six sweet kids back home that I only see a month or two out of the
year--well. This Nirva problem is like this. We go in. Down screen.
Off you and your party go. My crew? All present. OK, back up with the
screen--and _then_ we find out who is actually on the ship."

"But if they were all present--?"

"Maybe present; maybe nothing but projected illusions. It is not
possible to distinguish. So, say a couple are missing when the screen
goes up. Suppose I down screen again. Protest. The natives are all
apology. The men return."

"All right then."

"Not exactly. When the screen is up again--maybe instead of two
missing, by then I would have four gone. The temptation gets too
strong. Fighting it is like doubling bets to get even on a crooked
wheel."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Hmph!" Slack handling. Incredibly slack. It certainly was time a man
who knew his own mind took over.

The satellite was orbiting. He had taken an anti-hypnosis pill. So
too, although he hadn't bothered to tell them about it, had Viola and
Garten, in their coffee. "Well, Captain. Your problems with Nirva are
over. I--" he drew himself up in full executive-command stance--"am
going to straighten the place out. In five weeks, when you return to
pick us up, you will find Nirva, under my administration, a sound,
sensible, stable colony. And we three will all return with you."

"Oh?" The captain was a skeptic.

"Of course," said Viola, "When my husband says a thing will be done,
you can count it done."

"And this other gentleman, Secast Garten?"

"Naturally, sir. Secad Screed is a man of his word. Not even Nirva
could alter his determination."

"I see. Well, I'm not a betting man, of course. Regulations. But if I
were--"

"Yes, Captain?" Secad Screed's voice cracked icily.

"I would like to bet a year's salary that all three of you won't go
back with me."

"Well, Captain. As Senior Service Officer aboard, I make the
regulations here. I'll just take that bet. A year's salary, against
yours. Nice odds for you there, Captain. That is a bet. Garten, you and
Viola are witness."

The Captain smiled sourly and nodded. Screed turned on his heel,
annoyed. "Come Viola; Garten." Viola bowed her head and followed.
Garten lingered a minute.

"Captain? If you'd care to hedge a bit of that bet, I'll take, say,
half of it?"

The captain looked at him. An ordinary man. Not young, not old; not
big, not small. Just a man, almost extraordinarily ordinary. And
certainly not too bright since, as he clearly intended to stay on
Nirva, what good would it do him to win half of that old snake Screed's
bet? The Captain shook his head. "Thanks, Secast Garten, but since you
won't--well. No, thanks, I'll keep it."

Garten shrugged regretfully. "So? Well, I could use the money but no
matter. I think you have a good bet, Captain. It's my bet, too."

A half hour and the ship settled gently on the surface of the planet.
The three passengers for Nirva were ready at the air-lock.

"_Down screen!_"

Screed heard the words over the intercom. For a moment a sense of
confusion, of uncertainty of purpose touched with dizzying, empty fear,
swept over him. Abruptly it was gone. Confidence, more certain and
invincible than ever, flooded back. He knew what he must do. And he
knew that he would surely do it.

A thrill of anticipatory triumph brought a little twisted smile to his
thin lips but, half turning his head toward Viola and Garten, all he
said was, peremptorily, "Come."

       *       *       *       *       *

They stood, three small figures, on the surface of Nirva, the dream
planet, beside the space ship.

They were edged away from it by a discomforting mental pressure as the
ship's force field snapped back on. Nirva. It seemed nothing so much.
Pleasant enough, perhaps, but in a shockingly disordered, unimproved
sort of way. Much the sort of thing Screed had expected.

There was a bright sun overhead with a slight rosy-pink tint to
it, low green hills and some sort of town or settlement in the
near distance. The sky was a deep blue, almost purple, dotted with
feathery, pinkish clouds. All right. Probably it was quite suitable for
exploitation as an agricultural planet. Not too much quick profit in
it, perhaps, but well worth salvage.

Screed, Viola and Garten were standing near the center of a cleared
field, possibly a bungled excuse for a space port. Across it, a
ramshackle building leaned tiredly to one side. As the space ship rose
silently behind them, some sort of wheeled vehicle started toward them
from the building, raising a small cloud of pinkish-white dust as it
came.

"How awful," said Viola, echoing Screed's thoughts. "It's so shamefully
run-down and neglected looking."

"A Galactic disgrace," agreed Garten from the other side.

"So," said Secad Screed, the leader. "You see?"

The native vehicle, a rattle-trap affair reminiscent of ancient earth
internal combustion wagons, clattered up. The driver was unclearly
human under a slovenly, unkempt exterior; he was also middle-aged, fat
and anxious as he stumbled out. "Ah," he said eagerly, "distinguished
visitors! And--uh--is it possible--that is, I mean to say, I--we all
in fact, wonder if it could be you who is responsible for the sudden,
total change that seems to have affected our--ah--perceptive climate?"

"And if we are," snapped Screed, "it was certainly a degenerative
situation that desperately needed changing. You and all your people
should thank me for it. And you will."

"Oh yes," said the native. "We already do, indeed. But--uh--the thing
is, not that we aren't grateful for the awakening, but it is all so
horribly confusing to us. You see, what I mean to say, we don't know
exactly what--"

"You need leadership! Strong, efficient leadership."

"That's it exactly. If only you would--"

"I shall." He made an expansive, condescending gesture. "I, with the
help of Mrs. Screed--I, by the way, am Secad Screed, the Leader--and my
assistant, will take full command of all administration immediately.
You will find that I will soon whip you into shape."

"Ah, sir, how can we ever repay you?"

"Perhaps something may be worked out. Now, we must get started. Take me
at once to your ruling body."

"Ah. Do you suppose the Council of Dreamers--?"

"Hmph; just the sort of thing we shall have done with once and for
all. But we must start someplace, I suppose. Let us proceed."

They all climbed somewhat apprehensively into the vehicle. They
proceeded.

Screed proceeded.

       *       *       *       *       *

He proceeded, with Viola and Garten cheering and trailing along some
little distance to the rear, to carry out his total plan. It was almost
too easy.

"Almost," thought Screed as the obedient, grateful citizens of Nirva
labored frantically to remake their world into a model Class II,
Galactic Service AgPlan. "But then, no one else could ever make a start
here. It is simply that, to a mind and character like mine, all things
are easy."

He was, not for the first time, mildly surprised at his own brilliance,
and totally admiring.

Perhaps he was justified. Certainly both Viola and the sometimes
cynical seeming Garten were all awed respect. The reformation of Nirva
advanced at a remarkable pace. The people, rudely awakened from a
generations-long dream, were confused, aimless, purposeless. Like the
bewildered representative at the space port, they wanted nothing more
than a firm leader to give them direction. Having apparently no will of
their own, they went to work with a will. Screed's will.

Screed was pleasantly surprised. It seemed that before the development
of the "dream world of the group mind," some five hundred years before,
they had been a progressive people with a modestly advanced technology.
With the group mind, all of the old knowledge and technical abilities
had, quite inadvertently, been passed on from generation to generation.
Direction was all they needed. Having no power of resistance, they
accepted it with total obedience. When Screed said, as he often did,
"You people are not here to think; you're here to do what I tell you,"
they smiled in whole-hearted agreement and did just what he told them.
It was delightful.

In five short weeks the reconstruction of Nirva was well advanced. New
cities and smoke-belching factories were rising from old ruins. Fields
were plowed and sowed.

And the space ship came back.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reluctantly Screed cut short a series of final instruction conferences
with his newly appointed deputy directors and administrators. He picked
up Viola and Garten from their quarters in the refurbished ruin of an
ancient mansion on a hill overlooking the new capital and they rode
to the space port in his vehicle, primitive in design but gleaming,
shining like new in the rosy-pink sunshine.

The citizenry lined the roadway, torn between sobs and cheers. Screed,
smiling, and sternly gracious, waved a regretful farewell. At the
ship he paused for a last word with his senior deputy. In unfamiliar
tones of anxious concern, he said, "Now, you have all my memos and
instructions. You're sure you can handle it? Carry on just the way I
have directed?"

"Of course, glorious supreme leader. In your wisdom you have pointed us
the way. We shall not stray."

"Well--everything has been going well, very well. In a way I hate to
leave and take the chance on your fouling everything up."

"We shall do our poor best, great leader."

"Yes," said Screed, doubtfully. "True enough. But even so--"

They could feel the space ship's screen cut off. The port opened.

From the vast crowd of Nirvans spread across the space port there came
a great whispering noise, something between a sigh and a moan of sad
farewell, as Screed turned and followed the other two through the port
and into the ship.

"Ah, Captain," said Screed, smiling a thin smile of triumph. "You
doubted my ability to remake Nirva. But now you have seen it. Quite a
change, eh?"

"Oh sure. Quite a change. Of course, there always is."

"And, Captain, you will note that we are all here. All three of us. You
have, I fear, lost your bet."

The Captain shrugged. "Better get to your cabin now, ready for take
off."

In the cabin Screed settled back in a chair and looked up at the other
two with an odd air of defiance. "All right," he said, "I did it,
didn't I? Just the way I told you."

"Screen on," said the Captain over the intercom.

To the three in the cabin the air seemed to turn shimmery, hazy,
indistinct for a moment. Then it cleared.

Garten and Viola stood by the doorway, arm in arm, staring. Screed,
Secad Screed, the leader, was gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

"There," said Garten with deep satisfaction, "He did do it."

Viola sighed, smiling. "Darling! He did! It worked just the way you
said it would. But I'm still not sure I quite understand why--or how."

"It doesn't really matter. But--you noticed he quit taking the
anti-hypnotic pills after the first week?"

"Yes. Did that make any difference? The satellite worked, didn't it?
And everything else went just the way he wanted it. It all seemed
perfect--for him."

"Sure it did. And that was what he couldn't face losing."

"Hmm?"

"Well, it seemed that everything went exactly the way he imagined it
would. The satellite worked. The people followed him. Everything. But
maybe we all only imagined it. How can we be sure? After all, those
things--plus our purely personal concerns that he was far too busy to
take any note of--"

Viola blushed, quite charmingly for a plain, mousy little woman.

"--were what we were expecting too. How can we know, for sure, what was
real and what was illusion?"

Viola looked suddenly offended.

"About the planet, I mean."

Viola looked mollified.

"But the planet--I think Screed is running the thing; I'm not sure. As
long as he is there, he _knows_ he is running it. Here--who knows? That
was the chance he couldn't take, the chance his mind refused to face.
If he were here, _could he still be sure he was right_?"

Viola smiled the feminine smile that dismisses a question no longer of
personal consequence and snuggled closer to Garten. "Well," she said,
"at least we know he isn't here. That's all that matters."