Come Into My Brain!

                          By Alexander Blade

               Fitted with the new thought-helmet, Dane
            Harrell plunged into the venomous brain of the
            alien. It was a fast way to commit suicide!...

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                               June 1958
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Dane Harrell held the thought-helmet tightly between his hands and,
before putting it on, glanced over at the bound, writhing alien sitting
opposite him. The alien snarled defiantly.

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" asked Dr. Phelps.

Harrell nodded. "I volunteered, didn't I? I said I'd take a look inside
this buzzard's brain and I'm going to do it. If I don't come up in half
an hour, come get me."

"Right."

Harrell slipped the cool bulk of the thought-helmet over his head and
signalled to the scientist, who pulled the actuator switch. Harrell
shuddered as psionic current surged through him; he stiffened,
wriggled, and felt himself glide out of his body, hover incorporeally
in the air between his now soulless shell and the alien bound opposite.

_Remember, you volunteered_, he told himself.

He hung for a moment outside the alien's skull; then, he drifted
downward and in. He had entered the alien's mind. Whether he would
emerge alive, and with the troop-deployment data--well, that was
another matter entirely.

The patrol-ships of the Terran outpost on Planetoid 113 had discovered
the alien scout a week before. The Dimellian spy was lurking about the
outermost reaches of the Terran safety zone when he was caught.

It wasn't often that Earth captured a Dimellian alive and so the
Outpost resolved to comb as much information from him as possible.
The Earth-Dimell war was four years old; neither side had scored a
decisive victory. It was believed that Dimell was massing its fleets
for an all-out attack on Earth itself; confirmation of this from the
captured scout would make Terran defensive tactics considerably more
sound.

But the Dimellian resisted all forms of brainwashing until Phelps,
the Base Psych-man, came forth with the experimental thought-helmet.
Volunteers were requested; Harrell spoke up first. Now, wearing
the thought-helmet, he plunged deep into the unknown areas of the
Dimellian's mind, hoping to emerge with high-order military secrets.

His first impression was of thick grey murk--so thick it could be cut.
Using a swimming motion, Harrell drifted downward, toward the light in
the distance. It was a long way down; he floated, eerily, in free-fall.

Finally he touched ground. It yielded under him spongily, but it
was solid. He looked around. The place was alien: coarse crumbly red
soil, giant spike-leaved trees that shot up hundreds of feet overhead,
brutal-looking birds squawking and chattering in the low branches.

It looked just like the tridim solidos of Dimell he had seen. Well, why
not? Why shouldn't the inside of a man's mind--or an alien's, for that
matter--resemble his home world?

Cautiously, Harrell started to walk. Mountains rose in the dim distance
and he could see, glittering on a mountaintop far beyond him, the white
bulk of an armored castle. Of course! His imaginative mind realized at
once that here was where the Dimellian guarded his precious secrets; up
there, on the mountain, was his goal.

He started to walk.

Low-hanging vines obscured his way; he conjured up a machete and cut
them down. The weapon felt firm and real in his hand but he realized
that not even the hand was real; all this was but an imaginative
projection.

The castle was further away than he had thought. He saw this after he
had walked for perhaps 15 minutes. There was no telling duration inside
the alien's skull, either. Or distance. The castle seemed just as
distant now as when he had begun and his 15-minute journey through the
jungle had tired him.

Suddenly demonic laughter sounded up ahead in the jungle. Harsh, ugly
laughter.

And the Dimellian appeared, slashing his way through the vines with
swashbuckling abandon.

"Get out of my mind, Earthman!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The Dimellian was larger than life and twice as ugly. It was an
idealized, self-glorified mental image Harrell faced.

The captured Dimellian was about five feet tall, thick-shouldered, with
sturdy, corded arms and supplementary tentacles sprouting from its
shoulders; its skin was green and leathery, dotted with toad-like warts.

Harrell now saw a creature close to nine feet tall, swaggering, with a
mighty barrel of a chest and a huge broad-sword clutched in one of its
arms. The tentacles writhed purposefully.

"You know why I'm here, alien. I want to know certain facts. And I'm
not getting out of your mind until I've wrung them from you."

The alien's lipless mouth curved in a bleak smile. "Big words, little
Earthman. But first you'll have to vanquish _me_."

And the Dimellian stepped forward.

Harrell met the downcrashing blow of the alien's broad-sword fully; the
shock of impact sent numbing shivers up his arm as far as his shoulder
but he held on and turned aside the blow. It wasn't fair; the Dimellian
had a vaster reach than he could ever hope for....

No! He saw there was no reason why he couldn't control the size of
his own mental image. Instantly he was 10 feet high and advancing
remorselessly toward the alien.

Swords clashed clangorously, the forest-birds screamed. Harrell drove
the alien back ... back....

And the Dimellian was eleven feet high.

"We can keep this up forever," Harrell said. "Getting larger and
larger. This is only a mental conflict." He shot up until he again
towered a foot above the alien's head. He swung downward two-handedly
with the machete....

The alien vanished.

And reappeared five feet to the right, "Enough of this foolishness,
Earthman. Physical conflict will be endless stalemate, since we're only
mental projections. You're beaten; there's no possible way you can
defeat me, or I defeat you. Don't waste your time and mine. Get out of
my mind!"

Harrell shook his head doggedly. "I'm in here to do a job and I'm not
leaving until I've done it." He sprang forward, sword high, and thrust
down at the grinning Dimellian.

Again the Dimellian sidestepped. Harrell's sword cut air.

"Don't tire yourself out, Earthman," the alien said mockingly, and
vanished.

Harrell stood alone in the heart of the steaming jungle, leaning on his
sword. Maybe he was only a mental projection, he thought, but a mental
projection could still get thoroughly drenched with its own mental
sweat.

The castle still gleamed enigmatically on the distant mountain. He
couldn't get there by walking--at least, it hadn't seemed to draw any
nearer during his jaunt through the jungle. Hand-to-hand combat with
the alien appeared fruitless. A fight in which both participants could
change size at will, vanish, reappear, and do other such things was as
pointless as a game of poker with every card wild.

But there had to be a way. Mental attack? Perhaps _that_ would crumble
the alien's defenses.

He sent out a beam of thought, directed up at the castle. _Can you hear
me, alien?_

Mental laughter echoed mockingly back. _Of course, Earthman. What
troubles you?_

Harrell made no reply. He stood silently, concentrating, marshalling
his powers. Then he hurled a bolt of mental energy with all his
strength toward the mocking voice.

The jungle shuddered as it struck home. The ground lurched wildly,
like an animal's back; trees tumbled, the sky bent. Harrell saw he had
scored a hit; the alien's concentration had wavered, distorting the
scenery.

But there was quick recovery. Again the mocking laughter. Harrell knew
that the alien had shrugged off the blow.

And then the counterblow.

It caught Harrell unawares and sent him spinning back a dozen feet,
to land in a tangled heap beneath a dangling nest of vines. His head
rocked, seemed ready to split apart. He sensed the alien readying a
second offensive drive, and set up counterscreens.

This time he was ready. He diverted the attack easily, and shook his
head to clear it. The score was even: one stunning blow apiece. But he
had recovered and so had the alien.

Harrell aimed another blow and felt the alien sweep it aside. Back came
the answering barrage of mental force; Harrell blocked it.

_Stalemate again_, the alien said.

_We're evenly matched_, Harrell replied. _But I'll beat you._ He looked
up at the far-off castle on the mountainside. _I'll beat you yet._

_That remains to be proven, troublesome Earthman._

       *       *       *       *       *

Harrell tramped on through the jungle of the alien's mind for a while,
and then, realizing he was getting no closer to the all-important
castle on the hill, stopped by a brook to wipe away his perspiration.
It was hot on this accursed world--hot, muggy, dank.

He kneeled over the water's surface. It looked pure, cool. A sudden
thought struck him and he ripped a strip from his shirt and dipped it
in the water.

The plasticloth blackened and charred. He let it drop and the "water"
quickly finished the job. Pool? No. Concentrated sulphuric acid or
something just as destructive.

Smiling grimly at his narrow escape, he wiped his perspiration with
another strip torn from his sleeve and kept going. Several hours, at
least, had passed since he had entered the strange world within the
alien's mind.

That meant one of two things: either the time-scale in here was
different from that outside or his half-hour limit had elapsed in the
outer world and Dr. Phelps had been unsuccessful in bringing him back.

That was a nice thought. Suppose he was stuck here indefinitely, inside
the mind of an alien being, in a muggy jungle full of sulphuric acid
brooks?

_Well_, he thought, _I asked for it...._

The stalemate couldn't continue indefinitely. If he had swallowed
some of the acid that would have ended the contest without doubt; he
wouldn't have had time to cope with the searing fluid.

The answer lay there--_surprise_. Both he and the alien were mental
entities who could do battle as they pleased--but in this conflict
it was necessary to take the opponent by surprise before he could
counterthrust or vanish.

He began to see a solution.

Up ahead lay the castle--unreachable, through some trick of the
alien's. Very well. Harrell's brows drew together in concentration for
a moment; his mind planned a strategy--and formed men to carry it out.

There were six of him, suddenly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Six identical Harrells--identical in size, shape, form, purpose.
They would attack the Dimellian simultaneously. Or, at least,
five of them would, creating a diversionary action while the
sixth--Harrell-original--made a frontal assault on the castle.

Harrell-original faced his five duplicates and briefly instructed each
in his job. They were like puppets.

"Harrell-one, you're to attack in conjunction with Harrell-two, on the
mental level. Take turns heaving mental bolts at the alien. While one
of you is recharging, the other is to unload. That won't give him time
to get any sort of defense organized and certainly no counter-attack.

"Harrell-three and Harrell-four, you're to attack physically, one armed
with sword and one with blaster, from opposite sides at once. _That_
ought to keep him busy, while he's fighting off the rest of you.

"Harrell-five, your job is to serve as front runner--to find the
Dimellian and engage him in conversation while the other four are
getting ready to attack. Make him angry; get him concerned about what
you're saying. The instant his defenses drop the other four of you jump
in. All of you got that?"

They nodded in unison.

"Good. Meanwhile I'll make an assault on the castle and maybe I can get
through with you five running interference for me."

He dismissed them and they set out in different directions. He didn't
want the Dimellian to find out what was up; if the alien saw the
strategy and had time to create duplicates of its own the conflict
would end in stalemate again.

Harrell waited, while his five duplicates went into action.

Through the mental link with Harrell-five, he listened as his
duplicates said, "The time has come to finish you off, alien. I'm glad
I found you. That acid trick almost got me but not quite."

"A pity," the alien replied. "I was hoping the ruse would finish you.
It's becoming quite irritating, having you in here. You're starting to
bore me."

"Just you wait, you overstuffed wart-hog. I'll have those tentacles of
yours clipped soon enough."

"Empty words, Earthman. You've run out of strategies; your best course
is to get out of my mind and forget this entire silly affair."

"Oh, no. I'll have those secrets pried out of you quicker than you
think."

"How?"

"I'm not giving away _my_ secrets, alien. I'm here after yours."

Harrell readied himself. He gave the signal: _now_.

Harrell-one and Harrell-three appeared. Harrell-one loosed a
bombardment of mental force that shook the alien; Harrell-three dashed
forward, wielding a machete.

Harrell-two and Harrell-four went into action, Harrell-two following up
with a second mental bolt, Harrell-four firing a blaster. The bedeviled
alien looked from side to side, not knowing where to defend himself
first.

The scenery began to rock. The alien was going down.

Harrell took to the air.

Levitating easily above the jungle, he found the castle and zeroed
in on it. As he dropped downward it changed--from a vaulting proud
collection of spires and battlements to a blocky square building and
from that into an armored box with a padlock.

The Dimellian stood before it, struggling with the five duplicate
Harrells.

Harrell stepped past--_through_--the writhing group. The Dimellian's
defenses were down. The secrets were unguarded.

He wrenched the padlock off with a contemptuous twist of his hand. The
box sprang open. Inside lay documents, neatly typed, ready for his eye.

The alien uttered a mighty howl. The forest dissolved; the universe
swirled around Harrell's head.

       *       *       *       *       *

He woke. It seemed to be months later.

Dr. Phelps stood by his side.

Harrell took two or three deep breaths, clearing his head. He grinned.
"I've got them," he said. "Information on troop movements, plan of
battle, even the line of journey across space."

"Good work," the psychman said. "I was worried at first. You had some
expressions of real terror on your face when you put the helmet on."

"Dead?"

"I'm afraid so."

Harrell grinned weakly. "I guess I was just too many for him. The shock
of having the core of his mind penetrated--" Tiredly he said, "Doc, how
come you didn't get me out at the half-hour mark?"

"Eh?"

"I told you to pull me out after half an hour had gone by. Why didn't
you? I was in there half a day, at least--and I might have stayed there
forever."

The psychman was looking at him strangely. "Half a day, you say? No,
Lieutenant Harrell. The total time elapsed from the moment you donned
the helmet to the instant the alien screamed--why, it was less than 10
seconds!"