ALIEN MINDS
by E. Everett Evans
FANTASY PRESS, INC. READING, PENNSYLVANIA
Copyright 1955 by E. Everett Evans
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
FIRST EDITION
Printed in U. S. A.
by E. Everett Evans
Man of Many Minds The Planet Mappers Alien Minds
For Mother to whom I owe so much
CONTENTS
ALIEN MINDS
CHAPTER 1
"Were you looking for a roch, nyer?" An oily voice spoke up just by the elbow of George Hanlon. "I have some excellent ones here, sir."
"Yes, nyer, I want several, if I can find ones to suit me," the young man replied. Nor could anyone, glancing at him, know he was not a native of this planet, Szstruyyah, which the Inter-Stellar Corpsmen, in self-defense, called "Estrella." For the cosmetic-specialist who handled the secret servicemen's disguises had done a marvelous job in transforming the blond young Corpsman into an Estrellan native.
Hanlon continued looking into the outside cages containing these tailless roches, the Estrellan equivalent of wild dogs. "I want eight, all as near the same size, coloring and age as possible."
"Eight, did you say?" the merchant looked at him in astonishment. Hanlon, carefully reading the surface of the man's mind, sensed the conflict there between the ethics his religion and philosophy had taught him, his natural love of haggling, and a desire to make as much profit as possible. But he could not sense the slightest suspicion that the man confronting him was not another Estrellan.
This was a great relief to Hanlon, for he was still afraid he might be recognized as a stranger and an alien. In his disguise he was still humanoid in shape, and still his five feet eleven inches in height. But in addition to the ragged beard and longish hair, he had undergone outward structural differences that made him seem almost totally unhuman.
"That's right. Eight. I want them to be about two years old, in good health. Can you supply them?"
"I can if you can pay for them," the native looked somewhat questioningly at Hanlon's cheap clothing.
The young secret serviceman smiled, and jingled coins in his pocket. "I can pay."
"Then come with me, nyer, and we will find the ones you want."
Hanlon followed him inside the peculiar little open-faced stall that was one of the hundreds surrounding the great market square of this city of Stearra, largest on the West Continent of Estrella. His nose wrinkled against the stench of the uncleaned kennels.
The roches, seeing a stranger and, perhaps, being somewhat upset by his strange, alien effluvia, set up the peculiar, frenzied yelping that was their customary sound. To Hanlon, it was reminiscent of the wail of earthly coyotes.
The young Corpsman was on a very hair-trigger of caution and tenseness. Despite his splendid disguise, he had plodded through the crowd of the market place with a great deal of trepidation.
He had seemingly come through all right so far, and he began to relax a bit, yet was still somewhat fearful that he might give himself away by some difference of action, or speech, or by breaking one of their customs or taboos about which he knew all too little, despite his briefing and study before coming here.
"Have you decided which ones you want, nyer?" the proprietor asked, waving his hand toward the various cages, hardly able to believe he was to make such a large sale.
Hanlon said nothing, continuing to scan closely the roches, for his thoughts were still very much on this, his first prolonged venture into the streets and among the crowds of this strange new world to which he had been assigned on his second problem.
His mind was constantly contacting others, for George Spencer Newton Hanlon was the only member of the secret service who was at all able to read minds. But he could read only their surface thoughts—and these Estrellans had such peculiar mental processes, so different from those of the humans with whom he was familiar, that they were almost non-understandable.
