"Look out!" Knight called. But the thing was quicker than Mallory.
"Look out!" Knight called. But the thing was quicker than Mallory.
"Look out!" Knight called. But the thing was quicker than Mallory.
Knight caught a sudden thought within his mind. With an abrupt movement, he spun, dashed for the guardsmen by the door and plowed his way through them somehow, feeling the shock of a half-dozen Things darting into his body.
But he broke through, the Things within him screaming and snarling at his mind.Sammy had the answer! He still has the answer. Sammy has the weapon.The words pounded into his mind, upholding it against the onslaughts of the Things.
They hate me!He gloried in the thought.Let them. I have the weapon now. Hating me won't hurt any more!
He fell, tripping; one leg had momentarily refused to function as the concentrated power of the thoughts of the half-dozen Things within him lashed at his mind. He staggered to his feet, his mind fighting, his lungs laboring.
He found the cubicle door at last, and with a tremendous effort of will stepped across the threshold. Sammy was there—good, wonderful, precious Sammy, with his bald head, his hook nose and his bottle. His bottle.
He half-staggered across the room. The Things within him screamed and tore at his very soul, but he managed to snatch the bottle from Sammy's hand and gulp it hurriedly. The Things tried to make him vomit, but he held the hot liquor down until he felt it warming him deep inside.
The shock of the liquor reached into his blood stream and he felt the Things' frantic struggles wane.
Yah, he thought exultingly,yah! One man's drink is another man's poison. And, Things, are you going to get poisoned!
The Things died.I'm just a little drunk, Kent Knight thought. He looked down around him. For a moment, he thought he saw a half-dozen shadows on the silvery deck. But then the shadows were gone and his mind was free again.
Sammy was staring at him with worried eyes. Knight bent down and kissed Sammy's bald spot with a loud smack.
"Bless you, you stinking drunk," Knight muttered, and staggered out, bottle in hand.
Sammy was still sitting there when Knight came back with four guardsmen. The bottle he had was removed from his hand and Knight and the guardsmen staggered out.
Sammy didn't mind the second or the third or the fourth time, but, when Knight came back with Mallory and snatched the fifth bottle, he rebelled.
He hung onto the bottle. "What in the name of space are you doing with my liquor? Are you trying to put me on the wagon?"
Knight and Mallory laughed and almost as a duet shook their fingers in Sammy's face.
"We're having a purge. We are cleaning minds of nasty thoughts." Sammy relinquished the bottle, and puzzledly followed Knight and Mallory.
He followed them all over the ship, but they didn't find any more minds to purge. Finally, Kent Knight said, "I think the Arkkhans are gone, Bob."
"Yeah," the red head replied. "But maybe we ought to give everybody another slug of it just to be sure they're not hiding out."
That bottle and several others went down the throats of the crew amid the wails and laments of Sammy.
Sammy snored peacefully in a corner as Knight and Mallory talked. "It's funny when you think of it," Mallory commented. "They must have been more than just pure thought, or how could the liquor bother them?"
"Sammy had the clue. All the time I thought he had one of them in his mind, but he didn't. His subconscious mind somehow made him stay drunk. He knew something was trying to get at him.
"I feel sure, but somehow I'll never know, that they had a physical body of some sort, else they could have roamed at will across space. They wouldn't have needed any hosts."
Knight rubbed the nape of his neck where the hackles had risen at the memory of that furry little body he had touched which had broughtItinto his mind.
"Then it seemed like an actual weight, a physical load, lifted from my mind when the Things died in me," he added, tapping a tumbler of the amber fluid on the table between them. "I'm sure I saw their bodies fading away that last time. There were a half-dozen shadows on the floor and then they disappeared."
Mallory nodded agreement. "I saw shadows, too, when we poured that liquor down a couple of my men. But what I can't figure is why your Thing jumped back and forth. First you had it. Then you gave it to me, and took it back again."
"I guess they just couldn't help it, Bob. Maybe it was instinctive, or perhaps they needed to change hosts lest they became rooted into one and died with it."
Knight stared at the glass, picked it up. He looked quietly at Mallory. "How's Mary Jo, Bob?"
Mallory grinned. "I wondered how long it would be before you asked that. So I suppose I'd better say it now."
He picked up his glass, clicked against Knight's. "Here's to Faith," he said. "Your Faith, Kent Knight."
"MyFaith?"
"Mary Jo didn't know how much she loved you until you walked out so gallantly. But," he added ruefully, his green eyes flickering, "I found out what a smash climax you gave her. So, since then I've been looking for a Faith like yours.
"Honestly, I don't see what the hell she sees in you. You're about as romantic as an old shoe. But...." He drank in one swift gulp.
Kent Knight only stared out into space, seeing nothing for the joyous tears in his eyes.