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THE BRAIN STEALERS OF MARS

by John W. Campbell, Jr.



CHAPTER I

imitation of Life

Rod Blake looked up with a deep chuckle. The sky of Mars was almost black, despite the small, brilliant sun, and the brighter stars and planets that shone visibly, Earth most brilliant of all, scarcely sixty million miles away.
УTheyТll have a fine time chasing us, back there, Ted.Ф He nodded toward the brilliant planet.
Ted Penton smiled beatifically.
УTheyТre probably investigating all our known haunts. ItТs their own fault if they canТt find usЧoutlawing research on atomic power.Ф
УThey had some provocation, you must admit. Koelenberg should have been more careful. When a man takes off some three hundred square miles of territory spang in the center of Europe in an atomic explosion, you canТt blame the rest of the world for being a bit skittish about atomic power research.Ф
УBut they might have had the wit to see that anybody that did get the secret would not wait around for the Atomic Power Research Death Penalty, but would light out for parts and planets quite unknown and leave the mess in the hands of a lawyer till the fireworks quieted down. It was obvious that when we developed atomic power weТd be the first men to reach Mars, and nobody could follow to bring us back unless they accepted the hated atomic power and used it,Ф argued Blake.
УWonder how old Jamison Montgomery Palborough made out with our claims,Ф mused Penton. УHe said heТd have it right in three months, and this is the third month and the third planet. WeТll let the government stew,
and sail on, fair friend, sail on. I still say that was a ruined city we saw as we landed.Ф
УI think it was, myself, but I remember the way you did that kangaroo leap on your neck the first time you stepped out on the moon. You certainly saw stars.Ф
УWeТre professionals at walking under cockeyed gravities now. Moon
ЧVenusЧФ
УYes, but IТm still not risking my neck on the attitude of a strange planet and a strange race at the same time. WeТll investigate the planet a bit first, and yonder mudhole is the first stop. Come on.Ф
They reached the top of one of the long rolling sand dunes and the country was spread out below them. It looked exactly as it had been from the last dune that they had struggled up, just as utterly barren, utterly bleak, and unendingly red. Like an iron planet, badly neglected and rusted.

The mudhole was directly beneath them, an expanse of red and brown slime, dotted here and there with clumps of dark red foliage.
УThe stuff looks like Japanese maple,Ф said Blake.
УEvidently doesnТt use chlorophyl to get the sunТs energy. LetТs collect a few samples. You have your violet-gun and I have mine. I guess itТs safe to split. ThereТs a large group of things down on the left that look a little different. IТll take them while you go straight ahead. Gather any flowers, fruits, berries or seeds you see. Few leavesЧoh, you know. What we got on Venus. General junk. If you find a small plant, put on your gloves and yank it out. If you see a big one, steer clear. Venus had some peculiarly unpleasant specimens.Ф
Blake groaned. УYou telling me. IТm the bright boy that fell for that pretty fruit and climbed right up between the stems of a scissor tree. Uhuh. I shoot Сem down. Go ahead, and good luck.Ф
Penton swung off to the ieft, while Blake slogged ahead to a group of weird-looking plants. They were dome-shaped things, three feet high, with a dozen long, drooping, sword-shaped leaves.
Cautiously Blake tossed a bit of stone into the center of one. It gave off a mournful, drumming boom, but the leaves didnТt budge. He tried a rope on one leaf but the leaf neither stabbed, grabbed, nor jerked away, as he had half expected after his lesson with the ferocious plants of Venus. Blake pulled a leaf off, then a few more. The plant acted quite plant-like, which pleasantly surprised him.
The whole region seemed seeded with a number of the things, nearly all about the same size. A ~few, sprinided here and there, were in various stages of development, from a few protruding sword-leaves, to little threeinch domes on up to the full-grown plant. Carefully avoiding the larger
ones, Rod plucked two small ones and thrust them into his specimen bag. Then he stood off and looked at one of the domes that squatted so dejectedly in the thick, gummy mud.
УI suppose you have some reason for being like that, but a good solid tree would put you all in the shade, and collect all the sunlight going. Which is little enough.Ф He looked at them for some seconds picturing a stout Japanese maple in this outlandish red-brown gum.
He shrugged, and wandered on, seeking some other plant. There were few others. Apparently this particular species throttled out other varieties very thoroughly. He wasnТt very anxious anyway; he was much more in~ terested in the ruined city they had seen from the ship. Ted Penton was cautious.
Eventually Blake followed his winding footsteps back toward the sТhip, and about where his footsteps showed heТd gathered his first samples, he stopped. There was a Japanese maple there. It stood some fifteen feet tall, and the bark was beautifully regular in appearance. The leaves were nearly a quarter of an inch thick, and arranged with a peculiar regularity, as were the branches. But it was very definitely a Japanese maple.
Rod BlakeТs jaw put a severe strain on the hinges thereof. It dropped some three inches, and Blake stared. He stared with steady, blank gaze at that perfectly impossible Japanese maple. He gawked dumbly. Then his jaw snapped shut abruptly, and he cursed softly. The leaves were stirring gently, and they were not a quarter of an inch thick. They were paper thin, and delicately veined. Further, the tree was visibly taller, and three new branches had started to sprout, irregularly now. They sprouted as he watched, growing not as twigs but as fully formed branches extending themselves gradually. As he stared harder at them they dwindled rapidly to longer twigs, and grew normally.

Rod let out a loud yip, and made tracks rapidly extending themselves toward the point where heТd last seen Ted Penton. PentonТs tracks curved off, and Rod steamed down as fast as MarsТ light gravity permitted, to pull up short as he rounded a corner of another sword-leaf dome clump. УTed,Ф he panted, Уcome over here. ThereТs aЧaЧweird thing. AЧit looks like a Japanese maple, but it doesnТt. Because when you look at it, it changes.Ф
Rod stopped, and started back, beckoning Ted.
Ted didnТt move.
УI donТt know what to say,Ф he said quite clearly, rather panting, and sounding excited, though it was a quite unexciting remark, except for one thing. He said it in Rod BlakeТs voice!
Rod stiffened. Then he backed away hurriedly, stumbled over his feet and sat down heavily in the sand. УFor the love ofЧTedЧTed, wh-what did you s-s-say?Ф
УI donТt know wh-what to s-s-say.Ф
Rod groaned. It started out exactly like his own voice, changed rapidly while it spoke, and wound up a fair imitation of TedТs. УOh, Lord,Ф he groaned, УIТm going back to the ship. In a hurry.Ф
He started away, then looked back over his shoulder. Ted Penton was moving now, swaying on his feet peculiarly. Delicately he picked up his left foot, shook it gently, like a man trying to separate himself from a piece of flypaper. Rod moved even more rapidly than he had before. Long, but rapidly shrinking roots dangled from the foot, gooey mud dropping from them as they shrank into the foot. Rod turned again with the violet-gun in his hand. It thrummed to blasting atomic energy, and a pencil beam of ravening ultra-violet fury shot out and a hazy bail of light surrounded
it.

The figure of Ted Penton smoked suddenly, and a hole the size of a golf ball drove abruptly through the center of the head, to the accompaniment of a harsh whine of steam and spurts of oily smoke. The figure did not fall. It slumped. It melted rapidly, like a snow-man in a furnace, the fingers ran together, the remainder of the face dropped, contracted, and became horrible. It was suddenly the face of a man whose pouched and dulled eyes had witnessed and enjoyed every evil the worlds knew, weirdly glowing eyes that danced and flamed for a moment in screaming fury of deadly hateЧand dissolved with the last dissolution of the writhing face.
And the arms grew long, very long and much wider. Rod stood frozen while the very wide and rapidly widening arms beat up and down. The thing took off and flapped awkwardly away, and for an instant the last trace of the hate-filled eyes glittered again in the sun.
Rod Blake sat down and laughed. He laughed, and laughed again at the very funny sight of the melting face on the bat-bodied thing that had flown away with a charred hole in the middle of its grape-fruit-sized head. He laughed even louder when another Ted-Penton-thing came around the corner of the vegetable clump, on the run. He aimed at the center of its head. УFly away!Ф he yelled as he pressed the little button down.