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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32827 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         THINK YOURSELF TO DEATH
+
+                       A "JOHNNY MAYHEM" ADVENTURE
+
+                             By C. H. THAMES
+
+[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March
+1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+[Sidenote: _If you've never read a Johnny Mayhem story before, you are
+in for a treat. Johnny, who wears different bodies the way ordinary
+people wear clothes, is one of the most fascinating series characters in
+science fiction._]
+
+
+When he reached Ophiuchus, Johnny Mayhem was wearing the body of an
+elderly Sirian gentleman.
+
+Nothing could have been more incongruous. The Sirian wore a pince-nez, a
+dignified two-piece jumper in a charcoal color, sedate two-tone boots
+and a black string-tie.
+
+The loiterers in the street near the Galactic Observer's building
+looked, and pointed, and laughed. Using the dignity of the dead Sirian,
+whose body he wore like other people wear clothing, Johnny Mayhem
+ignored them. They had a point, of course. It was hot and humid on
+Ophiuchus IX. The loiterers in the dusty, evil-smelling streets wore
+nothing but loin cloths.
+
+Mayhem went inside the building, which was air-conditioned. Probably it
+was the only air-conditioned structure on the entire planet. Mayhem
+dabbed at his Sirian forehead gratefully, mopping at sweat. As near as
+he could figure, his life expectancy in this body was down to three
+days, Earth style. He wondered fleetingly why the Galactic League had
+sent him here to Ophiuchus. He shrugged, knowing he would find out soon
+enough.
+
+The Galactic Observer on Ophiuchus IX, a middle-aged Indian from Bombay
+named Kovandaswamy, wore an immaculate white linen loin cloth on his
+plump body and a relieved smile on his worried face when Mayhem entered
+his office. The two men shook hands.
+
+"So you're Mayhem?" Kovandaswamy said in English. "They told me to
+expect you, sir. Pardon my staring, but I've never been face to face
+with a legend before. I'm impressed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mayhem laughed. "You'll get over it."
+
+"Well, at least as a Sirian gentleman, you're not very prepossessing.
+That helps."
+
+"It wasn't my idea. It never is."
+
+"I know. I know that, sir." Kovandaswamy got up nervously from his desk
+and paced across the room. "Do you know anything about Ophiuchus IX,
+Mayhem?"
+
+"Not much. It's one of the Forgotten Worlds, isn't it?"
+
+"Precisely, sir. Ophiuchus IX is one of scores of interstellar worlds
+colonized in the first great outflux from Earth."
+
+"You mean during the population pressure of the 24th century?"
+
+"Exactly. Then Ophiuchus IX, like the other Forgotten Worlds, was all
+but forgotten. As you know, Mayhem, the first flux of colonization
+receded like a wave, inertia set in, and the so-called Forgotten Worlds
+became isolated from the rest of the galaxy for generations. Only in the
+past fifty years are we finding them again, one by one. Ophiuchus IX is
+typical, isolated from the galaxy at large by a dust cloud that--"
+
+"I know. I came through it."
+
+"It was colonized originally with Indians from southern and eastern
+India, on Earth. That's why the Galactic League appointed me Observer.
+I'm an Indian. These people--well, they're what my people might have
+developed into if they'd lived for hundreds of years in perfect
+isolation."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+Kovandaswamy answered with a question of his own. "You are aware of the
+Galactic League's chief aim?"
+
+"Sure. To see that no outworld, however small or distant, is left in
+isolation. Is that what you mean?"
+
+"Yes," agreed Kovandaswamy. "Their reason is obvious. For almost a
+thousand years now the human race has outpaced its social and moral
+development with development in the physical sciences. For almost a
+thousand years mankind has had the power to destroy itself. In isolation
+this is possible. With mutual interchange of ideas, it is extremely
+unlikely. Thus, in the interests of human survival, the Galactic League
+tries to thwart isolated development. So far, the Forgotten Worlds have
+cooperated. But Ophiuchus IX is an exception."
+
+"And the League wants me to find out why?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"How are they thwarting--"
+
+Kovandaswamy was sweating despite the air-conditioning, despite his
+almost-naked state. "You have the right to turn this mission down, of
+course. The League told me that."
+
+"I'm here," Mayhem said simply.
+
+"Very well, sir. Sooner or later, every outworlder who ventures out
+among the Ophiuchans kills himself."
+
+"I guess I didn't hear you. Did you say kills himself?"
+
+"Suicide, Mayhem. Exactly."
+
+"But how can you blame--"
+
+"Like their ancestors from the Earthian sub-continent of India, Mayhem,
+the Ophiuchans are mystics. The trance, the holy man who sits in
+contemplation of his navel, the World Spirit--these are the things of
+their culture most important to them. Mayhem, did you ever see a hundred
+holy men of India working together?"
+
+"Usually they don't work together."
+
+"Precisely, sir. Precisely. Here on Ophiuchus, they do. And not merely a
+hundred. All of them. Virtually all of them. Working together, their
+minds in trance, unified, seeking their World Spirit, they can do
+amazing things."
+
+"Like mentally forcing the outworlders to kill themselves?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Legally, they are innocent. Morally, they do not recognize
+the outworlders as equals of themselves. The League wants to know what
+they are trying to hide. It could be a threat to peace and--existence."
+
+"You have a body for me?" Johnny would be ready with that provided.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If anyone but Johnny Mayhem had asked that question, Kovandaswamy would
+not have known what he was talking about, or would have thought him
+insane, or both. But Johnny Mayhem was, of course, the legendary Man
+Without a Body. How many corporeal shells had he inhabited in the past
+half dozen years? He shrugged, not remembering. He couldn't remain in
+one body more than a month: it would mean the final death of his _elan_,
+his bodiless sentience. So far he had avoided that death.
+
+The Galactic League would help him if it could. Every world which had a
+human population and a Galactic League post, however small, must have a
+body in cold storage, waiting for Johnny Mayhem if his services were
+required. But no one knew exactly under what circumstances the Galactic
+League Council, operating from the hub of the Galaxy, might summon
+Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at the Hub and the
+Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observers on primitive
+worlds, knew the precise mechanism of Mayhem's coming. To others it was
+a weird mystery.
+
+Johnny Mayhem, bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had
+been chased from Earth, a pariah and a criminal, almost seven years ago,
+who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the
+Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the
+white magic of the planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as
+a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a fresh
+corpse or one which had been frozen properly ... an _elan_ doomed to
+wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a
+month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his
+strange, lonely life to the service of the Galactic League because a
+normal life and normal social relations were not possible for him....
+
+"Then you'll do it?" Kovandaswamy asked on Ophiuchus IX. "Even though
+you realize we can give you no official help not only because the
+Galactic League approves of your work unofficially but can't sanction it
+officially, but because an outworlder can't set his foot outside this
+building for long or off the spacefield without risking death...."
+
+"By suicide?"
+
+"Yes. I'm practically a prisoner in Galactic League Headquarters, as is
+my staff. You see--"
+
+"What about the body?"
+
+Kovandaswamy looked at him nervously. "A native, Mayhem. A native won't
+be molested, you see."
+
+"That figures. What kind of native?"
+
+"In top shape, sir. Healthy, young, in the prime of life you might say."
+
+"Then what's bothering you?"
+
+"Nothing. Nothing, sir."
+
+"Your technicians are ready?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And vowed to secrecy."
+
+Mayhem found a tiny capsule in the pocket of his Sirian jumper, and
+popped it in his mouth.
+
+"What--what's that?" Kovandaswamy asked.
+
+Mayhem swallowed. "Curare," he said.
+
+"Curare! A poison!"
+
+"Paralysis," said Mayhem quickly. "Muscular paralysis. You die because
+you stop breathing. Painless ... and...."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Call your technicians ... new body ... ready...." Gasping, the Sirian
+gentleman, hardly Johnny Mayhem now, fell to the floor.
+
+Trembling, Kovandaswamy pressed a button on his desk. A few moments
+later, two white-coated technicians entered the office.
+
+"Project M," Kovandaswamy said.
+
+Grimly the technicians went to work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mayhem awoke.
+
+Ordinarily it was his _elan_ alone which journeyed between the worlds,
+his _elan_ which was fed the information it would need in hypno-sleep
+while the frozen body was thawed out. Sometimes, however, he came the
+normal way in a body which still had some of its thirty days left, as he
+had come to Ophiuchus IX in the Sirian gentleman.
+
+Darkness. The body felt young and healthy. Mayhem wondered vaguely how
+it had died, then decided it did not really matter. For the next thirty
+days the body would live again, as Johnny Mayhem.
+
+Recessed lighting glowed at the juncture of walls and ceiling. Mayhem
+was reclining on a cot. A loin cloth and a large shawl had been laid out
+for him. On the far wall of the room was a tinted mirror. Mayhem got up
+and went over there.
+
+What his new body looked like hardly mattered, he told himself. Youth,
+health, strength--these were important. He could sense them internally.
+He could....
+
+He stared at the image in the mirror. His face turned beet red. He went
+for the shawl and the loin cloth and put them on. Cursing, he went to
+find Kovandaswamy.
+
+"Is this supposed to be a joke?" Mayhem demanded.
+
+"You never asked what the--" Kovandaswamy began.
+
+"How am I supposed to find out anything--like this?"
+
+"It's a young body, a healthy body. It is also the one we were given
+when the Galactic League first came here. It is the only one we were
+given."
+
+"Take it or leave it, eh?"
+
+"I'm afraid so, Mayhem."
+
+"All right. All right, I guess I shouldn't complain. It could probably
+outrun and outfight and outthink the dyspeptic old Sirian gentleman, and
+things turned out well enough on Sirius III. But it'll probably take
+most of my time just getting used to it, Kovandaswamy. I'm supposed to
+be conducting an investigation."
+
+"At least as an Ophiuchan you won't arouse suspicion."
+
+Mayhem nodded slowly, with reluctance. There was nothing else to say. He
+shook hands with Kovandaswamy and, wearing the loin cloth and the shawl,
+left the Galactic League building.
+
+With, of course, a completely new identity.
+
+Mayhem walked a mile and a half through hot, arid country. The League
+building was isolated, as if its inmates might contaminate the native
+Ophiuchans. Along the dusty road Mayhem passed a _guru_, the name for a
+wise man or a holy man first in India and now here on Ophiuchus IX. The
+guru sat in contemplation of the tip of his nose, legs crossed, soles of
+feet up, eyes half-closed. The guru remained that way, without moving,
+until Mayhem was out of sight. Then the guru behaved in a very
+un-guru-like manner.
+
+The guru got up quite nimbly, joints creaking, skin dry and cracked.
+Three strides brought him to a tree with a partly hollow trunk. He
+lifted a radio transmitter and began to talk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In twenty generations, the initially small population of Ophiuchus IX,
+all colonists from India on Earth, had increased geometrically. The
+colonized planet, now, was as over-populated as the teeming
+sub-continent which long ago had sent the colonists seeking a new home.
+As a result, unemployment was chronic, discontent widespread, and
+whatever inner serenity mysticism might bring was widely sought after.
+This did not stop the non-mystics, however, of whom there were many,
+from seeking jobs that could pay money that could fill empty bellies....
+
+[Illustration: The crazed mob was bent upon rapine and murder.]
+
+A long line gathered outside the employment office of Denebian Exports
+the morning after Mayhem had left the League building in his new body.
+Denebian Exports was the largest outworld company currently on
+Ophiuchus, a company which had solved the outworlder-suicide problem
+quite simply by hiring no one but natives. Still, hoots and catcalls
+surrounded those on the employment line. Other jobless Ophiuchans,
+apparently preferring near-starvation to working for the outworlders,
+threatened to make the situation dangerous.
+
+Pandit Gandhi Menon, a lean, handsome Ophiuchan of perhaps thirty years,
+wished there was some way he could shut his ears to the abuse. He needed
+work. His father and mother were ill, his child was starving, his wife
+already dead. The gurus offered their own unique solution, of course.
+The body is nothing, they said. The mind is everything. But thus had the
+gurus spoken for four thousand years, on Earth and on Ophiuchus. The
+great majority of Ophiuchans, Pandit Gandhi Menon included, preferred
+food for the body to food for mystic thought. Still, the crowds were
+ugly, threatening to break up the line of job-seekers if Denebian
+Exports didn't open its doors soon....
+
+An unkempt little man, not old but with a matted growth of beard, an
+unwashed body which gave the impression of wiry strength, and wild eyes,
+abruptly flung himself at the young woman in line in front of Pandit.
+
+Shouting, "Not our women, too!" the little man attacked the girl, trying
+to drag her from the line. "It is bad enough our men, but not our
+women!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pandit caught the fanatic's wiry arm and brought it behind his scrawny
+back in a hammerlock. "Leave her alone," he said. "If you try that
+again, I'll break your arm."
+
+The fanatic looked at Pandit with hate in his eyes, but stepped back and
+stood to one side mouthing invective.
+
+The girl, who was about twenty-five years old, had a livid mark on her
+arm. She wore loin cloth and shawl, the usual garb. She was, Pandit
+observed for the first time, quite pretty.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "I--I'm not sure I like working for the
+outworlders. But I need the money."
+
+"Don't we all," Pandit told her. "But we're not hired yet. I am Pandit
+Gandhi Menon."
+
+"Sria Krishna," the girl said, smiling at him. "What sort of work is
+it?"
+
+"Don't you know, Sria Krishna?"
+
+The girl shook her head and Pandit said: "Actually, I guess I don't
+know, either. But there are rumors the outworlders want jet-pilots. Not
+for rocketry. For jets. To fly to the Empty Places."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Empty Places? Why?"
+
+Pandit shrugged. "Because they are empty, perhaps. Because they are too
+dry and too arid to support life. Because Denebian Export can claim
+whatever it found there, for free export. So go the rumors. But surely
+you can't pilot a jet."
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"Yes," Pandit said promptly with a faint show of pride.
+
+"My father taught me. I want to thank you for what--"
+
+"Nothing. Anyone in my position would have done it. This rabble--"
+
+The rabble was still noisy. Occasionally they hurled offal at the
+stragglers joining the rear of the long line. But Pandit and Sria
+Krishna stood in the forefront, and presently the door opened. In a few
+minutes Pandit watched the girl disappear inside. He waited nervously,
+licking dry lips with a parched tongue. It was early morning, but
+already very hot. He needed the work. Any work. He needed the money
+which outworlders could pay so abundantly for honest work. He wondered
+if the fanatic gurus ever thought of that. Then the door in front of him
+opened again and a fat, unctuous-looking Ophiuchan came out. He seemed
+to be an official of sorts.
+
+"One more!" he said. "Only one! The rest of you begone."
+
+Behind Pandit there was a general press of bodies, but he was first in
+line and did not surrender his position. The unctuous-looking man
+admitted him, half-expecting a bribe. Pandit passed him by; he didn't
+have a single copper.
+
+He approached a desk. The crowd noise outside was loud, those who had
+not joined the line crowing because most of those on it had been turned
+away. Behind the desk sat a small Denebian man of middle years. He
+looked nervous.
+
+"Can you fly?" he asked in a voice almost desperately thin.
+
+"Yes," Pandit said. Then the rumors were right.
+
+"How much experience?"
+
+"Five years on and off."
+
+"You have a license?"
+
+"There are no licenses on Ophiuchus IX," Pandit pointed out.
+
+"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. Habit. You people don't lie."
+
+"We try not to."
+
+"Your name?"
+
+Pandit told him. The Denebian wrote it down on a form and said: "You'll
+do. Pay is twenty credits a mission." It wasn't much, but it was more
+than Pandit had expected.
+
+"What do we fly?" he asked. Questions didn't seem welcome, but no harm
+trying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Denebian looked at him and laughed. "You want the job?"
+
+"Yes, I want the job."
+
+"Then don't ask questions."
+
+Pandit nodded.
+
+"Out through that door, then. The other new pilots are assembling."
+
+And Pandit left the small office.
+
+A moment later a buzzer sounded on the Denebian's desk. He spoke into a
+grid: "Orkap here. Go ahead."
+
+"The guru near the League building reports that a native Ophiuchan left
+the building heading for the city."
+
+"When was this?"
+
+"Yesterday morning."
+
+"And?"
+
+"Draw your own conclusions. Natives don't go near the League
+headquarters as a rule, do they?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And the League, of course, will want to know about the suicides?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"But nothing," said the radio voice, which belonged to the only other
+Denebian currently on Ophiuchus IX. "We can assume this native is a spy.
+For the League, Orkap."
+
+"All right. I don't see any need to worry, though."
+
+"Don't you? The gurus, like the other natives, can sham, but they can't
+lie. Sooner or later a guru will be brought out of trance by the League,
+questioned, and--"
+
+"Tell them about us?" Orkap asked in a shocked voice.
+
+"It could happen. Maybe it's happened already. There won't be any proof,
+of course, but the League would send a spy. Suppose I describe this
+native to you."
+
+Orkap said, "Go ahead," and the radio voice did so.
+
+In a shocked voice Orkap admitted: "I've given that Ophiuchan a pilot's
+job this morning. There can't be any doubt about it."
+
+"Ah, then you see? You see?"
+
+"I can fix that. I can--"
+
+"Orkap, Orkap. You'll do nothing now. Let the spy alone for now. Then,
+in the Empty Places, you will merely announce to the pilots that there
+is a spy among them. Don't reveal who it is." He could not believe his
+ears.
+
+"But--"
+
+"They want work. They need work. They'll all be afraid the finger of
+guilt may point at them. They'll work like dogs for you, and I wouldn't
+be surprised if they uncovered the spy themselves."
+
+"Yes," Orkap said. "Yes, I understand."
+
+"All but one thing, Orkap. There is one thing you don't understand. The
+spy's identity--"
+
+"You already told me who the spy was."
+
+"Yes. But there is another spy. Working for us, in the League building."
+
+"I never knew," said Orkap.
+
+"The spy among your pilots is more than appearance indicates. Did you
+ever hear of Johnny Mayhem?"
+
+Orkap's heart jumped into his throat. Who in the galaxy hadn't heard of
+Mayhem? "But," he gasped, "a--"
+
+"Nevertheless. It is Mayhem."
+
+Orkap was suddenly afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his
+life. The ubiquitous Mayhem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fierce white sun of Ophiuchus IX broiled down on the Empty Places, a
+featureless desert two-thousand miles across and as lividly white as
+bleached bone. In all that burning emptiness, the jet cargo craft looked
+very small and very insignificant, like black midges on the dead white
+sand.
+
+Midges among midges, the new pilots walked.
+
+One said: "But I see no cargo."
+
+Another: "These outworlders and their mystery...."
+
+All were sweating, all uncomfortable, but all grateful for the twenty
+credits a flight they would earn, whatever the cargo turned out to be.
+
+"What do you think?" Pandit asked Sria.
+
+"I think I've never been so hot in my life. I feel like I'm being
+broiled alive."
+
+"Here comes the Denebian now."
+
+They had been driven into the Empty Places in a sand sled. The trip had
+taken two days but because the sled was air-conditioned no one had
+objected. When they saw the half dozen jets they knew why a sled had
+taken them into the wilderness. The jets were small cargo-carriers with
+room for pilot, co-pilot and perhaps a ton of cargo in each. Whatever it
+was the Denebians wanted exported, it didn't take up much room.
+
+Orkap of Deneb walked toward them past the first of the jets. He began
+without preamble: "Your cargo is packed and ready to be moved in an
+underground vault five hundred yards from here. You will break up into
+pairs, a pilot and co-pilot for each jet." Sria Krishna and Pandit had
+already paired themselves together. "You work on your own time, getting
+the cargo with trundle-sleds, loading it, taking off, delivering it to
+the Denebian freighter at the spaceport. When you are finished, you
+collect your pay."
+
+"Where do we sleep?" someone asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Orkap smiled. "You didn't come out here to sleep. There is only a
+limited amount of cargo. The jets are swift. You will be paid according
+to the amount of work you do. Any other questions?"
+
+"What about food?" a plump young Ophiuchan asked.
+
+"You will be given energy tablets, as many as you wish. Any other
+questions? No? Good. I have two additional things to say. First, you are
+not to examine your cargo under any circumstances, either here, or in
+transit, or on the spacefield. There are televid pick-up units in each
+jet, so you will be watched at all times. Second--" Orkap paused and let
+the silence grow and spread across the dazzling white expanse--"there is
+a spy among you, wearing the body of an Ophiuchan but in reality--well,
+I don't have to tell you who he is in reality." Orkap smiled grimly.
+"There is only one body-changer in the galaxy, but one is quite enough."
+
+One of the pilots said, a little breathlessly: "Johnny Mayhem!"
+
+Orkap smiled again. "I am aware of Mayhem's identity," he said, "but I'm
+not going to do anything about it."
+
+The pilots waited. The sun glared down balefully. "You see," Orkap told
+them, "we cannot be altogether sure that the rest of you are here simply
+to earn your twenty credits a flight. Mayhem has unwittingly become our
+insurance. Find Mayhem! Find the spy among you! A hundred credits bonus
+to the man who does!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pandit looked at Sria, who whistled. The girl said: "If they think we
+can finish the job without sleep, picking up cargo and flying it to the
+spaceport and returning for more, then a hundred credits is probably
+more than any of us will earn. They'll all be looking like hawks for
+this Mayhem."
+
+"And," Pandit agreed, "if there's a native spy among them, he'd be
+afraid to show himself for fear they'll think he's Mayhem. Very clever
+of the Denebians."
+
+"... to work at once," Orkap was saying. He wore a blaster on his hip,
+the only weapon among them. They all trudged behind him through the
+burning, faceless sands. Soon they reached a depression from which the
+sand had been cleared, baring the white bedrock of the Empty Places. In
+the rock a square opening had been cut, shielded on each side from the
+shifting sands by an up-curving lip. A ramp led down into darkness.
+
+"You will find your cargo down there. Also enough trundle-sleds to go
+around," Orkap explained. "The cargo is crated. The crates must remain
+intact. Is that understood?"
+
+It was understood.
+
+Their sudden mutual suspicion a pall worse than the heat, the Ophiuchans
+descended the ramp. They needed the money or they wouldn't be here. The
+money meant more to them than anything: this was no time to be
+far-sighted. Yet one of them was a spy for the Galactic League--Johnny
+Mayhem.
+
+One of them, but which?
+
+Pandit made a quick estimate of the number of crates. They were stacked
+neatly against one wall, each about four feet by four by four. And from
+the size of them, a single crate would fill the cargo bay of each of the
+jets. Pandit made a rough estimate. Two dozen crates, perhaps. In the
+dim light it was hard to tell. Two dozen crates, six jets, twelve
+Ophiuchans. Four trips for each jet. A half hour to load, ten minutes to
+unload, an hour and a half by jet to the spacefield. Three hours and
+forty minutes, round trip. Say, four hours. Four times four, sixteen.
+Sixteen hours of steady work for eighty credits. No time for mystery or
+suspicion. Barely time for mistrust....
+
+"You, there!" a voice called. "What are you doing?"
+
+It was one of the other Ophiuchans, quite the biggest of the lot. Pandit
+had seen him outside and remembered his name. He was Raj Shiva, a tall,
+muscular, swarthy Ophiuchan, with small, alert, suspicious eyes and a
+livid scar alongside his jaw.
+
+"Nothing," Pandit said. "Nothing."
+
+"No? The others are loading already. I'll be watching you."
+
+For a hundred credits, Pandit thought furiously, but said nothing. Sria
+touched his shoulder. "I have one of the trundle-sleds," she said.
+"Let's get about it."
+
+"Right," said Pandit.
+
+Raj Shiva watched them a few moments longer, then drifted away with his
+own partner. It took Pandit and Sria, sweating copiously in the
+tremendous heat, a few minutes less than half an hour to load one of the
+crates aboard their jet. Three of the other ships were already airborne,
+whining away toward the spacefield.
+
+Pandit looked at the crate. There were no markings on it anywhere. The
+wood looked new, but that meant absolutely nothing. In the dry heat of
+the Empty Places, wood would last a century, a millennium. They could
+not tell how old it was.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Ready?" Sria Krishna called from the controls.
+
+Pandit had secured the crate in the cargo bay. "Ready," he responded.
+
+Moments later acceleration thrust them back in the twin pilot seats.
+
+Sria leveled the jet at twenty thousand and they sped at eight hundred
+miles an hour toward the city and the spacefield just beyond it.
+
+"Do you wonder about it?" Sria asked after a while.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"The cargo."
+
+"We aren't supposed to."
+
+"I know." Sria laughed. "I'm a woman, you see."
+
+Pandit grinned at her. "Curiosity," he said. "A woman's trait on any
+world."
+
+Sria got up from the pilot chair but Pandit placed his hand on her
+shoulder and gently shoved her down again. "They have a televid unit
+aboard," he said, "remember?"
+
+Sria nodded. The jet sped on.
+
+They landed at the spacefield. They were the fourth jet down and one of
+the other three had taken off on the return leg of the flight. A
+Denebian Pandit had never seen before was supervising the loin-cloth
+garbed laborers loading the crates aboard a Denebian spaceship. With
+Sria he delivered their crate on the trundle-sled, returned with the
+sled to their jet, and took off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just short of four hours from the time they started they returned to the
+Empty Places. They had gained a little time and were the second team
+down. From the jet ahead of them, Raj Shiva led a puny, middle-aged
+co-pilot.
+
+Orkap stood in the underground storage room. Looking at his wrist chrono
+he said to the four Ophiuchans who came down the ramp: "You made fine
+time." Raj Shiva's puny companion said something, but Raj Shiva grabbed
+his arm and they began to load a second crate. Pandit and Sria loaded
+theirs in silence.
+
+They made their second round trip in four hours exactly. It was
+completely dark when they returned to the Empty Places. Sria was worried
+they would overshoot the cargo point, but Pandit brought the little jet
+down within a few hundred yards of its takeoff point.
+
+They could see nothing when they shut off the jet's running lights,
+except for the glow which came from the underground room. They reached
+it and went down the ramp. Pandit judged that half the crates were gone
+now. He took a quick tour of the dimly-lit room while Sria got the
+trundle-sled into position against one of the crates.
+
+"Nobody here," Pandit said in a whisper. "The Denebian must be sleeping
+in the sand-sled."
+
+"Yes," Sria said a little breathlessly.
+
+"I was thinking--"
+
+"What?" Sria said. "Don't stop."
+
+"If we wanted to examine one of the boxes, it would be suicide to open
+the one we take. But we could open one of them down here, see what it
+is, take another for ourselves--"
+
+"You would do this?" Sria asked him. "Why?"
+
+Pandit shrugged. "I have eyes," he said. "Our gurus did not broadcast
+the death-wish to outworlders until the Denebians came. Then they
+started. Have the Denebians sold them on the idea?"
+
+"I don't know," Sria said.
+
+"Well, let's assume they have. Why? Why would they do such a thing,
+Sria?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Let me get this straight, Pandit. First, you think the gurus actually
+are making the outworlders kill themselves?"
+
+"Of course," Pandit said. "It's mental suggestion, on a scale only our
+gurus are capable of. But don't you see, Sria, they wouldn't do it on
+their own. The gurus are dirty, careless about their bodies--but
+terribly arrogant. Left alone, they wouldn't think the outworlders
+important enough to be concerned over one way or another. They certainly
+wouldn't kill them."
+
+"Go on," Sria urged.
+
+"All right. The gurus have great knowledge of the mystical, but
+externally they're naive. Let's suppose someone came along--the
+Denebians in this case--and found something they wanted very badly on
+Ophiuchus. These crates here, Sria. What would they do? They'd go to the
+gurus and convince them--it wouldn't be difficult--that any intercourse
+with outworlders would be harmful to Ophiuchus, that the outworlders
+want to colonize and exploit our world, that sort of thing. While the
+gurus are stewing it over, the Denebians could have prepared this
+shipment here--whatever it is--for departure. But the gurus, too well
+convinced by them, could have acted sooner than they expected, making it
+all but impossible for the small handful of outworlders, the Denebians
+among them, to go abroad without fear of taking their own lives. Perhaps
+a few, like Orkap and that other Denebian, are not at all suicide-prone.
+Perhaps a few can withstand it. As for the rest, it's indoors and away
+from the mental influence of the gurus, or off Ophiuchus entirely. Which
+would leave the Denebians with a problem they hadn't thought of." His
+words made sense.
+
+"Yes!" cried Sria excitedly. "Now that they have their valuable cargo
+ready to go, how can they get it off Ophiuchus without help?"
+
+"We," said Pandit softly, "are that help."
+
+Sria asked: "What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"I don't know. I honestly don't. I never had anything against the
+outworlders. How could I? We're all progeny of outworlders who came here
+almost five hundred years ago from a place called India on Earth. But
+the gurus--"
+
+"--have been deceived. You said so yourself."
+
+Pandit was sweating, and it was more than the heat which made him sweat.
+He paced up to the crates, then back again, then to the crates. Suddenly
+he said, "All right. All right, I'll do it. Someone's got to find out
+what the Denebians want here."
+
+And Pandit began to pry at one of the boxes with a knife he carried in
+his loin cloth. Sria said, "I'll keep watch. You call me when it's
+opened."
+
+"Maybe you ought to get out of here. In case anything happens, I don't
+want to get you involved."
+
+But Sria went up the ramp and crouched there, waiting, watching. The
+desert was very quiet, entirely windless, and hot even at night. Stars
+sprinkled the sky overhead and far off she thought she heard the distant
+whine of a jet. "Hurry," she called. From below she heard the sound of
+wood being pried away from wood. She heard, or imagined she heard, the
+jet coming closer. "Hurry!" she called softly.
+
+Finally three words drifted up to her. "Come here, Sria." She felt a
+little relieved. Now that he'd finished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She listened for the jet. Now she heard nothing. She went swiftly down
+the ramp.
+
+Pandit stood before one of the crates, perspiring freely. He had pried
+loose one of the side walls and a smooth metal surface with stenciled
+lettering on it was exposed.
+
+He said: "I can't read that. It's a language I never saw before."
+
+Sria bent closer and looked at the stenciled lettering. A voice, not
+Pandit's, said:
+
+"I thought it would be you two.... No, don't move!"
+
+A big muscular figure silhouetted against the starlight, and a smaller,
+puny, thin-legged figure. Raj Shiva and his co-pilot.
+
+"A hundred credits each, Handus," Raj Shiva said as he ran down the
+ramp. "Can you keep the girl from getting away?"
+
+Handus rushed down at his heels.
+
+Pandit met Raj Shiva at the foot of the ramp. Pandit was a big man by
+Ophiuchan standards, but Raj Shiva was bigger. "Run, Sria!" Pandit
+cried, and met the giant with his knife.
+
+Raj Shiva parried the blow with his forearm, then his big hands moved
+swiftly and the knife clattered to the floor. Sria ran for the ramp, her
+bare feet padding swiftly against the stone floor. Handus was waiting
+for her at the foot of the ramp in an awkward crouch. She had a glimpse
+of Raj Shiva and Pandit straining together, then Handus struck her with
+his balled fist. It was a puny blow, but Sria staggered back, her jaw
+numb. Laughing shrilly, Handus leaped at her. She was shoved back,
+tripped over something, and fell. For a moment all the lights blinked
+out inside her head.
+
+Inside--no! Raj Shiva and Pandit stumbled about the room, struck
+something, there was a loud popping sound, a tinkling, and the lights in
+the storage room went out.
+
+"Where is she?" Handus called. "I can't find her!"
+
+She heard him groping about, heard the others struggling together. She
+got to her feet and stood perfectly still, waiting for anything. She
+wished she had a weapon--something--she was only a woman--
+
+Then a voice whispered: "Hurry, Sria! Hurry!"
+
+"Pandit?"
+
+He took her arm in the darkness. She couldn't see him. They went to the
+crates and wrestled one on their trundle-sled.
+
+"Not the open one?" Sria gasped.
+
+"No. No."
+
+They heard footsteps.... Saw a figure for a moment silhouetted against
+starlight. Handus was fleeing, probably for help.
+
+They took their sled out into the night and dragged it across the sand
+toward their waiting jet. They loaded the crate in the cargo bay. While
+Pandit was finishing the job in the darkness, Sria sat down at the
+controls.
+
+"Ready?" she shouted above the whine of the jets.
+
+Pandit said that he was. She hardly heard his voice.
+
+A moment later, she took the small cargo jet up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She heard Pandit moving in the small cabin behind her. She said: "We
+ought to take it to the League authorities, don't you think?" She had to
+shout to be heard above the whining roar of the jets.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I was able to read the writing. It's Procyonian, Pandit. Do you know
+anything about the Procyonians?"
+
+"Well, a few centuries ago, they were the most warlike people in the
+galaxy. It was rumored they had a cache of thermonuclear bombs hidden
+somewhere, after such weapons were outlawed in the twenty-fifth century.
+The cache was never found, until tonight. We found it, Pandit."
+
+"But Orkap and--"
+
+"That's true. It was found by the Denebians first. Don't you see,
+Pandit? Orkap and the others, private Denebian traders. It wasn't the
+government. It never is the government these days. But unscrupulous
+individuals, Pandit, armed with two dozen hydrogen bombs--why, they
+could take over their own world on threat of imminent destruction, or
+some outworld plum they had their eye on, or--"
+
+"I see." Pandit's voice was barely audible above the whine of the jets.
+
+"It's a job the Galactic League can handle," Sria went on. "Now that
+it's out in the open--or will be as soon as we get to the spacefield.
+You've done your work, Pandit, and your people won't forget you for it.
+As for me, my work here is finished too."
+
+"Your work?"
+
+Above the roar of the jet, Sria shouted: "Yes. I am Johnny Mayhem." She
+smiled in the darkness. Johnny Mayhem, she thought, in a girl's body.
+Well, he'd been young men and old, weak and strong, sick and healthy,
+human and alien outworlder--so why not a girl too?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All at once Pandit's hand lay heavily on her shoulder. She turned around
+and in the darkness but with the lights of the instrument board on it
+saw the gleam of a knife blade. The face beyond the blade, leering from
+darkness, was not Pandit's. She hadn't actually known it was Pandit. She
+hadn't seen him. She'd hardly been able to hear his voice.
+
+It was Raj Shiva.
+
+"Fly us to Denebian Exports," he said, "or I'll kill you and do it
+myself."
+
+"You're making a mistake. Your people belong with the Galactic League,
+not with a handful of adventurers who--"
+
+"The Denebians are right," Raj Shiva said fanatically. "My people would
+be better off left alone."
+
+"I'm flying this jet to the spaceport--and the League."
+
+"I'll kill you. I know all about you, Mayhem. You're not a woman,
+really. You're not even a native. That's a dead body, isn't it? But if I
+kill it--again--while you're in it, you die to. You'll do what I say!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This very night, unless something was done about it, the cache of
+thermonuclear weapons would be space-bound, the first hydrogen bombs
+loose in the galaxy for almost five hundred years. Wouldn't mankind ever
+begin to learn? Mayhem-Sria thought wearily. He knew the answer, of
+course: most men would, but the few who refused could bring destruction
+to an entire galaxy....
+
+Moments before, apparent success of a mission. Now, failure. Or death.
+Or both.
+
+Sria's hand flashed out suddenly and struck the instrument board. The
+jet plummeted earthward with a loud whining sound. Sria felt herself
+shoved back by the tremendous acceleration into the cushions of the
+pilot chair. She heard a wild exclamation from Raj Shiva, but couldn't
+turn around to see what had happened. Grim-lipped, she kept the ship
+hurtling Earthward. She knew it was dangerous and might even prove
+disastrous. Her body could take so much, then she would black out. But
+if she didn't maintain the dive until the last possible instant, Raj
+Shiva would get control of the ship and its vital cargo. She was only a
+girl, but she was protected by the crash-padding of the pilot chair. Raj
+Shiva, unprotected, was behind her somewhere....
+
+Down through the thin upper atmosphere of Ophiuchus IX screamed the
+small ship, its heat-dial blinking on and off in warning as friction
+scorched its thin shell. The scream of air became more deep-throated as
+the atmosphere became thicker....
+
+Ten thousand feet.
+
+Eight thousand.
+
+Six.
+
+Sria's eyes saw black. Her breath was labored. Needles of pain darted in
+her skull, plucked at her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream but heard
+nothing. She felt as if she must be forced clear through the protective
+cushions of the pilot chair.
+
+Five thousand feet.
+
+Four thousand.
+
+Blackness and peace and a settling lassitude....
+
+Three thousand feet.
+
+With hands that would barely function, Sria with supreme effort brought
+the jet out of its death-dive. She slumped in the pilot chair for a long
+time, too weak to do anything else.
+
+Then she looked back at Raj Shiva.
+
+Who lay slack and unconscious against the rear bulkhead of the cargo
+ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mayhem-Sria brought the jet down and, middle of the night or no, saw
+Kovandaswamy. Raj Shiva was taken into custody. A jet was sent out,
+loaded with Leaguemen who had proved immune to the guru death-wish and
+all armed to the teeth. It landed at the cache and stood guard over it.
+Pandit was found, unconscious, one of his arms broken, but otherwise all
+right. A second jet prevented the Denebian Export ship from blasting off
+with the hydrogen bombs already loaded. Orkap and his companion were
+taken into custody.
+
+The rest, of course, is history. The gurus of Ophiuchus IX were shown
+what had been taking place in the name of friendship between themselves
+and Deneb and in the name of isolation. Most of the gurus retired
+entirely from active life. The few who did not spent the rest of their
+days working for cooperation between Ophiuchus and the rest of the
+Galactic League. Orkap and his companion were sent back to Deneb for
+punishment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two weeks later, Kovandaswamy shook Sria's hand.
+
+"A girl," he said. "You did it as a girl. I still can't believe it. But
+then, of such stuff is the Mayhem legend made."
+
+Mayhem smiled. Already the Hub had a new assignment for him. He could
+feel the old excitement, the wonder, stirring him. He smiled again and
+told Kovandaswamy: "Better not tell that fellow Pandit. I think he had a
+crush on Sria."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Think Yourself to Death, by C.H. Thames
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32827 ***