Astounding Science Fiction, October 1944 (British Edition) — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION is a thass consciousness, I’ve offended it mortally.” Sally went very pale. “Well?” “Interesting!” said Blaisdell, still grinning on one side of his face only. “Oh, interest- ing! You’ve carried the mass consciousness idea to its... logical conclusion, Dick. By assigning it a specific plan . . . of murder, as it happens. . . for which there’s no other explanation, you’ve made it into a sort of deity which controls the destinies of men. You've raised hell! Because to . . . accept that theory is to abandon every trace of belief in . . . your own importance. You're just a... pawn for the mass consciousness. It doesn’t matter what you do. There’s no such thing as... . decency. You’re not an individual at all. You're part of something bigger and stronger and subject to vast blind rages and lusts for destruction. It’s mag- nificently logical. Beautiful!” . Sally said fiercely : “T don’t believe it! I won’t! It means that . religion, for instance—” “Of course it does!’ said Blaisdell de- lightedly. “The theory is superlatively logical nonsense! So nobody will believe it, and that will . . . produce skepticism, and that will produce all sorts of things. If there were a mass consciousness it should have kept people from developing instincts which are revolted by the idea of mass consciousness. And if there isn’t a mass consciousness, then trogs aren’t people irresistibly forced to de- stroy ... all that we and they cling to, but ... people doing the rest of us dirt. And in that case the human race isn’t ... fed up with being civilized and decent. It isn’t the twilight of the race. And Dick Drummond had better be killed, and killed fast, before he starts . . . further revelations!” Blaisdell chuckled. “So,” said Dick, I think that Hamilton will get here, and that he’ll be trailed. He’ll go into the empty lab, waiting for me. I told him to. And if there’s a mass consciousness one of the three of us should become a trog and kill the other two, but somehow it doesn’t seem likely. I think somebody else will be a trog and follow Hamilton to kill him and at least me. But he'll want to be sure and kill me. If he doesn’t see me, maybe he’ll hide—” Sally interjected swiftly: “You forget! Nobody heard Hamilton smash the control panel, though there were men in the next room.” “IT think,” said Dick, “that when a trog is in action, the people around him sort of . . blank out. That would account for Hamilton and for that plane crash, too. Your father guessed at something like it, Sally. It would account for no trog ever having been seen in action. It fits in beauti- fully with the mass consciousness theory and makes us seem so much more helpless. So I brought a couple of Army photographic re- corders along, and they'll start recording if we either turn them on or blank out our- selves.” “And then?” ; “Maybe we'll get a picture of a trog,” said Dick. “Maybe an encephalogram of somebody blanked out by a trog’s activity. I don’t know what we'll get, if anything. I just know, Sally, that we’ve got a para- psychological laboratory here, and we think there’s going to be a trog around. Since I’ve already annoyed the great and benevolent Mass consciousness, we might as well see what it’s like.” An alarm buzzer sounded sharply. It was connected to a warning system about the lab. Someone was moving about the build- ing, outside. It had been installed when looter troubles were at their worst. Dick moved to the eyepiece of a periscope and peered into it. “Hamilton,” he said softly. “The front of his car is a wreck! He ran into something.” Dick watched. ‘“He’s stopping in front of the lab— He’s getting out— He has a broken arm, it looks like. He smashed up on the way. And he looks like a man who’s in the most completely towering rage I’ve ever seen. His eyes are blazing. He’s prac- tically a lunatic from fury. Now I wonder—”’ He moved quickly to another eyepiece. “Take the controls, Blaisdell! Get under the encephalograph helmet, Sall! Now if Blaisdell blanks out the recorders are bound to start.’ He was silent for seconds. ‘““Hamil- ton’s coming inside the lab. He looks sur- prised that it’s empty and the apparatus gone, though I told him it would be. He’s barging around, opening closets and things. Maybe he thinks I might have left a note for him. Perhaps I should have—” Blaisdell’ held a grip switch in his left hand and rather absurdly turned the handle of a silly small device with the other. Sally seated herself in the encephalograph chair and let down the helmet over her head. The encephalograph, turned on, would make a recording of the brain waves which. were...