The Ultimate Egoist (26 page)

I fumbled for my handkerchief and mopped my face. This was a
little steep. “Look,” I said, “this is—well, I’m more or less of a beginner. Just what
is
a soul?”

“Elementally,” said the bottle, “it is matter, just like everything else in the universe. It has weight and mass, though it can’t be measured by earthly standards. In the present stage of the sciences, we haven’t run up against anything like it. It usually centers around the pineal gland, although it can move at will throughout the body, if there is sufficient stimulus. For example—”

He gave me the example, and it was very good. I saw his point.

“And anger, too,” the bottle went on. “In a fit of fury, one’s soul settles momentarily around the adrenals, and does what is necessary. See?”

I turned to Helix. “Helix,” I said, “we’re really learning things today.” Helix extended his claws and studied them carefully. I suddenly came to my senses, realizing that I was sitting on the floor of my laboratory, holding a conversation with an empty glass bottle; that Helix was sitting in my lap, preening himself, listening without interest to my words, and
not hearing
those from the bottle. My mind reeled again. I
had
to have an answer to that.

“Bottle,” I said hoarsely, “why can’t Helix hear you?”

“Oh. That,” said the bottle. “Because there is no sound.”

“How can I hear you?”

“Direct telepathic contact. I am not speaking to you, specifically, but to your soul. Your soul transmits my messages to you. It is functioning now on the nerve centers controlling your hearing—hence, you interpret it as sound. That is the most understandable way of communication.”

“Then—why doesn’t Helix get the same messages?”

“Because he is on a different—er—wavelength. That’s one way of putting it, though thoughtwaves are not electrical. I can—that is, I believe I can—direct thoughts to him. Haven’t tried. It’s a matter of degree of development.”

I breathed much easier. Astonishing, what a difference a rational explanation will make. But there were one or two more things—

“Bottle,” I said, “what’s this about my saving your life? And what has my flexible glass to do with it?”

“I don’t quite know,” said the bottle. “But purely by accident, I’m sure, you have stumbled on the only conceivable external substance which seems to exclude—Them. Sort of an insulator. I sensed what it was—so did They. I can tell you, it was nip and tuck for a while. They can really move, when They want to. I won, as you know. Close. Oh, yes, I was responsible for snatching the stopper out of your hand. I did it by creating a vacuum in the bottle. The stopper was the nearest thing to the mouth, and you weren’t holding it very tightly.”

“Vacuum?” I asked. “What became of the air?”

“That was easy. I separated the molecular structure of the glass, and passed the air out that way.”

“What about Them?”

“Oh, They would have followed. But if you’ll look closely, you’ll see that the stopper is now fused to the bottle. That’s what saved me. Whew! —Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering what cooled the bottle so quickly, it was the vacuum formation. Expanding air, you know, loses heat. Vacuum creation, of course, would create intense cold. That glass is good stuff. Practically no thermal expansion.”

“I’m beginning to be glad, now, that it happened. Would have been bad for you … I suppose you’ll live out the rest of your life in my bottle.”

“The rest of my life, friend, is—eternity.”

I blinked at that. “That’s not going to be much fun,” I said. “I mean—don’t you ever get hungry, or—or anything?”

“No. I’m fed—I know that. From outside, somehow. There seems to be a source somewhere that radiates energy on which I feed. I wouldn’t know about that. But it’s going to be a bit boring. I don’t know—maybe someday I’ll find a way to get another body.”

“What’s to prevent your just going in and appropriating someone else’s?”

“Can’t,” said the bottle. “As long as a soul is in possession of a body, it is invulnerable. The only way would be to convince some soul that it would be to its advantage to leave its body and make room for me.”

“Hmm … say, Bottle. Seems to me that by this time you must
have experienced that death-realization you spoke about a while back. Why aren’t you immune from Them now?”

“That’s the point. A soul must draw its immunity from a body which it possesses at the time. If I could get into a body and possess it for just one split second, I could immunize myself and be on my way. Or I could stay in the body and enjoy myself until it died. By the way, stop calling me Bottle. My name’s Gregory—Wallace Gregory.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m Pete Tronti. Er—glad to have met you.”

“Same here.” The bottle hopped a couple of times. “That can be considered a handshake.”

“How did you do that?” I asked, grinning.

“Easy. The tiniest molecular expansion, well distributed, makes the bottle bounce.”

“Neat. Well—I’ve got to go out and get some grub. Anything I can get for you?”

“Thanks, no, Tronti. Shove along. Be seeing you.”

Thus began my association with Wally Gregory, disembodied soul. I found him a very intelligent person; and though he had cramped my style in regard to the new glass—I didn’t fancy collecting souls in bottles as a hobby—we became real friends. Not many people get a break like that—having a boarder who is so delightful and so little trouble. Though the initial cost had been high—after all, I’d almost gone nuts!—the upkeep was negligible. Wally never came in drunk, robbed the cash drawer, or brought his friends in. He was never late for meals, nor did he leave dirty socks around. As a roommate he was ideal, and as a friend, he just about had Helix topped.

One evening about eight months later I was batting the wind with Wally while I worked. He’d been a great help to me—I was fooling around with artificial rubber synthesis at the time, and Wally had an uncanny ability for knowing exactly what was what in a chemical reaction—and because of that, I began to think of his present state.

“Say, Wally—don’t you think it’s about time that we began thinking about getting a body for you?”

Wally snorted. “That’s about all we can do—think about it. How in blazes do you think we could ever get a soul’s consent for that kind of a transfer?”

“I don’t know—we might try kidding one of them along. You know—put one over on him.”

“What—kid one along when he has the power of reading every single thought that goes through a mind? Couldn’t be done.”

“Now, don’t tell me that every soul in the universe is incapable of being fooled. After all, a soul is a part of a human being.”

“It’s not that a soul is phenomenally intelligent, Pete. But a soul reasons without emotional drawbacks—he deals in elementals. Any moron is something of a genius if he can see clearly to the root of a problem. And any soul can do just that. That is, if it’s a soul as highly developed as that of a human being.”

“Well, suppose that the soul isn’t that highly developed? That’s an idea. Couldn’t you possess the body of a dog, say, or—”

“Or a cat …?”

I stopped stirring the beakerful of milkweed latex and came around the table, stopping in front of the bottle. “Wally—not Helix. Not that cat! Why, he’s—he’s a friend of mine. He trusts me. We
couldn’t
do anything like that. My gosh, man—”

“You’re being emotional,” said Wally scornfully. “If you’ve got any sense of values at all, there’ll be no choice. You can save my immortal soul by sacrificing the life of a cat. Not many men have that sort of an opportunity, especially at that price. It’ll be a gamble. I haven’t told you, but in the last couple of months I’ve been looking into Helix’s mentality. He’s got a brilliant mind for a cat. And it wouldn’t do anything to him. He’d cease to exist—you can see that. But his soul is primitive, and has been protected since he was a kitten, as must be the case with any primitive mentality. Man needs some powerful impetus to protect his soul, because he has evolved away from the fear of death to a large degree—but a cat has not. His basic philosophy is little different from that of his wild forebears. He’ll be okay. I’d just step in and he’d step out, and go wherever it is that good cats go when they die. You’d have him, in body, the same as you have now; but he’d be motivated by my soul
instead of his own. Pete, you’ve
got
to do it.”

“Gosh, Wally … look, I’ll get you another cat. Or … say! How’s about a monkey?”

“I’ve thought about all that. In the first place, a monkey would be too noticeable, walking around by himself. You see, my idea is to get into some sort of a body in which I can go where I please, when I please. In the second place, I have a headstart with Helix. It’s going to be a long job, reconditioning that cat to my needs, but it can be done. I’ve been exploring his mind, and by now I know it pretty well. In the third place, you know him, and you know me—and he knows me a little now. He is the logical subject for something which, you must allow, is going to be a most engrossing experiment.”

I had to admire the way Wally was putting it over. Being dissociated from emotionalism like that must be a great boon. He had caused me to start the conversation, and probably to put forward the very objections to which he had prepared answers. I began to resent him a little—but only a little. That last point of his told. It
would
be a most engrossing experiment—preparing a feline body and mind to bear a human soul, in such a way that the soul could live an almost normal life … “I won’t say yes or no, Wally,” I said. “I want to talk it over a little … Just how would we go about it, in case I said yes?”

“Well—” Wally was quiet a minute. “First we’d have to make some minor changes in his physique, so that I could do things that are impossible for a cat—read, write, speak and memorize. His brain would have to be altered so that it could comprehend an abstraction, and his paws would have to be made a little more manageable so that I could hold a pencil.”

“Might as well forget the whole thing, then,” I told him. “I’m a chemist, not a veterinary surgeon. There isn’t a man alive who could do a job like that. Why—”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve learned a lot recently about myself, too. If I can once get into Helix’s brain, I can mess around with his metabolism. I can stimulate growth in any part of his body, in any ways, to any degree. I can, for instance, atrophy the skin between his toes, form flesh and joints in his claws. Presto—hands. I can—”

“Sounds swell. But how are you going to get in there? I thought you couldn’t displace his soul without his consent. And—what about Them?”

“Oh, that will be all right. I can get in there and work, and his soul will protect me. You see, I’ve been in contact with it. As long as I am working to increase the cat’s mental and physical powers, his soul won’t object. As for getting in there, I can do it if I move fast. There are times when none of Them are around. If I pick one of those times, slide out of the bottle and into the cat, I’ll be perfectly safe. My one big danger is from his soul. If it wants me out of there, it can bring a tremendous psychic force into play—throw me from here to the moon, or farther. If that happened—that will finish me. They wouldn’t miss a chance like that.”

“Golly … listen, friend, you’d better not take the chance. It’s a swell idea, but I don’t think it’s worth it. As you are now, you’re safe for the rest of time. If something goes wrong—”

“Not worth it? Do you realize what you’re saying, man? I have my choice between staying here in the bottle forever—and that’s an awful long time, if you can’t die—or fixing up Helix so that he can let me live a reasonable human existence until he dies. Then I can go, protected, into wherever it is I should go. Give me a break, Pete. I can’t do it without you.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you see? The cat has to be educated. Yes, and civilized. You can do it, partly because he knows you, partly because that is the best way. When we can get him speaking, you can teach him orally. That way we can keep up our mental communication, but he’ll never know about it. More important, neither will his soul. Pete, can’t you see what this means to me?”

“Yeah. Wally, it’s a shabby trick on Helix. It’s downright dirty. I don’t like it—anything about it. But you’ve got something there … all right. You’re a rat, Wally. So am I. But I’ll do it. I’d never sleep again if I didn’t. How do we start?”

“Thanks, Pete. I’ll never be able to thank you enough … First, I’ve got to get into his brain. Here’s what you do. Think you can get him to lick the side of the bottle?”

I thought a minute. “Yes. I can put a little catnip extract—I have some around here somewhere—on the bottle. He’ll lick it off … Why?”

“That’ll be fine. See, it will minimize the distance. I can slip through the glass and be into his brain before one of Them has a chance at me.”

I got the little bottle of extract and poured some of it on a cloth. Helix came running when he smelled it. I felt like a heel—almost tried to talk Wally out of it. But then I shrugged it off. Fond as I was of the big black cat, Wally’s immortal soul was more important.

“Hold it a minute,” said Wally. “One of Them is smelling around.”

I waited tensely. Helix was straining toward the cloth I held in my right hand. I held him with the other, feeling smaller and smaller. He
trusted
me!

“Let ’er go!” snapped Wally. I slapped the cloth onto the side of the bottle, smeared it. Helix shot out of my grip, began licking the bottle frantically. I almost cried. I said, “May God have mercy on his soul …” Don’t know why …

“Good lad!” said Wally. “I made it!” After a long moment, “Pete! Give him some more catnip. I’ve got to find out what part of his brain registers pleasure. That’s where I’ll start. He’s going to enjoy every minute of this.”

I dished up the catnip. Helix, forgive me!

Another long pause, then, “Pete! Pinch him, will you? Or stick a pin in him.”

I chose the pinch, and it was a gentle one. It didn’t fool Wally. “Make him holler, Pete! I want a real reaction.”

I gritted my teeth and twisted the spiral tail. Helix yowled. I think his feelings were hurt more than his caudal appendage.