The Smallest God

(by Lester del Rey)

Dr. Arlington Brugh led his visitor around a jumble of machinery that made sense only to himself, and through a maze of tables and junk that occupied most of his laboratory.

“It’s a little disordered just now,” he apologized, glad that his assistant had been able to clear up the worst of the mess. “Sort of gets that way after a long experiment.”

Herr Dr. Ernst Meyer nodded heavy agreement. “Ja, so. Und mit all dis matchinery, no vunder. It gives yet no goot place v’ere I can mit comfort vork, also in mine own laboradory. Und v’at haff ve here?”

“That’s Hermesmy mascot.” Brugh picked up the little, hollow rubber figure of the god Hermes; Mercury, the Romans called him. “The day I bought him for my daughter, the funds for my cyclotron were voted on favorably, so I’ve kept him here. Just a little superstition.”

Meyer shook his head. “Nein. I mean here.” He tapped a heavy lead chest bearing a large Keep Out label. “Is maybe v’at you make?”

“That’s right.” The physical chemist pulled up the heavy cover and displayed a few dirty crystals in a small compartment and a thick, tarry goo that filled a half-liter beaker. “Those are my latest success and my first failure. By the way, have you see Dr. Hodges over in the biochemistry department?”

“Ja. Vonderful vork he makes yet, nicht wahr?”

“Umm. Opinions differ. I’ll admit he did a good job in growing that synthetic amoeba, and the worm he made in his chemical bath wasn’t so bad, though I never did know whether it was really alive or not. Maybe you read about it? But he didn’t stick to simple things until he mastered his technique. He had to go rambling off trying to create a synthetic man.”

Meyer’s rough face gleamed. “Ja, so. Dot is hiibschnice. Mit veins und muschles. Only it is not mit life upfilled.”

Brugh sifted a few of the crystals in the chest out onto a watch glass where they could be inspected more carefully. Then he put them into an opened drawer and closed it until the crystals were in a much dimmer light. In the semidarkness, a faint gleam was visible, hovering over the watch glass.

“Radioactive,” he explained. “There is the reason Hodges’ man isn’t filled with life. If there had been some of this in his chemical bath when he was growing Anthroposthat’s what he calls the thingit would be walking around today. But you can’t expect a biochemist to know that, of course. They don’t keep up with the latest developments the way the physical chemists do. Most of them aren’t aware of the fact that the atom can be cracked up into a different kind of atom by using Bertha.”

“Bert’a? Maybe she is die daughter?”

Brugh grinned. “Bertha’s the cyclotron over there. The boys started calling her Big Bertha, and then we just named her Bertha for short.” He swung around to indicate the great mass of metal that filled one end of the room. “That’s a lot of material to make so few crystals of radioactive potassium chloride, though.”

“Ach, so. Den it is das radioagdivated salt dot vould give life to der synt’etic man, eh?”

“Right. We’re beginning to believe that life is a combination of electricity and radioactivity, and the basis of the last seems to be this active potassium we’ve produced by bombarding the ordinary form with neutrons. Put that in Anthropos and he’d be bouncing around for his meals in a week.”

Meyer succeeded in guessing the meaning of the last and cocked up a bushy eyebrow. “Den v’y not das salt to der man give?”

“And have Hodges hog all the glory again? Not a chance.” He banged his hand on the chest for emphasis, and the six-inch figure of Hermes bounced from its precarious perch and took off for the watch glass. Brugh grabbed frantically and caught it just before it hit. “Someday I’ll stuff this thing with something heavy enough to hold it down.”

The German looked at the statue with faint interest, then pointed to the gummy mess in the beaker. “Und dis?”

“That’s a failure. Someday I might analyze a little of it, but it’s too hard to get the stuff out of that tar, and probably not worth a quarter of the energy. Seems to be a little of everything in it, includ-ing potassium, and it’s fairly radioactive, but all it’s good for iswell, to stuff Hermes so he can’t go bouncing around.”

Brugh propped the little white figure against a ring stand and drew out the beaker, gouging out a chunk of the varicolored tar. He plopped it into a container and poured methyl alcohol over it, working with a glass rod until it was reasonably plastic. “Darned stuff gets soft, but it won’t dissolve,” he grumbled.

Meyer stood back, looking on, shaking his head gently. Americans were naturally crazy, but he hadn’t expected such foolishness from so distinguished a research man as Dr. Brugh. In his own laboratory, he’d have spent the next two years, if necessary, in finding out what the tar was, instead of wasting it to stuff a cheap rubber cast of a statue.

“Dis Herr Dr. Hodges, you don’t like him, I t’ink. Warum?”

Brugh was spooning the dough into his statue, forcing it into the tiny mouth and packing it in loosely. “Hodges wanted a new tank for his life-culture experiments when I was trying to get the cyclotron and the cloud chamber. I had to dig up the old antivivisection howl among the students’ parents to keep him from getting it, and he thought it was a dirty trick. Maybe it was; anyway, he’s been trying ever since to get me kicked out, and switch the appropriations over to this department. By the way, I’d hate to have word of this get around.”

“Aberandivifisegtion!” Meyer was faintly horrified at such an unscientific thing.

Brugh nodded. “I know. But I wanted that cyclotron, and I got it; I’d do worse. There, Hermes won’t go flying around again. Anything else I can show you, Dr. Meyer?”

“Tank you, no. Der clock is late now, und I must cadge my train by die hour. It has a bleasure been, Dr. Brugh.”

“Not at all.” Brugh set the statue on a table and went out with the German, leaving Hermes in sole possession of the laboratory, except for the cat.

II

The clock in the laboratory said four o’clock in the morning. Its hum and the gentle breathing of the cat, that exercised its special privileges by sleeping on the cyclotron, were the only noises to be heard. Up on the table Hermes stood quietly, just as Dr. Brugh had left him, a little white rubber figure outlined in the light that shone through from the outside. A very ordinary little statue he looked.

But inside, where the tar had been placed, something was stirring

gently. Faintly and low at first, life began to quiver. Consciousness began to come slowly, and then a dim and hazy feeling of individuality. He was different in being a unit not directly connected in consciousness with the dim outlines of the laboratory.

What, where, when, who, why, and how? Hermes knew none of the answers, and the questions were only vague and hazy in his mind, but the desire to know and to understand was growing. He took in the laboratory slowly through the hole that formed his partly open mouth and let the light stream in against the resinous matter inside. At first, only a blur was visible, but as his “eyes” grew more proficient from experience, he made out separate shapes. He had no names for them, but he recognized the difference between a round tube and a square tabletop.

The motion of the second hand caught his attention, and he studied the clock carefully, but could make no sense to it. Apparently some things moved and others didn’t. What little he could see of himself didn’t, even when he made a clumsy attempt at forcing motion into his outthrust arm. It took longer to notice the faint breathing of the cat; then he noticed it not only moved, but did so in an irregular fashion. He strained toward it, and something clicked in his mind.

Tabby was dreaming, but Hermes couldn’t know that, nor understand from whence came the pictures that seemed to flash across his gummy brain; Tabby didn’t understand dreams, either. But the little god could see some tiny creature that went scurrying rapidly across the floor, and a much-distorted picture of Tabby following it. Tabby had a definitely exaggerated idea of herself. Now the little running figure began to grow until it was twice the size of the cat, and its appearance altered. It made harsh explosive noises and beat a thick tail stiffly. Tabby’s picture made a noise and fled, but the other followed quickly and a wide mouth opened. Tabby woke up, and the pictures disappeared. Hermes could make no sense of them, though^ it was plain in Tabby’s mind that such things often happened when her head turned black inside.

But the cat awake was even more interesting than she was sleeping.

There were the largest groups of loosely classified odors, sights, and

sensations to be absorbed, the nicest memories of moving about and

exploring the laboratory. Through Tabby’s eyes he saw the part of

the laboratory that was concealed from him, and much of the out—

ide in the near neighborhood. He also drew a hazy picture of him—

clf being filled, but it made no sense to him, though he gathered

Irom the cat’s mind that the huge monster holding him was to be

both despised and respected, and was, all in all, a very powerful person.

By now his intelligence was great enough to recognize that the world seen through the cat’s eyes was in many ways wrong. For one thing, everything was in shades of white and black, with medial grays, while he had already seen that there were several colors. Hermes decided that he needed another point of view, though the cat had served admirably to start his mind on the way to some understanding of the world about him.

A low howling sound came from outside the laboratory, and Hermes recoiled mentally, drawing a picture of a huge and ferocious beast from his secondhand cat’s memory. Then curiosity urged him to explore. If the cat’s color sense was faulty, perhaps her ideas on the subject of dogs were also wrong. He thrust his mind out toward the source of the sound, and again there was the little click that indicated a bridge between two minds.

He liked the dog much better than the cat. There was more to be learned here, and the animal had some faint understanding of a great many mysteries which had never interested Tabby. Hermes also found that hard, selfish emotions were not the only kind. On the whole, the mind of Shep seemed warm and glowing after the frigid self-interest of Tabby.

First in the dog’s mind, as in all others, was the thought of self, but close behind was mistress and master, the same person whom the cat’s mind had pictured filling the god. And there were the two little missies. Something about the dog’s mental image of one of them aroused an odd sensation in the little god, but it was too confused to be of any definite interest.

But the dog retained hazy ideas of words as a means of thought, and Hermes seized on them gratefully. He gathered that men used them as a medium of thought conveyance, and filed the sixty partly understood words of Shep’s vocabulary carefully away. There were others with tantalizing possibilities, but they were vague.

Shep’s world was much wider than that of Tabby, and his general impression of colorfor dogs do see colorswas much better. The world became a fascinating place as he pictured it, and Hermes longed for the mysterious power of mobility that made wide explorations possible. He tried to glean the secret, but all that Shep knew on the subject was that movement followed desire, and sometimes came without any wish.

The god came to the conclusion that in all the world the only animals that could satisfy his curiosity were men. His mind was still too young to be bothered with such trifles as modesty, and he was quite sure there could be no animal with a better intelligence than he had. The dog couldn’t even read thoughts, and Hermes had doubts about man’s ability to do the same; otherwise, why should the master have punished Shep for fighting, when the other dog had dearly started it?

And if he hadn’t, Shep would have been home, instead of skulking around this place, where he sometimes came to meet the master after work.

Hermes tried to locate a man’s mind, but there was none near. He caught a vague eddy of jumbled thought waves from someone who was evidently located there to guard the building, but there was a definite limit to the space that thought could span.

The cat’s brain had gone black inside again, with only fitful images flickering on and off, and the dog was drifting into a similar state. Hermes studied the action with keen interest and decided that sleep might be a very fine way of passing the time until a man came back to the laboratory, as he gathered they did every time some big light shone from somewhere high up above.

But as he concentrated on the matter of turning off his mind, he wondered again what he was. Certainly neither a dog nor a cat, he had no real belief that he was a man; the dog didn’t know about him, but the cat regarded him as a stone. Maybe he was one, if stones ever came to life. Anyway, he’d find out in the morning when the master came in. Until then he forced thoughts from his mind and succeeded in simulating sleep.

Ill

A strange noise wakened Hermes in the morning. From what he had seen in Shep’s mind, he knew it was the sound of human speech, and listened intently. The people were talking at a point behind him, but he was sure it was the master and one of the little missies. He tuned his mind in on that of the master and began soaking up impressions.

“I wish you’d stay away from young Thomas,” Dr. Brugh was saying. “I think he’s the nephew of Hodges, though he won’t admit it. Your mother doesn’t like him either, Tanya.”

Tanya laughed softly at her father’s suspicions, and Hermes felt a glow all over. It was a lovely sound. “You never like my boyfriends,” she said. “I think you want me to grow up into an old-maid school—

marm. Johnny’s a nice boy. To hear you talk, a person would think Hodges and his whole family were ogres.”

“Maybe they are.” But Brugh knew better than to argue with his older daughter; she always won, just as her mother always did. “Hodges tried to swindle me out of my appropriations again at the meeting last night. He’d like to see me ruined.”

“And you swindled him out of his tanks. Suppose I proved to the president who sent those anonymous vivisection letters to all the parents?”

Brugh looked around hastily, but there was no one listening. “Are you trying to blackmail me, Tanya?”

She laughed again at his attempt at anger. “You know I won’t tell a soul. ‘Bye, Dad. I’m going swimming with Johnny.” Hermes felt a light kiss through Brugh’s senses, and saw her start around the table to pass in front of him. He snapped the connection with the master’s mind and prepared his own eyes for confirmation of what he had seen by telepathy.

Tanya was a vision of life and loveliness. In the fleeting second it took for her to cross the little god’s range of sight, he took in the soft, waving brown hair, the dark, sparkling eyes, and the dimple that lurked in the corner of her mouth, and something happened to Hermes. As yet he had no word for it, but it was pure sensation that sped through every atom of his synthetic soul. He began to appreciate that life was something more than the satisfaction of curiosity.

A sound from Brugh, who was puttering around with a cloudy precipitate, snapped him back to reality. The questions in his mind still needed answering, and the physicist was the logical one to answer them. Again he made contact with the other’s mind.

This was infinitely richer than the dog’s and cat’s combined. For one thing, there was a seemingly inexhaustible supply of word thoughts to be gleaned. As he absorbed them, thinking became easier, and the words provided a framework for abstractions, something utterly beyond the bounds of the animal minds. For half an hour he studied them, and absorbed the details of human life gradually.

Then he set about finding the reasons for his own life; that necessitated learning the whole field of physical chemistry, which occupied another half hour, and when he had finished, he began putting the knowledge he had gleaned together, until it made sense.

All life, he had found, was probably electricity and radioactivity, the latter supplied by means of a tiny amount of potassium in the

human body. But life was really more than that. There were actions and interactions between the two things that had thus far baffled all students. Some of them baffled the rubber god, but he puzzled the general picture out to his own satisfaction.

When the experiment had gone wrong and created the tarry lump that formed the real life of Hermes, there had been a myriad of compounds and odd arrangements of atom formed in it, and the tarry gum around them had acted as a medium for their operation. Then, when they were slightly softened by the addition of alcohol, they had begun to work, arranging and rearranging themselves into an interacting pattern that was roughly parallel to human life and thought.

But there were differences. For one thing, he could read thoughts accurately, and for another, he had a sense of perception which could analyze matter directly from its vibrations. For another, what he called sight and sound were merely other vibrations, acting directly on his life substance instead of by means of local sensory organs. He realized suddenly that he could see with his mouth instead of his eyes, and hear all over. Only the rubber casing prevented him from a full 360° vision. But, because of the minds he had tapped, he had learned to interpret those vibrations in a more or less conventional pattern.

Hermes analyzed the amount of radioactive potassium in Brugh’s body carefully and compared it with his own. There was a great difference, which probably accounted for his more fully developed powers. Something ached vaguely inside him, and he felt giddy. He turned away from his carefully ordered thoughts to inspect this new sensation.

The alcohol inside him was drying outalmost gone, in fact, and his tarry interior was growing thicker. He’d have to do something about it.

“Dr. Brugh,” he thought, fixing his attention on the other, “could I have some alcohol, please? My thoughts will be slowed even below human level if I can’t have some soon.”

Arlington Brugh shook his head to clear it of a sudden buzz, but he had not understood. Hermes tried again, using all the remaining thought power he could muster.

“This is Hermes, Dr. Brugh. You brought me to life, and I want some alcohol, please!”

Brugh heard this time, and swung suspiciously toward the end of the room, where his assistant was working. But the young man was

engaged in his work, and showed no sign of having spoken or heard. Hermes repeated his request, squeezing out his fast failing energy, and the master jerked quickly, turning his eyes slowly around the room. Again Hermes tried, and the other twitched.

Brugh grabbed for his hat and addressed the assistant. “Bill, I’m going for a little walk to clear my head. The session last night seems to have put funny ideas in it.” He paused. “Oh, better toss that little rubber statue into the can for the junkman. It’s beginning to get on my nerves.”

He turned sharply and walked out of the room. Hermes felt the rough hands of the assistant, and felt himself falling. But his senses were leaving him, drained by the loss of alcohol and the strain of forcing his mind on the master. He sank heavily into the trash can and his mind grew blank.

IV

A splatter of wetness against Hermes’ mouth brought him back to consciousness, and he saw a few drops fall near him from a broken bottle that was tipped sidewise. Occasionally one found its way through his mouth, and he soaked it up greedily. Little as he got, the alcohol still had been enough to start his dormant life into renewed activity.

There was a pitch and sway to the rubbish on which he lay, and a rumbling noise came from in front of him. Out of the corner of his “eye” he saw a line of poles running by, and knew he was on something that moved. Momentarily he tapped the mind of the driver and found he was on a truck bound for the city dump, where all garbage was disposed of. But he felt no desire to use the little energy he had in mind reading, so he fell back to studying the small supply of liquid left in the bottle.

There was an irregular trickle now, running down only a few inches from him. He studied the situation carefully, noting that the bottle was well anchored to its spot, while he was poised precariously on a little mound of rubbish. One of Newton’s laws of momentum flashed through his mind from the mass of information he had learned through Brugh; if the truck were to speed up, he would be thrown backward, directly under the stream trickling down from the bottleand with luck he might land face up.

Hermes summoned his energy and directed a wordless desire for speed toward the driver. The man’s foot came down slowly on the accelerator, but too slowly. Hermes tried again, and suddenly felt

himself pitched backwardto land face down! Then a squeal of brakes reached his ears, as the driver counteracted his sudden speed, and the smallest god found himself rolling over, directly under the stream.

There were only a few teaspoons left, splashing out irregularly as the bouncing of the truck threw the liquid back and forth in the fragment of glass, but most of them reached his mouth. The truck braked to a halt and began reversing, and the last drops fell against his lips. It was highly impure alcohol, filled with raw chemicals from the laboratory, but Hermes had no complaints. He could feel the tar inside him soften, and he lay quietly enjoying the sensation until new outside stimuli caught his attention.

The truck had ceased backing and was parked on a slope leading down toward the rear. There was a rattle of chains and the gate dropped down to let the load go spinning out down the bank into the rubbish-filled gully. Hermes bounced from a heavy can and went caroming off sidewise, then struck against a rock with force enough to send white sparks of pain running through him.

But the rock had changed his course and thrown him clear of the other trash. When he finally stopped, his entire head and one arm were clear, and the rest was buried under only a loose litter of papers and dirt. No permanent damage had been done; his tarry core was readjusting itself to the normal shape of the rubber coating, and he was in no immediate danger.

But being left here was the equivalent of a death sentence. His only hope was to contact some human mind and establish friendly communications, and the dump heap was the last place to find men. Added to that, the need for further alcohol was a serious complication. Again he wished for the mysterious power of motion.

He concentrated his mental energy on moving the free arm, but there was no change; the arm stayed at the same awkward angle. With little hope, he tried again, watching for the slightest movement. This time a finger bent slightly! Feverishly he tried to move the others, and they twisted slowly until his whole hand lay stretched out flat. Then his arm began to move sluggishly. He was learning.

It was growing dark when he finally drew himself completely free of the trash and lay back to rest, exulting over his newfound ability. The alcohol was responsible, of course; it had softened the tar slightly more than it had been when he made his first efforts in the

laboratory, and permitted motion of a sort through a change of surface tension. The answer to further motion was more alcohol.

There were bottles of all kinds strewn about, and he stared at those within his range of vision, testing their vibrations in the hope of finding a few more drops. The nearer ones were empty, except for a few that contained brackish rainwater. But below him, a few feet away, was a small-sized one whose label indicated that it had contained hair tonic. The cork was in tightly, and it was still half full of a liquid. That liquid was largely ethyl alcohol.

Hermes forced himself forward on his stomach, drawing along inch by inch. Without the help of gravity, he could never have made it, but the distance shortened. He gave a final labored hitch, clutched the bottle in his tiny hands, and tried to force the cork out. It was wedged in too firmly!

Despair clutched at him, but he threw it off. There must be some way. Glass was brittle, could be broken easily, and there were stones and rocks about with which to strike it. The little god propped the neck of the bottle up against one and drew himself up to a sitting position, one of the stones in his hands. He could not strike rapidly enough to break the glass, but had to rely on raising the rock and letting it fall.

Fortunately for his purpose, the bottle had been cracked by its fall, and the fourth stone shattered the neck. Hermes forced it up on a. broken box and tipped it gingerly toward his mouth. The smell of it was sickening, but he had no time to be choosy about his drinks! There was room inside him to hold a dozen teaspoonfuls, and he meant to fill those spaces.

The warm sensation of softening tar went through him gratefully as the liquid was absorbed. According to what he had read in Brugh’s mind, he should have been drunk, but it didn’t feel that way. It more nearly approximated the sensation of a man who had eaten more than he should and hadn’t time to be sorry yet.

Hermes wriggled his toes comfortably and nodded his approval at the ease with which they worked. Another idea came to him, and he put it to the test. Where his ear channels were, the rubber was almost paper-thin; he put out a pseudopod of tar from the lumps inside his head and wriggled it against the membrane; a squeaky sound was produced like a radio speaker gone bad. He varied the speed of the feeler, alternating it until he discovered the variation of tones and overtones necessary, and tried a human word.

“Tanyal” It wasn’t perfect, but there could be no question as to

what it was. Now he could talk with men directly, even with Tanya Brugh, if fate was particularly kind. He conjured up an ecstatic vision of her face and attempted a conventional sighing sound. Men in love evidently were supposed to sigh, and Hermes was in love!

But if he wanted to see her, he’d have to leave the dump. It was dark now, but ultraviolet and infrared light were as useful to him as the so-called visible beams, and the amount of light needed to set off his sight was less than that for a cat. With soiled hands he began pulling his way up the bank, burrowing through the surface rubbish. Then he reached the top and spied the main path leading away.

His little feet twinkled brightly in the starlight, and the evening dew washed the stains from his body. A weasel, prowling for food, spied him and debated attack, but decided to flee when the little god pictured himself as a dog. Animals accepted such startling apparent changes without doubting their sanity. He chuckled at the tricks he could play on Tabby when he got back, and sped down the lane at a good two miles an hour.

V

Brugh worked late in the laboratory, making up for the time he had taken off to clear his head. All thoughts of his trouble with Hermes had vanished. He cleared up the worst of the day’s litter of dirty apparatus, arranged things for the night, and locked up.

Dixon, head of the organic chemistry department, was coming down the hall as the physicist left. He stopped, his pudgy face beaming, and greeted the other. “Hi, there, Brugh. Working late again?”

“A little. How’s the specific for tuberculosis going?”

Dixon patted his paunch amiably. “Not bad. We’re able to get the metal poison into the dye, and the dye into the bug. We still can’t get much of the poison out of the dye after that to kill our friend, the bacillus, but we’ve been able to weaken him a little. By the way, I saw your daughter today, out with Hodges’ nephew, and she told me-“

“You mean Johnny Thomas?” Brugh’s eyebrows furrowed tightly and met at the corners. “So Hodges is his uncle! Hmmm.”

“Still fighting the biochemistry department?” By a miracle of tact and good nature, Dixon had managed to keep on friendly terms with both men. “I wish you two would get together; Hodges is really a pretty decent sort… . Well, I didn’t think so; you’re both too stub-bom for your own good. That nephew of his isn’t so good, though. Came up here to pump money out of his uncle and get away from

some scandal in New York. His reputation isn’t any too savory. Wouldn’t want my daughter going with him.”

“Don’t worry; Tanya won’t be going with Hodges’ nephew any longer. Thanks for the tip.” They reached the main door, and Brugh halted suddenly. “Damnl”

“What is it?”

“I left my auto keys on the worktable upstairs. Don’t bother waiting for me, Dixon. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dixon smiled. “Absentminded professor, eh? All right, good night.” He went out the door and down the steps while Brugh climbed back to his laboratory, where he found the keys without further trouble. Fortunately he carried a spare door key to the lab in his pocket; it wasn’t the first time he’d done this fool trick.

As he passed down the hall again, a faint sound of movement caught his ear and he turned toward Hodges’ laboratory. There was no one there, and the door was locked, the lights all out. Brugh started for the stairs, then turned back.

“Might as well take advantage of an opportunity when I get it,” he muttered. “I’d like to see the creation of Hodges, as long as he won’t know about it.” He slipped quietly to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it shut after him. The one key unlocked every door in the building and the main entrance; he had too much trouble losing keys to carry more than needed with him.

There was no mistaking the heavy tank on the low table, and Brugh moved quietly to it, lifted the cover, and stared inside. There was a light in the tank that went on automatically when the cover was raised, and the details of the body inside were clearly defined. Brugh was disappointed; he had been hoping for physical defects, but the figure was that of a young man, almost too classically perfect in body, and with an intelligent, handsome face. There was even a healthy pink glow to the skin.

But there was no real life, no faintest spark of animation or breathing. Anthropos lay in his nutritive bath, eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling and seeing nothing. “No properly radioactive potassium,” Brugh gloated. “In a way, it’s a pity, too. I’d like to work on you.”

He put the cover down and crept out again, making sure that the night watchman was not around. The man seldom left the first floor, anyway; who’d steal laboratory equipment? Brugh reached for his keys and fumbled with them, trying to find the proper one. It wasn’t

on the key ring. “Damn!” he said softly. “I suppose it fell off back on the table.”

But he still had the spare, and the other could stay on the table. With the duplicate, he opened and relocked the door, then slipped down the hall to leave the building. Again a faint sound reached him, but he decided it was the cat or a rat moving around. He had other worries. Mrs. Brugh would give him what-for for being late again, he supposed. And Tanya probably wouldn’t be home yet from the beach. That was another thing to be attended to; there’d be no more running with that young Thomas!

In the latter supposition, he was wrong; Tanya was there, fooling with her hair and gushing to her mother about a date she had that night with Will Young. She usually had seven dates a week with at least four different men serving as escorts. Brugh thoroughly approved of Young, however, since he was completing his Ph.D. work and acting as lab assistant. Mrs. Brugh approved of him because the young man came from a good family and had independent means, without the need of the long grind up to a full professorship. Tanya was chiefly interested in his six-foot-two, his football reputation, and a new Dodge he owned.

Margaret Brugh spied her husband coming through the door and began her usual worried harangue about his health and overwork. He muttered something about a lost key, and Tanya changed the subject for him. Brugh threw her a grateful smile and went in to wash up. He decided to postpone the lecture on Thomas until after supper; then she was in too much of a hurry to be bothered, and he put it off until morning.

The old Morris chair was soothing after a full mealso soothing that the paper fell from his lap and scattered itself over the floor unnoticed, until the jangling of the telephone brought him back with a jerk. “It’s for you,” his wife announced.

The voice was that of Hodges, his nasal Vermont twang unmistaK-able. “Brugh? Your latest brainstorm backfired on you! I’ve got evidence against you this time, so you’d better bring it back.” The pitch of the voice indicated fury that was only partly controlled.

The back hairs on Brugh’s neck bristled up hotly, and his voice snapped back harshly. “You’re drunk or crazy, like all biochemists! I haven’t done anything to you. Anyway, what is it you want back?”

“You wouldn’t know? How touching, such innocence! I want Anthropos, my synthetic man. I suppose you weren’t in the laboratory this evening?”

Brugh gulped, remembering the faint noises he had heard. So it had all been a trap! “I never”

“Of course. But we had trouble beforesomeone trying to force his way inand we set up a photoelectric eye and camera with film for u.v. light. Didn’t expect to catch you, but there’s a nice picture of your face on it, and your key is in the lockthe number shows it’s yours. I didn’t think even you would stoop to stealing!”

Brugh made strangling sounds. “I didn’t steal your phony man; wouldn’t touch the thing! Furthermore, I didn’t leave a key. Go sleep your insanity off!”

“Are you going to return Anthropos?”

“I don’t have him.” Brugh slammed the receiver down in disgust, snorting. If Hodges thought that he could put such a trick over, he’d find out better. With all the trumped-up evidence in the world, they’d still have to prove a few things. He’d see the president in the morning before Hodges could get to him.

But he wasn’t prepared for the doorbell a half hour later, nor for the blue-coated figures that stood outside. They wasted no time.

“Dr. Arlington Brugh? We have a warrant for your arrest, charge being larceny. If you’ll just come along quietly”

They were purposeful individuals, and words did no good. Brugh went alongbut not quietly.

VI

Hermes spied the public highway below him, and began puzzling about which direction to take back to town. Brugh had never been out this way, and he had failed to absorb the necessary information from the garbage man, so he had no idea of the location of Corton. But there was a man leaning against a signpost, and he might know.

The little god approached him confidently, now that he could both move and talk. He wanted to try his new power instead of telepathy, and did not trouble with the man’s thoughts, though a faint impression indicated they were highly disordered.

“Good evening, sir,” he said pleasantly, with only a faint blur to the words. “Can you direct me to Corton University?”

The man clutched the signpost and gazed down solemnly, blinking his eyes. “Got ‘em again,” he said dispassionately. “And after cutting down on the stuff, too. ‘Sfunny, they never talked before. Wonder if the snakes’ll talk, too, when I begin seeing them?”

It made no sense to Hermes, but he nodded wisely and repeated

his question. From the vibrations, the man was not unacquainted with the virtues of alcohol.

The drunk pursed his lips and examined the little figure calmly. “Never had one like you before. What are you?”

“I suppose I’m a god,” Hermes answered. “Can you direct me to Corton, please?”

“So it’s gods this time, eh? That’s what I get for changing brands. Go away and let me drink in peace.” He thought it over slowly as he drew out the bottle. “Want a drink?”

“Thank you, yes.” The little god stretched up and succeeded in reaching the bottle. This time he filled himself to capacity before handing it back. It was worse than the hair tonic, but there was no question of its tar-softening properties. “Could you?”

“I know. Corton. To your right and follow the road.” The man paused and made gurgling noises. “Whyn’t you stick around? I like you; snakes never would drink with me.”

Hermes made it quite clear he couldn’t stay, and the drunk nodded gravely. “Always women. I know about that; it’s a woman that drove me to thisseeing you. ‘Stoo bad. Well, so long!”

Filled with the last drink, the god stepped his speed up to almost five miles an hour. There was no danger of fatigue, since the radioactive energy within him poured out as rapidly as he could use it, and there were no waste products to poison his system. His tiny legs flickered along the road, and the little feet made faint tapping sounds on the smooth asphalt surface.

He came over a hill and spied the yellow lights of Corton, still an hour’s trot away. It might have been worse. The swishing of the water inside him bothered him, and he decided that he’d stick to straight alcohol hereafter; whiskey contained too many useless impurities. Hermes flopped over beside the road, and let the water and some of the oil from the hair tonic trickle out; the alcohol was already well inside his gummy interior where there was no danger of losing it. FOP some reason, it seemed to be drying out more slowly than the first had, and that was all to the good.

The few cars on the road aroused a faint desire for some easier means of locomotion, but otherwise they caused him no trouble. He clipped off the miles at a steady gait, keeping on the edge of the paving, until the outskirts of the town had been reached. Then he took to the sidewalk.

A blue-coated figure, ornamented with brass buttons, was pacing down the street toward him, and Hermes welcomed the presence of

the policeman. One of the duties of an officer was directing people, he had gathered, and a little direction would be handy. The smallest god stopped and waited for the other to reach him.

“Could you direct me to the home of Dr. Arlington Brugh, please?”

The cop looked about carefully for the speaker. Hermes raised his voice again. “I’m here, sir.”

Officer O’Callahan dropped his eyes slowly, expecting a drunk, and spied the god. He let out a startled bellow. “So it’s tricks, is it now? Confound that Bergen fellow, after drivin’ the brats wild about ven-triloquence. Come out o’ there, you spalpeen. Tryin’ your tricks on an honest police, like as if I didn’t have worries o’ me own.”

Hermes watched the officer hunting around in the doorways for what he believed must be the source of the voice, and decided that there was no use lingering. He put one foot in front of the other and left the cop.

“Pssst!” The sound came from an alley a couple of houses below, and Hermes paused. In the shadows, he made out a dirty old woman, her frowsy hair blowing about her face, her finger crooked enticingly. Evidently she wanted something, and he turned in hesitantly.

“That dumb Irish mick,” she grunted, and from her breath Hermes recognized another kindred spirit; apparently humans were much easier to get along with when thoroughly steeped in alcohol, as he was himself. “Sure, now, a body might think it’s never a word he’d heard o’ the Little Folks, and you speaking politely, too. Ventrilo-quence, indeed! Was you wanting to know what I might be telling you?”

Hermes stretched his rubber face into a passable smile. “Do you know where Dr. Arlington Brugh lives? He’s a research director at Corton University.”

She shook her head, blinking bleary eyes. “That I don’t, but maybe you’d take the university? It’s well I know where that may be.”

Dr. Brugh lived but a short distance from the campus, he knew, and once on the university grounds, Hermes would have no trouble in finding the house. He nodded eagerly. She reached down a filthy hand and caught him up, wrapping a fold of her tattered dress about him.

“Come along, then. I’ll be taking you there myself.” She paused to let the few last drops trickle from a bottle into her wide mouth, and stuck her head out cautiously; the policeman had gone. With a

grunt of satisfaction, she struck across the street to a streetcar stop. “Tis the last dime I have, but a sorry day it’ll be when Molly McCann can’t do a favor for a Little Folk.”

She propped herself against the carstop post and waited patiently, while Hermes pondered the mellowing effects of alcohol again. When the noisy car stopped, she climbed on, clutching him firmly, and he heard only the bumping of a flat wheel and her heavy breathing. But she managed to keep half awake, and carried him off the car at the proper place.

She set him down as gently as unsteady fingers would permit and pointed vaguely at the buildings on the campus. “There you be, and it’s the best of luck I’m wishing you. Maybe, now that I’ve helped a Little Man, good luck’ll be coming to me. A very good night to you.”

Hermes bowed gravely as he guessed she expected. “My thanks, Molly McCann, for your kindness, and a very good night to you.” He watched her totter away, and turned toward the laboratory building, where he could secure a few more drops of straight alcohol. After that, he could attend to his other business.

VII

Tanya Brugh was completely unaware of the smallest god’s presence as he stood on a chair looking across at her. A stray beam of moonlight struck her face caressingly, and made her seem a creature of velvet and silver, withdrawn in sleep from all that was mundane. Hermes probed her mind gently, a little fearfully.

Across her mind, a flickering pageant of tall men, strong men, lithe and athletic men, ran in disordered array, and none of them was less than six feet tall. Hermes gazed at his own small body, barely six inches high; it would never do. Now the face of John Thomas fitted itself on one of the men, and Tanya held the image for a few seconds. The god growled muttered oaths; he had no love for the Thomas image. Then it flickered into the face of Will Young,* Brugh’s assistant.

Hermes had probed her thoughts to confirm his own ideas of the wonderful delight that Tanya must be, and he was faintly disappointed. In her mind were innocence and emptinessexcept for men of tall stature. He sighed softly, and reverted to purely human rationalization until he had convinced himself of the Tightness of her thoughts.

But the question of height bothered him. Children, he knew, grew up, but he was no child, though his age was measured in hours. Some—

way, he must gain a new body, or grow taller, and that meant that Dr. Brugh would be needed for advice on the riddle of height increase.

He dropped quietly from the chair and trotted toward the master’s bedroom, pushing against the door in the hope that it might be open. It wasn’t, but he made a leap for the doorknob and caught it, throwing his slight weight into the job of twisting it. Finally, the knob turned, and he kicked out against the doorjamb with one foot until the door began to swing. Then he dropped down and pushed until he could slide through the opening. For his size, he carried a goodly portion of strength in his gum-and-rubber body.

But the master was not in the bed, and the mistress was making slow strangling sounds that indicated emotional upset. From Brugh’s mind, Hermes had picked up a hatred of the sound of a woman crying, and he swung hastily out, wondering what the fuss was about. There was only one person left, and he headed toward the little Missie Katherine’s room.

She was asleep when he entered, but he called softly: “Miss Kitty.” Her head popped up suddenly from the pillow and she groped for the light. For an eight-year-old child, she was lovely with the sleep still in her eyes. She gazed at the little white figure in faint astonishment.

Hermes shinnied up the leg of a chair and made a leap over onto the bed where he could watch her. “What happened to your father?” he asked.

She blinked at him with round eyes. “It talksa little doll that talks! How cute!”

“I’m not a doll, Kitty. I’m Hermes.”

“Not a doll? Oh, goody, you’re an elf then?”

“Maybe.” It was no time to bicker about a question that had no satisfactory answer. But his heart warmed toward the girl. She wasn’t drunk, yet she could still believe in his existence. “I don’t know just what I am, but I think I’m the smallest of the gods. Where’s your father?”

Memory overwhelmed Kitty in a rush, and her brown eyes brimmed with tears. “He’s in jail!” she answered through a puckered mouth. “A nasty man came and took him away, and Mamma feels awful. Just ‘cause Mr. Hodges hates him.”

“Where’s jail? Never mind, I’ll find out.” It would save time by taking the information directly from her head, since she knew where it was. “Now go back to sleep and I’ll go find your father.”

“And bring him home to Mamma?”

“And bring him home to Mamma.” Hermes knew practically nothing of jails, but the feeling of power was surging hotly through him. So far, everything he had attempted had been accomplished. Kitty smiled uncertainly at him and dropped her head back on the pillow. Then the little god’s sense of vibration perception led him toward the cellar in search of certain vital bottles.

A child’s toy truck, overburdened with a large bottle and a small god, drew up in front of the dirty white building that served as jail. Hermes had discovered the toy in the yard and used it as a boy does a wagon to facilitate travel. Now he stepped off, lifted the bottle, and parked the truck in a small shrub where he could find it again. Then he began the laborious job of hitching himself up the steps and into the building.

It was in the early morning hours, and there were few men about, but he stayed carefully in the shadow and moved only when their backs were turned. From his observation, men saw only what they expected, and the unusual attracted attention only when accompanied by some sudden sound or movement. Hermes searched one of the men’s minds for the location of Brugh, then headed toward the cell, dragging the pint bottle behind him as noiselessly as he could.

Dr. Brugh sat on the hard iron cot with his head in his hands, somewhat after the fashion of Rodin’s Thinker; but his face bore rather less of calm reflection. An occasional muttered invective reached the little god, who grinned. Arlington Brugh was a man of wide attainments, and he had not neglected the development of his vocabulary.

Hermes waited patiently until the guard was out of sight and slipped rapidly toward the cell, mounting over the bottom brace and through the bars. The scientist did not see him as he trotted under the bunk and found a convenient hiding place near the man’s legs”. At the moment, Brugh was considering the pleasant prospect of attaching all police to Bertha and bombarding them with neutrons until their flesh turned to anything but protoplasm.

Hermes tapped a relatively huge leg and spoke softly. “Dr. Brugh, if you’ll look down here, please” He held up the bottle, the cap already unscrewed.

Brugh lowered his eyes and blinked; from the angle of his sight, only a pint bottle of whiskey, raising itself from the floor, could be seen. But he was in a mood to accept miracles without question, and he reached instinctively. Ordinarily he wasn’t a drinking man, but

the person who won’t drink on occasion has a special place reserved for him in heavenwell removed from all other saints.

As the bottle was lowered again, Hermes reached for it and drained a few drops, while Brugh stared at him. “Well?” the god asked finally.

The alcohol was leaving the scientist’s stomach rapidly, as it does when no food interferes, and making for his head; the mellowing effect Hermes had hoped for was beginning. “That’s my voice you’re using,” Brugh observed mildly.

“It should be; I learned the language from you. You made me, you know.” He waited for a second. “Well, do you believe in me now?”

Brugh grunted. “Hermes, eh? So I wasn’t imagining things back in the lab. What happened to you?” A suspicious look crossed his face. “Has Hodges been tinkering again?”

As briefly as he could, the little god summarized events and explained himself, climbing up on the cot as he did so, and squatting down against the physicist’s side, out of sight from the door. The other chuckled sourly as he finished.

“So while Hodges was fooling around with amoebas and flesh, I made super-life, only I didn’t know it, eh?” There was no longer doubt in his mind, but that might have been due to the whiskey. The reason for more than one conversion to a new religious belief lies hidden in the mysterious soothing effect of ethanol in the form of whiskey and rum. “Well, glad to know you. What happens now?”

“I promised your daughter I’d take you home to the mistress.” But now that he was here, he wasn’t so sure. There were more men around than he liked. “We’ll have to make plans.”

Brugh reflected thoughtfully. “That might not be so good. They’d come after me again, and I’d have less chance to prove my innocence.”

Hermes was surprised. “You’re innocent? I thought you’d murdered Hodges.” After all, it was a reasonable supposition, based on the state of the physicist’s mind the day before. “What happened?”

“No, I haven’t murdered himyet.” Brugh’s smile promised unpleasant things at the first chance. “It’s still a nice idea, after this trick, though. It all started with the key.”

“Maybe I’d better take it from your head,” Hermes decided. “That way I’ll be less apt to miss things, and more sure to get things straight.”

Brugh nodded and relaxed, thinking back over the last few hours. He lifted the bottle and extracted another drink, while Hermes followed the mental pictures and memory until the story was complete in his head.

“So that’s the way it was,” he grunted, finished. “Some of it doesn’t make sense.”

“None of it does. All I know is that I’m here and Hodges has enough trumped-up evidence to convict me. He wanted to make the charge kidnapping, but they suggested corpse stealing, and compromised on larcenygrand larceny, I guess.”

“I still might be able to swipe the guard’s keys and attract their attention”

Brugh gathered his somewhat pickled senses. “No. Your biggest value to me is in your ability to get in places where a man couldn’t, and find out things without anyone knowing it. If I get out, I can do no more than I can hereI’m not a detective when it comes to human reactions; just physical or chemical puzzles.”

There was something in that, Hermes had to concede. “Then I’m to work outside?”

“If you want to. You’re a free agent, not bound to me. Slaves have gone out of fashion, and you’re hardly a robot.” The physicist shook his head. “Why should you help me, come to think of it?”

“Because I want to grow up, and you might help me; and because in a sense, we both have the same memories and thought actions I started out with a mixture of dog, cat, and you.” He climbed off the bunk and scuttled across the floor. “I’ll give Hodges your love if I see him.”

Brugh grinned crookedly. “Do.”

VIII

Professor Hiram Hodges stirred and turned over in his bed, a sense of something that wasn’t as it should be troubling his mind. He grunted softly and tried to sleep again, but the premonition still bothered him. And then he realized that there was a rustling sound going on in his study and that it was still too early for his housekeeper.

He kicked off the sheet and rummaged under the bed for his slippers, drawing on the tattered old robe he’d worn for the last six years. As quietly as he could, he slipped across to the study door, threw it open, and snapped on the light switch, just as the rustling sound stopped. Probably his nephew up to some trick-But the room contained neither a nephew nor any other man. Hodges blinked, adjusting his eyes to the light, and stared at his desk.

It had been closed when he went to bed, he was sure of that. Now it was open, and a litter of papers was strewn across it in haphazard fashion. Someone must have been there and disappeared in the split second it took to snap on the lights.

Hodges moved over to the desk, stopping to pick up a few scraps of paper that had fallen on the floor, then reached up to close the roll top. As he did so, something small and white made a sudden frantic lunge from among the papers and hit the floor to go scuttling across the room. With startlingly quick reactions for his age, the professor spun his lank frame and scooped up the scurrying object.

Apparently it was an animated rubber doll that lay twisting in his grasp. Words came spilling out, though the tiny mouth did not move. “All right, you’ve caught me. Do you have to squeeze me to death?”

Some men, when faced with the impossible, go insane; others refuse to believe. But Hodges’ life had been spent in proving the impossible to be possible, and he faced the situation calmly. A robot wouldn’t have spoken that way, and obviously this wasn’t flesh and blood; equally obviously, it was some form of life. He lifted the figure onto the desk and clamped the wire wastebasket down over it.

“Now,” he said, “what are you, where from, and what do you want?”

Hermes devoted full energy to picturing himself as a charging lion, but the professor was not impressed.

“It’s a nice illusion,” he granted, smiling. “Come to think of it, maybe your other shape isn’t real. Which is itmy nephew or Brugh?”

Hermes gave up and went over the story of his creation again, point by point, while dawn crept up over the roofs of the adjacent houses and urged him to hurry. Hodges’ first incredulity turned to doubt, and doubt gave place to half belief.

“So that’s the way it is? All right. I’ll believe you, provided you can explain how you see without the aid of a lens to direct the light against your sensory surface.”

Hermes had overlooked that detail, and took time off to investigate himself. “Apparently the surface is sensitive only to light that strikes it at a certain angle,” he decided. “And my mouth opening acts as a very rough lenssomething on the order of the old pinhole camera. The tar below is curved, and if I want clearer vision, I can put out a thin bubble of fairly transparent surface material to rectify the light more fully, as a lens would. I don’t need an iris.”

“Ummm. So Brugh decided he’d made life and wanted to make a fool of me by bringing my man to consciousness, eh? Is that why he kidnaped Anthropos?”

Hermes grunted sourly. His mind was incapable of the sudden rages and dull hates that seemed to fill men’s thoughts, but it was colored by the dislike Brugh had cultivated for the biochemist. “It’s a nice way of lying, professor, but I know Dr. Brugh had nothing to do with your creation.”

The other grinned skeptically. “How do you know?”

“I read his mind, where he had to reveal the truth.” In proof, the little god transferred part of the picture he had drawn from Brugh’s mind to that of Hodges.

“Hm-m-m.” The biochemist lifted the wastebasket off and picked up the little figure. “That would account for the exposed film. Suppose you come with me while I get dressed and try reading my mind. You might be surprised.”

Hermes was surprised, definitely. In the professor’s mind there had been complete conviction of Brugh’s guilt, shaken somewhat now by the story transferred by Hermes. Instead of being a cooked-up scheme to ruin his rival, the theft of the synthetic man was unquestionably genuine. The god fixed on one detail, trying to solve the riddle.

A note received the night before had first apprised the biochemist of the disappearance of his pet creation and sent him to the laboratory to investigate. “What happened to the ransom note?” Hermes asked.

Hodges was stuggling with man’s symbol of slavery to the law of fashion, his necktie. “It’s still in my pockethere.” He flipped it across the room, where the other could study the crude scrawl. The words were crude and direct:

Perffeser, we got yur artifishul man itll cost you 1000$ to get him  back leave the dough in a papre sack in the garbaj can bak of yur hows noon tomorer and dont cawl the bulls.

“Obviously the work of a well-educated man,” Hodges grunted, succeeding finally with the tie. “They always try to appear too illiterate when writing those notes. That’s why I thought Dr. Brugh wrote it to throw me off the trail.”

“Hatred had nothing to do with it, I suppose?”

“I don’t hate Brugh, and if his conscience didn’t bother him, he wouldn’t hate me. We used to be fairly good friends. We could still

be if we weren’t so darned stubborn.” The professor grinned as he picked up the small figure and moved toward the kitchen. “You don’t eat, do you? Well, I do. Brugh played a dirty trick on me, but I’ve put over a few of them myself to get money for my department. At Cor-ton, it’s always been dog eat dog when appropriations were under debate.”

“But did you think he’d leave his key lying around for evidence?”

“People do funny things, and only the department heads are permitted master keys. It had his number.” Hodges swallowed the last of a bun and washed it down with milk. “It is funny, though. Let’s see, now. Brugh left the keys on the table; and sometime yesterday he lost one of them. Tanya was in the laboratory in the morning, just before a date with that confounded nephew of mine. Hm-m-m.”

“But Tanya wouldn’t” Hermes felt duty bound to protect Tanya’s reputation.

Hodges cut in on his protest. “It’s plain you don’t know Tanya Brugh. For herself, she wouldn’t take it. But give her a fairly handsome young man with a smooth line, and she’d sell her own father down the river. That ransom note might be some of Johnny’s pleasant work.”

“Then you think it’s your nephew?”

“I don’t think anything, but it might be. He’s the type. Tell you what I’ll do; you try to get some of that potassium saltoh, yes, I knew about it long agofrom your patron, and I’ll help you investigate Johnny.”

“If you’ll help increase my size.” That question was still a major one in the god’s mind. “How‘11 we find out whether young Thomas has the thing?”

“That’s your worry, son. I’ll carry you there, but from then on, it’s in your hands.” Hodges pocketed Hermes and turned out of the kitchen.

IX

Johnny Thomas looked reasonably pleasant as he stuck his head out of the door, though the circles under his eyes were a little too prominent in the early morning hours. He grinned with evident self-satisfaction.

“Ah, my dear maternal uncle. Do come in.” He kicked aside a newspaper that was scattered across the floor and flipped the cigarette ashes off the one comfortable chair in the room, seating himself on the bed. “What can I do for you this morning?”

Hodges coughed to cover the noise of Hermes slipping across the room to a dark place under the table. With that attended to, he faced his nephew. “You know Anthroposthat synthetic man I grew in a culture bath? Somebody stole him last night, tank and all, and slipped a note under my door demanding a thousand dollars for his return.”

“Too bad. But surely, uncle, you don’t think I had anything to do with it?”

“Of course not; how could you get into the laboratory? But I thought you might help me contact the man and make arrangements to pay. Of course, I’d be willing to let you have a few dollars for your work.”

Thomas smiled, and looked across the room while apparently making up his mind. As he looked, a cat came out from where no cat should be, gravely lifted a bottle of whiskey, and drank deeply. “Excellent, my dear Thomas,” the cat remarked. “I suppose when you collect that grand from your uncle, we’ll have even better drinks. Smart trick, stealing that thing.”

The cat licked its chops, sprouted wings, and turned into a fairy. “Naughty, naughty,” said the fairy. “Little boys shouldn’t steal.” It fluttered over to Thomas’ shoulder and perched there, tinkling reproachfully.

The young man swatted at it, felt his hand pass through it, and jumped for the chair. Now the room was empty, though his eyes darted into every corner. His uncle coughed again. “If you’re done playing, John” he suggested.

“Didn’t you see it?”

“See what? Oh, you mean that fly? Yes, it was a big one. But about this business I have”

“I think he’d make a nice meal,” said a grizzly bear, materializing suddenly. “So young and succulent.” ,

A shining halo of light quivered violently. “You’d poison your system, Bruin. Go back home.” The bear obediently trotted to the window and passed through the glass; the halo of light struck a commanding note, and a face of wrath appeared in it. “Young man, repent of your ways and learn that your sins have found you out. Time is but short on this mortal sphere, and the bad that we do must follow us through all eternity. Repent, for the hour has come!”

Thomas quivered down onto the bed again, wiping his forehead. The idea of getting nervous at a time like this! The things couldn’t be real. He turned back to Hodges, who was waiting patiently. “Just

a little nervous this morning; not used to getting up so early. Now, as we were saying”

Click! The sound was in the young man’s head, and a soft purring voice followed it. “I know a secret, I know a secret, and I’m going to tell! Johnny, old kid, tell the old fossil what a smart guy you are, putting over a trick like that on him. Go ahead and tell!” There was a hot flicker of pain that stabbed up the backbone, then ran around the ribs and began doing something on the order of a toe dance in Thomas’ stomach.

He gritted his teeth and groaned. Hodges became all solicitation. “Something you ate?” asked the professor. “Just lie down on the bed and relax.”

There was a whole den of rattlesnakes curled up on the bed, making clicking sounds that seemed to say: “Come ahead, young fellow, it’s breakfast time and we’re hungry!” Thomas had no desire to relax among even imaginary snakes.

“Gulpughl” he said, and an angel unscrewed its head from the light socket and dropped near him. “Gulpouch!” The angel sprouted horns and tail, and carried a red-hot fork that felt most unpleasant when rubbed tenderly along his shins.

Click! Again the voice was in his head. “Remember that girl at Casey’s? Well, when she committed suicide, it wasn’t so nice. But that was gas, and she didn’t feel any pains. When you commit suicide”

“I won’t commit suicide!” The bellow was involuntary, forced out just as the little devil decided his fork would feel worse in the stomach. “Take ‘em away!”

Hodges clucked sympathetically. “Dear, dear! Do you have a dizzy feeling, Johnny?”

Johnny did, just as the words were out. His head gave an unpleasant twang and leaped from his body, then went whirling around the room. A gnome picked it up, whittled the neck quickly to a point, and drew a whip. “Hi, fellows!” called the gnome. “Come, see the top I made.” He drew the whip smartly across Thomas’ head and sent it spinning as a horde of other little hobgoblins jumped out of odd places to watch. That was a little too much for Johnny, with the addition of two worms that were eating his eyes.

Hodges chuckled. “All right, Hermes, let him alone. The boy’s fainted. It’s a pity I couldn’t see the things you were forcing on his mind. Must have been right interesting.”

Hermes came out of the corner, smiling. “They were very nice. I

think he’ll talk when he comes to. He persuaded Tanya to get him the key by pretending an interest in cyclotronssaid he was writing a story. She wouldn’t have done it, except that the key was lying so temptingly within reach. He worked on her innocence.”

“Okay, Hermes,” Hodges grunted. “She’s washed whiter than snow, if you want it that way. Better get back in my pocket; Johnny’s coming around again.”

It was noon when Hodges came to the cell where Brugh sat. The biochemist dropped the little god on the floor and grinned. “You’re free now, Arlington,” he informed the other. “Sorry I got you in here, but I’ve tried to make up for that.”

Brugh looked up at the professor’s voice, and his face wasn’t pretty. “Arrughh!” he said.

The smile on Hodges’ face remained unchanged. “I expected that. But Hermes here can tell you I honestly thought you’d stolen Anthropos. We just finished putting him back where he belongs, and seeing that young nephew of mine leave town. If you’ll avoid committing homicide on me, the warden will unlock the door.”

“What about my reputation?”

“Quite untouched,” Hermes assured him. “Professor Hodges succeeded in keeping everything hushed up, and it’s Sunday, so your absence from the university won’t mean anything.”

The physicist came out of the cell, and his shoulders lifted with the touch of freedom. The scowl on his face was gone, but uncertainty still remained in the look he gave Hodges.

The biochemist put out a hand. “I’ve been thinking you might help me on Anthropos,” he said. “You know, Arlington, we might make something out of that yet if we worked together.”

Brugh grinned suddenly. “We might at that, Hiram. Come on home to lunch, and we’ll talk it over while Hermes tells me what happened.”

Hermes squirmed as a hand lifted him back into the pocket. “How1 about helping me grow up?”

The two men were busy discussing other things. The height increase would have to wait.

X

Hermes sat on the edge of Anthropos’ tank, kicking his small legs against it and thinking of the last two days. To live in the same house, breathe the same air as Tanya Brugh! He dug up another sigh of ecstasy and followed it with one of despair.

For Tanya regarded him as some new form of bug, to be tolerated since he was useful, but not to be likedan attitude shared by her mother. Dr. Brugh had the greatest respect for the little god, and Kitty was fond of him. Of them all, Kitty treated him best, and Tanya worst.

Of course, that was due to his height. John Thomas was gone, but there were still Will Young and her other escorts, none less than six feet in height. And Hermes was far from being tall. The consultation, held with Brugh and Hodges, had resulted in nothing; when all was said and done, there was no hope for him.

He sighed again, and Dixon, who was helping Hodges and Brugh with Anthropos, noticed him. “What’s the matter, Hermes?” he asked good-naturedly. “Alcohol drying out again? Why not try carbon tetrachloride this time?” Hermes shook his head. “I don’t need anything. The alcohol seems to have permanently combined with the tarsomething like water and a crystal, to form a hydrate. I’m softened thoroughly for all time.” Hodges looked up and then turned back to the tank where the synthetic man lay, and Hermes turned his attention to it. As far as outward appearance went, Anthropos was nearly perfect, and a tinge of envy filled the little god’s thoughts.

Dixon wiped his forehead. “I give up. When three separate divisions of chemistry can’t bring life to him, there’s no hope. Hodges, your man is doomed to failure.”

“He’s breathing, though,” the biochemist muttered. “Ever since we injected the potassium into him and put it in his nutritive bath, he’s been living, but not conscious. See, his heartbeat is as regular as clockwork.” He indicated the meter that flickered regularly on the tank.

Brugh refused to look. “To anyone but a biochemist,” he informed the room, “the answer would be obvious. Hiram’s created life, yes; but he can’t give it a good brain. That’s too complex for his electric cell formation determiner. What Anthropos needs is a new brain.” “I suppose you’d like to stick his head full of that gummy tar of yours?” Old habit made the words tart, though good fellowship had been restored between them.

“Why not?” It was Hermes’ voice this time. Inspiration had flashed suddenly through his small mind, opening a mighty vista of marvels to his imagination. “Why wouldn’t that solve it?”

“I’ll bite. Why?” Dixon grinned, sweat rolling from his chubby face. “That’s the best suggestion we’ve had today.”

“But he wouldn’t be real life then, not organic life. Besides, we can’t be sure that another batch of the tar would liveit might be an accident that Hermes contained just the right ingredients. The rest of the tar probably isn’t the same.” Hermes wriggled in his excitement. “Organic life is merely a chemicoelectrical reaction, with radioactivity thrown in; and I’m all of that. What difference does it make?” He stretched out a small leg. “Dr. Brugh, will you examine my feet?” With a puzzled frown, Brugh complied. “They’re wearing out,” he said. “The rubber is almost paper-thin. You’ll need a new body soon, Hermes.”

“Precisely. Thaf s what I’m talking about. Why couldn’t I be put in Anthropos’ brainpan?”

Hodges let out a startled wail that died out and left his mouth hanging open. Finally he remembered to close it. “I wonder” he muttered. “Would it work?”

Dixon demurred. “It’d be a delicate operation, removing the useless higher part of the brain and leaving the essential vital areas that control the heart and organs. Besides, could Hermes control the nerves?” “Why not? He can control your nerves at a distance if he tries hard enough. But the operation would need a doctor’s skill.”

Hermes had that all figured out by now, and he voiced his plan while the others listened carefully. Hodges finally nodded. “It might work, son, and Anthropos isn’t much good as is. I promised to help you grow up, and if you can use this body, it’s yours. The university doesn’t seem to value it much.” Later, the borrowed dissecting equipment from the zoology department was in readiness and the men stood looking on as Hermes prepared for his work. He paused at the brink of the tank. “You know what you’re to do?” “We do. After you open it, we’ll lower your temperature until you harden up to unconsciousness, remove your casing, pack you in the brainpan, so there’s no danger of nerve pressure, and cover the opening with the removed section of the skull.” “Right In that nutrient fluid, it should heal completely in a few hours.” Hermes dropped into the tank and was immersed in the liquid; his ability to work in any medium facilitated the operation.

And his sense of perception made him capable of performing the work with almost uncanny skill. As the others watched, he cut briskly around the skull, removed a section, and went into the brain, analyzing it almost cell by cell and suturing, cutting, and scraping away the useless tissue.

Blood oozed out slowly, but the liquid’s restorative power began functioning, healing the soft nerve tissue almost as rapidly as it was cut. Hermes nodded approval and continued until only the vital centers that functioned properly were left. Then he indicated that he was finished and Hodges pulled him out.

The dry ice was numbing as they,packed it around him, and his thoughts began moving more sluggishly. But as consciousness left him, a heady exultation was singing its song through every atom of his being. He would be tall and handsome, and Tanya would love him.

Consciousness faded as Hodges began the relatively simple job of removing his casing and inserting him into the vacancy in Anthropos’ head.

XI

Darkness. That was the first thought Hermes felt on regaining consciousness. He was in a cave with no entrance, and light could not stream through. Around him was a warm shell that held him away from direct contact with the world. He started to struggle against it, and the uneasy sense of closeness increased.

Then he remembered he was in the head of the synthetic man. He must open his eyes and look out. But his eyes refused to open. Again he concentrated, and nothing seemed to happen.

Brugh’s voice, muffled as from a great distance, reached him. “Well, he’s awake. His big toe twitched then.” There was another sensation, the feeling of faint current pouring in from one of the nerve endings, and Hermes realized that must be his ears sending their message to his brain.

This time he tried to talk, and Hodges spoke. “That was his leg moving. I wonder if he can control his body.” Hermes was learning; the sound and nerve messages coordinated this time. Learning to use Anthropos’ auditory system would not be too difficult.

But he was having trouble. He had tried to open his eyes, and a toe had twitched; an effort to use his tongue resulted in a leg moving. There was only one thing to do, and that was to try everything until the desired result was obtained.

It was several minutes later when Dixon’s voice registered on his nerves: “See, his eyes are open. Can you see, Hermesor Anthropos?”

Hermes couldn’t. There was a wild chaos of sensation pouring in through the optic nerve, which must be the effect of light, but it made little sense to him. He concentrated on one part that seemed to register less strongly, and succeeded in making out the distorted figure of a man. It was enough to begin with, but learning to use his eyes took more time than the ears had.

He gave up trying to speak and sent his thought out directly to Brugh. “Lift me out and move me around, so that I can study which sensations are related to my various parts.”

Brugh obeyed promptly with the help of the others, enthusiasm running high. Hermes had the entire job of learning to make his body behave before him, but he brought a highly developed mind to bear on the problem. Bit by bit, the sensation sent up by the nerves registered on his brain, was cataloged and analyzed, and became a familiar thing to him. He tried touching a table with his finger, and made it in two attempts.

“You’ll be better than any man when we’re done with you,” Hodges gloated. “If I’d brought consciousness into Anthropos, I’d still have had to educate him as a child is taught. You can leam by yourself.”

Hermes was learning to talk again, in the clumsy system of breathing, throat contraction, and oral adaptation that produces human words. He tried it now. “Let me walk alone.”

Another half hour saw a stalwart young figure striding about the laboratory, examining this and that, trying out implements, using his body in every way that he could. It answered his commands with a smooth coordination that pleased them all.

Brugh was elated. “With a brain like that, Hermes, and the body you have now, we could make the world’s greatest physical chemist out of you. A little wire pulling and a few tricks, examinations, and things, and you’d have your degree in no time. I could use you here.”’

“He’d be a wonderful biochemist,” Hodges cut in. “Think of what that sense of perception would mean to us in trying to determine the effects of drugs on an organism.”

Dixon added his opinion. “As an organic chemist, think what it would mean in analyzing and synthesizing new compounds. But why not all three? What we really need is someone to coordinate the various fields, and Hermes is ideal.” He held out an old pair of trou-icrs, acid-stained, but whole, and Hermes began climbing into them. That was a complication he hadn’t thought of, and one which was

not entirely pleasant. He saw no reason to conceal the new body of which he was so proud.

Brugh had accepted Dixon’s idea. “How about getting yourself added to our staff in a few years? It would mean a lot to science, and the board of directors couldn’t refuse the appointment if you’d force a little thought into their empty heads.”

Hermes had been considering it, and the prospect appealed to him. But Tanya wouldn’t like it, probably. He’d have to see her before he could make any decisions. Of course, now that he was a real man instead of a rubber statue, she couldn’t refuse him.

There was an interruption from the door, a small child’s voice. “Daddy, Daddy, are you there?” The door swung open and Kitty Brugh came tripping in.

“Kitty,-you don’t belong here.” Brugh faced her with a scowl of annoyance. “I’m busy.”

“But Mamma sent me.” Her voice was plaintive. “She gave me this telegram to bring to you.”

Brugh took it and read it through, his face lighting up. “Great luck,” he told Hermes, handing it over. “I never thought Tanya would choose so well.”

The telegram was as simple as most telegrams are:

HAVE MARRIED WILL YOUNG AND ON HONEYMOON IN MILLSBURG STOP EVER SO HAPPY STOP LOVE

TANYA

And with it, the newly created man’s hopes went flying out into nothingness.

But somehow he felt much better than he should. He handed it back to Brugh, and the sigh he achieved was halfhearted. Kitty’s eyes noticed him for the first time.

She squeaked delightedly. “Oh, what a pretty man! What’s your name?”

Hermes’ heart went out to her. He stooped and picked her up in his strong young arms, stroking her hair. “I’m the little god, Kitty. I’m your Hermes in a new body. Do you like it?”

She snuggled up. “Um-hmm. It’s nice.” There was no surprise for her in anything Hermes might do. He turned back to the three men then.

“Dr. Brugh, I’ve decided to accept your offer. I’d like nothing better than working with all of you here at Corton.”

“Splendid, my boy. Splendid. Eh, Hiram?”

They crowded around him, shaking his hand, and he thoroughly enjoyed the flattery of their respect. But most of his thoughts were centered on Kitty. After all, she was the only womanor girlwho had treated him with any consideration, and her little mind was open and honest. She’d make a wonderful woman in ten more years.

Ten more years; and he wasn’t so very old himself. There might be hope there yet.

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