MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman

(Pause) That’s what they expected, though. It’s never worked with three people.

J: I see. . . . Listen, Sweeney. I’ll make a deal with you. You can shrink my head all you want; I’ll cooperate a hundred per cent. If you conclude that I have suicidal tendencies, I’ll take an indefinite leave of absence.

S: I don’t think-

J: But. . . in the meantime, I teach you everything I know about invertebrate anatomy. And the next time they bring one of those creatures back…

S: I get to cut it up.

J: That’s right.

S: Fair enough. Unless you can convince me. I don’t think I have suicidal tendencies, either.

28 – CHAPTER EIGHT

John Thomas Riley usually liked his job: Director of Personnel and Operations Chief for AED, Colorado Springs. Sometimes it was not so pleasant.

He went into the briefing room and the talking stopped abruptly. He sat down at the end of the seminar table and began without preamble.

“I know there’s been talk.” The ten Tamers stared at him. He wished he’d brought some papers to fiddle with. “People have called this a suicide mission. But it definitely is not.”

Three of them nodded, good. “It’s pretty well established that the Groombridge bridge killed two people, and almost a third, by telepathic control of their bodies. And we’re asking you to go collect as many of the creatures as you can find.

“But this bridge was handled by a total of 38 people, and did no harm to 35 of them. We know that in two out of three cases the creature killed in self-defense. Or attempted to kill. And we aren’t asking you to harm them. Lefavre?”

Jacque put down his hand. “That’s the main thing that’s bothering us. Ch’ing wouldn’t have harmed the bridge. Not intentionally, anyhow.”

“Maybe there was some kind of accident,” Carol said. “He squeezed it too hard, or something.”

“We’ll never know, of course,” Riley said. “But we have to go on the assumption that they can somehow sense when an organism is threatening them, and take action.

“How they could do this is a mystery. Physiologically, they seem barely more sophisticated than a sponge. But there is other compelling evidence that they can do this, besides the violence done to the men who attempted dissecting it. Jeeves, you’re preparing a report . .

“That’s right,” Tania said. “I’ve talked to my team about this, but not Manuel’s.

“One clue is in the geophysical analysis. We picked up several fossils that appear to be remnants of large carnivores, aquatic ones. The bridges would be obvious sources of food for these creatures.

“But the only place we found any other form of animal life was in the Crater Sea. Completely isolated from the rest of the ecosystem.

“It could be that the bridges came along after some natural disaster that killed off the planet’s animal life. Or the bridges themselves might be that natural disaster: once they evolved their telepathic facility, they proceeded to kill off all of their rivals. They wouldn’t have to kill every single individual; just reduce the population density to where there weren’t enough mating opportunities for each species to survive. This happened to some species of whales, on Earth in the last century.

“We’ll have a clearer picture after this trip, of course.”

“It still doesn’t explain Ch’ing,” Jacque said. “Maybe the creature makes mistakes, kills when it’s not really threatened. Maybe it kills at random, to keep in practice.”

Carol nodded. “We can theorize forever, but we really don’t know anything about it.”

“We’re inferring from an absence of data,” Jacque said. “That’s lousy science.”

Riley shrugged elaborately. “Would either or both of you like to be taken off the mission?” Which would mean a review board and probably dismissal-then a lifetime of debt, reimbursing the AED for your expensive training.

They shook their heads no.

“Would anybody else? It’s just a matter of filling out a couple of forms.”

No response.

“Good.

“At any rate, you’re not likely to come in contact, in bridge rapport, with any of the bridges you catch. The main thrust of this mission is to bring untouched bridges back to Earth, so that they can be studied under controlled conditions.

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