Think Yourself to Death — Context and Discussion

Kovandaswamy was sweating despite the air-conditioning, despite his almost-naked state. "You have the right to turn this mission down, of course. The League told me that."

"I'm here," Mayhem said simply.

"Very well, sir. Sooner or later, every outworlder who ventures out among the Ophiuchans kills himself."

"I guess I didn't hear you. Did you say kills himself?"

"Suicide, Mayhem. Exactly."

"But how can you blame--"

"Like their ancestors from the Earthian sub-continent of India, Mayhem, the Ophiuchans are mystics. The trance, the holy man who sits in contemplation of his navel, the World Spirit--these are the things of their culture most important to them. Mayhem, did you ever see a hundred holy men of India working together?"

"Usually they don't work together."

"Precisely, sir. Precisely. Here on Ophiuchus, they do. And not merely a hundred. All of them. Virtually all of them. Working together, their minds in trance, unified, seeking their World Spirit, they can do amazing things."

"Like mentally forcing the outworlders to kill themselves?"

"Yes, sir. Legally, they are innocent. Morally, they do not recognize the outworlders as equals of themselves. The League wants to know what they are trying to hide. It could be a threat to peace and--existence."

"You have a body for me?" Johnny would be ready with that provided.

If anyone but Johnny Mayhem had asked that question, Kovandaswamy would not have known what he was talking about, or would have thought him insane, or both. But Johnny Mayhem was, of course, the legendary Man Without a Body. How many corporeal shells had he inhabited in the past half dozen years? He shrugged, not remembering. He couldn't remain in one body more than a month: it would mean the final death of his _elan_, his bodiless sentience. So far he had avoided that death.

The Galactic League would help him if it could. Every world which had a human population and a Galactic League post, however small, must have a body in cold storage, waiting for Johnny Mayhem if his services were required. But no one knew exactly under what circumstances the Galactic League Council, operating from the hub of the Galaxy, might summon Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at the Hub and the Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observers on primitive worlds, knew the precise mechanism of Mayhem's coming. To others it was a weird mystery.

Johnny Mayhem, bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--who had been chased from Earth, a pariah and a criminal, almost seven years ago, who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the white magic of the planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as a bodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a fresh corpse or one which had been frozen properly ... an _elan_ doomed to wander eternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a month without body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated his strange, lonely life to the service of the Galactic League because a normal life and normal social relations were not possible for him....

"Then you'll do it?" Kovandaswamy asked on Ophiuchus IX. "Even though you realize we can give you no official help not only because the Galactic League approves of your work unofficially but can't sanction it officially, but because an outworlder can't set his foot outside this building for long or off the spacefield without risking death...."

"Yes. I'm practically a prisoner in Galactic League Headquarters, as is my staff. You see--"

"What about the body?"

Kovandaswamy looked at him nervously. "A native, Mayhem. A native won't be molested, you see."

"That figures. What kind of native?"

"In top shape, sir. Healthy, young, in the prime of life you might say."

"Then what's bothering you?"

"Nothing. Nothing, sir."

"Your technicians are ready?"

"Yes, sir. And vowed to secrecy."

Mayhem found a tiny capsule in the pocket of his Sirian jumper, and popped it in his mouth.

"What--what's that?" Kovandaswamy asked.

Mayhem swallowed. "Curare," he said.

"Paralysis," said Mayhem quickly. "Muscular paralysis. You die because you stop breathing. Painless ... and...."

"Call your technicians ... new body ... ready...." Gasping, the Sirian gentleman, hardly Johnny Mayhem now, fell to the floor.

Trembling, Kovandaswamy pressed a button on his desk. A few moments later, two white-coated technicians entered the office.

"Project M," Kovandaswamy said.

Grimly the technicians went to work.