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MINDSWITCH
Page 1 of 2
By Donald H Sullivan
I wrestled the pickup over the rough dirt road winding through Blackroot State Forest. Seeing a clearing ahead that was suitable to park the pickup, I pulled over and killed the engine. I stepped out of the pickup, stretched, and drew in a deep breath of the cool, crisp autumn air. It felt good to be in the woods again.
After strapping on my ivory-handled hunting knife, I pulled my army surplus carbine from the rack and set out on foot into the woods.
As I made my way through the woods, my eye caught a movement overhead. Looking up through the openings between branches, I caught a glimpse of a glowing egg-shaped object soaring by overhead. UFO was the first thing that popped into my mind, though I had never believed in the things. I immediately dismissed the thought, figuring that it was a weather balloon or some such and continued hiking through the woods.
I'm no great hunter--not even a good hunter. Some say that my choice of hunting weapons proves that. But I go into the woods often during the hunting season, using hunting as an excuse to enjoy the cool, bracing autumn season when the woods are free of bugs and snakes.
Again, I saw a movement overhead and looked up to see the egg-shaped object hovering directly overhead. I stared at it. Plainly, it wasn't a weather balloon; I guessed that I was seeing some kind of U.S. Air Force experimental aircraft.
Suddenly, the object began descending, and in a matter of seconds it was only a hundred feet overhead. The object was fairly large, perhaps seventy or eighty feet in length. A hatch in the belly of the craft slid open, and a figure came floating down toward me.
I remember thinking that I'd stumbled into an off limits area, and the air force was coming to chase me out. The figure floated down and landed about ten feet in front of me. Astonished, I refused to believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. Maybe the air force was playing some kind of joke, I thought, but immediately discarded the idea.
What I was seeing was no joke. It was real. I was seeing a creature about seven feet tall. Its face could have been a cross between a human and a lizard, and its scaly skin was rusty red. It wore silver coveralls, boots, and a wide studded belt.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, something was telling me that this wasn't really happening to me. This was impossible. This wasn't reality. But when I recovered from my shock enough to notice that its hand was doing something with the belt, I became aware that this was for real--and the thing was going for a weapon.
I immediately raised my carbine in self-defense, but as I did so, the creature abruptly became a man. The man looked familiar, and he was pointing a carbine at me. Again, my mind was questioning the reality of the situation, for the man I was looking at could be my identical twin.
The man spoke. "You are looking at yourself, Jack Ramsey. We have switched bodies, or to be more precise, we have switched minds. Look at your body.
I looked down to see the silver coveralls the thing had worn, and then looked at the scaly rust-red skin on my hands. I cried out in anguish, but my voice was not there; it was replaced with a hoarse growl.
Anger began to well up inside me--my fear and shock was turning to outrage. I bellowed in the hoarse growl and took a step toward him.
He trained the carbine on my chest. "Take another step and I will kill you," he said. "Also remember, Jack Ramsey, that if you attack me, you attack your own body. The body you now possess is superior in strength to your own body, and you could easily kill me with your bare hands. But if you kill me, you will be forever trapped in the body you now possess. You would be a freak among your own kind."
Still outraged, I had the irrational urge to attack him and take my body back by force. But I recovered enough to see the logic of what he had said.
"Who are you?" I managed in the hoarse growl that was now my voice. "How do you know my name? Why are you doing this?"
"I am called Drugor," he said, "and I am of the Jhinn, the most powerful race in the galaxy. I know your name--and your language--because I am skilled in the practice of mind exchange. My mind now occupies your body--including your brain. I delve into your brain and extract the information I need."
Logic told me that if this creature now inhabiting my body could read my brain, it followed that I should be able to read his brain as well. He seemed to know what I was thinking.
"It takes many years of training and experience to develop the skills that I have acquired. Mind exchange involves only the exchange of the conscious level of the mind. Your brain retains all your memories on the subconscious level, allowing me to tap those memories. In a matter of moments I knew your entire past.
"As time passes," Drugor went on, "you will find that you will be able to tap into the subconscious level of my brain--but to a much lesser degree. But without proper training, you will be very limited on what you can learn."
Drugor kept the carbine trained on my chest. "Remove the belt from around your waist," he commanded.
I followed his instructions and handed the belt to him. He backed away for a distance, leaned the carbine against a tree, and donned the belt. He had to make adjustments to make the belt fit his small human body; my body is only five-feet-nine at a hundred sixty pounds.
After the belt was adjusted, Drugor keyed several studs on the belt as if he were tapping out a code. My weight seemed to leave me, and I felt a force pulling me upward. The two of us were drawn into the ship, and a hatch sealed shut behind us.
He led me through the airlock and into a compartment. He seated me at a table and then seated himself across from me, obviously satisfied that I wasn't going to make any trouble.
"I am going down to have a look at your world," he said. "I will explore the region from which you come and return to the ship in two or three of your days. You will remain on the ship.
"As the subconscious memories of my brain come to your mind--and that will happen--you will learn your way around the ship. You may even learn to operate the ship, but it will do you no good. I have neutralized all the ship's controls. The ship can now be operated only from the remote controls on my belt.
"When I leave the ship, it is programmed to ascend to a point beyond detection of your people's instruments, where it will remain until I recall it. I advise you to be patient and to do nothing foolish while I am away."
With that, the Jhinn departed, and I found myself alone on an alien ship. I walked over to a porthole and looked out. I was astonished to see that I was already so far from Earth that it looked like a big blue and white globe.
I looked around the compartment I now occupied. As I inspected the equipment in the compartment, some of Drugor's memories began to surface. As Drugor had predicted, his memories were beginning to supply me with information about the ship.
It was almost as if our minds were merging together. Not only was I remembering information about the ship, but I was also recalling things about his past. I felt as if I were actually experiencing parts of his life. Drugor had predicted that I would be unable to tap his subconscious memories at will, and this was certainly true. But I knew that I was getting much more from his mind than he figured I would. I had no way of knowing why this was so, but I reasoned that there was an X-factor in the human psyche--unknown to the Jhinn--that enabled me to dig deeper into Drugor's mind than the Jhinn thought possible.
The equipment in the compartment, I learned, was for exercise and recreation. I even found the Jhinn equivalent of movies and video games. In Drugor's part of my mind, I understood the games, but to my own mind the games made no sense. I left the rec room.
As I explored the ship, a feeling of deja vu came over me. I knew the ship as well as Drugor, I supposed. I even knew how to operate the ship; it was fairly simple, even to my human mind. But Drugor was right; he had nullified the controls on the ship, and only the controls on his belt could operate the ship now. I knew that I could also operate the controls on the belt--if I only had the belt. But Drugor had the belt and control of the ship, and he was on Earth below doing God-knows-what.
I began to worry about him. Suppose he had an accident. Or got arrested. Or got mugged. I would be forever stranded on this ship, and even if I could figure out a way to overide the belt controls, I would be stuck in this freakish body forever.
Conclusion on Page 2
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