The Bryd

The Bryd by Noel Loomis

"The Bryd" is a science fiction short story by Noel Loomis featuring a being of pure energy from Arcturus that has spent ages wandering the solar system, most recently marooned on Pluto for hundreds of millions of years before hitching an undetected ride to Earth with a honeymooning couple. After living contentedly in several human minds across different time periods, the Bryd has settled into the mind of Dale Stevenson, a physicist in charge of sun-station No. 18, a giant orbiting mirror that reflects sunlight onto Paris at night. The Bryd awakens after a twenty-four-year sleep to find Dale on the verge of concentrating the mirror's solar energy into a devastating beam aimed at Paris. Investigating rapidly, the Bryd reconstructs Dale's troubled history. Dale's parents died in an atomic accident when he was eight, and his thirteen-year-old sister Marillyn sacrificed her youth to raise him, working to keep him out of an orphanage. Dale, consumed by gratitude and guilt, devoted most of his substantial salary to seeking a cure for Marillyn after she was paralyzed in a rocket accident during a visit to his station. His obsessive loyalty prevented him from fully committing to Ann Wondra, a Polish noblewoman he loved, because he felt he could not spend money on marriage while Marillyn remained uncured. A foreign agent, using powerful psychic control techniques beyond ordinary hypnosis, exploited Dale's emotional vulnerability and jealousy — reinforced by a planted newspaper item falsely suggesting Ann was engaged to a French diplomat — to manipulate him into agreeing, for one hundred thousand dollars, to burn a path through Paris as a show of force, ostensibly to prevent France from launching an atomic attack on Spain. As the moment of action arrives, the psychic influence begins to weaken, and Dale hesitates, but his finger is still moving toward the firing button. The Bryd, reluctantly violating its firm policy of non-interference, intervenes. It first visits Marillyn at her sanatorium, where it finds her preparing to poison herself so that her existence will no longer obstruct Dale and Ann's happiness. Disguising itself as a nurse, the Bryd disposes of the poison, moves Marillyn's chair, and then performs microscopic repairs on her damaged brain tissue, effectively curing her paralysis over the following months. It also confirms that Ann genuinely loves Dale and has no romantic interest in the French diplomat. Returning to the space station with a fraction of a second to spare, the Bryd implants the knowledge of Marillyn's cure and Ann's true feelings directly into Dale's mind. The effect is immediate and overwhelming. Dale pulls back from the button, contacts United Nations police headquarters in London, and reports the conspiracy. The Bryd then tracks down the foreign pilots carrying atomic bombs and redirects them to drop the weapons on their own nation's cities, reasoning that since those responsible clearly intended to use the bombs, they should bear the consequences. With the crisis resolved, the Bryd settles back into Dale's mind hoping for years of quiet rest, reflecting wearily that if humans continue to prove so disruptive, it may be better off returning to the solitude of Pluto. The second story in the collection, "Remember the 4th," follows Doc Hambright and his partner Slim Coleman, two perpetually broke private investigators who owe three months of back rent to their impeccably dressed, infuriatingly composed landlord Swanberg. Slim has built a device called the Brain-Finder that can tune into a person's unique brainwave signature and display on a screen everything that person has seen, allowing observers to revisit any moment within the past three months. The partners use the machine to investigate Mrs. Ellingbery, a client who hired them to serve divorce papers on her wealthy husband Tom, and discover that while she is entirely faithful, Tom has been meeting a bleached blonde throughout the summer. Their evidence is strong but legally untested, and when Tom refuses to settle, the case goes to court, where opposing lawyers force a demonstration of the Brain-Finder. As Doc operates the machine to show his own perspective from the Fourth of July roller coaster, he realizes with a start that the beautiful blonde who threw her arms around him in the car that night was none other than Mrs. Swanberg — and that she and the landlord are visibly, tenderly in love in the courtroom. Facing the knowledge that the demonstration will expose an innocent woman's harmless moment of fun and potentially wound a man he has come to see differently, Doc destroys the Brain-Finder on the courtroom floor, earning thirty days for contempt of court. Tom and his wife reconcile, Slim befriends Tom's blonde companion, and everyone ends up riding roller coasters — everyone except Doc, who serves his sentence and reflects ruefully on having sacrificed a fortune out of an unexpected surge of conscience.

By Noel Loomis · Genre: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Mystery · 11,965 words

First lines

The Bryd was awakened with a rude jolt. It didn't even have time for a mental yawn. Something terrible was going on in Dale Stevenson's mind, and the turmoil there made the Bryd most uncomfortable. It shook off the lethargy of its long sleep. It knew instinctively that Dale Stevenson was about to get in trouble and make his mind unsuitable for the Bryd's occupancy.

The Bryd sighed. These humans were so unstable, so impulsive. The Bryd took a look around.

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The Bryd is listed on Textopian as a short story by Noel Loomis, dated Date unknown.

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science-fiction · space-opera · alien-entity · possession · immortality · physicist-protagonist · sun-station · 1950s-fiction · international-conflict · romance · family-drama · moral-dilemma

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