ts mistress.

Chapter 8

George Hanlon withdrew from the puppy's mind, and thought seriously.
Yes, this matter of controlling the minds of animals was one that would
require a lot of thought and study, and a tremendous amount of practice.
But it seemed important enough to justify those expenditures.

He hunted up his steward. "Where do the passengers keep their pets?"

"Some keep them in their staterooms, sir, but others in the kennels down
on 'H' deck."

"Thanks. Any rules against my going down there and looking at 'em? I
like animals, especially dogs."

"Oh, no, sir. Anyone can go down there. It's on the right hand side,
about halfway aft."

Arrived at the kennels, Hanlon found the cages contained about a dozen
dogs of various breeds, ages and sizes. Here were plenty of animal minds
for his experimentation and study.

After walking around and looking at them for some minutes, he sat down
on a bench at one side of the cages, and concentrated on the dog nearest
him. It was a large white bull, and he guessed its age to be about five
or six years. That was just what he wanted--an adult mind to study, not
that of an immature puppy.

He had no trouble getting into the dog's mind, and for over an hour he
sat there, studying it line by line, channel by channel, connector by
connector, while the dog lay as if asleep. Gradually Hanlon began to
feel he was beginning to know something about a dog's mind-and-body
correlation, and how it operated.

Then, and only then, he woke the dog and began experiment with control.
He found it easy to make the dog do anything he wished that was within
the animal's previous knowledge and experience. What he wanted was to
see if he could make it perform motions and actions that were outside
its previous conditioning and training. After some fumbling, he thrilled
to find that now even some of the simpler of those things were not too
difficult, although others his present knowledge was not up to handling.

His study taught him to some extent how to activate the brain centers
which controlled the nerves that sent messages to the proper muscles
that allowed the dog to do his bidding. But it still needed a lot of
study. He knew he had only made a bare start at learning what had to be
known to do it swiftly and easily.

The kennel steward must have noticed the strange antics of the bull and
then, seeing Hanlon's intent concentration, figured there might be some
connection between