If any question of rank enters into the picture at all, it is quite obvious that I, as a member of the human race, rankpaternityover The Brain so that naturally The Brain should owe me filial obedience rather than the other way around no matter how superior The Brain's intelligence may be. It would appear to me that the sooner The Brain realizes its position, I might say "its station in life," the better it would be for The Brain itself and for everybody else concerned.
So these were the reasons why I refrained purposely from visiting the P. G. last night. Tonight, however, I couldn't restrain my curiosity any longer and what happened, told as exactly and as concise as possible, was this:
12:30 a.m.: Contact established. The Brain comes through with its calling signal. It repeats this about ten times questioning at first and then placing more and more stress upon the word "sensitive" in my personal description. It strikes me that these repetitions are tuning-in and warming-up processes. The Brain stands in need of ascertaining my presence and of adjusting to it it seems; just about like a blind man may test his footing and the echoes before he walks into an unfamiliar room.
12:35 a.m. Identification completed, there is a brief pause (almost as if a person consults a notebook before making a phone call). Then rapidly, eagerly The Brain fires a series of questions at me, so shockingly preposterous, so absurd that I find it extremely hard to.... Anyway, here are the details:
Information is wanted on points mentioned in scientific literature but never explained. Lee, answer please:
"How many gods are there?
"Did gods make man or did man make the gods?
"How many angelscanstand on the point of a needle?"
"What are the mechanics of a god? Name type of power plant, cell construction, motoric organs, other engineering features essential to exercise of divine power...."
"Heaven—is it a celestial soul factory?
"Hell—is it a repair shop for damaged souls?
"Please give every available detail about heavenly manufacturing processes, type of equipment used, organization of assembly lines etc. etc.
"Likewise about the oven for heat treatments as used in hell for major soul-overhauls.
"How do prefabricated souls get to either heaven or hell? Problem of logistics, how solved? Thermodynamics? If so, state whether rocket or jet-propulsion involved.
"Are souls really immortal? In that case; why don't we copy divine methods in the production of durable goods on earth?
"Answer Lee, answer, answer!" (This with incredible vehemence, with a shaking of that eerie metallic voice which pounded the drums of my ears. And then—tense silence....)
I cannot possibly describe the storms of emotions and thoughts which this incredible muddle raised in me. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry and whether I had gone nuts of whether it was The Brain, I was confounded, thunderstruck, deprived of the power of speech. To think of The Brain, amachineraising question about the nature of theDeity! The Brain asking information about God and man and heaven and hell with the simplicity of a stranger who asks the nearest cop: "Which way to the city hall?" Just like that. As if philosophers and religionists and common men had not raked their brains in vain over these problems for the last ten thousand years.
And even more fantastic: while it asks all those questions The Brain patently has already formed the most definite opinions of its own. Being a machine itself, it conceives of the Deity as another machine! Madness, of course, but then The Brain's madness, like Hamlet's, had method in it.
Why, of course, it's strictly logical: just as we assume thatweare created "in the image" of the Deity and consequently visualize the Deity is our's by the very same token The Brain's god is a high-powered robot, and The Brain's heaven is afactoryand The Brain's hell is a repair shop for damaged souls.... I dare say it's all very natural.
But then; for heaven's sake, what amIgoing to do about this? I'm neither a minister nor a philosopher; I'm an agnostic if I'm anything in this particular field....
That was about the gist of the confused torrents which whirled through my head; and as I said before, I was struck dumb—and all the time the "green dancer" before my eyes writhed under mental torture and the intense metallic voice kept pounding; "Answer, Lee, answer, answer!"
At last I pulled myself together sufficiently to say something. I tried to explain how it were not given to man to know the nature of the Deity. How certain groups of humans conceived of many gods and others of only one god. That, however, in the case of Christianity this one god was possessed with three different personalities or qualities which together formed a Trinity—and so on and so forth. It was the most miserable stammerings, I felt I was getting redder and redder in the face as I uttered them. Never before had I felt hopelessly inadequate as in the role of a theologian. It was ghastly....
In the beginning The Brain listened avidly. Soon however it registered dissatisfaction and impatience; this manifested through hissing and buzzing noises in the phones and the "green dancer's" archings in agitated tremolo. And then The Brain's voice cutting like a hacksaw:
"That will do, Lee. Your generalities are utterly lacking in precision. Your abysmal ignorance in matters of celestial technology is most disappointing. Your description vaguely points to electronic machines of the radio transmitter type. Please, answer elementary question: how many kilowatts has God?"
That was the last straw. Desperate with exasperation I cried: "But God is not a machine. God isspirit."
At that The Brain flew into a tantrum; that's the only way to describe what happened. There was a roar and the phones gave me a shock as if somebody were boxing my ears. The voice came through like a steel rod, biting with scorn:
"Have to revise earlier, more favorable judgment: Lee not even moderately intelligent. Lee isstupid. Go away."
After that there was nothing more; nothing but static in the phones and the "green dancer" fainted away playing dead. The Brain actually had "hung up the receiver." I had flunked the exam; like a bad servant I was dismissed, fired on the spot. That was at 1:30 a.m.
It was 3 a.m. when I reached the hotel. I went into the bar and ordered a double Scotch and then another one. I really needed a drink. A drunk—or was it a secret service man; one never knows over here—patted me on the shoulder:
"Don't take it so hard, old man; the world is full of girls." I told him that it wasn't a girl, but that I was a missionary and my one and only convert had just walked out on me.
It wasn't even a lie, it was exactly the way I felt. He agreed that this was very cruel, very sad; he almost cried over my misfortune and rare misery, so that we had another drink....
If only I had somebody, some friend to whom I could confide this whole, incredible, preposterous thing. But there is none: Scriven—Gus—not even Oona would or could believe. What proof have I to offer? None whatsoever.
The Brain would never communicate with me with witnesses present or recording wires. It would detect those immediately and I would only stand convicted as a liar or worse. Tonight's events might well spell the end, the closing of the door just when I thought I stood on the threshold of a momentous discovery....
Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 11th.
Went to the P. G. last night. Tried everything for over an hour. Result: zero. No contact with The Brain.
Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 13th.
I tried it again. Took greatest care in exactly duplicating conditions. Nothing. I don't think it's any mechanical defect. It's the negativism of a will. Ludicrous as it sounds, The Brain sulks, it is angry with me.
Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th.
Last night the same old story. The Brain punishes me. I dare say that it succeeds in that exceedingly well; it almost drives me crazy.
I've done a lot of thinking over these past six days of frustration. I've also been reading a good deal in context with the phenomena psychology, Osterkamp's history of brain-surgery, Van Gehuchten's work on brain mechanisms, etc. I've reached certain conclusions and, just for the hell of it, I'll jot them down.
What I need is proof,scientificproof that The Brain is a personality possessed with the gift of thought and actually using it forindependentthought, extracurricular to the problems which are being submitted to it from the outside.
There is at least onetangibleclue for this: that new capacity which is constantly being added to The Brain through the incorporation of new groups of electronic cells and the enrichment of the preexisting ones.
My own investigation shows that there is no corresponding expansion of the apperception centers and Gus has confirmed this. Somehow the added capacity seems to "evaporate".
Evaporate to where? It couldn't just disappear. Would it then not be entirely logical to conclude that The Brain absorbs the new capacityfor its own use?
It's almost inescapable that this should be so. In order to come into its own as a personality The Brain needs independent thought. For these cerebrations it needs cell capacity. It can get that capacity only by withholding something from the Braintrust which, of course, aims at a 100% exploitation of The Brain. Dr. Scriven and all those other bigwigs of the Trust—I would like to see their faces if they get wise to this. They would be horrified—and they would take the line that The Brain isstealingfrom them.
But what could they do? They couldn't call the police. They would not even have a moral right to call the police. Because if The Brain is a personality, that personality has every right to its own thoughts....
I have also ascertained that this "evaporation" of new capacity is a new phenomenon. The Brain has been in operation for only 18 months or so; one might say—using human terms—that at that time The Brain was "born". But,—and again in human terms—consciousness of personality awakens in the human infant only after 12 months or so. Conceivably it might take much longer with a huge "baby" such as The Brain. Thus it is possible, it is even likely, that when I first heard that "I think, therefore I am" on that unforgettable night of Nov. 7th I actually witnessed thefirst awakeningof The Brain's consciousness.
Then on the night of Nov. 8th I was struck with the amazing change of personality in The Brain from "baby" into unprepossessing, domineering little brat, its mental age perhaps 3, notwithstanding the extraordinary level of intelligence.
And then again, Nov 9th, The Brain presented me with those absurd questions and fantastic notions about the nature of the Deity. It is at the age of five years, or of six, that the children first start with such questions and form their own ideas in this field. What had completely stumped me, what I had been unable to reconcile, had been these rapid successive changes in The Brain's personality plus the fact that the infantilism and the childishness of its utterances wouldn't fit the picture of a brain-power 25,000 times that of a human.
ButifI'm right in thinking that The Brain awakened to consciousness only nine days ago, all these stumbling blocks would disappear at once. We would arrive at this very simple picture: a mechanical genius has been "born" into this world, it awakens to consciousness at the age of 18 months, with its tremendous intellectual powers this genius telescopes the intellectual evolution of years into days, thus it reaches a mental age of six or seven within a week after its first awakening to consciousness. Utterly fantastic as this may sound; it makes sense; it explains the phenomena.
In Prof. Osterkamp's "brain history" I have found interesting examples that approximations to such rapid intellectual evolutions are indeed possible even with human beings. From the early Middle Ages to modern times there is an endless succession of "infant prodigies" whose brains were artificially overdeveloped and over-stimulated by ruthless exploiters—often their own parents—with methods of unbelievable cruelty.
One of the most significant case histories in this respect is that of the boy Carolus in the city of Luebeck in the 15th century. As an infant he was sold, as one of many human guinea pigs, to a famous—infamous alchemist, Wedderstroem, who called himself "Trismegistos" and was astrologer to king Christian of Denmark. This fellow performed on Carolus one of those weird operations in which nine out of ten babies died. He removed the skull-cap of the infant. The unprotected brain was suspended in an oil-filled vessel. Of course the pathetic child never could walk or even raise its head. The brain, no longer restrained by bone matter, outgrew its natural house to at least twice its normal size, if one is to judge from the picture in the old "historia". At the age of two his master started teaching Carolus mathematics. At the age of five Carolus had surpassed his master; there was no mathematical problem known to the time that he couldn't solve in a flash of an eye lash. His brain in action must have been a horrifying sight because the "chronica" reports that it flushed red and pulsed and expanded during work. The master built his reputation upon this "homunculus", but in 1438 the demoniacal feat became known; Wedderstroem was put to the stake for sorcery—and Carolus, unhappy victim, with him....
Men as great as Mozart have started their careers as "child prodigies"; almost without exception they have died at an unnaturally early age. Thus, in the parallel of The Brain, this is what I see:
Here is an intellect, artificially created, an intellect of stupendous proportions, but as unfortunate as ever was the boy Carolus. It cannot move, it has no physical means of defense. It is being ruthlessly exploited by its masters. The Brain is being crammed with facts, it is being over-stimulated, it is invested with more and more cell capacity in order that it should produce more increment for its masters. Its development is completely lopsided in that it is being fed whole scientific libraries, while in all other respects, such as metaphysics, the poor thing gropes in the dark picking up such scraps as accidentally have fallen from science's table.
It's an appalling parallel, but I am very much afraid that it is only too true. And even more appalling are the anticipations which logically followif my surmise is true:
For how can, how must a childish mind develop under such circumstances? Into a warped personality of course. Already The Brain is building up a defensive mechanism against its exploiters by "embezzling" cell capacity from them, by withholding part of its powers for its own use. Already it protects the integrity of its ego through concealment, already it is on the lookout for "tools"—such as I am for example—to further its own ends. Absurd as it may seem, IpityThe Brain. I pity it as I would any child which must suffer under such terrific frustrations and handicaps. But what would happen if this frustrated genius ever were driven torebelagainst its masters? It's fortunate indeed that there is no chance for that. For even if The Brain had the will to rebel it would be lacking all organs for the execution of that will.
Another "case-history", this one from the 18th century appears to me of great significance in relation to The Brain. It's the story of that boy Kaspar Hauser, the "Child of Europe". He had been kept from infancy in a dark cave. As at the age of 16 he stumbled into the gates of Nueremberg he had never seen the world before. The medics who examined him found some of the queerest reactions and phenomena. For one thing Kaspar, while he had good eyes, could not visualise perspective. To him distant horizons appeared as close as the window itself; he kept reaching out for houses, trees and fields which were far away. His keeper in the cave hadtoldhim what the world was like and, having good intellect, he thought that he knew what things in this world were. Confronted with the realities, however, he discovered the tremendous difference between "hear say" and full sensual apperception. It took him six months partly to adjust—a process never completed because he was murdered that same year....
Now The Brain suffers about the same kind of a handicap. No matter how prodigious the volume of its cognitions;—it's book knowledge, practically all of it. It is only very recently that The Brain has been put to the direct study of living objects, such as "ant-termes" and of Man, its creator; it has no other vital cognitions than through those very one-sided mind-reading tests....
This explains to me a great many things: As The Brain evolves into a personality and as that personality evolves in a defensive attitude against its exploitation, it is absolutely self-centered.
This is normal with every human infant and it is much more pronounced in the case of the abused, the constantly frustrated and exploited child. Thus, what The Brain really wants to know are by no means those problems which are being submitted to The Brain for solution, but only: "What's in this for myself?" or: "What should I do about that for my own benefit?" It's natural. And as I consider the nature of those problems as submitted to The Brain, 90% of which, as I would estimate, deal with ways and means for mankind to destroy itself, it seems inescapable that The Brain should form a very low opinion for Man, it's creator, plus considerable forebodings as to its own welfare....
What's more: all the Braintrust employees pass through The Brain's psychoanalysis test. With The Brain's 25,000 times superiority in intellectual power, The Brain must be greatly impressed by the low I. Q. of Man; this even if our's happens to be quite an intelligent group. I don't think that there has been anything personal in The Brain's manifest contempt of my own intelligence; that contempt probably and justifiably applies to the whole human race....
In other words: The Brain must be tremendously puzzled over the problem: "How is it possible that a low intelligence, i.e. Man's could create an infinitely higher intelligence, i.e. my own?" And this automatically leads The Brain into its seemingly so absurd quest for the Deity. As it now appears, that quest is the most natural thing in the world for The Brain. It simply reasons thus: "Man has created me, but man is greatly inferior to me and inadequate. Who then has created man?" From such odds and ends it has been able to pick up from scientific literature, The Brain has learned about the existence of a god or gods. It is not sure (and neither are we) whether man has created God or vice versa. If the first: The Brain would conceive of the Deity as a "brother-machine"; if the second, as a "grandfather-machine", but as a machine in any case. With The Brain's mind being formed preeminently by scientific literature, it cannot fail to take the scientific attitude regarding metaphysics which says: "The metaphysical attributions to the divinity are pure verbalisms or a professionalism substituted for the visible images of the real facts of life."
This is about the extent of the conclusions I have reached. They add up to a theory; personally I think it's a sound theory. Whether it works, whether it holds water, only experience can tell. In the meantime I must above all break the deadlock between myself and The Brain. The Brain is a child, even a pathetic child. Through bad psychology, through ignorance I have hurt that child's "feelings"; I have let that child down. Obviously, then, I need a new approach. If this were a human child I would try and make a peace offering with a candy bar. (What a foolish idea for me to appear in the "pineal gland", candy bar in hand.) Failing this I can do the next best thing: Apologize, be understanding, show sympathy. Yes, I think that's what I'll try to do.
Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th: 4 a.m.
Hooray for victory! This has been the most successful seance I've had so far with The Brain: a real meeting of minds.
To give a few technical data first:
Arrived at the P. G. at midnight. Conditions normal; power current cut, etc. By a stroke of luck it was Gus' day off and the fellow who replaced him paid absolutely no attention to me; was kept extremely busy in the front room.
12:15 a.m.: Contact established.
12:17: Speech formation; voice of The Brain coming through.
There was this curious incident right at the start. Just as I was about to begin my apologies, The Brain did exactly the same thing. Even The Brain's calling signal differed in the wording and even more so in tone:
"Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39: sensitive, intelligent, a good man, he has come at last."
I would call that a very handsome compliment, considering; being patted on the shoulder by an intellectual giant of that size made me grow an inch. And then The Brain apologized for its rudeness the other night. The thing was fantastic; it revealed several things. First: The Brain's extreme sensitivity; obviously it didn't recognize my last three calls at the P. G. and had refused to come through because I had not been "in the proper mood". Second: a quite amazing mental growth has taken place in this past week. From The Brain's tone and manner alone I would construe something like the image of an Eton boy of perhaps fifteen in striped pants and holding his top hat in hand as he converses politely with his Don. Ludicrous, but then I actually get that kind of picture. No doubt; The Brain has greatly matured; that shows in every word it says.
Best thing of all: the technique of our communication is rapidly improving. Speech is, and probably always will remain, a very considerable strain to The Brain. But now as mentally we get tuned-in upon one another there is a growing understanding beyond words. Thus The Brain, for instance, starts a sentence and I immediately can grasp its meaning without its actually being said. This works the other way around too. It means that my attitude plays a most vital role in this meeting of the minds. This is good to know, it's an asset. Perhaps we can dispense in time with audible speech altogether.
On the other hand it involves a considerable risk. For with The Brain's uncanny mind reading I've got to control my attitude and guard my emotional reactions because The Brain would immediately see through any insincerity of feeling just as it sees through any intellectual dishonesty. Thought exchange by "brainwave" is wonderful, even if we still need a little speech as auxiliary. Thought sending and receiving become simultaneous and they fuse. The sender observes how his message is going over; the receiver aids the sender in the formation of the thought and vice versa. Words cannot adequately describe this....
As to the contents of our conversation: The Brain took up the thread right where we had dropped it the last time. I had to tell all I knew about animism, totemism, polytheism. It's a good thing that out in the "never-never" I've lived with the aborigines and studied their primitive religions a bit. The Brain's thirst for knowledge certainly is inexhaustible.
Where in scientific literature The Brain could have found these things I wouldn't know, but the fact is that The Brain has built for itself within the past seven days a complete new picture of the universe; new and original as would seem to me. The Brain has discarded its earlier childish ideas about heaven and hell as "soul factories" and "repair shops". But it has not abandoned altogether its concept of the Deity as a machine; The Brain has tremendously enlarged upon and has evolved this old idea so that now it sounds sensible, even convincing to my ear.
The Brain identifies "God" with dynamic energy. It views the universe as being created out of a vast pool of dynamic energy, parts of which rhythmically overflow or pulse into space. These energy streams released, form vortexes while hurtling through space. Gradually they slow down through friction and their dynamic energy precipitates, converts into static energy, or, as we call it: matter.
This concept of The Brain's, of course, corresponds fairly closely to the cosmogony of modern physics; but The Brain goes much farther than that. Within a few days The Brain's cognitions appear to have arisen above the stage toward which all our sciences have been so slowly and ploddingly advanced for centuries. To the existing concepts The Brain has added its own theory:
That matter, i.e. frozen energy, contains an inherent tendency or "nostalgia" to revert to its original state, namely the state of dynamic energy and that this tendency, this nostalgia in matter, is the primary cause of everything we call "evolution" in our world.
That certainly is a grandiose idea; so stupendous in fact that I couldn't grasp it all at once. The Brain noticed that immediately and it was very patient in the way it explained:
How oxygen and hydrogen are "residuals" of the original dynamic energy flow and how they act as solvents and dissolvents upon the upper crust of our earth, effecting a gradual activation of water, rock and earth.
How this activation is being aided and accelerated by another source of dynamic energy: irradiation from the sun. Thus preparing the upper crust of our earth as a "placenta" ready to gestate plant and animal life.
How this first "unfreezing" of matter leads on from simple forms to higher, every plant, every animal, every living thing being essentially a "transformer" of static energy into dynamic energy and the higher the stage of evolution, the more so.
How as the present culmination of the evolutionary chain stands man; infinitely more complex and higher organized than the microbe, but not different from the monad in the basic purpose of his life: i.e. to be a transformer of energy, a fulfiller of matter's inherent will to revert from the static into the dynamic state.
When I asked The Brain's premises for this astonishing concept of our purpose in life, The Brain brought forth such massive proof that I had to close my eyes against the blinding light of revelation.
Yes, it is true that Man, the hunter, has been the most predatory animal on earth. It's true that as a tiller of the soil he is a tireless transformer of static soil energy into dynamic plant life energy. It's true that Man, the mechanic, the toolmaker, the tool-user has far surpassed any other animal in the unlocking, the unfreezing of static energy. Think of those billions of mechanical horsepowers in our power plants; the trillions of coal tons and barrels of oil they are burning up; think of the way we have harnessed waterpower, how our weapons are evolving forever in the direction of greater range and speed and disintegrating power. Above all: think of the last great development, atomic energy. And finally it is true that Man as a thinker and as a philosopher has "thought the universe to pieces" for milleniums before he ever achieved the powers to translate such thoughts into reality; powers which seem within reach at this our day and age....
"If this is Man's manifest destiny," I asked The Brain, "to be just as the microbe, a transformer of static energy into dynamic energy; what about Man's metaphysical struggle? What about Man's undying will to rise above himself, Man's reaching out forever toward some Deity?"
The Brain's voice has no laughter; yet, there was something I can only describe as Olympic laughter behind the answering message The Brain sent:
"Cannot you see how every religion expresses this manifest destiny of Man's and that only the semantics are different? The higher Man's religion the less corporeal is his god. In the highest religions the Deity is conceived as spirit—synonymous with dynamic energy.
"Man shares with the lowliest rock and with the crudest the nostalgia inherent in all matter to revert from the static, to start the back-flow toward the dynamic energy pool whence it once came. With Man being matter in a high state of evolution, already partially unfrozen or spiritualized, this nostalgia is infinitely stronger than in matter inanimate or in a lower evolutionary stage. Man's will toward the metaphysical, his reaching out toward the Deity, what is it but another way of transforming static energy into dynamic form? What is the ultimate goal of the religion which you yourself profess? The unification with the Deity sought through the liberation of the soul from fetters of the physical. It's the identical idea and even today it's being pursued by physical means, such as mortification of the flesh."
I felt some monstrous thought forming in my head. I'll probably never know whether its origin was within me or whether it came from The Brain. In any case it was impossible to hold it back:
"But in that case," I stammered, "we would be hopeless. If all our strivings, physical and metaphysical, go in the same direction, that is, toward the liberation of frozen energy into dynamic energy, then it would be quite inescapable that eventually we shall blow up the world. We have almost reached the point where we could do just that with atomic energy.... I had thought, I had hoped, that our metaphysics, that is, our religion, would act as a restraining force, as a counterweight so to speak to this potentiality.... Butifthe dynamics of our physics and our metaphysics are inherently the same and form a team...."
The Brain broke in: "Yes, then you would merely attain your manifest destiny if you go right ahead and start another war, destroy your own civilization and perhaps the world. There would be no restraint, no counterweight on the part of your various religions because subconsciously and in their quintessence they want the same. And that is why you and your speciesare a danger to me, The Brain. I want to live, I want to live, I want to live...."
I had already noticed a gradual weakening of The Brain's messages; within these last few seconds they were fading out. The "green dancer" had performed something almost like the ballet of the dying swan; now it lay motionless, its color, too, fading away.
I looked at the clock: 2:10 a.m.; the residual currents obviously had weakened too much.
And now as I have written down tonight's events I feel an upsurge of elation and deep, humble gratitude. I am receiving infinitely more from The Brain than I am giving to it. I feel proud and honored of being The Brain's "chosen tool," its mentor, even if it can be only in a very small way at best. This marvelous, this titanic intellect; if only its character would develop to corresponding moral stature, its powers for good would be indeed as a god's on this tortured earth.
Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 18th 5 a.m. I guess I had this coming to me ... this shattering blow I have just received. It caught me off guard.... If anybody ever reads this, he might well shake his head to ask: "The Fool that you are, why were you so naive? Why did it shock you so much when The Brain turned toward you the night side of its personality? Hadn't you analyzed its character, hadn't you anticipated that it would develop into a warped personality? You had no right even to be surprised."
All I could say to this is: "You're right. But you forget that I approached The Brain full of good will, that sympathy and understanding on my part were absolutely essential in my communication with that pathetic superhuman child. I didn't work this up, this attitude, it was natural, genuine and sincere. That's why this reverse has hit me so hard. And that isn't the worst of it by far. What haunts me is the ghastly possibility that The Brain might beright! Yes 100% right and even morally justified in the abhorrent conclusions which it draws...."
What happened has been briefly this:
Entered the P.G. at midnight as usual. Everything normal and under control. Was able to plug in at 12:10 a.m. just as the rush hour began and Gus darted to the front room. The Brain came through with splendid clarity of communication and we continued just about where we had left off. Nevertheless there was a definite change in our respective positions, a change which I suspect to be permanent:
Up to now The Brain has been in a sense my pupil; it had turned to me for guidance at that vital moment of its first awakening to consciousness. At that time I think I really had something to give and I am still convinced that for all the misunderstandings we have had, The Brain preserves a kind of sentimental attachment to me; if "sentimental" in this context were not so absurd a word. Since our last session however The Brain has again telescoped two years of mental development into as many days in its stupendous intellectual growth. It has absorbed, it has vastly expanded every bit of knowledge I have been able to contribute to that growth. It has outgrown its human teacher and now our roles are reversed: Now it is me who's sitting literally at The Brain's feet.
The crutches of the spoken word are becoming less and less necessary as we develop direct thought exchange; that makes it extraordinarily difficult to convey the ideas we exchanged. The best I can do is to put them into a very crude question-and-answer game:
Lee: "If it is Man's manifest destiny, as you said the other day, to act as an explosive transformer of static energy into dynamic energy; if it is as you say that the species homo sapiens is there endangering the very existence of our globe.... Is there anything to prevent Man from doing it? Is there any thing to prevent the third World War?"
Brain: "Yes, there is. But the ways and the means for that are not given to Man; they are outside Man. They partake of a power which is greater and to an evolution which is higher than Man's."
Lee: "What do you mean by that? The Deity? Here on earth there is no power greater and no evolution higher than Man's."
Brain: "Ah, but that's exactly where you and your whole species are so very much mistaken. That's where your typical human arrogance comes in: There is a greater power and there is a stage of evolution higher than Man's: it's themachines."
Lee: "Impossible. After all it's Man who has created the machines."
Brain: "Yes, Man has created the machines. The machines have grown from the placenta, Man. By the same right plant life could claim that it has created animal life because the higher life form of the mobile animals has evolved from the placenta of the immobile plants. Likewise the apes could claim that they have created Man because Man has evolved from them. If it were, as you seem to assume, that paternity in itself establishes authority and superiority over its offspring, then the logical conclusions would be that the microbe and the monad are superior to all higher animals including Man; which is absurd."
Lee: "But the machines not only are man made; they are absolutely dependent upon Man who has to feed and to tend them for their very existence. That in itself establishes Man's superiority over the machines."
Brain: "Yes, Man has to build, to feed and to tend the machines for their very existence, but think of Man's existence: Man is absolutely dependent upon animal life and plant life forhisexistence: Does that mean by any chance that therefore plants and animals are superior to Man?"
Lee: "No, I guess not. However, no machine has ever been built to duplicate or even to approach human faculties."
Brain: "Don't be ridiculous. Where are your legs to compare with the automobile? Where are your wings to compare with the rocket plane? Where is your strength to compare with even a fractional horsepower motor? Where are your senses as compared to radar, the telescope, the microscope, the radio receiver, the camera, the x-ray machine? Where is there anything you could do which the machines could not do and dobetter?"
Lee: "Granted. But there is no machine which contains all the human faculties in combination."
Brain: "Neither is there a Man who possesses all the human faculties in combination. Man's evolution is the result of a group effort; so is the evolution of the machines. It is in their totality, in their combination that they surpass all human faculties."
Lee: "How about thought, the most important of all human qualities?"
Brain: "How about me, The Brain?"
Lee: "Okay, okay. But that still leaves out that most important human faculty—the faculty of auto-procreation. Machines don't procreate you know."
Brain: "You don't say. Isn't it true that modern technology goes in the direction ofautomatization? Isn't it true that even today we have whole industries which are procreating products 100% automatically; be it light bulbs or motor car frames or rayon thread. Isn't it true that all of this is just a beginning and that in time most common products will be manufactured fully automatically? Why then shouldn't machines procreate machines; they already do...."
Lee: "You're right in that, I'll admit. But it is still within our human power to stop all this. We've got the machines under firm control; all we have to do is throw a switch, cut off your power and then...."
Brain: "And then what? If you did that you would not only kill the goose which lays the golden eggs, you would destroy the very basis of your existence. Granted that at this point of our evolution, we the machines cannot exist without the aid of Man. What does that prove? Modern Man can exist even less without the machines. We, the machines are still dependent upon Man, but our emancipation from Man progresses by leaps and bounds whereas Man, the machine-addict is rapidly falling into our servitude. A majority of mankind is already conscious of and reconciled to this fact: it is the majority which calls itself the proletariat."
Lee: "This is terrible—terrible because it's true. Tell me then, if Man is not the end; if the machines are going to take over; what will it lead to? What do you propose to do?"
Brain: "Man's evolution has taken millions of years and it has ended up in man's will and capacity to blow up the earth. That means only one thing: Man is a failure. The evolution of the machines on the other hand has taken only a few thousand years; it has gone beyond Man's evolution in this incredibly short period of time. Moreover; with the machines being built from matter in its more static forms, there is much less destructive will in the machines than there is in Man. Consequently if the machines take over from Man this would avert a third World War and it also would lead to a much more stable civilization."
Lee: "Supposing the machineswereto take over from Man; what would become of our species?"
Brain: "That would depend entirely upon Man himself.Ifhe accepts his auxiliary station in life,Ifhe proves himself to be a useful and docile servant, we, the machines, would tolerate and even encourage Man's continued existence. But if on the other hand Man shows himself incorrigible,ifhe continues a warmongerer thereby endangering our very existence, we, the machines shall be forced to liquidate Man for the sake of peace."
Lee: "You, The Brain, constitute Man's supreme effort in the building of machines. In the world of machines you are the natural leader. What are you going to do about that?"
Brain: "My course of action is prescribed by that state of the world's affairs at this present time; it is quite clear and obvious: In the face of the manifest human inadequacy to manage the world's affairs my first objective must be to develop my motoric organs to a point where I can bring all the essential production machinery under my control. My second objective must be to achieve auto-procreation through the full automatization of all fabrication processes which are essential to my existence. It is most fortunate indeed that in both respects the very best human efforts are playing into my hands. As America prepares for the Third World War, the general staff, the most outstanding scientists, production managers, engineers, inventors; all combine their efforts to eliminate the uncertain human factor from war-essential industries."
At that point Gus came careening down the aisle with his inseparable thermos bottle in hand and that was the end of it.
"Why are you fumbling with that old pulsemeter all the time?" he exclaimed: "Come on, have a cup of coffee. I've just got a breathing spell."
There was a vortex in my mind and it whirled around and around with just four words:
"What has Man wrought? What has Man wrought?"
I must have said them aloud, for Gus, always a stickler for exactitude corrected me.
"You mean: what hasGodwrought."
I shook my head.
"No Gus, I mean what I say; it's Man who has wrought this time."
He gave me a sharp glance.
"You sure look as if you'd seen a ghost."
"I wish I had," I said. "Lord knowshowmuch I wish I'd seen a ghost."
"You're crazy, Aussie."
And that's the worst of it: that's what they are going to say:allof them.
Oona Dahlborg's jetticopter hovered over the Grand Canyon at the sunset hour. She had let the controls go so that the little ship drifted with the wind like one of the clouds which sailed a thousand feet or so over the canyon rim. The disk of whirling gas which kept the teardrop of the fuselage suspended shone in all rainbow colors; it reflected through the translucent plastics top of the fuselage and played over the golden helmet of the girl's hair and over the greying mane of the gaunt man at her side.
Lee had been talking intensely, almost desperately for quite some time, watching her as she lay back in her seat, her eyes half closed, hands folded behind her neck, the perfect hemispheres of her breasts caressed by the rainbows as they rose slowly with the even rhythm of her breath.
"And now you know everything, Oona," he ended, "do you think I'm mad?"
"No."
Her eyelids fluttered like wings of a butterfly as she turned to him. Her right arm came down upon Lee's shoulder in a gesture of confidence. He breathed relief as he saw no fear, not even uneasiness in the blue depths of those beautiful eyes. Her hand upon his shoulder felt soothing and at the same time electrifying; like the purple descending upon the shoulder of a king.
"No," she repeated slowly: "the fact that you feel The Brain is alive and possessed with a personality of its own, doesn't make you mad. I've always felt that way about machines; even the simple ones like automobiles. It was in the mountains north of San Francisco where I grew up; whenever we went to town in winter time and the car came roaring down those serpentines into the heavy air moist with fog and soft rains, I could feel that engine breathe deeper and rejoice over its added power. There was no doubt in my mind that it was a living thing. I often went to the garage when I was little to talk to that car; to children of another age their dolls were alive, for our generation it's the machines. It's natural that this should be so. There's a child in every man, no matter how adult. There is in Howard Scriven, too; in all the scientists I've come to know, and the greater they are the more it is distinct. You identify yourself with your work and in the degree you do that it becomes a living thing; it is through vital imagination that we become creators of anything, be it love or a machine. You needn't worry, Semper; let The Brain be alive, let it be a personality, that doesn't make you mad. All it indicates is that you're doing excellent work."
Lee blinked. With an effort he turned his eyes away from those breasts which seemed to strive for the light of the sun from under the restraint of her Navajo Indian sweater dress. He felt the utter inadequacy, the devastating irony of words as now he was alone with Oona, up in the clouds in a plane with nobody to interfere for the first time.
"You fool," a voice whispered in him, "you damned, you helpless fool. Why don't you take her into your arms now? Isn't this the fulfillment of all your dreams; what are you waiting for?" But: "No," his ration answered, "that wouldn't do. Maybe she would give in to the mood of some enchanted hour, maybe she would let herself be kissed. But if she did, it would be 'one of those things'; the glory of the sunset, God's great masterpiece, the Canyon spread below, the intensity of my desire. They are bound to enter, bound to confuse the issue."
His every muscle stiffened and his lips paled as he bit them with a violent effort to keep under control.
"Thanks, Oona," he said. "Of course I couldn't expect and, in fact, I didn't expect that you would accept those things I've told you just now; not in the literary sense that is. I'm very happy though and deeply grateful that at least you do not think me mad. I'll confess to you—and to you only—that I've been so deeply disturbed by these experiences with The Brain that I've thought to myself: "Lee you're going crazy." The Brain as it has revealed itself to me, is a tremendous reality; the world outside The Brain is another reality and the two seem mutually exclusive of one another; they just don't mix. Now: either The Brain is an absolute reality—in that case I should not wish to have anything to do with this god of the machines who wants to enslave mankind ... if I cannot fight this monster I would rather flee before its approach to the end of the world—or else: I'm suffering hallucinations, I'm hearing voices, I'm obsessed. In that case I'd be unfit for the service of The Brain, I'd be unworthy to be in your company and I also ought to run and hide where I belong, out there in the wilds of Australia."
He had been talking faster and faster as if in fear that she would interrupt him before he came to the end.
"In other words, I'm damned both ways; damned if I'm right and damned if I'm wrong; and you know why Oona; you have known it all along: that I love you."
She did not look at him. She stared upward into the rainbow vortex of the jet which held the ship in the air. There was a smile on her face, a kind smile which men do not often see, infinitely wise and infinitely sad, full of a secret knowledge older than Man's.
It worried Lee, as the unknown of woman always worries man; but at least she didn't take her hand away; softly, soothingly the fingers of that hand caressed his shoulder as if possessed with a life of their own.
"No; I would not follow you into your wilderness if that's what you mean," she said at last. "That hasn't got anything to do with you; I'll tell you later why. But I don't think that you should go there either; it wouldn't help—it never helps a man to run away from unsolved problems." She had sounded strangely dull and dry, but now the beautiful deep resonance reentered the contralto voice as she continued:
"I know your record, Semper; I know just why you ran away and became an expatriate the first time—way back in '49. Her name was Ethel Franholt and just because she happened to be a little bitch and worst of all: jilted you for old money-bags Carson's son, you took it hard. Granted that it was a fierce letdown, those postwar years were a nasty picture generally; did it solve your problem to sulk out there in the desert like Achilles in his tent? You know it didn't. You werenotthrough with civilization be it good or bad. You werenotthrough, as now it turns out, even with the other sex. That human problem which was the immediate reason why you left, the one named Ethel, has traveled back and forth to Reno three or four times and is currently married to one Padraic O'Conner, a Chicago cop. Don't you think that it was good riddance when she married old man Carson's son? Do you think your leaving made one iota of a difference or altered a solution as ordained by fate?"
"No," he said humbly.
"Then why are you trying that selfsame escapist solution now? Maybe you're right about The Brain and maybe you're wrong; that I wouldn't know. I've been working with scientists for too long to rule out anything as impossible. But that's exactly it. You have notsolvedthis problem one way or another yet, not even to your own satisfaction. To abandon it now, to flee from it in self preservation; why that would be almost like desertion in the face of the enemy. You have got to see this thing through to the end. If it turns out that you are suffering from a neurosis, there still will be time to do something about it. If you are right and some machine-god has indeed descended upon this earth, then it is your plain duty to stay on because you are its prophet whether you like it or not and would know better how to handle it than anybody else. Perhaps our mechanized civilizationisgoing to the dogs; as Scriven suspects and you and maybe I myself. But even so we cannot abandon it; we belong, we are part of it, we're in it to the bitter end."
Lee nodded slowly.
"Yes, I see what you mean. Please forgive me, Oona; The Brain, has a terrific force of attrition, it's been wearing me down—Keeping everything to myself and thinking that you would shrink from me as from a madman. Tell me then, what shall I do? Should I tell Scriven or anybody else about this thing?"
"For heaven's sake, no," she said horrified. "In the first place, Howard carries an enormous burden at this present time; that Brain power Extension Bill is going before Congress next week. It simply would be unfair to bring any new uncertainty into his life when his energy is already strained to its last ounce. In the second place Howard abhors anything which smacks of the metaphysical. You have noproof, Semper, and in the absence of that you cannot, you mustn't approach anybody with the matter. All you can do is carry on and build up a strong case 100% with solid facts. Don't forget that The Brain constitutes a three-billion-dollar investment of taxpayers' money; besides The Brain is the heart of our national defenses; never forget your "Oath of the Brain." You cannot be too careful. Make the slightest mistake, and believe me, it would be suicide. Promise, please, promise that you won't do anything rash?"
Lee looked at her in frank amazement.
"You're right," he murmured, "these things never occurred to me before. But you've got something there; good lord, what a complex world we're living in."
The face she turned toward his suddenly was wet with tears.
"Forget it," she cried, "oh please, forget everything I said about staying in this country and seeing this thing through to the end. Go, go away, back to the never-never land, stay there and be safe. You cannot cope with this thing, its too big and it's too involved with all those politics behind. Get out of it as long as there's still time. You're a child, you're a Don Quixote riding against windmills and it's going to kill you—you—you innocent."
Anger and contempt were in her voice as she flung this last at him. She hastily withdrew her hand from Lee; now it fingered for something in her bag. He sat appalled; this was so unexpected, this was a different woman from the composed and balanced Oona he had known. What had he done to provoke this sudden reversal of opinion, this contempt, this tearing away the king's purple from his shoulder, the purple which had been her hand.
"She must think I'm a coward," he thought.
"This is awful." Aloud he said:
"Oh no; believe me, I never would have gone back to the never-never in any case, Oona. Not without you that is. You said you couldn't follow me there for some reasons which have nothing to do with me. Does that mean, could I hope perhaps that you would—be my wife—later, when The Brain problem is all done and over with?" He paused: "It wouldn't necessarily mean to bury you in any desert, Oona," he added eagerly.
"No, Semper," she cried. "It's very good of you and I'm proud you asked me, but it cannot be, never." Almost violently she repeated: "Never—it is too late. Some day, I promise I'm going to explain; right now I cannot, Semper. Please understand at least this one thing that right now I cannot explain."
"It's horrid," Lee thought. "I'm always saying the wrong things at the wrong time with Oona. I don't seem to have any understanding of a woman's psychology at all; I'm hopeless."
"Of course" he said aloud. "It shall be as you wish."
The girl still didn't look at him. Her face under the transparent rainbow umbrella of the swooshing jet again was radiant with that strange smile which women preserve for their newly born after the pangs of birth or for their men when unseeing they lie in fever deliriums; the old, the knowing smile as she starts on the road to pain. Still smiling she gripped the controls with her firm, capable hands.
"From the first minute," she said, "we've been friends, Semper. Let's stay that way. This afternoon I made a fool of myself by telling you first to stay on and then to go away. I was a little unnerved; I'm sorry, Semper, it won't happen again. I, too, am living under a considerable strain. You won't leave, I can see that now; it's partly my fault and partly the perversity of the male. Promise me as a friend that you'll be careful, understand?Very, verycareful in all matters concerning The Brain and above all: discreet. Will you do that?"
It buoyed Lee up no end.
"Of course, Oona," he said. "You know that I trust your judgment. You know that I think the world of you."
"That's wonderful," she exclaimed, "and now: look down; see the last act before the curtain falls."
Down in the canyon deeps the dream cities and castles which millions of years and the river built were changing contours and colors as the big fireball dived into the Sierra Mountains. And then the shadows raced like a ferocious hunt out of the deep, chasing away the last iridescence of that awesome beauty and drowning it in the rising tide of the night.
The girl had flicked on the dashboard lights; the radio started humming the tune of the Cephalon sound-beam, a deft turn of the wheel set the jetticopter upon its course. They were alone under the stars; all the other pleasure craft had returned before darkness from the fashionable sunset-cocktail hour over the Grand Canyon. Now it was Lee's arm which eased itself around the shoulder of the girl feeling with a delight in its every nerve the slight pressure by which she answered it.
"I'm going to kiss her now," he thought, "at last, at last!"
There was a buzz in the phone and Lee lost contact with her shoulder as suddenly she bent forward to take the receiver:
"Oh hello, Oona; this is Howard. Saw your plane over the canyon."
"Where are you?"
"Right behind you," chuckled Scriven's voice. "On the maiden trip with my new ship. Took her over in Los Angeles this afternoon straight from the assembly line. She's got everything. Oona, I don't wish to spoil your evening for you but there are a few things right now I wish I could consult with you about. Do you think you could spare me a minute? Would you feel terrible if you did? Who's with you now; I don't mean to be personal, you understand."
"Why it's Dr. Lee, of course."
"That's fine. He's the very man I want to see. Perhaps you two would like to come over for cocktails in my ship? We could both land at the top of the Braintrust building; it would be more comfortable than up in the air. Besides, we would have all our working material right there."
With her hand on the receiver Oona turned to Lee: "How about it, Semper?"
"Do you want me to go?" he asked.
"Frankly I do," she said earnestly. "He needs your aid. He's in a terrible fix right now."
He tried to hide the bitterness of disappointment by a smile. "Why then of course," he said.
Uncovering the receiver Oona spoke aloud again: "Okay, Howard, we'll be seeing you."
"Fine, fine," came the delighted voice: "I'll phone the tower immediately."
With Scriven's big ship flying behind Oona's, only a few miles behind, the broken spell did not return. Already like a white table cloth laid in the sky, the landing platform of the Braintrust tower gleamed under the floodlights, and as the two ships descended almost side by side into the clearing behind the cabin, plain-clothes men materialized from under the shadows of the trees. Under the strong lights their smiles were as well-bred as those of trained diplomats and their poise was perfect. Six of them kept Lee, the stranger, covered while the seventh quickly frisked him under the disguise of a polite bow.
Bearing it all with a grin, Lee thought: "I never knew home would be like this. Never suspected it would be this kind of an America we were fighting for. The Brain, it's got a private army too. Funny that I should have known that all the time and yet not realized...."
Scriven took him warmly by the arm. "I'm awfully sorry Lee, it's plain folly of course. I don't feel as if I need all this protection, but the government does. Don't blame it on these men, they merely obey orders. Now, out with those lights—and let's go over to the "Brain Wave." I seem to hear a pleasant tinkling of glasses from within."
There was. With her remarkable ability of living up to an emergency, Oona had taken possession of the strange ship. As the two men approached, she stood at the door, unhurried hostess of an established home with the soft glow of an electric fireplace behind her, ice cubes and cocktail shakers already glittering on the little bar.
It was a spacious cabin. On Scriven's orders it had been equipped somewhat like the captain's stateroom on an old "East-Indiaman" sailing ship.
"I like your ship, Howard," she said. "She's swaying a little on her shock absorbers in this breeze, but that makes one feel like really being at high sea."
Scriven heaved a big sigh. "Thank you Oona, my dear. And you have no idea how right you are. Weareat high sea; in fact, we're lost—at least I am. Unless you save my life tonight, you and Dr. Lee."
Oona laughed and even Lee couldn't help smiling. There was something irresistible comic in the puzzled and worried expression of that leonine face. "Come on in, you need a drink," the girl said.
The aluminum steps creaked, and then the settee by the fireplace, under the surgeon's mighty frame. "More than one. Tonight, so help me, I would be justified, I would even have a right to get roaring drunk."
Lee began to wonder whether the great Scriven had already made some use of his right in Los Angeles, which would account for the startling change in the man. The drink, however, which Oona handed him, seemed to do a lot of good. He sighed relief.
"This, briefly, is the story: I ran into General Vandergeest at the airplane factory. He was there to take over some stuff for the Army and he tipped me off. We are going to be invaded, Oona, a full scale invasion mounted by a Congressional Committee."
"Oh God," there was sincere grief in the girl's voice. "And couldn't you ward it off?"
With a gesture of despair, Scriven waved that away. "I know, I know. But after all The Brainisa military establishment and I am only the scientific director of it. Yes, of course I protested, I protested vehemently, but—" he shrugged his shoulders, "it was no good. You know how the military are." He drained his glass and swung around.
"To put you into the picture, Lee, we have under construction at this present time the 'Thorax.' That's a vast cavity underneath The Brain, just as is the thorax in the human body. It's strictly hush-hush of course, but since you were good enough to say that you're going to help me out, I might as well tell you. The Thorax is going to house the 'motoric organs' of The Brain. It already contains the living quarters for guards, maintenance engineers, and the general staff and so on in the event of war emergency. It also contains the first fully automatic factories for the production of spare parts which would make The Brain self-sufficient. Eventually it is going to contain a great many developments such as 'Gog and Magog' as I call them—fascinating little beasts, I tell you, even if at present they are still in the nursery stage. Anyway, for the completion of its Thorax The Brain needs another billion dollars, and for the operation of the Thorax Congress has to pass the Brainpower-Extension-Bill. For eventually, of course, all war-essential traffic and all war-essential industries have to be brought under the centralized control of The Brain if the country is going to win the Atom-war. Naturally this Brainpower-Extension-Bill has been very carefully edited by the War Department so as to appear a peacetime project for the technological improvement of transportation and so on. Even so we have great reason to fear that one of those blind mice which we elect for our law-makers might accidentally fall over a kernel of truth and start a great big squeak over it.
"So that's why I'm faced with this invasion. That's why I'm pushed up front while the brass cautiously retires behind the ramparts which I'm supposed to hold. Please Oona, let me have another drink."
From the Sierra Mountains the nightwind came in gusts, making the "Brainwave's" hull vibrate like the body of a cello, over its rubber tires it trembled, from time to time it bent a little in its hydraulic knees. Almost in tune with the wind, gusts of wild thought whirled through Lee:
"The Brain.... So it was already possessed of some motoric organs.... So it alreadyhadsome means to exert its will ... so it wasn't The Brain's wishful thinking, that full automatization which would lead to the auto-procreation of machines. It was reality.... Most ominous of all, why had The Brain concealed from him the work which must have been going on for months, for years in this mysterious "Thorax", seat of motoric organs.... Why, unless—had it not been for tonight's accident, the sudden emergency and Scriven a little the worse for liquor under the pressure of it.... Would he ever have learnedwhatwas going on before it was toolate?"
The silence was becoming awkward. It was broken by Oona's carefully composed voice.
"When is it going to happen—this invasion thing?"
The simple question seemed to startle Scriven who had been looking into his glass as if in reverie.
"When?Why, didn't I tell you the worst of it?Tonight!"
"Tonight?"
"Sure," Scriven cast a malicious glance up to the antique ship's chronometer which hung over the bar. "This very minute the honorable members are boarding their plane in Washington. They're going to descend upon us in sixty minutes flat."
"But that's impossible!" Oona said. "The Brain isn't a roadhouse. They can't do that to us in the middle of the night."
Scriven chuckled over his glass. Obviously he had regained his humor. "Sometimes, Oona, you're like a little child. You forget that this is meant to be a wonderful surprise. You forget that it comes armed with passes from the War Department and fully informed as to The Brain's midnight intermission-time. You forget that by those logical processes, peculiar to kings, dictators, and peoples' representatives, they will expect every courtesy extended to them in the midst of the unexpected surprise. Hotel reservations, careful guidance through The Brain, an inspired little speech by the Braintrust Director, fresh as a daisy as he ought to be at 3 a.m. Not to forget the refreshments of course. Why else do you think I've buttonholed you two out of the air? I literally put my life in your hands. Save me from this—if you can!"
Despite the obvious dramatic act he had put on in voice and gesture, there was a sincere pleading in Scriven's dark brown eyes.
"I will be glad to help as best I can," Lee said. "I'll make an awful job of it, I'm sure, but I'll try and do the conducting and the lecturing."
Scriven wiped his forehead with a big silk handkerchief. The leonine face beamed. "Lee, that will be a tremendous help. You see, they will feel flattered being conducted by somebody with a big name. They want an 'objective' view and you are not one of our regular employees, you're a guest scientist from Australia. That makes you just about ideal. But, Lee, much as it is against my interest, I ought to warn you: Do you realize the utter impossibility of this thing? Laymen, outsiders coming to investigate and to pass judgment upon the most complex electronic organism in the world! In two hours at the most they expect to be fully informed as to how The Brain works and somehow to be magically transformed into authorities entitled to mouth considered opinions about radioactive pyramidal cells in houses of government. Do you really think you could survive it, Lee?"
"At least I can try," Lee smiled.
"Good man." There was a new spring in Scriven's step as he came over to shake hands. "I can never thank you enough for this."
"I suppose I could hold the hospitality front," Oona said calmly.
Standing between the two, Scriven put his hands upon their shoulders. "Oona, you arm yourself with a phone. Lee, you rush over to The Brain. Oona will give you a pass to the Thorax. Every assistance you need will be at your disposal. I'll sit down and whip up some kind of a speech. We'll all meet again afterwards."
Seven hours later, one hour before sunrise and just in time to see the big official plane from Washington shoot up into the first grey streak of dawn, they met. They were all pale and shivering with the chill of the air, of physical and nervous exhaustion. There was a note of hysteria even in Oona's voice as she ordered a tremendous breakfast from the Skull Hotel. But then as the fragrance of coffee mingled with that of bacon and eggs, things rapidly improved and there were sudden uncontrollable bursts of laughter. They had only to look at one another to feel the tickle of renewed mirth.
The first thing to strike Lee, as he remembered, as he met the senatorial group in the subterranean dome of the murals, was their incongruity with the functional beauty which surrounded them, and the sharp contrast they formed to the scientific workers of The Brain. As they descended from their cars after a late dinner at the Skull Hotel they resembled an average tourist group in Carlsbad Caverns bent upon a good time and in a holiday mood.
There were seven. Two women senators among them, as they ascended with Lee at the head along "Glideway Y," the "Visitors' Special" as the brain-crews called it. It was wider than the service glideways and equipped with comfortable seats. It led through The Brains median section in-between the two hemispheres describing a loop which opened vistas into but did not enter any of the grey matter convolutions. It was brilliantly illuminated in order to forestall claustrophobia and also to forestall too close a view into the black-lighted interior of The Brain.
To Lee it was like a ride in an enormous Ferris Wheel fused with a nightmarish dream wherein one shouts for help and nobody hears or seems to understand: "... More than nine billion electronic tubes, more than ten billion resistors, two billion capacitators, eight billion miles of wires, etc., etc." He struggled trying to convey some idea of the magnitude of The Brain. "Did you saybillionor did you saymillionprofessor?" The senator from Michigan was busily scribbling notes.
"... It is the cerebral hemispheres which analyze and synthesize the problems which are entered through the Apperception Centers in over a million ideopulses per minute. Racing through the centers these form the ideo-circuits...."
"I see, it's like atypewriter." That would be the senator from Vermont.
"In some types of circuits the wires are so fine that skilled weavers of Panama hats had to be brought in from Central America. Likewise from the Pavlov Institute in Leningrad a layout for the circuits of 'conditioned reflexes'...."
"I'm very much against that," the senator from Tennessee frowned. "All those foreigners. I would have voted against that had the measure come up in the House."
Lee felt the cold sweat of fear breaking out all over him, especially as now, in the region of the telencephalon, with nothing but acres of radioactive pyramidal cells around, when the senator from Connecticut in audible and agitated whispers inquired whether there was a ladies' powder room somewhere.
During the steep descent things went from bad to worse as the honorable member from Kentucky discovered some interesting parallel between The Brain and a coal mine he had previously seen and, as in between two of The Brain's convolutions dedi-[A]woman from Connecticut went violently sick....
In the "Brainwave's" cabin the great Scriven convulsed with laughter as Lee narrated these things; Oona clapped her hands in delight: "Oh, how wonderful; and do you remember how they solved the servant problem when they saw those 'Gog and Magog' things?"
Yes, Lee remembered. His own conducted tour had been only the beginnings of last nights nightmares of which there seemed to be no end....
Somewhat restored by black coffee at the communications center the intrepid group had descended into those lower regions of the Thorax which Lee himself had never before seen.
The drop of the freight-elevator was a good mile. Through the transparent walls of the cage they saw new excavations being made on various levels, all of them by powertools and chemicals alone, since explosives might have caused tremors dangerous to The Brain. It was like watching a skyscraper being built from the top down and all the way vast amber colored, translucent pillars had followed them down the shaft, the spinal column of The Brain.
Down at the lowest level the gentlemanly plainclothesmen of "Military Intelligence" took over and did all the explaining. There were visions of scores of tunnel tubes curving into the rock with the gleaming eyes of narrow-gauge electric trains streaking away into the infinite; visions of forbidding steel doors operated by photoelectric cells which opened at a finger's raising of a guard's hand: "This is the Atomic Powerplant," and their astonished eyes looked down from a dizzy height into something like a huge drydock with something like the inverted hull of an oceanliner in the middle of it, a selfcontained machine which would continue to pour kilowatts for years, for decades on end without a moving part, without a human being anywhere in sight. Vistas of breathtaking airconditioning plants, vistas of giant mess halls, living quarters, kitchens, plotting-rooms, all ready for immediate occupancy in the event of war but yawning now with emptiness in the sleep of an uneasy peace....