The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe CybereneThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The CybereneAuthor: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. TerryRelease date: August 29, 2021 [eBook #66163]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CYBERENE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The CybereneAuthor: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. TerryRelease date: August 29, 2021 [eBook #66163]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: The Cyberene
Author: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. Terry
Author: Rog Phillips
Illustrator: W. E. Terry
Release date: August 29, 2021 [eBook #66163]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CYBERENE ***
THE CYBERENEBy Rog PhillipsSomewhere in the far future a diabolicalbrain plotted the enslavement of mankind. Butto do that a history had to be changed—ours![Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasySeptember 1953Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Somewhere in the far future a diabolicalbrain plotted the enslavement of mankind. Butto do that a history had to be changed—ours!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasySeptember 1953Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Victor!"
Her voice shattered the cathedral silence, going the full four hundred and fifty foot perimeter of the fourteen foot wide floor that encircled the case of theBrain. The echo rebounded from the maze of ladders and catwalks that went up and up until they were lost to view where the fifteen foot thick outer wall began its upward slope to form the giant dome.
The silence returned; as motionless as the needles on the instrument panels resting on their zero pegs, unactivated; as enduring in essence as the atom proof concrete dome built to last—as long as the Earth itself.
Then—a sound answered. A faint sound. Footsteps. Movement appeared through the grillwork of steel catwalks above. Trousered legs. A hand sliding along a railing of chrome pipe. More rapid steps as the man descended a steep stair well. Sharper as the man reached the marble floor.
Dead video camera eyes let his passage go unregistered. Sensitive quartz crystals inside glistening microphone shells vibrated to the sound of his footsteps, his soft breathing, sending feeble currents along wires—to dead amplifying circuits.
"What is it, Ethel?" Dr. Victor Glassman said to his wife.
"Don't you realize it's almost an hour past your lunch time?" she chided. "Why do you come in here anyway? The Brain was completed six months ago. It won't run away—and it won't come to life until someone finds the proper chemical for the nerve fluid to make it work. My goodness. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars sitting idle in here. It gives me gooseflesh. Now you come and eat your lunch so I can get the dishes out of the way. I'm going to be busy the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the crowd—or did you forget that your ten scientists are invited to dinner this evening?"
"Of course not, Ethel," he said, putting his arm around her waist. He pulled her around so they were side by side, looking upward into the maze of catwalks, seeing the marble panels of the wall that served as a covering for the huge man-made brain. "Youknow why I come in here," he said. "I like the feel. The sleeping giant. Not sleeping, really. Just not born yet. Not living yet. Someday soon that will change. The first non-human...."
"I understand, Victor," Ethel said softly. "It scares me. I know it will be just like a human mind—same principles of thought—even if it will be housed in so vast a brain. But how much do we know of the capabilities of thehumanbrain? I'm afraid."
Dr. Glassman's eyes crinkled goodnaturedly. He tightened his arm around her waist.
"I'll protect you, Ethel," he said.
She looked up at the giant structure that dwarfed them to insignificance. "Against that?" she snorted. "What with? A lance and prancing nag of leather and bones like Don Quixote of old?" She slipped her arm around his shoulders, her expression softening. "But I know what you mean. Only ... it's...."
"And I know what you mean, too. Sometimes even I'm afraid of it. But once we activate it, it will take years for it to build up a self-integrated mind even equal to a child's. And we'll both be long dead before its intelligence starts climbing above that of man. You know, I'm hungry."
Together, arm in arm, they departed, closing the door. And once again the echoes died away, leaving only the silence.
And the Brain.
"How about being quiet for a minute so I won't get these mixed up?" Earl Frye said, a mask of tolerant good nature concealing his irritation. "By the way, what's wrong with p. n. 9? Bottleneck?"
Irene Conner clapped her hand over her mouth and spoke from between her fingers. "Go ahead and pour," she mumbled. "I'll keep quiet for five minutes."
"Okay," Earl said, unaffected by the twinkle in Irene's clear blue eyes, the smooth wave of her blonde hair, the quiet unscientific curves under her lab apron.
He picked the first vial off the tray, read the number on its label and carefully jotted it down on the lab card. He emptied the vial into the small opening on top the pump and flicked the toggle switch. With a smooth whir the pump started. The pressure gauge needle broke from zero and started upward, finally hovering near the seven ton per square inch mark. He watched as the fluid he had poured emerged into glass tubing no thicker than a human hair, and, under the tons per square inch pressure, stretched into fine fluid columns less than half a dozen molecules thick.
He repeated the performance with another vial and another pump, and another, until all ten pumps were working. He went back to the first one. The fluid had reached the slightly enlarged bubble several inches up the thread-like glass tubes. He shut off the pump, then went through the same routine with the other ten.
"That show I want to see is on at the Rialto, Earl," Irene said. "Just tonight and tomorrow night."
"Good," Earl grunted, starting to recheck the charts. "Let me know if you liked it. If it's any good I might go see it."
"Why don't you come see it with me?" Irene said.
"Uh," Earl hesitated, not looking up from a chart he was studying.
He was saved by the hall door opening.
"Hi, Basil," he said, taking in Basil Nelson's expression of mild haste, and the empty test tube in his hand.
Irene frowned in annoyance.
Basil looked at her with a mixture of apology and hopefulness, then turned to Earl. "Uh, I came in to borrow some base formula," he said. "Just need a few cc's and didn't want to take the time to get a full gallon from the storeroom."
"Help yourself," Earl said. He grinned sidewise at Irene. "By the way, Irene is looking for someone to go with her to see some show that's on at the Rialto."
"I'll be glad to," Basil said eagerly.
"No thanks," Irene said. "I'm going with my aunt."
"Your aunt?" Basil said. "I didn't know you had an aunt living in Crestmont." He went to a supply shelf over a wall bench and poured some base formula from a rubber tube dangling from a large bottle.
"She just arrived in town," Irene said dryly.
"Can I meet her?" Basil said coming back from the supply shelf. He was facing Irene and half facing Earl. He was in a position so that there was nothing between him and the window across the room.
"Sorry," Irene said. "She's leaving town in the morning. I'm sure—Oh, how can you be so clumsy, Basil?"
The test tube had dropped from his hand. Small glass fragments and the oily fluid were spattered on the floor and his shoes. He was examining a small cut on the inside of his thumb that was beginning to bleed.
"Clumsy?" he said absently. "Oh no. I didn't drop the test tube. It broke in my hand."
"It couldn't have," Irene said accusingly. "You dropped it."
"What's the difference?" Earl said. "Here. I'll get you another test tube with some base fluid. No harm done."
He opened a drawer and took out a new test tube. When he was closing the drawer he glanced absently toward the window. His eyes widened. "What the devil!" he exclaimed. "Look at that. The window's broken too."
"That's odd—too strange a coincidence," Basil frowned.
"Supersonic vibrations?" Earl said, smiling. "Maybe a foreign spy has heard of Project Synthetic Nerve Fluid and was trying to kill Basil with a new secret weapon!"
"Ha ha," Basil said without humor. He accepted the test tube of base formula from Earl. "Thanks, Earl," he said. He went to the door. There he turned appealingly to Irene. "I would like to take you—and your aunt—to the show, Irene," he said.
"Sorry," Irene said, smiling at him sympathetically. "We'll have too much we want to talk about."
"Uh—okay," Basil said unhappily.
"He's such a jerk," Irene said when Basil had left. "All he would do is fawn over me all evening. I'd—I'd rather go alone," she added, looking at Earl appealingly.
"Sure," Earl said. "Be sure and let me know how you like the show. Now—" He smiled half jokingly to take the sting from his words. "Scram. I've got work to do."
Irene made a face at him and went to the door.
When she was gone, Earl sighed wearily. Then he frowned at the broken window.
Carefully he stood where Basil had been standing when the test tube broke. He held his hand in approximately the same position that Basil had held it. Trying not to move his hand, he stooped and squinted over his hand toward the broken window, and beyond it.
A hundred yards away, outside the room, a small hill rose above the wall surrounding the research building. Earl fixed a spot and then went to the window to examine it more closely.
Uneasily he stood so that he was half concealed by the wall of the room. He studied the hill for a minute.
He went to a door at the far side of his lab, and went through into a large room where he had his living quarters. He took some keys from his pocket as he approached a desk. He unlocked the top right hand drawer and took out a small blunt automatic. He checked it and put it in his hip pocket. He slipped off his lab apron and put on a suit coat.
A few minutes later he was approaching the spot he had picked out on the side of the hill. There were trees and shrubs that hid the ground. He watched worriedly, the automatic in his hand now. But there seemed nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing could be more peaceful than the wooded hillside. And yet whatever had caused the simultaneous breaking of the window pane and the test tube could not have been caused by natural means.
Something, directly ahead, concealed by shrubs, had caused it. What? He intended to find out.
He circled to the left, walking cautiously. With his left hand he parted branches to see into a thicket.
Almost at once he saw the strange structure. It was shaped like a puffball, three feet in diameter at its thickest part, and almost as high. Its surface was of something that had an oily blue sheen. Its base seemed partly buried in the soil, and the ground was freshly damaged as though the ball-like shape had landed with great force.
To add to the evidence that it had fallen from great height, the side was split open, and dozens of small semi-transparent balls of different colors were spilled out onto the grass and weeds.
He pushed aside the bushes and approached, slowly putting the automatic back in his hip pocket. He stooped and picked up one of the small colored balls. It was a semi-transparent green.
He put the small ball in his coat pocket. He stooped and examined the break in the wall of the structure. The break faced toward the windows of his lab. He looked in that direction, and saw that leaves obscuring his view were shredded as though by a violent wind.
He found a fragment of the broken wall of the structure, a piece that was hardly more than a sliver. He put that in his shirt pocket. Then, with sudden decision, he scooped up dozens of the marble-like colored balls and loaded his pockets.
Back in his lab again, he emptied the balls from his pockets into two measuring flasks on a bench. They were strangely light, and one or two had to be put back in the flasks again after they floated slowly upward and down to the table surface where they rested without bouncing.
Earl was filled with excitement and eagerness. This was something entirely outside his experience, something with mystery. It occurred to him that the strange structure might be a new type of bomb. Certainly all the evidence indicated it had dropped from a great height. He dismissed the possible danger with a shrug. He considered the possibility of it being some form of puffball that had sprung up in the shaded woods. It was a remote possibility.
He took the small fragment of the shell from his shirt pocket and stepped to the bench where his microscope stood. If it was living substance it would have cellular structure.
Using the low power objective lens he examined the fragment. It showed no signs of cellular structure. Instead, it was semi-crystaline, similar to a plastic, under the low power lens.
A sharp sound behind him made him straighten and whirl around, his hand going toward the gun that was still in his hip pocket. His hand froze on the butt of the gun. He could only stare.
On the table where he had placed the two measuring flasks with the small colored balls, there were two people. A man and a girl. They were perfectly proportioned—and no more than four inches high.
They seemed unaware of his presence. One of the measuring flasks was tipped over—the sound that had attracted his attention. The colored balls were spilled over the table surface. The miniature man was trying to catch one of the balls which seemed to float weightless like a bubble. On the miniature man's face was an expression of worried concern.
The miniature girl was sitting down as though she had half risen from where she had fallen. She too was reaching for one of the floating balls.
This much Earl saw in that first startled, incredible instant; then details began to filter into his awareness. The man was green. The girl was blue. They were entirely nude, and the color of their skin was uniform—of the same pastel softness as the colored spheres!
And the girl—Earl found his eyes drawn toward her almost to the exclusion of everything else. She was beautiful beyond anything he had ever imagined.
Her smile was calm, slightly amused, more than a little satisfied and content at some inner thought.
Without thinking, Earl shouted and leaped toward them. His hand descended to catch them. The miniature man looked up at him, startled, then in a desperate attempt to escape leaped over the edge of the table.
The girl had no time to do more than attempt to rise before Earl's fingers closed around her, imprisoning her. He lifted her so that he could see her face more clearly. She stared at him, at first with unmasked terror, then with slowly emerging perplexity and interest.
He became acutely aware of her contours against his hand. What should he do with her? He remembered the man. He would have to catch the man too!
He looked around on the floor—and saw the man peering at him from behind a table leg.
Something would have to be done with the girl. He ran to the door of his room and slipped inside. The windows were closed. She was certainly too small to lift them and escape.
He looked around swiftly, then went to a bookcase and placed her gently on the top shelf.
"Stay there!" he warned. He left the room, closing and locking the door.
Across the laboratory he saw the miniature green-skinned man leap to the window sill below the broken pane. The little man looked over his shoulder and saw Earl. With a desperate leap he reached the jagged edge of glass still in place, and pulled himself through.
Earl rushed to the window in time to see the little man disappear in the high grass growing in the untended grounds outside the building.
Who were these two miniature people? Where had they come from? Had they come in through the broken window in an attempt to steal the colored balls? Werethey—were they from that strange thing out on the side of the hill? The questions burned through Earl's excited thoughts, demanding answers that wouldn't come.
Those almost weightless balls—Earl crossed to the bench and gathered them up and locked them in a metal drawer.
Nervously, he took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply. There was the girl, but he found himself reluctant to go in and face her. And yet he had to.
He started toward the hall door, then remembered the gun in his hip pocket. He hesitated, then unlocked the drawer containing the colored balls and placed it in there, locking the drawer again.
He went to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it.
He opened the door a scant inch, took a deep breath, then pushed rapidly, jumped inside, and closed the door at his back so the girl wouldn't have time to escape.
She wasn't blue any more. Her skin was faintly tanned, flawless. But more startling, she was not four inches high. She was, he guessed, five feet two or three. She was the same girl. There was no doubt of that. Her face was the same face, now normal sized. She was the same all over.
"Sorry!" Earl gasped. He crossed quickly to his dresser, opened the third drawer and found a pair of pajamas.
"Here!" he said, holding them out behind him. "Put these on."
He felt them taken from his hand. A moment later he heard her say, "All right." It was her voice. He listened to it as it echoed in his mind, flavored it. Actually it wasn't anything so wonderful, but it was nice. Nothing seductive or elfin—but she wasn't miniature any more, either. She sounded a little—amused!
He turned to face her.
"I'm Nadine Holmes," the girl said.
"Nadine. That's nice. Holmes.... I'm Earl Frye, up until a few minutes ago a quiet research scientist who stays in his lab practically twenty-four hours a day. Nadine Holmes. Were you really small a few minutes ago—or did I imagine it?"
"Yes. I was small.... Soyouare Dr. Earl Frye...."
"Yes. But how can you know me?" Earl asked, surprised at her tone. A distant knocking sounded. He groaned. "That's probably Irene," he said. "She'll pound the door down. You stay here and be quiet while I get rid of her. She could cause both of us a lot of trouble."
He went to the door, slipped out, and carefully locked it. The knocking was peremptory at the lab door. "Just a minute!" he said. He unlocked the door, prepared to tell Irene she was interrupting some important work. It wasn't Irene. "Oh, it's you, Mrs. Glassman. I didn't know. I was busy and didn't want to be interrup—that is, come on in." He opened the door invitingly, and glanced worriedly at the door to his living quarters. Had he locked it? Of course he had. He distinctly remembered locking it.
"I'm sorry I interrupted your work," Mrs. Glassman said. "I met Irene—Dr. Conner, you know. She told me you might need some reminding about dinner—seven thirty. I do hope you'll be there."
"I may not have my work done," Earl said weakly.
"Nonsense! It can wait. It will do you good to get away from the lab for an evening. If you aren't there I'll come and get you."
"Okay," Earl said hastily. "I promise to be there—on time."
He locked the hall door after Mrs. Glassman.
He glanced thoughtfully at the pump bench with its ten sets of glass threads containing ten different fluids, ready for cutting and connecting to the test instruments for measurement of speed and sustainment of molecular chain action.
The theory of what he was looking for—what all ten of the scientists were looking for in their planned exploration of a few dozen thousand substances, was fairly simple. The molecule in theory had to be of a special type, of which there were many examples. It had to consist of two parts; one larger than the other, such that the smaller part could break off easily and jump to the next molecule, combining with it and freeing its counterpart on that next molecule, so that the freed part would repeat the performance on the next, and so on. In that way, the ion of the lesser molecular part, starting at one end of the chain of identical molecules, would start a chain of reactions which would end in an identical free ion at the farther end of the glass thread. In effect it would be the same as though the free ion had passed quickly through the full length of the fine tube—without any of the molecules actually having moved at all.
Unfortunately, so far, none of the substances tried had behaved quite as they should in theory. It was impossible to get a tube fine enough for a thread one molecule thick, with the molecules lined up properly.
With some of the test substances the "nerve impulse" would go part way and then turn around and come back. With others it would just "get lost." Super-delicate instruments "followed" the impulse, telling what happened to it in fine detail.
Nerve fluid from living animals had been tested and found to behave properly even in the fine glass tubing. But it was highly unstable. If a synthetic brain capable of integrated thought processes was to be constructed, a non-deteriorating nerve fluid would have to be found. One that duplicated the performance of the actual nerve threads of the human brain.
All that held back Project Brain was the proper synthetic nerve fluid! Maybe it's one of those ten, Earl thought. But he entertained that thought with every ten he tested.
But right now there was a more pressing problem. Nadine Holmes. She should have arrived on the afternoon bus—instead of appearing as a pastel blue miniature girl on a bench in his lab—and growing to an embarrassing full five foot three of emotion disturbing nudity in a few minutes. An impossible fact, but still a fact.
Where had she come from? That was what he had been going to ask her when Ethel Glassman barged in. Dear old Mrs. Glassman.
Earl went to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it. Slipping in quickly, he locked the door again. Nadine was curled up in a chair, one of his technical books on her lap, looking altogether too domestic for Earl's peace of mind. She had paused in her reading, and was looking up at him questioningly.
"Now then," Earl said. He groped for a sequence of thought. She was beautiful. "Now then," he repeated. "We've got to get you some decent clothes and decide what to do with you. What sizes do you wear?"
"I don't know," Nadine said. "I've never worn clothes before. I don't think I like them."
"You'll get used to them," Earl said hastily. "Those things you have on are my pajamas. We'll need some nylon stockings, shoes, and other things. I'll have to go buy them."
"Do you have other clothes like the ones you are wearing?" Nadine asked. "Why wouldn't they do? They're too large, but I could wear them."
Earl stared at her in amazement. And now the big question came again. He moved closer to her. "Where do you come from?"
She puzzled over his words. "I'm not sure what you're talking about," she said, a tone of wariness in her voice. "Where I come from—perhaps we'd better not discuss that now. I don't quite understand what happened. Things didn't happen as they were supposed to. Could you take me where you first found me?"
"Not until I get you some clothes. Imagine what people would think if you walked out of here wearing my pajamas!"
"What would they think?" Nadine said, frankly puzzled. "Why are clothes? Are they connected in some way with religion? I think that's the word for it—religion. Do clothes bring you good luck? Is that it? You seem so—so intense about it. Does everyone wear them?"
He ignored her question, went out, locking the door. Before he opened the lab door to the hall he glanced at his watch. An hour ago nothing had happened! He shook his head, opened the door and stepped into the hall—almost bumping into Basil Nelson.
"Hi, Earl," Basil said. "You look like you're in a hurry."
"I am," Earl said. He started past Basil, who fell into step beside him.
"I'll go along," Basil said. "That is, if you don't mind. I wanted to talk with you. Pretty important. It's about Irene."
"What about Irene?" Earl said.
Basil waited until they were on the sidewalk before answering. "I guess it's pretty obvious I'm in love with her," he said. "But—she seems to have eyes only for you. Mrs. Glassman sort of hinted that you and Irene—well—were going to get married. I wanted to ask you. If you and Irene are—"
"DamnEthel Glassman," Earl said, irritated. "If you are in love with her why don't you tell her?"
"She won't give me the chance to tell her," Basil groaned. "I think she suspects, though," he added darkly.
"Fine," Earl said. "And there's no time like the present. Why don't you go back and pop the question right now while you have your nerve up?"
Basil sighed. "I'll have to work up to it. Right now I'd rather tag along with you. Mind?"
"No," Earl groaned. "Not at all. A—cousin of mine has a birthday coming up. I thought I'd buy her some new clothes. No use you tagging along."
"Don't mind at all," Basil said. "We can do some more talking. Maybe we could cook up some scheme to make Irene fall in love with me. But every time I think I'm going great with her I pull something like dropping that test tube in your lab."
"Oh, that," Earl said. "I—" He clamped his lips shut.
"See you at Glassman's at dinner tonight," Earl said firmly an hour later. As Basil still hesitated, he added, "Maybe I can think of something by then. Meanwhile I've still got work to do."
"Uh, oh sure," Basil said, "but I'm afraid it's no use. She's in love with you, Earl."
"Nonsense!" Earl unlocked the door to his lab and went in with his packages. He stacked them on a lab table and locked the hall door. A quick survey showed the lab as it should be. Earl had been worried. Since Nadine had become a full sized person, maybe the little green man had too.
Earl crossed to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it. Inside, he saw Nadine still curled up in the chair in his pajamas, a stack of books beside her.
"Hi," Earl said, subdued. "I've brought you some clothes, and also some literature on what they are. I think the literature will give you enough data to work on in dressing."
He brought the stack of packages into the room and put them on a table.
"While you're dressing I'll finish some work out in the lab," he said.
"Clothes seem terribly important to you," Nadine said without moving from her comfortable position. "I still can't understand why. I've tried and tried." She picked up a book. "This book, for example. It's a very vivid account of a murder. I can understand vaguely about the murder. It seems to be some sort of game that people play. There are official players who earn their living at it. The taxpayers pay them for it, and they sit in their offices until some taxpayer wants to play with them. The taxpayer kills someone. The detectives must find out who he is if they can. I can understand that. But there are whole passages where everyone seems to forget the game while they pay great attention to what someone is wearing. That's it! It must be another game. No?"
Earl grinned. "That's pretty close," he said. "Do you have games where you come from?"
"No. Games aren't functional."
"Oh," Earl said vaguely. "Well, get those clothes on, Nadine. You will look terrific in them."
He backed out of the room and closed the door. While he worked he wondered how Nadine could speak English without an accent. It was too far-fetched to think it her native language. Even if it were, spoken language changes so rapidly that the only possible explanations were, (1) she was from some part of the United States, or (2), her people were in constant radio contact with current broadcasts. But neither alternative could account for her inability to grasp the purpose of clothes. He hadn't had quite enough nerve to mention to her the main purpose—sex. Maybe she had been too shy to mention it too. But that didn't seem to jibe with her evident willingness to take off her clothes. And she hadn't answered his question on where she came from.
While Earl thought these thoughts he let his hands and one part of his mind put the synthetic nerve filaments in place in the instrument banks. There wouldn't be time to run the tests, but he could do that in the morning when he was alone.
Alone. The thought struck him with dismaying force. He realized suddenly that he had been trying to keep Nadine with him as long as possible—and that was futile.
Was he in love with her? He faced the question squarely and felt his stomach turn over and his heart start to pound wildly. He tried to tell himself it was just the unusualness of the situation.
He was jerked out of his thoughts by the sound of high heeled shoes. Nadine had opened the door and taken a few steps into the lab. His eyes approved of what they saw.
"They're very uncomfortable," Nadine said. "Especially the shoes. But I looked at myself in the mirror—and I think I begin to understand, a little. Clothes are adornments."
"On you they are," Earl said. "I never before realized...."
"What's a kiss?" Nadine said.
Earl blinked. He cleared his throat loudly and said, "One thing at a time, Nadine. There's lots for you to learn. In the meantime, how does it happen you know English so well? If you're from—some other planet—you certainly don't speak it as your native language."
"It was taught to us for the expedition," Nadine said. "I think there must have been an accident. Can you tell me anything about it? The first I remember is just before you picked me up in your enormous hand."
Earl told her everything he knew. She listened, nodding her head at times.
"I think I understand now," she said when he finished. "The stasis spheres. Somehow mine and George Ladd's were fractured, so that we emerged on the bench. He was in the green one."
"You mean you wereinone of those marbles?" Earl exclaimed.
"Where is the ship?" Nadine said.
Earl took her to the window and pointed out the spot. "You can't see it from here," he said. "But I have some of the—what did you call them? Stasis spheres? I'll show you."
He unlocked the drawer. Nadine leaned over, seeming to look inside of each translucent marble.
"Yes," she said, straightening. "It's gone wrong, somehow. The Cyberene will be most annoyed."
"The Cyberene? What's that?"
Nadine stared down into the drawer, frowning. "You wouldn't understand," she said. And then, "I'm hungry."
Earl frowned. "That reminds me. I have to go to dinner at Dr. Glassman's in a little while, or Mrs. Glassman will come barging in here. I'll fix you something first. After I get back I'll take you to a hotel."
Nadine perched on the edge of the table in his kitchenette while he opened some cans and heated their contents.
"How does it smell?" Earl asked after a while. "Good?"
"Strange," Nadine said. "Not entirely strange. Some of the smells are familiar."
"Would you like a cocktail?" Earl said. He didn't wait for her answer. He was acutely conscious of playing the host. "This is my favorite drink. A dash of rum, a little vodka, lime juice, powdered sugar, ice cubes and seltzer. There." He handed her one of the two glasses. "How do you like it?"
Nadine sipped the drink cautiously. "Good," she said. "I was thirsty too."
"What is the Cyberene?" Earl said, dishing steaming food into a plate set precariously on the edge of the stove.
"The—the Cyberene," Nadine said as though that explained it. "How do you eat that food without getting dirty? And there's such an enormous amount of it. I'm used to capsules, with lots of water to help digest them."
"Oh. Dehydrated foods," Earl said. "Damn! I wish I didn't have to go to that dinner. Stay in here while I change my clothes."
"Earl," Nadine said as he was about to leave the room.
"Yes?" he said, turning to look at her questioningly.
"What does damn mean? I can't get the sense of it."
"It's an adornment of speech," he said. "Like clothes."
With dinner over, Earl drifted toward the door after excusing himself and thanking the Glassmans. Basil followed him.
"I need someone to talk to—to help me, Basil," Earl said as they walked back toward the lab building. "Remember that test tube breaking? And the window pane?"
"How can I forget?" Basil said ruefully.
Quickly Earl outlined everything that had happened.
"What you should have done," Basil said in amazement, "is gone directly to Dr. Glassman with it. Now nobody will believe you. Even I find it hard to believe. You must have fallen hard, the way you want to keep her under lock and key."
"It's not that," Earl said. "Just a lot of little things. Like her repeating my name as if she knew all about me. And her refusing to say where she's from. And her knowledge of our language yet knowing absolutely nothing about our social customs."
"What about time travel?" Basil said.
"Time travel? That's absurd."
"Why?"
"If time travel were possible at any future date, we would have time travelers all around us. They'd come back."
"Maybe they have," Basil said darkly. "What did she call those colored marbles you found? Stasis spheres? But the main thing right now is that if I were in this George Ladd's shoes—"
"He doesn't wear shoes."
"Well, I would be trying to rescue Nadine Holmes this very minute. It's dark now—"
But Earl wasn't listening. Basil hurried to catch up with him as he walked rapidly, until they reached the lab building resting against the giant starless bulk of the dome that housed the Brain.
"Be quiet," Earl warned as they stole down the hall toward the door to his lab.
They reached the door and stopped. Through the panel came the sound of a male voice, the words indistinguishable but the tones unmistakably demanding and insistent.
Nadine's voice answered, its tones firm. Earl and Basil looked at each other. Neither of those inside were speaking English.
The male voice uttered a harsh monosyllable. Nadine screamed. Earl, abandoning caution, tried to open the door. It was locked. He wasted precious seconds getting the key into the lock. Cursing at the delay, he flung the door open and ran toward the two figures struggling near the windows. One was Nadine, her clothes torn, her face a mask of desperate effort to escape. The other, Earl recognized instantly as being George Ladd. He also recognized the suit Ladd was wearing. It was one of his own.
Ladd didn't seem to be aware of him until he grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him around roughly. For a split second George Ladd was motionless with surprise—and in that split second Earl lashed out with his fist.
The blow sent Ladd stumbling backward until he brought up against a table. Earl leaped toward him. Ladd made no attempt to escape, but fumbled for something in the coat pocket of the suit he was wearing. A glistening object appeared in his hand.
Earl swerved, thinking it must be a gun. Then he was sprawling full length on the floor, his muscles refusing to obey his commands. His consciousness was almost entirely dominated by a terrible tingling sensation that seemed to possess every cell of his body from the neck down.
He had fallen in such a way that he saw Basil leaping forward. The next instant Basil was plunging floorward, his arms refusing to come up to break his fall.
Nadine was running toward the open hall door. She too fell sprawling.
George Ladd appeared in Earl's line of vision. He closed the door and locked it from the inside, then picked Nadine up and cradled her limp body over his shoulder.
Earl tried to cry out. The tingling in his throat became unbearable. In numb horror and frustrated rage he watched George Ladd, Nadine over his shoulder, her arms dangling limply. A moment later he heard a window raised. There were sounds of heavy exertion, a faint thud outside the window. Then silence.
Earl's eyes fed on Basil's motionless form. For what might have been minutes or hours the tingling continued. It died away with imperceptible slowness. Finally he was able to move a little. A minute later he was able to sit up. His entire body felt as though it had "been asleep."
Almost immediately Basil moved. Earl reached out for the nearest table and pulled himself to his feet, fighting to keep his legs from caving.
Basil rose to a sitting position, shook his head to clear his senses, looked up at Earl, and grinned feebly. He said, his speech thick and clumsy, "NowI believe you. That paralysis gun did it."
Earl was startled. "You didn't believe me before?"
"Hell no!" Basil sighed. "I just thought you were going a long ways to explain what some people would call a sordid affair." His grin became more natural. "I was right though. This George Ladd is now a hero." He frowned. "Only—your Nadine didn't seem towantto be rescued."
"Get up and move around," Earl said desperately. "Get some circulation back. We may still be able to catch up with them and get her back."
"I don't know," Basil said doubtfully, getting to his feet. "I hate the idea of that paralysis gun."
"I've got a gun too," Earl said.
He half stumbled toward the bench with the locked drawer. He searched for his keys, remembered he had left them in the hall door. He started for the door, then stopped. The locked drawer was open and damaged. A heavy screwdriver was on the table over it. The drawer was empty.
"He got my gun!" Earl said. "He got the stasis spheres too!"
Basil came to stand beside him and stare broodingly into the empty drawer. "That does it," he mumbled. "Now you don't have anything."
"There's that thing out on the hill," Earl said. "Maybe George Ladd headed for that. He hasn't had time to get located in town. We can find him hiding out there. Wait until I get a flashlight."
From another drawer he brought out a high-powered flashlight. He went to the open window and crawled out. Basil hesitated, then followed him.
Behind them was the building they had just left, light streaming from the open window and from half a dozen other windows. To their right loomed the dark bulk of the dome that housed the gigantic Brain, an obsidian shape in the night that hulked into the heavens, blotting out a hemisphere of stars. Ahead, above the horizon, was a crescent moon that served to silhouette the hill and its horizon of trees. Around them were dark shapes, motionless.
Earl kept the flashlight ready, but didn't use it as they stole swiftly forward. Neither man spoke, but their breathing was a stentorian sound that blended with distant traffic noises and the nearby chirping of a cricket, and the rustling of weeds as they forced them aside in their passage.
They reached the hill and went forward more slowly, using caution as they remembered the effects of the paralysis gun. Now Earl was remembering the way he had come before, finding landmarks in the darkness. At last he stopped and touched Basil's arm to bring him to a halt.
"It's on the other side of these bushes," he whispered. "I'll use the flash."
He parted the branches. Suddenly a cone of light exploded in the darkness.
"Right there," Basil said. Then, in surprise, "It's gone!"
"Naturally," Earl said in some disgust. "It fits the pattern."
"What pattern?" Basil asked.
Earl was slow in answering. He said, "I don't know. I just felt it. Or maybe I do know. Nadine and that guy Ladd were small and got big in a hurry. What was to keep that thing from doing the same? That's part of it. The other part is just a feeling. They don't seem to want to advertise to the world that they're here. Maybe the damn thing became invisible or something. With stasis spheres and small people that get big, and paralysis guns, what's so impossible about that ship or whatever it is getting big and becoming invisible? I'll bet it's still there."
But though they passed back and forth over the entire area, with increasing boldness, they encountered nothing, visible or invisible, that was out of the ordinary.
There was a concave depression in the soil where Earl remembered the puffball shape to have been. Even fresh scars in the dirt around the depression.
For a while Earl blundered through the underbrush calling Nadine's name cautiously, without hope. Finally they were forced to give up and return to the lab building.
"We could call the police," Basil said doubtfully.
"Oh, sure," Earl said, his voice harsh. "What would we tell them? Dr. Glassman would be called in. Next they'd call the boys in the white jackets."
"Maybe they're just the boys we need," Basil said. "Or a good stiff drink. I like the idea of the drink."
It was ten o'clock in the morning when Irene Conner pushed open the door without knocking and strolled casually into Earl's laboratory. She saw him at the far end of the room, hunched over with his elbows on the window sill, his back to her.
"Hi, Earl," she called cheerfully. "Want to have mid-morning coffee with me?"
"No," Earl said without moving.
"You sound tired," Irene said, going over to stand beside him. "Or is it spring fever—more accurately the summer doldrums."
"Neither," he said, glancing up at her with tired eyes. "I just want to be left alone. I'm thinking." He straightened up with a deep sigh. "Why don't you get Basil to have coffee with you?"
"That jerk?" Irene said. "He gets in my hair."
"Like you get in mine?" Earl said.
"That was cruel."
"Sorry," Earl relented. "I didn't get much sleep last night. I've got problems. I'd much rather be left alone with them right now."
Irene inspected him critically as a man might inspect his automobile. "Your eyes are bloodshot," she said. "Why not have some coffee with me and tell me your problems. Maybe I can help you."
"Nobody can help me—least of all you."
The phone on the desk in the corner rang. Earl went to answer it.
"This is Glassman," the phone said. "I want a general staff meeting in my office at once. Tell Dr. Conner she must be there too."
"Okay," Earl said. He hung up and looked at Irene. "Goat face," he explained. "General staff meeting. We're to go to his office at once."
"Maybe this is it," Irene said, suddenly sober.
Earl nodded. That was the way it would come. A phone call for general staff meeting. A quiet announcement that one of the scientists had at last found the ideal nerve fluid for the brain. That's all there would be to it. The greatest achievement since—if not including—the atom bomb, and the historic moment would pass without a shout—with perhaps only a tired sigh of relief, a glance of envy at the lucky one who had found it.
"Well, let's get it over with," Earl said.
They went into the hall and walked side by side in silence toward the back of the building where it joined the Dome. Basil joined them, for once hardly noticing Irene as he looked questioningly at Earl, who shook his head imperceptibly.
They entered Dr. Glassman's office. The director was sitting behind his desk, ignoring them, pretending to be reading some typewritten papers.
Earl looked around. They were all there now, he and the other nine scientists, and Dr. Glassman. Only there was something wrong with the picture. One of them should have been beaming at the others, the light of triumph in his or her eyes. Instead, the other nine reflected his own puzzled bewilderment.
"Sit down, sit down," Dr. Glassman said, looking up at them. He waited until they were all seated about the room, then cleared his throat importantly, pushing aside the papers he had been reading. He started to say something, then became aware of their expressions. He shook his head. "The end isn't in sight yet. But we may be closer than we think. I'll introduce you in a moment to a new addition to our staff. A person who—from the reports I've seen from Washington—seems to be quite a genius at creating new type molecules, tailor-made for specific tasks. Our new associate won't be assigned a separate lab. Instead, will serve as a sort of general consultant, observing all your work, and will make suggestions for hastening things up a bit." A murmur of voices and sharp footsteps came from the hall. "My wife has been showing our new colleague the Brain. I think they're coming now."
The door opened. Mrs. Glassman's cheerful face appeared. "They're all here now," she said over her shoulder.
The door opened farther. Earl, and everyone else, was staring at the opening, waiting for their first glimpse of the newcomer.
Earl half rose to his feet before he stopped himself. Then he slowly sat down, his eyes wide and puzzled.
It was Nadine. She wasn't wearing the clothes he had bought for her the day before. Instead, she was dressed in a stylishly cut business suit and low heeled slippers, a trim hat covering her hair. She had paused just inside the room, a half smile on her carefully painted lips. Her eyes surveyed each face pleasantly, passing over Earl's as though she had never seen him before.
"Come up here, my dear," Dr. Glassman said in honeyed tones. And to the others, "I want you to meet Dr. Nadine Holmes." Then back to her, "What did you think of the Brain? Quite an imposing thing, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," Nadine replied. "I felt quite—awed by it, sitting there where it will remain for untold centuries, waiting only for the vital fluid that will give it the ability to think."
"I'm sure it won't be untold centuries before it gets the fluid," Dr. Glassman said, chuckling heartily at his own humor. "I'll introduce you to your co-workers, Dr. Holmes. This is Dr. Paul Hardwick...."
Earl caught Basil's attention and shook his head warningly. He waited, then, for his turn at being introduced, his heart pounding violently, his pulse racing.
"... and this is Dr. Earl Frye ..." Dr. Glassman said.
"How do you do, Dr. Frye." Nadine's hand was smooth and cool as she rested it in his. Her eyes sized him up with impersonal interest, but without a flicker of recognition.
"... and this is Dr. Basil Nelson ...."
Nadine withdrew her hand gently and moved on.
"And now you may return to your work," Dr. Glassman announced. "I know the male members of the staff will be waiting for a visit from our charming new member, but you must be patient. She will get around to all of you in the next few days."
Earl was in the hall before Glassman had finished. He wanted to think. Rapid footsteps caught up with him. "Nowcan we have coffee?" she asked with humorous petulance.
"No!" Earl said with more fierceness in his voice than he had intended. It had the effect of a physical blow on Irene. She fell back a step, blinking.
Basil caught up with them. "I want to talk with you, Earl," he said.
"Basil," Irene cut in, "willyouhave coffee with me?"
"Me?" Basil said in delight. "Sure." He linked his arm in hers. "Let's go." He looked back over his shoulder at Earl. "Thanks, Earl," he said. "I'll see you later." It was two hours later.
"You sure it's her?" Basil said. "I'm inclined to agree with you. Of course, I saw her only for a second or two.... Where do you suppose she picked up those snazzy clothes? I was watching her when she was introduced to you. Boy, is she some actress!"
"I'm wondering if it was an act," Earl said frowning.
"Of course it was—had to be if she's the same girl. But she didn't let on she knew you at all."
"That's why I wonder if it was an act. There was something strange about her. I can't quite put my finger on it—or yes I can. She's changed. Today her whole personality is different. And where did she get papers authentic enough to fool Glassman?"
"Why don't you ask her when she comes here?" Basil suggested.
Earl shook his head. "I wonder if she could be under some sort of hypnosis? No, wait. It isn't any more absurd than a paralysis gun. If she doesn't stay here tonight I'm going to follow her and see where she goes. Are you with me?"
"Uh," Basil hesitated. "Depends on when she leaves the building. Irene and I have sort of a date to have dinner at the Red Barn at six o'clock."
"Go ahead," Earl said, grinning. "I'll probably have more success alone anyway. We'd get in each other's way."
"Why don't you ask Glassman where she's staying? It's probably some hotel in town."
"I'll think about it," Earl said.
When Basil left, Earl went to the window and looked toward the hill. Would Nadine go there? Was there some hiding place on the hill where she would go, to wait until tomorrow, after her "day's work" was done?
Earl nodded to himself. It had to be. Nothing else fitted into the crazy pattern of events.
One thing he was certain of now. In spite of the accident that had broken open the "ship" when it landed out there, its coming here—or here and now—was no accident. Nor Nadine's apparent familiarity with his name the night before, or her showing up now with credentials that gave her the run of the place in an almost supervisory capacity.
And that meant that her interest was in the Brain. Hers—and who else? George Ladd, of course. How many more? If each of those stasis spheres had contained a person, there were dozens more in on it.
Then why had Nadine been sent into the open when she was certain to be recognized by him?
That was what had been bothering him from the instant she walked into Glassman's office. On the surface it was the most stupid thing that could have occurred. On the surface....
Stupid. Yet somehow stupid didn't seem to fit. Maybe it had been exceedingly cunning. Maybe there was something he had missed.
Cunning it might be—or stupid. But there was something else about it that neither adjective quite fit. There was obviously organization in back of Nadine. People. A "ship". Paralysis guns and what they implied. Therefore planning, colored by one accident. Suppose every detail of the plan had been worked out ahead of time, and was going ahead without alteration. Suppose the original plan had specified that Nadine was to be the "front", and the plan was proceeding blindly, on the behavior level of instinct in animals who repeat instinctive routines made senseless by changed environment. Or the blind function level of a machine that keeps turning out parts when the conveyor belt has stopped, until it wrecks itself.
It annoyed Earl not to be able to pin his thoughts down, to bring everything into full focus.
He went to his kitchenette and fixed a hasty lunch. All afternoon he worked, immersed in the routine of testing chemicals in batches of ten and making out report sheets on each one. And all afternoon he puzzled over what could be behind Nadine's having shown up. Not so much what might be behind her having returned to the scene, nor her not recognizing him, butwhysomeone else hadn't been used.
No one dropped in. Irene's absence gave him only a sense of relief. Basil, no doubt, was staying away because of a guilt complex. Nadine—her continued absence could be because she wasn't ready for him yet, or she truly didn't remember him and would get to him in due time, perhaps tomorrow; or maybe the Plan involved some other member of the research group. Or the destruction of the Brain? Earl shook his head at this thought. That alternative didn't fit.
And then it was four-thirty. Already Earl had reasoned out what he intended to do. Either Nadine would go into town and stay at a hotel, remain in the building as a guest of the Glassmans', or she would leave the building and make her way by some circuitous route to the spot on the hill where the "ship" had been.
Only the latter possibility interested Earl right now. He quickly slipped off his lab apron and put on a suit coat. He wished that he still had a gun, but it had been stolen with the stasis spheres. He'd have to do without it.
Leaving the building, he walked along the sidewalk until he was able to approach the hill from the other side where he wouldn't be seen from the windows.
It was ten minutes to five when he settled down to wait in the concealment of a thicket where he could command a view of the approaches from every direction, and a clear view of the slight depression in the ground where the "ship" had dropped.
There was nothing to do now but wait—and stay awake. He was acutely aware, suddenly, of his lack of sleep the night before. A warm breeze rustled the leaves around him. A small hoptoad paused to stare up at him in unblinking fixity.
Overhead in a large Maple tree a host of sparrows paused to hold a brief political convention.
And then Nadine was coming up the slope from the side away from the lab. Her chic hat dangled carelessly in her right hand, the warm breeze mussing her hair. A too normal smart-looking woman's purse was under her arm. The breeze caught her skirt, molding her graceful legs, her slim body. She was too much the picture of a normal girl idly strolling in a park.
A great nostalgia, an almost overwhelming yearning, took possession of Earl. He wanted to rush forward, let her know he was there, waiting for her.
Instead, he remained motionless, watching her approach.
She seemed to be heading straight for him. For an instant he thought she must have seen him. But her expression held no excitement or anything but half dreamy enjoyment of her surroundings.
Scarcely fifteen feet away she came to a stop and turned to face toward the concave depression in the ground, another fifty feet beyond her. With her free hand she reached up and patted at her hair like any normal girl would do, unconsciously.
Abruptly Earl became aware of something just beyond her. It wasn't tangible. A shimmering in the air. A slight but definite refractive quality that had not been there the moment before.
Nadine had seen it too. She walked forward a few steps.
"This is it!" Earl thought to himself. He crouched to run after her.
She took another step. She vanished, not abruptly, but as one might vanish into a bright silver but otherwise transparent fog.
In that instant Earl moved hurtling forward so that when she disappeared he was a step behind her.
Instantly the peaceful wooded scene vanished. His feet were on a smooth hard floor. Ahead of him he caught a brief glimpse of walls, of people without clothes.
Then he was falling over Nadine and trying to keep from falling on her. His arms were around her. Somehow he twisted so that when he landed she was on top, unhurt.
There was a stunned eternity when her eyes were looking into his, recognition and gladness unmasked, hope and pleading sending him some secret message, some unspoken word trembling on her lips.
But Earl had seen George Ladd even as he fell, and the never forgotten instincts developed in him during World War III were in motion, making him continue his roll so that in the next instant he was on his feet, Nadine behind him. Ladd hadn't expected this and was caught by surprise. Earl took advantage of that brief uncertainty, stepping in and bringing a short chopping right against Ladd's jaw.
Before George Ladd reached the floor, Earl was running in great strides, his eyes darting ahead in search of a place to escape.
"Wait!" Nadine called. But he didn't pause. He couldn't trust her. George Ladd had been armed with his paralysis gun. He'd been waiting for him. This had been a trap, and Nadine had led him into it.
Ahead was a doorway. He hesitated. Should he continue on down the corridor or take the doorway? He decided on the latter. It opened into a room, unoccupied at the moment. There were windows. One of them was open. Earl didn't hesitate. Beyond the window was a wide paved street. If he could get away, mingle with crowds....
No one was in sight. He sprinted along the pavement, away from the Dome which he had glimpsed over his shoulder. It was beautiful, its basic structure adorned with granite superstructures of fine workmanship. But he didn't pause to admire it. He wanted people, lots of people, to mix with and hide from pursuit.
For a hundred yards the street went through parkways. Then ahead were buildings. He reached them, racing along a canyon formed by windowless walls of buildings. He rounded a corner. The street was still deserted.
He ran on and on, turning corners when he came to them, but always heading in one general direction so as not to circle back toward the Dome.
Abruptly he paused. Beside him was a door in a building. He darted inside, closing the door behind him and leaning against it while he breathed in rasping gulps of air.
Ahead of him was a corridor and more doors. After a brief rest he sprinted down the hallway. If he could find a vacant room, a place to hide until he could map out some plan.
He listened at the first door. There was no sound. He tried the knob. The door opened silently under his touch. He stepped in. The room was unoccupied. Its far wall was of glass. He glanced through it. He was looking out over an enormous workshop of some kind. Row upon row of small vats were there—and people.
He was seeing his first people of this world he had plunged into. They wore no clothes. They seemed to be tending the vats, walking along the aisles, pausing here and there at a vat to touch banks of controls and watch what was in each vat.
From the hall Earl had just left came loud voices. The words were in a strange language, but the tones carried their own message. His pursuers had caught up with him. In another moment they would open the door and find him.
He looked around for a way to escape. There was a trap door in the floor. It undoubtedly led to the huge workshop. Earl lifted the door and saw a ladder. He climbed onto it, letting the trap door fall back into place as he descended.
He fully expected workers to see him and react to his presence in some way. A worker was less than ten feet away. The worker didn't pause or seem to notice him.
Silently Earl watched the man's eyes, dull and void of intelligence. They seemed only passive recorders of what there was for him to see. He was touching control knobs in front of a vat.
Earl looked into the vat and caught his breath. Floating in the tank was a human embryo. It was alive, its umbilical cord growing from a spongy mass on the floor of the tank.
Forgetting his danger, Earl grabbed the man's shoulder. "What is this?" he demanded. "Human babies growing in tanks?"
The worker waited unresisting until Earl released his grip, then continued on his routine way. He was, in every respect, a robot, doing his specialized job, his mind a complete blank to anything else. A zombie. Earl looked out over the vast baby factory and realized with numb horror that all the hundreds of people working here were the same. Walking dead, their minds capable of only one thing—doing this specialized task. And the human embryos in the tanks? Would they become walking zombies?
Over his head came the sound of the trap door opening. Earl didn't take time to look up. He ran. Down an aisle between rows of unborn humans tended by undead zombies. Up another ladder into another observation room, ignoring shouts that caught up with him. Out another door, down another hall, through another door, and into a street again.
Miles of streets, and then something recognizable. A factory with belching smokestacks. He plunged toward it recklessly, desperately hoping to find intelligent men. Men with minds. Men able to help him hide.
He found himself inside a huge plant where giant ladles were pouring molten metal into molds. There were men running the machines that controlled the pouring. They wore thick asbestos-like suits.
As Earl ran toward them he saw one of them slip and fall so that his arm went into the stream of molten metal. The man didn't cry out nor jerk away. Splattering metal cascaded on the others. There was the stench of burned flesh.
His mind numb with the shock of what he was seeing, Earl stood rooted, watching the others continue their work with expressionless faces, blank eyes. Mindless creatures, controlled like inanimate robots.
"Earl!"
He turned in the direction of the voice. He saw Nadine beckoning for him to come to her. He started toward her, then stopped. She was different from these—or was she? No, she wasn't any different. She too was an automaton. She was beckoning him to walk into another trap.
He turned to run the other way, but in that moment of indecision he had been surrounded by men like George Ladd, carrying the little paralysis guns—and they were automatons too.
He turned, searching for a way of escape, the smell of molten metal and cooked flesh strong in his nostrils. And then he felt the sting of the paralysis gun and was falling forward.
A sharp pain entered the base of his skull. He lost consciousness then with the monstrous horror of what was around him searing into his soul.
The next instant, it seemed, he awakened, all the horror fresh in his mind, the stinging sensation at the nape of his neck changed to a dull throbbing pain. Nadine had led him into this. But she was like the rest, a zombie unable to think for herself.
He shook his head slowly in pained bewilderment. She hadn't been that way the first time he met her. She had been—herself. What could have created this nightmare?
A voice somewhere sounded in deep resonant tones. "So you are awake," it said.
Earl rolled onto his side and searched for the source of the voice. There was no one in view. He was in a room whose walls and ceiling were heavy glass. He looked through the ceiling and saw the familiar maze of steel catwalks inside the dome.
Outside his glass prison a pair of video cameras were trained on him. Their lenses seemed somehow sentient, so that their motionlessness partook of the quality of a fixed stare.
"I've always wanted to meet you," the voice said, and it seemed to come from a small case atop the camera frames.
It was a dream, Earl decided. He had been hit on the head. In his delirium he had conjured up the Brain, activated and intelligent as it was designed to be in theory, possessed of a mind of its own.
"Of course," the voice went on, "I've seen film shots of you. You are the discoverer of the nerve fluid that made me possible."
Earl sat up abruptly. "Who are you? And where—"
"I am theCyberene. This is the year 3042 A. D., in the old calendar. I had you brought here through what might be called a time tube from your own period. Shortly you will return through that tube to your own time—as many hours ahead from the time you left as you spend here before you go back."
Earl got to his feet slowly, watching the glistening lenses. "Now it begins to fit together," he said. "You're behind Nadine and Ladd. You sayI'mthe discoverer of the nerve fluid. You're mistaken. It hasn't been found yet—and there are ten of us looking for it. One of the others may be the one to find it."
"History says you found it."
"And you just wanted to see me because of that?" Earl asked.
"Watch," the voice said.
The plate glass wall in front of Earl changed suddenly, to become apparently a giant window over-looking a huge sprawling city. There were buildings that reached thousands of feet into the sky, with fragile looking networks of bridges spanning the spaces among them. There were giant aircraft in the sky. In the distance was a trail of fire that might be from an inter-planetary rocket ship departing spaceward.
And abruptly the elfin city was blotted out by a blinding sun. Seconds later the blinding sun was gone, and Earl could see the city again. But now it was only the skeleton of what it had been. Its spiderweb design of bridges was torn and twisted. Many of its tall buildings were even now toppling toward the ground. Fire shot skyward in a pyrotechnic display of havoc.
A giant airplane appeared, heading straight toward the window through which Earl watched. It grew larger. For a brief second he looked into its control cabin and saw its pilot and co-pilot. They were human, but their faces were harsh and cruel, their eyes cold and inhuman. In the next instant they were gone.
"That is a typical scene on—the other Earth," the voice of the Cyberene explained.
The scene of the desolate city vanished. In its place appeared another scene. A city under construction. Giant building machines were placing it together, and the parts that were completed were even more beautiful than had been that other city.
Earl, from his vantage point, seemed to drop closer and drift over the scene of construction to a part that was inhabited. He saw the people below. They wore no clothes and didn't seem to mind. Each appeared to be intent on going somewhere. None of them were talking or paying any attention to one another. Their expressions were blank, their eyes vacant.