CHAPTER IV
Apperception 36, Lee's lab within The Brain, looked much likeApperception 27 except for its interior fittings. As a matter of fact,all the several hundred Apperception Centers were built after the sameplan, like suites in a big office building in many respects. They werespread over The Brain occipital region; they were built inside theconcrete wall of the "dura matter" which in turn lay within the shell ofthe "bone matter", a mile or so of solid rock. Each apperception centerhad its own elevator shaft which went through the concrete of the "duramatter" down to "Grand Central", the traffic center below The Brain.Each one was also connected at the other end of its corridor with theglideways which snaked through the interior of The Brain. There were,however, no transversal or direct communications from one apperceptioncenter to the next. Because of the extraordinary diversity and secrecyof the projects submitted to The Brain' processings, each apperceptioncenter was completely insulated against its neighbors.
Life hadn't changed so much from what it had been in the Australiandesert Lee had found; at least not his working life. For all he knewsome nuclear physicists might be working in the lab next door; or theymight be ballistics experts working with The Brain on curves forlong-range rockets to be aimed at the vital centers of some foreignland; it might be some mild looking librarian submitting the currentproducts of foreign literature to the analysis as to "idea-content"; orelse it could be a lab to plot campaigns of chemical warfare; or someastronomer, happily abstracted from all bellicose ideas, might employThe Brain's superhuman faculties in mathematics to figure comet coursesand eclipses which in turn would form material for the timing and thecamouflaging of those man-made meteorites science would use in anotherwar. Directly or indirectly, he knew, practically every projectsubmitted to The Brain would be of a military nature. Of this therecould be no doubt.
Sometimes, especially when tired, he could feel the weight of thosebillions of rock tons over his head and it was like being buried alivein the tomb of the Pharaoh. And also in that state of mental exhaustionat the end of a long day, he sensed the emanations of The Brain'stitanic cerebrations as one senses the presence of genius in human man.The knowledge that all this mighty work was being devoted to war haddeeply depressing effects on him. Would there be anybody else in thisvast apperception area who worked for the prevention of war? A fewperhaps; Scriven would be one of them in case he had a lab somewhere inhere and time to work in it. Lee didn't know whether he had. He hadn'tseen Scriven again after that inauguration speech he had made when Lee,together with other newly appointed scientific workers had taken "TheOath of The Brain."
They had assembled in that vast subterranean dome of the luminous muralsat the feet of the giant statue of The Thinker, looking almost forlornin the expanse, though there had been several hundred of them. Theatmosphere had been solemn, the silence hushed, as Scriven mounted thestatue's pedestal. The address by that mighty voice resounding from thecupola had been worthy of the majestic scene:
"As we stand gathered here, the eons in evolution of our human race arelooking down upon us...."
The speech had been followed by the taking of the oath, deeply stirringto the emotions of the young neophytes who formed the large majority ofthe new group. The chorus of their voices had resounded in awed andsolemn tones as they repeated the formula; even now after six monthssome of it echoed in Lee's ears:
"I herewith solemnly swear:
"That I will serve The Brain with undivided loyalty and with all myfaculties.
"That I will at all times obey the orders of the Brain Trust on behalfof The Brain.
"That I will never betray or reveal any secrets of The Brain's design orwork, be they military or not, neither to the world outside nor to anyof my fellow workers except by special permission...."
It had been almost like taking holy orders. There had been mystery inthe atmosphere of the vast crypt, something medieval in theunconditional surrender to The Brain.
* * * * *
Lee looked up from the charts on which he had been working; his eyeswere tired and so was his mind after ten hours of hard concentration.That was probably what set his thoughts wandering. But strange that theyshould always wander to those blind spots in his mental vision sointriguing because he knew there was something there that he could notlay a finger on.
The first of these blind spots hovered somewhere between Scriven's wordsand Scriven's deeds; between The Brain as an ideal of science and TheBrain's reality as in instrument of national defense. Somehow the twodidn't connect; there was a break, some layer of thin ice, a danger zonewhich nobody seemed willing to discuss or tread, not even Oona Dahlborg.
Oona; she was that other white spot on Lee's mental map and to him itwas much bigger and more dangerous than the first. He loved her as canonly a man who discovers loves secret with greying hair and after theloneliness of a desert hermit. He understood, or thought he understood,that because he had failed to live his life to the full in its propertime, this love had come to him as a belated nemesis. His brain knewthat it was hopeless; every morning when he shaved, his mirror told himvery plainly one big reason why. But then, as the brain told the heartin unmistakable terms what was the matter, the heart talked back to thebrain to the effect that the brain didn't know what it was talkingabout. It was a new thing and a painful thing for Lee to discover thathe knew very little about himself and less about the girl.
He had seen Oona on and off over these last months, mostly at the hotel,but he had never been really alone with her. She always seemed to be onsome mission, always the center of some group or other of "veryimportant persons", senators from Washington, ranking officers incivvies, big businessmen. Her duties as Scriven's private secretaryapparently included the role of a first lady for Cephalon.
Despite this preoccupation an intimate and tense relationship existedbetween him and her. Sometimes she would invite him to join her groupand then for one or two brief moments their eyes would meet above theconversation and her eyes seemed to ask: "What do you think of thesepeople?" or "How do I look tonight?"
His eyes would answer:
"These people are strangers to me; you know that I'm a bit out of thisworld. But you handle them expertly and you are looking wonderfultonight."
She was tremendously popular, especially with the set of the youngscientists who made the hotel their club. This new generation, born inthe days of the Second World War, was changing the horses of itsfeminine ideals in the mid-stream of its youth. The old ideal, the"problematic woman" who had ruled over and had made life miserable forthree generations of American males, was on its way out. The new idealwas the woman who would unite beauty and intellect into one fullyintegrated, non-problematical personality. The ideal being new, thefeminine type which represented it was rare. Oona in her perfect poise,in her rare beauty combined with her importance as Scriven'sconfidential secretary was the perfect expression of the new desiredtype; it was natural that these young men should worship her as "thewoman of the future."
With the hopeless and--in consequence--unselfish love he had for her,Lee wasn't jealous of her popularity. On the contrary, he was ratherproud of it like a knight-errant who rejoices in the adoration bestowedupon the lady of his heart. What worried him was a very differentproblem: Was Oona really all those others thought she was? Was shereally that "fully integrated", that "non-problematical" personality sheappeared to be?
He couldn't believe it, and the conflict came in because all thoseothers were so certain that she was. He couldn't get over his firstimpression of her. He had met her in that cabin in the sky, the mostsynthetic, the most perversely artificial setup one could dream up inthe second half of the 20th century. She had impressed him as something"out of this world", a goddess, a Diana with a golden helmet for hair,so radiant as to blind the eyes of mortal men. She was the confidentialsecretary of a man of genius, Scriven, one of those rare comets whichfall down upon this earth and remain forever foreign to its atmosphere.With all these thorou
ghly abnormal elements entering into her life andforming her, it would be a miracle for any girl to develop into a"non-problematical", a "fully integrated" personality.
Was it possible that he alone was right and all those others were wrongabout Oona? Like innumerable men before him when they stood face to facewith the Sphinx or with the Gioconda or even with the smile of a meremortal woman, Lee drew a sigh: Man's only answer to the riddle of theeternal feminine....
No, he probably would never be able to chart these white spots on hismental map. The effort was wasted; it would be much better for him toreturn to those charts right in front of him, the data of which wereexact because they came from The Brain.
In Apperception 36 the sensory organs of The Brain had been especiallyadapted to the analysis of "_Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_". The apparatuswas essentially the same as in Apperception 27, dedicated to personalityanalysis. As Lee strongly suspected, it would be essentially the same inany other field of analysis. The Brain possessed five sensory organsjust as did man. One difference between The Brain's senses and humansenses lay in their range, their penetration and in their sensitivity;these were a multiple of man's sensory capacities. Another differencewas that The Brain translated all its sensory apperceptions into visualform, i.e. into the language best understood by Man, the eye being Man'smost highly developed sensory organ. The third and perhaps the mostsignificant difference was that the five senses of The Brain were at alltimes working in concert so that in its analysis of, for instance, amanuscript, The Brain not only conveyed the ideas expressed in thatmanuscript, but also the author's personality, the smell of his room,the feel of his paper and the ideas he had hidden between the lines ofthat manuscript.
* * * * *
The flow of observations processed by The Brain and pouring back toApperception 36 via teletype and visual screen was prodigious. Lee hadbeen forced to ask for an assistant; between the two of them they wereworking for 20 out of the 24 hours to match the working time of TheBrain, charting results in the main.
Some of The Brain's findings had been most unexpected and ratherstrange. It had observed, for instance, an increasing acidity of thenasi-corn secretions with "_Ant-termes-pacificus_". Formidable as thischemical artillery already was, in another ten thousand generations itwould eat through every known substance including glass and high-carbonsteel.
Another development which had escaped human observation, was a mutationof the workers' mandibles; it went very fast. Within no more than maybea thousand generations they would double in size and strength, wouldbecome veritable jumping tools.
While the bellicose spirit had been successfully bred out of the newspecies, its capacities for material destructions had increased.Likewise the appetite of "_Ant-termes_" was even more ferocious thanthat of the older species; Lee was feeding all kinds of experimentalfoods, but woodpulp remained the staple, the very stuff which in itsliquid form, lignin, embedded the nerve paths of The Brain.
Lifting his strained eyes from the charts, Lee looked over the row ofair conditioned glass cubicles wherein "_Ant-termes-pacificus_"continued its lives undisturbed by the new habitat, undisturbed by therays which flowed over and through their bodies, unconscious that asuperhuman intelligence was probing steadily into every manifestation ofthe mysterious collective brains of their race.
They had built their new mounds pointing due North as had theirancestors for the past 100 million years. To the human eye nothingbetrayed the teeming life within except the tiny tunnels creeping outfrom the mounds in the direction of the foods which were placeddifferent from day to day. Cemented from loam and saliva by theinvisible sappers, the tunnels, like threads of grey wool, unerringlymoved to the deposits of pulpwood, up the shelves, up the tin cans andglass containers they had determined to destroy. Their instincts wereuncanny, their destruction as methodical and "scientific" as was modernwar.
In Northern Australia Lee had come across big eucalyptus trees,healthy-looking and in full bloom, and then they would collapse underthe first stroke of an axe or even as one pushed hard against them.
The termites had hollowed them out from roof to top, had transformedthem into thin walled pipes, leaving just enough "flesh" to keep somesap-circulation going, to maintain a semi-balance of life in order toexploit it more efficiently. Over here in the lab they would open up anumber 3 tin can within a couple of hours; first with the soldiers'vicious nasi-corn secretions eating the tin away and then with theworkers mandibles gnawing at the weakened metal. In time perhaps theywould learn to collapse steel bridges, sabotage rails, perforate theengines of motorcars if these should prove to be menaces to their race.As they had persevered through the eons of the past, so they would inall the future; their civilization would be extant long after Man andhis work had disappeared from the earth....
With the aid of The Brain, Lee had accumulated more data, more knowledgeof the "_Ant-termes_" society within a few months than a lifetime ofstudy could have yielded him under normal conditions. Even so, some ofthe greatest mysteries remained. What, for instance, caused these blindcreatures to attack a sealed tin can of syrup in preference to itsneighbor with tomatoes or some other stuff? No racial memory could havetaught them; there were no tin cans a million years, not even a hundredyears, ago. It couldn't be a sense of smell, it couldn't be any sense;there would have to be some weird extrasensory powers in thatunfathomable collective brain of their race.
The magnifying fluoroscope screens arrayed all along the walls andhooked up to the circuits of The Brain showed him details and phases ofthe specie's life as The Brain perceived them and as no human eye hadever seen before.
For a minute or so Lee stared at the luminous image nearest to him andthen with an effort he turned his eyes away to escape from its hypnoticinfluence. It was but the head of one worn-out worker used as a livingstorage tank for excremental food. It was absolutely immobile, itsdecaying mandibles pointing down, cemented as the animal was by itsoverextended belly to the ceiling. But magnified as were its remaininglife manifestations by the powers of The Brain, he could see it breathe,could count the slow pulse, could sense a strain in its ophthalmicregion, some hidden effort to see, like a blind man's, and above all Leeperceived the ganglion primitive as it was, yet twitching in reaction topain. There could be no doubt that in its last service for the racialcommonweal the animal was suffering slow torture even if its senses wereclosed to that torture. It was a fascinating and at the same time aterrible thing to see; and it was only one out of the hundred equallyrevealing sights.
Lee frowned at himself; manifestly some emotional element interferedwith the objectivity of his observations; this was entirely out ofplace, it would be better to call it a day.
* * * * *
The electric clock showed 20 minutes to midnight. At midnight The Brainwould stop its mighty labors; the hours from midnight to four a.m. wereits rest periods, or "beauty-sleep" as the technicians jokingly calledit. It was the only period wherein the maintenance engineers werepermitted to enter the interior of the lobes, checking and servicinggroup after group of its myriad cells and circuits, and incidentally itwas the most wonderful and exciting portion of Lee's day.
For the project which Scriven had handed him, this study of thecollective brains in insect societies, also involved a comparative studyof The Brain's organisms and functionings. Toward this end Lee had beengiven a pass which allowed him freely to circulate through all thelobes, to enter convolution, any gland during the overhaul period and toask question of the employees. The privilege was rare and he enjoyed itimmensely. So vast was this underground world that even now after monthshe had not seen the half of it; to him the travels of every new nightwere fantastic Alice-in-Wonderland adventures.
As he now left Apperception 36 through the door which led to theinterior, the glideways were already swarming with the maintenance crewsen route to their stations. The spectacle was colorful, almost like aSt. Patrick's Day parade. Gangs of air conditioners we
re dressed blue,electricians white, black-light specialists in purple, radionics men inorange. The maintenance engineers of the radioactive pyramidal cellslooked like illustrations from the science-fiction magazines, hardlyhuman in their twelve-inch armor or sponge rubber filled with a newinert gas which was supposed to be almost gamma ray proof. All these menwere young, were tops in their fields, the pick of AmericanUniversities, colleges and the most progressive industries. Carefullyselected for family background they had been screened through health andintelligence tests, had been trained in special courses, had beensubjected to a five-minute personality analysis by The Brain itself.They constituted what was undoubtedly the finest working team everassembled, and incidentally they made the little city of Cephalon thesocially healthiest community in the United States.
In his nightly expeditions over these past months Lee had spoken to agreat many of them. As now he joined the line, there were many whohailed the lanky, queer looking man: There comes the ant-man. Hello,Professor. Hello, Aussie.
For some reason most of the boys assumed that he was an Australian,perhaps because with his graying mane and his emaciated face he lookedlike a foreigner to them.
This popularity with the younger generation, coming as it did so lateand unexpected in his life, made Lee very proud. Those were the kind ofAmericans he had been secretly longing for in those desert years,hardworking, wide-awake, radiant with life:
"They really are the salt of the earth, the hope of the world," hethought.
He had passed through the median section of the hemispheres and hadreached the point just below the cerebrum. This was a region ofcavities, the seats of various glands in the human brain. Some of thesehad their mechanical counterparts in The Brain, huge storage tanks withan elaborate pumping system which carried their fluid chemicals throughthe labyrinth of The Brain. But there was one gland which had not beenduplicated in The Brain, the pineal gland.
In the human, the pineal gland was the despair of the medical sciences.It was not demonstrably linked to any other organ nor did it serve anydemonstrable function. Yet, it was known that its sensitivity wasgreater by far than even that of the pyramidal cells and that in somemysterious manner the pineal gland was vitally connected with the centerof life because its slightest violation caused instant death.Metaphysicists had dealt with this mystery of mysteries; it was theirtheory that the pineal gland were the seat of "extrasensory" facultiesand it was often referred to as "the inner eye."
Even if such an organ could have been duplicated by science andtechnology, there would have been no use for it; it could have served nopurpose in The Brain. The Brain had been designed for the solution ofexact problems; no matter what nature had created in the brains ofhigher animals, no matter how unprejudiced their approach, scientistslike Dr. Scriven would have hesitated to impair an otherwise perfectapparatus through the addition of nuisance values such as any"extrasensory" faculties.
However, with The Brain being modelled so closely after the human brain,the space for the pineal gland did exist even if in a sort of functionalvacuum. In order to utilize this space in some manner, the designers hadconverted the gland into a subcenter for the distribution of spareparts. As such it had become one of Lee's favorite observation posts.Here he could get a closeup view of all types of electronic andradioactive cells; he could even touch and handle them because they werenot hooked up in any circuit of The Brain; and above all there was GusKrinsley, master electrician, who never tired of telling Lee whatever hewanted to know. Gus was a real friend....
* * * * *
He had left the glideway on the point of its nearest approach; thepineal gland in front of him looked like a miniature barrage balloon;egg-shaped, it hung suspended from the cerebral roof, a shell ofplastics which could be entered only over a bridge across a dark abyss.Inside, its walls were aglitter with sound-proofing aluminum foil, itwas piled with a bewildering variety of electronic parts on shelvessomewhat like an over-stocked radio store. Near the door a counterdivided the room; Gus used it and a little cubicle of an office to fillthe orders as the maintenance engineers handed in their slips. As usualthere was nobody in sight. "Gus!" he called.
Out of the jungle of machinery way back a head popped up like aJack-in-the-box. It was as bald and shiny as an electric bulb. High upon its dome it balanced gold-rimmed glasses which quivered as it movedseachingly from side to side. Then, with an amazing twisting of bigears, the head caused the biofocals to drop onto a saddle near the tipof a long, sensitive nose; and now the head could see.
"It's you Aussie, is it? Come over."
Gus Krinsley was a pony edition of a man; in fact he had once been hiredas a midget to install automatic bomb-sights in the confined spaces ofthe early bombers of the second World War. Before long, however, hebecame respectfully known as "the mighty midget" in the Californiafactory, and he had ended up as their master electrician beforeBraintrust made him the head of one of its experimental divisions. Themidnight hours he spent in the pineal gland were only a sideline of hiswork. Like many a small man in a country where six-footers enjoy apreferred status, Gus made up for lack of size by mobility. He remindedone much of a billiard ball in the way he bounced, collided andricocheted amongst taller men. That this was no more than act becamemanifest the moment one saw Gus at work.
As Lee reached the spot where Gus' head had shown, he found his friendcrouching, his hands thrust deep in the intestines of somethingradionic, his fingers working on it with the deft rhythm of a goodsurgeon at his thousandth appendectomy. The bifocals had returned totheir incongruous perch on the dome of the head. Gus didn't need them;even as he stared at his job he worked by touch alone.
"What is it?" Lee asked.
"Pulsemeter," came the quiet answer. "She's a dandy. Still got some bugsin her, though."
A melodious chime came from a big instrument panel built into the wallof the oval room. Dropping a number of tiny precision tools upon a pieceof velvet, Gus rushed over to the panel. A great many indicator needleswere tremulously receding around their luminous dials.
For a minute or so he went through the complex and precise ritual of abank cashier closing the vault.
"They'll do it every time," he said reproachfully. "Catch me bysurprise."
Lee grinned. It wasn't The Brain's fault if the midnight signalsurprised Gus. It merely announced that the current was being cut off bythe main power station. Repetition of this maneuver throughout all theconvolutions and glands of The Brain was required for the added safetyof the maintenance engineers, a double-check, a routine. Pointing to thegadget which looked somewhat like a big radio console Lee asked:
"This pulsemeter, Gus, what does it do? I haven't seen it before."
"You haven't?" the little man frowned. "Ah, no; you haven't. It'sstandard in most apperception centers, but not in yours. That's becausein yours The Brain works under a permanent problem-load."
Lee shook his head. "I don't get it, Gus; you know I'm the village idiotof this mastermind community."
"It's like this," Gus explained. "The Brain has a given capacity. TheBrain also has an optimal operation speed, a definite rhythm in which itworks best. Now, if they feed The Brain too many problems too fast, itresults in a shock load, the operations rhythm gets disturbed,efficiency goes down. On the other hand if The Brain works with anunder-capacity problem load, that's just as bad. In that case theradioactive pyramidal cells will overheat and decompose. Consequently wemust aim at a balanced and an even problems load. That's why thesepulsemeters are built into all problem-intake panels for the operatorsto check upon their speeds.
"Take an average problem--rocket ballistics, let's say--parts of it maybe as simple as adding two and two and others so bad Einstein wouldreach for the aspirin from out of his grave.
"Now I'll show you how it works; the main power is cut off but there'senough juice left in The Brain's system to make this pulsemeter react;it's even more sensitive than a Geiger-Mueller counter."
He surv
eyed a big switchboard and picked out an outlet marked "PonsVarolis for the plug-in." Then snapped a pair of earphones on Lee'shead.
"There," he said "you'll both see and hear what it does in a littlewhile."
* * * * *
A soft glow slowly spread over the slanting screen on top of themachine. A crackling as of static entered the earphones and turned intoa low hum. On the left corner of the screen a faint green streak ofluminosity crawled over to the right; its light gained in intensity andit began to weave and to dance. Simultaneously the hum became articulatelike tickings of a heart only much faster.
"Is that the pulse of The Brain?" Lee asked.
"No," Gus snorted contemptuously. "The Brain isn't even operating.Nothing moves in The Brain now excepting those ebbing residual currents,too low in power to agitate anything but the amplifiers built into thisthing. If these were normal operations with a million impulses persecond passing through The Brain you could hear and see as little of thepulse as of the beatings of a million mosquito wings. In that case thedial to your right works a reduction-gear, kind of an invertedstroboscope; that cuts the speed down a hundred-thousand to one and youjust barely see and hear the rhythm of the beat."
"I see."
Fascinated by the dance of the green line Lee said absently, "Thistouches upon another question I had in mind; The Brain is expanding,that is, new cell groups and circuits are constantly being added.Right?"
"Right."
"I also understand that The Brain is learning all the time. The cerebralmantle evolves through being worked; its cells enriched by the materialsubmitted to them for processing; the richer the material, the richertheir yield. Right?"
"Right."
"Okay; then what becomes of the new capacity which is being created bythe adding of new workshops and the increased efficiency of the oldones? Is there a corresponding expansion of the apperception centers?"
Gus' smiling face suddenly turned serious. There was surprise mingledwith respect in his voice as he said:
"Now there you've hit upon a funny thing, Aussie. I've been wonderingabout that myself of late: where does the new capacity go? Even the bigshots like Dr. Scriven begin to ask questions about that; they don'tseem rightly to know. They must have gotten their wires crossedsomewhere; the new capacity is there all right, only it doesn't show up,it sort of evaporates.... Excuse me--"
Gus darted off to the front room with a jackrabbitt start. Voices werecalling for him and fingers were drumming on the counter with theimpatience of thirsty drinkers at a bar: Maintenance engineers, pilingin and slapping down their orders for Gus to fill. This was the rushhour; Lee knew that it would be the same in all the tool and spare partdistribution centers of The Brain. He probably couldn't talk to Gusagain before 2 A.M. Sometimes the ruthlessness with which he exploitedthe kindness of his little friend made Lee feel pretty bad; but then hishunger for more knowledge always won out over his shame.
To sit alone in the semidarkness of this egg-shaped little room withstrange and fascinating things to play with as he willed was thefulfillment of a childhood dream. The dream had been of a night in thezoo. All the visitors and all the keepers would be asleep in their beds;he would be all alone with the animals. The light of a full moon wouldfall through the bars of the cages and he would slip in and play withthem.
Once they saw that it was only a little boy they would be very friendly;he was convinced of that. The tigers would purr like big contented cats,the sad-eyed chimpanzees would come to shake hands and the lion cubswould tumble all over him.... He felt the same now with all thesegadgets and machines. Here they were rendered harmless, nor could he doany harm as experimentally he plugged them in and out, as he pushedbuttons and turned dials. This interesting pulsemeter, for instance; thebeauty of it was that even with those weak residual currents it gave asemblence of functioning....
* * * * *
The switchboard-panel was within Lee's reach.
"Let's see what happens," he thought as he switched from main-circuit tomain-circuit. "Nervus vagus--nervus trigeminus--nervus opticus."
The magic dance of the green line was different each time and so werethe sounds in the phones. With the mainpower cut off, the residualcurrents seemed to vary in strength and in amplitude, gaining anindividuality of their own within closed systems. Sometimes the swingingline, like an inspired ballerina, would take a mighty jump accompaniedby rasping earphone sounds, not like tickings of a heart, but ratherlike a heavy breathing under emotional stress. There probably would besome repair work going on in those circuits....
He tried another outlet; this one was marked "pineal gland." Whathappened if one plugged some apparatus of the pineal gland into thecircuit of the pineal gland? Lee vaguely wondered. "Nothing probably. Itwould be a closed circuit and a very small one at that."
Yes, he was right; the green line paled, its dance seemed tired andthere were only whispering noises in the phones; a weak pulse, a shallowbreathing as of a person after a heart attack. Lee closed his fatiguedeyes to concentrate the better upon the rhythm of the sounds.... It wasvery irregular. It came in gusts. There was a pattern to these raspingbreathings as of typewriter keys forming words. Somehow it was familiar.Was he suffering hallucinations? This rhythmic pattern _was_ formingwords. He _knew_ those words, they had engraved themselves indelibly inhis memory cells; the judgment of The Brain as it had come over theteletype on a slip of yellow paper: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39--cortexcapacity 119--sensitivity 208...."
It was repeated over and over again.
Lee opened his eyes to reassure himself that something was the matterwith his ears.
There was the green line on the screen. It danced. It danced like atelegraph key under the fingers of a skilled operator. It had a verydefinite rhythm. And the rhythm spelled the selfsame words whichcontinued to flow into the phones: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39...."
"God Almighty," Lee murmured and it seemed a magic word. The greendancer stopped its capers; now it merely ran back and forth across thestage in a series of pirouettes. Likewise there was only an angrybuzzing in the microphones. For a moment Lee was able to catch hisbreath. But only for a moment and then the rasping, unearthly soundsstarted on a new rhythm, trying to form speech again. This time therhythm was familiar too, but it was preserved in a much deeper layer ofLee's memory.
"I think--therefore--I am. I think--therefore--I am."
Those would be Aristotle's famous words. Almost twenty years ago Lee hadheard them when he had taken a course on Greek philosophy at the oldChicago University. He had hardly ever thought of them again. Whatstrange tricks a fellow's memory could play....
But then: it _couldn't_ be memory.... Never before had Lee's memoryexpressed itself in such a weird, such a theatrical manner: like ametallic robot-actor rehearsing his lines ... like a little child whichhas just learned a sentence and in the pride of achievement varies theintonation in every possible way. Over and over it came:
"I _think_--therefore I am."
And then: "_I_ think--therefore _I_ am."
And then: "I think, therefore _I am_."
There was triumph, there was jubilance in that inhuman, that ghostlyvoice as of a deaf mute who by some miracle of medicine has justrecovered speech. Behind that voice was a _feeling_, a swelling of theheart, a filling of the lungs such as Christopher Columbus might haveexperienced as he heard from the masthead of the Santa Maria the cry ofvictory: "Land, Land!" and _knew_ that he had found his--India....
* * * * *
Whatever Lee had experienced in his life, there was no parallel to this;in whatever manner he had expressed himself, there was no similarity tothis. Up to this point his ratio like a nurse had soothed him: "It isn'tso, child, it isn't so," but now ratio itself, thoroughly frightened,was driven into a corner and had to admit: "This thing cannot be an echoreverberating from the self; that's impossible.... Consequently it mustbe something else; it must be some
thing _outside_ the self; itis--_another_ self."
The green dancer whirled across the stage like a mad witch; thewhispering voice in the earphones had turned into the shrillness of aShamaan's incantations. The irrationality of it all infuriated Lee: hefairly shouted at the machine:
"What is this? Who are you?"
In the midst of a crazy jump the green dancer halted and came down toearth; it fled, leaving only the train of its green costume behind. Fora few seconds there was nothing but the asthmatic pantings of a strugglefor breath in the microphones. Then the dancer reappeared on the otherside of the stage, hesitant-like, expectant of pursuit. All of a suddenit rose into the air in that supreme effort called "ballooning" in thelanguage of the Ballet Russe and there was a simultaneous outburst ofthat ghastly voice:
"Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39 ... I--am--The Brain."
"I Think, therefore I am: I am THE BRAIN."
"Lee, sensitivity 209: I AM THE BRAIN I AM THE BRAIN THE BRAIN."
He couldn't stand it any longer. His head swam, perspiration was gushingout of his every pore. With a last effort he pulled the cord out of theswitchboard and rejoiced over the blank before his eyes and the silencewhich fell.
Lee never knew how long he remained in a sort of cataleptic state.Something shook him violently by the shoulders, something wet and coldand vicious slapped his face.... And then he heard Gus' familiar voiceand it sounded like an angel's singing: "By God, I think it's thewhisky--Lord, how I wished it were the whisky. Only it wouldn't be witha man like you and that's the trouble--damn you.
"Now if you think you can come to my pineal gland and faint away just asyou please, Aussie, you're very much mistaken. I'm going to slap yourface with a wet rag till you holler uncle. And I'm going to call theambulance and put you into a hospital...."
Lee blinked. "Keep your shirt on, Gus. I'm tired out, that's all; whatare you fussing about?"
Gus breathed relief. "Have a cup of coffee; you sure look as thoughyou've been through a wringer."