that I was taught, and I wastaught through the self-same five sensory channel."
"Um-m-m."
"Good. Just plain 'Um-m-m.' Now we shall shut off the Terran's channelsof communication until he consents as an alternative. This, Huvane,hasn't been tried before. It may bring us the final important bit ofinformation."
* * * * *
Slowly the lights went out. Jerry Markham was prepared for darkisolation, he could do nothing about it so he accepted it by the simpleprocess of assuring himself that things were going to get worse beforethey got better.
The darkness became--absolute. Utter. Complete. Not even the dots andwhorls and specks that are technically called "Visual noise" occurred. Alevel of mental alertness niggled at him; for nearly twenty-four yearsit had been a busy little chunk of his mind. It was that section thatinspected the data for important program material and decided which wastrivial and which was worthy of the Big Boy's attention. Now it was outof a job because there wasn't even a faint background count ofplateau-noise to occupy its attention.
The silence grew--vast. Brain said that the solid walls were no morethan ten feet from him; ears said that he was in the precise middle ofabsolutely nowhere. Feeling said that the floor was under his feet, earssaid that upward pressure touched his soles. Deeper grew the deadeningof his ears, and orientation was lost. Feeling remained and he felt hisheart beating in a hunting rhythm because the sound-feedback through theear was gone, and the hortator had lost his audible beat.
Feeling died and he knew not whether he stood or sat or floated askew.Feeling died and with it went that delicate motor control that directsthe position of muscle and limb and enables a man to place his littlefinger on the tip of his nose with his eyes closed.
Aside from the presence of foreign matter, the taste of a clean mouthis--tasteless. The term is relative. Jerry Markham learned what realtastelessness was. It was flat and blank and--nothingness.
Chemists tell us that air is tasteless, colorless, and odorless, butwhen sense is gone abruptly one realizes that the air does indeed haveits aroma.
In an unemployed body the primitive sensors of the mind had nothing todo, and like a man trained to busy-ness, loafing was their hardest task.Gone was every sensory stimulus. His heart pumped from habit, notcontrolled by the feedback of sound or feeling. He breathed, but he didnot hear the inrush of air. Brain told him to be careful of his mouth,the sharp teeth could bite the dead tongue and he could bleed to deathnever feeling pain nor even the swift flow of salty warmth.Habit-trained nerves caused a false tickle in his throat; he never knewwhether he coughed or whether he thought that he coughed.
The sense of time deserted him when the metronome of heartbeat died.Determined Brain compromised by assuming that crude time could be keptby the function of hunger, elimination, weariness. Logical Brain pointedout that he could starve to death and feel nothing; elimination was asensory thing no more; weariness was of the body that brought noinformation anyway--and what, indeed was sleep?
Brain considered this question. Brain said, I am Jerry Markham. But isit true that no brain can think of nothing? Is it possible that "Sleep"is the condition that obtains when the body stops conveying reliableinformation to the brain, and then says to Hell with Everything anddecides to stop thinking?
The Brain called Jerry Markham did not stop thinking. It lost its timesense, but not completely. A period of time passed, a whirlwind ofthoughts and dreamlike actions went on, and then calmness came for awhile.
Dreams? Now ponder the big question. Does the brain dream the dream as asensory experience--or is a dream no more than a sequence of assortedmemories? Would a dying brain expire in pleasure during a pleasantdream--or is the enjoyment of a pleasant dream only available to theafter-awakened brain?
What is Man but his Memories?
* * * * *
In one very odd manner, the brain of Jerry Markham retained itsintellectual orientation, and realized that its physical orientation wasuncontrollable and undetectable and therefore of no importance. Like thelighthouse keeper who could not sleep when the diaphone did notwrneeee-hrnawwww for five seconds of each and every minute, JerryMarkham's brain was filled with a mild concern about the total lack ofunimportant but habitual data. There was no speckle of light to classifyand ignore, no susurrus of air molecules raining against the eardrum.Blankness replaced the smell and taste and their absence was asdisturbing as a pungence or a poison. And, of course, one should feelsomething if it is no more than the tonus of muscle against the mobilebones.
Communication is the prime drive of life. Cut off from externalcommunication entirely, section A, bay 6, tier 9, row 13 holleredover to box Q, line 23, aisle F and wanted to know what was goingon. The gang on the upper deck hailed the boiler room, and thecrew in the bleacher seats reported that the folks in charge ofC.I.C.--Communication Information Center--were sitting on their handsbecause they didn't have anything to do. One collection of bored braincells stirred. They hadn't been called upon since Jerry Markham sang"_Adeste Fidelis_" in memorized Latin some fifteen years earlier and sothey started the claque. Like an auditorium full of people impatientbecause the curtain had not gone up on time, bedlam broke loose.
Bedlam is subject to the laws of periodicity, stochastic analysis, andwith some rather brilliant manipulation it can be reduced to a FourierSeries. Fourier says that Maxwell is right and goes on to define exactlywhen, in a series of combined periodicities of apparently random motion,all the little particles will be moving in the same direction.Stochastic analysis says that if the letter "U" follows the letter "Q"in most cases, words beginning with "Q" will have "U" for a secondletter.
Jerry Markham began to think. Isolated and alone, prisoner in the cellof bone, with absolutely nothing to distract him, the Brain by commonconsent pounded a gavel, held a conference, appointed a chairman andsettled down to do the one job that the Brain was assembled to do. Inunison, ten to the sixteenth storage cells turned butter side up at thesingle wave of a mental flag.
He thought of his father and his mother; of his Sally. He thought of hiscommanding officer and of the fellows he liked and disliked. Theprimitive urge to communicate was upon him, because he must firstestablish communication before he could rise from the stony mineralstage to the exalted level of a vegetable. Bereft of his normal senses,undistracted by trivia such as noise and pain and the inestimablevastness of information bits that must be considered and evaluated, hisbrain called upon his memory and provided the background details.
The measured tread of a company of marching soldiers can wreck a bridge.
The cadence of ten to the sixteenth brain cells, undivided by thedistraction of incoming information, broke down a mental barrier.
As vividly as the living truth, Jerry Markham envisioned himselfsauntering down the sidewalk. The breeze was on his face and thepavement was beneath his feet, the air was laden with its myriad ofsmells and the flavor of a cigarette was on his tongue. His eyes sawSally running toward him, her cry of greeting was a welcome sound andthe pressure of her hug was strong and physical as the taste of herlips.
Real.
She hugged his arm and said, "Your folks are waiting."
Jerry laughed. "Let the general wait a bit longer," he said. "I've got alot to tell him."
* * * * *
Huvane said, "Gone!" and the sound of his voice re-echoed back and forthacross the empty cell.
"Gone," repeated Chelan. "Utterly incomprehensible, but none the less afact. But how--? Isolated, alone, imprisoned--cut off from allcommunication. All communication--?"
"I'll get another specimen, chief."
Chelan shook his head. "Seven times we've slapped them down. Seven timeswe've watched their rise--and wondered how they did it. Seven times theywould have surpassed us if we hadn't blocked them. Let them rise, letthem run the Universe. They're determined to do that anyway. And now Ithink it's time for us to stop annoying our betters. I'
d hate to facethem if they were angry."
"But chief, he was cut off from all communication--?"
"Obviously," said Chelan, "not!"
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ March 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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