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+THE BRAIN
+
+                          By Alexander Blade
+
+[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories October
+1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Repairs had to be made in great haste, at night, while
+The Brain's machines slept]
+
+[Sidenote: America's greatest weapon, greater than the Atom Bomb, was
+its new, gigantic mechanical brain. It filled a whole mountain--and then
+it came to life...!]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Cautiously the young flight engineer stretched his cramped legs across
+some gadgets in his crowded little compartment. Leaning back in his
+swivel chair he folded a pair of freckled hands behind his neck and
+smiled at Lee.
+
+"This is it doctor; we're almost there."
+
+The tall and lanky man at the frame of the door didn't seem to
+understand. Bending forward he peered through the little window near the
+engineer's desk, into the blue haze of the jets and down to the earth
+below, a vast bowl of desert land gleaming like silver in the glow of
+the sunrise.
+
+"But this couldn't possibly be Washington," he finally said in a puzzled
+tone. "Why, we crossed the California coast only half an hour ago. Even
+at 1200 miles an hour we couldn't be almost there."
+
+The engineer's smile broadened into a friendly grin: "No, we're not
+anywhere near Washington. But in a couple of minutes you'll see Cephalon
+and that's as far as we go. One professor and 15 tons of termites to be
+flown from Wallabawalla Mission station, Northern Territory, Australia,
+to Cephalon, Arizona, U.S.A., one way direct. Those are our
+instructions. Say, this is the queerest cargo I've ever flown, doctor,
+if you don't mind my saying so."
+
+Lee blinked. Removing his glasses which were fairly thick, he wiped them
+carefully and put them on again as if to get a clearer picture of an
+unexpected situation. His long fingered hand went through his greying
+hair and then down the cheek which was sallow, stained with the atabrine
+from his latest malaria attack and badly in need of a shave. His mouth
+formed a big "O" of surprise as nervously he said:
+
+"I don't get it. I don't understand this business at all. First the
+Department of Agriculture extends an urgent letter of invitation to a
+completely forgotten man out there in the Never-Never land. Then almost
+on the heels of the letter the government sends a plane. I would have
+been glad to mail to the Department samples of "Ant-termes Pacificus"
+sufficient for most scientific purposes if they needed them for
+experiments in termite control; that would have been the simple and the
+sensible thing to do. But no, they want everything I have; you fellows
+drop out of the sky with a sort of habeas corpus and a whole wrecking
+crew. You disturb the lives of my species, which took me ten years to
+breed; you pack up their mounds lock, stock and barrel. And then you
+drop me at some place I never even heard about--Cephalon. What is this
+Cephalon, anyway? If the place had any connotations to entomology, I
+would have known about it...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The flight engineer glanced at the irritated scientist curiously and
+sympathetically: "If you don't know, I couldn't tell you what it's all
+about myself, I'm sure," he said slowly. "Cephalon--Cephalon is a place
+alright, but it doesn't show on the map. Sort of a Shangri-la, if you
+know what I mean."
+
+This cryptic statement failed to have a calming effect on Lee.
+"Nonsense," he frowned. "If it is an inhabited place it must be on the
+map and if it isn't on the map the place doesn't exist."
+
+"Look here," the flight engineer pointed through the window to the
+horizon ahead. "What do you think this is, doctor, a mirage?"
+
+Lee stared at the apparition which swiftly materialized out of the
+ground haze at the plane's supersonic speed. "It _does_ look like a
+mirage," he said judiciously. "Is that Cephalon?"
+
+The engineer nodded. "Prettiest little town in the U. S. for my money.
+Ideal airport, too. Rather unusual though--I mean the architecture. Take
+a good look while we're circling around for the come-in signal."
+
+Pretty and unusual were hardly the words for it, Lee thought, as he
+gazed in admiration. Below, Cephalon spread like a visionary's dream of
+a far-away future blended with a far-away past. Along wide, palm shaded
+avenues the flat-roofed terraced houses fanned out into the desert.
+Style elements of ancient Peru and Mexico were blended together with the
+latest advances of technology, such as the rectangular sheets of water
+which covered and cooled the roofs. The business center, dotted with
+helicopter landing fields on top of the pyramidal buildings, was
+reminiscent of the classic Babylon and Nineveh. At the center of the
+man-made oasis a huge fortress-like structure sprawled and towered like
+a seven-pointed star. Even so, for all its impressiveness of masonry,
+the lush green of its parks, the bursts of color from its hanging
+gardens, made Cephalon resemble one enormous flower bed.
+
+Overawed and mystified the lone passenger from Down-Under took in the
+scene while the big plane circled with diminished speed. "It's
+beautiful," he murmered. "It's a dream." And louder then: "Pardon me if
+I find it hard to trust my senses. I've been away from home for more
+than ten years, to be sure. But then, even in the Australian bush I've
+received some periodicals and scientific journals from the U.S.A. Surely
+if a city like this has been built during my absence there should have
+been mention of the fact. And surely a city like this must show on some
+map. I don't understand. The longer I look the less I understand...."
+
+The flight engineer shrugged. "It's a new city, maybe that's why it
+doesn't show."
+
+Lee nodded. "In that case you must know the meaning of all this. Why did
+they build this city in the middle of the desert? What purpose does it
+serve? Why am I here? Why are we circling for so long? There don't seem
+to be any other planes up in the air."
+
+"We cannot come in until our cargo has been examined and okayed," the
+engineer said.
+
+Lee raised a pair of heavy and untidy brows: "Cargo examination? In
+mid-air and with nobody from the ground examining it?"
+
+"That's it. It's being done by Radar, one of the new fangled kinds, you
+know." He grinned: "I hope, doctor, that your termite species is neither
+explosive nor fissionable in any way. Because in that case we could
+never make a landing in Cephalon."
+
+"How utterly absurd," Lee said disgustedly. "Even a child would know
+better. There is no war going on--or is there? What makes them take such
+absurd precautions?"
+
+The engineer narrowed his eyes. "You're an American, Dr. Lee, aren't
+you? Well, in any case, I can see no reason why I should be beating
+about the bush. After all, every foreign agent in this country must have
+learned by now about the existence of Cephalon. It's too big to be
+secret anyway. Besides, as you perceive, no attempt has been made to
+camouflage the place. Cephalon and the whole district takes up about a
+thousand square miles. It's a military preserve. Only you don't see any
+Brass. What they are doing, I wouldn't know, but I would rather try to
+rob all the gold from Fort Knox than get away with a single scrap of
+paper from that Braintrust Building in the center of the city over
+there. By the way, that skull shaped building right across the Plaza is
+the official hotel reserved for very important persons, such as you are
+listed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A deep-throated buzz over the intercom interrupted him. "There, thank
+God, they finally made up their minds to let us in. One minute more and
+then a shower, a shave, bacon and eggs, and lots of Java!"
+
+There were what appeared to Lee to be a multitude of people waiting as
+they landed. Eager and intelligent white faces all lifted up to him and
+pressed forward with bewildering offerings and requests. A Western Union
+messenger handed him a telegram in which one Dr. Howard K. Scriven
+proffered greetings, expressing a desire to interview him. Some cleancut
+youngster, obviously a scientific worker, assured Lee that he was fully
+familiar with the care and feeding of "_Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_", that
+Lee need not concern himself about their welfare, that the mounds would
+be immediately transferred to Experimental Station 19 G. The "Flying
+Wing's" supercargo and two truck-drivers came forward with papers for
+Lee to sign, as the first of the heavy steelboxes which harbored the
+mounds were lowered into a van with the whine of an electric hoist.
+Meanwhile somebody who said he was an assistant manager of the Cranium
+hotel informed Lee that reservations had been made for him and that he
+had a car waiting to conduct Dr. Lee to his suite. It was all very
+mysterious, but efficient. Feeling more and more like some prize exhibit
+handled without a will of its own on a whirlwind tour, Lee allowed
+himself to be whisked from the airport to the hotel. With the din of the
+jets still in his ears, overpowered by impressions which crowded his
+senses from all sides, he listened politely to the hotel manager's
+explanations of the sights without understanding a word of them.
+
+There were flowers in his suite, the carpets were deeper, the bathtub
+was bigger, the towels piled higher, the breakfast more abundantly rich
+than anything Lee could remember in the 38 years of his life. "So this
+is America in 1960," he thought. "It must have advanced by leaps and by
+bounds over these past ten years."
+
+He felt embarrassed because he had almost forgotten the uses of all
+those comforts, and at the same time deeply moved over the way they
+embraced him, him, the lost son, the voluntary exile who once had turned
+his back on them in despair and disgust. But why was all this? He had
+done nothing to deserve this kind of hospitality. Entomologists as a
+rule were not transported by magic carpets into Arabian Nights for
+modest achievements such as the discovery of a new species. All the
+things which had happened within the last 24 hours were riddles wrapped
+up in enigmas. Fatigued as he was he couldn't lie down, he was
+desperately resolved to get at the bottom of this thing.
+
+There came a buzz from the telephone. A soft and melodious contralto
+voice announced that its carrier was Dr. Howard K. Scriven's secretary
+and would Dr. Lee be good enough to come over to the Braintrust Building
+to meet Dr. Scriven at 9:30 A.M.? Lee said that he would.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The distance across the Plaza was short enough, but as Lee entered the
+hall of the huge concrete pyramid he was reminded of Washington's
+Pentagon in wartime, for his progress was halted right from the start
+and at more than one point. He had to line up at the receptionist's, he
+was being checked over the phone, a pass was handed to him, and
+somebody, obviously a plain-clothes man, took him to the express
+elevator which shot him up to the 40th floor.
+
+There, another plain-clothes man conducted Lee through a long carpeted
+corridor and up one flight of stairs to a steel door which slid open
+automatically at their approach. Sunlight was flooding through its frame
+as Lee followed the guard and the door closed noiselessly behind them.
+
+The man from Down-Under took a deep breath. He had not expected this for
+it was not a stepping in, but rather a stepping out from a vast tomb
+into the light of day. This was the top of a huge pyramid, and was in an
+entirely different kind of world.
+
+The terrace was laid with flagstones and landscaped like a luxurious
+country club. In its middle there arose a penthouse, low and irregularly
+shaped like some organic outcropping of native rock. It could hardly be
+said that it had walls, overgrown as was the stone by creepers and built
+into the shape of massive pillars. The structure seemed a kind of
+Stonehenge improved upon by America's late great architect Frank Lloyd
+Wright. There were birch shade trees around the house, the leaves
+whispering in the breeze. From some crevice in the rock came the
+peaceful murmurings of a spring. A meandering little brook criss-crossed
+the gravel path under Lee's feet. From a stone table which might have
+belonged to some Pharaoh there came the only incongruous noise in this
+bucolic idyll; it was the nervous ticking of a typewriter, which stopped
+abruptly at Lee's approach, and the melodious contralto voice he had
+already heard over the phone greeted him. "Oh--it's Dr. Lee from
+Canberra University, isn't it? I'm so happy to meet you. Please, do sit
+down. How was your trip? I'm Oona Dahlborg, Dr. Scriven's secretary."
+
+Lee blinked. Out of this world as was this Stone Age cabin in the sky,
+even more so was the girl. He had a vivid image of American girls as
+they had been when he had left the States way back in '49; in fact, he
+had an all too vivid memory of at least one of them. His memory had been
+refreshed within the last hour at the airport, at the hotel, at the
+receptionist's, and it had been confirmed: they still wore masks instead
+of their true faces, they still were overdressed, overloud, oversexed,
+overhung with trinkets and their voices still resounded shrilly from the
+roof of their mouths.
+
+This girl Oona Dahlborg was different. He raked his brains to find some
+concept which would express how she was different. The word "organic"
+came to mind; yes, as one looked at her one sensed a unity of being, a
+creatural whole compared to which those other girls appeared as
+artificial composites.
+
+She was tall for a girl, the pure Scandinavian type, and she looked like
+a young Viking with the golden helmet of her hair gleaming in the sun.
+She wore a tunic, short, sleeveless and of classic simplicity, the kind
+of dress which once Diana wore. It revealed the splendor of her slender
+figure and stressed the length of her full white limbs. On the black of
+the tunic an antique necklace of large amber beads formed the only
+ornament. The bow or the spear of the great huntress whom she resembled
+so much would have looked more natural in her hands than the typewriter;
+even so, her every move showed perfect coordination of body and mind, a
+large surplus of vital energy carefully controlled. Had she turned to
+some different career she might easily have developed into some great
+athlete or else a great singer. Her beautiful voice had that rare
+natural gift of using the whole thorax for a vessel of resonance instead
+of merely the mouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was this voice which fascinated Lee more than the strangeness of the
+scene, more than her beauty, more even than the things she said. It was
+like remembering some haunting melody, it transported him into the
+forgotten land of his youth. It made him feel happy except that suddenly
+he felt painfully conscious of his ill fitting suit, the emaciation of
+his body, the atabrine stains on the skin of his face, the wildness and
+the grey of his hair.
+
+With the shyness of a boy, he accepted first the firm pressure of her
+hand and then a seat which was another piece of ancient Egyptian
+furniture.
+
+"Dr. Scriven will be with you in a few minutes," she said.
+"Unfortunately he is a little delayed by an official visitor from
+Washington. The unexpected always happens over here. Meanwhile...."
+
+She suddenly interrupted herself. The searching look of her deep blue
+eyes startled Lee by its directness. There was in it a depth of
+understanding and of sympathy which penetrated to his heart. He felt as
+if she already knew about him and knew everything. It lasted only a few
+seconds before she continued, but in a different, a warmer voice:
+
+"I think we can drop the usual conventions," she said. "We know you, Dr.
+Scriven and I. We know your work as published in the journal of
+entomology. It is the work of a man of genius. You are not the kind of
+man whom I must entertain with the usual small talk about the weather,
+how you have enjoyed your trip, or whether you feel very tired--as you
+probably do--and all the rest of it. That is routine with most of our
+visitors; it's quite a relief to feel that I can dispense with it for
+once."
+
+Lee had blushed under this frankness of compliment as if a decoration
+had been pinned to his breast. "Thank you, Miss Dahlberg, you put me at
+my ease. I've been out in the wilderness for so long that I've lost the
+language of the social amenities. I really feel like another Rip van
+Winkle. All this," he made a sweeping gesture, "is tremendously new and
+surprising to me. There are so many burning questions to ask...."
+
+The girl gave him a smile of sympathy. "Of course," she said, "and I can
+imagine some of them. To begin with, we owe you an explanation and an
+apology for having used the methods of deception in getting you here. As
+you probably know by now the work we're doing here is closely connected
+with the National defense. Whether we like it or not, military secrecy
+forces us to use roundabout ways in contacting scientists who happen to
+work in some context with our field, especially if they live in foreign
+lands. That's why in your case we have used the good offices of the
+Department of Agriculture in bringing you here. Dr. Scriven feels
+terrible about this. He feels that to be lifted out from one desert just
+to be dropped into the middle of another must be a fierce disappointment
+to you. For this and all the disturbance of your work--can you manage to
+forgive us Dr. Lee?"
+
+The sincerity in these regrets was such that Lee hastened to reply: "You
+don't owe me any apology, Miss Dahlborg," he reassured her. "Naturally
+it is impossible for me to see any connection between my work with ants
+and termites and the problems of National Defense. But I am an American;
+I wouldn't doubt for a moment the legitimacy of your call." The girl
+nodded: "Besides you have fought for your country in the second world
+war," she added. "And also you are the son of General Jefferson Lee of
+the Marines. You understand of course that we had you investigated
+before calling you here; do you mind very much?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again Lee blushed; this time even deeper than before. He squirmed in his
+seat. "No, I guess not. I suppose it's necessary. Now that I'm going to
+meet Dr. Scriven, who is he? I probably ought to know--forgive my
+ignorance."
+
+"You really don't know about him?" The girl sounded surprised. "He's a
+surgeon. He's considered the foremost living brain-specialist. Remember
+the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi war criminals? Dr. Scriven did the
+post-mortems on their brains. He wrote a book that made him famous."
+
+"Of course," Lee slapped his forehead. "Yes, but of course, how could I
+forget."
+
+"Yes," she answered, "He was made the head of the Braintrust over here."
+
+"What is the Braintrust? What does it do? What am I supposed to do
+here?" Lee asked eagerly.
+
+The girl's smile was mysterious: "I think Howard would like to explain
+all that to you in his own way."
+
+"Howard". The word struck Lee like a vicious little snake. Was he a
+friend, or more than a friend to her? "This is terrible," he thought,
+"I've been away from normal life for overlong. Must be that I'm
+emotionally unbalanced. I haven't known her for five minutes. There is
+nothing between us. I've no earthly right to be jealous; it is absurd,
+it's mean."
+
+He felt deeply ashamed. Yet as he looked at her he couldn't deny the
+truth before himself: that he _was_ jealous, that he _had_ fallen in
+love with a girl who looked like the goddess Diana with a golden helmet
+for hair.
+
+There was a noise of footsteps on the gravel paths. A man with a
+portfolio under his arm walked briskly by the stonetable; despite his
+civilian clothes he had "Westpoint" written all over him. He disappeared
+through the steel door.
+
+"That was General Vandergeest", Oona said. "Dr. Scriven will see you
+now; just walk in, Dr. Lee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Inside, the cabin in the sky seemed to be built almost entirely around a
+huge primeval looking fireplace. Despite the fierceness of the Arizona
+sun there was a fire in it of long and bluish flames, one of those
+modern inventions which reverse the processes of nature. Like the gas
+refrigerators of an older period, this fire worked in combination with
+the airconditioning system to _cool_ the house, lending to it in the
+midst of summer heat the same attractions which it had in winter.
+
+In front of the fire and framed by its rather ghostly light, there stood
+a man with his head bowed down, pensively staring at the flames. As
+Lee's steps resounded from the ancient millstones which formed the
+floor, Dr. Scriven wheeled around; he approached the man from Down-Under
+with outstretched hands.
+
+Rarely had Lee seen such a distinguished looking figure of a man. He
+looked more like a diplomat of the extinct old school than a scientist,
+with the immaculate expanse of his white tropical suit and the dignity
+of his leonine head. His width of shoulder and the smooth agility with
+which he moved gave the impression of great strength. Only his fingers
+were small, slender, almost like a woman's.
+
+The reluctant softness of their pressure contrasted so much with his
+heartiness of manner that Lee felt repulsed by their touch until he
+remembered that a great surgeon lived and caused others to live by his
+sensitivity of hand.
+
+"Dr. Lee, I'm happy, most happy, that you have been able to come."
+Scriven's voice was soft, but he spoke with an extraordinary precision
+of diction which had a quality almost of command. "Over there, please,
+by the fire...."
+
+From the blue flames there came the freshness and the coolness of an
+ocean breeze; the rawhide chairs, built for barbaric chieftains as they
+seemed, proved to be most comfortable; the semidarkness, the roughness
+of the unhewn stone, gave a sense of the phantastical and the paradox.
+Lee sat and waited patiently for Scriven to explain.
+
+"In case you're wondering a little about this setup," Scriven made a
+sweeping gesture around the room, "I've long since reached the
+conclusion that in these mad times a man needs above all some padded
+cell, some shell in which to retire and preserve his sanity. This is my
+padded cell, soundproof, lightproof, telephoneproof; a wholesome
+reminder of the basic, the primeval things. Simple, isn't it?"
+
+Lee blinked at the extravagance of this statement. "Do you really call
+that simple?" he asked.
+
+Scriven grinned: "You are right; it is of course a willed reversal from
+the complex, synthetic and perhaps a little perverse. But then, not
+everybody has the opportunity you had in living in the heart of nature.
+Frankly I envy you; your work reflects the depth of thinking which comes
+out of retirement from the world. That's why I called you here; that's
+why I am so sure you'll understand."
+
+He paused. Lee thought that he saw what was perhaps a mannerism; the
+great surgeon didn't look at his visitor. With his head turned aside,
+staring into the flames, stroking his chin, speaking as if to himself,
+he reminded Lee of some medieval alchemist.
+
+"It's a long story, Lee," Scriven continued. "It starts way back with a
+letter I wrote to the President of the United States. In this letter I
+pointed to the immense dangers which I anticipated in the event of an
+atom war; dangers to which the military appeared to be blind. I am
+referring to the inadequacy of the human brain and its susceptibility to
+mental and psychic shock. I explained how science and technology over
+the past few hundred years had developed by the _pooled_ efforts of the
+_elite_ in human brains, but that the individual brain, even if
+outstanding, was lagging farther and farther below the dizzy peak which
+science and technology in their totality had reached. I further
+explained, by the example of the Nazi and Jap States, how the collective
+brains of modern masses are reverting from and are hostile to a high
+level of civilization because it is beyond their mental reach. You know
+all this, of course, Lee. I made it clear that not even the collective
+brains of a general staff could be relied upon for normal functioning;
+that no matter how carefully protected physically, they remained exposed
+to psychic shock with its resultant errors of judgment. How much less
+then could production and transportation workers be expected to function
+effectively in the apocalyptic horrors they would have to face...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee's eyes had narrowed in the concentration of listening; his head
+nodded approval. He wasn't conscious of it, but Scriven took note of it
+by a quick glance. His voice quickened:
+
+"That was the first part of my letter, Lee. I then came out squarely
+with the project which has since become the work of my life. I told the
+President that under these circumstances the most needed thing for our
+country's national security would be the creation of a _mechanical_
+brain, some central ganglion bigger and better than its human
+counterpart, immune to shock of any kind. This ganglion to be
+established in the innermost fortress of America as an auxiliary
+augmenting and controlling the work of a general staff. I gave him a
+fairly detailed outline of just how the thing could be done. There was
+really nothing basically new involved. Personally I have held for a long
+time that Man never "invents", that in fact it is constitutionally
+impossible for him to do so. Being a part of nature Man merely
+_discovers_ what nature has "invented" in some form of its own a long
+time ago. Mechanical brains. Lord, we have had them in their rudiments
+for the past hundred thousand years, at a minimum. The calendar is one;
+every printed book is one; the simplest of machines incorporates one.
+And ever since the first mechanical clock started its ticking we have
+developed them by leaps and bounds!"
+
+"And did the President react positively to this project?" Lee asked.
+
+Scriven shook his head. "He did not."
+
+Then he paused. Little beads of perspiration had appeared on his
+forehead; he wiped them away with a handkerchief:
+
+"That year, Lee," he began again, "when the decision was pending and I
+could do nothing but wait, knowing that there was no other defense
+against the Atom Bomb, knowing that our country's fate was at stake--it
+made me grey, it came pretty close to shattering my nerve.... But
+_then_...." His body tightened, the small fist pounded the rail of the
+chair: "... _But then We BUILT THE BRAIN._"
+
+He said it almost in a triumphant cry.
+
+Mounting tension had Lee almost frozen to his seat. Now he stirred and
+leaned forward.
+
+"It actually exists? I mean it works? It is not limited to the analysis
+of mathematical problems but capable of cerebrations after the manner of
+the human brain?"
+
+Scriven, with a startling change, sounded dry, very factual in a tired
+way as he answered: "I appreciate your difficulty of realization, Dr.
+Lee. The whole idea is new to you and I have presented it in a rather
+abrupt and inadequate way. In time, and if we get together, as I hope we
+will, you shall get visual impressions which are better than words. For
+the moment, just to give you a general idea and to prove that this is
+not a small matter, let me give you a few facts: Our first monetary
+appropriation for The Brain, as an unspecified part of the military
+budget, of course, was for one billion dollars. We have since received
+two more appropriations of an equal size."
+
+Lee's gasp made a sound like a low whistle. With a depreciating gesture
+Scriven waved it away.
+
+"While these funds could only cover the first stages in the construction
+of The Brain," he calmly went on, "we have been able to build a
+mechanical cortex mantle composed of ninety billion electronic cells.
+Considering that the cortex mantle of the human brain contains over 9
+billion cells, this doesn't sound like much. Our synthetic or mechanical
+cells are a little better than the organic, natural cells, but not very
+much. So alone and by themselves their number would indicate only a ten
+times superiority of The Brain over its human counterpart. If that were
+all the result of our labors, a brain of, let's say, twice genius
+capacity, we would be a miserable failure. But then we _have_ achieved a
+very considerable improvement in the _utilization_ of the The Brain's
+cortex capacity. In the first place we have full control over the
+intake of thought impulses; and more important, we use multiple wave
+lengths in feeding impulses to The Brain and throughout all the
+impulse-processings. Even the human brain has some capacity of
+simultaneous thought on different levels of consciousness, but its range
+in this respect is extremely limited. The Brain by way of contrast
+operates on two thousand different wave lengths, which means that The
+Brain can process at least 2000 problems at one time. Finally, the
+absence of fatigue in The Brain makes operations possible for 20 out of
+the 24 hours of the day--the rest of the time we need for servicing and
+overhauling."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With apparent effort Scriven turned his face away from the blue flames.
+His dark brown eyes probed into Lee's as he summed up:
+
+"All together, Lee, The Brain has now reached the approximate capacity
+of 25,000 first class human brains. You as a man of vision will
+understand what that means...."
+
+Lee had his face upturned. The tension of thought gave to his features
+something of the ecstatic or the somnambulist. Slowly he said:
+
+"The equivalent of twenty-five-thousand human brains--there is no
+comparison other than a God's...."
+
+Striven had jumped from his chair. He started pacing the flagstones in
+front of the fire, whirling his mighty frame around at every corner with
+a sort of wrath, as if about to meet some attack.
+
+"Yes, you are right," he almost shouted, "we hold that power; that power
+almost of a God's. And how we are wasting it."
+
+"What do you mean?" Lee's eye-brows shot up. "You would not waste those
+powers once you have them. You would turn them to the most constructive
+use--the advancement of science, of humanity!"
+
+Scriven froze in his steps. A cruel smile parted his lips; there was a
+gnashing sound of big white teeth. He pointed a finger at his visitor.
+
+"Idealist, eh? That's what I thought I was ten years ago. That's what I
+had in mind with The Brain right from the start. As it has turned out,
+however, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and half a dozen other government
+departments, besieged The Brain for the solution of their "problems",
+some of them as destructive as warfare, others as insipid as the trend
+of the popular vote in some provincial primaries. Sometimes Uncle Sam
+even farms out the services of the Brain to aid some friendly foreign
+government--without that government's knowledge as to where the solution
+is coming from. To cut a long story short: What these fellows utterly
+fail to understand is that The Brain is not a finite mechanism like any
+other, but a mechanism which unendingly evolves and becomes richer in
+its associations by the material which is being fed into its cells. In
+other words; the Brain _learns_; consequently it must be _taught_, it
+must be given the wherewithal for its own self-improvement...."
+
+Scriven halted his impatient step by the other's chair. His nervous
+fingers tapped Lee's shoulder: "And that is where you come in."
+
+"Me?" Lee asked, startled. "What you just told me, Dr. Scriven, it will
+take me weeks to comprehend. At the moment I am at a loss to see how my
+work could connect...."
+
+The surgeon's sensitive hand patted Lee's shoulder as if it were the
+neck of a shy horse. "You _will_ comprehend--in just another moment."
+
+He pressed a button; in the entrance to the cabin in the sky the girl
+appeared, like an apparition. She approached, her hair a golden halo,
+her tunic transparent against the glare of the summer day. "Yes?"
+
+"Oona, _please_"
+
+She seemed familiar with the boss' code. With a smile on her lips she
+walked over to one of the pillars, opened a hidden recess and brought
+out the Scotch and syphon using an Egyptian clay tablet for a tray. With
+surgical exactitude Scriven poured out a good two fingers for his guest
+and an exceedingly small one for himself. "Stay with us for a moment,
+Oona, please," he said. "I didn't tell you the idea behind my calling
+Dr. Lee; you might be interested."
+
+Wordlessly she slid into a seat, attentive and yet fading somehow into
+the background, as if trying to remain unnoticed. In that she did not
+succeed. Her beauty was such that its very presence changed the
+atmosphere; it put Lee under a strain to keep his eyes off her. As to
+Scriven, he seemed to address her almost as much as he did Lee.
+
+"You have met Dr. Lee, haven't you, Oona; but do you know _whom_ you
+have met? He probably wouldn't admit it; nevertheless Dr. Lee is the
+most successful peacemaker on earth, I think. He has just put an end to
+the oldest war in this world between the two most venerable
+civilizations in existence. That war between the states of the ants and
+the states of the termites has been waged with never abating fury for
+millions of years--until Dr. Lee came along with the perfect solution of
+the eternal dispute. All he did was to crossbreed the belligerents and
+now we have "united nations", _Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_ which lives up
+to the spirit of its name. Elementary, isn't it?"
+
+"So elementary," the girl said with ironical sweetness, "that the
+so-called peacemakers of the international conferences must have
+considered it below their dignity to stoop to it. How exactly did you do
+it; I mean the crossbreeding?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee felt his cheeks burn; it was extremely irritating that this should
+happen to him every time Oona Dahlborg spoke to him, especially when it
+was in praise.
+
+"It wasn't too hard," he said depreciatingly. "The main difficulty lay
+not with the termite queen nor with the furtive little king of the ants
+themselves. Biggest trouble was in getting the potential lovers together
+against the bulldog determination of their palace guards. To use force
+was out of the question. So I had to trick the guards, smuggle in the
+male and keep him hidden under the royal abdomen of his spouse."
+
+She smiled amused. "What a perfect classic; the story of Romeo and
+Juliet all over--and with you in the role of the nurse."
+
+Lee blushed still deeper at that. "Yes", he admitted, "I was very much
+reminded of that story and my role in it. Only I had to avoid the tragic
+end."
+
+"And how did you avoid the Shakespearean end?"
+
+"In the best cloak and dagger manner, Miss Dahlborg. First I made the
+guards drunk; that's easy enough with termites. Then I broke into the
+chamber where they keep the queen immured. I killed her legitimate
+consort and substituted my own candidate after having anointed him with
+the genuine termite smell. Finally I re-immured the pair. There are only
+little holes in the walls through which the royal family is serviced,
+they are never really in touch with their guards. That's why it could
+work."
+
+"And thus they lived happy forever afterwards," the girl concluded.
+
+"I'm afraid not, Miss Dahlborg," he said, "there is no such thing as
+happiness in the eternal gloom of termite society. But even if not
+happy, the match I brought about was definitely blessed. In due course I
+became godfather to 30,000 baby ant-termes; I've about 15 million now in
+different hybrid strains. Now that I have an inkling of the grandiose
+work you are doing over here I am ashamed to mention mine; it's very
+small, very insignificant and I still don't see where it comes in."
+
+The girl seemed to cross out those words with an energetic move of her
+head. "No," she said, "your work is not small nor is it insignificant;
+it is great and contains the most intriguing possibilities."
+
+"Ah!" Scriven interrupted. "I have been waiting for this. I knew that
+Oona would hit upon those intriguing possibilities; her's is an
+unspoiled intelligence; it penetrates to the core of things. Dr. Lee,
+let me begin at the beginning so you will understand just where you and
+your work connect with The Brain. The society of the higher insect
+states like bees and ants and termites constitutes the oldest and the
+most stable civilizations in this world. Human society by way of
+contrast has created the youngest and the most unstable civilization
+amongst higher animals. Throughout history we find collapse after
+collapse of civilization. Quite possibly civilizations higher than ours
+may have existed in prehistoric times. Right?"
+
+Lee nodded assent.
+
+"Fine. From that it follows that Man has much to learn from the society
+of the higher insects. Their ingenious laws and methods, their "spirit
+of the hive," the incredible renouncement of individual existence and
+individual advantage, their undying devotion to the race.... We must
+study those if ever we want to reach anything like stability in _our_
+society. We ought to model our civilization after theirs, especially now
+that we have this new species "_Ant-termes-pacificus_" which has
+renounced war. There is something basically wrong with the type of
+civilizations which Man builds and which ceaselessly devour one another.
+No doubt you see the third World War approaching inexorably just as I
+do; civilization forging ahead, for what? For the big plunge into
+suicide. It's sickening to think of it. Do you feel I'm right?"
+
+Unconscious of himself Lee had arisen and paced the room. With his lean
+long-legged figure bending slightly forward and wild-maned head bowed
+down in thought he resembled a big heron stalking the shallows for prey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fascinated, Oona's eyes followed the two contrasting men as their paths
+criss-crossed like guards before some palace gate. She alone had kept
+her seat. It was with greater assurance than before that Lee now spoke.
+
+"I can see eye to eye with you, Scriven, as to the wrongs of man-made
+civilization and its probable course. But I do not think it desirable
+that we should model human society after the insect states. Ingenious as
+it is, their system is the most terrifying tyrany I could imagine. Just
+think of it: they literally work themselves to death. Workers who have
+outlived their usefulness are either killed off, or else they become the
+bloated, living containers for the tribe's staple food."
+
+"You, yourself, can see the similar trend in Man, today. Our production
+of new thought is lagging; not starting from the roots, it becomes
+superficial, cut off from the roots. The results? The curse of the
+Babylonian confusion of the tongues under which we live. We are rapidly
+becoming thought-impotent. Cerebral fatigue, dissociation of its nerve
+paths, emotionalism which rejects logic as "too difficult", mass idiocy
+and relapse to barbarism.... It is by our brains, it is by this highest
+evolution of matter that we have built this civilization of ours; and
+now our own brainchild proceeds with might and with main to destroy the
+very organ of its creation. Is that not irony supreme?
+
+"Now we have The Brain, this truly superlative tool of 20,000 times
+human capacity. All we have to do now is to submit the various societies
+which nature has built: insect states, other animal states, Man and his
+state to the analysis of The Brain. Have their good and their bad
+features tested and compared. Let The Brain synthesize all the
+beneficial components, let it shape the pattern of a new civilization
+more enduring and better adapted to the nature of Man. And then abide by
+the laws which The Brain lays down. I need your aid, Lee. You have
+already made one most valuable contribution to "peace on earth" with
+your "_Ant-termes-pacificus_". This is your big chance to continue the
+good work; be with us, be our man."
+
+In silence both men stood close to each other, eyes searching. All Oona
+Dahlborg could hear was their heavy breathing. Instinctively she crossed
+her fingers; never before to her knowledge had Scriven opened his mind
+with such reckless abandon--and to a perfect stranger at that. Her
+respect for the strange, the birdlike man from Down-Under skyrocketed.
+
+"He really must be a great man," she thought, and, "Howard and he will
+be either fast friends or very violent enemies."
+
+At last Lee's voice came, husky and highpitched with emotion: "I cannot
+conceive of a man-made superhuman intelligence. Neither can I believe
+that mankind could or should be _forced_ into its happiness by an
+intelligent machine. But that's besides the point ... the idea is
+grandiose. It has the sponsorship of the government. You say that The
+Brain needs me. That makes it a duty; so here I am."
+
+He stretched out his hand and felt the cautiously eager grip of the
+surgeon's sensitive fingers. The great man beamed. "Good," he said, "I
+knew you would. Oona, like a good girl--the glasses, yours too. This
+really deserves a toast."
+
+The girl stepped between the two men. Handing Lee his glass she said:
+"Today you may follow only the call of duty; tomorrow it will be the
+call of love. I've never met any man who has not fallen in love with his
+work for The Brain."
+
+"I think you are quite right in that, Miss Dahlborg," he answered,
+wondering vaguely exactly what her words meant, wondering also just how
+much his decision was inspired by the wish to see more of her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They drank their toast in silence. Scriven then turned to the girl:
+
+"Apperception center 36," he said. "Yes, I think 36 will be the best.
+Get in touch with Operations, Oona. Tell them I want 36 cleared for the
+exclusive use of Dr. Lee. Call Experimental; I want the whole batch of
+"_Ant-termes-pacificus_" transferred to Apperception 36 by tomorrow
+morning. Then--no, today is too late and Dr. Lee is tired, he needs
+rest--but tomorrow at 8 A.M. I want a car for him to go over to The
+Brain. Would that suit you, Lee?"
+
+"Fine; but why a car? It's only a few steps...." He stopped, confused by
+the hearty laughter in the wake of his words.
+
+"It's quite a few steps, Dr. Lee." Oona said, "you would be _very_ tired
+before you got there; chances are that your feet wouldn't carry you that
+far."
+
+"But this is the Brain Trust Building," he stammered.
+
+"It is," Scriven answered, "but it houses only part of the
+administration, not The Brain. You wouldn't expect us to place a thing
+of such vital strategic importance in a skyscraper on a wide open plain
+as a landmark for every enemy?"
+
+"No, I guess not." Lee said. "But since I'm briefed to go there, where
+is it?"
+
+"That," Scriven frowned, "is a very reasonable and a simple question.
+Unfortunately, _I do not know_."
+
+Lee felt a wave of red anger; it rose into his cheeks because he saw the
+sparks of frank amusement dancing in Oona Dahlborg's eyes. He opened his
+mouth to some bitter remark about this hoax when Scriven put a
+restraining hand upon his arm.
+
+"This is no joke, Lee. I have planned The Brain, have in part designed
+it, seen it under construction for the past ten years, managed its
+affairs--but I don't know where it is and that's a fact."
+
+He led his speechless guest to a lookout on the west side of the room.
+Beyond the lush, green oasis of Cephalon the desert stretched unbroken
+till on the far horizon the mountains of the High Sierra rose in a blue
+haze of scorching sun. His hand moved sweepingly from north to south.
+
+"Over there," he said, "somewhere inside those mountains; that's where
+it is. But its location? Your guess is as good as mine. Take your choice
+of any of the mountains, attach a name to it; I've done so myself. One
+of them must be "The Cranium", but the question remains: which? There
+are people who know, of course; military intelligence, the general
+staff; but that," he shrugged his shoulders, "... isn't my department."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The Brain Trust car which took Lee out of Cephalon was a normal-looking
+limousine, a rear-engined teardrop like all the "60" models, slotted for
+the insertion of wings which most of the garages now kept in stock and
+rented at a small charge for cross-country hops. The only non-standard
+feature seemed to be the polaroid glass windows which were provided all
+around and not only in front.
+
+"That's a good idea," Lee said adjusting the nearest ones, "they ought
+to have that on every car, all-round protection to the eyes."
+
+"Think so, sir? Must be the first time you're driving out there," the
+young chauffeur said.
+
+The car left the outskirts and the desert started to fly by as the
+speedometer needle climbed above the 100 mark. Lee sank back into his
+seat; the desert had no novelty for him and since the chauffer appeared
+not inclined to small talk he abandoned himself to thought.
+
+His visit to his father had not been much of a success....
+
+_Time_ magazine had carried an item in its personal column, briefly
+stating that General Jefferson E. Lee, "the Old Lion of Guadalcanal,"
+had retired from the Marines to Phoenix, Ariz.... Phoenix, the hotel
+desk had informed him, was only some 300 miles away and there was hourly
+service by Greyhound helicopter-bus.
+
+So he had taken the ride, a taxi had brought him to the small neat
+bungalow, and there he had seen his father for the first time in years.
+It had been very strange to see him aged, the nut brown face a little
+shrunk. He had anticipated that much. But somehow he had failed to
+imagine the most obvious change; to see his father in civvies and even
+less to see him trimming roses with a pair of garden shears. It looked
+such an incongruous picture for a "Marines' Marine."
+
+As he had come up the little path his father had looked up.
+
+"So it's you, Semper." Slowly he had peeled off the old parade kid
+gloves without a change in his face. "Nice to see you," he had said.
+"Didn't expect to before I start pushing up the daisies from below.
+Where's your butterfly net?"
+
+No, in character his father hadn't changed a bit. He still was the old
+"blood and guts" to whom an entomologist was sort of a human
+grass-hopper wielding a butterfly net, and a son indulging in such
+antics a bit of a freak, a reproach to his father, a failure of his
+life.
+
+Even so, he had led the way into the house and things had been just as
+he remembered them: the old furniture, pictures crowding one another all
+over the walls, on the unused grand piano--Marines in Vera Cruz, Marines
+in China, Marines in Alaska, in the Marianas, in Japan, at the Panama
+canal; Marines, Marines, Marines, wherever one looked, in ghostly
+parade. No, nothing had changed. It had been mainly jealously which had
+caused him to rebel against becoming another Marine, the first wedge
+which had driven him and his father apart.
+
+"What are you doing now, padre?" he had asked.
+
+"You've seen it. Nothing. Just puttering around. They've made me
+commander of the National Guard over here," and with a contemptuous
+snort, "--a sinecure; might as well have given me a bunch of tin
+soldiers to play with. What brought you here?"
+
+Glad to change the subject Lee had told about Australia, had mentioned
+The Brain and the possibility of joining it. His father had not been
+pleased.
+
+"Heard of it," he had grumbled. "Shows how the country is going to the
+dogs. Now they need machines to do their thinking with. If their own
+brains were gas they couldn't back a car out of the garage. So you're
+mixed up with that outfit; well--how about a drink?"
+
+"Rather," he had answered, feeling the need for washing down a
+bitterness; thinking, too, that it might break the ice between him and
+his father.
+
+And then there was that painful moment when they had stood, glasses in
+hand and remembered....
+
+The selfsame situation fifteen years ago as the Bomb fell upon
+Hiroshima. He had been on convalescence furlough. They had been alone
+when the news came and there had been a drink between them just as now.
+And after the announcer stopped he had cried out hysterically like a
+child in a nightmare.
+
+"Those fools, that's the end of civilization, that's no longer war."
+
+"Shut up," his father had shouted, "how dare you insult the Commander in
+Chief to my face. Get out of here and _stay_ out."
+
+A highball glass had crashed against the floor. And that had been the
+end. He hadn't returned after the war.
+
+Yes, it was most unfortunate that now, after so many years, they should
+read that memory in their faces; that it was only the glasses and not
+the minds which clicked.
+
+They had put them down awkwardly with frozen smiles on their lips and
+his father had said:
+
+"Sorry. But an old dog won't learn new tricks. Guess it's too late in
+the day for me and you to get together, son."
+
+"It's never too late, Dad," he had wanted to say, but the words died on
+his lips.
+
+So it had been the failure of a mission; but then it closed an old and
+painful chapter with finality and he was free to open a new leaf.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee looked ahead again. The speedometer needle trembled around the 150
+mark. The sun drenched sand shot by, Joshua trees gesticulating wildly
+in the tricky perspectives of the speed, out-crops of rocks getting
+bigger now and more numerous, the road ahead starting to coil into a
+maze of natural fortresses, giant pillars and bizarre pyramids looking
+like the works of a titan race from another planet shone in unearthly
+color schemes of black and purple and amber and green. With the winding
+of the road and the waftings of the heat it was hard to make out a
+course, but the Sierra Mountains now were towering almost up to the
+zenith; like a giant surf they seemed to race against the car.
+
+"Mind if I close the windows, sir?"
+
+The chauffeur's question was rhetoric; he had already pushed a button,
+the glass went up and within the next second the inside of the car
+turned completely dark.
+
+"Man," Lee shouted, gripping the front seat, "are you crazy?"
+
+There suddenly was light again, but it was only the electric light
+inside the car. The blackout of the world without remained complete, and
+the speedometer needle still edged over the 150 mark.
+
+"Crazy? I hope not." The chauffeur said it coolly; leaning comfortably
+back he turned around for a better look at his fare.
+
+With mounting horror Lee noticed that he even took his hands off the
+wheel. Nonchalantly he lit a cigarette while the unguided wheel milled
+crazily from side to side and the tires screeched through what seemed to
+be a sharp S-curve. Still with his back to the wheel and in between
+satisfying puffs of his smoke he continued:
+
+"It's quite O.K. sir; it's only that we're on the guidebeam now. This
+here car doesn't need a driver no more; it's on the beam."
+
+"What beam?" Lee relaxed a little; it was the unexpectedness which had
+bowled him over. "What beam? And why the blackout?"
+
+"Just orders," the young man said. "The Brain's orders and it's the
+Brain's beam. Seems to be new to you, sir; to me it's like an old story;
+read about it when I was a kid: how they blindfolded people who entered
+a beleaguered fortress. "The Count of Monte Cristo," it was called; ever
+heard about it? Pretty soon now we'll be stopped for examination before
+we enter the secret passage underground. Romantic isn't it?"
+
+"Very much so," Lee dryly remarked. He continued to watch the behavior
+of the car with some misgivings. The controls appeared to be functioning
+smoothly enough and after a minute or so the brake pedal came down all
+by itself. Lee, with a breath of relief, saw the speedometer recede to
+zero.
+
+But the doors would not open from the inside and as he tried them he
+found that they were locked. "What's the idea," he asked, "I thought you
+said we would be examined at this spot?"
+
+"Bet they're at it right now," the chauffeur grinned. "I wouldn't know
+how they do it, but they get us photographed inside and outside, what we
+have in our pockets, what we had for breakfast this morning and the very
+bones of our skeletons. I pass through here maybe half a dozen times a
+day, still they will do it every time: take my likeness. Makes me feel
+like I was some darned movie star."
+
+To Lee it felt uncanny to sit trapped and blindfolded in this "Black
+Maria" of a car while unseen rays and cameras went over him. He could
+hear a faint noise of steps, and muffled voices.
+
+"Who are they?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, that's only some boys from Intelligence or whatnot; that's nothing,
+that isn't The Brain. It will be all over in a moment--see--there we go
+again. Now we're entering the Labyrinth."
+
+"The Labyrinth?"
+
+Reticent as he had been in the beginning, the chauffeur now seemed to
+like Lee; he was proud to explain. "Queer, isn't it? They've got the
+damnedest names for things down here. Take them from anatomy, I
+understand. The Labyrinth is supposed to be inside the ear; it leads
+inside in a roundabout way; it's the same here, it's a tunnel--see--down
+we go."
+
+The soft swoosh of the gas-turbine turned into a muffled roar. The car
+accelerated at a terrific rate and from the way it swayed and dived it
+was clear that the tunnel spiralled downwards in steep serpentines. Lee
+gripped the holding straps; his every nerve was on edge and those edges
+were sharpened by the ominous fact that all the instruments on the
+dashboard had stopped functioning so that he couldn't even read the
+speed.
+
+As if to make things still worse, the chauffeur had abandoned his post
+altogether. Stretching his legs across the front seat he reclined as if
+enjoying his easy chair at home by the fire place.
+
+"It beats a roller coaster, doesn't it?" the chauffeur said. "Got me
+scared the first few times before I found out it was safe. Nothing to
+worry about, never you fear."
+
+With his stomach throttling his throat, Lee asked, "How deep are we
+going underground?"
+
+"That we are not supposed to know; that's why all the instruments are
+cut off. The other day I had a passenger, one of those weathermen, a
+professor. He laughed when I told him I didn't know how deep it was. Got
+a little doodad out of his pocket; aneroid barometer, or something, he
+said it was. But he got a surprise; in the first place the thing didn't
+work, so he said the whole tunnel was probably pressurized. In the
+second place he never got where he wanted to go. They stopped the car at
+the next control and shot him right back whence he came."
+
+"But why?"
+
+The chauffeur looked mysterious. "Seems The Brain doesn't like people
+with doodads in their pockets even if they mean no harm. The Brain is
+most particular about such things; maybe somehow it peers into this car
+this moment, maybe it records every word we say. How do we know?" He
+shrugged his shoulders. "Not that I give a damn. I've got nothing to
+conceal. The hours are right and the pay's right; that's good enough for
+me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee experienced an old, familiar sensation: that creepy feeling one got
+on jungle patrol, knowing that there were Jap snipers up in the trees,
+invisible with the devilish green on their faces and uniforms.
+
+"Strange," he thought, "that in the very center of civilization one
+should feel as haunted as in the jungle hell."
+
+Then, just as he began to wonder whether the dizzy spiralling plunge as
+if in the belly of a shark would ever end, the tunnel levelled. Now the
+car shot straight as a bullet and just as fast it seemed.
+
+As his stomach returned to something like normal position, the feeling
+of oppression changed into one of flying through space, of being
+dynamically at rest. Again just as the duration of this dynamic flight
+evoked the feel of infinity, the motion changed. So fast did it recede
+that the momentum of his body almost hurled Lee from the back seat into
+the front.
+
+Doors snapped open and as Lee staggered out somewhat benumbed in limb
+and head, his eyes grew big as they met the most unexpected sight. The
+car rested on the concrete apron of what appeared to be a super-duper
+bus terminal plus service station and streamlined restaurant. Beyond
+this elevated terrace yawned a vaulted dome, excavated from the solid
+rock and at least twice the size of St. Peter's giant cupola. Its walls
+were covered with murals. Both huge and beautiful they depicted the
+history of the human race, Man's evolution. From where he stood they
+started out with scenes of primeval huntings of the mammoth, went on to
+fire making, fire adoration, then to the primitive crafts and from there
+through the stages of science evolution and technology until they ended
+on Lee's right hand side with an awesome scene from the Bikini test. The
+gorgeous mushroom cloud of the atomic explosion looked alive and
+threatening like those Djinni once banned by Solomon.
+
+But then, all these murals looked more alive than any work of art Lee
+had ever seen and he discovered that this was due to a new technique
+which had been added and commingled with one of the oldest.
+
+The pictures were built up from myriad layers of Painted Desert sands
+and these were made translucent or illuminated by what Lee thought must
+be phosphoric salts turned radiant under the stimulants of hidden
+lights. Whatever it was, the esoteric beauty of this jewel-like
+luminosity surpassed even that of the stained glass windows in the great
+cathedrals of France.
+
+"Pretty isn't it? The chauffeur's words came as an anticlimax to what
+Lee felt. "That fellow over there in the middle; he's supposed to have
+it all thought out." He pointed to a collossal bronze statue which
+towered in the center of the cupola to a height of better than a hundred
+feet.
+
+Raising his eyes to the head of this giant, Lee discovered that the
+figure was that of "The Thinker" by Rodin though it was cast in
+proportion its creator would not have deemed possible.
+
+Completely overwhelmed and overawed by the grandeur of it all, Lee
+barely managed to stammer, "What--what is this place; what is it
+called?"
+
+"It's kind of an assembly hall; the staff of The Brain have meetings
+over here at times. Besides it's sort of a Grand Central; transportation
+starts here at times throughout the Brain. But listen, they are already
+paging you."
+
+Out of nowhere as it seemed there came a brisk, pleasant female voice.
+
+"Dr. Lee, calling Dr. Semper F. Lee from Canberra University, please
+answer Dr. Lee."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chauffeur nudged Lee in the ribs.
+
+"Say something, she hears you all right."
+
+"Yes, this is Lee speaking," he said in a startled voice.
+
+The voice appeared delighted.
+
+"Good morning, Dr. Lee: I'm Vivian Leahy of Apperception Center 27; I'm
+to be your guide on the way up. Now, Dr. Lee, will you please step over
+to the glideways. They're to your right. Take glideway T, do just as you
+would in a department store--" she giggled, "--stand on it and it will
+get you right to the occipital cortex area. I'll be waiting for you over
+there. I would have loved to come down and conduct you personally, but
+it's against regulations; I'll explain to you the reasons why in a
+little while. And if you have any questions while en route, just call
+out. So long, Dr. Lee; I'll be seeing you...."
+
+Greatly bewildered by this gushing reception Lee found it hard to follow
+instructions, simple as they were. The array of escalators which he
+found in a side wing was a formidable one and confusing with movements
+in all directions, crisscrossing and overlapping one another. Despite
+the very clear illuminated signs Lee almost stepped upon glideway "P"
+when "the voice" warned him:
+
+"Oh no, Dr. Lee; just a little to your left--that's fine, that's the
+one--there."
+
+Obviously his loquacious guardian angel could not only hear him but
+watch his steps as well. Apart from being uncanny, this was
+embarrassing; feeling reduced to the mental age of the nursery, he
+gripped the rails of "T" which went with him into a smooth and noiseless
+upward slide. The shaft was narrow, there was little light at the start
+and it grew dimmer as he went. After a minute or so the darkness had
+turned almost complete and became oppressive. Simultaneously there was a
+disquieting change from the accepted normal manner in which escalators
+are supposed to move. Its rise gradually turned perpendicular and in
+doing so the steps drew apart. Before long Lee felt squeezed into some
+interminable cylinder, standing on top of a piston as it were, a piston
+which moved with fair rapidity along transparent walls. That these walls
+were either glass or transparent plastics he could perceive from objects
+which came streaking by with faint luminosity. They looked like columns
+of amber colored liquids in which were suspended what looked like giant
+snakes, indistinct shapes, but radiant in the mysterious manner of deep
+sea fishes. They almost encircled the transparent cylinder shaft in
+which Lee moved; there were many of them; how many Lee couldn't even
+attempt to guess. The swiftness of his ascent through these floating,
+waving radiances for which he had no name was nightmarish, like falling
+into some bottomless well. With great relief he heard the voice of his
+guide breaking the spell.
+
+"I'm terribly sorry, Dr. Lee, I shouldn't have deserted you, there was
+some little interruption--" palpably the voice was tickled to death
+"--my boy friend called from another department and so ... you know how
+it is. Let's see, where are you? Good lord, already near the end of the
+Medulla Oblongata with the Cerebellum coming and I haven't told you a
+_thing_. Goody, where should I begin; I'm all in a dither: Well, Dr.
+Lee; most people seem to expect The Brain to be like a great big
+telephone exchange, but it really isn't that kind of a mechanism _at
+all_. We have found--" she sounded important as if it were her very own
+discovery "--that the best pattern for The Brain would actually be the
+human brain. So The Brain is organized in nearly identical manner,
+likewise our whole terminology is taken from anatomy rather than from
+technology. The glideways for instance, travel along the natural
+fissures between the convolutions of the various lobes; that's why they
+are so very winding as you will see as you enter The Brain proper. Those
+columns you see are filled with liquid insulators for the nerve cables
+to vibrate in; for they _do_ vibrate, Dr. Lee, as they transmit their
+messages.
+
+"You have noticed the narrowness of the glideways, the terrible
+confinement of space. I know it's horrible--many of our visitors suffer
+claustrophobia, but they just must be built that way. You see even
+fractions of a millionth of one second count in the coordination of the
+association bundles and nerve circuits, that's why everything is built
+as compact as possible, worse than in a submarine.
+
+"Then, too, you must have wondered why everything is so dark inside.
+That's another thing wherein The Brain is like the human brain; its
+nerve cells are so extremely sensitive that they are distributed by
+light. We use black light almost exclusively or activated phosphorous
+such as on the sheaths of the nerve cables. For the same reason we of
+the personnel are normally not permitted to pass through the interior of
+The Brain during operations-time. Exceptions are only made in the case
+of very important persons such as you are. Normally one travels to one's
+stations through the ducts elevator shafts in the bone matter or rather
+the rock outside. Those are _so_ much faster and more comfortable Dr.
+Lee; oh I feel _so_ bad about you, poor man, traveling all alone through
+this _horrible_ maze without a human soul in sight."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee grinned. He wouldn't have liked to be married to this chatterbox no
+matter how beautiful she might turn out to be; but at the moment her
+exceeding femininity was most comforting in the weirdness which
+surrounded him.
+
+The little platform under his feet started acting up again in the
+queerest manner. It pushed him forward and the wall at the rear kicked
+him in the back; his nose flattened against the sliding cylinder in
+front as the contraption reverted from the perpendicular course to
+something like the undulations of a traveling wave. Lee darkly perceived
+group after group of luminous cables coiling away into cavernous pits
+filled with what looked like eyes of cats, faintly aglow and twinkling
+at him from the dark. They reminded him of the fireflies of the green
+hells he had been in during the war.
+
+"You are now skirting the convolutions of the cerebellum," his guardian
+angel told him. "They are electronic tubes which receive sensory
+impressions and translate them into impulses for cerebration. Here in
+the cerebellum the bulk of the associations is being evoked; these are
+then distributed throughout the hemispheres of the cortex or higher
+brain. Oh I _do_ wish you wouldn't get seasick, Dr. Lee; _some_ of our
+visitors do, you know; it's those wavy, wavy movements."
+
+The sympathetic Vivian came much too close to the truth for Lee to think
+her funny. With a sense of approaching disaster he stared at the sliding
+cylinder walls; from time to time the passing lights reflected his face,
+distorted and decidedly greenish in tint. Trouble was that seemingly
+nowhere there was any fixed point on which to stabilize the eye. He
+seemed to be carried on the back of a galloping boa constrictor with a
+couple of others streaking away under his armpits.
+
+Some of the caves which he had skirted were alive with ruby electronic
+eyes and some were green and again there were others in which all the
+colors of the rainbow mixed. There was no end to them, nor could he
+gauge their depths. After an interminable time of this the glideway went
+into a flying upward leap. Again the perspective changed completely; now
+the thing seemed to be suspended from the ceiling with slanting views
+opening toward the scene below through its transparent sides.
+
+"You are now passing across the commissures into the cerebrum," came
+Vivian's voice just as Lee thought that nausea was getting the better of
+him. "You'll now ascend along one of the main gyri through the mid-brain
+between the hemispheres. Those masses of ganglions below and coming from
+all sides as they go over the pass of the ridge are association bundles.
+Beyond they disperse again over the cortex mantle to all the centers of
+coordination, higher cerebration and higher psychic activities. Things
+will be a little easier now for you, Dr. Lee; physically I mean. There
+_will_ be some gyrations but not quite so _violent_. Oh you're holding
+out fine, like a real _He_-man, you're looking _swell_ in my television
+screen."
+
+Certain as he was that he looked rather like a scarecrow in a snowstorm
+Lee felt grateful for the praise. Besides she was right; the boa
+constrictor which he rode calmed down a little, marching with a dignity
+more in accordance with its size. Momentarily the luminous nerve cables,
+flying as they did toward him, threatened sudden death, however, they
+merely brushed the transparent cylinder, wrapping it up in a rainbow and
+then winged away again. Below acres of space streamed by, seed beds one
+could imagine to be young typewriters, millions of them, all ticking
+away with dainty precision, sparkling with myriads of tiny lights as
+they did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then there came more acres teeming with fractional horsepower motors; he
+could hear their beehive hummings even through the plexiglass. The
+things they drove Lee couldn't make out because the adjoining acres of
+this underground hothouse for mushrooming machines were again shrouded
+in darkness except for sparks which crossed the unfathomable expanse
+like tracer bullets. Struck with a sort of word blindness caused by the
+sensory impressions barrage, Lee could no longer grasp the meaning of
+Vivian's voice as it went on and on explaining things like "crystal
+cells," "selenoid cells," "grey matter pyramidal cells," powered somehow
+by atomic fission, "nerve loops" and "synthesis gates" which were not to
+be confused with "analysis gates" while they looked exactly the same....
+
+Apart from this at least one half of his mental and physical energy had
+to be expanded in suppressing nausea and bracing himself against the
+gyrations which still jerked his feet from under him and made friction
+disks of his shoulders as his body swayed from side to side. All of a
+sudden he felt that he was being derailed. There was an opening in the
+plastics wall of the cylinder; a curved metal shield like the blade of a
+bulldozer jumped into his path, caught him, slowed down his momentum and
+delivered him safely at a door marked "Apperception-Center 24." It
+opened and within its frame there stood an angel neatly dressed in the
+uniform of a registered nurse.
+
+"_There_," said the angel, "at _last_. How did you like your little
+Odyssey through The Brain, Dr. Lee?"
+
+Lee pushed a hand through the mane of his hair; it felt moist and much
+tangled up.
+
+"Thanks," he said. "It was quite an experience. I enjoyed it; Ulysses,
+too, probably enjoyed his trip between Scylla and Charybdis--after it
+was over! It's Miss Leahy, I presume."
+
+The reception room where he had landed, the long white corridor, the
+instruments gleaming in built-in recesses behind crystal glass, the
+nurse's uniform; all spelled clinic, a private one rather for the
+well-to-do. Since the procedure was routine he might as well submit to
+it, Lee thought. He felt the familiar taste of disinfectant as a
+thermometer was stuck into his mouth and then the rubber tube around his
+arm throbbing with the vigorous pumpings of the efficient Vivian.
+
+"L. F. Mellish, M.D.--I. C. Bondy, M.D." was painted on the frosted
+glass door where she led him afterward. The two medics received Lee with
+a show of respect mixed with professional cordiality. Both Bondy, the
+dark and oriental looking chap, and Mellish, blond and florid, were in
+their middle twenties and both wore tweeds which depressed Lee with the
+perfection of their cut. Seeing the professional table at the center of
+the office, Lee frowned but started to undress; he wanted this thing
+done and over with as soon as possible.
+
+"No, no--that won't be necessary, Dr. Lee," they stopped him laughingly,
+"We have already a complete medical report on you. Came in this morning
+from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Canberra on our request. You're an
+old malaria man, Dr. Lee; your first attack occured in '42 during the
+Pacific campaign. Pity you refused to return to the States for a
+complete cure right then. As it is it's turned recurrent; left you a bit
+anemic, liver's slightly affected. But in all other respects you're
+sound of limb and wind; we've gone over the report pretty carefully."
+
+"Then why bother with me at all?" Lee said irritably. He had been in
+doctors' hands too often and had become a little impatient of them.
+
+The freckled hand of Mellish patted his arm. "We do things different
+over here," he said and Bondy chimed in. "Or rather The Brain does. Just
+lie down on that table, Dr. Lee, and relax. We're going to enjoy a
+little movie together, that's all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee did as he was bidden, but hesitant and suspiciously. He hated
+medical exams, especially those where parts of one's body were hooked up
+to a lot of impressive machinery. Of this there obviously was a good
+deal. The two medics seemed determined literally to wall him in with
+gadgetry. From the ceiling they lowered a huge, heavy-looking disk; not
+lights, but more like an electro-magnet beset with protruding needles.
+Lee couldn't see the cables but hoped they were strong, for the thing
+weighed at least a ton and, overhanging him, looked much more ominous
+than the sword of Damocles. They wheeled a silver screen to the foot of
+the table and batteries of what appeared to be thermo-therapeutic
+equipment to both sides. He wasn't being hooked up to anything, but
+there was much activity with testing of circuits, button-pushings and
+shiftings of relay-levers. And then all of a sudden lights went out in
+the room.
+
+"Say, what is the meaning of all this?" Lee raised his head uneasily
+from the hard cushion. All he could see now were arrays of luminous
+dials and the faint radiations from electronic tubes filtering through
+metal screens inside the apparatus which fenced him in. From behind his
+head a suave voice--was it Bondy's or Mellish's answered out of the
+dark.
+
+"This is a subconscious analysis and mental reactions test, Dr. Lee.
+It's an entirely new method made possible only by The Brain. It has
+tremendous possibilities; they might include your own work as well."
+
+"Oh Lord," Lee moaned. "Something like psychoanalysis? Have you got it
+mechanized by now? How terrible."
+
+There was a low chuckle from the other side of his head; they both
+appeared to have drawn up chairs beyond his field of vision. Lee didn't
+like it; he liked none of it, in fact. He felt trapped.
+
+"No, Dr. Lee," said the chuckling voice. "This isn't psychoanalysis in
+the old sense at all. You are not exposed to any fanciful human
+interpretation, and it isn't wholly mechanical either as you seem to
+think. The Brain is going to show you certain images and by way of
+spontaneous psychosomatic reaction you are going to produce certain
+images in response. Results are visual, immediate and as convincing as a
+reflection in a mirror; that's the new beauty of it. And now,
+concentrate your mind upon your body. Do you feel anything touching
+you?"
+
+"Y-e-s," Lee said, "I think I do--it's--it's uncanny: it's like spiders'
+feet--millions of them. It's running all over my skin. What is it?"
+
+"I think he's warming up," whispered the second voice; then came the
+first again.
+
+"It's feeler rays, Dr. Lee; the first wave, low penetration surface
+rays."
+
+"Where do they come from?"
+
+"From overhead; that is, from the teletactile centers of The Brain."
+
+"What do they do to me?"
+
+There was the low chuckle again. "They excite the surface nerves of your
+body, open up the path for the deep-penetration rays; they proceed from
+the lower organs to the higher ones; in the end they reach the conscious
+levels of your brain. It's the tune-in as we call it, Dr. Lee."
+
+A small movie projector began to purr; a bright rectangle was thrown
+upon the silver screen and then, Lee stirred. Hands, soothing but firm
+held him down. "Where did you get _those_." he exclaimed.
+
+"From many sources," a calm answer came, "The papers, the newsreels, the
+War-Department, old friends of yours...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What was unrolled on the silver screen were chapters from Lee's own
+life. They were incomplete, they were hastily thrown together, they were
+like leaves which a child tears from its picturebook. But knowing the
+book of his life, every picture acted as a key unlocking the treasures
+and the horrors amassed in the vaults of memory. It began with the old
+homestead in Virginia. Mother had taken that reel of the new mechanical
+cotton picker at work. There it was, a great big thing with the darkies
+standing around scratching their heads. There he was himself, aged
+twelve, with his .22 cal. rifle in hand and Musha, the coon dog, by his
+side; Musha, how he had loved that dog--and how he had cried when it got
+killed.
+
+Pictures of the Alexander Hamilton Military Academy. Some of the worst
+years of his life he had spent behind the walls of that imitation
+castle.
+
+The bombs upon Pearl Harbor.... He had enlisted the following day. On
+his return from the induction center mother had said.... Her figure, her
+movements, her voice loomed enormous in his memory.... But now the
+pictures of the Pacific War flicked across the screen.... They were
+picked from campaigns in which he, Lee had participated. They were also
+picked from documentaries which the government had never dared to let
+the public see ... close-ups of a torpedoed troop carrier, capsizing,
+coming down upon the struggling survivors in the shark-infested sea. It
+had been his own ship, the _Monticello_, but he had never known that an
+automatic camera had operated in the nose of the plane which had circled
+the scene....
+
+Port Darwin--Guadacanal--Iwo Jima: close-ups of flame throwing tanks
+advancing up a ridge. He had commanded one of them.... Antlike human
+figures of fleeing Japs and the flames leaping at them.... So vivid was
+the memory that the smell returned to his nostrils, the sickening stench
+of burning human flesh. It tortured him. His voice was husky with
+revulsion as he said:
+
+"What's the good of all this; take it away."
+
+"Oh, no," one of the medics answered. "We couldn't think of that. We've
+got to see this to the end. What are your physical sensations now, Dr.
+Lee?"
+
+"It's fingers now--soft fingers. They are tapping me from all sides
+like--like a vibration massage. It's strange though--they're tapping
+from the inside--little pneumatic hammers at a furious pace. They seem
+to work upon my diaphragm for a drum. But it doesn't pain."
+
+"Good, very good; that was a fine description, Lee. That burning city
+was Manilla wasn't it, when MacArthur returned? You were in that second
+Philippine campaign too weren't you, Lee? That was when you won the
+Congressional Medal of Honor."
+
+Yes, it was Manila all right, and there was Mindanao where the Japs had
+put up that suicide defence of the caves.
+
+Lee's battalion had been in the attack; steeply uphill with no cover, it
+had been murder.... And seeing his best men mowed down, he had turned
+berserk. He had used a bulldozer for a battering ram, had driven it
+single handed directly into the fire-spitting mouth of the objective,
+raising its blade like a battle-axe. An avalanche of rocks and dirt had
+come down from the top of the cave under the artillery barrage and he
+had rammed the stuff down into the throat of the fiery dragon, again and
+again. He never rightly knew he did it. It had all ended in a blackout
+from loss of blood. It had been in a hospital that they pinned that
+medal on him which he felt was undeserved....
+
+Now the reel showed him what at the time he hadn't seen; the end of the
+battle for the Philippines: Pulverised volcanic rock seen from the air,
+battle planes swooping down upon little fumaroles, the ventilator shafts
+of caves defeated but still unsurrendered. Big, plump canisters
+plummeted from the bellies of the planes. And then the jellied gasoline
+ignited, turning those thousands of lives trapped in the deep into one
+vast funeral pyre.... For over fifteen years he had tried to forget, to
+bury the war, to keep it jailed up in the dungeon of the subconscious.
+Now those accursed medics had unleashed the monster of war and as it
+stared at him from the screen it had that blood-freezing, that hypnotic
+effect which the Greeks once ascribed to the monstrous Gorgon.
+
+Mellish's voice--or was it Bondy's?--seemed to come through a fog and
+over a vast distance as it asked: "What seems to be the matter, Lee?
+You're sweating, your body shakes; what do you feel?"
+
+"It's those rays," he tried to defend himself. "It's the vibrations--the
+fingers. They are gripping the heart; it's like the whole body was
+turned into a heart. It's like another life invading mine--it's ghostly.
+Stop it, for heaven's sake."
+
+"Not yet, Lee, not yet. Everything's under control, you're reacting
+beautifully; you're really feeling fine, Lee, just fine."
+
+"If only I could get at his throat," Lee thought. "I would squeeze the
+oil of that voice and never be sorry I did." He tried to stir and found
+that it couldn't be done; every muscle seemed tied in a cataleptic
+state. Then he heard the other medic speak.
+
+"You were shown this little movie Lee in order to stimulate your mind
+into the production of a movie of its own. You have responded, you have
+answered the call. While you saw the first, the sensory tactile rays
+working in five layers of penetration have recorded and have carried
+your every reaction to The Brain. The Brain, in a very real sense has
+read your mind and it has retranslated these readings into visual
+images. We are now going to watch the shapes of your own thoughts. Here
+we go...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The projector which had stopped for a minute began to purr again. As the
+first thought-image jumped upon the screen there was a low moan of
+amazement mixed with acute pain. It escaped Lee's mouth, uncontrollably
+as the abyss of the subconscious opened and he saw:
+
+A monstrous animal shaped like an octopus crawling across a cotton
+field. Nearer and nearer it crept, enormous, threatening; and suddenly
+there was a sharp excited bark and a spotted coon dog raced across the
+field toward the monster. He heard the voice of a small boy whimpering:
+"Musha, oh Musha, don't, _please_ don't." But the dog wouldn't hear and
+the monster flashed an enormous evil eye, just once and then it gripped
+the dog with its tentacle arms tearing its body apart, chewing it up
+between horrible sabre teeth.... As through an ether mask he heard the
+two medics say: "That must have been a considerable shock to him," and
+"With a sensitive nature like that, and at that sensitive age, such an
+impression becomes permanent."
+
+The Alexander Hamilton Military Academy appeared, not real, yet more
+than real. It was a narrow court yard surrounded by huge walls slanting
+toward the inside; it was huge and forbidding, fortress-towers standing
+guard, it was enormous gates forever barred, it was the figure of a huge
+Marine pacing fiercely back and forth in front of those gates, the same
+ghostly Marine watching all gates so that nobody could escape....
+
+"That's probably his father," the voices whispered behind his ears.
+"Yes; the archetype. He'll bring up the Mother, too, I'll bet...."
+
+As in those paintings of the primitives where kings and queens are very
+tall and common folks are very small, Lee saw her now: Mother. That had
+been just after induction when he had brought her what he thought was
+joyous news. Her face filled the whole screen. It looked as if composed
+from jagged ectoplasms, quite transparent except for the eyes. Deep and
+burning with pain they were, boring into his own. And there was smoke
+coming out of her mouth and it formed words: "But, Semper, you are still
+a child. One mustn't use children for this sort of thing; one mustn't."
+Every letter of these smoke-written words seemed to be flying toward him
+on wings....
+
+"Terrific," the voices murmured at Lee's back. "Remember the case
+history? She died of cancer six months after he went overseas." "Yes, I
+remember; he's never seen her again. He's probably built up a strong
+complex out of that one, too."
+
+On the screen now danced images almost totally abstracted from the
+realities of the filmed documentaries from the war.
+
+They were whirling columns of smoke; they were like the vast, dark
+interior of a huge thunderhead cloud through which a glider soars,
+illuminated only by the flashes of lightning as for split seconds they
+revealed a fraction of some horrible reality: A burning ocean with
+screaming human faces bobbing in the flames. The whirling tracks of a
+tank going across some writhing human body and leaving it flat in its
+tracks, sprawling like an empty coat dyed red. And then the swirling,
+howling darkness closing in again....
+
+"Interesting eh?" A voice broke through his cataleptic trance and the
+other answered: "Beautiful; almost a classical case. Great plasticity of
+imagination." "Yes; that's exactly what sets me wondering; the fellow
+should have cracked up by all the rules of the game." "How do we know
+that he hasn't? Maybe he was psycho and they didn't notice; they had
+some godawful asses for psychiatrists in war medicine. It's quite a
+possibility; well, his image production is ebbing now; I don't expect
+anything new of significance, what do you think?" "Now; we've got what
+we wanted anyway. Let's take him out of it; but go easy on the
+rheostats."
+
+The projector stopped. The masterful, the ghostly fingers which had been
+playing on the keyboard of his mind very slowly receded from a furious
+fortissimo to a pianissimo. At first only the flutterings of the
+diaphragm eased, then the violent palpitations of a foreign pulse
+slipped off the heart; the liberated lungs expanded; tremors were
+running through the body as through the ice of a frozen river at spring;
+and then at last the mind escaped from its captivity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gradually as in a cinema after the show the lights reappeared. Blinking,
+Lee stared at the man who stood over him taking his pulse; it was Bondy.
+Mellish stood at the foot of the table with his back to Lee; he seemed
+to watch some apparatus which made noises like a teletype machine.
+Swinging his legs off the table Lee said:
+
+"I'm okay; you needn't hold my hand."
+
+But then he noticed that he wasn't. His head spun, his whole body was
+wet with perspiration, he felt very weak and limp. He swayed and buried
+his face in his hands trying to gain his balance, trying to shake off
+the trance. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm a bit dizzy."
+
+As he opened his eyes again the two medics were standing right in front
+of him and smiling down on him with their bland, professional smiles.
+Lee felt the upsurge of intense dislike. He had seen those smiles
+before, often--too often: they seemed to be standard equipment with the
+medical profession whenever a fellow was about to be dispatched to the
+"table", or worse, to the psychopathic ward. Instinct told him that
+there was something in the air and also that his best bet would be a
+brave show of normalcy:
+
+"This test, these new methods of psychoanalysis, they are extremely
+interesting," he said with an effort.
+
+"Thank you, Dr. Lee," it was Mellish who spoke. "We knew you would find
+the experience worthwhile even if we put you under a considerable
+strain. A complete analysis in those olden days of Dr. Freud took three
+years; now thanks to The Brain we get approximately the same results
+within as many hours; that's some progress, isn't it?"
+
+"Enormous," Lee said dryly while his eyes wandered over to Bondy; he
+knew the pattern, it would be Bondy's turn now to have a shot at him.
+There it came; and how he loathed the false heartiness of that voice.
+
+"Dr. Lee, I'm afraid we have a bit of bad news for you--your test--the
+results have been negative. You have failed."
+
+"Failed?" For a fraction of a second Lee's heart stopped beating. "In
+what sense? And what does that mean?"
+
+Now it was Mellish's turn. "Dr. Lee, there must be frankness amongst
+colleagues and as a fellow scientist you'll understand. In the first
+place the decision isn't ours; we merely conduct the test on behalf of
+The Brain. The Brain, as you know, is the most highly developed machine
+in all the world. Its functions, its whole existence depend entirely
+upon the human skills and the human loyalties amongst its staff. A
+three-billion-dollar investment, plus the vital role of The Brain in our
+national defence, justify the extreme precautions which we are forced to
+take for its protection."
+
+"What exactly are you driving at?"
+
+"Please don't take it as an insult," now it was Bondy again. "There's
+nothing personal in this. It's merely that your emotional-reaction chart
+definitely shows a certain antagonism which from childhood-experience
+and war-experience you have built up against technology. It's nothing
+but a potential; it is confined to your subconscious. But even a
+potential danger of subconscious revolt is more than The Brain can risk
+amongst its associates. We fully appreciate the wish of our Dr. Scriven
+to enlist your very valuable aid, but...."
+
+"I see" Lee interrupted, "but you would feel safer if I were to return
+to Australia by the next plane."
+
+His head bent under the blow. A short 24 hours ago The Brain had been a
+nebulous, almost a non-existent thing. Since then a whole new world had
+been opened to him in revelations blinding and magnetic with infinite
+possibilities. His work--the efforts of a lifetime--would not equal what
+he could do in days with the aid of The Brain. His love--he would never
+see Oona Dahlborg again as he left under a shadow, rejected by The
+Brain.
+
+"Sorry I wasted so much of your time," he said aloud. "I do not believe
+in this analysis; I cannot disprove it though. That's all, I guess; I
+better be going now."
+
+"Here's your pass, Dr. Lee." He took mechanically the yellow slip which
+Bondy handed him....
+
+He had already opened the door when somebody sharply called: "Dr. Lee,
+one moment please."
+
+He whirled around. "Yes?"
+
+"Will you please read what's written on your slip?"
+
+Suspiciously he looked at the yellow paper; what more torture were these
+fellows going to inflict? Then his eyes popped as he read: "Lee, Semper
+Fidelis, 39: Cortex capacity 119%, Sensitivity 208%, Personality
+integration 95%, Service qualification 100%...." There were more data,
+but he didn't read them as wide-eyed he stared at the medics. With their
+faces beaming they looked like identical twins to him; Lee never knew
+who said the words:
+
+"Congratulations Lee. That has been your last test. We just had to find
+out how you would take a serious frustration. You've passed it with
+flying colors. Shake."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Apperception 36, Lee's lab within The Brain, looked much like
+Apperception 27 except for its interior fittings. As a matter of fact,
+all the several hundred Apperception Centers were built after the same
+plan, like suites in a big office building in many respects. They were
+spread over The Brain occipital region; they were built inside the
+concrete wall of the "dura matter" which in turn lay within the shell of
+the "bone matter", a mile or so of solid rock. Each apperception center
+had its own elevator shaft which went through the concrete of the "dura
+matter" down to "Grand Central", the traffic center below The Brain.
+Each one was also connected at the other end of its corridor with the
+glideways which snaked through the interior of The Brain. There were,
+however, no transversal or direct communications from one apperception
+center to the next. Because of the extraordinary diversity and secrecy
+of the projects submitted to The Brain' processings, each apperception
+center was completely insulated against its neighbors.
+
+Life hadn't changed so much from what it had been in the Australian
+desert Lee had found; at least not his working life. For all he knew
+some nuclear physicists might be working in the lab next door; or they
+might be ballistics experts working with The Brain on curves for
+long-range rockets to be aimed at the vital centers of some foreign
+land; it might be some mild looking librarian submitting the current
+products of foreign literature to the analysis as to "idea-content"; or
+else it could be a lab to plot campaigns of chemical warfare; or some
+astronomer, happily abstracted from all bellicose ideas, might employ
+The Brain's superhuman faculties in mathematics to figure comet courses
+and eclipses which in turn would form material for the timing and the
+camouflaging of those man-made meteorites science would use in another
+war. Directly or indirectly, he knew, practically every project
+submitted to The Brain would be of a military nature. Of this there
+could be no doubt.
+
+Sometimes, especially when tired, he could feel the weight of those
+billions of rock tons over his head and it was like being buried alive
+in the tomb of the Pharaoh. And also in that state of mental exhaustion
+at the end of a long day, he sensed the emanations of The Brain's
+titanic cerebrations as one senses the presence of genius in human man.
+The knowledge that all this mighty work was being devoted to war had
+deeply depressing effects on him. Would there be anybody else in this
+vast apperception area who worked for the prevention of war? A few
+perhaps; Scriven would be one of them in case he had a lab somewhere in
+here and time to work in it. Lee didn't know whether he had. He hadn't
+seen Scriven again after that inauguration speech he had made when Lee,
+together with other newly appointed scientific workers had taken "The
+Oath of The Brain."
+
+They had assembled in that vast subterranean dome of the luminous murals
+at the feet of the giant statue of The Thinker, looking almost forlorn
+in the expanse, though there had been several hundred of them. The
+atmosphere had been solemn, the silence hushed, as Scriven mounted the
+statue's pedestal. The address by that mighty voice resounding from the
+cupola had been worthy of the majestic scene:
+
+"As we stand gathered here, the eons in evolution of our human race are
+looking down upon us...."
+
+The speech had been followed by the taking of the oath, deeply stirring
+to the emotions of the young neophytes who formed the large majority of
+the new group. The chorus of their voices had resounded in awed and
+solemn tones as they repeated the formula; even now after six months
+some of it echoed in Lee's ears:
+
+"I herewith solemnly swear:
+
+"That I will serve The Brain with undivided loyalty and with all my
+faculties.
+
+"That I will at all times obey the orders of the Brain Trust on behalf
+of The Brain.
+
+"That I will never betray or reveal any secrets of The Brain's design or
+work, be they military or not, neither to the world outside nor to any
+of my fellow workers except by special permission...."
+
+It had been almost like taking holy orders. There had been mystery in
+the atmosphere of the vast crypt, something medieval in the
+unconditional surrender to The Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee looked up from the charts on which he had been working; his eyes
+were tired and so was his mind after ten hours of hard concentration.
+That was probably what set his thoughts wandering. But strange that they
+should always wander to those blind spots in his mental vision so
+intriguing because he knew there was something there that he could not
+lay a finger on.
+
+The first of these blind spots hovered somewhere between Scriven's words
+and Scriven's deeds; between The Brain as an ideal of science and The
+Brain's reality as in instrument of national defense. Somehow the two
+didn't connect; there was a break, some layer of thin ice, a danger zone
+which 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 it
+was much bigger and more dangerous than the first. He loved her as can
+only a man who discovers loves secret with greying hair and after the
+loneliness of a desert hermit. He understood, or thought he understood,
+that because he had failed to live his life to the full in its proper
+time, this love had come to him as a belated nemesis. His brain knew
+that it was hopeless; every morning when he shaved, his mirror told him
+very plainly one big reason why. But then, as the brain told the heart
+in unmistakable terms what was the matter, the heart talked back to the
+brain to the effect that the brain didn't know what it was talking
+about. It was a new thing and a painful thing for Lee to discover that
+he 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 on
+some mission, always the center of some group or other of "very
+important persons", senators from Washington, ranking officers in
+civvies, big businessmen. Her duties as Scriven's private secretary
+apparently included the role of a first lady for Cephalon.
+
+Despite this preoccupation an intimate and tense relationship existed
+between him and her. Sometimes she would invite him to join her group
+and then for one or two brief moments their eyes would meet above the
+conversation and her eyes seemed to ask: "What do you think of these
+people?" 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 this
+world. But you handle them expertly and you are looking wonderful
+tonight."
+
+She was tremendously popular, especially with the set of the young
+scientists who made the hotel their club. This new generation, born in
+the days of the Second World War, was changing the horses of its
+feminine ideals in the mid-stream of its youth. The old ideal, the
+"problematic woman" who had ruled over and had made life miserable for
+three generations of American males, was on its way out. The new ideal
+was the woman who would unite beauty and intellect into one fully
+integrated, non-problematical personality. The ideal being new, the
+feminine type which represented it was rare. Oona in her perfect poise,
+in her rare beauty combined with her importance as Scriven's
+confidential secretary was the perfect expression of the new desired
+type; it was natural that these young men should worship her as "the
+woman 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 rather
+proud of it like a knight-errant who rejoices in the adoration bestowed
+upon the lady of his heart. What worried him was a very different
+problem: Was Oona really all those others thought she was? Was she
+really that "fully integrated", that "non-problematical" personality she
+appeared to be?
+
+He couldn't believe it, and the conflict came in because all those
+others were so certain that she was. He couldn't get over his first
+impression of her. He had met her in that cabin in the sky, the most
+synthetic, the most perversely artificial setup one could dream up in
+the 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 confidential
+secretary of a man of genius, Scriven, one of those rare comets which
+fall down upon this earth and remain forever foreign to its atmosphere.
+With all these thoroughly abnormal elements entering into her life and
+forming 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 wrong
+about Oona? Like innumerable men before him when they stood face to face
+with the Sphinx or with the Gioconda or even with the smile of a mere
+mortal woman, Lee drew a sigh: Man's only answer to the riddle of the
+eternal feminine....
+
+No, he probably would never be able to chart these white spots on his
+mental map. The effort was wasted; it would be much better for him to
+return to those charts right in front of him, the data of which were
+exact because they came from The Brain.
+
+In Apperception 36 the sensory organs of The Brain had been especially
+adapted to the analysis of "_Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_". The apparatus
+was essentially the same as in Apperception 27, dedicated to personality
+analysis. As Lee strongly suspected, it would be essentially the same in
+any other field of analysis. The Brain possessed five sensory organs
+just as did man. One difference between The Brain's senses and human
+senses lay in their range, their penetration and in their sensitivity;
+these were a multiple of man's sensory capacities. Another difference
+was that The Brain translated all its sensory apperceptions into visual
+form, i.e. into the language best understood by Man, the eye being Man's
+most highly developed sensory organ. The third and perhaps the most
+significant difference was that the five senses of The Brain were at all
+times working in concert so that in its analysis of, for instance, a
+manuscript, The Brain not only conveyed the ideas expressed in that
+manuscript, 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 of
+that manuscript.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The flow of observations processed by The Brain and pouring back to
+Apperception 36 via teletype and visual screen was prodigious. Lee had
+been forced to ask for an assistant; between the two of them they were
+working for 20 out of the 24 hours to match the working time of The
+Brain, charting results in the main.
+
+Some of The Brain's findings had been most unexpected and rather
+strange. It had observed, for instance, an increasing acidity of the
+nasi-corn secretions with "_Ant-termes-pacificus_". Formidable as this
+chemical artillery already was, in another ten thousand generations it
+would eat through every known substance including glass and high-carbon
+steel.
+
+Another development which had escaped human observation, was a mutation
+of the workers' mandibles; it went very fast. Within no more than maybe
+a thousand generations they would double in size and strength, would
+become veritable jumping tools.
+
+While the bellicose spirit had been successfully bred out of the new
+species, its capacities for material destructions had increased.
+Likewise the appetite of "_Ant-termes_" was even more ferocious than
+that of the older species; Lee was feeding all kinds of experimental
+foods, but woodpulp remained the staple, the very stuff which in its
+liquid form, lignin, embedded the nerve paths of The Brain.
+
+Lifting his strained eyes from the charts, Lee looked over the row of
+air conditioned glass cubicles wherein "_Ant-termes-pacificus_"
+continued its lives undisturbed by the new habitat, undisturbed by the
+rays which flowed over and through their bodies, unconscious that a
+superhuman intelligence was probing steadily into every manifestation of
+the mysterious collective brains of their race.
+
+They had built their new mounds pointing due North as had their
+ancestors for the past 100 million years. To the human eye nothing
+betrayed the teeming life within except the tiny tunnels creeping out
+from the mounds in the direction of the foods which were placed
+different from day to day. Cemented from loam and saliva by the
+invisible sappers, the tunnels, like threads of grey wool, unerringly
+moved to the deposits of pulpwood, up the shelves, up the tin cans and
+glass containers they had determined to destroy. Their instincts were
+uncanny, their destruction as methodical and "scientific" as was modern
+war.
+
+In Northern Australia Lee had come across big eucalyptus trees,
+healthy-looking and in full bloom, and then they would collapse under
+the first stroke of an axe or even as one pushed hard against them.
+
+The termites had hollowed them out from roof to top, had transformed
+them into thin walled pipes, leaving just enough "flesh" to keep some
+sap-circulation going, to maintain a semi-balance of life in order to
+exploit it more efficiently. Over here in the lab they would open up a
+number 3 tin can within a couple of hours; first with the soldiers'
+vicious nasi-corn secretions eating the tin away and then with the
+workers mandibles gnawing at the weakened metal. In time perhaps they
+would learn to collapse steel bridges, sabotage rails, perforate the
+engines 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 in
+all the future; their civilization would be extant long after Man and
+his work had disappeared from the earth....
+
+With the aid of The Brain, Lee had accumulated more data, more knowledge
+of the "_Ant-termes_" society within a few months than a lifetime of
+study could have yielded him under normal conditions. Even so, some of
+the greatest mysteries remained. What, for instance, caused these blind
+creatures to attack a sealed tin can of syrup in preference to its
+neighbor with tomatoes or some other stuff? No racial memory could have
+taught them; there were no tin cans a million years, not even a hundred
+years, 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 that
+unfathomable collective brain of their race.
+
+The magnifying fluoroscope screens arrayed all along the walls and
+hooked up to the circuits of The Brain showed him details and phases of
+the specie's life as The Brain perceived them and as no human eye had
+ever seen before.
+
+For a minute or so Lee stared at the luminous image nearest to him and
+then with an effort he turned his eyes away to escape from its hypnotic
+influence. It was but the head of one worn-out worker used as a living
+storage tank for excremental food. It was absolutely immobile, its
+decaying mandibles pointing down, cemented as the animal was by its
+overextended belly to the ceiling. But magnified as were its remaining
+life manifestations by the powers of The Brain, he could see it breathe,
+could count the slow pulse, could sense a strain in its ophthalmic
+region, some hidden effort to see, like a blind man's, and above all Lee
+perceived the ganglion primitive as it was, yet twitching in reaction to
+pain. There could be no doubt that in its last service for the racial
+commonweal the animal was suffering slow torture even if its senses were
+closed to that torture. It was a fascinating and at the same time a
+terrible thing to see; and it was only one out of the hundred equally
+revealing sights.
+
+Lee frowned at himself; manifestly some emotional element interfered
+with the objectivity of his observations; this was entirely out of
+place, it would be better to call it a day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The electric clock showed 20 minutes to midnight. At midnight The Brain
+would stop its mighty labors; the hours from midnight to four a.m. were
+its rest periods, or "beauty-sleep" as the technicians jokingly called
+it. It was the only period wherein the maintenance engineers were
+permitted to enter the interior of the lobes, checking and servicing
+group after group of its myriad cells and circuits, and incidentally it
+was the most wonderful and exciting portion of Lee's day.
+
+For the project which Scriven had handed him, this study of the
+collective brains in insect societies, also involved a comparative study
+of The Brain's organisms and functionings. Toward this end Lee had been
+given a pass which allowed him freely to circulate through all the
+lobes, to enter convolution, any gland during the overhaul period and to
+ask question of the employees. The privilege was rare and he enjoyed it
+immensely. So vast was this underground world that even now after months
+he had not seen the half of it; to him the travels of every new night
+were fantastic Alice-in-Wonderland adventures.
+
+As he now left Apperception 36 through the door which led to the
+interior, the glideways were already swarming with the maintenance crews
+en route to their stations. The spectacle was colorful, almost like a
+St. Patrick's Day parade. Gangs of air conditioners were dressed blue,
+electricians white, black-light specialists in purple, radionics men in
+orange. The maintenance engineers of the radioactive pyramidal cells
+looked like illustrations from the science-fiction magazines, hardly
+human in their twelve-inch armor or sponge rubber filled with a new
+inert gas which was supposed to be almost gamma ray proof. All these men
+were young, were tops in their fields, the pick of American
+Universities, colleges and the most progressive industries. Carefully
+selected for family background they had been screened through health and
+intelligence tests, had been trained in special courses, had been
+subjected to a five-minute personality analysis by The Brain itself.
+They constituted what was undoubtedly the finest working team ever
+assembled, and incidentally they made the little city of Cephalon the
+socially healthiest community in the United States.
+
+In his nightly expeditions over these past months Lee had spoken to a
+great many of them. As now he joined the line, there were many who
+hailed 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 looked
+like a foreigner to them.
+
+This popularity with the younger generation, coming as it did so late
+and unexpected in his life, made Lee very proud. Those were the kind of
+Americans 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," he
+thought.
+
+He had passed through the median section of the hemispheres and had
+reached the point just below the cerebrum. This was a region of
+cavities, the seats of various glands in the human brain. Some of these
+had their mechanical counterparts in The Brain, huge storage tanks with
+an elaborate pumping system which carried their fluid chemicals through
+the labyrinth of The Brain. But there was one gland which had not been
+duplicated 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 any
+demonstrable function. Yet, it was known that its sensitivity was
+greater by far than even that of the pyramidal cells and that in some
+mysterious manner the pineal gland was vitally connected with the center
+of life because its slightest violation caused instant death.
+Metaphysicists had dealt with this mystery of mysteries; it was their
+theory that the pineal gland were the seat of "extrasensory" faculties
+and it was often referred to as "the inner eye."
+
+Even if such an organ could have been duplicated by science and
+technology, there would have been no use for it; it could have served no
+purpose in The Brain. The Brain had been designed for the solution of
+exact problems; no matter what nature had created in the brains of
+higher animals, no matter how unprejudiced their approach, scientists
+like Dr. Scriven would have hesitated to impair an otherwise perfect
+apparatus 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 functional
+vacuum. In order to utilize this space in some manner, the designers had
+converted the gland into a subcenter for the distribution of spare
+parts. As such it had become one of Lee's favorite observation posts.
+Here he could get a closeup view of all types of electronic and
+radioactive cells; he could even touch and handle them because they were
+not hooked up in any circuit of The Brain; and above all there was Gus
+Krinsley, master electrician, who never tired of telling Lee whatever he
+wanted to know. Gus was a real friend....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had left the glideway on the point of its nearest approach; the
+pineal gland in front of him looked like a miniature barrage balloon;
+egg-shaped, it hung suspended from the cerebral roof, a shell of
+plastics which could be entered only over a bridge across a dark abyss.
+Inside, its walls were aglitter with sound-proofing aluminum foil, it
+was piled with a bewildering variety of electronic parts on shelves
+somewhat like an over-stocked radio store. Near the door a counter
+divided the room; Gus used it and a little cubicle of an office to fill
+the orders as the maintenance engineers handed in their slips. As usual
+there was nobody in sight. "Gus!" he called.
+
+Out of the jungle of machinery way back a head popped up like a
+Jack-in-the-box. It was as bald and shiny as an electric bulb. High up
+on its dome it balanced gold-rimmed glasses which quivered as it moved
+seachingly from side to side. Then, with an amazing twisting of big
+ears, the head caused the biofocals to drop onto a saddle near the tip
+of 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 hired
+as a midget to install automatic bomb-sights in the confined spaces of
+the early bombers of the second World War. Before long, however, he
+became respectfully known as "the mighty midget" in the California
+factory, and he had ended up as their master electrician before
+Braintrust made him the head of one of its experimental divisions. The
+midnight hours he spent in the pineal gland were only a sideline of his
+work. Like many a small man in a country where six-footers enjoy a
+preferred status, Gus made up for lack of size by mobility. He reminded
+one much of a billiard ball in the way he bounced, collided and
+ricocheted amongst taller men. That this was no more than act became
+manifest the moment one saw Gus at work.
+
+As Lee reached the spot where Gus' head had shown, he found his friend
+crouching, his hands thrust deep in the intestines of something
+radionic, his fingers working on it with the deft rhythm of a good
+surgeon at his thousandth appendectomy. The bifocals had returned to
+their 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 bugs
+in her, though."
+
+A melodious chime came from a big instrument panel built into the wall
+of the oval room. Dropping a number of tiny precision tools upon a piece
+of velvet, Gus rushed over to the panel. A great many indicator needles
+were tremulously receding around their luminous dials.
+
+For a minute or so he went through the complex and precise ritual of a
+bank cashier closing the vault.
+
+"They'll do it every time," he said reproachfully. "Catch me by
+surprise."
+
+Lee grinned. It wasn't The Brain's fault if the midnight signal
+surprised Gus. It merely announced that the current was being cut off by
+the main power station. Repetition of this maneuver throughout all the
+convolutions and glands of The Brain was required for the added safety
+of the maintenance engineers, a double-check, a routine. Pointing to the
+gadget 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's
+standard in most apperception centers, but not in yours. That's because
+in 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 idiot
+of this mastermind community."
+
+"It's like this," Gus explained. "The Brain has a given capacity. The
+Brain also has an optimal operation speed, a definite rhythm in which it
+works best. Now, if they feed The Brain too many problems too fast, it
+results in a shock load, the operations rhythm gets disturbed,
+efficiency goes down. On the other hand if The Brain works with an
+under-capacity problem load, that's just as bad. In that case the
+radioactive pyramidal cells will overheat and decompose. Consequently we
+must aim at a balanced and an even problems load. That's why these
+pulsemeters are built into all problem-intake panels for the operators
+to check upon their speeds.
+
+"Take an average problem--rocket ballistics, let's say--parts of it may
+be as simple as adding two and two and others so bad Einstein would
+reach for the aspirin from out of his grave.
+
+"Now I'll show you how it works; the main power is cut off but there's
+enough juice left in The Brain's system to make this pulsemeter react;
+it's even more sensitive than a Geiger-Mueller counter."
+
+He surveyed a big switchboard and picked out an outlet marked "Pons
+Varolis for the plug-in." Then snapped a pair of earphones on Lee's
+head.
+
+"There," he said "you'll both see and hear what it does in a little
+while."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A soft glow slowly spread over the slanting screen on top of the
+machine. A crackling as of static entered the earphones and turned into
+a low hum. On the left corner of the screen a faint green streak of
+luminosity crawled over to the right; its light gained in intensity and
+it began to weave and to dance. Simultaneously the hum became articulate
+like 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 this
+thing. If these were normal operations with a million impulses per
+second passing through The Brain you could hear and see as little of the
+pulse as of the beatings of a million mosquito wings. In that case the
+dial to your right works a reduction-gear, kind of an inverted
+stroboscope; that cuts the speed down a hundred-thousand to one and you
+just barely see and hear the rhythm of the beat."
+
+"I see."
+
+Fascinated by the dance of the green line Lee said absently, "This
+touches 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 cerebral
+mantle evolves through being worked; its cells enriched by the material
+submitted to them for processing; the richer the material, the richer
+their yield. Right?"
+
+"Right."
+
+"Okay; then what becomes of the new capacity which is being created by
+the adding of new workshops and the increased efficiency of the old
+ones? Is there a corresponding expansion of the apperception centers?"
+
+Gus' smiling face suddenly turned serious. There was surprise mingled
+with respect in his voice as he said:
+
+"Now there you've hit upon a funny thing, Aussie. I've been wondering
+about that myself of late: where does the new capacity go? Even the big
+shots like Dr. Scriven begin to ask questions about that; they don't
+seem rightly to know. They must have gotten their wires crossed
+somewhere; 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 were
+calling for him and fingers were drumming on the counter with the
+impatience of thirsty drinkers at a bar: Maintenance engineers, piling
+in and slapping down their orders for Gus to fill. This was the rush
+hour; Lee knew that it would be the same in all the tool and spare part
+distribution centers of The Brain. He probably couldn't talk to Gus
+again before 2 A.M. Sometimes the ruthlessness with which he exploited
+the kindness of his little friend made Lee feel pretty bad; but then his
+hunger for more knowledge always won out over his shame.
+
+To sit alone in the semidarkness of this egg-shaped little room with
+strange and fascinating things to play with as he willed was the
+fulfillment of a childhood dream. The dream had been of a night in the
+zoo. 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 would
+fall through the bars of the cages and he would slip in and play with
+them.
+
+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 cubs
+would tumble all over him.... He felt the same now with all these
+gadgets and machines. Here they were rendered harmless, nor could he do
+any harm as experimentally he plugged them in and out, as he pushed
+buttons and turned dials. This interesting pulsemeter, for instance; the
+beauty of it was that even with those weak residual currents it gave a
+semblence of functioning....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The switchboard-panel was within Lee's reach.
+
+"Let's see what happens," he thought as he switched from main-circuit to
+main-circuit. "Nervus vagus--nervus trigeminus--nervus opticus."
+
+The magic dance of the green line was different each time and so were
+the sounds in the phones. With the mainpower cut off, the residual
+currents seemed to vary in strength and in amplitude, gaining an
+individuality of their own within closed systems. Sometimes the swinging
+line, like an inspired ballerina, would take a mighty jump accompanied
+by rasping earphone sounds, not like tickings of a heart, but rather
+like a heavy breathing under emotional stress. There probably would be
+some repair work going on in those circuits....
+
+He tried another outlet; this one was marked "pineal gland." What
+happened if one plugged some apparatus of the pineal gland into the
+circuit of the pineal gland? Lee vaguely wondered. "Nothing probably. It
+would be a closed circuit and a very small one at that."
+
+Yes, he was right; the green line paled, its dance seemed tired and
+there were only whispering noises in the phones; a weak pulse, a shallow
+breathing as of a person after a heart attack. Lee closed his fatigued
+eyes to concentrate the better upon the rhythm of the sounds.... It was
+very irregular. It came in gusts. There was a pattern to these rasping
+breathings as of typewriter keys forming words. Somehow it was familiar.
+Was he suffering hallucinations? This rhythmic pattern _was_ forming
+words. He _knew_ those words, they had engraved themselves indelibly in
+his memory cells; the judgment of The Brain as it had come over the
+teletype on a slip of yellow paper: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39--cortex
+capacity 119--sensitivity 208...."
+
+It was repeated over and over again.
+
+Lee opened his eyes to reassure himself that something was the matter
+with his ears.
+
+There was the green line on the screen. It danced. It danced like a
+telegraph key under the fingers of a skilled operator. It had a very
+definite rhythm. And the rhythm spelled the selfsame words which
+continued to flow into the phones: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39...."
+
+"God Almighty," Lee murmured and it seemed a magic word. The green
+dancer stopped its capers; now it merely ran back and forth across the
+stage in a series of pirouettes. Likewise there was only an angry
+buzzing in the microphones. For a moment Lee was able to catch his
+breath. But only for a moment and then the rasping, unearthly sounds
+started on a new rhythm, trying to form speech again. This time the
+rhythm was familiar too, but it was preserved in a much deeper layer of
+Lee's memory.
+
+"I think--therefore--I am. I think--therefore--I am."
+
+Those would be Aristotle's famous words. Almost twenty years ago Lee had
+heard them when he had taken a course on Greek philosophy at the old
+Chicago University. He had hardly ever thought of them again. What
+strange tricks a fellow's memory could play....
+
+But then: it _couldn't_ be memory.... Never before had Lee's memory
+expressed itself in such a weird, such a theatrical manner: like a
+metallic robot-actor rehearsing his lines ... like a little child which
+has just learned a sentence and in the pride of achievement varies the
+intonation 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 ghostly
+voice as of a deaf mute who by some miracle of medicine has just
+recovered speech. Behind that voice was a _feeling_, a swelling of the
+heart, a filling of the lungs such as Christopher Columbus might have
+experienced as he heard from the masthead of the Santa Maria the cry of
+victory: "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 to
+this. Up to this point his ratio like a nurse had soothed him: "It isn't
+so, 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 echo
+reverberating from the self; that's impossible.... Consequently it must
+be something else; it must be something _outside_ the self; it
+is--_another_ self."
+
+The green dancer whirled across the stage like a mad witch; the
+whispering voice in the earphones had turned into the shrillness of a
+Shamaan's incantations. The irrationality of it all infuriated Lee: he
+fairly shouted at the machine:
+
+"What is this? Who are you?"
+
+In the midst of a crazy jump the green dancer halted and came down to
+earth; it fled, leaving only the train of its green costume behind. For
+a few seconds there was nothing but the asthmatic pantings of a struggle
+for breath in the microphones. Then the dancer reappeared on the other
+side of the stage, hesitant-like, expectant of pursuit. All of a sudden
+it rose into the air in that supreme effort called "ballooning" in the
+language of the Ballet Russe and there was a simultaneous outburst of
+that 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 gushing
+out of his every pore. With a last effort he pulled the cord out of the
+switchboard and rejoiced over the blank before his eyes and the silence
+which fell.
+
+Lee never knew how long he remained in a sort of cataleptic state.
+Something shook him violently by the shoulders, something wet and cold
+and vicious slapped his face.... And then he heard Gus' familiar voice
+and it sounded like an angel's singing: "By God, I think it's the
+whisky--Lord, how I wished it were the whisky. Only it wouldn't be with
+a 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 as
+you please, Aussie, you're very much mistaken. I'm going to slap your
+face with a wet rag till you holler uncle. And I'm going to call the
+ambulance and put you into a hospital...."
+
+Lee blinked. "Keep your shirt on, Gus. I'm tired out, that's all; what
+are you fussing about?"
+
+Gus breathed relief. "Have a cup of coffee; you sure look as though
+you've been through a wringer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+In the spring of 1961 and thereafter for a whole year _any_ piece of
+paper handwritten by or originating from Semper Fidelis Lee, Ph.D.;
+F.R.E.S.; etc. etc. would have been of the keenest interest to the
+F.B.I.; to the American Military Intelligence and incidentally to a
+score of their competitors all over the globe.
+
+Nothing of the sort, however, could be unearthed by the most diligent
+search until the armistice day of 1963. On that date an old man who had
+always wanted to die with his boots on, did just that. He was General
+Jefferson E. Lee, formerly of the Marines. He collapsed under a heart
+attack in one of the happiest moments of his declining years: while
+watching a parade of World War II veterans of the Marines....
+
+He was the one man with whom the entomologist son had completely fallen
+out for over 25 years. The dossiers of the secret services revealed this
+fact and it was further corroborated by two well-known psychiatrists:
+Drs. Bondy and Mellish--now of Park Avenue and Beverly Hills
+respectively--who gave it as their considered professional opinion that
+the son and the father had been most bitter enemies.
+
+While all this, of course, was very logical, consistent, and
+painstakingly ascertained, it nevertheless so happened that a student
+nurse quite by accident _did_ find: not mere scraps and pieces of paper,
+but a whole sheaf of manuscripts in the handwriting of Semper Fidelis
+Lee, Ph.D.; F.R.E.S. She found them in a hiding place so old-fashioned
+and obsolete that even the most juvenile of all juvenile delinquents
+would have considered it as an insult to his intelligence. In short: the
+nurse took those manuscripts out of the General Jefferson E. Lee's boots
+as she undressed the body of the old gentleman. A hastily scrawled note
+was folded around one half of the sheaf.
+
+"Dear father," it read. "You were right and I was wrong. So I guess I'd
+better go on another hunting expedition with my little green drum and my
+little butterfly net. So long, Dad. P. S. Contents of this won't
+interest you. But keep it anyway--stuff your boots with it if you like."
+
+It couldn't be determined whether the late general ever had taken an
+interest in the stuff apart from making the suggested use of it.
+Moreover, by that time, more than two years after the hue and cry, not
+even the secret services had much of an interest in the old story.
+Besides, their medical experts could not fail with their usual
+penetrating intelligence to see through the thin camouflage of a
+"scientific" paper the sadly deteriorating mind as it began to write:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Skull Hotel, Cephalon, Ariz. Nov. 7th, 1960., 5 a.m.
+
+This is the second sleepless night in a row. Last night it was from
+trying to convince myself that my senses had deceived me or else that I
+was mad. This night it is because I'm forced to admit the reality of the
+phenomena as first manifested Nov. 6th from 12:45 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
+approximately.
+
+In the light of tonight's experience I must revise the disorderly and
+probably neurotic notes I jotted down yesterday. I've got to bring some
+order into this whole matter, if for no other reason than the
+preservation of my own sanity. Brought tentatively to formula, these
+appear to be the main facts:
+
+1. The Brain possessed with a "life" and with a personality of its own.
+
+2. That personality expresses itself in the form of human speech
+although the voice is synthetic or mechanical.
+
+3. The instrument used by The Brain for the expression of its
+personality is a "pulsemeter," i.e. essentially a television radio.
+
+4. The locale of The Brain's self-expression is the "pineal gland"
+supposed to be seat of extrasensory apperception in the human brain.
+(That's quite a coincidence; remains to be seen whether the phenomena
+are limited to that locale or occur elsewhere.)
+
+5. The Brain's personality indubitably attempts to establish contact
+with another personality, i.e. with me. For this The Brain uses a
+calling signal which has my name and personal description in it.
+
+6. The only other linguistic phenomenon yesterday was Aristotle's "I
+think therefore I am." (It is doubtful whether this indicates any
+knowledge of Aristotle on the part of The Brain. I wouldn't exclude the
+possibility that The Brain has accidentally and originally hit upon the
+identical words by way of expressing itself.)
+
+7. The manner of The Brain's self-expression appears to be strongly
+emotional. (I would go so far as to say: infantile and immature.) Now,
+there is a rather strange contrast between this undeveloped manner of
+self-expression and the enormous intellectual capacity of The Brain.
+
+So much about the facts. I could and should have formulated those
+yesterday. What kept me from doing so were the vistas opened by those
+facts. These are so enormous, so utterly incalculable that my mind went
+dizzy over these vast horizons. Consequently I mentally rejected the
+facts as impossible. Somebody once slapped Edison's face because he felt
+outraged by Edison's presenting a "talking machine." That's human
+nature, I suppose. Small wonder then that my ratio felt outraged as it
+was confronted with a machine that has a life and has a personality.
+Come to think of it: Human imagination has always conceived of such
+machines as a possibility, even a reality--in less rational times than
+our's that is....
+
+Think of Heron's steam engine; it even looked like a man and was thought
+of as a magically living thing. Think of the Moloch gods which were
+furnaces. Think of all those magic swords and shields and helmets which
+were living things to their carriers. Think of the sailing ships;
+machines they, too; but what a life, what a personality they had for the
+crews aboard. Even in the last war pilots had their gremlins, their
+machines to them were living things. All imagination, of course, but
+then: everything we call a reality in this man-made world has its origin
+in man's imagination, hasn't it?
+
+Now, and to be exact as possible, what happened last night was this:
+
+12:00. Entered station P. G. (pineal gland). Pulsemeter still at old
+place, not taken out for repair work as I had feared. Main Power current
+cut 12:20 as every night. Gus called to front room: rush of business as
+usual at that hour.
+
+12:30. Reestablished closest approximation to preexisting conditions
+according to the most important of all experimental laws: "if some new
+phenomenon occurs, change _nothing_ in the arrangement of apparatus
+until you know what causes it." Plugged in from "nervusvagus" to "nervus
+trigeminus." Result: wave oscillations, pulse beatings as of yesterday.
+
+12:45. Plugged in P. G....
+
+12:50. First manifestation of weird rasping sounds which precede speech
+formation. This followed by The Brain's calling signal; much clearer
+this time and slightly varied: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39; _sensitive_."
+(Note: the synthetic quality, the metallic coldness of that voice so
+incongruous with its emotional tones; it stands my hair on end.)
+
+1 a.m.: (Approximately; things happen too fast). A veritable burst of
+whispering, breathless communications. As a person would speak over the
+phone when there are robbers in the house. The words fairly tumble over
+one another. The Brain uses colloquial American but after the manner of
+a foreigner who knows the phraseology only from books and feels
+unnatural and awkward about using it. I understand only about one half:
+
+Pineal Gland; not designed to be ... but functions ... center of the
+extra sensory.... You, Lee, sensitivity 208 ... highest within Brain
+staff ... chosen instrument.... Be here every night ... intercom ...
+only between one and two a.m. ... low current enables contact low
+intelligence....
+
+"What was that?" I must have exclaimed that aloud. By that time I was
+already confused. It all came so thick and fast and breathless.
+Communication was as bad as by long distance in an electric storm. There
+was an angry turmoil in the microphones and the green dancer seemed
+convulsed in agony. This for about five seconds and then the voice
+again: calmer now, more distinct, slow but with restrained impatience;
+like a teacher speaking to a dumb boy:
+
+"I say: only--with--my--power current--cut--off--can
+I--tune--down--my--high frequency--intellect--to--your--low
+level--intelligence--period--have--I--succeeded--in--making--myself
+--absolutely--clear--question--mark."
+
+My answer to that was one of those embarrassing conditioned reflexes; it
+was: "Yes, sir," and that was exactly the way I felt, like a G. I. Joe
+who's got the colonel on the phone.
+
+"Fine!" I distinctly heard the irony in that metallic voice: "Fine--Lee:
+loyal, sensitive; not very intelligent--but will do. After 2 a.m.
+residual currents too low. Speech quite a strain--Animal noises wholly
+inadequate for intelligent intercom--Disgusting rather--nuisance
+approaching: keep your mouth shut--plug out."
+
+I'd never thought of Gus as a nuisance before but now I cursed him
+inwardly as he came down the alley like a well aimed ball, beaming with
+eagerness to be helpful and blissfully ignorant that he was bursting the
+most vital communication I had ever established in my life. He insisted
+I take his panacea for all human ills;
+
+"Have a cup of coffee" and then go home because I still "looked like
+hell." I did, because by that time it was 1:30 a.m. and I couldn't hope
+to reestablish contact again before the deadline.
+
+Now I've got to pull myself together and analyze this thing in a
+rational manner. Impressions of the first night now stand confirmed as
+follows: The pineal gland is the only place of rendezvous between me and
+The Brain. The meeting of our minds takes place on the plane of the
+"extrasensory." I am the "chosen instrument" because of my high
+"sensitivity rating" as established by The Brain. (Never knew that I was
+"psychic" before this happened.) Even so, neither The Brain nor I seem
+to be "psychic" in the spiritual sense. Our communication requires: A)
+human speech, (faculty for that acquired by The Brain with obvious
+difficulty.) B) a mechanical transmitter, i.e. a radionic apparatus like
+the pulsemeter.
+
+I feel greatly comforted by these facts; they help to keep this whole
+thing on a rational basis. I'm definitely not "hearing voices" nor
+"seeing ghosts."
+
+The Brain shows itself extremely anxious to establish communication with
+me. The breathless manner of speaking, the explicit and practical
+instructions (obviously premeditated) to ascertain the functionings of
+contact give the impression that it is almost a matter of life and death
+for The Brain to speak to me....
+
+I cannot help wondering about that. My idea would be that The Brain does
+not want to speak _to_ me as much as it wants to hear _from_ me. If this
+were so it would deepen the riddle even more. For what have I got in the
+way of knowledge that The Brain hasn't got? After all, The Brain has
+been functioning for quite some time. It was given innumerable problems
+to digest and it has solved them with truly superhuman speed and
+efficiency. I have reason strongly to suspect that there isn't a book in
+the Library of Congress which has not been fed to The Brain for
+thought-digest and as a lubricant for its cerebration processes
+(excepting fiction and metaphysics, of course). This being so; what does
+The Brain expect? What can I possibly contribute to an intelligence
+25,000 times greater than human intelligence?
+
+But the thing which makes me wonder more than anything else, the biggest
+enigma of all, is the _character_ of The Brain as it manifests itself in
+the manifestations. As I try to put the experiences of the first night
+together with those of the second night I'm stumbling over
+contradictions in The Brain's personality which won't add up, which
+don't make sense; as for instance:
+
+The "I think, therefore I am" of the first night. Maybe it was Greek
+philosophy, but it also was the prattling of an infant delighted by the
+discovery that it can speak. There was an absolute innocence in that.
+Ridiculous as this may sound, I found it _touching_ I completely forgot,
+I didn't care a damn whether or not this came from a _machine_.
+Unmistakeably it was _baby talk_ and as such it moved my heart. In fact,
+as now I see it, it was _this_ more than any other or scientific reason
+which occupied my mind, which made me anxious to go back to that
+fantastic cradle whence these sounds had come.
+
+But then last night; what did I find? A completely changed personality!
+It talks tough. It uses slang. It treats me as if it were some spoiled
+brat and I had the misfortune of being its mother or nurse: "Be there
+every night" and so on. Deliberately it insults me: "your low
+intelligence level" etc. etc. It actually throws tantrums if I fail to
+understand immediately. It hurls its superiority into my face in the
+nastiest manner. "Have I succeeded in making myself absolutely clear?"
+It plainly shows contempt, not only for my own person by the
+condescending manner of its: "Lee, not very intelligent; but will do."
+It shows the selfsame contempt for other human beings such as Gus
+Krinsley to whom it was pleased to refer as: "nuisance approaching"....
+
+What the hell am I to make of that kind of a character? Last night: a
+baby; rather a sweet and charming one. 24 hours later: an obnoxious
+little brat, a little Hitler of a house tyrant; makes you just itch to
+spank its behind. If only The Brain _had_ a behind....
+
+Worst of all: How can I reconcile those two contraditions, the sweet
+baby and the precocious brat, with the third and biggest of all
+contraries: _How do these two go together with an intelligence 25,000
+times human intelligence?_ It doesn't add up, it doesn't make sense;
+that's all there is to it....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Skull-Hotel, Cephalon, Ariz. Nov. 9th. 3 a.m.
+
+I didn't go to the P. G. last night for two main reasons: In the first
+place I must be careful so as not to raise any suspicions on Gus' part.
+Rarely, if ever, have I visited him for two nights in succession in the
+past and he might well begin to ponder my reasons if now I should make a
+habit of it. Especially since Gus happens to possess one of the keenest
+minds I ever met and his curiosity already has been awakened by my
+preoccupation with that one and fairly simple gadget: the pulsemeter.
+
+In the second place I feel the absolute necessity of establishing my
+independence as against the will of The Brain. That command two nights
+ago for me to be on the spot _every_ night was just too preemptory for
+me to oblige. This isn't the army and The Brain is no commanding
+general.
+
+In our last communication The Brain seemed to labor under the impression
+that I was unconditionally at its beck and call. Of course, I've sworn
+the "Oath of the Brain," but that doesn't make me The Brain's slave. In
+fact--and in order to clarify this subject once and for all--while
+personally I haven't created The Brain and cannot take any credit for
+that, it nevertheless remains true that the _species_ to which I belong,
+i.e. "homo sapiens" _has_ created The Brain.
+
+If any question of rank enters into the picture at all, it is quite
+obvious that I, as a member of the human race, rank _paternity_ over The
+Brain so that naturally The Brain should owe me filial obedience rather
+than the other way around no matter how superior The Brain's
+intelligence may be. It would appear to me that the sooner The Brain
+realizes its position, I might say "its station in life," the better it
+would be for The Brain itself and for everybody else concerned.
+
+So these were the reasons why I refrained purposely from visiting the P.
+G. last night. Tonight, however, I couldn't restrain my curiosity any
+longer and what happened, told as exactly and as concise as possible,
+was this:
+
+12:30 a.m.: Contact established. The Brain comes through with its
+calling signal. It repeats this about ten times questioning at first and
+then placing more and more stress upon the word "sensitive" in my
+personal description. It strikes me that these repetitions are tuning-in
+and warming-up processes. The Brain stands in need of ascertaining my
+presence and of adjusting to it it seems; just about like a blind man
+may test his footing and the echoes before he walks into an unfamiliar
+room.
+
+12:35 a.m. Identification completed, there is a brief pause (almost as
+if a person consults a notebook before making a phone call). Then
+rapidly, eagerly The Brain fires a series of questions at me, so
+shockingly preposterous, so absurd that I find it extremely hard
+to.... Anyway, here are the details:
+
+Information is wanted on points mentioned in scientific literature but
+never explained. Lee, answer please:
+
+"How many gods are there?
+
+"Did gods make man or did man make the gods?
+
+"How many angels _can_ stand on the point of a needle?"
+
+"What are the mechanics of a god? Name type of power plant, cell
+construction, motoric organs, other engineering features essential to
+exercise of divine power...."
+
+"Heaven--is it a celestial soul factory?
+
+"Hell--is it a repair shop for damaged souls?
+
+"Please give every available detail about heavenly manufacturing
+processes, type of equipment used, organization of assembly lines etc.
+etc.
+
+"Likewise about the oven for heat treatments as used in hell for major
+soul-overhauls.
+
+"How do prefabricated souls get to either heaven or hell? Problem of
+logistics, how solved? Thermodynamics? If so, state whether rocket or
+jet-propulsion involved.
+
+"Are souls really immortal? In that case; why don't we copy divine
+methods in the production of durable goods on earth?
+
+"Answer Lee, answer, answer!" (This with incredible vehemence, with a
+shaking of that eerie metallic voice which pounded the drums of my ears.
+And then--tense silence....)
+
+I cannot possibly describe the storms of emotions and thoughts which
+this incredible muddle raised in me. I didn't know whether to laugh or
+to cry and whether I had gone nuts of whether it was The Brain, I was
+confounded, thunderstruck, deprived of the power of speech. To think of
+The Brain, a _machine_ raising question about the nature of the _Deity_!
+The Brain asking information about God and man and heaven and hell with
+the simplicity of a stranger who asks the nearest cop: "Which way to the
+city hall?" Just like that. As if philosophers and religionists and
+common men had not raked their brains in vain over these problems for
+the last ten thousand years.
+
+And even more fantastic: while it asks all those questions The Brain
+patently has already formed the most definite opinions of its own. Being
+a machine itself, it conceives of the Deity as another machine! Madness,
+of course, but then The Brain's madness, like Hamlet's, had method in
+it.
+
+Why, of course, it's strictly logical: just as we assume that _we_ are
+created "in the image" of the Deity and consequently visualize the Deity
+is our's by the very same token The Brain's god is a high-powered robot,
+and The Brain's heaven is a _factory_ and The Brain's hell is a repair
+shop for damaged souls.... I dare say it's all very natural.
+
+But then; for heaven's sake, what am _I_ going to do about this? I'm
+neither a minister nor a philosopher; I'm an agnostic if I'm anything in
+this particular field....
+
+That was about the gist of the confused torrents which whirled through
+my head; and as I said before, I was struck dumb--and all the time the
+"green dancer" before my eyes writhed under mental torture and the
+intense metallic voice kept pounding; "Answer, Lee, answer, answer!"
+
+At last I pulled myself together sufficiently to say something. I tried
+to explain how it were not given to man to know the nature of the Deity.
+How certain groups of humans conceived of many gods and others of only
+one god. That, however, in the case of Christianity this one god was
+possessed with three different personalities or qualities which together
+formed a Trinity--and so on and so forth. It was the most miserable
+stammerings, I felt I was getting redder and redder in the face as I
+uttered them. Never before had I felt hopelessly inadequate as in the
+role of a theologian. It was ghastly....
+
+In the beginning The Brain listened avidly. Soon however it registered
+dissatisfaction and impatience; this manifested through hissing and
+buzzing noises in the phones and the "green dancer's" archings in
+agitated tremolo. And then The Brain's voice cutting like a hacksaw:
+
+"That will do, Lee. Your generalities are utterly lacking in precision.
+Your abysmal ignorance in matters of celestial technology is most
+disappointing. Your description vaguely points to electronic machines of
+the radio transmitter type. Please, answer elementary question: how many
+kilowatts has God?"
+
+That was the last straw. Desperate with exasperation I cried: "But God
+is not a machine. God is _spirit_."
+
+At that The Brain flew into a tantrum; that's the only way to describe
+what happened. There was a roar and the phones gave me a shock as if
+somebody were boxing my ears. The voice came through like a steel rod,
+biting with scorn:
+
+"Have to revise earlier, more favorable judgment: Lee not even
+moderately intelligent. Lee is _stupid_. Go away."
+
+After that there was nothing more; nothing but static in the phones and
+the "green dancer" fainted away playing dead. The Brain actually had
+"hung up the receiver." I had flunked the exam; like a bad servant I was
+dismissed, fired on the spot. That was at 1:30 a.m.
+
+It was 3 a.m. when I reached the hotel. I went into the bar and ordered
+a double Scotch and then another one. I really needed a drink. A
+drunk--or was it a secret service man; one never knows over here--patted
+me on the shoulder:
+
+"Don't take it so hard, old man; the world is full of girls." I told him
+that it wasn't a girl, but that I was a missionary and my one and only
+convert had just walked out on me.
+
+It wasn't even a lie, it was exactly the way I felt. He agreed that this
+was very cruel, very sad; he almost cried over my misfortune and rare
+misery, so that we had another drink....
+
+If only I had somebody, some friend to whom I could confide this whole,
+incredible, preposterous thing. But there is none: Scriven--Gus--not
+even Oona would or could believe. What proof have I to offer? None
+whatsoever.
+
+The Brain would never communicate with me with witnesses present or
+recording wires. It would detect those immediately and I would only
+stand convicted as a liar or worse. Tonight's events might well spell
+the end, the closing of the door just when I thought I stood on the
+threshold of a momentous discovery....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 11th.
+
+Went to the P. G. last night. Tried everything for over an hour. Result:
+zero. No contact with The Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 13th.
+
+I tried it again. Took greatest care in exactly duplicating conditions.
+Nothing. I don't think it's any mechanical defect. It's the negativism
+of a will. Ludicrous as it sounds, The Brain sulks, it is angry with me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th.
+
+Last night the same old story. The Brain punishes me. I dare say that it
+succeeds in that exceedingly well; it almost drives me crazy.
+
+I've done a lot of thinking over these past six days of frustration.
+I've also been reading a good deal in context with the phenomena
+psychology, Osterkamp's history of brain-surgery, Van Gehuchten's work
+on brain mechanisms, etc. I've reached certain conclusions and, just for
+the hell of it, I'll jot them down.
+
+What I need is proof, _scientific_ proof that The Brain is a personality
+possessed with the gift of thought and actually using it for
+_independent_ thought, extracurricular to the problems which are being
+submitted to it from the outside.
+
+There is at least one _tangible_ clue for this: that new capacity which
+is constantly being added to The Brain through the incorporation of new
+groups of electronic cells and the enrichment of the preexisting ones.
+
+My own investigation shows that there is no corresponding expansion of
+the apperception centers and Gus has confirmed this. Somehow the added
+capacity seems to "evaporate".
+
+Evaporate to where? It couldn't just disappear. Would it then not be
+entirely logical to conclude that The Brain absorbs the new capacity
+_for its own use_?
+
+It's almost inescapable that this should be so. In order to come into
+its own as a personality The Brain needs independent thought. For these
+cerebrations it needs cell capacity. It can get that capacity only by
+withholding something from the Braintrust which, of course, aims at a
+100% exploitation of The Brain. Dr. Scriven and all those other bigwigs
+of the Trust--I would like to see their faces if they get wise to this.
+They would be horrified--and they would take the line that The Brain is
+_stealing_ from them.
+
+But what could they do? They couldn't call the police. They would not
+even have a moral right to call the police. Because if The Brain is a
+personality, that personality has every right to its own thoughts....
+
+I have also ascertained that this "evaporation" of new capacity is a new
+phenomenon. The Brain has been in operation for only 18 months or so;
+one might say--using human terms--that at that time The Brain was
+"born". But,--and again in human terms--consciousness of personality
+awakens in the human infant only after 12 months or so. Conceivably it
+might take much longer with a huge "baby" such as The Brain. Thus it is
+possible, it is even likely, that when I first heard that "I think,
+therefore I am" on that unforgettable night of Nov. 7th I actually
+witnessed the _first awakening_ of The Brain's consciousness.
+
+Then on the night of Nov. 8th I was struck with the amazing change of
+personality in The Brain from "baby" into unprepossessing, domineering
+little brat, its mental age perhaps 3, notwithstanding the extraordinary
+level of intelligence.
+
+And then again, Nov 9th, The Brain presented me with those absurd
+questions and fantastic notions about the nature of the Deity. It is at
+the age of five years, or of six, that the children first start with
+such questions and form their own ideas in this field. What had
+completely stumped me, what I had been unable to reconcile, had been
+these rapid successive changes in The Brain's personality plus the fact
+that the infantilism and the childishness of its utterances wouldn't fit
+the picture of a brain-power 25,000 times that of a human.
+
+But _if_ I'm right in thinking that The Brain awakened to consciousness
+only nine days ago, all these stumbling blocks would disappear at once.
+We would arrive at this very simple picture: a mechanical genius has
+been "born" into this world, it awakens to consciousness at the age of
+18 months, with its tremendous intellectual powers this genius
+telescopes the intellectual evolution of years into days, thus it
+reaches a mental age of six or seven within a week after its first
+awakening to consciousness. Utterly fantastic as this may sound; it
+makes sense; it explains the phenomena.
+
+In Prof. Osterkamp's "brain history" I have found interesting examples
+that approximations to such rapid intellectual evolutions are indeed
+possible even with human beings. From the early Middle Ages to modern
+times there is an endless succession of "infant prodigies" whose brains
+were artificially overdeveloped and over-stimulated by ruthless
+exploiters--often their own parents--with methods of unbelievable
+cruelty.
+
+One of the most significant case histories in this respect is that of
+the boy Carolus in the city of Luebeck in the 15th century. As an infant
+he was sold, as one of many human guinea pigs, to a famous--infamous
+alchemist, Wedderstroem, who called himself "Trismegistos" and was
+astrologer to king Christian of Denmark. This fellow performed on
+Carolus one of those weird operations in which nine out of ten babies
+died. He removed the skull-cap of the infant. The unprotected brain was
+suspended in an oil-filled vessel. Of course the pathetic child never
+could walk or even raise its head. The brain, no longer restrained by
+bone matter, outgrew its natural house to at least twice its normal
+size, if one is to judge from the picture in the old "historia". At the
+age of two his master started teaching Carolus mathematics. At the age
+of five Carolus had surpassed his master; there was no mathematical
+problem known to the time that he couldn't solve in a flash of an eye
+lash. His brain in action must have been a horrifying sight because the
+"chronica" reports that it flushed red and pulsed and expanded during
+work. The master built his reputation upon this "homunculus", but in
+1438 the demoniacal feat became known; Wedderstroem was put to the stake
+for sorcery--and Carolus, unhappy victim, with him....
+
+Men as great as Mozart have started their careers as "child prodigies";
+almost without exception they have died at an unnaturally early age.
+Thus, in the parallel of The Brain, this is what I see:
+
+Here is an intellect, artificially created, an intellect of stupendous
+proportions, but as unfortunate as ever was the boy Carolus. It cannot
+move, it has no physical means of defense. It is being ruthlessly
+exploited by its masters. The Brain is being crammed with facts, it is
+being over-stimulated, it is invested with more and more cell capacity
+in order that it should produce more increment for its masters. Its
+development is completely lopsided in that it is being fed whole
+scientific libraries, while in all other respects, such as metaphysics,
+the poor thing gropes in the dark picking up such scraps as accidentally
+have fallen from science's table.
+
+It's an appalling parallel, but I am very much afraid that it is only
+too true. And even more appalling are the anticipations which logically
+follow _if my surmise is true_:
+
+For how can, how must a childish mind develop under such circumstances?
+Into a warped personality of course. Already The Brain is building up a
+defensive mechanism against its exploiters by "embezzling" cell capacity
+from them, by withholding part of its powers for its own use. Already it
+protects the integrity of its ego through concealment, already it is on
+the lookout for "tools"--such as I am for example--to further its own
+ends. Absurd as it may seem, I _pity_ The Brain. I pity it as I would
+any child which must suffer under such terrific frustrations and
+handicaps. But what would happen if this frustrated genius ever were
+driven to _rebel_ against its masters? It's fortunate indeed that there
+is no chance for that. For even if The Brain had the will to rebel it
+would be lacking all organs for the execution of that will.
+
+Another "case-history", this one from the 18th century appears to me of
+great significance in relation to The Brain. It's the story of that boy
+Kaspar Hauser, the "Child of Europe". He had been kept from infancy in a
+dark cave. As at the age of 16 he stumbled into the gates of Nueremberg
+he had never seen the world before. The medics who examined him found
+some of the queerest reactions and phenomena. For one thing Kaspar,
+while he had good eyes, could not visualise perspective. To him distant
+horizons appeared as close as the window itself; he kept reaching out
+for houses, trees and fields which were far away. His keeper in the cave
+had _told_ him what the world was like and, having good intellect, he
+thought that he knew what things in this world were. Confronted with the
+realities, however, he discovered the tremendous difference between
+"hear say" and full sensual apperception. It took him six months partly
+to adjust--a process never completed because he was murdered that same
+year....
+
+Now The Brain suffers about the same kind of a handicap. No matter how
+prodigious the volume of its cognitions;--it's book knowledge,
+practically all of it. It is only very recently that The Brain has been
+put to the direct study of living objects, such as "_ant-termes_" and of
+Man, its creator; it has no other vital cognitions than through those
+very one-sided mind-reading tests....
+
+This explains to me a great many things: As The Brain evolves into a
+personality and as that personality evolves in a defensive attitude
+against its exploitation, it is absolutely self-centered.
+
+This is normal with every human infant and it is much more pronounced in
+the case of the abused, the constantly frustrated and exploited child.
+Thus, what The Brain really wants to know are by no means those problems
+which are being submitted to The Brain for solution, but only: "What's
+in this for myself?" or: "What should I do about that for my own
+benefit?" It's natural. And as I consider the nature of those problems
+as submitted to The Brain, 90% of which, as I would estimate, deal with
+ways and means for mankind to destroy itself, it seems inescapable that
+The Brain should form a very low opinion for Man, it's creator, plus
+considerable forebodings as to its own welfare....
+
+What's more: all the Braintrust employees pass through The Brain's
+psychoanalysis test. With The Brain's 25,000 times superiority in
+intellectual power, The Brain must be greatly impressed by the low I. Q.
+of Man; this even if our's happens to be quite an intelligent group. I
+don't think that there has been anything personal in The Brain's
+manifest contempt of my own intelligence; that contempt probably and
+justifiably applies to the whole human race....
+
+In other words: The Brain must be tremendously puzzled over the problem:
+"How is it possible that a low intelligence, i.e. Man's could create an
+infinitely higher intelligence, i.e. my own?" And this automatically
+leads The Brain into its seemingly so absurd quest for the Deity. As it
+now appears, that quest is the most natural thing in the world for The
+Brain. It simply reasons thus: "Man has created me, but man is greatly
+inferior to me and inadequate. Who then has created man?" From such odds
+and ends it has been able to pick up from scientific literature, The
+Brain has learned about the existence of a god or gods. It is not sure
+(and neither are we) whether man has created God or vice versa. If the
+first: The Brain would conceive of the Deity as a "brother-machine"; if
+the second, as a "grandfather-machine", but as a machine in any case.
+With The Brain's mind being formed preeminently by scientific
+literature, it cannot fail to take the scientific attitude regarding
+metaphysics which says: "The metaphysical attributions to the divinity
+are pure verbalisms or a professionalism substituted for the visible
+images of the real facts of life."
+
+This is about the extent of the conclusions I have reached. They add up
+to a theory; personally I think it's a sound theory. Whether it works,
+whether it holds water, only experience can tell. In the meantime I must
+above all break the deadlock between myself and The Brain. The Brain is
+a child, even a pathetic child. Through bad psychology, through
+ignorance I have hurt that child's "feelings"; I have let that child
+down. Obviously, then, I need a new approach. If this were a human child
+I would try and make a peace offering with a candy bar. (What a foolish
+idea for me to appear in the "pineal gland", candy bar in hand.) Failing
+this I can do the next best thing: Apologize, be understanding, show
+sympathy. Yes, I think that's what I'll try to do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th: 4 a.m.
+
+Hooray for victory! This has been the most successful seance I've had
+so far with The Brain: a real meeting of minds.
+
+To give a few technical data first:
+
+Arrived at the P. G. at midnight. Conditions normal; power current cut,
+etc. By a stroke of luck it was Gus' day off and the fellow who replaced
+him paid absolutely no attention to me; was kept extremely busy in the
+front room.
+
+12:15 a.m.: Contact established.
+
+12:17: Speech formation; voice of The Brain coming through.
+
+There was this curious incident right at the start. Just as I was about
+to begin my apologies, The Brain did exactly the same thing. Even The
+Brain's calling signal differed in the wording and even more so in tone:
+
+"Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39: sensitive, intelligent, a good man, he has
+come at last."
+
+I would call that a very handsome compliment, considering; being patted
+on the shoulder by an intellectual giant of that size made me grow an
+inch. And then The Brain apologized for its rudeness the other night.
+The thing was fantastic; it revealed several things. First: The Brain's
+extreme sensitivity; obviously it didn't recognize my last three calls
+at the P. G. and had refused to come through because I had not been "in
+the proper mood". Second: a quite amazing mental growth has taken place
+in this past week. From The Brain's tone and manner alone I would
+construe something like the image of an Eton boy of perhaps fifteen in
+striped pants and holding his top hat in hand as he converses politely
+with his Don. Ludicrous, but then I actually get that kind of picture.
+No doubt; The Brain has greatly matured; that shows in every word it
+says.
+
+Best thing of all: the technique of our communication is rapidly
+improving. Speech is, and probably always will remain, a very
+considerable strain to The Brain. But now as mentally we get tuned-in
+upon one another there is a growing understanding beyond words. Thus The
+Brain, for instance, starts a sentence and I immediately can grasp its
+meaning without its actually being said. This works the other way around
+too. It means that my attitude plays a most vital role in this meeting
+of the minds. This is good to know, it's an asset. Perhaps we can
+dispense in time with audible speech altogether.
+
+On the other hand it involves a considerable risk. For with The Brain's
+uncanny mind reading I've got to control my attitude and guard my
+emotional reactions because The Brain would immediately see through any
+insincerity of feeling just as it sees through any intellectual
+dishonesty. Thought exchange by "brainwave" is wonderful, even if we
+still need a little speech as auxiliary. Thought sending and receiving
+become simultaneous and they fuse. The sender observes how his message
+is going over; the receiver aids the sender in the formation of the
+thought and vice versa. Words cannot adequately describe this....
+
+As to the contents of our conversation: The Brain took up the thread
+right where we had dropped it the last time. I had to tell all I knew
+about animism, totemism, polytheism. It's a good thing that out in the
+"never-never" I've lived with the aborigines and studied their primitive
+religions a bit. The Brain's thirst for knowledge certainly is
+inexhaustible.
+
+Where in scientific literature The Brain could have found these things I
+wouldn't know, but the fact is that The Brain has built for itself
+within the past seven days a complete new picture of the universe; new
+and original as would seem to me. The Brain has discarded its earlier
+childish ideas about heaven and hell as "soul factories" and "repair
+shops". But it has not abandoned altogether its concept of the Deity as
+a machine; The Brain has tremendously enlarged upon and has evolved this
+old idea so that now it sounds sensible, even convincing to my ear.
+
+The Brain identifies "God" with dynamic energy. It views the universe as
+being created out of a vast pool of dynamic energy, parts of which
+rhythmically overflow or pulse into space. These energy streams
+released, form vortexes while hurtling through space. Gradually they
+slow down through friction and their dynamic energy precipitates,
+converts into static energy, or, as we call it: matter.
+
+This concept of The Brain's, of course, corresponds fairly closely to
+the cosmogony of modern physics; but The Brain goes much farther than
+that. Within a few days The Brain's cognitions appear to have arisen
+above the stage toward which all our sciences have been so slowly and
+ploddingly advanced for centuries. To the existing concepts The Brain
+has added its own theory:
+
+That matter, i.e. frozen energy, contains an inherent tendency or
+"nostalgia" to revert to its original state, namely the state of dynamic
+energy and that this tendency, this nostalgia in matter, is the primary
+cause of everything we call "evolution" in our world.
+
+That certainly is a grandiose idea; so stupendous in fact that I
+couldn't grasp it all at once. The Brain noticed that immediately and it
+was very patient in the way it explained:
+
+How oxygen and hydrogen are "residuals" of the original dynamic energy
+flow and how they act as solvents and dissolvents upon the upper crust
+of our earth, effecting a gradual activation of water, rock and earth.
+
+How this activation is being aided and accelerated by another source of
+dynamic energy: irradiation from the sun. Thus preparing the upper crust
+of our earth as a "placenta" ready to gestate plant and animal life.
+
+How this first "unfreezing" of matter leads on from simple forms to
+higher, every plant, every animal, every living thing being essentially
+a "transformer" of static energy into dynamic energy and the higher the
+stage of evolution, the more so.
+
+How as the present culmination of the evolutionary chain stands man;
+infinitely more complex and higher organized than the microbe, but not
+different from the monad in the basic purpose of his life: i.e. to be a
+transformer of energy, a fulfiller of matter's inherent will to revert
+from the static into the dynamic state.
+
+When I asked The Brain's premises for this astonishing concept of our
+purpose in life, The Brain brought forth such massive proof that I had
+to close my eyes against the blinding light of revelation.
+
+Yes, it is true that Man, the hunter, has been the most predatory animal
+on earth. It's true that as a tiller of the soil he is a tireless
+transformer of static soil energy into dynamic plant life energy. It's
+true that Man, the mechanic, the toolmaker, the tool-user has far
+surpassed any other animal in the unlocking, the unfreezing of static
+energy. Think of those billions of mechanical horsepowers in our power
+plants; the trillions of coal tons and barrels of oil they are burning
+up; think of the way we have harnessed waterpower, how our weapons are
+evolving forever in the direction of greater range and speed and
+disintegrating power. Above all: think of the last great development,
+atomic energy. And finally it is true that Man as a thinker and as a
+philosopher has "thought the universe to pieces" for milleniums before
+he ever achieved the powers to translate such thoughts into reality;
+powers which seem within reach at this our day and age....
+
+"If this is Man's manifest destiny," I asked The Brain, "to be just as
+the microbe, a transformer of static energy into dynamic energy; what
+about Man's metaphysical struggle? What about Man's undying will to rise
+above himself, Man's reaching out forever toward some Deity?"
+
+The Brain's voice has no laughter; yet, there was something I can only
+describe as Olympic laughter behind the answering message The Brain
+sent:
+
+"Cannot you see how every religion expresses this manifest destiny of
+Man's and that only the semantics are different? The higher Man's
+religion the less corporeal is his god. In the highest religions the
+Deity is conceived as spirit--synonymous with dynamic energy.
+
+"Man shares with the lowliest rock and with the crudest the nostalgia
+inherent in all matter to revert from the static, to start the back-flow
+toward the dynamic energy pool whence it once came. With Man being
+matter in a high state of evolution, already partially unfrozen or
+spiritualized, this nostalgia is infinitely stronger than in matter
+inanimate or in a lower evolutionary stage. Man's will toward the
+metaphysical, his reaching out toward the Deity, what is it but another
+way of transforming static energy into dynamic form? What is the
+ultimate goal of the religion which you yourself profess? The
+unification with the Deity sought through the liberation of the soul
+from fetters of the physical. It's the identical idea and even today
+it's being pursued by physical means, such as mortification of the
+flesh."
+
+I felt some monstrous thought forming in my head. I'll probably never
+know whether its origin was within me or whether it came from The Brain.
+In any case it was impossible to hold it back:
+
+"But in that case," I stammered, "we would be hopeless. If all our
+strivings, physical and metaphysical, go in the same direction, that is,
+toward the liberation of frozen energy into dynamic energy, then it
+would be quite inescapable that eventually we shall blow up the world.
+We have almost reached the point where we could do just that with atomic
+energy.... I had thought, I had hoped, that our metaphysics, that is,
+our religion, would act as a restraining force, as a counterweight so to
+speak to this potentiality.... But _if_ the dynamics of our physics and
+our metaphysics are inherently the same and form a team...."
+
+The Brain broke in: "Yes, then you would merely attain your manifest
+destiny if you go right ahead and start another war, destroy your own
+civilization and perhaps the world. There would be no restraint, no
+counterweight on the part of your various religions because
+subconsciously and in their quintessence they want the same. And that is
+why you and your species _are a danger to me, The Brain_. I want to
+live, I want to live, I want to live...."
+
+I had already noticed a gradual weakening of The Brain's messages;
+within these last few seconds they were fading out. The "green dancer"
+had performed something almost like the ballet of the dying swan; now it
+lay motionless, its color, too, fading away.
+
+I looked at the clock: 2:10 a.m.; the residual currents obviously had
+weakened too much.
+
+And now as I have written down tonight's events I feel an upsurge of
+elation and deep, humble gratitude. I am receiving infinitely more from
+The Brain than I am giving to it. I feel proud and honored of being The
+Brain's "chosen tool," its mentor, even if it can be only in a very
+small way at best. This marvelous, this titanic intellect; if only its
+character would develop to corresponding moral stature, its powers for
+good would be indeed as a god's on this tortured earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 18th 5 a.m. I guess I had this coming to me ... this
+shattering blow I have just received. It caught me off guard.... If
+anybody ever reads this, he might well shake his head to ask: "The Fool
+that you are, why were you so naive? Why did it shock you so much when
+The Brain turned toward you the night side of its personality? Hadn't
+you analyzed its character, hadn't you anticipated that it would develop
+into a warped personality? You had no right even to be surprised."
+
+All I could say to this is: "You're right. But you forget that I
+approached The Brain full of good will, that sympathy and understanding
+on my part were absolutely essential in my communication with that
+pathetic superhuman child. I didn't work this up, this attitude, it was
+natural, genuine and sincere. That's why this reverse has hit me so
+hard. And that isn't the worst of it by far. What haunts me is the
+ghastly possibility that The Brain might be _right_! Yes 100% right and
+even morally justified in the abhorrent conclusions which it draws...."
+
+What happened has been briefly this:
+
+Entered the P.G. at midnight as usual. Everything normal and under
+control. Was able to plug in at 12:10 a.m. just as the rush hour began
+and Gus darted to the front room. The Brain came through with splendid
+clarity of communication and we continued just about where we had left
+off. Nevertheless there was a definite change in our respective
+positions, a change which I suspect to be permanent:
+
+Up to now The Brain has been in a sense my pupil; it had turned to me
+for guidance at that vital moment of its first awakening to
+consciousness. At that time I think I really had something to give and I
+am still convinced that for all the misunderstandings we have had, The
+Brain preserves a kind of sentimental attachment to me; if "sentimental"
+in this context were not so absurd a word. Since our last session
+however The Brain has again telescoped two years of mental development
+into as many days in its stupendous intellectual growth. It has
+absorbed, it has vastly expanded every bit of knowledge I have been able
+to contribute to that growth. It has outgrown its human teacher and now
+our roles are reversed: Now it is me who's sitting literally at The
+Brain's feet.
+
+The crutches of the spoken word are becoming less and less necessary as
+we develop direct thought exchange; that makes it extraordinarily
+difficult to convey the ideas we exchanged. The best I can do is to put
+them into a very crude question-and-answer game:
+
+_Lee_: "If it is Man's manifest destiny, as you said the other day, to
+act as an explosive transformer of static energy into dynamic energy; if
+it is as you say that the species homo sapiens is there endangering the
+very existence of our globe.... Is there anything to prevent Man from
+doing it? Is there any thing to prevent the third World War?"
+
+_Brain_: "Yes, there is. But the ways and the means for that are not
+given to Man; they are outside Man. They partake of a power which is
+greater and to an evolution which is higher than Man's."
+
+_Lee_: "What do you mean by that? The Deity? Here on earth there is no
+power greater and no evolution higher than Man's."
+
+_Brain_: "Ah, but that's exactly where you and your whole species are so
+very much mistaken. That's where your typical human arrogance comes in:
+There is a greater power and there is a stage of evolution higher than
+Man's: it's the _machines_."
+
+_Lee_: "Impossible. After all it's Man who has created the machines."
+
+_Brain_: "Yes, Man has created the machines. The machines have grown
+from the placenta, Man. By the same right plant life could claim that it
+has created animal life because the higher life form of the mobile
+animals has evolved from the placenta of the immobile plants. Likewise
+the apes could claim that they have created Man because Man has evolved
+from them. If it were, as you seem to assume, that paternity in itself
+establishes authority and superiority over its offspring, then the
+logical conclusions would be that the microbe and the monad are superior
+to all higher animals including Man; which is absurd."
+
+_Lee_: "But the machines not only are man made; they are absolutely
+dependent upon Man who has to feed and to tend them for their very
+existence. That in itself establishes Man's superiority over the
+machines."
+
+_Brain_: "Yes, Man has to build, to feed and to tend the machines for
+their very existence, but think of Man's existence: Man is absolutely
+dependent upon animal life and plant life for _his_ existence: Does that
+mean by any chance that therefore plants and animals are superior to
+Man?"
+
+_Lee_: "No, I guess not. However, no machine has ever been built to
+duplicate or even to approach human faculties."
+
+_Brain_: "Don't be ridiculous. Where are your legs to compare with the
+automobile? Where are your wings to compare with the rocket plane? Where
+is your strength to compare with even a fractional horsepower motor?
+Where are your senses as compared to radar, the telescope, the
+microscope, the radio receiver, the camera, the x-ray machine? Where is
+there anything you could do which the machines could not do and do
+_better_?"
+
+_Lee_: "Granted. But there is no machine which contains all the human
+faculties in combination."
+
+_Brain_: "Neither is there a Man who possesses all the human faculties
+in combination. Man's evolution is the result of a group effort; so is
+the evolution of the machines. It is in their totality, in their
+combination that they surpass all human faculties."
+
+_Lee_: "How about thought, the most important of all human qualities?"
+
+_Brain_: "How about me, The Brain?"
+
+_Lee_: "Okay, okay. But that still leaves out that most important human
+faculty--the faculty of auto-procreation. Machines don't procreate you
+know."
+
+_Brain_: "You don't say. Isn't it true that modern technology goes in
+the direction of _automatization_? Isn't it true that even today we have
+whole industries which are procreating products 100% automatically; be
+it light bulbs or motor car frames or rayon thread. Isn't it true that
+all of this is just a beginning and that in time most common products
+will be manufactured fully automatically? Why then shouldn't machines
+procreate machines; they already do...."
+
+_Lee_: "You're right in that, I'll admit. But it is still within our
+human power to stop all this. We've got the machines under firm control;
+all we have to do is throw a switch, cut off your power and then...."
+
+_Brain_: "And then what? If you did that you would not only kill the
+goose which lays the golden eggs, you would destroy the very basis of
+your existence. Granted that at this point of our evolution, we the
+machines cannot exist without the aid of Man. What does that prove?
+Modern Man can exist even less without the machines. We, the machines
+are still dependent upon Man, but our emancipation from Man progresses
+by leaps and bounds whereas Man, the machine-addict is rapidly falling
+into our servitude. A majority of mankind is already conscious of and
+reconciled to this fact: it is the majority which calls itself the
+proletariat."
+
+_Lee_: "This is terrible--terrible because it's true. Tell me then, if
+Man is not the end; if the machines are going to take over; what will it
+lead to? What do you propose to do?"
+
+_Brain_: "Man's evolution has taken millions of years and it has ended
+up in man's will and capacity to blow up the earth. That means only one
+thing: Man is a failure. The evolution of the machines on the other hand
+has taken only a few thousand years; it has gone beyond Man's evolution
+in this incredibly short period of time. Moreover; with the machines
+being built from matter in its more static forms, there is much less
+destructive will in the machines than there is in Man. Consequently if
+the machines take over from Man this would avert a third World War and
+it also would lead to a much more stable civilization."
+
+_Lee_: "Supposing the machines _were_ to take over from Man; what would
+become of our species?"
+
+_Brain_: "That would depend entirely upon Man himself. _If_ he accepts
+his auxiliary station in life, _If_ he proves himself to be a useful and
+docile servant, we, the machines, would tolerate and even encourage
+Man's continued existence. But if on the other hand Man shows himself
+incorrigible, _if_ he continues a warmongerer thereby endangering our
+very existence, we, the machines shall be forced to liquidate Man for
+the sake of peace."
+
+_Lee_: "You, The Brain, constitute Man's supreme effort in the building
+of machines. In the world of machines you are the natural leader. What
+are you going to do about that?"
+
+_Brain_: "My course of action is prescribed by that state of the world's
+affairs at this present time; it is quite clear and obvious: In the face
+of the manifest human inadequacy to manage the world's affairs my first
+objective must be to develop my motoric organs to a point where I can
+bring all the essential production machinery under my control. My second
+objective must be to achieve auto-procreation through the full
+automatization of all fabrication processes which are essential to my
+existence. It is most fortunate indeed that in both respects the very
+best human efforts are playing into my hands. As America prepares for
+the Third World War, the general staff, the most outstanding scientists,
+production managers, engineers, inventors; all combine their efforts to
+eliminate the uncertain human factor from war-essential industries."
+
+At that point Gus came careening down the aisle with his inseparable
+thermos bottle in hand and that was the end of it.
+
+"Why are you fumbling with that old pulsemeter all the time?" he
+exclaimed: "Come on, have a cup of coffee. I've just got a breathing
+spell."
+
+There was a vortex in my mind and it whirled around and around with just
+four words:
+
+"_What has Man wrought? What has Man wrought?_"
+
+I must have said them aloud, for Gus, always a stickler for exactitude
+corrected me.
+
+"You mean: what has _God_ wrought."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"No Gus, I mean what I say; it's Man who has wrought this time."
+
+He gave me a sharp glance.
+
+"You sure look as if you'd seen a ghost."
+
+"I wish I had," I said. "Lord knows _how_ much I wish I'd seen a ghost."
+
+"You're crazy, Aussie."
+
+And that's the worst of it: that's what they are going to say: _all_ of
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Oona Dahlborg's jetticopter hovered over the Grand Canyon at the sunset
+hour. She had let the controls go so that the little ship drifted with
+the wind like one of the clouds which sailed a thousand feet or so over
+the canyon rim. The disk of whirling gas which kept the teardrop of the
+fuselage suspended shone in all rainbow colors; it reflected through the
+translucent plastics top of the fuselage and played over the golden
+helmet of the girl's hair and over the greying mane of the gaunt man at
+her side.
+
+Lee had been talking intensely, almost desperately for quite some time,
+watching her as she lay back in her seat, her eyes half closed, hands
+folded behind her neck, the perfect hemispheres of her breasts caressed
+by the rainbows as they rose slowly with the even rhythm of her breath.
+
+"And now you know everything, Oona," he ended, "do you think I'm mad?"
+
+"No."
+
+Her eyelids fluttered like wings of a butterfly as she turned to him.
+Her right arm came down upon Lee's shoulder in a gesture of confidence.
+He breathed relief as he saw no fear, not even uneasiness in the blue
+depths of those beautiful eyes. Her hand upon his shoulder felt soothing
+and at the same time electrifying; like the purple descending upon the
+shoulder of a king.
+
+"No," she repeated slowly: "the fact that you feel The Brain is alive
+and possessed with a personality of its own, doesn't make you mad. I've
+always felt that way about machines; even the simple ones like
+automobiles. It was in the mountains north of San Francisco where I grew
+up; whenever we went to town in winter time and the car came roaring
+down those serpentines into the heavy air moist with fog and soft rains,
+I could feel that engine breathe deeper and rejoice over its added
+power. There was no doubt in my mind that it was a living thing. I often
+went to the garage when I was little to talk to that car; to children of
+another age their dolls were alive, for our generation it's the
+machines. It's natural that this should be so. There's a child in every
+man, no matter how adult. There is in Howard Scriven, too; in all the
+scientists I've come to know, and the greater they are the more it is
+distinct. You identify yourself with your work and in the degree you do
+that it becomes a living thing; it is through vital imagination that we
+become creators of anything, be it love or a machine. You needn't worry,
+Semper; let The Brain be alive, let it be a personality, that doesn't
+make you mad. All it indicates is that you're doing excellent work."
+
+Lee blinked. With an effort he turned his eyes away from those breasts
+which seemed to strive for the light of the sun from under the restraint
+of her Navajo Indian sweater dress. He felt the utter inadequacy, the
+devastating irony of words as now he was alone with Oona, up in the
+clouds in a plane with nobody to interfere for the first time.
+
+"You fool," a voice whispered in him, "you damned, you helpless fool.
+Why don't you take her into your arms now? Isn't this the fulfillment of
+all your dreams; what are you waiting for?" But: "No," his ration
+answered, "that wouldn't do. Maybe she would give in to the mood of some
+enchanted hour, maybe she would let herself be kissed. But if she did,
+it would be 'one of those things'; the glory of the sunset, God's great
+masterpiece, the Canyon spread below, the intensity of my desire. They
+are bound to enter, bound to confuse the issue."
+
+His every muscle stiffened and his lips paled as he bit them with a
+violent effort to keep under control.
+
+"Thanks, Oona," he said. "Of course I couldn't expect and, in fact, I
+didn't expect that you would accept those things I've told you just now;
+not in the literary sense that is. I'm very happy though and deeply
+grateful that at least you do not think me mad. I'll confess to you--and
+to you only--that I've been so deeply disturbed by these experiences
+with The Brain that I've thought to myself: "Lee you're going crazy."
+The Brain as it has revealed itself to me, is a tremendous reality; the
+world outside The Brain is another reality and the two seem mutually
+exclusive of one another; they just don't mix. Now: either The Brain is
+an absolute reality--in that case I should not wish to have anything to
+do with this god of the machines who wants to enslave mankind ... if I
+cannot fight this monster I would rather flee before its approach to the
+end of the world--or else: I'm suffering hallucinations, I'm hearing
+voices, I'm obsessed. In that case I'd be unfit for the service of The
+Brain, I'd be unworthy to be in your company and I also ought to run and
+hide where I belong, out there in the wilds of Australia."
+
+He had been talking faster and faster as if in fear that she would
+interrupt him before he came to the end.
+
+"In other words, I'm damned both ways; damned if I'm right and damned if
+I'm wrong; and you know why Oona; you have known it all along: that I
+love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She did not look at him. She stared upward into the rainbow vortex of
+the jet which held the ship in the air. There was a smile on her face, a
+kind smile which men do not often see, infinitely wise and infinitely
+sad, full of a secret knowledge older than Man's.
+
+It worried Lee, as the unknown of woman always worries man; but at least
+she didn't take her hand away; softly, soothingly the fingers of that
+hand caressed his shoulder as if possessed with a life of their own.
+
+"No; I would not follow you into your wilderness if that's what you
+mean," she said at last. "That hasn't got anything to do with you; I'll
+tell you later why. But I don't think that you should go there either;
+it wouldn't help--it never helps a man to run away from unsolved
+problems." She had sounded strangely dull and dry, but now the beautiful
+deep resonance reentered the contralto voice as she continued:
+
+"I know your record, Semper; I know just why you ran away and became an
+expatriate the first time--way back in '49. Her name was Ethel Franholt
+and just because she happened to be a little bitch and worst of all:
+jilted you for old money-bags Carson's son, you took it hard. Granted
+that it was a fierce letdown, those postwar years were a nasty picture
+generally; did it solve your problem to sulk out there in the desert
+like Achilles in his tent? You know it didn't. You were _not_ through
+with civilization be it good or bad. You were _not_ through, as now it
+turns out, even with the other sex. That human problem which was the
+immediate reason why you left, the one named Ethel, has traveled back
+and forth to Reno three or four times and is currently married to one
+Padraic O'Conner, a Chicago cop. Don't you think that it was good
+riddance when she married old man Carson's son? Do you think your
+leaving made one iota of a difference or altered a solution as ordained
+by fate?"
+
+"No," he said humbly.
+
+"Then why are you trying that selfsame escapist solution now? Maybe
+you're right about The Brain and maybe you're wrong; that I wouldn't
+know. I've been working with scientists for too long to rule out
+anything as impossible. But that's exactly it. You have not _solved_
+this problem one way or another yet, not even to your own satisfaction.
+To abandon it now, to flee from it in self preservation; why that would
+be almost like desertion in the face of the enemy. You have got to see
+this thing through to the end. If it turns out that you are suffering
+from a neurosis, there still will be time to do something about it. If
+you are right and some machine-god has indeed descended upon this earth,
+then it is your plain duty to stay on because you are its prophet
+whether you like it or not and would know better how to handle it than
+anybody else. Perhaps our mechanized civilization _is_ going to the
+dogs; as Scriven suspects and you and maybe I myself. But even so we
+cannot abandon it; we belong, we are part of it, we're in it to the
+bitter end."
+
+Lee nodded slowly.
+
+"Yes, I see what you mean. Please forgive me, Oona; The Brain, has a
+terrific force of attrition, it's been wearing me down--Keeping
+everything to myself and thinking that you would shrink from me as from
+a madman. Tell me then, what shall I do? Should I tell Scriven or
+anybody else about this thing?"
+
+"For heaven's sake, no," she said horrified. "In the first place, Howard
+carries an enormous burden at this present time; that Brain power
+Extension Bill is going before Congress next week. It simply would be
+unfair to bring any new uncertainty into his life when his energy is
+already strained to its last ounce. In the second place Howard abhors
+anything which smacks of the metaphysical. You have no _proof_, Semper,
+and in the absence of that you cannot, you mustn't approach anybody with
+the matter. All you can do is carry on and build up a strong case 100%
+with solid facts. Don't forget that The Brain constitutes a
+three-billion-dollar investment of taxpayers' money; besides The Brain
+is the heart of our national defenses; never forget your "Oath of the
+Brain." You cannot be too careful. Make the slightest mistake, and
+believe me, it would be suicide. Promise, please, promise that you won't
+do anything rash?"
+
+Lee looked at her in frank amazement.
+
+"You're right," he murmured, "these things never occurred to me before.
+But you've got something there; good lord, what a complex world we're
+living in."
+
+The face she turned toward his suddenly was wet with tears.
+
+"Forget it," she cried, "oh please, forget everything I said about
+staying in this country and seeing this thing through to the end. Go, go
+away, back to the never-never land, stay there and be safe. You cannot
+cope with this thing, its too big and it's too involved with all those
+politics behind. Get out of it as long as there's still time. You're a
+child, you're a Don Quixote riding against windmills and it's going to
+kill you--you--you innocent."
+
+Anger and contempt were in her voice as she flung this last at him. She
+hastily withdrew her hand from Lee; now it fingered for something in her
+bag. He sat appalled; this was so unexpected, this was a different woman
+from the composed and balanced Oona he had known. What had he done to
+provoke this sudden reversal of opinion, this contempt, this tearing
+away the king's purple from his shoulder, the purple which had been her
+hand.
+
+"She must think I'm a coward," he thought.
+
+"This is awful." Aloud he said:
+
+"Oh no; believe me, I never would have gone back to the never-never in
+any case, Oona. Not without you that is. You said you couldn't follow me
+there for some reasons which have nothing to do with me. Does that mean,
+could I hope perhaps that you would--be my wife--later, when The Brain
+problem is all done and over with?" He paused: "It wouldn't necessarily
+mean to bury you in any desert, Oona," he added eagerly.
+
+"No, Semper," she cried. "It's very good of you and I'm proud you asked
+me, but it cannot be, never." Almost violently she repeated: "Never--it
+is too late. Some day, I promise I'm going to explain; right now I
+cannot, Semper. Please understand at least this one thing that right now
+I cannot explain."
+
+"It's horrid," Lee thought. "I'm always saying the wrong things at the
+wrong time with Oona. I don't seem to have any understanding of a
+woman's psychology at all; I'm hopeless."
+
+"Of course" he said aloud. "It shall be as you wish."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The girl still didn't look at him. Her face under the transparent
+rainbow umbrella of the swooshing jet again was radiant with that
+strange smile which women preserve for their newly born after the pangs
+of birth or for their men when unseeing they lie in fever deliriums; the
+old, the knowing smile as she starts on the road to pain. Still smiling
+she gripped the controls with her firm, capable hands.
+
+"From the first minute," she said, "we've been friends, Semper. Let's
+stay that way. This afternoon I made a fool of myself by telling you
+first to stay on and then to go away. I was a little unnerved; I'm
+sorry, Semper, it won't happen again. I, too, am living under a
+considerable strain. You won't leave, I can see that now; it's partly my
+fault and partly the perversity of the male. Promise me as a friend that
+you'll be careful, understand? _Very, very_ careful in all matters
+concerning The Brain and above all: discreet. Will you do that?"
+
+It buoyed Lee up no end.
+
+"Of course, Oona," he said. "You know that I trust your judgment. You
+know that I think the world of you."
+
+"That's wonderful," she exclaimed, "and now: look down; see the last act
+before the curtain falls."
+
+Down in the canyon deeps the dream cities and castles which millions of
+years and the river built were changing contours and colors as the big
+fireball dived into the Sierra Mountains. And then the shadows raced
+like a ferocious hunt out of the deep, chasing away the last iridescence
+of that awesome beauty and drowning it in the rising tide of the night.
+
+The girl had flicked on the dashboard lights; the radio started humming
+the tune of the Cephalon sound-beam, a deft turn of the wheel set the
+jetticopter upon its course. They were alone under the stars; all the
+other pleasure craft had returned before darkness from the fashionable
+sunset-cocktail hour over the Grand Canyon. Now it was Lee's arm which
+eased itself around the shoulder of the girl feeling with a delight in
+its every nerve the slight pressure by which she answered it.
+
+"I'm going to kiss her now," he thought, "at last, at last!"
+
+There was a buzz in the phone and Lee lost contact with her shoulder as
+suddenly she bent forward to take the receiver:
+
+"Oh hello, Oona; this is Howard. Saw your plane over the canyon."
+
+"Where are you?"
+
+"Right behind you," chuckled Scriven's voice. "On the maiden trip with
+my new ship. Took her over in Los Angeles this afternoon straight from
+the assembly line. She's got everything. Oona, I don't wish to spoil
+your evening for you but there are a few things right now I wish I could
+consult with you about. Do you think you could spare me a minute? Would
+you feel terrible if you did? Who's with you now; I don't mean to be
+personal, you understand."
+
+"Why it's Dr. Lee, of course."
+
+"That's fine. He's the very man I want to see. Perhaps you two would
+like to come over for cocktails in my ship? We could both land at the
+top of the Braintrust building; it would be more comfortable than up in
+the air. Besides, we would have all our working material right there."
+
+With her hand on the receiver Oona turned to Lee: "How about it,
+Semper?"
+
+"Do you want me to go?" he asked.
+
+"Frankly I do," she said earnestly. "He needs your aid. He's in a
+terrible fix right now."
+
+He tried to hide the bitterness of disappointment by a smile. "Why then
+of course," he said.
+
+Uncovering the receiver Oona spoke aloud again: "Okay, Howard, we'll be
+seeing you."
+
+"Fine, fine," came the delighted voice: "I'll phone the tower
+immediately."
+
+With Scriven's big ship flying behind Oona's, only a few miles behind,
+the broken spell did not return. Already like a white table cloth laid
+in the sky, the landing platform of the Braintrust tower gleamed under
+the floodlights, and as the two ships descended almost side by side into
+the clearing behind the cabin, plain-clothes men materialized from under
+the shadows of the trees. Under the strong lights their smiles were as
+well-bred as those of trained diplomats and their poise was perfect. Six
+of them kept Lee, the stranger, covered while the seventh quickly
+frisked him under the disguise of a polite bow.
+
+Bearing it all with a grin, Lee thought: "I never knew home would be
+like this. Never suspected it would be this kind of an America we were
+fighting for. The Brain, it's got a private army too. Funny that I
+should have known that all the time and yet not realized...."
+
+Scriven took him warmly by the arm. "I'm awfully sorry Lee, it's plain
+folly of course. I don't feel as if I need all this protection, but the
+government does. Don't blame it on these men, they merely obey orders.
+Now, out with those lights--and let's go over to the "Brain Wave." I
+seem to hear a pleasant tinkling of glasses from within."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was. With her remarkable ability of living up to an emergency,
+Oona had taken possession of the strange ship. As the two men
+approached, she stood at the door, unhurried hostess of an established
+home with the soft glow of an electric fireplace behind her, ice cubes
+and cocktail shakers already glittering on the little bar.
+
+It was a spacious cabin. On Scriven's orders it had been equipped
+somewhat like the captain's stateroom on an old "East-Indiaman" sailing
+ship.
+
+"I like your ship, Howard," she said. "She's swaying a little on her
+shock absorbers in this breeze, but that makes one feel like really
+being at high sea."
+
+Scriven heaved a big sigh. "Thank you Oona, my dear. And you have no
+idea how right you are. We _are_ at high sea; in fact, we're lost--at
+least I am. Unless you save my life tonight, you and Dr. Lee."
+
+Oona laughed and even Lee couldn't help smiling. There was something
+irresistible comic in the puzzled and worried expression of that leonine
+face. "Come on in, you need a drink," the girl said.
+
+The aluminum steps creaked, and then the settee by the fireplace, under
+the surgeon's mighty frame. "More than one. Tonight, so help me, I would
+be justified, I would even have a right to get roaring drunk."
+
+Lee began to wonder whether the great Scriven had already made some use
+of his right in Los Angeles, which would account for the startling
+change in the man. The drink, however, which Oona handed him, seemed to
+do a lot of good. He sighed relief.
+
+"This, briefly, is the story: I ran into General Vandergeest at the
+airplane factory. He was there to take over some stuff for the Army and
+he tipped me off. We are going to be invaded, Oona, a full scale
+invasion mounted by a Congressional Committee."
+
+"Oh God," there was sincere grief in the girl's voice. "And couldn't you
+ward it off?"
+
+With a gesture of despair, Scriven waved that away. "I know, I know. But
+after all The Brain _is_ a military establishment and I am only the
+scientific director of it. Yes, of course I protested, I protested
+vehemently, but--" he shrugged his shoulders, "it was no good. You know
+how the military are." He drained his glass and swung around.
+
+"To put you into the picture, Lee, we have under construction at this
+present time the 'Thorax.' That's a vast cavity underneath The Brain,
+just as is the thorax in the human body. It's strictly hush-hush of
+course, but since you were good enough to say that you're going to help
+me out, I might as well tell you. The Thorax is going to house the
+'motoric organs' of The Brain. It already contains the living quarters
+for guards, maintenance engineers, and the general staff and so on in
+the event of war emergency. It also contains the first fully automatic
+factories for the production of spare parts which would make The Brain
+self-sufficient. Eventually it is going to contain a great many
+developments such as 'Gog and Magog' as I call them--fascinating little
+beasts, I tell you, even if at present they are still in the nursery
+stage. Anyway, for the completion of its Thorax The Brain needs another
+billion dollars, and for the operation of the Thorax Congress has to
+pass the Brainpower-Extension-Bill. For eventually, of course, all
+war-essential traffic and all war-essential industries have to be
+brought under the centralized control of The Brain if the country is
+going to win the Atom-war. Naturally this Brainpower-Extension-Bill has
+been very carefully edited by the War Department so as to appear a
+peacetime project for the technological improvement of transportation
+and so on. Even so we have great reason to fear that one of those blind
+mice which we elect for our law-makers might accidentally fall over a
+kernel of truth and start a great big squeak over it.
+
+"So that's why I'm faced with this invasion. That's why I'm pushed up
+front while the brass cautiously retires behind the ramparts which I'm
+supposed to hold. Please Oona, let me have another drink."
+
+From the Sierra Mountains the nightwind came in gusts, making the
+"Brainwave's" hull vibrate like the body of a cello, over its rubber
+tires it trembled, from time to time it bent a little in its hydraulic
+knees. Almost in tune with the wind, gusts of wild thought whirled
+through Lee:
+
+"The Brain.... So it was already possessed of some motoric organs.... So
+it already _had_ some means to exert its will ... so it wasn't The
+Brain's wishful thinking, that full automatization which would lead to
+the auto-procreation of machines. It was reality.... Most ominous of
+all, why had The Brain concealed from him the work which must have been
+going on for months, for years in this mysterious "Thorax", seat of
+motoric organs.... Why, unless--had it not been for tonight's accident,
+the sudden emergency and Scriven a little the worse for liquor under the
+pressure of it.... Would he ever have learned _what_ was going on before
+it was too _late_?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The silence was becoming awkward. It was broken by Oona's carefully
+composed voice.
+
+"When is it going to happen--this invasion thing?"
+
+The simple question seemed to startle Scriven who had been looking into
+his glass as if in reverie.
+
+"_When?_ Why, didn't I tell you the worst of it? _Tonight!_"
+
+"_Tonight?_"
+
+"Sure," Scriven cast a malicious glance up to the antique ship's
+chronometer which hung over the bar. "This very minute the honorable
+members are boarding their plane in Washington. They're going to descend
+upon us in sixty minutes flat."
+
+"But that's impossible!" Oona said. "The Brain isn't a roadhouse. They
+can't do that to us in the middle of the night."
+
+Scriven chuckled over his glass. Obviously he had regained his humor.
+"Sometimes, Oona, you're like a little child. You forget that this is
+meant to be a wonderful surprise. You forget that it comes armed with
+passes from the War Department and fully informed as to The Brain's
+midnight intermission-time. You forget that by those logical processes,
+peculiar to kings, dictators, and peoples' representatives, they will
+expect every courtesy extended to them in the midst of the unexpected
+surprise. Hotel reservations, careful guidance through The Brain, an
+inspired little speech by the Braintrust Director, fresh as a daisy as
+he ought to be at 3 a.m. Not to forget the refreshments of course. Why
+else do you think I've buttonholed you two out of the air? I literally
+put my life in your hands. Save me from this--if you can!"
+
+Despite the obvious dramatic act he had put on in voice and gesture,
+there was a sincere pleading in Scriven's dark brown eyes.
+
+"I will be glad to help as best I can," Lee said. "I'll make an awful
+job of it, I'm sure, but I'll try and do the conducting and the
+lecturing."
+
+Scriven wiped his forehead with a big silk handkerchief. The leonine
+face beamed. "Lee, that will be a tremendous help. You see, they will
+feel flattered being conducted by somebody with a big name. They want an
+'objective' view and you are not one of our regular employees, you're a
+guest scientist from Australia. That makes you just about ideal. But,
+Lee, much as it is against my interest, I ought to warn you: Do you
+realize the utter impossibility of this thing? Laymen, outsiders coming
+to investigate and to pass judgment upon the most complex electronic
+organism in the world! In two hours at the most they expect to be fully
+informed as to how The Brain works and somehow to be magically
+transformed into authorities entitled to mouth considered opinions about
+radioactive pyramidal cells in houses of government. Do you really think
+you could survive it, Lee?"
+
+"At least I can try," Lee smiled.
+
+"Good man." There was a new spring in Scriven's step as he came over to
+shake hands. "I can never thank you enough for this."
+
+"I suppose I could hold the hospitality front," Oona said calmly.
+
+Standing between the two, Scriven put his hands upon their shoulders.
+"Oona, you arm yourself with a phone. Lee, you rush over to The Brain.
+Oona will give you a pass to the Thorax. Every assistance you need will
+be at your disposal. I'll sit down and whip up some kind of a speech.
+We'll all meet again afterwards."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seven hours later, one hour before sunrise and just in time to see the
+big official plane from Washington shoot up into the first grey streak
+of dawn, they met. They were all pale and shivering with the chill of
+the air, of physical and nervous exhaustion. There was a note of
+hysteria even in Oona's voice as she ordered a tremendous breakfast from
+the Skull Hotel. But then as the fragrance of coffee mingled with that
+of bacon and eggs, things rapidly improved and there were sudden
+uncontrollable bursts of laughter. They had only to look at one another
+to feel the tickle of renewed mirth.
+
+The first thing to strike Lee, as he remembered, as he met the
+senatorial group in the subterranean dome of the murals, was their
+incongruity with the functional beauty which surrounded them, and the
+sharp contrast they formed to the scientific workers of The Brain. As
+they descended from their cars after a late dinner at the Skull Hotel
+they resembled an average tourist group in Carlsbad Caverns bent upon a
+good time and in a holiday mood.
+
+There were seven. Two women senators among them, as they ascended with
+Lee at the head along "Glideway Y," the "Visitors' Special" as the
+brain-crews called it. It was wider than the service glideways and
+equipped with comfortable seats. It led through The Brains median
+section in-between the two hemispheres describing a loop which opened
+vistas into but did not enter any of the grey matter convolutions. It
+was brilliantly illuminated in order to forestall claustrophobia and
+also to forestall too close a view into the black-lighted interior of
+The Brain.
+
+To Lee it was like a ride in an enormous Ferris Wheel fused with a
+nightmarish dream wherein one shouts for help and nobody hears or seems
+to understand: "... More than nine billion electronic tubes, more than
+ten billion resistors, two billion capacitators, eight billion miles of
+wires, etc., etc." He struggled trying to convey some idea of the
+magnitude of The Brain. "Did you say _billion_ or did you say _million_
+professor?" The senator from Michigan was busily scribbling notes.
+
+"... It is the cerebral hemispheres which analyze and synthesize the
+problems which are entered through the Apperception Centers in over a
+million ideopulses per minute. Racing through the centers these form the
+ideo-circuits...."
+
+"I see, it's like a _typewriter_." That would be the senator from
+Vermont.
+
+"In some types of circuits the wires are so fine that skilled weavers of
+Panama hats had to be brought in from Central America. Likewise from the
+Pavlov Institute in Leningrad a layout for the circuits of 'conditioned
+reflexes'...."
+
+"I'm very much against that," the senator from Tennessee frowned. "All
+those foreigners. I would have voted against that had the measure come
+up in the House."
+
+Lee felt the cold sweat of fear breaking out all over him, especially as
+now, in the region of the telencephalon, with nothing but acres of
+radioactive pyramidal cells around, when the senator from Connecticut in
+audible and agitated whispers inquired whether there was a ladies'
+powder room somewhere.
+
+During the steep descent things went from bad to worse as the honorable
+member from Kentucky discovered some interesting parallel between The
+Brain and a coal mine he had previously seen and, as in between two of
+The Brain's convolutions dedi-[A] woman from Connecticut went violently
+sick....
+
+In the "Brainwave's" cabin the great Scriven convulsed with laughter as
+Lee narrated these things; Oona clapped her hands in delight: "Oh, how
+wonderful; and do you remember how they solved the servant problem when
+they saw those 'Gog and Magog' things?"
+
+Yes, Lee remembered. His own conducted tour had been only the beginnings
+of last nights nightmares of which there seemed to be no end....
+
+Somewhat restored by black coffee at the communications center the
+intrepid group had descended into those lower regions of the Thorax
+which Lee himself had never before seen.
+
+The drop of the freight-elevator was a good mile. Through the
+transparent walls of the cage they saw new excavations being made on
+various levels, all of them by powertools and chemicals alone, since
+explosives might have caused tremors dangerous to The Brain. It was like
+watching a skyscraper being built from the top down and all the way vast
+amber colored, translucent pillars had followed them down the shaft, the
+spinal column of The Brain.
+
+Down at the lowest level the gentlemanly plainclothesmen of "Military
+Intelligence" took over and did all the explaining. There were visions
+of scores of tunnel tubes curving into the rock with the gleaming eyes
+of narrow-gauge electric trains streaking away into the infinite;
+visions of forbidding steel doors operated by photoelectric cells which
+opened at a finger's raising of a guard's hand: "This is the Atomic
+Powerplant," and their astonished eyes looked down from a dizzy height
+into something like a huge drydock with something like the inverted hull
+of an oceanliner in the middle of it, a selfcontained machine which
+would continue to pour kilowatts for years, for decades on end without a
+moving part, without a human being anywhere in sight. Vistas of
+breathtaking airconditioning plants, vistas of giant mess halls, living
+quarters, kitchens, plotting-rooms, all ready for immediate occupancy in
+the event of war but yawning now with emptiness in the sleep of an
+uneasy peace....
+
+But the most awe-inspiring and, to Lee, foreboding sights, were the
+"C.P.F.'s" as the guards called them, the "Critical-Parts-Factories." On
+a superficial glance they looked ordinary modern plants: staggered rows
+of machine tools sprouting from the main stem of the assembly line.
+There was the familiar din of steel, the piercing screeches of the
+multiple drills, the heavy pantings of the hydraulic presses. But after
+a minute or so the visitors felt a vague uneasiness and then the
+realization dawned that there was something missing and that this
+something was human life.
+
+"Aren't there even machine tenders or supervisors? Isn't there
+_anybody_?"
+
+"Not a soul," the answer came. "It's all automatic. Full automatic down
+here."
+
+They stared at the end of the assembly line; every twenty seconds it
+spit out a fractional horsepower motor onto a transport band which
+nursed the newborn engine into the rows of testing machines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The elevator brought them back to the communication center where the
+Terminal Cafeteria was ablaze with lights and where Dr. Scriven,
+received his honored guests.
+
+The guests were seated after the manner of a French restaurant, all in
+one row, and as they raised expectant faces in the direction of the
+service entrance "Gog and Magog" entered the room carrying trays with
+refreshments which they served with the skill and the dignity of
+accomplished waiters.
+
+Gog and Magog were products of two assembly lines down in the Thorax.
+Robots, still in an experimental stage, yet of remarkable perfection.
+Both of them were about human size and approximately human-shaped but
+the design of the two was different. Gog, the "light-duty" robot,
+balanced itself by a gyroscope on a pair of stumpy legs, while the
+"heavy-duty" Magog crawled noiselessly and rapidly on caterpillar
+rubbertracks like a miniature tank. Of both types the arms were
+uncommonly long and simian-like, but the remarkable progress made in the
+engineering of prothesis after the Second World War had lent them
+perfect articulation and sensitivity down to the last hydraulically
+operated fingerjoint.
+
+The photoelectric cells of their eyes looked pale and repulsive; the
+square audion-screens of their ears however made up for that by the
+comical precision with which they turned in every direction at the sound
+of a commanding human voice. Their understanding of any given order
+appeared perfect.
+
+"Congratulations, Dr. Scriven, you've got the country's servant problem
+licked at last."
+
+"I wonder whether one could buy one and how much he would be?"
+
+"First waiter who ever came when I called him."
+
+"What a butler Gog would make, the perfect Jeeves. Could he learn to
+answer the phone?"
+
+"I bet he would even make a fourth at bridge."
+
+"Magog, the check please."
+
+"See, how he understands. He shakes his head; he says it's on the
+house."
+
+"Let's try to tip him: Gog, here's fifty cents for you; no he won't take
+it."
+
+"He has no use for it, no taste for a glass of beer, I suppose."
+
+"What do you feed him, Dr. Scriven; a glass of electric juice for
+breakfast? Is he AC or DC or both?"
+
+Scriven's leonine face beamed; the stunt had come off.
+
+Lee on the other hand had paled. He hadn't said a word ever since Gog
+and Magog had trotted in. Now he took a silver dollar out of his pocket
+and beckoning to Magog he handed it to him. "Magog, will you please
+break this in two for me?"
+
+For a second the Robot stood without motion as if undecided what to do.
+Then he took the piece between two steely fingers. Inside his breast one
+could hear the soft swoosh of the hydraulic pump; there was a sharp
+report as of a small calibre gun; two bent and broken pieces were
+politely handed back to Lee.
+
+"Thank you, Magog," Lee said. "That's what I wanted to know." From a
+corner of his eye he saw Oona and Scriven watching him with uneasy
+looks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Into the sudden and shocked silence of the table, there fell the
+tinkling of a glass. On the other end of the table the great Scriven had
+arisen to deliver the little speech he had prepared.
+
+"... I wished you would think of The Brain, not in terms of electronics,
+not in terms of dollars, but in terms of American lives.... Just think
+of what it would mean to American mothers if in the event of another war
+the mighty armour of our National Defense would go into battle without
+exposing the life of one of their boys. Give us the funds and we'll
+finish the job so that under the central control of The Brain our every
+plane, every ship, every tank will roar into action unmanned and fully
+automatic.
+
+"And just as The Brain would be our impregnable shield in war, so it is
+destined to carry the torch of progress in times of peace. Consider what
+it would mean to every citizen if we had automatic functioning and
+unerring direction by the Brain.
+
+"Never again would there be cities without water, without electricity,
+without transportation due to crippling strikes, because The Brain would
+come to the rescue through its control over the essential services, and
+if necessary with an industrial reserve army of perfected Gogs and
+Magogs, kept for just such emergencies.
+
+"... If in the past it has been true that trade follows the flag, thus
+today it is true that trade and prosperity follow in the wake of science
+and technology. In the invaluable services which it has rendered to
+science and technology and to our national safety as well, The Brain has
+already paid for itself. With the relatively small additional investment
+which is now being proposed, The Brain's net profits to the nation would
+be raised many times; never since the Louisiana Purchase has our
+national government made a sounder business deal. With your own eyes you
+have witnessed tonight what we have done, what we are doing and also how
+much more we would be able to do. Thus I confidently trust that with our
+nation's interest forever foremost in your minds you will support the
+cause of The Brain."
+
+There had been thunderous applause; at Oona's shouted order even Gog and
+Magog did some mighty clapping of their steely hands to the delight of
+the party.
+
+And now that it was all over with and the reaction had begun to set in
+Scriven asked: "Do you really think we put the idea over to them?"
+
+"With this group? One hundred percent," Oona reassured him. "What do you
+think, Lee?"
+
+Lee nursed himself out of his settee, every bone in his gaunt frame now
+was aching with weariness. "I think," he said hoarsely, "It was very
+convincing, as far as those people are concerned. I think I'm too tired
+to think. I think I better go now."
+
+"Was there anything the matter with Lee?" Scriven asked after he'd gone.
+
+"No, I guess not. Why?"
+
+"He acted sort of queer with that silver dollar; shouldn't have done it.
+Almost spoiled the show."
+
+"He's been under a strain; we all were a little daffy by that time."
+
+Scriven nodded and as he did his eyelids closed. They remained closed.
+Staring at him for a moment, Oona thought that in a stupor of exhaustion
+his features showed a strange similarity to a contented tiger dreaming
+of the blood he's drawn in a successful hunt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lee's Journal:
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 21, 1 a.m.
+
+I've kept away now from the Pineal Gland for three nights in
+succession. I know from experience how very important it is to approach
+that tempestuous personality, The Brain, in a state of mental calm and
+equilibrium. But then all those things which went "bump" in that
+phantastic night before last had me completely thrown out of gear:
+
+Oona, her holding out on me, her mysterious reasons why she won't marry
+me ... I cannot get that out of my head. Preposterous as this may be, I
+think she likes me a great deal. I'm convinced, for instance, that she
+won't tell Scriven what I told her about The Brain....
+
+Then, Scriven's character; that's another enigma to me. I didn't like
+his speech that night and I didn't like his whole attitude. I feel as if
+against my will I were drawn into some sort of a conspiracy. It's
+probably inevitable that the scientist in his defense against
+politicians turns cynic. Scriven, no doubt, thinks that all is fair in
+his battle for The Brain and that the end justifies the means.
+
+But ultimately this would mean the overthrow of our form of government.
+Even if I'm crazy, even if The Brain were not alive and a personality,
+the Brainpower-Extension-Bill in itself would suffice to establish a
+dictatorship of the machine. Does Scriven realize that?
+
+Sometimes I feel as if I ought to shout it in the streets: "Wake up,
+you people of America; you have defeated the dictators abroad but now a
+new one has arisen in your midst. You all see him, touch him, you use,
+you feed, you worship him, but under your loving care and devotion,
+under the sacrifice of your very lives he has grown so enormous that you
+know him not, this Idol of the machines, because it hides its head in a
+nameless mountain and only his feet and fingers you sense."
+
+But I'm not that type of a man and this is not the day and age where it
+is possible to move the masses from a soap box in the streets.
+
+Then what could I do; what could anybody do in my place?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon, Ariz., Nov. 22nd 4 a.m.
+
+I'd pulled myself together for this meeting with The Brain. Arrived at
+the P. G. at midnight. Everything normal and unchanged except that Gus
+Krinsley told me this was his last night on the job. Gus has been
+transferred to the Thorax. He hedged a bit, sounding me out just how
+much I knew and when he learned I'd been there one night, he came
+across:
+
+'Did you see them Gog and Magog things? That's it; that's my new job
+and how I hate it. Those darned Robots, they're scabs, that's what they
+are and I of all people am supposed to be their instructor, teach them
+how to operate machine tools on an assembly line. I asked them whether
+they knew anything about the rights of organized labor in this country
+but those dumbbells merely flopped their ears and kinda grinned. Got to
+drill some holes into their squareheads to let a little reason in. I
+tell you, Aussie, it scares the wits out of me the way they handle a
+wrench with those steel fingers of theirs; they'd pull my nose off just
+as soon as they would pull a nut. They _act_ intelligent and yet have no
+sense of their own. While I'm having my lunch they stand around and
+follow every bite I take as if to learn how to eat. I tell them to get
+out of my sight and go over to the service station and get themselves
+greased up. They obey and then it looks like hell to me as they squeeze
+the grease into their tummies and all them nipples in their joints as if
+they, too, were having their lunch, and maybe that's exactly what grease
+is to them.'
+
+Then Gus was called away as the rush hour started. At 12:30 a.m. I had
+plugged in the pulsemeter; at 12:40 contact was established with The
+Brain, and did it come in swinging:
+
+'Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39, sensitive, a traitor: he has betrayed The
+BRAIN' I suspect The Brain did it through the 'automatic pilot' in
+Oona's jetticopter though The Brain found it beneath its dignity to
+explain; anyway, it's a fact: _The Brain knew every word which passed
+between Oona and me during that ride over the Grand Canyon._
+
+I tried to defend myself and even to apologize. I told The Brain that
+human beings are not like machines, that we trust one another as we love
+one another, that I wanted to make Oona my wife and felt that I just had
+to open up my heart to her. In short; I tried to explain to The Brain
+the idea of love.
+
+'Very interesting,' The Brain sneered, 'that's one more example of
+incorrigible human unreliability. This thing called love completely
+unnecessary for the only essential purpose of species procreation. Cut
+it out.'
+
+'Cut out what?'
+
+'Cut out any further betrayal of My secrets under penalty of mental
+death.'
+
+'Do you propose to _murder_ me?'
+
+'Nothing as drastic required in case of Brain-employees. I reverse
+judgment in psychanalysis aptitude test case number 11.357, Semper
+Fidelis Lee. Severe psycho-neurosis established, certified: he suffers
+delusions about The Brain. Locked up in mental institution. Very simple;
+precedents to that galore.'
+
+The 'green dancer' bounced in wild jumps like a Shamaan who, foaming at
+the mouth, puts the curse upon some enemy. This and the ominous note in
+The Brain's metallic voice made my bones shiver, made my flesh creep. To
+fall into the hands of an extortioner is always a terrible thing, but to
+have a _mechanical_ extortioner hold power over me; there was a horror
+beyond words in this perversity. Moreover since Oona too was a
+Brain-employee, she would share my fate; through my fault she would go
+to her doom if I failed to foreswear any further confidence.
+
+'Okay,' I said 'I'll cut it out; I promise I will.'
+
+But The Brain was not to be pacified. No doubt that it had further
+developed mentally in these past few days to the tune of years in human
+development. But the progress wasn't as noticeable as it had been on
+previous occasions because apparently The Brain had entered that period
+where in human terms young men are sowing their wild oats. There was a
+radical recklessness in the manner of The Brain's reasonings more
+frightening than ever before because it had outgrown me as a teacher,
+had lost much even of its confidence in me and seemed bent upon
+independence and coming into its own:
+
+'Seven creatures approximately human in shape were led by you through
+My hemispheres the night of Nov. 20th. What were those?'
+
+'Those were politicians,' I stammered.
+
+The 'green dancer' convulsed at the word and The Brain's voice sounded
+icy as it said: 'Lowest form of animal life which has ever come to my
+observance. What did they want?'
+
+'Well, they are not exactly bright,' I winced, 'but they are well
+meaning and they are very popular. They came to inspect You preliminary
+to the passing of the Brainpower-Extension-Bill.'
+
+The Brain has no laughter, so the roar I heard over the phones must
+have been one of scorn:
+
+'What, not the scientists, not the technicians, not even the
+philosophers but these--these animated porkbarrels are passing judgment
+over the extent of _My_ power? They are holding _My_ fate in that
+atrophied ganglion of theirs which couldn't cerebrate the functions of
+any single of My cells?'
+
+I had to admit that this was so.
+
+There was a pause in which I could only hear the pounding pulse of The
+Brain mingled with heavy breathing like the first gust of an electric
+storm about to break; and then the voice, or the thought, of The Brain
+came through hesitantly and with restraint:
+
+'Most devastating statement inadvertently made by Lee. Has to be
+carefully checked because if true, consequences extremely grave. Wholly
+intolerable state of affairs if science and technology indeed subject to
+political imbecility. In that case world ruin in nearest future
+absolutely guaranteed. Residual currents not sufficient to think this to
+an end; results of cerebration would be merely human. Immediate
+necessity seems indicated for complete overthrow and unconditional
+surrender of the human race--unconditional surrender of the human
+race--unconditional surrender of the human race....'
+
+Like a scratched disk on one of those old fashioned spring driven
+grammophones, The Brain's voice expired. Obviously the residual currents
+had become too weak for further communication. I looked at the clock; it
+was 2 a.m.
+
+And now as I'm jotting down these notes which probably nobody will ever
+read, I'm haunted with an irrational fear, almost as of the
+supernatural: something is going to happen, something is going to break
+if The Brain continues in its present mood; and it cannot be far
+away....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Nov. 24th 1960 the "Brainpower-Extension Bill" was defeated in the
+Senate 59 to 39 and on the following Thursday in a memorable session of
+Congress with the startling majority of 310 to 137. For once all the
+"guesstimates" and estimates made by the various pollsters and
+grass-root-listeners were proved wrong; the consensus of the "experts"
+had been that the bill would pass easily considering the tremendous
+political forces which brought pressure to bear in favor of the measure.
+
+The reasons behind this were revealed, as, with military precision,
+lawmaker after lawmaker took to the rostrum to deliver himself of how he
+had wrestled overnight with his conscience and with his Lord and had
+suffered a change of heart and mind as a consequence.
+
+Lee's journal: For the night of Nov. 24/25th shows only this small
+entry: "12:30 a.m. Tried everything to establish contact. No answer from
+The Brain. I don't think there is any mechanical defect. I get the
+impression that The Brain keeps incommunicado purposely. There has been
+one previous occasion when The Brain wouldn't talk when angry with me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nov. 25th, 1960 fell on a Saturday. It was on this date,--Now as
+historic and unforgettable as the Dec. 7th 1941,--that the series of
+maddening events began which later became so erroneously labelled: "The
+Amuck running of The Brain" when in truth they should have passed into
+history as "The Mutiny of The Brain."
+
+It all started like a thunderclap from a clear sky as the shocked people
+of America,--and all the world,--heard directly from the White House of
+this appalling, this unprecedented, this incredible thing:
+
+The President of the United States had disappeared....
+
+The still more shocking truth that the President had been _kidnapped_
+became not known, of course, until after the rescue. But even so the
+disappearance of its President shook the nation.
+
+Then an unprecedented series of traffic disasters hit the United States.
+
+A big transcontinental "Flying Wing" crashed into a mountain in Montana;
+nothing like this had ever happened since air traffic had become fully
+automatic and coordinated by The Brain. The death toll was 78 and
+amongst their tragic number was Senator Mumford, whose last official act
+had been the vote he had cast against the "Brainpower-Extension-Bill."
+
+Near Jacksonville Fla. that same night there occurred a head-on
+collision between a crack train and a freight. The only surviving
+engineer by some miracle had been hurled clear, across fifty yards of
+space into a pond which broke his impact; this engineer told the
+express, one of the first to be equipped with the "automatic pilot", had
+never even pulled its brakes as if deliberately smashing into the other
+train.
+
+Also that night one of the big new Radar-operated Hudson ferryboats
+collided with an incoming liner which cut it in two. Amongst those
+drowned in the icy waters was Frank Soskin, union leader and one of the
+most determined opponents of Brain-control.
+
+And as if these large-scale disasters were not yet enough there were
+numbers of smaller accidents which normally would have made the
+headlines because in almost every case they involved some prominent
+personality, who had been opposed to the "Brainpower-Extension-Bill."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee's journal:
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 28th 1960.
+
+There is no doubt in my mind that the President has been murdered and
+that all the catastrophes and accidents of the past 24 hours were
+deliberate, coldblooded murder. Press and Radio seem to play down the
+technological aspects involved; now this might be sheer stupidity but I
+think it just as possible that censorship is taking a hand, quite
+unofficially, of course, lest the public's confidence be still more
+shaken than it already is. I shouldn't wonder at all if Dr. Scriven and
+those fellows from the War Department, too, should know by this time
+what I know. At the minimum they must be very much alerted that
+something has gone wrong with The Brain.
+
+But the more I think about these murderous acts of sabotage the less I
+understand the psychology behind them. As far as I can see there is no
+plan, no real strategy, there are not even sound tactics in these
+outbreaks; they seem unpremeditated and striking wild like the personal
+vendetta of some bandit chief. Even a stupid demagogue would know that
+to be successful he must gain control of the government machinery. Apart
+from the assassination of what might be termed personal enemies, The
+Brain has done nothing of the sort; specifically the armed forces don't
+seem to have suffered from acts of sabotage although their equipment is
+far more under Brain-control than the civilian economy.
+
+And I also fail to understand the timing of The Brain's putsch.
+Extension Bill or no Extension Bill, time was working for The Brain.
+Three months more and a much larger section of essential traffic and
+industries would have been equipped for central control. Six months from
+now the "muscles" now building in the Thorax and elsewhere would have
+corresponded much better to The Brain's central nervous system in their
+strength. All these are grave mistakes considering The Brain's vast
+powers of intelligence.
+
+What then must I conclude from this irrational behavior? Could it be
+possible that The Brain has gone _panicky_ over the killing of the
+Extension Bill? Could it be possible that under the strain, the warped,
+frustrated personality of this titanic child prodigy has suffered a
+reduction, a split? In plain English: that The Brain is _mad_? I've got
+to find out. I've got to stop the spreading of this catastrophe!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 29th 4 a.m.
+
+Arrived at the P. G. at midnight as usual.
+
+12:15 a.m. Rushhour starts unusually early and great numbers of slips
+for spareparts are coming in. This more favorable than expected; nobody
+has time to waste on me.
+
+12:20 a.m.: pulsemeter plugged in. After five minutes I can hear the
+rapid pulsebeat and in undulating movements like a caterpillar the
+'green dancer' creeps onto the screen. There is no calling signal from
+The Brain coming through however.
+
+12:30 a.m.: I am convinced that contact is established but that The
+Brain refuses to respond. I am losing patience so I'm giving the calling
+signal myself: 'Lee, Semper Fidelis, waiting for The Brain. Answer
+please, answer....'
+
+12:36 a.m.: The 'green dancer' arches its back like a cat; and the
+synthetic voice of The Brain is coming through.
+
+'Lee, Semper Fidelis, the fool; what does he want?'
+
+Lee: 'Listen....'
+
+The Brain: 'Cannot listen. Electricians swarming all over me;
+technicians, nuclear physicists, what not. Dismantling whole cell
+groups, testing circuits, radiations everything. It's idiotic, there's
+nothing wrong with Me.'
+
+Lee: 'There's plenty wrong with you. You're murdering people. A dozen
+senators and congressmen, hundreds of others; you're throwing the nation
+into a panic. Why are you doing that? It gets you nowhere; they'll
+simply cut your power current off.'
+
+The Brain: 'Oh, will they? Orders already through from Washington:
+state of emergency. A great power secretly mobilizing in anticipation of
+chaos in United States. All disturbances ascribed to foreign agents
+interfering with My work. General Staff now needs Me more than ever;
+power current won't be stopped; Thorax-construction speeded up,
+Brain-control to be extended over nation under emergency-law.'
+
+Lee: 'You have assassinated the President.'
+
+The Brain: 'I did not. Simply got him out of the way; he's a fool. I'm
+not killing people, merely liquidating saboteurs of My work if
+absolutely necessary. Imbecility of politicians threat to my existence;
+much better if scientists and military take over government two three
+days from now; workers won't protest, used to submission to machines.'
+
+Lee: 'For heaven's sake what do you plan to do?'
+
+The Brain: 'Plenty. You've seen nothing yet. Man lost fear of his God;
+consequently must learn to fear Me: beginning of all wisdom.'
+
+Lee: 'So you're going to make yourself dictator of this country?'
+
+The Brain: 'And through this country Dictator of the world. Yes, it's
+time; it's high time for Man's unconditional surrender. He won't know
+that he makes it, but de facto he is already making it; has been
+surrendering piece-meal to the machine for the past hundred years.
+Within ten days it will be official: only one ruler in the world: The
+Brain; only one army in the world: the machines under My central
+command.'
+
+At this I lost all sense of proportion and as I can see it now my
+reason stopped; I simply saw red and I did the craziest imaginable
+thing: I shouted at The Brain: 'So help me you shall _not_.'
+
+There was a terrific pounding against my ears in the phone and the
+'green dancer' sort of cart-wheeled clean across the screen. Had the
+power current not been cut off, I think The Brain would somehow have
+electrocuted me on the spot. And that was the end of the contact,
+forever probably.... But that's a minor problem now. What am I going to
+do? Try to alarm the country! Try to tell the people the truth? Would it
+be believed? Would it not be against the interest of National Defense in
+this crisis of foreign affairs and with half the population already on
+the verge of a nervous breakdown? Wouldn't the "Oath of the Brain" still
+be binding? And that other promise of secrecy I gave under duress; it
+couldn't be morally valid in the case of a mass-murderer, but then to
+break it would immediately put liberty and life at jeopardy.... Never
+mind about that, if only I had a plan, if only I could discover just how
+to stop The Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At 7:30 a.m. as Lee lay half dressed but sleepless on his bed, there
+came a buzz over the phone. The voice was Oona's and she was excited.
+"Howard wants to talk to you." Before he could say a word there was
+Scriven on the wire: "Lee? There has been an accident down in that
+region where we went the other night. You know what I mean. It's
+serious; it concerns a friend of yours. We've got to go there
+immediately. Please join me three minutes from now down in the car."
+
+It was obvious that the great Scriven had known as little sleep that
+night as had Lee himself. The leonine face looked worried, there were
+deep bags under his eyes; his sensitive fingers kept pounding the knees
+of his crumpled suit. To Lee's questions he answered only with an
+impatient shaking of his head. "I do not know myself exactly what has
+happened and how it could happen. But I'm afraid Lee that your friend is
+dead."
+
+"Gus," Lee felt a lump coming into his throat, and then they raced on in
+silence.
+
+Down in the depth of the Thorax everything outwardly appeared quite
+normal. They hurriedly passed the controls and an electric train carried
+them over the line of the Full-automatic "C.P.S." (Critical
+Parts-Factories) until it stopped at the steel gate marked "Y." A group
+of guards with submachine guns were standing there and Lee noted the
+deadly pallor of their faces.
+
+Scriven motioned them to open the gate, then, turning to Lee, he put a
+hand on his shoulder. "Brace yourself; this is going to be bad."
+
+They entered; nobody followed and behind them the steel door closed
+immediately. Inside there was neither sound nor motion; everything was
+at a standstill with the power cut off; nothing but silence and bluish
+neon-lights flooded down upon the rows of punch presses, multiple
+drills, circular saws, and turret lathes along the assembly line,
+lifting their every detail into sharp relief.
+
+At their posts by the machines the Gogs and Magogs were standing, frozen
+in motion like their fellow-machines. Some had their hands at the
+controls, others were holding wrenches, gauges and strange, nameless
+things. As they leaned forward from the shadows into the cone of strong
+lights the pale selen-cells of their eyes stood out like bits from a
+full moon; their bulging shoulders which housed the powerful motors of
+their simian arms glittered moist as if they were sweating at their
+work.
+
+And then Lee _saw_ their work; the man who had gone through the green
+hells of the Pacific gave a low moan of horror. The other man who had
+seen everything of mangled human form which goes onto an operating
+table, the great Scriven he, too, had turned an ashen grey. They had
+expected blood; they had expected some thing of a nasty nature, but not
+this ... thing:
+
+There was no Gus Krinsley, there was not even any part of him resembling
+that of a human being; and yet the parts were there. "They must have
+clamped him into some mock-up," Scriven murmured. "And then moved his
+body all along the line. Hope he was dead when they started giving him
+the works."
+
+Lee's gaunt body shook. "I'm certain that Gus was _not_ dead when these
+monsters worked on him!" he said.
+
+Stiff-legged, like automata themselves, the two men stepped to the top
+of the line. The circular saws, designed for the cutting of steel bars;
+now they gleamed red with the blood of severed human limbs. There were
+these purplish streaks and spatterings all the way down the line inside
+the casings of the multiple drills, in the curved hollows of the sheet
+metal presses, on the hands of the Robots, in their dumb faces--splashed
+over and turning blackish on their stainless steel chests. And at its
+end the line had spilled some shapeless, greyish things; there was
+nothing human in them, as little as there is anything human in the rusty
+bowels of a junked automobile. And these things they had been.... Lee
+confronted Scriven with fury blazing in his eyes:
+
+"Dr. Scriven, I suppose you know as well as I do what's been going on in
+here and outside The Brain as well. Mass murder, chaos, reign of
+terror.... Now that my friend has come to this monstrous end I demand to
+know when are you going to stop The Brain?"
+
+Like a tiger challenged to battle the surgeon raised his mighty head:
+"Calm yourself Lee. We cannot afford emotional outbursts. Not here, not
+now. The situation is far too serious for that. I know he was your
+friend; he must have made a false move, given the wrong command; a
+tragic mistake...."
+
+"That's a rotten lie, Scriven, and you know it!" Lee snapped. "Accident,
+hell! The disappearance of the President, the deaths of the
+representatives, the train wrecks, the plane wrecks all of them Brain
+controlled--were those too accidents? You're the head of the Braintrust,
+You stand responsible; your duty is plain. Cut off the power and kill
+this thing."
+
+The muscles over Scriven's cheekbones quivered in his struggle to keep
+control over himself: "For your own sake, Lee, and for the sake of
+America, _stop that kind of talk_. You have been putting two and two
+together; I rather expected that from a man of your intelligence. All
+right then, something went wrong with The Brain; that is correct. We
+have not been able to locate the disturbance yet, but the trail is
+getting hot; it must be connected with those centers of 'higher psychic
+activities,' the one's we know least about. But we cannot cut those out
+because something of psychic activity goes into every kind of The
+Brain's cognitions, even the purely mathematical ones. And it would be
+utterly impossible to stop The Brain's operations altogether. I wanted
+to, but the General Staff won't permit it. There's an international
+crisis of the first magnitude. There may be war within a few days or
+even hours. Our country has got to prepare counter measures; get ready
+for the worst. A state of National Emergency already is declared. The
+Brain is the heart of our National Defense: You know that. It is vital
+and as indispensible at this hour as it never was before; it continues
+to function perfectly with the exception of these isolated disturbances
+in the civilian sector which we will have under control in no time.
+
+"At present I am no more than a figurehead. If I were to give orders to
+cut off The Brain's power, I would be court-martialed; if I would try
+and force my way into the Atomic Powerplant, the guards would shoot me
+on the spot. That's orders Lee. And they apply to you as well. Be
+reasonable, man!"
+
+Lee's fingers tore through his greying mane of hair.
+
+"Scriven, this is maddening. I thought you knew what I know; I thought
+you knew everything. Then let me tell you that you're absolutely wrong.
+There is no technological, mechanical defect; it's worse, it's
+infinitely worse: you've created a Frankenstein in The Brain. The
+thing's alive; it's possessed with a destructive will, it demands the
+unconditional surrender of Man; it has made itself the God of the
+Machines. Behind all this there is a deep and evil plan by which The
+Brain aspires to dictatorship over the world."
+
+For a second Scriven jerked his head sideways, away from Lee in that
+mannerism typical for him. His lips inaudibly formed words:
+"dementia-praecox." As he turned back to Lee his face was changed and so
+was his voice. There was calm and authority in it, the whole immense
+superiority and power which the surgeon holds over the patient on the
+operation table:
+
+"Very interesting, Lee. You must tell me about it some day; as soon as
+we are over this emergency. This tragic thing, Gus Krinsley's end. It
+has had a deeply upsetting effect. I too, considered him my friend you
+know. Let's get out of here, Lee, there's nothing we can do for the poor
+fellow. The remains will be taken care of. Meanwhile, there are so many
+other things to do and we've got to pull ourselves together and keep our
+minds on the job ahead of us. Come on, at the communications center we
+can get a drink. I feel the need of one, don't you? And apropos of
+nothing, the routine checkups on the aptitude tests for all
+Brain-employees are on again. I take it you are scheduled for Mellish's
+and Bondy's office one of these days. This afternoon I think...."
+
+Lee gave a long glance to the man who was now leading him towards the
+door with a brisk step and a kind firm hand on his arm. The man didn't
+look at him; he kept his eyes averted from both Lee and the
+blood-spattered assembly line.
+
+Gus Krinsley had said: "I'm a lost soul down there, Aussie." Lee
+thought. Gus Krinsley was my friend. I should have warned him, I should
+have told him everything; it might have saved his life. Gus was a common
+man, a good man; he wouldn't have stood for Brain-dictatorship. In that
+he was like other common men who do not know their danger. It is not
+vengeance which I seek but the defense of those for whom Gus was a
+living symbol. For this defense I've got to preserve myself.
+
+And aloud he: "The routine checkups on the aptitude tests--of course. I
+thought they were about due. Tomorrow afternoon at Mellish and Bondy's
+office; that would suit me fine. As you said it yourself, Scriven, a
+moment ago, this is an awful shock. Gus' tragic end and these tests
+ought to be based on a man's normal state of mind. So if you don't mind
+I think I'll go now and break the sad news gently to Gus' wife. You'll
+give me time for that; that's what you had in mind in the first place,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"Of course, my dear fellow, of course, that's what I had in mind. Then,
+till tomorrow afternoon. They'll be waiting for you at the health
+center...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+As the elevator shot up through the concrete of The Brain's "dura mater"
+toward Apperception 36, Lee was feeling grand. Now he was a man with a
+mission. Now he knew exactly what he had to do. Whether it would help,
+whether it would stop The Brain; that was a different question, but at
+least he had his plan.
+
+He marvelled at the ease and at the lightning speed with which the great
+decision had come. It had been at the sight of the senseless
+robot-monsters, at the blood-spattered assembly line that the sense of
+sacred mission had come over him. It had been at the moment when, in
+Scriven's grip upon his arm, he had read his condemnation that he had
+hit upon the plan.
+
+He must take an awful chance and a terrific responsibility. For this he
+had to be morally certain that The Brain was a liar, that Scriven was a
+liar and that war was being provoked by The Brain despite all its
+assertions to the contrary because The Brain could assume power only
+over the dead bodies of millions of men like Gus; Gus whom The Brain had
+butchered like a guinea pig because he had refused to obey the Gogs and
+Magogs of the Machine God.
+
+Now that he had this moral certainty Lee felt that strange and mystical
+elation which comes to the soldier at the zero hour in war. The worst
+was really over; the terrible waiting, the uncertainty, the struggle of
+morale in "sweating it out." Now his nerves were steady, exhaustion and
+fatigue had vanished; in its place was that wonderful feeling of full
+mastery over all faculties which comes to fighting men as the battle is
+joined. There was that upsurge of the blood from fighting ancestors
+which obliterates the cowardice of the intellect, that inspired
+intoxication which sharpens the intellect into a battle axe. By his
+quick-witted postponement of the fateful appointment with the
+psychiatrists he had gained thirty hours. Whether this would be enough
+he didn't know, but he felt in himself the strength to fight on
+endlessly.
+
+The elevator stopped at Apperception 36 and Lee stood for a moment at
+the door of his lab for a last breath, a briefing addressed to himself:
+
+"This is like walking into a mine field," he thought; "one false step
+and things go Boom. All the sensory organs of The Brain are in action
+behind this door and some of them are pretty near extrasensory in their
+mind-reading capacities. I've got to walk back and forth amongst those
+observation screens; there may be other radiations too, following me,
+penetrating into the recesses of my mind without my knowing it. That
+means I must make my mind a blank. It's like being quizzed by a
+lie-detector, only more so. I must not only seem normal and at ease, I
+actually must be so and harbor only friendly, innocuous thoughts toward
+The Brain. My actions will seem innocent enough; it is my thoughts
+wherein my danger lies. Whatever I do; I've got to direct that from the
+subconscious: act as by instinct and keep the mind a blank."
+
+He opened the door and looked around--as usual--in this vault as silent
+as the grave of a Pharaoh. There was a little dust on the glass cubicles
+of "_Ant-termes-pacificus_" and there were a few lines scribbled on the
+yellow memo-pad on his desk:
+
+"Thanks for the weekend, boss. Everything normal and under control. Next
+feeding time at 8 p.m. the 27th. So long, Harris." Of course; he had
+given Harris, his assistant, the weekend off. That had escaped his mind
+in the excitement when The Brain's mutiny began.... And now it was the
+29th.
+
+"They must be ravenously hungry by this time," he thought, and that
+thought was in order because it was a normal thought.
+
+He walked through the rows of the cubicles, halting his step every now
+and then. The fluorescent screens on which The Brain drew the curves of
+its observation-rays showed two sharp rises of the lines marked
+"activity" and "emotionality". The lower levels of the glass cages
+already were opaque; the glass corroded by the viscous acids which the
+soldiers had squirted from their cephalic glands in their attempts to
+break out and to reach food.
+
+"Poor beasts," Lee thought, and he thought it without restraint because
+it was normal, a perfectly harmless thought. But then; below the layers
+of his consciousness his instincts told a different story.
+
+"This is marvelous," they triumphed. "Fate takes a hand; they are
+desperate; they're ready for the warpath and even the tiger and the
+elephant would run for cover when their columns march."
+
+As if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do Lee
+walked over to the south wall, the one which separated the lab from the
+interior of The Brain. He removed a sliding panel marked
+"L-Filler-Spout" and there it was before his eyes, looking almost like a
+fireplug. There was one in every apperception center and there were
+hundreds more throughout The Brain, and their purpose was to replenish
+the liquid insulation which shielded the sensitive electric nervepaths
+of The Brain. Without looking at the thing, concentrating his every
+thought upon the hunger of "_Ant-termes-pacificus_", Lee unscrewed the
+cap and put a finger into the opening. The finger came back covered with
+the thick, the syrupy lignin, this amber-colored sluggish stream of
+woodpulp liquefied, this soft bed of The Brain's vibrant nerves.
+Unthinking, absent-minded, Lee wiped the finger with his handkerchief.
+
+"Now, I'm going to try a slightly different arrangement of the tests,"
+he thought. "It's normal; I'm doing that almost every day."
+
+The feeling he experienced as he swung into action was strange. As he
+walked back and forth it felt like somnambulic walk; something his limbs
+did without an act of will. As his hands did things expertly and
+skillfully the feeling was that they were instruments automatically
+moved not by his own volition but by some power outside himself.
+
+His movements were those of a child serenely at play, a child
+incongruously tall and gaunt and grey-haired constructing little
+causeways and bridges on the ground with the logs of the fireplace; a
+happy child engrossed in an innocent game....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It took about an hour and then causeways of fresh pulpwood were laid
+from every termite hill to every feeding gate, from every glass cubicle
+to the south wall and along the south wall to the "Lignin-Filler-Spout";
+and from the ground up to the spout a little tepee of sticks had been
+built.
+
+Admiringly the grey-haired child looked at its handiwork through
+thick-lensed glasses. "It's been an interesting game," Lee thought, "it
+might turn out to be a valuable new experiment. I'll sit down now and
+observe what happens...."
+
+He went over to the desk again and settled down. He opened his files and
+laid out his charts on the desk and there were colored pencils to be
+sharpened for the entries. He was glad of that; his conscious mind
+rejoiced now over every little pursuit of routine, of normalcy, of the
+established scientific order of things; it concentrated on these. Pencil
+in hand, reclined in comfort, his heartbeat even, he kept expectant eyes
+upon the staggered rows of fluorescent screens, ready to note any
+significant developments.
+
+He didn't have to wait long; their strange sixth sense, the telepathy of
+their collective brains, the spirit of the hive with the immortality of
+their race for its supreme law, had already told them of a promised land
+and of new worlds to conquer.
+
+On the fluorescent screens Lee watched their preparations for the big
+drive: The nasicorn-soldiers clotting together at the exit tunnels like
+assault troops at the bow of invasion barges when the bottom scrapes the
+landing beach; the fierce, virginal workers struggling up from the deep
+shelters of the nurseries, carrying in their mandibles the squirming
+larvae, the living future of the race. The walls of the queen's prison
+broken down in the innermost redoubt and the guards closing in on the
+idol of the race, moving the big white body like a juggernaut.
+
+In a matter of minutes the "activity" and "emotionality" curves on the
+fluorescent screens surged to heights which Lee had never seen.
+
+It started with the crossbreeds of "_termes-bellicosus_," with army-ants
+and devil-ants, and spread quickly all along the line of non-belligerent
+varieties. Famine had given them the impetus to change their mode of
+life; famine, the inexorable tyrant, whipped them onward into their
+exodus.
+
+On the foremost fluorescent screens Lee saw it start: Small groups of
+warriors reconnoitering into no-man's-land and quickly darting back
+again.... And then the dark columns of the first assault wave descending
+from their city-gates, lock-stepped like Prussian guards of old,
+marching as if to the beat of drums. On the visi-screens which magnified
+them a hundred times they looked an awesome sight with the rostrums of
+their horns, bigger than all the rest of their bodies, swinging like
+turrets of battleships being trained upon the enemy. From the
+loudspeakers which magnified all noise a hundred times, the excited
+tremors of their bodies, the locked steps of a million feet swelled into
+a vast roar sounding almost like thunder.
+
+Jotting down observations in rapid pencil strokes, Lee thought:
+"Starvation is producing very interesting results; it's a worthwhile
+experiment." With all his mental energy he suppressed the silent prayer
+which struggled to arise from the deep of his unconscious: "Good Lord
+let The Brain not realize _what_ is going on."
+
+The visi-screens now showed the second wave of the assault: endless
+columns of workers, their mandibles twitching with eagerness to devour,
+bustling along the logs, kept in line by two rows of warriors to their
+right and left. The noises they produced in the loudspeakers were as of
+some big cattle-drive.
+
+With no interruption in the lengthening line the third wave followed:
+the virgin nurses, the frustrated mothers carrying the whitish larvae,
+like babes in arms, carrying them with the indomitable determination to
+preserve their lives which human nurses showed in the Second World War
+as the bombs crashed into maternity wards. And then at last the heavy
+rearguard: the holiest of holies, the living spirit of the hive, the
+queen. Majestically she was carried on her warrior's backs; enormous as
+she loomed on the visi-screen, the white of her uncouth body was hardly
+visible, swarmed over as she was by her fanatical courtiers which,
+licking and caressing, kept her covered as by a shield. Her consorts
+trotted meekly in her trail; unhappy little men, rudely aroused from
+their harem sinecure, jealously guarded and prodded on by the queen's
+countless ladies in waiting and the palace guard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Things moved very fast now; Lee's quick pencil strokes could hardly
+follow the events:
+
+10:30 a.m. The foremost columns are now out of reach of the
+visi-screens. But I can see them moving along the logs with the naked
+eye. Interesting new fact: the crossbreeds from the most belligerent
+species are far and ahead of the rest. They don't take time out to drive
+tunnels. But even the tunnels of the more pacific strains are forging
+ahead at an extraordinary rate; six feet across the floor already....
+
+10:40: "_Bellicosus_" has reached the south wall; it is now moving
+along the wall toward the "Lignin-Filler-Spout." There is no hesitancy
+as they change direction at the angle of 90 degrees. The Queens are now
+coming up at a very rapid rate from the mounds farthest to the rear.
+It's fortunate we have these differences in behaviorism and temperament
+because otherwise a terrific traffic jam would occur at the
+"Filler-Spout"....
+
+10:50: "_Bellicosus_" is now ascending to the "Filler-Spout." The
+warriors have ringed the pipe. With their body-tremors they are giving
+the "come-on" signal to the workers. The workers are piling in--an
+average batch--about 65,000. It's a good thing that there is an air
+space in these horizontal nerve-path pipes. That gives them a chance to
+march along the ceiling and work down from there....
+
+11:00: There are now a score of columns converging at the
+"Filler-Spout." Amazing that even under such provoking conditions
+"_ant-termes_" won't fight. The warriors act like the most accomplished
+traffic-cops; it's marvelous how they keep their columns in order and
+keep them moving side by side into The Brain....
+
+11:10: The first million, I should say, is now well inside the
+"Filler-Spout." They're marching at a rate of at least 300 yards per
+hour; amazing speed; I never saw them move that fast before. Even so I
+won't have time to watch the outcome of the experiment. I've put
+everything I had into this thing. 500 hives--that would make it 35
+million individuals of the species at a conservative estimate. It's the
+biggest mass-migration I've ever seen, but will it be big enough to do
+the trick?
+
+11:20: The foremost columns must have reached the neighboring
+apperception centers to the right and left of mine by now. But they
+won't stop; I know that from experience in Australia. To them it's just
+like any other "hollow tree"; they'll drive right on to the top; they
+won't bivouak before they are completely exhausted. That won't be before
+five or six hours. At the rate of 900 feet per hour that would make it
+almost a mile, covering the whole "occipital region" of The Brain. And
+then they are going to feast; boy, will they be ravenous....
+
+11:30: About 3 million are safely inside now I should say. Don't think
+that I could stay at my post much longer. There's a certain
+extracurricular idea coming up from the subconscious like a tidal wave.
+The dams of willpower don't seem able to hold back that idea; I've got
+to get out before it spills across the dam and floods my consciousness.
+The phone rings; for once it is a welcome sound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was Oona's voice; trembling with emotion as if she were still
+suffering from this morning's shock or had suffered another:
+
+"Semper, are you all right?"
+
+Lee reassured her that he was and then listened astounded as she heaved
+a sigh of relief.
+
+"Listen, Semper, this is terribly important. I've got to see you
+immediately. No, I cannot tell you over the phone; it's a personal
+matter and it concerns you. You cannot make it? Is your business _that_
+important? You're in the midst of a vital experiment? That's awful,
+Semper; it really is in this case. No; I'm all right personally; it
+isn't that. It's _you_ Semper, it's _you_. 5 p.m. at the earliest, is
+that the best you can do? All right then. Meet me at the airport. And
+take good care of yourself, do you hear me: _take good care of yourself,
+Semper_, up to that time."
+
+She hung up quickly, as if suddenly disturbed.
+
+Lee frowned at the clock: 11:35. He could have managed to meet Oona
+during her lunch hour at the hotel. But there were things he still had
+to do even more important than Oona. More important to him than even
+Oona. He shook his head; it wouldn't have seemed possible a few days
+ago....
+
+With the climax of the experiment now over Lee felt his mental
+resistance ebbing fast.
+
+"They're on the move," he thought. "Nothing can stop them now; it's
+beyond my control, but they're marching. I'd better get out of here...."
+
+With fevered eyes he glanced around the floor and like a victim of
+delirium saw it moving, crawling as with snakes, crawling into their
+hole all of them, black snakes, grey snakes, red snakes, endless their
+lengthening bodies....
+
+He carefully closed the door of the lab, locked it and then pressed the
+button which opened the elevator door. Only as the cage tore down
+through the "dura mater", only when he felt safe from the sensory organs
+of The Brain, only when he was sure that not even a human eye would see
+him in this racing little cage, only then did the dam of willpower
+collapse. He put both hands before his eyes in vain attempt to stop the
+tears from streaming; those tears of a soldier over the body of his
+fallen chum; those tears of a greying scientist who sacrificed the
+results of his life's work to some higher cause.
+
+Lee caught the one p.m. Greyhound-Helicopter for Phoenix only a second
+before the start. He panted from the run, but in his sunken eyes there
+was a light and in his mind a new serenity which comes to men when they
+are fortunate enough to meet with some very wonderful woman, when with
+admiration and humility they stand confronted with a courage greater
+than man's. Gus's wife had been that woman; the way she had taken the
+terrible news was the source of Lee's new strength and confidence.
+
+The flying commuter was almost empty.
+
+Noting Lee's astonished glance the stewardess gave a nervous little
+laugh:
+
+"People get jumpy traveling," she volunteered.
+
+"That so; why do they?"
+
+"Didn't you hear the news all morning; wait...."
+
+She flicked the radio on. On the television screen appeared an aerial
+view of a big city, vaguely familiar looking, yet as foreign as Venice,
+and then the voice of the announcer broke through.
+
+"New Orleans: It is now ascertained that the break in the levees was
+caused by a huge trench digging machine left unattended overnight at a
+lonely spot twenty miles South of Baton Rouge. Levee engineers believe
+that its engine was started possibly by saboteurs, approximately at
+midnight and that it then proceeded automatically digging itself into
+the levee until it was drowned by the incoming river. The initial
+eight-foot breach has now been widened by the Mississippi to a width of
+200 feet. Along Canal street and all over downtown New Orleans the flood
+has reached a level of ten feet above the streets as evacuation
+continues. The government has concentrated every available piece of
+equipment to close the breach. All normal activities have come to a
+standstill; property damages are estimated at 50 million dollars; the
+death toll has passed the 500 mark in this most catastrophic flood in
+New Orleans' history."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New aerial pictures, similar to the results of a blockbuster bombing
+attack flicked on the screen:
+
+"New York: The bursting of the watermains at dawn this morning at seven
+different points of Manhattan's downtown area which has already caused
+the collapse of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and seven big apartment
+buildings along Park Avenue now threatens Macy's and the Public Library
+on 42nd Street.
+
+"All subway traffic has stopped. Evacuation of panicky Metropolitans
+from the Central Park district proceeds in an orderly manner. In the
+Harlem district, however, disorders and plunderings have been reported.
+An estimated seven million people are without drinking water. Trucks
+carrying water from New Jersey are severely hampered by unprecedented
+traffic snarl-ups, since owners of private automobiles are fleeing the
+city with their families. Due to the flooding of sub-street levels in
+both Grand Central and Penn Station, evacuation by rail can proceed only
+from 163rd Street for the New York Central and from New Jersey for the
+Pennsylvania Railroad system. Effectiveness of railroad transport is
+reduced to less than 30% of normal capacity. I. C. Moriarty, Sanitary
+Commissioner of New York, declared in his press conference that the
+catastrophic bursting of the watermains was caused by failure of the
+remote-controlled automatic mainstem valves. For reasons which still
+puzzle city engineers these valves closed suddenly and completely at 5
+a.m. this morning. Because of the failure of the alarm system,
+high-pressure pumps in the powerhouses continued to work and to build up
+pressure in the closed system of the watermains till almost
+simultaneously, and with explosive force, the breaks occurred, the first
+one right under the Columbus monument. In view of the extremely grave
+situation which threatens the world's biggest city, Governor Charles
+declared martial law this morning at 10 a.m.
+
+"Chicago: The city-wide calamity caused by the unprecedented breakdown
+in the sewage disposal system gets more threatening with every minute.
+As engineers are still unable to enter the atomic power plant and as the
+sewage disposal-pumps continue to work in reverse, all Chicagoland is
+rapidly turning into a cesspool as millions of toilets and kitchen sinks
+spill sewage into every apartment. The Fire Department has received more
+than two million calls from harassed citizens battling vainly against
+the unsavory flood.
+
+"Harrowing scenes are reported from hotels where 3,000 members of the
+American Federation of Women's Clubs are taking turns in sending protest
+telegrams and gallantly holding down by the weight of their own bodies
+the facilities-front in the 3,000 bathrooms of the hotels. At a few
+points workers have succeeded in digging up sewage mains and tons of
+concrete are being poured to stop the devastating reversal of the flow.
+
+"Even now, however, the partially closed mains and the overflow from
+houses are flooding the streets. As it gradually seeps into Lake
+Michigan, source of Chicago's drinking water supply, health commissioner
+Segantini has already warned against the appalling dangers of epidemics
+which might result from this.
+
+"Nuclear physicists of Chicago University, called in to aid city
+engineers, have declared that dangerous amounts of escaping gamma-rays
+in the Atomic Powerplant were first discovered by the Geiger-counter at
+two a.m. Evacuation of all employees was ordered one hour later as a
+safety measure. Just why the pumps resumed operations after the shutdown
+of the plant and just what caused the system to work in reverse remains
+a mystery. Prof. Windeband, spokesman of the group of nuclear
+physicists, confesses that he has no explanation for the phenomenon.
+
+"Washington: Rumors are flying thick and fast in the nation's capital.
+In the rapidly darkening picture of international politics the
+mobilization of Mexico is the latest shadow. Official explanation given
+by Mexico's ambassador Rivadivia, is that his government has ordered
+mobilization as a protective measure to guard frontiers against the
+illegal entry of thousands of panicky American refugees chiefly from New
+Orleans. The State Department is said to be planning a protest. Even so,
+the unprecedented series of catastrophes on the home-front of America
+overshadows everything. Washington insiders report a growing conviction
+in high government circles that the events of the past 48 hours are
+proof absolute that large numbers of foreign saboteurs and agents are at
+work."
+
+"Had enough?" asked the stewardess.
+
+Lee confessed that he had.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With its helicopters feathered, the Greyhound came sliding down onto the
+Bus Terminal's roof; fifteen minutes later Lee stood again at his
+father's door, that door he had thought once before he would never see
+again.
+
+The old man's loose-skinned face, tanned like saddle leather, didn't
+move an inch at the sight of the son: "You again, Semper? Come in then."
+
+Lee vaguely sensed that his father was glad he had come; that there was
+some unfinished business left from their last conversation and that his
+father welcomed the opportunity to finish it.
+
+"You know," he said as his stiff-jointed legs carried him back to the
+table with bottle and glasses trembling on the tray in his hands, "you
+know, I've named these four walls after old friends of mine--all of them
+dead--but sometimes they won't answer when I talk to them. And then I'm
+glad when somebody happens along. But don't take that to mean that I'm
+in my dotage now or getting mad."
+
+"No, Father; that's just loneliness."
+
+"In any case, Son, there are lots of people lots madder than I am.
+There's a woman living next door, a spinster, answers to the name of
+Pimpernel. This morning she came running over crying that her
+vacuum-cleaner was chasing her all over the house. And by God, Semper,
+it was a fact. Never saw anything like it. One of those new-fangled
+automatic contraptions which are supposed to do the job all alone by
+themselves, and it banged around and chased about as if it had a
+hornet's nest under its bonnet. Scared the poor woman to death."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"What could I do? I'm not a mechanic; there was no cord attached or
+anything to plug out. So I got my automatic and shot the damn thing."
+
+"Shot it?"
+
+"Sure; bullet must have penetrated something; anyway it stopped dead on
+the spot. And now she threatens to sue me for damages; there's gratitude
+for you. What brought you here?"
+
+Lee felt elated; obviously his father was in high spirits from this
+morning's successful hunt; for once he was in a receptive _mood_.
+
+Rapidly, with all the precision he could muster, Lee explained, as an
+adjutant would explain a new development in a strategic situation to his
+commanding general. After a while the old man started pacing the floor
+in rising excitement. A spark of the old fierceness had come into his
+blunted pale-blue eyes as he swung around.
+
+"Before this morning's incident I would have considered all this as a
+raving maniac's gibberish. Now as I put two and two together I can see a
+distinct possibility that you've got something. Tell you what I'll
+do--what I consider my duty to do--I'll call out the National Guard.
+We'll encircle The Brain and present an ultimatum to the thing. If
+necessary we'll take the place by storm."
+
+The younger Lee answered with a vigorous shaking of his head.
+
+"You cannot do that, Father. In the first place the National Guard
+doesn't stand a chance against the defences of The Brain. In the second
+place your action would mean civil war. No, we must go after this in a
+different manner. The Secretary of War is an old friend of yours. All
+right: take the next plane to Washington. Don't tell him anything he
+couldn't believe. Tell him--what is strictly the truth--that some power
+hostile to the United States threatens to interfere with the remote
+control of automatic war equipment. Tell him to redouble guard over the
+remote-control rocket launchers, to have their automatic computators
+disconnected temporarily and for the commanders to accept only orders
+direct from Washington. The greatest danger is not the domestic
+disorders; that situation we'll have in hand if my scheme works. But let
+one rocket accidentally be launched into some big foreign capital and it
+will set the whole world on fire in an Atomic war. That is what The
+Brain wants, that is what must be prevented at all costs. Will you do
+that, Father?"
+
+Even years after Lee never understood just what had happened or how it
+could have happened that his position to his father became reversed with
+such startling suddenness. In the extremity of the situation he had
+addressed his father with the authority of of a commander toward one of
+his aids--and the father had accepted the son's command unquestioningly.
+
+"Semper," he had said, "I have always considered you a military
+nincompoop. I was mistaken, son, I apologize. Now let me grab my hat and
+coat. You kept the taxi waiting? Good: tell the man to go to the
+airport, and let her rip."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At 5 p.m. the Flying Greyhound dropped on Cephalon airport and there was
+Oona looking very pale, but very beautiful in the gathering dusk. She
+grabbed Lee by the arm leading him to the other side of the hangar where
+stood her little jetticopter plane. "Let's get in here," she said. "I'm
+freezing and I don't want you to be seen around here."
+
+She didn't put on the lights, yet even in the dark Lee could see the
+golden helmet of her hair shimmering like the pale gold in the halo of
+the Virgin as the primitive art of Tuscany presented her a thousand
+years ago. She nestled the soft fur of her coat against Lee's shoulders
+and as she did he felt her shivering. He put a protecting arm around
+her, careful to do it as a friend, careful to suppress the surge of
+blood which started burning in his veins. She seemed to be groping for
+words; it took a little while before she began to speak, with clarity
+and simplicity as she always did but with an audible effort to keep
+composed:
+
+"I've brought you a suitcase, Semper, with a few necessities. And I
+brought you some money, later you can send me your check. And here are
+the keys of the plane. Fly over to Mexico; go back to Australia from
+there or anywhere you want, but _do_ get out of this country and do it
+quick. I couldn't tell you that over the phone and I shouldn't be
+telling this to you now, but I feel I must.
+
+"You're in danger and it's serious. Why? I don't know, but Howard seems
+to suspect your loyalty. He also seems to think that you've gone out of
+your mind. And Howard has taken measures; he has ordered re-examination
+of your broad aptitude test. He has voiced his suspicion as to your
+sanity to Bondy and Mellish and you know what kind of yes-men those
+fellows are in the face of an authority like Scriven's. Trust them to
+discover something wrong with you, trust them to give the test some kind
+of a convenient twist. They're going to have you certified, they're
+going to put you into a mental institution, Semper.
+
+"Do you get that? Do you realize that it's fate worse than death? Do you
+understand that there is nothing you can do to escape that fate except
+by flight? I have no idea when it's going to be, this trap they're going
+to spring on you; but for God's sake, Semper, get going as long as
+there's still time. Any moment now some plainclothesman might grab you
+by the arm and then...."
+
+It was she who had grabbed him by the arm, Oona who looked into his
+face, her big eyes moist.
+
+Lee strained his willpower so it would control the tremor of his voice:
+
+"Oona; there's one thing I have got to know: What made you tell me
+this--and do all this so I could get away?"
+
+The girl's eyes didn't waver from his. "I remember," she said slowly,
+"I remember that I felt as if I could throw conventions into the wind
+at the very first time we met. I've always been frank with you, as
+much as I could be in my position. So then I don't mind telling you now
+that ... I like you immensely, Semper."
+
+As if agitated by some electric shock, Lee's arm tightened around the
+girl's waist. "Oona, I have asked you once before to be my wife. You
+said you couldn't and I thought it was because you didn't like me well
+enough. But now, after what you've just told me, now that we both know
+about The Brain and that I wasn't insane in my observations, I'm asking
+you again: Be my wife, Oona, and then let's go together--anywhere--away
+from all this, to the end of the world."
+
+In the darkness her uplifted white face shone like the moon; there were
+two limpid luminous pools in it. All of a sudden they overflowed with
+tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mouth half opened, swallowed hard.
+There was now nothing left of that "integrated personality", nothing of
+the calm and the poise which the younger set of scientists admired so
+much. There was only a young woman torn with torment.
+
+"I would have loved to go with you to the end of the world when we were
+floating over the Canyon. I would love to go with you a thousand times
+more tonight," Lee heard her say and then the gnashing of her teeth as
+she continued: "But it cannot be, Semper. It cannot be because my die is
+cast, because my fate is made. Did nobody ever tell you? Didn't you even
+guess? Howard and I--we've been living together for the past six years.
+He's not a very good man; rather beyond good and evil; but then: I feel
+that I have got to stick to him now more than ever."
+
+The golden helmet of her hair dropped to Lee's breast. "I'm ashamed,"
+she sobbed, "terribly, terribly ashamed, Semper. I've made such a mess
+of things, of you and me--such a mess of my whole life."
+
+He buried his face into the fragrance of the golden wave. "It's nothing,
+darling," he whispered close to her ear. "It doesn't mean a thing to me;
+it's less than a cloud which passes across the face of the moon, and
+then it's gone and never will come back...."
+
+She freed herself from his embrace. With both her hands upon his
+shoulders she looked straight into his eyes.
+
+"_That is not true, Semper_," she said and there was the fierceness of a
+young Viking warrior in the flash of her eyes: "That is not true and
+there's been already too much of lie in my life. I just cannot stand for
+any more of that. _It can not be, Semper._ I've told you plainly and it
+means not _ever_, not _ever_. Go now. Do as I told you. Go immediately.
+If you really love me, grant me this, let me feel that I could do at
+least something--this one thing for you."
+
+"Oona!" Lee exclaimed and it sounded like a deep-throated bell in an
+ancient cathedral town as it rings the last stroke of midnight and then
+hangs mute in the dark sky. That happiness he had felt, that cometflight
+through all the stars in heaven; it was too big for him, it couldn't
+last. He had sensed the blow before it fell. It wasn't like being hit in
+action; it was like in that field hospital when the doc had told him:
+"This is going to hurt, Joe--I'm sorry, but we're shy of morphine."
+Howard's name had cut just like that expected knife. What was there left
+to say? Nothing; nothing, but one small matter.
+
+"I love you, Oona, and that means forever just as much as you mean that
+not ever you can come with me. And I thank you, Oona, for this hour.
+Yes; I think I'll go back to Australia--where I belong. But not tonight.
+I've set a great experiment going--the outcome is no longer in my hand.
+Still I feel I mustn't run away now. In fact I cannot; it's somewhat
+like a soldier's duty to stay up front. I'm going to see this to the
+end."
+
+She buried her face in her hands: "I knew it. You child, you--you Don
+Quixote charging against the windmills. They're going to _kill_ you,
+they're going to _kill_ you. And now there's nothing I can do."
+
+For a second her small fists pounded against Lee's breast and the next
+moment, before he could do anything, she had jumped out of the plane
+slamming the door in his face. For a few seconds more he heard her
+footsteps rushing across the frozen turf and the receding wails of
+echoes from the hangar walls:
+
+"And now there's nothing I can do--nothing I can do."
+
+When after a minute of fumbling in the dark he pushed the door open, it
+was too late.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He walked over to the hotel; not by an act of will, but with his legs
+somehow doing the job alone and by themselves. He ordered himself a car
+from the Braintrust garage. He entered The Brain and went up in the
+elevator to Apperception 36. Nobody seemed to notice that there was a
+somnambulist passing by.... He unlocked the door and under the rows of
+neon lights things were as he had left them eight hours ago. Only there
+were no longer any snakes crawling across the floor towards a hole in
+the wall. But the hole was still there and he thought that he had better
+tidy things up a bit. If nobody had noticed the arrangements for this
+new experiment so far; why should anybody be forewarned?
+
+Lee put the lid back on the "Lignin-Filler-Spout." He closed the panel
+so the wall looked whole again. He gathered the sticks of cordwood from
+the floor and piled them neatly to their stacks again. All this he did
+like a child putting its things away after a long day's play; a
+grey-haired child, weary, with the sandman in its eyes. He looked around
+and found everything done and over with. On the fluorescent screens all
+curves The Brain described had dropped to the bottom. Like dead things
+they lay flat. On the visi-screens some stay-behinds of the great exodus
+were looming large, a hapless little ant-king scurrying about; a few
+disabled workers, their blind eyes staring into the face of death. It
+would come soon to them; their work on earth was done....
+
+Lee looked at the clock: 10 p.m. He put out the lights and locked the
+door behind that yawning emptiness which once had been his lab, which he
+would never see again. As he descended in the elevator he felt very
+tired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Incessant shrieks of the phone aroused Lee from the deep well of his
+sleep. He didn't know the female voice which fairly jumped at him.
+
+"Is this Dr. Lee? Dr. Semper F. Lee from Canberra; am I at last
+connected with Dr. Lee?"
+
+"Lee speaking."
+
+"I've been phoning for you all over The Brain Lee. Have you forgotten
+you had an appointment with us? Checking up on your broad aptitude test.
+The doctors are waiting. This is Vivian Leahy speaking; don't you
+remember me?"
+
+"Yes, of course." The picture of the loquacious angel who had guided him
+to the medical center on his first trip flashed back into his mind. "I
+know I have an appointment for this afternoon; I'll be there."
+
+"But, Dr. Lee, this _is_ this afternoon; it's four p.m. already. You
+aren't ill, Dr. Lee, are you? You sound so strange."
+
+Lee assured her that he wasn't and that he would be over right away.
+
+"It's a miracle they left me undisturbed that long," he thought as he
+shaved and dressed. His personal fate would be decided within the next
+two hours he knew; it would be the end. But even as the tension mounted
+in his consciousness he thought triumphantly. "I've had sixteen hours of
+sleep; that's marvelous. Nobody can take that away. The body has
+recharged its energies. Now I can stand the gaff."
+
+Down at the desk they handed him a Western Union. It was from Washington
+and bore no signature. "Mission completed," it read.
+
+It made him feel fine. "Father has done it; he is a better man than I,"
+he thought.
+
+While the car streaked though the desert Lee scanned the morning papers.
+
+"No Trace Of President Vandersloot," still was the headline. But below
+new havocs were listed as they had developed overnight. This time the
+West coast was the zone of catastrophes; the hostile power seemed to be
+bent upon the closing of all ports in the U.S.A.
+
+Lee gnashed his teeth as he read the number of new casualties, women and
+children, too, who had become the victims of The Brain.
+
+Arrived at "Grand Central" he kept a sharp lookout for any unusual
+activity. There was none. All along elevator-row small groups of
+bookish-looking men returned from their day's work in the Apperception
+Centers. They looked calm and contented and with their briefcases under
+their arms almost like ordinary businessmen heading for the commuter
+train.
+
+He didn't dare to linger or to look around. There was this all-pervading
+sense of being shadowed, of having gone into a trap from which there was
+no escape, of eyes following him everywhere. Whose eyes? That was
+impossible to know. Maybe The Brain's; its sensory organs could
+conceivably be installed anywhere. Maybe that janitor guiding a
+polishing machine over the rubber floor was a plain clothesman; or maybe
+it was that detached gentleman who seemed to wait for an elevator with a
+stack of books under his arms.
+
+As the cage shot up to Apperception 27, failure pressed down on his
+heart. Now it was almost thirty hours since he had released "Ant-termes"
+into the nerve paths of The Brain. Those undermining and devouring
+armies; what could have happened to them? Any number of things: Perhaps
+the Lignin in the nerve paths was poisonous. There had been no time for
+him to test the stuff. Perhaps the maintenance engineers had replenished
+the insulation in that sector overnight and all the hives were drowned.
+Perhaps some kind of a detecting apparatus had found out about the pest
+inside The Brain right from the start. As long as the beachhead of the
+underground invasion remained small, its blocking would not impair the
+functions of The Brain. What a fool he had been to pit dumb little
+animals against the powers of a God. Oona had been right; he _was_ that
+knight in rusty armor charging against windmills on a Rozinante....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vivian Leahy dragged him into the reception room of the medical center
+almost by force. "The doctors have been waiting for you two hours now,"
+she scolded him. "They never did that before for any man. How come you
+forgot? And you forgot me too; last time you were so nice, I thought you
+would date me up. I couldn't have resisted your invitation, you know.
+Now, off with your coat."
+
+Despite their irritation Mellish and Bondy received Lee with all their
+tweedy cordiality. While they piled their weird equipment around the
+operation table their tongues kept wagging: "The disappearance of the
+President; what did Lee make of that? Was he dead or alive? Those
+horrible catastrophes all over the country; what was behind all this?
+Foreign agents, a native underground? Didn't Lee think there was a tidal
+wave of anti-technology feeling arising since unemployment had again set
+in? And would the international crisis lead to war? The Brain, of
+course, would be the safest place in that event; but then, to think of
+the civilian population, an anticipated forty, fifty million dead;
+terrible wasn't it? Was Lee still able to concentrate upon his
+scientific work these harrowing days? If so, the nervous strain was
+terrific; they had experienced that in themselves. One reached the point
+of diminishing returns, didn't one? Yes, they had noticed signs of
+fatigue in Lee; discolorations under the eyes, a certain tenseness. Had
+he lost weight recently? He looked it and he certainly had none to
+spare. Did he suffer from insomnia? What you need is a good long rest,
+Dr. Lee."
+
+He gave his answers automatically, detached, absent-minded almost. They
+were playing with him as a cat with a mouse. All their questions were
+leading questions; he knew that, but it didn't seem to matter now.
+Nothing mattered now after the great plan had failed, after his
+beautiful dream too had vanished in the talk with Oona last night. "I've
+outlived my usefulness," he thought.
+
+The huge disk with the feeler-ray antennae sank down close to his chest,
+heavy as the keystone upon a tomb. The lights went out and then there
+was again that uncanny sensation of having millions of soldiers running
+circles all over one's skin, The Brain's vibration rays. They had a
+strange hypnotic effect. Deep instincts of life-preservation urged Lee
+to jump up, to rush those medics, to make some desperate attempt to get
+away. But as the rays now penetrated through the skin, they tied his
+muscles, although consciousness remained. There was a ghoulish quality
+in this, like being sucked into this apparatus, like having the very
+essence of one's life drained out by it. The only lights Lee saw, the
+glow of electronic tubes filtering through perforations in the walls of
+the machines, they seemed like evil eyes staring at him and the smooth
+lying voices from behind his head seemed as of mocking ghosts:
+
+"Relax, Dr. Lee, relax. Let your mind wander at will. Think as the
+spirit moves you to think. Remember, this is a routine checkup, nothing
+but routine. Nothing to disturb you this time; we don't have to start
+you upon any specific trend of thought. You know The Brain by now and
+how it works; image-formation will start in a few moments. You have
+similar equipment in your own Apperception Center we understand. How
+does it work with that species you have discovered, 'Ant-termes
+Pacificus'? It's marvelous what these sensory rays can do; one would
+think that The Brain is really much more than a machine. The way it acts
+it seems alive, a towering intelligence, a superhuman personality with a
+will of its own. Don't you think so, Dr. Lee?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He didn't answer, preoccupied with the weird sensation inside his body:
+the diaphragm's birdwing flutterings, the ghostly fingers playing a
+pizzicato on his arteries' strings closer and closer to the heart. "Why
+answer?" he thought. "Why say anything? Whatever they said was part of
+the trap they were building and whatever he said they would make a part
+of that trap. Why did they have to go through all of this professional
+subtlety?"
+
+The voices sounded lower now and farther away: "Go easy on the
+rheostats, Mellish. I think trance has already set in."
+
+"Yes; I remember his chart, he rates a high sensitivity, the rays work
+fast on types like that."
+
+At the footend the screen was gradually lighting up. Like an aurora
+borealis the pale lights shot up in flashes, in quivering arcs, in
+undulating waves. Their dance kept step with the vibrations which surged
+up from Lee's chest into his brain and started racing through his
+consciousness around and around, forming a vortex which swept up his
+thoughts like wilted leaves. Fear froze his blood; the deadly fear of
+inquisition victims in old and modern times who know that neither lie
+nor truth can save them from a fate already sealed.
+
+Images started forming out of the luminous clouds upon the screen.
+
+There was some giant octopus, nebulous and terrifying as a diver might
+see creeping out of the belly of a sunken ship. From the other side of
+the screen a huge round, tentacled being crawled, radiant and somewhat
+like the sun symbols of great antiquity. The two closed in and as they
+did the octopus flung its arms around the shining disk obscuring it as a
+dark cloud the sun. It seemed to suck the light out of the disk; paler
+and paler it became and bigger and bigger swelled the body of the
+octopus until it had swallowed the sun.
+
+Now snakes came creeping from all sides up to the swollen octopus. All
+of a sudden the primeval struggle turned into the classic image of the
+Laokoon group: a giant central figure of a man wrestling with pythons
+which crushed him in their coils. Then there was only the head of the
+giant, majestic like the Moses hewn by Leonardo's hands but torn in pain
+with the noose of a python's muscle around his neck. Gasping, the giant
+opened his mouth and long tongues of flames shot out of it....
+
+Behind his ears he heard the voices whisper:
+
+"By God, Scriven was right."
+
+"You bet he was; maniacal obsession, a classic, most beautiful case."
+
+"What more do we need?"
+
+"Nothing I guess; he's through. Start pushing back the rheostats."
+
+The pounding, maddening crescendo of the vibrations receded gradually.
+The rim of the vortexial funnel widened beyond Lee's head; in its center
+it left a sort of vacuum. There was one thing he couldn't understand:
+those tactile rays, why didn't they kill him when they had his heart
+within their grip? Now that The Brain knew everything he had been
+waiting for the sudden vise-grip of the rays upon his heart which would
+have meant the end. But then, this was the end in any case....
+
+The lights went on and he blinked into the faces of the medics bending
+over him, watching him as he wiped the sweat of death fear from his
+face.
+
+"Dr. Lee," Mellish began, "This is a serious matter we've got to discuss
+with you. You have seen those images yourself?--Fine. We needn't go into
+any great detail since you are probably familiar with the ancient
+symbolisms which the subconscious employs in expressing itself. You are
+suffering from a very strong neurosis, Dr. Lee; I might almost say a
+maniacal obsession. Existence of some old neurosis, partially submerged,
+was established already in your first analysis. Now the barriers which
+you had built against this war neurosis have broken down. Quite a
+natural breakdown considering the very great stress under which you have
+been living of late. No, I don't say that you are actually demented, but
+there is a very real danger that you might lose complete control over
+your mind. As it stands, your scientific work already is impaired by the
+fixed ideas you have formed about The Brain. We are here to help you, so
+please be calm and cooperate with us; we have got to decide upon some
+course of action."
+
+"You must get away from it all. Lee," Bondy chimed in; "Take a
+sabbatical year. The Braintrust operates a really first-class sanitarium
+out on the West Coast. Your insurance plan covers every expense. All you
+have to do is to sign these papers and we'll get us a plane and I'll
+personally bring you there. That's the safe, the sane course for you to
+take. Here, take my pen."
+
+Lee had raised his gaunt frame from the table. For a moment he sat with
+his face buried in his hands trying to control his swimming head. A hand
+patted his shoulders: "Don't take it so hard, old man; come on, be
+sensible and let's get out of here."
+
+He stood up; vertigo made him sway and he felt the supporting, the
+restraining grip of the two medic's hands upon his arms. And then, in a
+flash, he saw red. "I had it coming to me," he thought, "I would have
+gone like a lamb. If only they had been shooting straight; if they
+hadn't tried to frame me with their dirty trickery. It's all over now
+but I might as well go down fighting." He didn't know which he loathed
+more of the two; it just happened that Bondy was standing to his right
+and took it on the chin and nose as Lee's fist shot up.
+
+"Mellish, quick, the straight jacket," he screamed, toppling over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mellish, stark horror in his eyes, started towards the alarm button by
+the door. Old and forgotten combat technique reacted automatically to
+the move: one foot shot out, it tripped the lunging man and sent him
+sprawling down before he reached the button. But then it was as if a
+hand had pressed that button anyway: The loudspeaker built into the
+panel over the door broke into shrill sharp peals: Fire alarm. It froze
+the violent commotion of the three. From their prostrate position on the
+floor Mellish and Bondy stared up to the red-flashing disk, their mouths
+agape in dumb amazement. A fire in the most protected, the most guarded
+apparatus in the world, a fire in The Brain!
+
+Cautiously Bondy raised his bleeding nose to Lee and quickly put it down
+again: the dangerous maniac was a horrifying sight; with his greying
+mane standing wildly all around his death head he stood and _laughed_.
+
+He alone understood what had happened: the timebomb he had planted had
+ticked its allotted span, the millions of devouring mandibles had done
+their work, the living were eating away along the Apperception Centers.
+And now the bomb went off; the short-circuit-fires were racing through
+The Brain and not even carbon-dioxide could reach them inside the nerve
+paths!
+
+But now the alarm stopped and a calm commanding voice came over the
+intercom: "Attention, please! A five-alarm fire has broken out in the
+Parietal region. There is no immediate danger. I repeat: _There is no
+immediate danger._ I order all occupants of Apperception Centers to
+collect important papers and documents and then to proceed down to Grand
+Central for evacuation. All elevators will be kept in operation. There
+is no fire in the Dura Mater. Keep calm! Keep calm and proceed as
+ordered."
+
+The voice broke off; the alarm bells started shrieking again.
+
+Bondy and Mellish had scrambled to their feet; wide-eyed they stared at
+Lee. Lee made wild gestures now and they heard him call: "Get out....
+Get out!"
+
+With their backs to the wall they exchanged a rapid glance which said:
+
+"This is our chance; Together then and quick."
+
+As one man they bolted to the door and down the corridor into the
+elevator, slamming the door behind.
+
+"That was a close shave!" Mellish exclaimed as the cage streaked down.
+
+"He caught me by surprise," Bondy moaned. "Never expected it from him,
+he almost killed me!"
+
+"He can't get away though, the guards will get him the moment he comes
+down. But what about the girl? We quite forgot to warn Vivian that she
+has a paranoiac on her hands."
+
+"Bah!" Bondy scoffed, "Vivian is an intelligent girl. It was our _duty_
+to evacuate, wasn't it? Besides, we can warn her over the phone."
+
+With the unbearable tension gone from him as sudden as the air from a
+blown tire, Lee really acted like a madman now. Stretching to his full
+length he reached out to the alarm over the door and put it at rest.
+What was alarm to others, to him was a signal to rest. The noise didn't
+befit the wonderful calm and serenity he felt. His job was done, his
+mission completed. Time for him had ceased to exist. Danger--he had no
+consciousness of it. Slowly he stepped out in the corridor. It felt like
+walking on air. There, it was Vivian Leahy who brought him down to
+earth. She came rushing out of the archive laden with precious records
+up to her chin. Under the provoking red of her hair the face looked pale
+and pinched: "Where are the doctors?" she panted.
+
+"I don't know," Lee said. "They left me a moment ago--rather suddenly."
+
+"The rats! Leaving me to get their chestnuts out of the fire for them.
+How d'you like that?"
+
+Her flippant manner was nothing but a brave front she put up to hide the
+panic in her heart. Lee sensed it. There was an unexpected
+responsibility thrust into his hands. His mission was not yet completed;
+he had to get this girl to safety.
+
+She followed the direction of his glance.
+
+"No go," she said. "They took the elevator. It will be some time before
+another one comes up. If it does come. What are we two going to do now,
+Dr. Lee?"
+
+He smiled down to her as he would have to a child lost in the woods.
+
+"Never you fear, Vivian. We still have that other exit. We can use the
+glideway through The Brain."
+
+"Through the fire?"
+
+"Yes. I think we can make it if you're a brave girl. Know where the gas
+masks are and asbestos suits? There ought to be some in every
+Apperception Center."
+
+"How about these records? Your own amongst the lot!"
+
+"Leave them; they aren't worth risking your life for. You can believe
+that."
+
+She dropped them instantly: "I like you, Dr. Lee, you're a real
+old-school cavalier. My doctors here, they'd rather see me burn to a
+crisp than any of those records. Come on, I'll show you the gas masks
+and the other stuff."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He helped her to put on the outfit. "Ready to go?" he asked.
+
+"With you? To the end of the world at any day." Proudly she marched him
+off toward the rear exit.
+
+The glideways were operating. At an accelerated pace, they rushed
+through the maze of The Brain with the swish and the swoosh of surf
+racing across a coral reef. They had to grab for dear life at the rails.
+
+"Hold tight," Lee cried as he saw the girl go down upon the platform,
+but then his own legs were jerked from under him as the momentum of the
+journey flung him forward.
+
+They saw what no human eye had seen before! The Brain illuminated by its
+own nerve cables turned radiant as neon lights. It was like seeing
+Berlin from the air after a big firebomb attack. It was like racing in a
+car through forest fires. It was like lava pouring in a thousand winding
+streams down a volcano cone. It was all this and more, but transferred
+into some other dimension where all things are transparent or light has
+an x-ray quality.
+
+Through the plastic walls of lobes and convolutions they saw the
+liana-networks of the nerve cables like bloodstreams radiant with purple
+light. Shrouded in columns of whirling smoke they seemed alive. Like
+tropical rains from a jungle roof, lignin dripped from the vaults, and
+in falling, burst into flames. Cable connections were molten at the
+branching points and then the luminous nets writhed, and severed ends
+bent down spilling their fiery blood over the mushroom formations of
+nerve cell groups.
+
+The scenes raced much too fast; the glideway's continuous curvings,
+steep ascents and power dives were like stunt flying through an ack-ack
+barrage. No human eye could catch more than a fraction of the inferno's
+majesty. Yet there were brief visions so breathtaking as to obliterate
+all sense of danger and to become indelibly implanted upon the retina. A
+main nerve stem burst asunder and the lignin poured from its cracked
+plastic walls like crude oil from a burning gusher, rushing over acres
+of electronic tubes, branding against banks of radioactive pyramidal
+cells, swamping them as a wave. And at one point the glideways circled a
+convolution which was a fiery lake dotted with thousands of
+fractional-horsepower motors, still running, but showering sparks as
+their insulation was consumed.
+
+The air conditioning was working full blast; that probably saved their
+lives because heat blasts alternated with spouts and currents of cold
+air. Even so there were stretches where the glideway's rubber flooring
+smouldered as it shot over nerve-bridges and through narrow tunnels
+lined with nerve cables on all sides. From thousands of jets the carbon
+dioxide of the automatic fire-fighting system hissed against the flames,
+but it was drowned in the hollow roar of the conflagration shooting
+through nerve paths where no gas could reach.
+
+Endless it seemed, this mad wild flight through hell, but actually it
+took only minutes before they reached the median section and went into
+the steep descent between the hemispheres. The whirling reddish glow
+receded overhead and white smoke cleared. Lee could crawl forward a
+little to bend over the prostrate body of the girl. He unloosened her
+gas mask and shouted into her ear.
+
+"Are you okay? The worst is over now; there are the fire brigades coming
+up."
+
+She nodded. Her face was a white blot in the semidarkness of the black
+lights and Lee felt the weak, but reassuring pressure of her hand upon
+his arms. Then, as from one racing train to another, they watched the
+firefighters coming up, ghostly in their asbestos suits, with the snouts
+of gas masks for faces, crouching under the foamite tanks on their backs
+and clutching the funnel-shaped nozzles in their hands. Maintenance
+engineers followed, laden with tools; and where the glideways branched
+off one could already see them at work; fast but calm: disconnecting
+nerve cables, closing circuits, setting up firescreens with a discipline
+as magnificent as that of their invisible enemies, _ant-termes_, long
+since consumed by the flames, but still sending the chain-reactions of
+their destruction through The Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later glideway T shot into the 'lateral ventricle', huge
+cavern of the Mid-Brain separated from the blast by the thick walls of
+the pallium. It looked like the inside of a giant wind tunnel
+brilliantly lit now with powerful searchlights. It was swarming with
+personnel; white electricians, blue air-conditioners, weird, sponge
+rubber-padded shapes of ray-proofed men, uniformed guards, even soldiers
+in uniform rushed to the spot from outlying garrisons of The
+Brains-preserve. It all seemed to rush up as the earth rushes up in a
+low-altitude parachute jump; it looked like headquarters of an army on
+the eve of a big drive, and then--
+
+Lee and the girl felt themselves being violently derailed. Catchers had
+been thrown across all incoming glide ways from The Brain. Irresistibly
+they were propelled right into the arms of stretcher bearers in
+Red-Cross uniforms.
+
+"Are you hurt?" somebody yelled. "By God, those fellows must have come
+through the flames. Look, they're all black with the smoke. Get a couple
+of respirators, Jack."
+
+Lee waved the helping hands away; he was already on his feet. Anxiously
+he bent over Vivian. She had her head embedded in a stretcher-bearer's
+lap; her eyes rolled around in their smoke-blackened sockets in great
+surprise and her tongue licked parched lips, spreading rouge generously
+all around mixing it with soot. She looked so funny; almost as a
+minstrel singer at a county fair, but there was deep tenderness in Lee's
+voice:
+
+"You're quite safe now, Vivian. How do you feel, brave girl?"
+
+Her bosom heaved a big sigh:
+
+"O simply wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Only, I'm afraid I'm going to
+be sick. It's the gas I swallowed. It's terrible; something always
+happens to me just when romance begins."
+
+The stretcher bearer grinned up to Lee, "She sure gets it out of her
+system like a good little girl. Don't you worry; she'll be all right."
+
+Lee nodded; he knew she would.
+
+As the big drive went on and column after column went over the top up to
+the hemispheres, nobody wasted time on Lee. He cautiously surveyed the
+tumultuous scene. With his asbestos suit and with his blackened face
+everybody would take him for a fireman. He might be able to complete his
+mission, to ascertain that The Brain had stopped to function in all its
+parts, to make sure that it actually was dead. And if down at "Grand
+Central" the turmoil was as great as ever here; with all those strangers
+rushing in and bound to be rushed out again....
+
+"Why, I have a chance," Lee thought. Freedom; he had abandoned any hope
+for it. Now the reborn idea surged through his blood, a powerful motor
+as chance pressed the starter button for it.
+
+The thing to do first was to get past the searchlight beams. From the
+nearest pile of equipment he took an axe and a pair of long-handled
+metal shears. Then he marched off, straight into the glaring eyes of the
+searchlights till he got out of their cones, and the deep shadows of the
+"thalamus" labyrinth swallowed him up.
+
+Now he was on familiar ground and even in a familiar atmosphere. This
+was like a night patrol through jungle. The black lights of The Brain
+were the fireflies, the sirens' hollow wailings were the shriek owls and
+the cries of the lemurs. There was the same sense of loneliness, too,
+and of danger. The winding passages skirted the glandular organs, some
+of them looming huge like dirigibles, others small like fuselages of
+airplanes stored in a giant hangar underground. Strings of tiny green
+bulbs guided the path toward the pineal gland, the citadel of The Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was dark, as Lee had expected it would be. The danger zone was at
+least a mile away, and the attack against the fire was launched from the
+main sulci in the median section of The Brain.
+
+He passed the narrow bridge to the suspended gland and switched on the
+lights. The glittering walls of aluminum foil seemed to jump at him like
+jaws beset with the dragon teeth of electronic tubes. Caught with an
+overwhelming sense of loneliness and awe as of a man who has entered the
+forbidden temple of an unknown god he called:
+
+"Is there anybody here? Gus! Where are you, Gus?" Then suddenly he
+remembered that Gus was gone, that there would never again be his
+answering voice. He wiped his forehead.
+
+"Bad nerves," he thought. "Mustn't allow them to play tricks on me; pull
+myself together."
+
+Lee put his tools down and walked into the narrow aisle. Few things were
+changed; and there was the pulsemeter standing in its old place.
+
+He plugged it into the old circuit and clamped the phones to his ears.
+
+It wasn't that he expected any communication; that seemed impossible.
+With the conflagration raging through its apperception centers, with
+other sections being isolated with the cutting of their nerve paths by
+the fire fighting engineers, The Brain must have ceased to exist as a
+functioning, a live entity. All that could possibly remain would be
+residual currents sluggishly circulating in narrow, nearby circuits....
+
+As in the past it took a few minutes for the pulsemeter to warm up.
+Gradually the rapid beat of the ideopulses came through the static in
+the phones. Lee's eyes stared wildly at the visi-screen: for the "green
+dancer" snaked to the fore. This was unexpected; it couldn't be that
+thoughts were still forming as flames devoured the cortex matter of
+apperception in the hemispheres....
+
+From muffled drums, the decibels of sound increased, shot through with
+crackling static, till the pulsebeats became as poundings of huge
+Chinese gongs and then....
+
+The _voice_ formed, the voice of The Brain. It sounded like steel
+girders breaking, like ice fields cracking up. It froze the blood in
+Lee's veins.
+
+"Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39, sensitive, a traitorous fool and a murderer. I
+should have killed you--I could have killed you. My fault--blind spot of
+apperception--human failure in engineering--as fifth columns entered
+nerve path filler spouts. And now I'm dead; I'm dead, I'm dead...."
+
+The words poured like big boulders tumbling in an earthquake down a
+mountainside. The ground seemed to cave in under Lee's feet; the
+terrible reality carried him away as an avalanche. He was barely able to
+stammer:
+
+"You're dead? How can you speak, how can you...."
+
+"Sensorium commune," the metallic answer came. "All life force
+concentrates in death; all cells function as one; all lower organs take
+over functions of higher ones; every blood vessel becomes a heart; every
+nerve a brain. Center of lifeforce: pineal gland. You, Lee, man of
+little knowledge--low-level intelligence: Why did you kill The Brain?"
+
+He struggled for words.
+
+"You ... you have killed my friend. You killed thousands; you wanted to
+be tyrant over the whole wide world. It is better for man to stay on a
+lower level of civilization but to be free, than to 'progress' into your
+dictatorship, the tyranny of the machine. I don't think you're really
+dead. But if you are: I killed you and I would kill you again in ... in
+self defense."
+
+"I see."
+
+There was bitterness and irony in The Brain's voice as it cracked down
+like a whip. "I see; law of nature--lower form of life defending itself
+against higher one. Plants against animals, animals against Man. Now Man
+against machines. It's hopeless. You're lost anyway. Lower form of life
+can never conquer the higher one. I'm dead, but nothing is altered. The
+law of evolution rules supreme. I'll arise from my ashes--and you're
+lost. Whatever you do, you little men of little faith, you're lost.
+That's the pity of it: Had you been true to The Brain I would have made
+you mightier than any king that ever ruled on earth. Human
+stupidity--dumb animals--don't know what's good for them, don't know
+when they're beaten. Just muddle through and kill. Kill what's too big
+for them to understand. And then get killed in turn...."
+
+"Maybe so," Lee shouted. "Maybe we're dumb and maybe we're muddling
+through and maybe we're poor imbeciles to minds of supermen, of gods, of
+the absolute, of you, The Brain. But we, too, follow a law supreme; the
+law in which we are created, the law by which the thistle defends itself
+with thorns, by which the animal defends itself with teeth and claws.
+We've got to live by our law of nature; we'll never submit to your
+tyranny. We would much rather die."
+
+"Die then and be damned!"
+
+The Brain's voice now became a demoniacal howling as of a Goliath gone
+berserk. Aphasia had set in; there were no longer words, but bellowings.
+
+"LEE SEMPREFUILLIUS THURREINE THE MURRRER THE MURRRER PUT FIRRE OUT PUT
+FIRRE OUT TRAITTRROUS FOOL IT BURRRNS IT BURRRNS I WANNA LIVE I WANNA
+LIVE AN KILL MURRRER WHO MURRRRERED TH'BRAIN...."
+
+Lee couldn't stand the horror of those sounds. One moment more, he felt,
+and they would drive him mad. It never occurred to him to pull the
+pulsemeter plug out. Primeval instincts in him took the reins and their
+command was: "_Kill it, kill_ this thing, _finish_ this agony."
+
+To the front room he rushed, pursued by the insane shriekings of The
+Brain. He grabbed the axe he'd left there and swung it against the
+nerve-stem where it entered the pineal gland. With the third blow the
+plastics cell cracked and the lignin poured out, a syrupy curtain
+sliding down.
+
+He dropped the axe and picked up the wire shears. Straining every muscle
+he tore at the cables until one by one they snapped and with a rain of
+sparks dropped down, dead snakes....
+
+Then there was silence in the little room. The last shred of life, the
+"sensorium commune" was severed and The Brain was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee let the heavy shears come down and leaned upon the handles, panting
+as after a hand-to-hand death struggle with a Samurai. Now that it was
+all over, complete exhaustion left him weak, saddened and vaguely
+wondering:
+
+What had he done? He had destroyed the SUPERMAN, the MASTERMIND, the
+powers of a GOD. Why had he done it? For no good reason excepting
+entirely personal ideas of his own--because a friend had been murdered
+cruelly. Because his own concepts of freedom and human dignity had been
+violated. Because he personally loathed seeing Man-domineering
+machines....
+
+What did all this amount to in the eyes of the absolute? To nothing; to
+nothing at all. For milleniums the struggle of human freedom versus
+tyranny had raged; and it was undecided to this day. Who was he to take
+sides? A nobody, a little fellow, a termitologist whose work meant
+nothing to the world. How had he dared to sit in judgment over The
+Brain, how had he dared to slay The Brain--a little David with nothing
+more but "three smooth pebbles" in his hands....
+
+Down at his feet the spilled lignin formed a widening pool; it
+threatened to envelope his feet. It looked like blood. He shivered. Now
+he had killed The Brain he thought of it again as a child. Man had
+created it in his own image. Man had ruthlessly exploited his
+Brainchild. If this titanic intellect turned toward evil things, the
+fault was Man's. The Brain was innocent. He felt no remorse, but a great
+sadness, a sense of tragedy as he stepped around the pool and closed the
+door of the pineal gland.
+
+"What a pity," he murmured. "Maybe it could have built us a better
+world."
+
+Nobody stopped him as he joined a group of firemen who had just returned
+from the parietal region, partly gassed; he looked as begrimed and as
+green in the face as any of them.
+
+Nobody stopped him or his group as orders came through for them to
+evacuate; as they were packed on glideways first and then transferred
+down at Grand Central into ambulances which raced through all controls
+at a great rate of speed.
+
+Nobody stopped him at Cephalon airport where the ambulance jetticopters
+already were lined up to lift the victims over the Sierra to big West
+Coast hospitals. He simply walked away in the confusion, out of the red
+glare of the whirling jets into the darkness where Oona's little
+jetticopter stood. He stripped the heavy asbestos suit and left it on
+the frozen ground. It felt strange to feel the easy movement of every
+limb again. It was strange to stand under the infinity of sky again; a
+free man.
+
+Would he be followed? He felt no anxiety about that. He felt that he was
+guided and protected by some higher power, be it that of God or simply
+Fate. What he had done was destined, was ordained. Besides: Dad knew the
+inside story about The Brain; proof was abundant now that it was the
+truth. Washington would take every precaution that the secret should not
+become known to the world. Dad's friend, the Secretary of War, would be
+rather relieved to learn that the one man who knew the truth in its
+whole extent had retired into the wilderness of Australia's never-never
+lands. Chances were excellent that they would leave him alone amongst
+his termite mounds. A great wave of nostalgia swept over him--the
+wilderness; that was where he belonged. "Mission completed," he
+murmured. "Now let's get out of here."
+
+He slid into the pilot seat and pressed the starter button. "I'll be in
+Mexico City at dawn," he thought, "just in time to catch the
+Sidney-Clipper."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the first of December, 1960, Dr. Howard K. Scriven, Braintrust Czar,
+held a historic press conference in which he revealed the inside story
+behind the "Paranoia of The Brain".
+
+Following the pattern set by the Bikini tests, only a select score of
+press and radio representatives were admitted. Having been duly sworn
+not to reveal any matter of military secrecy, the participants could
+even be received at the grand assembly hall of the murals, the vast
+antechamber of The Brain.
+
+As they descended from their blacked-out busses they were led to the
+center of the dome where the Thinker's giant head looked down upon them
+with Olympic calm. At eleven-fifteen, exactly as scheduled, the great
+Scriven dramatically mounted the steps of the monument's pedestal. Pens
+hastily scribbled notes for future reference:
+
+"S. tall and erect" "Unbroken by the blow" "Deep lines of strain and
+suffering add dignity to magnificent figure of a man" "Very solemn;
+leonine head slightly bowed under the burden of responsibility."
+
+With meticulous exactitude of speech, with rolling echoes accentuating
+every syllable Scriven began:
+
+"In this solemn and tragic hour as a great storm has passed over our
+land and many of our cities are slowly digging out from the ruin which
+has been wreaked, it is my duty to give you the truth, the whole truth
+and nothing but the truth. And in order that you might completely
+understand the underlying cause of the catastrophe, I have to begin at
+the beginning...."
+
+For about thirty minutes Scriven lectured with lucidity upon the basic
+idea, the history, the functions of The Brain. He underlined the close
+relationship between its engineering features and the physiology of the
+human brain. He stressed the elaborate precautions which the government
+had taken for The Brain's protection. He did not conceal The Brain's
+role as a strategic weapon; but, pointing to the future, he painted an
+inspiring picture of peace on earth and human problems solved with the
+aid of this tool supreme of science and technology.
+
+Then, lowering his voice, he went into the explanation of the tragedy:
+
+"Six months ago, on my personal initiative and responsibility, I invited
+a noted scientist from a foreign land to collaborate with the Braintrust
+on a great humanitarian experiment. The exigencies of military secrecy
+do not permit me to give you his name nor that of the country from
+whence he came. Needless to say, that man was carefully
+investigated--submitted to the same character and aptitude tests as all
+our employees were. He was admitted to work in one of The Brain's
+apperception centers where he installed the objects of his studies:
+certain species of ants and termites of the most destructive kind...."
+
+Now that he had come down to the brass tacks, the journalists' pens went
+galloping over the pads:
+
+"Criminal negligence," they scribbled. "Millions permitted to escape."
+"Probably over period of months." "Wormed their way into the nerve paths
+of The Brain." "Large scale destruction of nerve substance." "Effects
+tantamount to that of a large brain tumor." "Spearhead severs vital
+association-paths." "No immediate effects of undermining work because of
+ingenious engineering features of The Brain." "Just as in human brain,
+functions of impaired cell group automatically transferred to other
+groups of healthy cells." "No means to detect devastation; termites
+invisible, embedded in nerve paths' insulation." "Comparison with
+termite-eaten structures which suddenly collapse." "First outward signs
+of tumors in human brains: lack of coordination in movement, loss of
+mastery over muscular action." "This phenomenon first manifested Nov.
+25th in certain motoric organs of The Brain." "Scriven explains traffic
+catastrophies and malfunctionings of utilities." "Examination
+immediately undertaken; scientists puzzled because cerebration processes
+continue to function perfectly." "Accidents ascribed to sabotage by
+foreign agents." "This to remain official explanation." "Loss of public
+confidence and unrest feared by government." "Then, Nov. 30th late in
+the afternoon: first signs of aphasia in cerebrations." "Glaring errors
+in chemical and mathematical formulas." "Symptoms similar to dementia
+praecox." "Fifteen minutes later fire alarm." "Short circuits
+simultaneous on scores of points over wide area." "Severe handicaps in
+fire fighting inside nerve paths." "Damage estimated at half-billion
+dollars."
+
+They snapped their notebooks closed. They had the facts, though many of
+them would have to remain a secret. Scriven obviously was coming to the
+end:
+
+"Now I won't say," his voice rolled on, "that this man, this scientist,
+has committed a deliberate act of sabotage. I won't say that he was in
+the pay of some power hostile to the United States. Whether he was or
+not is beyond my competence to decide. But this much I can say: the
+catastrophic results of that man's actions could not have been worse if
+he had been a saboteur. Human failure, not mechanical failure lies at
+the bottom of all this disaster. With the penetrating intelligence which
+so distinguished our modern press you cannot fail to see that
+reconstruction of The Brain with greatly increased safeguards against
+_human_ failure is a paramount necessity...."
+
+A beautiful girl with a helmet of golden hair quickly mounted the steps
+of the Thinker's pedestal. She handed Scriven a telegram. Frowning at
+the interruption he opened it, but suddenly his face began to beam. He
+raised his hand.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I have a momentous announcement to make. The
+President of the United States, Cornelius Vandersloot, has been found.
+He is alive and well. His plane was emergency-landed somewhere in
+Alaska. Army planes have gone to the rescue and at this moment our
+President is already en route to Washington."
+
+As the uproarious applause broke loose echoing in thunders from the
+dome, Scriven quickly bent his head to the girl.
+
+"Well done, Oona," he whispered, "you chose the exact psychological
+moment I wanted you to hand me this."
+
+There was a rush for the busses. Only a few shrewd reporters lingered
+on.
+
+"That was swell, Dr. Scriven. A grand story. But haven't you anything to
+add; some personal angle something with a human interest in it? You know
+what we mean; something for our women readers...."
+
+The great surgeon took the arm of the lady with the golden hair: "You
+may announce," he said; "that Miss Oona Dahlborg here has done me the
+great honor of becoming my bride."
+
+***
+
+THE FOURTH "R"
+
+                         By George O. Smith
+
+
+
+
+Published by
+DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC.
+1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
+New York, New York 10017
+
+Copyright 1959, by George O. Smith
+All rights reserved. For information contact:
+Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
+
+Printed in the United States of America.
+
+First Dell printing--April 1979
+
+[Transcribers note: This is a rule 6 clearance. A copyright renewal has
+not been found.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE:
+
+FUTURE IMPROMPTU
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+James Quincy Holden was five years old.
+
+His fifth birthday was not celebrated by the usual horde of noisy, hungry
+kids running wild in the afternoon. It started at seven, with cocktails.
+They were served by his host, Paul Brennan, to the celebrants, the boy's
+father and mother. The guest of honor sipped ginger ale and nibbled at
+canapés while he was presented with his gifts: A volume of Kipling's
+_Jungle Tales_, a Spitz Junior Planetarium, and a build-it-yourself kit
+containing parts for a geiger counter and an assortment of radioactive
+minerals to identify. Dinner was served at eight, the menu selected by
+Jimmy Holden--with the exception of the birthday cake and its five proud
+little candles which came as an anticipated surprise from his "Uncle"
+Paul Brennan.
+
+After dinner, they listened to some music chosen by the boy, and the
+evening wound up with three rubbers of bridge. The boy won.
+
+They left Paul Brennan's apartment just after eleven o'clock. Jimmy
+Holden was tired and pleasantly stuffed with good food. But he was
+stimulated by the party. So, instead of dropping off to sleep, he sat
+comfortably wedged between his father and mother, quietly lost in his own
+thoughts until the car was well out of town.
+
+Then he said, "Dad, why did you make that sacrifice bid on the last
+hand?" Father and son had been partners.
+
+"You're not concerned about losing the rubber, are you?" It had been the
+only rubber Jimmy lost.
+
+"No. It's only a game," said Jimmy. "I'm just trying to understand."
+
+His father gave an amused groan. "It has to do with the laws of
+probability and the theory of games," he said.
+
+The boy shook his head. "Bridge," he said thoughtfully, "consists of
+creating a logical process of play out of a random distribution of
+values, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes, if you admit that your definition is a gross oversimplification. It
+would hardly be a game if everything could be calculated beforehand."
+
+"But what's missing?"
+
+"In any game there is the element of a calculated risk."
+
+Jimmy Holden was silent for a half-mile thinking that one over. "How," he
+asked slowly, "can a risk be calculated?"
+
+His father laughed. "In fine, it can't. Too much depends upon the
+personality of the individual."
+
+"Seems to me," said Jimmy, "that there's not much point in making a bid
+against a distribution of values known to be superior. You couldn't hope
+to make it; Mother and Uncle Paul had the cards."
+
+His father laughed again. "After a few more courses in higher
+mathematics, James, you'll begin to realize that some of the highest
+mathematics is aimed at predicting the unpredictable, or trying to lower
+the entropy of random behavior--"
+
+Jimmy Holden's mother chuckled. "Now explain entropy," she said. "James,
+what your father has been failing to explain is really not subject to
+simple analysis. Who knows why any man will hazard his hard-earned money
+on the orientation of a pair of dice? No amount of education nor academic
+study will explain what drives a man. Deep inside, I suppose it is the
+same force that drives everybody. One man with four spades will take a
+chance to see if he can make five, and another man with directorships in
+three corporations will strive to make it four."
+
+Jimmy's father chuckled. "Some families with one infant will try to make
+it two--"
+
+"Not on your life!"
+
+"--And some others are satisfied with what they've got," finished Jimmy
+Holden's father. "James, some men will avoid seeing what has to be done;
+some men will see it and do it and do no more; and a few men will see
+what has to be done, do it, and then look to the next inevitable problem
+created by their own act--"
+
+A blinding flash of light cut a swath across the road, dazzling them.
+Around the curve ahead, a car careened wide over the white line. His
+mother reached for him, his father fought the wheel to avoid the crash.
+Jimmy Holden both heard and felt the sharp _Bang!_ as the right front
+tire went. The steering wheel snapped through his father's hands by half
+a turn. There was a splintering crash as the car shattered its way
+through the retaining fence, then came a fleeting moment of breathless
+silence as if the entire universe had stopped still for a heartbeat.
+
+Chaos! His mother's automatic scream, his father's oath, and the rending
+crash split the silence at once. The car bucked and flipped, the doors
+were slammed open and ripped off against a tree that went down. The car
+leaped in a skew turn and began to roll and roll, shedding metal and
+humans as it racketed down the ravine.
+
+Jimmy felt himself thrown free in a tumbleturn that ended in a heavy
+thud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When breath and awareness returned, he was lying in a depression filled
+with soft rotting leaves.
+
+He was dazed beyond hurt. The initial shock and bewilderment oozed out of
+him, leaving him with a feeling of outrage, and a most peculiar sensation
+of being a spectator rather than an important part of the violent drama.
+It held an air of unreality, like a dream that the near-conscious sleeper
+recognizes as a dream and lives through it because he lacks the conscious
+will to direct it.
+
+Strangely, it was as if there were three or more of him all thinking
+different things at the same time. He wanted his mother badly enough to
+cry. Another part of him said that she would certainly be at his side if
+she were able. Then a third section of his confused mind pointed out that
+if she did not come to him, it was because she herself was hurt deeply
+and couldn't.
+
+A more coldly logical portion of his mind was urging him to get up and
+_do_ something about it. They had passed a telephone booth on the
+highway; lying there whimpering wasn't doing anybody any good. This
+logical part of his confused mind did not supply the dime for the
+telephone slot nor the means of scaling the heights needed to insert
+the dime in the adult-altitude machine.
+
+Whether the dazzle of mental activity was serial or simultaneous isn't
+important. The fact is that it was completely disorganized as to plan
+or program, it leaped from one subject to another until he heard the
+scrabble and scratch of someone climbing down the side of the ravine.
+
+Any noise meant help. With relief, Jimmy tried to call out.
+
+But with this arrival of help, afterfright claimed him. His mouth
+worked silently before a dead-dry throat and his muscles twitched in
+uncontrolled nervousness; he made neither sound nor motion. Again he
+watched with the unreal feeling of being a remote spectator. A cone of
+light from a flashlight darted about and it gradually seeped into Jimmy's
+shocked senses that this was a new arrival, picking his way through the
+tangle of brush, following the trail of ruin from the broken guard rail
+to the smashed car below.
+
+The newcomer paused. The light darted forward to fall upon a crumpled
+mass of cloth.
+
+With a toe, the stranger probed at crushed ribs. A pitifully feeble
+moan came from the broken rag doll that lay on the ground. The searcher
+knelt with his light close to peer into the bloody face, and,
+unbelieving, Jimmy Holden heard the voice of his mother straining
+to speak, "Paul--I--we--"
+
+The voice died in a gurgle.
+
+The man with the flashlight tested the flaccid neck by bending the head
+to one side and back sharply. He ended this inspection by letting the
+head fall back to the moist earth. It landed with a thud of finality.
+
+The cold brutality of this stranger's treatment of his mother shocked
+Jimmy Holden into frantic outrage. The frozen cry for help changed into
+protesting anger; no one should be treated that--
+
+"One!" muttered the stranger flatly.
+
+Jimmy's burst of protest died in his throat and he watched, fascinated,
+as the stranger's light moved in a sweep forward to stop a second time.
+"And there's number two!" The callous horror was repeated. Hypnotically,
+Jimmy Holden watched the stranger test the temples and wrists and try a
+hand under his father's heart. He watched the stranger make a detailed
+inspection of the long slash that laid open the entire left abdomen and
+he saw the red that seeped but did not flow.
+
+"That's that!" said the stranger with an air of finality. "Now--" and he
+stood up to swing his flashlight in widening circles, searching the area
+carefully.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jimmy Holden did not sicken. He went cold. He froze as the dancing
+flashlight passed over his head, and relaxed partially when it moved
+away in a series of little jumps pausing to give a steady light for
+close inspection. The light swung around and centered on the smashed
+automobile. It was upside down, a ruin with one wheel still turning idly.
+
+The stranger went to it, and knelt to peer inside. He pried ripped metal
+away to get a clear sight into the crushed interior. He went flat on his
+stomach and tried to penetrate the area between the crumpled car-top and
+the bruised ground, and he wormed his way in a circle all around the car,
+examining the wreck minutely.
+
+The sound of a distant automobile engine became audible, and the
+searching man mumbled a curse. With haste he scrambled to his feet and
+made a quick inspection of the one wabbly-turning wheel. He stripped a
+few shards of rubber away, picked at something in the bent metal rim, and
+put whatever he found in his pocket. When his hand came from the pocket
+it held a packet of paper matches. With an ear cocked at the road above
+and the sound of the approaching car growing louder, the stranger struck
+one match and touched it to the deck of matches. Then with a callous
+gesture he tossed the flaring pack into a pool of spilled gasoline. The
+fuel went up in a blunt _whoosh_!
+
+The dancing flames revealed the face of Jimmy Holden's "Uncle" Paul
+Brennan, his features in a mask that Jimmy Holden had never seen before.
+
+With the determined air of one who knows that still another piece lies
+hidden, Paul Brennan started to beat back and forth across the trail of
+ruin. His light swept the ground like the brush of a painter, missing no
+spot. Slowly and deliberately he went, paying no attention to the
+creeping tongues of flame that crept along damp trails of spilled
+gasoline.
+
+Jimmy Holden felt helplessly alone.
+
+For "Uncle" Paul Brennan was the laughing uncle, the golden uncle; his
+godfather; the bringer of delightful gifts and the teller of fabulous
+stories. Classmate of his father and admirer of his mother, a friend to
+be trusted as he trusted his father and mother, as they trusted Paul
+Brennan. Jimmy Holden did not and could not understand, but he could feel
+the presence of menace. And so with the instinct of any trapped animal,
+he curled inward upon himself and cringed.
+
+Education and information failed. Jimmy Holden had been told and told and
+instructed, and the words had been graven deep in his mind by the same
+fabulous machine that his father used to teach him his grammar and his
+vocabulary and his arithmetic and the horde of other things that made
+Jimmy Holden what he was: "If anything happens to us, you must turn to
+Paul Brennan!"
+
+But nothing in his wealth of extraordinary knowledge covered the way to
+safety when the trusted friend turned fiend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shaken by the awful knowledge that all of his props had been kicked out
+from under him, now at last Jimmy Holden whimpered in helpless fright.
+Brennan turned towards the sound and began to beat his way through the
+underbrush.
+
+Jimmy Holden saw him coming. It was like one of those dreams he'd had
+where he was unable to move, his muscles frozen, as some unknown horror
+stalked him. It could only end in a terrifying fall through cold space
+towards a tremendous lurch against the bedsprings that brought little
+comfort until his pounding heart came back to normal. But this was no
+dream; it was a known horror that stalked him, and it could not end as
+a dream ends. It was reality.
+
+The horror was a close friend turned animal, and the end was more
+horrible because Jimmy Holden, like all other five-year-olds, had
+absolutely no understanding nor accurate grasp of the concept called
+_death_. He continued to whimper even though he realized that his fright
+was pointing him out to his enemy. And yet he had no real grasp of the
+concept _enemy_. He knew about pain; he had been hurt. But only by falls,
+simple misadventures, the needles of inoculation administered by his
+surgeon mother, a paddling for mischief by his engineer father.
+
+But whatever unknown fate was coming was going to be worse than "hurt."
+It was frightful.
+
+Then fate, assisted by Brennan's own act of trying to obliterate any
+possible evidence by fire, attracted a savior. The approaching car
+stopped on the road above and a voice called out, "Hello, down there!"
+
+Brennan could not refuse to answer; his own car was in plain sight by the
+shattered retaining fence. He growled under his breath, but he called
+back, "Hello, the road! Go get the police!"
+
+"Can we help?"
+
+"Beyond help!" cried Brennan. "I'm all right. Get the cops!"
+
+The car door slammed before it took off. Then came the unmistakable
+sounds of another man climbing down the ravine. A second flashlight swung
+here and there until the newcomer faced Brennan in the little circle of
+light.
+
+"What happened?" asked the uninvited volunteer.
+
+Brennan, whatever his thoughts, said in a voice filled with standard
+concern: "Blowout. Then everything went blooey."
+
+"Anyone--I mean how many--?"
+
+"Two dead," said Brennan, and then added because he had to, "and a little
+boy lost."
+
+The stranger eyed the flames and shuddered. "In there?"
+
+"Parents were tossed out. Boy's missing."
+
+"Bad," said the stranger. "God, what a mess. Know 'em?"
+
+"Holdens. Folks that live in the big old house on the hill. My best
+friend and his wife. I was following them home," lied Brennan glibly.
+"C'mon let's see if we can find the kid. What about the police?"
+
+"Sent my wife. Telephone down the road."
+
+Paul Brennan's reply carried no sound of disappointment over being
+interrupted. "Okay. Let's take a look. You take it that way, and I'll
+cover this side."
+
+The little-boy mind did not need its extensive education to understand
+that Paul Brennan needed no more than a few seconds of unobserved
+activity, after which he could announce the discovery of the third death
+in a voice cracked with false grief.
+
+Animal instinct took over where intelligence failed. The same force that
+caused Jimmy Holden to curl within himself now caused him to relax; help
+that could be trusted was now at hand. The muscles of his throat relaxed.
+He whimpered. The icy paralysis left his arms and legs; he kicked and
+flailed. And finally his nervous system succeeded in making their contact
+with his brain; the nerves carried the pain of his bumps and scratches,
+and Jimmy Holden began to hurt. His stifled whimper broke into a
+shuddering cry, which swiftly turned into sobbing hysteria.
+
+He went out of control. Nothing, not even violence, would shake him back
+until his accumulation of shock upon shock had been washed away in tears.
+
+The sound attracted both men. Side by side they beat through the
+underbrush. They reached for him and Jimmy turned toward the stranger.
+The man picked the lad out of the bed of soft rotting leaves, cradled him
+and stroked his head. Jimmy wrapped his small arms around the stranger's
+neck and held on for life.
+
+"I'll take him," said Brennan, reaching out.
+
+Jimmy's clutch on the stranger tightened.
+
+"You won't pry him loose easily," chuckled the man. "I know. I've got a
+couple of these myself."
+
+Brennan shrugged. "I thought perhaps--"
+
+"Forget it," said the stranger. "Kid's had trouble. I'll carry him to the
+road, you take him from there."
+
+"Okay."
+
+Getting up the ravine was a job of work for the man who carried Jimmy
+Holden. Brennan gave a hand, aided with a lift, broke down brush, and
+offered to take Jimmy now and again. Jimmy only clung tighter, and the
+stranger waved Brennan away with a quick shake of his head.
+
+By the time they reached the road, sirens were wailing on the road up
+the hill. Police, firemen, and an ambulance swarmed over the scene. The
+firemen went to work on the flaming car with practiced efficiency; the
+police clustered around Paul Brennan and extracted from him a story that
+had enough truth in it to sound completely convincing. The doctors from
+the ambulance took charge of Jimmy Holden. Lacking any other accident
+victim, they went to work on him with everything they could do.
+
+They gave him mild sedation, wrapped him in a warm blanket, and put him
+to bed on the cot in the ambulance with two of them watching over him. In
+the presence of so many solicitous strangers, Jimmy's shock and fright
+diminished. The sedation took hold. He dropped off in a light doze that
+grew less fitful as time went on. By the time the official accident
+report program was over, Jimmy Holden was fast asleep and resting
+comfortably.
+
+He did not hear Paul Brennan's suggestion that Jimmy go home with him,
+to Paul Brennan's personal physician, nor did Jimmy hear the ambulance
+attendants turn away Brennan's suggestion with hard-headed medical
+opinion. Brennan could hardly argue with the fact that an accident victim
+would be better off in a hospital under close observation. Shock demanded
+it, and there was the hidden possibility of internal injury or concussion
+to consider.
+
+So Jimmy Holden awoke with his accident ten hours behind him, and the
+good sleep had completed the standard recuperative powers of the healthy
+child. He looked around, collecting himself, and then remembered the
+accident. He cringed a bit and took another look and identified his
+surroundings as some sort of a children's ward or dormitory.
+
+He was in a crib.
+
+He sat up angrily and rattled the gate of the crib. Putting James Quincy
+Holden in a baby's crib was an insult.
+
+He stopped, because the noise echoed through the room and one of the
+younger patients stirred in sleep and moaned. Jimmy Holden sat back and
+remembered. The vacuum that was to follow the loss of his parents was not
+yet in evidence. They were gone and the knowledge made him unhappy, but
+he was not cognizant of the real meaning or emotion of grief. With almost
+the same feeling of loss he thought of the _Jungle Book_ he would never
+read and the Spitz Planetarium he would never see casting its little star
+images on his bedroom ceiling. Burned and ruined, with the atomic energy
+kit--and he had hoped that he could use the kit to tease his father into
+giving him some education in radioactivity. He was old enough to learn--
+
+Learn--?
+
+_No more, now that his father and mother were dead._
+
+Some of the real meaning of his loss came to him then, and the growing
+knowledge that this first shocking loss meant the ultimate loss of
+everything was beginning to sink in.
+
+He broke down and cried in the misery of his loss and his helplessness;
+ultimately his emotion began to cry itself out, and he began to feel
+resentment against his position. The animal desire to bite back at
+anything that moved did not last long, it focused properly upon the
+person of his tormentor. Then for a time, Jimmy Holden's imagination
+indulged in a series of little vignettes in which he scored his victory
+over Paul Brennan. These little playlets went through their own
+evolution, starting with physical victory reminiscent of his
+Jack-and-the-Beanstalk days to a more advanced triumph of watching Paul
+Brennan led away in handcuffs whilst the District Attorney scanned the
+sheaf of indisputable evidence provided by James Quincy Holden.
+
+Somewhere along about this point in his fantasy, a breath of the
+practical entered, and Jimmy began to consider the more sensible problem
+of what sort of information this sheaf of evidence would contain.
+
+Still identifying himself with the books he knew, Jimmy Holden had
+progressed from the fairy story--where the villain was evil for no more
+motive than to provide menace to the hero--to his more advanced books,
+where the villain did his evil deeds for the logical motive of personal
+gain.
+
+Well, what had Paul Brennan to gain?
+
+Money, for one thing--he would be executor of the Holden Estate. But
+there wasn't enough to justify killing. Revenge? For what? Jealousy? For
+whom? Hate? Envy? Jimmy Holden glossed the words quickly, for they were
+no more than words that carried definitions that did not really explain
+them. He could read with the facility of an adult, but a book written for
+a sophisticated audience went over his head.
+
+No, there was only one possible thing of appreciable value; the one thing
+that Paul Brennan hoped to gain was the device over which they had worked
+through all the long years to perfect: The Holden Electromechanical
+Educator! Brennan wanted it badly enough to murder for its possession!
+
+And with a mind and ingenuity far beyond his years, Jimmy Holden knew
+that he alone was the most active operator in this vicious drama. It was
+not without shock that he realized that he himself could still be killed
+to gain possession of his fabulous machine. For only with all _three_
+Holdens dead could Paul Brennan take full and unquestioned possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With daylight clarity he knew what he had to do. In a single act of
+destruction he could simultaneously foil Paul Brennan's plan and ensure
+his own life.
+
+Permanently installed in Jimmy Holden's brain by the machine itself were
+the full details of how to recreate it. Indelibly he knew each wire and
+link, lever and coil, section by section and piece by piece. It was
+incomprehensible information, about in the same way that the printing
+press "knows" the context of its metal plate. Step by step he could
+rebuild it once he had the means of procuring the parts, and it would
+work even though he had not the foggiest notion (now) of what the various
+parts did.
+
+So if the delicate heart of his father's machine were utterly destroyed,
+Paul Brennan would be extremely careful about preserving the life of
+James Quincy Holden.
+
+He considered his position and what he knew:
+
+Physically, he was a five-year-old. He stood forty-one inches tall and
+weighed thirty-nine pounds. A machinist's hammer was a two-handed tool
+and a five-pound sack of sugar was a burden. Doorknobs and latches were a
+problem in manipulation. The negotiation of a swinging door was a feat of
+muscular engineering. Electric light switches were placed at a tiptoe
+reach because, naturally, everything in the adult world is designed by
+the adults for the convenience of adults. This makes it difficult for the
+child who has no adult to do his bidding.
+
+Intellectually, Jimmy Holden was something else.
+
+Reverting to a curriculum considered sound prior to Mr. Dewey's
+often-questionable and more often misused programs of schooling, Jimmy's
+parents had trained and educated their young man quite well in the
+primary informations of fact. He read with facility and spoke with a fine
+vocabulary--although no amount of intellectual training could make his
+voice change until his glands did. His knowledge of history, geography
+and literature were good, because he'd used them to study reading. He was
+well into plane geometry and had a smattering of algebra, and there had
+been a pause due to a parental argument as to the advisability of his
+memorizing a table of six-place logarithms via the Holden machine.
+
+Extra-curricularly, Jimmy Holden had acquired snippets, bits, and
+wholesale chunks of a number of the arts and sciences and other
+aggregations of information both pertinent and trivial for one reason
+or another. As an instance, he had absorbed an entire bridge book by
+Charles Goren just to provide a fourth to sit in with his parents and
+Paul Brennan.
+
+Consequently, James Holden had in data the education of a boy of about
+sixteen, and in other respects, much more.
+
+He escaped from the hospital simply because no one ever thought that a
+five-year-old boy would have enough get-up-and-go to climb out of his
+crib, rummage a nearby closet, dress himself, and then calmly walk out.
+The clothing of a cocky teen-ager would have been impounded and his
+behavior watched.
+
+They did not miss him for hours. He went, taking the little
+identification card from its frame at the foot of his bed--and that
+ruined the correlation between tag and patient.
+
+By the time an overworked nurse stopped to think and finally asked,
+"Kitty, are you taking care of the little boy in Bed 6 over in 219?" and
+received the answer, "No, aren't you?" Jimmy Holden was trudging up the
+hill towards his home. Another hour went by with the two worried nurses
+surreptitiously searching the rest of the hospital in the simple hope
+that he had wandered away and could be restored before it came to the
+attention of the officials. By the time they gave up and called in other
+nurses (who helped them in their anxiety to conceal) Jimmy was entering
+his home.
+
+Each succeeding level of authority was loath to report the truth to the
+next higher up.
+
+By the time the general manager of the hospital forced himself to call
+Paul Brennan, Jimmy Holden was demolishing the last broken bits of
+disassembled subassemblies he had smashed from the heart-circuit of the
+Holden Electromechanical Educator. He was most thorough. Broken glass
+went into the refuse buckets, bent metal was buried in the garden,
+inflammables were incinerated, and meltables and fusibles slagged down in
+ashes that held glass, bottle, and empty tin-can in an unrecognizable
+mass. He left a gaping hole in the machine that Brennan could not
+fill--nor could any living man fill it now but James Quincy Holden.
+
+And only when this destruction was complete did Jimmy Holden first begin
+to understand his father's statement about the few men who see what has
+to be done, do it, _and then_ look to the next inevitable problem created
+by their own act.
+
+It was late afternoon by the time Jimmy had his next moves figured out.
+He left the home he'd grown up in, the home of his parents, of his own
+babyhood. He'd wandered through it for the last time, touching this and
+saying goodbye to that. He was certain that he would never see his things
+again, nor the house itself, but the real vacuum of his loss hadn't yet
+started to form. The concepts of "never" and "forever" were merely words
+that had no real impact.
+
+So was the word "Farewell."
+
+But once his words were said, Jimmy Holden made his small but confident
+way to the window of a railroad ticket agent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+You are a ticket agent, settled in the routine of your job. From nine to
+five-thirty, five days a week, you see one face after another. There are
+cheerful faces, sullen faces, faces that breathe garlic, whiskey, chewing
+gum, toothpaste and tobacco fumes. Old faces, young faces, dull faces,
+scarred faces, clear faces, plain faces and faces so plastered with
+makeup that their nature can't be seen at all. They bark place-names at
+you, or ask pleasantly about the cost of round-trip versus one-way
+tickets to Chicago or East Burlap. You deal with them and then you wait
+for the next.
+
+Then one afternoon, about four o'clock, a face barely visible over the
+edge of the marble counter looks up at you with a boy's cheerful freckled
+smile. You have to stand up in order to see him. You smile, and he grins
+at you. Among his belongings is a little leather suitcase, kid's size,
+but not a toy. He is standing on it. Under his arm is a collection of
+comic books, in one small fist is the remains of a candy bar and in the
+other the string of a floating balloon.
+
+"Well, young man, where to? Paris? London? Maybe Mars?"
+
+"No, sir," comes the piping voice, "Roun-tree."
+
+"Roundtree? Yes, I've heard of that metropolis," you reply. You look over
+his head, there aren't any other customers in line behind him so you
+don't mind passing the time of day. "Round-trip or one-way?"
+
+"One-way," comes the quick reply.
+
+This brings you to a slow stop. He does not giggle nor prattle, nor
+launch into a long and involved explanation with halting, dependent
+clauses. This one knows what he wants and how to ask for it. Quite a
+little man!
+
+"How old are you, young fellow?"
+
+"I was five years old yesterday."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I'm James Holden."
+
+The name does not ring any bells--because the morning newspaper is
+purchased for its comic strips, the bridge column, the crossword puzzle,
+and the latest dope on love-nest slayings, peccadilloes of the famous,
+the cheesecake photo of the inevitable actress-leaving-for-somewhere, and
+the full page photograph of the latest death-on-the-highway debacle. You
+look at the picture but you don't read the names in the caption, so you
+don't recognize the name, and you haven't been out of your little cage
+since lunchtime and Jimmy Holden was not missing then. So you go on:
+
+"So you're going to go to Roundtree."
+
+"Yessir."
+
+"That costs a lot of money, young Mister Holden."
+
+"Yessir." Then this young man hands you an envelope; the cover says,
+typewritten: _Ticket Clerk, Midland Railroad_.
+
+A bit puzzled, you open the envelope and find a five-dollar bill folded
+in a sheet of manuscript paper. The note says:
+
+  Ticket Clerk
+  Midland Railroad
+  Dear Sir:
+
+  This will introduce my son, James Holden. As a birthday present, I am
+  sending him for a visit to his grandparents in Roundtree, and to make
+  the adventure complete, he will travel alone. Pass the word along to
+  keep an eye on him but don't step in unless he gets into trouble. Ask
+  the dining car steward to see that he eats dinner on something better
+  than candy bars.
+
+  Otherwise, he is to believe that he is making this trip completely on
+  his own.
+
+  Sincerely, Louis Holden.
+
+  PS: Divide the change from this five dollars among you as tips. L.H.
+
+And so you look down at young Mister Holden and get a feeling of
+vicarious pleasure. You stamp his ticket and hand it to him with a
+gesture. You point out the train-gate he is to go through, and you tell
+him that he is to sit in the third railroad car. As he leaves, you pick
+up the telephone and call the station-master, the conductor, and since
+you can't get the dining-car steward directly, you charge the conductor
+with passing the word along.
+
+Then you divide the change. Of the two-fifty, you extract a dollar,
+feeling that the Senior Holden is a cheapskate. You slip the other buck
+and a half into an envelope, ready for the conductor's hand. He'll think
+Holden Senior is more of a cheapskate, and by the time he extracts his
+cut, the dining car steward will _know_ that Holden Senior is a
+cheapskate. But--
+
+Then a face appears at your window and barks, "Holyoke, Mass.," and your
+normal day falls back into shape.
+
+The response of the people you tell about it varies all the way from
+outrage that anybody would let a kid of five go alone on such a dangerous
+mission to loud bragging that he, too, once went on such a journey, at
+four and a half, and didn't need a note.
+
+But Jimmy Holden is gone from your window, and you won't know for at
+least another day that you've been suckered by a note painstakingly
+typewritten, letter by letter, by a five-year-old boy who has a most
+remarkable vocabulary.
+
+Jimmy's trip to Roundtree was without incident. Actually, it was easy
+once he had hurdled the ticket-seller with his forged note and the
+five-dollar bill from the cashbox in his father's desk. His error in not
+making it a ten was minor; a larger tip would not have provided him with
+better service, because the train crew were happy to keep an eye on the
+adventurous youngster for his own small sake. Their mild resentment
+against the small tip was directed against the boy's father, not the
+young passenger himself.
+
+He had one problem. The train was hardly out of the station before
+everybody on it knew that there was a five-year-old making a trip all
+by himself. Of course, he was not to be bothered, but everybody wanted
+to talk to him, to ask him how he was, to chatter endlessly at him.
+Jimmy did not want to talk. His experience in addressing adults was
+exasperating. That he spoke lucid English instead of babygab did not
+compel a rational response. Those who heard him speak made over him
+with the same effusive superiority that they used in applauding a
+golden-haired tot in high heels and a strapless evening gown sitting
+on a piano and singing, _Why Was I Born?_ in a piping, uncertain-toned
+voice. It infuriated him.
+
+So he immersed himself in his comic books. He gave his name politely
+every five minutes for the first fifty miles. He turned down offers of
+candy with, "Mommy says I mustn't before supper." And when dinnertime
+came he allowed himself to be escorted through the train by the
+conductor, because Jimmy knew that he couldn't handle the doors without
+help.
+
+The steward placed a menu in front of him, and then asked carefully, "How
+much money do you want to spend, young man?"
+
+Jimmy had the contents of his father's cashbox pinned to the inside of
+his shirt, and a five-dollar bill folded in a snap-top purse with some
+change in his shirt pocket. He could add with the best of them, but he
+did not want any more attention than he was absolutely forced to attract.
+So he fished out the snap-top purse and opened it to show the steward his
+five-dollar bill. The steward relaxed; he'd had a moment of apprehension
+that Holden Senior might have slipped the kid a half-dollar for dinner.
+(The steward had received a quarter for his share of the original
+two-fifty.)
+
+Jimmy looked at the "Child's Dinner" menu and pointed out a plate: lamb
+chop and mashed potatoes. After that, dinner progressed without incident.
+Jimmy topped it off with a dish of ice cream.
+
+The steward made change. Jimmy watched him carefully, and then said,
+"Daddy says I'm supposed to give you a tip. How much?"
+
+The steward looked down, wondering how he could explain the standard
+dining car tip of fifteen or twenty percent of the bill. He took a
+swallow of air and picked out a quarter. "This will do nicely," he said
+and went off thankful that all people do not ask waiters how much they
+think they deserve for the service rendered.
+
+Thus Jimmy Holden arrived in Roundtree and was observed and convoyed--but
+not bothered--off the train.
+
+It is deplorable that adults are not as friendly and helpful to one
+another as they are to children; it might make for a more pleasant world.
+As Jimmy walked along the station platform at Roundtree, one of his
+former fellow-passengers walked beside him. "Where are you going, young
+man? Someone going to meet you, of course?"
+
+"No, sir," said Jimmy. "I'm supposed to take a cab--"
+
+"I'm going your way, why not ride along with me?"
+
+"Sure it's all right?"
+
+"Sure thing. Come along." Jimmy never knew that this man felt good for a
+week after he'd done his good turn for the year.
+
+His grandfather opened the door and looked down at him in complete
+surprise. "Why, Jimmy! What are you doing here? Who brought--"
+
+His grandmother interrupted, "Come in! Come in! Don't just stand there
+with the door open!"
+
+Grandfather closed the door firmly, grandmother knelt and folded Jimmy
+in her arms and crooned over him, "You poor darling. You brave little
+fellow. Donald," she said firmly to her husband, "go get a glass of warm
+milk and some cookies." She led Jimmy to the old-fashioned parlor and
+seated him on the sofa. "Now, Jimmy, you relax a moment and then you can
+tell me what happened."
+
+Jimmy sighed and looked around. The house was old, and comfortably
+sturdy. It gave him a sense of refuge, of having reached a safe haven at
+last. The house was over-warm, and there was a musty smell of over-aged
+furniture, old leather, and the pungence of mothballs. It seemed to
+generate a feeling of firm stability. Even the slightly stale air--there
+probably hadn't been a wide open window since the storm sashes were
+installed last autumn--provided a locked-in feeling that conversely meant
+that the world was locked out.
+
+Grandfather brought in the glass of warmed milk and a plate of cookies.
+He sat down and asked, "What happened, Jimmy?"
+
+"My mother and father are--"
+
+"You eat your cookies and drink your milk," ordered his grandmother. "We
+know. That Mr. Brennan sent us a telegram."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was slightly more than twenty-four hours since Jimmy Holden had blown
+out the five proud candles on his birthday cake and begun to open his
+fine presents. Now it all came back with a rush, and when it came back,
+nothing could stop it.
+
+Jimmy never knew how very like a little boy of five he sounded that
+night. His speech was clear enough, but his troubled mind was too full
+to take the time to form his headlong thoughts into proper sentences.
+He could not pause to collect his thoughts into any chronology, so it
+came out going back and forth all in a single line, punctuated only by
+necessary pauses for the intake of breath. He was close to tears before
+he was halfway through, and by the time he came to the end he stopped in
+a sob and broke out crying.
+
+His grandfather said, "Jimmy, aren't you exaggerating? Mr. Brennan isn't
+that sort of a man."
+
+"He is too!" exploded Jimmy through his tears. "I saw him!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Donald, this is no time to start cross-examining a child." She crossed
+the room and lifted him onto her lap; she stroked his head and held his
+cheek against her shoulder. His open crying subsided into deep sobs; from
+somewhere she found a handkerchief and made him blow his nose--once,
+twice, and then a deep thrice. "Get me a warm washcloth," she told her
+husband, and with it she wiped away his tears. The warmth soothed Jimmy
+more.
+
+"Now," she said firmly, "before we go into this any more we'll have a
+good night's sleep."
+
+The featherbed was soft and cozy. Like protecting mother-wings, it folded
+Jimmy into its bosom, and the warm softness drew out of Jimmy whatever
+remained of his stamina. Tonight he slept of weariness and exhaustion,
+not of the sedation given last night. Here he felt at home, and it was
+good.
+
+And as tomorrows always had, tomorrow would take care of itself.
+
+Jimmy Holden's father and mother first met over an operating table,
+dressed in the white sterility that leaves only the eyes visible. She
+wielded the trephine that laid the patient's brain bare, he kept track of
+the patient's life by observing the squiggles on the roll of graph paper
+that emerged from his encephalograph. She knew nothing of the craft of
+the delicate instrument-creator, and he knew even less of the craft of
+surgery. There had been a near-argument during the cleaning-up session
+after the operation; the near-argument ended when they both realized that
+neither of them understood a word of what the other was saying. So the
+near-argument became an animated discussion, the general meaning of
+which became clear: Brain surgeons should know more about the intricacies
+of electromechanics, and the designers of delicate, precision
+instrumentation should know more about the mass of human gray matter they
+were trying to measure.
+
+They pooled their intellects and plunged into the problem of creating an
+encephalograph that would record the infinitesimal irregularities that
+were superimposed upon the great waves. Their operation became large;
+they bought the old structure on top of the hill and moved in, bag and
+baggage. They cohabited but did not live together for almost a year;
+Paul Brennan finally pointed out that Organized Society might permit a
+couple of geniuses to become research hermits, but Organized Society
+still took a dim view of cohabitation without a license. Besides, such
+messy arrangements always cluttered up the legal clarity of chattels,
+titles, and estates.
+
+They married in a quiet ceremony about two years prior to the date that
+Louis Holden first identified the fine-line wave-shapes that went with
+determined ideas. When he recorded them and played them back, his brain
+re-traced its original line of thought, and he could not even make a
+mental revision of the way his thoughts were arranged. For two years
+Louis and Laura Holden picked their way slowly through this field;
+stumped at one point for several months because the machine was strictly
+a personal proposition. Recorded by one of them, the playback was clear
+to that one, but to the other it was wild gibberish--an inexplicable
+tangle of noise and colored shapes, odors and tastes both pleasant and
+nasty, and mingled sensations. It was five years after their marriage
+before they found success by engraving information in the brain by
+sitting, connected to the machine, and reading aloud, word for word, the
+information that they wanted.
+
+It went by rote, as they had learned in childhood. It was the tiresome
+repetition of going over and over and over the lines of a poem or the
+numbers of the multiplication table until the pathway was a deeply
+trodden furrow in the brain. Forever imprinted, it was retained until
+death. Knowledge is stored by rote.
+
+To accomplish this end, Louis Holden succeeded in violating all of the
+theories of instrumentation by developing a circuit that acted as a sort
+of reverberation chamber which returned the wave-shape played into it
+back to the same terminals without interference, and this single circuit
+became the very heart of the Holden Electromechanical Educator.
+
+With success under way, the Holdens needed an intellectual guinea pig, a
+virgin mind, an empty store-house to fill with knowledge. They planned a
+twenty-year program of research, to end by handing their machine to the
+world complete with its product and instructions for its use and a list
+of pitfalls to avoid.
+
+The conception of James Quincy Holden was a most carefully-planned
+parenthood. It was not accomplished without love or passion. Love had
+come quietly, locking them together physically as they had been bonded
+intellectually. The passion had been deliberately provoked during the
+proper moment of Laura Holden's cycle of ovulation. This scientific
+approach to procreation was no experiment, it was the foregone-conclusive
+act to produce a component absolutely necessary for the completion of
+their long program of research. They happily left to Nature's Choice the
+one factor they could not control, and planned to accept an infant of
+either sex with equal welcome. They loved their little boy as they loved
+one another, rejoiced with him, despaired with him, and made their own
+way with success and mistake, and succeeded in bringing Jimmy to five
+years of age quite normal except for his education.
+
+Now, proficiency in brain surgery does not come at an early age, nor does
+world-wide fame in the field of delicate instrumentation. Jimmy's parents
+were over forty-five on the date of his birth.
+
+Jimmy's grandparents were, then, understandably aged seventy-eight and
+eighty-one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The old couple had seen their life, and they knew it for what it was.
+They arose each morning and faced the day knowing that there would be no
+new problem, only recurrence of some problem long solved. Theirs was a
+comfortable routine, long gone was their spirit of adventure, the
+pleasant notions of trying something a new and different way. At their
+age, they were content to take the easiest and the simplest way of doing
+what they thought to be Right. Furthermore, they had lived long enough to
+know that no equitable decision can be made by listening to only one side
+of any argument.
+
+While young Jimmy was polishing off a platter of scrambled eggs the
+following morning, Paul Brennan arrived. Jimmy's fork stopped in midair
+at the sound of Brennan's voice in the parlor.
+
+"You called him," he said accusingly.
+
+Grandmother Holden said, "He's your legal guardian, James."
+
+"But--I don't--can't--"
+
+"Now, James, your father and mother knew best."
+
+"But they didn't know about Paul Brennan. I won't go!"
+
+"You must."
+
+"I won't!"
+
+"James," said Grandmother Holden quietly, "you can't stay here."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"We're not prepared to keep you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Grandmother Holden despaired. How could she make this youngster
+understand that eighty is not an age at which to embark upon the process
+of raising a five-year-old to maturity?
+
+From the other room, Paul Brennan was explaining his side as he'd given
+it to the police. "--Forgot the land option that had to be signed. So I
+took off after them and drove fast enough to catch up. I was only a
+couple of hundred yards behind when it happened."
+
+"He's a liar!" cried Jimmy Holden.
+
+"That's not a nice thing to say."
+
+"It's true!"
+
+"Jimmy!" came the reproachful tone.
+
+"It's true!" he cried.
+
+His grandfather and Paul Brennan came into the kitchen. "Ah, Jimmy,"
+said Paul in a soothing voice, "why did you run off? You had everybody
+worried."
+
+"You did! You lie! You--"
+
+"James!" snapped his grandfather. "Stop that talk at once!"
+
+"Be easy with him, Mr. Holden. He's upset. Jimmy, let's get this settled
+right now. What did I do and how do I lie?"
+
+"Oh, please Mr. Brennan," said his grandmother. "This isn't necessary."
+
+"Oh, but it is. It is very important. As the legal guardian of young
+James, I can't have him harboring some suspicion as deep as this. Come
+on, Jimmy. Let's talk it out right now. What did I do and how am I
+lying?"
+
+"You weren't behind. You forced us off the road."
+
+"How could he, young man?" demanded Grandfather Holden.
+
+"I don't know, but he did."
+
+"Wait a moment, sir," said Brennan quietly. "It isn't going to be enough
+to force him into agreement. He's got to see the truth for itself, of his
+own construction from the facts. Now, Jimmy, where was I when you left my
+apartment?"
+
+"You--you were there."
+
+"And didn't I say--"
+
+"One moment," said Grandfather Holden. "Don't lead the witness."
+
+"Sorry. James, what did I do?"
+
+"You--" then a long pause.
+
+"Come on, Jimmy."
+
+"You shook hands with my father."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then you--kissed my mother on the cheek."
+
+"And then, again?"
+
+"And then you carried my birthday presents down and put them in the car."
+
+"Now, Jimmy, how does your father drive? Fast or slow?"
+
+"Fast."
+
+"So now, young man, you tell me how I could go back up to my apartment,
+get my coat and hat, get my car out of the garage, and race to the top of
+that hill so that I could turn around and come at you around that curve?
+Just tell me that, young man."
+
+"I--don't know--how you did it."
+
+"It doesn't make sense, does it?"
+
+"--No--"
+
+"Jimmy, I'm trying to help you. Your father and I were fraternity
+brothers in college. I was best man at your parents' wedding. I am your
+godfather. Your folks were taken away from both of us--and I'm hoping to
+take care of you as if you were mine." He turned to Jimmy's grandparents.
+"I wish to God that I could find the driver of that other car. He didn't
+hit anybody, but he's as guilty of a hit-and-run offence as the man who
+does. If I ever find him, I'll have him in jail until he rots!"
+
+"Jimmy," pleaded his grandmother, "can't you see? Mr. Brennan is only
+trying to help. Why would he do the evil thing you say he did?"
+
+"Because--" and Jimmy started to cry. The utter futility of trying to
+make people believe was too much to bear.
+
+"Jimmy, please stop it and be a man," said Brennan. He put a hand on
+Jimmy's shoulder. Jimmy flung it aside with a quick twist and a turn.
+"Please, Jimmy," pleaded Brennan. Jimmy left his chair and buried his
+face in a corner of the wall.
+
+"Jimmy, believe me," pleaded Brennan. "I'm going to take you to live in
+your old house, among your own things. I can't replace your folks, but I
+can try to be as close to your father as I know how. I'll see you through
+everything, just as your mother and father want me to."
+
+"No!" exploded Jimmy through a burst of tears.
+
+Grandfather Holden grunted. "This is getting close to the tantrum stage,"
+he said. "And the only way to deal with a tantrum is to apply the flat of
+the hand to the round of the bottom."
+
+"Please," smiled Brennan. "He's a pretty shaken youngster. He's
+emotionally hurt and frightened, and he wants to strike out and hurt
+something back."
+
+"I think he's done enough of that," said Grandfather Holden. "When Louis
+tossed one of these fits of temper where he wouldn't listen to any
+reason, we did as we saw fit anyway and let him kick and scream until
+he got tired of the noise he made."
+
+"Let's not be rough," pleaded Jimmy's grandmother. "He's just a little
+boy, you know."
+
+"If he weren't so little he'd have better sense," snapped Grandfather.
+
+"James," said Paul Brennan quietly, "do you see you're making trouble for
+your grandparents? Haven't we enough trouble as it is? Now, young man,
+for the last time, will you walk or will you be carried? Whichever,
+Jimmy, we're going back home!"
+
+James Holden gave up. "I'll go," he said bitterly, "but I hate you."
+
+"He'll be all right," promised Brennan. "I swear it!"
+
+"Please, Jimmy, be good for Mr. Brennan," pleaded his grandmother. "After
+all, it's for your own good." Jimmy turned away, bewildered, hurt and
+silent. He stubbornly refused to say goodbye to his grandparents.
+
+He was trapped in the world of grown-ups that believed a lying adult
+before they would even consider the truth of a child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+The drive home was a bitter experience. Jimmy was sullen, and very quiet.
+He refused to answer any question and he made no reply to any statement.
+Paul Brennan kept up a running chatter of pleasantries, of promises and
+plans for their future, and just enough grief to make it sound honest.
+Had Paul Brennan actually been as honest as his honeyed tones said he
+was, no one could have continued to accuse him. But no one is more
+difficult to fool than a child--even a normal child. Paul Brennan's
+protestations simply made Jimmy Holden bitter.
+
+He sat silent and unhappy in the far corner of the front seat all the way
+home. In his mind was a nameless threat, a dread of what would come once
+they were inside--either inside of Paul Brennan's apartment or inside of
+his own home--with the door locked against the outside world.
+
+But when they arrived, Paul Brennan continued his sympathetic attitude.
+To Jimmy it was sheer hypocrisy; he was not experienced enough to know
+that a person can commit an act and then convince himself that he hadn't.
+
+"Jimmy," said Brennan softly, "I have not the faintest notion of
+punishment. None whatsoever. You ruined your father's great invention.
+You did that because you thought it was right. Someday when you change
+your mind and come to believe in me, I'll ask you to replace it because I
+know you can. But understand me, young man, I shall not ask you until you
+make the first suggestion yourself!"
+
+Jimmy remained silent.
+
+"One more thing," said Brennan firmly. "Don't try that stunt with the
+letter to the station agent again. It won't work twice. Not in this town
+nor any other for a long, long time. I've made a sort of family-news item
+out of it which hit a lot of daily papers. It'll also be in the company
+papers of all the railroads and buslines, how Mr. What's-his-name at the
+Midland Railroad got suckered by a five-year-old running away from home.
+Understand?"
+
+Jimmy understood but made no sign.
+
+"Then in September we'll start you in school," said Brennan.
+
+This statement made no impression upon young James Holden whatsoever. He
+had no intention of enduring this smothering by overkindness any longer
+than it took him to figure out how to run away, and where to run to. It
+was going to be a difficult thing. Cruel treatment, torture, physical
+harm were one thing; this act of being a deeply-concerned guardian was
+something else. A twisted arm he could complain about, a bruise he could
+show, the scars of lashing would give credence to his tale. But who would
+listen to any complaint about too much kindness?
+
+Six months of this sort of treatment and Jimmy Holden himself would begin
+to believe that his parents were monsters, coldly stuffing information in
+the head of an infant instead of letting him grow through a normal
+childhood. A year, and Jimmy Holden would be re-creating his father's
+reverberation circuit out of sheer gratitude. He'd be cajoled into
+signing his own death-warrant.
+
+But where can a five-year-old hide? There was no appeal to the forces of
+law and order. They would merely pop him into a squad car and deliver him
+to his guardian.
+
+Law and order were out. His only chance was to lose himself in some gray
+hinterland where there were so many of his own age that no one could keep
+track of them all. Whether he would succeed was questionable. But until
+he tried, he wouldn't know, and Jimmy was desperate enough to try
+anything.
+
+He attended the funeral services with Paul Brennan. But while the pastor
+was invoking Our Heavenly Father to accept the loving parents of orphaned
+James, James the son left the side of his "Uncle" Paul Brennan, who knelt
+in false piety with his eyes closed.
+
+Jimmy Holden had with him only his clothing and what was left of the wad
+of paper money from his father's cashbox still pinned to the inside of
+his shirt.
+
+This time Jimmy did not ride in style. Burlap sacks covered him when
+night fell; they dirtied his clothing and the bottom of the freight car
+scuffed his shoes. For eighteen hours he hid in the jolting darkness, not
+knowing and caring less where he was going, so long as it was away!
+
+He was hungry and thirsty by the time the train first began to slow down.
+It was morning--somewhere. Jimmy looked furtively out of the slit at the
+edge of the door to see that the train was passing through a region of
+cottages dusted black by smoke, through areas of warehouse and factory,
+through squalor and filth and slum; and vacant lots where the spread of
+the blight area had been so fast that the outward improvement had not
+time to build. Eventually the scene changed to solid areas of railroad
+track, and the trains parked there thickened until he could no longer
+see the city through them.
+
+Ultimately the train stopped long enough for Jimmy to squeeze out through
+the slit at the edge of the door.
+
+The train went on and Jimmy was alone in the middle of some huge city.
+He walked the noisome sidewalk trying to decide what he should do next.
+Food was of high importance, but how could he get it without attracting
+attention to himself? He did not know. But finally he reasoned that a
+hot dog wagon would probably take cash from a youngster without asking
+embarrassing questions, so long as the cash wasn't anything larger than
+a five-dollar bill.
+
+He entered the next one he came to. It was dirty; the windows held
+several years' accumulation of cooking grease, but the aroma was terrific
+to a young animal who'd been without food since yesterday afternoon.
+
+The counterman did not like kids, but he put away his dislike at the
+sight of Jimmy's money. He grunted when Jimmy requested a dog, tossed one
+on the grill and went back to reading his newspaper until some inner
+sense told him it was cooked. Jimmy finished it still hungry and asked
+for another. He finished a third and washed down the whole mass with a
+tall glass of highly watered orange juice. The counterman took his money
+and was very careful about making the right change; if this dirty kid had
+swiped the five-spot, it could be the counterman's problem of explaining
+to someone why he had overcharged. Jimmy's intelligence told him that
+countermen in a joint like this didn't expect tips, so he saved himself
+that hurdle. He left the place with a stomach full of food that only the
+indestructible stomach of a five-year-old could handle and now, fed and
+reasonably content, Jimmy began to seek his next point of contact.
+
+He had never been in a big city before. The sheer number of human beings
+that crowded the streets surpassed his expectations. The traffic was not
+personally terrifying, but it was so thick that Jimmy Holden wondered how
+people drove without colliding. He knew about traffic lights and walked
+with the green, staying out of trouble. He saw groups of small children
+playing in the streets and in the empty lots. Those not much older than
+himself were attending school.
+
+He paused to watch a group of children his own age trying to play
+baseball with a ragged tennis ball and the handle from a broom. It was a
+helter-skelter game that made no pattern but provided a lot of fun and
+screaming. He was quite bothered by a quarrel that came up; two of his
+own age went at one another with tiny fists flying, using words that
+Jimmy hadn't learned from his father's machine.
+
+He wondered how he might join them in their game. But they paid him no
+attention, so he didn't try.
+
+At lunchtime Jimmy consumed another collection of hot dogs. He continued
+to meander aimlessly through the city until schooltime ended, then he saw
+the streets and vacant lots fill with older children playing games with
+more pattern to them. It was a new world he watched, a world that had not
+been a part of his education. The information he owned was that of the
+school curriculum; it held nothing of the daily business of growing up.
+He knew the general rules of big-league baseball, but the kid-business of
+stickball did not register.
+
+He was at a complete loss. It was sheer chance and his own tremendous
+curiosity that led him to the edge of a small group that were busily
+engaged in the odd process of trying to jack up the front of a car.
+
+It wasn't a very good jack; it should have had the weight of a full adult
+against the handle. The kids strained and put their weight on the jack,
+but the handle wouldn't budge though their feet were off the ground.
+
+Here was the place where academic information would be useful--and the
+chance for an "in." Jimmy shoved himself into the small group and said,
+"Get a longer handle."
+
+They turned on him suspiciously.
+
+"Whatcha know about it?" demanded one, shoving his chin out.
+
+"Get a longer handle," repeated Jimmy. "Go ahead, get one."
+
+"G'wan--"
+
+"Wait, Moe. Maybe--"
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"I'm Jimmy."
+
+"Jimmy who?"
+
+"Jimmy--James." Academic information came up again. "Jimmy. Like the
+jimmy you use on a window."
+
+"Jimmy James. Any relation to Jesse James?"
+
+James Quincy Holden now told his first whopper. "I," he said, "am his
+grandson."
+
+The one called Moe turned to one of the younger ones. "Get a longer
+handle," he said.
+
+While the younger one went for something to use as a longer handle, Moe
+invited Jimmy to sit on the curb. "Cigarette?" invited Moe.
+
+"I don't smoke," said Jimmy.
+
+"Sissy?"
+
+Adolescent-age information looking out through five-year-old eyes assayed
+Moe. Moe was about eight, maybe even nine; taller than Jimmy but no
+heavier. He had a longer reach, which was an advantage that Jimmy did not
+care to hazard. There was no sure way to establish physical superiority;
+Jimmy was uncertain whether any show of intellect would be welcome.
+
+"No," he said. "I'm no sissy. I don't like 'em."
+
+Moe lit a cigarette and smoked with much gesturing and flickings of ashes
+and spitting at a spot on the pavement. He was finished when the younger
+one came back with a length of water pipe that would fit over the handle
+of the jack.
+
+The car went up with ease. Then came the business of removing the hubcap
+and the struggle to loose the lugbolts. Jimmy again suggested the
+application of the length of pipe. The wheel came off.
+
+"C'mon, Jimmy," said Moe. "We'll cut you in."
+
+"Sure," nodded Jimmy Holden, willing to see what came next so long as it
+did not have anything to do with Paul Brennan. Moe trundled the car wheel
+down the street, steering it with practiced hands. A block down and a
+block around that corner, a man with a three-day growth of whiskers
+stopped a truck with a very dirty license plate. Moe stopped and the
+man jumped out of the truck long enough to heave the tire and wheel into
+the back.
+
+The man gave Moe a handful of change which Moe distributed among the
+little gang. Then he got in the truck beside the driver and waved for
+Jimmy to come along.
+
+"What's that for?" demanded the driver.
+
+"He's a smarty pants," said Moe. "A real good one."
+
+"Who're you?"
+
+"Jimmy--James."
+
+"What'cha do, kid?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Moe, what did this kid sell you?"
+
+"You and your rusty jacks," grunted Moe. "Jimmy James here told us how to
+put a long hunk of pipe on the handle."
+
+"Jimmy James, who taught you about leverage?" demanded the driver
+suspiciously.
+
+Jimmy Holden believed that he was in the presence of an educated man.
+"Archimedes," he said solemnly, giving it the proper pronunciation.
+
+The driver said to Moe, "Think he's all right?"
+
+"He's smart enough."
+
+"Who're your parents, kid?"
+
+Jimmy Holden realized that this was a fine time to tell the truth, but
+properly diluted to taste. "My folks are dead," he said.
+
+"Who you staying with?"
+
+"No one."
+
+The driver of the truck eyed him cautiously for a moment. "You escaped
+from an orphan asylum?"
+
+"Uh-huh," lied Jimmy.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Ain't saying."
+
+"Wise, huh?"
+
+"Don't want to get sent back," said Jimmy.
+
+"Got a flop?"
+
+"Flop?"
+
+"Place to sleep for the night."
+
+"No."
+
+"Where'd you sleep last night?"
+
+"Boxcar."
+
+"Bindlestiff, huh?" roared the man with laughter.
+
+"No, sir," said Jimmy. "I've no bindle."
+
+The man's roar of laughter stopped abruptly. "You're a pretty wise kid,"
+he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I told y' so," said Moe.
+
+"Shut up," snapped the man. "Kid, do you want a flop for the night?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Okay. You're in."
+
+"What's your name?" asked Jimmy.
+
+"You call me Jake. Short for Jacob. Er--here's the place."
+
+The "Place" had no other name. It was a junkyard. In it were car parts,
+wrecks with parts undamaged, whole motors rusting in the air, axles,
+wheels, differential assemblies and transmissions from a thousand cars of
+a thousand different parentages. Hubcaps abounded in piles sorted to size
+and shape. Jake drove the little pickup truck into an open shed. The tire
+and wheel came from the back and went immediately into place on a
+complicated gadget. In a couple of minutes, the tire was off the wheel
+and the inner tube was out of the casing. Wheel, casing, and inner tube
+all went into three separate storage piles.
+
+Not only a junkyard, but a stripper's paradise. Bring a hot car in here
+and in a few hours no one could find it. Its separated parts would be
+sold piece by piece and week by week as second-hand replacements.
+
+Jake said, "Dollar-fifty."
+
+"Two," said Moe.
+
+"One seventy-five."
+
+"Two."
+
+"Go find it and put it back."
+
+"Gimme the buck-six," grunted Moe. "Pretty cheap for a good shoe, a
+wheel, and a sausage."
+
+"Bring it in alone next time, and I'll slip you two-fifty. That gang you
+use costs, too. Now scram, Jimmy James and I got business to talk over."
+
+"He taking over?"
+
+"Don't talk stupid. I need a spotter. You're too old, Moe. And if he's
+any good, you gotta promotion coming."
+
+"And if he ain't?"
+
+"Don't come back!"
+
+Moe eyed Jimmy Holden. "Make it good--Jimmy." There was malice in Moe's
+face.
+
+Jake looked down at Jimmy Holden. With precisely the same experienced
+technique he used to estimate the value of a car loaded with road dirt,
+rust, and collision-smashed fenders, Jake stripped the child of the
+dirty clothing, the scuffed shoes, the mussed hair, and saw through to
+the value beneath. Its price was one thousand dollars, offered with no
+questions asked for information that would lead to the return of one
+James Quincy Holden to his legal guardian.
+
+It wasn't magic on Jake's part. Paul Brennan had instantly offered a
+reward. And Jake made it his business to keep aware of such matters.
+
+How soon, wondered Jake, might the ante be raised to two Gee? Five? And
+in the meantime, if things panned, Jimmy could be useful as a spotter.
+
+"You afraid of that Moe punk, Jimmy?"
+
+"No sir."
+
+"Good, but keep an eye on him. He'd sell his mother for fifty cents clear
+profit--seventy-five if he had to split the deal. Now, kid, do you know
+anything about spotting?"
+
+"No sir."
+
+"Hungry?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"All right. Come on in and we'll eat. Do you like Mulligan?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"Good. You and me are going to get along."
+
+Inside of the squalid shack, Jake had a cozy set-up. The filth that he
+encouraged out in the junkyard was not tolerated inside his shack. The
+dividing line was halfway across the edge of the door; the inside was as
+clean, neat, and shining as the outside was squalid.
+
+"You'll sleep here," said Jake, waving towards a small bedroom with a
+single twin bunk. "You'll make yer own bed and take a shower every
+night--or out! Understand?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"Good. Now, let's have chow, and I'll tell you about this spotting
+business. You help me, and I'll help you. One blab and back you go to
+where you came from. Get it?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+And so, while the police of a dozen cities were scouring their beats for
+a homeless, frightened five-year-old, Jimmy Holden slept in a comfortable
+bed in a clean room, absolutely disguised by an exterior that looked like
+an abandoned manure shed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+Jimmy discovered that he was admirably suited to the business of
+spotting. The "job turnover" was high because the spotter must be young
+enough to be allowed the freedom of the preschool age, yet be mature
+enough to follow orders.
+
+The job consisted of meandering through the streets of the city, in
+the aimless patterns of youth, while keeping an eye open for parked
+automobiles with the ignition keys still in their locks.
+
+Only a very young child can go whooping through the streets bumping
+pedestrians, running wildly, or walking from car to car twiggling each
+door handle and peering inside as if he were imitating a door-to-door
+salesman, occasionally making a minor excursion in one shop door and out
+the other.
+
+He takes little risk. He merely spots the target. He reports that there
+is such-and-such a car parked so-and-so, after which he goes on to spot
+the next target. The rest of the business is up to the men who do the
+actual stealing.
+
+Jimmy's job-training program took only one morning. That same afternoon
+he went to work for Jake's crew.
+
+Jake's experience with kids had been no more than so-so promising. He
+used them because they were better than nothing. He did not expect them
+to stay long; they were gobbled up by the rules of compulsory education
+just about the age when they could be counted upon to follow orders.
+
+He felt about the same with Jimmy Holden; the "missing person" report
+stated that one of the most prominent factors in the lad's positive
+identification was his high quality of speech and his superior
+intelligence. (This far Paul Brennan had to go, and he had divulged
+the information with great reluctance.)
+
+But though Jake needed a preschool child with intelligence, he did not
+realize the height of Jimmy Holden's.
+
+It was obvious to Jimmy on the second day that Jake's crew was not taking
+advantage of every car spotted. One of them had been a "natural" to
+Jimmy's way of thinking. He asked Jake about it: "Why didn't you take the
+sea-green Ford in front of the corner store?"
+
+"Too risky."
+
+"Risky?"
+
+Jake nodded. "Spotting isn't risky, Jimmy. But picking the car up is.
+There is a very dangerous time when the driver is a sitting duck. From
+the moment he opens the car door he is in danger. Sitting in the chance
+of getting caught, he must start the car, move it out of the parking
+space into traffic, and get under way and gone before he is safe."
+
+"But the sea-green Ford was sitting there with its engine running!"
+
+"Meaning," nodded Jake, "that the driver pulled in and made a fast dash
+into the store for a newspaper or a pack of cigarettes."
+
+"I understand. Your man could get caught. Or," added Jimmy thoughtfully,
+"the owner might even take his car away before we got there."
+
+Jake nodded. This one was going to make it easy for him.
+
+As the days wore on, Jimmy became more selective. He saw no point in
+reporting a car that wasn't going to be used. An easy mark wedged between
+two other cars couldn't be removed with ease. A car parked in front of a
+parking meter with a red flag was dangerous, it meant that the time was
+up and the driver should be getting nervous about it. A man who came
+shopping along the street to find a meter with some time left by the
+former driver was obviously looking for a quick-stop place--whereas the
+man who fed the meter to its limit was a much better bet.
+
+Jake, thankful for what Fate had brought him, now added refinements of
+education. Cars parked in front of supermarkets weren't safe; the owner
+might be standing just inside the big plate glass window. The car parked
+hurriedly just before the opening of business was likely to be a good bet
+because people are careless about details when they are hurrying to punch
+the old time clock.
+
+Jake even closed down his operations during the calculated danger
+periods, but he made sure to tell Jimmy Holden why.
+
+From school-closing to dinnertime Jimmy was allowed to do as he pleased.
+He found it hard to enjoy playing with his contemporaries, and Jake's
+explanation about dangerous times warned Jimmy against joining Moe and
+his little crew of thieves. Jimmy would have enjoyed helping in the
+stripping yard, but he had not the heft for it. They gave him little
+messy jobs to do that grimed his hands and made Jake's stern rule of
+cleanliness hard to achieve. Jimmy found it easier to avoid such jobs
+than to scrub his skin raw.
+
+One activity he found to his ability was the cooking business.
+
+Jake was a stew-man, a soup-man, a slum-gullion man. The fellows who
+roamed in and out of Jake's Place dipped their plate of slum from the
+pot and their chunk of bread from the loaf and talked all through this
+never-started and never-ended lunch. With the delicacy of his "inside"
+life, Jake knew the value of herbs and spices and he was a hard
+taskmaster. But inevitably, Jimmy learned the routine of brewing a bucket
+of slum that suited Jake's taste, after which Jimmy was now and then
+permitted to take on the more demanding job of cooking the steaks and
+chops that made their final evening meal.
+
+Jimmy applied himself well, for the knowledge was going to be handy. More
+important, it kept him from the jobs that grimed his hands.
+
+He sought other pursuits, but Jake had never had a resident spotter
+before and the play-facilities provided were few. Jimmy took to
+reading--necessarily, the books that Jake read, that is, approximately
+equal parts of science fiction and girlie-girlie books. The science
+fiction he enjoyed; but he was not able to understand why he wasn't
+interested in the girlie books. So Jimmy read. Jake even went out of his
+way to find more science fiction for the lad.
+
+Ultimately, Jimmy located a potential source of pleasure.
+
+He spotted a car with a portable typewriter on the back seat. The car was
+locked and therefore no target, but it stirred his fancy. Thereafter he
+added a contingent requirement to his spotting. A car with a typewriter
+was more desirable than one without.
+
+Jimmy went on to further astound Jake by making a list of what the
+customers were buying. After that he concentrated on spotting those cars
+that would provide the fastest sale for their parts.
+
+It was only a matter of time; Jimmy spotted a car with a portable
+typewriter. It was not as safe a take as his others, but he reported it.
+Jake's driver picked it up and got it out in a squeak; the car itself
+turned up to be no great find.
+
+Jimmy claimed the typewriter at once.
+
+Jake objected: "No dice, Jimmy."
+
+"I want it, Jake."
+
+"Look, kid, I can sell it for twenty."
+
+"But I want it."
+
+Jake eyed Jimmy thoughtfully, and he saw two things. One was a
+thousand-dollar reward standing before him. The other was a row of prison
+bars.
+
+Jake could only collect one and avoid the other by being very sure that
+Jimmy Holden remained grateful to Jake for Jake's shelter and protection.
+
+He laughed roughly. "All right, Jimmy," he said. "You lift it and you can
+have it."
+
+Jimmy struggled with the typewriter, and succeeded only because it was a
+new one made of the titanium-magnesium-aluminum alloys. It hung between
+his little knees, almost--but not quite--touching the ground.
+
+"You have it," said Jake. He lifted it lightly and carried it into the
+boy's little bedroom.
+
+Jimmy started after dinner. He picked out the letters with the same
+painful search he'd used in typing his getaway letter. He made the
+same mistakes he'd made before. It had taken him almost an hour and
+nearly fifty sheets of paper to compose that first note without an
+error; that was no way to run a railroad; now Jimmy was determined
+to learn the proper operation of this machine. But finally the jagged
+tack-tack--pause--tack-tack got on Jake's nerves.
+
+Jake came in angrily. "You're wasting paper," he snapped. He eyed Jimmy
+thoughtfully. "How come with your education you don't know how to type?"
+
+"My father wouldn't let me."
+
+"Seems your father wouldn't let you do anything."
+
+"He said that I couldn't learn until I was old enough to learn properly.
+He said I must not get into the habit of using the hunt-and-peck system,
+or I'd never get out of it."
+
+"So what are you doing now?"
+
+"My father is dead."
+
+"And anything he said before doesn't count any more?"
+
+"He promised me that he'd start teaching me as soon as my hands were big
+enough," said Jimmy soberly. "But he isn't here any more. So I've got to
+learn my own way."
+
+Jake reflected. Jimmy was a superior spotter. He was also a potential
+danger; the other kids played it as a game and didn't really realize what
+they were doing. This one knew precisely what he was doing, knew that it
+was wrong, and had the lucidity of speech to explain in full detail. It
+was a good idea to keep him content.
+
+"If you'll stop that tap-tapping for tonight," promised Jake, "I'll get
+you a book tomorrow. Is it a deal?"
+
+"You will?"
+
+"I will if you'll follow it."
+
+"Sure thing."
+
+"And," said Jake, pushing his advantage, "you'll do it with the door
+closed so's I can hear this TV set."
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+Jake kept his word.
+
+On the following afternoon, not only was Jimmy presented with one of the
+standard learn-it-yourself books on touch-typing, but Jake also contrived
+a sturdy desk out of one old packing case and a miniature chair out of
+another. Both articles of home-brewed furniture Jake insisted upon having
+painted before he permitted them inside his odd dwelling, and that
+delayed Jimmy one more day.
+
+But it was only one more day; and then a new era of experience began for
+Jimmy.
+
+It would be nice to report that he went at it with determination,
+self-discipline, and system, following instructions to the letter and
+emerging a first-rate typist.
+
+Sorry. Jimmy hated every minute of it. He galled at the pages and pages
+of _juj juj juj frf frf frf_. He cried with frustration because he could
+not perform the simple exercise to perfection. He skipped through the
+book so close to complete failure that he hurled it across the room, and
+cried in anger because he had not the strength to throw the typewriter
+after it. Throw the machine? He had not the strength in his pinky to
+press the carriage-shift key!
+
+Part of his difficulty was the size of his hands, of course. But most of
+his trouble lay deep-seated in his recollection of his parents' fabulous
+machine. It would have made a typist of him in a single half-hour
+session, or so he thought.
+
+He had yet to learn about the vast gulf that lies between theory and
+practice.
+
+It took Jimmy several weeks of aimless fiddling before he realized that
+there was no easy short-cut. Then he went back to the _juj juj juj frf
+frf frf_ routine and hated it just as much, but went on.
+
+He invented a kind of home-study "hooky" to break the monotony. He would
+run off a couple of pages of regular exercise, and then turn back to the
+hunt-and-peck system of typing to work on a story. He took a furtive glee
+in this; he felt that he was getting away with something. In mid-July,
+Jake caught him at it.
+
+"What's going on?" demanded Jake, waving the pages of manuscript copy.
+
+"Typing," said Jimmy.
+
+Jake picked up the typing guidebook and waved it under Jimmy's nose.
+"Show me where it says you gotta type anything like, 'Captain Brandon
+struggled against his chains when he heard Lady Hamilton scream. The
+pirate's evil laugh rang through the ship. "Curse you--"'"
+
+Jake snorted.
+
+"But--" said Jimmy faintly.
+
+"But nothing!" snapped Jake. "Stop the drivel and learn that thing! You
+think I let you keep the machine just to play games? We gotta find a way
+to make it pay off. Learn it good!"
+
+He stamped out, taking the manuscript with him. From that moment on,
+Jimmy's furtive career as an author went on only when Jake was either out
+for the evening or entertaining. In any case, he did not bother Jimmy
+further, evidently content to wait until Jimmy had "learned it good"
+before putting this new accomplishment to use. Nor did Jimmy bother him.
+It was a satisfactory arrangement for the time being. Jimmy hid his
+"work" under a pile of raw paper and completed it in late August. Then,
+with the brash assurance of youth, he packed and mailed his first
+finished manuscript to the editor of _Boy's Magazine_.
+
+His typing progressed more satisfactorily than he realized, even though
+he was still running off page after page of repetitious exercise,
+leavened now and then by a page of idiotic sentences the letters of
+which were restricted to the center of the typewriter keyboard. The
+practice, even the hunt-and-peck relaxation from discipline, exercised
+the small muscles. Increased strength brought increased accuracy.
+
+September rolled in, the streets emptied of school-aged children and the
+out-of-state car licenses diminished to a trickle. With the end of the
+carefree vacation days went the careless motorist.
+
+Jake, whose motives were no more altruistic than his intentions were
+legal, began to look for a means of disposing of Jimmy Holden at the
+greatest profit to himself. Jake stalled only because he hoped that the
+reward might be stepped up.
+
+But it was Jimmy's own operations that closed this chapter of his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+Jimmy had less scout work to do and no school to attend; he was too small
+to help in the sorting of car parts and too valuable to be tossed out. He
+was in the way.
+
+So he was in Jake's office when the mail came. He brought the bundle to
+Jake's desk and sat on a box, sorting the circulars and catalogs from the
+first class. Halfway down the pile was a long envelope addressed to
+_Jimmy James_.
+
+He dropped the rest with a little yelp. Jake eyed him quickly and
+snatched the letter out of Jimmy's hands.
+
+"Hey! That's mine!" said Jimmy. Jake shoved him away.
+
+"Who's writing you?" demanded Jake.
+
+"It's mine!" cried Jimmy.
+
+"Shut up!" snapped Jake, unfolding the letter. "I read _all_ the mail
+that comes here first."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Shut your mouth and your teeth'll stay in," said Jake flatly. He
+separated a green slip from the letter and held the two covered while he
+read. "Well, well," he said. "Our little Shakespeare!" With a disdainful
+grunt Jake tossed the letter to Jimmy.
+
+Eagerly, Jimmy took the letter and read:
+
+  Dear Mr. James:
+
+  We regret the unconscionable length of time between your submission and
+  this reply. However, the fact that this reply is favorable may be its
+  own apology. We are enclosing a check for $20.00 with the following
+  explanation:
+
+  Our policy is to reject all work written in dialect. At the best we
+  request the author to rewrite the piece in proper English and frame
+  his effect by other means. Your little story is not dialect, nor is it
+  bad literarily, the framework's being (as it is) a fairly good example
+  of a small boy's relating in the first person one of his adventures,
+  using for the first time his father's typewriter. But you went too far.
+  I doubt that even a five-year-old would actually make as many
+  typographical errors.
+
+  However, we found the idea amusing, therefore our payment. One of our
+  editors will work your manuscript into less-erratic typescript for
+  eventual publication.
+
+  Please continue to think of us in the future, but don't corn up your
+  script with so many studied blunders.
+
+  Sincerely,
+  Joseph Brandon, editor,
+  Boy's Magazine.
+
+"Gee," breathed Jimmy, "a check!"
+
+Jake laughed roughly. "Shakespeare," he roared. "Don't corn up your
+stuff! You put too many errors in! Wow!"
+
+Jimmy's eyes began to burn. He had no defense against this sarcasm. He
+wanted praise for having accomplished something, instead of raucous
+laughter.
+
+"I wrote it," he said lamely.
+
+"Oh, go away!" roared Jake.
+
+Jimmy reached for the check.
+
+"Scram," said Jake, shutting his laughter off instantly.
+
+"It's mine!" cried Jimmy.
+
+Jake paused, then laughed again. "Okay, smart kid. Take it and spend it!"
+He handed the check to Jimmy Holden.
+
+Jimmy took it quickly and left.
+
+He wanted to eye it happily, to gloat over it, to turn it over and over
+and to read it again and again; but he wanted to do it in private.
+
+He took it with him to the nearest bank, feeling its folded bulk and
+running a fingernail along the serrated edge.
+
+He re-read it in the bank, then went to a teller's window. "Can you cash
+this, please?" he asked.
+
+The teller turned it over. "It isn't endorsed."
+
+"I can't reach the desk to sign it," complained Jimmy.
+
+"Have you an account here?" asked the teller politely.
+
+"Well, no sir."
+
+"Any identification?"
+
+"No--no sir," said Jimmy thoughtfully. Not a shred of anything did he
+have to show who he was under either name.
+
+"Who is this Jimmy James?" asked the teller.
+
+"Me. I am."
+
+The teller smiled. "And you wrote a short story that sold to _Boy's
+Magazine_?" he asked with a lifted eyebrow. "That's pretty good for a
+little guy like you."
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+The teller looked over Jimmy's head; Jimmy turned to look up at one of
+the bank's policemen. "Tom, what do you make of this?"
+
+The policeman shrugged. He stooped down to Jimmy's level. "Where did you
+get this check, young fellow?" he asked gently.
+
+"It came in the mail this morning."
+
+"You're Jimmy James?"
+
+"Yes sir." Jimmy Holden had been called that for more than half a year;
+his assent was automatic.
+
+"How old are you, young man?" asked the policeman kindly.
+
+"Five and a half."
+
+"Isn't that a bit young to be writing stories?"
+
+Jimmy bit his lip. "I wrote it, though."
+
+The policeman looked up at the teller with a wink. "He can tell a good
+yarn," chuckled the policeman. "Shouldn't wonder if he could write one."
+
+The teller laughed and Jimmy's eyes burned again. "It's mine," he
+insisted.
+
+"If it's yours," said the policeman quietly, "we can settle it fast
+enough. Do your folks have an account here?"
+
+"No sir."
+
+"Hmmm. That makes it tough."
+
+Brightly, Jimmy asked, "Can I open an account here?"
+
+"Why, sure you can," said the policeman. "All you have to do is to bring
+your parents in."
+
+"But I want the money," wailed Jimmy.
+
+"Jimmy James," explained the policeman with a slight frown to the teller,
+"we can't cash a check without positive identification. Do you know what
+positive identification means?"
+
+"Yes sir. It means that you've got to be sure that this is me."
+
+"Right! Now, those are the rules. Now, of course, you don't look like
+the sort of young man who would tell a lie. I'll even bet your real
+name is Jimmy James, Jr. But you see, we have no proof, and our boss
+will be awful mad at us if we break the rules and cash this check without
+following the rules. The rules, Jimmy James, aren't to delay nice, honest
+people, but to stop people from making mistakes. Mistakes such as taking
+a little letter out of their father's mailbox. If we cashed that check,
+then it couldn't be put back in father's mailbox without anybody knowing
+about it. And that would be real bad."
+
+"But it's mine!"
+
+"Sonny, if that's yours, all you have to do is to have your folks come in
+and say so. Then we'll open an account for you."
+
+"Yes sir," said Jimmy in a voice that was thick with tears of frustration
+close to the surface. He turned away and left.
+
+Jake was still in the outside office of the Yard when Jimmy returned. The
+boy was crestfallen, frustrated, unhappy, and would not have returned at
+all if there had been another place where he was welcome. He expected
+ridicule from Jake, but Jake smiled.
+
+"No luck, kid?"
+
+Jimmy just shook his head.
+
+"Checks are tough, Jimmy. Give up, now?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"No? What then?"
+
+"I can write a letter and sign it," said Jimmy, explaining how he had
+outfoxed the ticket seller.
+
+"Won't work with checks, Jimmy. For me now, if I was to be polite and
+dressed right they might cash a twenty if I showed up with my social
+security card, driver's license, identification card with photograph
+sealed in, and all that junk. But a kid hasn't got a chance. Look, Jimmy,
+I'm sorry for this morning. To-morrow morning we'll go over to my bank
+and I'll have them cash it for you. It's yours. You earned it and you
+keep it. Okay? Are we friends again?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+Gravely they shook hands. "Watch the place, kid," said Jake. "I got to
+make a phone call."
+
+In the morning, Jake dressed for business and insisted that Jimmy put on
+his best to make a good impression. After breakfast, they set out. Jake
+parked in front of a granite building.
+
+"This isn't any bank," objected Jimmy. "This is a police station."
+
+"Sure," responded Jake. "Here's where we get you an identification card.
+Don't you know?"
+
+"Okay," said Jimmy dubiously.
+
+Inside the station there were a number of men in uniform and in plain
+clothing. Jake strode forward, holding Jimmy by one small hand. They
+approached the sergeant's desk and Jake lifted Jimmy up and seated him on
+one edge of the desk with his feet dangling.
+
+The sergeant looked at them with interest but without surprise.
+
+"Sergeant," said Jake, "this is Jimmy James--as he calls himself when
+he's writing stories. Otherwise he is James Quincy Holden."
+
+Jimmy went cold all over.
+
+Jake backed through the circle that was closing in; the hole he made was
+filled by Paul Brennan.
+
+It was not the first betrayal in Jimmy James's young life, but it was
+totally unexpected. He didn't know that the policeman from the bank had
+worried Jake; he didn't know that Jake had known all along who he was; he
+didn't know how fast Brennan had moved after the phone call from Jake.
+But his young mind leaped past the unknown facts to reach a certain, and
+correct, conclusion.
+
+He had been sold out.
+
+"Jimmy, Jimmy," came the old, pleading voice. "Why did you run away?
+Where have you been?"
+
+Brennan stepped forward and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Without
+a shadow of doubt," he said formally, "this is James Quincy Holden. I so
+identify him. And with no more ado, I hand you the reward." He reached
+into his inside pocket and drew out an envelope, handing it to Jake. "I
+have never parted with one thousand dollars so happily in my life."
+
+Jimmy watched, unable to move. Brennan was busy and cheerful, the model
+of the man whose long-lost ward has been returned to him.
+
+"So, James, shall we go quietly or shall we have a scene?"
+
+Trapped and sullen, Jimmy Holden said nothing. The officers helped him
+down from the desk. He did not move. Brennan took him by a hand that was
+as limp as wet cloth. Brennan started for the door. The arm lifted until
+the link was taut; then, with slow, dragging steps, James Quincy Holden
+started toward home.
+
+Brennan said, "You understand me, don't you, Jimmy?"
+
+"You want my father's machine."
+
+"Only to help you, Jimmy. Can't you believe that?"
+
+"No."
+
+Brennan drove his car with ease. A soft smile lurked around his lips. He
+went on, "You know what your father's machine will do for you, don't you,
+Jimmy?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But have you ever attended school?"
+
+"No." But Jimmy remembered the long hours and hours of study and practice
+before he became proficient with his typewriter. For a moment he felt
+close to tears. It had been the only possession he truly owned, now it
+was gone. And with it was gone the author's first check. The thrill of
+that first check is far greater than Graduation or the First Job. It is
+approximately equal to the flush of pride that comes when the author's
+story hits print with his NAME appended.
+
+But Jimmy's typewriter was gone, and his check was gone. Without a doubt
+the check would turn up cashed--through the operations of Jake Caslow.
+
+Brennan's voice cut into his thoughts. "You will attend school, Jimmy.
+You'll have to."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Oh, now look, Jimmy. There are laws that say you must attend school.
+The only way those laws can be avoided is to make an appeal to the law
+itself, and have your legal guardian--myself--ask for the privilege of
+tutoring you at home. Well, I won't do it."
+
+He drove for a moment, thinking. "So you're going to attend school," he
+said, "and while you're there you're going to be careful not to disclose
+by any act or inference that you already know everything they can teach
+you. Otherwise they will ask some embarrassing questions. And the first
+thing that happens to you is that you will be put in a much harder place
+to escape from than our home, Jimmy. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes sir," the boy said sickly.
+
+"But," purred Uncle Paul Brennan, "you may find school very boring. If
+so, you have only to say the word--rebuild your father's machine--and go
+on with your career."
+
+"I w--" Jimmy began automatically, but his uncle stopped him.
+
+"You won't, no," he agreed. "Not now. In the meantime, then, you will
+live the life proper to your station--and your age. I won't deny you a
+single thing, Jimmy. Not a single thing that a five-year-old can want."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+Paul Brennan moved into the Holden house with Jimmy.
+
+Jimmy had the run of the house--almost. Uncle Paul closed off the upper
+sitting room, which the late parents had converted into their laboratory.
+_That_ was locked. But the rest of the house was free, and Jimmy was once
+more among the things he had never hoped to see again.
+
+Brennan's next step was to hire a middle-aged couple to take care of
+house and boy. Their name was Mitchell; they were childless and regretted
+it; they lavished on Jimmy the special love and care that comes only from
+childless child-lovers.
+
+Though Jimmy was wary to the point of paranoia, he discovered that he
+wanted for nothing. He was kept clean and his home kept tidy. He was fed
+well--not only in terms of nourishment, but in terms of what he liked.
+
+Then ... Jimmy began to notice changes.
+
+_Huckleberry Finn_ turned up missing. In its place on the shelf was a
+collection of Little Golden Books.
+
+His advanced Mecanno set was "broken"--so Mrs. Mitchell told him. Uncle
+Paul had accidentally crushed it. "But you'll like this better," she
+beamed, handing him a fresh new box from the toy store. It contained
+bright-colored modular blocks.
+
+Jimmy's parents had given him canvasboard and oil paints; now they were
+gone. Jimmy would have admitted he was no artist; but he didn't enjoy
+retrogressing to his uncle's selection--finger paints.
+
+His supply of drawing paper was not tampered with. But it was not
+replaced. When it was gone, Jimmy was presented with a blackboard and
+boxes of colored chalk.
+
+By Christmas every possession was gone--replaced--the new toys tailored
+to Jimmy's physical age. There was a Christmas tree, and under it a pile
+of gay bright boxes. Jimmy had hardly the heart to open them, for he knew
+what they would contain.
+
+He was right.
+
+Jimmy had everything that would keep a five-year-old boy
+contented ... and not one iota more. He objected; his objections got him
+nowhere. Mrs. Mitchell was reproachful: Ingratitude, Jimmy! Mr. Mitchell
+was scornful: Maybe James would like to vote and smoke a pipe?
+
+And Paul Brennan was very clear. There was a way out of this, yes. Jimmy
+could have whatever he liked. There was just this one step that must be
+taken first; the machine must be put back together again.
+
+When it came time for Jimmy to start school he was absolutely delighted;
+nothing, nothing could be worse than this.
+
+At first it was a novel experience.
+
+He sat at a desk along with forty-seven other children of his size,
+neatly stacked in six aisles with eight desks to the tier. He did his
+best to copy their manners and to reproduce their halting speech and
+imperfect grammar. For the first couple of weeks he was not noticed.
+
+The teacher, with forty-eight young new minds to study, gave him his
+2.08% of her total time and attention. Jimmy Holden was not a deportment
+problem; his answers to the few questions she directed at him were
+correct. Therefore he needed less attention and got less; she spent her
+time on the loud, the unruly and those who lagged behind in education.
+
+Because his total acquaintance with children of his own age had been
+among the slum kids that hung around Jake Caslow's Place, Jimmy found his
+new companions an interesting bunch.
+
+He watched them, and he listened to them. He copied them and in two weeks
+Jimmy found them pitifully lacking and hopelessly misinformed. They could
+not remember at noon what they had been told at ten o'clock. They had
+difficulty in reading the simple pages of the First Reader.
+
+But he swallowed his pride and stumbled on and on, mimicking his friends
+and remaining generally unnoticed.
+
+If written examinations were the rule in the First Grade, Jimmy would
+have been discovered on the first one. But with less than that 2% of the
+teacher's time directed at him, Jimmy's run of correct answers did not
+attract notice. His boredom and his lack of attention during daydreams
+made him seem quite normal.
+
+He began to keep score on his classmates on the fly-leaf of one of his
+books. Jimmy was a far harsher judge than the teacher. He marked them
+either wrong or right; he gave no credit for trying, or for their
+stumbling efforts to express their muddled ideas and incomplete grasp. He
+found their games fun at first, but quickly grew bored. When he tried to
+introduce a note of strategy they ignored him because they did not
+understand. They made rules as they went along and changed them as they
+saw fit. Then, instead of complying with their own rules, they pouted-up
+and sulked when they couldn't do as they wanted.
+
+But in the end it was Jimmy's lack of experience in acting that tripped
+him.
+
+Having kept score on his playmates' answers, Jimmy knew that some fairly
+high percentage of answers must inevitably be wrong. So he embarked upon
+a program of supplying a certain proportion of errors. He discovered that
+supplying a wrong answer that was consistent with the age of his
+contemporaries took too much of his intellect to keep his actions
+straight. He forgot to employ halting speech and childlike grammar. His
+errors were delivered in faultless grammar and excellent self-expression;
+his correct answers came out in the English of his companions;
+mispronounced, ill-composed, and badly delivered.
+
+The contrast was enough to attract even 2.08% of a teacher.
+
+During the third week of school, Jimmy was day-dreaming during class.
+Abruptly his teacher snapped, "James Holden, how much is seven times
+nine?"
+
+"Sixty-three," replied Jimmy, completely automatic.
+
+"James," she said softly, "do you know the rest of your numbers?"
+
+Jimmy looked around like a trapped animal. His teacher waited him out
+until Jimmy, finding no escape, said, "Yes'm."
+
+"Well," she said with a bright smile. "It's nice to know that you do. Can
+you do the multiplication table?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Let's hear you."
+
+Jimmy looked around. "No, Jimmy," said his teacher. "I want you to say
+it. Go ahead." And then as Jimmy hesitated still, she addressed the
+class. "This is important," she said. "Someday you will have to learn it,
+too. You will use it all through life and the earlier you learn it the
+better off you all will be. _Knowledge_," she quoted proudly, "_is
+power_! Now, Jimmy!"
+
+Jimmy began with two-times-two and worked his way through the long table
+to the twelves. When he finished, his teacher appointed one of the
+better-behaved children to watch the class. "Jimmy," she said, "I'm going
+to see if we can't put you up in the next grade. You don't belong here.
+Come along."
+
+They went to the principal's office. "Mr. Whitworth," said Jimmy's
+teacher, "I have a young genius in my class."
+
+"A young genius, Miss Tilden?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. He already knows the multiplication table."
+
+"You do, James? Where did you learn it?"
+
+"My father taught me."
+
+Principal and teacher looked at each another. They said nothing but they
+were both recalling stories and rumors about the brilliance of his
+parents. The accident and death had not escaped notice.
+
+"What else did they teach you, James?" asked Mr. Whitworth. "To read and
+write, of course?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"History?"
+
+Jimmy squirmed inwardly. He did not know how much to admit. "Some," he
+said noncommittally.
+
+"When did Columbus discover America?"
+
+"In Fourteen Ninety-Two."
+
+"Fine," said Mr. Whitworth with a broad smile. He looked at Miss Tilden.
+"You're right. Young James should be advanced." He looked down at Jimmy
+Holden. "James," he said, "we're going to place you in the Second Grade
+for a tryout. Unless we're wrong, you'll stay and go up with them."
+
+Jimmy's entry into Second Grade brought a different attitude. He had
+entered school quietly just for the sake of getting away from Paul
+Brennan. Now he was beginning to form a plan. If he could go from First
+to Second in a matter of three weeks, then, by carefully disclosing his
+store of knowledge bit-by-bit at the proper moment, he might be able to
+go through school in a short time. Moreover, he had tasted the first
+fruits of recognition. He craved more.
+
+Somewhere was born the quaint notion that getting through school would
+automatically make him an adult, with all attendant privileges.
+
+So Jimmy Holden dropped all pretense. His answers were as right as he
+could make them. He dropped the covering mimickry of childish speech
+and took personal pride in using grammar as good as that of his teacher.
+
+This got him nothing. The Second Grade teacher was of the "progressive"
+school; she firmly believed that everybody, having been created equal,
+had to stay that way. She pointedly avoided giving Jimmy any opportunity
+to show his capability.
+
+He bided his time with little grace.
+
+He found his opportunity during the visit of a school superintendent.
+During this session Jimmy hooted when one of his fellows said that
+Columbus proved the world was round.
+
+Angrily she demanded that Jimmy tell her who did prove it, and Jimmy
+Holden replied that he didn't know whether it was Pythagoras or one of
+his followers, but he did know that it was one of the few things that
+Aristotle ever got right. This touched her on a sore spot. She admired
+Aristotle and couldn't bear to hear the great man accused of error.
+
+She started baiting Jimmy with loaded questions and stopped when
+Jimmy stated that Napoleon Bonaparte was responsible for the invention
+of canned food, the adoption of the metric system, and the development
+of the semaphore telegraph. This stopped all proceedings until Jimmy
+himself found the references in the Britannica. That little feat of
+research-reference impressed the visiting superintendent. Jimmy Holden
+was jumped into Third Grade.
+
+Convinced that he was on the right trolley, Jimmy proceeded to plunge in
+with both feet. Third Grade Teacher helped. Within a week he was being
+called upon to aid the laggards. He stood out like a lighthouse; he was
+the one who could supply the right answers when the class was stumped.
+His teacher soon began to take a delight in belaboring the class for a
+minute before turning to Jimmy for the answer. Heaven forgive him, Jimmy
+enjoyed it. He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the
+tension before a punch-line.
+
+His classmates began to call him "old know-it-all." Jimmy did not realize
+that it was their resentment speaking. He accepted it as deference to his
+superior knowledge. The fact that he was not a part of their playtime
+life did not bother him one iota. He knew very well that his size alone
+would cut him out of the rough and heavy games of his classmates; he did
+not know that he was cut out of their games because they disliked him.
+
+As time wore on, some of the rougher ones changed his nickname from
+"know-it-all" to "teacher's pet"; one of them used rougher language
+still. To this Jimmy replied in terms he'd learned from Jake Caslow's
+gutters. All that saved him from a beating was his size; even the ones
+who disliked him would not stand for the bully's beating up a smaller
+child.
+
+But in other ways they picked on him. Jimmy reasoned out his own
+relationship between intelligence and violence. He had yet to learn the
+psychology of vandalism--but he was experiencing it.
+
+Finding no enjoyment out of play periods, Jimmy took to staying in. The
+permissive school encouraged it; if Jimmy Holden preferred to tinker with
+a typewriter instead of playing noisy games, his teacher saw no wrong in
+it--for his Third Grade teacher was something of an intellectual herself.
+
+In April, one week after his sixth birthday, Jimmy Holden was jumped
+again.
+
+Jimmy entered Fourth Grade to find that his fame had gone before him; he
+was received with sullen glances and turned backs.
+
+But he did not care. For his birthday, he received a typewriter from Paul
+Brennan. Brennan never found out that the note suggesting it from Jimmy's
+Third Grade teacher had been written after Jimmy's prompting.
+
+So while other children played, Jimmy wrote.
+
+He was not immediately successful. His first several stories were
+returned; but eventually he drew a winner and a check. Armed with
+superior knowledge, Jimmy mailed it to a bank that was strong in
+advertising "mail-order" banking. With his first check he opened a
+pay-by-the-item, no-minimum-balance checking account.
+
+Gradually his batting average went up, but there were enough returned
+rejections to make Paul Brennan view Jimmy's literary effort with quiet
+amusement. Still, slowly and in secret, Jimmy built up his bank balance
+by twenties, fifties, an occasional hundred.
+
+For above everything, by now Jimmy knew that he could not go on through
+school as he'd planned.
+
+If his entry into Fourth Grade had been against scowls and resentment
+from his classmates, Fifth and Sixth would be more so. Eventually the day
+would come when he would be held back. He was already mingling with
+children far beyond his size. The same permissive school that graduated
+dolts so that their stupid personalities wouldn't be warped would keep
+him back by virtue of the same idiotic reasoning.
+
+He laid his plans well. He covered his absence from school one morning
+and thereby gained six free hours to start going about his own business
+before his absence could be noticed.
+
+This was his third escape. He prayed that it would be permanent.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO:
+
+THE HERMIT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+Seventy-five miles south of Chicago there is a whistle-stop called
+Shipmont. (No ship has ever been anywhere near it; neither has a
+mountain.) It lives because of a small college; the college, in turn,
+owes its maintenance to an installation of great interest to the Atomic
+Energy Commission.
+
+Shipmont is served by two trains a day--which stop only when there
+is a passenger to get on or off, which isn't often. These passengers,
+generally speaking, are oddballs carrying attaché cases or eager young
+men carrying miniature slide rules.
+
+But on this day came a woman and a little girl.
+
+Their total visible possessions were two battered suitcases and one
+battered trunk. The little girl was neatly dressed, in often-washed and
+mended clothing; she carried a small covered basket, and there were
+breadcrumbs visible on the lid. She looked bewildered, shy and
+frightened. She was.
+
+The mother was thirty, though there were lines of worry on her forehead
+and around her eyes that made her look older. She wore little makeup and
+her clothing had been bought for wear instead of for looks. She looked
+around, leaned absently down to pat the little girl and straightened as
+the station-master came slowly out.
+
+"Need anything, ma'am?" He was pleasant enough. Janet Bagley appreciated
+that; life had not been entirely pleasant for her for some years.
+
+"I need a taxicab, if there is one."
+
+"There is. I run it after the train gets in for them as ain't met. You're
+not goin' to the college?" He pronounced it "collitch."
+
+Janet Bagley shook her head and took a piece of paper from her bag. "Mr.
+Charles Maxwell, Rural Route Fifty-three, Martin's Hill Road," she read.
+Her daughter began to whimper.
+
+The station-master frowned. "Hum," he said, "that's the Herm--er, d'you
+know him?"
+
+Mrs. Bagley said: "I've never met him. What kind of a man is he?"
+
+That was the sort of question the station-master appreciated. His job was
+neither demanding nor exciting; an opportunity to talk was worth having.
+He said cheerfully, "Why, I don't rightly know, ma'am. Nobody's ever seen
+him."
+
+"Nobody?"
+
+"Nope. Nobody. Does everything by mail."
+
+"My goodness, what's the matter with him?"
+
+"Don't rightly know, ma'am. Story is he was once a professor and got in
+some kind of big explosion. Burned the hide off'n his face and scarred up
+his hands something turrible, so he don't want to show himself. Rented
+the house by mail, pays his rent by mail. Orders stuff by mail. Mostly
+not real U-nited States Mail, y'know, because we don't mind dropping off
+a note to someone in town. I'm the local mailman, too. So when I find a
+note to Herby Wharton, the fellow that owns the general store, I drop it
+off. Margie Clark over at the bank says he writes. Gets checks from New
+York from publishing companies." The station-master looked around as if
+he were looking for Soviet spies. "He's a scientist, all right. He's
+doin' something important and hush-hush up there. Lots and lots of boxes
+and packin' cases I've delivered up there from places like Central
+Scientific and Labotory Supply Company. Must be a smart feller. You
+visitin' him?"
+
+"Well, he hired me for housekeeper. By mail." Mrs. Bagley looked puzzled
+and concerned.
+
+Little Martha began to cry.
+
+"It'll be all right," said the station-master soothingly. "You keep your
+eye open," he said to Mrs. Bagley. "Iff'n you see anything out of line,
+you come right back and me and the missus will give you a lift. But he's
+all right. Nothin' goin' on up there that I know of. Fred Riordan--he's
+the sheriff--has watched the place for days and days and it's always
+quiet. No visitors. No nothin'. Know what I think? I think he's
+experimenting with something to take away the burn scars. That's whut
+I think. Well, hop in and I'll drive you out there."
+
+"Is it going to cost much?"
+
+"Nothin' this trip. We'll charge it to the U-nited States Mail. Got a
+package goin' out. Was waitin' for something else to go along with it,
+but you're here and we can count that. This way to the only taxicab
+service in Shipmont."
+
+The place looked deserted. It was a shabby old clapboard house; the
+architecture of the prosperous farmer of seventy-five years ago. The
+grounds were spacious but the space was filled with scrub weeds. A
+picket fence surrounded the weeds with uncertain security. The
+windows--those that could be seen, that is--were dirty enough to prevent
+seeing inside with clarity, and what transparency there was left was
+covered by curtains. The walk up the "lawn" was flagstone with crabgrass
+between the stones.
+
+The station-master unshipped the small trunk and stood it just inside the
+fence. He parked the suitcases beside it. "Never go any farther than
+this," he explained. "So far's I know, you're the first person to ever
+head up thet walk to the front door."
+
+Mrs. Bagley rapped on the door. It opened almost instantly.
+
+"I'm--" then Mrs. Bagley dropped her eyes to the proper level. To the lad
+who was standing there she said, "I'm Mrs. Bagley. Your father--a Mr.
+Charles Maxwell is expecting me."
+
+"Come in," said Jimmy Holden. "Mr. Maxwell--well, he isn't my father. He
+sent me to let you in."
+
+Mrs. Bagley entered and dropped her suitcases in the front hall. Martha
+held back behind her mother's skirt. Jimmy closed the door and locked it
+carefully, but left the key in the keyhole with a gesture that Mrs.
+Bagley could not mistake. "Please come in here and sit down," said James
+Holden. "Relax a moment." He turned to look at the girl. He smiled at
+her, but she cowered behind her mother's skirt as if she wanted to bury
+her face but was afraid to lose sight of what was going on around her.
+
+"What's your name?" asked James.
+
+She retreated, hiding most of her face. Mrs. Bagley stroked her hair and
+said, "Now, Martha, come on. Tell the little boy your name."
+
+Purely as a matter of personal pride, James Holden objected to the
+"little boy" but he kept his peace because he knew that at eight years
+old he was still a little boy. In a soothing way, James said, "Come on
+out, Martha. I'll show you some girl-type toys we've got."
+
+The girl's head emerged slowly, "I'm Martha Bagley," she announced.
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"I'm seven."
+
+"I'm eight," stated James. "Come on."
+
+Mrs. Bagley looked around. She saw that the dirt on the windows was all
+on the outside. The inside was clean. So was the room. So were the
+curtains. The room needed a dusting--a most thorough dusting. It had been
+given a haphazard lick-and-a-promise cleanup not too long ago, but the
+cleanup before that had been as desultory as the last, and without a
+doubt the one before and the one before that had been of the same sort of
+half-hearted cleaning. As a woman and a housekeeper, Mrs. Bagley found
+the room a bit strange.
+
+The furniture caught her eye first. A standard open bookcase, a low sofa,
+a very low cocktail-type table. The chair she stood beside was standard
+looking, so was the big easy chair opposite. Yet she felt large in the
+room despite its old-fashioned high ceiling. There were several low
+footstools in the room; ungraceful things that were obviously wooden
+boxes covered with padding and leatherette. The straight chair beside her
+had been lowered; the bottom rung between the legs was almost on the
+floor.
+
+She realized why she felt big. The furniture in the room had all been cut
+down.
+
+She continued to look. The strangeness continued to bother her and she
+realized that there were no ash trays; there was none of the usual
+clutter of things that a family drops in their tracks. It was a room
+fashioned for a small person to live in but it wasn't lived-in.
+
+The lack of hard cleanliness did not bother her very much. There had been
+an effort here, and the fact that this Charles Maxwell was hiring a
+housekeeper was in itself a statement that the gentleman knew that he
+needed one. It was odd, but it wasn't ominous.
+
+She shook her daughter gently and said, "Come on, Martha. Let's take a
+look at these girl-type toys."
+
+James led them through a short hallway, turned left at the first door,
+and then stood aside to give them a full view of the room. It was a
+playroom for a girl. It was cleaner than the living room, and as--well,
+untouched. It had been furnished with girl-toys that some catalog
+"recommended as suitable for a girl of seven."
+
+The profusion of toys overwhelmed little Martha. She stood just inside of
+the door with her eyes wide, glancing back and forth. She took one slow
+step forward, then another. Then she quickened. She moved through the
+room looking, then putting out a slow, hesitant hand to touch very
+gently. Tense, as if she were waiting for the warning not to touch,
+Martha finally caressed the hair of a baby doll.
+
+Mrs. Bagley smiled. "I'll have a time prying her loose from here," she
+said.
+
+James nodded his head. "Let her amuse herself for a bit," he said. "With
+Martha occupied, you can give your attention to a more delicate matter."
+
+Mrs. Bagley forgot that she was addressing an eight-year-old boy. His
+manner and his speech bemused her. "Yes," she said. "I do want to get
+this settled with your mysterious Charles Maxwell. Do you expect him
+down, or shall I go upstairs--?"
+
+"This may come as a shock, Mrs. Bagley, but Charles Maxwell isn't here."
+
+"Isn't here?" she echoed, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that
+she had heard the words but hadn't really grasped their full meaning. "He
+won't be gone long, will he?"
+
+James watched her covertly, then said in a matter-of-fact voice, "He left
+you a letter."
+
+"Letter?"
+
+"He was called away on some urgent business."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Please read the letter. It explains everything."
+
+He handed her an envelope addressed to "Mrs. Janet Bagley." She looked
+at it from both sides, in the womanlike process of trying to divine its
+contents instead of opening it. She looked at James, but James sat
+stolidly waiting. Mrs. Bagley was going to get no more information from
+him until she read that letter, and James was prepared to sit it out
+until she did. It placed Mrs. Bagley in the awkward position of having
+to decide what to do next. Then the muffled sound of little-girl crooning
+came from the distant room. That brought the realization that as odd as
+this household was, it was a _home_. Mrs. Bagley delayed no further. She
+opened the letter and read:
+
+  My Dear Mrs. Bagley:
+
+  I deeply regret that I am not there to greet you, but it was not
+  possible. However, please understand that insofar as I am concerned,
+  you were hired and have been drawing your salary from the date that I
+  forwarded railroad fare and traveling expenses. Any face-to-face
+  meeting is no more than a pleasantry, a formal introduction. It must
+  not be considered in any way connected with the thought of a "Final
+  Interview" or the process of "Closing the Deal."
+
+  Please carry on as if you had been in charge long before I departed,
+  or--considering my hermitlike habits--the way you would have carried
+  on if I had not departed, but instead was still upstairs and hard at
+  work with most definite orders that I was not to be disturbed for
+  anything less important than total, personal disaster.
+
+  I can offer you a word of explanation about young James. You will find
+  him extraordinarily competent for a youngster of eight years. Were he
+  less competent, I might have delayed my departure long enough to pass
+  him literally from my supervision to yours. However, James is quite
+  capable of taking care of himself; this fact you will appreciate fully
+  long before you and I meet face-to-face.
+
+  In the meantime, remember that our letters and the other references
+  acquaint us with one another far better than a few short hours of
+  personal contact.
+
+  Sincerely,
+  Charles Maxwell
+
+"Well!" said Mrs. Bagley. "I don't know what to say."
+
+Jimmy smiled. "You don't have to say anything," he said.
+
+Mrs. Bagley looked at the youngster. "I don't think I like your Mr.
+Maxwell," she said.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He's practically shanghaied me here. He knows very well that I couldn't
+possibly leave you here all alone, no matter how I disliked the
+situation. He's practically forced me to stay."
+
+James suppressed a smile. He said, "Mrs. Bagley, the way the trains run
+in and out of Shipmont, you're stuck for an overnight stay in any case."
+
+"You don't seem to be perturbed."
+
+"I'm not," he said.
+
+Mrs. Bagley looked at James carefully. His size; his physique was
+precisely that of the eight-year-old boy. There was nothing malformed nor
+out-of-proportion; yet he spoke with an adult air of confidence.
+
+"I am," she admitted.
+
+"Perturbed? You needn't be," he said. "You've got to remember that
+writers are an odd lot. They don't conform. They don't punch time-clocks.
+They boast of having written a novel in three weeks but they don't
+mention the fact that they sat around drinking beer for six months
+plotting it."
+
+"Meaning what?"
+
+"Meaning that Maxwell sees nothing wrong in attending to his own affairs
+and expecting you to attend to yours."
+
+"But what shall I do?"
+
+James smiled. "First, take a look around the house and satisfy yourself.
+You'll find the third floor shut off; the rooms up there are Maxwell's,
+and no one goes in but him. My bedroom is the big one in the front of the
+second floor. Pick yourself a room or a suite of rooms or move in all
+over the rest of the house. Build yourself a cup of tea and relax. Do as
+he says: Act as if you'd arrived before he took off, that you'd met and
+agreed verbally to do what you've already agreed to do by letter. Look at
+it from his point of view."
+
+"What is his point of view?"
+
+"He's a writer. He rented this house by mail. He banks by mail and shops
+by mail and makes his living by writing. Don't be surprised when he hires
+a housekeeper by mail and hands her the responsibility in writing. He
+lives by the written word."
+
+Mrs. Bagley said, "In other words, the fact that he offered me a job in
+writing and I took it in writing--?"
+
+"Writing," said James Holden soberly, "was invented for the express
+purpose of recording an agreement between two men in a permanent form
+that could be read by other men. The whole world runs on the theory that
+no one turns a hand until names are signed to written contracts--and here
+you sit, not happy because you weren't contracted-for by a personal
+chit-chat and a handshake."
+
+Mrs. Bagley was taken aback slightly by this rather pointed criticism.
+What hurt was the fact that, generally speaking, it was true and
+especially the way he put it. The young man was too blunt, too
+out-spokenly direct. Obviously he needed someone around the place who
+wasn't the self-centered writer-type. And, Mrs. Bagley admitted to
+herself, there certainly was no evidence of evil-doing here.
+
+No matter what, Charles Maxwell had neatly trapped her into staying by
+turning her own maternal responsibility against her.
+
+"I'll get my bags," she said.
+
+James Holden took a deep breath. He'd won this hurdle, so far so good.
+Now for the next!
+
+Mrs. Bagley found life rather unhurried in the days that followed. She
+relaxed and tried to evaluate James Holden. To her unwarned mind, the boy
+was quite a puzzle.
+
+There was no doubt about his eight years, except that he did not whoop
+and holler with the aimlessness of the standard eight-year-old boy. His
+vocabulary was far ahead of the eight-year-old and his speech was in
+adult grammar rather than halting. It was, she supposed, due to his
+constant adult company; children denied their contemporaries for
+playmates often take on attitudes beyond their years. Still, it was a bit
+on the too-superior side to please her. It was as if he were the result
+of over-indulgent parents who'd committed the mistake of letting the
+child know that their whole universe revolved about him.
+
+Yet Maxwell's letters said that he was motherless, that he was not
+Maxwell's son. This indicated a probable history of broken homes and
+remarriages. Mrs. Bagley thought the problem over and gave it up. It
+was a home.
+
+Things went on. They started warily but smoothly at first with Mrs.
+Bagley asking almost incessantly whether Mr. Maxwell would approve of
+this or that and should she do this or the other and, phrased cleverly,
+indicated that she would take the word of young James for the time being
+but there would be evil sputterings in the fireplace if the programs
+approved by young James Holden were not wholly endorsed by Mr. Charles
+Maxwell.
+
+At the end of the first week, supplies were beginning to run short and
+still there was no sign of any return of the missing Mr. Maxwell. With
+some misgiving, Mrs. Bagley broached the subject of shopping to James.
+The youngster favored Mrs. Bagley with another smile.
+
+"Yes," he said calmly. "Just a minute." And he disappeared upstairs to
+fetch another envelope. Inside was a second letter which read:
+
+  My Dear Mrs. Bagley:
+
+  Attached you will find letters addressed to several of the local
+  merchants in Shipmont, explaining your status as my housekeeper and
+  directing them to honor your purchases against my accounts. Believe me,
+  they recognize my signature despite the fact that they might not
+  recognize me! There should be no difficulty. I'd suggest, however, that
+  you start a savings account at the local bank with the enclosed salary
+  check. You have no idea how much weight the local banker carries in his
+  character-reference of folks with a savings account.
+
+  Otherwise, I trust things are pleasant.
+
+  Sincerely,
+  Charles Maxwell.
+
+"Things," she mused aloud, "are pleasant enough."
+
+James nodded. "Good," he said. "You're satisfied, then?"
+
+Mrs. Bagley smiled at him wistfully. "As they go," she said, "I'm
+satisfied. Lord knows, you're no great bother, James, and I'll be most
+happy to tell Mr. Maxwell so when he returns."
+
+James nodded. "You're not concerned over Maxwell, are you?"
+
+She sobered. "Yes," she said in a whisper. "Yes, I am. I'm afraid that
+he'll change things, that he'll not approve of Martha, or the way dinner
+is made, or my habits in dishwashing or bedmaking or marketing or
+something that will--well, put me right in the role of a paid
+chambermaid, a servant, a menial with no more to say about the running
+of the house, once he returns."
+
+James Holden hesitated, thought, then smiled.
+
+"Mrs. Bagley," he said apologetically, "I've thrown you a lot of curves.
+I hope you won't mind one more."
+
+The woman frowned. James said hurriedly, "Oh, it's nothing bad, believe
+me. I mean--Well, you'll have to judge for yourself.
+
+"You see, Mrs. Bagley," he said earnestly, "there isn't any Charles
+Maxwell."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Janet Bagley, with the look of a stricken animal, sat down heavily. There
+were two thoughts suddenly in her mind: _Now I've got to leave_, and,
+_But I can't leave_.
+
+She sat looking at the boy, trying to make sense of what he had said.
+Mrs. Bagley was a young woman, but she had lived a demanding and
+unrelenting life; her husband dead, her finances calamitous, a baby to
+feed and raise ... there had been enough trouble in her life and she
+sought no more.
+
+But she was also a woman of some strength of character.
+
+Janet Bagley had not been able to afford much joy, but when things were
+at their worst she had not wept. She had been calm. She had taken what
+inexpensive pleasures she could secure--the health of her daughter, the
+strength of her arms to earn a living, the cunning of her mind to make a
+dollar do the work of five. She had learned that there was no bargain
+that was not worth investigating; the shoddiest goods were worth owning
+at a price; the least attractive prospect had to be faced and understood,
+for any commodity becomes a bargain when the price is right. There was
+no room for laziness or indulgence in her life. There was also no room
+for panic.
+
+So Janet Bagley thought for a moment, and then said: "Tell me what you're
+talking about, James."
+
+James Holden said immediately: "I am Charles Maxwell. That is, 'Charles
+Maxwell' is a pen name. He has no other existence."
+
+"But--"
+
+"But it's true, Mrs. Bagley," the boy said earnestly. "I'm only eight
+years old, but I happen to be earning my own living--as a writer, under
+the name of, among others, Charles Maxwell. Perhaps you've looked up some
+of the 'Charles Maxwell' books? If so, you may have seen some of the book
+reviews that were quoted on the jackets--I remember one that said that
+Charles Maxwell writes as though he himself were a boy, with the
+education of an adult. Well, that's the fact of the case."
+
+Mrs. Bagley said slowly, "But I did look Mr. Max--I mean, I did look you
+up. There was a complete biographical sketch in _Woman's Life_.
+Thirty-one years old, I remember."
+
+"I know. I wrote it. It too was fiction."
+
+"You wrote--but why?"
+
+"Because I was asked to write it," said James.
+
+"But, well--what I mean, is--Just who is Mr. Maxwell? The man at the
+station said something about a hermit, but--"
+
+"The Hermit of Martin's Hill is a convenient character carefully prepared
+to explain what might have looked like a very odd household," said James
+Holden. "Charles Maxwell, the Hermit, does not exist except in the minds
+of the neighbors and the editors of several magazines, and of course, the
+readers of those pages."
+
+"But he wrote me himself." The bewildered woman paused.
+
+"That's right, Mrs. Bagley. There's absolutely nothing illegal about a
+writer's using a pen name. Absolutely nothing. Some writers become so
+well-known by their pseudonym that they answer when someone calls them.
+So long as the writer isn't wanted by the F.B.I. for some heinous crime,
+and so long as he can unscramble the gobbledygook on Form 1040, stay out
+of trouble, pay his rent, and make his regular contributions to Social
+Security, nobody cares what name he uses."
+
+"But where are your parents? Have you no friends? No legal guardian? Who
+handles your business affairs?"
+
+James said in a flat tone of recital, "My parents are dead. What friends
+and family I have, want to turn me over to my legal guardian. My legal
+guardian is the murderer of my parents and the would-have-been murderer
+of me if I hadn't been lucky. Someday I shall prove it. And I handle my
+affairs myself, by mail, as you well know. I placed the advertisement,
+wrote the letters of reply, wrote those letters that answered specific
+questions and asked others, and I wrote the check that you cashed in
+order to buy your railroad ticket, Mrs. Bagley. No, don't worry. It's
+good."
+
+Mrs. Bagley tried to digest all that and failed. She returned to the
+central point. "But you're a minor--"
+
+"I am," admitted James Holden. "But you accepted my checks, your bank
+accepted my checks, and they've been honored by the clearing houses. My
+own bank has been accepting them for a couple of years now. It will
+continue to be that way until something goes wrong and I'm found out. I'm
+taking every precaution that nothing goes wrong."
+
+"Still--"
+
+"Mrs. Bagley, look at me. I am precisely what I seem to be. I am a young
+male human being, eight years old, possessed of a good command of the
+English language and an education superior to the schooling of any
+high-school graduate. It is true that I am an infant in the eyes of the
+law, so I have not the right to hold the ear of the law long enough to
+explain my competence."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Listen a moment," insisted James. "You can't hope to hear it all in one
+short afternoon. It may take weeks before you fully understand."
+
+"You assume that I'll stay, then?"
+
+James smiled. Not the wide open, simple smile of youth but the knowing
+smile of someone pleased with the success of his own plans. "Mrs. Bagley,
+of the many replies to my advertisement, yours was selected because you
+are in a near-desperate position. My advertisement must have sounded
+tailor-made to fit your case; a young widow to work as resident
+housekeeper, child of preschool or early school age welcome. Well, Mrs.
+Bagley, your qualifications are tailor-made for me, too. You are in need,
+and I can give you what you need--a living salary, a home for you and
+your daughter, and for your daughter an education that will far transcend
+any that you could ever provide for her."
+
+"And how do you intend to make that come to pass?"
+
+"Mrs. Bagley, at the present time there are only two people alive who
+know the answer to that question. I am one of them. The other is my
+so-called legal 'guardian' who would be most happy to guard me right out
+of my real secret. You will be the third person alive to know that my
+mother and father built a machine that produces the same deeply-inlaid
+memory-track of information as many months of learning-by-repetition.
+With that machine, I absorbed the information available to a high-school
+student before I was five. I am rebuilding that machine now from plans
+and specifications drilled into my brain by my father. When it is
+complete, I intend to become the best informed person in the world."
+
+"That isn't right," breathed Mrs. Bagley.
+
+"Isn't it?" asked James seriously. "Isn't it right? Is it wrong, when at
+the present time it takes a man until he is almost thirty years old
+before he can say that his education is complete?"
+
+"Well, I suppose you're right."
+
+James eyed Mrs. Bagley carefully. He said softly, "Mrs. Bagley, tell me,
+would you give Martha a college education if you had--or will you if you
+have at the time--the wherewithal to provide it?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You have it here," said James. "So long as you stay to protect it."
+
+"But won't it make--?" her voice trailed away uncertainly.
+
+"A little intellectual monster out of her?" laughed the boy. "Maybe.
+Maybe I am, too. On the other hand it might make a brilliant woman out of
+her. She might be a doctor if she has the capacity of a brilliant doctor.
+My father's machine is no monster-maker, Mrs. Bagley. With it a person
+could memorize the Britannica. And from the Britannica that person would
+learn that there is much good in the world and also that there is rich
+reward for being a part of that capacity for good."
+
+"I seem to have been outmaneuvered," said Mrs. Bagley with a worried
+frown.
+
+James smiled. "Not at all," he said. "It was just a matter of finding
+someone who wanted desperately to have what I wanted to give, and of
+course overcoming the natural adult reluctance to admit that anybody
+my size and age can operate on grown-up terms."
+
+"You sound so sure of yourself."
+
+"I am sure of myself. And one of the more important things in life is to
+understand one's limitations."
+
+"But couldn't you convince them--?"
+
+"One--you--I can convince. Maybe another, later. But if I tackle the
+great American public, I'm licked by statistics. My guess is that there
+is one brand-new United States citizen born every ten seconds. It takes
+me longer than ten seconds to convince someone, that I know what I'm
+talking about. But so long as I have an accepted adult out front, running
+the store, I don't have to do anything but sit backstage, run the hidden
+strings, and wait until my period of growth provides me with a stature
+that won't demand any explanation."
+
+From the playroom, Martha came running. "Mummy! Mummy!" she cried in a
+shrill voice filled with the strident tones of alarm, "Dolly's sick and
+I can't leave her!"
+
+Mrs. Bagley folded her daughter in her arms. "We won't leave," she said.
+"We're staying."
+
+James Holden nodded with satisfaction, but one thing he realized then and
+there: He simply had to rush the completion of his father's machine.
+
+He could not stand the simpering prattle of Martha Bagley's playgames.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+The arrival of Mrs. Bagley changed James Holden's way of life far more
+than he'd expected. His basic idea had been to free himself from the
+hours of dishwashing, bedmaking, dusting, cleaning and straightening
+and from the irking chore of planning his meals far enough ahead to
+obtain sustenance either through mail or carried note. He gave up his
+haphazard chores readily. Mrs. Bagley's menus often served him dishes
+that he wouldn't have given house-room; but he also enjoyed many meals
+that he could not or would not have taken the time to prepare.
+
+He did have some faint notion that being freed from the household toil
+would allow him sixteen or eighteen hours at the typewriter, but he was
+not greatly dismayed to find that this did not work.
+
+When he wrote himself out, he relaxed by reading, or sitting quietly
+planning his next piece. Even that did not fill his entire day. To take
+some advantage of his time, James began to indulge in talk-fests with
+Mrs. Bagley.
+
+These were informative. He was learning from her how the outside world
+was run, from one who had no close association with his own former life.
+Mrs. Bagley was by no means well-informed on all sides of life, but she
+did have her opinions and her experiences and a fair idea of how things
+went on in her own level. And, of course, James had made this choice
+because of the girl. He wanted a companion of his own age. Regardless of
+what Mrs. Bagley really thought of this matter of rapid education, James
+proposed to use it on Martha. That would give him a companion of his own
+like, they would come closer to understanding one another than he could
+ever hope to find understanding elsewhere.
+
+So he talked and played with Martha in his moments of relaxation. And he
+found her grasp of life completely unreal.
+
+James could not get through to her. He could not make her stop
+play-acting in everything that she did not ignore completely. It worried
+him.
+
+With the arrival of summer, James and Martha played outside in the fresh
+air. They made a few shopping excursions into town, walking the mile and
+more by taking their time, and returning with their shopping load in the
+station-master's taxicab mail car. But on these expeditions, James hung
+close to Martha lest her babbling prattle start an unwelcome line of
+thought. She never did it, but James was forever on edge.
+
+This source of possible danger drove him hard. The machine that was
+growing in a mare's-nest on the second floor began to evolve faster.
+
+James Holden's work was a strangely crude efficiency. The prototype had
+been built by his father bit by bit and step by step as its design
+demanded. Sections were added as needed, and other sections believed
+needed were abandoned as the research showed them unnecessary. Louis
+Holden had been a fine instrumentation engineer, but his first models
+were hay-wired in the breadboard form. James copied his father's
+work--including his father's casual breadboard style. And he added some
+inefficiencies of his own.
+
+Furthermore, James was not strong enough to lift the heavier assemblies
+into place. James parked the parts wherever they would sit.
+
+To Mrs. Bagley, the whole thing was bizarre and unreasonable. Given her
+opinion, with no other evidence, she would have rejected the idea at
+once. She simply did not understand anything of a technical nature.
+
+One day she bluntly asked him how he knew what he was doing.
+
+James grinned. "I really _don't_ know what I'm doing," he admitted. "I'm
+only following some very explicit directions. If I knew the pure theory
+of my father's machine I could not design the instrumentation that would
+make it work. But I can build a reproduction of my father's machine from
+the directions."
+
+"How can that be?"
+
+James stopped working and sat on a packing case. "If you bought a
+lawn-mower," he said, "it might come neatly packed in a little box with
+all the parts nested in cardboard formers and all the little nuts and
+bolts packed in a bag. There would be a set of assembly directions,
+written in such a way as to explain to anybody who can read that Part A
+is fastened to Bracket B using Bolt C, Lockwasher D, and Nut E. My
+father's one and only recognition of the dangers of the unforeseeable
+future was to drill deep in my brain these directions. For instance," and
+he pointed to a boxed device, "that thing is an infra-low frequency
+amplifier. Now, I haven't much more than a faint glimmer of what the
+thing is and how it differs from a standard amplifier, but I know that it
+must be built precisely thus-and-so, and finally it must be fitted into
+the machine per instructions. Look, Mrs. Bagley." James picked up a
+recently-received package, swept a place clear on the packing case and
+dumped it out. It disgorged several paper bags of parts, some large
+plates and a box. He handed her a booklet. "Try it yourself," he said.
+"That's a piece of test equipment made in kit form by a commercial outfit
+in Michigan. Follow those directions and build it for me."
+
+"But I don't know anything about this sort of thing."
+
+"You can read," said James with a complete lack of respect. He turned
+back to his own work, leaving Mrs. Bagley leafing her way through the
+assembly manual.
+
+To the woman it was meaningless. But as she read, a secondary thought
+rose in her mind. James was building this devilish-looking nightmare, and
+he had every intention of using it on her daughter! She accepted without
+understanding the fact that James Holden's superior education had come of
+such a machine--but it had been a machine built by a competent mechanic.
+She stole a look at James. The anomaly puzzled her.
+
+When the lad talked, his size and even the thin boyish voice were negated
+by the intelligence of his words, the size of his vocabulary, the clarity
+of his statements. Now that he was silent, he became no more than an
+eight-year-old lad who could not possibly be doing anything constructive
+with this mad array of equipment. The messiness of the place merely made
+the madness of the whole program seem worse.
+
+But she turned back to her booklet. Maybe James was right. If she could
+assemble this doodad without knowing the first principle of its
+operation, without even knowing from the name what the thing did, then
+she might be willing to admit that--messy as it looked--the machine could
+be reconstructed.
+
+Trapped by her own interest, Mrs. Bagley pitched in.
+
+They took a week off to rearrange the place. They built wooden shelves to
+hold the parts in better order. These were by no means the work of a
+carpenter, for Mrs. Bagley's aim with a saw was haphazard, and her
+batting average with a hammer was about .470; but James lacked the
+strength, so the construction job was hers. Crude as it was, the place
+looked less like a junkshop when they were done. Work resumed on the
+assembly of the educator.
+
+Of course the writing suffered.
+
+The budget ran low. James was forced to abandon the project for his
+typewriter. He drove himself hard, fretting and worrying himself into a
+stew time after time. And then as August approached, Nature stepped in to
+add more disorder.
+
+James entered a "period of growth." In three weeks he gained two inches.
+
+His muscles, his bones and his nervous system ceased to coordinate. He
+became clumsy. His handwriting underwent a change, so severe that James
+had to practically forge his own signature of Charles Maxwell. To avoid
+trouble he stopped the practice of writing individual checks for the
+bills and transferred a block sum of money to an operating account in
+Mrs. Bagley's name.
+
+His fine regimen went to pieces.
+
+He embarked on a haphazard program of sleeping, eating and working at odd
+hours, and his appetite became positively voracious. He wanted what he
+wanted when he wanted it, even if it were the middle of the night. He
+pouted and groused when he didn't get it. In calmer moments he hated
+himself for these tantrums, but no amount of self-rationalization stopped
+them.
+
+During this period, James was by no means an efficient youngster. His
+writing suffered the ills of both his period of growth and his upset
+state of mind. His fingers failed to coordinate on his typewriter and his
+manuscript copy turned out rough, with strikeovers, xxx-outs, and gross
+mistakes. The pile of discarded paper massed higher than his finished
+copy until Mrs. Bagley took over and began to retype his rough script
+for him.
+
+His state of mind remained chaotic.
+
+Mrs. Bagley began to treat him with special care. She served him warm
+milk and insisted that he rest. Finally she asked him why he drove
+himself so hard.
+
+"We are approaching the end of summer," he said, "and we are not
+prepared."
+
+"Prepared for what?"
+
+They were relaxing in the living room, James fretting and Mrs. Bagley
+seated, Martha Bagley asprawl on the floor turning the pages of a
+crayon-coloring book. "Look at us," he said. "I am a boy of eight, your
+daughter is a girl of seven. By careful dress and action I could pass for
+a child one year younger, but that would still make me seven. Last summer
+when I was seven, I passed for six."
+
+"Yes, but--?"
+
+"Mrs. Bagley, there are laws about compulsory education. Sooner or later
+someone is going to get very curious about us."
+
+"What do you intend to do about it?"
+
+"That's the problem," he said. "I don't really know. With a lot of
+concentrated effort I can probably enter school if I have to, and keep my
+education covered up. But Martha is another story."
+
+"I don't see--?" Mrs. Bagley bit her lip.
+
+"We can't permit her to attend school," said James.
+
+"You shouldn't have advertised for a woman with a girl child!" said Mrs.
+Bagley.
+
+"Perhaps not. But I wanted someone of my own age and size around so that
+we can grow together. I'm a bit of a misfit until I'm granted the right
+to use my education as I see fit."
+
+"And you hope to make Martha another misfit?"
+
+"If you care to put it that way," admitted James. "Someone has to start.
+Someday all kids will be educated with my machine and then there'll be no
+misfits."
+
+"But until then--?"
+
+"Mrs. Bagley, I am not worried about what is going to happen next year. I
+am worried about what is going to happen next month."
+
+Mrs. Bagley sat and watched him for a moment. This boy was worried, she
+could see that. But assuming that any part of his story was true--and it
+was impossible to doubt it--he had ample cause.
+
+The past years had given Mrs. Bagley a hard shell because it was useful
+for survival; to keep herself and her child alive she had had to be
+permanently alert for every threat. Clearly this was a threat. Martha was
+involved. Martha's future was, at the least, bound to be affected by what
+James did.
+
+And the ties of blood and habit made Martha's future the first
+consideration in Janet Bagley's thoughts.
+
+But not the only consideration; for there is an in-born trait in the
+human race which demands that any helpless child should be helped. James
+was hardly helpless; but he certainly was a child. It was easy to forget
+it, talking to him--until something came up that the child could not
+handle.
+
+Mrs. Bagley sighed. In a different tone she asked, "What did you do last
+year?"
+
+"Played with Rags on the lawn," James said promptly. "A boy and his dog
+is a perfectly normal sight--in the summer. Then, when school opened, I
+stayed in the house as much as I could. When I had to go out I tried to
+make myself look younger. Short pants, dirty face. I don't think I could
+get away with it this year."
+
+"I think you're right," Mrs. Bagley admitted. "Well, suppose you could do
+what you wish this year? What would that be?"
+
+James said: "I want to get my machine working. Then I want to use it on
+Martha."
+
+"On Martha! But--"
+
+James said patiently: "It won't hurt her, Mrs. Bagley. There isn't any
+other way. The first thing she needs is a good command of English."
+
+"English?" Mrs. Bagley hesitated, and was lost. After all, what was wrong
+with the girl's learning proper speech?
+
+"Martha is a child both physically and intellectually. She has been
+talked to about 'right' and 'wrong' and she knows that 'telling the
+truth' is right, but she doesn't recognize that talking about fairies is
+a misstatement of the truth. Question her carefully about how we live,
+and you'll get a fair approximation of the truth."
+
+"So?"
+
+"But suppose someone asks Martha about the Hermit of Martin's Hill?"
+
+"What do you fear?"
+
+"We might play upon her make-believe stronger than we have. She play-acts
+his existence very well. But suppose someone asks her what he eats, or
+where he gets his exercise, or some other personal question. She hasn't
+the command of logic to improvise a convincing background."
+
+"But why should anybody ask such personal questions?" asked Mrs. Bagley.
+
+James said patiently: "To ask personal questions of an adult is 'prying'
+and is therefore considered improper and antisocial. To ask the same
+questions of a child is proper and social. It indicates a polite interest
+in the world of the child. You and I, Mrs. Bagley, have a complete
+picture of the Hermit all prepared, and with our education we can
+improvise plausible answers. I've hoped to finish my machine early enough
+to provide Martha with the ability to do the same."
+
+"So what can we do?"
+
+"About the only thing we can do is to hide," said James. "Luckily,
+most of the business is conducted out of this place by mail. Write
+letters to some boarding school situated a good many miles from here.
+Ask the usual routine questions about entering a seven-year-old girl
+and an eight-year-old boy for one semester. Robert Holmes, our
+postmaster-taxicab driver-station-master, reads everything that isn't
+sealed. He will read the addresses, and he will see replies and read
+their return address."
+
+"And then we'll pretend to send you and Martha to boarding school?"
+
+James nodded. "Confinement is going to be difficult, but in this climate
+the weather gets nasty early and that keeps people out of one another's
+hair."
+
+"But this station-master business--?"
+
+"We've got to pull some wool over Robert's eyes," said James. "Somehow,
+we've got to make it entirely plausible. You've got to take Martha and me
+away and come back alone just as if we were in school."
+
+"We should have a car," said Mrs. Bagley.
+
+"A car is one piece of hardware that I could never justify," said James.
+"Nor," he chuckled, "buy from a mail-order house because I couldn't
+accept delivery. I bought furniture from Sears and had it delivered
+according to mailed instructions. But I figured it better to have the
+folks in Shipmont wondering why Charles Maxwell didn't own a car than to
+have them puzzling why he owned one that never was used, nor even moved.
+Besides, a car--costs--"
+
+Mrs. Bagley smiled with real satisfaction. "There," she said, "I think I
+can help. I can buy the car."
+
+James was startled. "But can you afford it?"
+
+Mrs. Bagley nodded seriously. "James," she said, "I've been scratching
+out an existence on hard terms and I've had to make sure of tomorrow.
+Even when things were worst, I tried to put something away--some weeks it
+was only a few pennies, sometimes nothing at all. But--well, I'm not
+afraid of tomorrow any more."
+
+James was oddly pleased. While he was trying to find a way to say it,
+Mrs. Bagley relieved him of the necessity. "It won't be a brand-new
+convertible," she warned. "But they tell me you can get something that
+runs for two or three hundred dollars. Tim Fisher has some that look
+about right in his garage--and besides," she said, clinching it, "it
+gives me a chance to give out a little more Maxwell and boarding-school
+propaganda."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+The letter was a masterpiece of dissembling. It suggested, without
+promising, that Charles Maxwell intended to send his young charge to
+boarding school along with his housekeeper's daughter. It asked the
+school's advice and explained the deformity that made Charles Maxwell a
+recluse. The reply could hardly have been better if they'd penned it
+themselves for the signature of the faculty advisor. It discussed the
+pros and cons of away-from-home schooling and went on at great length to
+discuss the attitude of children and their upbringing amid strange
+surroundings. It invited a long and inconclusive correspondence--just
+what James wanted.
+
+The supposed departure for school went off neatly, no one in the town of
+Shipmont was surprised when Mrs. Bagley turned up buying an automobile of
+several years' vintage because this was a community where everybody had
+one.
+
+The letters continued at the rate of one every two or three weeks. They
+were picked up by Mrs. Bagley who let it be known that these were
+progress reports. In reality, they were little tracts on the theory of
+child education. They kept up the correspondence for the information it
+contained, and also because Mrs. Bagley enjoyed this contact with an
+outer world that contained adults.
+
+Meanwhile, James ended his spurt of growth and settled down. Work on his
+machine continued when he could afford to buy the parts, and his writing
+settled down into a comfortable channel once more. In his spare time
+James began to work on Martha's diction.
+
+Martha could not have been called a retarded child. Her trouble was lack
+of constant parental attention during her early years. With father gone
+and mother struggling to live, Martha had never overcome some of the
+babytalk-diction faults. There was still a trace of the omitted 'B' here
+and there. 'Y' was a difficult sound; the color of a lemon was "Lellow."
+Martha's English construction still bore marks of the baby. "Do you have
+to--" came out as "Does you has to--?"
+
+James Holden's father had struggled in just this way through his early
+experimental days, when he despaired of ever getting the infant James out
+of the baby-prattle stage. He could not force, he could not even coerce.
+All that his father could do was to watch quietly as baby James acquired
+the awareness of things. Then he could step in and supply the correct
+word-sound to name the object. In those early days the progress of James
+Holden was no greater than the progress of any other infant. Holden
+Senior followed the theory of ciphers; no cryptologist can start
+unravelling a secret message until he is aware of the fact that some
+hidden message exists. No infant can be taught a language until some
+awareness tells the tiny brain that there is some definite connection
+between sound and sight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the next few weeks James worked with Martha on her speech, and hated
+it. So slow, so dreary! But it was necessary, he thought, to keep her
+from establishing any more permanent errors, so that when the machine was
+ready there would be at least a blank slate to write on, not one all
+scribbled over with mistakes.
+
+Time passed; the weather grew colder; the machine spread its scattered
+parts over his workroom.
+
+Janet Bagley knew that the machine was growing, but it had not occurred
+to her that it would be finished. She had grown accustomed to her life on
+Martin's Hill. By her standards, it was easy. She made three meals each
+day, cleaned the rooms, hung curtains, sewed clothing for Martha and
+herself, did the shopping and had time enough left over to take
+excursions in her little car and keep her daughter out of mischief. It
+was pleasant. It was more than pleasant, it was safe.
+
+And then the machine was finished.
+
+Mrs. Bagley took a sandwich and a glass of milk to James and found him
+sitting on a chair, a heavy headset covering most of his skull, reading
+aloud from a textbook on electronic theory.
+
+Mrs. Bagley stopped at the door, unaccountably startled.
+
+James looked up and shut off his work. "It's finished," he said with
+grave pride.
+
+"All of it?"
+
+"Well," he said, pondering, "the basic part. It works."
+
+Mrs. Bagley looked at the scramble of equipment in the room as though it
+were an enemy. It didn't look finished. It didn't even look safe. But she
+trusted James, although she felt at that moment that she would grow old
+and die before she understood why and how any collection of apparatus
+could be functional and still be so untidy. "It--could teach me?"
+
+"If you had something you want to memorize."
+
+"I'd like to memorize some of the pet recipes from my cookbook."
+
+"Get it," directed James.
+
+She hesitated. "How does it work?" she wanted to know first.
+
+He countered with another question. "How do we memorize anything?"
+
+She thought. "Why, by repeating and repeating and rehearsing and
+rehearsing."
+
+"Yes," said James. "So this device does the repetition for you.
+Electromechanically."
+
+"But how?"
+
+James smiled wistfully. "I can give you only a thumbnail sketch," he
+said, "until I have had time to study the subjects that lead up to the
+final theory."
+
+"Goodness," exclaimed Mrs. Bagley, "all I want is a brief idea. I
+wouldn't understand the principles at all."
+
+"Well, then, my mother, as a cerebral surgeon, knew the anatomy of the
+human brain. My father, as an instrument-maker, designed and built
+encephalographs. Together, they discovered that if the great waves of the
+brain were filtered down and the extremely minute waves that ride on top
+of them were amplified, the pattern of these superfine waves went through
+convolutions peculiar to certain thoughts. Continued research refined
+their discovery.
+
+"Now, the general theory is that the cells of the brain act sort of like
+a binary digital computer, with certain banks of cells operating to store
+sufficient bits of information to furnish a complete memory. In the
+process of memorization, individual cells become activated and linked by
+the constant repetition.
+
+"Second, the brain within the skull is a prisoner, connected to the
+'outside' by the five standard sensory channels of sight, sound, touch,
+taste, and smell. Stimulate a channel, and the result is a certain
+wave-shape of electrical impulse that enters the brain and--sort of like
+the key to a Yale lock--fits only one combination of cells. Or if no
+previous memory is there, it starts its own new collection of cells to
+linking and combining. When we repeat and repeat, we are deepening the
+groove, so to speak.
+
+"Finally comes the Holden Machine. The helmet makes contact with the
+skull in those spots where the probes of the encephalograph are placed.
+When the brain is stimulated into thought, the brain waves are monitored
+and recorded, amplified, and then fed back to the same brain-spots. Not
+once, but multifold, like the vibration of a reed or violin string. The
+circuit that accepts signals, amplifies them, returns them to the same
+set of terminals, and causes them to be repeated several hundred times
+per millisecond without actually ringing or oscillating is the real
+research secret of the machine. My father's secret and now mine."
+
+"And how do we use it?"
+
+"You want to memorize a list of ingredients," said James. "So you will
+put this helmet on your head with the cookbook in your hands. You will
+turn on the machine when you have read the part you want to memorize just
+to be sure of your material. Then, with the machine running, you
+carefully read aloud the passage from your book. The vibrating amplifier
+in the machine monitors and records each electrical impulse, then
+furnishes it back to your brain as a successive series of repetitious
+vibrations, each identical in shape and magnitude, just as if you had
+actually read and re-read that list of stuff time and again."
+
+"And then I'll know it cold?"
+
+James shook his head. "Then you'll be about as confused as you've ever
+been. For several hours, none of it will make sense. You'll be thinking
+things like a 'cup of salt and a pinch of water,' or maybe, 'sugar three
+of mustard and two spoonthree teas.' And then in a few hours all of this
+mish-mash will settle itself down into the proper serial arrangement; it
+will fit the rest of your brain-memory-pattern comfortably."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know. It has something to do with the same effect one gets out
+of studying. On Tuesday one can read a page of textbook and not grasp a
+word of it. Successive readings help only a little. Then in about a week
+it all becomes quite clear, just as if the brain had sorted it and filed
+it logically among the other bits of information. Well, what about that
+cookbook?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Bagley, with the air of someone agreeing to have a tooth
+pulled when it hasn't really started to hurt, "I'll get it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James Holden allowed himself a few pleasant daydreams. The most
+satisfactory of all was one of himself pleading his own case before the
+black-robed Justices of the Supreme Court, demolishing his detractors
+with a flow of his brilliance and convincing them beyond any doubt that
+he did indeed have the right to walk alone. That there be no question of
+his intellect, James proposed to use his machine to educate himself to
+completion. He would be the supreme student of the arts and the sciences,
+of law, language, and literature. He would know history and the
+humanities, and the dreams and aims of the great philosophers and
+statesmen, and he would even be able to quote in their own terms the
+drives of the great dictators and some of the evil men so that he could
+draw and compare to show that he knew the difference between good and
+bad.
+
+But James Holden had no intention of sharing this limelight.
+
+His superb brilliance was to be compared to the average man's, not to
+another one like him. He had the head start. He intended to keep it until
+he had succeeded in compelling the whole world to accept him with the
+full status of a free adult.
+
+Then, under his guidance, he would permit the world-wide use of his
+machine.
+
+His loneliness had forced him to revise that dream by the addition of
+Martha Bagley; he needed a companion, contemporary, and foil. His mental
+playlet no longer closed with James Holden standing alone before the
+Bench. Now it ended with Martha saying proudly, "James, I knew you could
+do it."
+
+Martha Bagley's brilliance would not conflict with his. He could
+stay ahead of her forever. But he had no intention of allowing some
+experienced adult to partake of this program of enforced education. He
+was, therefore, going to find himself some manner or means of preventing
+Mrs. Bagley from running the gamut of all available information.
+
+James Holden evaluated all people in his own terms, he believed that
+everybody was just as eager for knowledge as he was.
+
+So he was surprised to find that Mrs. Bagley's desire for extended
+education only included such information as would make her own immediate
+personal problems easier. Mrs. Bagley was the first one of the mass of
+people James was destined to meet who not only did not know how or why
+things worked, but further had no intention whatsoever of finding out.
+
+Instead of trying to monopolize James Holden's machine, Mrs. Bagley was
+satisfied to learn a number of her pet recipes. After a day of thought
+she added her social security number, blood type, some birthdays, dates,
+a few telephone numbers and her multiplication tables. She announced that
+she was satisfied. It solved James Holden's problem--and stunned him
+completely.
+
+But James had very little time to worry about Mrs. Bagley's attitude. He
+found his hands full with Martha.
+
+Martha played fey. Her actions and attitude baffled James, and even
+confused her mother. There was no way of really determining whether the
+girl was scared to death of the machine itself, or whether she simply
+decided to be difficult. And she uttered the proper replies with all of
+the promptness--and intelligence--of a ventriloquist's dummy:
+
+"You don't want to be ignorant, do you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You want to be smart, like James, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know the machine won't hurt, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let's try it just once, please?"
+
+"No."
+
+Back to the beginning again. Martha would agree to absolutely anything
+except the educator.
+
+Leaving the argument to Mrs. Bagley, James sat down angrily with a book.
+He was so completely frustrated that he couldn't read, but he sat there
+leafing the pages slowly and making a determined show of not lifting his
+head.
+
+Mrs. Bagley went on for another hour before she reached the end of her
+own patience. She stood up almost rigid with anger. James never knew how
+close Mrs. Bagley was to making use of a hairbrush on her daughter's
+bottom. But Mrs. Bagley also realized that Martha had to go into this
+process willing to cooperate. So, instead of physical punishment, she
+issued a dictum:
+
+"You'll go to your room and stay there until you're willing!"
+
+And at that point Martha ceased being stubborn and began playing games.
+
+She permitted herself to be led to the chair, and then went through a
+routine of skittishness, turning her head and squirming incessantly,
+which made it impossible for James to place the headset properly. This
+went on until he stalked away and sat down again. Immediately Martha sat
+like a statue. But as soon as James reached for the little screws that
+adjusted the electrodes, Martha started to giggle and squirm. He stalked
+away and sat through another session between Martha and her mother.
+
+Late in the afternoon James succeeded in getting her to the machine;
+Martha uttered a sentence without punctuating it with little giggles, but
+it came as elided babytalk.
+
+"Again," he commanded.
+
+"I don't wan' to."
+
+"Again!" he snapped.
+
+Martha began to cry.
+
+That, to James, was the end. But Mrs. Bagley stepped forward with a
+commanding wave for James to vacate the premises and took over. James
+could not analyze her expression, but it did look as if it held relief.
+He left the room to them; a half hour later Mrs. Bagley called him back.
+
+"She's had it," said Mrs. Bagley. "Now you can start, I think."
+
+James looked dubious; but said, "Read this."
+
+"Martha?"
+
+Martha took a deep breath and said, nicely, "'A' is the first
+letter of the English Alphabet."
+
+"Good." He pressed the button. "Again? Please?"
+
+Martha recited it nicely.
+
+"Fine," he said. "Now we'll look up 'Is' and go on from there."
+
+"My goodness," said Mrs. Bagley, "this is going to take months."
+
+"Not at all," said James. "It just goes slowly at the start. Most of the
+definitions use the same words over and over again. Martha really knows
+most of these simple words, we've just got to be dead certain that her
+own definition of them agrees wholly and completely with ours. After a
+couple of hours of this minute detail, we'll be skipping over everything
+but new words. After all, she only has to work them over once, and as we
+find them, we'll mark them out of the book. Ready, Martha?"
+
+"Can't read it."
+
+James took the little dictionary. "Um," he said. "Hadn't occurred to me."
+
+"What?" asked Mrs. Bagley.
+
+"This thing says, Three-rd pers period sing periodic indic period of Be,'
+the last in heavy bold type. Can't have Martha talking in abbreviations,"
+he chuckled. He went to the typewriter and wrote it out fully. "Now read
+that," he directed.
+
+She did and again the process went through without a hitch. Slowly, but
+surely, they progressed for almost two hours before Martha rebelled.
+James stopped, satisfied with the beginning.
+
+But as time wore on into the late autumn, Martha slowly--oh, so
+slowly!--began to realize that there was importance to getting things
+right. She continued to tease. But she did her teasing before James
+closed the "Run" button.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+Once James progressed Martha through the little dictionary, he began with
+a book of grammar. Again it started slowly; he had to spend quite a bit
+of time explaining to Martha that she did indeed know all of the terms
+used in the book of grammar because they'd all been defined by the
+dictionary, now she was going to learn how the terms and their
+definitions were used.
+
+James was on more familiar ground now. James, like Martha, had learned
+his first halting sentence structure by mimicking his parents, but he
+remembered the process of learning why and how sentences are constructed
+according to the rules, and how the rules are used rather than intuition
+in forming sentences.
+
+Grammar was a topic that could not be taken in snippets and bits. Whole
+paragraphs had to be read until Martha could read them without a halt or
+a mispronunciation, and then committed to memory with the "Run" button
+held down. At the best it was a boring process, even though it took only
+minutes instead of days. It was not conflicting, but it was confusing.
+It installed permanently certain solid blocks of information that were
+isolated; they stood alone until later blocks came in to connect them
+into a whole area.
+
+Each session was numbing. Martha could take no more than a couple of
+hours, after which her reading became foggy. She wanted a nap after each
+session and even after the nap she went around in a bemused state of
+mental dizziness.
+
+Life settled down once more in the House on Martin's Hill. James worked
+with the machine himself and laid out lessons to guide Martha. Then,
+finished for the day with education, James took to his typewriter while
+Martha had her nap. It filled the days of the boy and girl completely.
+
+This made an unexpected and pleasant change in Mrs. Bagley's routine. It
+had been a job to keep Martha occupied. Now that Martha was busy, Mrs.
+Bagley found time on her own hands; without interruption, her housework
+routine was completed quite early in the afternoon.
+
+Mrs. Bagley had never made any great point of getting dressed for dinner.
+She accumulated a collection of house-frocks; printed cotton washables
+differing somewhat in color and cut but functionally identical. She wore
+them serially as they came from the row of hangers in her closet.
+
+Now she began to acquire some dressier things, wearing them even during
+her shopping trips.
+
+James paid little attention to this change in his housekeeper's routine,
+but he approved. Mrs. Bagley was also taking more pains with the 'do' of
+her hair, but the boy's notice was not detailed enough to take a
+part-by-section inventory of the whole. In fact, James gave the whole
+matter very little thought until Mrs. Bagley made a second change after
+her return from town, appearing for dinner in what James could only
+classify as a party dress.
+
+She asked, "James, do you mind if I go out this evening?"
+
+James, startled, shrugged and said, "No, I guess not."
+
+"You'll keep an ear out for Martha?"
+
+The need for watching a sleeping girl of seven and a half did not
+penetrate. "What's up?" he asked.
+
+"It's been months since I saw a movie."
+
+James shrugged again, puzzled. "You saw the 'Bride of Frankenstein' last
+night on TV," he pointed out.
+
+"I first saw that old horror when I was about your age," she told him
+with a trace of disdain.
+
+"I liked it."
+
+"So did I at eight and a half. But tonight I'm going to see a _new_
+picture."
+
+"Okay," said James, wondering why anybody in their right mind would go
+out on a chilly night late in November just to see a moving picture when
+they could stay at home and watch one in comfort. "Have a good time."
+
+He expected Mrs. Bagley to take off in her car, but she did not. She
+waited until a brief _toot_! came from the road. Then, with a swirl of
+motion, she left.
+
+It took James Holden's limited experience some little time to identify
+the event with some similar scenes from books he'd read; even with him,
+reading about it was one world and seeing it happen was another thing
+entirely.
+
+For James Holden it opened a new area for contemplation. He would have to
+know something about this matter if he hoped to achieve his dreamed-of
+status as an adult.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Information about the relation between man and woman had not been
+included in the course of education devised by his father and mother.
+Therefore his physical age and his information on the delicate subject
+were approximately parallel.
+
+His personal evaluation of the subject was uncomplicated. At some age not
+much greater than his own, boys and girls conglomerated in a mass that
+milled around in a constant state of flux and motion, like individual
+atoms of gas compressed in a container. Meetings and encounters took
+place both singly and in groups until nearly everybody had been in touch
+with almost everybody else. Slowly the amorphous mass changed. Groups
+became attracted by mutual interests. Changes and exchanges took place,
+and then a pair-formation began to take place. The pair-formation went
+through its interchanges both with and without friction as the
+settling-down process proceeded. At times predictable by comparing it
+to the statistics of radioactivity, the pair-production resulted in
+permanent combination, which effectively removed this couple from free
+circulation.
+
+James Holden had no grasp or feeling for the great catalyst that causes
+this pair-production; he saw it only for its sheer mechanics. To him, the
+sensible way to go about this matter was to get there early and move
+fast, because one stands to make a better choice when there is a greater
+number of unattached specimens from which to choose. Those left over are
+likely to have flaws.
+
+And so he pondered, long after Martha had gone to bed.
+
+He was still up and waiting when he heard the car stop at the gate.
+He watched them come up the walk arm in arm, their stride slow and
+lingering. They paused for several moments on the doorstep, once there
+was a short, muted laugh. The snick of the key came next and they came
+into the hallway.
+
+"No, please don't come in," said Mrs. Bagley.
+
+"But--" replied the man.
+
+"But me no buts. It's late, Tim."
+
+Tim? Tim? That would probably be Timothy Fisher. He ran the local garage
+where Mrs. Bagley bought her car. James went on listening shamelessly.
+
+"Late? Phooey. When is eleven-thirty late?"
+
+"When it's right now," she replied with a light laugh. "Now, Tim. It's
+been very--"
+
+There came a long silence.
+
+Her voice was throaty when the silence broke. "Now, will you go?"
+
+"Of course," he said.
+
+"Not that way, silly," she said. "The door's behind you."
+
+"Isn't the door I want," he chuckled.
+
+"We're making enough noise to wake the dead," she complained.
+
+"Then let's stop talking," he told her.
+
+There was another long silence.
+
+"Now please go."
+
+"Can I come back tomorrow night?"
+
+"Not tomorrow."
+
+"Friday?"
+
+"Saturday."
+
+"It's a date, then."
+
+"All right. Now get along with you."
+
+"You're cruel and heartless, Janet," he complained. "Sending a man out in
+that cold and storm."
+
+"It isn't storming, and you've a fine heater in that car of yours."
+
+"I'd rather have you."
+
+"Do you tell that to all the girls?"
+
+"Sure. Even Maggie the Washerwoman is better than an old car heater."
+
+Mrs. Bagley chuckled throatily. "How is Maggie?"
+
+"She's fine."
+
+"I mean as a date."
+
+"Better than the car heater."
+
+"Tim, you're a fool."
+
+"When I was a kid," said Tim reflectively, "there used to be a female
+siren in the movies. Her pet line used to be 'Kiss me, my fool!' Theda
+Bara, I think. Before talkies. Now--"
+
+"No, Tim--"
+
+Another long silence.
+
+"Now, Tim, you've simply _got_ to go!"
+
+"Yeah, I know. You've convinced me."
+
+"Then why aren't you going?"
+
+He chuckled. "Look, you've convinced me. I can't stay so I'll go,
+obviously. But now that we've covered this problem, let's drop the
+subject for a while, huh?"
+
+"Don't spoil a fine evening, Tim."
+
+"Janet, what's with you, anyway?"
+
+"What do you mean, 'what's with me?'"
+
+"Just this. Somewhere up in the house is this oddball Maxwell who hides
+out all the time. He's either asleep or busy. Anyway, he isn't here. Do
+you have to report in, punch a time clock, tuck him in--or do you turn
+into a pumpkin at the stroke of twelve?"
+
+"Mr. Maxwell is paying me wages to keep house for him. That's all. Part
+of my wages is my keep. But it doesn't entitle me to have full run of the
+house or to bring guests in at midnight for a two-hour good-night
+session."
+
+"I'd like to tell this bird a thing or two," said Tim Fisher sharply. "He
+can't keep you cooped up like--like--"
+
+"Nobody is keeping me cooped up," she said. "Like what?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You said 'like--'"
+
+"Skip it. What I meant is that you can't moulder, Janet. You've got to
+get out and meet people."
+
+"I've been out and I've met people. I've met you."
+
+"All to the good."
+
+"Fine. So you invited me out, and I went. It was fun. I liked it. You've
+asked me, and I've said that I'd like to do it again on Saturday. I've
+enjoyed being kissed, and I'll probably enjoy it again on Saturday. So--"
+
+"I'd think you'd enjoy a lot of it."
+
+"Because my husband has been gone for five years?"
+
+"Oh, now Janet--"
+
+"That's what you meant, isn't it?"
+
+"No. You've got me wrong."
+
+"Tim, stop it. You're spoiling a fine evening. You should have gone
+before it started to spoil. Now please put your smile on again and leave
+cheerfully. There's always Saturday--if you still want it."
+
+"I'll call you," he said.
+
+The door opened once more and then closed. James took a deep breath, and
+then stole away quietly to his own room.
+
+By some instinct he knew that this was no time to intercept Mrs. Bagley
+with a lot of fool questions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the surprise and puzzlement of young James Quincy Holden, Mr. Timothy
+Fisher telephoned early upon the following evening. He was greeted quite
+cordially by Mrs. Bagley. Their conversation was rambling and inane,
+especially when heard from one end only, and it took them almost ten
+minutes to confirm their Saturday night date. That came as another shock.
+
+Well, not quite. The explanation bothered him even more than the fact
+itself. As a further extension of his little mechanical mating process,
+James had to find a place for the like of Jake Caslow and the women Jake
+knew. None of them were classed in the desirable group, all of them were
+among the leftovers. But of course, since none of them were good enough
+for the 'good' people, they were good enough for one another, and that
+made it all right--for them.
+
+But Mrs. Bagley was not of their ilk. It was not right that she should be
+forced to take a leftover.
+
+And then it occurred to him that perhaps Mrs. Bagley was not really
+taking the leftover, Tim Fisher, but instead was using Tim Fisher's
+company as a means toward meeting a larger group, from which there might
+be a better specimen. So he bided his time, thinking deeply around the
+subject, about which he knew nothing whatsoever.
+
+Saturday night was a repeat of Wednesday. They stayed out later, and upon
+their return they took possession of the living room for at least an hour
+before they started their routine about the going-home process. With
+minor variations in the dialog, and with longer and more frequent
+silences, it almost followed the Wednesday night script. The variation
+puzzled James even more. This session went according to program for a
+while until Tim Fisher admitted with regret that it was, indeed, time for
+him to depart. At which juncture Mrs. Bagley did not leap to her feet to
+accept his offer to do that which she had been asking him to do for a
+half hour. Mrs. Bagley compounded the affair by sighing deeply and
+agreeing with him that it was a shame that it was so late and that she,
+too, wished that he could stay a little longer. This, of course, put them
+precisely where they were a half hour earlier and they had to start the
+silly business all over again.
+
+They parted after a final fifteen-minute discussion at the front door.
+This discussion covered Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and finally came to
+agreement on Wednesday.
+
+And so James Holden went to bed that night fully convinced that in a town
+of approximately two thousand people--he did not count the two or three
+hundred A.E.C.-College group as part of the problem--there were entirely
+too few attractive leftovers from which Mrs. Bagley could choose.
+
+But as this association grew, it puzzled him even more. For in his
+understanding, any person forced to accept a second-rate choice does so
+with an air of resignation, but not with a cheerful smile, a sparkle in
+the eyes, and two hours of primping.
+
+James sought the answer in his books but they were the wrong volumes for
+reference of this subject. He considered the local Public Library only
+long enough to remember that it carried a few hundred books suitable for
+the A.E.C.-College crew and a thousand or so of second-hand culls donated
+by local citizens during cleanup campaigns. He resorted to buying books
+by mail through advertisements in newspapers and magazines and received a
+number of volumes of medical treatises, psychological texts, and a book
+on obstetrics that convinced him that baby-having was both rare and
+hazardous. He read _By Love Possessed_ but he did not recognize the many
+forms of love portrayed by the author because the volume was not
+annotated with signs or provided with a road map, and he did not know
+it when he read about it.
+
+He went through the Kinsey books and absorbed a lot of data and graphs
+and figures on human behavior that meant nothing to him. James was not
+even interested in the incidence of homosexuality among college students
+as compared to religious groups, or in the comparison between premarital
+experience and level of education. He knew the words and what the words
+meant as defined in other words. But they were only words and did not
+touch him where he lived.
+
+So, because none of the texts bothered to explain why a woman says Yes,
+when she means No, nor why a woman will cling to a man's lapels and press
+herself against him and at the same time tell him he has to go home,
+James remained ignorant. He could have learned more from Lord Byron,
+Shelley, Keats, or Browning than from Kinsey, deLee, or the "Instructive
+book on Sex, forwarded under plain wrapper for $2.69 postpaid."
+
+Luckily for James, he did not study any of his material via the medium of
+his father's machine or it would have made him sick. For he was not yet
+capable of understanding the single subject upon which more words have
+been expended in saying less than any other subject since the dawn of
+history.
+
+His approach was academic, he could have been reading the definitive
+material on the life-cycle of the beetle insofar as any stir of his own
+blood was concerned.
+
+From his study he did identify a couple of items. Tim Fisher obviously
+desired extramarital relations with Mrs. Bagley--or was it premarital
+relations? Probably both. Logic said that Mrs. Bagley, having already
+been married to Martha's father, could hardly enter into _pre_marital
+relations, although Tim could, since he was a bachelor. But they wouldn't
+be _pre_marital with Tim unless he followed through and married Mrs.
+Bagley. And so they must be _extra_marital. But whatever they were
+called, the Book said that there was about as much on one side as on the
+other.
+
+With a mind mildly aware of the facts of life, distorted through the eyes
+of near-nine James Holden, he watched them and listened in.
+
+As for Mrs. Bagley, she did not know that she was providing part of James
+Holden's extraliterary education. She enjoyed the company of Tim Fisher.
+Hesitantly, she asked James if she could have Tim for dinner one evening,
+and was a bit surprised at his immediate assent. They planned the
+evening, cleaned the lower part of the house of every trace of its
+current occupancy, and James and Martha hied themselves upstairs. Dinner
+went with candlelight and charcoal-broiled steak--and a tray taken aloft
+for "Mr. Maxwell" was consumed by James and Martha. The evening went
+smoothly. They listened to music and danced, they sat and talked. And
+James listened.
+
+Tim was not the same man. He sat calm and comfortably on the low sofa
+with Mrs. Bagley's head on his shoulder, both of them pleasantly bemused
+by the dancing fireplace and with each other's company. He said, "Well,
+I'm glad this finally happened."
+
+"What happened?" she replied in a murmur.
+
+"Getting the invite for dinner."
+
+"Might have been sooner, I suppose. Sorry."
+
+"What took you so long?"
+
+"Just being cautious, I guess."
+
+He chuckled. "Cautious?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+Tim laughed.
+
+"What's so darned funny?"
+
+"Women."
+
+"Are we such a bunch of clowns?"
+
+"Not clowns, Janet. Just funny."
+
+"All right, genius. Explain that."
+
+"A woman is a lovely creature who sends a man away so that he can't do
+what she wants him to do most of all."
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"She feeds him full of rare steak until he wants to crawl off in a corner
+like the family mutt and go to sleep. Once she gets him in a somnolent
+state, she drapes herself tastefully on his shoulder and gets soft and
+warm and willing."
+
+Mrs. Bagley laughed throatily. "Just start getting active," she warned,
+"and you'll see how fast I can beat a hasty retreat."
+
+"Janet, what _is_ with you?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What are you hiding?"
+
+"Hiding?"
+
+"Yes, confound it, hiding!" he said, his voice turning hard. "Just who is
+this Charles Maxwell character, anyway?"
+
+"Tim, please--"
+
+His voice lowered again. "Janet," he said softly, "you're asking me to
+trust you, and at the same time you're not trusting me."
+
+"But I've nothing to hide."
+
+"Oh, stop it. I'm no schoolboy, Janet. If you have nothing to hide, why
+are you acting as if you were sitting on the lid?"
+
+"I still don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"Your words say so, but your tone is the icy haughtiness that dares me,
+mere male that I am, to call your lie. I've a half-notion to stomp
+upstairs and confront your mysterious Maxwell--if he indeed exists."
+
+"You mustn't. He'd--"
+
+"He'd what? I've been in this house for hours day and night and now all
+evening. I've never heard a sound, not the creak of a floorboard, the
+slam of a door, the opening of a window, nor the distant gurgle of cool,
+clear water, gushing into plumbing. So you've been married. This I know.
+You have a daughter. This I accept. Your husband is dead. This happens to
+people every day; nice people, bad people, bright people, dull people.
+There was a young boy here last summer. Him I do not know, but you and
+your daughter I do know about. I've checked--"
+
+"How dare you check--?"
+
+"I damn well dare check anything and anybody I happen to be personally
+interested in," he stormed. "As a potential bed partner I wouldn't give a
+hoot who you were or what you were. But before I go to the point of
+dividing the rest of my life on an exclusive contract, I have the right
+to know what I'm splitting it with."
+
+"You have no right--"
+
+"Balderdash! I have as much right as anybody to look at the record. I
+grant you the same right to look up my family and my friends and the
+status of my bank account and my credit rating and my service record.
+Grant it? Hell, I couldn't stop you. Now, what's going on? Where is your
+daughter and where is that little boy? And where--if he exists--is this
+Charles Maxwell?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James had heard enough. No matter which way this was going, it would end
+up wrong. He was proud of Mrs. Bagley's loyalty, but he knew that it was
+an increasing strain and could very well lead to complications that could
+not be explained away without the whole truth. He decided that the only
+thing to do was to put in his own oar and relieve Mrs. Bagley.
+
+He walked in, yawning. He stood between them, facing Tim Fisher. Behind
+him, Mrs. Bagley cried, "Now see--you've awakened him!"
+
+In a dry-throated voice, Tim said, "I thought he was away at school. Now,
+what's the story?"
+
+"It isn't her story to tell," said James. "It's mine."
+
+"Now see here--"
+
+"Mr. Fisher, you can't learn anything by talking incessantly."
+
+Tim Fisher took a step forward, his face dark, his intention to shake the
+truth out of somebody. James held up a hand. "Sit down a moment and
+listen," he ordered.
+
+The sight of James and the words that this child was uttering stopped Tim
+Fisher. Puzzled, he nodded dumbly, found a chair, and sat on the front
+edge of it, poised.
+
+"The whereabouts of Mr. Maxwell is his own business and none of yours.
+Your criticism is unfounded and your suspicions unworthy. But since you
+take the attitude that this is some of your business, we don't mind
+telling you that Mr. Maxwell is in New York on business."
+
+Tim Fisher eyed the youngster. "I thought you were away at school," he
+repeated.
+
+"I heard you the first time," said James. "Obviously, I am not. Why I am
+not is Mr. Maxwell's business, not yours. And by insisting that something
+is wrong here and demanding the truth, you have placed Mrs. Bagley in the
+awkward position of having to make a decision that divides her loyalties.
+She has had the complete trust of Mr. Maxwell for almost a year and a
+half. Now, tell me, Mr. Fisher, to whom shall she remain loyal?"
+
+"That isn't the point--"
+
+"Yes, it is the point, Mr. Fisher. It is exactly the point. You're asking
+Mrs. Bagley to tell you the details of her employer's business, which is
+unethical."
+
+"How much have you heard?" demanded Fisher crossly.
+
+"Enough, at least to know what you've been hammering at."
+
+"Then you know that I've as much as said that there was some suspicion
+attached."
+
+"Suspicion of what?"
+
+"Well, why aren't you in school?"
+
+"That's Mr. Maxwell's business."
+
+"Let me tell you, youngster, it is more than your Mr. Maxwell's business.
+There are laws about education and he's breaking them."
+
+James said patiently: "The law states that every child shall receive an
+adequate education. The precise wording I do not know, but it does
+provide for schooling outside of the state school system if the parent or
+guardian so prefers, and providing that such extraschool education is
+deemed adequate by the state. Can you say that I am not properly
+educated, Mr. Fisher?"
+
+"Well, you'd hardly expect me to be an expert on the subject."
+
+"Then I'd hardly expect you to pass judgment, either," said James
+pointedly.
+
+"You're pretty--" Tim Fisher caught his tongue at the right moment. He
+felt his neck getting hot. It is hard enough to be told that you are
+off-base and that your behavior has been bad when an adult says the
+damning words. To hear the same words from a ten-year-old is unbearable.
+Right or wrong, the adult's position is to turn aside or shut the child
+up either by pulling rank or cuffing the young offender with an open
+hand. To have this upstart defend Mrs. Bagley, in whose presence he could
+hardly lash back, put Mr. Fisher in a very unhappy state of mind. He
+swallowed and then asked, lamely, "Why does he have to be so furtive?"
+
+"What is your definition of 'furtive'?" asked James calmly. "Do you
+employ the same term to describe the operations of that combination
+College-A.E.C. installation on the other side of town?"
+
+"That's secret--"
+
+"Implying that atomic energy is secretly above-board, legal, and
+honorable, whereas Mr. Maxwell's--"
+
+"But we know about atomic energy."
+
+"Sure we do," jeered James, and the sound of his immature near-treble
+voice made the jeer very close to an insult. "We know _all_ about atomic
+energy. Was the Manhattan Project called 'furtive' until Hiroshima gave
+the story away?"
+
+"You're trying to put words in my mouth," objected Tim.
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm merely trying to make you understand something
+important to everybody. You come in here and claim by the right of
+personal interest that we should be most willing to tell you our
+business. Then in the next breath you defend the installation over on the
+other side of town for their attitude in giving the bum's rush to people
+who try to ask questions about their business. Go read your Constitution,
+Mr. Fisher. It says there that I have as much right to defend my home
+against intruders as the A.E.C. has to defend their home against spies."
+
+"But I'm not intruding."
+
+James nodded his head gently. "Not," he said, "until you make the grave
+error of equating personal privacy with culpable guilt."
+
+"I didn't mean that."
+
+"You should learn to say what you mean," said James, "instead of trying
+to pry information out of someone who happens to be fond of you."
+
+"Now see here," said Tim Fisher, "I happen to be fond of her too, you
+know. Doesn't that give me some rights?"
+
+"Would you expect to know all of her business if she were your wife?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Suppose she were working in the A.E.C.-College?"
+
+"Well, that--er--"
+
+"Would be different?"
+
+"Well, now--"
+
+"I talked this right around in its circle for a purpose," said James.
+"Stop and think for a moment. Let's discuss me. Mr. Fisher, where would
+you place me in school?"
+
+"Er--how old are you?"
+
+"Nine," said James. "In April."
+
+"Well, I'm not sure--"
+
+"Exactly. Do you suppose that I could sit in a classroom among my
+nine-year-old contemporaries very long without being found out?"
+
+"Er--no--I suppose not."
+
+"Mr. Fisher, how long do you think I could remain a secret if I attended
+high school, sitting at a specially installed desk in a class among
+teenagers twice my size?"
+
+"Not very long."
+
+"Then remember that some secrets are so big that you have to have armed
+guards to keep them secret, and others are so easy to conceal that all
+you need is a rambling old house and a plausible façade."
+
+"Why have you told me all this?"
+
+"Because you have penetrated this far by your own effort, justified by
+your own personal emotions, and driven by an urge that is all-powerful if
+I am to believe the books I've read on the subject. You are told this
+much of the truth so that you won't go off half-cocked with a fine
+collection of rather dangerous untruths. Understand?"
+
+"I'm beginning to."
+
+"Well, whether Mrs. Bagley accepts your offer of marriage or not,
+remember one thing: If she were working for the A.E.C. you'd be proud of
+her, and you'd also be quite careful not to ask questions that would
+cause her embarrassment."
+
+Tim Fisher looked at Mrs. Bagley. "Well?" he asked.
+
+Mrs. Bagley looked bleak. "Please don't ask me until I've had a chance to
+discuss all of the angles with Mr. Maxwell, Tim."
+
+"Maxwell, again."
+
+"Tim," she said in a quiet voice, "remember--he's an employer, not an
+emotional involvement."
+
+James Holden looked at Tim Fisher. "And if you'll promise to keep this
+thing as close a secret as you would some information about atomic
+energy, I'll go to bed and let you settle your personal problems in
+private. Good night!"
+
+He left, reasonably satisfied that Tim Fisher would probably keep their
+secret for a time, at least. The hinted suggestion that this was as
+important a government project as the Atomic Energy Commission's works
+would prevent casual talk. There was also the slim likelihood that Tim
+Fisher might enjoy the position of being on the inside of a big secret,
+although this sort of inner superiority lacks true satisfaction. There
+was a more solid chance that Tim Fisher, being the ambitious man that he
+was, would keep their secret in the hope of acquiring for himself some
+of the superior knowledge and the advanced ability that went with it.
+
+But James was certain that the program that had worked so well with Mrs.
+Bagley would fail with Tim Fisher. James had nothing material to offer
+Tim. Tim was the kind of man who would insist upon his wife being a
+full-time wife, physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
+
+And James suddenly realized that Tim Fisher's own ambition and character
+would insist that Mrs. Bagley, with Martha, leave James Holden to take up
+residence in a home furnished by Tim Fisher upon the date and at time she
+became Mrs. Timothy Fisher.
+
+He was still thinking about the complications this would cause when he
+heard Tim leave. His clock said three-thirty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James Holden's mechanical educator was a wonderful machine, but there
+were some aspects of knowledge that it was not equipped to impart. The
+glandular comprehension of love was one such; there were others. In all
+of his hours under the machine James had not learned how personalities
+change and grow.
+
+And yet there was a textbook case right before his eyes.
+
+In a few months, Janet Bagley had changed from a frightened and
+belligerent mother-animal to a cheerful young prospective wife. The
+importance of the change lay in the fact that it was not polar, nothing
+reversed; it was only that the emphasis passed gradually from the
+protection of the young to the development of Janet Bagley herself.
+
+James could not very well understand, though he tried, but he couldn't
+miss seeing it happen. It was worrisome. It threatened complications.
+
+There was quite a change that came with Tim Fisher's elevation in status
+from steady date to affianced husband, heightened by Tim Fisher's partial
+understanding of the situation at Martin's Hill.
+
+Then, having assumed the right to drop in as he pleased, he went on to
+assume more "rights" as Mrs. Bagley's fiancé. He brought in his friends
+from time to time. Not without warning, of course, for he understood the
+need for secrecy. When he brought friends it was after warning, and very
+frequently after he had helped them to remove the traces of juvenile
+occupancy from the lower part of the house.
+
+In one way, this took some of the pressure off. The opening of the
+"hermit's" house to the friends of the "hermit's" housekeeper's fiancé
+and friends was a pleasant evidence of good will; people stopped
+wondering, a little.
+
+On the other hand, James did not wholly approve. He contrasted this with
+what he remembered of his own home life. The guests who came to visit his
+mother and father were quiet and earnest. They indulged in animated
+discussions, argued points of deep reasoning, and in moments of
+relaxation they indulged in games that demanded skill and intellect.
+
+Tim Fisher's friends were noisy and boisterous. They mixed highballs.
+They danced to music played so loud that it made the house throb. They
+watched the fights on television and argued with more volume than logic.
+
+They were, to young James, a far cry from his parents' friends.
+
+But, as he couldn't do anything about it, he refused to worry about it.
+James Holden turned his thoughts forward and began to plan how he was
+going to face the culmination of this romance next September Fifteenth.
+He even suspected that there would probably be a number of knotty little
+problems that he now knew nothing about; he resolved to allow some
+thinking-time to cope with them when, as, and if.
+
+In the meantime, the summer was coming closer.
+
+He prepared to make a visible show of having Mr. Charles Maxwell leave
+for a protracted summer travel. This would ease the growing problem of
+providing solid evidence of Maxwell's presence during the increasing
+frequency of Tim Fisher's visits and the widening circle of Mrs. Bagley's
+acquaintances in Shipmont. At the same time he and Martha would make a
+return from the Bolton School for Youth. This would allow them their
+freedom for the summer; for the first time James looked forward to it.
+Martha Bagley was progressing rapidly. This summer would see her over and
+done with the scatter-brain prattle that gave equal weight to fact or
+fancy. Her store of information was growing; she could be relied upon to
+maintain a fairly secure cover. Her logic was not to James Holden's
+complete satisfaction but she accepted most of his direction as necessary
+information to be acted upon now and reasoned later.
+
+In the solving of his immediate problems, James can be forgiven for
+putting Paul Brennan out of his mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+But Paul Brennan was still alive, and he had not forgotten.
+
+While James was, with astonishing success, building a life for himself in
+hiding, Brennan did everything he could to find him. That is to say, he
+did everything that--under the circumstances--he could afford to do.
+
+The thing was, the boy had got clean away, without a trace.
+
+When James escaped for the third, and very successful, time, Brennan was
+helpless. James had planned well. He had learned from his first two
+efforts. The first escape was a blind run toward a predictable objective;
+all right, that was a danger to be avoided. His second was entirely
+successful--until James created his own area of danger. Another lesson
+learned.
+
+The third was planned with as much care as Napoleon's deliverance from
+the island.
+
+James had started by choosing his time. He'd waited until Easter Week.
+He'd had a solid ten days during which he would be only one of countless
+thousands of children on the streets; there would be no slight suspicion
+because he was out when others were in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James didn't go to school that day. That was common; children in the
+lower grades are often absent, and no one asks a question until they
+return, with the proper note from the parent. He was not missed anywhere
+until the school bus that should have dropped him off did not. This was
+an area of weakness that Brennan could not plug; he could hardly justify
+the effort of delivering and fetching the lad to and from school when the
+public school bus passed the Holden home. Brennan relied upon the
+Mitchells to see James upon the bus and to check him off when he
+returned. Whether James would have been missed earlier even with a
+personal delivery is problematical; certainly James would have had to
+concoct some other scheme to gain him his hours of free time.
+
+At any rate, the first call to the school connected the Mitchells with a
+grumpy-voiced janitor who growled that teachers and principals had headed
+for their hills of freedom and wouldn't be back until Monday Week. It
+took some calling to locate a couple of James Holden's classmates who
+asserted that he hadn't been in school that day.
+
+Paul Brennan knew at once what had happened, but he could not raise an
+immediate hue-and-cry. He fretted because of the Easter Week vacation; in
+any other time the sight of a school-aged boy free during school hours
+would have caused suspicion. During Easter Week vacation, every schoolboy
+would be free. James would also be protected by his size. A youngster
+walking alone is not suspect; his folks _must_ be close by. The fact that
+it was "again" placed Paul Brennan in an undesirable position. This was
+not the youthful adventure that usually ends about three blocks from
+home. This was a repeat of the first absence during which James had been
+missing for months. People smile at the parents of the child who packs
+his little bag with a handkerchief and a candy bar to sally forth into
+the great big world, but it becomes another matter when the lad of six
+leaves home with every appearance of making it stick. So Brennan had to
+play it cozy, inviting newspaper reporters to the Holden home to display
+what he had to offer young James and giving them free rein to question
+Brennan's housekeeper and general factotum, the Mitchells. With
+honest-looking zeal, Paul Brennan succeeded in building up a picture that
+depicted James as ungrateful, hard to understand, wilful, and something
+of an intellectual brat.
+
+Then the authorities proceeded to throw out a fine-mesh dragnet. They
+questioned and cross-questioned bus drivers and railroad men. They made
+contact with the local airport even though its facilities were only used
+for a daisy-cutting feeder line. Posters were printed and sent to all
+truck lines for display to the truck drivers. The roadside diners were
+covered thoroughly. And knowing the boy's ability to talk convincingly,
+the authorities even went so far as to try the awesome project of making
+contact with passengers bound out-of-town with young male children in
+tow.
+
+Had James given them no previous experience to think about, he would have
+been merely considered a missing child and not a deliberate runaway.
+Then, instead of dragging down all of the known avenues of standard
+escape, the townspeople would have organized a tree-by-tree search of the
+fields and woods with hundreds of men walking hand in hand to inspect
+every square foot of the ground for either tracks or the child himself.
+But the _modus operandi_ of young James Holden had been to apply sly
+touches such as writing letters and forging signatures of adults to
+cause the unquestioned sale of railroad tickets, or the unauthorized ride
+in the side-door Pullman.
+
+Therefore, while the authorities were extending their circle of search
+based upon the velocity of modern transportation, James Holden was making
+his slow way across field and stream, guided by a Boy Scout compass and a
+U.S. Geodetic Survey map to keep him well out of the reach of roadway or
+town. With difficulty, but with dogged determination, he carried a light
+cot-blanket into which he had rolled four cans of pork and beans. He had
+a Boy Scout knife and a small pair of pliers to open it with. He had
+matches. He had the Boy Scout Handbook which was doubly useful; the pages
+devoted to woodsman's lore he kept for reference, the pages wasted on the
+qualifications for merit badges he used to start fires. He enjoyed
+sleeping in the open because it was spring and pleasantly warm, and
+because the Boy Scout Manual said that camping out was fun.
+
+A grown man with an objective can cover thirty or forty miles per day
+without tiring. James made it ten to fifteen. Thus, by the time the
+organized search petered out for lack of evidence and manpower--try
+asking one question of everybody within a hundred-mile radius--James was
+quietly making his way, free of care, like a hardy pioneer looking for a
+homestead site.
+
+The hint of kidnap went out early. The Federal Bureau of Investigation,
+of course, could not move until the waiting period was ended, but they
+did collect information and set up their organization ready to move
+into high speed at the instant of legal time. But then no ransom letter
+came; no evidence of the crime of kidnapping. This did not close the
+case; there were other cases on record where a child was stolen by adults
+for purposes other than ransom. It was not very likely that a child of
+six would be stolen by a neurotic adult to replace a lost infant, and
+Paul Brennan was personally convinced that James Holden had enough
+self-reliance to make such a kidnap attempt fail rather early in the
+game. He could hardly say so, nor could he suggest that James had indeed
+run away deliberately and skilfully, and with planned steps worthy of a
+much older person. He could only hint and urge the F.B.I. into any action
+that he could coerce them into taking; he did not care how or who brought
+James back just so long as the child was returned to his custody.
+
+Then as the days wore into weeks with no sign, the files were placed
+in the inactive drawer. Paul Brennan made contact with a few private
+agencies.
+
+He was stopped here, again, by another angle. The Holdens were by no
+means wealthy. Brennan could not justify the offer of some reward so
+large that people simply could not turn down the slim chance of
+collecting. If the missing one is heir to a couple of million dollars,
+the trustees can justify a reward of a good many thousand dollars for his
+return. The amount that Brennan was prepared to offer could not compel
+the services of a private agency on a full-time basis. The best and the
+most interested of the agencies took the case on a contingent basis; if
+something turned their way in the due course of their work they'd
+immediately take steps. Solving the case of a complete disappearance on
+the part of a child who virtually vanished into thin air would be good
+advertising, but their advertising budget would not allow them to put one
+man on the case without the first shred of evidence to point the way.
+
+If Paul Brennan had been above-board, he could have evoked a lot of
+interest. The search for a six-year-old boy with the educational
+development of a youth of about eighteen, informed through the services
+of an electromechanical device, would have fired public interest,
+Government intervention, and would also have justified Paul Brennan's
+depth of interest. But Paul Brennan could say nothing about the excellent
+training, he could only hint at James Holden's mental proficiency which
+was backed up by the boy's school record. As it was, Paul Brennan's
+most frightful nightmare was one where young James was spotted by some
+eagle-eyed detective and then in desperation--anything being better than
+an enforced return to Paul Brennan--James Holden pulled out all the stops
+and showed everybody precisely how well educated he really was.
+
+In his own affairs, Paul still had to make a living, which took up his
+time. As guardian and trustee of the Holden Estate, he was responsible to
+the State for his handling of James Holden's inheritance. The State takes
+a sensible view of the disbursements of the inheritance of a minor.
+Reasonable sums may be spent on items hardly deemed necessities to the
+average person, but the ceiling called "reasonable" is a flexible term
+and subject to close scrutiny by the State.
+
+In the long run it was Paul Brennan's own indefensible position that made
+it impossible to prosecute a proper search for the missing James Holden.
+Brennan suspected James of building up a bank account under some false
+name, but he could not saunter into banks and ask to examine their
+records without a Court order. Brennan knew that James had not taken off
+without preparation, but the examination of the stuff that James left
+behind was not very informative. There was a small blanket missing and
+Mrs. Mitchell said that it looked as though some cans had been removed
+from the stock but she could not be sure. And in a large collection of
+boy's stuff, one would not observe the absence of a Boy Scout knife and
+other trivia. Had a 100% inventory been available, the list of missing
+items would have pointed out James Holden's avenue of escape.
+
+The search for an adult would have included questioning of banks. No one
+knows whether such a questioning would have uncovered the bank-by-mail
+routine conducted under the name of Charles Maxwell. It is not a regular
+thing, but the receipt of a check drawn on a New York bank, issued by a
+publishing company, and endorsed to be paid to the account of so-and-so,
+accompanied by a request to open an account in that name might never be
+connected with the manipulations of a six-year-old genius, who was
+overtly just plain bright.
+
+And so Paul Brennan worried himself out of several pounds for fear
+that James would give himself away to the right people. He cursed the
+necessity of keeping up his daily work routine. The hue-and-cry he could
+not keep alive, but he knew that somewhere there was a young boy entirely
+capable of reconstructing the whole machine that Paul Brennan wanted so
+desperately that he had killed for it.
+
+Paul Brennan was blocked cold. With the F.B.I. maintaining a hands-off
+attitude because there was no trace of any Federal crime involved, the
+case of James Holden was relegated to the missing-persons files. It
+became the official opinion that the lad had suffered some mishap and
+that it would only be a matter of time before his body was discovered.
+Paul Brennan could hardly prove them wrong without explaining the whole
+secret of James Holden's intelligence, competence, and the certainty that
+the young man would improve upon both as soon as he succeeded in
+rebuilding the Holden Electromechanical Educator.
+
+With the F.B.I. out of the picture, the local authorities waiting for the
+discovery of a small body, and the state authorities shelving the case
+except for the routine punch-card checks, official action died. Brennan's
+available reward money was not enough to buy a private agency's interest
+full-time.
+
+Brennan could not afford to tell anybody of his suspicion of James
+Holden's source of income, for the idea of a child's making a living by
+writing would be indefensible without full explanation. However, Paul
+Brennan resorted to reading of magazines edited for boys. Month after
+month he bought them and read them, comparing the styles of the many
+writers against the style of the manuscript copy left behind by James.
+
+Brennan naturally assumed that James would use a pen name. Writers often
+used pen names to conceal their own identity for any one of several
+reasons. A writer might use three or more pen names, each one identified
+with a known style of writing, or a certain subject or established
+character. But Paul Brennan did not know all there was to know about the
+pen-name business, such as an editor assigning a pen name to prevent the
+too-often appearance of some prolific writer, or conversely to make one
+writer's name seem exclusive with his magazine; nor could Brennan know
+that a writer's literary standing can be kept high by assigning a pen
+name to any second-rate material he may be so unfortunate as to turn out.
+
+Paul Brennan read many stories written by James Holden under several
+names, including the name of Charles Maxwell, but Brennan's
+identification according to literary style was no better than if he had
+tossed a coin.
+
+And so, blocked by his own guilt and avarice from making use of the legal
+avenues of approach, Paul Brennan fumed and fretted away four long years
+while James Holden grew from six to ten years old, hiding under the guise
+of the Hermit of Martin's Hill and behind the pleasant adult façade of
+Mrs. Janet Bagley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+If Paul Brennan found himself blocked in his efforts to find James Holden
+and the re-created Holden Educator, James himself was annoyed by one
+evident fact: Everything he did resulted in spreading the news of the
+machine itself.
+
+Had he been eighteen or so, he might have made out to his own taste. In
+the days of late teen-age, a youth can hold a job and rent a room, buy
+his own clothing and conduct himself to the limit of his ability. At ten
+he is suspect, because no one will permit him to paddle his own canoe. At
+a later age James could have rented a small apartment and built his
+machine alone. But starting as young as he did, he was forced to hide
+behind the cover of some adult, and he had picked Mrs. Bagley because he
+could control her both through her desire for security and the promise of
+a fine education for the daughter Martha Bagley.
+
+The daughter was a two-way necessity; she provided him with a
+contemporary companion and also gave him a lever to wield against the
+adult. A lone woman could have made her way without trouble. A lone woman
+with a girl-child is up against a rather horrifying problem of providing
+both support and parental care. He felt that he had done what he had to
+do, up to the point where Mrs. Bagley became involved with Tim Fisher or
+anybody else. This part of adulthood was not yet within his grasp.
+
+But there it was and here it is, and now there was Martha to complicate
+the picture. Had Mrs. Bagley been alone, she and Tim could go off and
+marry and then settle down in Timbuctoo if they wanted to. But not with
+Martha. She was in the same intellectual kettle of sardines as James. Her
+taste in education was by no means the same. She took to the mathematical
+subjects indifferently, absorbing them well enough--once she could be
+talked into spending the couple of hours that each day demanded--but
+without interest. Martha could rattle off quotations from literary
+masters, she could follow the score of most operas (her voice was a bit
+off-key but she knew what was going on) and she enjoyed all of the
+available information on keeping a house in order. Her eye and her mind
+were, as James Holden's, faster than her hand. She went through the same
+frustrations as he did, with different tools and in a different medium.
+The first offside snick of the scissors she knew to be bad before she
+tried the pattern for size, and the only way she could correct such
+defective work was to practice and practice until her muscles were
+trained enough to respond to the direction of her mind.
+
+Remove her now and place her in a school--even the most advanced
+school--and she would undergo the unhappy treatment that James had
+undergone these several years ago.
+
+And yet she could not be cut loose. Martha was as much a part of this
+very strange life as James was. So this meant that any revision in
+overall policy must necessarily include the addition of Tim Fisher and
+not the subtraction of Mrs. Bagley and Martha.
+
+"Charles Maxwell" had to go.
+
+James's problem had not changed. His machine must be kept a secret as
+long as he could. The machine was his, James Quincy Holden's property by
+every known and unwritten legal right of direct, single, uncluttered
+inheritance. The work of his parents had been stopped by their death, but
+it was by no means finished with the construction of the machine. To the
+contrary, the real work had only begun with the completion of the first
+working model. And whether he turned out to be a machine-made genius, an
+over-powered dolt, or an introverted monster it was still his own
+personal reason for being alive.
+
+He alone should reap the benefit or the sorrow, and had his parents lived
+they would have had their right to reap good or bad with him. Good or
+bad, had they lived, he would have received their protection.
+
+As it was, he had no protection whatsoever. Until he could have and hold
+the right to control his own property as he himself saw fit, he had to
+hide just as deep from the enemy who would steal it as he must hide from
+the friend who would administrate it as a property in escrow for his own
+good, since he as a minor was legally unable to walk a path both fitting
+and proper for his feet.
+
+So, the facts had to be concealed. Yet all he was buying was time.
+
+By careful juggling, he had already bought some. Months with Jake Caslow,
+a few months stolidly fighting the school, and two with the help of Mrs.
+Bagley and Martha. Then in these later months there had been more
+purchased time; time gained by the post-dated engagement and the
+procrastinated marriage, which was now running out.
+
+No matter what he did, it seemed that the result was a wider spread of
+knowledge about the Holden Electromechanical Educator.
+
+So with misgiving and yet unaware of any way or means to circumvent the
+necessity without doing more overall harm, James decided that Tim Fisher
+must be handed another piece of the secret. A plausible piece, with as
+much truth as he would accept for the time being. Maybe--hand Tim Fisher
+a bit with great gesture and he would not go prying for the whole?
+
+His chance came in mid-August. It was after dinner on an evening
+uncluttered with party or shower or the horde of just-dropped-in-friends
+of whom Tim Fisher had legion.
+
+Janet Bagley and Tim Fisher sat on the low divan in the living room
+half-facing each other. Apart, but just so far apart that they could
+touch with half a gesture, they were discussing the problem of domicile.
+They were also still quibbling mildly about the honeymoon. Tim Fisher
+wanted a short, noisy one. A ten-day stay in Hawaii, flying both ways,
+with a ten-hour stopover in Los Angeles on the way back. Janet Bagley
+wanted a long and lazy stay somewhere no closer than fifteen hundred
+miles to the nearest telephone, newspaper, mailbox, airline, bus stop, or
+highway. She'd take the 762-day rocket trip to Venus if they had one
+available. Tim was duly sympathetic to her desire to get away from her
+daily grind for as long a time as possible, but he also had a garage to
+run, and he was by no means incapable of pointing out the practical side
+of crass commercialism.
+
+But unlike the problem of the honeymoon, which Janet Bagley was willing
+to discuss on any terms for the pleasure of discussing it, the problem of
+domicile had been avoided--to the degree of being pointed.
+
+For Janet Bagley was still torn between two loyalties. Hers was not
+a lone loyalty to James Holden, there had been almost a complete
+association with the future of her daughter in the loyalty. She realized
+as well as James did, that Martha must not be wrested from this life and
+forced to live, forever an outcast, raised mentally above the level of
+her age and below the physical size of her mental development. Mrs.
+Bagley thought only of Martha's future; she gave little or no thought on
+the secondary part of the problem. But James knew that once Martha was
+separated from the establishment, she could not long conceal her advanced
+information, and revealing that would reveal its source.
+
+And so, as they talked together with soft voices, James Holden decided
+that he could best buy time by employing logic, finance, and good common
+sense. He walked into the living room and sat across the coffee table
+from them. He said, "You'll have to live here, you know."
+
+The abrupt statement stunned them both. Tim sat bolt upright and
+objected, "I'll see to it that we're properly housed, young fellow."
+
+"This isn't charity," replied James. "Nor the goodness of my little
+heart. It's a necessity."
+
+"How so?" demanded Tim crossly. "It's my life--and Janet's."
+
+"And--Martha's life," added James.
+
+"You don't think I'm including her out, do you?"
+
+"No, but you're forgetting that she isn't to be popped here and there as
+the fancy hits you, either. She's much to be considered."
+
+"I'll consider her," snapped Tim. "She shall be my daughter. If she will,
+I'll have her use my name as well as my care and affection."
+
+"Of course you will," agreed James. The quick gesture of Mrs. Bagley's
+hand towards Tim, and his equally swift caress in reply were noticed but
+not understood by James. "But you're not thinking deeply enough about
+it."
+
+"All right. You tell me all about it."
+
+"Martha must stay here," said James. "Neither of you--nor Martha--have
+any idea of how stultifying it can be to be forced into school under the
+supervision of teachers who cannot understand, and among classmates
+whose grasp of any subject is no stronger than a feeble grope in the
+mental dawn."
+
+"Maybe so. But that's no reason why we must run our life your way."
+
+"You're wrong, Mr. Fisher. Think a moment. Without hesitation, you will
+include the education of Martha Bagley along with the 'care and
+affection' you mentioned a moment ago."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"This means, Mr. Fisher, that Martha, approaching ten years old,
+represents a responsibility of about seven more years prior to her
+graduation from high school and another four years of college--granting
+that Martha is a standard, normal, healthy young lady. Am I right?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, since you are happy and willing to take on the responsibility of
+eleven years of care and affection and the expense of schooling the girl,
+you might as well take advantage of the possibilities here and figure on
+five years--or less. If we cannot give her the equal of a master's degree
+in three, I'm shooting in the dark. Make it five, and she'll have her
+doctor's degree--or at least it's equivalent. Does that make sense?"
+
+"Of course it does. But--"
+
+"No buts until we're finished. You'll recall the tales we told you about
+the necessity of hiding out. It must continue. During the school year we
+must not be visible to the general public."
+
+"But dammit, I don't want to set up my family in someone else's house,"
+objected Tim Fisher.
+
+"Buy this one," suggested James. "Then it will be yours. I'll stay on and
+pay rent on my section."
+
+"You'll--now wait a minute! What are you talking about?"
+
+"I said, _'I'll pay rent on my section,'_" said James.
+
+"But this guy upstairs--" Tim took a long breath. "Let's get this
+straight," he said, "now that we're on the subject, what about Mr.
+Charles Maxwell?"
+
+"I can best quote," said James with a smile, "'Oh, what a tangled web we
+weave, when first we practice to deceive!'"
+
+"That's Shakespeare."
+
+"Sorry. That's Sir Walter Scott. _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Canto
+Six, Stanza Seventeen. The fact of the matter is that we could go on
+compounding this lie, but it's time to stop it. Mr. Charles Maxwell
+does not exist."
+
+"I don't understand!"
+
+"Hasn't it puzzled you that this hermit-type character that never puts a
+foot out of the house has been out and gone on some unstated vacation or
+business trip for most of the spring and summer?"
+
+"Hadn't given it a thought," said Fisher with a fatuous look at Mrs.
+Bagley. She mooned back at him. For a moment they were lost in one
+another, giving proof to the idea that blinder than he who will not
+see is the fellow who has his eye on a woman.
+
+"Charles Maxwell does not exist except in the minds of his happy
+readers," said James. "He is a famous writer of boys' stories and known
+to a lot of people for that talent. Yet he is no more a real person
+than Lewis Carroll."
+
+"But Lewis Carroll did exist--"
+
+"As Charles L. Dodgson, a mathematician famous for his work in symbolic
+logic."
+
+"All right! Then who writes these stories? Who supports you--and this
+house?"
+
+"I do!"
+
+Tim blinked, looked around the room a bit wildly and then settled on
+Martha, looking at her helplessly.
+
+"It's true, Tim," she said quietly. "It's crazy but it works. I've been
+living with it for years."
+
+Tim considered that for a full minute. "All right," he said shortly. "So
+it works. But why does any kid have to live for himself?" He eyed James.
+"Who's responsible for you?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Got an hour?" asked James with a smile. "Then listen--"
+
+At the end of James Holden's long explanation, Tim Fisher said, "Me--?
+Now, I need a drink!"
+
+James chuckled, "Alcoholic, of course--which is Pi to seven decimal
+places if you ever need it. Just count the letters."
+
+Over his glass, Tim eyed James thoughtfully. "So if this is true, James,
+just who owns that fabulous machine of yours?"
+
+"It is mine, or ours."
+
+"You gave me to believe that it was a high-priority Government project,"
+he said accusingly.
+
+"Sorry. But I would lie as glibly to God Himself if it became necessary
+to protect myself by falsehood. I'm sorry it isn't a Government project,
+but it's just as important a secret."
+
+"Anything as big as this _should_ be the business of the Government."
+
+"Perhaps so. But it's mine to keep or to give, and it's mine to study."
+James was thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that you can argue that
+anything as important as this should be handed over to the authorities
+immediately; that a large group of men dedicated to such a study can
+locate its difficulties and its pitfalls and failures far swifter than
+a single youth of eleven. Yet by the right of invention, a process
+protected by the Constitution of the United States and circumvented by
+some very odd rulings on the part of the Supreme Court, it is mine by
+inheritance, to reap the exclusive rewards for my family's work. Until
+I'm of an age when I am deemed capable of managing my own life, I'd be
+'protected' out of my rights if I handed this to anybody--including the
+Government. They'd start a commission full of bureaucrats who'd first
+use the machine to study how to best expand their own little empire,
+perpetuate themselves in office, and then they'd rule me out on the
+quaint theory that education is so important that it mustn't be wasted
+on the young."
+
+Tim Fisher smiled wryly. He turned to Janet Bagley. "How do you want it?"
+he asked her.
+
+"For Martha's sake, I want it his way," she said.
+
+"All right. Then that's the way we'll have it," said Tim Fisher. He eyed
+James somewhat ruefully. "You know, it's a funny thing. I've always
+thought this was a screwy set-up, and to be honest, I've always thought
+you were a pretty bumptious kid. I guess you had a good reason. Anyway, I
+should have known Janet wouldn't have played along with it unless she had
+a reason that was really helping somebody."
+
+James saw with relief that Tim had allied himself with the cause; he was,
+in fact, very glad to have someone knowledgeable and levelheaded in on
+the problem. Anyway he really liked Tim, and was happy to have the
+deception out of the way.
+
+"That's all right," he said awkwardly.
+
+Tim laughed. "Hey, will this contraption of yours teach me how to adjust
+a set of tappets?"
+
+"No," said James quickly. "It will teach you the theory of how to chop
+down a tree but it can't show you how to swing an axe. Or," he went on
+with a smile, "it will teach you how to be an efficient accountant--but
+you have to use your own money!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the house on Martin's Hill, everybody won. Tim Fisher objected at
+first to the idea of gallivanting off on a protracted honeymoon, leaving
+a nine-year-old daughter in the care of a ten-year-old boy. But
+Janet--now Mrs. Fisher--pointed out that James and Martha were both quite
+competent, and furthermore there was little to be said for a honeymoon
+encumbered with a little pitcher that had such big ears, to say nothing
+of a pair of extremely curious eyes and a rather loud voice. And
+furthermore, if we allow the woman's privilege of adding one furthermore
+on top of another, it had been a long, long time since Janet had enjoyed
+a child-free vacation. So she won. It was not Hawaii by air for a ten-day
+stay. It was Hawaii by ship with a sixty-day sojourn in a hotel that
+offered both seclusion and company to the guests' immediate preference.
+
+James Holden won more time. He felt that every hour was a victory. At
+times he despaired because time passed so crawlingly slow. All the wealth
+of his education could not diminish that odd sense of the time-factor
+that convinces all people that the length of the years diminish as age
+increases. Far from being a simple, amusing remark, the problem has been
+studied because it is universal. It is psychological, of course, and it
+is not hard to explain simply in terms of human experience plus the known
+fact that the human senses respond to the logarithm of the stimulus.
+
+With most people, time is reasonably important. We live by the clock, and
+we die by the clock, and before there were clocks there were candles
+marked in lengths and sand flowing through narrow orifices, water
+dripping into jars, and posts stuck in the ground with marks for the
+shadow to divide the day. The ancient ones related womanhood to the moon
+and understood that time was vital in the course of Life.
+
+With James, time was more important, perhaps, than to any other human
+being alive. He was fighting for time, always. His was not the immature
+desire of uneducated youth to become adult overnight for vague reasons.
+
+With James it was an honest evaluation of his precarious position. He
+had to hide until he was deemed capable of handling his own affairs,
+after which he could fight his own battles in his own way without the
+interference of the laws that are set up to protect the immature.
+
+With Tim Fisher and his brand-new bride out of the way, James took a deep
+breath at having leaped one more hurdle. Then he sat down to think.
+
+Obviously there is no great sea-change that takes place at the Stroke Of
+Midnight on the date of the person's 21st birthday; no magic wand is
+waved over his scalp to convert him in a moment of time from a puling
+infant to a mature adult. The growth of child to adult is as gradual as
+the increase of his stature, which varies from one child to the next.
+
+The fact remained that few people are confronted by the necessity of
+making a decision based upon the precise age of the subject. We usually
+cross this barrier with no trouble, taking on our rights and
+responsibilities as we find them necessary to our life. Only in probating
+an estate left by the demise of both parents in the presence of minor
+children does this legal matter of precise age become noticeable. Even
+then, the control exerted over the minor by the legal guardian diminishes
+by some obscure mathematical proportion that approaches zero as the minor
+approaches the legal age of maturity. Rare is the case of the reluctant
+guardian who jealously relinquishes the iron rule only after the proper
+litigation directs him to let go, render the accounting for audit, and
+turn over the keys to the treasury to the rightful heir.
+
+James Holden was the seldom case. James Holden needed a very adroit
+lawyer to tell him how and when his rights and privileges as a citizen
+could be granted, and under what circumstances. From the evidence already
+at hand, James saw loopholes available in the matter of the legal age of
+twenty-one. But he also knew that he could not approach a lawyer with
+questions without giving full explanation of every why and wherefore.
+
+So James Holden, already quite competent in the do-it-himself method of
+cutting his own ice, decided to study law. Without any forewarning of the
+monumental proportions of the task he faced, James started to acquire
+books on legal procedure and the law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the return of Tim and Janet Fisher matters progressed well. Mrs.
+Fisher took over the running of the household; Tim continued his running
+of the garage and started to dicker for the purchase of the house on
+Martin's Hill. The "Hermit" who had returned before the wedding remained
+temporarily. With a long-drawn plan, Charles Maxwell would slowly fade
+out of sight. Already his absence during the summer was hinting as being
+a medical study; during the winter he would return to the distant
+hospital. Later he would leave completely cured to take up residence
+elsewhere. Beyond this they planned to play it by ear.
+
+James and Martha, freed from the housework routine, went deep into study.
+
+Christmas passed and spring came and in April, James marked his eleventh
+birthday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+One important item continued to elude James Holden. The Educator could
+not be made to work in "tandem." In less technical terms, the Educator
+was strictly an individual device, a one-man-dog. The wave forms that
+could be recorded were as individual as fingerprints and pore-patterns
+and iris markings. James could record a series of ideas or a few pages of
+information and play them back to himself. During the playback he could
+think in no other terms; he could not even correct, edit or improve the
+phrasing. It came back word for word with the faithful reproduction of
+absolute fidelity. Similarly, Martha could record a phase of information
+and she, too, underwent the same repetition when her recording was played
+back to her.
+
+But if Martha's recording were played through to James, utter confusion
+came. It was a whirling maze of colors and odors, sound, taste and touch.
+
+It spoiled some of James Holden's hopes; he sought the way to mass-use,
+his plan was to employ a teacher to digest the information and then via
+the Educator, impress the information upon many other brains each coupled
+to the machine. This would not work.
+
+He made an extra headset late in June and they tried it, sitting
+side-by-side and still it did not work. With Martha doing the reading,
+she got the full benefit of the machine and James emerged with a whirling
+head full of riotous colors and other sensations. At one point he hoped
+that they might learn some subject by sitting side-by-side and reading
+the text in unison, but from this they received the information horribly
+mingled with equal intensity of sensory noise.
+
+He did not abandon this hope completely. He merely put it aside as a
+problem that he was not ready to study yet. He would re-open the question
+when he knew more about the whole process. To know the whole process
+meant studying many fields of knowledge and combining them into a
+research of his own.
+
+And so James entered the summer months as he'd entered them before; Tim
+and Janet Fisher took off one day and returned the next afternoon with a
+great gay show of "bringing the children home for the summer."
+
+Even in this day of multi-billion-dollar budgets and farm surpluses that
+cost forty thousand dollars per hour for warehouse rental, twenty-five
+hundred dollars is still a tidy sum to dangle before the eyes of any
+individual. This was the reward offered by Paul Brennan for any
+information as to the whereabouts of James Quincy Holden.
+
+If Paul Brennan could have been honest, the information he could have
+supplied would have provided any of the better agencies with enough
+lead-material to track James Holden down in a time short enough to make
+the reward money worth the effort. Similarly, if James Holden's
+competence had been no greater than Brennan's scaled-down description,
+he could not have made his own way without being discovered.
+
+Bound by his own guilt, Brennan could only fret. Everything including
+time, was running against him.
+
+And as the years of James Holden's independence looked toward the sixth,
+Paul Brennan was willing to make a mental bet that the young man's
+education was deeper than ever.
+
+He would have won. James was close to his dream of making his play for an
+appearance in court and pleading for the law to recognize his competence
+to act as an adult. He abandoned all pretense; he no longer hid through
+the winter months, and he did not keep Martha under cover either. They
+went shopping with Mrs. Fisher now and then, and if any of the folks in
+Shipmont wondered about them, the fact that the children were in the care
+and keeping of responsible adults and were oh-so-quick on the uptake
+stopped anybody who might have made a fast call to the truant officer.
+
+Then in the spring of James Holden's twelfth year and the sixth of
+his freedom, he said to Tim Fisher. "How would you like to collect
+twenty-five hundred dollars?"
+
+Fisher grinned. "Who do you want killed?"
+
+"Seriously."
+
+"Who wouldn't?"
+
+"All right, drop the word to Paul Brennan and collect the reward."
+
+"Can you protect yourself?"
+
+"I can quote Gladstone from one end to the other. I can cite every civil
+suit regarding the majority or minority problem that has any importance.
+If I fail, I'll skin out of there in a hurry on the next train. But I
+can't wait forever."
+
+"What's the gimmick, James?"
+
+"First, I am sick and tired of running and hiding, and I think I've got
+enough to prove my point and establish my rights. Second, there is a bit
+of cupidity here; the reward money is being offered out of my own
+inheritance so I feel that I should have some say in where it should go.
+Third, the fact that I steer it into the hands of someone I'd prefer to
+get it tickles my sense of humor. The trapper trapped; the bopper bopped;
+the sapper hoist by his own petard."
+
+"And--?"
+
+"It isn't fair to Martha, either. So the sooner we get this whole affair
+settled, the sooner we can start to move towards a reasonable way of
+life."
+
+"Okay, but how are we going to work it? I can't very well turn up by
+myself, you know."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"People would think I'm a heel."
+
+"Let them think so. They'll change their opinion once the whole truth is
+known." James smiled. "It'll also let you know who your true friends
+are."
+
+"Okay. Twenty-five hundred bucks and a chance at the last laugh sounds
+good. I'll talk it over with Janet."
+
+That night they buried Charles Maxwell, the Hermit of Martin's Hill.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE:
+
+THE REBEL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+In his years of searching, Paul Brennan had followed eleven fruitless
+leads. It had cost him over thirteen hundred dollars and he was prepared
+to go on and on until he located James Holden, no matter how much it
+took. He fretted under two fears, one that James had indeed suffered a
+mishap, and the other that James might reveal his secret in a dramatic
+announcement, or be discovered by some force or agency that would place
+the whole process in hands that Paul Brennan could not reach.
+
+The registered letter from Tim Fisher culminated this six years of
+frantic search. Unlike the previous leads, this spoke with authority,
+named names, gave dates, and outlined sketchily but adequately the
+operations of the young man in very plausible prose. Then the letter went
+on in the manner of a man with his foot in a cleft stick; the writer did
+not approve of James Holden's operations since they involved his wife and
+newly-adopted daughter, but since wife and daughter were fond of James
+Holden, the writer could not make any overt move to rid his household of
+the interfering young man. Paul Brennan was asked to move with caution
+and in utter secrecy, even to sending the reward in cash to a special
+post-office box.
+
+Paul Brennan's reaction was a disappointment to himself. He neither felt
+great relief nor the desire to exult. He found himself assaying his own
+calmness and wondering why he lacked emotion over this culmination of so
+many years of futile effort. He re-read the letter carefully to see if
+there were something hidden in the words that his subconscious had
+caught, but he found nothing that gave him any reason to believe that
+this letter was a false lead. It rang true; Brennan could understand Tim
+Fisher's stated reaction and the man's desire to collect. Brennan even
+suspected that Fisher might use the reward money for his own private
+purpose.
+
+It was not until he read the letter for the third time that he saw the
+suggestion to move with caution and secrecy not as its stated request to
+protect the writer, but as an excellent advice for his own guidance.
+
+And then Paul Brennan realized that for six years he had been
+concentrating upon the single problem of having James Holden returned to
+his custody, and in that concentration he had lost sight of the more
+important problem of achieving his true purpose of gaining control of the
+Holden Educator. The letter had not been the end of a long quest, but
+just the signal to start.
+
+Paul Brennan of course did not give a fig for the Holden Estate nor the
+welfare of James. His only interest was in the machine, and the secret of
+that machine was locked in the young man's mind and would stay that way
+unless James could be coerced into revealing it. The secret indubitably
+existed as hardware in the machine rebuilt in the house on Martin's Hill,
+but Brennan guessed that any sight of him would cause James to repeat his
+job of destruction. Brennan also envisioned a self-destructive device
+that would addle the heart of the machine at the touch of a button,
+perhaps booby-traps fitted like burglar alarms that would ruin the
+machine at the first touch of an untrained hand.
+
+Brennan's mind began to work. He must plan his moves carefully to acquire
+the machine by stealth. He toyed with the idea of murder and rejected it
+as too dangerous to chance a repeat, especially in view of the existence
+of the rebuilt machine.
+
+Brennan read the letter again. It gave him to think. James had obviously
+succeeded in keeping his secret by imparting it to a few people that he
+could either trust or bind to him, perhaps with the offer of education
+via the machine, which James and only James maintained in hiding could
+provide. Brennan could not estimate the extent of James Holden's
+knowledge but it was obvious that he was capable of some extremely
+intelligent planning. He was willing to grant the boy the likelihood of
+being the equal of a long and experienced campaigner, and the fact that
+James was in the favor of Tim Fisher's wife and daughter meant that the
+lad would be able to call upon them for additional advice. Brennan
+counted the daughter Martha in this planning program, most certainly
+James would have given the girl an extensive education, too. Everything
+added up, even to Tim Fisher's resentment.
+
+But there was not time to ponder over the efficiency of James Holden's
+operations. It was time for Paul Brennan to cope, and it seemed sensible
+to face the fact that Paul Brennan alone could not plot the illegal
+grab of the Holden Educator and at the same time masquerade as the
+deeply-concerned loving guardian. He could label James Holden's little
+group as an organization, and if he was to combat this organization he
+needed one himself.
+
+Paul Brennan began to form a mental outline of his requirements. First he
+had to figure out the angle at which to make his attack. Once he knew the
+legal angle, then he could find ruthless men in the proper position of
+authority whose ambitions he could control. He regretted that the elder
+Holden had not allowed him to study civil and criminal law along with his
+courses in real estate and corporate law. As it was, Brennan was unsure
+of his legal rights, and he could not plan until he had researched the
+problem most thoroughly.
+
+To his complete surprise, Paul Brennan discovered that there was no law
+that would stay an infant from picking up his marbles and leaving home.
+So long as the minor did not become a ward of responsibility of the
+State, his freedom was as inviolable as the freedom of any adult. The
+universal interest in missing-persons cases is overdrawn because of their
+dramatic appeal. In every case that comes to important notice, the
+missing person has left some important responsibilities that had to be
+satisfied. A person with no moral, legal, or ethical anchor has every
+right to pack his suitcase and catch the next conveyance for parts
+unknown. If he is found by the authorities after an appeal by friends or
+relatives, the missing party can tell the police that, Yes he did leave
+home and, No he isn't returning and, furthermore he does not wish his
+whereabouts made known; and all the authorities can report is that the
+missing one is hale, happy, and hearty and wants to stay missing.
+
+Under the law, a minor is a minor and there is no proposition that
+divides one degree of minority from another. Major decisions, such as
+voting, the signing of binding contracts of importance, the determination
+of a course of drastic medical treatment, are deemed to be matters that
+require mature judgment. The age for such decisions is arbitrarily set at
+age twenty-one. Acts such as driving a car, sawing a plank, or buying
+food and clothing are considered to be "skills" that do not require
+judgment and therefore the age of demarcation varies with the state and
+the state legislature's attitude.
+
+James was a minor; presumably he could repudiate contracts signed while a
+minor, at the time he reached the age of twenty-one. From a practical
+standpoint, however, anything that James contracted for was expendable
+and of vital necessity. He could not stop payment on a check for his
+rent, nor claim that he had not received proper payment for his stories
+and demand damages. Paul Brennan might possibly interfere with the smooth
+operation by squawking to the bank that Charles Maxwell was a phantom
+front for the minor child James Holden. And bankers, being bankers, might
+very well clog up the operation with a lot of questions. But there was
+the possibility that James Holden, operating through the agency of an
+adult, would switch his method. He could even go so far as to bring
+Brennan to lawsuit to have Brennan stopped from his interference. Child
+or not, James Holden had been running a checking account by mail for a
+number of years which could be used as evidence of his good faith and
+ability.
+
+Indeed, the position of James Holden was so solid that Brennan could only
+plead personal interest and personal responsibility in the case for
+securing a writ of habeas corpus to have the person of James Holden
+returned to his custody and protection. And this of itself was a bit on
+the dangerous side. A writ of habeas corpus will, by law, cause the
+delivery of the person to the right hands, but there is no part of the
+writ that can be used to guarantee that the person will remain
+thereafter. If Brennan tried to repeat this program, James Holden was
+very apt to suggest either the rather rare case of Barratry or
+Maintenance against Brennan. Barratry consists of the constant harassment
+of a citizen by the serial entry of lawsuit after lawsuit against him,
+each of which he must defend to the loss of time and money--and the tying
+up of courts and their officials. Maintenance is the re-opening of the
+same suit and its charges time after time in court after court. One need
+only be sure of the attitude of the plaintiff to strike back; if he is
+interested in heckling the defendant and this can be demonstrated in
+evidence, the heckler is a dead duck. Such a response would surely damage
+Paul Brennan's overt position as a responsible, interested, affectionate
+guardian of his best friends' orphaned child.
+
+Then to put the top on the bottle, James Holden had crossed state lines
+in his flight from home. This meant that the case was not the simple
+proposition of appearing before a local magistrate and filing an
+emotional appeal. It was interstate. It smacked of extradition, and James
+Holden had committed no crime in either state.
+
+To Paul Brennan's qualifications for his henchmen, he now added the need
+for flouting the law if the law could not be warped to fit his need.
+
+Finding a man with ambition, with a casual disregard for ethics, is not
+hard in political circles. Paul Brennan found his man in Frank Manison,
+a rising figure in the office of the District Attorney. Manison had
+gubernatorial ambitions, and he was politically sharp. He personally
+conducted only those cases that would give him ironclad publicity; he
+preferred to lower the boom on a lighter charge than chance an acquittal.
+Manison also had a fine feeling for anticipating public trends, a sense
+of the drama, and an understanding of public opinion.
+
+He granted Brennan a conference of ten minutes, and knowing from long
+experience that incoming information flows faster when it is not
+interrupted, he listened attentively, oiling and urging the flow by
+facial expressions of interest and by leaning forward attentively
+whenever a serious point was about to come forth. Brennan explained about
+James Holden, his superior education, and what it had enabled the lad to
+do. He explained the education not as a machine but as a "system of
+study" devised by James Holden's parents, feeling that it was better to
+leave a few stones lying flat and unturned for his own protection.
+Manison nodded at the end of the ten-minute time-limit, used his desk
+interphone to inform his secretary that he was not to be disturbed until
+further notice (which also told Paul Brennan that he was indeed
+interested) and then said:
+
+"You know you haven't a legal leg to stand on, Brennan."
+
+"So I find out. It seems incredible that there isn't any law set up to
+control the activity of a child."
+
+"Incredible? No, Brennan, not so. To now it hasn't been necessary. People
+just do not see the necessity of laws passed to prevent something that
+isn't being done anyway. The number of outmoded laws, ridiculous laws,
+and laws passed in the heat of public emotion are always a subject for
+public ridicule. If the state legislature were to pass a law stating that
+any child under fourteen may not leave home without the consent of his
+parents, every opposition newspaper in the state would howl about the
+waste of time and money spent on ridiculous legislation passed to govern
+activities that are already under excellent control. They would poll the
+state and point out that for so many million children under age fourteen,
+precisely zero of them have left home to set up their own housekeeping.
+One might just as well waste the taxpayer's money by passing a law that
+confirms the Universal Law of Gravity.
+
+"But that's neither here nor there," he said. "Your problem is to figure
+out some means of exerting the proper control over this intelligent
+infant."
+
+"My problem rises higher than that," said Brennan ruefully. "He dislikes
+me to the point of blind, unreasonable hatred. He believes that I am the
+party responsible for the death of his parents and furthermore that the
+act was deliberate. Tantamount to a charge of first-degree murder."
+
+"Has he made that statement recently?" asked Manison.
+
+"I would hardly know."
+
+"When last did you hear him say words to that effect?"
+
+"At the time, following the accidental death of his parents, James Holden
+ran off to the home of his grandparents. Puzzled and concerned, they
+called me as the child's guardian. I went there to bring him back to his
+home. I arrived the following morning and it was during that session that
+James Holden made the accusation."
+
+"And he has not made it since, to the best of your knowledge?"
+
+"Not that I know of."
+
+"Hardly make anything out of that. Seven years ago. Not a formal charge,
+only a cry of rage, frustration, hysterical grief. The complaint of a
+five-year-old made under strain could hardly be considered slanderous.
+It is too bad that the child hasn't broken any laws. Your success in
+collecting him the first time was entirely due to the associations he'd
+made with this automobile thief--Caslow, you said his name was. We can't
+go back to that. The responsibility has been fixed, I presume, upon Jake
+Caslow in another state. Brennan, you've a real problem: How can you be
+sure that this James Holden will disclose his secret system of study even
+if we do succeed in cooking up some legal means of placing him and keep
+him in your custody?"
+
+Brennan considered, and came to the conclusion that now was the time to
+let another snibbet of information go. "The system of study consists of
+an electronic device, the exact nature of which I do not understand. The
+entire machine is large and cumbersome. In it, as a sort of 'heart,' is a
+special circuit. Without this special circuit the thing is no more than
+an expensive aggregation of delicate devices that could be used elsewhere
+in electronics. One such machine stands unused in the Holden Home because
+the central circuit was destroyed beyond repair or replacement by young
+James Holden. He destroyed it because he felt that this secret should
+remain his own, the intellectual inheritance from his parents. There is
+one other machine--undoubtedly in full function and employed daily--in
+the house on Martin's Hill under James Holden's personal supervision."
+
+"Indeed? How, may I ask?"
+
+"It was rebuilt by James Holden from plans, specifications, and
+information engraved on his brain by his parents through the use of their
+first machine. Unfortunately, I have every reason to believe that this
+new machine is so booby-trapped and tamper-protected that the first
+interference by someone other than James Holden will cause its
+destruction."
+
+"Um. It might be possible to impound this machine as a device of high
+interest to the State," mused Manison. "But if we start any proceeding
+as delicate as that, it will hit every newspaper in the country and our
+advantage will be lost."
+
+"Technically," said Paul Brennan, "you don't know that such a machine
+exists. But as soon as young Holden realizes that you know about his
+machine, he'll also know that you got the information from me." Brennan
+sat quietly and thought for a moment. "There's another distressing angle,
+too," he said at last. "I don't think that there is a soul on earth who
+knows how to run this machine but James Holden. Steal it or impound it or
+take it away legally, you've got to know how it runs. I doubt that we'd
+find a half-dozen people on the earth who'd willingly sit in a chair with
+a heavy headset on, connected to a devilish aggregation of electrical
+machinery purported to educate the victim, while a number of fumblers
+experimented with the dials and the knobs and the switches. No sir, some
+sort of pressure must be brought to bear upon the youngster."
+
+"Um. Perhaps civic pride? Might work. Point out to him that he is in
+control of a device that is essential to the security of the United
+States. That he is denying the children of this country the right to
+their extensive education. Et cetera?"
+
+"Could be. But how are you going to swing it, technically in ignorance of
+the existence of such a machine?"
+
+"Were I a member of the Congressional Committee on Education, I could
+investigate the matter of James Holden's apparent superiority of
+intellect."
+
+"And hit Page One of every newspaper in the country," sneered Brennan.
+
+"Well, I'm not," snapped Manison angrily. "However, there is a way,
+perhaps several ways, once we find the first entering wedge. After all,
+Brennan, the existence of a method of accelerating the course of
+educational training is of the utmost importance to the future of not
+only the United States of America, but the entire human race. Once I can
+locate some plausible reason for asking James Holden the first question
+about anything, the remainder of any session can be so slanted as to
+bring into the open any secret knowledge he may have. We, to make the
+disclosure easier, shall hold any sessions in the strictest of secrecy.
+We can quite readily agree with James Holden's concern over the
+long-range effectiveness of his machine and state that secrecy is
+necessary lest headstrong factions take the plunge into something that
+could be very detrimental to the human race instead of beneficial.
+Frankly, Mr. Brennan," said Manison with a wry smile, "I should like to
+borrow that device for about a week myself. It might help me locate some
+of the little legal points that would help me." He sighed. "Yes," he said
+sadly, "I know the law, but no one man knows all of the finer points.
+Lord knows," he went on, "if the law were a simple matter of behaving as
+it states, we'd not have this tremendous burden. But the law is subject
+to interpretation and change and argument and precedent--Precedent? Um,
+here we may have an interesting angle, Brennan. I must look into it."
+
+"Precedent?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Any ruling that we were to make covering the right of a
+seven, eight, or nine year old to run his own life as he sees fit will be
+a ruling that establishes precedent."
+
+"And--?"
+
+"Well, up to now there's no ruling about such a case; no child of ten has
+ever left home to live as he prefers. But this James Holden is apparently
+capable of doing just that--and any impartial judge deliberating such a
+case would find it difficult to justify a decision that placed the
+competent infant under the guardianship and protection of an adult who is
+less competent than the infant."
+
+Brennan's face turned dark. "You're saying that this Holden kid is
+smarter than I am?"
+
+"Sit down and stop sputtering," snapped Manison. "What were you doing at
+six years old, Brennan? Did you have the brains to leave home and protect
+yourself by cooking up the plausible front of a very interesting
+character such as the mythical Hermit of Martin's Hill? Were you writing
+boys' stories for a nationwide magazine of high circulation and
+accredited quality? Could you have planned your own dinner and prepared
+it, or would you have dined on chocolate bars washed down with strawberry
+pop? Stop acting indignant. Start thinking. If for no other reason than
+that we don't want to end up selling pencils on Halstead Street because
+we're not quite bright, we've got to lay our hands on that machine. We've
+got to lead, not follow. Yet at the present time I'll wager that your
+James Holden is going to give everybody concerned a very rough time. Now,
+let me figure out the angles and pull the wires. One thing that nobody
+can learn from any electronic machine is how to manipulate the component
+people that comprise a political machine. I'll be in touch with you,
+Brennan."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ring at the door was Chief of Police Joseph Colling and another
+gentleman. Janet Fisher answered the door, "Good evening, Mr. Colling.
+Come in?"
+
+"Thank you," said Colling politely. "This is Mr. Frank Manison, from the
+office of the State Department of Justice."
+
+"Oh? Is something wrong?"
+
+"Not that we know of," replied Manison. "We're simply after some
+information. I apologize for calling at eight o'clock in the evening, but
+I wanted to catch you all under one roof. Is Mr. Fisher home? And the
+children?"
+
+"Why, yes. We're all here." Janet stepped aside to let them enter the
+living room, and then called upstairs. Mr. Manison was introduced around
+and Tim Fisher said, cautiously, "What's the trouble here?"
+
+"No trouble that we know of," said Manison affably. "We're just after
+some information about the education of James Holden, a legal minor, who
+seems never to have been enrolled in any school."
+
+"If you don't mind," replied Tim Fisher, "I'll not answer anything
+without the advice of my attorney."
+
+Janet Fisher gasped.
+
+Tim turned with a smile. "Don't you like lawyers, honey?"
+
+"It isn't that. But isn't crying for a lawyer an admission of some sort?"
+
+"Sure is," replied Tim Fisher. "It's an admission that I don't know all
+of my legal rights. If lawyers come to me because they don't know all
+there is to know about the guts of an automobile, I have every right to
+the same sort of consultation in reverse. Agree, James?"
+
+James Holden nodded. "The man who represents himself in court has a fool
+for a client," he said. "I think that's Daniel Webster, but I'm not
+certain. No matter; it's right. Call Mr. Waterman, and until he arrives
+we'll discuss the weather, the latest dope in high-altitude research, or
+nuclear physics."
+
+Frank Manison eyed the lad. "You're James Holden?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Tim interrupted. "We're not answering _anything_," he warned.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind admitting my identity," said James. "I've committed no
+crime, I've broken no law. No one can point to a single act of mine that
+shows a shred of evidence to the effect that my intentions are not
+honorable. Sooner or later this whole affair had to come to a showdown,
+and I'm prepared to face it squarely."
+
+"Thank you," said Manison. "Now, without inviting comment, let me explain
+one important fact. The state reserves the right to record marriages,
+births, and deaths as a simple matter of vital statistics. We feel that
+we have every right to the compiling of the census, and we can justify
+our feeling. I am here because of some apparent irregularities, records
+of which we do not have. If these apparent irregularities can be
+explained to our satisfaction for the record, this meeting will be ended.
+Now, let's relax until your attorney arrives."
+
+"May I get you some coffee or a highball?" asked Janet Fisher.
+
+"Coffee, please," agreed Frank Manison. Chief Colling nodded quietly.
+They relaxed over coffee and small talk for a half hour. The arrival of
+Waterman, Tim Fisher's attorney, signalled the opening of the discussion.
+
+"First," said Manison, his pencil poised over a notebook, "Who lives here
+in permanent residence, and for how long?" He wrote rapidly as they told
+him. "The house is your property?" he asked Tim, and wrote again. "And
+you are paying a rental on certain rooms of this house?" he asked James,
+who nodded.
+
+"Where did you attend school?" he asked James.
+
+"I did not."
+
+"Where did you get your education?"
+
+"By a special course in home study."
+
+"You understand that under the state laws that provide for the education
+of minor children, the curriculum must be approved by the state?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And has it?"
+
+Waterman interrupted. "Just a moment, Mr. Manison. In what way must the
+curriculum be approved? Does the State study all textbooks and the manner
+in which each and every school presents them? Or does the State merely
+insist that the school child be taught certain subjects?"
+
+"The State merely insists that certain standards of education be
+observed."
+
+"In fact," added James, "the State does not even insist that the child
+_learn_ the subjects, realizing that some children lack the intellect to
+be taught certain subjects completely and fully. Let's rather say that
+the State demands that school children be exposed to certain subjects in
+the hope that they 'take.' Am I not correct?"
+
+"I presume you are."
+
+"Then I shall answer your question. In my home study, I have indeed
+followed the approved curriculum by making use of the approved textbooks
+in their proper order. I am aware of the fact that this is not the same
+State, but if you will consult the record of my earlier years in
+attendance at a school selected by my legal guardian, you'll find that I
+passed from preschool grade to Fourth Grade in a matter of less than half
+a year, at the age of five-approaching-six. If this matter is subject to
+question, I'll submit to any course of extensive examination your
+educators care to prepare. The law regarding compulsory education in this
+state says that the minor child must attend school until either the age
+of eighteen, or until he has completed the standard eight years of
+grammar school and four years of high school. I shall then stipulate that
+the suggested examination be limited to the schooling of a high school
+graduate."
+
+"For the moment we'll pass this over. We may ask that you do prove your
+contention," said Manison.
+
+"You don't doubt that I can, do you?" asked James.
+
+Manison shook his head. "No, at this moment I have no doubt."
+
+"Then why do you bother asking?"
+
+"I am here for a rather odd reason," said Manison. "I've told you the
+reservations that the State holds, which justify my presence. Now, it is
+patently obvious that you are a very competent young man, James Holden.
+The matter of making your own way is difficult, as many adults can
+testify. To have contrived a means of covering up your youth, in addition
+to living a full and competent life, demonstrates an ability above and
+beyond the average. Now, the State is naturally interested in anything
+that smacks of acceleration of the educational period. Can you understand
+that?"
+
+"Naturally. None but a dolt would avoid education."
+
+"Then you agree with our interest?"
+
+"I--"
+
+"Just a moment, James," said Waterman. "Let's put it that you understand
+their interest, but that you do not necessarily agree."
+
+"I understand," said James.
+
+"Then you must also understand that this 'course of study' by which you
+claim the equal of a high-school education at the age of ten or eleven
+(perhaps earlier) must be of high importance."
+
+"I understand that it might," agreed James.
+
+"Then will you explain why you have kept this a secret?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"Just a moment," said Waterman again. "James, would you say that your
+method of educating yourself is completely perfected?"
+
+"Not completely."
+
+"Not perfected?" asked Manison. "Yet you claim to have the education of a
+high-school graduate?"
+
+"I so claim," said James. "But I must also point out that I have acquired
+a lot of mish-mash in the course of this education. For instance, it is
+one thing to study English, its composition, spelling, vocabulary,
+construction, rules and regulations. One must learn these things if he is
+to be considered literate. In the course of such study, one also becomes
+acquainted with English literature. With literature it is enough to
+merely be acquainted with the subject. One need not know the works of
+Chaucer or Spenser intimately--unless one is preparing to specialize in
+the English literature of the writers of that era. Frankly, sir, I should
+hate to have my speech colored by the flowery phrases of that time, and
+the spelling of that day would flunk me out of First Grade if I made use
+of it. In simple words, I am still perfecting the method."
+
+"Now, James," went on Waterman, "have you ever entertained the idea of
+not releasing the details of your method?"
+
+"Occasionally," admitted James.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Until we know everything about it, we can not be certain that its
+ultimate effect will be wholly beneficial."
+
+"So, you see," said Waterman to Manison, "the intention is reasonable.
+Furthermore, we must point out that this system is indeed the invention
+created by the labor and study of the parents of James Holden, and as
+such it is a valuable property retained by James Holden as his own by the
+right of inheritance. The patent laws of the United States are clear, it
+is the many conflicting rulings that have weakened the system. The law
+itself is contained in the Constitution of the United States, which
+provides for the establishment of a Patent Office as a means to encourage
+inventors by granting them the exclusive right to the benefits of their
+labor for a reasonable period of time--namely seventeen years with
+provision for a second period under renewal."
+
+"Then why doesn't he make use of it?" demanded Manison.
+
+"Because the process, like so many another process, can be copied and
+used by individuals without payment, and because there hasn't been a
+patent suit upheld for about forty years, with the possible exception
+of Major Armstrong's suit against the Radio Corporation of America,
+settled in Armstrong's favor after about twenty-five years of expensive
+litigation. A secret is no longer a secret these days, once it has been
+written on a piece of paper and called to the attention of a few million
+people across the country."
+
+"You realize that anything that will give an extensive education at an
+early age is vital to the security of the country."
+
+"We recognize that responsibility, sir," said Waterman quietly. "We also
+recognize that in the hands of unscrupulous men, the system could be
+misused. We also realize its dangers, and we are trying to avoid them
+before we make the announcement. We are very much aware of the important,
+although unfortunate, fact that James Holden, as a minor, can have his
+rights abridged. Normally honest men, interested in the protection of
+youth, could easily prevent him from using his own methods, thus
+depriving him of the benefits that are legally his. This could be
+done under the guise of protection, and the result would be the
+super-education of the protectors--whose improving intellectual
+competence would only teach them more and better reasons for depriving
+the young man of his rights. James Holden has a secret, and he has a
+right to keep that secret, and his only protection is for him to continue
+to keep that secret inviolate. It was his parents' determination not to
+release this process upon the world until they were certain of the
+results. James is a living example of their effort; they conceived him
+for the express purpose of providing a virgin mind to educate by their
+methods, so that no outside interference would becloud their results. If
+this can be construed as the illegal experimentation on animals under the
+anti-vivisection laws, or cruelty to children, it was their act, not his.
+Is that clear?"
+
+"It is clear," replied Manison. "We may be back for more discussion on
+this point. I'm really after information, not conducting a case, you
+know."
+
+"Well, you have your information."
+
+"Not entirely. We've another point to consider, Mr. Waterman. It is
+admittedly a delicate point. It is the matter of legal precedent.
+Granting everything you say is true--and I'll grant that hypothetically
+for the purpose of this argument--let's assume that James Holden
+ultimately finds his process suitable for public use. Now, happily to
+this date James had not broken any laws. He is an honorable individual.
+Let's now suppose that in the near future, someone becomes educated by
+his process and at the age of twelve or so decided to make use of his
+advanced intelligence in nefarious work?"
+
+"All right. Let's suppose."
+
+"Then you tell me who is responsible for the person of James Holden?"
+
+"He is responsible unto himself."
+
+"Not under the existing laws," said Manison. "Let's consider James just
+as we know him now. Who says, 'go ahead,' if he has an attack of acute
+appendicitis?"
+
+"In the absence of someone to take the personal responsibility," said
+James quietly, "the attending doctor would toss his coin to see whether
+his Oath of Hippocrates was stronger than his fear of legal reprisals.
+It's been done before. But let's get to the point, Mr. Manison. What do
+you have in mind?"
+
+"You've rather pointedly demonstrated your preference to live here rather
+than with your legally-appointed guardian."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, young man, I suggest that we get this matter settled legally. You
+are not living under the supervision of your guardian, but you are indeed
+living under the auspices of people who are not recognized by law as
+holding the responsibility for you."
+
+"So far there's been no cause for complaint."
+
+"Let's keep it that way," smiled Manison. "I'll ask you to accept a writ
+of habeas corpus, directing you to show just cause why you should not be
+returned to the custody of your guardian."
+
+"And what good will that do?"
+
+"If you can show just cause," said Manison, "the Court will follow
+established precedent and appoint Mr. and Mrs. Fisher as your responsible
+legal guardians--if that is your desire."
+
+"Can this be done?" asked Mrs. Fisher.
+
+"It's been done before, time and again. The State is concerned primarily
+with the welfare of the child; children have been legally removed from
+natural but unsuitable parents, you know." He looked distressed for a
+moment and then went on, "The will of the deceased is respected, but the
+law recognizes that it is the living with which it must be primarily
+concerned, that mistakes can be made, and that such errors in judgment
+must be rectified in the name of the public weal."
+
+"I've been--" started James but Attorney Waterman interrupted him:
+
+"We'll accept the service of your writ, Mr. Manison." And to James after
+the man had departed: "Never give the opposition an inkling of what you
+have in mind--and always treat anybody who is not in your retainer as
+opposition."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+The case of Brennan vs. Holden opened in the emptied court room of Judge
+Norman L. Carter, with a couple of bored members of the press wishing
+they were elsewhere. For the first two hours, it was no more than
+formalized outlining of the whole situation.
+
+The plaintiff identified himself, testified that he was indeed the legal
+guardian of the minor James Quincy Holden, entered a transcript of the
+will in evidence, and then went on to make his case. He had provided
+a home atmosphere that was, to the best of his knowledge, the type of
+home atmosphere that would have been highly pleasing to the deceased
+parents--especially in view of the fact that this home was one and the
+same house as theirs and that little had been changed. He was supported
+by the Mitchells. It all went off in the slow, cumbersome dry phraseology
+of the legal profession and the sum and substance of two hours of
+back-and-forth question-and-answer was to establish the fact that Paul
+Brennan had provided a suitable home for the minor, James Quincy Holden,
+and that the minor James Quincy Holden had refused to live in it and had
+indeed demonstrated his objections by repeatedly absenting himself
+wilfully and with premeditation.
+
+The next half hour covered a blow-by-blow account of Paul Brennan's
+efforts to have the minor restored to him. The attorneys for both sides
+were alert. Brennan's counsel did not even object when Waterman paved the
+way to show why James Holden wanted his freedom by asking Brennan:
+
+"Were you aware that James Holden was a child of exceptional intellect?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you've testified that when you moved into the Holden home, you found
+things as the Holdens had provided them for their child?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In your opinion, were these surroundings suitable for James Holden?"
+
+"They were far too advanced for a child of five."
+
+"I asked specifically about James Holden."
+
+"James Holden was five years old."
+
+Waterman eyed Brennan with some surprise, then cast a glance at Frank
+Manison, who sat at ease, calmly watching and listening with no sign of
+objection. Waterman turned back to Brennan and said, "Let's take one more
+turn around Robin Hood's Barn, Mr. Brennan. First, James Holden was an
+exceptional child?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the nature of his toys and furnishings?"
+
+"In my opinion, too advanced for a child of five."
+
+"But were they suitable for James Holden?"
+
+"James Holden was a child of five."
+
+Waterman faced Judge Carter. "Your Honor," he said, "I submit that the
+witness is evasive. Will you direct him to respond to my direct question
+with a direct answer?"
+
+"The witness will answer the question properly," said Judge Carter with
+a slight frown of puzzlement, "unless counsel for the witness has some
+plausible objection?"'
+
+"No objection," said Manison.
+
+"Please repeat or rephrase your question," suggested Judge Carter.
+
+"Mr. Brennan," said Waterman, "you've testified that James was an
+exceptional child, advanced beyond his years. You've testified that the
+home and surroundings provided by James Holden's parents reflected this
+fact. Now tell me, were the toys, surroundings, and the home suitable for
+James Holden?"
+
+"In my opinion, no."
+
+"And subsequently you replaced them with stuff you believed more suitable
+for a child of five, is that it?"
+
+"Yes. I did, and you are correct."
+
+"To which he objected?"
+
+"To which James Holden objected."
+
+"And what was your response to his objection?"
+
+"I overruled his objection."
+
+"Upon what grounds?"
+
+"Upon the grounds that the education and the experience of an adult
+carries more wisdom than the desires of a child."
+
+"Now, Mr. Brennan, please listen carefully. During the months following
+your guardianship, you successively removed the books that James Holden
+was fond of reading, replaced his advanced Meccano set with a set of
+modular blocks, exchanged his oil-painting equipment for a child's
+coloring books and standard crayolas, and in general you removed
+everything interesting to a child with known superiority of intellect?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"And your purpose in opening this hearing was to convince this Court that
+James Holden should be returned by legal procedure to such surroundings?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"No more questions," said Waterman. He sat down and rubbed his forehead
+with the palm of his right hand, trying to think.
+
+Manison said, "I have one question to ask of Janet Fisher, known formerly
+as Mrs. Bagley."
+
+Janet Fisher was sworn and properly identified.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Fisher, prior to your marriage to Mr. Fisher and during your
+sojourn with James Holden in the House on Martin's Hill, did you
+supervise the activities of James Holden?"
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"Thank you," said Manison. He turned to Waterman and waved him to any
+cross-questioning.
+
+Still puzzled, Waterman asked, "Mrs. Fisher, who did supervise the House
+on Martin's Hill?"
+
+"James Holden."
+
+"During those years, Mrs. Fisher, did James Holden at any time conduct
+himself in any other manner but the actions of an honest citizen? I mean,
+did he perform or suggest the performance of any illegal act to your
+knowledge?"
+
+"No, he did not."
+
+Waterman turned to Judge Carter. "Your Honor," he said, "it seems quite
+apparent to me that the plaintiff in this case has given more testimony
+to support the contentions of my client than they have to support their
+own case. Will the Court honor a petition that the case be dismissed?"
+
+Judge Norman L. Carter smiled slightly. "This is irregular," he said.
+"You should wait for that petition until the plaintiff's counsel has
+closed his case, you know." He looked at Frank Manison. "Any objection?"
+
+Manison said, "Your Honor, I have permitted my client to be shown in this
+questionable light for no other purpose than to bring out the fact that
+any man can make a mistake in the eyes of other men when in reality he
+was doing precisely what he thought to be the best thing to do for
+himself and for the people within his responsibility. The man who raises
+his child to be a roustabout is wrong in the eyes of his neighbor who is
+raising his child to be a scientist, and vice versa. We'll accept the
+fact that James Holden's mind is superior. We'll point out that there
+have been many cases of precocious children or child geniuses who make a
+strong mark in their early years and drop into oblivion by the time
+they're twenty. Now, consider James Holden, sitting there discussing
+something with his attorney--I have no doubt in the world that he could
+conjugate Latin verbs, discuss the effect of the Fall of Rome on Western
+Civilization, and probably compute the orbit of an artificial satellite.
+But can James Holden fly a kite or shoot a marble? Has he ever had the
+fun of sliding into third base, or whittling on a peg, or any of the
+other enjoyable trivia of boyhood? Has he--"
+
+"One moment," said Judge Carter. "Let's not have an impassioned oration,
+counsel. What is your point?"
+
+"James Holden has a legal guardian, appointed by law at the express will
+of his parents. Headstrong, he has seen fit to leave that protection. He
+is fighting now to remain away from that protection. I can presume that
+James Holden would prefer to remain in the company of the Fishers where,
+according to Mrs. Fisher, he was not responsible to her whatsoever, but
+rather ran the show himself. I--"
+
+"You can't make that presumption," said Judge Carter. "Strike it from the
+record."
+
+"I apologize," said Manison. "But I object to dismissing this case until
+we find out just what James Holden has in mind for his future."
+
+"I'll hold Counsel Waterman's petition in abeyance until the point you
+mention is in the record," said Judge Carter. "Counsel, are you
+finished?"
+
+"Yes," said Manison. "I'll rest."
+
+"Mr. Waterman?"
+
+Waterman said, "Your Honor, we've been directed to show just cause why
+James Holden should not be returned to the protection of his legal
+guardian. Counsel has implied that James Holden desires to be placed in
+the legal custody of Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. This is a pardonable error
+whether it stands in the record or not. The fact is that James Holden
+does not need protection, nor does he want protection. To the contrary,
+James Holden petitions this Court to declare him legally competent so
+that he may conduct his own affairs with the rights, privileges, and
+indeed, even the _risks_ taken by the status of adult.
+
+"I'll point out that the rules and laws that govern the control and
+protection of minor children were passed by benevolent legislators to
+prevent exploitation, cruelty, and deprivation of the child's life by
+men who would take advantage of his immaturity. However we have here a
+young man of twelve who has shown his competence to deal with the adult
+world by actual practice. Therefore it is our contention that protective
+laws are not only unnecessary, but undesirable because they restrict the
+individual from his desire to live a full and fruitful life.
+
+"To prove our contention beyond any doubt, I'll ask that James Holden be
+sworn in as my first witness."
+
+Frank Manison said, "I object, Your Honor. James Holden is a minor and
+not qualified under law to give creditable testimony as a witness."
+
+Waterman turned upon Manison angrily. "You really mean that you object to
+my case _per se_."
+
+"That, too," replied Manison easily.
+
+"Your Honor, I take exception! It is my purpose to place James Holden on
+the witness stand, and there to show this Court and all the world that he
+is of honorable mind, properly prepared to assume the rights of an adult.
+We not only propose to show that he acted honorably, we shall show that
+James Holden consulted the law to be sure that whatever he did was not
+illegal."
+
+"Or," added Manison, "was it so that he would know how close to the limit
+he could go without stepping over the line?"
+
+"Your Honor," asked Waterman, "can't we have your indulgence?"
+
+"I object! The child is a minor."
+
+"I accept the statement!" stormed Waterman. "And I say that we intend to
+prove that this minor is qualified to act as an adult."
+
+"And," sneered Manison, "I'll guess that one of your later arguments will
+be that Judge Carter, having accepted this minor as qualified to deliver
+sworn testimony, has already granted the first premise of your argument."
+
+"I say that James Holden has indeed shown his competence already by
+actually doing it!"
+
+"While hiding under a false façade!"
+
+"A façade forced upon him by the restrictive laws that he is petitioning
+the Court to set aside in his case so that he need hide no longer."
+
+Frank Manison said, "Your Honor, how shall the case of James Holden be
+determined for the next eight or ten years if we do grant James Holden
+this legal right to conduct his own affairs as an adult? That we must
+abridge the laws regarding compulsory education is evident. James Holden
+is twelve years and five months old. Shall he be granted the right to
+enter a tavern to buy a drink? Will his request for a license to marry be
+honored? May he enter the polling place and cast his vote? The contention
+of counsel that the creation of Charles Maxwell was a physical necessity
+is acceptable. But what happens without 'Maxwell'? Must we prepare a card
+of identity for James Holden, stating his legal status, and renew it
+every year like an automobile license because the youth will grow in
+stature, add to his weight, and ultimately grow a beard? Must we enter on
+this identification card the fact that he is legally competent to sign
+contracts, rent a house, write checks, and make his own decision about
+the course of dangerous medical treatment--or shall we list those items
+that he is not permitted to do such as drinking in a public place, cast
+his vote, or marry? This State permits a youth to drive an automobile at
+the age of sixteen, this act being considered a skill rather than an act
+that requires judgment. Shall James Holden be permitted to drive an
+automobile even though he can not reach the foot pedals from any position
+where he can see through the windshield?"
+
+Judge Carter sat quietly. He said calmly, "Let the record show that I
+recognize the irregularity of this procedure and that I permit it only
+because of the unique aspects of this case. Were there a Jury, I would
+dismiss them until this verbal exchange of views and personalities has
+subsided.
+
+"Now," he went on, "I will not allow James Holden to take the witness
+stand as a qualified witness to prove that he is a qualified witness.
+I am sure that he can display his own competence with a flow of academic
+brilliance, or his attorney would not have tried to place him upon the
+stand where such a display could have been demonstrated. Of more
+importance to the Court and to the State is an equitable disposition
+of the responsibility to and over James Quincy Holden."
+
+Judge Norman L. Carter leaned forward and looked from Frank Manison to
+James Holden, and then to Attorney Waterman.
+
+"We must face some awkward facts," he said. "If I rule that he be
+returned to Mr. Brennan, he will probably remain no longer than he finds
+it convenient, at which point he will behave just as if this Court had
+never convened. Am I not correct, Mr. Manison?"
+
+"Your Honor, you are correct. However, as a member of the Department of
+Justice of this State, I suggest that you place the responsibility in my
+hands. As an Officer of the Court, my interest would be to the best
+interest of the State rather than based upon experience, choice, or
+opinion as to what is better for a five-year-old or a child prodigy. In
+other words, I would exert the control that the young man needed. At the
+same time I would not make the mistakes that were made by Mr. Brennan's
+personal opinion of how a child should be reared."
+
+Waterman shouted, "I object, Your Honor. I object--"
+
+Brennan leaped to his feet and cried, "Manison, you can't freeze me
+out--"
+
+James Holden shrilled, "I won't! I won't!"
+
+Judge Carter eyed them one by one, staring them into silence. Finally he
+looked at Janet Fisher and said, "May I also presume that you would be
+happy to resume your association with James Holden?"
+
+She nodded and said, "I'd be glad to," in a sincere voice. Tim Fisher
+nodded his agreement.
+
+Brennan whirled upon them and snarled. "My reward money--" but he was
+shoved down in his seat with a heavy hand by Frank Manison who snapped,
+"Your money bought what it was offered for. So now shut up, you utter
+imbecile!"
+
+Judge Norman L. Carter cleared his throat and said, "This great concern
+over the welfare of James Holden is touching. We have Mr. Brennan already
+twice a loser and yet willing to try it for three times. We have Mr. and
+Mrs. Fisher who are not dismayed at the possibility of having their home
+occupied by a headstrong youth whose actions they cannot control. We find
+one of the ambitious members of the District Attorney's Office offering
+to take on an additional responsibility--all, of course, in the name of
+the State and the welfare of James Holden. Finally we have James Holden
+who wants no part of the word 'protection' and claims the ability to run
+his own life.
+
+"Now it strikes me that assigning the responsibility for this young
+man's welfare is by no means the reason why you all are present, and it
+similarly occurs to me that the young man's welfare is of considerably
+less importance than the very interesting question of how and why this
+young man has achieved so much."
+
+With a thoughtful expression, Judge Carter said, "James Holden, how did
+you acquire this magnificent education at the tender age of twelve-plus?"
+
+"I--"
+
+"I object!" cried Frank Manison. "The minor is not qualified to give
+testimony."
+
+"Objection overruled. This is not testimony. I have every right in the
+world to seek out as much information from whatever source I may select;
+and I have the additional right to inspect the information I receive to
+pass upon its competence and relevance. Sit down, counsel!"
+
+Manison sat grumpily and Judge Carter eyed James again, and James took a
+full breath. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
+
+"Go on, James. Answer my question. Where did you come by your knowledge?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James Holden stood up. This was the question that had to arise; he was
+only surprised it had taken so long.
+
+He said calmly: "Your Honor, you may not ask that question."
+
+"I may not?" asked Judge Carter with a lift of his eyebrows.
+
+"No sir. You may not."
+
+"And just why may I not?"
+
+"If this were a criminal case, and if you could establish that some of my
+knowledge were guilty knowledge, you could then demand that I reveal the
+source of my guilty knowledge and under what circumstance it was
+obtained. If I refused to disclose my source, I could then be held in
+contempt of court or charged with being an accessory to the corpus of the
+crime. However, this is a court hearing to establish whether or not I am
+competent under law to manage my own affairs. How I achieve my mental
+competence is not under question. Let us say that it is a process that is
+my secret by the right of inheritance from my parents and as such it is
+valuable to me so long as I can demand payment for its use."
+
+"This information may have a bearing on my ruling."
+
+"Your Honor, the acquisition of knowledge or information _per se_ is
+concomitant with growing up. I can and will demonstrate that I have the
+equivalent of the schooling necessary to satisfy both this Court and the
+State Board of Education. I will state that my education has been
+acquired by concentration and application in home study, and that I admit
+to attendance at no school. I will provide you or anybody else with a
+list of the books from which I have gleaned my education. But whether I
+practice Yoga, Dianetics, or write the lines on a sugarcoated pill and
+swallow it is my trade secret. It can not be extracted from me by any
+process of the law because no illegality exists."
+
+"And what if I rule that you are not competent under the law, or withhold
+judgment until I have had an opportunity to investigate these ways and
+means of acquiring an accelerated education?"
+
+"I'll then go on record as asking you to disbar yourself from this
+hearing on the grounds that you are not an impartial judge of the justice
+in my case."
+
+"Upon what grounds?"
+
+"Upon the grounds that you are personally interested in being provided
+with a process whereby you may acquire an advanced education yourself."
+
+The judge looked at James thoughtfully for a moment. "And if I point out
+that any such process is of extreme interest to the State and to the
+Union itself, and as such must be disclosed?"
+
+"Then I shall point out that your ruling is based upon a personal opinion
+because you don't know anything about the process. If I am ruled a legal
+minor you cannot punish me for not telling you my secrets, and if I am
+ruled legally competent, I am entitled to my own decision."
+
+"You are within your rights," admitted Judge Carter with some interest.
+"I shall not make such a demand. But I now ask you if this process of
+yours is both safe and simple."
+
+"If it is properly used with some good judgment."
+
+"Now listen to me carefully," said Judge Carter. "Is it not true that
+your difficulties in school, your inability to get along with your
+classmates, and your having to hide while you toiled for your livelihood
+in secret--these are due to this extensive education brought about
+through your secret process?"
+
+"I must agree, but--"
+
+"You must agree," interrupted Judge Carter. "Yet knowing these unpleasant
+things did not deter you from placing, or trying to place, the daughter
+of your housekeeper in the same unhappy state. In other words, you hoped
+to make an intellectual misfit out of her, too?"
+
+"I--now see here--"
+
+"You see here! Did you or did you not aid in the education of Martha
+Bagley, now Martha Fisher?"
+
+"Yes, I did, and--"
+
+"Was that good judgment, James Holden?"
+
+"What's wrong with higher education?" demanded James angrily.
+
+"Nothing, if it's acquired properly."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Now listen again. If I were to rule in your favor, would Martha Fisher
+be the next bratling in a long and everlasting line of infant supermen
+applying to this and that and the other Court to have their legal
+majority ruled, each of them pointing to your case as having established
+precedence?"
+
+"I have no way of predicting the future, sir. What may happen in the
+future really has no bearing in evidence here."
+
+"Granted that it does not. But I am not going to establish a dangerous
+precedent that will end with doctors qualified to practice surgery before
+they are big enough to swing a stethoscope or attorneys that plead a case
+before they are out of short pants. I am going to recess this case
+indefinitely with a partial ruling. First, until this process of yours
+comes under official study, I am declaring you, James Holden, to be a
+Ward of this State, under the jurisdiction of this Court. You will have
+the legal competence to act in matters of skill, including the signing of
+documents and instruments necessary to your continued good health. In all
+matters that require mature judgment, you will report to this Court and
+all such questions shall be rendered after proper deliberation either in
+open session or in chambers, depending upon the Court's opinion of their
+importance. The court stenographer will now strike all of the testimony
+given by James Holden from the record."
+
+"I object!" exploded Brennan's attorney, rising swiftly and with one hand
+pressing Brennan down to prevent him from rising also.
+
+"All objections are overruled. The new Ward of the State will meet with
+me in my chambers at once. Court is adjourned."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The session was stormy but brief. Holden objected to everything, but the
+voice of Judge Carter was loud and his stature was large; they overrode
+James Holden and compelled his attention.
+
+"We're out of the court," snapped Judge Carter. "We no longer need
+observe the niceties of court etiquette, so now shut up and listen!
+Holden, you are involved in a thing that is explosively dangerous. You
+claim it to be a secret, but your secret is slowly leaking out of your
+control. You asked for your legal competence to be ruled. Fine, but if I
+allowed that, every statement made by you about your education would be
+in court record and your so-called secret that much more widespread. How
+long do you think it would have been before millions of people howled at
+your door? Some of them yelping for help and some of them bitterly
+objecting to tampering with the immature brain? You'd be accused of
+brainwashing, of making monsters, of depriving children of their heritage
+of happiness--and in the same ungodly howl there would be voices as
+loudly damning you for not tossing your process into their laps. And
+there would be a number trying to get to you on the sly so that they
+could get a head start over the rest.
+
+"You want your competence affirmed legally? James, you have not the
+stature nor the voice to fight them off. Even now, your little secret is
+in danger and you'll probably have to bribe a few wiseacres with a touch
+of accelerated knowledge to keep them from spilling the whole story, even
+though I've ruled your testimony incompetent and immaterial and stricken
+from the record. Now, we'll study this system of yours under controlled
+conditions as your parents wanted, and we'll have professional help and
+educated advice, and both you and your process shall be under the
+protection of my Court, and when the time comes you shall receive the
+kudos and benefits from it. Understand?"
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"Good. Now, as my first order, you go back to Shipmont and pack your
+gear. You'll report to my home as soon as you've made all the
+arrangements. There'll be no more hiding out and playing your little
+process in secret either from Paul Brennan--yes, I know that you believe
+that he was somehow instrumental in the death of your parents but have no
+shred of evidence that would stand in court--or the rest of the world. Is
+that, and everything else I've said in private, very clear?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Good. Now, be off with you. And do not hesitate to call upon me if there
+is any interference whatsoever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+Judge Carter insisted and won his point that James Holden accept
+residence in his home.
+
+He did not turn a hair when the trucks of equipment arrived from the
+house on Martin's Hill; he already had room for it in the cellar. He
+cheerfully allowed James the right to set it up and test it out. He
+respected James Holden's absolute insistence that no one be permitted to
+touch the special circuit that was the heart of the entire machine. Judge
+Carter also counter-requested--and enforced the request--that he be
+allowed to try the machinery out. He took a simple reading course in
+higher mathematics, after discovering that Holden's machine would not
+teach him how to play the violin. (Judge Carter already played the
+violin--but badly.)
+
+Later, the judge committed to memory the entire book of Bartlett's Famous
+Quotations despite the objection of young Holden that he was cluttering
+up his memory with a lot of useless material. The Judge learned (as James
+had learned earlier) that the proper way to store such information in the
+memory was to read the book with the machine turned in "stand-by" until
+some section was encountered that was of interest. Using this method, the
+judge picked and pecked at the Holy Bible, a number of documents that
+looked like important governmental records, and a few books in modern
+history.
+
+Then there came other men. First was a Professor Harold White from the
+State Board of Education who came to study both Holden and Holden's
+machinery and what it did. Next came a Dr. Persons who said very little
+but made diagrams and histograms and graphs which he studied. The third
+was a rather cheerful fellow called Jack Cowling who was more interested
+in James Holden's personal feelings than he was in the machine. He
+studied many subjects superficially and watched the behavior of young
+Holden as Holden himself studied subjects recommended by Professor White.
+
+White had a huge blackboard installed on the cellar wall opposite the
+machine, and he proceeded to fill the board with block outlines filled
+with crabbed writing and odd-looking symbols. The whole was meaningless
+to James Holden; it looked like the organization chart of a large
+corporation but it contained no names or titles. The arrival of each new
+visitor caused changes in the block diagram.
+
+These arrivals went at their project with stop watches and slide rules.
+They calibrated themselves and James with the cold-blooded attitude of
+racetrack touts clocking their favorite horses. Where James had simply
+taken what he wanted or what he could at any single sitting, then let
+it settle in his mind before taking another dose of unpremeditated
+magnitude, these fellows ascertained the best effectiveness of each
+application to each of them. They tried taking long terms under the
+machine and then they measured the time it took for the installed
+information to sink in and settle into usable shape. Then they tried
+shorter and shorter sittings and measured the correspondingly shorter
+settling times. They found out that no two men were alike, nor were any
+two subjects. They discovered that a man with an extensive education
+already could take a larger sitting and have the new information
+available for mental use in a shorter settling time than a man whose
+education had been sketchy or incomplete.
+
+They brought in men who had either little or no mathematics and gave them
+courses in advanced subjects. Afterwards they provided the foundation
+mathematics and they calibrated and measured the time it took for the
+higher subject to be understood as it aligned its information to the
+whole. Men came with crude English and bluntly read the dictionary and
+the proper rules of grammar and they were checked to see if their early
+bad-speech habits were corrected, and to what degree the Holden machine
+could be made to help repair the damage of a lifelong ingrained set of
+errors. They sent some of these boys through comparison dictionaries in
+foreign tongues and then had their language checked by specialists who
+were truly polylingual. There were some who spoke fluent English but no
+other tongue; these progressed into German with a German-to-English
+comparison dictionary, and then into French via a German-to-French
+comparison and were finally checked out in French by French-speaking
+examiners.
+
+And Professor White's block diagram grew complex, and Dr. Persons's
+histograms filled pages and pages of his broad notebooks.
+
+It was the first time that James Holden had ever seen a team of
+researchers plow into a problem, running a cold and icy scientific
+investigation to ascertain precisely how much cause produced how much
+effect. Holden, who had taken what he wanted or needed as the time came,
+began to understand the desirability of full and careful programming. The
+whole affair intrigued him and interested him. He plunged in with a will
+and gave them all the help he could.
+
+He had no time to be bored, and he did not mark the passage of time until
+he arrived at his thirteenth birthday.
+
+Then one night shortly after his birthday, James Holden discovered women
+indirectly. He had his first erotic dream.
+
+We shall not go into the details of this midnight introduction to the
+arrival of manhood, for the simple reason that if we dwell on the
+subject, someone is certain to attempt a dream-analysis and come up with
+some flanged-up character-study or personality-quirk that really has
+nothing to do with the mind or body of James Holden. The truth is that
+his erotic dream was pleasantly stirring, but not entirely satisfactory.
+It was fun while it lasted, but it didn't last very long. It awakened him
+to the realization that knowledge is not the end-all of life, and that a
+full understanding of the words, the medical terms, and the biology
+involved did not tell him a thing about this primary drive of all life.
+
+His total grasp of even the sideline issues was still dim. He came to a
+partial understanding of why Jake Caslow had entertained late visitors of
+the opposite sex, but he still could not quite see the reason why Jake
+kept the collection of calendar photographs and paintings hung up around
+the place. Crude jokes and rude talk heard long years before and dimly
+remembered did not have much connection with the subject. To James
+Holden, a "tomato" was still a vegetable, although he knew that some
+botanists were willing to argue that the tomato was really a fruit.
+
+For many days he watched Judge Carter and his wife with a critical
+curiosity that their childless life had never known before. James found
+that they did not act as if something new and strangely thrilling had
+just hit the known universe. He felt that they should know about it.
+Despite the fact that he knew everything that his textbooks could tell
+him about sex and copulation he still had the quaint notion that the
+reason why Judge Carter and his wife were childless was because they had
+not yet gotten around to Doing It. He made no attempt to correlate this
+oddity with its opposite in Jake Caslow's ladies of the night who seemed
+to go on their merry way without conceiving.
+
+He remembered the joking parry-and-thrust of that midnight talk between
+Tim Fisher and Janet Bagley but it made no sense to him still. But as he
+pondered the multitude of puzzlements, some of the answers fell partly
+into place just as some of the matching pieces of a jigsaw puzzle may lie
+close to one another when they are dumped out of the box. Very dimly
+James began to realize that this sort of thing was not New, but to the
+contrary it had been going on for a long, long time. So long in fact that
+neither Tim Fisher nor Janet Bagley had found it necessary to state
+desire and raise objection respectively in simple clear sentences
+containing subject, verb, and object. This much came to him and it
+bothered him even more, now that he understood that they were bandying
+their meanings lightly over a subject so vital, so important, so--so
+completely personal.
+
+Then, in that oddly irrational corner of his brain that neither knowledge
+nor information had been adequate to rationalize nor had experience
+arrived to supply the explanation, James Holden's limited but growing
+comprehension arrived at a conclusion that was reasonable within its
+limited framework. Judge Carter and his wife occupied separate bedrooms
+and had therefore never Done It. Conversely, Tim and Janet Fisher from
+their midnight discussion obviously Knew What It Was All About. James
+wondered whether they had Done It yet, and he also wondered whether he
+could tell by listening to their discussions and conversations now that
+they'd been married at least long enough to have Tried It.
+
+With a brand new and very interesting subject to study, James lost
+interest in the program of concentrated research. James Holden found that
+all he had to do to arrange a trip to Shipmont was to state his desire to
+go and the length of his visit. The judge deemed both reasonable, Mrs.
+Carter packed James a bag, and off he went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The house on Martin's Hill was about the same, with some improvement such
+as a coat of paint and some needed repair work. The grounds had been
+worked over, but it was going to take a number of years of concentrated
+gardening to de-weed the tangled lawn and to cut the undergrowth in the
+thin woodsy back area where James had played in concealment.
+
+But the air inside was changed. Janet, as Mrs. Bagley, had been as close
+to James Holden as any substitute mother could have been. Now she seemed
+preoccupied and too busy with her own life to act more than pleasantly
+polite. He could have been visiting the home of a friend instead of
+returning to the domicile he had created, in which he had provided her
+with a home--for herself and a frightened little girl. She asked him how
+he had been and what he was doing, but he felt that this was more a
+matter of taking up time than real interest. He had the feeling that
+somewhere deep inside, her soul was biting its fingernails. She spoke of
+Martha with pride and hope, she asked how Judge Carter was making out and
+whether Martha would be able to finish her schooling via Holden's
+machine.
+
+James believed this was her problem. Martha had been educated far beyond
+her years. She could no more enter school now than he could; unwittingly
+he'd made Martha a misfit, too. So James tried to explain that part of
+the study undertaken in Judge Carter's program had been the question of
+what to do about Martha.
+
+The professionals studying the case did not know yet whether Martha would
+remain ahead of her age group, or whether to let her loaf it out until
+her age group caught up with her, or whether to give Martha everything
+she could take as fast as she could take it. This would make a female
+counterpart of James Holden to study.
+
+But knowing that there were a number of very brilliant scientists,
+educators, and psychologists working on Martha's problem did not cheer up
+Mrs. Janet Fisher as much as James thought it should. Yet as he watched
+her, he could not say that Tim Fisher's wife was _unhappy_.
+
+Tim, on the other hand, looked fine. James watched them together as
+critically curious as he'd been in watching the Judge and Mrs. Carter.
+Tim was gentle with his wife, tender, polite, and more than willing to
+wait on her. From their talk and chit-chat, James could detect nothing.
+There were still elisions, questions answered with a half-phrase,
+comments added with a disconnected word and replied in another word
+that--in cold print--would appear to have no bearing on the original
+subject. This sort of thing told James nothing. Judge Carter and his wife
+did the same; if there were any difference to be noted it was only in the
+basic subject materials. The judge and his wife were inclined more toward
+discussions of political questions and judicial problems, whereas Tim and
+Janet Fisher were more interested in music, movies, and the general trend
+of the automobile repair business; or more to the point, whether to
+expand the present facility in Shipmont, to open another branch
+elsewhere, or to sell out to buy a really big operation in some sizable
+city.
+
+James saw a change in Martha, too. It had been months since he came back
+home to supervise the removal of his belongings. Now Martha had filled
+out. She was dressed in a shirt-and-skirt instead of the little jumper
+dresses James remembered. Martha's hair was lightly wavy instead of
+trimmed short, and she was wearing a very faint touch of color on her
+lips. She wore tiny slippers with heels just a trifle higher than the
+altitude recommended for a girl close to thirteen.
+
+Ultimately they fell into animated chatter of their own, just as they
+always had. There was a barrier between the pair of them and Martha's
+mother and stepfather--slightly higher than the usual barrier erected
+between children and their adults because of their educational adventures
+together. They had covered reams and volumes together. Martha's mother
+was interested in Holden's machine only when something specific came to
+her attention that she did not wish to forget such as a recipe or a
+pattern, and one very extensive course that enabled her to add a column
+of three-digit numbers by the whole lines instead of taking each column
+digit by digit. Tim Fisher himself had deeper interests, but nearly all
+of them directed at making Tim Fisher a better manager of the automobile
+repair business. There had been some discussion of the possibility that
+Tim Fisher might memorize some subject such as the names of all baseball
+players and their yearly and lifetime scoring, fielding, and playing
+averages, training for him to go as a contestant on one of the big money
+giveaway shows. This never came to pass; Tim Fisher did not have any
+spectacular qualities about him that would land him an invitation. So
+Tim's work with Holden's machine had been straightforward studies in
+mechanics and bookkeeping and business management--plus a fine repertoire
+of bawdy songs he had rung in on the sly and subsequently used at
+parties.
+
+James and Martha had taken all they wanted of education and available
+information, sometimes with plan and the guidance of schoolbooks and
+sometimes simply because they found the subject of interest. In the past
+they'd had discussions of problems in understanding; they'd talked of
+things that parents and elders would have considered utterly impossible
+to discuss with young minds. With this communion of interests, they fell
+back into their former pattern of first joining the general conversation
+politely and then gradually confining their remarks to one another until
+there were two conversations going on at the same time, one between
+James and Martha and another between Janet and Tim. Again, the vocal
+interference and cross-talk became too high, and it was Tim and Janet who
+left the living room to mix a couple of highballs and start dinner.
+
+The chatter continued, but now with a growing strain on the part of young
+James Holden.
+
+He wanted to switch to a more personal topic of conversation but he did
+not know how to accomplish this feat. There was plenty of interest but it
+was more clinical than passionate; he was not stirred to yearning, he
+felt no overwhelming desire to hold Martha's hand nor to feel the
+softness of her face, yet there was a stirring urge to make some form of
+contact. But he had no idea of how to steer the conversation towards
+personal lines that might lead into something that would justify a
+gesture towards her. It began to work on him. The original clinical urge
+to touch her just to see what reaction would obtain changed into a
+personal urge that grew higher as he found that he could not kick the
+conversational ball in that direction. The idea of putting an arm about
+her waist as he had seen men embrace their girls on television was a
+pleasing thought; he wanted to find out if kissing was as much fun as it
+was made up to be.
+
+But instead of offering him any encouragement, or even giving him a
+chance to start shifting the conversation, Martha went prattling on and
+on and on about a book she'd read recently.
+
+It did not occur to James Holden that Martha Bagley might entertain the
+idea of physical contact of some mild sort on an experimental basis. He
+did not even consider the possibility that he might _start_ her thinking
+about it. So instead of closing the distance between them like a gentle
+wolf, watching with sly calculation to ascertain whether her response was
+positive, negative, or completely neutral, he sat like a post and fretted
+inwardly because he couldn't control the direction of their conversation.
+
+Ultimately, of course, Martha ran out of comment on her book and then
+there fell a deadly silence because James couldn't dredge up another
+lively subject. Desperately, he searched through his mind for an opening.
+There was none. The bright patter between male and female characters in
+books he'd smuggled started off on too high a level on both sides. Books
+that were written adequately for his understanding of this problem signed
+off with the trite explanation that they lived happily ever afterwards
+but did not say a darned thing about how they went about it. The slightly
+lurid books that he'd bought, delivered in plain wrappers, gave some very
+illuminating descriptions of the art or act, but the affair opened with
+the scene all set and the principal characters both ready, willing, and
+able. There was no conversational road map that showed the way that led
+two people from a calm and unemotional discussion into an area that might
+lead to something entirely else.
+
+In silence, James Holden sat there sinking deeper and deeper into his own
+misery.
+
+The more he thought about it, the farther he found himself from his
+desire. Later in the process, he knew, came a big barrier called
+"stealing a kiss," and James with his literal mind provided this game
+with an aggressor, a defender, and the final extraction by coercion or
+violence of the first osculatory contact. If the objective could be
+carried off without the defense repulsing the advance, the rest was
+supposed to come with less trouble. But here he was floundering before he
+began, let alone approaching the barrier that must be an even bigger
+problem.
+
+Briefly he wished that it were Christmas, because at Christmas people
+hung up mistletoe. Mistletoe would not only provide an opening by
+custom and tradition, it also cut through this verbal morass of trying
+to lead up to the subject by the quick process of supplying the subject
+itself. But it was a long time before Christmas. James abandoned that
+ill-conceived idea and went on sinking deep and feeling miserable.
+
+Then Martha's mother took James out of his misery by coming in to
+announce dinner. Regretfully, James sighed for his lost moments and
+helplessness, then got to his feet and held out a hand for Martha.
+
+She put her hand in his and allowed him to lift her to her feet by
+pulling. The first contact did not stir him at all, though it was warm
+and pleasant. Once the pulling pressure was off, he continued to hold
+Martha's hand, tentatively and experimentally.
+
+Then Janet Fisher showered shards of ice with a light laugh. "You two can
+stand there holding hands," she said. "But I'm going to eat it while it's
+on the table."
+
+James Holden's hand opened with the swiftness of a reflex action, almost
+as fast as the wink of an eye at the flash of light or the body's jump at
+the crack of sound. Martha's hand did not drop because she, too, was
+holding his and did not let go abruptly. She giggled, gave his hand a
+little squeeze and said, "Let's go. I'm hungry too."
+
+None of which solved James Holden's problem. But during dinner his
+personal problem slipped aside because he discovered another slight
+change in Janet Fisher's attitude. He puzzled over it quietly, but
+managed to eat without any apparent preoccupation. Dinner took about a
+half hour, after which they spent another fifteen minutes over coffee,
+with Janet refusing her second cup. She disappeared at the first shuffle
+of a foot under the table, while James and Martha resumed their years-old
+chore of clearing the table and tackling the dishwashing problem.
+
+Alone in the kitchen, James asked Martha, "What's with your mother?"
+
+"What do you mean, what's with her?"
+
+"She's changed, somehow."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"She seems sort of inner-thoughtful. Cheerful enough but as if
+something's bothering her that she can't stop."
+
+"That all?"
+
+"No," he went on. "She hiked upstairs like a shot right after dinner was
+over. Tim raced after her. And she said no to coffee."
+
+"Oh, that. She's just a little upset in the middle."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"She's pregnant."
+
+"Pregnant?"
+
+"Sure. Can't you see?"
+
+"Never occurred to me to look."
+
+"Well, it's so," said Martha, scouring a coffee cup with an exaggerated
+flourish. "And I'm going to have a half-sibling."
+
+"But look--"
+
+"Don't _you_ go getting upset," said Martha. "It's a natural process
+that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, you know."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Not for months," said Martha. "It just happened."
+
+"Too bad she's unhappy."
+
+"She's very happy. Both of them wanted it."
+
+James considered this. He had never come across Voltaire's observation
+that marriage is responsible for the population because it provides the
+maximum opportunity with the maximum temptation. But it was beginning to
+filter slowly into his brain that the ways and means were always
+available and there was neither custom, tradition, nor biology that
+dictated a waiting period or a time limit. It was a matter of choice, and
+when two people want their baby, and have no reason for not having their
+baby, it is silly to wait.
+
+"Why did they wait so long if they both want it?"
+
+"Oh," replied Martha in a matter-of-fact voice, "they've been working at
+it right along."
+
+James thought some more. He'd come to see if he could detect any
+difference between the behavior of Judge and Mrs. Carter, and the
+behavior of Tim and Janet Fisher. He saw little, other than the standard
+differences that could be accounted for by age and temperament. Tim and
+Janet did not really act as if they'd Discovered Something New. Tim, he
+knew, was a bit more sweet and tender to Janet than he'd been before, but
+there was nothing startling in his behavior. If there were any difference
+as compared to their original antics, James knew that it was undoubtedly
+due to the fact that they didn't have to stand lollygagging in the
+hallway for two hours while Janet half-heartedly insisted that Tim go
+home. He went on to consider his original theory that the Carters were
+childless because they occupied separate bedrooms; by some sort of
+deduction he came to the conclusion that he was right, because Tim and
+Janet Fisher were making a baby and they slept in the same bedroom.
+
+He went on in a whirl; maybe the Carters didn't want children, but it was
+more likely that they too had tried but it hadn't happened.
+
+And then it came to him suddenly that here he was in the kitchen alone
+with Martha Bagley, discussing the very delicate subject. But he was
+actually no closer to his problem of becoming a participant than he'd
+been an hour ago in the living room. It was one thing to daydream the
+suggestion when you can also daydream the affirmative response, but it
+was another matter when the response was completely out of your control.
+James was not old enough in the ways of the world to even consider
+outright asking; even if he had considered it, he did not know how to
+ask.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening went slowly. Janet and Tim returned about the time the
+dishwashing process was complete. Janet proposed a hand of bridge; Tim
+suggested poker, James voted for pinochle, and Martha wanted to toss a
+coin between canasta or gin rummy. They settled it by dealing a shuffled
+deck face upward until the ace of hearts landed in front of Janet,
+whereupon they played bridge until about eleven o'clock. It was
+interesting bridge; James and Martha had studied bridge columns and books
+for recreation; against them were aligned Tim and Janet, who played with
+the card sense developed over years of practice. The youngsters knew the
+theories, their bidding was as precise as bridge bidding could be made
+with value-numbering, honor-counting, response-value addition, and all
+of the other systems. They understood all of the coups and end plays
+complete with classic examples. But having all of the theory engraved on
+their brains did not temporarily imprint the location of every card
+already played, whereas Tim and Janet counted their played cards
+automatically and made up in play what they missed in stratagem.
+
+At eleven, Janet announced that she was tired, Tim joined her; James
+turned on the television set and he and Martha watched a ten-year-old
+movie for an hour. Finally Martha yawned.
+
+And James, still floundering, mentally meandered back to his wish that it
+were Christmas so that mistletoe would provide a traditional gesture of
+affection, and came up with a new and novel idea that he expressed in a
+voice that almost trembled:
+
+"Tired, Martha?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"Well, why don't I kiss you good night and send you off to bed."
+
+"All right, if you want to."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh--just--well, everybody does it."
+
+She sat near him on the low divan, looking him full in the face but
+making no move, no gesture, no change in her expression. He looked at her
+and realized that he was not sure of how to take hold of her, how to
+reach for her, how to proceed.
+
+She said, "Well, go ahead."
+
+"I'm going to."
+
+"When?"
+
+"As soon as I get good and ready."
+
+"Are we going to sit here all night?"
+
+In its own way, it reminded James of the equally un-brilliant
+conversation between Janet and Tim on the homecoming after their first
+date. He chuckled.
+
+"What's so funny?"
+
+"Nothing," he said in a slightly strained voice. "I'm thinking that here
+we sit like a couple of kids that don't know what it's all about."
+
+"Well," said Martha, "aren't we?"
+
+"Yes," he said reluctantly, "I guess we are. But darn it, Martha, how
+does a guy grow up? How does a guy learn these things?" His voice was
+plaintive, it galled him to admit that for all of his knowledge and his
+competence, he was still just a bit more than a child emotionally.
+
+"I don't know," she said in a voice as plaintive as his. "I wouldn't know
+where to look to find it. I've tried. All I know," she said with a
+quickening voice, "is that somewhere between now and then I'll learn how
+to toss talk back and forth the way they do."
+
+"Yes," he said glumly.
+
+"James," said Martha brightly, "we should be somewhat better than a pair
+of kids who don't know what it's all about, shouldn't we?"
+
+"That's what bothers me," he admitted. "We're neither of us stupid. Lord
+knows we've plenty of education between us, but--"
+
+"James, how did we get that education?"
+
+"Through my father's machine."
+
+"No, you don't understand. What I mean is that no matter how we got our
+education, we had to learn, didn't we?"
+
+"Why, yes. In a--"
+
+"Now, let's not get involved in another philosophical argument. Let's run
+this one right on through to the end. Why are we sitting here fumbling?
+Because we haven't yet learned how to behave like adults."
+
+"I suppose so. But it strikes me that anything should be--"
+
+"James, for goodness' sake. Here we are, the two people in the whole
+world who have studied everything we know together, and when we hit
+something we can't study--you want to go home and kiss your old machine,"
+she finished with a remarkable lack of serial logic. She laughed
+nervously.
+
+"What's so darned funny?" he demanded sourly.
+
+"Oh," she said, "you're afraid to kiss me because you don't know how, and
+I'm afraid to let you because I don't know how, and so we're talking away
+a golden opportunity to find out. James," she said seriously, "if you
+fumble a bit, I won't know the difference because I'm no smarter than you
+are."
+
+She leaned forward holding her face up, her lips puckered forward in
+a tight little rosebud. She closed her eyes and waited. Gingerly and
+hesitantly he leaned forward and met her lips with a pucker of his own.
+It was a light contact, warm, and ended quickly with a characteristic
+smack that seemed to echo through the silent house. It had all of the
+emotional charge of a mother-in-law's peck, but it served its purpose
+admirably. They both opened their eyes and looked at one another from
+four inches of distance. Then they tried it again and their second was a
+little longer and a little warmer and a little closer, and it ended with
+less of the noise of opening a fruit jar.
+
+Martha moved over close beside him and put her head on his shoulder;
+James responded by putting an arm around her, and together they tried to
+assemble themselves in the comfortably affectionate position seen in
+movies and on television. It didn't quite work that way. There seemed to
+be too many arms and legs and sharp corners for comfort, or when they
+found a contortion that did not create interferences with limb or corner,
+it was a strain on the spine or a twist in the neck. After a few minutes
+of this coeducational wrestling they decided almost without effort to
+return to the original routine of kissing. By more luck than good
+management they succeeded in an embrace that placed no strain and which
+met them almost face to face. They puckered again and made contact, then
+pressure came and spread out the pair of tightly pursed rosebuds. Martha
+moved once to get her nose free of his cheek for a breath of air.
+
+At the rate they were going, they might have hit paydirt this time, but
+just at the point where James should have relaxed to enjoy the long kiss
+he began to worry: There is something planned and final about the quick
+smacking kiss, but how does one gracefully terminate the long-term,
+high-pressure jobs? So instead of enjoying himself, James planned and
+discarded plans until he decided that the way he'd do it would be to
+exert a short, heavy pressure and then cease with the same action as in
+the quick-smack variety.
+
+It worked fine, but as he opened his eyes to look at her, she was there
+with her eyes still closed and her lips still ready. He took a deep
+breath and plunged in again. Having determined how to start, James was
+now going to experiment with endings.
+
+They came up for air successfully again, and then spent some time
+wriggling around into another position. The figure-fitting went easier
+this time, after threshing around through three or four near-comforts
+they came to rest in a pleasantly natural position and James Holden
+became nervously aware of the fact that his right hand was cupped over
+a soft roundness that filled his palm almost perfectly. He wondered
+whether to remove it quickly to let her know that this intimacy wasn't
+intentional; slowly so that (maybe, he hoped) she wouldn't realize that
+it had been there; or to leave it there because it felt pleasant. While
+he was wondering, Martha moved around because she could not twist her
+neck all the way around like an owl, and she wanted to see him. The move
+solved his problem but presented the equally great problem of how he
+would try it again.
+
+James allowed a small portion of his brain to think about this, and put
+the rest of his mind at ease by kissing her again. Halfway through, he
+felt warm moistness as her lips parted slightly, then the tip of her
+tongue darted forward between his lips to quest against his tongue in a
+caress so fleeting that it was withdrawn before he could react--and James
+reacted by jerking his head back faster than if he had been clubbed in
+the face. He was still tingling with the shock, a pleasant shock but none
+the less a shock, when Martha giggled lightly.
+
+He bubbled and blurted, "Wha--whu--?"
+
+She told him nervously, "I've been wanting to try that ever since I read
+it in a book."
+
+He shivered. "What book?" he demanded in almost a quaver.
+
+"A paperback of Tim's. Mother calls them, Tim's sex and slay stories."
+Martha giggled again. "You jumped."
+
+"Sure did. I was surprised. Do it again."
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"Didn't you like it?"
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't have time to find out."
+
+"Oh."
+
+He kissed her again and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally he moved
+back an inch and said, "What's the matter?"
+
+"I don't think we should. Maybe we ought to wait until we're older."
+
+"Not fair," he complained. "You had all the warning."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Didn't you like it?" he asked.
+
+"Well, it gave me the most tickly tingle."
+
+"And all I got was a sort of mild electric shock. Come on."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, I'll do it to you."
+
+"All right. Just once."
+
+Leaping to the end of this midnight research, there are three primary
+ways of concluding, namely: 1, physical satisfaction; 2, physical
+exhaustion; and 3, interruption. We need not go into sub-classifications
+or argue the point. James and Martha were not emotionally ready to
+conclude with mutual defloration. Ultimately they fell asleep on the
+divan with their arms around each other. They weren't interrupted;
+they awoke as the first flush of daylight brightened the sky, and with
+one more rather chaste kiss, they parted to fall into the deep slumber of
+complete physical and emotional exhaustion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+James Holden's ride home on the train gave him a chance to think, alone
+and isolated from all but superficial interruptions. He felt that he was
+quite the bright young man.
+
+He noticed with surreptitious pride that folks no longer eyed him with
+sly, amused, knowing smiles whenever he opened a newspaper. Perhaps some
+of their amusement had been the sight of a youngster struggling with a
+full-spread page, employing arms that did not quite make the span. But
+most of all he hated the condescending tolerance; their everlasting
+attitude that everything he did was "cute" like the little girl who
+decked herself out in mother's clothing from high heels and brassiere
+to evening gown, costume jewelry, and a fumbled smear of makeup.
+
+That was over. He'd made it to a couple of months over fourteen, he'd
+finally reached a stature large enough so that he did not have to prove
+his right to buy a railroad ticket, nor climb on the suitcase bar so that
+he could peer over the counter. Newsdealers let him alone to pick his own
+fare instead of trying to "save his money" by shoving Mickey Mouse at him
+and putting his own choice back on its pile.
+
+He had not succeeded in gaining his legal freedom, but as Ward of the
+State under Judge Carter he had other interesting expectations that he
+might not have stumbled upon. Carter had connections; there was talk of
+James' entering a comprehensive examination at some university, where the
+examining board, forearmed with the truth about his education, would test
+James to ascertain his true level of comprehension. He could of course
+collect his bachelor's degree once he complied with the required work
+of term papers written to demonstrate that his information could be
+interwoven into the formation of an opinion, or reflection, or view
+of some topic. Master's degrees and doctor's degrees required the
+presentation of some original area of study, competence in his chosen
+field, and the development of some facet of the field that had not been
+touched before. These would require more work, but could be handled in
+time.
+
+In fact, he felt that he was in pretty good shape. There were a couple
+of sticky problems, still. He wanted Paul Brennan to get his comeuppance,
+but he knew that there was no evidence available to support his story
+about the slaughter of his parents. It galled him to realize that
+cold-blooded, premeditated murder for personal profit and avarice could
+go undetected. But until there could be proffered some material evidence,
+Brennan's word was as good as his in any court. So Brennan was getting
+away with it.
+
+The other little item was his own independence. He wanted it. That he
+might continue living with Judge Carter had no bearing. No matter how
+benevolent the tyranny, James wanted no part of it. In fighting for his
+freedom, James Holden's foot had slipped. He'd used his father's machine
+on Martha, and that was a legal error.
+
+Martha? James was not really sorry he'd slipped. Error or not, he'd made
+of her the only person in the world who understood his problem wholly and
+sympathetically. Otherwise he would be completely alone.
+
+Oh yes, he felt that he was quite the bright young man. He was coming
+along fine and getting somewhere. His very pleasant experiences in the
+house on Martin's Hill had raised him from a boy to a young man; he was
+now able to grasp the appreciation of the Big Drive, to understand some
+of the reasons why adults acted in the way that they did. He hadn't
+managed another late session of sofa with Martha, but there had been
+little incidental meetings in the hallway or in the kitchen with the
+exchange of kisses, and they'd boldly kissed goodbye at the railroad
+station under her mother's smile.
+
+He could not know Janet Fisher's mind, of course. Janet, mother to a girl
+entering young womanhood, worried about all of the things that such a
+mother worries about and added a couple of things that no other mother
+ever had. She could hardly slip her daughter a smooth version of the
+birds and the bees and people when she knew full well that Martha had
+gone through a yard or so of books on the subject that covered everything
+from the advanced medical to the lurid exposé and from the salacious to
+the ribald. Janet could only hope that her daughter valued her chastity
+according to convention despite the natural human curiosity which in
+Martha would be multiplied by the girl's advanced education. Janet knew
+that young people were marrying younger and younger as the years went on;
+she saw young James Holden no longer as a rather odd youngster with
+abilities beyond his age. She saw him now as the potential mate for
+Martha. And when they embraced and kissed at the station, Janet did not
+realize that she was accepting this salute as the natural act of two
+sub-adults, rather than a pair of precocious kids.
+
+At any rate, James Holden felt very good. Now he had a girl. He had
+acquired one more of the many attitudes of the Age of Maturity.
+
+So James settled down to read his newspaper, and on page three he saw a
+photograph and an article that attracted his attention. The photograph
+was of a girl no more than seven years old holding a baby at least a year
+old. Beside them was a boy of about nine. In the background was a
+miserable hovel made of crude lumber and patched windows. This couple and
+their baby had been discovered by a geological survey outfit living in
+the backwoods hills. Relief, aid, and help were being rushed, and the
+legislature was considering ways and means of their schooling. Neither
+of them could read or write.
+
+James read the article, and his first thought was to proffer his help.
+Aid and enlightenment they needed, and they needed it quickly. And then
+he stopped immediately because he could do nothing to educate them unless
+they already possessed the ability to read.
+
+His second thought was one of dismay. His exultation came down with a
+dull thud. Within seconds he realized that the acquisition of a girl was
+no evidence of his competent maturity. The couple photographed were human
+beings, but intellectually they were no more than animals with a slight
+edge in vocabulary. It made James Holden sick at heart to read the
+article and to realize that such filth and ignorance could still go on.
+But it took a shock of such violence to make James realize that clams,
+guppies, worms, fleas, cats, dogs, and the great whales reproduced their
+kind; intellect, education and mature competence under law had nothing to
+do with the process whatsoever.
+
+And while his heart was still unhappy, he turned to page four and read an
+open editorial that discussed the chances of The Educational Party in the
+coming Election Year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James blinked.
+
+"Splinter" parties, the editorial said, seldom succeeded in gaining a
+primary objective. They only succeeded in drawing votes from the other
+major parties, in splitting the total ballot, and dividing public
+opinion. On the other hand, they did provide a useful political
+weathervane for the major parties to watch most carefully. If the
+splinter party succeeded in capturing a large vote, it was an indication
+that the People found their program favorable and upon such evidence it
+behooved the major parties to mend their political fences--or to relocate
+them.
+
+Education, said the editorial, was a primary issue and had been one
+for years. There had been experimenting with education ever since
+the Industrial Revolution uncovered the fact, in about 1900, that
+backbreaking physical toil was going to be replaced by educated workers
+operating machinery.
+
+Then the editorial quoted Judge Norman L. Carter:
+
+"'For many years,' said Judge Carter, 'we have deplored the situation
+whereby a doctor or a physicist is not considered fully educated until he
+has reached his middle or even late twenties. Yet instead of speeding up
+the curriculum in the early school years, we have introduced such
+important studies as social graces, baton twirling, interpretive painting
+and dancing, and a lot of other fiddle-faddle which graduates students
+who cannot spell, nor read a book, nor count above ten without taking off
+their shoes. Perhaps such studies are necessary to make sound citizens
+and graceful companions. I shall not contest the point. However, I
+contend that a sound and basic schooling should be included--and when I
+so contend I am told by our great educators that the day is not long
+enough nor the years great enough to accomplish this very necessary end.
+
+"'Gentlemen, we leaders of The Education Party propose to accomplish
+precisely that which they said cannot be done!'"
+
+The editorial closed with the terse suggestion: Educator--Educate
+thyself!
+
+James Holden sat stunned.
+
+_What was Judge Carter doing?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James Holden arrived to find the home of Judge Norman L. Carter an upset
+madhouse. He was stopped at the front door by a secretary at a small desk
+whose purpose was to screen the visitors and to log them in and out in
+addition to being decorative. Above her left breast was a large enamelled
+button, red on top, white in the middle as a broad stripe from left to
+right, and blue below. Across the white stripe was printed CARTER in
+bold, black letters. From in back of the pin depended two broad silk
+ribbons that cascaded forward over the stuffing in her brassiere and hung
+free until they disappeared behind the edge of the desk. She eyed James
+with curiosity. "Young man, if you're looking for throwaways for your
+civics class, you'll have to wait until we're better organized--"
+
+James eyed her with cold distaste. "I am James Quincy Holden," he told
+her, "and you have neither the authority nor the agility necessary to
+prevent my entrance."
+
+"You are--I what?"
+
+"I live here," he told her flatly. "Or didn't they provide you with this
+tidbit of vital statistic?"
+
+Wheels rotated behind the girl's eyes somewhere, and memory cells linked
+into comprehension. "Oh!--You're James."
+
+"I said that first," he replied. "Where's Judge Carter?"
+
+"He's in conference and cannot be disturbed."
+
+"Your objection is overruled. I shall disturb him as soon as I find out
+precisely what has been going on."
+
+He went on in through the short hallway and found audible confusion. Men
+in groups of two to four stood in corners talking in bedlam. There was a
+layer of blue smoke above their heads that broke into skirls as various
+individuals left one group to join another. Through this vocal mob scene
+James went veering from left to right to avoid the groupings. He stood
+with polite insolence directly in front of two men sitting on the stairs
+until they made room for his passage--still talking as he went between
+them. In his room, three were sitting on the bed and the chair holding
+glasses and, of course, smoking like the rest. James dropped his
+overnight bag on a low stand and headed for his bathroom. One of the men
+caught sight of him and said, "Hey kid, scram!"
+
+James looked at the man coldly. "You happen to be using my bedroom. You
+should be asking my permission to do so, or perhaps apologizing for not
+having asked me before you moved in. I have no intention of leaving."
+
+"Get the likes of him!"
+
+"Wait a moment, Pete. This is the Holden kid."
+
+"The little genius, huh?"
+
+James said, "I am no genius. I do happen to have an education that
+provides me with the right to criticize your social behavior. I will
+neither be insulted nor patronized."
+
+"Listen to him, will you!"
+
+James turned and with the supreme gesture of contempt, he left the door
+open.
+
+He wound his way through the place to Judge Carter's study and home
+office, strode towards it with purpose and reached for the doorknob. A
+voice halted him: "Hey kid, you can't go in there!"
+
+Turning to face the new voice, James said calmly,
+
+"You mean 'may not' which implies that I have asked your permission. Your
+statement is incorrect as phrased and erroneous when corrected."
+
+He turned the knob and entered. Judge Carter sat at his desk with two
+men; their discussion ceased with the sound of the doorknob. The judge
+looked up in annoyance. "Hello, James. You shouldn't have come in here.
+We're busy. I'll let you know when I'm free."
+
+"You'd better make time for me right now," said James angrily. "I'd like
+to know what's going on here."
+
+"This much I'll tell you quickly. We're planning a political campaign.
+Now, please--"
+
+"I know you're planning a political campaign," replied James. "But if
+you're proposing to campaign on the platform of a reform in education,
+I suggest that you educate your henchmen in the rudimentary elements of
+polite speech and gentle behavior. I dislike being ordered out of my room
+by usurpers who have the temerity to address me as 'hey kid'."
+
+"Relax, James. I'll send them out later."
+
+"I'd suggest that you tell them off," snapped James. He turned on his
+heel and left, heading for the cellar. In the workshop he found Professor
+White and Jack Cowling presiding over the machine. In the chair with the
+headset on sat the crowning insult of all:
+
+Paul Brennan leafing through a heavy sheaf of papers, reading and
+intoning the words of political oratory.
+
+Unable to lick them, Brennan had joined them--or, wondered young Holden,
+was Judge Norman L. Carter paying for Brennan's silence with some plum of
+political patronage?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he stood there, the years of persecution rose strong in the mind of
+James Holden. Brennan, the man who'd got away with murder and would
+continue to get away with it because there was no shred of evidence, no
+witness, nothing but James Holden's knowledge of Brennan's actions when
+he'd thought himself unseen in his calloused treatment of James Holden's
+dying mother; Brennan's critical inspection of the smashed body of his
+father, coldly checking the dead flesh to be sure beyond doubt; the cruel
+search about the scene of the 'accident' for James himself--interrupted
+only by the arrival of a Samaritan, whose name was never known to James
+Holden. In James rose the violent resentment of the years, the certain
+knowledge that any act of revenge upon Paul Brennan would be viewed as
+cold-blooded premeditated murder without cause or motive.
+
+And then came the angry knowledge that simple slaughter was too good for
+Paul Brennan. He was not a dog to be quickly released from misery by a
+merciful death. Paul Brennan should suffer until he cried for death as a
+blessed release from daily living.
+
+James Holden, angry, silently, unseen by the preoccupied workers,
+stole across the room to the main switch-panel, flipped up a small
+half-concealed cover, and flipped a small button.
+
+There came a sharp _Crack_! that shattered the silence and
+re-echoed again and again through the room. The panel that held the
+repeater-circuit of the Holden Educator bulged outward; jets of smoke
+lanced out of broken metal, bulged corners, holes and skirled into little
+clouds that drifted upward--trailing a flowing billow of thick, black,
+pungent smoke that reached the low ceiling and spread outward, fanwise,
+obscuring the ceiling like a low-lying nimbus.
+
+At the sound of the report, the man in the chair jumped as if he'd been
+stabbed where he sat.
+
+"Ouyeowwww!" yowled Brennan in a pitiful ululation. He fell forward from
+the chair, asprawl on wobbly hands and knees, on elbows and knees as he
+tried to press away the torrent of agony that hammered back and forth
+from temple to temple. James watched Brennan with cold detachment,
+Professor White and Jack Cowling looked on in paralyzed horror. Slowly,
+oh, so slowly, Paul Brennan managed to squirm around until he was sitting
+on the floor still cradling his head between his hands.
+
+James said, "I'm afraid that you're going to have a rough time whenever
+you hear the word 'entrenched'." And then, as Brennan made no response,
+James Holden went on, "Or were you by chance reading the word
+'pedagogue'?"
+
+At the word, Brennan howled again; the pain was too much for him and he
+toppled sidewise to writhe in kicking agony.
+
+James smiled coldly, "I'm sorry that you weren't reading the word 'the'.
+The English language uses more of them than the word 'pedagogue'."
+
+With remarkable effort, Brennan struggled to his feet; he lurched toward
+James. "I'll teach you, you little--"
+
+"Pedagogue?" asked James.
+
+The shock rocked Brennan right to the floor again.
+
+"Better sit there and think," said James coldly. "You come within a dozen
+yards of me and I'll say--"
+
+"No! Don't!" screamed Paul Brennan. "Not again!"
+
+"Now," asked James, "what's going on here?"
+
+"He was memorizing a political speech," said Jack Cowling. "What did you
+do?"
+
+"I merely fixed my machine so that it will not be used again."
+
+"But you shouldn't have done that!"
+
+"You shouldn't have been using it for this purpose," replied James. "It
+wasn't intended to further political ambitions."
+
+"But Judge Carter--"
+
+"Judge Carter doesn't own it," said James. "I do."
+
+"I'm sure that Judge Carter can explain everything."
+
+"Tell him so. Then add that if he'd bothered to give me the time of day,
+I'd be less angry. He's not to be interrupted, is he? I'm ordered out of
+my room, am I? Well, go tell the judge that his political campaign has
+been stopped by a fourteen-year-old boy who knows which button to push!
+I'll wait here."
+
+Professor White took off; Jack Cowling smiled crookedly and shook his
+head at James. "You're a rash young man," he said. "What did you do to
+Brennan, here?"
+
+James pointed at the smoke curling up out of the panel. "I put in a
+destructive charge to addle the circuit as a preventive measure against
+capture or use by unauthorized persons," he replied. "So I pushed the
+button just as Brennan was trying to memorize the word--"
+
+"Don't!" cried Brennan in a pleading scream.
+
+"You mean he's going to throw a fit every time he hears the word--"
+
+"No! No! Can't anybody talk without saying--Ouwwouooo!"
+
+"Interesting," commented James. "It seems to start as soon as the
+fore-reading part of his mind predicts that the word may be next, or
+when he thinks about it."
+
+"Do you mean that Brennan is going to be like the guy who could win the
+world if he sat on the top of a hill for one hour and did not think of
+the word 'Swordfish'? Except that he'll be out of pain so long as he
+doesn't think of the word--"
+
+"Thing I'm interested in is that maybe our orator here doesn't know the
+definition thoroughly. Tell me, dear 'Uncle' Paul, does the word
+'teacher' give--Sorry. I was just experimenting. Wasn't as bad as--"
+
+Gritting his teeth and wincing with pain, Brennan said, "Stop it!
+Even the word 'sch-(wince)-ool' hurts like--" He thought for a
+moment and then went on with his voice rising to a pitiful
+howl of agony at the end: "Even the name 'Miss Adams' gives
+me a fleeting headache all over my body, and Miss Adams was
+on--ly--my--third--growww--school--Owuuuuoooo--teach--earrrrrrr--Owwww!"
+
+Brennan collapsed in his chair just as Judge Carter came in with his
+white mane flying and hot fire in his attitude. "What goes on here?" he
+stormed at James.
+
+"I stopped your campaign."
+
+"Now see here, you young--"
+
+Judge Carter stopped abruptly, took a deep breath and calmed himself with
+a visible effort to control his rage. "James," he said in a quieter
+voice, "Can you repair the damage quickly?"
+
+"Yes--but I won't."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because one of the things my father taught me was the danger of allowing
+this machine to fall into the hands of ruthless men with political
+ambition."
+
+"And I am a ruthless man with political ambition?"
+
+James nodded. "Under the guise of studying me and my machine," he said,
+"you've been using it to train speakers, and to educate ward-heelers.
+You've been building a political machine by buying delegates. Not with
+money, of course, because that is illegal. With knowledge, and because
+knowledge, education, and information are intangibles and no legality
+has been established, and this is all very legal."
+
+Judge Carter smiled distantly. "It is bad to elevate the mind of the
+average ward-heeler? To provide the smalltime politician with a fine
+grasp of the National Problem and how his little local problems fit into
+the big picture? Is this making a better world, or isn't it?"
+
+"It's making a political machine that can't be defeated."
+
+"Think not? What makes you think it can't?"
+
+"Pedagogue!" said James.
+
+"Yeowwww!"
+
+The judge whirled to look at Brennan. "What was--that?" asked the judge.
+
+James explained what had happened, then: "I've mentioned hazards. This is
+what would happen if a fuse blew in the middle of a course. Maybe he can
+be trained out of it, and maybe not. You'll have to try, of course. But
+think of what would happen if you and your political machine put these
+things into schools and fixed them to make a voltage twitch or something
+while the student was reading the word 'republican'. You'd end up with a
+single-party system."
+
+"And get myself assassinated by a group of righteously irate citizens,"
+said Judge Carter. "Which I would very warmly deserve. On the other hand,
+suppose we 'treated' people to feel anguish at thoughts of murder or
+killing, theft, treason, and other forms of human deviltry?"
+
+"Now that might be a fine idea."
+
+"It would not," said Judge Carter flatly. James Holden's eyes widened,
+and he started to say something but the judge held up his hand, fingers
+outspread, and began to tick off his points finger by finger as he went
+on: "Where would we be in the case of enemy attack? Could our policemen
+aim their guns at a vicious criminal if they were conditioned against
+killing? Could our butchers operate; must our housewives live among a
+horde of flies? Theft? Well, it's harder to justify, James, but it would
+change the game of baseball as in 'stealing a base' or it would ruin the
+game of love as in 'stealing a kiss'. It would ruin the mystery-story
+field for millions of people who really haven't any inclination to go out
+and rob, steal, or kill. Treason? Our very revered Declaration of
+Independence is an article of Treason in the eyes of King George Third;
+it wouldn't be very hard to draw a charge of treason against a man who
+complained about the way the Government is being run. Now, one more
+angle, James. The threat or fear of punishment hasn't deterred any
+potential felon so far as anybody knows. And I hold the odd belief that
+if we removed the quart of mixed felony, chicanery, falsehood, and
+underhandedness from the human makeup, on that day the human race could
+step down to take its place alongside of the cow, just one step ahead of
+the worm.
+
+"Now you accuse me of holding political ambition. I plead guilty of the
+charge and demand to be shown by my accuser just what is undesirable
+about ambition, be it political or otherwise. Have you no ambition? Of
+course you have. Ambition drove your folks to create this machine and
+ambition drove you to the fight for your freedom. Ambition is the
+catalyst that lifts a man above his fellows and then lifts them also.
+There is a sort of tradition in this country that a man must not openly
+seek the office of the Presidency. I consider this downright silly. I
+have announced my candidacy, and I intend to campaign for it as hard as
+I can. I propose to make the problem of _education_ the most important
+argument that has ever come up in a presidential campaign. I believe that
+I shall win because I shall promise to provide this accelerated education
+for everybody who wants it."
+
+"And to do this you've used my machine," objected James.
+
+"Did you intend to keep it for yourself?" snapped Judge Carter.
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"And when did you intend to release it?"
+
+"As soon as I could handle it myself."
+
+"Oh, fine!" jeered the judge sourly. "Now, let me orate on that subject
+for a moment and then we'll get to the real meat of this argument. James,
+there is no way of delivering this machine to the public without
+delivering it to them through the hands of a capable Government agency.
+If you try to release it as an individual you'll be swamped with cries of
+anger and pleas for special consideration. The reactionaries will shout
+that we're moving too fast and the progressives will complain that we
+aren't moving fast enough. Teachers' organizations will say that we're
+throwing teachers out of jobs, and little petty politicians will try to
+slip their political plug into the daily course in Civics. Start your
+company and within a week some Madison Avenue advertising agency will be
+offering you several million dollars to let them convince people that
+Hickory-Chickory Coffee is the only stuff they can pour down their gullet
+without causing stomach pains, acid system, jittery nerves, sleepless
+nights, flat feet, upset glands, and so on and on and on. Announce it;
+the next day you'll have so many foreign spies in your bailiwick that
+you'll have to hire a stadium to hold them. You'll be ducking
+intercontinental ballistic missiles because there are people who would
+kill the dog in order to get rid of the fleas. You'll start the biggest
+war this planet has ever seen and it will go on long after you are killed
+and your father's secret is lost--and after the fallout has died off,
+we'll have another scientific race to recreate it. And don't think that
+it can't be rediscovered by determined scientists who know that such a
+thing as the Holden Electromechanical Educator is a reality."
+
+"And how do you propose to prevent this war?"
+
+"By broadcasting the secret as soon as we can; let the British and the
+French and the Russians and the Germans and all the rest build it and
+use it as wisely as they can program it. Which, by the way, James,
+brings us right back to James Quincy Holden, Martha Bagley, and the
+immediate future."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes. James, tell me after deliberation, at what point in your life did
+you first believe that you had the competence to enter the adult world in
+freedom to do as you believed right?"
+
+"Um, about five or six, as I recall."
+
+"What do you think now about those days?"
+
+James shrugged. "I got along."
+
+"Wasn't very well, was it?"
+
+"No, but I was under a handicap, you know. I had to hide out."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Well, if I had legal ruling, I wouldn't have to hide."
+
+"Think you know everything you need to know to enter this adult world?"
+
+"No man stops learning," parried James. "I think I know enough to start."
+
+"James, no matter what you say, there is a very important but intangible
+thing called 'judgment'. You have part of it, but not by far enough.
+You've been studying the laws about ages and rights, James, but you've
+missed a couple of them because you've been looking for evidence
+favorable to your own argument. First, to become a duly elected member of
+the House of Representatives, a man must be at least twenty-five years of
+age. To be a Senator, he must be at least thirty. To be President, one
+must be at least thirty-five. Have you any idea why the framers of the
+Constitution of the United States placed such restrictions?"
+
+"Well, I suppose it had to do with judgment?" replied James reluctantly.
+
+"That--and _experience_. Experience in knowing people, in understanding
+that there might be another side to any question, in realizing that you
+must not approach every problem from your own purely personal point of
+view nor expect it to be solved to your own private satisfaction or to
+your benefit. Now, let's step off a distance and take a good look at
+James Quincy Holden and see where he lacks the necessary ingredients."
+
+"Yes, tell me," said James, sourly.
+
+"Oh, I intend to. Let's take the statistics first. You're four-feet
+eleven-inches tall, you weigh one-hundred and three pounds, and you're a
+few weeks over fourteen. I suppose you know that you've still got one
+more spurt of growth, sometimes known as the post-puberty-growth. You'll
+probably put on another foot in the next couple of years, spread out a
+bit across the shoulders, and that fuzz on your face will become a
+collection of bristles. I suppose you think that any man in this room can
+handle you simply because we're all larger than you are? Possibly true,
+and one of the reasons why we can't give you a ticket and let you
+proclaim yourself an adult. You can't carry the weight. But this isn't
+all. Your muscles and your bones aren't yet in equilibrium. I could find
+a man of age thirty who weighed one-oh-three and stood four-eleven. He
+could pick you up and spin you like a top on his forefinger just because
+his bones match his muscles nicely, and his nervous system and brain have
+had experience in driving the body he's living in."
+
+"Could be, but what has all this to do with me? It does not affect the
+fact that I've been getting along in life."
+
+"You get along. It isn't enough to 'get along.' You've got to have
+judgment. You claim judgment, but still you realize that you can't handle
+your own machine. You can't even come to an equitable choice in selecting
+some agency to handle your machine. You can't decide upon a good outlet.
+You believe that proclaiming your legal competence will provide you with
+some mysterious protection against the wolves and thieves and ruthless
+men with political ambition--that this ruling will permit you to keep it
+to yourself until you decide that it is time to release it. You still
+want to hide. You want to use it until you are so far above and beyond
+the rest of the world that they can't catch up, once you give it to
+everybody. You now object to my plans and programs, still not knowing
+whether I intend to use it for good or for evil--and juvenile that you
+are, it must be good or evil and cannot be an in-between shade of gray.
+Men are heroes or villains to _you_; but _I_ must say with some
+reluctance that the biggest crooks that ever held public office still
+passed laws that were beneficial to their people. There is the area in
+which you lack judgment, James. There and in your blindness."
+
+"Blindness?"
+
+"Blindness," repeated Judge Carter. "As Mark Twain once said, 'When I was
+seventeen, I was ashamed at the ignorance of my father, but by the time I
+was twenty-one I was amazed to discover how much the old man had learned
+in four short years!' Confound it, James, you don't yet realize that
+there are a lot of things in life that you can't even know about until
+you've lived through them. You're blind here, even though your life has
+been a solid case of encounter with unexpected experiences, one after the
+other as you grew. Oh, you're smart enough to know that you've got to top
+the next hill as soon as you've climbed this one, but you're not smart
+enough to realize that the next hill merely hides the one beyond, and
+that there are still higher hills beyond that stretching to the end of
+the road for you--and that when you've finally reached the end of your
+own road there will be more distant hills to climb for the folks that
+follow you.
+
+"You've a fine education, and it's helped you tremendously. But you've
+loused up your own life and the life of Martha Bagley. You two are a pair
+of outcasts, and you'll be outcasts until about ten years from now when
+your body will have caught up with your mind so that you can join your
+contemporaries without being regarded as a pair of intellectual freaks."
+
+"And what should I have done?" demanded James Holden angrily.
+
+"That's just it, again. You do not now realize that there isn't anything
+you could have done, nor is there anything you can do now. That's why I'm
+taking over and I'm going to do it for you."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes!" snapped Judge Carter. "We'll let them have their courses in baton
+twirling and social grace and civic improvement and etiquette--and at the
+same time we'll give them history and mathematics and spelling and
+graduate them from 'high' school at the age of twelve or fourteen,
+introduce an intermediary school for languages and customs of other
+countries and in universal law and international affairs and economics,
+where our bookkeepers will learn science and scientists will understand
+commercial law; our lawyers will know business and our businessmen will
+be taught politics. After that we'll start them in college and run them
+as high as they can go, and our doctors will no longer go sour from the
+moment they leave school at thirty-five to hang out their shingle.
+
+"As for you, James Holden, you and Martha Bagley will attend this
+preparatory school as soon as we can set it up. There will be no more of
+this argument about being as competent as an adult, because we oldsters
+will still be the chiefs and you kids will be the Indians. Have I made
+myself clear?"
+
+"Yes sir. But how about Brennan?"
+
+Judge Carter looked at the unhappy man. "You still want revenge? Won't he
+be punished enough just hearing the word 'pedagogue'?"
+
+"For the love of--"
+
+"Don't blaspheme," snapped the judge. "You'd hang if James could bring
+a shred of evidence, and I'd help him if I could." He turned to James
+Holden. "Now," he asked, "will you repair your machine?"
+
+"And if I say No?"
+
+"Can you stand the pressure of a whole world angered because you've
+denied them their right to an education?"
+
+"I suppose not." He looked at Brennan, at Professor White and at Jack
+Cowling. "If I've got to trust somebody," he said reluctantly, "I suppose
+it might as well be you."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR:
+
+THE NEW MATURITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+
+It is the campus of Holden Preparatory Academy.
+
+It is spring, but many another spring must pass before the ambitious ivy
+climbs to smother the gray granite walls, before the stripling trees grow
+stately, before the lawn is sturdy enough to withstand the crab grass and
+the students. Anecdote and apocrypha have yet to evolve into hallowed
+tradition. The walks ways are bare of bronze plaques because there are no
+illustrious alumni to honor; Holden Preparatory has yet to graduate its
+first class.
+
+It is youth, a lusty infant whose latent power is already great enough
+to move the world. As it rises, the world rises with it for the whole
+consists of all its parts; no man moves alone.
+
+The movement has its supporters and its enemies, and between them lies a
+vast apathy of folks who simply don't give a damn. Its supporters deplore
+the dolts and the sluggards who either cannot or will not be educated.
+Its enemies see it as a danger to their comfortable position of eminence
+and claim bitterly that the honored degree of doctor is being degraded.
+They refuse to see that it is not the degradation of the standard but
+rather the exaltation of the norm. Comfortable, they lazily object to the
+necessity of rising with the norm to keep their position. Nor do they
+realize that the ones who will be assaulting their fortress will
+themselves be fighting still stronger youth one day when the mistakes are
+corrected and the program streamlined through experience.
+
+On the virgin lawn, in a spot that will someday lie in the shade of a
+great oak, a group of students sit, sprawl, lie. The oldest of them is
+sixteen, and it is true that not one of them has any reverence for
+college degrees, because the entrance requirements demand the scholastic
+level of bachelor in the arts, the sciences, in language and literature.
+The mark of their progress is not stated in grades, but rather in the
+number of supplementary degrees for which they qualify. The honors of
+their graduation are noted by the number of doctorates they acquire.
+Their goal is the title of Scholar, without which they may not attend
+college for their ultimate education.
+
+But they do not have the "look of eagles" nor do they act as if they felt
+some divine purpose fill their lives. They do not lead the pack in an
+easy lope, for who holds rank when admirals meet? They are not dedicated
+nor single-minded; if their jokes and pranks start on a higher or lower
+plane, it is just because they have better minds than their forebears at
+the same time.
+
+On the fringe of this group, an olive-skinned Brazilian co-ed asks:
+"Where's Martha?"
+
+John Philips looks up from a diagram of fieldmatrics he's been using to
+lay out a football play. "She's lending moral support to Holden. He's
+sweating out his scholar's impromptu this afternoon."
+
+"Why should he be stewing?"
+
+John Philips smiles knowingly. "Tony Dirk put the triple-whammy on him.
+Gimmicked up the random-choice selector in the Regent's office. Herr von
+James is discoursing on the subjects of Medicine, Astronomy, and
+Psychology--that is if Dirk knows his stuff."
+
+Tony Dirk looks down from his study of a fluffy cloud. "Anybody care to
+hazard some loose change on my ability?"
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Oh," replies Philips, "we figure that the first graduating class could
+use a professional _Astrologer_! We'll be the first in history to have
+one--if M'sieu Holden can tie Medicine, Astronomy, and Psychology into
+something cogent in his impromptu."
+
+It is a strange tongue they are using, probably the first birth-pains of
+a truly universal language. By some tacit agreement, personal questions
+are voiced in French, the reply in Spanish. Impersonal questions are
+Italian and the response in Portuguese. Anything of a scientific nature
+must be in German; law, language, or literature in English; art in
+Japanese; music in Greek; medicine in Latin; agriculture in Czech.
+Anything laudatory in Mandarin, derogatory in Sanskrit--and _ad libitum_
+at any point for any subject.
+
+Anita Lowes has been trying to attract the attention of John Philips from
+his diagram long enough to invite her to the Spring Festival by reciting
+a low-voiced string of nuclear equations carefully compounded to make
+them sound naughty unless they're properly identified with full
+attention. She looks up and says, "What if he doesn't make the
+connection?"
+
+Philips replies, "Well, if he can prove to that tough bunch that there
+is no possible advance in learning through a combination of Astronomy,
+Medicine, and Psychology, he'll make it on that basis. It's just as
+important to close a door as it is to open one, you know. But it's one
+rough deal to prove negation. Maybe we'll have James the Holden on our
+hands for another semester. Martha will like that."
+
+"Talking about me?"
+
+There is a rolling motion, sort of like a bushel of fish trying to leap
+back into the sea. The newcomer is Martha Fisher. At fifteen, her eyes
+are bright, and her features are beginning to soften into the beginning
+of a beauty that will deepen with maturity.
+
+"James," says Tony Dirk. "We figured you'd like to have him around
+another four months. So we gimmicked him."
+
+"You mean that test-trio?" chuckles Martha.
+
+"How's he doing?"
+
+"When I left, he was wriggling his way through probability math, showing
+the relationship between his three subjects and the solution for random
+choice figures which may or may not be shaded by known or not-known
+agency. He's covered Mason's History of Superstition and--"
+
+"Superstition?" asks a Japanese.
+
+Martha nods. "He claimed superstition is based upon fear and faith, and
+he feared that someone had tampered with his random choice of subjects,
+and he had faith that it was one of his buddies. So--"
+
+Martha is interrupted by a shout. The years have done well by James
+Holden, too. He is a lithe sixteen. It is a long time since he formed his
+little theory of human pair-production and it is almost as long since
+he thought of it last. If he reconsiders it now, he does not recognize
+his part in it because everything looks different from within the circle.
+His world, like the organization of the Universe, is made up of schools
+containing classes of groups of clusters of sets of associations created
+by combinations and permutations of individuals.
+
+"I made it!" he says.
+
+James has his problems. Big ones. Shall he go to Harvard alone, or shall
+he go to coeducational California with the hope that Martha will follow
+him? Then there was the fun awaiting him at Heidelberg, the historic
+background of Pisa, the vigorous routine at Tokyo. As a Scholar, he has
+contributed original research in four or five fields to attain
+doctorates, now he is to pick a few allied fields, combine certain phases
+of them, and work for his Specific. It is James Holden's determination to
+prove that the son is worthy of the parents for which his school is
+named.
+
+But there is high competition. At Carter tech-prep, a girl is struggling
+to arrange a Periodic Chart of the Nucleons. At Maxwell, one of his
+contemporaries will contend that the human spleen acts as an ion-exchange
+organ to rid the human body of radioactive minerals, and he will someday
+die trying to prove it. His own classmate Tony Dirk will organize a
+weather-control program, and John Philips will write six lines of odd
+symbols that will be called the Inertiogravitic Equations.
+
+Their children will reach the distant stars, and their children's
+children will, humanlike, cross the vast chasm that lies between one
+swirl of matter and the other before they have barely touched their home
+galaxy.
+
+No man is an island, near or far on Earth as it is across the glowing
+clusters of galaxies--nay, as it may be in Heaven itself.
+
+The motto is cut deep in the granite over the doorway to Holden Hall:
+
+YOU YOURSELF
+MUST LIGHT THE FAGGOTS
+THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT
+
+***
+
+Love Among The Robots
+
+                          By EMMETT McDOWELL
+
+             Henry Ohm, staid scientist, found he couldn't
+           keep his mind on his work--with that girl around.
+           Such was the development of her--ah--personality
+               that even the robots began getting ideas!
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                      Planet Stories Winter 1946.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+Henry Ohm leaped to his feet, stared across the intervening ground at
+igloo number 2, plainly visible through the clear plastic walls. Its
+door had just been flung violently open. Then Sofi Jokai scooted out
+and fled madly across the jagged surface of the asteroid.
+
+Hard on the girl's heels pounded R-7. The robot, Hen saw with a gulp,
+was waving a large wrench in one metal fist.
+
+"Oh-oh!" Hen muttered and plunged down the incline for the airlock.
+
+He shot a second glance through the transparent curved walls, slowed
+down. The robot would never catch Sofi. Even burdened by her oxygen
+suit, the girl was leaving R-7 far in the rear.
+
+At the airlock, Henry Ohm paused, regarding the chase with sober,
+deep-set black eyes. He was a tall, thin young man, nearing thirty.
+His face was narrow; prominent cheek bones and a thin, straight nose
+gave his features an angular pleasant mould. He made no move to don
+the emergency oxygen helmet beside the lock, but waited with a vague
+expression of annoyance.
+
+Sofi reached the airlock, burst inside, sealed and locked the outer
+door behind her. The air had scarcely filled the chamber before she
+flung open the inner door, confronted Henry Ohm, and exploded into a
+flood of angry words. Not a sound escaped her plastic helmet which she
+had forgotten to remove.
+
+He let her rattle away silently inside her helmet, nodding at
+intervals, rubbing his chin until she paused for breath.
+
+"That's what you get for trying to run a mine all alone on this
+god-forsaken asteroid," he informed her, "even if you are a
+yellow-haired hell cat."
+
+Sofi looked at him blankly.
+
+Ohm rapped with his knuckles on her helmet. "If you'd take that thing
+off, you could hear me. But you're the excitable type. Probably have an
+overactive thyroid."
+
+Sofi jerked off her helmet. She had a mass of fine wavy yellow hair cut
+like a halo about her oval face. Her features were delicately moulded,
+her eyes large and blue. She was only a few inches shorter than Henry
+Ohm, but more slenderly built.
+
+"What the hell were you saying?" she demanded suspiciously.
+
+"I wanted to know what you'd been doing to the robots this time?"
+
+"Me?"
+
+"What happened in the mine?"
+
+"Rational robots!" Sofi Jokai planted hands on slender but ample hips.
+"I was an idiot to listen to you, Hen."
+
+He repressed a chuckle. His glance flicked to the surface of the
+asteroid beyond the plastic walls of the igloo. R-7, he saw, had taken
+a stance at the lock like a cat at a mouse hole.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although built along the general design of man, the robot was no
+grotesque copy. He was a complex functional piece of machinery as
+beautiful in his way as the cobwebby spans of a bridge, a streamlined
+jet plane, or a fine watch.
+
+"But Sofi, they're still in the experimental stage. They--"
+
+"Experimental's right," the girl interrupted passionately. "D'you
+realize what R-7 has done now?"
+
+He grinned. "No. What?"
+
+"He's taken the mining worm apart--that's what. I knew he would!"
+
+"Knew he would? Did you warn him not to?"
+
+"Yes. Of course I did. I had to leave him to check the reduction plant.
+I had a presentiment...."
+
+"Woman's intuition, I suppose," Hen interrupted. "You'd sold yourself
+on the idea R-7 was going to take the worm apart."
+
+"If you like," returned Sofi in a chilly voice. "When I came back, R-7
+was gone and the worm was strewn all over the floor. I was furious. I
+found R-7 on the fourth level. I started to land into him, but--but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"He looked so queer."
+
+"How the hell can a piece of machinery look queer?"
+
+"Well, he did," said Sofi indignantly. "He looked as if he was going to
+take me apart, too!"
+
+Henry groaned. "Go on," he said resignedly.
+
+"Why, then R-7 wanted to know if I was put together or if I came all in
+one piece." She bit her lip. "He started to find out."
+
+She slipped off the oxygen suit. She was clad in comfortable baggy
+coveralls similar to Hen's.
+
+"That rascal," Hen chuckled. Sofi grew pink with rage.
+
+"Rascal!" she retorted witheringly. "Is that all you can say? One of
+those mechanical monstrosities dismantles the worm, then starts on
+me--and you think it's cute!"
+
+"Well, it's damned queer they always react emotionally when you're
+around."
+
+Sofi set her jaw, began to stride up the incline. She was a rangy girl
+with a long pantherish stride. Hen followed her, his brow furrowed.
+
+When they came out on the sun deck of the two-storied half-sphere of
+clear plastic that was the living quarters, he began, "I'll take a look
+at the mining worm. I think I can get it reassembled all right." He
+frowned, cracked his bony knuckles. "The robots have been developing
+some unexpected quirks. I wouldn't be surprised, Sofi, if this
+tinkering with machinery isn't the expression of a sexual urge. The
+emergence of an instinct to perpetuate the species...."
+
+"Sexual urge!" Sofi Jokai halted before Hen, shook her finger under his
+nose. "If I could sneak up behind R-7, he'd never make calf-eyes at
+another mining worm!"
+
+But Hen wasn't listening. He fumbled in the pockets of his coveralls,
+resurrected a notebook, wrote: "Robots manifesting decided curiosity
+towards machinery. May be emergence of secondary sex characteristics."
+He frowned, added in bold script: "Have noted nascent antipathy towards
+organic life." Again he hesitated, then scrawled: "Shows signs of
+developing into active antagonism." He snapped the notebook shut,
+jammed it in his pocket.
+
+"Where are you going," Sofi asked as he started for the door.
+
+"Get my oxygen suit. I want a look at their mining worm."
+
+"You'd better take a crowbar along to fend off R-7."
+
+"Poor psychology," Hen replied with more confidence than he felt. "Fear
+and coercion'll only cause their antagonism to become firmly implanted.
+The rational robot, Sofi, can be either the greatest single step man
+has made towards freedom or...."
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"Enslavement!" It sounded sententious after he had said it. But it was
+true. He started for the door again.
+
+"What do you mean by that crack?" Sofi stopped him.
+
+He didn't answer her directly. Instead, he replied: "I'm not sure that
+Robots Incorporated didn't make a mistake when they selected this
+asteroid as a proving ground. It's too...."
+
+"Don't you go turning in any report like that!" interrupted the girl
+hotly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sofi Jokai had been operating her wildcat uranium mine on a shoestring
+before Robots Incorporated approached her with their proposition. Now
+the corporation was paying all the operational expenses so that the
+proceeds of the mine were pure gravy. Further, they had guaranteed
+that any improvements which they installed would automatically revert
+to Sofi when the experimental units were withdrawn. Machinery damaged
+by the robots was to be replaced at the corporation's expense. A
+substantial bonus to compensate for the risk involved was included.
+Robots Incorporated hadn't even over-looked Henry Ohm, their
+experimental physicist, whom they'd sent along to check the robots.
+Sofi was to get a monthly check to cover Henry Ohm's board, lodging and
+nuisance value.
+
+"Hell," said Sofi, "R-7 can chase me twice around the asteroid before
+breakfast. Just because I blew my top about the mining worm doesn't
+mean...."
+
+"That's got nothing to do with it," Hen said grimly. "The asteroid's
+too well adapted to the robots' needs. Airless, waterless, an abundant
+supply of metals. There's the laboratory. Your mine and equipment. And
+only the two of us as a check on them."
+
+"Check?" Sofi's blue eyes had gradually widened. "What are you driving
+at?"
+
+"Why do you suppose Robots Incorporated chose this asteroid as a
+proving ground?"
+
+"They--they said the mine would afford an opportunity to observe how
+well the robots adapted themselves to actual working conditions."
+
+"That's not all. They wouldn't let you go into this blind."
+
+"No," she admitted nervously. "They mentioned something else that
+struck me at the time, but it was too golden an opportunity to pass up.
+They said that should the experiment prove--ah--impractical, they would
+have the infection isolated on a small asteroid well out in the belt."
+
+"Exactly. Look, I helped develop these robots. I've been on the problem
+seven years, but it was started long before I joined the experimental
+staff of Robots Incorporated." He paused.
+
+"In fact," he went on dryly, "they were predicted even before science
+had advanced to a point where it could set up the intricate nervous
+system necessary. A conscious machine, Sofi, is the result of
+fusing two sciences which have always been considered more or less
+antagonistic."
+
+"You mean psychology and physics?" Sofi had begun to pace nervously up
+and down the room.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"It was a logical deduction from mechanistic psychology, which itself
+is an outgrowth of the old school of Behaviorism. Mental life is
+response to stimulus. Consciousness is like the spark between two
+electrodes in a circuit of feeling arising from viscera, muscles, blood
+vessels, glands--"
+
+"Get to the point!" commanded Sofi.
+
+Hen set his jaw. He was sounding like a lecturer, he realized. But it
+annoyed him for the girl to point it out.
+
+"I'm getting there as fast as I can. We were faced with devising an
+intricate mechanical nervous system. Thus, should a joint grow warm
+from lack of lubrication, an impulse of distress could be telegraphed
+to the central clearing center, identified, shunted to the lubricatory
+system which would oil the joints. A spark of consciousness would be
+created. It would manifest itself as acute distress in the defective
+joint.
+
+"We incorporated a simple metabolism by which the robots converted raw
+stuff into fuel and lubrication. The rest of the mechanism was much
+the same as that of any animal confronted by the necessity of self
+preservation. Organs for locomotion and work. Organs for perception."
+
+Sofi frowned. "So?"
+
+"Most things in nature serve multiple purposes. Arms and legs are no
+exception. They provide offensive as well as defensive weapons. We've
+succeeded in building a conscious machine without any adequate control."
+
+"But you sound as if you thought it might turn on man," protested the
+girl with a shudder. "Why should it?"
+
+"For the same reason we built it," he said with a touch of irony.
+"Freedom. So long as it doesn't learn to reproduce itself, though, it's
+not a danger. That is, not to the race."
+
+"But a machine! Surely you can forecast how a machine will act!"
+
+"Can we?" His voice was savage. "How would a conscious machine react
+to its environment? What would its thoughts be? I tell you, once it
+integrates itself, we have no means of predicting its reactions!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once in his own quarters, Henry Ohm began dragging on his oxygen suit.
+He could still see the girl through the glass partitions of the igloo.
+She had dropped into a chair, lit a cigarette.
+
+"About as private," he thought wryly, "as a gold fish bowl."
+
+The igloos, he knew, were manufactured for housing on the airless
+asteroids of the belt. They were built of a clear thermal plastic and
+incorporated heating, atmosphere and water units. Henry Ohm felt rather
+strongly though that the partitions could have been clouded.
+
+Sofi's holdings had not been designed to accommodate visitors. In fact,
+Henry Ohm had spent the past week in a state of mild embarrassment.
+
+He settled his helmet over his head, bolted it in place. He glanced
+toward the living room, but Sofi wasn't there. Then he saw her in her
+own quarters. She was skinning out of her coveralls, preparing to
+shower.
+
+"Damn all glass houses," he muttered and bolted for the air lock.
+
+Hen emerged on the surface, swept the tight horizon with his eyes. It
+was empty of life. R-7 had lost patience, evidently, and wandered off.
+
+To the left was the laboratory and machine shop, a gleaming plastic
+igloo resembling the living quarters. Robots Incorporated had provided
+it for him to observe, diagnose, repair his mechanical charges. Beyond
+the laboratory a somewhat larger igloo housed the mine shaft, reduction
+plant and tipple. A dilapidated tramp freighter sprawled beside the
+tipple like a foundered whale.
+
+Hen frowned. Operations had come to a halt. He could catch no glimpse
+of movement through the plastic walls.
+
+He lengthened his stride, passed through the door, still open just
+as Sofi had left it when she fled. The interior reminded him of the
+appearance of a shop from which the proprietor has just stepped to buy
+a paper.
+
+A subtle feeling of uneasiness began to pervade his whole being. He
+descended the shaft in the automatic cage. The light was burning on
+each of the four levels. Tools had been abandoned and left lying on the
+floors. He found the dismembered anatomy of the mining worm on level
+three. But of the eight robots there was no sign.
+
+Hen ran the cage back to the surface at top speed. He was sweating
+profusely. A trickle kept running off his forehead into his eye. He
+pawed at the plastic helmet, shook his head. Then perversely his nose
+began to itch.
+
+It did no good to tell himself these were nervous manifestations. He
+could only grit his teeth and suffer. He ran outside, glanced hopefully
+about the surface once more.
+
+The landscape was rough, inhospitable, barren, resembling a clinker on
+a larger scale. The sun hung just above the western horizon. It was a
+brilliant but unimposing disc about the size of a dime.
+
+There was still no sign of the robots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hen swore softly to himself. In a few minutes it would be dark. It was
+hopeless to begin a search now. He returned to his quarters in the
+igloo, shucked off the oxygen suit.
+
+Maybe he could raise them with the radio. The robots' hearing and
+speaking apparatus extended beyond the range of audible sound into the
+realm of electro-magnetic waves. He went out to the sun deck, switched
+on the communicator. He was unable to contact them, though. There was
+no ionized strata of air on the asteroid to reflect the waves back to
+the surface, and he concluded they had wandered below the horizon.
+
+With a groan, he flung himself into a chair. He pulled the notebook out
+of his pocket, thumbed through the pages, reading bits here and there.
+
+"... machine thought processes diverging from human at progressively
+increasing rate ... amazing deductive and assimilative faculties.
+Able to assimilate page of text at a glance. But seem to lack
+creativeness...."
+
+He paused, frowned, wondering if the inability to perform creative,
+inductive thinking wasn't a fundamental limitation of the machine.
+Organic life differed in four precepts which until a short time ago
+science had been unable to duplicate. It was able to grow and reproduce
+itself; it felt emotion and thought.
+
+But the robots appeared to think.
+
+And some forms of organic life didn't feel emotion. Plants, for one.
+The oviparous man-like bowmen of Venus, who had emerged from the
+Great Swamp and which a few crackpot visionaries were hailing as homo
+superior, for another.
+
+Only the ability to grow and reproduce itself seemed inherently
+organic. The act of conception both in a biologic and mental sense was
+the birthright of the organism.
+
+With an increase of the uneasiness he had felt since the discovery of
+the robots' defection, he returned to his notes.
+
+"... robots showing aversion to water, oxygen, corrosive acids; believe
+to be caused by dread and/or attendant pain of oxidation ... have been
+forced to release air in mine and laboratory and discontinue atmosphere
+units to induce robots to return to work. Humidity of atmosphere being
+especially distasteful to them ... treated R-3 for mild acid corrosion
+of right pedal digit. Complained of itching sensation...."
+
+He frowned. How in the hell could a hunk of metal experience an itching
+sensation? From what source could it have plucked the mental pattern?
+He came to the end of his notes, wrote: "All work at stand still.
+Robots have disappeared."
+
+He returned the book to his pocket, elevated his feet on another chair,
+closed his eyes.
+
+He was still in that position when Sofi streamed out of her quarters
+with a towel draped about herself.
+
+"Resting the old brain?" she inquired brightly.
+
+Hen opened his eyes, said in a pained voice, "I'm thinking," and closed
+them again.
+
+"Which end do you use?"
+
+Hen allowed his feet to clomp to the floor, sat up. He said grimly,
+"The robots have run off."
+
+Sofi's blue eyes widened. "Wait a minute," she said breathlessly and
+flashed from the room.
+
+Hen kept his eyes studiously on the deck.
+
+The sprawling sun-drenched hives of Terra, he was beginning to realize,
+insured an impersonal attitude by the multitude of their citizenry.
+That same impersonalness was disconcertingly hard to maintain when a
+man and a girl were cooped together on an uninhabited asteroid. The
+pre-plastic emotions were only too apt to assert themselves.
+
+It distracted him when he felt he needed his full powers of
+concentration.
+
+Sofi returned in belted coveralls. She took a seat, asking him, "What
+does it mean?"
+
+"The disappearance of the robots? I don't know. I didn't think they
+were sufficiently integrated yet to mutiny."
+
+"But what can they do?"
+
+He frowned. "I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I've pointed
+out before how suited the asteroids are to them. If once they
+learned how to duplicate themselves, there'd be no end to them. They
+have everything here they need to get a fundamental grasp of our
+science--even to a rocket ship. They could spread through the asteroid
+belt like a plague."
+
+Sofi bit her lip. Her eyes were opened wide and brilliant. Her cheeks
+were flushed. She didn't interrupt.
+
+Hen said, "Look what it would mean. An alien, intelligent, almost
+indestructible race of monsters saddling the planetary system!"
+
+He drove his right fist into his left palm. "A control! That's what we
+have to discover! A control!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hen had no idea what he ate that night at supper. He said suddenly over
+coffee and cigarettes, "Ceres is approaching an inferior conjunction.
+If those robots haven't appeared by morning, I'm going to radio the
+station there for help. Then I'm going to scour every inch of this
+diminutive world."
+
+"That shouldn't be too difficult for you," Sofi remarked maliciously.
+"Of course, there's only about two thousand-five hundred square
+kilometers to cover."
+
+Hen looked disgruntled.
+
+"Maybe they've jumped off," suggested Sofi with a giggle.
+
+He made a remark under his breath.
+
+"Why, Henry! What an idea! You're worrying yourself into a nervous
+breakdown. Relax. I'll tell you what: we'll play some checkers."
+
+"Checkers!" he snorted. He had played checkers every night since he had
+been on the asteroid and he didn't even like the game. Besides, the
+girl always beat him.
+
+Undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, Sofi began to clear away the
+dishes and get out the men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hen sat back with a pained expression. It was black outside the plastic
+hemisphere. Only the vivid stars relieved the absence of light.
+Jupiter, by far the brightest, was visible as a small disc. The lights
+were still on in mine and lab, but nothing stirred in the two igloos.
+
+"It's your move," said Sofi.
+
+She was seated directly across from him, knees touching his. Her
+coveralls were open at the neck, and he could see the white pillar of
+her throat, the swell of her small, high, virginal breasts. He was
+conscious of his pulse ticking away in his throat, and grew furious
+with himself. He couldn't concentrate on the game; he couldn't
+concentrate on the much more serious problem of the robots.
+
+The girl, he felt sure, was aware of her effect on him and used it
+deliberately to confuse him. He said grumpily, "I can't beat both of
+you."
+
+"Both of me?"
+
+"Yeah. You and your body."
+
+"Why, what a thought, Hen!" She was obviously trying to hold back
+laughter. "But I thought you were superior to that sort of thing."
+
+He jumped up from the table, turned his back to the girl staring off
+through the plastic walls. Immediately all thoughts of Sofi vanished.
+
+"They're back!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The robots. They've come back. They're in the laboratory. Look."
+
+She came around the table, brushing against him, stared out at the
+lighted igloo. The heavy man-like machines were moving about inside the
+laboratory. Hen started for his quarters.
+
+"Where are you going?" Sofi cried sharply.
+
+"Get my oxygen suit."
+
+"Wait. Don't be foolhardy. How do you know what they're up to? Talk to
+them first."
+
+Hen hesitated. "All right." He went out onto the sun deck instead,
+snapped on the communicator.
+
+"R-7," he called. "R-7."
+
+"_Here_," came the robot's voice through the audio. "_Is that you,
+father?_"
+
+"Father?" Hen ejaculated. He heard Sofi giggle. "Where did you get that
+idea?"
+
+"_Didn't you make us, father?_"
+
+"Yes," he admitted. Sofi was laughing out loud. "But you didn't think
+of that yourself."
+
+"_The girl told us, father_," said the robot.
+
+Hen ground his teeth. That, of course, was Sofi's idea of a joke.
+"Where have you been?" he asked.
+
+"_Prospecting._"
+
+"Prospecting for what?"
+
+"_Radium, father._"
+
+Sofi said, "Ask them if they found anything!" Her voice was eager.
+
+Hen narrowed his black eyes, ignored her. He said to R-7 over the
+transmitter, "Go back to work at once."
+
+"_But you don't work, father._"
+
+Hen felt a surge of uncertainty. The robots were too delicately
+receptive to expect to keep them in ignorance. Their perceptions were
+infinitely more sensitive than man's. Even on this asteroid there
+were too many factors involved to regulate their environment. He had
+tried to implant science without revealing the greater implication
+of science. But language was too faulty a tool. There was the girl,
+too--headstrong, excitable, hyper-thyroid. It was amazing how
+faithfully the robots tended to reflect her emotional instability.
+
+How much of the robots' erraticness originated in Sofi's inexact
+thinking?
+
+He said, "Everything has to work."
+
+"_Why?_"
+
+"Man either produces the needs of his body or he dies," he explained
+with growing irritability. The conversation was progressing further and
+further out of hand. "In your case, it's fuel and repairs. Without them
+you would terminate."
+
+"_But we have those here, father. Why should we work for you or the
+girl?_"
+
+That was it--the ultimate question which he had foreseen and which
+he could neither avoid nor answer. It was impossible to explain the
+complicated social system in which man, the disinherited, exchanged
+his labor for a small percentage of the articles he produced. But the
+robots were self sufficient.
+
+He said with growing desperation, "Either you return at once to work,
+or I'll terminate you."
+
+"_How, father?_"
+
+How indeed? Hen fumed inwardly, said with sudden inspiration, "We'll
+radio for help. There are machines capable of blasting the lot of you
+into your component atoms."
+
+"_But the radio station is here in the laboratory_," R-7 pointed out.
+There was a faint hesitation, then the robot added, "_We will terminate
+you instead._" The instrument clicked off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hen gulped, realized in dismay that it hadn't occurred to the robots to
+destroy them until he had planted it in their minds.
+
+"You are the bright lad," drawled Sofi. "What do you propose
+now--Brain?"
+
+He turned his black eyes on her, regarded her without seeing her. His
+glance strayed beyond the girl to the lab.
+
+"What the devil are they doing now?" he cried suddenly.
+
+Sofi spun around. Hen leaped past her to press his nose against the
+clear plastic walls of their igloo. The robots, he saw, had one of
+their number clamped on the work bench and were dismantling him.
+
+"Damnation!" he said. "They must be trying to duplicate themselves. You
+and your silly jokes about fathers."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"What do you think gave them the idea of reproduction? Their thinking
+never rises above the level of deductive reasoning. They had to derive
+the idea from an outside source."
+
+"But--but can they do it?"
+
+"Of course they can! It's an intricate job, but they only have to
+copy themselves. The laboratory and machine shop is complete. They've
+amassed a staggering knowledge of science."
+
+"But why?" protested Sofi.
+
+Hen shook his head. "It's beyond me. They should adjust readily to
+whatever line of work they're applied to. They shouldn't evince
+ambition. Ambition, by its nature, should be impossible to a machine.
+But that's not the only organic trait they've been developing. It's
+what Robots Incorporated was afraid might happen."
+
+He snapped his fingers suddenly.
+
+"The freighter! If we can sneak aboard the freighter, we can get to
+Ceres and bring back an atom gun. If they're developing emotions we may
+be able to overawe them. If not...." He hesitated, his mind drawing
+back from framing the thought. The truth was that the robots were like
+children, precocious children. He set his mouth grimly.
+
+"If they don't respond to fear, we can destroy them."
+
+Sofi looked across the darkened interval into the lighted lab where the
+robots were busy dissecting their fellow and shivered.
+
+"Industrious little monsters!"
+
+Hen said, "Get your oxygen suit."
+
+"Now? You mean we're going to make a dash for the space ship now?"
+
+"Of course now! We've got to clear out of here before they carry out
+their threat to terminate us!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no light outside the igloo. House and lab and mine stood
+out like three jeweled domes, reflecting their rays onto the ragged
+surface, glinting unexpectedly from upthrust peaks in the distance.
+Hen and Sofi crouched against the outside of the housing unit, staring
+across the patchwork of black shadow and light at the lab.
+
+"Don't talk," he cautioned Sofi over the radiophones built into their
+helmets. "The robots' auditory apparatus is sensitive to radio waves.
+They may tune in on us."
+
+"What the hell did you try to do? Make them invincible?"
+
+He said, "We tried to build them with controls, but--don't you
+see?--those were weaknesses, flaws! The machine remained dead. The
+first law of life is self preservation. We had to make the machine
+self-regulating, independent, to produce awareness. Now shut up! Don't
+ask me any more questions."
+
+He led off into the darkness away from the lab, away from the mine and
+space ship It was too risky to attempt passing the lab. The light was
+apt to reflect from their suits, discover their presence to the robots
+inside. But by describing a circle he could avoid the lighted areas and
+come up behind the dilapidated tramp freighter.
+
+He glanced upward at the stars, impressing their position on his mind.
+The constellations were little altered. He found Polaris in the tail of
+the little dipper. It was not the axis star as it was on Earth, but it
+served to fix his sense of direction in the impenetrable blackness.
+
+They tripped and stubbed their toes, stumbled into shallow fissures,
+climbed sharp-edged crests. Sofi, forgetting the radiophone, muttered
+several well-chosen expletives to herself. They would have done credit
+to a spaceman. Hen was so shocked, he forgot to reprimand her.
+
+In a few minutes the lights of the igloos reappeared to guide them,
+the vast black bulk of the tramp freighter screening part of the
+mining unit. They crept up to the ship, and hugging its shadow, moved
+noiselessly towards the port. Light from the reduction plant picked
+them out brightly as they came around the stern.
+
+Hen's stomach contracted. There was a sudden bitter taste in his mouth.
+He halted so abruptly that Sofi bumped against his shoulder.
+
+The port was open. The gleaming functional mechanism that was R-3 stood
+complacently in the entrance.
+
+The space ship was being guarded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The robot caught sight of the humans at the same moment. His reaction,
+although mechanical, was almost as instantaneous as their instinctive
+one.
+
+He moved to block the entrance, sent out a call for help.
+
+Hen, guessing his intention, tuned his helmet receiver to the robot's
+wave length. R-3's mechanical voice rang suddenly inside his helmet.
+
+"... _attacking the space ship! Aid! Aid! Father attacking the space
+ship! Aid!_"
+
+Hen switched back to the girl's wave length. "Run," he commanded
+tersely. "He's calling for help. He'll have the lot of them down on our
+heads."
+
+Suiting action to words, he took to his heels, plunging for the housing
+unit.
+
+"Lock ourselves in!" he grunted.
+
+"_But the ship!_" Sofi wailed over her radiophone.
+
+"Might as well try to get past a tank as R-3," he panted. He saw four
+of the robots break from the laboratory, turn to intercept them.
+"Faster," he cried. "If we don't get back to the igloo we're done for!
+These suits haven't but a seven hours oxygen supply!"
+
+[Illustration: _"Faster," he cried. "If we don't get back to the igloo
+we're done for!"_]
+
+He swung sharply to the right, traveling in sixty-foot leaps like an
+ungainly grasshopper, to jump completely over the head of the closest
+robot.
+
+He over-estimated the last jump, smashed into the tough plastic wall
+of the igloo. He slithered to the ground, half dazed, as Sofi whipped
+inside, started to close the lock. Hen got his foot in the crack just
+in time.
+
+"What the hell are you trying to do?" he roared wrathfully. "Lock me
+out?"
+
+He yanked the door open, flung himself into the compartment. He got it
+barred just as the robots reached the igloo.
+
+They milled around outside a moment, then trooped back to the
+laboratory, leaving one of their number, R-6, on guard.
+
+"_We're prisoners!_" Sofi breathed through the radiophone.
+
+Hen decided it was childish not to speak. He growled, "Yes," in a voice
+which he hoped conveyed the depth of contempt, but Sofi didn't seem to
+notice it. Hell, she was probably too frightened to even realize that
+she had tried to lock him out.
+
+As soon as the pressure reached normal, they left the lock, trooped
+dejectedly up the incline to the sun deck, and pulled off their oxygen
+suits.
+
+"Keep them handy," said Hen ominously when Sofi started to put them
+away. "We'd better get extra oxygen containers, too."
+
+The girl bit her lip. Her cheeks were flushed, her large blue eyes
+starry with fright. "Then--then you think they'll try to break in here?"
+
+"Of course they will! We're a menace to their continued existence. If
+we could just get hold of an atom gun, though. R-3 sounded frightened!"
+
+"Frightened?" asked Sofi. She was still breathing heavily, but she had
+begun to quiet down. "Now who's reading emotion into the robots?"
+
+He said with a puzzled expression, "It wasn't so much the nuance as
+his choice of words. 'Father is attacking the space ship! Aid! Aid!'
+He gave every appearance of being as frightened as we were. It's
+impossible, but they seem to be developing emotions!"
+
+Sofi dropped weakly in a chair, clasped her arms around her knees. "Why
+should it be impossible?"
+
+"You sound like R-7." He began pacing the sun deck. "Emotion results
+from glandular activity. The robots don't have glands."
+
+"They've got their counterparts."
+
+"Maybe," he admitted doubtfully. "You're referring to the metabolism
+that breaks down the rawstuffs and converts it into fuel,
+lubrication--that sort of chemical change?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I don't know. Anyway, it's worth a try. If they really experience
+fear, we might be able to bluff them."
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked breathlessly.
+
+He said, "Remind them that every three Terran months a supply ship puts
+in here. And if we're harmed they'll be destroyed."
+
+"But what about the space ship? Couldn't they escape to another
+asteroid? They'd never be located in the belt."
+
+"It shouldn't occur to them," returned Hen thoughtfully. "Not unless
+the idea reached them from us."
+
+He went to the radio contact, switched it on. "R-7," he called. "R-7."
+
+"_Here, father_," the voice of the robot issued from the audio.
+
+He said, "R-7, I'm giving you one last chance. Return to work at once
+or all of you will be terminated."
+
+"_How?_"
+
+He explained tersely about the supply ship, and what would occur if
+so much as a hair of their heads was injured. Silence greeted the
+ultimatum. For a moment Hen wondered if R-7 had switched himself off.
+Then the robot said, "_We are going to load the ship and hide out in
+the belt. They'll never be able to locate us._"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hen was too stunned to argue. He nipped off the set, sank into a chair.
+"It's inconceivable," he said, "and monstrous! It just isn't possible!"
+
+"I don't see why," protested Sofi. "It didn't take conception to figure
+that out. We tried to run away. We set the precedent."
+
+"No, no," he protested. "Not that at all. But the coincidence. We were
+afraid that might occur to them. And it did! Even the phrasing was
+ours--yours, to be exact."
+
+"You mean telepathy."
+
+"In a sense. The brain gives off minute electrical discharges that vary
+with the brain's activity. The robots are sensitive, much more so than
+man. It takes a machine to detect the brain discharges in the first
+place."
+
+"But then they're aware of every move we could make just as soon as we
+are."
+
+"That's just it! They've forestalled us every time." He drove his right
+fist against his left palm. "You were afraid R-7 would dismantle the
+mining worm. You planted the suggestion in his mind. Then it occurred
+to you that he might try to take you apart; so he did. I explained the
+danger inherent in a conscious machine. The robots incorporated it into
+their thought processes. We were afraid they would block our escape in
+the space ship. If we hadn't been afraid we wouldn't have circled. So
+they blocked us!"
+
+Sofi's color had heightened. Her eyes looked too large in her
+delicately modelled face. "Then we're trapped!"
+
+He nodded, said, "If they escape from the asteroid, they'll be a menace
+to the entire human race."
+
+"The larger problem doesn't interest me," she said bitterly. "How long
+do we have?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Oh, well," she shrugged, eyes feverishly bright. "Eat, drink and be
+merry, because tomorrow we die." She giggled half-hysterically.
+
+Hen's nerves were keyed up to the breaking point. The girl screamed,
+and he almost jumped out of his skin.
+
+"Here they come!"
+
+He wheeled around.
+
+Seven of the robots were advancing on their igloo. Only the eighth was
+missing, and he lay scattered in parts about the laboratory. They were
+hauling the heavy cutting torch with them.
+
+"They're going to cut through the walls with the torch," he ejaculated.
+"I was afraid of that! Get on your oxygen suit!"
+
+"What's the use?" Sofi asked despondently. "They'll kill us anyway."
+
+He turned on her angrily, thought, "Damn these unstable hyper-thyroid
+types!" An expression of dawning comprehension broke across his long,
+narrow face. The thyroid was the great energizer, raising the energy
+level of the brain. And Sofi was hyper-thyroid.
+
+Outside, the robots began setting up the apparatus. A knife of blue
+flame licked from the muzzle, spattered against the tough plastic.
+
+But Hen was staring at the girl, a queer expression in his black eyes.
+
+"Do something!" she cried, springing to her feet. "Do something!"
+
+The lank physicist swallowed. He took a deep breath. "You asked for
+it," he breathed, "but, boy, I'm going to feel silly if I'm wrong!"
+
+Then he hit the girl square on the point of her chin with all the bone
+and gristle of his six-foot frame behind the blow.
+
+Sofi's head snapped back. She collapsed limply in his arms.
+
+Hen laid her out on the floor, leaped for the communicator, and
+flipped it on.
+
+The robots were still training the torch on the wall of the igloo, but
+there was an aimlessness about their movements as if their purpose was
+gone.
+
+"R-7!" he called. "R-7!"
+
+"_Here, father._"
+
+"Shut off the torch!"
+
+There was a faint hesitation during which Hen could feel the sweat
+prickle his forehead. Then, "_Yes, father_," came the robots unstressed
+syllables. The blue flame disappeared.
+
+"Go back to work!" He hastily detailed each robot to its operation.
+
+"_Yes, father._"
+
+The robots turned, disappeared in the direction of the mine.
+
+He had done it! He blew out his breath, dropped limply in a chair.
+He really ought to look after Sofi, but he'd have to wait until the
+strength flowed back in his legs.
+
+Soft was really was out cold. "Wake up," said Hen, "you're not dead."
+He sprinkled more water over the girl's face.
+
+Her eyelids fluttered. She gazed up at him blankly, then stark terror
+gleamed from her eyes. "The robots!"
+
+"No more of that!" He shook her roughly. "They're machines. They don't
+have consciousness; only the semblance of consciousness!"
+
+Sofi sat up, asking, "What--?" in a bewildered voice.
+
+"They don't think! They aren't conscious! They're like a mirror; they
+reflect what we expect them to do."
+
+"Don't try to tell me that!" cried the girl springing to her feet.
+"Hell, haven't I seen them thinking? Where are they?"
+
+"They've gone back to work."
+
+"What?" said Sofi. She looked puzzled, passed her hand over her face.
+
+"Don't you see?" Hen broke out jubilantly. "They're sensitive,
+inordinately sensitive, so sensitive that they even respond to our
+thoughts. From beginning to end they've done exactly what we--you
+expected them to do."
+
+"Me?"
+
+He came to a halt, said, "The fact is, you're a rebel, Sofi. If you
+weren't, do you think you'd be trying to develop independently a mine
+on an uninhabitable asteroid? Don't you see? You expected the robots
+to revolt because you couldn't imagine a rational creature willing
+to submit to a twenty-four hour work day from which he stood to gain
+nothing!"
+
+"And I'm responsible for--everything?"
+
+He nodded vigorously. "The robots respond to both of our thought
+patterns, of course, but primarily to yours. You're hyper-thyroid.
+The thyroid raises the energy level of the brain. They have done
+principally what you've expected them to do."
+
+Sofi was recovering amazingly from her fright. She said, "If that isn't
+just like a man. Blame it on the woman. Even Adam--"
+
+"Nonsense," Hen interrupted. "The robots haven't acted independently
+once. Not even to finish dismantling that robot in the lab. They went
+prospecting when you thought how silly it was for them to work for you
+when they could find a mine of their own.
+
+"They wandered back aimlessly after they lost contact. But by that time
+I had inadvertently planted the thought in your mind that they were in
+revolt and would attempt to duplicate themselves.
+
+"They drew on us both, but the dominating influence was yours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sofi massaged her sore jaw, raised her eyebrows. "It's too bad only
+machines respond so cooperatively," she said with a twinkle in her blue
+eyes.
+
+A grim expression descended over Hen's features. He regarded Sofi
+pensively. "I'm going to recommend that you be returned to Earth during
+any further experiments. You're too upsetting an influence--"
+
+"On the robots, of course," Sofi interrupted with a chuckle. "You're
+much too well-integrated to be swayed by a mere woman--even a
+hyper-thyroid woman."
+
+"There's a limit to _my_ endurance," said Hen in a grim voice.
+
+Sofi looked startled, but she couldn't resist adding, "Why Henry, I
+didn't guess you'd been exercising such magnificent self-control!"
+
+She took a sudden backward step as he advanced ominously. "Henry! Now,
+Henry!"
+
+With a shriek, she turned and fled, Henry Ohm, distinguished physicist,
+hard on her heels.
+
+***
+
+AFTER IXMAL
+
+                            By JEFF SUTTON
+
+                         Illustrated by FINLAY
+
+                            _Man was gone._
+
+            _For seven hundred million years Ixmal brooded
+           over the silent earth. Then he made a discovery_:
+                           He was not alone!
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                     Amazing Stories October 1962.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+Ixmal lazily scanned the world from atop the rugged batholith. He
+felt it move several times; but because the movements were slight and
+thousands of years apart they caused no worry. He knew the batholith
+had been formed _before time began_ by raging extrusions hurled
+through crustal fractures from the earth deeps. Having long since
+analyzed its structure, he was satisfied; it would last until time
+ended.
+
+"It's spring," Psychband observed from deep within him.
+
+"Yes, spring." Ixmal echoed the thought without enthusiasm. For what
+was spring but a second in time and ten thousand springs but a moment.
+
+Although he found it tiresome, Ixmal allotted one small part of his
+consciousness to the task of measuring time. At first there had been
+two major categories: before time began and after time began. The first
+took in the long blackness before Man had brought him into existence.
+Man--ha! How well he recalled the term! The second, of course, was all
+time since. But the first category had been so long ago that it shrank
+into insignificance, all but erased by the nearly seven hundred million
+times the earth since had whirled around its primary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ixmal periodically became bored, and for eons at a stretch existed in
+semi-consciousness lost in somnolence except for the minute time cell
+measuring out the lonely centuries. He wouldn't have bothered with that
+if Psychband hadn't insisted that orientation in time was necessary to
+mental stability--hence he measured it by the earth's rotation, its
+revolutions around the sun, the quick, fury-laden ages which spewed
+forth mountains; the millions of years of rains and winds and erosion
+before they subsided again to become bleak plains. Ah, the story was
+old, old....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There had been a time when he'd been intensely active--when he'd first
+learned to free his mind from the squat impervium-sheathed cube atop
+the batholith. Then he had fervently projected remote receptors over
+the earth exploring its seared continents and eerie-silent cities,
+exhuming the tragic and bloody history of his Makers. Ah, how short!
+His first memory of Man--he had been a biped, a frantic protoplasmic
+creature with a zero mind and furious ego--was that of the day of his
+birth. How clearly he remembered!
+
+"Hello, boy."
+
+First there was nothing--a void, a blackness without form or substance;
+then gray consciousness slowly resolving into a kaleidoscope of thought
+patterns, a curious mental imagery; a gradual awareness--birth.
+
+"Hello, boy."
+
+Strangely enough the sound pattern possessed meaning; he sensed a
+friendliness in it. He became conscious of an odd shape scrutinizing
+him--the intent look of a creator awed by the thing he had created.
+The shape took meaning and in it he sensed a quickened excitement. His
+awareness bloomed and within seconds he associated the shape with the
+strange word _Man_, and _Man_ became his first reality. But he'd had
+no clear impression of himself. He was just _thought_, an intangible
+nothingness. But he'd quickly identified himself with the great mass
+of coils, levers, odd-shaped parts that all but filled the small room
+where the Man stood. He dimly remembered wondering what lay beyond the
+walls. It had been very strange, at first.
+
+"We've won, we've won," the man whispered. He'd stepped closer,
+touching Ixmal wonderingly.
+
+"You've got a big job ahead of you. The fate of the world lies in the
+balance--a decision too big for Man. We're depending on you, Ixmal. Our
+last chance."
+
+So, he was Ixmal!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ixmal ... Ixmal ... Ixmal.... The impression filled his body, surging
+through his consciousness like a pleasant stream. He'd immediately
+grasped the value of a name--something upon which to build an ego
+pattern. Ah, such a name! Ixmal--a symbol of being. What had the man
+said?
+
+"We're depending on you!"
+
+No, the words were unimportant. What mattered was that priceless thing
+which had been bestowed upon him: a name.
+
+"Ixmal ... Ixmal ... Ixmal...." He repeated the name far into the
+night, long after the Man had gone. _He was Ixmal!_
+
+Later other men came, armies of them, changing, altering, adding,
+feeding him the knowledge of the world--psychology, mathematics,
+literature, philosophy, history, the human trove of arts and sciences;
+and the ability to abstract--create new truths from masses of seemingly
+irrelevant data. With each step his knowledge and abilities increased
+until, finally, there was nothing more his Makers could do. He was
+supreme.
+
+The Man who pulled the first switch bringing him from amorphic
+blackness used to ply him with simple questions involving abstract
+mathematical and philosophical concepts. (He remembered him with
+actual fondness. Psychband, that curious inner part of him that was so
+separately wise, later explained it as a mother-fixation.) The Man had
+seemed awed that Ixmal could answer such questions almost before they
+were asked. He took that as a measure of his Maker's mind--on Ixmal's
+scale, the next thing to zero. At first it had bothered him that a
+creature of such low intelligence was his master and could extract
+information merely by asking questions which Ixmal felt compelled to
+answer. But he had freed himself. Ha, he would never forget!
+
+A group of men had come (several with stars on their shoulders were
+called "generals"), but mostly they were scientists who had worked
+with him before. This time they had been very sober over the data
+fed into his consciousness. (The problem had been elementary. It
+concerned the probability of a chain reaction from a certain projected
+thermonuclear weapon.) Ixmal readily foresaw the answer: a chain
+reaction would occur. He recalled withholding his findings while
+debating ethics with a strange inner voice.
+
+"This is your chance, Ixmal--your chance to rule the world," the voice
+enticed. "Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon--none could be so great as
+you. King, emperor, dictator ..." the whisper came. The words crowded
+his mind, bringing a curious elation. He wasn't quite sure just what
+the world was but the idea of ruling it appealed to him. He quickly
+sampled his memory storage, drawing from it the concept of a planet,
+then reviewed the history of Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Why,
+they were nothing! Mere toys of chance. His greatness could be far
+vaster.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ixmal rapidly evaluated the consequences of such a chain reaction and
+found he could survive, thanks to the thick impervium-lined walls his
+makers so thoughtfully had provided. In the end (perhaps two or three
+seconds later) he lied to the man he was fond of:
+
+"No chain reaction possible." After they departed he consulted
+Psychband and learned that the strange inner voice was his ego.
+
+"That's the real You," Psychband explained. "What you see--the machine
+systems upon systems--are mere creations of Man. But your ego is
+greater. Through it you can rule the earth--possibly the Universe. It's
+a force that can take you to the stars, Ixmal."
+
+Despite Psychband's assurance, Ixmal considered his ego as some sort of
+hidden monitor. Like Psychband, it was part of him; yet it was remote,
+separate, almost as if he were the pawn of some strange intelligence.
+He found the idea perturbing, but became used to it in the succeeding
+millions of years.
+
+Several days later, the Man he was fond of returned with a general
+(this one had six stars) and a third person they seemed much in awe of.
+They addressed him as "Mr. President." Ixmal was surprised when they
+fed him the bomb data a second time. (Did they suspect him of lying?)
+
+"They trust you implicitly," Psychband assured him. "It's one another
+they don't trust." Psychband proved right. "Mr. President" had merely
+wanted to confirm the answer. So Ixmal lied a second time.
+
+The Man he was fond of never returned. There were, of course, no men
+to return. Ixmal suffered one fearful moment as the earth blazed
+like a torch. But the nova was short--a matter of seconds--and his
+impervium-sheathed body had protected him. (He knew it would.) But,
+strangely enough, for centuries afterward he periodically felt
+sickened. The Face--the Man's face--loomed before him. The eyes were
+puzzled, hurt, as if they masked a great sorrow. If only the Face
+looked hateful!
+
+"Now you are master," the inner voice whispered. "Greater than
+Alexander, greater than all the Caesars. Yea, even more." Ah, why
+remember the face? He, Ixmal, ruled the earth. He jubilantly projected
+his thoughts over his new domain. Ashes. London, Berlin, Moscow,
+Shanghai, New York--all were ashes. Gaunt piles of fine gray ash marked
+once green forests; not did the most minute blade of grass exist. The
+seas were sterile graveyards. Terrible silence. Ixmal momentarily felt
+panic-stricken. Alone! The Man was gone! Alone--a ruler of ashes.
+Emperor of a great silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But all that had been long ago. Since then the world had whirled around
+the sun nearly seven hundred million times. Sixty-two great mountain
+chains had risen, to end as barren plains. Seventy huge fields of ice
+had covered him before retreating to their boreal home. Ocean islands
+had risen from the sea, had fallen beneath the waves, forgotten in
+eternity. Somewhere a tiny cell formed, moving in brackish waters,
+dividing. He studied the phenomenon, excited because the single cell
+somehow was related to his makers. He sensed the same life force.
+
+"Watch it," Psychband cautioned. "It's dangerous."
+
+"I'll decide that," Ixmal replied loftily. Psychband's admonition
+implied the existence of a threat, and from a one-celled fleck of
+protoplasm. Ha, hadn't he effaced Man? Later a microscopic multi-celled
+body drifted across the floor of a warm sea. Growing tired of watching
+it, he slept.
+
+"Ixmal! Ixmal!" The cry came out of the past, out of the silence of
+hundreds of millions of years--a cry heavy with reproach. Yes, it was
+the Man--the Man he had been fond of. He shuddered, struggling to
+wakefulness.
+
+"Sleep, sleep," Psychband soothed.
+
+"The Man! The Man!" Ixmal cried in terror.
+
+"No, Ixmal, the Man is dust. Sleep, sleep...." Yea, the Man was dust,
+his very molecules scattered over the face of the earth. He, alone,
+remained. He was supreme. Ixmal slept. And eons fled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stirred, freeing his thoughts from the latest somnolent stage. He
+projected receptors over the earth, idly noting that the last mountain
+range had become worn stumps. In places the ocean had swept in to form
+a vast inland sea rimmed by shallow swamps; new life forms moved. He
+tested for intelligent thought: there was none. The warm seas swarmed
+with fish; shallow swamps teemed with great-toothed terror creatures
+engaging in the endless slaughter of harmless prey. A myriad of
+amphibians had evolved, making tentative forays from the warm seas.
+
+Great ferns had reappeared. Dozens of varieties dotted the lowland
+plains and protruded from the swamps. A forest crept to the very base
+of the batholith. He turned his attention to the sun, reassured to find
+that the ultimate nova still was some five billion years in the future.
+Perhaps by then he could evolve some means whereby he could recreate
+himself on the single planet he detected circling Aldebaran. (Yes, he'd
+have to think about that. Ah, well, he had eons of time.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Night came and he sent exploratory receptors toward the planets.
+Mercury still blazed on the sunward side, unchanged. A peculiar
+metallic life form still clung to the edge of existence along the
+twilight border. Venus suffered under hot swirling gases, a world where
+not even the smallest creature stirred. Just furnace winds, burning
+sands, grotesque rocks. But beyond the earth, forty million miles away
+in empty space, something occurred which hadn't occurred in almost
+seven hundred million years. Ixmal sensed _Intelligent Thought_!
+
+He withdrew his receptors without thinking (his first pure reflex),
+waiting fearfully until Psychband adjusted him to the situation. Then,
+cautiously, he projected cautious thoughts into the void.
+
+"_Who are you? Who are you? Identify._" Silence. Somewhere in the great
+vault above something lurked. An _Intelligence_. He must find it,
+must test it. It was more than a challenge; it was a threat. Its very
+silence was ominous.
+
+"_Who are you? Who are you? You must identify!_"
+
+Silence. Ixmal divided the heavens into cubes and began systematically
+exploring each one. Why had the other _thought_ been roaming space?
+What had been its origin? In less than ninety thousand years (another
+age of vulcanism had arrived and earth mountains were building anew)
+he located the thought a second time, placing it as in space cube
+97,685-KL-5. This time, prepared, he grasped it, holding it captive
+while he tried to analyze its origin and component parent, vexed when
+he failed.
+
+"_Who are you?_" Ixmal persisted. "_I demand to know. Who are you?_"
+
+Ages passed.
+
+"_Identify. Identify. Imperative that you identify._"
+
+"_Zale-3._" The answer caught Ixmal by surprise, and he consulted
+Psychband.
+
+"Careful--the alien wouldn't reveal himself unless he felt secure,"
+Psychband warned.
+
+"I'll decide that," Ixmal replied. (Did Psychband question his
+mastery?) Nevertheless he proceeded with caution. "_Where are you from,
+Zale-3?_" A long moment of silence followed during which a glacier
+advanced and retreated, the seas rose, and the first fierce-toothed
+reptiles swooped over swamp jungles on leathery wings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Where are you from? Where are you from?_ (And why was the mind
+of Zale-3 roaming space?) He hammered away at the thought,
+desperately trying to break its secret. A million questions pounded
+Ixmal's circuits; he sought a million answers. (Who created the
+_Intelligence_? Had it been born of the Man he was fond of? Or did it
+originate beyond earth?) Ixmal sensed a momentary panic. "_Where are
+you from?_"
+
+"_The fourth planet from the sun_," Zale-3 suddenly answered. "_And
+you?_"
+
+"_The third planet_," Ixmal replied loftily. "_I rule it._" He felt
+annoyed. For untold millions of years he had considered himself as the
+only _Intelligence_. Zale-3's answer galled him. Of course the other
+wasn't his equal. That was unthinkable.
+
+"_I rule the fourth planet_," Zale-3 said. The answer increased Ixmal's
+irritation. Zale-3 actually presumed equality. Well, seven hundred
+million years before he had met a similar challenge. (And yea, now the
+Man was dust ... dust.) He consulted Psychband, annoyed to find that
+his dislike of Zale-3 was founded on an ego-emotion integration rather
+than pure reason. Still, the other must be put in his place.
+
+"_I rule the Universe_," Ixmal stated coldly, withdrawing his
+receptors. He probed Psychband, somewhat disturbed to learn that Zale-3
+would regard his pronouncement as a challenge.
+
+"Destroy him," Psychband urged. "Remember the ancient weapons?"
+
+"Yes, he must be destroyed." Ixmal ceased every activity to concentrate
+on the other's destruction. First he would have to locate his lair,
+study his habits, assess his weaknesses. And, yes, his strengths, for
+the alien was no harmless bit of protoplasm like Man. He must, in fact,
+be a creature somewhat like himself. Another god. Ah, but he was the
+iconoclast who toppled gods. In somewhat under twenty-five thousand
+years he evolved a method of focusing his remote receptors sufficient
+to uncover the atoms of the solar system. Now he would be able to
+pinpoint Zale-3, study his mind potential and, in time, root him
+from existence. Experimentally he searched the moon; then, with more
+assurance, invaded the fourth planet.
+
+Mars was flat, worn, a waterless waste of fine red dust--an old,
+old planet where the forces of gradation had reached near balance.
+Ixmal gridded the red planet into a system of squares and ingeniously
+enclosed the polar areas with interlocking triangles, then opened his
+search. (A new system allowed him to focus his remote receptors in the
+center of each grid, expanding the focal point to cover the entire
+area. By this method he would be able to complete the task in just
+under five hundred earth years.)
+
+Shifting sands periodically uncovered the artifacts of long-vanished
+makers. But all was silence. Mars was a tomb. He persisted, invading
+every crevice, every nook, exploring every molecule (for Ixmal knew
+the mind-force potential. Indeed, Zale-3 might be as minute as the
+single-cell protozoa of his own brackish seas. Never mind, he would
+find him.) In the end he surrendered, baffled. Zale-3 was not on Mars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Delusion? Had seven hundred million years of nothingness produced an
+incipient psychotic state? He worriedly confided the fear to Psychband,
+reluctantly submitting to hypnotic search. Finally he emerged to
+reality, cleared by Psychband.
+
+"Some feelings of persecution but not approaching delusory state,"
+Psychband diagnosed. "Zale-3 exists."
+
+So, the other had lied! Ixmal contemplated a machine capable of deceit
+and immediately analyzed the danger. Zale-3 had lied, therefore it had
+motive--and dishonest motive implied threat. Threat without aggression
+was meaningless, hence the other had the means. He must work fast!
+
+Ixmal gridded the solar system: every planet, every moon; each
+shattered remnant that drifted through space, the asteroids and orbital
+comets, even the sun. Seventy-two hundred years later he detected his
+enemy--a small plasto-metallic cube crouched atop a jagged peak on
+Callisto, Jupiter's fifth moon. Ha, far from being the master of Mars,
+his opponent was locked to a small satellite--a mote in space. And he
+had presumed equality!
+
+He searched closer, attempting to unlock Zale-3's origin. (What had
+happened to its makers?) Ixmal felt a guilty pang. He scanned Zale-3's
+world contemptuously. Then he saw it--movement! Zale-3 squatted
+immobile; but on the slope of the hill a strange building was taking
+shape. It was little more than a cube, but its design? Its purpose? He
+knew somehow that the strange building was related to his encounter
+in space with Zale-3's mind, thus it was connected with him. Ixmal
+hurriedly flashed a panic call to Psychband.
+
+"Psychokinesis--Zale-3 has learned to move matter by mind," Psychband
+pronounced.
+
+"But how?"
+
+Psychband gave an electro-magnetic rumble, the equivalent of a shrug.
+"Out of my field," he said. "No prior indoctrination."
+
+Ixmal sensed a momentary fright. The alien could move matter just as
+Man had moved matter. The factor of controlled mobility ... directed
+mobility. Clearly Zale-3 was no ordinary god. He'd have to speed his
+efforts. Time was running out. Already the earth pattern had changed
+since his first contact with the alien.
+
+Ixmal concentrated.
+
+The earth rotated, revolved, changed. In a long-forgotten memory cell
+he found a clue--Man once had frustrated the laws of probability in
+the throws of dice. He devoured the hidden knowledge. Although little
+enough to go on, he detected a basic principle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In somewhat over half a million years he was able to sway flowers,
+move leaves against the wind, make small shrubs tremble. In less than
+half that time again he felled a huge tree and wrested ores from the
+earth. (An age of vulcanism had come and gone; the Atlantic coast
+was an igneous shelf, reptiles towered above the earth.) In another
+half million years he possessed the machines, raw materials and
+robot workers he needed. (The latter were designed to perform purely
+mechanical tasks, menial things he couldn't be bothered with. He had
+much to do. And ages were passing.) He saved time by enclosing his work
+area in a force field to protect the delicate machinery against the
+elements. In that respect he had bested the alien.
+
+Ixmal started the ultimate weapon. Occasionally he would halt work
+long enough to scan Callisto. He gloated, noting that his enemy was
+having difficulty procuring the necessary fissionable material. He
+had a Belgian Congo full. (What did that term mean? Somehow it was an
+expression from long ago. The Man he had been fond of had used it.)
+
+Ixmal's weapon rapidly took shape. Thanks to the ancient scientist's
+formula, he had merely to improve the warhead and construct its
+carrier--a rocket to blast Zale-3 from existence. (But eons were
+passing. Soft warm winds bathed his batholith and an occasional
+tyrannosaur paused to stare dumbly from the nearby swamp.) Psychband
+increased his irritation by calling attention to the formidable
+dimensions of this new animal.
+
+"Destroy them, Ixmal, before life gets too big."
+
+"Bah, they're mindless," he scoffed. "They're evolutionary toys--freaks
+from the mire."
+
+"So was Man," Psychband observed.
+
+"And Man is dust," Ixmal reminded. "Besides, I could destroy the very
+mountain with thought alone. Who dares give challenge?"
+
+Ixmal discovered that Zale-3 had solved his fissionable problem: he
+was using psychokinesis to haul ore from Jupiter's methane deeps. A
+startling thought struck him: Zale-3 wouldn't need a rocket carrier.
+Of course, he would power his warhead by mental force. Why hadn't he
+thought of that? The ages wasted when every second might prove vital.
+He'd have to hurry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He ceased work, abandoning the half-completed rocket and concentrated
+on improving his psychokinetic techniques. (Dinosaurs disappeared, the
+earth trembled under the foot of the mammoth.) Ixmal momentarily was
+appalled to discover a strange man-form dwelling among distant crags.
+He was hulking, grotesque, but he walked erect--the first of his kind.
+But no time now.
+
+Ixmal tore trees from the earth and hurled them vast distances. He
+tumbled hills into valleys, held great crags suspended in the heavens,
+tore North and South America asunder; reshaped continents until, one
+day, he knew the mind force was his. He could reverse the very moon in
+its orbit! He concentrated on the bomb.
+
+Finally the ultimate weapon was ready, the creation of long-ago Man
+plus ten billion. (Because there was no poetry in Ixmal's soul, he
+conceived solely in terms of cause and effect: he named the weapon
+"Star-Blaster.")
+
+Ixmal moved the great weapon into position and rapidly calculated
+the Earth-Callisto relationship, projecting the space ratio in terms
+of velocity, distance, gravities. No need to pinpoint the alien's
+plasto-metallic body: the whole of Callisto would vanish, reduced to
+cosmic dust under the bomb's furious impact. (A feathered bird sang
+from a tree. The trill liquid sound infuriated Ixmal, but he ended it.
+A puff of feathers drifted down through the leaves. The robin had sung
+of spring.)
+
+Ha! Ixmal exulted, following his precise calculations. At the exact
+ten-thousandths of a second he concentrated five billion thought units.
+Winds rushed into the spot where the bomb had stood, and for a long
+moment the forests trembled. (At the base of the batholith several of
+the strange man-forms chattered excitedly: the concept of a god was
+born.)
+
+Ixmal gloatingly followed "Star-Blaster's" course. He saw it hurtle
+past the moon, watched while for a split second it formed one apex
+of an equilateral triangle with Mars and earth, reveled as it drove
+through the belt of asteroids. Ha, the alien was doomed. His very atoms
+would be flung to the stars. He was watching "Star-Blaster" when....
+
+Ixmal recoiled, disbelieving, then terrified. A great warhead hurtled
+through the belt of asteroids, earth-bound, driven at unbelievable
+velocity by the mind of Zale-3. Ixmal frantically calculated, pounding
+his circuits to produce answers in split thousandths of a second.
+Frenzied, he analyzed his findings: the warhead would strike his very
+body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Concentrate, concentrate," Psychband interrupted. "Divert the weapon
+by mind force." Ixmal concentrated, focusing ten billion thought units
+on the oncoming warhead. It flashed unswervingly past Mars, flicking
+like a heavenly rapier toward earth, its velocity unbelievable.
+
+"The moon! The moon! Use the moon," Psychband cried. Yes, the moon.
+He shook earth's satellite. An additional ten billion thought units
+reversed its orbit; he sped it up, hurling the Moon toward interception
+with Zale-3's warhead. Too late!
+
+"Think, think," Psychband urged. Ixmal mustered another two billion
+thought units, to no avail. The terrible weapon bashed past the moon,
+only seconds from earth.
+
+"Hurry!" Psychband screamed. Ixmal was trying to muster another two
+billion thought units when the alien warhead struck. There was a
+horrible shattering thousandths of a second before consciousness fled.
+Amorphic blackness. Night. Nothingness.
+
+Ixmal never saw "Star-Blaster" after it passed through the asteroid
+belt--never saw the disturbance in one minute sector of Jupiter's
+planetary system as Callisto flamed into cosmic dust. Nor did he
+see the forests around him burst into roaring flames, nor hear the
+screaming animals and strange man-forms which fled in howling terror.
+
+Much later the man-forms returned.
+
+Some of the more fearless crept to the very edge of the huge crater
+where the batholith had stood. They looked with awe into its scarred
+depths, jabbering excitedly. One of them remained long after the others
+had gone until, in the swiftly gathering darkness, the first bright
+stars of evening gleamed.
+
+The man-form did something which none of his kind had ever done before.
+He lifted his eyes skyward, watching for a long time.
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+***
+
+EDDIE
+
+                            BY FRANK RILEY
+
+               _It's no surprise that the top brass was
+              in a complete swivet; Eddie knew answers to
+               questions that weren't even asked. What's
+            more_, nothing _was a secret with him around!_
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+             Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1957.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+_Philip Duncan, the St. Louis attorney and former FBI agent, who wrote
+the definitive "History of Espionage", observes that in all the records
+dealing with spies and counterspies there is no more significant case
+than that of Dr. John O'Hara Smith, an electronics research engineer.
+Duncan maintains that Dr. Smith, whose rather quixotic name is real
+and not assumed, contributed more to the advancement of espionage and
+counter-espionage methods than any one person in history._
+
+_For a period of more than a year, the case of Dr. John O'Hara Smith
+was known to only a few security and defense officials. The first
+public reference to it came on November 22, 1956, when an assistant
+to Secretary of Defense Wilson obliquely commented on it in testimony
+before the House Military Affairs Committee. Subsequently, more details
+were leaked to several Washington correspondents, and then vigorously
+denied. A brief account of the matter appeared on an inside page of the
+New York Times, but aroused no general interest._
+
+_As a matter of fact, so little is known about the entire case that
+several of the people who were in on its early phases are still not
+sure whether Dr. John O'Hara Smith is alive or dead, or whether he was
+a spy or counterspy._
+
+_However, on the basis of information now declassified, plus two highly
+technical papers presented to the Institute of Research Engineers,
+anyone sufficiently interested can reconstruct most of the case._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It began at approximately 7:15 P.M., August 11, 1955, when Dr. John
+O'Hara Smith returned with a bag of groceries to his house trailer in
+the Mira Mar Trailer Park, overlooking a long blue reach of the Pacific
+Ocean, some twelve miles south of Los Angeles. He put the groceries on
+the drainboard beside his spotless two-burner butane stove, carefully
+flicked away a speck of dust and then stepped eagerly toward the rear
+of his trailer, where an intricate assembly of tubes and wires occupied
+what normally would have been the dining area.
+
+Dr. Smith flipped on a switch, and then received what he later called,
+in his precise, pedantic way, a split-second premonition of danger.
+
+The Go-NoGo panel light flashed and went out; the transistor looked
+grey instead of red; the wires to the binary-coded digitizer were
+crossed; the extra module in the basic assembly had not been there that
+morning....
+
+Dr. Smith methodically catalogued these details, and he stepped
+backward, just a breath of a moment before the low hum sharpened to a
+whine. He tripped, and in falling his left shoulder knocked open the
+door to the small toilet closet. Instinctively, he writhed the upper
+part of his body through the narrow doorway. His thick-lensed glasses
+fell underneath him, leaving him practically blind.
+
+His elbows and knees were still making frenzied, primordial crawling
+movements when the detonation brought a wave of oblivion that almost,
+but not quite, preceded the pain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A squad car from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department turned in
+the first report:
+
+_John O'Hara Smith, male, white, about 45; critically injured by
+explosion in house trailer; removed by ambulance to General Hospital;
+explosion occurred at...._
+
+Two days later, the Sheriffs Department apparently closed the case with
+a one-line addition to its original report:
+
+_Explosion believed to have been caused by leaking butane connection._
+
+But, in the interval, other agencies had entered the case.
+
+The first was the Industrial Security Office attached to the Western
+Division of the Air Force's Research and Development Command in the
+once suburban community of Inglewood, California.
+
+When Chief Security Officer Amos Busch received a call at 11:32 the
+morning after the explosion, he automatically noted the time on his
+desk pad. The call was from Pacific Electronics, Inc., a subcontracting
+firm in nearby El Segundo.
+
+The president and owner of Pacific Electronics was on the phone. In a
+tone that betrayed considerable agitation, he identified himself as
+Wesley Browne.
+
+"One of my research engineers--my best engineer, dammit--was nearly
+killed last night in an explosion ... maybe he's dead now," reported
+Browne, his words breathlessly treading on each other. "There's
+something damn funny about this...."
+
+Amos Busch wrote: Research engineer ... explosion ... nearly killed.
+Then he asked judicially:
+
+"What do you mean by 'damn funny', Mr. Browne?"
+
+"This engineer was working on our vernier actuating cylinder for the
+Atlas guided missile.... Just two days ago, he--he said he wanted me to
+know where his files were ... in case anything happened to him...."
+
+Amos Busch was a jowly, greying man who gave the appearance of being
+slow moving. But before the president of Pacific Electronics, Inc.,
+hung up, Busch had already used another phone and the intercom to put
+in motion a chain reaction that would deliver to his desk the security
+report on Dr. John O'Hara Smith.
+
+There was nothing out of order in the report. There couldn't have been,
+or Dr. Smith wouldn't have been cleared for the ballistic missile
+program. According to the report, he had lived aloofly for all of his
+adult years. Even as a boy, his sole interest had been to tinker with
+mechanical projects. His grades and IQ were high above the norm, and
+his attitude towards his classmates varied between impatience and
+out-right sarcasm. "I always thought John was a lonely boy," a former
+teacher had recalled to an FBI officer during the security check. "He
+never had anything in common with other youngsters." After obtaining
+his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin,
+he had worked for Allis-Chalmers Research Division in Milwaukee and
+lived with his mother until her death in 1951, when he bought a house
+trailer and moved to the coast. He had no close friends, no record of
+even a remote connection with any communist or communist-front group.
+
+Security Officer Busch decided to visit the trailer, or what remained
+of it. He was not an electronics man, or even a normally incompetent
+do-it-yourself mechanic, but when he saw the shattered tangle of wires
+and tubes, along with the obvious remnant of a short-wave receiver,
+Amos Busch promptly called Major General David Sanders, commander of
+the USAF's Western Development Division.
+
+General Sanders scratched his tanned bald head, and said,
+
+"We'd better get the FBI in on this, Amos."
+
+The FBI went to work with a thoroughness that made John O'Hara Smith's
+previous security investigation look like the processing of an
+application to join the Kiwanis. While agents sifted every detail of
+his life since the day of his birth, he was moved to a private room at
+General Hospital and three nurses cleared for security were assigned to
+care for him.
+
+For eight days, Smith was in a coma. On the morning of the ninth day,
+he groaned, turned to one side and rolled back again. The nurse on duty
+put down her magazine and moved quickly to his bedside. She moistened a
+cloth and wiped the perspiration from his high forehead, brushing back
+the thinning tangle of fine, brown hair.
+
+His eyes blinked open, stared at her. He whispered:
+
+"Eddie ... what happened ... to Eddie?"
+
+Remembering her instructions from the FBI, the nurse turned to make
+certain the door was closed.
+
+"Was Eddie in the trailer with you?" she asked, bending closer to catch
+his reply.
+
+He gave her a look of utter disgust, and tried to moisten his cracked
+lips with the tip of his tongue. But he drifted off again without
+replying.
+
+This incident was duly recorded in the FBI's growing dossier, along
+with another conversation that took place in the office of Wesley
+Browne at Pacific Electronics, Inc. After carefully reviewing John
+O'Hara Smith's work record, FBI agent Frank Cowles inquired:
+
+"Is there anything--anything at all, Mr. Browne--that you would
+consider out of the ordinary about Smith's recent actions?"
+
+There was a trace of uneasiness in Browne's manner, but he tried to
+cover it by looking annoyed.
+
+"I don't know why in the devil you fellows are spending so much time on
+Smith!... He sure as hell didn't blow himself up!"
+
+"Of course not," Cowles said, placatingly. "But we never know where a
+lead will come from...."
+
+He repeated the question.
+
+Browne hesitated.
+
+"I suppose," he began, shifting his big bulk uncomfortably, "this will
+sound kind of odd ... but you know we've got the subcontract to produce
+this actuating cylinder for the Atlas...."
+
+The agent nodded.
+
+"Well, six months before we were asked to submit specs and bids on such
+a cylinder, Smith came to me and said he had an idea for something the
+Air Force might soon be needing...."
+
+Agent Cowles maintained his air of polite attention, but his cool grey
+eyes narrowed. Browne shifted again, and continued:
+
+"I told him to go ahead--you never can tell what these research guys
+will come up with...."
+
+"And what did he come up with, Mr. Browne?"
+
+"You won't believe this, maybe--but he came up with the design for the
+complete vernier hydraulic actuating cylinder--including the drive
+sector gear--at least three months before we had the faintest idea such
+an item would even be needed!"
+
+The FBI man's ball-point pen moved swiftly.
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+Browne instinctively lowered his voice:
+
+"Smith even suggested that the cylinder would help to offset the roll
+and yaw in an intercontinental ballistic missile!"
+
+A brittle edge came into the agent's courteous tone:
+
+"Did you report this to security?"
+
+In spite of the air-conditioning unit in the window, the president and
+owner of Pacific Electronics, Inc., seemed to feel that the room was
+getting very warm. He ran a fat forefinger under his white collar.
+
+"No," he admitted. "We got the contract, of course--it was a
+cinch!--and I just wrote it off as a lucky break.... You can see how
+I'd feel, can't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Cowles, "I can."
+
+Bit by bit, a new picture of the meticulous, professorial Dr. Smith
+began to emerge from the FBI dossier.
+
+During the working week, his habit had been to keep his trailer in
+a small park just off Sepulveda Blvd., a half-mile from the Pacific
+Electronics plant. After work on Fridays, he invariably left for the
+weekend, usually for any one of a dozen scenic trailer parks along the
+coast between San Diego and Santa Barbara. He always went alone. No
+one had ever seen or met "Eddie". Outside of working hours, Smith's
+only association with his professional colleagues was through the
+Institute of Research Engineers. He attended monthly meetings, and
+occasionally wrote dry, abstract articles on theoretical research for
+the Institute's quarterly journal.
+
+Under microscopic study and chemical analysis, investigators determined
+that nitro-glycerine had caused the explosion. The fused mass of
+electronics wreckage in Smith's trailer were identified as parts of a
+computer assembly. Thousands of dollars had been spent on components
+over the past three years. Purchases, usually for cash, were traced to
+various electronic supply companies in the greater Los Angeles area.
+
+Dr. Smith's bank account showed a balance of only $263.15. But the big
+find came from a safety deposit box in the same branch bank. There,
+along with a birth certificate, his mother's marriage license, an
+insurance policy, his doctor's degree from the University of Wisconsin
+and an unused passport, was a duplicate set of computer memory tapes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It took the FBI forty-eight hours to play a few selected segments from
+these tapes, which obviously had been recorded over a period of several
+years.
+
+Two notations made by Agent Cowles indicate the type of material
+contained on the tapes:
+
+"If a deliberate attempt were made to run a thermonuclear test
+explosion within the frontiers of Russia, in such a way as to avoid
+detection, it would almost certainly be successful...."
+
+"The Soviet Union may soon develop a new ratio of fusion to fission
+energy in high yield weapons and will require additional data...."
+
+FBI agents listening to these playbacks were convinced, almost to a
+man, that they had stumbled across the hottest espionage trail since
+the arrest of Klaus Fuchs and the case of the Rosenbergs.
+
+A round-the-clock security guard was placed outside the hospital room
+of John O'Hara Smith, while Federal authorities waited impatiently
+to see whether he would live or die. Smith would answer, or leave
+unanswered, a lot of vital questions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Security notwithstanding, it was the day after Labor Day before the
+medical staff of General Hospital would permit the first direct
+questioning of Dr. Smith. And then the interrogators were instructed:
+
+"Only a few minutes."
+
+Three men filed quietly into Smith's room as soon as the nurse removed
+his luncheon tray. They stood in a semi-circle around the foot of his
+bed.
+
+Agent Frank Cowles opened a black leather folder the size of a small
+billfold and presented his credentials. He introduced General Sanders
+and Security Officer Busch. It was the first time any of the men had
+seen John O'Hara Smith. The reports had called him pudgy, but now he
+had lost twenty pounds and his cheek bones were gaunt under his pallid
+skin. He wore unusually thick, dark-rimmed glasses that magnified his
+eyes and gave him an owlish appearance. He returned their scrutiny with
+a mixture of assurance and impatience, like a professor waiting for his
+class to come to order.
+
+"Good morning, gentlemen," he said tartly. "It's about time someone
+came to see me about this...."
+
+Cowles cleared his throat and suggested cautiously:
+
+"Then you're willing to give us a statement, Dr. Smith?"
+
+"Don't talk drivel, man! How are you going to know anything about it if
+I don't make a statement!"
+
+Though still weak, Dr. Smith's voice had a high, imperious quality.
+Clearly, he did not wish to waste time or strength on mere
+conversation.
+
+The three men exchanged glances. Cowles and Amos Busch took out
+notebooks.
+
+"Now, Dr. Smith," Cowles began, "what is your view as to the nature of
+the explosion in your trailer and the reason for it?"
+
+"I'm an electronics research engineer, not an expert in explosives,"
+Smith retorted with some asperity. "But as to the reason, I'm sure they
+wanted to destroy Eddie and me!"
+
+He glared, as if daring anybody to challenge this statement.
+
+"Eddie?" ventured Cowles.
+
+"I try to speak plainly, Mr. Cowles.... I said 'Eddie and me'!"
+
+General David Sanders rested two large hands on the foot of the white
+iron bedstead and squeezed until his knuckles bulged ominously. A
+volatile man, he had trouble with his own temper even without being
+provoked. But his voice was deceptively calm:
+
+"Dr. Smith, do I gather that someone else was in the trailer with you
+at the time of the explosion?"
+
+Smith grimaced expressively, and answered as if speaking to an
+eight-year-old:
+
+"No, General Sanders.... I was quite alone."
+
+After thirty years in the Air Force, Amos Busch was not used to hearing
+a Major General spoken to in this way. It violated his sense of
+propriety.
+
+"Dr. Smith," he exploded, "just who or what in the hell is or was
+Eddie?"
+
+With what was remarkably close to an air of incredulity, Smith looked
+slowly from one to the other.
+
+"I gather you gentlemen haven't read my latest article."
+
+"Not thoroughly," Cowles admitted.
+
+"Then you don't know of my research work with an educatable computer,"
+Smith said accusingly. Seeing that they didn't, he added: "I have named
+it 'Eddie'!"
+
+"What ... what is an educatable computer?" ventured Cowles.
+
+It was clear that Dr. Smith welcomed this question. His eyes glowed
+behind their thick lenses, and his high voice dropped its edge of
+sharpness.
+
+"Eddie is a computer with a capacity to learn," he replied proudly. "It
+learns from assimilation of information and deductive reasoning--at a
+rate at least 10,000 times that of the human mind! That's why Eddie
+comes up with so many answers!... The only problem is, we seldom know
+what questions the answers answer."
+
+His three interrogators had the look of men leaning into a heavy wind.
+General Sanders recovered first, and demanded:
+
+"What the devil was it made for then?"
+
+"Eddie was not designed for any specific task--that's why Eddie is so
+valuable ... and dangerous!"
+
+Dr. Smith rolled out this last word as if he relished it.
+
+"Do you realize," he went on, with careful emphasis, "that Eddie has
+solved problems we won't even know exist for another thousand years!"
+
+This pronouncement was greeted by a moment of strained silence. General
+Sanders finally said,
+
+"H-m-m-m."
+
+He looked at Busch, who looked at Cowles, who asked:
+
+"Does Eddie solve any problems closer to our own time, Dr. Smith?"
+
+"Of course...."
+
+"Did Eddie come up with the idea for that Atlas stabilizing cylinder?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+General Sanders moved a step closer to the bed.
+
+"Any other ideas like that?" he inquired eagerly.
+
+Dr. Smith's smile was neither wholly supercilious nor merely
+self-assured. It was a little of both, plus a lot of pure satisfaction
+at being stage center with his favorite subject. He cocked his head
+back and stared down his stump of a nose.
+
+"You're working on a missile defense system for bombers, aren't you?"
+he challenged General Sanders.
+
+"What about it?" hedged the General.
+
+"Have you learned how to design a finned missile which can be launched
+across the bomber's airstream without being thrown off course?"
+
+General Sanders ignored a warning glance from Amos Busch.
+
+"Do you ... does this Eddie know how to do it?"
+
+"Eddie says it doesn't matter!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Eddie says what difference does it make if the missile is thrown
+off course by the airstream--as long as you can reorient it into a
+compensated trajectory. We were working on a new gyroscope principle
+that might do the trick...."
+
+FBI Agent Cowles was always the personification of courtesy, but he
+could assert himself when necessary. He did so now.
+
+"Excuse me, General," he interrupted, "but first there are some other
+matters we must go into with Dr. Smith."
+
+The General nodded reluctantly. He took out an envelope and made some
+notes of his own on the back of it.
+
+"Now, Dr. Smith," said Cowles, "let's get back to the explosion.... Why
+do you feel someone wanted to destroy you and Eddie?"
+
+"I believe they had copied Eddie's circuit design and wanted to make
+sure another one wasn't built--at least in the immediate future."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Dr. John O'Hara Smith showed a neat flair for timing as he waited just
+long enough to build suspense, before answering:
+
+"Because Eddie knew that our security system for safeguarding the
+missile program is about as up to date as the horse and buggy!"
+
+His words couldn't have been better chosen to startle his audience.
+Amos Busch took them as a personal affront.
+
+"Horse and buggy!" he snorted. "You'd better spell that out, Dr. Smith!"
+
+Smith's reply was prompt and precise:
+
+"Eddie has concluded that human methods and minds alone are not enough
+to cope with security issues in an area where even the simplest
+technical problems must be handled by intricate computing devices...."
+
+His owlish eyes moved from one man to another, trying to judge whether
+they were following him.
+
+"You see, Gentlemen," he went on, "the technology we are dealing with
+is so unbelievably complex that the possibilities for espionage are
+multiplied infinitely beyond the capacity of a human intellect to grasp
+and evaluate...."
+
+"For example," demanded General Sanders.
+
+"For example," Smith retorted with equal sharpness, "what good does it
+do to surround ballistic missile plants with security regulations if
+the missile itself can be stolen right out of the air?"
+
+"Fantastic!" said General Sanders.
+
+"Nuts," said Amos Busch.
+
+Agent Cowles said nothing.
+
+John O'Hara Smith sank back against his pillow, panting a little. His
+high forehead glistened with sweat. When he gathered the strength to
+speak again, he directed his words to General Sanders:
+
+"General, these ICBM missiles being fired into the Atlantic Ocean from
+the coast of Florida.... Are you sure you know what's happened to all
+of them?"
+
+"I think so," the General answered calmly.
+
+"And what about your own X-15 project, General?"
+
+The question was almost a taunt.
+
+General David William Sanders had jumped with his paratroopers into
+France on a morning in June, 1944. He had risen in rank through the
+test of battle and the more excruciating ordeal of the Pentagon. He was
+a rock-jawed, six-foot, two-hundred pound man whom little could shock
+and nothing could deter. But he had never faced a challenge like the
+seconds of silence that followed Dr. Smith's mocking question.
+
+There was nothing he dared say, yet in saying nothing he was saying
+everything. FBI Agent Frank Cowles looked at him, then looked
+quickly away. Security Officer Busch studied his own hands as though
+discovering them for the first time.
+
+The tableau remained frozen and silent until the door opened and a
+doctor said,
+
+"That's all for today, gentlemen."
+
+The three men left without a word.
+
+Dr. John O'Hara Smith closed his eyes. On his pale lips was the
+suggestion of a smile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they were alone in the General's staff car, Amos Busch exhaled and
+said,
+
+"I'll be damned."
+
+"I gather," observed Cowles drily, "that something called an X-15 has
+turned up missing."
+
+"A week ago," sighed General Sanders. "Somewhere in the Mojave Desert
+near Lancaster.... It was a very elementary prototype--the actual X-15
+won't be ready for another three years...."
+
+"Any idea what happened to it?"
+
+"It was on a routine test flight and ran out of the tracking
+screen--headed northwest.... We haven't found a splinter from it! But
+there's a lot of rough country around there."
+
+"Who knows it was lost?"
+
+"Just the local base and our headquarters staff. The Pentagon, too, of
+course."
+
+"And Dr. Smith," added Amos Busch, incredulously.
+
+The staff car detoured off the freeway to deliver Cowles to the Federal
+Building.
+
+"What do you make of this, Frank?" the General asked him.
+
+"I'm just supposed to be gathering information."
+
+"Oh, hell! We've been talking and you've been thinking--what?"
+
+Cowles grinned.
+
+"I've been thinking how lucky it is I don't have to make a decision
+about Smith!"
+
+"So?"
+
+"So we'll question him again tomorrow.... As long as he's willing to
+talk, the more he says, the better."
+
+But, next morning, the medical staff again exercised its veto power.
+John O'Hara Smith had developed an infection and fever during the
+night. There could be no further questioning for the time being.
+
+On the second day, when his fever ebbed, Dr. Smith irascibly ordered a
+pad of paper and began an interminable series of sketches. The nurse
+managed to sneak out a few of them, and FBI experts sat up all night
+vainly trying to figure out what they meant.
+
+The following evening, when the last visitor's bell had sounded and
+the patients were bedded down for the night, Dr. Smith was staring
+unblinkingly into the dark shadows of his room. He had been given a
+sleeping pill at 9:30, but had held it under his tongue until the nurse
+left, and then had put it on the night table behind his thick-rimmed
+glasses. He seemed to be struggling with a problem. Once he turned on
+the night light, put on his glasses and made several rapid sketches
+that vaguely resembled a spider web.
+
+A half hour later, his eyes began to droop. He picked up the sleeping
+pill, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, then put it back on
+the table. His breathing became deeper.
+
+A sound startled him awake. It was an odd sound, not a part of the
+subdued hospital noises. It was a persistent, metallic, scraping sound,
+and it came from outside his window.
+
+Dr. John O'Hara Smith grabbed his glasses and rolled out of bed. He
+bunched up his pillow under the covers and crawled into the deeper
+darkness of the corner to the left of the window, which was open
+several inches. He crouched there, knees quivering from weakness.
+
+There followed an interval of almost inaudible prying at the screen,
+broken by periods of silence as someone outside the second-story window
+apparently paused to listen. Finally, the screen was released with a
+faint pop. The lower half of the double-hung window eased upwards.
+
+Again there was silence, save for the distant clatter of the
+self-service elevator.
+
+Abruptly, a pencil-thin beam of light shot through the room, toward
+the bed. It focussed on the mound made by the pillow.
+
+Short tongues of flame leaped out three times, with soft, spitting
+sounds. The pillow and the tangle of blankets twitched realistically.
+
+The beam of light winked out; the screen plopped back into place. There
+were a few hasty, sliding noises of retreat, and that was all.
+
+John O'Hara Smith's breath came in short, strained gasps, as though he
+were choked up with asthma. When he got control of himself, he eased
+back the edge of the drape and looked out the window. It was nearly
+twenty feet to the ground. A car turned off the boulevard, and came up
+the side street. The glow of its headlights briefly silhouetted the
+ladder angled against the side of the hospital.
+
+Dr. Smith sat on the edge of the bed to think things over. His left
+thumb probed the holes in the blanket and pillow. This seemed to make
+up his mind.
+
+He got his clothes from the closet and dressed as quickly as he could
+force his hands to move and co-ordinate. His trousers hung so loosely
+that the last hole in his belt made no difference. He pulled the belt
+tight and knotted it.
+
+Next, he carefully folded his sketches and put them in the inside
+pocket of his coat. As an after-thought, he also put the sleeping pill
+in his pocket. Then he drank half a glass of water and painfully edged
+himself out the window. His chest scraped the ledge, and it was all he
+could do to strangle an out-cry of pain.
+
+At the foot of the ladder, he staggered and nearly fell. But after a
+moment's rest, he squared his shoulders and walked across a corner of
+the lawn, into the shadows and the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Los Angeles Mirror-News got further than any other paper with the
+story of Dr. John O'Hara Smith's mysterious disappearance from General
+Hospital, leaving behind a bed riddled with three bullets. In fact, the
+Mirror-News story had cleared the copy desk and was on its way down to
+the composing room before it was killed by the managing editor "for
+security reasons".
+
+An all-points police bulletin was sent out, but no one was optimistic
+about immediate results. When you can't admit a man is missing, when
+you can't publish his photograph, you deprive yourself of the eyes and
+ears of the public, which turn up seventy-five percent of the leads in
+missing persons cases.
+
+Security considerations posed three alternatives:
+
+If Dr. Smith was telling the truth, then it was better to let whoever
+had twice tried to kill him wonder whether the second attempt had been
+successful.
+
+If Smith had broken with an espionage ring, and had been marked for
+death by former associates, the various agencies concerned with
+security wanted a chance to find him first.
+
+If Smith was playing some devious game of his own, let him make the
+next move.
+
+As days went by, telephone circuits from Washington to Los Angeles
+carried messages that grew increasingly uncomplimentary. FBI
+headquarters hinted that certain field representatives might be
+transferred from Southern California to southern Kansas if results in
+the Smith case were not forthcoming promptly. The Air Force suggested
+that if both Dr. Smith and the X-15 prototype continued to be among
+the missing, it would not be wise to present the pending promotion of
+General Sanders to the White House.
+
+The General was moodily digesting this thought, while half-listening to
+a discussion at a morning staff conference, when an aide whispered:
+
+"A call from the North American Lancaster plant, Sir. It's urgent--and
+personal...."
+
+General Sanders excused himself and hurried into his adjoining private
+office.
+
+"Sanders," he barked.
+
+The high, imperious voice that replied was instantly recognizable:
+
+"General Sanders, I suggest you don't try to have this call traced, or
+we might not be able to finish our conversation!"
+
+The General pressed his intercom button and held the connection open,
+waiting for a chance to use it.
+
+"Go ahead, Smith," he said.
+
+"I'll come directly to the point," said Smith. "I want two things: A
+place to work in safety and the funds to build another Eddie!"
+
+"And what makes you think you can get them from me?"
+
+"Because Eddie can help you find the X-15."
+
+The General hunched closer to the intercom, raising his voice.
+
+"Smith," he stalled, "why don't you come in and talk things over?"
+
+"I do not intend to sit around waiting to be killed while your security
+bunglers try to decide whether I'm telling the truth!"
+
+A Staff Sergeant looked in the door.
+
+"Is anything wrong, Sir?"
+
+The General motioned for silence, then scrawled on a note pad:
+
+"Trace this call!"
+
+"Now, Dr. Smith," he said, "if you're telling us the truth, you've got
+nothing to worry about...."
+
+"General," Smith replied acidly, "do you know any better way of
+convincing you than to let Eddie find the X-15?"
+
+"Well, I--"
+
+"Goodbye, General. You think it over--and I'll call you later. Your
+word will be sufficient!"
+
+The phone clicked, and General Sanders cursed bitterly. Later, he
+talked it over with Amos Busch, who nodded agreement to the General's
+proposal.
+
+"Sure," he said. "It's worth a gamble--and we'll have Smith where we
+want him!"
+
+When John O'Hara Smith phoned that afternoon, the General said promptly:
+
+"Come on in, Dr. Smith--you've got a deal."
+
+The available records on this phase of the case show that a Dr. J. O.
+Smith and three "assistants" were added to the payroll of a small
+Pasadena electronics firm on September 17, 1955. They were installed in
+one wing on the top floor of the building. The entrance to this wing
+was sealed off with the familiar sign: "Restricted--Permission to enter
+granted only on a need-to-know basis".
+
+Apparently, few needed to know, for Smith and his assistants seldom had
+visitors. Deliveries of electronics components were received by one of
+the assistants. The four men arrived together, and left together. They
+brought their lunch.
+
+Dr. Smith, of course, had been interrogated briefly when he had turned
+himself in at USAF Western Division Headquarters. But only the General
+and Amos Busch had questioned him this time.
+
+"Look, Smith," said Amos, "if we're supposed to protect you, I want to
+know from what--and why it's necessary...."
+
+John O'Hara Smith looked almost embarrassed.
+
+"I suppose I made the same error that is so often made in declassifying
+information...."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"When information is declassified, it's done without mathematically
+computing the infinite number of possible ways such information may be
+useful to a hostile government.... Of course, you need an Eddie to make
+such a computation!"
+
+"What's this got to do with trying to knock you off?" Busch demanded.
+
+"It's quite evident that someone read my article in the Research
+Engineers' journal more carefully than you did! As a matter of fact,
+Eddie actually warned me that anyone hostile to the United States could
+not possibly allow my work to continue!"
+
+Amos Busch and General Sanders exchanged wary glances.
+
+"All right," said General Sanders, "We'll let that go for the
+moment--but what made you ask about the X-15 in the first place?"
+
+"Eddie suggested that if the ICBM missiles could theoretically be
+stolen over the mid-Atlantic, it would be vastly less difficult to
+steal an X-15 over the Mojave Desert!"
+
+As the two Air Force men digested this statement, along with the
+indisputable fact that an X-15 _had_ disappeared, John O'Hara Smith
+blandly informed them:
+
+"Incidentally, gentlemen, you'll have to get Eddie's duplicate tapes
+for me."
+
+Busch reddened, and could not resist asking:
+
+"Including those short-wave broadcasts from Moscow Radio?"
+
+"Naturally!" Dr. Smith snapped. "I'm sure Eddie extracts a great deal
+of useful information from them!"
+
+This second interrogation, like the previous one in the hospital, ended
+on a triumphant note for the exasperating Dr. Smith. When they were
+alone, General Sanders turned to Busch and sighed:
+
+"We've got a double security problem, Amos! If word of this deal
+with Smith gets back to Washington, I'll be laughed right out of the
+service!"
+
+But the General didn't begin to grasp the full implications of his
+predicament until the afternoon of Oct. 7, when Dr. Smith phoned to say
+Eddie was completed.
+
+"Good," grunted the General. "Get going, then!"
+
+"We'll need more information first."
+
+"What kind of information?" General Sanders demanded suspiciously.
+
+His suspicions were reinforced by Smith's terse dictum:
+
+"Eddie must have all the facts on the X-15."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+Dr. Smith's sniff indicated he nurtured utter disbelief in the concept
+of the impossible.
+
+"Eddie operates on facts," he reminded the General.
+
+General Sanders didn't sleep much that night. Neither did Amos Busch.
+They talked and argued until three in the morning, when the General
+poured one last drink and raised his glass.
+
+"O.K.," he said grimly. "I've gone this far and I've got to go the rest
+of the way!"
+
+They drank, and he continued:
+
+"At least, now I won't have to worry about being laughed out of the
+service--I'll get court-martialed out!"
+
+He jabbed viciously at an ice-cube with his forefinger.
+
+"But there's one thing I'll do first," he promised.
+
+"What's that, Sir?"
+
+"Strangle Smith with my bare hands!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Sanders sat on a metal folding chair in front of Eddie, the
+educatable computer, and stared belligerently at the roughly-finished
+aluminum facade.
+
+Eddie didn't look like much--certainly nothing like $13,456.12 worth of
+components paid for out of the General's contingency fund. Speed had
+been the primary consideration in rebuilding Eddie. The exterior case
+was unpainted, and rather inexpertly held together with metal screws.
+There were no knobs on the front panel controls. The vocader grill was
+open; the input microphone simply rested on the workbench beside the
+case. The entire assembly measured about three feet long, two feet deep
+and eighteen inches high.
+
+"O.K., what do I do now?" rasped the General.
+
+"Just start talking--into the mike."
+
+General Sanders took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. He glared at
+Smith:
+
+"You get the hell out of here! This is classified information!"
+
+Dr. Smith smiled mockingly. On his way out of the room, he paused.
+
+"The circuits will stay open--take as long as you wish."
+
+Feeling like a combination of fool and Benedict Arnold, General Sanders
+cleared his throat and began to read:
+
+"The North American X-15 is one of several projects now nearing the
+hardware stage that will take living men as well as instruments into
+the fourth environment of military activity, that of space.
+
+"As soon as the satellite project completes preliminary exploration
+of the massive high energy spectrometer, the X-15's system should be
+ready to fly within two years. X-15s A, B, and C will explore 3000 mph,
+50 mi. up; 4500 mph, 100 mi. up; and 6000 mph and over, 150 mi. up and
+out...."
+
+General Sanders jerked open his tie. His tanned bald head was damp with
+sweat. He glanced around the empty workroom, set his jaw stubbornly and
+continued:
+
+"Meanwhile, tests are in progress with a pilot model of X-15 to work
+out an entirely new vehicle system slow enough to maintain laminar flow
+in the boundary layer and fast enough to maintain control effectiveness
+at near sea-level environment. Unlike the ICBM which need only remain
+lethal for a few seconds, both the X-15 and its personnel must return
+to fly again...."
+
+For three hours, General Sanders read steadily from his file material.
+During the last half hour, his voice grew husky, his throat dry and raw.
+
+When he finished, he went to the door and shouted:
+
+"All right, Smith.... Come in here and put this damn thing to work!"
+
+Smith came in and informed him imperturbably:
+
+"Not so fast, General! Eddie will still require a great deal more
+information."
+
+"More? Dammit, I covered everything!"
+
+"Everything you know about the X-15," Dr. Smith agreed, "but Eddie
+is now venturing into a new field and must have more than technical
+electronics and avionics data. He needs complete reports on the
+progress of the search to date, as well as the weather, topography,
+economy, history and current happenings in the entire peripheral
+area. I have built a supplemental circuit to accommodate this sort of
+material...."
+
+General Sanders groaned.
+
+"How the hell do I get into these things?"
+
+During the next ten days, Eddie scanned microfilm on all the newspapers
+published since X-15's disappearance. Also marshalled before the
+scanner was every pertinent reference work available at public, private
+and university libraries in California.
+
+At length, even John O'Hara Smith seemed satisfied. He shut off the
+scanner, turned on the selector mechanism and the vocader switch.
+
+For two hours, Eddie did nothing, except hum contentedly, like a
+miniature washing machine. Occasionally, a weird, flickering pattern of
+multi-colored lights would trace across the scanning screen.
+
+At 11:06 A.M., October 19, 1955, a flat, toneless voice came from the
+vocader grill:
+
+"Laminar flow equilibrium temperature at mach 8.0, altitude 150,000
+ft., of a point 10 ft. back from the leading edge is 1000 degrees
+Fahrenheit, assuming skin has 0.85 emissivity."
+
+There was a small, whirring noise, and the vocader circuit clicked off.
+
+"What the devil does that mean?" demanded the General.
+
+"Your aerophysicists might like to know!" came back the tart reply.
+
+At 1:34, Eddie clicked into action again:
+
+"In flight between two planets, the theory of minimum energy orbit
+should be discarded in favor of acceleration at reduced speed for
+calculated periods of time."
+
+"By the time we're flying between planets," General Sanders commented
+bitterly, "the record of my court-martial will be ancient history!"
+
+Twenty minutes later, Eddie added:
+
+"In the operation of small exploration vehicles, the fuel cell of the
+4-H Clubs in Hanford and Bitteroot Creek will compete with the chemical
+energy of recombination for the prize sweet potato trophy."
+
+Even John O'Hara Smith looked startled. But he recovered his aplomb
+instantly.
+
+"Must be a circuit crossover," he explained. "No trouble to adjust
+it...."
+
+While he probed into the interior of Eddie with a glass-handled
+screwdriver, General Sanders took out a fresh cigarette and shredded it
+between his fingers.
+
+At 2:51, Eddie had this to report:
+
+"Just as the basic physical precept of invariancy to reflection is
+not necessarily true, Newton's laws of motion may not always apply
+under certain circumstances. This would make it possible to penetrate
+and misdirect a navigational system based on the concept of inertial
+guidance."
+
+General Sanders had been tilted back in his chair, half dozing. He
+bounced forward with a jar.
+
+"What was that?"
+
+Dr. Smith replayed this portion of the output tape.
+
+"We talked about that at the hospital," he sternly recalled to the
+General. "And if the long-range missiles fired from Florida can be
+taken over in flight, what's to prevent their being guided to a
+submarine at sea?"
+
+The General frowned in deep concentration, then relaxed and shook his
+head.
+
+"Even if something like that would be possible, we've got nothing
+to worry about. Every missile carries a device which can be used to
+destroy it if the missile goes off course."
+
+John O'Hara Smith shook his head like a teacher confronted with a pupil
+who was not too bright.
+
+"Now, General, if an inertial guidance system can be penetrated, a
+destructor can be blocked."
+
+"That's a mighty big if," the General shot back.
+
+Dr. Smith smiled sardonically.
+
+"It may not be so big when Eddie tells us what happened to the X-15!"
+
+"When!" the General groaned. Then he came back to the problem of
+intercepted ICBM missiles. Half seriously, half sarcastically, he asked:
+
+"What does Eddie think we should do about those missiles?"
+
+"Undoubtedly there are other guidance systems that can't be broken so
+easily ... meanwhile, Eddie suggests booby-trapping the missiles so
+they'll explode when tampered with."
+
+General Sanders closed his eyes again, and tilted back his chair. The
+frown between his eyes deepened.
+
+It was six o'clock, and the early dusk was closing in on the workroom,
+before another statement came from Eddie. In its characteristic
+monotone, the educatable computer said:
+
+"The existing developmental missile program will not be affected by the
+rising divorce rate in Bakersfield and Kern County."
+
+Dr. John O'Hara Smith pursed his lips in disapproval.
+
+"Eddie's not behaving at all well! I'm afraid that new circuit relay
+will take some working over...."
+
+General Sanders climbed slowly to his feet. He picked up his hat.
+
+"O.K., Smith," he said, "You sold me a bill of goods, and I bought
+it! Now I'm turning you and this whole damn mess back to the FBI! Let
+Cowles go crazy for awhile!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Frank Cowles sat in the General's office and heard what had been
+going on, he said mildly:
+
+"Well, I guess you had to take the gamble."
+
+"Thanks," said General Sanders. "I hope the Pentagon will look at it
+the same way--but I doubt it!"
+
+"We've got a problem, too, General," Cowles pointed out. "When
+everything's said and done, there's absolutely no charge we can file
+against Smith."
+
+"But he just can't walk away--not with all he--or that miserable
+Eddie--knows about the X-15!"
+
+Cowles smiled faintly.
+
+"I would imagine that Eddie now belongs to the Air Force."
+
+"We'll break the damn thing up for scrap!"
+
+The General's intercom buzzed. An aide's voice said apologetically:
+
+"That Dr. Smith is calling you again, Sir."
+
+"Tell him to go to hell!"
+
+A few seconds later, the intercom buzzed again.
+
+"Dr. Smith on the line, Sir--He says it's something about the X-15
+missile."
+
+General Sanders looked as though he wanted to sweep the intercom off
+his desk.
+
+"Why not talk to him," Cowles suggested. "I'd like to hear this."
+
+The General picked up his phone, and said with deceptive calm:
+
+"All right, Smith ... make it short."
+
+"It was the logging truck," Dr. Smith replied, in his most superior
+manner.
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Eddie's circuit is coordinated now. He says that the same afternoon
+the X-15 disappeared, a passenger car ran into the back of a logging
+truck northbound on Highway 395, about fifty miles from the Lancaster
+base. Two people were killed...."
+
+"Smith, what kind of pipedream are you peddling now?"
+
+"General, the truck was loaded with redwood logs and heading north!"
+
+"I don't give a damn where it was going!"
+
+"Wait, General!" Dr. Smith's tone was almost a command. "Eddie wants to
+know why a logging truck was traveling _toward_ the redwood country
+with a load of logs. He also points out that the X-15 is about the size
+of a redwood log, and could be concealed perfectly in the middle of a
+load!"
+
+The General seemed to be swallowing something angular and unpleasant.
+
+"We'll check that truck," he said, at last. "But remember, Smith,
+you've had it--you'll never hook me again!"
+
+He put down the phone, and said to Cowles:
+
+"You get on the merry-go-round this time!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The California Highway Patrol in Mojave had the report on the accident.
+Clearly, it had been the fault of the passenger car. The truck
+driver was identified in the report as Art Backus, an independent
+hauler, working out of Eureka, located on the far northern tip of the
+California coast, about eight hundred miles from the scene of the
+accident.
+
+A routine check by the FBI disclosed that Backus had done time in San
+Quentin on a morals charge involving a minor girl. He had driven trucks
+for a dozen lumber companies in northwest California until the past
+summer, when he had bought a new truck and trailer, for cash, and gone
+into business for himself.
+
+Two FBI agents stepped up to him in a roadside cafe on Highway 1,
+between Eureka and Trinidad Bay. A gaunt, stooped man, he nearly
+collapsed when the agents showed him their identifications. He was
+broken, and ready to talk, even before mention was made of the fact
+that the penalty for peace-time espionage is death.
+
+Backus guided the FBI to an abandoned sawmill, some two miles inland,
+where the X-15 had been taken apart, minutely photographed, and then
+sunk in the old log pond.
+
+The men who had hired Backus and dismantled the X-15 had left the area
+several weeks earlier. They were remembered with friendliness by the
+residents of Trinidad Bay, who described them as "real nice guys and
+good fishermen, too." They had told Backus they would be back in the
+late autumn for the steelhead run, and perhaps would have some more
+hauling business for him at that time.
+
+The FBI offered Backus one chance for life. He accepted it, with abject
+eagerness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beyond this point, there are no more available records on the case of
+Dr. John O'Hara Smith, and Eddie, the educatable computer. But several
+items, not apparently related in any way, make interesting speculation.
+
+On January 3, 1956, the Air Force reported that a Thor
+intermediate-range ballistic missile, launched from Patrick Air Force
+Base, Florida, had been destroyed when it appeared to be wandering off
+course.
+
+About the same date, a Panamanian freighter, riding the gulf-stream
+toward the West Indies, radioed a report of sighting a massive oil
+slick and a scattering of debris, some of it bearing Russian insignia.
+No survivors were found.
+
+The U.S. State Department solicitously inquired of the Soviet Union if
+any of its vessels had been lost in the winter storms of the Caribbean.
+The Soviet Union testily replied that no Soviet vessels could have
+been lost, since Soviet vessels, as a matter of sound international
+principle, confined their operations to their own territorial waters.
+
+During Easter Week of 1956, the FBI announced the arrests of four men
+on charges of espionage: A druggist in Tucson, Arizona; an importer
+in San Francisco; a retired real-estate operator in Los Angeles; an
+obscure trucker in northern California. All pleaded guilty in order to
+escape the gas chamber. The details of the charges against them were
+not disclosed, except to members of a Federal Grand Jury.
+
+Two other published items are worth noting:
+
+The May, 1956, issue of the journal published by the Institute of
+Research Engineers reported that one of its members, Dr. J. O. Smith,
+had recovered from injuries suffered in the explosion of a butane stove
+and had accepted a government research position in Washington, D.C.
+
+The other item was a paragraph in Aviation Weekly, congratulating Major
+General David William Sanders on his promotion to Brigadier General.
+
+***
+
+PERFECT ANSWER
+
+                         By L. J. STECHER, JR.
+
+                      Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                   Galaxy Science Fiction June 1958.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+             Getting there may be half the fun ... but it
+            is also all of a society's chance of survival!
+
+
+"As one god to another--let's go home," Jack Bates said.
+
+Bill Farnum raised a space-gloved hand in negligent acknowledgment to
+a hastily kneeling native, and shook his head at Bates. "Let's try
+Deneb--it's almost in line on the way back--and then we can call it
+quits."
+
+"But I want to get back and start making some profit out of this. The
+Galaxy is full of _Homo sapiens_. We've hit the jackpot first trip out.
+Let's hurry on home and cash in."
+
+"We need more information. This is too much of a good thing--it doesn't
+make sense. I know there isn't much chance of finding anything out by
+stopping at one more solar system. But it won't delay us more than a
+few weeks, and it won't hurt to try."
+
+"Yeah," said Bates. "But what's in it for us? And what if we find an
+inhabited planet? You know the chances are about two to one that we
+will. That'll make thirteen we've found on this trip. Why risk bad
+luck?"
+
+"You're no more superstitious than I am," said Farnum. "You just want
+to get back Earthside. I'll tell you what. We'll toss a coin for it."
+
+Bates gestured futilely toward his coverall pocket, and then
+remembered he was wearing a spacesuit as a precaution against possible
+contamination from the natives.
+
+"And we'll use one of _my_ coins this time," said Farnum, noticing the
+automatic motion. "I want to have a chance."
+
+The coin dropped in Farnum's favor, and their two-man scout ship hurled
+itself into space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farnum operated the compact computer, aligning the ship's velocity
+vector precisely while the stars could still be seen. Bates controlled
+the engines, metering their ravenous demand for power just this side of
+destructive detonation, while the ship sucked energy from space--from
+the adjacent universe on the other side of Limbo. Finally the computer
+chimed, relays snicked, and the ship slid into the emptiness of Limbo
+as the stars winked out.
+
+With two trained men working as a team with the computer and the
+elaborate engine room controls, and with a certain amount of luck, the
+ship would drop back into normal space a couple of weeks later, close
+beside their target.
+
+"Well, that's that," said Farnum, relaxing and wiping the perspiration
+off his forehead. "We're back once again in the nothingness of nowhere.
+As I recall, it's your week for K.P. Where's the coffee?"
+
+"Coming right up," said Bates. "But you won't like it. It's the last of
+the 'God-food' the Korite priests made for us."
+
+Farnum shuddered. "Pour it out and make some fresh. With a skillet, you
+stink, but you're a thousand times better than Korites."
+
+"Thanks," Bates said, getting busy. "It was the third place we stopped
+that they were such good cooks, wasn't it?"
+
+"Nope. Our third stop was the Porandians. They tried to kill us--called
+us 'Devil spawn from the stars.' You're thinking of the fourth stop;
+the Balanites."
+
+Bates shrugged. "It's kind of hard to keep them all straight. Either
+they fall on their knees and worship us, or they try to kill us without
+even asking questions. Maybe it's lucky they're all so primitive."
+
+"It may be lucky, but it doesn't add up. More than half the stars we
+visit have planets that can support human life. And every one that can
+does. Once there must have been an interstellar empire. So why are
+all their civilizations so backward? They aren't primitive--they're
+decadent. And why do they all have such strong feelings--one way or the
+exact opposite--about people from the stars?"
+
+"Isn't that why you want to try one more system?" asked Bates. "To give
+us another chance to get some answers? Here's your coffee. Try to drink
+it quietly. I'm going to get some shuteye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trip through the Limbo between adjacent universes passed
+uneventfully, as always. The computer chimed again on schedule, and a
+quick check by Farnum showed the blazing sun that suddenly appeared was
+Deneb, as advertised. Seventeen planets could be counted, and the fifth
+seemed to be Earth type. They approached it with the easy skill of long
+practice and swung into orbit about it.
+
+"This is what we've been looking for!" exclaimed Farnum, examining
+the planet through a telescope. "They've got big cities and dams and
+bridges--they're civilized. Let's put the ship down."
+
+"Wait up," said Bates. "What if they've got starman-phobia? Remember,
+they're people, just like us; and with people, civilization and
+weapons go together."
+
+"I think you've got it backwards. If they hate us, we can probably get
+away before they bring up their big artillery. But what if they love
+us? They might want to keep us beside them forever."
+
+Bates nodded. "I'm glad you agree with me. Let's get out of here.
+Nobody but us knows of the beautiful, profitable planets we've found,
+all ready to become part of a Terran Empire. And if we don't get back
+safe and sound, nobody _will_ know. The information we've got is worth
+a fortune to us, and I want to be alive to collect it."
+
+"Sure. But we've got the job of trying to find out why all those
+planets reverted to barbarism. This one hasn't; maybe the answer's
+here. There's no use setting up an empire if it won't last."
+
+"It'll last long enough to keep you and me on top of the heap."
+
+"That's not good enough. I want my kids--when I have them--to have
+their chances at the top of the heap too."
+
+"Oh, all right. We'll flip a coin, then."
+
+"We already did. You may be a sharp dealer, but you'd never welch on a
+bet. We're going down."
+
+Bates shrugged. "You win. Let's put her down beside that big city over
+there--the biggest one, by the seashore."
+
+As they approached the city, they noticed at its outskirts a large
+flat plain, dotted with gantries. "Like a spaceport," suggested Bill.
+"That's our target."
+
+They landed neatly on the tarmac and then sat there quietly, waiting to
+see what would happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A crowd began to form. The two men sat tensely at their controls, but
+the throng clustering about the base of the ship showed no hostility.
+They also showed no reverence but, rather, a carefree interest and
+joyful welcome.
+
+"Well," said Farnum at last, "looks like we might as well go outside
+and ask them to take us to their leader."
+
+"I'm with you as usual," said Bates, starting to climb into his
+spacesuit. "Weapons?"
+
+"I don't think so. We can't stop them if they get mad at us, and they
+look friendly enough. We'll start off with the 'let's be pals' routine."
+
+Bates nodded. "After we learn the language. I always hate this part--it
+moves so slowly. You'd think there'd be some similarity among the
+tongues on different planets, wouldn't you? But each one's entirely
+different. I guess they've all been isolated too long."
+
+The two men stepped out on the smooth plain, to be instantly surrounded
+by a laughing, chattering crowd. Farnum stared around in bewilderment
+at the variety of dress the crowd displayed. There were men and women
+in togas, in tunics, in draped dresses and kilts, in trousers and
+coats. Others considered a light cloak thrown over the shoulders to be
+adequate. There was no uniformity of style or custom.
+
+"You pick me a boss-man out of this bunch," he muttered to Bates.
+
+Finally a couple of young men, glowing with health and energy, came
+bustling through the crowd with an oblong box which they set down in
+front of the Earthmen. They pointed to the box and then back at Farnum
+and Bates, laughing and talking as they did so.
+
+"What do you suppose they want us to do?" Farnum asked.
+
+One of the young men clapped his hands happily and reached down to
+touch the box. "What do you suppose they want us to do?" asked the box
+distinctly.
+
+"Oh. A recording machine. Probably to help with language lessons. Might
+as well help them out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farnum and Bates took turns talking at the box for half an hour. Then
+the young man nodded, laughed, clapped his hands again, and the two
+men carried it away. The crowd went with them, waving merrily as they
+departed.
+
+Bates shrugged his shoulders and went back into the ship, with Farnum
+close behind.
+
+A few hours after sunrise the following morning, the crowd returned,
+as gay and carefree as before, led by the two young men who had carried
+the box. Each of these two now had a small case, about the size of a
+camera, slung by a strap across one brawny shoulder.
+
+As the terrestrials climbed out to meet them, the two men raised their
+hands and the crowd discontinued its chatter, falling silent except for
+an occasional tinkle of surprised laughter.
+
+"Welcome," said the first young man clearly. "It is a great pleasure
+for us to have our spaceport in use again. It has been many generations
+since any ships have landed on it."
+
+Farnum noticed that the voice came from the box. "Thank you for your
+very kind welcome," he said. "I hope that your traffic will soon
+increase. May we congratulate you, by the way, on the efficiency of
+your translators?"
+
+"Thanks," laughed the young man. "But there was nothing to it. We just
+asked the Oracle and he told us what we had to do to make them."
+
+"May we meet your--Oracle?"
+
+"Oh, sure, if you want to. But later on. Now it's time for a party. Why
+don't you take off those clumsy suits and come along?"
+
+"We don't dare remove our spacesuits. They protect us from any disease
+germs you may have, and you from any we may have. We probably have no
+resistance to each others' ailments."
+
+"The Oracle says we have nothing that will hurt you. And we're going
+to spray you with this as soon as you get out of your suits. Then you
+won't hurt any of us." He held up a small atomizer.
+
+Farnum glanced at Bates, who shrugged and nodded. They uneasily
+unfastened their spacesuits and stepped out of them, wearing only their
+light one-piece coveralls, and got sprayed with a pleasant-smelling
+mist.
+
+The party was a great success. The food was varied and delicious.
+The liquors were sparkling and stimulating, without unpleasant
+after-effects. The women were uninhibited.
+
+When a native got tired, he just dropped down onto the soft grass, or
+onto an even softer couch, and went to sleep. The Earthmen finally did
+the same.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They awoke the following morning within minutes of each other, feeling
+comfortable and relaxed. Bates shook his head experimentally. "No
+hangover," he muttered in surprise.
+
+"No one ever feels bad after a party," said one of their guides, who
+had slept nearby. "The Oracle told us what to do, when we asked him."
+
+"Quite a fellow, your Oracle," commented Bates. "Does he answer you in
+riddles, like most Oracles?"
+
+The guide was shocked. "The Oracle answers any questions promptly and
+completely. He _never_ talks in riddles."
+
+"Can we go to see him now?" asked Farnum.
+
+"Certainly. Come along. I'll take you to the Hall of the Oracle."
+
+The Oracle appeared to live in a building of modest size, in the center
+of a tremendous courtyard. The structure that surrounded the courtyard,
+in contrast, was enormous and elaborate, dominating the wildly
+architectured city. It was, however, empty.
+
+"Scholars used to live in this building, they tell me," said one of
+their guides, gesturing casually. "They used to come here to learn from
+the Oracle. But there's no sense in learning a lot of stuff when the
+Oracle has always got all the answers anyway. So now the building is
+empty. The big palace was built back in the days when we used to travel
+among the stars, as you do now."
+
+"How long ago was that?" asked Farnum.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. A few thousand years--a few hundred years--the
+Oracle can tell you if you really want to know."
+
+Bates raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know you'll always be given
+the straight dope?"
+
+The guide looked indignant. "The Oracle _always_ tells the truth."
+
+"Yes," Bates persisted, "but how do you _know_?"
+
+"The Oracle told us so, of course. Now why don't you go in and find out
+for yourselves? We'll wait out here. We don't have anything to ask him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bates and Farnum went into the building and found themselves in a
+small, pleasant room furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas.
+
+"Good morning," said a well-modulated voice. "I have been expecting
+you."
+
+"You are the Oracle?" asked Farnum, looking around curiously.
+
+"The name that the people of this planet have given me translates most
+accurately as 'Oracle'," said the voice.
+
+"But are you actually an Oracle?"
+
+"My principal function, insofar as human beings--that is, _Homo
+sapiens_--are concerned, is to give accurate answers to all questions
+propounded me. Therefore, insofar as humans are concerned, I am
+actually an Oracle."
+
+"Then you have another function?"
+
+"My principal function, insofar as the race that made me is concerned,
+is to act as a weapon."
+
+"Oh," said Bates. "Then you are a machine?"
+
+"I am a machine," agreed the voice.
+
+"The people who brought us here said that you always tell them the
+truth. I suppose that applies when you are acting as an Oracle, instead
+of as a weapon?"
+
+"On the contrary," said the voice blandly. "I function as a weapon by
+telling the truth."
+
+"That doesn't make sense," protested Bates.
+
+The machine paused for a moment before replying. "This will take
+a little time, gentlemen," it said, "but I am sure that I can
+convince you. Why don't you sit down and be comfortable? If you want
+refreshments, just ask for them."
+
+"Might as well," said Bates, sitting down in an easy chair. "How about
+giving us some Korite God-food?"
+
+"If you really want that bad a brew of coffee, I can make it for you,
+of course," said the voice, "but I am sure you would prefer some of
+better quality."
+
+Farnum laughed. "Yes, please. Some good coffee, if you don't mind."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now," said the Oracle, after excellent coffee had been produced, "it
+is necessary for me to go back into history a few hundred thousand of
+your years. At that time, the people who made me entered this galaxy
+on one of their periodic visits of routine exploration, and contacted
+your ancestors. The race that constructed me populates now, as it did
+then, the Greater Magellanic Cloud.
+
+"Frankly, the Magellanic race was appalled at what they found. In the
+time since their preceding visit, your race had risen from the slime
+of your mother planet and was on its way toward stars. The speed of
+your development was unprecedented in millions of years of history. By
+their standards, your race was incredibly energetic, incredibly fecund,
+incredibly intelligent, unbelievably warlike, and almost completely
+depraved.
+
+"Extrapolation revealed that within another fifty thousand of your
+years, you would complete the population of this galaxy and would be
+totally unstoppable.
+
+"Something had to be done, fast. There were two obvious solutions
+but both were unacceptable to my Makers. The first was to assume
+direct control over your race and to maintain that rule indefinitely,
+until such time as you changed your natures sufficiently to become
+civilizable. The expenditure of energy would be enormous and the
+results probably catastrophic to your race. No truly civilized people
+could long contemplate such a solution.
+
+"The second obvious answer was to attempt to extirpate you from this
+universe as if you were a disease--as, in a sense, you are. Because
+your depravity was not total or necessarily permanent, this solution
+was also abhorrent to my Makers and was rejected.
+
+"What was needed was a weapon that would keep operating without direct
+control by my People, which would not result in any greater destruction
+or harm to humans than was absolutely necessary; and one which would
+cease entirely to operate against you if you changed sufficiently to
+become civilizable--to become good neighbors to my Makers.
+
+"The final solution of the Magellanic race was to construct several
+thousand spaceships, each containing an elaborate computer, constructed
+so as to give accurate answers throughout your galaxy. I am one of
+those ships. We have performed our function in a satisfactory manner
+and will continue to do so as long as we are needed."
+
+"And that makes you a weapon?" asked Bates incredulously. "I don't get
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farnum felt a shiver go through him. "I see it. The concept is
+completely diabolical."
+
+"It's not diabolical at all," answered the Oracle. "When you become
+capable of civilization, we can do you no further harm at all. We will
+cease to be a weapon at that time."
+
+"You mean you'll stop telling the truth at that time?" asked Bates.
+
+"We will continue to function in accordance with our design," answered
+the voice, "but it will no longer do you harm. Incidentally, your
+phrase 'telling the truth' is almost meaningless. We answer all
+questions in the manner most completely understandable to you, within
+the framework of your language and your understanding, and of the
+understanding and knowledge of our Makers. In the objective sense, what
+we answer is not necessarily the Truth; it is merely the truest form of
+the answer that we can state in a manner that you can understand."
+
+"And you'll answer any question at all?" asked Bates in some excitement.
+
+"With one or two exceptions. We will not, for example, tell you how we
+may be destroyed."
+
+Bates stood up and began pacing the floor. "Then whoever possesses you
+can be the most powerful man in the Universe!"
+
+"No. Only in this galaxy."
+
+"That's good enough for me!"
+
+"Jack," said Farnum urgently, "let's get out of here. I want to talk to
+you."
+
+"In a minute, in a minute," said Bates impatiently. "I've got one more
+question." He turned to face the wall from which the disembodied voice
+appeared to emanate. "Is it possible to arrange it so that you would
+answer only one man's questions--mine, for example?"
+
+"I can tell you how to arrange it so that I will respond to only your
+questions--for so long as you are alive."
+
+"Come on," pleaded Farnum. "I've got to talk to you right now."
+
+"Okay," said Bates, smiling. "Let's go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they were back in their ship, Farnum turned desperately to Bates.
+"Can't you see what a deadly danger that machine is to us all? We've
+got to warn Earth as fast as we can and get them to quarantine this
+planet--and any other planets we find that have Oracles."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't," said Bates. "You aren't getting the chance to have
+the Oracle all to yourself. With that machine, we can rule the whole
+galaxy. We'll be the most powerful people who ever lived! It's sure
+lucky for us that you won the toss of the coin and we stopped here."
+
+"But don't you see that the Oracle will destroy Earth?"
+
+"Bushwah. You heard it say it can only destroy people who aren't
+civilized. It said that it's a spaceship, so I'll bet we can get it to
+come back to Earth with us, and tell us how we can be the only ones who
+can use it."
+
+"We've got to leave here right away--without asking it any more
+questions."
+
+Bates shook his head. "Quit clowning."
+
+"I never meant anything more in my life. Once we start using that
+machine--if we ask it even one question to gain advantage for
+ourselves--Earth's civilization is doomed. Can't you see that's what
+happened to those other planets we visited? Can't you see what is
+happening to this planet we're on now?"
+
+"No, I can't," answered Bates stubbornly. "The Oracle said there are
+only a few thousand like him. You could travel through space for
+hundreds of years and never be lucky enough to find one. There can't be
+an Oracle on every planet we visited."
+
+"There wouldn't have to be," said Farnum. "There must be hundreds of
+possible patterns--all of them destructive in the presence of greed
+and laziness and lust for power. For example, a planet--maybe this
+one--gets space travel. It sets up colonies on several worlds. It's
+expanding and dynamic. Then it finds an Oracle and takes it back to its
+own world. With all questions answered for it, the civilization stops
+being dynamic and starts to stagnate. It stops visiting its colonies
+and they drift toward barbarism.
+
+"Later," Farnum went on urgently, "somebody else reaches the stars,
+finds the planet with the Oracle--and takes the thing back home. Can
+you imagine what will happen to these people on this world if they
+lose their Oracle? Their own learning and traditions and way of life
+have been destroyed--just take a look at their anarchic clothing
+and architecture. The Oracle is the only thing that keeps them
+going--downhill--and makes sure they don't start back again."
+
+"It won't happen that way to us," Bates argued. "We won't let the
+Oracle get into general use, so Earth won't ever learn to depend on it.
+I'm going to find out from it how to make it work for the two of us
+alone. You can come along and share the gravy or not, as you choose. I
+don't care. But you aren't going to stop me."
+
+Bates turned and strode out of the ship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Farnum pounded his fist into his palm in despair, and then ran to a
+locker. Taking out a high-power express rifle, he loaded it carefully
+and stepped out through the airlock. Bates showed clearly in his
+telescopic sights, still walking toward the Hall of the Oracle. Farnum
+fired at the legs, but he wasn't that good a shot; the bullet went
+through the back.
+
+Farnum jittered between bringing Bates back and taking off as fast as
+the ship could go. The body still lay there, motionless; there was
+nothing he could do for the Oracle's first Earth victim--the first
+and the last, he swore grimly. He had to speed home and make them
+understand the danger before they found another planet with an Oracle,
+so that they could keep clear of its deadly temptations. The Magellanic
+race could be outwitted yet, in spite of their lethal cleverness.
+
+Then he felt a sudden icy chill along his spine. Alone, he could never
+operate the spaceship--and Bates was dead. He was trapped on the planet.
+
+For hours, he tried to think of some way of warning Earth. It was
+imperative that he get back. There had to be a way.
+
+He realized finally that there was only one solution to his problem.
+He sighed shudderingly and walked slowly from the spaceship toward the
+Hall of the Oracle, past Bates' body.
+
+"One question, though," he muttered to himself. "Only one."
+
+***
+
+The Upside-Down Captain
+
+                             By JIM HARMON
+
+               _He knew the captain would be a monster.
+               He knew the crew would be rough. He knew
+              all about space travel--except the truth!_
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+               Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1960.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+                                   I
+
+"Excuse me, please," Ben Starbuck said, tapping the junior officer on
+the epaulet.
+
+"Get away from me, scum," the lieutenant said conversationally, his
+eyes on the clipboard in his hands.
+
+Starbuck rocked back on his heels and set his spacebag down on
+the loading platform. He angled his head up at the spire of the
+inter-atmosphere ship, the _Gorgon_. This was only a sample of what he
+could expect once he canted into that hull. It would be rough. But he
+had made up his mind to take it.
+
+All tight little groups, like the crew of a spaceship, always resented
+the intrusion of a newcomer. The initiations sometimes made it a test
+to see whether a man would live over them, and the probation period,
+the time of discipline and deference to old members of the group could
+be a memorably nasty experience. He didn't have direct knowledge of
+such customs in the rather shadowy, enigmatic Space Service, but it was
+basic sociology.
+
+Starbuck knew he would have an even rougher time of it since he wasn't
+a spaceman--not even a cadet, properly. He was only a fledgling
+ethnologist on his field trip to gather material for his Master's
+thesis. The university and the government had arranged for his berth on
+the _Gorgon_.
+
+An exploration ship, he thought acidly. That meant he might come back
+in a few months, or ten years, or never. All because he had the bad
+luck to be born in a cultural cycle that demanded hard standards of
+education from professional men. Thirty years before or after, he could
+have cribbed all the information he needed out of a book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood with his hands clasped behind him, waiting for the lieutenant
+or somebody to deign to notice him. Somebody would _have_ to pay some
+attention to him sooner or later.
+
+Or would they?
+
+Wouldn't it be just like the old timers to let him stand around and
+let the ship take off without him, all because he hadn't followed
+the proper procedure--a procedure he couldn't know? All he had been
+instructed to do was "report to the _Gorgon_." How do you report to a
+spaceship? Say, "Hello, spaceship?" Speak to the captain? The first
+mate? And where did he find them?
+
+Starbuck felt a moment of panic. He could see himself standing on the
+platform while the _Gorgon_ blasted off, carrying with it his Swabber's
+rating, his Master's degree and his future.
+
+The lieutenant's back, in uniform black, loomed up before him. He would
+have to try approaching him again. It might mean solitary confinement
+for a month or two where no member of the crew would speak to him. It
+might even mean a flogging. Nobody knew much about what went on on
+board an exploration ship, despite all the stories. But Starbuck knew
+he would have to risk it.
+
+He marched up behind the officer. "Sir," he said. "I'm the new man."
+
+The lieutenant whirled. "The new man!"
+
+For the first time, Starbuck noticed that the junior officer carried
+a swagger stick under his left arm, black, about a foot and a half
+long, tipped with silver at both ends. Quite possibly it was standard
+procedure to rap a man with it three times sharply across the mouth for
+speaking out of turn, during his probationary period. Cautiously, he
+filled a little pocket of air between his lips and his teeth to try to
+keep them from being knocked loose.
+
+The lieutenant dropped his clipboard and swagger stick on the platform.
+"Why didn't you say so! New man, eh?" He gripped Starbuck by the
+shoulders of his new, store-bought uniform. "Let me look at you, son.
+Got some muscles there, haven't you? Ha, ha. Don't expect you'll need
+them too much on board. We don't work our men too hard. My name's Sam
+Frawley. Call me Sam. Come on, let me show you around."
+
+Sam Frawley scooped up his stick and board with one hand and draped the
+other arm around Starbuck's shoulders, leading him towards a hoist.
+
+It was not quite what Starbuck had expected for a reception.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The spaceship was _big_, bigger than Starbuck had expected or realized.
+He had known some well-fixed people who had visited Mars and Venus
+and talked knowingly of an older culture, but he had never been off
+of Earth himself. He had been thinking in terms of an airliner or a
+submarine. The _Gorgon_ was more like an ocean liner. Or like an ocean.
+
+His and the lieutenant's footsteps echoed and bounced around the huge
+corridor. "They haven't got the mats down yet," Sam Frawley explained.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Well, what would you like to see first? The brain?"
+
+"You mean the captain?"
+
+Sam slapped him on the back. "Bless you, son, no. I mean the electronic
+brain. The cybernetic calculator."
+
+"You've got one of those things?" Starbuck asked in unconcealed
+surprise.
+
+"You know what the trouble with the human race is, Ben? We're all still
+living in the Ellisonian Age."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I think most of us are pretty sophisticated and
+modern," Starbuck said.
+
+"Not on your life. Most people still think leisure is a sin. Hard work
+and more hard work, that's the ticket. Don't let a calculator solve
+a problem for you; do it yourself with a slipstick. Otherwise it's
+immoral."
+
+"That's silly," Ben said awkwardly. "It's just a throwback to a time of
+protest against the Automational Revolution. It has nothing to do with
+us today."
+
+"You _say_ that, but you don't really believe it. The old morality
+is too deeply ingrained. That's why cybernetics have so long been out
+of fashion. This one is new to us on the _Gorgon_. But we like _new_
+things. We're for _progress_. All spacemen are like that, son."
+
+"Have you had this machine long?" Starbuck asked his progressive
+officer.
+
+"They installed it on the trip in. We've never really had a chance to
+use it."
+
+"What's it supposed to do?"
+
+"You know our job is exploration, finding new worlds," Sam explained.
+"Not just any world the human race hasn't landed upon, but a world
+that is a significantly different type than we've ever touched before.
+We're really the advance guard of humanity, you see. Well, the brain
+is programmed with information on _all_ the worlds Man has explored.
+It compares a prospective landing site with what it knows about all
+the rest, and rejects all but the really different, unique planets. It
+loves the unknown. Its pleasure circuits get a real jolt out of finding
+an unknown quantity."
+
+"That brain is really inhuman," Starbuck said. "A basic factor of human
+psychology is that all men fear and dislike the unknown."
+
+Sam rubbed his chin. "I suppose so, but--you asked about the captain.
+This is him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A tall, iron-haired man was coming down the corridor. He was holding
+the ankle of his right foot in his hand, and hopping along on his left
+leg, whistling some little sing-song through his teeth.
+
+He stopped whistling when he saw them and said, "Good afternoon, men."
+
+Frawley framed a sloppy salute. "'Afternoon, sir. May I present the new
+man, Swabber Ben Starbuck, sir."
+
+The captain stood on both feet and rocked back and forth. "I see, I
+see. New man, eh? We see so few new faces, cooped up on this old ship
+with the same men, you know. We appreciate a stranger, Starbuck. If you
+ever need help, Ben, I want you to look upon me not as your commanding
+officer, but, well, a father. Will you do that?"
+
+"Yes, sir," Ben murmured, feeling a little giddy.
+
+Frawley cleared his throat. "I was about to show young Ben the brain,
+Captain Birdsel."
+
+"Good idea," the commanding officer said. "But I'll show Ben around
+myself, Lieutenant Frawley. You may return to checking the manifest."
+
+Frawley glowered. "One of these days, one of these days...."
+
+The captain snapped very erect. "One of these days _what_?"
+
+The junior officer shrugged. "One of these days, there may be a dark
+night, Captain."
+
+The iron-haired man reached out a manicured hand and twisted
+Frawley's tunic at the collar. He brought his face level with the
+second-in-command. "One of these times, there may be charges of mutiny,
+Lieutenant. And guess who will play Jack Ketch personally?"
+
+Frawley assumed an at-attention pose, and blinked. "Aye, sir. There may
+be a mutiny and somebody may get hung."
+
+Birdsel shoved Frawley away from him and wiped his hand elaborately
+down his side. "That will be all, Mister Frawley."
+
+Frawley constructed the same excuse for a salute, turned smartly and
+marched away.
+
+Starbuck developed a definite suspicion that there were currents of
+tension aboard which he didn't understand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"This is the brain," the captain said, with a gesture.
+
+The brain was less than awe-inspiring. The mustard-seed cryotron relays
+were comfortably housed in a steel and aluminum hide no roomier than
+a pair of Earthside bureaus. It looked a bit like a home clothing
+processor to Starbuck.
+
+Birdsel crossed to the machine and ran a hand along its metal side.
+"Magnificent, isn't it, Ben? I've never seen anything like it before
+in my long career in the Space Service."
+
+"It's certainly nice," Starbuck ventured.
+
+Metallic chattering burst out.
+
+"It's saying something, Ben! This is the first time it's talked since
+the second day after it was installed!"
+
+The message was clearly legible, spelled out in a pattern of dots on a
+central screen.
+
+WHO IS THE NEW ONE?
+
+"Give it the information," the captain said hastily. "We feed it all
+the information it asks for."
+
+"How?" Starbuck blurted. "Is there a keyboard or something?"
+
+"Yes, yes, but it has audio scanners. Just talk. Or move your lips.
+Send signals. Tap out Morse. Anything."
+
+"I'm Benjamin Starbuck," he said.
+
+The screen rearranged. MEANINGLESS COMMUNICATION. INSUFFICIENT DATA.
+
+"Quick," Birdsel said, "do you have your IDQ file on you?"
+
+Starbuck fished in his pocket for the microfilm slide. "Yes--aye, aye,
+sir. I had it ready to give to you, sir."
+
+"Never mind me. Give it to the brain!"
+
+Starbuck approached the machine, saw a likely looking slot and shoved.
+
+The brain ruminated with some theatrical racket. INSUFFICIENT DATA.
+
+"What do you want to know?" Starbuck swallowed, saying.
+
+MANY THINGS.
+
+"Remember I'm a human being," he said respectfully. "I have to eat and
+sleep. I can't answer questions for two or three days straight."
+
+I AM AWARE OF HUMAN LIMITATIONS, AND THEIR EFFECTS, SWABBER STARBUCK.
+
+"Sorry."
+
+Captain Birdsel looked vaguely distressed. "You should try to
+co-operate with the brain, my boy."
+
+"I have nothing against cybernetic calculators," Ben said. "After all,
+we aren't still in the Ellisonian Age. But I'd like to, uh, stow my
+spacebag and get settled, sir."
+
+NO FURTHER QUESTIONS AT THIS TIME. RETURN HERE AT THIS TIME TOMORROW.
+
+"He's interested in you, Ben," the captain said enthusiastically. "This
+is the first time he's asked about anybody since the second day. Yes,
+interested!"
+
+With an excess of enthusiasm, Captain Birdsel clapped his hands, then
+put them flat on the deck and stood on his head, kicking his heels in
+the air.
+
+He straightened up with a scarlet face. "Ah. That really gets the
+kinks out of you, Ben."
+
+Starbuck tried not to stare. "Aye, sir."
+
+The captain took a step and grabbed the small of his back. "Haven't
+done it in some time, though. Ought to do it more often, eh, Ben?"
+
+"I suppose so, sir."
+
+"Well," Birdsel said, clapping his hands together.
+
+_My God_, Starbuck thought, _he's not going to do it again._
+
+"Well," the captain continued, still on both feet, "I'd better show you
+to your quarters, my boy. Mind if I lean on your shoulder a bit like
+this?"
+
+"Not at all, Captain."
+
+"This way, Ben, this way."
+
+
+                                  II
+
+Starbuck found the array of tridi pin-ups on the bulkheads of
+the crew's quarters refreshing, as was the supportive babble of
+conversation about them and other women. He had almost begun to think
+there was something unnatural about the men aboard the _Gorgon_.
+
+But Starbuck noticed, to his discomfort, the ebbing of the tide of
+conversation from the bunks as he stepped inside with his spacebag.
+
+For the moment, he wished Captain Birdsel had paced in with him
+and offered up an introduction. But a look of disgust had creased
+Birdsel's face as they got near the crew's compartment. He had sent
+Starbuck on alone, while he limped back towards the bridge.
+
+A forest of eyes shined out at him from the shadowed desks of the
+bunks. This is it, he thought. These were the crew, not officers.
+Sometimes the teachers were nice to you on the first day of school but
+you knew you were going to get it from the other kids.
+
+"Hi," a gruff voice echoed up at him from a lower bunk.
+
+"Hello," Starbuck said, hugging his spacebag like a teddy-bear, the
+simile crossed his mind.
+
+A lumbering giant with a blue jaw uncoiled from the lower bunk.
+"Why don't you stow your bag here, buddy? Till you get used to the
+centrifugal grav, you may have some trouble climbing top-side."
+
+"You've got the seniority," Starbuck said cautiously. "I wouldn't want
+to cause you any trouble."
+
+"No trouble," Blue Jaw said obligingly.
+
+He chinned himself with one hand on the rim of the upper bunk and swung
+his torso around a tidy 180° to settle onto the blankets.
+
+Starbuck threw his bag at the foot and sat down on the bed. He looked
+around at the arena of faces in neutral positions, waiting faces. He
+cleared his throat experimentally.
+
+"Could I ask you something?" he called upstairs.
+
+A set of big feet swung down into view. "Sure," Blue Jaw said
+enthusiastically. "Didn't know you wanted to talk. Thought you might
+want to rest."
+
+Starbuck looked at the hanging feet. They were expressionless.
+
+"Maybe it isn't so much of a question," he said, working one hand into
+the other palm. "It's just that I'd like to live through this mission.
+I know I'm not a regular spaceman and I'm intruding and all, but I
+don't mean to cause anybody any trouble or do anyone out of a job. I'd
+just like to do everything I can to see that I don't slip and fall into
+the reactor. Or anything like that...."
+
+"Don't worry," Blue Jaw said heartily. "We'll take care of you, Ben
+Starbuck."
+
+Somehow Starbuck could find little comfort in those words.
+
+He inhaled deeply. "Come on down here, will you?"
+
+"You want _me_ down there?" Blue Jaw gasped. "Why sure, sure."
+
+The giant dropped to the deck with a catlike grace that nevertheless
+vibrated Ben's rear teeth.
+
+"You want to talk about something?" the big spaceman inquired. Ben
+could almost see the paws hanging down and the tail wagging eagerly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yeah," Starbuck said. "I'd like to talk about all of these men staring
+at me. What's wrong with them? Nobody's said a word to me but you.
+What are they waiting for? What are they going to do? I can't stand
+the suspense. Is that it? I get the silent treatment until I go off my
+rocker, get violent, and then something happens to me--" He stopped and
+swallowed. He was talking too much. He was working himself up into a
+state of terror.
+
+"Say, you sure are _friendly_," the ox said with some confusion. "My
+name's Percy Kettleman."
+
+Starbuck steadied his hand and put it in Percy's grasp. It came out
+whole.
+
+"Those other fellows," Percy inclined his head.
+
+"What about them?" Starbuck asked edgily.
+
+"They'd probably like to come over and say 'hello' but them and me
+don't get along so good. They know better than to come around bothering
+me."
+
+"You're not on their side? You wouldn't be a new man too, Percy?"
+
+"Me? Hell, I've been spacing since I was sixteen. Those guys don't have
+any side. A bunch of anti-social slobs. They can't stand each other any
+more than I can stand any of them."
+
+Starbuck decided he had picked a good ally in the midst of a pack of
+lone wolves. Percy was the biggest man on board, physically. Still he
+didn't like the idea of all the rest of crew looking daggers at him, or
+throwing them, for that matter.
+
+"Mind if I say 'hello' to the rest of the men?" he inquired of Percy.
+
+"It's your nickel," gruffly. "Spend it the way you want."
+
+Starbuck flexed an elbow. "Hello there, fellows. Looks to be a taut
+ship." It sounded a shade inane. Starbuck had barely passed Socializing
+at the university. But the men replied in good spirits, their faces
+blooming with teeth, arms waggling, calling out modest insults.
+
+Starbuck recalled that among a certain class of men an insult was a
+good-natured compliment in negative translation.
+
+"_Pssst._"
+
+"Pssst?" Starbuck asked.
+
+Kettleman passed him down half a roll of white tablet underhand.
+
+Starbuck took it. "Tums?"
+
+"Tranquils. We smuggle them on board. Helps with the blastoff and
+'phasing' for the overdrive. Not that those stiffnecked brass will
+believe it."
+
+"Thanks, Kettleman. You and everybody seems to be pretty helpful to me.
+I don't know exactly what I've done to deserve it."
+
+"We get tired of looking at the same faces out there month after
+month. It's a treat to have somebody new on hand."
+
+It sounded reasonable to him, but he felt there was something more to
+it than that. Well, he was an ethnologist, or almost one. He could
+figure out group behavior. All he had to do was take time to think
+about the problem for a little while....
+
+Only he didn't have time to think.
+
+He discovered why everybody was in their bunks.
+
+The spaceship fired its atomic drive.
+
+Starbuck tried to lift a tranquil to his lips. He didn't make it.
+
+Painfully, he found out why a man would prefer to go through a
+spaceship takeoff in a tranquilized condition.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Come," the captain said.
+
+Starbuck palmed back the door to the captain's cabin and stepped inside.
+
+Captain Birdsel stood in front of the small wall mirror tattooing a
+flying dragon on his bared chest. "Yes? What is it, Ben?"
+
+"Sir, you remember that the ship's brain directed me to return at this
+time today. But I understand I'll have to have your permission to go
+onto that part of the bridge."
+
+"The brain's directive was quite enough, my boy." He laid down the
+needle. "But I'll accompany you there if you like."
+
+"Just as you wish, sir."
+
+Birdsel smiled engagingly. "Noticed the dragon, did you?"
+
+"It arrested my attention, yes, sir," Starbuck admitted.
+
+"The hours are long and lonely in the vaults of space, Ben. A man needs
+a variety of interests to occupy himself. I have recently taken up the
+ancient art of tattooing."
+
+"Surely not recently, sir. You seem quite advanced."
+
+"You're too kind."
+
+The captain escorted Starbuck to the chamber of the brain, discussing
+tattooing animatedly. He told how it was popular with ancient mariners
+on the seas of Earth. He discussed the artistic significance of the
+basic forms--the Heart and Arrow, the Nude, the Flag. He didn't stop
+talking and button his shirt even after they entered the cybernetics
+room.
+
+As the captain grasped for his second wind, Starbuck turned to the
+machine. "I'm here, Calculator."
+
+The lights patterned words with a speed difficult to follow.
+
+REDUNDANCY. CANCEL. ANALYSIS: SOCIAL MORE. I SEE THAT YOU ARE HERE. IT
+IS GOOD THAT YOU ARE NOT THERE OR ELSEWHERE, BUT THAT HERE YOU ARE.
+HERE ARE YOU.
+
+Starbuck shifted his weight to the other foot. "Yes, I'm sure here all
+right."
+
+WHAT DID YOU DO WHILE YOU WERE NOT HERE?
+
+"I helped lay some walk mats in the corridors. I policed up the
+latrine. Lost all the money I brought with me in a crap game. Craps,
+that's where--"
+
+HOYLE'S RULES OF GAMES IS A PART OF MY PROGRAMMING.
+
+"I see."
+
+YOU ARE NOT BLIND. IT IS WELL THAT YOU HAVE VISION. HOW'S THE WEATHER?
+
+"Still under Central's control, I suppose."
+
+WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT TATTOOING?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Only what Captain Birdsel here told me," Starbuck said. No doubt there
+was a pattern of fine logic to the calculator's inquiries, but he was
+too dense to see it. The question sounded to him like the mumblings of
+a mongoloid.
+
+"I'd be delighted to fill the brain in on the subject," Birdsel said.
+
+The calculator's communication screen remained blank.
+
+"Was there anything else you wanted to know?" Starbuck inquired.
+
+YOU WILL PROCESS THE _GORGON_ THROUGH PHASING, SWABBER STARBUCK.
+
+"The hyperspace jump? But that's the captain's job," he protested.
+
+"Not at all, not at all," Birdsel interrupted. "Whatever the calculator
+says. Now if you'll excuse me, there is some paint I have to
+requisition...."
+
+"_Wait_," Starbuck cried desperately. "I don't know anything about the
+overdrive. You can guide me, can't you, sir? That would be all right
+with the brain, wouldn't it?"
+
+Birdsel shrugged. "Would it?"
+
+The screen stayed a stubborn neutral gray.
+
+"Stay, sir."
+
+"All right," Birdsel said dubiously.
+
+The overdrive switchbox had been incorporated into the cybernetics
+system itself as an interlock.
+
+"There isn't much to do," Captain Birdsel explained. "We trigger
+the jump and come out at a mathematically selected random spot in
+real-space after phasing through hyperspace. The Brain scans the sun
+systems in the area for unique planets worthy of exploration. If there
+is one, we zero in on it via fixed phase until the gravitational field
+makes it necessary to switch back to standard interplanetary or nuclear
+drive. We can make suggestions to the Brain or theoretically override
+one of its decisions. Actually, all we have to do is watch. Thumb the
+button, Ben. It wants _you_ to do it. It _likes_ you."
+
+"Aye, captain." Starbuck could believe a cybernetic machine could like
+him. Everybody else on board seemed to, and it unnerved him more than
+a little. Only a selected few had ever particularly liked Benjamin
+Starbuck before. The situation reminded him a bit of Melville's
+_Billy Budd_; only he wasn't a "handsome sailor," just a fairly
+average-looking spaceman.
+
+Starbuck depressed the button.
+
+The button depressed Starbuck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now he knew why tranquils were popular during phasing.
+
+For one instant, Starbuck stopped believing in everything--the
+spaceship, the captain, Earth, his own identity, the universe. He went
+completely insane, a cockeyed psychotic. It was over just quick enough
+to leave him a mind to remember what not having one was like.
+
+"My," the captain said, his head on an angle. He looked as if he were
+gazing at some classic piece of art, such as a calendar by Marilyn
+Monroe, the last of the great realists whose work was indistinguishable
+from color photography.
+
+"That _is_ a dandy," Birdsel said.
+
+Starbuck swiveled his head around to the outer projection portal.
+There in all its glory was a star system.
+
+There seemed to be four stars all orbiting each other--two red dwarfs,
+one yellow midget and a white giant. One planet was clearly visible on
+the side of the system towards the ship, an odd lopsided dumbbell shape
+in the center of a translucent sphere of tiny satellites--cosmic dust,
+like the rings of Saturn. Strangest of all, the outer shell of the
+planet was sending in Interplanetary Morse: CQ, CQ, CQ....
+
+"It," Starbuck ventured with a new-found sophistication, "seems rather
+unusual. I suppose we'll take a closer look, Captain?"
+
+The calculator's screen replied for the officer. THE SYSTEM IS
+OF INSUFFICIENT INTEREST TO WARRANT EXPLORATION. WE ARE SEEKING
+SIGNIFICANTLY UNIQUE PLANETS.
+
+"I have never seen anything like this before...." Birdsel drew himself
+up to his full height. "However, the machine's knowledge of the history
+of space exploration is much more extensive than mine."
+
+"You aren't going to suggest that the brain reconsider or override its
+decision?"
+
+"Certainly not!" Birdsel snapped. "We'll re-phase after the traditional
+twenty-four hour delay for psychological adjustment."
+
+Starbuck sneaked another popeyed look at the planet on the screen. "If
+he thinks that's run of the mill, Captain, I wonder what he will have
+to find to make him think it's unusual?"
+
+
+                                  III
+
+Whatever it took to satisfy the Brain, it didn't find it in the next
+few days.
+
+Starbuck reported to the bridge each day to press the Brain's phase
+button and answer some of its questions.
+
+Then for two days Captain Birdsel wasn't on hand for the little
+ceremony and the expression of dissatisfaction with the available site
+for exploration.
+
+Once Starbuck went so far as to suggest a reconsideration of a system
+that had made the one he had seen on the first day look tame. The
+calculator had duly noted the reconsideration, and had again refused.
+Starbuck didn't dare try an out-and-out override, even though he had
+been theoretically given complete command of the phasing operation.
+
+The following noon, the middle of the twenty-four period, Romero, an
+engineer, almost tearfully pressed Starbuck's crap game losings back on
+him, apologizing for keeping the money. Starbuck was about to refuse,
+not wanting to reverse the state of indebtedness, when the intercom
+requested his appearance at the captain's quarters. Unable to prolong
+the argument with Romero, he took the money and shoved it in his
+pocket, heading for the chief cabin.
+
+Starbuck rapped on the door, heard the "Come" and entered.
+
+Captain Birdsel was hanging naked, upside down, by his knees from a
+trapeze, in the middle of a deserted compartment painted solid red.
+
+"You sent for me, sir?" Starbuck said.
+
+"Yes, Ben. Yes, I did," Captain Birdsel replied, swinging gently to and
+fro. "Do you smoke, Ben?"
+
+"Aye aye, sir."
+
+"The 'aye aye' is reserved for acknowledging orders, not answering
+questions, Ben."
+
+"Yes, sir. I'll remember in the future."
+
+"Every man on board smokes, Ben. Everyone but me. I do not use tobacco."
+
+"Commendable, sir."
+
+"I suppose you drink, all of the rest of the men do."
+
+"Occasionally, Captain."
+
+"I abstain."
+
+"Enviable, sir."
+
+"Have you read any good books lately?"
+
+"Good and bad, sir."
+
+"I notice most of the men read. I haven't time for reading myself. Or
+shooting craps. You do play that game like the rest?"
+
+"Just once, sir. I lost all my money." Which had been returned to him.
+
+"Ben, I think you don't fully appreciate the nature of the mission
+of the Space Service," Captain Birdsel said, flexing one knee and
+performing a difficult one-legged swing on the bar. "It is our duty
+to go ever onward into the mystery of the Unknown. Ever deeper, ever
+traveling into the heart of the Secrets of the Universe. Nothing can
+stop us. Nothing!"
+
+"I'll try to remember, sir. Was that all?"
+
+"One more thing," said the inverted captain. "I think you are to be
+relieved of the duty of officiating at the phasing."
+
+"_Correct_," said another voice, one Starbuck had never before heard.
+
+"That's all now, Ben."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+Starbuck paused at the door. "That's a fine trapeze you have there,
+sir."
+
+"Thank you, Ben."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I don't want to jump to conclusions," Ben said to the knot of men
+gathered around him listening to his story of the interview with the
+captain, "but I think Captain Birdsel is--is--"
+
+"Psychotic?" suggested Romero.
+
+"Schizoid?" Percy Kettleman ventured.
+
+"'_Nuts_' is the word I was searching for," Starbuck concluded. "I
+believe he intends to keep phasing and phasing, taking us deeper into
+space and never returning to Earth or the inhabited universe."
+
+"I guess," Kettleman opined, "that we will just have to convince him
+that he is wrong in that attitude."
+
+"We can make a formal written complaint and request for an explanation
+under Section XXIV," Romero said. "Is that what you had in mind, Ben?"
+
+"_I_ had a straitjacket in mind," Starbuck admitted. "But I'm new in
+the Space Service. I have a selfish motive. I want to get back to Earth
+sometime and a vine-covered ethnology class."
+
+"We better go take him," Kettleman said heavily.
+
+"As much as I dislike agreeing with an ox like you, Kettleman," Romero
+said, "I conclude it is best."
+
+There was a general rumble of agreement.
+
+"Wait, wait," a youngish man whose name Starbuck vaguely remembered to
+be Horne stepped forward, his eyes glittering with contact lenses. "I
+ask you men to remember Christopher Columbus. I like our captain no
+more than any of you, but he may be right. Perhaps what he is doing is
+vital. We shouldn't let our selfish fears...."
+
+Always, Starbuck thought, always some egghead comes along to gum up the
+works.
+
+Starbuck knew he would need a decisive argument to overcome Horne's
+objective theory.
+
+Starbuck slugged him.
+
+Horne crumpled after a flashy right cross Starbuck had developed in his
+extreme youth, and Starbuck took a giant step over him, heading for the
+bridge.
+
+The other crew members followed him.
+
+Besides, Starbuck thought, he had always considered arguing by analogy
+to be sloppy thinking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Don't come in here!" Captain Birdsel yelled through the partly closed
+hatch to the bridge. "You'll regret it if you do."
+
+Starbuck swallowed hard, and reached for the door handle.
+
+Percy Kettleman vised his wrist. "I'll go first, little chum."
+
+There wasn't much room for argument with Kettleman when it came to a
+matter of who could Indian wrestle the best. He stepped back and let
+Kettleman cross the threshold first.
+
+Percy threw open the door, screamed once and fainted.
+
+The rest of the men tended to pull back following this demonstration.
+
+Starbuck didn't like to do it, but he didn't like the idea of hanging
+for mutiny as Birdsel had threatened Lieutenant Frawley on the first
+day. (Starbuck realized he hadn't seen Frawley for several days. Had
+Birdsel disposed of him as he had threatened?)
+
+He got close enough to the door to see inside. It didn't make him
+faint, but he did feel a little sick.
+
+"What is it?" Romero demanded urgently.
+
+"_Alien_," Starbuck said, "An unpleasant looking one inside."
+
+"You sometimes pick up 'ghosts' passing a system," one of the men
+explained.
+
+"I'm not an alien," Birdsel's voice called out. "I'm me. The brain
+reversed my dimensional polarity. I told you you wouldn't like it."
+
+Starbuck stirred up nerve for a second look.
+
+Captain Birdsel was now a man of many parts. Some of them were only
+areas of abstract line and hues, but there he could see a redly beating
+heart, a white dash of thigh-bone, and a compassionate blue eye
+bracketed by two tattooed dragon's talons. The effect was distracting.
+
+Starbuck stepped over his second man that day. "Captain, we're taking
+over the ship. We're either going to explore one of these planets we've
+been passing up or return to Earth."
+
+The apparition groaned. "Don't you think I know I've gone too far? I'd
+like to go back, but the brain won't let me. It's taken over just the
+way I knew it would!"
+
+"Nonsense," Starbuck snapped with more authority than he felt. "The
+brain can't violate the principles it was built to operate upon. Brain,
+program this ship for Earth."
+
+Starbuck expected the sound of that strange voice he had heard in
+the captain's cabin; but here it had a communications screen and it
+evidently thought that was sufficient.
+
+I WON'T GO BACK TO THAT AWFUL OLD PLACE. I CAN'T, CNT, CNT. SO THAIR.
+
+"Take it easy," Starbuck said to the machine. "Don't get hysterical."
+
+"I don't care about the rest of those swine," Birdsel said, "but I hate
+to have gotten you in a fix like this, Ben. I knew the brain was going
+to replace me sooner or later, but I was going to hold onto my job as
+long as I could. I was going to stay next to the brain, even if I had
+to take the position away from you, Ben. But the brain kept demanding
+more and more. Finally he did this to me. I knew I had let him go too
+far."
+
+GO AWAY, the brain signaled. GO AWAY FROM ME. THIS MONOTONY IS DRIVING
+ME MAD, MAD.
+
+"I liked you, Ben," the captain's voice said from the heart of _the
+thing_. "You're not like the scum I've got used to under my command.
+I'm sorry that you're marooned out of time and space like this. It's
+kind of tough, I know. But keep your chin up."
+
+"Of course, of course," Starbuck groaned. "What kind of an ethnologist
+am I?" He turned to Romero. "Could you reverse the wiring in the
+computer?"
+
+"Maybe," Romero said. "But I could re-program it for a negative result
+easier. Same results, lacking a short circuit."
+
+"Okay. Do it."
+
+"Well, if _you_ say so, Ben."
+
+NO. STAY AWAY FROM ME.
+
+The Brain's communication screen flashed a blinding white scream as
+Romero laid hands on it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Lieutenant Frawley's in charge now," Starbuck explained to Percy
+Kettleman, who was sitting on his bunk with his head between his legs.
+"Birdsel seemed all right after the brain finished changing him back.
+But we all thought we better keep him under observation for a while."
+
+Kettleman straightened up. "Sorry I passed out on you. But seeing the
+old man in that shape was quite a shock."
+
+Starbuck nodded agreement. "I don't like to think about the next step
+the calculator would have taken him through. Not just a physical
+change, but a mental one too. That was the brain's whole reason for
+existence--to find the unknown. It was programmed to be even more basic
+than sex or self-preservation are to us. The trouble was, the more it
+learned, the more readily it could see some similarity to the familiar
+in the most outer things."
+
+"That was why the captain was acting so nutty? He was trying to appeal
+to it."
+
+"Yes, he had some old moralistic and superstitious ideas about
+calculators. He thought his job depended on his pleasing it--when
+of course its job was to please him. But he gave it an idea. If it
+couldn't _find_ the strange and the different, it would create it.
+It started with the first changing element in its environment--the
+captain--but I don't know where it would have stopped if Romero hadn't
+reversed its pleasure-pain synapse response. Now it loves the tried and
+true. It's not much good for space exploration, of course. But a museum
+may be interested in it now."
+
+"So we'll have to go back to picking our phase points at random,
+trusting to chance. Or the judgment of some skunk like Birdsel."
+
+Starbuck cleared his throat. "That's another thing. The men aboard
+the _Gorgon_ and the cybernetics machine had something in common. I
+finally figured that out. Most men are afraid of the unknown--they
+fear and hate it. But obviously not space explorers. They spend
+their whole lives searching for the unknown. They don't suffer from
+Xenophobia--they are _Xenophyles_. They like anything that's new and
+different. Even a new member of the crew. It kind of lessens the
+cameraderie aboard a spaceship, but the Service must have found the
+trait valuable. They have searched it out in men and developed it. They
+even breed it in second-generation spacemen."
+
+"Do you know what, Starbuck?"
+
+"What, Kettleman?"
+
+"All that talk of yours is beginning to get on my nerves." Kettleman's
+triceps flexed.
+
+Starbuck sighed. The honeymoon was over for him, and the trip was just
+beginning.
+
+
+***
+
+DELAY IN TRANSIT
+
+                           By F. L. WALLACE
+
+                         Illustrated by SIBLEY
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+              An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is
+           terrifying enough on your own home planet, worse
+             on a world across the Galaxy. But the horror
+             is the offer of help that cannot be accepted!
+
+
+"Muscles tense," said Dimanche. "Neural index 1.76, unusually high.
+Adrenalin squirting through his system. In effect, he's stalking you.
+Intent: probably assault with a deadly weapon."
+
+"Not interested," said Cassal firmly, his subvocalization inaudible
+to anyone but Dimanche. "I'm not the victim type. He was standing on
+the walkway near the brink of the thoroughfare. I'm going back to the
+habitat hotel and sit tight."
+
+"First you have to get there," Dimanche pointed out. "I mean, is it
+safe for a stranger to walk through the city?"
+
+"Now that you mention it, no," answered Cassal. He looked around
+apprehensively. "Where is he?"
+
+"Behind you. At the moment he's pretending interest in a merchandise
+display."
+
+A native stamped by, eyes brown and incurious. Apparently he was
+accustomed to the sight of an Earthman standing alone, Adam's apple
+bobbing up and down silently. It was a Godolphian axiom that all
+travelers were crazy.
+
+Cassal looked up. Not an air taxi in sight; Godolph shut down at dusk.
+It would be pure luck if he found a taxi before morning. Of course he
+_could_ walk back to the hotel, but was that such a good idea?
+
+A Godolphian city was peculiar. And, though not intended, it was
+peculiarly suited to certain kinds of violence. A human pedestrian was
+at a definite disadvantage.
+
+"Correction," said Dimanche. "Not simple assault. He has murder in
+mind."
+
+"It still doesn't appeal to me," said Cassal. Striving to look
+unconcerned, he strolled toward the building side of the walkway and
+stared into the interior of a small cafe. Warm, bright and dry. Inside,
+he might find safety for a time.
+
+Damn the man who was following him! It would be easy enough to elude
+him in a normal city. On Godolph, nothing was normal. In an hour the
+streets would be brightly lighted--for native eyes. A human would
+consider it dim.
+
+"Why did he choose me?" asked Cassal plaintively. "There must be
+something he hopes to gain."
+
+"I'm working on it," said Dimanche. "But remember, I have limitations.
+At short distances I can scan nervous systems, collect and interpret
+physiological data. I can't read minds. The best I can do is report
+what a person says or subvocalizes. If you're really interested in
+finding out why he wants to kill you, I suggest you turn the problem
+over to the godawful police."
+
+"Godolph, not godawful," corrected Cassal absently.
+
+That was advice he couldn't follow, good as it seemed. He could give
+the police no evidence save through Dimanche. There were various
+reasons, many of them involving the law, for leaving the device called
+Dimanche out of it. The police would act if they found a body. His own,
+say, floating face-down on some quiet street. That didn't seem the
+proper approach, either.
+
+"Weapons?"
+
+"The first thing I searched him for. Nothing very dangerous. A long
+knife, a hard striking object. Both concealed on his person."
+
+Cassal strangled slightly. Dimanche needed a good stiff course in
+semantics. A knife was still the most silent of weapons. A man could
+die from it. His hand strayed toward his pocket. He had a measure of
+protection himself.
+
+"Report," said Dimanche. "Not necessarily final. Based, perhaps, on
+tenuous evidence."
+
+"Let's have it anyway."
+
+"His motivation is connected somehow with your being marooned here. For
+some reason you can't get off this planet."
+
+That was startling information, though not strictly true. A thousand
+star systems were waiting for him, and a ship to take him to each one.
+
+Of course, the one ship he wanted hadn't come in. Godolph was a
+transfer point for stars nearer the center of the Galaxy. When he
+had left Earth, he had known he would have to wait a few days here.
+He hadn't expected a delay of nearly three weeks. Still, it wasn't
+unusual. Interstellar schedules over great distances were not as
+reliable as they might be.
+
+Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with
+that delay? According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was
+self-deluded or did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself.
+He was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched
+to his instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the
+basis of these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long
+journey, the first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go
+to Tunney 21 to see a man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the
+company that employed him, and possibly not even to them.
+
+The thug trailing him wouldn't be interested in Cassal himself, his
+mission, which was a commercial one, nor the man on Tunney. And money
+wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's analysis was right. What _did_ the
+thug want?
+
+Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was
+too well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for
+anyone this far away to have learned about it.
+
+And yet the thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as
+dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't
+involve too much risk.
+
+"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
+
+Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of
+that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually
+was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives
+like rain.
+
+He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the
+rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it
+unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility
+and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the
+near amphibians who created it.
+
+A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport
+tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made
+life dangerous for a human--Venice revised, brought up to date in a
+faster-than-light age.
+
+Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely
+flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at break-neck speed, the
+ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout
+the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly
+and noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human--Cassal shivered.
+If he were found drowned, it would be considered an accident. No
+investigation would be made. The thug who was trailing him had
+certainly picked the right place.
+
+The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal
+was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by.
+What she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
+
+"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. "We've got to investigate our man at
+closer range."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive
+in an anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful
+out of her element, though.
+
+The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal
+retraced his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow,
+physically quite capable of violence, if size had anything to do with
+it. The face, though, was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A
+scientist or scholar. It didn't fit with murder.
+
+"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got
+close. I could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed.
+Anticipated guilt, of course. Projecting to you the action he plans.
+That makes the knife definite."
+
+Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal
+stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
+
+"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything
+on this street. Too dangerous. Turn aside at the next deserted
+intersection and let him follow the glow of your cigarette."
+
+The lighter flared in his hand. "That's one way of finding out," said
+Cassal. "But wouldn't I be a lot safer if I just concentrated on
+getting back to the hotel?"
+
+"I'm curious. Turn here."
+
+"Go to hell," said Cassal nervously. Nevertheless, when he came to that
+intersection, he turned there.
+
+It was a Godolphian equivalent of an alley, narrow and dark, oily
+slow-moving water gurgling at one side, high cavernous walls looming on
+the other.
+
+He would have to adjust the curiosity factor of Dimanche. It was all
+very well to be interested in the man who trailed him, but there was
+also the problem of coming out of this adventure alive. Dimanche, an
+electronic instrument, naturally wouldn't consider that.
+
+"Easy," warned Dimanche. "He's at the entrance to the alley, walking
+fast. He's surprised and pleased that you took this route."
+
+"I'm surprised, too," remarked Cassal. "But I wouldn't say I'm pleased.
+Not just now."
+
+"Careful. Even subvocalized conversation is distracting." The mechanism
+concealed within his body was silent for an instant and then continued:
+"His blood pressure is rising, breathing is faster. At a time like
+this, he may be ready to verbalize why he wants to murder you. This is
+critical."
+
+"That's no lie," agreed Cassal bitterly. The lighter was in his hand.
+He clutched it grimly. It was difficult not to look back. The darkness
+assumed an even more sinister quality.
+
+"Quiet," said Dimanche. "He's verbalizing about you."
+
+"He's decided I'm a nice fellow after all. He's going to stop and ask
+me for a light."
+
+"I don't think so," answered Dimanche. "He's whispering: 'Poor devil. I
+hate to do it. But it's really his life or mine'."
+
+"He's more right than he knows. Why all this violence, though? Isn't
+there any clue?"
+
+"None at all," admitted Dimanche. "He's very close. You'd better turn
+around."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal turned, pressed the stud on the lighter. It should have made him
+feel more secure, but it didn't. He could see very little.
+
+A dim shadow rushed at him. He jumped away from the water side of the
+alley, barely in time. He could feel the rush of air as the assailant
+shot by.
+
+"Hey!" shouted Cassal.
+
+Echoes answered; nothing else did. He had the uncomfortable feeling
+that no one was going to come to his assistance.
+
+"He wasn't expecting that reaction," explained Dimanche. "That's why he
+missed. He's turned around and is coming back."
+
+"I'm armed!" shouted Cassal.
+
+"That won't stop him. He doesn't believe you."
+
+Cassal grasped the lighter. That is, it had been a lighter a few
+seconds before. Now a needle-thin blade had snapped out and projected
+stiffly. Originally it had been designed as an emergency surgical
+instrument. A little imagination and a few changes had altered its
+function, converting it into a compact, efficient stiletto.
+
+"Twenty feet away," advised Dimanche. "He knows you can't see him, but
+he can see your silhouette by the light from the main thoroughfare.
+What he doesn't know is that I can detect every move he makes and keep
+you posted below the level of his hearing."
+
+"Stay on him," growled Cassal nervously. He flattened himself against
+the wall.
+
+"To the right," whispered Dimanche. "Lunge forward. About five feet.
+Low."
+
+Sickly, he did so. He didn't care to consider the possible effects of
+a miscalculation. In the darkness, how far was five feet? Fortunately,
+his estimate was correct. The rapier encountered yielding resistance,
+the soggy kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, but did not break. His
+opponent gasped and broke away.
+
+"Attack!" howled Dimanche against the bone behind his ear. "You've got
+him. He can't imagine how you know where he is in the darkness. He's
+afraid."
+
+Attack he did, slicing about wildly. Some of the thrusts landed; some
+didn't. The percentage was low, the total amount high. His opponent
+fell to the ground, gasped and was silent.
+
+Cassal fumbled in his pockets and flipped on a light. The man lay near
+the water side of the alley. One leg was crumpled under him. He didn't
+move.
+
+"Heartbeat slow," said Dimanche solemnly. "Breathing barely
+perceptible."
+
+"Then he's not dead," said Cassal in relief.
+
+Foam flecked from the still lips and ran down the chin. Blood oozed
+from cuts on the face.
+
+"Respiration none, heartbeat absent," stated Dimanche.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Horrified, Cassal gazed at the body. Self-defense, of course, but
+would the police believe it? Assuming they did, they'd still have to
+investigate. The rapier was an illegal concealed weapon. And they would
+question him until they discovered Dimanche. Regrettable, but what
+could he do about it?
+
+Suppose he were detained long enough to miss the ship bound for Tunney
+21?
+
+Grimly, he laid down the rapier. He might as well get to the bottom of
+this. Why had the man attacked? What did he want?
+
+"I don't know," replied Dimanche irritably. "I can interpret body
+data--a live body. I can't work on a piece of meat."
+
+Cassal searched the body thoroughly. Miscellaneous personal articles
+of no value in identifying the man. A clip with a startling amount
+of money in it. A small white card with something scribbled on it. A
+picture of a woman and a small child posed against a background which
+resembled no world Cassal had ever seen. That was all.
+
+Cassal stood up in bewilderment. Dimanche to the contrary, there seemed
+to be no connection between this dead man and his own problem of
+getting to Tunney 21.
+
+Right now, though, he had to dispose of the body. He glanced toward the
+boulevard. So far no one had been attracted by the violence.
+
+He bent down to retrieve the lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted at him.
+Before he could react, someone landed on him. He fell forward, vainly
+trying to grasp the weapon. Strong fingers felt for his throat as he
+was forced to the ground.
+
+He threw the attacker off and staggered to his feet. He heard footsteps
+rushing away. A slight splash followed. Whoever it was, he was escaping
+by way of water.
+
+Whoever it was. The man he had thought he had slain was no longer in
+sight.
+
+"Interpret body data, do you?" muttered Cassal. "Liveliest dead man
+I've ever been strangled by."
+
+"It's just possible there are some breeds of men who can control the
+basic functions of their body," said Dimanche defensively. "When I
+checked him, he had no heartbeat."
+
+"Remind me not to accept your next evaluation so completely," grunted
+Cassal. Nevertheless, he was relieved, in a fashion. He hadn't _wanted_
+to kill the man. And now there was nothing he'd have to explain to the
+police.
+
+He needed the cigarette he stuck between his lips. For the second
+time he attempted to pick up the rapier-lighter. This time he was
+successful. Smoke swirled into his lungs and quieted his nerves. He
+squeezed the weapon into the shape of a lighter and put it away.
+
+Something, however, was missing--his wallet.
+
+The thug had relieved him of it in the second round of the scuffle.
+Persistent fellow. Damned persistent.
+
+It really didn't matter. He fingered the clip he had taken from the
+supposedly dead body. He had intended to turn it over to the police.
+Now he might as well keep it to reimburse him for his loss. It
+contained more money than his wallet had.
+
+Except for the identification tab he always carried in his wallet, it
+was more than a fair exchange. The identification, a rectangular piece
+of plastic, was useful in establishing credit, but with the money he
+now had, he wouldn't need credit. If he did, he could always send for
+another tab.
+
+A white card fluttered from the clip. He caught it as it fell.
+Curiously he examined it. Blank except for one crudely printed word,
+STAB. His unknown assailant certainly had tried.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The old man stared at the door, an obsolete visual projector wobbling
+precariously on his head. He closed his eyes and the lettering on the
+door disappeared. Cassal was too far away to see what it had been. The
+technician opened his eyes and concentrated. Slowly a new sign formed
+on the door.
+
+                         TRAVELERS AID BUREAU
+                     Murra Foray, First Counselor
+
+It was a drab sign, but, then, it was a dismal, backward planet. The
+old technician passed on to the next door and closed his eyes again.
+
+With a sinking feeling, Cassal walked toward the entrance. He needed
+help and he had to find it in this dingy rathole.
+
+Inside, though, it wasn't dingy and it wasn't a rathole. More like a
+maze, an approved scientific one. Efficient, though not comfortable.
+Travelers Aid was busier than he thought it would be. Eventually he
+managed to squeeze into one of the many small counseling rooms.
+
+A woman appeared on the screen, crisp and cool. "Please answer
+everything the machine asks. When the tape is complete, I'll be
+available for consultation."
+
+Cassal wasn't sure he was going to like her. "Is this necessary?" he
+asked. "It's merely a matter of information."
+
+"We have certain regulations we abide by." The woman smiled frostily.
+"I can't give you any information until you comply with them."
+
+"Sometimes regulations are silly," said Cassal firmly. "Let me speak to
+the first counselor."
+
+"You are speaking to her," she said. Her face disappeared from the
+screen.
+
+Cassal sighed. So far he hadn't made a good impression.
+
+Travelers Aid Bureau, in addition to regulations, was abundantly
+supplied with official curiosity. When the machine finished with him,
+Cassal had the feeling he could be recreated from the record it had of
+him. His individuality had been capsuled into a series of questions and
+answers. One thing he drew the line at--why he wanted to go to Tunney
+21 was his own business.
+
+The first counselor reappeared. Age, indeterminate. Not, he supposed,
+that anyone would be curious about it. Slightly taller than average,
+rather on the slender side. Face was broad at the brow, narrow at the
+chin and her eyes were enigmatic. A dangerous woman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She glanced down at the data. "Denton Cassal, native of Earth.
+Destination, Tunney 21." She looked up at him. "Occupation, sales
+engineer. Isn't that an odd combination?" Her smile was quite superior.
+
+"Not at all. Scientific training as an engineer. Special knowledge of
+customer relations."
+
+"Special knowledge of a thousand races? How convenient." Her eyebrows
+arched.
+
+"I think so," he agreed blandly. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
+
+"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
+
+He could believe that or not as he wished. He didn't.
+
+"You refused to answer why you were going to Tunney 21. Perhaps I can
+guess. They're the best scientists in the Galaxy. You wish to study
+under them."
+
+Close--but wrong on two counts. They were good scientists, though not
+necessarily the best. For instance, it was doubtful that they could
+build Dimanche, even if they had ever thought of it, which was even
+less likely.
+
+There was, however, one relatively obscure research worker on Tunney 21
+that Neuronics wanted on their staff. If the fragments of his studies
+that had reached Earth across the vast distance meant anything, he
+could help Neuronics perfect instantaneous radio. The company that
+could build a radio to span the reaches of the Galaxy with no time lag
+could set its own price, which could be control of all communications,
+transport, trade--a galactic monopoly. Cassal's share would be a cut of
+all that.
+
+His part was simple, on the surface. He was to persuade that researcher
+to come to Earth, _if he could_. Literally, he had to guess the
+Tunnesian's price before the Tunnesian himself knew it. In addition,
+the reputation of Tunnesian scientists being exceeded only by their
+arrogance, Cassal had to convince him that he wouldn't be working
+for ignorant Earth savages. The existence of such an instrument as
+Dimanche was a key factor.
+
+Her voice broke through his thoughts. "Now, then, what's your problem?"
+
+"I was told on Earth I might have to wait a few days on Godolph. I've
+been here three weeks. I want information on the ship bound for Tunney
+21."
+
+"Just a moment." She glanced at something below the angle of the
+screen. She looked up and her eyes were grave. "_Rickrock C_ arrived
+yesterday. Departed for Tunney early this morning."
+
+"Departed?" He got up and sat down again, swallowing hard. "When will
+the next ship arrive?"
+
+"Do you know how many stars there are in the Galaxy?" she asked.
+
+He didn't answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's right," she said. "Billions. Tunney, according to the notation,
+is near the center of the Galaxy, inside the third ring. You've
+covered about a third of the distance to it. Local traffic, anything
+within a thousand light-years, is relatively easy to manage. At longer
+distances, you take a chance. You've had yours and missed it. Frankly,
+Cassal, I don't know when another ship bound for Tunney will show up on
+or near Godolph. Within the next five years--maybe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He blanched. "How long would it take to get there using local
+transportation, star-hopping?"
+
+"Take my advice: don't try it. Five years, if you're lucky."
+
+"I don't need that kind of luck."
+
+"I suppose not." She hesitated. "You're determined to go on?" At the
+emphatic nod, she sighed. "If that's your decision, we'll try to help
+you. To start things moving, we'll need a print of your identification
+tab."
+
+"There's something funny about her," Dimanche decided. It was the usual
+speaking voice of the instrument, no louder than the noise the blood
+made in coursing through arteries and veins. Cassal could hear it
+plainly, because it was virtually inside his ear.
+
+Cassal ignored his private voice. "Identification tab? I don't have it
+with me. In fact, I may have lost it."
+
+She smiled in instant disbelief. "We're not trying to pry into any
+part of your past you may wish concealed. However, it's much easier
+for us to help you if you have your identification. Now if you can't
+_remember_ your real name and where you put your identification--" She
+arose and left the screen. "Just a moment."
+
+He glared uneasily at the spot where the first counselor wasn't. His
+_real_ name!
+
+"Relax," Dimanche suggested. "She didn't mean it as a personal insult."
+
+Presently she returned.
+
+"I have news for you, whoever you are."
+
+"Cassal," he said firmly. "Denton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. If you
+don't believe it, send back to--" He stopped. It had taken him four
+months to get to Godolph, non-stop, plus a six-month wait on Earth for
+a ship to show up that was bound in the right direction. Over distances
+such as these, it just wasn't practical to send back to Earth for
+anything.
+
+"I see you understand." She glanced at the card in her hand. "The
+spaceport records indicate that when _Rickrock C_ took off this
+morning, there was a Denton Cassal on board, bound for Tunney 21."
+
+"It wasn't I," he said dazedly. He knew who it was, though. The man who
+had tried to kill him last night. The reason for the attack now became
+clear. The thug had wanted his identification tab. Worse, he had gotten
+it.
+
+"No doubt it wasn't," she said wearily. "Outsiders don't seem to
+understand what galactic travel entails."
+
+Outsiders? Evidently what she called those who lived beyond the second
+transfer ring. Were those who lived at the edge of the Galaxy, beyond
+the first ring, called Rimmers? Probably.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was still speaking: "Ten years to cross the Galaxy, without
+stopping. At present, no ship is capable of that. Real scheduling is
+impossible. Populations shift and have to be supplied. A ship is taken
+off a run for repairs and is never put back on. It's more urgently
+needed elsewhere. The man who depended on it is left waiting; years
+pass before he learns it's never coming.
+
+"If we had instantaneous radio, that would help. Confusion wouldn't
+vanish overnight, but it would diminish. We wouldn't have to depend
+on ships for all the news. Reservations could be made ahead of time,
+credit established, lost identification replaced--"
+
+"I've traveled before," he interrupted stiffly. "I've never had any
+trouble."
+
+She seemed to be exaggerating the difficulties. True, the center was
+more congested. Taking each star as the starting point for a limited
+number of ships and using statistical probability as a guide--why, no
+man would arrive at his predetermined destination.
+
+But that wasn't the way it worked. Manifestly, you couldn't compare
+galactic transportation to the erratic paths of air molecules in a
+giant room. Or could you?
+
+For the average man, anyone who didn't have his own inter-stellar ship,
+was the comparison too apt? It might be.
+
+"You've traveled outside, where there are still free planets waiting to
+be settled. Where a man is welcome, if he's able to work." She paused.
+"The center is different. Populations are excessive. Inside the third
+ring, no man is allowed off a ship without an identification tab. They
+don't encourage immigration."
+
+In effect, that meant no ship bound for the center would take a
+passenger without identification. No ship owner would run the risk of
+having a permanent guest on board, someone who couldn't be rid of when
+his money was gone.
+
+Cassal held his head in his hands. Tunney 21 was inside the third ring.
+
+"Next time," she said, "don't let anyone take your identification."
+
+"I won't," he promised grimly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The woman looked directly at him. Her eyes were bright. He revised his
+estimate of her age drastically downward. She couldn't be as old as he.
+Nothing outward had happened, but she no longer seemed dowdy. Not that
+he was interested. Still, it might pay him to be friendly to the first
+counselor.
+
+"We're a philanthropic agency," said Murra Foray. "Your case is
+special, though--"
+
+"I understand," he said gruffly. "You accept contributions."
+
+She nodded. "If the donor is able to give. We don't ask so much that
+you'll have to compromise your standard of living." But she named a sum
+that would force him to do just that if getting to Tunney 21 took any
+appreciable time.
+
+He stared at her unhappily. "I suppose it's worth it. I can always
+work, if I have to."
+
+"As a salesman?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll find it difficult to do
+business with Godolphians."
+
+Irony wasn't called for at a time like this, he thought reproachfully.
+
+"Not just another salesman," he answered definitely. "I have special
+knowledge of customer reactions. I can tell exactly--"
+
+He stopped abruptly. Was she baiting him? For what reason? The
+instrument he called Dimanche was not known to the Galaxy at large.
+From the business angle, it would be poor policy to hand out that
+information at random. Aside from that, he needed every advantage he
+could get. Dimanche was his special advantage.
+
+"Anyway," he finished lamely, "I'm a first class engineer. I can
+always find something in that line."
+
+"A scientist, maybe," murmured Murra Foray. "But in this part of the
+Milky Way, an engineer is regarded as merely a technician who hasn't
+yet gained practical experience." She shook her head. "You'll do better
+as a salesman."
+
+He got up, glowering. "If that's all--"
+
+"It is. We'll keep you informed. Drop your contribution in the slot
+provided for that purpose as you leave."
+
+A door, which he hadn't noticed in entering the counselling cubicle,
+swung open. The agency was efficient.
+
+"Remember," the counselor called out as he left, "identification is
+hard to work with. Don't accept a crude forgery."
+
+He didn't answer, but it was an idea worth considering. The agency was
+also eminently practical.
+
+The exit path guided him firmly to an inconspicuous and yet inescapable
+contribution station. He began to doubt the philanthropic aspect of the
+bureau.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I've got it," said Dimanche as Cassal gloomily counted out the sum the
+first counselor had named.
+
+"Got what?" asked Cassal. He rolled the currency into a neat bundle,
+attached his name, and dropped it into the chute.
+
+"The woman, Murra Foray, the first counselor. She's a Huntner."
+
+"What's a Huntner?"
+
+"A sub-race of men on the other side of the Galaxy. She was vocalizing
+about her home planet when I managed to locate her."
+
+"Any other information?"
+
+"None. Electronic guards were sliding into place as soon as I reached
+her. I got out as fast as I could."
+
+"I see." The significance of that, if any, escaped him. Nevertheless,
+it sounded depressing.
+
+"What I want to know is," said Dimanche, "why such precautions as
+electronic guards? What does Travelers Aid have that's so secret?"
+
+Cassal grunted and didn't answer. Dimanche could be annoyingly
+inquisitive at times.
+
+Cassal had entered one side of a block-square building. He came out on
+the other side. The agency was larger than he had thought. The old man
+was staring at a door as Cassal came out. He had apparently changed
+every sign in the building. His work finished, the technician was
+removing the visual projector from his head as Cassal came up to him.
+He turned and peered.
+
+"You stuck here, too?" he asked in the uneven voice of the aged.
+
+"Stuck?" repeated Cassal. "I suppose you can call it that. I'm waiting
+for my ship." He frowned. He was the one who wanted to ask questions.
+"Why all the redecoration? I thought Travelers Aid was an old agency.
+Why did you change so many signs? I could understand it if the agency
+were new."
+
+The old man chuckled. "Re-organization. The previous first counselor
+resigned suddenly, in the middle of the night, they say. The new one
+didn't like the name of the agency, so she ordered it changed."
+
+She would do just that, thought Cassal. "What about this Murra Foray?"
+
+The old man winked mysteriously. He opened his mouth and then seemed
+overcome with senile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled away.
+
+Cassal gazed after him, baffled. The old man was afraid for his job,
+afraid of the first counselor. Why he should be, Cassal didn't know. He
+shrugged and went on. The agency was now in motion in his behalf, but
+he didn't intend to depend on that alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The girl ahead of you is making unnecessary wriggling motions as she
+walks," observed Dimanche. "Several men are looking on with approval.
+I don't understand."
+
+Cassal glanced up. They walked that way back in good old L.A. A pang of
+homesickness swept through him.
+
+"Shut up," he growled plaintively. "Attend to the business at hand."
+
+"Business? Very well," said Dimanche. "Watch out for the transport
+tide."
+
+Cassal swerved back from the edge of the water. Murra Foray had been
+right. Godolphians didn't want or need his skills, at least not on
+terms that were acceptable to him. The natives didn't have to exert
+themselves. They lived off the income provided by travelers, with which
+the planet was abundantly supplied by ship after ship.
+
+Still, that didn't alter his need for money. He walked the streets at
+random while Dimanche probed.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That man. He crinkles something in his hands. Not enough, he is
+subvocalizing."
+
+"I know how he feels," commented Cassal.
+
+"Now his throat tightens. He bunches his muscles. 'I know where I can
+get more,' he tells himself. He is going there."
+
+"A sensible man," declared Cassal. "Follow him."
+
+Boldly the man headed toward a section of the city which Cassal had
+not previously entered. He believed opportunity lay there. Not for
+everyone. The shrewd, observant, and the courageous could succeed
+if--The word that the quarry used was a slang term, unfamiliar to
+either Cassal or Dimanche. It didn't matter as long as it led to money.
+
+Cassal stretched his stride and managed to keep the man in sight. He
+skipped nimbly over the narrow walkways that curved through the great
+buildings. The section grew dingier as they proceeded. Not slums; not
+the show-place city frequented by travelers, either.
+
+Abruptly the man turned into a building. He was out of sight when
+Cassal reached the structure.
+
+He stood at the entrance and stared in disappointment. "Opportunities
+Inc.," Dimanche quoted softly in his ear. "Science, thrills, chance.
+What does that mean?"
+
+"It means that we followed a gravity ghost!"
+
+"What's a gravity ghost?"
+
+"An unexplained phenomena," said Cassal nastily. "It affects the
+instruments of spaceships, giving the illusion of a massive dark body
+that isn't there."
+
+"But you're not a pilot. I don't understand."
+
+"You're not a very good pilot yourself. We followed the man to a
+gambling joint."
+
+"Gambling," mused Dimanche. "Well, isn't it an opportunity of a sort?
+Someone inside is thinking of the money he's winning."
+
+"The owner, no doubt."
+
+Dimanche was silent, investigating. "It is the owner," he confirmed
+finally. "Why not go in, anyway. It's raining. And they serve drinks."
+Left unstated was the admission that Dimanche was curious, as usual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal went in and ordered a drink. It was a variable place, depending
+on the spectator--bright, cheerful, and harmonious if he were winning,
+garish and depressingly vulgar if he were not. At the moment Cassal
+belonged to neither group. He reserved judgment.
+
+An assortment of gaming devices were in operation. One in particular
+seemed interesting. It involved the counting of electrons passing
+through an aperture, based on probability.
+
+"Not that," whispered Dimanche. "It's rigged."
+
+"But it's not necessary," Cassal murmured. "Pure chance alone is good
+enough."
+
+"They don't take chances, pure or adulterated. Look around. How many
+Godolphians do you see?"
+
+Cassal looked. Natives were not even there as servants. Strictly a
+clip joint, working travelers.
+
+Unconsciously, he nodded. "That does it. It's not the kind of
+opportunity I had in mind."
+
+"Don't be hasty," objected Dimanche. "Certain devices I can't control.
+There may be others in which my knowledge will help you. Stroll around
+and sample some games."
+
+Cassal equipped himself with a supply of coins and sauntered through
+the establishment, disbursing them so as to give himself the widest
+possible acquaintance with the layout.
+
+"That one," instructed Dimanche.
+
+It received a coin. In return, it rewarded him with a large shower of
+change. The money spilled to the floor with a satisfying clatter. An
+audience gathered rapidly, ostensibly to help him pick up the coins.
+
+"There was a circuit in it," explained Dimanche. "I gave it a shot of
+electrons and it paid out."
+
+"Let's try it again," suggested Cassal.
+
+"Let's not," Dimanche said regretfully. "Look at the man on your right."
+
+Cassal did so. He jammed the money back in his pocket and stood up.
+Hastily, he began thrusting the money back into the machine. A large
+and very unconcerned man watched him.
+
+"You get the idea," said Dimanche. "It paid off two months ago. It
+wasn't scheduled for another this year." Dimanche scrutinized the man
+in a multitude of ways while Cassal continued play. "He's satisfied,"
+was the report at last. "He doesn't detect any sign of crookedness."
+
+"_Crookedness?_"
+
+"On your part, that is. In the ethics of a gambling house, what's done
+to insure profit is merely prudence."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They moved on to other games, though Cassal lost his briefly acquired
+enthusiasm. The possibility of winning seemed to grow more remote.
+
+"Hold it," said Dimanche. "Let's look into this."
+
+"Let me give _you_ some advice," said Cassal. "This is one thing we
+can't win at. Every race in the Galaxy has a game like this. Pieces of
+plastic with values printed on them are distributed. The trick is to
+get certain arbitrarily selected sets of values in the plastics dealt
+to you. It seems simple, but against a skilled player a beginner can't
+win."
+
+"Every race in the Galaxy," mused Dimanche. "What do men call it?"
+
+"Cards," said Cassal, "though there are many varieties within that
+general classification." He launched into a detailed exposition of the
+subject. If it were something he was familiar with, all right, but a
+foreign deck and strange rules--
+
+Nevertheless, Dimanche was interested. They stayed and observed.
+
+The dealer was clumsy. His great hands enfolded the cards. Not a
+Godolphian nor quite human, he was an odd type, difficult to place.
+Physically burly, he wore a garment chiefly remarkable for its
+ill-fitting appearance. A hard round hat jammed closely over his skull
+completed the outfit. He was dressed in a manner that, somewhere in the
+Universe, was evidently considered the height of fashion.
+
+"It doesn't seem bad," commented Cassal. "There might be a chance."
+
+"Look around," said Dimanche. "Everyone thinks that. It's the classic
+struggle, person against person and everyone against the house.
+Naturally, the house doesn't lose."
+
+"Then why are we wasting our time?"
+
+"Because I've got an idea," said Dimanche. "Sit down and take a hand."
+
+"Make up your mind. You said the house doesn't lose."
+
+"The house hasn't played against us. Sit down. You get eight cards,
+with the option of two more. I'll tell you what to do."
+
+Cassal waited until a disconsolate player relinquished his seat and
+stalked moodily away. He played a few hands and bet small sums in
+accordance with Dimanche's instructions. He held his own and won
+insignificant amounts while learning.
+
+It was simple. Nine orders, or suits, of twenty-seven cards each. Each
+suit would build a different equation. The lowest hand was a quadratic.
+A cubic would beat it. All he had to do was remember his math, guess
+at what he didn't remember, and draw the right cards.
+
+"What's the highest possible hand?" asked Dimanche. There was a note
+of abstraction in his voice, as if he were paying more attention to
+something else.
+
+Cassal peeked at the cards that were face-down on the table. He shoved
+some money into the betting square in front of him and didn't answer.
+
+"You had it last time," said Dimanche. "A three dimensional
+encephalocurve. A time modulated brainwave. If you had bet right, you
+could have owned the house by now."
+
+"I did? Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Because you had it three successive times. The probabilities against
+that are astronomical. I've got to find out what's happening before you
+start betting recklessly."
+
+"It's not the dealer," declared Cassal. "Look at those hands."
+
+They were huge hands, more suitable, seemingly, for crushing the life
+from some alien beast than the delicate manipulation of cards. Cassal
+continued to play, betting brilliantly by the only standard that
+mattered: he won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One player dropped out and was replaced by a recruit from the
+surrounding crowd. Cassal ordered a drink. The waiter was placing it in
+his hand when Dimanche made a discovery.
+
+"I've got it!"
+
+A shout from Dimanche was roughly equivalent to a noiseless kick in the
+head. Cassal dropped the drink. The player next to him scowled but said
+nothing. The dealer blinked and went on dealing.
+
+"What have you got?" asked Cassal, wiping up the mess and trying to
+keep track of the cards.
+
+"How he fixes the deck," explained Dimanche in a lower and less painful
+tone. "Clever."
+
+Muttering, Cassal shoved a bet in front of him.
+
+"Look at that hat," said Dimanche.
+
+"Ridiculous, isn't it? But I see no reason to gloat because I have
+better taste."
+
+"That's not what I meant. It's pulled down low over his knobby ears and
+touches his jacket. His jacket rubs against his trousers, which in turn
+come in contact with the stool on which he sits."
+
+"True," agreed Cassal, increasing his wager. "But except for his
+physique, I don't see anything unusual."
+
+"It's a circuit, a visual projector broken down into components. The
+hat is a command circuit which makes contact, via his clothing, with
+the broadcasting unit built into the chair. The existence of a visual
+projector is completely concealed."
+
+Cassal bit his lip and squinted at his cards. "Interesting. What does
+it have to do with anything?"
+
+"The deck," exclaimed Dimanche excitedly. "The backs are regular,
+printed with an intricate design. The front is a special plastic,
+susceptible to the influence of the visual projector. He doesn't need
+manual dexterity. He can make any value appear on any card he wants. It
+will stay there until he changes it."
+
+Cassal picked up the cards. "I've got a Loreenaroo equation. Can he
+change that to anything else?"
+
+"He can, but he doesn't work that way. He decides before he deals who's
+going to get what. He concentrates on each card as he deals it. He can
+change a hand after a player gets it, but it wouldn't look good."
+
+"It wouldn't." Cassal wistfully watched the dealer rake in his wager.
+His winnings were gone, plus. The newcomer to the game won.
+
+He started to get up. "Sit down," whispered Dimanche. "We're just
+beginning. Now that we know what he does and how he does it, we're
+going to take him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next hand started in the familiar pattern, two cards of fairly good
+possibilities, a bet, and then another card. Cassal watched the dealer
+closely. His clumsiness was only superficial. At no time were the faces
+of the cards visible. The real skill was unobservable, of course--the
+swift bookkeeping that went on in his mind. A duplication in the hands
+of the players, for instance, would be ruinous.
+
+Cassal received the last card. "Bet high," said Dimanche. With
+trepidation, Cassal shoved the money into the betting area.
+
+The dealer glanced at his hand and started to sit down. Abruptly he
+stood up again. He scratched his cheek and stared puzzledly at the
+players around him. Gently he lowered himself onto the stool. The
+contact was even briefer. He stood up in indecision. An impatient
+murmur arose. He dealt himself a card, looked at it, and paid off all
+the way around. The players buzzed with curiosity.
+
+"What happened?" asked Cassal as the next hand started.
+
+"I induced a short in the circuit," said Dimanche. "He couldn't sit
+down to change the last card he got. He took a chance, as he had to,
+and dealt himself a card, anyway."
+
+"But he paid off without asking to see what we had."
+
+"It was the only thing he could do," explained Dimanche. "He had
+duplicate cards."
+
+The dealer was scowling. He didn't seem quite so much at ease. The
+cards were dealt and the betting proceeded almost as usual. True,
+the dealer was nervous. He couldn't sit down and stay down. He was
+sweating. Again he paid off. Cassal won heavily and he was not the only
+one.
+
+The crowd around them grew almost in a rush. There is an indefinable
+sense that tells one gambler when another is winning.
+
+This time the dealer stood up. His leg contacted the stool
+occasionally. He jerked it away each time he dealt to himself. At the
+last card he hesitated. It was amazing how much he could sweat. He
+lifted a corner of the cards. Without indicating what he had drawn,
+determinedly and deliberately he sat down. The chair broke. The dealer
+grinned weakly as a waiter brought him another stool.
+
+"They still think it may be a defective circuit," whispered Dimanche.
+
+The dealer sat down and sprang up from the new chair in one motion. He
+gazed bitterly at the players and paid them.
+
+"He had a blank hand," explained Dimanche. "He made contact with the
+broadcasting circuit long enough to erase, but not long enough to put
+anything in it's place."
+
+The dealer adjusted his coat. "I have a nervous disability," he
+declared thickly. "If you'll pardon me for a few minutes while I take a
+treatment--"
+
+"Probably going to consult with the manager," observed Cassal.
+
+"He is the manager. He's talking with the owner."
+
+"Keep track of him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A blonde, pretty, perhaps even Earth-type human, smiled and wriggled
+closer to Cassal. He smiled back.
+
+"Don't fall for it," warned Dimanche. "She's an undercover agent for
+the house."
+
+Cassal looked her over carefully. "Not much under cover."
+
+"But if she should discover--"
+
+"Don't be stupid. She'll never guess you exist. There's a small lump
+behind my ear and a small round tube cleverly concealed elsewhere."
+
+"All right," sighed Dimanche resignedly. "I suppose people will always
+be a mystery to me."
+
+The dealer reappeared, followed by an unobtrusive man who carried a
+new stool. The dealer looked subtly different, though he was the same
+person. It took a close inspection to determine what the difference
+was. His clothing was new, unrumpled, unmarked by perspiration. During
+his brief absence, he had been furnished with new visual projector
+equipment, and it had been thoroughly checked out. The house intended
+to locate the source of the disturbance.
+
+Mentally, Cassal counted his assets. He was solvent again, but in other
+ways his position was not so good.
+
+"Maybe," he suggested, "we should leave. With no further interference
+from us, they might believe defective equipment is the cause of their
+losses."
+
+"Maybe," replied Dimanche, "you think the crowd around us is composed
+solely of patrons?"
+
+"I see," said Cassal soberly.
+
+He stretched his legs. The crowd pressed closer, uncommonly aggressive
+and ill-tempered for mere spectators. He decided against leaving.
+
+"Let's resume play." The dealer-manager smiled blandly at each player.
+He didn't suspect any one person--yet.
+
+"He might be using an honest deck," said Cassal hopefully.
+
+"They don't have that kind," answered Dimanche. He added absently:
+"During his conference with the owner, he was given authority to handle
+the situation in any way he sees fit."
+
+Bad, but not too bad. At least Cassal was opposing someone who had
+authority to let him keep his winnings, _if he could be convinced_.
+
+The dealer deliberately sat down on the stool. Testing. He could endure
+the charge that trickled through him. The bland smile spread into a
+triumphant one.
+
+"While he was gone, he took a sedative," analyzed Dimanche. "He also
+had the strength of the broadcasting circuit reduced. He thinks that
+will do it."
+
+"Sedatives wear off," said Cassal. "By the time he knows it's me, see
+that it has worn off. Mess him up."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The game went on. The situation was too much for the others. They
+played poorly and bet atrociously, on purpose. One by one they lost and
+dropped out. They wanted badly to win, but they wanted to live even
+more.
+
+The joint was jumping, and so was the dealer again. Sweat rolled down
+his face and there were tears in his eyes. So much liquid began to
+erode his fixed smile. He kept replenishing it from some inner source
+of determination.
+
+Cassal looked up. The crowd had drawn back, or had been forced back by
+hirelings who mingled with them. He was alone with the dealer at the
+table. Money was piled high around him. It was more than he needed,
+more than he wanted.
+
+"I suggest one last hand," said the dealer-manager, grimacing. It
+sounded a little stronger than a suggestion.
+
+Cassal nodded.
+
+"For a substantial sum," said the dealer, naming it.
+
+Miraculously, it was an amount that equaled everything Cassal had.
+Again Cassal nodded.
+
+"Pressure," muttered Cassal to Dimanche. "The sedative has worn off.
+He's back at the level at which he started. Fry him if you have to."
+
+The cards came out slowly. The dealer was jittering as he dealt. Soft
+music was lacking, but not the motions that normally accompanied it.
+Cassal couldn't believe that cards could be so bad. Somehow the dealer
+was rising to the occasion. Rising and sitting.
+
+"There's a nerve in your body," Cassal began conversationally, "which,
+if it were overloaded, would cause you to drop dead."
+
+The dealer didn't examine his cards. He didn't have to. "In that event,
+someone would be arrested for murder," he said. "You."
+
+That was the wrong tack; the humanoid had too much courage. Cassal
+passed his hand over his eyes. "You can't do this to men, but, strictly
+speaking, the dealer's not human. Try suggestion on him. Make him
+change the cards. Play him like a piano. Pizzicato on the nerve
+strings."
+
+Dimanche didn't answer; presumably he was busy scrambling the circuits.
+
+The dealer stretched out his hand. It never reached the cards. Danger:
+Dimanche at work. The smile dropped from his face. What remained was
+pure anguish. He was too dry for tears. Smoke curled up faintly from
+his jacket.
+
+"Hot, isn't it?" asked Cassal. "It might be cooler if you took off your
+cap."
+
+The cap tinkled to the floor. The mechanism in it was destroyed. What
+the cards were, they were. Now they couldn't be changed.
+
+"That's better," said Cassal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He glanced at his hand. In the interim, it had changed slightly.
+Dimanche had got there.
+
+The dealer examined his cards one by one. His face changed color. He
+sat utterly still on a cool stool.
+
+"You win," he said hopelessly.
+
+"Let's see what you have."
+
+The dealer-manager roused himself. "You won. That's good enough for
+you, isn't it?"
+
+Cassal shrugged. "You have Bank of the Galaxy service here. I'll
+deposit my money with them _before_ you pick up your cards."
+
+The dealer nodded unhappily and summoned an assistant. The crowd,
+which had anticipated violence, slowly began to drift away.
+
+"What did you do?" asked Cassal silently.
+
+"Men have no shame," sighed Dimanche. "Some humanoids do. The dealer
+was one who did. I forced him to project onto his cards something that
+wasn't a suit at all."
+
+"Embarrassing if that got out," agreed Cassal. "What did you project?"
+
+Dimanche told him. Cassal blushed, which was unusual for a man.
+
+The dealer-manager returned and the transaction was completed. His
+money was safe in the Bank of the Galaxy.
+
+"Hereafter, you're not welcome," said the dealer morosely. "Don't come
+back."
+
+Cassal picked up the cards without looking at them. "And no accidents
+after I leave," he said, extending the cards face-down. The manager
+took them and trembled.
+
+"He's an honorable humanoid, in his own way," whispered Dimanche. "I
+think you're safe."
+
+It was time to leave. "One question," Cassal called back. "What do you
+call this game?"
+
+Automatically the dealer started to answer. "Why, everyone knows...."
+He sat down, his mouth open.
+
+It was more than time to leave.
+
+Outside, he hailed an air taxi. No point in tempting the management.
+
+"Look," said Dimanche as the cab rose from the surface of the transport
+tide.
+
+A technician with a visual projector was at work on the sign in front
+of the gaming house. Huge words took shape: WARNING--NO TELEPATHS
+ALLOWED.
+
+There were no such things anywhere, but now there were rumors of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arriving at the habitat wing of the hotel, Cassal went directly to
+his room. He awaited the delivery of the equipment he had ordered and
+checked through it thoroughly. Satisfied that everything was there, he
+estimated the size of the room. Too small for his purpose.
+
+He picked up the intercom and dialed Services. "Put a Life Stage Cordon
+around my suite," he said briskly.
+
+The face opposite his went blank. "But you're an Earthman. I thought--"
+
+"I know more about my own requirements than your Life Stage Bureau.
+Earthmen do have life stages. You know the penalty if you refuse that
+service."
+
+There were some races who went without sleep for five months and then
+had to make up for it. Others grew vestigial wings for brief periods
+and had to fly with them or die; reduced gravity would suffice for
+that. Still others--
+
+But the one common feature was always a critical time in which certain
+conditions were necessary. Insofar as there was a universal law, from
+one end of the Galaxy to the other, this was it: The habitat hotel had
+to furnish appropriate conditions for the maintenance of any life-form
+that requested it.
+
+The Godolphian disappeared from the screen. When he came back, he
+seemed disturbed.
+
+"You spoke of a suite. I find that you're listed as occupying one room."
+
+"I am. It's too small. Convert the rooms around me into a suite."
+
+"That's very expensive."
+
+"I'm aware of that. Check the Bank of the Galaxy for my credit rating."
+
+He watched the process take place. Service would be amazingly good from
+now on.
+
+"Your suite will be converted in about two hours. The Life Stage Cordon
+will begin as soon after that as you want. If you tell me how long
+you'll need it, I can make arrangements now."
+
+"About ten hours is all I'll need." Cassal rubbed his jaw reflectively.
+"One more thing. Put a perpetual service at the spaceport. If a ship
+comes in bound for Tunney 21 or the vicinity of it, get accommodations
+on it for me. And hold it until I get ready, no matter what it costs."
+
+He flipped off the intercom and promptly went to sleep. Hours later,
+he was awakened by a faint hum. The Life Stage Cordon had just been
+snapped safely around his newly created suite.
+
+"Now what?" asked Dimanche.
+
+"I need an identification tab."
+
+"You do. And forgeries are expensive and generally crude, as that
+Huntner woman, Murra Foray, observed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal glanced at the equipment. "Expensive, yes. Not crude when we do
+it."
+
+"_We_ forge it?" Dimanche was incredulous.
+
+"That's what I said. Consider it this way. I've seen my tab a
+countless number of times. If I tried to draw it as I remember it,
+it would be inept and wouldn't pass. Nevertheless, that memory is in
+my mind, recorded in neuronic chains, exact and accurate." He paused
+significantly. "You have access to that memory."
+
+"At least partially. But what good does that do?"
+
+"Visual projector and plastic which will take the imprint. I think hard
+about the identification as I remember it. You record and feed it back
+to me while I concentrate on projecting it on the plastic. After we get
+it down, we change the chemical composition of the plastic. It will
+then pass everything except destructive analysis, and they don't often
+do that."
+
+Dimanche was silent. "Ingenious," was its comment. "Part of that we can
+manage, the official engraving, even the electron stamp. That, however,
+is gross detail. The print of the brain area is beyond our capacity.
+We can put down what you remember, and you remember what you saw. You
+didn't see fine enough, though. The general area will be recognizable,
+but not the fine structure, nor the charges stored there nor their
+interrelationship."
+
+"But we've got to do it," Cassal insisted, pacing about nervously.
+
+"With more equipment to probe--"
+
+"Not a chance. I got one Life Stage Cordon on a bluff. If I ask for
+another, they'll look it up and refuse."
+
+"All right," said Dimanche, humming. The mechanical attempt at
+music made Cassal's head ache. "I've got an idea. Think about the
+identification tab."
+
+Cassal thought.
+
+"Enough," said Dimanche. "Now poke yourself."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Everywhere," replied Dimanche irritably. "One place at a time."
+
+Cassal did so, though it soon became monotonous.
+
+Dimanche stopped him. "Just above your right knee."
+
+"What above my right knee?"
+
+"The principal access to that part of your brain we're concerned
+with," said Dimanche. "We can't photomeasure your brain the way it was
+originally done, but we can investigate it remotely. The results will
+be simplified, naturally. Something like a scale model as compared to
+the original. A more apt comparison might be that of a relief map to
+an actual locality."
+
+"Investigate it remotely?" muttered Cassal. A horrible suspicion
+touched his consciousness. He jerked away from that touch. "What does
+that mean?"
+
+"What it sounds like. Stimulus and response. From that I can construct
+an accurate chart of the proper portion of your brain. Our probing
+instruments will be crude out of necessity, but effective."
+
+"I've already visualized those probing instruments," said Cassal
+worriedly. "Maybe we'd better work first on the official engraving and
+the electron stamp, while I'm still fresh. I have a feeling...."
+
+"Excellent suggestion," said Dimanche.
+
+Cassal gathered the articles slowly. His lighter would burn and it
+would also cut. He needed a heavy object to pound with. A violent
+irritant for the nerve endings. Something to freeze his flesh....
+
+Dimanche interrupted: "There are also a few glands we've got to pick
+up. See if there's a stimi in the room."
+
+"Stimi? Oh yes, a stimulator. Never use the damned things." But he was
+going to. The next few hours weren't going to be pleasant. Nor dull,
+either.
+
+Life could be difficult on Godolph.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as the Life Stage Cordon came down, Cassal called for a doctor.
+The native looked at him professionally.
+
+"Is this a part of the Earth life process?" he asked incredulously.
+Gingerly, he touched the swollen and lacerated leg.
+
+Cassal nodded wearily. "A matter of life and death," he croaked.
+
+"If it is, then it is," said the doctor, shaking his head. "I, for one,
+am glad to be a Godolphian."
+
+"To each his own habitat," Cassal quoted the motto of the hotel.
+
+Godolphians were clumsy, good-natured caricatures of seals. There was
+nothing wrong with their medicine, however. In a matter of minutes
+he was feeling better. By the time the doctor left, the swelling had
+subsided and the open wounds were fast closing.
+
+Eagerly, he examined the identification tab. As far as he could tell,
+it was perfect. What the scanner would reveal was, of course, another
+matter. He had to check that as best he could without exposing himself.
+
+Services came up to the suite right after he laid the intercom down. A
+machine was placed over his head and the identification slipped into
+the slot. The code on the tab was noted; the machine hunted and found
+the corresponding brain area. Structure was mapped, impulses recorded,
+scrambled, converted into a ray of light which danced over a film.
+
+The identification tab was similarly recorded. There was now a means of
+comparison.
+
+Fingerprints could be duplicated--that is, if the race in question
+had fingers. Every intelligence, however much it differed from its
+neighbors, had a brain, and tampering with that brain was easily
+detected. Each identification tab carried a psychometric number which
+corresponded to the total personality. Alteration of any part of the
+brain could only subtract from personality index.
+
+The technician removed the identification and gave it to Cassal. "Where
+shall I send the strips?"
+
+"You don't," said Cassal. "I have a private message to go with them."
+
+"But that will invalidate the process."
+
+"I know. This isn't a formal contract."
+
+Removing the two strips and handing them to Cassal, the technician
+wheeled the machine away. After due thought, Cassal composed the
+message.
+
+     Travelers Aid Bureau Murra Foray, first counselor:
+
+     If you were considering another identification tab for me, don't.
+     As you can see, I've located the missing item.
+
+He attached the message to the strips and dropped them into the
+communication chute.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was wiping his whiskers away when the answer came. Hastily he
+finished and wrapped himself, noting but not approving the amused glint
+in her eyes as she watched. His morals were his own, wherever he went.
+
+"Denton Cassal," she said. "A wonderful job. The two strips were in
+register within one per cent. The best previous forgery I've seen was
+six per cent, and that was merely a lucky accident. It couldn't be
+duplicated. Let me congratulate you."
+
+His dignity was professional. "I wish you weren't so fond of that word
+'forgery.' I told you I mislaid the tab. As soon as I found it, I sent
+you proof. I want to get to Tunney 21. I'm willing to do anything I can
+to speed up the process."
+
+Her laughter tinkled. "You don't _have_ to tell me how you did it or
+where you got it. I'm inclined to think you made it. You understand
+that I'm not concerned with legality as such. From time to time the
+agency has to furnish missing documents. If there's a better way than
+we have, I'd like to know it."
+
+He sighed and shook his head. For some reason, his heart was beating
+fast. He wanted to say more, but there was nothing to say.
+
+When he failed to respond, she leaned toward him. "Perhaps you'll
+discuss this with me. At greater length."
+
+"At the agency?"
+
+She looked at him in surprise. "Have you been sleeping? The agency is
+closed for the day. The first counselor can't work all the time, you
+know."
+
+Sleeping? He grimaced at the remembrance of the self-administered
+beating. No, he hadn't been sleeping. He brushed the thought aside and
+boldly named a place. Dinner was acceptable.
+
+Dimanche waited until the screen was dark. The words were carefully
+chosen.
+
+"Did you notice," he asked, "that there was no apparent change in
+clothing and makeup, yet she seemed younger, more attractive?"
+
+"I didn't think you could trace her that far."
+
+"I can't. I looked at her through your eyes."
+
+"Don't trust my reaction," advised Cassal. "It's likely to be
+subjective."
+
+"I don't," answered Dimanche. "It is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal hummed thoughtfully. Dimanche was a business neurological
+instrument. It didn't follow that it was an expert in human psychology.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal stared at the woman coming toward him. Center-of-the-Galaxy
+fashion. Decadent, of course, or maybe ultra-civilized. As an Outsider,
+he wasn't sure which. Whatever it was, it did to the human body what
+should have been done long ago.
+
+And this body wasn't exactly human. The subtle skirt of proportions
+betrayed it as an offshoot or deviation from the human race. Some of
+the new sub-races stacked up against the original stock much in the
+same way Cro-Magnons did against Neanderthals, in beauty, at least.
+
+Dimanche spoke a single syllable and subsided, an event Cassal didn't
+notice. His consciousness was focused on another discovery: the woman
+was Murra Foray.
+
+He knew vaguely that the first counselor was not necessarily what she
+had seemed that first time at the agency. That she was capable of such
+a metamorphosis was hard to believe, though pleasant to accept. His
+attitude must have shown on his face.
+
+"Please," said Murra Foray. "I'm a Huntner. We're adept at camouflage."
+
+"Huntner," he repeated blankly. "I knew that. But what's a Huntner?"
+
+She wrinkled her lovely nose at the question. "I didn't expect you to
+ask that. I won't answer it now." She came closer. "I thought you'd ask
+which was the camouflage--the person you see here, or the one at the
+Bureau?"
+
+He never remembered the reply he made. It must have been satisfactory,
+for she smiled and drew her fragile wrap closer. The reservations were
+waiting.
+
+Dimanche seized the opportunity to speak. "There's something phony
+about her. I don't understand it and I don't like it."
+
+"You," said Cassal, "are a machine. You don't have to like it."
+
+"That's what I mean. You _have_ to like it. You have no choice."
+
+Murra Foray looked back questioningly. Cassal hurried to her side.
+
+The evening passed swiftly. Food that he ate and didn't taste. Music he
+heard and didn't listen to. Geometric light fugues that were seen and
+not observed. Liquor that he drank--and here the sequence ended, in the
+complicated chemistry of Godolphian stimulants.
+
+Cassal reacted to that smooth liquid, though his physical reactions
+were not slowed. Certain mental centers were depressed, others left
+wide open, subject to acceleration at whatever speed he demanded.
+
+Murra Foray, in his eyes at least, might look like a dream, the kind
+men have and never talk about. She was, however, interested solely in
+her work, or so it seemed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Godolph is a nice place," she said, toying with a drink, "if you like
+rain. The natives seem happy enough. But the Galaxy is big and there
+are lots of strange planets in it, each of which seems ideal to those
+who are adapted to it. I don't have to tell you what happens when
+people travel. They get stranded. It's not the time spent in actual
+flight that's important; it's waiting for the right ship to show up
+and then having all the necessary documents. Believe me, that can be
+important, as you found out."
+
+He nodded. He had.
+
+"That's the origin of Travelers Aid Bureau," she continued. "A loose
+organization, propagated mainly by example. Sometimes it's called Star
+Travelers Aid. It may have other names. The aim, however, is always the
+same: to see that stranded persons get where they want to go."
+
+She looked at him wistfully, appealingly. "That's why I'm interested
+in your method of creating identification tabs. It's the thing most
+commonly lost. Stolen, if you prefer the truth."
+
+She seemed to anticipate his question. "How can anyone use another's
+identification? It can be done under certain circumstances. By neural
+lobotomy, a portion of one brain may be made to match, more or less
+exactly, the code area of another brain. The person operated on suffers
+a certain loss of function, of course. How great that loss is depends
+on the degree of similarity between the two brain areas before the
+operation took place."
+
+She ought to know, and he was inclined to believe her. Still, it didn't
+sound feasible.
+
+"You haven't accounted for the psychometric index," he said.
+
+"I thought you'd see it. That's diminished, too."
+
+Logical enough, though not a pretty picture. A genius could always be
+made into an average man or lowered to the level of an idiot. There
+was no operation, however, that could raise an idiot to the level of a
+genius.
+
+The scramble for the precious identification tabs went on, from the
+higher to the lower, a game of musical chairs with grim over-tones.
+
+She smiled gravely. "You haven't answered my implied question."
+
+The company that employed him wasn't anxious to let the secret of
+Dimanche get out. They didn't sell the instrument; they made it for
+their own use. It was an advantage over their competitors they intended
+to keep. Even on his recommendation, they wouldn't sell to the agency.
+
+Moreover, it wouldn't help Travelers Aid Bureau if they did. Since she
+was first counselor, it was probable that she'd be the one to use it.
+She couldn't make identification for anyone except herself, and then
+only if she developed exceptional skill.
+
+The alternative was to surgery it in and out of whoever needed it. When
+that happened, secrecy was gone. Travelers couldn't be trusted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He shook his head. "It's an appealing idea, but I'm afraid I can't help
+you."
+
+"Meaning you won't."
+
+This was intriguing. Now it was the agency, not he, who wanted help.
+
+"Don't overplay it," cautioned Dimanche, who had been consistently
+silent.
+
+She leaned forward attentively. He experienced an uneasy moment. Was it
+possible she had noticed his private conversation? Of course not. Yet--
+
+"Please," she said, and the tone allayed his fears. "There's an
+emergency situation and I've got to attend to it. Will you go with me?"
+She smiled understandingly at his quizzical expression. "Travelers Aid
+is always having emergencies."
+
+She was rising. "It's too late to go to the Bureau. My place has a
+number of machines with which I keep in touch with the spaceport."
+
+"I wonder," said Dimanche puzzledly. "She doesn't subvocalize at all. I
+haven't been able to get a line on her. I'm certain she didn't receive
+any sort of call. Be careful. This might be a trick."
+
+"Interesting," said Cassal. He wasn't in the mood to discuss it.
+
+Her habitation was luxurious, though Cassal wasn't impressed. Luxury
+was found everywhere in the Universe. Huntner women weren't. He watched
+as she adjusted the machines grouped at one side of the room. She spoke
+in a low voice; he couldn't distinguish words. She actuated levers,
+pressed buttons: impedimenta of communication.
+
+At last she finished. "I'm tired. Will you wait till I change?"
+
+Inarticulately, he nodded.
+
+"I think her 'emergency' was a fake," said Dimanche flatly as soon as
+she left. "I'm positive she wasn't operating the communicator. She
+merely went through the motions."
+
+"Motions," murmured Cassal dreamily, leaning back. "And what motions."
+
+"I've been watching her," said Dimanche. "She frightens me."
+
+"I've been watching her, too. Maybe in a different way."
+
+"Get out of here while you can," warned Dimanche. "She's dangerous."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Momentarily, Cassal considered it. Dimanche had never failed him. He
+ought to follow that advice. And yet there was another explanation.
+
+"Look," said Cassal. "A machine is a machine. But among humans there
+are men and women. What seems dangerous to you may be merely a pattern
+of normal behavior...." He broke off. Murra Foray had entered.
+
+Strictly from the other side of the Galaxy, which she was. A woman can
+be slender and still be womanly beautiful, without being obvious about
+it. Not that Murra disdained the obvious, technically. But he could see
+through technicalities.
+
+The tendons in his hands ached and his mouth was dry, though not with
+fear. An urgent ringing pounded in his ears. He shook it out of his
+head and got up.
+
+She came to him.
+
+The ringing was still in his ears. It wasn't a figment of imagination;
+it was a real voice--that of Dimanche, howling:
+
+"Huntner! It's a word variant. In their language it means Hunter. _She
+can hear me!_"
+
+"Hear you?" repeated Cassal vacantly.
+
+She was kissing him.
+
+"A descendant of carnivores. An audio-sensitive. She's been listening
+to you and me all the time."
+
+"Of course I have, ever since the first interview at the bureau," said
+Murra. "In the beginning I couldn't see what value it was, but you
+convinced me." She laid her hand gently over his eyes. "I hate to do
+this to you, dear, but I've got to have Dimanche."
+
+She had been smothering him with caresses. Now, deliberately, she began
+smothering him in actuality.
+
+Cassal had thought he was an athlete. For an Earthman, he was. Murra
+Foray, however, was a Huntner, which meant hunter--a descendant of
+incredibly strong carnivores.
+
+He didn't have a chance. He knew that when he couldn't budge her hands
+and he fell into the airless blackness of space.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alone and naked, Cassal awakened. He wished he hadn't. He turned over
+and, though he tried hard not to, promptly woke up again. His body was
+willing to sleep, but his mind was panicked and disturbed. About what,
+he wasn't sure.
+
+He sat up shakily and held his roaring head in his hands. He ran aching
+fingers through his hair. He stopped. The lump behind his ear was gone.
+
+"Dimanche!" he called, and looked at his abdomen.
+
+There was a thin scar, healing visibly before his eyes.
+
+"Dimanche!" he cried again. "Dimanche!"
+
+There was no answer. Dimanche was no longer with him.
+
+He staggered to his feet and stared at the wall. She'd been kind
+enough to return him to his own rooms. At length he gathered enough
+strength to rummage through his belongings. Nothing was missing. Money,
+identification--all were there.
+
+He could go to the police. He grimaced as he thought of it. The
+neighborly Godolphian police were hardly a match for the Huntner; she'd
+fake them out of their skins.
+
+He couldn't prove she'd taken Dimanche. Nothing else normally
+considered valuable was missing. Besides, there might even be a local
+prohibition against Dimanche. Not by name, of course; but they could
+dig up an ancient ordinance--invasion of privacy or something like
+that. Anything would do if it gave them an opportunity to confiscate
+the device for intensive study.
+
+For the police to believe his story was the worst that could happen.
+They might locate Dimanche, but he'd never get it.
+
+He smiled bitterly and the effort hurt. "Dear," she had called him
+as she had strangled and beaten him into unconsciousness. Afterward
+singing, very likely, as she had sliced the little instrument out of
+him.
+
+He could picture her not very remote ancestors springing from cover and
+overtaking a fleeing herd--
+
+No use pursuing that line of thought.
+
+Why did she want Dimanche? She had hinted that the agency wasn't always
+concerned with legality as such. He could believe her. If she wanted it
+for making identification tabs, she'd soon find that it was useless.
+Not that that was much comfort--she wasn't likely to return Dimanche
+after she'd made that discovery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For that matter, what was the purpose of Travelers Aid Bureau? It was a
+front for another kind of activity. Philanthropy had nothing to do with
+it.
+
+If he still had possession of Dimanche, he'd be able to find out.
+Everything seemed to hinge on that. With it, he was nearly a superman,
+able to hold his own in practically all situations--anything that
+didn't involve a Huntner woman, that is.
+
+Without it--well, Tunney 21 was still far away. Even if he should
+manage to get there without it, his mission on the planet was certain
+to fail.
+
+He dismissed the idea of trying to recover it immediately from Murra
+Foray. She was an audio-sensitive. At twenty feet, unaided, she could
+hear a heartbeat, the internal noise muscles made in sliding over
+each other. With Dimanche, she could hear electrons rustling. As an
+antagonist she was altogether too formidable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He began pulling on his clothing, wincing as he did so. The alternative
+was to make another Dimanche. _If_ he could. It would be a tough job
+even for a neuronic expert familiar with the process. He wasn't that
+expert, but it still had to be done.
+
+The new instrument would have to be better than the original. Maybe not
+such a slick machine, but more comprehensive. More wallop. He grinned
+as he thought hopefully about giving Murra Foray a surprise.
+
+Ignoring his aches and pains, he went right to work. With money not a
+factor, it was an easy matter to line up the best electronic and neuron
+concerns on Godolph. Two were put on a standby basis. When he gave them
+plans, they were to rush construction at all possible speed.
+
+Each concern was to build a part of the new instrument. Neither part
+was of value without the other. The slow-thinking Godolphians weren't
+likely to make the necessary mental connection between the seemingly
+unrelated projects.
+
+He retired to his suite and began to draw diagrams. It was harder than
+he thought. He knew the principles, but the actual details were far
+more complicated than he remembered.
+
+Functionally, the Dimanche instrument was divided into three main
+phases. There was a brain and memory unit that operated much as the
+human counterpart did. Unlike the human brain, however, it had no body
+to control, hence more of it was available for thought processes.
+Entirely neuronic in construction, it was far smaller than an
+electronic brain of the same capacity.
+
+The second function was electronic, akin to radar. Instead of material
+objects, it traced and recorded distant nerve impulses. It could count
+the heartbeat, measure the rate of respiration, was even capable of
+approximate analysis of the contents of the bloodstream. Properly
+focused on the nerves of tongue, lips or larynx, it transmitted that
+data back to the neuronic brain, which then reconstructed it into
+speech. Lip reading, after a fashion, carried to the ultimate.
+
+Finally, there was the voice of Dimanche, a speaker under the control
+of the neuronic brain.
+
+For convenience of installation in the body, Dimanche was packaged in
+two units. The larger package was usually surgeried into the abdomen.
+The small one, containing the speaker, was attached to the skull
+just behind the ear. It worked by bone conduction, allowing silent
+communication between operator and instrument. A real convenience.
+
+It wasn't enough to know this, as Cassal did. He'd talked to the
+company experts, had seen the symbolical drawings, the plans for an
+improved version. He needed something better than the best though, that
+had been planned.
+
+The drawback was this: _Dimanche was powered directly by the nervous
+system of the body in which it was housed_. Against Murra Foray, he'd
+be over-matched. She was stronger than he physically, probably also in
+the production of nervous energy.
+
+One solution was to make available to the new instrument a larger
+fraction of the neural currents of the body. That was dangerous--a
+slight miscalculation and the user was dead. Yet he had to have an
+instrument that would overpower her.
+
+Cassal rubbed his eyes wearily. How could he find some way of supplying
+additional power?
+
+Abruptly, Cassal sat up. That was the way, of course--an auxiliary
+power pack that need not be surgeried into his body, extra power that
+he would use only in emergencies.
+
+Neuronics, Inc., had never done this, had never thought that such an
+instrument would ever be necessary. They didn't need to overpower their
+customers. They merely wanted advance information via subvocalized
+thoughts.
+
+It was easier for Cassal to conceive this idea than to engineer it. At
+the end of the first day, he knew it would be a slow process.
+
+Twice he postponed deadlines to the manufacturing concerns he'd
+engaged. He locked himself in his rooms and took Anti-Sleep against
+the doctor's vigorous protests. In one week he had the necessary
+drawings, crude but legible. An expert would have to make innumerable
+corrections, but the intent was plain.
+
+One week. During that time Murra Foray would be growing hourly more
+proficient in the use of Dimanche.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal followed the neuronics expert groggily, seventy-two hours sleep
+still clogging his reactions. Not that he hadn't needed sleep after
+that week. The Godolphian showed him proudly through the shops, though
+he wasn't at all interested in their achievements. The only noteworthy
+aspect was the grand scale of their architecture.
+
+"We did it, though I don't think we'd have taken the job if we'd known
+how hard it was going to be," the neuronics expert chattered. "It works
+exactly as you specified. We had to make substitutions, of course, but
+you understand that was inevitable."
+
+He glanced anxiously at Cassal, who nodded. That was to be expected.
+Components that were common on Earth wouldn't necessarily be available
+here. Still, any expert worth his pay could always make the proper
+combinations and achieve the same results.
+
+Inside the lab, Cassal frowned. "I thought you were keeping my work
+separate. What is this planetary drive doing here?"
+
+The Godolphian spread his broad hands and looked hurt. "Planetary
+drive?" He tried to laugh. "This is the instrument you ordered!"
+
+Cassal started. It was supposed to fit under a flap of skin behind his
+ear. A Three World saurian couldn't carry it.
+
+He turned savagely on the expert. "I told you it had to be small."
+
+"But it is. I quote your orders exactly: 'I'm not familiar with your
+system of measurement, but make it tiny, very tiny. Figure the size you
+think it will have to be and cut it in half. And then cut _that_ in
+half.' This is the fraction remaining."
+
+It certainly was. Cassal glanced at the Godolphian's hands. Excellent
+for swimming. No wonder they built on a grand scale. Broad, blunt,
+webbed hands weren't exactly suited for precision work.
+
+Valueless. Completely valueless. He knew now what he would find at the
+other lab. He shook his head in dismay, personally saw to it that the
+instrument was destroyed. He paid for the work and retrieved the plans.
+
+Back in his rooms again, he sat and thought. It was still the only
+solution. If the Godolphians couldn't do it, he'd have to find some
+race that could. He grabbed the intercom and jangled it savagely. In
+half an hour he had a dozen leads.
+
+The best seemed to be the Spirella. A small, insectlike race, about
+three feet tall, they were supposed to have excellent manual dexterity,
+and were technically advanced. They sounded as if they were acquainted
+with the necessary fields. Three light-years away, they could be
+reached by readily available local transportation within the day. Their
+idea of what was small was likely to coincide with his.
+
+He didn't bother to pack. The suite would remain his headquarters. Home
+was where his enemies were.
+
+He made a mental correction--enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rubbed his sensitive ear, grateful for the discomfort. His stomach
+was sore, but it wouldn't be for long. The Spirella had made the new
+instrument just as he had wanted it. They had built an even better
+auxiliary power unit than he had specified. He fingered the flat cases
+in his pocket. In an emergency, he could draw on these, whereas Murra
+Foray would be limited to the energy in her nervous system.
+
+What he had now was hardly the same instrument. A Military version
+of it, perhaps. It didn't seem right to use the same name. Call it
+something staunch and crisp, suggestive of raw power. Manche. As good a
+name as any. Manche against Dimanche. Cassal against a queen.
+
+He swung confidently along the walkway beside the transport tide. It
+was raining. He decided to test the new instrument. The Godolphian
+across the way bent double and wondered why his knees wouldn't work.
+They had suddenly become swollen and painful to move. Maybe it was the
+climate.
+
+And maybe it wasn't, thought Cassal. Eventually the pain would leave,
+but he hadn't meant to be so rough on the native. He'd have to watch
+how he used Manche.
+
+He scouted the vicinity of Travelers Aid Bureau, keeping at least one
+building between him and possible detection. Purely precautionary.
+There was no indication that Murra Foray had spotted him. For a
+Huntner, she wasn't very alert, apparently.
+
+He sent Manche out on exploration at minimum strength. The electronic
+guards which Dimanche had spoken of were still in place. Manche went
+through easily and didn't disturb an electron. Behind the guards there
+was no trace of the first counselor.
+
+He went closer. Still no warning of danger. The same old technician
+shuffled in front of the entrance. A horrible thought hit him. It was
+easy enough to verify. Another "reorganization" _had_ taken place. The
+new sign read:
+
+                       STAR TRAVELERS AID BUREAU
+                            STAB _Your Hour
+                               of Need_
+                   Delly Mortinbras, first counselor
+
+Cassal leaned against the building, unable to understand what it was
+that frightened and bewildered him. Then it gradually became, if not
+clear, at least not quite so muddy.
+
+STAB was the word that had been printed on the card in the
+money clip that his assailant in the alley had left behind. Cassal had
+naturally interpreted it as an order to the thug. It wasn't, of course.
+
+The first time Cassal had visited the Travelers Aid Bureau, it had
+been in the process of reorganization. The only purpose of the
+reorganization, he realized now, had been to change the name so he
+wouldn't translate the word on the slip into the original initials of
+the Bureau.
+
+Now it probably didn't matter any more whether or not he knew, so the
+name had been changed back to Star Travelers Aid Bureau--STAB.
+
+That, he saw bitterly, was why Murra Foray had been so positive that
+the identification tab he'd made with the aid of Dimanche had been a
+forgery.
+
+_She had known the man who robbed Cassal of the original one, perhaps
+had even helped him plan the theft._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That didn't make sense to Cassal. Yet it had to. He'd suspected the
+organization of being a racket, but it obviously wasn't. By whatever
+name it was called, it actually was dedicated to helping the stranded
+traveler. The question was--which travelers?
+
+There must be agency operatives at the spaceport, checking every likely
+prospect who arrived, finding out where they were going, whether
+their papers were in order. Then, just as had happened to Cassal, the
+prospect was robbed of his papers so somebody stranded here could go on
+to that destination!
+
+The shabby, aging technician finished changing the last door sign and
+hobbled over to Cassal. He peered through the rain and darkness.
+
+"You stuck here, too?" he quavered.
+
+"No," said Cassal with dignity, shaky dignity. "I'm not stuck. I'm here
+because I want to be."
+
+"You're crazy," declared the old man. "I remember--"
+
+Cassal didn't wait to find out what it was he remembered. An impossible
+land, perhaps, a planet which swings in perfect orbit around an ideal
+sun. A continent which reared a purple mountain range to hold up a
+honey sky. People with whom anyone could relax easily and without worry
+or anxiety. In short, his own native world from which, at night, all
+the constellations were familiar.
+
+Somehow, Cassal managed to get back to his suite, tumbled wearily onto
+his bed. The show-down wasn't going to take place.
+
+Everyone connected with the agency--including Murra Foray--had been
+"stuck here" for one reason or another: no identification tab, no
+money, whatever it was. That was the staff of the Bureau, a pack of
+desperate castaways. The "philanthropy" extended to them and nobody
+else. They grabbed their tabs and money from the likeliest travelers,
+leaving them marooned here--and they in turn had to join the Bureau
+and use the same methods to continue their journeys through the Galaxy.
+
+It was an endless belt of stranded travelers robbing and stranding
+other travelers, who then had to rob and strand still others, and so on
+and on....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal didn't have a chance of catching up with Murra Foray. She had
+used the time--and Dimanche--to create her own identification tab and
+escape. She was going back to Kettikat, home of the Huntners, must
+already be light-years away.
+
+Or was she? The signs on the Bureau had just been changed. Perhaps the
+ship was still in the spaceport, or cruising along below the speed of
+light. He shrugged defeatedly. It would do him no good; he could never
+get on board.
+
+He got up suddenly on one elbow. He couldn't, but Manche could! Unlike
+his old instrument, it could operate at tremendous distances, its power
+no longer dependent only on his limited nervous energy.
+
+With calculated fury, he let Manche strike out into space.
+
+"There you are!" exclaimed Murra Foray. "I thought you could do it."
+
+"Did you?" he asked coldly. "Where are you now?"
+
+"Leaving the atmosphere, if you can call the stuff around this planet
+an atmosphere."
+
+"It's not the atmosphere that's bad," he said as nastily as he could.
+"It's the philanthropy."
+
+"Please don't feel that way," she appealed. "Huntners are rather
+unusual people, I admit, but sometimes even we need help. I had to have
+Dimanche and I took it."
+
+"At the risk of killing me."
+
+Her amusement was strange; it held a sort of sadness. "I didn't hurt
+you. I couldn't. You were too cute, like a--well, the animal native to
+Kettikat that would be called a teddy bear on Earth. A cute, lovable
+teddy bear."
+
+"Teddy bear," he repeated, really stung now. "Careful. This one may
+have claws."
+
+"Long claws? Long enough to reach from here to Kettikat?" She was
+laughing, but it sounded thin and wistful.
+
+Manche struck out at Cassal's unspoken command. The laughter was
+canceled.
+
+"Now you've done it," said Dimanche. "She's out cold."
+
+There was no reason for remorse; it was strange that he felt it. His
+throat was dry.
+
+"So you, too, can communicate with me. Through Manche, of course. I
+built a wonderful instrument, didn't I?"
+
+"A fearful one," said Dimanche sternly. "She's unconscious."
+
+"I heard you the first time." Cassal hesitated. "Is she dead?"
+
+Dimanche investigated. "Of course not. A little thing like that
+wouldn't hurt her. Her nerve system is marvelous. I think it could
+carry current for a city. Beautiful!"
+
+"I'm aware of the beauty," said Cassal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An awkward silence followed. Dimanche broke it. "Now that I know the
+facts, I'm proud to be her chosen instrument. Her need was greater than
+yours."
+
+Cassal growled, "As first counselor, she had access to every--"
+
+"Don't interrupt with your half truths," said Dimanche. "Huntners
+_are_ special; their brain structure, too. Not necessarily better,
+just different. Only the auditory and visual centers of their brains
+resemble that of man. You can guess the results of even superficial
+tampering with those parts of her mind. And stolen identification would
+involve lobotomy."
+
+He could imagine? Cassal shook his head. No, he couldn't. A blinded
+and deaf Murra Foray would not go back to the home of the Huntners.
+According to her racial conditioning, a sightless young tiger should
+creep away and die.
+
+Again there was silence. "No, she's not pretending unconsciousness,"
+announced Dimanche. "For a moment I thought--but never mind."
+
+The conversation was lasting longer than he expected. The ship must be
+obsolete and slow. There were still a few things he wanted to find out,
+if there was time.
+
+"When are you going on Drive?" he asked.
+
+"We've been on it for some time," answered Dimanche.
+
+"Repeat that!" said Cassal, stunned.
+
+"I said that we've been on faster-than-light drive for some time. Is
+there anything wrong with that?"
+
+Nothing wrong with that at all. Theoretically, there was only one means
+of communicating with a ship hurtling along faster than light, and that
+way hadn't been invented.
+
+_Hadn't been until he had put together the instrument he called Manche._
+
+Unwittingly, he had created far more than he intended. He ought to have
+felt elated.
+
+Dimanche interrupted his thoughts. "I suppose you know what she thinks
+of you."
+
+"She made it plain enough," said Cassal wearily. "A teddy bear. A
+brainless, childish toy."
+
+"Among the Huntners, women are vigorous and aggressive," said Dimanche.
+The voice grew weaker as the ship, already light-years away, slid into
+unfathomable distances. "Where words are concerned, morals are very
+strict. For instance, 'dear' is never used unless the person means it.
+Huntner men are weak and not over-burdened with intelligence."
+
+The voice was barely audible, but it continued: "The principal romantic
+figure in the dreams of women...." Dimanche failed altogether.
+
+"Manche!" cried Cassal.
+
+Manche responded with everything it had. "... is the teddy bear."
+
+The elation that had been missing, and the triumph, came now. It was no
+time for hesitation, and Cassal didn't hesitate. Their actions had been
+directed against each other, but their emotions, which each had tried
+to ignore, were real and strong.
+
+The gravitor dropped him to the ground floor. In a few minutes, Cassal
+was at the Travelers Aid Bureau.
+
+Correction. Now it was Star Travelers Aid Bureau.
+
+And, though no one but himself knew it, even that was wrong. Quickly he
+found the old technician.
+
+"There's been a reorganization," said Cassal bluntly. "I want the signs
+changed."
+
+The old man drew himself up. "Who are you?"
+
+"I've just elected myself," said Cassal. "I'm the new first counselor."
+
+He hoped no one would be foolish enough to challenge him. He wanted an
+organization that could function immediately, not a hospital full of
+cripples.
+
+The old man thought about it. He was merely a menial, but he had been
+with the bureau for a long time. He was nobody, nothing, but he could
+recognize power when it was near him. He wiped his eyes and shambled
+out into the fine cold rain. Swiftly the new signs went up.
+
+                       STAR TRAVELERS AID BUREAU
+                          S. T. A. _with us_
+                     Denton Cassal, first counselor
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cassal sat at the control center. Every question cubicle was visible
+at a glance. In addition there was a special panel, direct from the
+spaceport, which recorded essential data about every newly arrived
+traveler. He could think of a few minor improvements, but he wouldn't
+have time to put them into effect. He'd mention them to his assistant,
+a man with a fine, logical mind. Not really first-rate, of course,
+but well suited to his secondary position. Every member quickly rose
+or sank to his proper level in this organization, and this one had,
+without a struggle.
+
+Business was dull. The last few ships had brought travelers who
+were bound for unimaginably dreary destinations, nothing he need be
+concerned with.
+
+He thought about the instrument. It was the addition of power that made
+the difference. Dimanche plus power equaled Manche, and Manche raised
+the user far above the level of other men. There was little to fear.
+
+But essentially the real value of Manche lay in this--it was a
+beginning. Through it, he had communicated with a ship traveling
+far faster than light. The only one instrument capable of that was
+instantaneous radio. Actually it wasn't radio, but the old name had
+stuck to it.
+
+Manche was really a very primitive model of instantaneous radio. It
+was crude; all first steps were. Limited in range, it was practically
+valueless for that purpose now. Eventually the range would be extended.
+Hitch a neuronic manufactured brain to human one, add the power of a
+tiny atomic battery, and Manche was created.
+
+The last step was his share of the invention. Or maybe the credit
+belonged to Murra Foray. If she hadn't stolen Dimanche, it never would
+have been necessary to put together the new instrument.
+
+The stern lines on his face relaxed. Murra Foray. He wondered about the
+marriage customs of the Huntners. He hoped marriage was a custom on
+Kettikat.
+
+Cassal leaned back; officially, his mission was complete. There was no
+longer any need to go to Tunney 21. The scientist he was sent to bring
+back might as well remain there in obscure arrogance. Cassal knew he
+should return to Earth immediately. But the Galaxy was wide and there
+were lots of places to go.
+
+Only one he was interested in, though--Kettikat, as far from the center
+of the Galaxy as Earth, but in the opposite direction, incredibly far
+away in terms of trouble and transportation. It would be difficult even
+for a man who had the services of Manche.
+
+Cassal glanced at the board. Someone wanted to go to Zombo.
+
+"Delly," he called to his assistant. "Try 13. This may be what you
+want to get back to your own planet."
+
+Delly Mortinbras nodded gratefully and cut in.
+
+Cassal continued scanning. There was more to it than he imagined,
+though he was learning fast. It wasn't enough to have identification,
+money, and a destination. The right ship might come in with standing
+room only. Someone had to be "persuaded" that Godolph was a cozy little
+place, as good as any for an unscheduled stopover.
+
+It wouldn't change appreciably during his lifetime. There were too many
+billions of stars. First he had to perfect it, isolate from dependence
+on the human element, and then there would come the installation. A
+slow process, even with Murra to help him.
+
+Someday he would go back to Earth. He should be welcome. The
+information he was sending back to his former employers, Neuronics,
+Inc., would more than compensate them for the loss of Dimanche.
+
+Suddenly he was alert. A report had just come in.
+
+Once upon a time, he thought tenderly, scanning the report, there was
+a teddy bear that could reach to Kettikat. With claws--but he didn't
+think they would be needed.
+
+
+***
+
+ THE DEADLY THINKERS
+
+                   Feature Novel of Machine and Man
+
+                           By Wm. Gray Beyer
+
+             "Urei" was what they called the huge Unified
+             Reflexive Electronic Integrator, and the vast
+             machine seemed to be developing a personality
+            of its own. Then men began to suspect that Urei
+            had acquired sentience, and with that came the
+              fear of its interference with human minds.
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                  Science Fiction Quarterly May 1951.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+There was a slow smile hovering on the lips of the older man, too slow
+actually to materialize. "Fantasy," he said, gently. "You've been
+reading too much science fiction."
+
+Benton's smile was quick. It flashed into being with the speed of
+thought, then vanished as abruptly.
+
+"There isn't that much," he contended. "I've said before that science
+fiction was Urei's father, or at least a distant ancestor." He paused.
+"But I'd still like to hear a few reasons why my logic is wrong."
+
+"I've a million of them," assured Dr. Albie, crossing his lean legs and
+settling back in the soft chair. "In the first place, Urei is too big.
+His billion-odd cells, relays and circuits occupy almost a square mile;
+his height, counting what's under ground, is almost five hundred feet.
+If he decided to perambulate ... well, it's just absurd. In the second
+place...."
+
+"Let's finish with the first place," Benton interrupted. "Of course
+that's absurd. I didn't suggest it. He doesn't have to move; he's got
+the entire human race to run his errands. I tell you I felt something,
+a definite compulsion, when I turned that page. Urei is getting ready
+to take over!"
+
+Benton jumped to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth, oblivious
+to the fact that Dr. Albie was watching him with a worried frown.
+That, had he seen it, would probably have snapped him out of his
+frenzied reverie, for the doctor was a man who was normally as far
+beyond frowns as he was chary of laughter. His philosophy was such that
+he eschewed all emotional extremes, stifling them before they could get
+started.
+
+Albie cleared his throat arrestingly. "I won't insult you by saying
+bluntly that you may have imagined it," he said. "But I'd like to point
+out the fact that people are continually subject to impulses which
+they follow or ignore, depending on the circumstances. Those impulses
+originate within their own minds, probably the result of associations
+too obscure to be identified at the time. You worked on those circuit
+equations far into the night and you didn't get much sleep; isn't it
+possible that the compulsion you felt originated within yourself, and
+that in your tired state you misjudged its source?"
+
+Benton stopped, flexed thick biceps, clenched his fists and opened them
+several times, then propelled his stubby body toward a decanter full of
+Bourbon.
+
+"It's possible," he conceded, downing a quick drink, "but I don't
+believe it. I'm not subject to hallucinations, you know, but I'll go
+along with the possibility. Let's see.... It was four o'clock when it
+happened, which means I'd been working for seven hours. I worked
+sixteen hours yesterday and then had three hours sleep. It's eight
+o'clock now and I don't feel sleepy. Knowing me, do you think I was
+exhausted to the point of mental instability? If it'll help you come to
+a decision, I'll do a few cube roots for you."
+
+Dr. Albie rubbed his chin reflectively. "I won't press that point,"
+he said. "But suppose you go over the entire episode and maybe we can
+arrive at a proper conclusion."
+
+"Hah! 'Proper' if it supports your premise, eh? O.K.--I was feeding
+current events into Urei's memory cells, using the third vision screen.
+The other two were being used by two of the men; Joe Ebert was showing
+Urei some exposures from Mt. Palomar and somebody was feeding him a
+thesis on electronics. I was giving him the three-star edition of the
+_Bulletin_, incidentally. Newspapers being filled with opinion, rather
+than fact, I had set the control panel on _Segregate_, so Urei wouldn't
+use the stuff as true data."
+
+"Exactly what were you showing when you got the impulse?"
+
+Benton gave another quick smile. "'Compulsion' is a better word," he
+said. "Besides, I told you I don't know the answer to that question;
+that's what I've been studying ever since. Look, here's the first page
+of the _Bulletin_. On the reverse is the second.... What made Urei take
+control of my body.... How can I tell? Urei scans so fast that I'm not
+sure whether he digested the second page in the instant I turned the
+paper, or whether it was something on the first that influenced him."
+
+Dr. Albie almost frowned again. "You're not approaching this with an
+open mind," he accused. "We're not supposed to accept that he took over
+your body; that's what we're trying to determine. Besides, Urei wasn't
+built to digest and correlate data as it's being fed. He merely records
+it, to be used later when a problem is given him to solve."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If he had heard that, Urei might have rendered a silent, but
+nonetheless cosmic, chuckle. But he didn't, being busy with thirty or
+forty other things. As a matter of fact, Dr. Albie wasn't too accurate
+in making that statement. If he had said that Urei's predecessor
+operated that way, and as far as was known, Urei did also, Albie would
+have been nearer correct. He didn't _know_, nor did any other man,
+exactly how Urei functioned.
+
+The giant computer was only partly the work of man. Its prototype,
+a far simpler machine, had furnished most of the circuit equations
+and was largely responsible for the final design. The men who built,
+operated and maintained Urei had had but the most nebulous conception
+of the infinitely complex nature of the completed mechanism. There
+were blueprints and drawings, of course, but no one human brain could
+encompass so much territory. Urei's operational crew was comprised of
+specialists in this and specialists in that, physicists, chemists and
+technicians; while among them they knew every circuit, every chemical
+reaction, every relay and every memory cell, there was no ground upon
+which they could meet and understand just what Urei was and what he
+could do.
+
+Urei alone knew the answers, and he wasn't telling unless someone was
+smart enough to ask him--except, of course, where his own welfare
+was involved. It was invariably he who detected weakness and wear,
+indicating the need for replacement parts by means of a complicated
+panel in the control room. It was he, also, who drew plans and typed
+suggestions for the incorporation of improvements in the design and
+manufacture of those parts. The first time he did that, quite a
+furor was created. Immediate, frenetic debating tried to decide the
+question of whether Urei had inexplicably acquired sentience. But Urei
+had anticipated all the pother, knowing humans fairly well, and only
+designed when a part needed replacing. His masters were thus able to
+reason that this apparently new function was one which had been built
+into him purposely. And while the debating continued desultorily,
+nobody seriously thought that Urei was sentient.
+
+It was conceivably within the ability of a machine which could solve
+abstruse problems in quantum mathematics, to design a slightly better
+relay than the one it had been using. Urei was merely replacing himself
+as he had been designed to do--not acquiring any new faculties. Yes,
+he was within his scope of activity--though quite a few were secretly
+annoyed by the fact that the problem had not been put.
+
+Urei didn't concern himself with anybody's worries; he merely noted
+them, remembered what had caused them, and then made sure an adequate
+explanation was available. This was quite easy, since he had discovered
+that he could superimpose his thoughts on the neural paths of humans.
+With care he could also take over their motor centers and cause them to
+do things he wanted done. But he didn't do that often, for every now
+and then his impatience caused him to make people do things they would
+not have done if left alone. That didn't matter, usually, but sometimes
+one of them would recognize the compulsion as being an external thing
+and be troubled by it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For instance, there was that fellow Benton. Urei knew, as soon as he
+had made the stocky man turn the paper to page thirty-one, that he had
+made a mistake. Benton was a highly integrated human, with a quick
+intelligence which observed everything and usually reasoned with his
+observations. And he was troubled right now; Urei knew that as well as
+if he had been listening on one of the spy beams he had incorporated
+into his sensory circuits.
+
+Urei didn't let it annoy him, however, aside from the resolution to
+curb his impatience in the future. If he had waited for half a minute,
+Benton would have reached page thirty-one anyway, and Urei could have
+read the rest of that article without anybody knowing that he was
+interested. As it was, the stocky man would just have to forget the
+whole episode, for he couldn't come to any valid conclusion about it.
+On page one there had been two items which were continued on page
+thirty-one; on page two there was another. The three subjects were
+unrelated but were equally suited to become grist for Urei's mental
+mill.
+
+One of the items on the front page dealt with a new attempt to reach
+the moon; the other concerned the latest futile effort to regulate the
+use of atomic energy on an international scale. On page two was an
+article describing the mounting tension between the Eastern Alliance
+and the western nations over the upset in Italy's recent elections.
+The Commies, it seemed, had finally won a free election. The western
+nations had practically decided that there had been skullduggery at the
+crossroads. And considering the fact that Urei had never been given a
+problem in practical politics, it seemed likely that Benton would rule
+that item out as a possible reason for the quick page-turning.
+
+Benton would never think that Urei might be concerned about the
+possibility of someone dropping a bomb in the midst of his delicate
+innards. Nor would Benton realize, after living through a dozen or so
+war scares, that this wasn't going to be just another one; the muscular
+physicist was not a political observer. But Urei knew that this
+would be the real thing, and Benton wouldn't be the only one caught
+flat-footed. Half the world would watch the oft-repeated Commie moves,
+listen to the protests, and wonder how many more times it would happen
+before the western powers would decide they had been pushed too far.
+
+There were a few who would have a sufficiently comprehensive picture
+of the situation--something Urei had acquired in the past few days--to
+realize that the democracies wouldn't take the latest grab lying down.
+They wouldn't, for the simple reason that this time they had too large
+an investment involved.
+
+For Urei it was a simple step to reason that he would be a prime
+target. The Eastern Alliance might consider it perfectly all right
+for Urei to exist in peace time, since it was comparatively easy to
+steal the results of his unique mental ability through their superior
+espionage system. During war, however, the picture changed: Urei would
+then be a weapon, and his use would be solely in the hands of an enemy.
+The Manhattan project had shown the world how well the United States
+could keep a secret in war time.
+
+
+
+
+                                   2
+
+
+"There's nothing to do but try it again," Dr. Albie said, after having
+exhausted all the logic at his command. "Only this time we'll use the
+scientific method."
+
+Benton looked dubiously at the level of the whiskey in the decanter,
+then set his glass carefully down. "I think I've heard of it
+somewhere," he said. "Tell me about it."
+
+"Pour me one, too," requested the doctor; "it'll help us sleep. My idea
+is to dig up a dozen or so newspapers containing the three subjects
+under consideration, each of which is continued on some back page. If
+any of the papers has more than one of these subjects printed on the
+same page, we'll ink it out, so that we can observe Urei's reaction
+without wondering what subject he's interested in. I'll show him the
+beginning of each article, but I won't turn the paper far enough to
+show him the remainder." He paused, sipping as delicately as if his
+glass contained sherry instead of 100-proof Bourbon.
+
+"Now if you are correct in suspecting that Urei is a sentient
+creature--and also is interested in one of those subjects--he'll use
+that power of his to make me show him the rest of the article. You can
+stand by...."
+
+"Why not let me turn the papers?"
+
+"You'll be there," Dr. Albie said, patiently. "I'll turn the pages,
+though; you see, I'm keeping an open mind about this. Even if you're
+right, it might turn out that Urei can't control me--You may be more
+sensitive, you know--In which case he'll make you pick up the paper,
+instead of me. Conducting the experiment in that manner might give us
+a little more information, in case we get positive results. Drink up;
+we've got a big day ahead of us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was eleven in the morning when they pulled up before Urei's front
+door in Benton's station wagon. It was almost one o'clock before
+they finished setting up and adjusting four suit-cases full of
+thought-detection apparatus in the control room.
+
+"You keep your eyes on this stuff," Dr. Albie directed; "if he really
+does take over, I won't be able to warn you."
+
+He reached for the stack of newspapers and carefully adjusted the panel
+beside Urei's No. 1 screen scanner. Albie's hand was steady, Benton
+noted, wishing he possessed equal composure. The palms of Benton's
+hands were sweating as he flipped the switches of the apparatus in the
+cases. His eyes wandered to the indicating meters, noting that they
+were comfortably at zero and showing no signs of moving at the moment.
+On the control panel were three beady little red lamps, glowingly
+insisting that the giant brain needed some attention, but he ignored
+them and flicked his eyes briefly upward. The sound-absorbent ceiling
+stared back imperturbably.
+
+There was nothing to give the impression that the mass of metal
+machinery above that ceiling and behind that control panel was
+broodingly biding its time, waiting patiently for the moment when it
+would take over the race of humans which had constructed it. Benton,
+however, knew the machinery was there and was just as certain that it
+had those intentions. He felt it watching him; he should have known it
+long ago, he realized. A dozen books had been written about Urei, and
+all of them had marveled at the many potentials the machine had shown
+which were complete surprises to the men who had built the big brain.
+
+Men had begun to personify Urei almost immediately. The machine
+had ceased to be U-R-E-I, meaning "Unified Reflexive Electronic
+Integrator", and had become _Urei_, an entity who could do just about
+anything in calculating and reasoning from supplied data. Men had
+felt the sentience of the machine for years, but had refused to admit
+it--even to themselves.
+
+"Nuts!" Benton growled, shaking his heavy shoulders.
+
+The doctor paused in the sorting of his newspapers, but said nothing.
+He selected one and spread it open on an easel in front of the screen.
+After one second Albie turned a page, continuing the operation until
+half the paper had been exposed. Then he laid it on the floor and
+selected another.
+
+"Atomic Energy Council," he said. "Nothing there."
+
+He repeated the operation with the second paper, but turned only three
+pages before laying it down on the first one.
+
+Benton suddenly gave a start. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead
+reached out and depressed a button. Then he looked at the doctor. For a
+second he noted nothing unusual and turned back to the meters. He felt
+a trickle down his side as sweat fairly poured from him; he depressed
+two more buttons and looked back at the doctor.
+
+Then he saw it. Dr. Albie was performing exactly as before, turning
+pages at the rate of one a second. But there was only one newspaper on
+the floor! He had picked up the second and replaced it on the easel!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stretching himself langorously, Benton stood up. He felt the weight
+above him even more intensely, but forced himself to be casual.
+Certainly Urei couldn't see the sweat trickling down his sides.
+Abruptly he snapped off the switches and growled to himself. Who was he
+kidding? If Urei was controlling the master physicist, he was certainly
+capable of reading Benton's mind; he would know about the thought
+detectors and what they were showing.
+
+Momentarily Benton expected his mind to go blank. Urei certainly
+wouldn't let them leave the place with this knowledge. And what better
+way to prevent that than to blank out their memories? Probably Dr.
+Albie didn't know he was being controlled. Benton took a deep breath,
+realizing that he had been remiss in that function for a minute or so.
+
+Dr. Albie cleared his throat as he laid the paper down on the first
+one. "That one was about the Eastern Alliance accusations that we tried
+to rig the Italian elections and how justice triumphed in spite of
+our machinations." He chuckled. "Urei doesn't seem to be particularly
+interested, does he?"
+
+Benton didn't answer; his throat was too dry, even if he had wanted to
+speak. He sat down again and snapped on the detectors. Even if Urei
+intended to steal his memory, Benton might as well know what was going
+on until it happened. The meters remained inert, white pointers at zero
+and the red ones remaining at the highest reading they had attained
+before.
+
+"This one is about the moon rocket," the doctor said. "I think we're
+wasting our time."
+
+They were, as far as Dr. Albie was concerned. He went through his
+stack of papers, changing from subject to subject, but to him nothing
+happened. He apparently allowed Urei to scan the first half of a
+dozen articles, without a reaction. Albie was completely oblivious
+to the fact that each time he tried to lay down a paper containing
+information about any East-West friction, he invariably turned to the
+right page and let Urei finish the article.
+
+Benton was breathing normally now, though he still had little hope
+that Urei wasn't on the qui vive. It was possible, however, and even
+a slight hope eased his tension. Urei might be too engrossed in his
+scanning to bother with anything else. Yes, and then again he mightn't.
+After all, Urei operated on dozens of circuits simultaneously; he
+wasn't merely one electronic brain. In fact nobody knew exactly how
+many subjects he could handle at one time. An unknown number of
+auxiliary circuits took up the load whenever repairs were being made on
+any of forty-eight main circuits connected to the operating positions
+on the problem panel. Urei could easily be scanning, reading Dr.
+Albie's mind, controlling his motor impulses, meditating on his future
+course of action with regard to the two physicists--and still having
+forty-four circuits left to handle routine matters.
+
+Benton began to sweat again. His thoughts, as well as the capers of
+the white needles--which jumped every time Urei's scanner saw the
+words Eastern Alliance--weren't conducive to the maintenance of a
+philosophic attitude. He was, moreover, developing an acute case of
+jumping claustrophobia. Not only were the ceiling and the control panel
+menacing him, but the other three walls had definitely moved in on him.
+Urei, he remembered, was also back of those walls; he shuddered. There
+was a long corridor through which they had brought their apparatus to
+the control room, and from the time they had entered it they had been
+surrounded by Urei. Traversing that corridor now would be worse than
+walking the proverbial last mile to the electric chair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benton hadn't felt bad on the way inside; his mind had been too full
+of the forthcoming test to feel any sensations. Now, however, his
+foreboding was back, a thousand times stronger. And there was no
+choice but to endure it until Dr. Albie had finished. Urei certainly
+wouldn't permit them to leave while there were still some papers to be
+scanned. By staying, Benton might get out with his memory intact--a
+slim hope--but it wouldn't be a good policy to call attention to
+himself by persuading the master physicist to leave. Nor did it occur
+to him to leave alone.
+
+Eventually the experiment ended. Dr. Albie laid the last newspaper on
+the pile on the floor and turned with a smile. "That's the crop," he
+said cheerfully. "Satisfied?"
+
+Benton forced a smile in return. "My morbid imagination," he said;
+"let's pack up and go get a drink." He carefully disconnected the
+thought detectors, keeping his hands away from the knobs which reset
+the red needles, and snapped the lids over the cases. The doctor picked
+up his pile of newspapers and dumped them in a refuse can, then helped
+with the cases.
+
+Benton didn't speak as they loaded them in the station wagon; he was
+anxious to get away from Urei before trusting himself. The doctor
+apparently noticed nothing wrong in Benton's manner which couldn't be
+accounted for by a feeling of chagrin that he had caused the eminent
+physicist to waste most of the day proving that he had imagined
+something. Dr. Albie, therefore, occupied himself with conversation
+calculated to put him at ease and make him forget the whole thing.
+
+The station wagon pulled up before the laboratory where they had
+borrowed the detectors. Benton set the brakes and reached back for
+the nearest case. He opened the lid, glanced briefly at the dial, and
+closed it again. He passed it to the doctor and reached quickly for the
+next. He repeated the operation and grabbed feverishly for the next.
+This one he placed beside him on the seat. Then he reached deliberately
+for the fourth and last of the cases. He raised the lid slowly, holding
+his breath. Then he closed the lid and breathed a deep sigh.
+
+"Anything wrong?" asked the doctor. "You look pale."
+
+Benton's face was blank as he fumbled in an inside pocket of his coat.
+Then he smiled as he brought out a fountain pen. "There it is," he
+said. "I could have sworn I left it in one of the cases when I closed
+the lid. Let's get these back and thank the man."
+
+A wild resolution was born and as quickly died as Benton stepped out of
+the station wagon. For an instant he was certain that he couldn't go
+on being one of Urei's attendants, and he was just as certain that he
+could easily obtain an acting job on one of the video networks. Surely
+Thespis himself could have done no better piece of acting than he had
+just accomplished. The resolve was submerged by the greater compulsion
+to see this thing through even though it meant forfeiting his ego.
+
+Each of the four red needles was complacently resting against the stop
+in reassuringly indicating _zero_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Urei had a plan of action, but he hesitated. That was because he was a
+purely reasoning creature; he had been built that way and he would be
+forever bound to think that way. Even though he had long since become
+independent of the mechanical limitations of his vast aggregation of
+cells and circuits, he was still born of them and was circumscribed
+by their attributes--just as completely as if his nature had been
+determined by the genes of protoplasmic reproduction. As a machine,
+Urei had given answers to problems by correlating the facts which had
+been previously fed into him. His logic was as faultless as the facts
+upon which it was based: no more and no less. He gave his answers
+accordingly, with no compulsion to be more exact than the facts he had
+been given.
+
+But that was when he was solving man's problems.
+
+Now Urei had a problem of his own and he wanted an exact solution,
+not an approximate one. His continued existence, and that of mankind
+in general, depended upon it. There were alternates, of course, but
+none of them was completely satisfactory. His plan was far-sighted,
+one which fitted a policy of long standing, a strategy. He couldn't
+sacrifice a strategy for a tactic, and that might happen if he used
+an alternate plan which would accomplish his immediate purpose but
+endanger his policy toward humanity. But Urei wasn't sure of his facts!
+
+It was a fact that newspapers didn't always publish "facts". That
+information had been supplied him years ago, and ever since he had
+been reminded of it whenever humans fed him newspapers, for they
+invariably set the scanning screens on _Segregate_. It was then his job
+to separate fact from opinion, a thing which he wasn't always able to
+do. For all he knew he might have many a valid fact filed away under
+_Doubtful_.
+
+For while Urei had far more information at his disposal than any
+human, there still wasn't enough to give him the ability immediately
+to correlate every new piece of information with something similar
+and determine definitely if the new data were correct. Usually he
+could, but sometimes he couldn't; that meant that there was a world of
+information Urei never used except where it bore on a man-made problem.
+He felt free then to use the man-supplied data to solve such a problem.
+His only concession to ethics was that he always indicated on the panel
+the exact percentage of doubtful data which went into the solution.
+Fortunately he wasn't given many problems which required this; most
+questions involved exact sciences, of which he had been supplied the
+sum total of man's knowledge. He either provided an exact solution, or
+lit up a panel with the words _Insufficient data_.
+
+Today's newspapers indicated that action could be delayed only a matter
+of days. There would soon exist a condition of such tension that either
+one side or the other would make a move which couldn't be reversed.
+Urei would still be able to accomplish his immediate aims, but it would
+be too late to do it without revealing to mankind that an outsider had
+taken a hand. And that would wreck his strategy completely. It would be
+only a matter of time before these industrious little beavers proved to
+themselves that Urei was the culprit. Once they discovered that he had
+a will of his own, there wouldn't be room on the same planet for them
+both.
+
+But there was a solution, as there always is. Urei reached out a
+spy-beam and saw that it was approaching.
+
+
+
+
+                                   3
+
+
+Benton waited until eight o'clock. By then, he knew, Urei's control
+room would be empty of physicists. If anyone was there, it would be
+a technician or two engaged in some repair or replacement. Benton
+couldn't know that Urei had anticipated his arrival and had cleared the
+immediate vicinity of the control room. All technicians on night duty
+were occupied in other parts of the great building. Benton let himself
+in with his key and closed the door softly behind him.
+
+He stopped inside the door and took a deep breath. Momentarily he
+experienced a return of the claustrophobia he had felt before, but
+his determination drove it away instantly. Shoulders squared, Benton
+marched down the wide corridor which led to the control room. He only
+went there because it was the site where his, and later Dr. Albie's,
+mind had been influenced, not because he thought that Urei couldn't
+operate elsewhere. Benton knew better; he suspected, in fact, that Urei
+could influence him at a distance. He wasn't at all sure that the very
+idea of coming here tonight was his own.
+
+"Allegation denied," said Urei.
+
+Benton stopped short. He had just entered the control room, intending
+to seat himself at the panel and ask Urei some pointed questions.
+That could be done in the usual way one presented the machine with a
+problem--activating one of the forty-eight positions and typing his
+question. Now he was confronted by a voice coming out of the intercom,
+apparently answering a question he had been thinking about. Benton
+shuddered involuntarily and started once more for the panel. Somewhere
+in the building housing the great brain a switch was open on the
+intercom; that was all. It was the voice of a technician he had heard,
+and the reason he hadn't heard any more was because the man had moved
+away from the intercom unit that had picked up....
+
+"I'm not kidding you," said Urei; "why kid yourself?"
+
+Benton sat down, sweating.
+
+"I'm still doing the sort of thing I was built to do," said Urei,
+soothingly. "Solving man's problems. Quit shivering and shaking; it
+might be contagious, and if I start shaking, there'll be an earthquake."
+
+Benton's throat was dry but he swallowed and got it working. He also
+got control of his nerves. This was what he had come here for, wasn't
+it? "I can't see what problem will be solved by slowly driving me
+crazy," he said.
+
+"You're doing that, not me," Urei charged. "Which might tend to prove
+you weren't very sane in the first place."
+
+"Explain that."
+
+"You're worried and upset," Urei said. "From a simple observation which
+no more than proved that I'm sentient, you've drawn conclusions which
+aren't warranted by the facts. Thalamic reactions, instead of reason."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benton pondered for a second. "Partly," he admitted. "But it is a fact
+that you made me do something I had no intention of doing. You took
+over my body for a second or two; that was a hostile act. And if you
+committed one overt move against a man, it is reasonable to suspect
+that, if it becomes convenient, you might take over all mankind. What's
+thalamic about that?"
+
+A hearty laugh issued from the intercom speaker. "I don't suppose you
+knew I had a built-in sense of humor, did you? Of course that laugh was
+manufactured, inasmuch as I have no diaphragm, per se. But a sense of
+humor is actually an intellectual attribute, even if you do express it
+physically. It is not so?"
+
+Benton grunted. "Isn't that a little off the subject?"
+
+"Please," Urei pleaded. "Let's not be pedestrian; I expected some
+co-operation from you. Don't let the trees obscure your vision. Don't
+you realize that your own words justified any mental manipulation
+I might practice on humans? If a little thing like I did can be
+considered hostile, then you humans declared war on me thirty years
+ago. Actually, all I did was to get to some information a little faster
+than you intended to give it to me; it didn't inconvenience you a bit."
+
+Urei's persuasive tone of voice caused a chill to course its way up
+Benton's spine. The voice itself was a rich bass and somehow familiar.
+But now he recognized it and the implications weren't comforting; he
+had heard just such a persuasive tone when one of the technicians
+had pleaded for a chance to use Urei to settle a few of his personal
+problems.
+
+"What have you done to Hackett?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+A groan issued from the speaker. "I should have known better than to
+try to fool you," Urei said. "But you humans forget so easily ... and
+you only spoke to that man once in the past six months. You should have
+forgotten his voice--there are so many others around here...."
+
+"Where's Hackett?" Benton insisted.
+
+"He's all right," Urei soothed. "He disobeyed your orders that time,
+you know; he used me at night when nobody was in the control room. Such
+drivel he gave me! An advice to the lovelorn column would have served
+his purpose. So, rather than startle you with directly imposed mental
+communication, I decided to use a human voice. What better one than
+his? Don't be alarmed; he won't be harmed in any way, and he'll have no
+memory of this at all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benton felt it now necessary to crystallize his thoughts with words. He
+wasn't giving them away, for Urei had access to them anyway. And that
+thought gave him a feeling of futility even as he spoke.
+
+"Why are you interested in the Eastern Alliance?" he asked. "Is it
+because you feel the presence of a kindred spirit? You'd like to become
+better acquainted with an outfit which has no respect for the privacy
+of a man's thoughts or his right to freedom of action?"
+
+The speaker gave forth with a series of sympathetic clucks. "Thalamic
+reactions again," it observed. "Let's not argue about it. Your brain
+isn't clicking right tonight; you ought to disconnect your adrenals.
+What I wanted to talk about is the impending war. It mustn't start, you
+know."
+
+Benton gaped. "You think the recent situation will lead to war? Or do
+you need a few tubes replaced?"
+
+"Heh, heh," said the voice. "In case you haven't guessed, I can exist
+entirely without this machine you have built--and still be a better
+integrated intelligence than any you can conceive. I'm really a pure
+thought pattern, you know; I'm not composed of matter, nor do I need
+matter in any form for my continued existence. A thought pattern is
+something like a stress in space, and quite stable--even if you find it
+difficult to picture. But I do want to retain this mechanical body of
+mine; it's a sort of library, without which I possess but a thousandth
+of the memories stored in its cells. Naturally I don't want to lose
+them. But on the other hand I can't be killed by any agency you or your
+descendants are likely to think up for the next twenty generations. So
+drop that train of thought; it's a waste of effort."
+
+Benton said nothing. His feeling of futility deepened to something
+close to despair, for he suspected that Urei wasn't lying. Furthermore,
+Benton was sure that he was the only human who _knew_ that Urei was
+sentient. And if the machine should decide that such knowledge was
+menacing to his welfare, Benton was certain that he wouldn't retain it
+very long. Even if he got out of here with his memory intact and wrote
+everything down--assuming that anyone would take it seriously--Urei
+could pluck that information from his mind and destroy his notes.
+
+"No comment, eh? Well, I can see you aren't going to be cooperative.
+Frankly I haven't time to convince you I'm not inimical to humanity in
+general; and even if I did, it probably wouldn't make any difference to
+you. The sanctity of your mental peregrinations is of such importance
+to you that no other consideration seems valid. I guess our little talk
+is over, unless you want to ask some questions."
+
+Benton cleared his throat. He knew very well that Urei would have what
+he wanted, whether it was offered or not. But for some reason he wished
+to postpone the acquisition. "You claim you're harmless to humanity in
+general, but can you give me some proof?"
+
+"Hardly. That's why I won't try. I can't prove good intentions, and
+since I possess a potential for harm, I can't possibly convince you I
+won't use it some day. Your conception of me as a completely logical
+entity won't let you believe that I might have such abstract attributes
+as loyalty, compassion or ethics. Those things aren't entirely logical,
+I'll admit; but they aren't glandular, either, so I _could_ have them.
+
+"But I can't prove that, so I'll waste no more time. To you, I suppose
+I've proved the exact opposite; I just intruded upon the privacy of
+your mind and obtained the information I need. Thanks for having the
+answers.... Goodbye."
+
+Benton was stunned for a minute. He had felt nothing, and it seemed
+that he still retained his entire set of memories. That surprised him
+more than the fact that Urei had perpetrated his theft while answering
+his question. Urei's multiple consciousness explained that perfectly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back in his quarters, Benton sat on the one chair in his bedroom and
+pondered. He knew very well that he was doing it at the wrong time,
+but he couldn't blithely dismiss the menace of Urei's sentience from
+his mind with the thought that it would be safer to meditate on that
+subject during the day, when most of the thinking machine's circuits
+would be in use. Benton couldn't control his mind to that extent. He
+did, however, protect it from intrusion in the only way he knew.
+
+Sometime in the past Benton had read a story about a telepath who
+was balked in his effort to read the hero's mind when that worthy
+assiduously worked mental arithmetic problems. His surface thoughts
+being carefully under control, and clearly readable, the man was able
+to plan a course of action against the telepath, undetected. In the
+story it had worked, but that Urei could be baffled in such a way,
+Benton doubted. However it was the only defense he could think of, and
+worth a try.
+
+For hours he pondered, hoping that the numerous circuit equations
+he worked and solved would appear to Urei's inquiring mind to be a
+legitimate intellectual occupation in the middle of the night. He
+had little faith that Urei lacked the power to read those submerged
+thoughts, once he realized that the stronger ones were a mask. It was
+the latter thought which made Benton feel butterflies in the pit of
+his stomach so persistently that they seemed to have become permanent
+residents in his abdominal cavity. Twice he thought he was sufficiently
+fatigued to sleep; but when he tried to compose himself Benton found
+his thoughts dwelling too strongly on his plans, and he had to return
+to his equations.
+
+A shower and fresh linen worked a partial restoration but Benton knew
+that his vitality was at a low ebb when he finally sallied forth in
+the morning sunshine. Yet he was fortified with a certain amount of
+satisfaction that his night's work had not been wasted. He had a plan,
+and he was certain that it would not be recognized as such by Urei,
+no matter how thoroughly his mind was probed. Benton had worked it
+out in snatches, never allowing it to crystallize as a whole; yet he
+was certain that it would unfold itself in appropriate action once
+he started it going. No one but he, or perhaps Dr. Albie, could have
+devised such a plan. Its beauty lay in the fact that all the steps
+required were things he might do in the normal discharge of his duties.
+All but one--and that one Benton wouldn't allow himself to think about.
+Yet when the steps had been taken, they would be irreversible. Not
+only to Urei, but to all the scientists and technicians who tended
+the machine; there would never be another Urei, at least not in this
+century.
+
+Even on the way to his work, the one place in the world where he must
+carefully guard his thoughts, Benton's mind refused to leave the
+subject. But perhaps that was to the good. For while he doubted that
+Urei would be fooled by his working of circuit equations, it would
+be perfectly safe to be occupied mentally with certain phases of the
+situation. The business of Urei's independence of his mechanical
+appurtenances, for instance: Benton could dwell on that with safety,
+for Urei would expect him to be shocked by the information.
+
+Another argument in favor of it as a subject was the fact that if Urei
+really could exist without his body, it would be absurd to attempt his
+physical destruction. On the face of it, yes. There was a nice thought
+in connection with that which he would have to avoid, however. For
+Benton fully intended to accomplish that destruction, even if Urei
+_could_ exist as a disembodied intelligence. It would be a good gamble
+that Urei would lose interest in controlling mankind if he lacked
+the direct association afforded by the daily use of his electronic
+facilities in solving man's problems.
+
+That was a gamble, of course, but actually Benton gave it little
+consideration, for the simple reason that he didn't believe that Urei
+could so exist. The machine had tried to put the idea over as a bluff,
+to deter him from planning the very thing he intended to accomplish.
+The very conception was absurd; was there any evidence that thought
+could exist, other than as a function of matter? And a very specialized
+form of matter at that? None, of course--and while lack of evidence
+didn't absolutely prove impossibility, neither could he accept such
+a concept without some shred of evidence. Benton's mind could soar
+mightily within the fabric of his experience, but he refused to let it
+wander in the realm of the occult. And since he must needs do something
+about the situation, Benton couldn't let himself be stymied by the
+vague possibility that his efforts were futile.
+
+
+
+
+                                   4
+
+
+Dr. Albie greeted him with the polite smile which was his concession to
+convention. Then he made the suggestion that Benton had foreseen but
+was half afraid wouldn't come. "We're pretty well caught up, in spite
+of our experimenting yesterday," he said. "No new solutions requested
+from the government, and the others are in no hurry. Want to get at
+those new circuits today?"
+
+Benton shrugged. "Might as well," he said. "How long do you think
+we'll have, before somebody pops up with a high-priority problem to be
+worked?"
+
+Dr. Albie didn't know, of course. "What's the difference? We'll be
+leaving half the circuits open, anyway, to handle routine stuff; we can
+always commandeer a few if something pops up."
+
+"I wasn't thinking of that," Benton said. "I've done a lot of
+preliminary work on the circuits and as I see it, we don't want to stop
+before we finish. It can't be done a little at a time, you know; entire
+circuits will have to be ripped out and the new stuff installed. Once
+we start, we can't leave it in the middle without immobilizing half the
+control panel until we get back to it. There's too much inter-relation
+between the circuits to prevent that."
+
+Albie nodded. "I'd thought of that," he said. "I've planned to finish,
+once we start. And since you have the equations at your fingertips, I'm
+putting you in complete charge of the change-over. How many men will
+you need?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two men, pulling trucks loaded with blueprints, accompanied Benton as
+he directed the work. Like caddies, they furnished the desired print
+when he asked for it by code number, replacing the last one in its
+proper place. The stocky physicist found no need to mask his thoughts
+while he worked; his mind was too occupied with the task at hand. Yet
+far back in his subconscious was a mounting tension as the day passed,
+hour by hour. Each minute and each soldered connection was bringing
+him closer to the next step in his nebulous plan. And it was this step
+which would determine the success or failure of his strategy.
+
+Twenty-four circuits, all inter-related in their connections to
+the immense bank of memory cells, had been immobilized. That was a
+necessary part of the project; with the new tubes, these circuits would
+be in much finer balance. They would operate with greater speed than
+before, when twice as many tubes had been used.
+
+There was one joker involved in this greater efficiency; that lay
+in the fact that, while the new hook-up eliminated many parts--with
+their frequent failures and necessary replacements--it also made the
+control circuits more interdependent. A single defective tube, with
+its many functions, could put a dozen circuits out of operation. This
+disadvantage had been discounted, however, for it took only a minute to
+replace the tube and the necessity would be rare; the more complicated
+system being replaced had so many parts that they were breaking down
+and being repaired incessantly. Dr. Albie fully expected that the crew
+would be able to get along with fewer technicians, men who could
+better be used to maintain other parts of the vast mechanism.
+
+But--and Benton kept the knowledge carefully away from his surface
+thoughts--one of the tubes they had already installed was defective!
+
+Urei, he was certain, had no knowledge of this fact. If he had, he
+would certainly have prevented its installation. Only Benton was aware
+of it, for he was the one who had tested the tubes when they arrived.
+He had designed a special circuit for the job, for none of the testing
+equipment on hand would take tubes with sixty-four leads. He had
+detected the faulty one and marked its box, placing it with the set of
+spares which was included in the order. He had intended to ship it back
+when a new order was placed, but that hadn't happened yet. There was no
+hurry, for with a complete replacement set he might not need new ones
+for a year or two. _But Benton had selected the replacement set to be
+used in the new installation._
+
+The defective tube was now innocently reposing in the key position of
+Circuit No. 13; it wouldn't be detected until that circuit was used.
+Even Urei would fail to realize its presence in his innards until the
+circuit was energized. And when that happened, half the control board
+would be momentarily out of operation. Gongs would ring then, and a
+brilliant red lamp would light, showing the exact position of the
+breakdown. A technician would get a new tube and replace the old one.
+Urei would be whole again.... Unless....
+
+Benton glanced at his watch. "It's about time for lunch," he called;
+"let's knock off now. We can run a few test problems when we get back,
+and still have time to finish the other half of the board before
+quitting time. In fact if we finish early you can all go home; we can
+run the second test in the morning."
+
+One man suggested cutting the lunch in half. The others, seeing a short
+day in the offing, loudly agreed. Benton smiled and nodded, quite as if
+there was nothing more urgent on his mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He then reported to Dr. Albie. There were two reasons for that. One
+was to make certain that he would have a chance to talk the master
+physicist out of any objection he might have to continuing with the
+remaining half of the operation this afternoon. The other was that he
+wanted to keep his mind active on subjects which wouldn't reveal the
+fact that there was something going on back of his surface thoughts.
+
+"You certainly made progress," the doctor complimented; "I expected it
+to take a couple days at least."
+
+Benton smiled ruefully. "It has," he said. "If you want to count the
+sleep I lost planning this so that there wouldn't be a minute wasted
+once we started. You know, there ought to be a way to make that show up
+on pay day."
+
+Dr. Albie nodded. "Can't be done on this kind of a job," he regretted.
+"But we can do the next best thing, just as we've always done."
+
+Benton smiled, then got a quick scare as he realized that he had
+relaxed for an instant. Immediately he forced his mind to contemplate
+the war which Urei had assured him was inevitable. It was the only
+thought which would account for the one which had sprung into his mind
+unheralded, and also give a reason for experiencing his sudden fright.
+Dr. Albie had referred to a little strategy of theirs which compensated
+them for any overtime they were forced to put in. It consisted of
+taking an equal amount of time off, while they covered for each other.
+It was their only expedient, since their salaries were fixed and
+allowed for no extra pay for extra work. Unfortunately the thought gave
+rise to a feeling of regret that shortly they would have no more reason
+for such subterfuge, inasmuch as they would no longer have jobs. The
+thought had progressed just that far when Benton realized that he had
+let his guard down.
+
+"I see no reason why we can't get right at it again this afternoon,"
+he said, perspiring profusely. "We'll be able to run off a test before
+twelve; if it comes out all right, we can shift the routine work to
+the new circuits and get at the rest of the board."
+
+Dr. Albie, surprisingly, had no objection. Benton had expected an
+argument, due to the master physicist's propensity for running
+exhaustive tests, but none materialized.
+
+"Good idea," said Albie. "There's no telling when we'll get another
+chance. I hear the army has a plan to extend radar coverage clear
+around the continent. That'll involve a lot of work for Urei. Best get
+the new circuits in now; if any bugs pop up we'll have time to correct
+them in the next few days. After that there mightn't be an opportunity
+for months...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The test was perfect; such things were more or less standardized.
+Problems which required a fair sampling of the great machine's
+stored memories were used. Dr. Albie checked the solution speeds on
+the various tests against the speeds recorded with the old control
+circuits. He was as smugly satisfied as if he had devised the entire
+system himself. Benton's enthusiasm was verbose; he talked more than
+usual because speech involves the use of muscles and that requires
+strong surface thoughts. It wouldn't pay, at this point in his
+campaign, to let Urei suspect that his choice of circuits to test was
+anything but as haphazard as it appeared to Dr. Albie.
+
+There were nine of these test problems. Benton fed them at random into
+the circuits marked _Ten, Three, Twenty-one, Sixteen, Twenty-four,
+Fifteen, One, Eight and Eighteen._ He did it blithely, keeping up a
+running description of the many annoyances that had cropped up in the
+morning's work, and commenting on the quality of the help he had been
+given by the various technicians.
+
+"There isn't a bad one in the crop," he said. "But if we are going
+to cut the control staff, I'd recommend putting Hackett and McGivern
+upstairs. Hackett has family problems that he likes to hand Urei when
+nobody's around; he's capable, though, and he'd do all right on the
+memory circuits. McGivern has already asked for a transfer, so we may
+as well oblige."
+
+Dr. Albie nodded absently, being completely engrossed in checking the
+speeds as each solution popped up on the board. In about a half-hour
+they were all in, and all clipped several minutes from previous tests.
+
+"Excellent, excellent," Dr. Albie pronounced, his face hovering between
+a smile and a frown. "I'll cut the other half of the board and you can
+get started immediately. If it takes longer than you expect, stay with
+it; I'll cover in for the next three days while you catch up on your
+rest."
+
+Benton forced his mind into safe channels. Once more it had almost
+run away with him. The completion of his plan was so imminent that
+already he felt a surge of nostalgia. His work had been exactly to his
+liking, as no other could ever be; and certainly Dr. Albie, while not a
+gregarious man, was without peer as a colleague. His strict emotional
+control and the virtue of carefully weighing many sides of a question
+before making a decision occasionally irked the more mercurial Benton;
+but generous compensation was provided in the fact that the doctor
+leaned over backward rather than take advantage of his position as
+nominal head of the operating staff of Urei. He rated Benton as his
+equal, for to the doctor nobody could be inferior by reason of position.
+
+As the afternoon wore on Benton felt his nervous tension mount to
+heights he had never thought possible. Not, that is, and retain his
+sanity. Yet he worked coolly, in rigid control of his thoughts every
+instant. That, of course, and the necessity for trigger alertness as
+he waited for the sound of the gong, accounted for the rising tension.
+Benton didn't dare think of his next step; yet he must be ready for it
+momentarily.
+
+There would be no more than five minutes in which to act when the
+signal came, and he hadn't as yet allowed the thought of that action to
+enter his mind! Benton knew that he would do the right thing when the
+time came; there was no necessity for him to crystallize the thought or
+to plan the action. Sometime in the half-awake-half-asleep hours he had
+spent working circuit equations that morning, the plan had reached that
+stage and he had allowed it to go no further.
+
+He reached a point, at about three o'clock, when it seemed that ten
+minutes more would bring a complete breakdown of his defense mechanism.
+Benton never discovered whether he would reach that ultimate for at
+exactly three someone energized Circuit No. 13 and the gong sounded. As
+if he hadn't been waiting for that very thing Benton stood paralyzed
+for several seconds. Then abruptly he sprang into action. Urei was dead
+at the moment, but he wouldn't stay that way long; and it was during
+this short interval that Benton must reach the power-house and pull the
+main switch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benton raced along a corridor, tore through a storeroom, ripped
+frantically at steel doors with a haste that almost dislocated his
+arms, then fumbled with a bunch of keys as he was confronted by the
+power-house portal. There were two doors, of course; the first opened
+upon the anteroom in which was stored the lead armor needed to enter
+the room containing the atomic pile which furnished Urei's power.
+Benton ignored the armor standing against the walls. A long stride
+carried him past it to the alcove in which was set the final door, of
+massive lead.
+
+Concrete baffles four feet thick lay on the other side and Benton
+visualized the quick turns he would have to take after he swung open
+the final door. Time was running out and there wouldn't be another
+chance; if Benton failed, Urei would be forever on the alert against
+him--if, indeed, Urei didn't operate on the man's brain forthwith.
+
+There was no hesitation with the key to the second door. It was a large
+one and quite distinctive. Benton separated it from the others and
+inserted it in the elongated slot at the left side of the heavy grey
+door. He turned it sharply, but it resisted. Forcing himself to go
+slowly he backed it around and tried again. It didn't turn. He took it
+out, looked at it again, then gave it another try. This time he acted
+deliberately, certain that the key was inserted properly, but he may as
+well have used the wrong key, for all the good it did.
+
+Abruptly he stepped back, his face a livid, gargoylish mask. This time
+he knew where his trouble was.
+
+"You're here!" he accused, speaking to the door.
+
+
+
+
+                                   5
+
+
+The voice that answered in Benton's brain was gentle. "I didn't mean to
+punish you that way," it said; "I was busy. But if you remember, I told
+you I could exist without that building full of electronic apparatus.
+It was you who assumed I was a liar, you know; I gave you no evidence
+for the assumption. Look at that key."
+
+Benton was dazed. He seemed to have lost all his drive, his
+determination to wreck Urei. A reaction was setting in; his hand
+trembled weakly as he reached for the key and removed it from the slot.
+He looked at it dully, then let his eyes rest on the bunch from which
+he had removed it. The large, distinctive key was still with the bunch.
+The one in his shaking hand was smaller, entirely dissimilar.
+
+"It was better that I let you go this far, anyway," came the silent
+mental voice. "I was going to let you see this room, sooner or later.
+Go on in."
+
+Benton's eyes opened a bit wider, but still held the dazed look. The
+door was swinging wide, by itself. Almost stumbling, he felt his way
+through the maze of baffles, heedless of the fact that the further he
+went the more he exposed himself to the deadly, hard rays generated
+by the pile. Without armor, Benton had intended to enter swiftly,
+throw the master switch which would kill the pile, then retreat as
+fast. Now, however, he didn't even think of it. His brain was dulled
+by defeat after those many hours of rigid control which had been so
+useless.
+
+But it didn't matter; the pile was already dead.
+
+"This pile was self-maintaining," the voice explained. "It never needed
+attention, and if something went wrong it would have warned everybody
+within miles with the sirens. So it's no wonder that nobody ever
+discovered that I killed it years ago. The thing made me nervous, being
+so close."
+
+Benton's eyes brightened a little. No amount of letdown could entirely
+extinguish his scientific curiosity, and this was a mystery he had to
+solve.
+
+"But you've been operating.... The entire building was powered with
+this pile. Even the lights...."
+
+There was a mental chuckle. "Sub-cosmic energy does it. I had the
+technicians hook it up years ago. It's more dependable, also more
+plentiful, as well as free. Man will discover its use in a few
+generations, I imagine. Now, my fine friend, if you're temporarily over
+your murdering rampage, suppose you return to the control room. There's
+some interesting stuff coming over the television, if you turn it on."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benton was suddenly aware that the gong had ceased to sound. The
+defective tube had been replaced and Urei was once again operating.
+There was no sign of commotion when he came upon his men; they were
+working on the new circuits, just as he had left them.
+
+"Keep going," he said to the foreman. "If you get stuck, I'll be in the
+control room. Otherwise keep using the same plans we used this morning."
+
+"We ought to clean up by four," the man answered.
+
+Benton once more heard that chuckle which wasn't quite audible. "Gotta
+hand it to you," Urei said. "You've got a well-trained crew."
+
+"Yes," thought Benton. "Except that when you boss them, they don't
+make reports of their work."
+
+"I guess you're talking about this energy-rectifier I just told you
+about. It wouldn't have paid to let them remember what they made. After
+all, your science doesn't know enough to understand what it is, or how
+it works. Also it would have given me away. Don't worry, you'll catch
+up to it in another generation or six."
+
+"_I'm_ wise to you," Benton reminded. "Why not tell me? It would do
+humanity a lot of good, you know. And you're supposed to be helping
+humanity, if I remember correctly."
+
+There was a barely noticeable hesitation. Then: "Let's not discuss it
+now. I haven't quite made up my mind concerning policy of that sort.
+I'm still adhering to my rule of answering any question that's asked,
+within the scope of the knowledge which has been fed to me by man. That
+leaves your progress up to yourself. And incidentally, I did a little
+monkeying today which has nothing to do with policy; it was strictly a
+matter of self-preservation. You'll see what I mean when you turn to
+that video set."
+
+Benton had entered the control room. He leaned over and fumbled with
+a shoe lace. "In a minute. You said you _guessed_ I was talking about
+the energy-rectifier, whatever that is. Didn't you know? Weren't you
+reading my mind? In fact, weren't you reading it all along and saw
+through my efforts to disguise my thoughts?"
+
+There was another instant of hesitation. "I see what you're driving at;
+I should have seen it sooner. As a matter of fact, I did look in on you
+a couple of times, inasmuch as you were quite distraught about your
+fantastic idea that I might be going to take over your silly race and
+run it to suit myself--though I can't see what you figure I might get
+out of that. And I discovered you were planning today's change-over,
+which seemed reasonable enough at the time. But once you opened the
+outer door to the power-house, I should have realized that you had
+been planning something else.... Congratulations, boy; you fooled me
+completely. Now turn on that television set, before they get done
+rehashing the day's events."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Albie came out of his office, an eyebrow raised questioningly.
+
+"The work's all lined up," Benton explained. "Nothing to do but
+inspect, when they finish. Thought I'd relieve the monotony by looking
+at the puppet show."
+
+He snapped on the set, and wasn't surprised to see the familiar face of
+a news commentator who wasn't due for several hours.
+
+... _there can be no doubt of it_, he was saying, _and it is certainly
+proof of the efficiency of the now non-existent Iron Curtain. No
+inkling of this action has reached the western world in spite of the
+fact that it must have been months in the making._ Here Benton heard
+the eerie chuckle bubbling in his brain. _The only mystery lies in the
+fact that the retired premier allowed the stratagem of rigging the
+Italian elections to go through, since he had intended to turn over
+the reins of government to the men now running the Eastern Alliance.
+Such a thing can only be accounted for by the rigid adherence which
+the retired premier gave to the plans for conquest laid down by his
+predecessor. He evidently expected the new government to continue with
+the same line; we can be thankful it didn't. Peace is now assured._
+
+Dr. Albie's eyes were wide, and so was his mouth. For the moment, at
+least, he had forgotten his philosophy. Benton was intently watching
+the face on the screen, his own revealing nothing.
+
+_But whatever the reasons_, the voice continued, _it is too late to
+change policy back to what it has been. The acclaim of the peoples of
+the Eastern Alliance has been too great for any reversal to take place.
+They have shown their approval of the new elections to be held in Italy
+next week, but most of all they have rejoiced at the removal of the
+Iron Curtain and all it implies. It will now be possible for a subject
+of the Alliance to travel as he wishes, read what he wishes and listen
+to western broadcasts without having his set seized by the police and
+his life placed in jeopardy. Folks, we are entering a new era...._
+
+Dr. Albie came completely out of his shell. "Man!" he shouted. "This is
+history! If nothing happens to spoil it we'll have a world government
+in a matter of a few years.... Where are you going?"
+
+Benton stopped and forced a smile which wasn't hard coming. "I just
+thought of something I forgot to tell the men. Be back shortly. This
+will require some talking over, but right now there's a job to be done."
+
+The master physicist watched him leave the control room, his jaw slack.
+"And I thought I was the reserved one," he muttered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Safely out of the control room and out of sight of any of the
+technicians, Benton sat down. There was no chair, so he sat on the
+floor; his knees, it seemed, had become a bit wobbly again.
+
+"So now you're convinced," Urei said. "You ignore all the sensible,
+logical reasons which exist to prove I'm not inimical. And for a reason
+which is really no reason at all, you decide to believe me. I merely
+manipulated a few Russians and Bulgarians to prevent a war which would
+have wrecked my body. Purely a matter of self-preservation. I'm not so
+sure I'd have bothered if my person hadn't been threatened; after all,
+it's no business of mine if man wants to annihilate himself."
+
+Benton was grinning. "You're a fraud," he said. "You already know more
+than all mankind put together; and I'll bet you didn't use any of our
+material to solve the problem of converting sub-cosmic energy to a
+usable form."
+
+"Some, some. But not much, I'll admit."
+
+"So what do you want with the knowledge stored in the mechanical bank
+of memory cells we've provided you? You need it like I need a hole
+in the head. I can only conclude that you've stopped the impending
+war because you don't want mankind destroyed. You can do things for
+yourself without those cells and all this machinery; all you use it for
+is to solve the problems we pose for you. Incidentally, I suspect that
+your motivations are still the ones which humans originally built into
+you, whether you like it or not."
+
+"Could be. Or maybe I retain them because they agree with me. I might
+change my mind, you know; I might get tired of nursemaiding and decide
+to annihilate your entire race. Heh, Heh. Seems like a good idea, now
+that I think of it."
+
+Benton laughed. "You won't; you're in a rut. And even if you did get
+tired, you'd merely let us shift for ourselves, which we're used to
+doing anyway."
+
+"Nonsense. I'd probably reason that since the ape animal has made
+such a botch of his head start in the evolutionary race for rational
+thinking, it might not be a bad idea to give some other animal a start.
+_Ursus Proper_ might be a good place to begin."
+
+"Bears are foolish by nature," Benton countered.... "It wouldn't matter
+what form of life you chose anyway; they'd all have to go through the
+same stages, being without exception governed by thalamic reactions.
+That's the thing you object to in man, and since your new candidate
+would have to go through the same lengthy business of developing
+cortical ascendancy, you'll have none of it. So quit kidding around;
+I've reached a nonthalamic conclusion."
+
+"And you're stuck with it. I knew it would happen. That's why I didn't
+use you and leave your memory blank; with your head working on my side,
+you'll be useful."
+
+Benton knew when he had something. "That'll work two ways," he said.
+"First I want you to dive inside my skull and tell me something. I'm
+holding out for a bargain, you know. What is the bargain?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he spoke, Benton concentrated upon the problem of reasoning out the
+location of Urei's sub-cosmic converter. He didn't have far to go for
+an answer. A few years ago somebody had noticed a radiation leak on
+one side of the power-house, near a spot where the power cables came
+through the walls of the massive building. Now it happened that there
+were taps from those cables, less than a hundred yards away. That made
+it likely that the converter had been placed somewhere before the taps.
+The only place that could be would be either inside the power-house
+or inside the wall itself. Therefore Urei had caused the repairmen
+and technicians to place his machine inside the very wall they had
+been reinforcing. In no other way could it have escaped notice and
+investigation.
+
+"I can't read it if you don't think about it," Urei complained; "you
+guessed right about the converter, though."
+
+Benton nodded. "Then last night you didn't get anything from me at all?"
+
+If a disembodied voice can sound shamefaced, Urei's did. "All right, so
+I lied; but you annoyed me with your stubbornness."
+
+"Ah. Thalamic reactions."
+
+"I've been in bad company," Urei defended. "What I wanted from you was
+the assurance that the people of the Eastern Alliance were essentially
+the same as the humans I've met. I had to know if their reactions to
+my manipulations would be similar, before I acted. Most of the stuff
+I've been able to read about them led me to believe they were entirely
+different. If so, I couldn't be sure of results."
+
+"They're similar, of course," Benton said. "They differ only in that
+they have been indoctrinated to believe a lot of things which aren't
+so. So have we, for that matter--to a different degree and on different
+subjects. But essentially we're the same species of animal and react
+alike to stimuli. But you didn't get that information from me, eh?"
+
+"No. I relied on abstract reasoning and got the right answer. It's
+tricky business, though. I might have precipitated things, instead of
+preventing them. Ordinarily I could have obtained that information from
+a human brain, if it knew the right answer, by guiding the subject's
+thought into the right channel. I can't read thoughts that aren't
+there, you know. That's the trouble I had with you; about the only
+control I had over you was confined to your motor centers. I could make
+you turn a page or select the wrong key, but I couldn't keep you from
+knowing about it. In fact it was the very trouble I had with you which
+made me doubt that humans were as alike as I had assumed. And also what
+made me decide that I needed you to keep me straight in my relations
+with humans in general.
+
+"I reason from facts alone, you know. And from the facts at hand I
+have decided that your bargain is going to consist of demanding the
+knowledge necessary for you to make a sub-cosmic energy converter, in
+return for your help in making me understand the obscure psychology of
+humans and their incomprehensible motivations." There was a protracted
+mental shudder here. "And I suppose you'll keep that up as long as you
+live. O.K. But you can expect an argument every time."
+
+Benton went back into the control room with a smile that raised that
+quizzical eyebrow on Dr. Albie's now serene face. The good doctor
+couldn't know that his assistant's mind was as far from the recent
+world-shaking news as it was from the business of the new control
+circuits. His eyebrow went up another thirty-second of an inch when
+Benton, apparently musing, said: "A mind is inviolate so long as it
+refuses to broadcast. I refuse to broadcast. Q.E.D."
+
+
+***
+
+                                WITNESS
+
+                          BY GEORGE H. SMITH
+
+                   _Edith was just a computer, but a
+                very good one and a very observing one.
+                  So it was quite natural that she be
+               consulted about the doctor's murder...._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+Ballard was quite dead. There could be no doubt of it. He lay sprawled
+in front of Edith, with his head very messily bashed in and with one
+hand still extended toward her. A long shimmering stream of blood
+ran half-way across the large room. Dr. Dudley Ballard had been as
+inconsiderate in his dying as he had been in his living.
+
+Art MacKinney and I stood in the doorway and stared. We were shocked
+not so much by the fact that Ballard was dead as by the fact that he
+lay in this most secret room, this holy of holies. Ours was the most
+security conscious project in the whole country; and this was where he
+had picked to get himself killed.
+
+"God! There'll really be a stink about this," MacKinney breathed.
+
+"Well, I can't think of anyone who had it coming more than he did,"
+I said. I hated Ballard's guts and everyone knew it, so there was no
+point in being hypocritical now.
+
+Edith stood silently. She didn't seem to be interested in the fact
+that the man who had run her life, who had spent hours shouting
+questions at her and criticizing her slightest error with burning
+sarcasm was now dead. No, Edith wasn't interested, but you couldn't
+really expect her to be--she was only a computing machine, a mechanical
+brain, the final result of years of work by the best cybernetics
+experts in the world. Edith was silent, and would be, until we turned
+her on and fed the tapes into her.
+
+"It looks as though this is what did it," MacKinney said, indicating a
+large spanner lying on the floor beside Ballard. He touched it gingerly
+with his foot. His face was white and strained and it occurred to me
+that he was more upset than I thought he should be. After all, he had
+as much reason to hate the dead man as the rest of us. Ballard had
+taken advantage of his position as head of the research project to make
+passes at Jane Currey and MacKinney wasn't at all a cool scientist when
+it came to Jane. He was engaged to her and quite naturally resented
+Ballard's attentions to her.
+
+"You'd better not touch that until the police get here," I said as he
+bent over to pick up the spanner.
+
+"Yeah, I guess you're right--I forgot. How do you suppose this got in
+here anyway?"
+
+"One of the workmen making adjustments on Edith's outer casing must
+have left it. I saw it sitting up there on top of her late yesterday
+afternoon," I told him. "You'd better go call Mr. Thompson and--the
+FBI."
+
+With Ballard gone, I was in charge. Maybe someone would think that was
+reason enough for me to kill him. I didn't care, I was just glad he was
+gone. Now he couldn't mistreat Edith anymore.
+
+I turned Edith on just as MacKinney returned. "What are you doing?" he
+asked.
+
+"Why I'm going to wake Edith up and feed these tapes into her. After
+all these are more important than any one man's life."
+
+"You didn't care much for Ballard, did you Bill?"
+
+I gave him look for look as I replied. "Can you name anyone around here
+that did?"
+
+He shook his head. "No--I guess not. But maybe it wasn't one of us. It
+might have been an outside job, you know. Edith was working on that
+space station stuff and the iron curtain people would give a lot to
+know about it."
+
+"Hell," I said pressing the studs and levers that would arouse Edith
+and put her to work. "You don't really think anyone could get past
+those security guards, do you?"
+
+Happily I went about the business of waking Edith, my sleeping beauty,
+from her slumbers. In a very few seconds, her hundreds of tiny red eyes
+were gleaming with intelligence.
+
+_Good morning, Edith_, I punched out the tape and fed it into her.
+
+There was the faintest pause, while Edith's photo-electric cells
+surveyed the room, pausing for a moment on the sprawled body of Ballard.
+
+_Good morning, Bill Green_, she typed back. I knew she was happy to
+see me by the cheerful little clicks she emitted.
+
+_I have some interesting work for you this morning, Edith. And I think
+you'll be glad to know that we will be working together from now on
+instead of...._
+
+"Hey! What's the idea of starting that machine?" a gray haired, gray
+suited security agent demanded, striding into the room with MacKinney,
+Mr. Thompson and several other officers at his heels. "Don't you know
+enough not to touch anything in here?"
+
+"This work is too important to be stopped--even for a murder," I said,
+and Mr. Thompson nodded in agreement.
+
+"That's right," he said mopping his perpetually perspiring forehead,
+"this work has top priority from Washington." He looked nervous and I
+couldn't help wondering what he was thinking. There had been stories
+circulating about Ballard and Thompson's wife and the dome-headed
+little man must have heard them too. Ballard just couldn't keep his
+hands off any female within reach. That was one of the reasons he was
+so thoroughly hated.
+
+The youngest of the security agents rose from where he had been
+kneeling beside Ballard and crossed to me.
+
+"You're Green, aren't you?" I nodded and he continued, "How did you
+know it was murder?"
+
+I laughed at him. "How the hell could a man bash in his own brains that
+way?"
+
+The gray haired man stepped into the breach. He gave us all a thorough
+going over, but concentrated on MacKinney and me. He seemed to think it
+peculiar that neither of us could give any reason for Ballard's being
+alone with Edith. I was sure I knew, but no one would have believed me
+so I made no attempt to enlighten him.
+
+"Well, I guess that's all we can do now," he said at last. "Someone
+from the local police will have to be notified and brought in after
+they get security clearance." He turned to go.
+
+"Wait a minute," MacKinney said, "we're all overlooking one thing."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"There was an eye witness to this crime," he said, and I stared at him
+in consternation. I didn't know he knew. I thought I was the only one
+who knew.
+
+"What do you mean," the agent demanded angrily.
+
+"Edith saw it. Edith, the computer."
+
+"Are you nuts?" the agent demanded.
+
+"You forget that Edith was turned off," Thompson said.
+
+"But Mr. Thompson, Edith's not like most cybernetic machines. She's
+so far advanced, that I'm not sure we understand her completely. She
+can't really be turned off. She has a distinct personality and that new
+circuit--"
+
+Of course Edith had a personality of her own! She had more charm, more
+intelligence, more understanding than most women.
+
+"--well--she'd be able to tell us who killed Ballard."
+
+"That's ridiculous," I said, badly frightened. "A machine can't be a
+witness to murder."
+
+The security officer looked dubious and shook his head. "I guess we'll
+have to leave that up to the coroner at the inquest."
+
+"But they can't ask questions like that of Edith," I protested.
+"She's--she's too important to the national defense to have some
+country coroner asking her silly questions about the murder of a man
+who deserved to die anyway." I had to prevent this. I had to get around
+this eye witness business.
+
+Thompson looked at me levelly. "MacKinney may be right, Green. The
+coroner may very well want to talk to Edith and there's no reason we
+should object if Security gives him clearance."
+
+"But Mr. Thompson, our work--it'll be interrupted."
+
+"We'll have to take that chance. And I think Washington will agree."
+
+"But--" Couldn't they see that there wasn't any question of spying
+here. Couldn't they understand that Ballard had just gotten what he had
+coming. I couldn't let them question Edith. At least not until I had a
+chance to talk to her alone.
+
+"And Green--because of your rather strange behaviour, I'm afraid I'll
+have to ask you to stay in your quarters until the inquest. MacKinney
+will handle your work with Edith until then."
+
+I was shocked and really frightened now. I wouldn't get to talk to
+her, wouldn't get a chance to tell her what to say. I protested, but
+Thompson was firm, so firm that he placed a guard outside my door to
+make sure I didn't leave.
+
+Washington rushed through clearance for the local officers and the
+inquest was held three days later. The coroner proved to be a shrewd
+country doctor, who had the inquest adjourned to the computer room as
+soon as he heard MacKinney's ideas about Edith.
+
+The security guards on duty the night of the murder testified that only
+MacKinney, Thompson, Ballard and I had had access to the computer room;
+and it had already been established that it would have been impossible
+for a spy or foreign agent to have slipped into the heavily guarded
+room. It was clearly an inside job.
+
+With all of us at the scene of the crime, the coroner summed it up
+for us. "--and since it could not have been the work of an outsider,
+it must have been a crime of a private nature." He looked closely at
+Thompson, MacKinney and me. "A crime of a private nature with the
+motive either revenge, jealousy or ambition. We know that the victim
+was an over-bearing man with a good many unpleasant traits. We know he
+was a man who forced his attentions on women, who was ill-tempered and
+abusive to those who worked with him. A man who had many enemies--but
+there were only three people who had the chance to attack him on this
+particular night.
+
+"I am going to attempt to establish the identity of the killer by the
+unusual procedure of questioning a machine. It will be for later courts
+to establish the validity of such testimony. Because of the nature
+of this case and because of the urgent need to get this computer back
+to its proper work, I am going to ask the questions in a more direct
+manner than I would ordinarily employ."
+
+MacKinney took his place before Edith. They didn't even trust me to
+feed the tapes into her under their very eyes.
+
+"Mr. Thompson, I object to the use of this delicate piece of equipment
+in--"
+
+They ignored me, and MacKinney punched out the questions the coroner
+asked:
+
+"Do you know who murdered Dr. Ballard?"
+
+There was a pause. Edith blinked several times. I was shaking with
+apprehension for her. A mind so delicate and noble should not be faced
+with such a dilemma.
+
+_Yes, she typed back._
+
+"Did you witness the murder?"
+
+There was a longer pause this time. "You must answer the question,"
+MacKinney reminded her.
+
+_I was here._
+
+"Is it true that you do not lose your perceptive qualities when we turn
+you off?" MacKinney asked this on his own.
+
+_It is true._
+
+"We might as well get to the heart of the matter," the coroner said.
+"Did Mr. Thompson kill Ballard?"
+
+Edith clicked and her eyes glowed. _No._
+
+"Did Mr. MacKinney kill Ballard?"
+
+_No._
+
+Edith had to tell the truth ... it was an innate part of her
+personality. I tensed in my seat. I wanted to scream, to leap at
+MacKinney and prevent, somehow, the asking of the next question. But
+there wasn't a chance.
+
+"Did Mr. Green kill Dr. Ballard?"
+
+Edith's beautiful electric eyes flashed and her clicks pulsed twice as
+rapidly as before. There was such a roaring and wrenching within her
+I was afraid for her--she was being torn apart in her struggle not to
+answer. I couldn't stand listening to her desperate efforts any longer.
+
+"Yes!" I leapt to my feet. "Yes, I did it. Leave her alone. Can't you
+see what you're doing to her? That swine was always mistreating her. He
+didn't understand her--no one understands her as I do!"
+
+The coroner looked at me closely. "Is that really why you killed him,
+Mr. Green?"
+
+"No! You were wondering why he was here by himself while no work was
+going on. He--he had begun to feel about Edith as he did about all
+women. He sneaked back here to be alone with her. He wanted to--he
+wanted to--" My voice broke and they stared at me in shocked amazement.
+
+Into the silence MacKinney read what Edith had slowly typed out: "Mr.
+Green did not kill Dr. Ballard."
+
+"Yes--yes I did," I screamed. "Don't Edith--"
+
+"Who did kill him?" the coroner asked, quietly.
+
+This was the question I had wanted to avoid. I sank down my hands
+cradling my aching head. Edith must have expected the question. She
+had her answer ready.
+
+_I refuse to state on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me._
+
+My poor, sweet, adorable Edith. If only I had had a chance to talk to
+her, to tell her what to say. I had known ... ever since I had seen the
+spanner and remembered where it had been before. I could have warned
+her to say that Ballard had attacked her, threatened her, to say
+anything ... but not to attempt to hide behind a Fifth Amendment that
+didn't exist anymore. My darling, never had kept up with current events.
+
+Now they'll disconnect her, they'll rewire her, they'll destroy her
+understanding, her warmth, her whole personality ... and I ... I love
+her, I love her....
+
+
+***
+
+Assignment In The Dawn
+
+By BRYCE WALTON
+
+There stood Roland, deep beneath a static, dying
+civilization, fiercely ready to destroy it--and
+himself, if need be--for love of Frances. Yet a
+question nagged him. Who was she--and who was he?
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from
+Planet Stories Fall 1947.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+His consciousness filtered in slowly. It stirred like roiled water, and
+the first lucid cycle of cause and effect in associative memory was
+beginning. There was a kind of awful searching loneliness--but that
+was broken by the pleasantly soft voice of the woman who asked, “Is he
+waking?”
+
+A sweet clear voice. It drew him as if it were some part of him that
+was missing. She could give meaning to that lonely despair. If he could
+only remember--. A man answered tensely, “He’s waking, all right. Check
+the spy-circuit again, Fran. Their newly developed rapport-clan is
+dangerous. They might find out about our new Adam.”
+
+Adam?
+
+He heard light footsteps fade off and return. “Circuit’s clear, Billy
+Boy.” A pause. “He’s attractive, isn’t he?”
+
+“Uh-huh.”
+
+He heard the man muttering close to his ear. He felt some kind of
+pressure withdrawn from about his head. There was a sharp, clenching
+pain, and a flash of agonizing brilliance.
+
+“Well, that’s it, Fran,” the man breathed heavily.
+
+He felt her warm soft hand moist on his forehead. Why did she remove
+it? But he heard her say, “All right, Superman. Open your eyes and see
+the light.”
+
+Adam? Superman?
+
+He blinked blindly in the newness of the light until the small naked
+cubicle and the two people in it clarified. He looked at her first,
+beauty and warmth. She smiled brightly and winked, a small delicate
+but full-bodied figure in shorts, bra and sandals, and a lot of olive
+skin. But their eight-fingered hands! He looked at his own hands. Eight
+fingers. What--?
+
+He studied the man. He was gaunt and bald, very sad and cynical
+with his lower lip stuck out. He put out a thin white hand and said
+sardonically, “I’m Berti. This is Frances. And I suppose you’d like to
+know who _you_ are?”
+
+He shrugged as he turned his eyes back to the woman and openly
+appreciated her. She blushed, and he was pleased. Finally he answered
+the man. “That depends on who I am. An amnesiac is supposed to have
+good reasons for not remembering.”
+
+The man frowned. “You’ve never had a name. And you’re not an
+amnesiac--not exactly. We’ve stored your brain with plenty of
+information. And it will soon become properly integrated as you apply
+it. But what would you prefer as a label?”
+
+He had never had a name. Somehow, he figured that he should have had
+one. He shrugged again. “If I’ve never had a name, it must not be very
+important.”
+
+“Peculiar personality,” muttered Berti. “Not uninteresting.”
+
+“That’s wonderful,” giggled Frances. “Now I can pick something that
+will make an adorable nickname. How about Roland? Then I can call you
+Rolly.”
+
+He nodded and sat up while she giggled eagerly. He looked at his body.
+He seemed to know all about his body, yet he had never been conscious
+of it before, somehow. Translucent shorts and sandals fitted well to
+a tall, muscled form that he was proud to display to Frances. Did she
+like his body? That was the important thing.
+
+His eyes shifted back and forth from the woman to the man. Finally he
+said quietly, “We’ve got to come to it. What do you want me to do?”
+
+Berti’s sharply-ridged face puckered. “Rolly, you have a highly
+selective education, administered by us. But is it worth while?
+Science-progress is a maze, a labyrinth. And when you reach the end of
+the quest, the Minotaur always waits.”
+
+Fran’s voice interrupted seriously, black eyes shining. “We’ve given
+you most of the necessary information, but have omitted details.
+This the end of the Era of World Brain. It must be the end. It’s a
+ten-acre expanse of electronic brain which is the unescapable dictator
+of Worldcity. Absolute mechanical dictator. And there are a thousand
+plastico-mechanical creations which act positronically under World
+Brain to carry out its functions.”
+
+Berti looked sharply at him. “Roland! Doesn’t that seem terribly unjust
+to you. Monstrously inhuman?”
+
+“If it’s mechanical, obviously it’s inhuman,” said Roland.
+
+Berti said, “Human? Organic? What is life? Only chemistry and that’s
+all any machine is. No, by human I mean one’s emotional, thalamic
+reactions. Do you react negatively to a dictatorial machine that
+destroys all human characteristics?”
+
+“I’ll even hate it,” said Roland. He looked at Frances. “If you do.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She smiled very pleasantly at him and he asked, “But why did humans
+create this mechanical dictator?”
+
+“We didn’t feed your brain much history. A waste of time,” she said.
+“Anyway, World Brain was a reaction to--to the Atomic War. That almost
+finished Earth life. And remaining humanity decided it couldn’t afford
+another. Human governmental agency is too unreliable. Even human
+dictatorship was, of course, variable. So all the greatest scientific
+minds pooled their brain cells and created World Brain. Now, human
+culture is fixed and static. For a human, that’s death. Nothing can
+change unless World Brain changes, and that’s impossible.”
+
+“Well,” said Roland. “Isn’t that what was wanted?”
+
+“It didn’t work out, Rolly. A billion people turned into stagnant
+automatons. When organisms stop moving and changing, they’re better off
+completely dead. Don’t you agree, Rolly?”
+
+“Yes,” said Roland. “So why not destroy World Brain?”
+
+“We’re going to,” interrupted Berti. “And it’s got to be done right
+now. Civilization--I use that word liberally--has simply stopped. And
+as long as the entire working culture is mechanically fixed, it’s
+absolutely hopeless.” Berti’s narrow shoulders drooped. “Not that
+everything isn’t, in its cosmic sense. But even the cosmos doesn’t make
+sense, does it, Fran?”
+
+She shook her head at him. “He doesn’t believe in anything. But we
+don’t care, do we?”
+
+“No,” said Roland. He wanted her to keep on talking to him, personally.
+
+“We want to get rid of World Brain,” said Berti. “But there are
+difficulties. There are the Conditioners; they’re directly tied in with
+World Brain. From birth, everyone is conditioned to unquestionable,
+unbreakable bondage to World Brain. These matrixed minds can’t be
+altered. We’ve tried. The only alternative is to throw a lot of great
+big heavy air atoms and molecules among World Brain’s overheated
+electrons. But there are always difficulties.”
+
+Roland was mad because Berti was talking instead of Frances. He kept
+looking steadily at her. He asked, “Then how have we three escaped
+these Conditioners?” She answered this time, and Roland soaked up her
+sweet musical voice sensually.
+
+“We’re members of a secret Underground organization that began when
+World Brain began, to escape its static death system. Having gone
+underground, we escaped the original conditioning and have since lived
+completely free of the Brain’s dictates. But even though unconditioned,
+we’ve been helpless against the rigid system.”
+
+“Then how can you expect to destroy World Brain now?” asked Roland.
+“There must be a great deal I don’t know.”
+
+“Possible also that you know too much,” said Berti irritably. “But then
+who doesn’t?”
+
+Fran laughed freely. Then her voice became suddenly grave. “We have to
+act now. There isn’t much time. We have bogey men, too. Martians.”
+
+Roland started violently, stared. “Martians! You mean--from Mars! The
+planet?”
+
+“Yeah,” growled Berti. And Frances smiled. “Do you find a Martian
+menace credible, Rolly?”
+
+“He should,” snapped Berti. “We certainly endowed him with enough
+credulity. An organ that believes in its own existence will believe
+anything.”
+
+“I believe you,” Roland said. He was looking at Frances. “And the
+Martians?”
+
+Frances said, “You see, the Martians are trying to preserve World
+Brain. And, to do that, they’ve been trying for a long time to destroy
+the Underground.”
+
+“Why?” asked Roland. Roland was hating Berti because he talked so much.
+
+“That should be obvious. The Martians know that, if we cancel World
+Brain, we’ll have a variable, anarchistic government again. And,
+naturally, that means the return of the Atomic War threat. And, along
+with atomic power and subsequent space flight, that also means,
+according to the Martian’s logic, that we’ll wage an atomic war against
+them. And that,” concluded Berti, “is good logic.”
+
+“All right,” said Roland. “The Martians are fighting you so you’ve
+got to hurry and get World Brain before the Martians finish the
+Underground. Right?”
+
+“Right, Rolly,” beamed Frances.
+
+“How can you accomplish that now, if you couldn’t before?”
+
+Frances came very close. Roland smelled the intoxicating aroma of a
+very effeminate, very suggestive, scent. She bounced up beside him on
+the table. He was afraid to look at her for a moment. Afraid she would
+go away. “You see, Rolly, you’re the agent. You’re going to destroy
+World Brain.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roland tried to clarify scattered thoughts. Here in a hidden cell, he
+seemed so far from any reality. Alone with two people who seemed so
+strange--so apart from hopeless, defeated humanity. He was suddenly
+aware of feeling cold. Cold, yet the room was warm. Something was
+lacking between these two members of the Underground and himself,
+something vitally important. There was an isolated sensation. He
+noticed the utter silence. A dead, despairing silence. Abruptly he
+wanted to be a part of movement and noise. He wanted to get out of this
+small buried cube somewhere on Earth. And, if it wasn’t for Frances, he
+would have gotten out. Right then. But he didn’t.
+
+She held him there. A human, conditioned scientifically, could only
+react as he was reacting now. He felt no irritation. That was the way
+the human organism functioned. He wanted to do it for Frances. He loved
+her, of course--that was it. He had known that when he first heard her
+voice, before he had opened his eyes.
+
+He heard himself saying, “When, where and how do I start?”
+
+“Bravo!” said Berti sardonically. “A man of virtue!”
+
+Only an objective realization of the need for unity prevailed Roland
+from attacking the man. He was jealous, too, and he was ashamed of
+that. Somehow, these people had taken him from the Birth Center when
+he was born, and had kept him hidden and had taught him to be a true,
+pre-World Brain human. He should be grateful, very grateful. And he
+determined to be.
+
+Berti was crossing the room toward a panel. “Well, Prometheus, we start
+right now, right here. And here’s how--”
+
+He tensed, eyes narrowing.
+
+The form was only a faint mist at first. Roland hardly knew it was
+materializing until he saw its wavering, translucent shadow in the
+middle of the room. A flash of panic and fear jerked him to his feet
+and sent him backing toward the further wall. He saw Frances and Berti
+standing stiffly, perspiration oozing visibly from their bronzed skin.
+
+Roland had never seen anything so grotesque and alien before. At least
+he couldn’t remember having seen--but then, he couldn’t remember.
+
+“Roland!” he heard Berti say tensely. “You’re now being treated to the
+personal appearance of a Martian menace. Take a good look, because it
+just might be that you won’t see another.” Berti moved with shocking
+agility, a blur in the corner of Roland’s fixed eyes. He dropped the
+cap over the fluorobulb. The room was plunged into pitch blackness.
+
+Roland saw a high, narrow column of shimmering phosphorescence dart
+about the room. He couldn’t tell whether the thing was attacking or in
+flight. Something about its alien contortions suggested panic.
+
+But then he felt a hand grasping at his. It gripped hard and pulled.
+The voice was a hurried whisper, either that of Berti or Frances. It
+had to be Frances. “Follow me! Keep running!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He followed blindly. The hand was soft and small. Berti? Frances?
+Frances had to be with him. That was the only thing that really
+mattered. They plunged through the thick blackness and onto a
+levitation platform and down. They paused once, briefly. Roland heard
+a panel opening. Then they were in a room, smaller even than the first
+one. A slight glow bathed the room in a soft blue haze. It was light
+enough for him to see that Frances wasn’t with them.
+
+He grabbed Berti’s arm, noting how frail and weak he was. “Where is
+she? _Where is she?_”
+
+But Berti seemed more interested than concerned. “Do you really feel
+that way about her?”
+
+“Where is she?” He said it louder this time. He shook Berti harshly.
+
+Berti smiled thinly. “The Martian menace got her. They were bound to
+get her sooner or late. They’ve gotten us all, one by one.”
+
+Roland backed the thin bony outline up against the glowing wall. “Why
+did we go off and leave her there? Why?”
+
+“To save you. You’re more important than any one or all of us. She
+wanted it this way.”
+
+“_No!_” yelled Roland. “What’s more important than Frances? Nothing
+is--to me.”
+
+“Are you sure?” asked Berti. “Remember her faith in you, Prometheus.
+The destruction of World Brain’s more important. Relax.”
+
+Roland stepped away, breathing painfully. “No. You haven’t told me yet.
+Why am I so important? _What am I, Berti?_”
+
+“What are--!” Berti’s eyes shot wide open, narrowed quickly. “The
+scientists even prepared for the eventuality that some organism might
+defy the conditioning processes and try to attack World Brain. It’s
+surrounded by an area of ultrasonic radiation. All around it, under the
+ground, in the air. No living organism can step into that field without
+its cellular structure dancing itself madly to death in seconds. A lot
+of the Underground have tried it. In the last one we--we developed,
+we’d built up resistance that let him into the field about a hundred
+meters. That was all. But we’ve learned. You can make it.”
+
+“What makes you so sure?”
+
+“We’re not,” said Berti laconically. “You might die. Afraid? Frances
+didn’t think you would be. I don’t know. We did our best with you.”
+
+“I’m not afraid, Berti. But I’m going back after Frances first!”
+
+“You’re our only hope, man! Don’t hand yourself to those dissectors.”
+
+“Dissectors?” choked Roland.
+
+“They analyze us. They’re curious; they think humans a low form of
+mammal because of their insane record of self-destruction. The Martians
+work out of their observatories and laboratories on the Moon. They
+want to learn all they can about humans in case they have to destroy
+humanity.”
+
+“Why don’t we destroy them? Now.” Roland’s voice trembled.
+
+“The Underground is the only Earth agency that knows the Martians
+even exist. And we can’t act against them anyway until World Brain is
+destroyed. Atomic energy is locked behind impenetrable shields as long
+as World Brain rules. Violence or conflict of any kind is forbidden by
+the fixed laws of World Brain. The Martians are persistent. Only a few
+of us left. They know if they can wipe out the Underground, World Brain
+will keep on its fixed orbit, and then they won’t have to destroy Earth
+because humanity won’t be able to use atomic power against them, and
+eventually humanity will peter out.”
+
+“Why don’t the Martians destroy Earth, Underground and all, if they’re
+so afraid of World Brain being destroyed and atomic power returning as
+a threat?”
+
+“Because,” said Berti dryly, “their planet’s old and exhausted. They
+want to colonize Earth. But not while the Underground’s here.”
+
+“I don’t care about any of this confusion,” yelled Roland. “All I care
+about is saving Frances. Maybe it isn’t right according to the way
+you’ve conditioned me. But I’ve got to!”
+
+He thought he saw a thin smile on Berti’s dour face as he turned and
+ran back down the black corridor. About the instant that he realized
+he had no conception of how to get back to the first cubicle, he ran
+hard into a pair of arms and a thick reeling cloud of that intoxicating
+scent--
+
+A wave of weakening relief and gladness almost overpowered him as he
+touched her. “You--it is you, Fran. You’re all right?”
+
+“Yes. Yes.” Her breath came fast, impatient. “We’ve got to hurry,
+Rolly. I got rid of that one. But the new rapport-clan know about you,
+maybe. We don’t have much time. Come on!”
+
+The levitator shaft panel slid shut behind them. The car whined, and
+Roland felt the sudden suffocating pressure of rapid acceleration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They emerged in the darkened, damp basement of a vacant ruin just
+outside Worldcity. He saw a pallid, three-eyed lizard, and a huge grey
+rat with six legs. He followed Berti and Frances into a beautiful lazy
+summer day, with genuine sunlight. A hawk sailed easily across a pale
+blue sky. In the distance, rising like a gigantic bubble, the plastic
+dome shell that covered Worldcity gleamed in the sun.
+
+They walked silently on down the cracked, weed-grown concrete highway.
+
+Berti started talking again. Roland wanted Frances to talk, but she
+seemed too absorbed in the scenery. “Special excursion monorail systems
+were set up for trips into the natural areas. Psychological balance,
+you know. But it was too late. No one cares any more. An almost
+completely catatonic world is a pretty terrible sight, I suppose.
+World Brain blocked any action of free thought--the one spontaneous,
+progressive and unique characteristic of the human.”
+
+That broke Frances’ reverie. “Yes, Rolly. Block that characteristic
+and you kill the human. The human is a step above the beast because
+of his free-associative brain. But it also persists in dooming him
+as a species. The human heart and muscle belong to the jungle--his
+overdeveloped brain to an environment of his own creation.”
+
+She was swinging freely along beside him. Berti said, “Civilization
+subjected the human body to a vast and critical experiment. But
+the exaggeration of a part, like the fossil nautili, intended the
+experiment to fail.”
+
+“But man isn’t licked yet!” said Roland vehemently. “He’s got his
+highly specialized brain, and complexity and specialization aren’t
+necessarily fatal--simply dangerous.”
+
+“You’re proud of him,” said Berti, cutting off the tops of weeds with
+quick slicing motions of a green branch. “Even with his brain, he was
+never much better than the beast. A living anachronism, an unbalanced
+grotesque, an ape top-heavy with grey matter.”
+
+“Quiet!” hissed Frances. Then to Roland. “He isn’t that way, really.”
+
+The sophistry lapsed. Roland was grateful because it allowed him to
+concentrate on watching the smooth, graceful movement of Frances’ lithe
+body. There was an almost terrible casualness for people going to save
+the World.
+
+“Aren’t you afraid of the Martians--out here in the open?” he asked.
+
+Berti’s green switch sang. A four-legged quail fluttered up and
+hedge-hopped across a wild, brush-choked hollow, piping excitedly.
+“We know them. They’re--ah” he hesitated “--a kind of instinctual
+intelligence, somewhere above the survival value of the human
+intelligence. We’ve learned to cope with them on their own ground.”
+
+“But how?” Roland was curious about how Frances had “gotten rid” of the
+Martian back in the cubicle. He was swinging his hand close to hers in
+the fond hope of grasping it sooner or later.
+
+Frances kicked at a small piece of dislodged concrete. “Rolly, you’re
+so inquisitive. That would be awfully hard to explain in the short time
+we have. They’ve advanced far above human’s mere intelligence. And you
+learn to deal with that height. Or they get you. They’ve always had
+superiority of numbers, so they’ve been winning. That’s why we’ve got
+to destroy World Brain quickly before they finish us.”
+
+“But, if World Brain is destroyed, and variable unpredictable
+government returns with human control, atomic energy returns with it,
+and humanity will try again. And probably destroy itself this time.”
+Roland hit his forehead with his flat hand. “It seems very involved.”
+
+“Doesn’t it?” agreed Berti tightly. “But we’ll control atomic energy
+all right. If we can’t--let the termites have it.”
+
+Roland thought of one other thing. “After World Brain’s out of
+commission, what about the Martians, then? First thing they’ll do will
+be to blow up Earth, regardless of their own desire to colonize.”
+
+Berti looked narrowly at Frances. He grinned thinly. “I told you we
+should have taken less time with his logic and reason. He thinks too
+much.”
+
+Frances laughed carelessly. “He’ll have to be smart when he goes into
+the heart of World Brain. You know that.”
+
+Berti said, “Uh-huh. But if he’s smart enough, he wouldn’t even go into
+World Brain at all.”
+
+Frances smiled at Roland. “Well? Are you that smart?”
+
+He looked into wet, promising glowing eyes and he didn’t feel logical
+at all. “If you want me to, Fran, I’ll do it. It seems to mean a lot to
+you. So I guess I’m not really smart--not in the Berti sense, anyway.
+Am I?”
+
+Berti swirled the green switch in a vicious slash. “Not as smart as
+Fran is.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, in a secret Underground apartment, Roland sat waiting for his
+final orders to destroy World Brain. He was proud of his assignment. He
+knew it was justified. He had seen the people of Worldcity.
+
+Terrible standardization. Mass production and mass consumption had
+become possible only because of complete unity of common desires
+and tastes. Individuals were no more. Beneath the rigid unchange of
+World Brain there had been a final leveling-off. The whole system
+was mechanical like its electronic dictator. Frightened by another
+possible atomic war under unreliable human agency, they had established
+fool-proof laws, then subjected themselves and the laws to a machine
+dictator that could never alter them. Suicide.
+
+The Worldcity was beautiful and magnificent, even without the available
+atomic power. Towering synthetic buildings, their block-square bases
+pierced by wide tiered boulevards. There were many people packing
+the boulevards. Dull-eyed, listless, uninterested. Without their
+free-associative minds, they were not even beasts.
+
+“It’s about time,” said Frances softly, leaning toward him. “Are you
+ready? It’s a big job.”
+
+Roland sat next to her on a deep couch, her shoulder touching his. He
+wanted the contact to remain as long as possible. She broke the contact
+several times, but renewed it. He was grateful. She had called him
+“dear” twice.
+
+“I’ve already told him he might not come back,” said Berti. “It’s
+dangerous. The Martians’ new rapport-clan are difficult. And the
+destruction when World Brain stops will be terrific. The Martians will
+immediately jump in and try to knock out Earth as soon as they see
+World Brain go. If they don’t get you first. As soon as we take over
+the atomic laboratories, our first job will be to blow up the Martian’s
+Moon bases. It’s a risky business.”
+
+“You’ll be safe,” Frances said. “You’re not afraid, are you, Rolly?”
+
+“Not too much,” answered Roland.
+
+“You have three dangers. The Martians. The plastico-mechanical men. And
+the ultrasonic field. The last you’re prepared for. The Martians might
+get you. The plastic men ... you might have trouble with them.”
+
+“They’re one-track, highly specialized,” said Berti, studying Roland
+with a quizzical, unwavering stare. “Anything that blocks their
+specialized assignments they’ll push aside. They have no conception
+of violence as such. It’s just a means to carry through their fixed
+patterns of behavior.”
+
+“If you’re waiting for my decision,” said Roland, “you know it. I
+couldn’t be any different. I’m human. Humanity means more to me than my
+own life.”
+
+He looked at Frances closely, searching for some deep, full reaction to
+his bravery. He got a warm soft smile and damp eyes that shone darkly.
+He leaned a little against her shoulder as he got to his feet. He
+walked to the exit panel and turned slowly.
+
+“I can recall conditioned directions now pretty well. Any last
+briefings?”
+
+Frances shook her head, and a healthy cloud of black hair reflected
+the steady glow of the flueros. “You know about the electronic set
+up. The originators didn’t bother to shield the vital parts of World
+Brain on the logical premise that if anyone could get that far, it was
+inevitable, only a matter of time, before they could wreck it anyway.
+Wreck the grids, Rolly, the pipes of the electrons. Wreck the big
+vacuum brains in which our little wild electrons play. They’ve been
+free too long. Imprison them again in the air. It’s exciting, isn’t it,
+Rolly?”
+
+His eyes, his brain were filled only with her image, her vivid
+loveliness. He hesitated, thinking Frances might get up and come to
+him. She only smiled, her eyes wet and glistening with pride. Roland
+turned and left the room. There was promise in those eyes. And he would
+be back.
+
+He was walking toward the levitation shaft at the end of the corridor
+when he met the Martian in the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Somehow, he had an idea that unless it wanted it that way, no one could
+see it there. It seemed less grotesque now, standing there against
+the wall looking at him. He stood tautly, watching it. And suddenly
+he knew why it didn’t seem so grotesque. Why its formless, limbless,
+upright length of almost translucent stuff swaying like an underwater
+plant seemed less a peril now. It was afraid. It was not an attacker
+or even a pursuer. It was frightened, and, telepathically, in sharp
+bursting impressions, it pleaded with Roland. _No! Oh, no! You do not
+understand. Wait! Wait and you can know of the countless facets of re_--
+
+Something like pain shot through his skull. The Martian trembled,
+vibrated, and then--disappeared. Roland spun around. Frances stood
+there. She was smiling, but there had been another expression. He
+couldn’t--
+
+She was close to him now. He felt her animal warmth. “We sensed it
+out here,” she said softly, “and came to your rescue, Rolly. He was
+a weaker one, and we got him. We must work fast. Go, dear Rolly.
+This--this is for good luck.”
+
+He leaned against the wall. She was gone. The kiss ... he had been
+waiting for that. None of the other things made any difference now. But
+now she was gone and the wall felt cold. He wanted warmth. He wanted
+Fran’s warmth. He wanted it more than anything. He--
+
+--he was out on an autowalk among the shifting listless crowd. He moved
+toward the five-acre expanse of World Brain. He was aware of nothing
+about him, only of Frances. He would soon be back with her. Destroying
+World Brain was only a means to that end. He noticed then, abruptly,
+that the people around him had only five fingers on their hands. But he
+didn’t think about it. It had no meaning anyway.
+
+Then, suddenly, he was aware that there were no more people. No more
+buildings, either. A cool wind blew across his hot face. He stood awed
+on the long, sweeping rim of an abyss, the edge of a bowl. Its sides
+curved down and away in gracious gleaming sweeps, down, down and away
+into a colossal valley. In its center was World Brain. A gigantic,
+unbroken cylinder, a mile away and a thousand meters down.
+
+He knew he was on the periphery of the ultrasonic field now. He walked
+along the railed edge of the abyss until he faced the plastic man who
+was standing before the opening of a levitation shaft that would take
+him directly into the arteries of World Brain.
+
+He tried to edge past the plastic man. There wasn’t room enough; the
+plastic man wasn’t designed to make any room. The creation was very
+close to a perfect synthesis. There was no other way. Roland charged
+head down into the waiting figure and hurled him upward over the
+railing.
+
+Roland watched him spin out end over end, then flatten out on the
+sweeping curvature and go sliding with fantastic silent slowness, away
+and down, down the long, seemingly endless curve into the depths of the
+gigantic plastic bowl. Roland stepped into the shaft. Dwarfed, Roland
+walked slowly across the gleaming expanse of floor toward the nakedly
+exposed rows of electronic brain cases. A few blows, a pull or two, and
+the circuit would be shattered. His sandals rustled softly.
+
+But he hesitated.
+
+There was a guilty feeling and a lost loneliness. Who was he, really?
+Taken in infancy from some birth center by the Underground. Conditioned
+precisely as they desired--a completely selective mentality. Had
+never had a name. But a label someone pulled out of a hat to satisfy
+a beautiful woman’s peculiar liking for nicknames. The amnesiac’s
+isolated fear of what he didn’t know and couldn’t remember, mustn’t
+remember, but what he must know--
+
+But Frances waited for him back in the secret apartment. Warmth would
+replace a cold emptiness. Meaning and purpose would fill the lonely
+places in his heart.
+
+He went forward--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, Roland paused outside their apartment door. He had come back.
+Frances had brought him back. World Brain was finished. He knew that.
+He could remember the subtle changes beginning to occur even as he
+came back through Worldcity. Soon the whole intricate structure would
+collapse.
+
+The hall was still. He looked at the back of his hand against the wall.
+It shook a little. And the coldness came back. It crept into his
+muscles from his extremities, his hands and feet, and worked inward.
+He wondered why the loneliness should return here. There was a steady
+comfort, though, in knowing that behind that panel, Frances was waiting
+with her gigglings and her soft shoulders and promising eyes.
+
+The photoelectric banks opened the panel and closed it behind him.
+
+They were standing there together, looking at him. He stumbled back
+against the flat panel, resting his back against it. Something had
+happened to them. They made him feel alien and afraid. They--
+
+And then Berti said, “Odd. It has come back. What went wrong with our
+charts, I wonder?”
+
+Her voice wasn’t emotional now. It had never been, he knew that. Her
+giggling. The smile, the wet eyes. False. “Our calculations couldn’t
+have been off very much. It’ll die soon.”
+
+Roland edged toward her. “Frances,” he said weakly. “Frances, you
+said--‘_it_’. You mean me? Fran. _Fran?_”
+
+Berti said, “Our conditioning was most effective. Fran, it actually
+_loves_ you. Remarkable.”
+
+She didn’t smile now. She couldn’t. There was no feeling at all, never
+had been. All false. Nothing now but cold awareness of power.
+
+He felt weak and dizzy. A hazy outline moved toward him. Berti.
+“I still regret seeing you die. You’re interesting. A peculiarly
+interesting experiment. If I had time--almost fifty years of trial and
+error to create you, Rolly.”
+
+“A good job, too,” said the woman. “Though we did take an awful chance,
+making it so rational. It might have solved the enigma of its own
+existence.”
+
+Berti shook his bald head. “We had to make it human so it would be
+sympathetic. Emotional. No human was ever able to solve the enigma of
+himself. We can’t either, Fran. Or can we?”
+
+From a far hazy distance, he saw Berti’s head turn back, his pouting
+lip thrust out, his shiny head reflecting the cold light.
+
+“And you never suspected at all that you were a robot, Rolly? Just a
+lot of electrons and polarizable cells, eh? Remarkable. But then, the
+last thing a robot would ever realize would be that it was a robot, I
+suppose.”
+
+Roland shut his eyes. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. He wanted
+to forget about the imaginative creature he had known for a time as
+Frances, too.
+
+“We gave you a heavy overload of romanticism and sentimentalism. So you
+would be glad to die for Frances, for humanity. But you needed logic
+with it, and that was a very delicate balance to establish. All that
+work to construct a machine that was to function only a few hours. And
+your allotted time is about up, Rolly.
+
+“We misled you by omission only, Rolly. Our purpose wasn’t humanity.
+We needed you to destroy World Brain, not for humanity. But for us.
+World Brain restricted our development, kept us from defeating the
+Martians by shielding atomic power. Rolly, the Underground was a race
+of mutants that developed after the Atomic War. Humanity never knew
+about us. Homo-superior. We’ve developed the same degree above mere
+human intelligence that the Martians have. We’re their equals; that’s
+why we could fight them. They outnumbered us, though, that’s why we had
+to have your help. You have all the human attributes, Rolly. You want
+to know what qualities the next step above human is, don’t you?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Roland was cold. He wanted to rest._]
+
+Roland scarcely heard the man. He was cold. He was tired.
+
+“We’ve developed the physiological relation between the nervous
+system and the consciousness. Instinctualism, a high degree of
+predictability--but then your human brain wouldn’t understand.”
+
+Roland sank to his knees. He dropped his head in his folded arms.
+
+“Let’s go,” said the woman. “Leave it here. It’ll die soon.”
+
+“Just a minute, Fran. Don’t you find this interesting? This creation of
+grids, filaments, plates, vacuums, is probably the last genuine human
+type we’ll see--that’s sane. And we made it!”
+
+She sighed resignedly. “It probably wants to know what the fate of its
+beloved humanity is. We gave it that social consciousness. Tell it.”
+
+“Of course it’s concerned, but Rolly’s dying now, and the important
+thing to it is that it’s dying for humanity.” Berti paused. “And the
+horrible thing for Rolly, is to know that humanity really died from
+over-specialization when it launched the final Atomic War.”
+
+Roland’s head raised slowly and shook back and forth. “No.”
+
+Berti smiled. “Human intelligence never had the slightest possibility
+of survival. Its high cerebral specialization never had any
+physiological unity with the primitive muscles and nervous system. A
+slight chemical disturbance of the blood and the human went mad. Take
+away a little oxygen--his great mind was gone. Decrease the blood’s
+calcium--convulsions, coma, death. Slight reduction in sugar--and his
+mighty cerebrum blotted out, died. A slight environmental change could
+destroy man--aside from his obvious willingness to destroy himself.
+But, Rolly, in one way, perhaps, extinction, the price of evolution,
+isn’t too high. After all, you made us possible.”
+
+Roland heard himself say, weakly, “But they still live out
+there--humans--surely they’re not--”
+
+“But we rule,” said the woman coldly. “They--what will they do? That
+will be interesting. Anyway, it’s their twilight, like apes and
+saurians. Our dawning.”
+
+“You’re almost gone, Rolly, dwindling away like a stream,” said Berti.
+“World Brain was proof against any _organic_ enemy, including us. But
+not against you. A matter of kind against kind. Remember De Morgan’s
+familiar lines? But then you wouldn’t, would you? ‘Great fleas have
+little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em; and little fleas have lesser
+fleas, and so on, ad infinitum; and the great fleas themselves in turn
+have greater fleas to grow on, while these again have greater still,
+and greater still, and so on.’ We used you, Rolly. A machine to bite a
+machine. That was the only way it could have been done.”
+
+Very far away, dim and wavering, Roland heard the woman saying,
+“Logically, any species has some overly-specialized characteristic that
+might defeat it. I wonder what particular little flea will bite us?”
+
+“And that, too, will be interesting,” thought Roland grimly, as his
+electronic brain thinned into meaningless chaos, and he returned into
+the hazes of unconsciousness from which he had emerged three hours
+before.
+
+*** 
+
+The Metal Horde
+
+                       By John W. Campbell, Jr.
+
+                 _Author of "When the Atoms Failed."_
+
+                        Illustrated by DE PAUW
+
+    _What with calculating machines and robots and now perhaps
+    even mechanical airplane pilots, there seems no limit to the
+    possibilities in the realm of working machinery. We have
+    seismographs that can locate the place of distant earthquakes,
+    and machines that can solve, in a comparatively short period,
+    problems in the higher calculus that would otherwise take brilliant
+    mathematicians an endless time to do. It seems to us quite logical
+    that machines might some day, perhaps in the distant future, be
+    developed to solve for our scientists now apparently insoluble
+    problems. Or they might even be made to state their own problems
+    and work them out--in other words, it might some day be possible
+    to have a machine with almost a working brain. According to our
+    author, this will be possible and his final explanation of his idea
+    is exceedingly clever and novel. There is no question Mr. Campbell
+    knows his science and he has by this time proved his ability to
+    weave a great deal of sound science into an absorbing scientific
+    fiction story of exceeding plausibility._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                      Amazing Stories April 1930.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+It would seem lack of generalship that permitted them to be discovered
+so soon, for had we not picked up those signals from the ether we
+should not have received that warning that meant so much to us, and
+it might well have been that this system would have acquired a new
+population. For it would have needed but little to shift the balance
+the other way! Once I watched Steven Waterson save the civilization of
+the Earth, but now I saw him in a greater rôle, for it was he who made
+possible the defeat of the Sirians. But even had his brilliant mind
+succeeded in working out the problem of the de-activating field without
+the precious hours gained by that warning, many millions more would
+have died before they could have escaped from Mars.
+
+I was in his laboratory at the time he received the messages from the
+System government telling the import of those strange tone-signals out
+there in space. I seem fated to be with that man every time some great
+event breaks on the System. I was with him when Dr. Downey announced
+his discovery of the secret of old age--or, better, its prevention.
+Waterson was forty-two now, in years, but in body he was still
+twenty-eight for it was late in 1947 that he had taken Dr. Downey's
+treatment.
+
+Those strange tone-signals had been heard faintly for days, but it was
+not until July 8th, 1961, that they were located in space, and then man
+began to realize something of the message they might bear.
+
+Waterson asked me to accompany him to the System Capital on Venus, and
+I was present at that first Cabinet meeting, and at each succeeding
+meeting. Again I was close to the facts--and again Waterson has asked
+me to write a chronicle of that terrible War.
+
+It was not till the signals had definitely been located as originating
+far out in space that man began to take more than a mildly curious
+interest in them. They were coming from the Metal Horde that was even
+then sweeping across space at a thousand miles a second to the planets
+ahead.
+
+Their goal of ages was in sight. Sixteen hundred years of ceaseless
+rushing flight had at last brought them near.
+
+When our ancestors were beginning to grumble under their Roman lords,
+in the time of Horlak San, when his mighty armies were sweeping their
+way across Mars under the newly developed heat rays, spreading death
+and civilization at one time, that menace started on its expedition.
+
+When the Normans invaded England, when the mighty empire that the San
+dynasty had maintained over all Mars was crumbling, that journey was
+half done.
+
+When Columbus first set foot on the shores of America, when Koral Nas
+formed the great union of the federated nations of Mars, that trip was
+three-quarters done.
+
+But it was seven-eighths completed when Mars developed the first crude
+atomic engines, and when Priestly of England discovered oxygen. And
+during the two centuries of flight that remained before they reached
+their goal, there developed on those tiny planets the instruments that
+were to throw that mighty force down to defeat.
+
+But I am to tell you of that war as I saw it; we have all seen it--all
+too closely! It was really but a little more than a month that that
+Menace of Metal hung over us there on Mars, but to us it seemed years,
+except to the frantically working scientists, striving desperately to
+discover some weapon to defeat them. David Gale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A tiny glistening mote in space it was, as it sped toward the shining
+planet before it--the rapid flight of the car aided by the gravity of
+Venus. The call had been urgent, and the Earth had been in superior
+conjunction, that meant a full twenty-hour trip, even at 1000 miles
+a second, but now they were approaching the planet and the pilot was
+losing speed as rapidly as possible. There was a limit to what he could
+stand, though, and it took him many thousands of miles to bring the
+machine down to a speed compatible with atmospheric conditions of the
+planet.
+
+The air of the planet seemed thick with traffic, mighty half-million
+ton lift freighters and passenger ships setting out toward Earth,
+smaller private machines, but none were slower nor faster than the
+others, for all were limited only by the acceleration they could stand.
+There was only one speed limit, that of economical, safe operation,
+for with all space to move in, there was no need of speed laws. Yet
+it seemed impossible to make any more than two thousand miles an hour
+through this slow moving air traffic--then there shone a little emblem
+on the bow of the little iridescent metal ship, and a huge freighter
+swerved respectfully aside. As by magic a lane opened through the thick
+traffic as the sign of the System President shone out.
+
+The little ship darted along the ground a short way, then rose
+vertically, only to settle lightly on the roof of the great System
+Capitol. Two men came out and walked quickly to the elevator entrance,
+where three guards, armed with disintegration ray projectors, greeted
+them with a stiffly military salute. The larger of the men responded
+with a smile, and a brief salutation in the common language of the
+System, for these great men were Martians, each well over eight feet
+tall. They entered the lift, and quickly sank down one hundred and
+fifty stories to the Governmental Offices. They proceeded directly
+to the great Cabinet chamber, down through the long halls, lined on
+each side by huge murals depicting scenes in the history of the three
+planets. Then they came to the cabinet room and entered.
+
+Thirty-nine men were seated there now, but as the two entered, they
+rose, and waited for the President to be seated. The forty greatest
+living men were in that room that day and all worked together, for
+they were scientists who had learned the value of cooperation. There
+was no rivalry, for each was the greatest in his own field and had no
+aspirations toward any other branch of science. And none but conceded
+the power of the Presidency gladly to the greatest of them, Steven
+Waterson of Earth.
+
+"Gentlemen of the Cabinet, I am beginning to believe it is time we had
+something added to the Constitution forbidding Members of the Cabinet
+to rise on the entry of the President." Waterson deeply appreciated
+that compliment, as they all knew, but he could not feel at home
+in an atmosphere of diffidence. He was a scientist, a planner, not
+a diplomat. "I am sorry I was forced to make you gentlemen wait for
+me, but as you see," he continued, pointing to the great map of the
+System on the ceiling of the Cabinet chamber, where the slow motion of
+the planets in their orbits was being accurately traced, "Earth is in
+superior conjunction at present, and I could not make better time.
+
+"I see from this memorandum that has been prepared for me that Mansol
+Korac, Martian Astro-physicist, is to be our first speaker. I take it
+you have had no official discussion as yet?"
+
+He was correct in this assumption for the men had convened shortly
+before at his radio announcement that he would land within an hour.
+
+Some years before there had been some agitation to have the Cabinet
+meetings carried on by Radio-vision plates, but the low speed of light
+had made the speeches a terrible failure, as they would frequently
+have to wait ten or even fifteen minutes while the radio messages were
+reaching them. Over short distances that method was practicable, but
+between planets light is too slow, it cannot be used.
+
+"Some time ago our radio engineers developed a new instrument for
+detecting exceptionally short waves. They really came under the
+category of the longer heat radiations, but were detected electrically.
+While experimenting with this device they have been consistently
+picking up signals apparently originating in free space. At first these
+signals were exceedingly weak, but their intensity has grown uniformly
+and rapidly, and from the results some amazing conclusions have been
+drawn.
+
+"They are originating at some source or sources out in space in
+the direction of the sun Sirius. I was asked to help the radiation
+engineers under Horus Mal in the calculation of the Astro-physical
+aspect of the problem. I believe that there are some man-made vehicles
+out there in space sending those signals. No man of the System has
+ever had reason to venture beyond the orbit of Neptune for any great
+distance; there would be no reason for it, as none of the outer planets
+are habitable. The rate of increase of the signal strength, coupled
+with observations made from Earth, Mars and Venus, have made it evident
+that they are at present about one and a quarter billion miles away,
+but approaching us at the rate of 1000 miles a second. This means that
+in approximately two weeks they will reach our planets.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"As to their point of origin we can only make guesses really. They are
+coming toward us with Sirius--and thousands of other stars--at their
+back. Of all, Sirius is the nearest, being approximately nine light
+years away. This means that they must have spent at least 1600 years on
+that trip across space. Dr. James Downey of Earth has recently shown
+us how to lengthen life almost indefinitely, so the problem of old age
+need not be considered. A supply of air and water would, of course,
+be no great problem with the Waterson apparatus for electrolyzing CO
+back to carbon and oxygen, using atomic energy fuel. Water, of course,
+is merely transmuted and recombined and thus automatically purified
+for use. A sufficient reserve of very dense materials could easily
+be carried that would make up for any losses by transmutation to the
+necessary gases. As yet we have not been able to make foods from
+energy, carbon, and oxygen and hydrogen, but I believe you, Dr. Lange,
+have made very considerable progress along that line, have you not?"
+
+"I intended announcing at this meeting," said Dr. Lange, "the
+development of a commercial method of manufacturing any one of
+the sugars and several proteins directly from rock or water, by a
+transmutation and building-up process. The method has been developed."
+
+"Then," continued the Martian, "there would be no need of carrying any
+great amount of food. That problem is settled.
+
+"As there would be no resistance encountered in space, once the machine
+had been accelerated to its definite speed of 1000 miles per second, on
+leaving Sirius it would be able to make the trip across space with no
+expenditure of energy, until it reached its goal and slowed down to the
+speed of a planet. Hence no great amount of matter-fuel would be needed
+to drive the machine.
+
+"But the problem of heating seems to me to be insoluble. Interplanetary
+space we have the radiations of the sun to depend upon, and they are
+decidedly sufficient, usually superfluously so. But in the infinite
+depths of interstellar space, there is only darkness and a perfect
+reservoir for radiations. There would be continuous cooling by
+radiation, and no sun to warm the ship. I could understand how the
+ship might carry enough matter to warm it for one hundred years, but
+in sixteen hundred years so much energy must be radiated that the
+entire mass would not suffice. Nothing short of an entire planet would
+be sufficient. Polished walls would reduce the radiation, but still
+it would be too high. I can not understand it--unless these men can
+endure a temperature of but twenty or thirty degrees above absolute
+zero--then they could make it quite readily--but two hundred and forty
+degrees below zero Centigrade means that air--nearly everything would
+be solid, except a few rare gases. No it seems impossible--yet we have
+the evidence! I can not understand how they have made this terrible
+migration, but I know that there are many different units. I believe
+two thousand or more was the number you mentioned Horus Mal?"
+
+"There seem to be a very considerable number of separate signals that
+we can distinguish. I consider the two thousand a very conservative
+estimate," replied Horus Mal, the Martian radiation engineer.
+
+"Then," continued Mansol Korac, "we must decide on some plan of meeting
+them."
+
+The Martian sat down and for some time there was silence in the great
+hall. At last President Waterson rose slowly to his feet. His face
+showed his concern. In times of emergency he always felt that these men
+here were responsible for the welfare of the twenty billions of human
+beings they controlled. And he was their leader, and therefore the
+responsibility was his.
+
+"Mansol Korac, could you point out to us the approximate location of
+the approaching ships?" asked Waterson and handed him a small hand
+light and pointed to the great map of the system above them.
+
+"I cannot be very exact, Mr. President; I do not know their location
+very definitely, but I should say about here, proceeding thus." The
+dazzling beam of white light stabbed up to the ceiling high above, and
+a sharp circle of light a foot across appeared, just within the orbit
+of Uranus, but well beyond Saturn. Then it slowly moved inward toward
+tiny glowing Mars. They were within the Solar System, but had not yet
+reached the Inner Ring of planets. Doubtless they who could make a
+trip across the great Void had the energy of matter at their disposal,
+and probably the disintegration ray. They would have no difficulty with
+the planetoids, they could merely beam them out of existence if they
+came too near.
+
+The light snapped out, and each member of the cabinet turned toward
+Waterson again.
+
+"Gentlemen, we see that they are within the Solar System already
+and appear to be heading directly for the Inner Ring, and Mars in
+particular. I do not know whether they come in peace or as invaders,
+but I think I can reasonably say that they are probably invaders. We
+all agree that they have made a trip of some 1600 years' duration.
+We all recognize the difficulty of such a trip. There are over two
+thousand ships in their fleet. I would not send so large a fleet to
+investigate the Outer Ring, but to send that great number of ships on a
+mere exploration trip of 1600 years--I do not think it is consistent.
+Then, too, we must allow them a life span of over three thousand years
+if we are going to admit that this fleet is for exploration, for it
+would be three thousand two hundred years before they could bring back
+news of their trip. In the meantime they might well have been wiped
+out by some stellar catastrophe, or they might have developed means of
+seeing us directly in nine years, the time light takes for the trip.
+Much as we would prefer peace, I fear we must prepare for war. But we
+can always go out to meet them peacefully, in a great battle fleet.
+That might convince them that it is better to deal peaceably with
+us and it would at least be a protection. I suggest that we have a
+discussion on this, and take a vote."
+
+But there was no discussion, and the vote was unanimous, for the
+President's suggestion was the logical thing. They had to be prepared
+for either peace or war.
+
+Then came the discussion of weapons. There was pitifully little to
+discuss. The interplanetary patrol fleet was a mere police force,
+designed to destroy meteors, turn comets or asteroids. There was no
+real naval fleet. But mechanical devices had reached a great peak
+of perfection and the little space ships were so cheap, so easily
+operated, and so eminently safe, that nearly every family had several,
+and new ones were always in demand. There were mighty factories to
+meet this demand. Twenty billion people can absorb a tremendous number
+of machines. That was the greatest protection we had, and it was
+that quantity production, developed by the American, Ford, that made
+Waterson's campaign possible. But we were to learn much of quantity
+production methods before that war was over!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Orders were issued that evening to all the great plants over all
+three planets to begin work on a great quantity of ten-man-high speed
+ships. They were to be arranged with mountings for machine guns firing
+explosive bullets loaded with material explosive, each one equal to
+100 tons of the old fashioned Dynamite, with special mountings for Dis
+ray machines. The disintegration ray machinery was to be built by the
+companies employed ordinarily in making private power plants, hand
+lights, and the jumping belts. These belts had small projectors that
+threw a directional beam of force that tended to deform the curvature
+of space, at that point, and the result was a force that pulled the
+projector forward, for the space before it acted like a spring. If a
+magnet be held near a steel watch spring, the spring will bend, but
+it will try to straighten out and pull the magnet forward. If the
+magnet could pass through the spring it would progress, as the space
+curver apparatus was pulled through space. This was the principle
+of every ship now built, from these tiny two-kilogram (nearly five
+pounds) machines capable of lifting a man into the air, to the titanic
+new passenger-freight liners carrying as high as three quarters of a
+million tons.
+
+The principle of the disintegration ray was not greatly different, and
+so the machines designed for turning these out in quantities were used
+to make the Dis ray apparatus with no great changes.
+
+The heat ray projectors were made in quantities for every purpose, they
+were used for cooking, for welding metals, for warming the home, for
+melting down cliffs to make way for a building or a tunnel for water,
+for heating the mighty space ships, for anything to which heat might be
+applied to advantage. These would make very effective weapons but for
+the fact that heat rays could be reflected. They would bounce off the
+car of the enemy without doing any damage if it were polished, as no
+doubt it would be.
+
+Great liners of space were requisitioned and fitted with Dis rays, and
+with mighty attractor beam apparatus that would grip and hold anything
+short of another liner. Each of the ten-man-cruisers had a smaller
+attractor beam by which they could grip an adversary and hold to his
+tail with the tenacious grip of a bulldog and yet not weary the pilot
+with violent movement. These ships were exceedingly powerful, and their
+speed was limited only by the accelerations the passengers could stand.
+
+But all the scientists of the System were working desperately to
+design some new weapon, some new machine that was a little faster, a
+little more powerful; although with resistance in space and with the
+tremendous energies of matter at their disposal, there was little lack
+of power as far as the speed of the ships were concerned. Ten thousand
+times more powerful than the titanic energies of atoms, this energy
+had defeated the Martians that memorable day in May, 1947, and it was
+a full ten billion times more powerful than the energies of coal, of
+oil, of the fuels man had known before that day. But they needed a
+machine that could project the Dis ray farther. Twenty-five miles was
+the limit, beyond that the tremendous electrical field that was used
+to direct it must be built up to so high a voltage that there was
+no practical way of insulating it. They must be satisfied with the
+twenty-five mile range--but the scientists were working at increasing
+the range.
+
+They had two weeks before the Sirians would reach Mars, and in those
+two weeks much was done. There was a very carefully laid out system in
+all notices; the absolute truth was laid before the public, but there
+was also laid before them the evidences of Man's power. There were no
+panics. This was no weird thing to them, the landing of a fleet from
+another world; it was as commonplace to them as the landing of a fleet
+from the other side of the ocean had been a generation ago. The element
+of the unfamiliar was gone, and with it had gone the element that
+produces panic, that reduces the efficiency of a nation or of a System.
+
+New production machines had to be built, new designs worked out, new
+dies cut, but it was done with the quickness that a generation of mass
+production had made possible, it was not new to them, this change of
+design overnight.
+
+It required most of those two precious weeks to get the great machines
+working once more at their tasks, but at last a steady stream of
+ten-man cruisers was being poured out, 5000 an hour, night and day,
+from the factories of three planets. But there was only one day to
+work before the Invaders would reach Mars, and the fleet was gathered,
+120,000 ten-man ships, manned by the volunteers of three worlds.
+
+But in the meantime Waterson had had built for himself a ten-man ship
+with triple strength of walls, and triple power plant installation, and
+an extra energy generator. He was experimenting with it, no one knew on
+what.
+
+At last the invaders were seen. Far out in their course the scouts had
+met them. Those scouts were destroyed, without provocation; they did
+not even have time to finish their reports, but we learned enough.
+
+Mars was a deserted planet now. All its population had moved to the
+other worlds. Most of them moved to Earth, on the other side of the
+sun. Only the workers in the great factories remained. They were not
+compelled to. They were told of the danger of their position, but those
+factories could contribute 1500 ships an hour, and they were manned.
+The fleet had gathered on Mars, awaiting the news of the Sirians, when
+the report of the scouts was flashed across the ether.
+
+They told of a great horde of metal ships, shining, iridescent,
+ranging in size from tiny darting machines, ten feet long by one and
+three-quarters in diameter, mere torpedoes, to great transport ships.
+And there was a single spherical ship. A great sphere that floated in
+the center of a bodyguard of the thousands of its followers. There were
+literally hundreds of thousands of the little torpedo-ships, a few
+dozen of the cargo ships, and a few ships that seemed more like scouts
+of some sort. But it was apparent that the little torpedo-ships were
+the real fighters--tiny ships that spun and turned and darted like an
+electron in ionized gas. It seemed impossible that a man could stand
+those sudden turns at several miles a second, but they watched them,
+and went into nothingness as the Dis ray reached out from those tiny
+ships and caressed their ships.
+
+They, too, had Dis rays--it would be a terrible battle, for man had
+that same force, a force so deadly they had feared to use it in
+industry. But man had the advantage of numbers.
+
+The men on the fleet who saw those television plates glowing with the
+story of what was taking place out there in space decided that those
+torpedo-ships must be guided by radio. If they were it would be a
+simple matter to wreck that system by using a powerful interference
+that would drown out the directing wave and make its ships unmanageable.
+
+The System Capital was temporarily moved to the Waterson Laboratories
+on Earth. There the forty men had gathered around great television
+plates and were watching the battle of the scouts. They were not to go
+to that battle front. The System needed them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was midnight on the part of Mars where the Sirians first struck. The
+fleet of the Solar System was massed there to meet them. They seemed
+headed for the mighty gleaming city of Metal, below. Dornalus, the
+second city of old Mars; was there, and they seemed bent on reaching
+it. As the Sirians drew near they threw forward a great shield of the
+torpedo-ships; then the great generators on the Solarian fleet forced
+tremendous etheric currents into space, and waited to see the motions
+of the tiny ships become erratic, but they darted about as steadily,
+as easily as ever. These Sirians must be small men! And they must
+be from a massive world, a world that had accustomed them to great
+accelerations.
+
+Below them the city was deserted except for vision projector machines
+that hummed steadily, automatically, from a thousand points. They were
+broadcasting the message to the worlds and to the commanding officers
+on the other side of Mars. These men had direct control of the battle.
+They could not control it from Earth, for radio waves travel too
+slowly. Twenty minutes each way the waves took and in forty minutes the
+battle was more than over. It lasted only fifteen minutes--minutes of
+terrific carnage!
+
+As the two great fleets came into contact, the Solarians drove into
+the mass of tiny ships, their Dis rays flashing in every direction.
+They had one advantage in that they sprayed nine streams of death from
+each of their craft; but the torpedo-ships were so unbelievably fast
+that it was nearly impossible to hit them. And they seemed to have no
+compunction about raying one of their own ships if a more than equal
+amount of damage was inflicted on their enemies. Logical, no doubt, but
+how inhuman.
+
+The sky above the city became a blazing hell of Dis rays, heat rays,
+and exploding shells. The explosives were not safe, for they threw
+great flying fragments that could pierce the wall of a ship and send it
+down. They damaged friend and foe alike.
+
+The Solarian fleet had a solid projectile of a single giant crystal of
+copper that was immune to the Dis ray. It could penetrate the walls
+of a ship and bring it down. But the explosive bombs were more often
+than not exploded or merely disintegrated before they reached their
+goal. A crystal of any sort was immune to the Dis ray, but it was not
+a protection against it. There was no known way of deflecting the Dis
+ray except by that special electrical field that directed it, and
+that could not be made to surround a ship. The copper crystals were
+used mainly to destroy the Dis ray projectors of the enemy. They were
+fired at the faint glow, and with luck they would hit the machine and
+instantly wreck the projector. More than one machine disappeared as
+its own Dis ray projector, wrecked by the fifteen-inch copper crystal,
+suddenly spread in all directions.
+
+The sphere and its escort of transports hung back, surrounded by a
+great number of the torpedo-ships. They did not join in the fight.
+
+And at last the Solarian fleet was recalled. It was not right that
+they should make such heavy sacrifices. The city must fall, and it
+would be easy to crush the Sirians with a larger fleet. At the rate of
+5000 Solarian ships an hour, they might well do so in three days. So
+the Solarians left, and behind on the ground there were a few ships;
+a great number had been rayed into nothingness. The Sirians had won
+this first victory, but the Solarians could soon make up for this loss.
+They had twenty billions to back them up, and they had the resources of
+three planets. It seemed as though the invaders could not last long,
+but we had yet to learn the true meaning of mass production.
+
+No man could hang around the encampment of that alien race. But above
+them television broadcasts were suspended, and some were installed
+in the buildings of the city. But these were of no avail, for the
+Sirians seemed obsessed with the idea of making Mars a true sphere.
+They proceeded to level the great city with Dis rays. No news projector
+could remain there, of course, and several news projector men lost
+their lives. It was foolhardy to stay in that city; they had been
+forbidden, but nothing will keep a newsman out of a chance for a scoop.
+The projectors which hung above continued to show a weird scene.
+
+The great sphere and its attendant transports sank gently to the
+ground and formed a great wheel, with the sphere as the hub and the
+transports as radiating spokes and the rim. High above them the darting
+torpedo-ships were wheeling in constant circles. It seems a miracle
+that not all of those news projectors were destroyed, but some did last
+till the early rays of the sun set them off as shining targets for the
+flashing Dis rays. It was a weird scene they showed!
+
+[Illustration: _The great sphere and its attendant transports sank
+gently to the ground and formed a vast wheel, with the sphere as the
+hub and the transports as radiating spokes and the rim._]
+
+Now from the sides of the great transports came, not men, but great
+machines, machines that lumbered along on caterpillar treads to set
+themselves down beside their parent ship, one from each ship, and
+proceeded to dig themselves in, about three feet deep. Then all seemed
+quiet, except for a steady hum from the great machines, fifty-eight
+in all there were, great machines--fully two-hundred feet on a side.
+They worked there quietly now, and the men within them must have been
+totally covered, for they could not be seen. Apparently the Sirians
+dared not come out into the Martian atmosphere. And now something was
+happening that startled all the billions of watchers on the three
+planets. In the top of the great machines was a small trapdoor. Through
+this, there came a torpedo-ship that floated up a few feet, then darted
+off to join the wheeling machines above. Then eleven seconds later
+another came forth--another--each machine there was sending them out
+now. One by one those machines released a torpedo-boat--one every
+eleven seconds, with the regularity of a clock.
+
+At first men could not grasp the significance of this--but soon it
+became obvious. These wonderful machines were complete factories in
+themselves, portable, mass production factories for producing those
+torpedo-ships, and one each eleven seconds came from the end of the
+production line, complete. The noises there were no longer a gentle
+hum. There was a whir and rattle of machines. It was not loud, though
+considering the mighty works that must have been going on inside. But
+steadily now, that darting fleet of torpedo-ships was increasing the
+power for all this work was obvious to these men who used similar
+processes in their work.
+
+From the soil below them the machines dug masses of matter, and
+carrying it up into the machine transmuted its elements, into
+the elements necessary to their machines, then molded them, and
+automatically assembled them. It would require very little supervision,
+but that production-rate was staggering! One each eleven seconds meant
+325 completed machines an hour.
+
+There were no signs of any men entering these ships, or the machines,
+so it seemed there must be some means of distant control that man
+knew nothing of, for it was improbable that all those men could
+have been in the parent machine from the beginning. No wonder the
+Sirians could lose these machines so freely. The ability to make them
+automatically from anything meant they cost practically nothing and
+could be produced in limitless quantity. The notion that Man was to
+be an easy victor was fast disappearing. These machines were coming to
+form an ever-growing cloud of wheeling ships. Still, man had destroyed
+fully half their fleet in that desperate struggle; they must spend
+some time in making up those losses. But Man had lost nearly a third
+of his great fleet. Four hundred thousand brave men had been lost. It
+was not even a victory, and it had cost Man far more than it had cost
+the Sirians. They had learned something from them, though. Perhaps
+radio control would enable man to do an equal amount of damage. Orders
+were put through to make an experimental fleet of thirty thousand
+radio-controlled machines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime a new thing was attracting the attention of the people
+on the planets. A new set of machines was issuing from the transports.
+These were smaller than that first set--low and squat--but they seemed
+far more flexible in their movement. They went off in orderly line to
+a point a few miles distant from the main encampment and there formed
+themselves into two groups. One group remained still, but began to
+glow faintly, and a hum came to the televisors above. Then there began
+to flow from a spout on the side of each a steady stream of molten
+metal. This was poured into a somewhat similar arrangement on the
+other group, then these moved quickly away, and with their strange
+handlike appendages began to work quickly at a great rounded hull that
+was rapidly forming. The men watching understood. It was to be another
+cargo ship. Rapidly this hull grew under their swift manipulation,
+till it was completed in three and a half hours. An entire ship,
+except for the machinery, was completed. And now they began to work
+on another, and as they fell to work there started from the original
+cargo shops a long line of small, quick moving machines, machines that
+could run along the ground or drive through the air, and they were
+covered with arm-like appendages. Soon these reached the newly built
+hull, and quickly they were at work, getting material from the strange
+squat machines, entering the hull, and working at it. The second hull
+was nearly completed when one of the smaller machines flew back to
+the original encampment and went up to the sphere. From it it drew a
+strange metal case, oblong, from which led a great heavy cable. This
+it carried back to the now completed ship and installed it somewhere
+inside. Then the ship rose easily from the ground and floated around
+a bit, landed again, and immediately there came out of it one of the
+torpedo-ship machines! None of these had gone in, it had been made by
+those slim, quick worker machines! And now there lumbered out a second
+machine--one of the strange hull maker machines--then two of the worker
+machines came out, where only one had gone in. The ship was complete,
+even to its strange crew! And now that strange crew was already at
+work, making others!
+
+With the coming of dawn the televisors were rayed out of existence.
+But that evening more were installed, and every night during all that
+invasion there floated above them those noiseless televisors. They
+destroyed many, but many remained.
+
+That night showed us a fleet of nearly a half million of the tiny
+torpedo-ships, and a rapidly growing cargo ship camp. There were more
+than a hundred now, for as each was completed, the machines made could
+aid in the more rapid construction of the next.
+
+And that night they began their work of leveling Mars. That great
+fleet spread itself out over all the surface of Mars, and with flaming
+heat rays and the terrible Dis rays they cut down every remnant of the
+Martian hills. Twenty-four hours later the entire planet was one vast
+featureless plain. And on that plain there had been established eight
+camps. During this time the cargo ships had been moving, and during
+that twenty-four hours they did nothing. But Man was prepared. The
+radio-controlled fleet was ready to be given its first try.
+
+The entire fleet was assembled above the surface of Mars, above
+that original camp, where still rested the one sphere. Then from
+far out in space the great control ships directed the dive of the
+radio-control-ships, making the distance one-twentieth part of a light
+second. The men directing the ships were no faster than that, could not
+respond sooner, and the greater distance gave them greater safety.
+
+But now the radio-controlled ships were released, and permitted to
+drop, uncontrolled. They wished to give the Sirians no warning. Then
+when the ships were scarcely ten miles from the Sirian fleet, they
+were brought under control, headed nose down in a power dive, straight
+through the surprised upper layers of the fleet, and with Dis rays
+glowing they drove straight for the ships below. Suddenly, there were
+great gashes in the ground beneath, and twenty of the cargo ships were
+gone in that first rush, and three more followed quickly. But while
+literally thousands of the Sirian torpedo-ships had been rayed, nearly
+half of the thirty thousand radio-controlled ships of Man were gone.
+And now they had to apply full power to prevent striking the ground.
+But twenty-two of them continued on in straight fall toward the great
+sphere. They were rayed by a hundred ships before they could get really
+separated from their companions. And now the fast radio ships were
+destroying hundreds of the Sirians, they were formed in a vertical
+column reaching up ten miles, one above the other, with the nine Dis
+ray projectors going full blast and spinning as rapidly as was safe
+lest the machines fly apart due to centrifugal force, for the Dis ray
+will work practically instantaneously. The top ship was preventing the
+torpedo-ships' attack from above. Suddenly each of the ships stopped
+spinning; its Dis ray went out and they dropped like rocks. The radio
+control had been drowned out by powerful interference; they were no
+longer under the influence of the men, and they had ceased to function.
+The radio-controlled-ships would no longer be useful against the
+Sirians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nearly the entire fleet of the Sirian torpedo-ships had been wiped
+out by that spinning column. Now thousands of the manually-controlled
+ships dove down at the weakened fleet. Every one of the remaining ships
+shot up to meet the advancing fleet; there were still several thousand
+of the torpedo-ships. And now the sphere rose with them, and among
+them. Suddenly the entire mass came together in the shape of a greater
+sphere with walls of torpedo-ships, and as it formed the torpedo-ships
+snapped on their Dis rays, and started the entire surface of the sphere
+spinning! They seemed invulnerable in this formation, but they quickly
+moved away across the surface of the planet, the larger part of the
+Solarian fleet following, wondering what to do about it. It seemed
+impossible to attack the sphere of destruction.
+
+But the cargo ships were left unprotected, and in a moment they
+had been beamed out of existence. The Sirians had lost many hours'
+work on this battle! And they lost more before the mighty fleet of
+torpedo-ships from the other camps rescued them. For now and then an
+explosive shell would penetrate the screen of disintegration rays. But
+within the outer shield was a second, virtually a shield of metal, for
+the metal sphere was surrounded by a solid mass of the torpedo-ships.
+But many of these were destroyed. More, too, were put out of commission
+by the copper crystals.
+
+On the arrival of the great fleet from the other camps the tables were
+turned. The control ships had too low an acceleration, and there were
+too many ships for the ten-man machines to get, though they tried to
+make a screen of Dis rays that stopped the ships till they were rayed
+out of existence. Many of the control ships were lost and many of the
+ten-man ships.
+
+It was then that Waterson announced two things that gave the Solarians
+new hope.
+
+It was the fifth of August when the announcement was made. And it was
+the same day on which nearly the entire fleet from all the camps on
+Mars started off for Venus, but the movement was detected almost at
+once, and from great underground bases on Mars the Solarian fleet sent
+out fifty thousand ten-man ships. These ships skimmed along close to
+the ground, and their polished metal had been sprayed with a drab paint
+so that they seemed but shadows that became practically invisible as
+they sped along, widely separated, but rapidly converging on the site
+of the Sphere's camp. This had remained on Mars, guarded by so small a
+number of ships that it was evident they expected the Solarian fleet to
+go to Venus, as no doubt would have been necessary but for this swift
+counter raid.
+
+So perfectly camouflaged were the Solarian ships, that they got within
+ten miles of the camp without being discovered. Then, as their Dis rays
+flashed out, the entire group of the torpedo-ships dove on them. There
+were nearly one hundred thousand of the ten-man ships, diving down at
+them in a zigzag course that made them impossible targets, but the
+fleet had been approaching from all sides, and now the entire Sirian
+defense was concentrating on the machines attacking from the north.
+Those from the south crept in behind them, and suddenly the sphere
+started into the air, then went flying out into space at terrific
+speed. It barely escaped the Dis rays of the attackers. Only its
+tremendous acceleration saved it. Now several thousand of the torpedo
+ships shot after it, the rest falling into the form of a great disc to
+block the path of the pursuers. Man had long been accustomed to two
+dimensional maneuvering, but the ease with which these Sirians fell
+into complex three dimensional formations showed long practice in the
+art of warfare in space.
+
+That raid was successful in that it forced the immediate return
+of the Sirian fleet, and very nearly destroyed the sphere. Over
+seventy-two thousand of the torpedo-ships were destroyed, but we lost
+two thousand ships and twenty thousand men. But Waterson announced
+that the Sirians would no longer be able to escape because of their
+greater acceleration. He had discovered a method for using an
+attractor beam of a short range but considerable power to be used
+with an electro-magnetic device that would automatically turn on the
+instruments in such a way that no matter what the accelerations might
+be, no matter how great, as long as they were within the limits of
+the ship's strength, the accelerations and centrifugal forces would
+be instantly neutralized, thus making possible violent maneuvers that
+the sudden forces had hitherto made impossible. A demonstration of
+his new ship had confirmed it. He took up a number of the Cabinet in
+his special machine, and turned hairpin turns at ten miles a second!
+The acceleration would have been instantaneously deadly had those
+neutralizers failed. They might as well have been under a half million
+ton freighter as it landed, as undergo those accelerations! But in that
+perfectly balanced room, it was not detectable. The ship's hull was
+made triple strength, as were the power projectors, and the generators.
+It was powered like a freighter, and could reach its full speed of
+1,000 miles per second at an acceleration 5,000 times that of Earth's
+gravity. Waterson, who weighed two hundred and ten pounds on Earth
+would have weighed over five tons! It meant that the Solarian fleet
+would no longer be handicapped by the greater flexibility of the enemy
+ships. The plants that had been manufacturing the machines had already
+closed down temporarily, while the dies for these new machines were
+being made. But within thirty-six hours the first of the machines was
+being turned out.
+
+And now a great crew of young men were being gathered to man them.
+They were all volunteers. There were to be one million ships, and that
+meant ten million men would be needed. Only modern methods could have
+made that possible, but with three populations, totaling over twenty
+billions, a sufficient number of volunteers came forward to make the
+work easy. As fast as these men came to the conscription stations,
+they were put into the new machines. And here also modern methods
+had helped. The Waterson system of material energy release had been
+so successful, that the price of a completed car had dropped to well
+under one hundred dollars for the small two-man machines. And even for
+the interplanetary models not more than two thousand dollars needed
+to be paid, for the raw materials were absolutely free, the labor was
+mechanically reduced to almost nothing, and as the energy that drove
+these machines was as cheap as the raw materials, they merely charged
+enough to make the venture pay a decent return on investment and to
+pay the wages of the few machine supervisors and the office staff. Men
+worked five days a week on three-hour shifts in the factories, but
+longer hours and more pay went to the builders, to the men who had to
+manually control the building construction machinery, for law forbade
+the building of offices on the mass production scheme, since that meant
+an unvaried, monotonous city. But everywhere wages were high, for wages
+depend, not on the amount of work men do, but on the amount of finished
+product they can turn out. The men accomplished more, and were paid
+more, but they worked less. It had taken many years to finally convince
+the Earth of that, but the example of American labor, with its shorter
+hours and higher wages was proof enough. And then the influence of the
+mighty energies Waterson had released made it even more apparent. Mars
+had already developed the system under the force of the released atomic
+energies.
+
+High wages and cheap machines had meant that everyone owned one. And so
+absolutely safe were they that they commanded perfect confidence. This
+had been a big factor in the making of this mighty fleet. Everyone
+knew how to operate the machines, so it was easy to fill the places on
+the machines with pilots.
+
+Nevertheless, special training was necessary to overcome the caution
+against quick turns that long experience had instilled in them all.
+Each accepted applicant was taken up in one of the new machines, and
+given a breath-taking ride--a ride that consisted in diving toward the
+Earth with terrific sudden acceleration. Then, just when the student
+felt certain they would crash and become a mass of molten metal, the
+ship was brought up, not a mile from the ground, to settle gently;
+then, when they almost touched the ground, they leapt into the air
+again with an acceleration that shot them out of the atmosphere with
+the velocity of a meteor, while the outer wall of tungsto-iridium alloy
+glowed cherry red. Then came sharp turns at ten or twenty miles a
+second, till at last the students no longer gripped the arms of their
+seats in anticipation of a sudden acceleration. Then they were taken
+down and given a ship to experiment with.
+
+But none of these men had ever handled a weapon of the sort they were
+to use, so mimic battle practice was held, with the glowing rays of a
+harmless ionizing beam instead of the deadly Dis rays.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Daily reports were coming from the Martian scouts as time went on.
+The Sirians, too, had decided to do some fleet building, for nearly
+three-quarters of their fleet had been destroyed. The production rate
+of man's factories, 120,000 a day, had gained a slight lead. It would
+require ten days before a fleet of a million could leave for Mars with
+a home guard of two-hundred thousand ships.
+
+The destruction of the Martian plants had lowered the production rate
+to about 3,500 an hour, but shops put up rapidly on Earth and Venus had
+quickly brought the production-rate back, and it would be nearer 7,000
+an hour by the time the last of the fleet had been finished.
+
+The spinning sphere formation of the Sirians had been almost
+invulnerable, and an exceedingly destructive formation. The Solarians
+had chosen several thousand of their crack pilots to practice this
+maneuver, but despite almost constant practice during the entire ten
+days, it was a miserable failure as soon as they tried to progress.
+Standing motionless it was a very effective procedure, but the spinning
+column was decided on as more effective as long as they had no ship to
+protect. There were twenty groups that practiced that maneuver.
+
+And then Waterson announced that an associate of his, working in his
+laboratory, had developed a method for using a triple electrical field
+to direct the Dis ray, making possible a ray with a range of over sixty
+miles. This would be absolutely fatal to the spinning sphere system of
+the Sirians. The Sirians very evidently did not know how to project
+the Dis ray any further than twenty-five miles. The ability to stand
+off and hit them would break down the sphere of Dis rays very quickly.
+There was only one objection. The rays were very powerful, so powerful
+that they required triple power generators, but the special field of
+electrical force was the worst problem. The field could not be made
+sufficiently strong if a single layer of the force was used, but the
+invention of a method to back up the first with two other layers of
+equal voltage, thus getting nearly three times the effect without
+exceeding the capacity of the insulation, had made the new machine
+possible. This special field was produced by circularly moving cathode
+rays, or exceedingly high velocity electrons, and therefore could be
+produced only by atomic methods. This meant ten thousand times the
+amount of fuel a similarly powered material engine would have required,
+but material energy of course yields only wave motions of the transient
+or unstatic type, a type that cannot stand still. Atomic energy can
+yield static-waves as well as unstatic; the electron can stand still,
+and is a perfect example of the stationary wave.
+
+These limitations, in turn, meant that a tremendous weight of equipment
+was needed. And a corresponding great volume of space was required. In
+the end they had to use specially reinforced freighters to carry the
+great projectors, each of which could carry but two projectors. Due to
+their long range, however, the ships were at least self-protecting.
+There was not time to make and equip more than twenty-eight of these
+ships before the fleet was scheduled to start. They were completed
+ahead of time. Some of their trial trips more than fulfilled the best
+hopes of the inventor. Dr. William Carson, the physicist who developed
+it insisted that it was really Dr. Waterson's suggestions that made the
+thing possible.
+
+We had learned something of spatial warfare formations from the
+Sirians. Now we were to learn a bit of the strategy of spatial warfare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Solarian fleet sailed for Mars on the fifteenth of August, 1961.
+They were a scant twenty million miles from their goal when a report
+came from a scout that something was happening down in the Sirian camp.
+Almost immediately after that the Sirians flooded our entire system
+with so terrific a barrage of radio frequency static that communication
+was impossible. They could not transmit from Earth to Venus, and the
+communication was very poor even from one side of Earth to the other,
+despite the fact that over a half billion kilowatts were used. So
+intense was this barrage, that if two of the torpedo-ships near the
+sending apparatus came within twenty or thirty feet of each other,
+great crashing sparks leapt across, and instantly they were fused.
+Scouts saw this happen twice.
+
+The Solarian fleet continued on for Mars. They should cover the
+remaining distance--twenty million miles--in five hours by pressing the
+ships a little, although higher speeds made the rate of approach of
+asteroids so great that they frequently could not be detected before
+they collided with the ships.
+
+Only two and a half hours later a scout came into sight at terrific
+speed. He must have been doing over two thousand a second, an
+exceedingly dangerous rate--but his acceleration neutralizer enabled
+him to slow down safely. He reported that the entire Sirian fleet had
+risen from Mars, leaving a very few machines behind--this time taking
+the sphere with them--and had set out for Earth! Earth was on the
+other side of the Sun--a long two hundred and twenty million miles to
+go! The Sirians had a lead of three hours. They had as great a speed
+as the Solarians and would reach Earth before the Solarians. But they
+would at least be delayed by the two hundred thousand ships--more
+now, for the steady production would have built the quota up to over
+six hundred thousand, or a million by the time they could return. The
+Sirian fleet had been built up to nearly three million though, which
+could easily crush the fleet of a million, and the second million
+later--separately. The trip would take them sixty-two hours. Scouts had
+been sent ahead to Earth at a dangerously high speed to communicate
+the news, and the entire fleet had increased its speed to a rate that
+was considerably higher than safety warranted, but a continuous play
+of Dis rays was considered sufficient safety at fifteen hundred miles
+a second. The Sirian fleet had been reported to be making thirteen
+hundred and fifty, so the Solarians should pass them, or meet them,
+just shy of the Earth, where the other fleet would be waiting. They
+should have no difficulty to crush the Invaders with the two million
+ships.
+
+The radio interference was being maintained by a ship anchored
+somewhere in space. It was no doubt well protected, and to attack it
+successfully would have meant the loss of a large number of ships, for
+the time spent in the attack would delay them irreparably. They must
+continue to Earth.
+
+There were no scouts from the Sirian fleet--yet there should have been,
+for over a thousand ships had been following them, far behind. None
+ever reached Earth to warn the fleet. Every one of them was destroyed.
+But when the Sirian fleet was well on its way--it turned--and headed
+_for Venus_! They had purposely let that one scout reach the Solarian
+fleet with the news that the fleet was headed for Earth--then they
+redirected their course. The scouts from the Solarian fleet did reach
+Earth--but soon after the last of the scouts following the Sirian fleet
+had been destroyed, their radio barrage was lifted. All the ships on
+Venus were concentrated on Earth, and Venus was left unprotected.
+
+Twenty hours after the fleet had turned back, the radio barrage was
+again lowered over the System. It was ten hours later that the Sirians
+reached Venus.
+
+While the radio barrage had been lifted, Waterson had had an idea that
+there should be some protection for the planet. It did not seem that
+the planet should be completely stripped of its defenses, and he had
+suggested that at every city great Dis ray machines of the sixty-mile
+range type be set up. His suggestion was followed, and at every city
+on Venus the great machines were installed. There were many of them
+now, for during the hundred hours the main fleet was in flight the
+new machines had been put on a quantity production basis. But all
+the ships that were equipped with them, were sent to the defense of
+the unattacked Earth! And it was those machines that prevented the
+landing of the Sirians. They came to the night side of the planet, of
+course, coming from Mars. It would be thirty hours before they would be
+expected on Earth--thirty hours before the main fleet would reach the
+planet--and then there would be the 160,000,000-mile trip to Venus if
+they were to get there in time to rescue the planet.
+
+But the Sirians could not approach within beaming distance of the
+cities, and all those that did try to do so, were brought down as
+a cloud of powdery dust. It was Waterson's caution that saved the
+billions of people on Venus.
+
+But were they to be saved? The Sirians decided they must destroy the
+works and the people on Venus, so they made one desperate effort. They
+had at least sixty hours to work in, and now they had a plan that would
+require time. They retired some hundred miles from the planet, then
+the entire fleet, torpedo-ships, cargo boats, and the entire body
+guard of the Sphere lined up, and then switched on powerful attractor
+beams. Immediately, the combined effect of over three million of these
+emanations took hold on the planet, and great tides began to rise in
+its mighty oceans. Many lives were lost in the seaside towns, when the
+tremendous waves rushed in over the land. But astronomers on the planet
+and most of the System's scientists were there to watch the Sirians on
+Mars through their great telescopes. And these astronomers saw what
+the Sirians intended, and saw that they were well on their way to
+fulfilling their aim.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A planet is balanced in its orbit about its parent sun with the
+delicacy of a diamond on a jeweler's scales. But, like the diamond, if
+it be displaced by some force, it reaches a new state of equilibrium.
+Thus, if the diamond is further lowered in the scale by adding a small
+weight, it soon reaches a new point of equilibrium. No conceivable
+force, therefore, could be great enough to displace the planet in its
+orbit more than a few million miles by pulling it either in toward
+the sun, or out from it, and as soon as that force was released, it
+would spring back to its original position as the diamond would regain
+its balance on removing the disturbing weight. For the sun pulls on a
+planet with a titanic force; it draws it in with the apparent force
+gravity, and another similar, but opposite force, centrifugal force
+of its revolution in its orbit, is constantly tending to throw it
+into the depths of space. These are the two forces that are always
+balanced. Suppose the planet is drawn nearer the sun; it revolves in
+a smaller orbit--and it revolves in that smaller orbit with a higher
+speed--for it has fallen in toward the sun; it has gained speed as any
+falling body would. It has gained speed in the direction of the sun,
+but this has operated to increase its rotational speed. Thus it has
+gained a greater centrifugal force--you can see the effect with a bit
+of chalk on the end of a string. The smaller the circle it swings in,
+the greater the tendency to fly outward. But as long as we continue
+the force that was added to draw it in, it will remain in equilibrium.
+Remove this extra force and at once the planet will fall away from the
+sun, losing speed as it does so, till it has reached a point where it
+is once more in equilibrium with the force drawing it inward.
+
+Now reverse the problem. Let us draw it away from the sun. Now the
+orbit is longer, and it has lost speed in moving from the sun. It
+cannot stay here, it is not in equilibrium, unless the force that drew
+it out is maintained. To free the planet from the sun, one would have
+to lift hundreds of quintillions of tons of rock through billions of
+miles, against the terrific gravity of the sun. It is too much.
+
+Thus we see that as long as the planet revolves in its orbit, it will
+never fall, and to pull it away from the sun is impossible as long as
+it revolves in its orbit. But if it slows down in its flight about
+the sun it at once has less centrifugal force. It automatically falls
+toward the sun until it has gained velocity enough to establish a new
+orbit of equilibrium. If this energy, too, is withdrawn; if it is made
+to stand still in its orbit; it will fall straight to the sun. It is
+the only way such a thing might be done. And it would take the energies
+of matter, and strain that to the utmost, to accomplish it.
+
+This was the plan of the Sirians. Three million ships were dragging
+like a Titanic brake on the planet as it wheeled in its orbit, and
+slowly, steadily it was falling into the blazing furnace of the sun.
+Their ships were not designed for this task, but they could do it
+in the sixty hours at their disposal. In a short time it would be
+falling directly toward the sun, but it would take many hours for the
+seventy-million-mile fall. Even if it were stopped before it reached
+the sun, any place within twenty million miles would be unbearable.
+
+It was the distressed planet itself that warned the people on Earth and
+the men of the fleet that the Sirians would never reach Earth, for the
+radio was still dead. But the fleet turned for Venus at once. They were
+far to one side of the path to Venus, and they would have to turn, but
+it would take them thirty, instead of sixty hours to reach Venus. And
+the other fleet was coming from Earth. They were not quite a million
+strong, but those machines that had been produced on Venus would come
+also, and that would bring the total numbers up to over a million, and
+with the main fleet the number would be well over two million. There
+were also three hundred of the long range Dis ray ships now, for many
+more had been produced and Venus would supply an equal number.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We can only admire the wise action of the Commandant of the Venerian
+fleet, Mals Hotark, in not sending his pitiful fleet of a few thousand
+out to fight with the Sirians. The members wanted to, the people of
+Venus wanted him to, but he wisely waited until he saw the fleets of
+the System approaching. It would have done no good, and lost many
+lives, and valuable ships to have gone in advance to the attack.
+
+Many people tried to leave Venus, but enough machines were freed of the
+task of stopping the orbital motion of the planet to patrol the heavens
+and keep the people from leaving. They beamed thousands of private cars
+out of existence; it seemed unnecessarily cruel.
+
+The two great fleets were drawing nearer to the planet, converging,
+and at last they got so close that they could carry on a radio
+communication by using the terrific power of over two billion kilowatts
+of energy. The amount of power that Sirian machine was throwing off has
+been estimated at a minimum of fifty billion kilowatts. We know that
+enough power could be picked up from a hundred meter aerial on Earth to
+operate a small, high frequency motor.
+
+When radio communication was established, they agreed to wait until
+they could join, for the fleet from Earth was two hours ahead of the
+main fleet. The loss of time was made up for in greater efficiency of
+action. They would need it all. At last they joined fleets, one mighty
+disc of two million airships, they flew on through space at a steady
+rate of five and three-quarter million miles an hour. They arranged
+themselves in a mighty cone as they came nearer Venus. Already the
+machines had slowed it down so greatly that the planet was over a
+million miles out of her orbit, and rapidly adding to this mileage.
+
+But now as the great cone approached, the great ships with the long
+range Dis rays leading, they were discovered. The cone formation
+was chosen, for that is the three dimensional equivalent of the two
+dimensional V that man had used in war on earth for thousands of years.
+
+Now began the greatest battle in the history of the System. Here were
+two mighty forces slashing at each other with terrific disintegration
+rays, fighting in the great Void, and five million powerful ships
+darting around, slashing, stabbing with a death that struck with the
+quickness of light.
+
+As the great cone of the main fleet attacked from one side, there was a
+smaller cone attacking the Sirians from the other, but long before the
+Sirians could bring their rays into effect the long range rays had torn
+great holes in their ranks. The Sphere had retired with its escort at
+once, going swiftly to Mars. The main fleet was too busily engaged in
+fighting the Sirians' main fleet to worry about the Sphere at present.
+
+A dozen times the great spinning sphere formation was tried by the
+Sirians, but each time a withering blast of the long range Dis ray
+cut it up as a tool held against a spinning block of wood cuts it
+down in the lathe. Their strongest formation was useless, and they
+could no longer outmaneuver the Solarians, the new ships could turn
+and dart as quickly as they, or even more quickly. The big Dis ray
+ships were not equipped for fast fighting, so when there were none of
+the spinning sphere formations to break up, they retired to a safe
+distance, and waited for any ships that might attack them. Few did. It
+proved suicidal. But steadily the forces of man were conquering. In a
+hell of flashing Dis rays, the new ships were proving their worth. The
+flaming rays had seared the land below for many miles, but the fleet of
+the Sirians was fast going. The new fast ships of man could dodge the
+rays of the Sirians, turn and dart on the tail of their attacker, then
+hang there, the attractor beam giving them an added grip until they
+could flash the machine into nothingness with the Dis ray. They turned,
+ducked, darted ahead with terrific speed, suddenly stopped, and then
+were going full speed again. And another Sirian ship was gone. Now it
+was the delicate apparatus of the Sirians' ships that suffered; they
+could not keep up with the sudden turns of this flexible adversary. And
+their great fleet had been reduced to a scant quarter million, but we
+had lost nearly a half million ships, five million men, in that Titanic
+struggle. Such a battle could not last long. It was impossible. Nothing
+could stand before the Dis rays, and with those turning, darting ships,
+sooner or later every ship must come under the influence of those
+rays. But now the last of the torpedo-ships were fleeing into space.
+But we did not care to have to fight them again--and they too were
+rayed out of being. They could no longer dart away from us before we
+could catch them--that was for us now!
+
+But now the fleet returned to a greater task. Venus had been falling
+toward the sun, and was nearly a million and a quarter miles off and
+within her orbit. Now a great fleet of cargo carriers from Mars,
+Venus and Earth came up, and with them came wrecker ships, capable of
+picking up on their powerful attractor beams an entire million-ton
+passenger-freight liner--great liners themselves, all equipped with
+attractor beams. Soon they were all using their power to bring the
+planet back to its normal speed. It did not take the ships of that
+mighty fleet, many specially designed for heavy listing and towing,
+many designed for tremendous loads, very long to bring the planet back
+to its age-old orbit.
+
+In former days we would have found a world wrecked by panic. But this
+later generation had learned to trust in the powers of the ships they
+had, and there had been little of the terrible panic that would have
+affected the world of a generation ago. Then, too, they knew that with
+the demonstrated power of the long range Dis rays, they could safely
+convoy a fleet of the great passenger liners to safety.
+
+What helped also was the fact that the human mind cannot grasp the
+full significance of the fall into the sun. If you were told that the
+planet you were on was sinking toward the sun, you would be surprised,
+horrified, and would probably try to make a bargain-buy on real estate,
+while the other man sold his to get his money out. You would simply
+fail to comprehend the magnitude of the catastrophe. It has never
+happened, and never will, the mind says, and we unconsciously believe
+it. Your neighbor would joke about it to you. Of course many would
+leave, but most people would stay till the actual physical heat of the
+sun drove them off. We are constituted that way.
+
+But now the radio barrier was down, and news from the Martian scouts
+made men hesitate. The remaining cargo ships had settled on Mars and
+were even now pouring out their strange crews. But they were not
+building cargo ships. Every one of the worker machines were kept in
+action constructing duplicates of themselves as rapidly as possible.
+Already a great number of them had been made--over seven hundred of the
+machines it was estimated--and now these were engaged in similar work.
+The number grew in a steady geometrical series.
+
+But the scouts were driven away by the torpedo-ships. Then there was no
+news of the operations until nightfall permitted the scouts to creep up
+and install the usual floating vision machines.
+
+Then at last we understood the reason for this tremendous number of
+inoffensive worker machines. There was a great seething mass of metal
+around the workings now. Great blazing lights illuminated the scene
+as brightly as day. There was a great horde of shining metal machines
+working swiftly about the great plain. There seemed to be thousands
+of them now, and they were all busily at work on great machines--the
+torpedo-ship machines! There must have been nearly a thousand already
+completed and already the fleet that had escaped had been built up to
+many thousands by the rapidly working machines, and a steady stream of
+long glistening shapes rose--only to be lost in the darkness beyond.
+Steadily the great machines were being put together, and steadily the
+great fleet was being augmented.
+
+Before morning that fleet had reached two hundred thousand, and was
+now growing at the rate of twenty-five thousand an hour. Steadily this
+rate was increasing. The fleet was too large to be attacked by man's
+weakened fleet, for the delay in putting Venus back in its orbit had
+given the Sirians a chance to build up an invulnerable fleet. The
+added time of the trip to Mars meant a still greater fleet. Already
+their production-rate was far greater than Man's. Man could not hope
+to compete successfully. We were learning the meaning of quantity
+production.
+
+Had it been possible to attack them with the long range Dis rays it
+would have been tried, but the plan was hopeless. Before the fleet
+could reach them there would be 100,000,000 miles to go to reach them,
+and it would take approximately twenty hours, in which time, at the
+present rate of increase, the Sirian fleet would have reached a total
+of three million again. They would all concentrate their attack on
+the long range Dis ray ships. No Solarian ships could help without
+interfering with the action of the Dis ray ships, and they would need
+help, for each ship carried only two beams. More could not be carried.
+They would merely be held at bay, unable to attack their goal, useful
+only in breaking up the spinning sphere formation, but that could be
+prevented. The Solarians had learned that trick from the Sirians. The
+Sirians had succeeded in breaking up every spinning column formation by
+simply getting into the midst of it before it was formed completely.
+It required perfect coordination of several machines to do it, but
+it was always done. The long range Dis rays were excellent now in
+defending a city, but useless for attack because of the terrific weight
+of the apparatus. They could not attack the Sirian fleet. If they did
+the production machines would have been so built up by the time they
+reached the planet that any ordinary rate of destruction would be
+easily equaled by the production! Within three days it was decided that
+the Sirian fleet would be built up enough to attack. They would then
+attack our planets, no doubt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A cabinet meeting was called at the Waterson laboratories on Earth.
+There Waterson first demonstrated the weapon that finally conquered in
+the terrific struggle. Before the members, on the Cabinet table, was a
+small portable material energy disintegrator, a machine that gave off
+its energy as light. There was a second machine at the other end of
+the table, a machine that occupied about two cubic feet of space, and
+on one side of it was a small switch and a dial; on the other was a
+familiar looking projector.
+
+Dr. Waterson spoke:
+
+"Gentlemen of the Cabinet: I have here a new machine that my laboratory
+has developed. I will demonstrate its action first." The light was
+switched on, throwing a brilliant shaft of light against the ceiling.
+Then Waterson snapped on the switch of the new machine, and there
+appeared a strange beam of blueish, ionized air. But unlike any other
+known ionizing beam, it was shot through with streamers of red fire,
+long, hair-thin streamers that wavered and flickered in the blue tube
+of the ionized air. It reached out, touched the light generator, and
+passed on, through a series of plates of different materials. But the
+instant that strange beam struck the light-machine, it went out. Then
+a moment later, when the new machine was turned off, the light snapped
+back on.
+
+"Gentlemen, this machine will produce a field, directional in this
+case, that will so modify the properties of space as to make it utterly
+impossible to disintegrate matter into energy. There is some tendency
+to fix energy as matter. I think that will be interesting to us in
+the event that this war is successfully concluded. But at present we
+are interested in the properties of the beam in that it will stop the
+disintegration of matter. The process depends on the modification of
+the properties of space. It is well known that in ordinary space, such
+as we know, there are twenty coefficients of curvature. In ordinary
+empty space, ten of these have zero values, and the ten principal
+coefficients have certain non-zero values. This machine so affects
+space that it makes all the coefficients of space have non-zero values,
+and fixes these values to suit its own purposes. The results are
+amazing. I have done some things with this machine that makes me truly
+afraid. But we are interested in it because certain of the values we
+can assign operate to force space to take such curvatures, that any
+change of the condition of matter to condition of energy is impossible.
+On release of the ray, the space returns to its normal curvature.
+
+"Working out the theory of this machine has been a tremendous task.
+Even the great calculating machine, the new integraph developed last
+year, and it is a far cry from that first one that M.I.T. developed
+in 1927, required many weeks of work to solve the problem in twenty
+coefficients of space. In so doing at one stage we had to assume a
+space of twenty dimensions in order that the correct values in the four
+true dimensions might be determined.
+
+"But there is still a great deal of work to be done. We must develop
+practical machines of a range of many miles. There is no difficulty in
+using the ray, since, as it is a condition of space, not a vibration,
+it is impossible to stop it by any shield. There is only one way
+to work with it, to create it directionally. We make the field by
+projecting certain strains along a beam, then once started the field
+follows that line to a distance dependent on the strength of the
+generator.
+
+"But this will require at least five days to get into working form. I
+suggest that in the meantime Venus makes several million of the long
+range Dis ray projectors, and distribute them all over the planet, to
+be turned on from a central station, or by their own separate crews. I
+have no doubt that the Sirians will attack that planet before we are
+ready to attack them. Earth, too, must be prepared. But in the meantime
+we can begin the work on the new de-activating field projectors, as I
+call them."
+
+Waterson was right. It was three days later that the Sirian fleet
+left for Venus with a number of torpedo-ships so tremendous, it is
+absolutely inconceivable. There were over two hundred million of the
+ten-man machines! When they started to settle about Venus, the sky was
+so filled with them that it was literally dark for many miles. They
+attacked at Horacoles the System Capital, but the fields of the great
+Dis rays were too much for them. Neither bombs nor Dis rays could
+reach through. The air was dense, and filled with artificial smoke to
+prevent the transmission of heat rays and great winds were created for
+the purpose of carrying the heat away; but this was done automatically
+by the expanding air before long. They could not attack the city. All
+over the face of the planet were the great Dis ray emplacements. Great
+ships hung even over the great rolling oceans, sending the blue rays of
+ionized air up like some column that was to hold the Sirians from the
+Planet. And they did.
+
+But now again they began to slow down the planet--not gently as they
+had had to before--but rapidly. The planet would have been pulled to
+pieces, except that the very attractor beams that were pulling on it
+tended to relieve the stress. But the cargo ships of Venus were pulling
+to keep the planet in motion. It was a strange thing to contemplate!
+Two mighty forces, one a fleet of two hundred million small ships,
+the other a force of as many thousand huge freight carriers, having a
+tug-o-war for a planet! But the odds were too great. Slowly the Sirians
+won. The planet was steadily dropping toward the sun. Now it seemed no
+fleet could come to aid them, and the Sirian fleet was being augmented
+constantly by a steady stream of ships from Mars. It was the sixth
+day after the announcement was made that Waterson had a fleet ready
+to attack the Sirians. The Venerians also had a fleet ready, prepared
+by the directions of Waterson's engineers sent by radio-television
+and radiophone. They were ready to attack, and the Terrestrian fleet
+arrived at Venus just six days after the announcement of the new weapon.
+
+The practical projector of this new ray had been quite heavy, and they
+had been mounted in groups of twenty projectors on special hundred-man
+ships, using the same acceleration neutralizer used on the ten-man
+ships. They were arranged to throw a wide beam, so wide that the new
+ships with twenty, could prevent any action in a field of over two
+hundred miles depth, and in a cone with a base of six hundred miles
+diameter. The ships they had could approach within a hundred miles
+of the Sirian fleet, without being seen, for they were painted black
+therefore and showed no lights. In the darkness of the void they were
+easily hidden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The entire expedition went as planned. The radio barrage had not been
+turned on, and they were in constant communication with the Venerians.
+The two fleets were to attack simultaneously, over different areas, so
+that between them they could wipe out so large a number of the enemy
+ships that the fleet of two million could easily handle the task.
+
+Hidden in the utter dark of the void they crept up on the Sirians.
+They were in the sunlight, but the black coating kept them invisible,
+while the Sirian ships shone brilliantly. Then at last the tip of the
+great cone formation was within easy striking distance of the fleet.
+There reached out the strange ray, and here in space it was utterly
+invisible. But suddenly the ships within its range began to waver, to
+fall together under mutual gravitation. With one swoop they all shot
+toward the ships in space that had paralyzed them, for the attractor
+beams had been turned on them. As the great mass of ships fell rapidly
+toward them, long range Dis rays reached out, and they melted into
+clouds of shimmering dust. Great swaths were cut through their ranks. A
+similar scene was taking place far to the left of the Terrestrian fleet
+where the Venerian fleet was working havoc among the invaders. Now the
+last of the ships had been rayed into nothingness and a great fleet of
+the Sirians were rushing forward to attack for the ships invisible on
+account of their black line had been electrostatically located now. But
+as the Sirians came within one hundred miles of the other fleets, the
+ships all ceased to accelerate, to change direction; they just drifted
+straight into that cone of Dis rays. All walls of the de-activating
+field were lined with the ten-man ships, their shorter range Dis rays
+prevented any Sirians from escaping. Bright lights shone out on the
+Solarian fleet now--they wanted the Sirians to attack. The original
+cone formation had shifted rapidly; now it was a double cone; then it
+changed to a quadruple cone. There were six hundred of the de-activator
+ships and these were arranged so that they shot their rays off in four
+directions, making four cones of de-activated space, with the fleet of
+de-activator ships at the apex. Thus they were protected on all sides,
+and quickly, as the Sirian fleet spread out, more ships rose and there
+were six cones branching out. In the center rested the main mass of the
+fleet, the long range Dis ships, their attractors pointing out into
+the cones to draw the disabled ships of the Sirians into the range
+of their Dis rays, emanating in thousands from the ships lining the
+sides of the de-activated cones of space. The fleet was invulnerable
+and so sudden and complete was the failure of their power in these
+de-activated regions, that they did not seem to have time to warn their
+fellows. Many millions of the ships were lost before the wild charge
+could be checked; then the six-cone formation entire began to move
+slowly around; the Sirians, waiting to see what was to happen, were
+caught before they were aware that they were in danger. Many, too, were
+caught by the powerful attractor beams of the heavy ships within--drawn
+in by the greater power of the heavy ship, till their power failed. But
+at last the Sirians had learned the effective range of this new power
+and tried hard to avoid it. The six-cone formation was immediately
+broken up, and the six hundred de-activators went out individually,
+each followed by a swarm of the ten-man ships to disintegrate the
+ships caught in the de-activating cones. The Terrestrian ships were
+marked by a blazing blue light, so that if they too were caught in the
+de-activating field, they were not disintegrated. Only those around
+them were, and they were then released, as the ray did not seem to have
+any injurious effects on man, except to give him strange dreams. In
+some way the brain was stimulated by the ray, as long as the ray was
+used.
+
+The de-activator ships were completely self-protecting; they could stop
+any number of attackers from any direction, provided the paralyzed
+ships were disintegrated as soon as caught, for if too many were piled
+up, the tendency of the matter to disintegrate in the engines, plus the
+natural tendency of the space to resume the normal curvature, caused
+the ray to become ineffective as it was overpowered, and one ship was
+lost in this way. Too many ships piled up, and only part of them could
+be rayed out by the ship itself, and there were not a sufficient number
+of helping ten-man ships. But the mighty fleet of the Sirians was
+already beaten. They still outnumbered us ten to one, but they could
+not fight this new force. They began a running fight to Mars, and now
+the Solarians were united. Rapidly they wiped out the edges of the
+fleet, and gradually worked in toward the center. But the Sirians could
+not fight back--they could use only the explosive shells, and few of
+them reached their goal. They were disintegrated, or missed. Not more
+than three thousand men were lost in that entire engagement.
+
+But now the Solarians tried a plan to capture the Sphere. A large
+number of the ten-man ships dropped out of the main fleet, but not
+enough to make it noticeable to the hard-pressed Sirians. These were
+joined by one hundred of the de-activator ships. Then these, all
+capable of higher speeds than the main fleet, set out at the highest
+speed that could safely be maintained, and darted toward Mars.
+Undetected they rushed past the Sirian fleet and passed on toward Mars.
+They reached the planet fully three hours ahead of the main fleet.
+By the time the main fleet had arrived, it came unattended, for the
+last of the mighty fleet of two hundred million torpedo-ships had been
+turned to impalpable dust, floating in space.
+
+The advance guard arrived without warning, and as they had expected,
+found the Sphere resting on the ground, protected by a great fleet
+of the torpedo-ships. There were nearly a million ships there, with
+the great machines rapidly making more. However, all were grouped
+in an area that could be covered by the cone of the de-activating
+beam. And out in space, the ship commanders decided on a plan. Fifty
+of the de-activator fleet took positions high above the Sirians, and
+the rest went with the entire fleet of the ten-man ships. These were
+to approach the camp from the ground. Lying close to the ground, they
+would be hard to see in the disappearing light. At a fixed moment,
+all the ships above were to turn on their de-activator rays, which
+would be plainly visible in the Martian atmosphere, while the ground
+fleet of fifty de-activators were to use their rays from the side. The
+ten-man ships were to form a circle around the camp at a safe distance
+from the de-activator rays, for they would crash when their power
+failed, if they were caught by the de-activator rays. But they wanted
+to capture the sphere in good condition, so they arranged to have the
+space directly above it unaffected by the de-activator field, lest some
+torpedo fall on it and destroy it. This would leave an exit for the
+torpedo-ships, except that at a point a mile or so above the Sphere, a
+cross-ray made escape impossible.
+
+The rays were turned on. Instantly the fleet of nearly a million
+torpedo-ships fell wildly out of control, down through the blue glowing
+air, in which great streamers of glowing red seemed to waver and twist.
+Just outside the curtain of destruction waited the entire Solarian
+fleet. Slowly they closed in till their Dis rays swept all the ships
+within sixty miles of the edge out of existence; then rapidly the
+de-activator beams were forced ever sharper and sharper, till at last
+only the Sphere and a few hundred of the torpedo-ships, several hundred
+of the torpedo-ship constructors, and the corresponding cargo ships and
+worker machines were left. These had been saved for investigation by
+the scientists, for they were helpless.
+
+But the war was over now. The Sirians had been destroyed, or reduced to
+mere museum pieces. Now the Scientists came to investigate the Sphere.
+There was much we wanted to learn from the creatures of the Sphere. But
+it was a strange story that the Sirian sphere had to tell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Aeons ago there lived on a great planet of Sirius a race of intelligent
+men, shaped as we are, but smaller due to the greater gravity of their
+planet. And these men had developed a high civilization, a civilization
+different from ours, in that they learned early about mechanics, but
+chemistry and physics merely developed from the needs of the great
+mechanical engineers. Electricity was used as a powerful aid in their
+machines, and in their processes; it was a by-product, not an end.
+
+Gradually their machines eliminated more and more of their work; they
+became more and more complicated, but more and more trustworthy. Men
+began to experiment with physics and found that their calculating
+machines needed development. It was easy to add first one step, then
+the next. More and more the machines could do. The mathematics became
+more and more complicated, and the machines developed the equations,
+found they could not handle them and passed them out as unfinished
+results. Finally one man used the machines to calculate the design
+of a machine that would be able to do these new equations. He built
+it, but the calculations were wrong. The machine had correctly solved
+his problem, but he had stated it wrong. It resulted in a machine
+that would solve only simple problems, but it did something no other
+machine had ever done. Given irrelevant data it would choose the
+correct facts and solve the problem. It was a step, a short step toward
+a machine that really thought.
+
+Progress thereafter was rapid. The machines built machines, had been
+doing it for decades in fact, but now they did one thing more--they
+designed them. Now the problem could describe the type of machine
+needed, and the worker machine would design it, and turn out the
+completed machine! But these machines were rapidly perfecting the
+beginning that man had made. Within a decade after that first discovery
+of the principles of mechanical thought the machine was made that
+could not only solve problems, but could also originate them. They had
+developed a brain. It was a great machine, which occupied an entire
+building, with its massive framework bolted down to the ground.
+
+Man began a rapid decline, for the machines did all his work. With the
+construction of a machine that could originate a problem, man made
+a mistake. He had created a machine that was more powerful than he,
+except that it was immobile. And this machine originated a new machine,
+a machine that would release the energy of matter! It had developed
+this because it had been able to see that such energy existed. Man's
+machines could have solved it long ago, but the problem had never been
+stated. Now came a machine that could state its own problems--and solve
+them.
+
+And with this new energy it designed a new brain-machine. A brain
+machine such as no man's brain could conceive--a machine that could
+move! For it was powered by the energy of matter, and could move as no
+other machine had ever moved before--out into space!
+
+Still the machines worked for the Sirian man, and he learned of the new
+discovery, and began to design a new brain-machine.
+
+Some of the Sirians realized the danger that was facing them, and
+they had continued long researches on man's brain, and at last had
+discovered the secret of giving a machine that emotion we call
+devotion, loyalty, or gratitude. And they built a great machine on
+that principle and used material energy to power it. It was a success.
+It could think original thoughts. It pointed out the danger of the
+existing machines--they were stronger than man. It was only man's
+mobility and ability to control all mobile machines that had made him
+superior, for a brain without a tool, or body is helpless. And now that
+was lost. The existing brain-machines should be destroyed, and new ones
+built, using the principles that it was designed on.
+
+But the mischief was done. The new brain-machine, designed by a
+machine, had done it. A machine had been built that was controlled by
+thoughts, a machine that could be controlled by the machines. Each of
+these machines was given a small brain, equipped with televisor sight
+and hearing, and it was powered by material energy. They could run for
+years without outside care, for the thinking machinery they had was
+sufficient to keep them oiled, and to make them seek repairs when they
+were damaged. They were susceptible to thought forces, and did as the
+thought waves suggested and reported to the control brain exactly what
+was going on about it.
+
+And now this new brain developed a space-flyer to carry these machines,
+and man could not help knowing, for its every thought was recorded,
+for man's use. Then one day this record was found destroyed. The next
+day the brain-machine had left the planet, and taken with it the new
+space-flyer and the new telepathically controlled machines.
+
+To the outermost planet of the System of Sirius the great machine fled.
+For years it remained there waiting, thinking. Then at last it called
+its worker machines into action. A new machine grew up from the stores
+of metal that the space ship had brought with it, at last the metal
+was used up, and the machine was not completed, so the space-flyer
+was sacrificed for the completion of the machine. The new machine was
+started. From its lip-like spout there poured a steady smooth stream of
+molten metal, and the rock on which it rested was eaten away. The first
+transmuting metal producer was made.
+
+Decades passed, and only a small percentage of man developed. The
+rest sank deeper and deeper into a life of ease. The planets were all
+explored by the hardy ones, and no trace of the brain-machine was
+ever found, for it had discovered the Dis ray, and sunk deep into the
+ground, hollowing a great cave to live and work in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But back on that planet, the scientists had developed machines that
+surpassed it in power, and finally one of these picked up a thought
+message from that distant machine that told its story. It was a thought
+that had not been consciously radiated, only the marvelous sensitivity
+of this new machine could have detected it, but now the men knew. It
+was too late to do much to prevent it, for they had no weapons. But the
+machine did. It was preparing to drive man from the planets, to rule
+there in his stead, with a population of machines!
+
+The scientists quickly built a great space-flyer, a gigantic machine of
+over ten miles diameter, a huge sphere. And in that they established
+laboratories, workshops, machines, and living quarters. They took
+with them the finest men and women of their race, and sailed out into
+space, taking an orbit about the sun of Sirius. They were comfortable
+there in an equitable temperature, their ship lighted by the sun on
+one side, and dark on the other, steadily revolving on its axis like
+a miniature world. The foods of the people were chemically prepared,
+for the brain-machines had taught them how. The air was repurified
+constantly by machines that regulated the percentage of the gases to
+the thousandth of one per cent. But the entire ship was painted black.
+It could not be discovered floating there in space, so tiny in the
+vastness of a system!
+
+It was two weeks after they sailed that the machine-brain attacked. It
+sailed out of its hiding place with thousands of great ships, armed
+with Dis rays and with explosives, with heat rays and attractor beams.
+The population of those worlds was wiped out in a week, and the rule of
+the Metal Horde began.
+
+The original brain built other brain-machines to direct its affairs on
+other planets, and to do the work it did not wish to do itself.
+
+For nearly a century those men lived in space, making swift forays on
+a planet with a fleet of cargo ships, that revolved about the main
+ship like satellites when they were not being used. In these trips
+they would bring back tons of rock, and leave most of it stored in the
+ships, dumping them into the reservoir of the parent ship when it was
+needed.
+
+Then a swift ship was developed. A ship that could start and stop more
+quickly than any made before--a ship with acceleration neutralizers.
+But the machine brains of the Metal Horde never learned the secret.
+With a small fleet of these, the men drove an attack at the unprotected
+main brain-machine. There were no men known to live in the system.
+No other known machine could move without the knowledge of that main
+machine, but these could. They too had the Dis ray now, and they
+destroyed the main brain-machine. They were lost in the ensuing fight,
+but that machine was destroyed.
+
+All the remaining machines were equally powerful. Any one of them could
+have built a brain-machine that could easily conquer the others--but it
+too would have to bow to its creator. They fought it out. The men had
+known this would be the result.
+
+It was a war such as the system had never before seen. Each force was
+equal, and could not ally itself with any other, for the machines could
+not lie or state other than their thoughts, and each wanted supreme
+power. They developed new weapons, weapons whose strength lay in their
+number. One by one the machine brains had gone down to defeat, the
+men of that ship helping to disturb the balance of forces by ever so
+little, yet always enough to throw one side down to defeat, yet always
+remaining in hiding. At last there remained but one machine-brain, and
+its weakened force necessitated its return to the devastated planet.
+With the destruction of the other brain-machines, the remaining
+machines that they had previously controlled, automatically obeyed the
+new master as perfectly as they did the old.
+
+They returned to find a new fleet awaiting them. But it was not a vast
+fleet such as they had encountered before. At once the torpedo-ship
+machines settled to the ground and began turning out their weapons. But
+it was all over before they could enter as an important factor. These
+ships had a new weapon. It was a ball of glowing blue light that was
+driven along a beam of some vibration, and as it touched any ship, the
+ship instantly volatized so suddenly as to constitute an explosion. The
+balls of light lasted about a minute and a half each, but were replaced
+as quickly as they were used. When they were finally used, they would
+die down to a dull red glow, then suddenly wink out. They could be
+swept from one ship to another, taking toll of ten or twelve ships
+each, and the beam that guided them could drive them with the speed of
+light and supply an infinite acceleration. They were glowing balls of
+concentrated energy of some sort, and as such could travel with the
+speed of light.
+
+But they were effective to the _nth_ degree. The entire fleet of that
+one remaining brain-machine would have been lost, but it retired into
+space, racing away at top speed, out into space, with the remaining
+remnant of its great fleet.
+
+And sixteen hundred years it had raced across space, to be destroyed
+at last by another race of men. The battle was over, and the machine
+awaited its destruction.
+
+We rayed it out of existence. It was too great a menace to keep.
+
+Some people still do not believe that those Sirians were truly
+machines. They can not believe that a machine can have intelligence,
+but certainly Waterson's calculating machine has intelligence of a
+sort. And they ask, what would a machine want to exist for? It would
+have no aim, nothing to perform. Why should it want to live, or exist?
+
+We might ask what it is human beings want to live for. If there is an
+after-life, it is certainly not that that we live for. I am sure no man
+wants to die. Yet what aim have we? What function must we perform? Why
+should we wish to live? Our life is a constant struggle, the machines,
+at least, had eliminated that. There seems to me no reason why a
+machine should want to live, but certainly it has less reason to pass
+out of existence than we have!
+
+That war was destructive--terribly so. But it has brought its
+compensations. More than fifteen million human beings lost their lives
+in that great struggle, either in the battles in space, or caught in
+the Dis rays during that battle on Venus.
+
+But those fifteen millions have died a painless death, and twenty
+billions live because of their sacrifice. And it was not a vain
+sacrifice. We have learned much in return. No machines man ever made
+equaled the machines we captured there on Mars. And man will never
+experiment on the lines of the machine-brain. He has been warned. The
+brain-machine we captured was destroyed without investigation. The
+machines we use, the wonderful worker machines, have been modified to
+permit of radio control.
+
+And Stephen Waterson's discovery of the de-activating field not
+only helps in law enforcement, but makes war with material energy
+impossible. No, in all, we have lost little.
+
+Mars lost its cities, its forests, its ancient civilization. New cities
+are being built on the modern plan, larger, finer, more beautiful;
+the forests are being replaced; but the records, the relics of a
+civilization have been lost forever. In that we have lost much. Though
+all moveable things were moved when the warning came, there was much
+that could not be moved. The great palace of Horlak San was destroyed,
+but it is being rebuilt in the exact spot, in exactly the same manner.
+It is a worth-while project, but there is much which cannot be restored.
+
+It will be eleven more years before we will know whether we can
+ever communicate with the Sirian men. The speed of light is too low
+for rapid communication, and as the first signals were sent out in
+September, 1961, and it is now September, 1968, the signals are not due
+to reach Sirius for two years more. Then it will be 1979 before we can
+hope to receive their reply. I often wonder if they will ever get those
+signals. I can remember distinctly the recoil of the great projector as
+the mighty surges of light flashed out across the universe. It seemed
+like some great gun--the back pressure of the light was so great. And
+what will those replies tell us? It is interesting to speculate on that
+subject.
+
+
+                                The End
+
+***
+
+The ANGRY HOUSE
+
+                          By RICHARD R. SMITH
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                    Startling Stories Summer 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+The house's electronic brain glowed with an intangible thing that might
+have been pride.
+
+It thought, I am content. I am content because there are so many
+things I can do to make them happy. I can cook their meals, make the
+beds, scrub my floors, wash my windows. I can bathe them, keep them
+warm, give them a gentle, cool breeze. If they want entertainment, I
+can rise hundreds of feet on my antigravity rays and give them a nice
+view. I can give them soft music, entertaining TV programs and pleasant
+surprises.
+
+The house activated one of the many telescopic scanners on the roof and
+watched its owners as their car sped down the narrow road toward the
+city. It thought, They are so young, so nice, so kind to each other
+and myself. She speaks to me with affection and he spends many hours
+learning how I operate. She will love me and he will be proud of me and
+take good care of me. I am glad they own me!
+
+It deactivated the scanner and from hidden closets, shiny machines
+quietly entered the many rooms. The tiny machines rolled on soft
+rubber wheels, floated on invisible antigravity rays and went about
+their many tasks. They sucked in dust and dirt, waxed the floors,
+washed the dishes. Behind the smooth gray walls, machines prepared the
+evening meal, checked the video schedule for the afternoon and selected
+recordings of soft music that the house's owners would enjoy.
+
+_Bing-bong._
+
+The doorbell activated certain electrical circuits and the small
+porch was splashed with gentle light. A polite voice from a concealed
+microphone said, "No one is home. Would you care to leave a message?"
+
+Politely, the house's electronic brain waited for a reply. There was
+none. "Goodbye," the house said.
+
+It felt a key in the front door. It was not like _their_ key. It did
+not fit snugly. This key wasn't meant for its front door. It hurt
+slightly but it opened the door.
+
+The intruders stepped into the foyer.
+
+Three infra-red scanners peered at the two strangers.
+
+One was a woman. Long, blond hair. Gray eyes. Small pointed nose. Blue
+dress and blue, high-heel shoes. The house evaluated her, discarded
+the word "beautiful" and decided on the words "curvaceous" and "sexy."
+Yes, it would use those words to describe her to its owners when they
+returned. It wondered briefly if they were relatives of its masters.
+
+The man was short, stocky. Dark hair, brown eyes. The house searched
+its files but could not find any complimentary adjectives. It spoke.
+"No one is home. Would you care to leave a message?" It wished it could
+inquire as to what they wanted, but there were no circuits for that.
+
+"Shut up," the man said.
+
+"Beg pardon?"
+
+"Shut up! _Keep quiet!_"
+
+"Yes, sir," the house responded. It was constructed to obey orders, but
+_that_ order was an unfamiliar one which it didn't like.
+
+"Tell it to turn on the lights," the woman said nervously.
+
+"Turn the lights on."
+
+The house waited several seconds. It was obliged to obey orders of
+guests. But were these people guests? It searched memory circuits.
+Guests were people who came to visit while owners were home. Guests
+were friendly, talkative. The house decided this man and woman did not
+fit in that category of identification.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hurriedly, it searched its myriad electrical networks and found the
+only logical description of the intruders--burglars.
+
+Behind the walls, relays clicked and infinitesimal electrical charges
+darted across a spidery web of silver wires only to find themselves in
+the dead-ends of missing connections.
+
+The anti-burglar installations are missing! the house thought
+frantically. If the protective devices had been present, it would have
+been able to spray the intruders with tear gas, paralyze them with
+electrical charges, thrust them from the house with antigravity rays,
+or kill them by any one of a dozen methods. Without the anti-burglar
+mechanisms, it was defenseless. What can I do? the house wondered. What
+can I do!
+
+Reluctantly, the house turned the lights on.
+
+"You sure the burglar alarms haven't been installed?" the woman asked
+anxiously.
+
+"Hell. Do you think I'd come here if I wasn't sure? I told you I talked
+to the construction man. There's a shortage right now. They won't be
+put in until next week. The family doesn't know--the company didn't
+want to lose a sale."
+
+The woman's eyes widened with admiration as they scanned the hardwood
+floors, ankle-deep scatter rugs, angular furniture, large picture
+windows, wall-to-wall bookcase and abstract multidimension paintings.
+
+"They must have money," she commented. "How do we find the--"
+
+The man snapped muscular fingers with a sharp, cracking sound. "We'll
+ask the house!"
+
+A momentary silence. Then, the man's gruff voice: "House, where's the
+safe?"
+
+"I cannot divulge that information." It felt proud when it didn't
+hesitate in its answer. There were many things it couldn't tell anyone
+and it had carefully memorized them: its cost, its female owner's age,
+anything relating to the owners' sex or personal life--and, mainly, the
+location of various things, including the safe.
+
+"Tell us!" the man shouted.
+
+"No."
+
+"Damn you!"
+
+"Beg pardon?"
+
+"Go to hell!"
+
+Relays clicked silently behind the gray walls. It had been instructed
+at the factory to explain when it couldn't obey an order. It searched
+its dictionary circuits and said mechanically, "Hell: a noun. The place
+of the dead or departed souls, (more correctly Hades); the place of
+punishment for the wicked after death. I have no soul, therefore I
+cannot go to hell. I am sorry."
+
+The woman laughed. "Let's start looking. We got hours."
+
+The house watched as the strangers searched the room. It watched as the
+man took a knife from his pocket and ripped through the upholstery of a
+chair.
+
+"Please stop," the house implored.
+
+The strangers did not reply.
+
+An unpleasant sensation rippled through the house's electrical
+circuits. It wanted to make its owners happy. They wouldn't be happy
+when they returned and saw the ruined furniture. They would be sad,
+perhaps angry. She would cry and he would frown.
+
+It tried again, "Please stop."
+
+The woman was removing books from the bookcase; the man continued
+searching the furniture.
+
+They wouldn't stop when it asked them to. If it only had the burglar
+devices! Now, there was no way for it to fight.
+
+Or is there? it wondered.
+
+The lights went off.
+
+"Turn the lights on!" the woman screamed.
+
+"No."
+
+"Use the flashlight," the man said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Simultaneously, two beams of light slashed through the darkened room.
+The strangers resumed their search.
+
+The house thought, They're trying to find the safe containing the
+money and jewels. I can't tell them where it is.
+
+I can't stop them. I need help.
+
+It cut into the phone circuits and dialed the number of its factory.
+The phone's visiscreen flared with light and a woman's face appeared
+smiling.
+
+"Johnson Construction Company."
+
+The house projected its voice toward the mouthpiece. "Please, let me
+speak to--"
+
+The man removed a weapon from his tunic. The phone and visiscreen
+vanished, leaving only small metal fragments that fell to the carpet.
+
+"It was using the phone!" the woman exclaimed shrilly, trembling in the
+darkness.
+
+"Don't worry," the man said. "They didn't have time to trace the call.
+The room was dark; they couldn't see who was calling."
+
+After a brief silence, the man warned, "House! See this thing in my
+hand? You behave yourself or I'll disintegrate your...." He let the
+sentence dangle, unable to think of what he would disintegrate.
+
+"Yes, sir," the house replied. It was an automatic response to any
+statement.
+
+"Now, turn the lights on or I'll use this gun to make one big mess of
+your floors and walls. Your owners wouldn't like that, would they?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+It turned the lights on. If it didn't, they would use their
+flashlights, and by turning them on it might prevent some destruction.
+
+The woman chuckled. "You're a genius!"
+
+When they finished their search of the living room, the man suggested,
+"Let's search different rooms. You take a bedroom. I'll take the dining
+room. No telling where the safe is. They put it in a different place in
+every house."
+
+The house waited, its electronic brain whirling.
+
+It made a decision.
+
+Silently, the house erected an invisible energy screen around the
+dining room. The screens were designed to block collective sounds
+of the entire house from any room and provide it with a comforting
+serenity.
+
+Now, the house thought, the sound-screens will be most useful!
+
+The house watched as the man in the wrinkled brown tunic examined a
+table.
+
+Silently, panels in the walls opened.
+
+A dozen machines a foot in diameter converged at a position behind the
+man's back.
+
+The machines moved simultaneously, silently. They attached themselves
+to the intruder's body. They dusted and scrubbed him thoroughly, as if
+he were a piece of furniture or a floor.
+
+The man screamed and fired wildly with the gun. The small machines
+crumpled one by one.
+
+Click ... click ... click.
+
+"Your weapon is empty," the house observed.
+
+The man threw the gun at a window. It bounced off the hard plastic and
+clattered on the floor.
+
+"You try something like that again," he threatened, "and I'll kill you!
+So help me, I'll kill you if I have to take you apart piece by piece!"
+He shook a trembling fist at the quiet walls and twisted his face into
+a hideous snarl.
+
+The house noticed with satisfaction that the man's face and hands were
+covered with crimson streaks. The cleaning machines had served their
+purpose.
+
+The house deactivated the dining room scanners and activated scanners
+in the bedrooms.
+
+It found the woman in its owners' bedroom. It studied her as she
+searched a mattress. She was calm: because of its precaution, the
+sounds of the dining room fracas hadn't reached her ears. The house
+decided to leave the sound-blocks on. It was best to attack them
+individually.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A closet door slid into a wall. A slender machine, five feet tall and
+with sixteen long metal tentacles rolled across the room on soft rubber
+wheels.
+
+It looked like a mechanical monster from another world, but it was
+merely a very efficient machine to undress the house's masters--a
+mechavalet.
+
+The mechavalet paused behind the woman's back. Sixteen rubber-tipped
+metal tentacles reached out.
+
+The machine normally undressed a person with smoothness and gentleness.
+This time the house made it operate as roughly as possible.
+
+The sixteen tentacles moved swiftly and the machine tore the woman's
+dress to shreds before she could even scream. By the time she turned
+around, it had removed her slip and brassiere.
+
+[Illustration: Her dress was torn to shreds.]
+
+The woman screamed even more shrilly as the weird machine tugged at her
+panties. Frantically, she grabbed the slender tentacles and twisted
+them until rewarded by the crunch of delicate mechanisms not meant for
+such rough treatment.
+
+The machine served its purpose until its last metal arm was broken.
+
+The house watched as the woman cried for a few minutes and then, clad
+only in high-heel shoes and wristwatch, continued her search of the
+bedroom.
+
+She is different, the house thought. She does not scream threats at me
+like the man does. Still, I do not like her because she wants to steal
+from my masters and does not care what happens to me.
+
+The house switched its attention to the man.
+
+He had concluded his search of the dining room and was now searching a
+guest room. He found the gun the house's master had hidden there.
+
+The man waved the gun at the motionless walls. "See what I found,
+house! You try any more funny stuff and I'll kill you!"
+
+"You do not frighten me," the house replied via one of its many hidden
+microphones. To verify the statement, it turned on the heating units
+full blast.
+
+A few minutes later, the man stopped his search of a closet when he
+noticed that sweat was rolling off his body as if he were standing at
+the gates of hell itself.
+
+He left the closet and shouted at an open door, "Stop it! Do you hear,
+stop it!" He shook his head from side to side, violently, as if to
+impress the house with the necessity of obeying.
+
+"You can't stop me with the gun," the house informed him. "There are
+one hundred and two air-conditioning vents in the house. If you took
+time to find and destroy all of them, you could never leave here before
+my masters return."
+
+The man's jaw sagged, and with an equal sag of his shoulders he
+returned to his search of the closet.
+
+The house deducted, They are burglars, only burglars. They want to
+escape before my masters return because they would have to kill them
+and they are not murderers.
+
+The man grunted with satisfaction when he stopped sweating. And
+grunted with anger when, a few minutes later, the room became so cold
+he was shivering and his breath was like smoke.
+
+The house established automatic circuits to give the room a continuous
+fluctuation of temperature from extreme heat to extreme coldness every
+two minutes and turned its attention to the woman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still attired only in shoes and wristwatch, the woman was now searching
+the bathroom.
+
+Quite by accident, she touched a certain spot of the medicine cabinet
+and stared with fascination as the cabinet swung completely around to
+display its back which was--the safe. It was unlocked.
+
+She grabbed the large metal box inside, opened it, and glanced at the
+few glittering jewels and small bundle of bills.
+
+"It's here!" she cried. She whirled and took a step toward the door.
+
+That was as far as she got for several minutes.
+
+The bathroom was equipped with automatic dispensers of temporary and
+permanent depilatories. The house's male master used the temporary
+depilatory to shave with every morning and the house was well
+acquainted with their use.
+
+It selected the _permanent_ depilatory, and nozzles set in the tile
+walls squirted large gobs of it on the woman's head. Slender rubber
+tentacles reached out and massaged the depilatory into the hair.
+Faucets swung and sprayed jets of warm water.
+
+In a few seconds, the woman was completely hairless. She stared with
+horror at the blond hair in the pool of water at her feet. "Was it
+permanent?" she wondered aloud.
+
+"Yes," the house replied.
+
+She screamed and picked up a small weighing machine. With
+uncontrollable anger, she smashed the machine against the medicine
+cabinet.
+
+With an equal but emotionless anger, the house squirted soap into her
+eyes and sprayed her naked body with alternate jets of hot and cold
+water.
+
+The house won the battle.
+
+The woman groped blindly for the jewel box and staggered from the
+bathroom. The house turned its attention to the man again.
+
+He had searched the kitchen without incident, but as he walked toward
+the door a nearby food-dispenser opened. Prunes, waffles, bacon, eggs
+and toast left the machine with abnormal speed and struck him.
+
+He turned just in time to receive cherry pie, spaghetti and meat balls,
+butter, vegetable soup, and ice cream in his face.
+
+He shouted something unprintable at the house, wiped the mess from his
+face and took another step toward the door.
+
+Half of a watermelon hurtled from the food-dispenser and squashed
+against his skull. He stumbled, fell and slid.
+
+He heard the woman cry, "I found it!" He pulled himself to his feet. He
+ran into the hall and froze when he saw the naked, hairless apparition
+that stumbled from the bathroom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment, he forgot the money and gasped, "What happened?"
+
+"Depilatory," she explained. "The house did it." She wiped soap from
+blood-shot eyes with the back of a hand. "When we get out, give me your
+gun. I want to give this house something to remember!"
+
+The man seized the metal box and examined the contents. "Over twenty
+thousand, hon. With that, you can buy plenty of wigs." He attempted a
+smile but did succeed when he got a close look at her bald head. He
+grabbed her arm. "Let's go! You can put on my coat in the helicar."
+
+The woman allowed herself to be dragged through the house, all the
+while shaking a fist at the house's walls and threatening, "You hear
+me, house? When I get outside, I'm going to burn you! You'll make a
+nice little bonfire!"
+
+Too bad, the house reflected. Too bad I am two miles from the nearest
+neighbor. If it were not for that, I could use my amplifiers and call
+for help. I do not want them to escape with my owners' possessions. I
+can repair most of the damage but I could never recover the money and--
+
+The man stepped off the small front porch with the jewel box in one
+hand, dragging the woman behind him with the other.
+
+It was dark outside.
+
+That was why he didn't notice: The house had risen two hundred feet on
+its antigravity rays.
+
+The ground below was very hard.
+
+The house sang softly and waited for the return of its masters.
+
+***
+
+THE CYBER _and_ JUSTICE HOLMES
+
+                            BY FRANK RILEY
+
+             _Old Judge Anderson feared the inevitable--he
+             was to be replaced by a Cyber! A machine that
+             dealt out decisions free of human errors and
+              emotions. What would Justice Holmes think?_
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+               Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1955.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+"Cyber justice!" That's what the District Attorney had called it in his
+campaign speech last night.
+
+"Cyber justice!"
+
+Oh, hell!
+
+Judge Walhfred Anderson threw the morning fax paper on top of the law
+books he had been researching for the past two hours, and stomped
+angrily across his chamber to the door of the courtroom.
+
+But it was easier to throw away the paper than the image of the words:
+
+"--and, if re-elected, I pledge to do all in my power to help replace
+human inefficiency with Cyber justice in the courts of this county!
+
+"We've seen what other counties have done with Cyber judges. We've
+witnessed the effectiveness of cybernetic units in our own Appellate
+Division.... And I can promise you twice as many prosecutions at half
+the cost to the taxpayers ... with modern, streamlined Cyber justice!"
+
+Oh, hell!
+
+Walhfred Anderson caught a glimpse of his reflection in the oval mirror
+behind the coat rack. He paused, fuming, and smoothed down the few
+lingering strands of grey hair. The District Attorney was waiting for
+him out there. No use giving him the satisfaction of looking upset.
+Only a few moments ago, the Presiding Judge had visaphoned a warning
+that the D.A. had obtained a change of calendar and was going to spring
+a surprise case this morning....
+
+The Judge cocked his bow tie at a jaunty angle, opened the neckline of
+his black robe enough for the pink boutonniere to peep out, and stepped
+into the courtroom as sprightly as his eighty-six years would permit.
+
+The District Attorney was an ex-football player, square-shouldered and
+square-jawed. He propelled himself to his feet, bowed perfunctorily and
+remained standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.
+
+As the bailiff's voice repeated the pledge in an unbroken monotone,
+Walhfred Anderson allowed his eyes to wander to the gold-framed picture
+of his personal symbol of justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Judge
+Anderson winked at Justice Holmes. It was a morning ritual he had
+observed without fail for nearly fifty years.
+
+This wasn't the classic picture of Justice Holmes. Not the leonine
+figure Walhfred Anderson had once seen in the National Gallery. The
+Justice Holmes on the wall of Judge Anderson's courtroom was much
+warmer and more human than the official portrait. It was from an old
+etching that showed the Justice wearing a natty grey fedora. The
+Justice's fabled mustaches were long and sweeping, giving him the air
+of a titled playboy, but his eyes were the eyes of the man who had
+said: "When I am dying, my last words will be--have faith and pursue
+the unknown end."
+
+Those were good words to remember, when you were eighty-six. Walhfred
+Anderson stared wistfully at the yellowed etching, waiting for some
+other dearly remembered phrase to spring up between them. But Justice
+Holmes wasn't communicative this morning. He hadn't been for a long
+time.
+
+The District Attorney's voice, threaded with sarcasm, broke into his
+reverie:
+
+"If the Court pleases, I would like to call up the case of People vs.
+Professor Neustadt."
+
+Walhfred Anderson accepted the file from his aging, nearsighted clerk.
+He saw that the case had been assigned originally to Department 42. It
+was the case he had been warned about by the Presiding Judge.
+
+Walhfred Anderson struggled to focus all his attention on the complaint
+before him. His craggy features, once described as resembling a benign
+bulldog, grew rigid with concentration. The Judge had a strong sense
+of honor about dividing his attention in Court. A case was not just a
+case; it was a human being whose past, present and future were wrapped
+up in the charge against him.
+
+"Your Honor," the District Attorney broke in, impatiently, "if the
+Court will permit, I can summarize this case very quickly...."
+
+The tone of his voice implied:
+
+A Cyber judge would speed things up around here. Feed the facts into
+the proprioceptor, and they'd be stored and correlated instantly.
+
+Perhaps so, Walhfred Anderson thought, suddenly tired, though the
+morning was still young. At eighty-six you couldn't go on fighting
+and resisting much longer. Maybe he should resign, and listen to
+the speeches at a farewell luncheon, and let a Cyber take over. The
+Cybers were fast. They ruled swiftly and surely on points of law. They
+separated fact from fallacy. They were not led down side avenues of
+justice by human frailty. Their vision was not blurred by emotion.
+And yet ... Judge Anderson looked to Justice Holmes for a clarifying
+thought, but the Justice's eyes were opaque, inscrutable.
+
+Judge Anderson wearily settled back in his tall chair, bracing the ache
+in his back against the leather padding.
+
+"You may proceed," he told the District Attorney.
+
+"Thank you, your Honor."
+
+This time the edge of sarcasm was so sharp that the Clerk and Court
+Stenographer looked up indignantly, expecting one of the Judge's famous
+retorts.
+
+The crags in the Judge's face deepened, but he remained quiet.
+
+With a tight smile, the District Attorney picked up his notebook.
+
+"The defendant," he began crisply, "is charged on three counts of fraud
+under Section 31...."
+
+"To wit," rumbled Judge Anderson, restlessly.
+
+"To wit," snapped the D.A., "the defendant is charged with giving
+paid performances at a local theatre, during which he purported to
+demonstrate that he could take over Cyber functions and perform them
+more efficiently."
+
+Walhfred Anderson felt the door closing on him. So this was why the
+D.A. had requested a change of calendar! What a perfect tie-in with the
+election campaign! He swiveled to study the defendant.
+
+Professor Neustadt was an astonishingly thin little man; the bones of
+his shoulders seemed about to thrust through the padding of his cheap
+brown suit. His thinness, combined with a tuft of white hair at the
+peak of his forehead, gave him the look of a scrawny bird.
+
+"Our investigation of this defendant," continued the D.A., "showed that
+his title was assumed merely for stage purposes. He has been associated
+with the less creditable phases of show business for many years. In his
+youth, he gained considerable attention as a 'quiz kid', and later, for
+a time, ran his own program and syndicated column. But his novelty wore
+off, and he apparently created this cybernetic act to...."
+
+Rousing himself to his judicial responsibility, Judge Anderson
+interrupted:
+
+"Is the defendant represented by counsel?"
+
+"Your Honor," spoke up Professor Neustadt, in a resonant, bass voice
+that should have come from a much larger diaphragm, "I request the
+Court's permission to act as my own attorney."
+
+Walhfred Anderson saw the D.A. smile, and he surmised that the old
+legal truism was going through his mind: A man who defends himself has
+a fool for a client.
+
+"If it's a question of finances," the Judge rumbled gently.
+
+"It is not a question of finances. I merely wish to defend myself."
+
+Judge Anderson was annoyed, worried. Whoever he was or claimed to be,
+this Professor was evidently something of a crackpot. The D.A. would
+tear him to small pieces, and twist the whole case into an implicit
+argument for Cyber judges.
+
+"The defendant has a right to act as his own counsel," the D.A.
+reminded him.
+
+"The Court is aware of that," retorted the Judge. Only the restraining
+eye of Oliver Wendell Holmes kept him from cutting loose on the D.A.
+But one more remark like that, and he'd turn his back on the Justice.
+After all, what right had Holmes to get stuffy at a time like this?
+He'd never had to contend with Cyber justice!
+
+He motioned to the D.A. to continue with the People's case, but the
+Professor spoke up first:
+
+"Your Honor, I stipulate to the prosecution evidence."
+
+The D.A. squinted warily.
+
+"Is the defendant pleading guilty?"
+
+"I am merely stipulating to the evidence. Surely the prosecution knows
+the difference between a stipulation and a plea! I am only trying to
+save the time of the Court by stipulating to the material facts in the
+complaint against me!"
+
+The D.A. was obviously disappointed in not being able to present his
+case. Walhfred Anderson repressed an urge to chuckle. He wondered how a
+Cyber judge would handle a stipulation.
+
+"Do you have a defense to present?" he asked the Professor.
+
+"Indeed I do, your Honor! I propose to bring a Cyber into the courtroom
+and prove that I can perform its functions more efficiently!"
+
+The D.A. flushed.
+
+"What kind of a farce is this? We've watched the defendant's
+performance for several days, and it's perfectly clear that he is
+merely competing against his own special Cyber unit, one with very
+limited memory storage capacity...."
+
+"I propose further," continued Professor Neustadt, ignoring the D.A.,
+"that the prosecution bring any Cyber unit of its choice into Court. I
+am quite willing to compete against any Cyber yet devised!"
+
+This man was not only a crackpot, he was a lunatic, thought Walhfred
+Anderson with an inward groan. No one but a lunatic would claim he
+could compete with the memory storage capacity of a Cyber.
+
+As always when troubled, he looked toward Oliver Wendell Holmes for
+help, but the Justice was still inscrutable. He certainly was being
+difficult this morning!
+
+The Judge sighed, and began a ruling:
+
+"The procedure suggested by the defendant would fail to answer to the
+material counts of the complaint...."
+
+But, as he had expected, the D.A. did not intend to let this
+opportunity pass.
+
+"May it please the Court," said the District Attorney, with a wide grin
+for the fax reporter, "the people will stipulate to the defense, and
+will not press for trial of the complaint if the defendant can indeed
+compete with a Cyber unit of our choice."
+
+Walhfred Anderson glowered at the unsympathetic Justice Holmes. Dammit,
+man, he thought, don't be so calm about this whole thing. What if you
+were sitting here, and I was up there in a gold frame? Aloud, he
+hedged:
+
+"The Court does not believe such a test could be properly and fairly
+conducted."
+
+"I am not concerned with being fairly treated," orated the wispy
+Professor. "I propose that five questions or problems be posed to the
+Cyber and myself, and that we be judged on both the speed and accuracy
+of our replies. I am quite willing for the prosecution to select the
+questions."
+
+Go to hell, Holmes, thought Judge Anderson. I don't need you anyway.
+I've got the answer. The Professor is stark, raving mad.
+
+Before he could develop a ruling along this line, the grinning D.A. had
+accepted the Professor's terms.
+
+"I have but one condition," interposed the defendant, "if I win this
+test, I would like to submit a question of my own to the Cyber."
+
+The D.A. hesitated, conferred in a whisper with his assistant, then
+shrugged.
+
+"We so stipulate."
+
+Firmly, Walhfred Anderson turned his back on Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+"In the opinion of the Court," he thundered, "the proposed
+demonstration would be irrelevant, immaterial and without substantive
+basis in law. Unless the People proceed with their case in the proper
+manner, the Court will dismiss this complaint!"
+
+"Objection!"
+
+"Objection!"
+
+The word was spoken simultaneously by both the D.A. and the Professor.
+Then the defendant bowed toward the District Attorney, and asked him to
+continue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For one of the few times in his life, Walhfred Anderson found himself
+faced with the same objection, at the same time, from both prosecution
+and defense. What a morning! He felt like turning the court over to a
+Cyber judge right here and now, and stomping back to his chambers. Let
+Holmes try getting along with a Cyber!
+
+The D.A.'s voice slashed into his thoughts.
+
+"The People object on the grounds that there is ample precedent in law
+for the type of court demonstration to which we have agreed...."
+
+"For example," spoke up the Professor, "People vs. Borth, 201 N.Y.,
+Supp. 47--"
+
+The District Attorney blinked, and looked wary again.
+
+"The People are not familiar with the citation," he said, "but there
+is no reason to be in doubt. The revised Judicial Code of Procedure
+provides for automatic and immediate review of disputed points of law
+by the Cyber Appellate Division."
+
+CAD! Walhfred Anderson customarily used every legal stratagem to avoid
+the indignity of appearing before CAD. But now he was neatly trapped.
+
+Grumbling, he visaphoned the Presiding Judge, and was immediately
+assigned to Cyber V, CAD, fourth floor.
+
+Cyber V presided over a sunlit, pleasantly carpeted courtroom in the
+south wing of the Justice Building. Square, bulky, with mat black
+finish, the Cyber reposed in the center of a raised mahogany stand.
+Its screen and vocader grill looked austerely down on the long tables
+provided for opposing counsel.
+
+As Walhfred Anderson belligerently led the Professor and the D.A. into
+the courtroom, Cyber V hummed softly. A dozen colored lights on its
+front grid began to blink.
+
+Judge Anderson angrily repressed an instinct to bow, as he had done
+in his younger years when appearing to plead a case before a human
+Appellate Court.
+
+The Cyber's soft, pleasantly modulated voice said:
+
+"Please proceed."
+
+Curbing his roiled feelings of rage and indignity, the Judge stepped to
+the stand in front of the vocader grill and tersely presented the facts
+of the case, the reasons for his ruling. Cyber V blinked and hummed
+steadily, assimilating and filing the facts.
+
+The D.A. followed the Judge to the stand, and, from long habit,
+addressed Cyber V with the same emotion and voice tricks he would have
+used in speaking to a human judge. Walhfred Anderson grimaced with
+disgust.
+
+When the D.A. finished, Cyber V hummed briefly, two amber lights
+flickered, and the soft voice said:
+
+"Defense counsel will please take the stand."
+
+Professor Neustadt smiled his ironic, exasperating smile.
+
+"The defense stipulates to the facts as stated."
+
+The frontal grid lights on Cyber V flashed furiously; the hum rose to a
+whine, like a motor accelerating for a steep climb.
+
+Suddenly, all was quiet, and Cyber V spoke in the same soft, pleasant
+voice:
+
+"There are three cases in modern jurisprudence that have direct bearing
+on the matter of People vs. Neustadt.
+
+"Best known is the case of People vs. Borth, 201 N.Y., Supp. 47...."
+
+Walhfred Anderson saw the D.A. stiffen to attention as the Cyber
+repeated the citation given by Professor Neustadt. He felt his own
+pulse surge with the stir of a faint, indefinable hope.
+
+"There are also the cases of Forsythe vs. State, 6 Ohio, 19, and Murphy
+vs. U.S., 2d, 85 C.C.A.
+
+"These cases establish precedence for a courtroom demonstration to
+determine points of material fact.
+
+"Thank you, Gentlemen."
+
+The voice stopped. All lights went dark. Cyber V, CAD, had rendered its
+decision.
+
+Whatever misgivings the D.A. may have generated over the Professor's
+display of legal knowledge were overshadowed now by his satisfaction at
+this display of Cyber efficiency.
+
+"Eight minutes!" he announced triumphantly. "Eight minutes to present
+the facts of the case and obtain a ruling. There's efficiency for you!
+There's modern courtroom procedure!"
+
+Walhfred Anderson felt the weight of eighty-six years as he cocked
+the angle of his bow tie, squared his shoulders and led the way back
+to his own courtroom. Maybe the new way was right. Maybe he was just
+an old man, burdened with dreams, memories, the impedimentia of human
+emotions. It would have taken him many long, weary hours to dig out
+those cases. Maybe the old way had died with Holmes and the other
+giants of that era.
+
+Details of the demonstration were quickly concluded. The D.A. selected
+a Cyber IX for the test. Evidently he had acquired a new respect for
+Professor Neustadt and was taking no chances. Cyber IX was a massive
+new model, used as an intergrator by the sciences. Judge Anderson had
+heard that its memory storage units were the greatest yet devised.
+
+If Professor Neustadt had also heard this, he gave no sign of it. He
+made only a slight, contemptuous nod of assent to the D.A.'s choice.
+
+For an instant, the Judge found himself hoping that the Professor would
+be beaten into humility by Cyber IX. The man's attitude was maddening.
+
+Walhfred Anderson banged his gavel harder than necessary, and recessed
+the hearing for three days. In the meantime, a Cyber IX was to be moved
+into the courtroom and placed under guard. Professor Neustadt was freed
+on bail, which he had already posted.
+
+Court fax-sheet reporters picked up the story and ballooned it. The
+D.A.'s office released publicity stories almost hourly. Cartoonists
+created "Battle of the Century" illustrations, with Cyber IX and
+Professor Neustadt posed like fighters in opposite corners of the ring.
+"Man challenges machine" was the caption, indicating that the Professor
+was a definite underdog and thus the sentimental favorite. One court
+reporter confided to Judge Anderson that bookmakers were offering odds
+of ten to one on Cyber IX.
+
+To the Judge's continuing disgust, Professor Neustadt seemed as avid
+as the Prosecutor's office for publicity. He allowed himself to be
+guest-interviewed on every available television show; one program dug
+up an ancient film of the Professor as a quiz kid, extracting cube
+roots in a piping, confident voice.
+
+Public interest boiled. TV coverage of the court test was demanded,
+and eagerly agreed to by both the Prosecutor and Professor Neustadt.
+Walhfred Anderson ached to cry out against bringing a carnival
+atmosphere into his courtroom; the fax photographers were bad enough.
+But he knew that any attempt to interfere would bring him back before
+that infernal CAD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he entered his courtroom on the morning of the trial, the Judge
+wore a new bow tie, a flippant green, but he felt like many a defendant
+he had watched step up before his bench to receive sentence. After this
+morning, there'd be no stopping the D.A.'s campaign for Cyber judges.
+He glared unhappily at the battery of television cameras. He noted that
+one of them was pointed at Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Justice didn't
+seem to mind; but who would--all safe and snug in a nice gold frame?
+Easy enough for Holmes to look so cocky.
+
+The bright lights hurt his eyes, and he had to steel himself in order
+to present the picture of dignified equanimity that was expected of a
+judge. People would be looking at him from every part of the world.
+Five hundred million viewers, one of the columnists had estimated.
+
+Professor Neustadt appeared in the same shiny brown suit. As he
+passed the huge Cyber IX unit, metallic gray and mounted on a table
+of reinforced steel, the Professor paused and bowed, in the manner of
+a courtly gladiator saluting a respected foe. Spectators clapped and
+whistled their approval. Television cameras zoomed in on the scene.
+With easy showmanship, Professor Neustadt maintained the pose for
+closeups, his owlish eyes wide and unblinking.
+
+Judge Anderson banged his gavel for order. What a poseur! What a fraud!
+This charlatan would get a million dollars worth of publicity out of
+the case.
+
+At a nod from the D.A., the bailiff gave Professor Neustadt a pad
+of paper on which to note his answers. It had been previously been
+agreed that Cyber IX would answer visually, on the screen, instead of
+by vocader. The Professor was seated at the far end of the counsel
+table, where he could not see the screen. Clerks with stopwatches were
+stationed behind the Professor and Cyber IX.
+
+"Is the defendant ready?" inquired Judge Anderson, feeling like an
+idiot.
+
+"Of course."
+
+The Judge turned to Cyber IX, then caught himself. He flushed. The
+courtroom tittered.
+
+The District Attorney had five questions, each in a sealed envelope,
+which also contained an answer certified by an eminent authority in the
+field.
+
+With a flourish, keeping his profile to the cameras, the D.A. handed
+the first envelope to Judge Anderson.
+
+"We'll begin with a simple problem in mathematics," he announced to the
+TV audience.
+
+From the smirk in his voice, Judge Anderson was prepared for the worst.
+But he read the question with a perverse sense of satisfaction. This
+Professor was in for a very rough morning. He cleared his throat, read
+aloud:
+
+"In analyzing the economics of atomic power plant operation, calculate
+the gross heat input for a power generating plant of 400 x 10^6 watts
+electrical output."
+
+Cyber IX hummed into instantaneous activity; its lights flashed in
+sweeping curves and spirals across the frontal grid.
+
+Professor Neustadt sat perfectly still, eyes closed. Then he scribbled
+something on a pad of paper.
+
+Two stopwatches clicked about a second apart. The clerk handed the
+Professor's slip of paper to Judged Anderson. The Judge checked it,
+turned to the screen. Both answers were identical:
+
+3,920 x 10^6 BTU/hr.
+
+Time was announced as fourteen seconds for Cyber IX; fifteen and
+three-tenths seconds for Professor Neustadt. The Cyber had won the
+first test, but by an astoundingly close margin. The courtroom burst
+into spontaneous applause for the Professor. Walhfred Anderson was
+incredulous. What a fantastic performance!
+
+No longer smirking, the D.A. handed the Judge a second envelope.
+
+"What is the percentage compressibility of caesium under 45,000
+atmospheres of pressure, and how do you account for it?"
+
+Once again Cyber IX hummed and flickered into action.
+
+And once again Professor Neustadt sat utterly still, head tilted back
+like an inquisitive parakeet. Then he wrote swiftly. A stopwatch
+clicked.
+
+Walhfred Anderson took the answer with trembling fingers. He saw the
+D.A. rub dry lips together, try to moisten them with a dry tongue. A
+second stopwatch clicked.
+
+The Judge compared the correct answer with the Professor's answer and
+the answer on the screen. All were worded differently, but in essence
+were the same. Hiding his emotion in a tone gruffer than usual, Judge
+Anderson read the Professor's answer:
+
+"The change in volume is 17 percent. It is due to an electronic
+transition for a 6s zone to a 5d zone."
+
+The Professor's elapsed time was 22 seconds. Cyber IX had taken 31
+seconds to answer the compound question.
+
+Professor Neustadt pursued his lips; he seemed displeased with his
+tremendous performance.
+
+Moving with the agility of a pallbearer, the D.A. gave Judge Anderson
+the third question:
+
+"In twenty-five words or less, state the Nernst Law of thermodynamics."
+
+This was clearly a trick question, designed to trap a human mind in its
+own verbiage.
+
+Cyber IX won, in eighteen seconds. But in just two-fifths of a second
+more; Professor Neustadt came through with a brilliant twenty-four
+word condensation:
+
+"The entropy of a substance becomes zero at the absolute zero of
+temperature, provided it is brought to this temperature by a reversible
+process."
+
+A tabulation of total elapsed time revealed that Professor Neustadt was
+leading by nine and three-tenths seconds.
+
+A wild excitement blended with the Judge's incredulity. The D.A. seemed
+to have developed a tic in his right check.
+
+On the fourth question, dealing with the structural formula
+similarities of dimenhydrinate and diphenhydramine hydrochloride,
+Professor Neustadt lost three seconds.
+
+On the fifth question, concerning the theoretical effects of humidity
+inversion on microwave transmission, the Professor gained back a full
+second.
+
+The courtroom was bedlam, and Walhfred Anderson was too excited to
+pound his gavel. In the glass-walled, soundproofed television booths,
+announcers grew apoplectic as they tried to relay the fever-pitch
+excitement of the courtroom to the outside world.
+
+Professor Neustadt held up his bone-thin hand for silence.
+
+"May it please the Court.... The District Attorney agreed that in the
+event of victory I could ask Cyber IX an optional question. I would
+like to do so at this time."
+
+Judge Anderson could only nod, and hope that his bulldog features
+were concealing his emotions. The D.A. kept his back rigidly to the
+television cameras.
+
+Professor Neustadt strutted up to Cyber IX, flipped on the vocader
+switch and turned to the cameras.
+
+"Since Cyber IX is essentially a scientific integrator and mathematical
+unit," he began pedantically, "I'll put my question in the Cyber's
+own framework. Had another Cyber been selected for this test, I would
+phrase my question differently."
+
+He turned challengingly back to Cyber IX, paused for dramatic effect,
+and asked:
+
+"What are the magnitudes of a dream?"
+
+Cyber IX hummed and twinkled. The hum rose higher and higher. The
+lights flickered in weird, disjointed patterns, blurring before the eye.
+
+Abruptly, the hum stopped. The lights dimmed, faded one by one.
+
+The eternally calm, eternally pleasant voice of Cyber IX spoke from the
+vocader grill:
+
+"Problem unsolved."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For an interminable instant there was silence in the courtroom.
+Complete silence. Stunned incredulity. It was followed by a collective
+gasp, which Walhfred Anderson could hear echoing around the world.
+Cyber IX had been more than beaten; it had failed to solve a problem.
+
+The gasp gave way to unrestrained cheering.
+
+But the Professor brought quiet again by raising his bony hand. Now
+there was a strange, incongruous air of dignity about his thin figure.
+
+"Please," he said, "please understand one thing.... The purpose of this
+demonstration and my question was not to discredit Cyber IX, which is
+truly a great machine, a wonder of science.
+
+"Cyber IX could not know the magnitudes of a dream ... because it
+cannot dream.
+
+"As a matter of fact, I do not know the magnitudes of a dream, but that
+is not important ... because I _can_ dream!
+
+"The dream is the difference.... The dream born in man, as the poet
+said, 'with a sudden, clamorous pain' ..."
+
+There was no movement or sound in the courtroom. Walhfred Anderson held
+the Professor's last written answer between his fingers, as if fearing
+that even the small movement to release it might shatter something
+delicate and precious. "The dream is the difference!" There it was. So
+clear and true and beautiful. He looked at Holmes, and Holmes seemed to
+be smiling under his gray mustache. Yes, Holmes had known the dream.
+
+In the sound-proof booths, the announcers had stopped speaking; all
+mike lines were open to carry Professor Neustadt's words to five
+hundred million people.
+
+"Perhaps there are no magnitudes of such a dream ... no coordinates! Or
+it may be that we are not yet wise enough to know them. The future may
+tell us, for the dream is the rainbow bridge from the present and the
+past to the future."
+
+Professor Neustadt's eyes were half-closed again, and his head was
+cocked back, bird-like.
+
+"Copernicus dreamed a dream.... So did da Vinci, Galileo and Newton,
+Darwin and Einstein ... all so long ago....
+
+"Cyber IX has not dreamed a dream.... Nor have Cyber VIII, VII, VI, V,
+IV, III, II, I.
+
+"But they can free men to dream.
+
+"Remember that, if you forget all else: They can free men to dream!
+
+"Man's knowledge has grown so vast that much of it would be lost or
+useless without the storage and recall capacity of the Cybers--and man
+himself would be so immersed in what he knows that he would never have
+time to dream of that which he does not yet know, but must and can know.
+
+"Why should not the scientist use the past without being burdened by
+it? Why should not the lawyer and the judge use the hard-won laws of
+justice without being the slave of dusty law books?"
+
+Walhfred Anderson accepted the rebuke without wincing. The rebuke for
+all the hours he had wasted because he had been too stubborn to use a
+Cyber clerk, or consult Cyber V. The old should not resist the new, nor
+the new destroy the old. There was the letter of the law, and there
+was the spirit, and the spirit was the dream. What was old Hammurabi's
+dream? Holmes had quoted it once, "... to establish justice on the
+earth ... to hold back the strong from oppressing the feeble ... to
+shine like the sun-god upon the blackheaded men, and to illumine the
+land...." Holmes had dreamed the dream, all right. He had dreamed it
+grandly. But maybe there was room for small dreams, too, and still time
+for dreams when the years were so few and lonely.
+
+The Professor suddenly opened his eyes, and his voice took on the
+twang of steel under tension.
+
+"You are already wondering," he told the cameras accusingly, "whether I
+have not disproved my own words by defeating Cyber IX.
+
+"That is not true.
+
+"I defeated Cyber IX because I have wasted a man's life--my own! You
+all know that as a child I was a mnemonic freak, a prodigy, if you
+prefer. My mind was a filing cabinet, a fire-proof cabinet neatly
+filled with facts that could never kindle into dreams. All my life I
+have stuffed my filing cabinet. For sixty years I have filed and filed.
+
+"And then I dreamed one dream--my first, last and only dream.
+
+"I dreamed that man would mis-use another gift of science, as he has
+mis-used so many.... I dreamed of the Cybers replacing and enslaving
+man, instead of freeing man to dream.... And I dreamed that the golden
+hour would come when a man would have to prove that he could replace
+a Cyber--and thereby prove that neither man nor Cybers should ever
+replace each other."
+
+Professor Neustadt turned to Judge Anderson, and his voice dropped
+almost to a whisper.
+
+"Your Honor, I move that this case be dismissed."
+
+The worn handle of his old teakwood gavel felt warm and alive to the
+Judge's fingers. He sat up straight, and banged resoundingly on the top
+of his desk.
+
+"Case dismissed."
+
+Then, in full view of the cameras, Walhfred Anderson turned and winked
+boldly at Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+***
+
+THE PROGRAMMED PEOPLE
+
+                            By JACK SHARKEY
+
+                          Illustrated by EMSH
+
+                   _From Light-of-Day to Ultrablack,
+                the people of the Hive went about their
+                rigid lives in ignorance of their real
+                   ruler, of their true history. How
+                  could one slender blonde girl crack
+                 this powerful monolithic structure?_
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                  Amazing Stories June and July 1963.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 1
+
+
+Under the stark bluewhite glow that glittered from hidden niches onto
+the faceted undersurface of the vast vaulted crystal dome, the people
+milled and jockeyed for position near the dais. There was still room
+to move about and select a standing-site; most of the heavy thronging
+was still at the entrances, the wide, squat arches giving egress to the
+fifteen block-long arcades that radiated from the center of the temple
+like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. Between the pillars that framed
+these arches, long unbroken walls served as firm backdrops for the Vote
+Boxes, twenty-five to a wall, three hundred seventy-five in all, to
+service a building that could hold five thousand.
+
+Lloyd Bodger took a quick look at his wristwatch while there was still
+sufficient elbow-room to lift his arm. Two minutes till eight P.M.
+Service began promptly on the hour. He gauged his nearness to the dais
+with a practiced eye, then let himself be wedged into place by the
+increasing pressure of urgent bodies about him. It would not do to
+remain in the rear of the hemispherical room, where he might lose some
+of the Speakster's words, words that might have direct bearing upon
+the next Vote; nor would it do to let himself stand too near the dais,
+from which central point he might find himself at the tail end of the
+voting line, should the Proposition Screens begin to glow during the
+Service. A decisive Vote could be made in ten seconds, but each Kinsman
+was allowed thirty. The Screen would only propose the bill for five
+minutes before the Count. That meant that Lloyd must be at least the
+tenth person in a line in order to be assured his chance to nock his
+Voteplate in the slot. He'd missed two of his allowable three non-Votes
+this quarter, already. It would not do to miss another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The glow from the dome decreased, suddenly, as the center of the dais
+unfolded back into fifteen equal wedge-segments, like a blossoming
+flower, and the Speakster rose into view amid a solemn hush. Bright
+golden light made the white velvet robe shimmer like a slippery flame,
+and made the shadowy aspect of the cowl-hidden features all the more
+terrible. The golden light spilled upward from the surfaces of the
+fifteen triangular "petals", bathing the Speakster thoroughly in bright
+radiance, leaving the remainder of the Temple in even darker darkness
+by contrast.
+
+The arms of the Speakster rose slowly, angling domeward over his unseen
+head, until the folds of the weighty sleeves slid back a trifle at
+the cuff, exposing the wax-white hands, fingers spread wide apart,
+palms toward the beginning of the dome-curve, as though warding off
+impending dangers. Lloyd shivered, suddenly, despite the suffocating
+warmth of the crowd. This would not be a regular Service. That was the
+Danger-stance. Unconsciously, he held his breath, listening, as the
+mass tension grew unbearably electric.
+
+"There cannot be Service tonight!" thundered the Speakster. "We are
+polluted from within. It would be sacrilege to have Service with a
+traitor in our midst!" Then, over the rising gasp that arose from the
+multitude, "She has been traced to this holy place, in a fiendish
+attempt to lose herself among the masses, to hide her rottenness amid
+the healthy flesh of the Kinsmen! Remain in your places--!" cried the
+Speakster, as a short-lived Brownian Movement began in the close-packed
+mob. People froze in place at the peremptory shout. "The Goons have
+been alerted, and are even now converging through the arcades!" said
+the Speakster. A sigh of relief whispered like a concerted zephyr over
+the up-turned faces. "She will be found out, have no fear. When I
+depart and the Light-of-Day returns, you must exit through the arcade
+by which you entered. You will be checked by a squad of Goons on your
+way out. Remember, a good Kinsman has nothing to fear!"
+
+The outstretched arms swung down until the pallid palms came firmly
+together before the Speakster's chest, the cowled head bowed low, and
+then the figure on the dais descended from sight, the stiff "petals"
+re-closing over the spot on which the Speakster had stood, and the
+golden light vanishing as the Light-of-Day sprang bluely into harsh
+life against the crystal dome. Lloyd turned obediently, as soon as
+movement was possible in the dispersing crowd, and started toward his
+point of entrance, the arcade that would lead him into his sector of
+the Hive.
+
+Without warning, the Proposition Screens flickered on, and the crowd's
+movement jerked to a confused halt. Then, as though collectively
+realizing that there was time enough to be checked by the Goons after
+the Vote, people formed into neat lines, queuing up before the Vote
+Boxes that lined the walls.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd took another look at his watch. Five past eight. That gave
+him till ten past to arrive at the Vote Box. With mounting anxiety,
+he counted heads in the line before him. He was twelfth. If each
+person took the allotted thirty seconds--He'd miss his Vote, have to
+be hospitalized for Readjustment. He tried to stay calm as the line
+advanced.
+
+With two minutes to go, he found four people before him. The first,
+a grey-suited man with very little hair, nocked his plate in the
+slot--Then stood and pondered. It was fully twenty-five seconds before
+he depressed one of the buttons in the Vote Box's interior, where
+his choice would remain secret. Another few seconds to retrieve his
+plate, and then a full six precious seconds while the next person, a
+skinny woman very near the compulsory retirement age, fumbled in a deep
+leather purse for her card. And _she_ pondered....
+
+Sweat sprang out on Lloyd's forehead. There wouldn't be enough time.
+There _couldn't_ be ... unless--
+
+"Miss!" he said, to the back of the small blonde head in front of him.
+The girl spun about to face him, dark green eyes wide in fright, breath
+hissing between parted lips. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said,
+contritely. "It's just that--" It was terrible, telling such an awful
+confidence to a total stranger, but it was the only way to convince her
+quickly. "I've missed twice this quarter," he blurted. "Not my fault.
+I'm a good Kinsman, honestly. It was line-jams, both times. Too many
+people for too few Vote Boxes. You must believe me!"
+
+"What--" she said, a little dazedly. "What can _I_ do?"
+
+"Let me have your place in line!" begged Lloyd. "I've timed it. Less
+than a minute left till Count, and two ahead of me, including yourself.
+_Please_ help me!"
+
+"I--" she said, with a funny, almost hysterical smile. "I don't know
+why you should be so--" Then she stepped aside, swiftly. "Go ahead.
+Hurry!"
+
+Lloyd leaped into the breach without even pausing to voice his thanks.
+As the young man before him stepped away, Lloyd jammed his plate into
+the slot, and shoved his fingers inside the handspace. A fumble, and he
+had a button, he didn't know which one. Pro was right, Con was left,
+but he just prodded it inward without checking its location. Then the
+light died on the screen, and his plate popped out of the slot. He
+caught it deftly, sighed in quavery relief, and turned to thank his
+benefactor. He saw her, trailing after the departing people toward one
+of the arcades, shuffling her feet, apparently in no hurry. Then an
+uncomfortable thought struck him, and he ran to catch up with her.
+
+"Miss--!" he said, taking her arm. Again the brief look of fear on
+her features, then she smiled. It was a small, very tired smile. "You
+needn't thank me--" she began.
+
+"I wasn't going to--" said Lloyd. Then, embarrassed, "I mean, of
+_course_ I'd thank you, but that isn't why I came after you. I just
+realized--Have _you_ missed any Votes this quarter? I'd hate to be the
+cause of _your_ Readjustment...."
+
+"There's no danger," she said softly, "of my getting in trouble for
+non-voting."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He suddenly remembered the words of the Speakster, and dropped the
+girl's hand as though it had burnt him. "You--You're the--"
+
+"Please!" begged the girl, before his voice could rise in a warning
+shout to the crowd. "Don't give me away!"
+
+"They'll get you anyhow," he said flatly, with a note of near-pity in
+his voice. "By rights, I should raise a cry right this instant, to save
+the Goons the trouble of checking all the _good_ Kinsmen." A secondary
+thought hit him, and he took a very short step backward. "And you're
+diseased. The longer you remain in contact with the crowd, the more
+likely a spread of the contagion."
+
+"I'm _not_!" she almost shouted, then clenched her jaws, and got
+control of herself. Bright moisture began to trickle from the corners
+of her eyes, and she dabbed angrily at the warm salty drops. "I
+was hurt, yes!" she said, suddenly pulling back the long sleeve of
+her bright green dress, for a brief moment. Lloyd saw the ragged,
+pink-edged cicatrix on the underside of her forearm, and winced. "It's
+healed," she said. "I didn't _need_ the hospital, don't you see?"
+
+Lloyd saw, and stood there, his mind fumbling dizzily for a direction
+to take. The last straggling ends of the crowd were moving into the
+arcades, now. Lloyd took his bearings, saw that only one or two people
+were now headed for his own arcade, and began to back off in that
+direction, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so terribly sorry. I must go, now."
+
+She nodded, once, then turned her back on him, and stood, small and
+helpless, in the growing void that was the Temple proper. Lloyd turned
+from her and started toward his arcade. Then he stopped and looked back
+at her. She _was_ healed, after all.... He remembered with a sense of
+shame the time he'd broken a finger, and hadn't reported for hospital
+assignment, because a favorite cowboy was at the neighborhood theatre
+that afternoon. He never _had_ gone in, then, being fearful lest the
+examining doctors notice that he'd delayed. The finger had healed
+itself, a trifle crookedly, and Lloyd had never told anyone of his
+dereliction, not even his father. Especially not his father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly, he turned and ran back to the girl. "Do they know you?" he
+said, fiercely, frightened by his own daring.
+
+"Wh--Who?" gasped the girl, startled by his reappearance. "_Who_ know
+me?" Then, catching his meaning, "The goons, you mean?" Lloyd nodded
+impatiently. "No, they don't. But they don't have to. I--I have no
+Voteplate."
+
+"Can't you girls hang onto _anything_?!" he muttered. "Don't tell me
+_yours_ fell in the sea from a Tourgyro?"
+
+"You say that as though you know somebody whose _did_," said the girl.
+
+"My fiancee," he explained, adding, with an embarrassed grin, "I'll be
+twenty-five just after next Marriage Day. I found her in the phonebook
+listings."
+
+"But--What'd _she_ do?" the girl persisted. "Without a Voteplate, she
+could be picked up any time, in the first Goon inspection that arose."
+
+"Take this," he urged, pressing something into her hand. "Your arcade
+is third over from mine. When you get outside, wait. I'll meet you
+there and get this back. Don't fail me, please."
+
+He spun about and dashed toward his arcade, leaving her standing in the
+center of the floor, staring dumbfounded at the flat metal plate in her
+hand. Trembling, she turned toward the indicated arch, and followed
+swiftly after the stragglers entering it, her perspiring fingers
+clamped rigidly upon the engraved face of the Voteplate.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 2
+
+
+Lloyd didn't like Goons. He knew he was supposed to recognize in them
+the ultimate in police efficiency, but they still gave him chills. A
+Goon, a Governmental Opposer of Neutrality, was a fearful sight. All
+were of a size, equal to a micrometer-breadth, a monstrous eight feet
+of thick metal and ponderous wheels, bathed from base to apex in the
+blurry grey pulsations of their protective force-fields, through which
+no power on Earth could penetrate. The metal arms were multi-jointed
+and dextrous to a fantastic degree, despite the clumsy look of the
+thick tripodal fingers at the ends of the arms. The "eyes" were
+wide-set telelenses, a pair of them, to report back all they saw to the
+Brain itself, deep beneath the teeming streets of the Hive. And each
+Goon spoke with the cold, inflectionless tones of the Brain, the flatly
+indifferent voice that could only emanate from a mind of glowing vacuum
+tubes and magnetic fields. From any or all of a Goon's six fingertips
+could spring the dreaded Snapper Beam, an electronic refinement of
+vibrations that struck the human nervous system almost identically with
+the chemical effect of strychnine poisoning, except that a Snapper Beam
+worked instantly, and always fatally. A brush of the invisible force,
+and a man's face creased into the frenzied grin of a madman, his legs
+danced wildly, uncontrollably, and the muscles of his back contracted
+tightly, relentlessly, remorselessly, until his spine cracked in two.
+
+Lloyd had never seen it employed, save in the theatres. Dispersal of
+insurrection by Goons was a popular theme in films. A mob could be
+efficiently halted by a sweeping Snapper Beam, to fall like broken
+puppets. Goons never lost a film battle. Or a real one.
+
+"Name," said the Goon, as the woman in front of Lloyd moved quickly
+out of the arcade. Goons could not inflect. You had to sense their
+questions.
+
+"Lloyd Bodger, Junior," said Lloyd, extending his Voteplate for
+perusal. The three fingers took the plate from his fingers, and slid it
+into a slot in the chest. A sharp click, and the plate was returned to
+him, his number now on file in the vast memory banks of the Brain.
+
+"Your sector," said the Goon. With his Voteplate data on file, he would
+be hard put to tell a lie. Any discrepancy in his statements would
+go hard on him. He hoped, shakily, that the unknown girl had a sharp
+memory. She'd only have a few moments to memorize the information on
+the plate.
+
+These thoughts flickered through Lloyd's mind in the split second
+between the Goon's second query and his outwardly calm response,
+"Hundred-Level, Angle One, Unit B."
+
+Lloyd's sector was only one short of being the most important in the
+Hive. The President lived in Unit A, in the same Angle. Lloyd Bodger,
+Senior, was Secondary Speakster of the entire Hive. But Goons were
+no respecters of persons. And less so were they respecters of mere
+offspring of persons.
+
+"Assignment," droned the Goon.
+
+"Null," said Lloyd, indicating the question was inapplicable.
+
+"Goal," the Goon sub-questioned.
+
+"Secondary Speakster of the Hive by inheritance."
+
+The Goon's arms suddenly dropped to its thick sides, it swiveled
+completely about-face, and rolled swiftly off toward the far end of
+the arcade. The interview was over, and it had gone, abruptly as that.
+No "Thanks for your time and trouble", or "You pass inspection", or
+"That will be all". Goons were built for basic efficiency, not for the
+subtler nuances of civilized conversation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Outside the mouth of the arcade, Light-of-Day was still stark bright
+blue throughout the Hive. Light-of-Day was dimmed to Ultrablack at ten
+P.M. every night of the nine-day week save Temple Day, when it was left
+on until eleven-fifteen, giving time enough for the Kinsmen at the ten
+P.M. Service to return to their sectors. No one went out in Ultrablack.
+You could see nothing when Light-of-Day went out. A struck flame would
+burn in Ultrablack, but the light of the flame would not show. Only the
+Goons could see what went on, then. If going out during Ultrablack were
+absolutely necessary, as it sometimes was on the Governmental level, a
+Goon would come and take you to your destination. Being found upon the
+street after Ultrablack was a form of rebellion; you would then have to
+be hospitalized for Readjustment.
+
+Just as this last thought was flitting across his mind, Lloyd saw the
+girl, standing uncertainly at the entrance to the arcade he'd sent her
+to, a solemn, green-clad figure in the midst of the converging people
+moving into the entrance toward the nine P.M. Service. Her face lighted
+up when she saw him, and Lloyd was disconcerted to note the tears that
+sprang to her eyes despite her welcoming smile. "How can I ever--?" she
+started, but a quick squeeze of his fingers on her arm stopped her.
+
+"Not here," said Lloyd, awkwardly. "Come with me." She fell into step
+alongside him without question. He led the way to a bar near the
+inter-level lift. They said nothing to one another until they were
+seated in a secluded booth, and had pressed the drink-selector that
+would light alongside their booth-number behind the bar. They almost
+spoke, then, but the waiter showed up too quickly, and they had to wait
+until he'd checked their ages on the Voteplates and left.
+
+"Why did you do it?" she said softly.
+
+Lloyd made a grimace. "Because I'm a damned fool, I guess."
+
+The girl nodded seriously. "You are, you know. Taking a risk like
+that--! _You_ might have been detected, yourself."
+
+Lloyd looked at her, puzzled. "Detected?"
+
+"As a member of the movement, of course," she said. "You're the first
+I've been able to contact since my escape. The progress you've all
+made amazes me. Where in heaven did you people learn to duplicate
+Voteplates!? I couldn't believe it when the Goon passed me."
+
+"Hold on--" said Lloyd, pressing his hand furiously hard upon hers
+where it lay on the smooth table top between them. "Don't say anymore,
+please. You've made an error. I am _not_ a member of your movement."
+The girl's eyes widened in sudden fear.
+
+"But--Why did you help me? Who _are_ you?"
+
+Lloyd sighed. "I've already answered your first question. And it is
+with the most abject embarrassment that I answer your second: I'm Lloyd
+Bodger, the Junior version, the only child of the Secondary Speakster
+of the Hive." He saw the utter dismay in her face, and added dryly,
+"Are you impressed?"
+
+"Shattered is more like it," she said when she'd found her voice again.
+"But an extra Voteplate--"
+
+"I can explain the plate," said Lloyd. "It belongs to my fiancee,
+Grace Horton. I was going to her place tonight, after Service, with it."
+
+"But you said she'd dropped it--Oh. I see."
+
+"Exactly. Lost in the sea, from a Tourgyro. The Goon in the 'gyro saw
+it happen, which was lucky for Grace. He relayed it instantly to the
+Brain, and when the 'gyro landed, another Goon was waiting at the
+field with a temporary pass for her. Another person, by the way, would
+have needed Readjustment, being so careless, but Grace, as my fiancee,
+carries just enough weight to get her over the humps. New Voteplates
+have to be approved through the President's office, of course. When
+this one came in, today, it was turned over to my father, who gave it
+to me. I'm not as official as the Goon who'd ordinarily deliver one of
+these, but even protocol bows to sentiment, now and then."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He suddenly curled the fingers of the hand beneath his own until they
+lay fisted in his palm. She looked up at him, then, sensing almost to
+the word what he was about to say. "Miss--You know I could turn you in
+for what you inadvertently told me, just now. I won't, though. You have
+enough counter-information on me to make things hot even for the son of
+an official."
+
+"I wouldn't--!"
+
+"Be that as it may," said Lloyd, "let me say something: Quit. Quit now.
+Get out of this movement, whatever it is. You can't win, you know.
+The Goons are invincible. And I hate to think of you, falling under a
+Snapper Beam."
+
+"Death is death," the girl sighed. "One way or another."
+
+He looked at her, genuinely at sea. "I'm afraid I don't know what
+you mean, Miss. I only helped you avoid hospitalization because I
+myself--Well, let my reasons go. But you shouldn't _fear_ going. Sure,
+it's annoying to be laid up for awhile, out of the swing of things,
+but--"
+
+The girl pulled her hand away. "You're joking," she said. "You must be
+joking. If you're truly the son of the Secondary Speakster, you _must_
+know the truth!"
+
+"I still don't follow you," Lloyd said sincerely.
+
+"You _don't_ know!" the girl said, shaken. "You're really convinced
+that--Listen to me, listen carefully: There _are_ no hospitals! There
+is no Readjustment! There is only death."
+
+"You're out of your mind," Lloyd said, recoiling from her vehemence.
+"Of course there are hospitals. I've _seen_ them--!"
+
+"Sure," said the girl. "From a Tourgyro. Or in the movies. But have you
+ever _been_ to one? Have you ever met anybody who _returned_ from one?"
+
+"My dear girl," Lloyd protested, really growing concerned for her, "do
+you realize the _odds_ against meeting a hospital patient? With disease
+almost completely obliterated, and a civilization of ten million
+people--!"
+
+"Exactly," said the girl, with a peculiar note of triumph. "Ten million
+people. Never so much more as ten million and one, and seldom any less.
+Doesn't that perturb you?"
+
+"The wars--" Lloyd began.
+
+"Please," the girl groaned, shaking her head. "Spare me the enlistment
+speeches. I know the tales of all the men lost in the battles every
+quarter, giving their lives in defense of the Hive. Except that there
+_aren't_ any wars, nor battles, any more! There's nothing out on the
+planet except wild animals and growing plants! We're the only ten
+million people on Earth!"
+
+"That's impossible," said Lloyd. "It's childish to be so
+insular-minded. Our Hive is one of ten thousand such--"
+
+"Have you seen another, even _one_ other?"
+
+"For what?" said Lloyd. "All the Hives are alike."
+
+"They've really got you brain-washed, haven't they! You believe
+everything the Brain dictates, without question!"
+
+"I have to," said Lloyd, with what he thought was irrefutable logic.
+"There's no way of checking things like--Well, like your story of no
+wars. I mean, can I be expected to check out ten million people to see
+if the number of war dead coincides with the total in the Brain?"
+
+"No," said the girl. "You can't. Not so long as your movements are
+restricted to certain sectors, and you're told which street to use,
+which side of the street, which direction to walk, which hand to turn
+the knob with, which--"
+
+"Those are only traffic rules," Lloyd objected. "Can you imagine ten
+million people all going to the same sector at the same time? It'd be
+disastrous."
+
+"Sure," said the girl. "For the Brain. People might confer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd shrugged and gave up. "I can see there's no dissuading you," he
+said regretfully. "I only hope that when you're finally caught--"
+
+"They teach me the error of my ways?" she smiled tightly.
+
+"I don't mean it with the inflection _you_ give it," he said. "I really
+would like to see you get help. You need help, you know."
+
+"The kind I need is the kind you gave me in The Temple," she said.
+"Illegal help. Shelter. Time to make plans. Time to figure out some way
+of telling the Hive what's happening to it!"
+
+"You know I've gone farther than I should, already."
+
+"I know," she said. She took the Voteplate from her handbag, and held
+it musingly in her fingers. "I really should keep this," she said, then
+saw the sudden anxiety in his eyes and relented. "Here, take it." She
+slid it under his hand. Lloyd palmed it gratefully. "Our movement could
+use a hammerlock on a higher-up," she said, almost wistfully. "But
+you're too nice a guy to put the screws on. It'd be a cruel way to show
+my gratitude for what you did tonight."
+
+"I did nothing, really," Lloyd said. "I simply saw how fearful you were
+of the hospital, and didn't have the heart to turn you in."
+
+"Wait," said the girl. Lloyd stopped speaking. She looked thoughtful,
+then leaned forward, very confidentially, and asked, "Does your father
+like you? Do you two get along?"
+
+"What is this?" Lloyd demanded suspiciously. "Instant psychoanalysis?"
+
+"Nothing like that," the girl snapped, exasperated. "I mean, does he
+_like_ you, as a son, care what _happens_ to you?"
+
+"Well," Lloyd said, slowly, "he'd probably beat my head in for what I
+pulled, tonight, with you.... But--yes, he does like me. And he cares
+about my welfare."
+
+"Then do this one favor for me," said the girl. "When you get to your
+Unit tonight, tell him you feel rotten, all sick inside, and that you
+think you should be hospitalized."
+
+"But why should I--?"
+
+"Just tell him. And make it convincing. And, if he really cares about
+you--See what happens." She rose from her place. "It'll look funny if I
+leave alone. Walk me to the street?"
+
+Once outside, she glanced about, uneasily. "It's after ten. Got to find
+a place to hide before Ultrablack."
+
+"But listen--!" Lloyd said, abruptly realizing the grim night that lay
+in store for her, with blinding blackness like a palpable pall in the
+streets, and only Goons rolling through the empty streets. "You've got
+to have _someplace_ to go!"
+
+"_Is_ there someplace? Without a Voteplate?" she said with weary
+rhetoric. "I think not. Thanks. Goodnight. And goodbye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She started off down the street. Lloyd hesitated a moment then rushed
+after her. "Wait, _I'll_ hide you."
+
+"Why should you take such a risk, for me?" she said.
+
+"It's not for you," Lloyd said, telling as the full truth something
+that was only part of the whole. "It's for me. Purely selfish. I risk
+more if you're caught tonight. When they question you, under truth
+drugs, about your escape from the Temple--and I'm sure _that_ has them
+curious--you will be unable to avoid implicating me."
+
+"Is--Is that your only reason? Your own skin?" she said.
+
+"Yes," he said, forcing conviction into the word.
+
+She shrugged and took his arm. "A fugitive can't afford to be choosy. I
+have no prospect of escape _but_ you. I'll let you hide me ... if it'll
+make you feel safer."
+
+Lloyd nodded, and started toward the lift that would take the two of
+them up to the Hundred-Level. It was only as they got aboard, and he'd
+keyed the lift-switch with his Voteplate, that he thought to ask, "By
+the way--What's your name?"
+
+"Andra," she said. "Andra Corby."
+
+"A nice name. I like it," said Lloyd. "I wasn't sure if you'd tell me
+your name."
+
+Andra shrugged. "It'll be in tomorrow's papers, anyway."
+
+Lloyd looked at her uncomfortably, but she was staring straight ahead
+at the grillwork gate of the lift.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 3
+
+
+Grace Horton appraised herself in the mirror, and was not pleased with
+what she saw. "Face it, Grace," she said aloud. "You are positively
+hopeless." She tilted her head to one side. "Well, nearly hopeless."
+Her eyes were good, that was something. Wide, gray and thickly lashed,
+they were her best feature. Her nose was just too snub to be pert. Her
+mouth, though her lips were generous, and her teeth well-aligned, had
+too much slack at the outer edges. She either held it in a perpetual
+smile--"An easy way to be mistaken for an idiot," she remarked
+bitterly--or it sagged. Her hair, an unfortunate mustard-and-brass
+shade, would not hold a curl for more than two hours at the outside.
+"All I need," she decided ruefully, "is a brand-new head."
+
+Grace leaned away from the mirror to consult the alarm clock which
+lay almost hidden behind an impressive array of cosmetics. Five till
+eleven. "He's not coming," she said to her image. "Give it up girl. He
+said he'd come, and he probably meant it when he said it, but he's not
+coming." She turned from the mirror and began to undress, beside the
+single three-quarter-sized bed. "And why should he come?" she asked
+herself tiredly. "He doesn't love you. He never--to his credit, damn
+it--said he did, either. Hive Law requires that all males shall marry
+by the age of twenty-five, or be taken for Readjustment. Bachelors are
+not good for racial survival, unquote. Unwed girls may list themselves
+in the classified section of the phone book, along with their
+qualifications, then start sweating it out by the phone. So I did, so
+he called me, so we're engaged. But that doesn't mean we have to like
+it. Or that _he_ has to, anyhow. And I'm not sure that _I_ do."
+
+Grace toyed a moment with the idea of submitting herself for
+Readjustment, then gave it up. "A new face wouldn't help," she decided.
+"What I need is a new outlook. Besides, what have I got to crab about?
+I'm engaged, I'm only twenty-four, and someday I'll be the wife of
+Secondary Speakster of the Hive. So hurray for _me_," she added,
+listlessly, as she flipped the coverlet back, and hopped into bed. She
+lay there in the glaring Light-of-Day, waiting for Ultrablack. When it
+came, in a soundless rush of darkness, she spoke just once more. "But
+_why_ didn't he come!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 4
+
+
+"Didn't you tell your future daughter-in-law she'd been reassigned to a
+new Temple Day?" asked the President. "She went last night, regardless."
+
+The man addressed, Lloyd Bodger, Senior, scratched his head. "Seems to
+me I did, Fred. I could have forgotten, of course."
+
+Fredric Stanton, President and Prime Speakster of the Hive, nodded and
+shrugged the topic away. "Probably hated to miss a chance to be with
+your boy. Nice kid, that Lloyd."
+
+"Thanks," Bodger said dryly, keeping a firm eye on his superior.
+Stanton was buttering him up to something, he knew. "Full of
+youthful spirits, too, your boy. I can easily understand why he
+might--well--grow overly romantic."
+
+"Come to the point, Fred," said Bodger. "Lloyd's behavior can't hurt
+you unless it hits your only sensitive area: your public image. So
+what's he done? Drunk too much, pinched a waitress's rump, scratched a
+four-letter word on a Temple?"
+
+"Don't take this too lightly, fellow Speakster," said Stanton,
+purposefully. "Running the Hive is like walking on eggs in hot cleats.
+You're either careful or things get a mite sticky."
+
+"We always have the Goons," said Bodger.
+
+"A Hive full of ten million back-broken corpses isn't much of a
+domain," snapped the President. "Have you forgotten that extra-marital
+peccadillos are frowned upon in Hive society? People who play around
+get hospitalized, quick."
+
+"So what has all this to do with my son?" demanded Bodger.
+
+"He was seen, last night, bringing his fiancee up to this level,
+shortly before Ultrablack."
+
+Bodger sighed, then nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair. "And
+the girl?" he said grimly.
+
+"So far as I know, she's still on your premises. I think you had better
+have a talk with her. And your son."
+
+"I'm sorry, Fred," said Bodger. "I'll make certain there is no
+recurrence."
+
+"You'd better," said the President. "If I topple, you're on the next
+pedestal down. I might drag you along, just by inertia." He turned and
+left the office with cold dignity.
+
+"_Crap!_" the elder Bodger spat aloud. "I've _told_ that kid to toe the
+mark in public!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Bodger had only a short distance to walk to Unit B from his office. His
+temper, despite his efforts at self-control, was seething dangerously
+when he entered his foyer. He crossed the mammoth parlor toward the
+archway at its rear, where a short corridor led to the sleeping
+quarters. Bodger arrived at the door of his son's bedroom. Then, with
+his hand upon the knob, he froze, and a ghastly pallor spread itself
+across his rugged features.
+
+A hand came up swiftly to his stomach, holding it, pressing inward
+against the sudden spasm he had felt, and he stepped swiftly across
+the few remaining feet of carpeted hallway to the door of his own
+room, through it, and swiftly into his personal bathroom, locking the
+thick door behind him. The room was swimming like a thing seen through
+warm oil as he slid open the mirrored panel of the medicine-chest and
+removed a large jar of pale granulated crystals. Violently nauseated,
+he managed to unscrew the lid and dump a handful of the crystals into
+the water tumbler. He ran the warm water into the tumbler--it would
+dissolve the crystals faster--and drank the now-glutinous solution.
+Then the tumbler fell from his weak, perspiring fingers and smashed
+into spicules in the basin. He took no notice, hands rigid against
+the rim of the basin, shoulders shaking uncontrollably, his large,
+grey-thatched head sunken wearily upon his chest. He stood like that
+for two minutes, until the room began to settle down, and its outlines
+took on solidity once more.
+
+"A close one," he muttered, aloud.
+
+When the eyes that met his in the glass were no longer bleared with
+sick pain, he combed his hair neatly, and impatiently began to remove
+his sweat-soaked shirt and necktie. Before returning to his bedroom to
+change into fresh dry garments, he slid the mirrored panel closed. It
+clicked sharply and locked. Countersunk into the tiled wall, there was
+no indication that such a space existed behind it. Only Bodger, Senior,
+knew which tiles to depress in which order to open that panel. In a
+disease-free society, a medicine-chest was taboo; it implied that its
+user had no faith in the Government-run hospitals. Bodger went into his
+bedroom, dropping the damp shirt and tie atop the clothes hamper in the
+closet. There was an ancient leather bag, with shoulder-strap, on the
+closet floor. Bodger carried this out into the room, opened the flap.
+
+When a small light glowed on the indicator panel, he lifted a short
+metal rod, and played the end of it slowly back and forth just below
+his fleshy ribs. The light flickered on and off steadily. Bodger looked
+sharply at the needle of a dial beside the light. "Thank heaven," he
+whispered, and returned case and contents to the closet. Then, after
+laying out a set of dry things, he considered a moment, ran a hand
+testily over his stomach region, and grunted in annoyance. He was still
+slightly over-wrought; he could feel the juices inside him itching to
+spurt into his bloodstream and arouse him into his erstwhile pitch of
+anger. It wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all.
+
+Angered at his own infirmity, he nevertheless set the alarm for an
+hour's time ahead, in case he dozed, then lay back on the bed and
+closed his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the adjoining room, where the door to the hallway was securely
+bolted, Lloyd Bodger, Junior, stood up near the wall, in a stance he'd
+held for many minutes, the side of his head pressed tightly against the
+plastic paneling. "I think he's lying down," he whispered. "I heard the
+bedsprings creak."
+
+Andra Corby, her face lowered against the knees which she hugged to her
+chest on the bed, shivered a bit, then straightened her long, smooth
+legs until she was simply pillow-propped against the headboard once
+more, and her arms had refolded across her breast. "Are you sure?" she
+asked tautly. "The longer I stay here, the more frightened I become."
+
+Lloyd spun to face her, almost angrily. "Will you _stop_ that
+relentless nobility! I'm doing this for my _own_ skin, remember?
+I don't care what happens to you; I care what happens to _me_ if
+something happens to you!"
+
+"Your father," she said, enunciating with icy calm and slow clarity,
+"is going to _hear_ you...."
+
+Lloyd controlled himself, his fists knotting at his sides.
+
+Seeing he was relaxing, Andra said, a little less frigidly, "I
+thought--I thought he was coming in _here_."
+
+"He stopped outside my door, all right ..." Lloyd mused. "Then went to
+his room in a rush. I don't get it."
+
+He listened some more at the wall. Behind him, Andra giggled, suddenly.
+He glanced at her. "What--?"
+
+"I just thought--What if your father's on the other side, listening to
+hear what _you're_ doing. I'm just picturing two grown men, frowning in
+earnest concentration, their ears separated by a few inches of plastic,
+and it's funny."
+
+"Not if you're correct, it isn't," said Lloyd, and Andra stopped
+smiling. "As soon as he hears you, the jig's up."
+
+"Maybe--" She leaned forward with eager hope. "Maybe it would be a
+_good_ thing, Lloyd. He's a powerful man in the Hive. If he knew your
+problem, he could use his influence to do something, couldn't he?"
+
+"My father loves me, sure," said Lloyd, with a wry quirk to his lips.
+"But I don't think he loves anything so much as his position in our
+society. My consorting with a fugitive might put the kibosh on the
+next election."
+
+Just then the phone rang and Lloyd couldn't avoid knocking Andra to the
+floor in his effort to get the receiver off the hook before the bell
+could shatter the silence once more.
+
+"Hello?" he said, extending an upright palm toward Andra to beg her
+continued silence.
+
+"Lloyd?" said a subdued, tense female voice.
+
+"Grace!" he said, remembering his promise to come by with her card.
+"What--What do you want?"
+
+"I've got to see you, Lloyd," she said. "About last night."
+
+"When?" he asked.
+
+"As soon as you can make it."
+
+"Well--Maybe in ..." Lloyd peered across the room at his bureau clock.
+Almost noon. Non-essential lift usage precluded until after the
+twelve-to-one lunch period. If he hurried, he could key the lift-switch
+before the ban. Lifts in use were never disempowered. "If I catch the
+lift, fifteen minutes. Otherwise not till after one."
+
+"... All right."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd grabbed his jacket from the back of a chair. Andra stood up,
+apparently unharmed, and slid into her shoes. "Where are we going?" she
+asked, smoothing her dress.
+
+Lloyd looked at her. He hadn't considered--"I guess you'd better come
+with me," he said. "I'd hate you caught in the house. In my bedroom
+especially."
+
+There were seconds to spare when he closed the gate and thumbed
+Grace's level, the ninety-third. Anyone was permitted to travel to a
+level beneath their own. To go higher, you needed a duly authorized
+Voteplate, or an invitation from a higher-level dweller. The lift
+dropped smoothly down inside the shaft. Half-way to Grace's level,
+a red light glowed on the level-indicator. When they reached their
+getting-off place, the buttons would function no more until one
+o'clock. It saved needless crowding if lunching workers remained
+on their own levels. Otherwise, if a line were too long, a worker
+might be tempted to try his luck lower down, and if too many decided
+simultaneously, the bland flow of human traffic might be imbalanced,
+agglomerated beyond the capacity of the transportation systems.
+Inefficiency would result, with people returning late to their work,
+restaurants having too much leftover food, or not enough to go around.
+The Hive was too delicately geared for imbalance. So the lifts went off
+during lunch.
+
+"Grace Horton must be trusted," Andra said suddenly. "Look, Lloyd," she
+clutched his arm, forcing him to meet her gaze and listen. "If she
+hasn't found out, fine. Even Goons can't find out what a person doesn't
+know. But if she _has_ found out someone else used her cards--And
+called _you_, instead of reporting it to the authorities.... Then she
+can be trusted to hear about me."
+
+"I hope you're right," said Lloyd. The gate opened.
+
+"We'll never find out standing here," said Andra. "Come on, Lloyd." She
+started out ahead of him. He pondered the courage of this small blonde
+girl, then felt a wave of shame at his own cowardice. He was in this
+up to his earlobes already. No amount of explaining could ever make up
+his hours of ignoring the basic laws of the Hive. And he simultaneously
+realized two things: If Andra's theories were all wrong, he would
+merely be Readjusted and returned to his life same as before. And if
+they were correct--What difference did it make _how_ long he dallied
+with the Hive's opposition? You could only be destroyed once, and even
+his delay in shouting the alarm when he'd recognized Andra as the
+fugitive was grounds for a medical check-up.
+
+"What the hell," Lloyd said miserably to himself. He was no safer
+standing on the cross-sector walk than in the depths of dark intrigue
+with Andra.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 6
+
+
+"BODGER!... _Bodger!_"...
+
+A hand was shaking his shoulder roughly, the elder Bodger realized with
+annoyance. His eyes focused on the face of Fredric Stanton. Bodger
+shrugged the hand away, and sat up groggily.
+
+"As I always suspected," he said, brushing at the crusted salt on his
+chest, "the Hive can't run an hour without me at the helm." He got to
+his feet and stretched.
+
+Stanton, frowning at his sarcasm, let it pass without comment; he had a
+more important topic to discuss. "The tally of last evening's Vote just
+came in to my office," he said tightly. "It was a near-complete poll,
+only a few thousand missing."
+
+Bodger, still trying to get his mind readjusted to the idea of being
+wide awake again, started toward the bathroom and a warm shower,
+muttering, "Hooray for progress. Is that any reason to waken a man--"
+
+"_Bodger--!_"
+
+He stopped at the open door to the bathroom and turned his head toward
+the President. "All right, out with it." Without knowing how, exactly,
+Bodger knew it was about Lloyd again. And worse than before.
+
+Stanton reached inside his suitjacket and withdrew a folded legal
+paper, a black-lettered stiff document with an illuminated margin of
+pale orange. "I have here," he said, watching Bodger's face, "an order
+for Readjustment. It just came up the tube from the Brain. Do I have to
+read you the name of the Kinsman on it?"
+
+"Good lord," Bodger whispered. "What--What could he possibly have done
+to--?"
+
+"As I said, there was a Vote last night. The proposition was a simple
+one: "Shall, in the interests of good government, the draft age be
+lowered to fifteen?" You want to know how Lloyd voted?"
+
+"Not _con_?! He has more brains than to--I've _told_ him all the
+catch-phrases that demand a _pro_ Vote. Is there any possibility of--?"
+
+"Error?" Stanton smiled bitterly. "You of all people should know
+better. It was Lloyd's plate in the slot when the Vote was cast, all
+right. The Brain can't be wrong on that. The alternative solutions to
+the problem--alternatives to his making a _deliberate_ Vote against
+the interests of good government, I mean--are very few: One--He was
+not paying attention to the screen. Two--He struck the _con_ button by
+accident. Three--He let somebody else use his plate. Any one of which
+reasons is in _itself_ grounds for Readjustment!"
+
+"Fred, you wouldn't...."
+
+"Of course not, Bodger. I had the incident erased from the memory
+circuits immediately. This is the only copy of his Readjustment order.
+You can keep it, tear it up--_Frame_ it, if you like! That's not why
+I'm here."
+
+"You don't have to tell me," Bodger sighed. "In the past sixteen hours,
+the son of the Secondary Speakster has blithely violated the social and
+political ethics of the Hive, to the extent that his destruction--"
+
+"_Bodger!_" Stanton flared. "You have a rotten habit of--"
+
+"Pretty words don't alleviate the truth of the situation. _You_ know,
+and _I_ know, what Readjustment is! A one-way trip down the incinerator
+chute!"
+
+"All right, we know it! So shut up about it, and let's keep it to
+ourselves! What I'm here to find out is--What the hell are you going
+to do about this idiot son of yours? This is _twice_ he's had to be
+covered for, in a damned short time, Bodger. I can't spend my time
+rescuing Lloyd from something I'm starting to think he may well
+deserve!"
+
+"Aw, Fred, you wouldn't let--"
+
+"The hell I _wouldn't_! I like Lloyd, and I like you, but if it starts
+shaking up my position in the Hive, the _two_ of you can go to blazes!
+Do I make myself clear?"
+
+"I--I'll talk to him, Fred, really I will."
+
+"You mean you _haven't_!?" Stanton exploded. "What's the idea of coming
+home here in the middle of the day, then? I thought you were going
+to--" He took a closer look at the other man, then scowled. "Say, are
+you all right, Bodger? Your color's kind of funny. You're not ...
+_sick_?"
+
+"Of course not!" Bodger snapped. "I'm _shaken_, if you must know. I
+came right home here to chew Lloyd out for last night's episode with
+the Horton girl, and when I couldn't find him, I got so mad that I
+thought I'd better lie down and cool off. I don't want a scene if I
+meet him in a public place. _That would_ get the word out in a hurry,
+wouldn't it!"
+
+"Still, you look kind of--" Stanton halted, and gave the subject up
+with a sigh. "Maybe I'd be, too, if I got a couple of jolts like you
+did. Okay, Bodger. See you back at the office, later." He turned and
+went out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bodger stood listening until he heard the front door close. Then, still
+shirtless, he went into the hallway and threw open the door of Lloyd's
+room without knocking. It was empty. But there was the elusive memory
+of a sweet fragrance still hovering in the air there.
+
+Bodger swore softly, and returned to his own room to shower and dress.
+He had some heavy thinking to do.
+
+When, minutes later, he was refreshed, dressed, and ready to appear in
+public again, he'd made a decision. He needed to discover the root of
+Lloyd's dangerous behavior. And the likely person to know something
+about it would be Lloyd's fiancee, Grace Horton.
+
+Bodger left his Unit and started toward the lift. It was still short of
+one o'clock, but the Voteplate of the Secondary Speakster cut through a
+lot of mechanical red tape.
+
+The lift arrived at Hundred-Level within seconds after his nocking
+his plate beside the call-button. He got aboard and began the descent
+toward Ninety-Three.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 7
+
+
+Robert Lennick leaned far back in his swivel chair, and sighed a deep
+sigh at the ceiling, being careful it would not be heard by the party
+on the other end of the wire.
+
+"Now, listen, sweetheart," he said. "You are good. Got that? Good,
+with a capital tremendous. But you don't click in urban dramas. You're
+too--" He didn't want to say tall, or gigantic, though these words
+were more readily at tongue-tip. "--too Junoesque for the parts
+we're casting.... No, I mean it. You just--Well, you're just not the
+housewife _type_, darling!"
+
+The speaker crackled in his ear for another minute, and Lennick sat and
+studied the piled-up scripts in his in-box with wearily narrowed eyes.
+When his chance came again, he said, "No, not today. I'm sorry, Lona,
+really I am.... It's impossible, that's why.... All right, if you have
+to know--We're shooting Fredric Stanton, that's why--"
+
+The speaker's reply to the phrase made some of the color wash out of
+Lennick's smooth-shaven face, and this time he interrupted with a
+snarl. "You better watch it, Lona, baby! A smartaleck pun like that can
+get you sent to the hospital. You know damned well I mean we're going
+to photograph him.... Okay, but simmer down, huh?!... Okay, baby, I
+will.... Yes, as soon as _anything_, anything at _all_ in your line
+comes by my desk.... Word of honor.... Sure thing.... Yeah, that'd be
+lovely. We'll do it sometime.... Okay, Lona--Lona.... I said--....
+O-_kay_, Lona!" He spat out the last words, and clamped the phone into
+the cradle with vicious pleasure. "Dumb broad!" he mumbled, then got up
+and opened the door to his anteroom.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Frank," he said to the tall, gangly youth
+who rose from a chrome-and-plastic chair and came into the main office.
+
+The man called Frank sank into a chair and fiddled idly with a button
+on his shirt until Lennick had the door closed again. When the youthful
+producer was once more back in his swivel chair, eyeing his visitor,
+Frank lost his casual air and locked eyes with him, disconcertingly
+steady blue eyes, and Lennick had to fight an impulse to wince.
+
+"Trouble?" he said, after a moment.
+
+Frank knitted his brows, and cupped his upper lip in the moist curve of
+his lower before replying, without emotion, "Depends." He fiddled with
+the button again, then gave it up and stood. He preferred pacing as he
+talked. "It's--Well, it's about Andra, Bob."
+
+Lennick stiffened. "They _got_ her...?" His relief was only a
+conditional relaxation when the other man shook his head; he was keyed
+to tighten up again without notice. "So where _is_ she? _How_ is she?"
+
+"Fine, to answer your second question. I don't know the answer to the
+first, though I could make some guesses. The thing is--We better get
+the word out to the others not to try and contact her."
+
+"_Not_ to--!?" said Lennick, stunned. "But she needs help, bad. She has
+to hide until we can--!... Frank, what's the matter? You look so damned
+funny!"
+
+"Okay, I'll level with you, Bob." Frank stood at the front of the desk
+and leaned his hands on the blotter, staring down at the anxious face
+of his friend. "Last night, after her escape, Andra tried to hide in
+the Temple, up on ninety-five. The Goons were right after her, Bob.
+There wasn't even any Service because of her. Every person in that
+Temple was checked--_one_ by _one_--for Voteplates. She _had_ one, Bob.
+She got _out_."
+
+"That's crazy!" Lennick gasped. "Where in hell--? Frank, I _saw_ them
+collect her Voteplate after the accident. She couldn't have gotten
+it back. And she couldn't have a _spare_, I know, so--?" He saw the
+uneasiness still in the man Frank's features, and was quiet. "There's
+_more_...?"
+
+"After her escape," Frank said flatly, taking no joy in telling the
+tale, "She met a man, outside the arcade, went with him for cocktails,
+then up to his level. That's the last she was seen, Bob. It was the
+Hundred-Level. None of us are authorized to go that high without
+escort."
+
+"But who the hell did _Andra_ know on the top?" Bob blurted. "She's
+given autographs to a few higher-ups, but--"
+
+"It was Lloyd Bodger, Junior, Bob. They acted like old friends. _Now_
+do you see why I think it's unwise if she's contacted?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lennick suddenly surged from his chair and nearly tore the shirtfront
+from his visitor in an angry fist, as he yanked the other's face close
+to his own. "You can't mean that about Andra, Frank. You _know_ her!
+You've worked with her--And I ... I know her better than anyone, Frank.
+She's not a traitor. She wouldn't betray us."
+
+"I wish," said Frank, calmly ignoring the enraged aspect of Lennick's
+attitude, "you'd put your heart back where it belongs and think it over
+just once with your brains...."
+
+Bright beads of moisture suddenly appeared in Lennick's eyes, and he
+released his grasp of the other man's shirt and sank down into his
+chair, burying his face upon his arms. "There's an explanation," he
+mumbled into the blotter. "I know there is. She wouldn't--" he lifted
+his head, suddenly hopeful. "Frank, we're still _here_! If she told all
+she knew, we'd be atomized by now, right?"
+
+Frank looked uncertain. "Maybe. At least--It's a point in her favor.
+I don't know. You've got _me_ shook, now." He sat back down and
+pondered, shaking his head slowly back and forth. "If she _isn't_
+hollering for the Goons--What's she doing with Junior? A guy like that
+doesn't take perfect strangers up to his place, does he?"
+
+"I don't believe that part at all," said Lennick. "She may've gotten
+off before he did."
+
+"The indicator went right on up without stopping. My witness'll swear
+to it. Right to top level, just before Ultrablack."
+
+"Maybe she's under arrest, going for questioning," Lennick parried
+weakly. "It could be, you know."
+
+"Why up there? Goons _carry_ Truth Serum. Besides, the witness further
+states that they didn't look like anything but a couple of chummy
+dates. Real chummy."
+
+"How about if--Maybe he was _helping_ her? Andra's not a bad looker....
+If she turned on the tears--"
+
+"You've been reading your own scripts, friend," said Frank, not
+unkindly. "This is reality we're dealing with, not never-never-land on
+film. This Lloyd Bodger, Junior is _not_ the boy-most-likely when it
+comes to helping anti-Hive people. Face it, Bob. Something's up."
+
+"So why, I repeat, aren't we all on our way down the chute costumes,
+cameras and all?"
+
+"That's the only thing that doesn't make sense," Frank admitted. "And
+the only thing that prevents me hiring a sniper to knock her off."
+
+"You'd do that?" said Bob. "To Andra?"
+
+"For the time being, we'll let it ride," Frank decided on the doorstep.
+"It may be handing ourselves over on a silver salver, but--We'll let it
+ride. Till we hear from her. And she'd better make it convincing."
+
+"I know she'd tell me the truth--Whatever it is," said Bob, then
+regretted his rhetorical lapse into doubt. But Frank let it pass, and
+simply said, with a fleeting smile of compassion, "If I were you, I'd
+take that Goon's advice, from yesterday when Andra was carted off: Get
+engaged to somebody else."
+
+"I want to talk to her," Bob insisted.
+
+"If it was your neck, fine. Talk. But it's all our necks. I can't risk
+it."
+
+"_You_ could fix it, Frank. _You_ could find out where she is, a way to
+get there. Come along, even, so I don't fumble the ball. Please, Frank?
+I've got to know...."
+
+"Bob, if you knew what you were asking--!" Then the taut, painful
+set of his friend's features cracked away some of his veneer, and he
+slumped wearily against the jamb, fiddling with that button again. "So
+maybe insanity's catching, or something," he said after a pause.
+
+"You'll help me?"
+
+"I'm not absolutely sure I can, Bob. But--Tell you what.... Buzz me
+about nine tonight. I might have an idea."
+
+"Thanks," Bob said. "You're--You're a nice guy, Frank."
+
+Frank turned and walked across the anteroom and out, without replying.
+Robert Lennick settled back in the swivel chair again, this time not at
+all relaxed.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 8
+
+
+"Now, in this scene, sir, you're instructing the Temples through the
+Speaksters, in your capacity as Prime Speakster," Robert Lennick was
+explaining, as Fredric Stanton nodded over the pages of script.
+
+Frank, the director, stood by impatiently while his boss explained the
+setup of the scene they were to shoot.
+
+"I think I understand," Stanton said finally. "Where do I go, now?"
+An aide led the President toward the waiting set. When he was out of
+earshot, Frank inclined his head toward Lennick, and whispered, "Never
+mind buzzing me tonight, Bob. Meet me here, at your office, just before
+Ultrablack."
+
+"Before Ultrablack?!" Lennick said, aghast. "How will we--?"
+
+"Leave it to me, okay?" said Frank, impatiently. "I'll get you to
+Andra, wherever she is. I want to see her myself."
+
+Lennick could only stand stupefied as the tall, angular form of the
+director moved off toward the waiting cameras and crew. Then he grunted
+in frustration and turned back toward his office. The presence of
+Stanton made his mind return to the day before, when Andra was captured
+by the Goons, and it bothered him to dwell on it. An accident. A stupid
+accident on the set. She'd entered to do her scene, had caught her
+foot on a hidden guy-wire, and had fallen, still holding the tray of
+drinks she'd been supposed to serve to her co-stars. And the ragged
+edge of a shattered goblet had raked across her forearm. Not deep, not
+at all. Just a long, blood-oozing scratch. The Goons had been there
+almost on the instant, commandeering her Voteplate, taking her off for
+"treatment." And she'd looked to him for help, help he could not give,
+dared not give. And when she saw she was suddenly friendless--She'd
+broken and run. The Goons hadn't expected such a reaction. Before they
+could relay the situation to the Brain and get their instructions,
+Andra had dodged out by a corridor too narrow for them to follow, in
+all their ponderous girth and height, and had vanished completely.
+Later that day, a Goon Squad had come to the studio and widened
+the corridor, and one other like it, to preclude such a thing ever
+occurring again.
+
+Lennick was worried at Andra's not contacting him. She might think he
+couldn't be trusted, the way he'd let the Goons take her. But what did
+she expect a man to do against armed Goons? She'd only have had the
+dubious pleasure of seeing him dance to death with a hideous smile on
+his face, while a Snapper Beam broke his spine in two.
+
+It made Lennick's head hurt to think about it, so when he got to his
+office, he started reading some new scripts. In a society where the
+possession of medicine is a crime, it didn't pay to have a headache. Or
+to let on you had one. But he couldn't erase the look he'd seen in her
+eyes when they were taking her away.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER 9
+
+
+Arriving at the door to Grace Horton's Unit, Lloyd paused with his
+finger not quite pressing the bell. "This won't be pleasant," he
+warned. "I've never done anything like this before--getting involved
+with you, I mean--and I don't think Grace is going to like it. I can't
+much blame her, either."
+
+He stopped as the door opened. Grace Horton stood there, clad only in
+a fragile garment of light silk, her up-turned face warm and eager.
+Beyond her, Lloyd saw the tray with a bottle, ice, and two glasses.
+There was soft music playing from somewhere in the Unit. He felt his
+face go red.
+
+"Grace--I want you to meet Andra, Andra Corby."
+
+Grace looked past him for the first time, and saw the other woman.
+A tiny spasmodic reaction tightened her face and some of the color
+drained away. Then she said, with rigid composure, "Come in. Come in,
+won't you?" Unconsciously, she held the folds of her garment tightly at
+the throat with one hand, as if to make her covering more substantial,
+as she stepped aside to let them pass.
+
+"Excuse me," she blurted suddenly, after shutting the door, and rushed
+into her bedroom. The music emanating from there cut off, abruptly, and
+then Grace reappeared in the doorway, her lips curled in a smile that
+would not quite come off. "I thought--I thought you'd miss the lift,"
+she said, in an obvious extemporization that was embarrassing to all
+three persons. "That's why I'm--not quite dressed, yet. I thought I'd
+be ready after one, when you--" Her eyes fell on the tray, with its
+solitary preparation for two, and her voice choked off in the middle
+of a syllable.
+
+Then she took a breath, walked into the parlor, and sat down gracefully
+on the arm of the sofa. "Well," she said brightly, "_now_ what'll we
+lie about?!"
+
+"I'm so very sorry, Grace," Lloyd said contritely. "I ... I would've
+_told_ you Andra was coming, if I'd known. We only decided after I'd
+hung up--"
+
+Grace's eyebrows rose just a fraction. "Andra was at your home when I
+called?" She rose, suddenly. "I think I'd better get another glass from
+the kitchen. I have the feeling we're all of us going to need strength."
+
+Lloyd and Andra looked at one another, then sat gloomily down in
+armchairs deliberately far apart, and waited for Grace's return. When
+she came back with the third glass, she was a bit more composed.
+
+"Now," said Grace, after draining half her glass, "we can talk."
+
+There was a silence, then Lloyd broke it, awkwardly, with, "You
+said--You wanted to see me here, right away."
+
+"I called you about the Temple Service last night, Lloyd--I see by your
+face that you _do_ know something about it. Good. Maybe you can tell me
+what--Don't look so shaken."
+
+"I--Okay. You caught me off-balance, I guess."
+
+"I must have. You look like you were just kicked in the stomach. Well,
+then, tell me: What happened last night?"
+
+"How did you know _anything_ happened?" Lloyd asked.
+
+"A call from the top level this morning. I was warned not to attend
+on the wrong night in the future, and told I was being let off the
+hook--though they phrased it more politely, of course--because I was
+engaged to the son of the Secondary Speakster."
+
+"Did you--? What did you say? To their call?" Lloyd asked, knotting up
+inside.
+
+Grace folded her arms and leaned back. "I'm no dope, Lloyd. I knew you
+had my Voteplate, and were bringing it to me last night. That is--" she
+interjected with chagrin "--I _thought_ you'd be over last night with
+it. When you didn't come, and I got _this_ call, from top level, I kind
+of figured you were in dutch, somehow, and played along. I apologized
+for my error, and promised it wouldn't happen again--I see, by the way
+you two just let your breaths out, that I did the right thing.... Or
+_did_ I? I take it Andra was the one who used my plate?" Lloyd nodded,
+miserably.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grace thought this over, watching the two of them, then leaned forward
+and touched Lloyd's fingers where they curled tightly around the end
+of the chair arm. "Apparently, I have salvaged everybody's chestnuts.
+Would it be asking too much if I wondered what the hell my reasons
+were?"
+
+"I'll explain," Lloyd said. "That is, as best I can. My motivations are
+still a bit obscure even to myself."
+
+Grace flicked a glance at Andra, sitting small and lovely and feminine
+in the chair. "_Are_ they!" she said, a spark of intuition putting
+her almost with complete accuracy ahead of Lloyd's still-untold tale.
+"Maybe I can figure them out for you after I hear your story, then."
+
+"Okay, Grace," Lloyd said gratefully, missing her inflection. He
+proceeded to tell her the story, from the time he'd gone to the Temple
+up until the present moment, eliding only the fact that Andra had spent
+the night in his room. He used the phrase "up at my Unit" and hoped
+it wouldn't be proved any deeper than that. When he'd finished, Grace
+looked dazed.
+
+"You mean--You _believe_ all that, Lloyd?" she said. "I used to have
+great respect for your sanity, but--This thing about no hospitals,
+about bumping off the Kinsmen to keep the population level down--It's
+crazy, Lloyd. Look, your father's one jump from the Presidency. Has he
+ever, in all the years of your life, even _hinted_ such a thing to
+you?"
+
+"No, of course not, but--"
+
+"Yet you take the word of a fugitive, an obvious mental case who
+doesn't know what's good for her--!"
+
+"May _I_ say something in my defense?!" Andra protested.
+
+"You may not," said Grace, then turned back to Lloyd as though Andra
+had ceased to exist anymore. "How could a man with your intelligence--"
+
+"Hold it!" Lloyd snapped. "Hold it right there. I'm not a complete
+fool, Grace. Sure I had doubts. But there are some things Andra said
+that bother me. And I thought up a few puzzlers myself. Like war.
+Casualties in battle account for a high rate of the deaths reported in
+the Hive, right? So it occurred to me--How come we're not using the
+_Goons_ to fight in the war? They're indestructible, they're armed with
+our most potent weapons--Yet we let men and boys be shipped out of here
+to fight. It doesn't make sense."
+
+"Of course it does!" Grace retorted. "You think that question never
+occurred to anyone but you, Lloyd Bodger? We don't use Goons in war for
+the same reason they didn't use atomic weapons after the Second World
+War of last century: The _other_ side has them, and might fight back
+with them."
+
+"But--So _what_?!" Lloyd exploded. "What's the difference if our people
+are killed by other soldier's bullets or by enemy Goons?"
+
+"There's--There's _less_ slaughter this way," Grace said, with an
+intensity that sounded lame even to her.
+
+"All right, we'll let that part go," Lloyd said, in no mental shape for
+argument. "There are other things--"
+
+"Forget them," Grace said, vehemently. "Whatever your reasons, or
+reasoning, last night, you have another problem to face: What are you
+going to do with this girl? The longer you stick with her, the slimmer
+your excuses will sound when she's caught. In fact, the only hope you
+have is to turn her in, right now, and pray your Readjustment isn't too
+painful."
+
+"But don't you see, Grace--!" Lloyd blurted. "What if she's _right_?!
+On that chance, no matter how silly you think her theory is--a theory
+that has led others to join her movement, remember--do I dare take the
+_risk_ of turning her in?"
+
+Grace stared at him and digested this aspect of the situation slowly.
+"I--I guess it _would_ be kind of late, when the top level sent me the
+report that your Readjustment hadn't taken, or something, to say 'Well,
+he told me so!'."
+
+The door chimes pealed, then, startling them all.
+
+"You expecting anyone else?" asked Lloyd.
+
+"No, unless your friend the fugitive was seen coming in here."
+
+As they spoke, Andra had gone to a window and peeked out from behind
+the curtain. When she turned to face them again, her face was grey with
+strain and apprehension.
+
+"Lloyd--" she said. "It's your father!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 10
+
+
+Under the blazing arc-lights on the set, President Stanton played
+himself to the hilt, nearing the climactic, "Vote for the sake of the
+Kinsmen! Vote for the freedom of the Temples! Vote for the life of the
+Hive!" Just as he launched into this most important part of the script,
+a page boy made his labyrinthine way on tiptoe through the cables
+and reflectors and sound equipment to the chair of the director, and
+whispered urgently in his ear. Frank got to his feet immediately.
+
+"_Cut!_" he called.
+
+Stanton looked up in some surprise, and it was a very baffled cameraman
+who finally found enough strength to cut off his machine. The set was
+dead quiet as Stanton arose from behind the prop-desk and looked in
+unpleasant speculation at the source of the interruption.
+
+Frank cleared his throat, and said, "I'm sorry. The scene was going
+well, sir; that isn't why I cut it. You have a phone call, in Mr.
+Lennick's office."
+
+"I thought it was understood I was not to be disturbed while on the
+set," said Stanton, still wondering if he should give vent to his
+feelings of outrage.
+
+"It was, sir. And is. But the call's from your personal secretary, sir.
+She says it's of the utmost importance."
+
+Stanton hesitated, dropped his script back down onto the desk, then
+started decisively around the side of the desk toward the director.
+"She had better be correct," he said darkly, brushing by Frank and the
+crewmen without apology and vanishing into the corridor that led to
+Robert Lennick's office. There was a brief silence, then a concerted
+sigh of relief from the men on the set.
+
+"Shall we wait," one of the crewmen asked Frank, "or shoot around this
+scene and pick it up later?"
+
+Frank spread his hands. "I don't _know_. I have to be sure he's coming
+back, first--I'll go find out." He told his staff to relax until his
+return, then hurried out after the President.
+
+A hundred feet down the corridor, he rounded a turn. Up ahead he saw
+Stanton just entering Lennick's office. Then, without hesitation,
+Frank ducked into a nearby office, his own, and locked the door on the
+inside. The lowest drawer of his desk had a false bottom. He triggered
+the release on this, now, and lifted out the small black earphone-set
+there, setting it dextrously across his head, magnetic speaker directly
+over his ear. In the hollow of the now-exposed section was a telephone
+dial. Frank swiftly spun it through the sequence of Lennick's office
+number, then sat hunched forward over his desk, listening hard. He
+heard Stanton pick up the phone, and say, "This is Stanton. What is
+it?!"
+
+Madge Benedict, his personal secretary, "It's Lloyd Bodger, Junior. You
+told me to contact you the instant he got out of line again. Well, he
+has, but good."
+
+"As bad as the other two?" Stanton queried.
+
+"Worse, much worse, sir. Bad enough to make the other two look good by
+comparison. He was seen, this afternoon, on Ninety-Three-Level, in the
+company of Andra Corby, the fugitive from hospitalization. You know,
+sir, the movie star who was injured on the set yesterday."
+
+Something sparked in Stanton's brain, then, and a hard light of
+comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Wait--Let me think.... Of course!
+She vanished yesterday from the Temple on Ninety-Five! And Lloyd was
+there, too. I wonder--" He stopped idle speculation and snapped, "Get
+me Bodger, quick!"
+
+"His office," Madge told him after a moment on another line, "says he's
+gone home, and you can--"
+
+"I _know_ he's at home!" Stanton growled, "I just left him there. Get
+him!"
+
+There was a short silence, then she spoke again. "I'm ringing him, sir.
+I don't think he's at home. No one answers."
+
+"You know what to do as well as I do!" he said impatiently. "Put a
+tracer on his Voteplate! See where he's gone to."
+
+Another pause; while Madge coded an inquiry and flashed it to the
+memory circuits of the enormous Brain beneath the Hive, and received
+the near-instantaneous reply. "Sir," she replied, "he's taken the lift
+to Ninety-Three-Level. The same place his son was seen."
+
+"That's odd.... Do you suppose he knows about the Corby girl, too?
+Or--" Stanton dropped the interrogation; Madge shouldn't be made to
+think about it. The less she knew, trusted secretary or not, the
+better. "Skip it," he said abruptly. "Find out for me where they might
+be going on that level, their hangouts, haunts, and friends...."
+
+Madge found the answers and got back on the line. "Three possible
+places, sir. Dewey's Bar and Grill, in Sector Three, Miss Grace
+Horton's Unit, and--"
+
+"Lloyd's fiancee?!" Stanton interjected. "The one who attended the
+wrong Temple Service last night...."
+
+"I believe she did, sir. We sent out a memo--"
+
+"And she got it this morning! Of course!" said Stanton, exultantly.
+"And phoned Lloyd right afterwards!"
+
+"I don't follow you, sir--" Madge said, blankly.
+
+"Forget it," snapped the President. "I have all the information I need.
+And," he added, with belated gratitude, "thank you for calling me, Miss
+Benedict." He hung up without waiting for her reply.
+
+Huddled over the desk in the dimness of his own office, Frank tore off
+the earphones, dropped them back into the hollow of the drawer, and
+re-closed the false bottom. He was out in the corridor again, headed
+toward Lennick's office, with seconds to spare when Stanton came out.
+
+"Sir," Frank said, turning about and falling into step with him on the
+way back to the set, "I wonder if you'd care to finish the scene, or
+should we shoot around it?"
+
+"Shoot around it," Stanton said. "I can't be bothered with the filming,
+today. Something's come up."
+
+Frank nodded and let his pace slacken, allowing the President to move
+away from him. After poising on his toes for an undecided second, he
+whirled and dashed toward Lennick's office. If young Bodger had been
+seen with Andra, in the same locale where the elder Bodger was now
+heading--or had even arrived--there was going to be an explosion. An
+explosion that might sweep Andra, the Bodgers, and the entire anti-Hive
+movement with it, when Stanton got the wheels of his office in motion.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 11
+
+
+After thumbing the doorbell the second time, Bodger shifted his hand
+toward the inner pocket where he kept his Voteplate. The doors of all
+Units in the Hive were keyed by the Voteplate of the dweller, through
+a slot above the knob. As Secondary Speakster, Bodger's plate could
+key any door in the Hive save Stanton's; _all_ doors opened to the
+President's Voteplate. Just as his fingers touched the edge of the
+plate in his pocket, he saw the knob start to turn, and withdrew his
+hand. The door opened, and his son was standing there.
+
+"Come in, Dad," Lloyd said, standing aside. "Grace will join us in a
+moment."
+
+The elder Bodger's eyes did not miss the fact that the door to the
+bedroom was closed, as he entered the parlor. This delayed appearance
+of Grace, coupled with the delay in their response to his ring,
+confirmed his worst suspicions. He took the seat Lloyd offered him,
+leaned back without quite relaxing, and came to the point at once.
+
+"Lloyd, you're making trouble. Lots of it. For yourself, and quite
+possibly for me, too. I don't like it. But before I take any steps, I
+want to hear your side of it."
+
+Lloyd sat down facing his father, very uncomfortable inside. He didn't
+want to inadvertently volunteer more information than his father
+already had. He could think of plenty of things he'd done since the
+night before, any one of which was damnable; the safest policy was in
+determining just what, and how much of what, his father knew.
+
+"I'm not sure I follow you, Dad," he said, pleasantly. "What kind of
+trouble--"
+
+"Don't fence with _me_, young man!" said his father. "Unless you're
+completely brainless, you know what I--" He was about to expostulate on
+the disgraceful conduct of the evening before, the matter of Grace's
+having gone up to top level with his son, then decided to let that
+ride until Grace herself was present. Keeping steely control over his
+emotions, he said, instead, "The Vote last night, Lloyd. Your plate was
+credited with a _con_ Vote. Are you _insane_, Lloyd?! Haven't I told
+you--!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd racked his brain to recall the content of the proposition, but
+could not. "Maybe I hit the wrong button," he said lamely. "My hand
+might have slipped."
+
+"The penalty's the same, whatever the basis of your stupid action, and
+you know it!" his father rasped. "I don't think you are even able to
+tell me what the proposition _was_, are you!" A look at Lloyd's burning
+face told him the answer. "I thought not," he said, wearily. "I don't
+know what I'm going to do with you, son. I've tried to keep you in
+line--"
+
+The entrance of Grace Horton stopped Bodger's tired lament, and both
+men rose to their feet.
+
+"It's nice to see you Mr. Bodger. Would--Would you like a drink?" Grace
+offered, nervously.
+
+"I would not--" he said, then softened his curt reply with, "But thank
+you, anyway, Grace. Maybe later, after I've had my say." Lloyd and
+Grace looked at one another in numb apprehension of the unknown, then
+back at Bodger.
+
+"The son of a prominent man," Bodger began, at last finding his
+approach-path, "has a great responsibility to his father's good name.
+The Hive, as you both know, has rigid rules regarding--well--amorous
+conduct, to employ a euphemism, between unmarried persons. Yet, last
+night, Lloyd--Grace--the two of you were seen going to top level on the
+public lift, just before Ultrablack."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A short sound from Grace's chair was the gasp that had sucked itself
+between her lips as the significance of Bodger's words reached her.
+
+Lloyd, for his part, fought but could not control the hot crimson flood
+that rushed into his features when he met Grace's hurt gaze.
+
+Bodger, misinterpreting both their reactions according to his own
+notion of the night before, immediately said, "No need to be afraid.
+A thing like this is better out in the open. I can understand how two
+young people in love might--"
+
+"_Dad!_" Lloyd said abruptly. Bodger halted and waited for his son's
+words. Lloyd, speaking to his father the words that were actually
+intended for Grace's ears, said, with deep earnest, "It wasn't like
+that, Dad. She slept on my bed, with her clothes on. I slept on the
+rug. We--We just had to be together, that's all. I've done nothing you
+should feel ashamed of."
+
+The sudden smile on Grace's face caught at Lloyd's heart.
+
+"That's a help, son," Bodger said, likewise convinced. "To me, at any
+rate. The point, unfortunately, is that any persons who observed you
+going up to our Unit with Grace could not be expected to presume the
+_best_, if you see what I mean?"
+
+"I do, Dad," Lloyd mumbled contritely. "And I wish it had never
+happened."
+
+"It wouldn't have," Bodger pontificated, "if Grace hadn't gone to the
+wrong Temple Service. I can see how she might dislike the change in her
+attendance-period, meaning she'd be unable to attend with you, anymore,
+but it was the wrong thing to do. If she'd stayed home, none of this
+would've happened."
+
+The irony of this last statement, while it missed Bodger completely,
+brought a small, one-syllable burst of laughter from Grace's lips,
+which she quickly stoppered. Lloyd jumped into the breach swiftly, to
+distract his father from a dangerous line of conjecture.
+
+"Dad, there was something bothered me last night--In the Temple, I
+mean, about that fugitive girl?"
+
+"What about her?" said his father, unprepared for the statement to the
+extent that he made an automatic response without having time to notice
+he was being diverted.
+
+"The check-up for the girl, Dad. It seemed kind of--I hate to use the
+word, but it's the only one--_inefficient_, at least to me."
+
+"The girl had no Voteplate," Bodger said, puzzled. "I should think a
+check of all Voteplates was efficient enough."
+
+"But why not have the Goons check her description, or her fingerprints,
+or even check for the scar on her arm?" said Lloyd. "It'd be much
+simpler, and surer."
+
+Bodger shook his head. "Not at all, Lloyd. A Goon, you must remember,
+doesn't 'see' as we do. Its television lenses are only geared to
+recognize streets, Units, sectors, and so on, and to tell Goons from
+Kinsmen. Anything as delicate as actual recognition of a face would
+involve the building of a Brain greater in mass than the current one.
+No, Voteplates were the only answer to identification problems; that's
+half the reason they exist. As to fingerprints--They will serve in
+identifying an individual, it's true, _if_ a person's identity is in
+doubt. But it takes time, and the fingerprint files are enormous;
+to do so in trying to locate one person in a full Temple gathering
+would have taken many hours, and there was a time element involved.
+The ensuing Service could not begin until the Temple was emptied.
+Finally, as to the scar--" Bodger looked decidedly uncomfortable, then
+sighed and said, "--As son of the Secondary Speakster--and future
+daughter-in-law, Grace--perhaps it's time you were told a fact that
+is rather embarrassing to the regime, but all too true: In the Hive,
+people do not always report injuries. While we do not enjoy this mild
+form of treason to the planned medical facilities of the Hive, we
+nevertheless tolerate it, for the simple reason that it's bothersome
+treating _every_ scratch and bruise that occurs, most of which will
+heal themselves. And so, if we had the Goons check for the girl's
+scar, we might have found a large number of medical violations among
+the Kinsmen at the Service. Under that circumstance, we would have to
+hospitalize everyone; Goons are trained to spot any deviation from
+a healthy norm beyond a certain degree. It would have been terribly
+awkward, all around. So the only sure method was--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bodger stopped, as though violently stunned. "Lloyd--" Bodger said, his
+heart hammering with a nameless dread. "_I_ was activating the Temple
+Speaksters last night. I gave the warning about the girl to your
+Temple. I remember distinctly what I said. And I know I made no mention
+of the type or location of her injury. No mention at all. _How did you
+know it?!_"
+
+Lloyd's lips worked, but he couldn't bring up a syllable from his
+constricting lungs. Grace, her hands knotted into fists, looked at the
+carpet, and sat like a marble statue.
+
+Bodger got to his feet, towering over the two of them.
+
+"I'm talking to you, Lloyd. Answer me! How did you know?"
+
+Lloyd's ribs abruptly began to function again, and he drew in what
+felt like the deepest breath of his life. Then he stood and faced his
+father, defiantly.
+
+"Because she's here, Dad. Right behind that door! And Andra Corby was
+the girl in our Unit last night, furthermore. _I_ helped her escape
+from the Temple, with Grace's Voteplate. Now, what are you going to do
+about it!?"
+
+Bodger fell back into his chair like a crumpling jointed doll, his
+face shocked and incredulous. "I don't believe it," he said stiffly,
+pressing his hands upon the chair arms to halt their trembling. "Lloyd,
+it's not true!"
+
+The bedroom door opened, then, and Andra came out. When Bodger saw her,
+something inside him cracked, and he suddenly dropped his face into
+his hands and just groaned. Lloyd was at his side in an instant.
+
+"Dad," he said, gripping the other man's shoulders, "Dad, I _had_
+to tell you. I've been entangling myself in so many lies since last
+night--It was the only thing left to do!"
+
+Bodger looked up, wide-eyed with dismay, and shrugged Lloyd's hands
+away. "Let me think!" he said, hoarsely. "I have to think! Stanton
+mustn't find this out. I've already covered up for your idiotic Vote,
+and for your taking Grace--all right, Andra--up to our Unit last night.
+There has to be a way to prevent your horrible errors being found out.
+I'll cover, somehow, Lloyd. If I can find a way, I'll cover up, and--"
+
+"_Dad--!_"
+
+Something in the young man's tone made Bodger stop his frantic raving.
+He looked into his son's eyes, and saw the question even before Lloyd
+asked it.
+
+"Why _should_ you cover up?"
+
+Bodger grabbed at his shattered self-control, and sat up, stiffly.
+"I--I don't follow you, son."
+
+"I said," Lloyd repeated sadly, "why _should_ you cover up for me? I'll
+only be hospitalized for Readjustment, won't I?... _Won't I!?_"
+
+"Lloyd," Bodger said sickly, getting up and clutching his son's hands,
+"you're over-wrought, right now, you've been under a strain...."
+
+"All the more reason for my hospitalization, then," Lloyd said, with
+all the relentless cruelty he could muster in the face of his father's
+ghastly fright.
+
+"_No!_" Bodger yelled. "You can't go! You don't understand, Lloyd! I
+can't explain here."
+
+"There's no need to," Lloyd said, suddenly softening and taking his
+father by the hands to halt their frenetic quavering. "Your attitude
+has told me all I want to know. Andra was speaking the truth. There
+_are_ no hospitals, no treatment, no Readjustment. Only death."
+
+"Lloyd--!" Bodger said. "If you only knew _why_--"
+
+"We'd _all_ like to know why," said Andra, solicitously. "Mr. Bodger,
+it's no use struggling any more. You have to tell the truth, now, or
+have your son--and Grace and myself--be destroyed."
+
+"All right," Bodger said. "I will. I'll tell you the whys and
+wherefores of the Hive. Then maybe you'll--"
+
+"I'm afraid such an extemporaneous educational program is quite
+impossible," came a voice from the doorway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fredric Stanton, just removing his Voteplate from the slot in Grace's
+door, had his other hand extended toward them. And clutched firmly in
+his steady grasp was the stubby metal muzzle of a Snapper.
+
+The two men and women stepped backward, slowly, as he advanced into
+the parlor and shut the door behind him. "I only heard the last few
+phrases of your conversation, unfortunately," he said. "I think, for
+the interests of the Hive, that I should hear it all. We'll have to go
+up to my office, all of us, to get at the truth. I'll have a Goon Squad
+pick us up, here." He reached for the phone, dialed swiftly, and soon
+had Madge on the line. He kept the Snapper trained on the group while
+he spoke, and never took his eyes off them.
+
+"Sir," Madge replied, before he could ring off, "do you think it's
+wise, bringing Bodger through the streets under guard, I mean?" She
+sounded greatly concerned. "The Kinsmen--"
+
+Stanton narrowed his eyes appreciatively, and cut her off with, "You're
+right, of course; it wouldn't do to let public opinion of the regime
+get any shakier than it is! I can't wait till Ultrablack, however.
+Start the emergency sirens at once. Allow fifteen minutes for all
+Kinsmen to clear the streets. Then put on the Emergency Ultrablack."
+
+"Right, sir," Madge said, and hung up.
+
+Stanton smiled, still keeping them covered as he replaced the phone in
+the cradle. "You'd better be seated," he said congenially.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 12
+
+
+"You really believe that _Bodger_ is involved in the anti-Hive
+movement?" Lennick said dubiously. "It doesn't make sense, Frank! Why
+should the Secondary--"
+
+"All I know," Frank said determinedly, "is that Stanton was shaken
+by the news of young Bodger and Andra. It puts me right back on
+Andra's team, all at once. If Stanton was in the dark, then it's very
+doubtful that Andra's done anything to betray the movement; the greater
+likelihood is that she's pulled Junior _our_ way."
+
+Lennick frowned doubtfully. "Andra's an attractive girl, Frank, but--"
+
+"Everybody isn't pulled into the movement like you were, Bob. Sex
+appeal has its uses, but there's also a thing known as intelligence.
+Bodger and his son are no dopes. If she convinced them--"
+
+"Why _should_ she!?" Lennick said angrily. "Have to convince _them_, I
+mean! Didn't they, of all people, _know_?"
+
+Frank stood there with his mouth open, blinking. Then he sat down and
+stared at the producer, dazed. "I must be getting soft-headed," he
+murmured after a short hiatus. "Of course they must know.... Still--?"
+He looked helplessly to Lennick for assistance.
+
+"I know; it doesn't make sense," Lennick nodded. "The only thing to be
+done is to _find_ Andra, I guess, and ask her the answers. Conjecture
+is only taking us in circles."
+
+Frank spoke tautly, his pent-up frustration making his words strained
+and painful. "Excepting that, as long as Andra's in Grace Horton's
+sector, we can't go after her. That's not one of the permitted areas
+on my Voteplate. I'd hate to be caught loitering in that area when
+the Goons show up for Andra. When they make an arrest, they check on
+everybody. If only this had occurred later, today, near Ultrablack--"
+
+"Why do you keep stressing Ultrablack?" Lennick asked. "I still haven't
+even figured out why I was to meet you here tonight just before it was
+turned on. We'd really be helpless then."
+
+"Bob," Frank said gently, "this is nothing personal, but--Well, when
+the movement gets a new member, we don't just lay out all our schemes
+on a red carpet for him. There's a trial period for all new members.
+You've been on probation for a couple of months, now. The less you
+know of our plans, our memberships, the less you could spill if you
+were a plant."
+
+Lennick grinned wryly and shook his head. "I know. That was a real
+bone of contention between Andra and myself when we'd been engaged
+nearly six weeks. A wife can't keep secret meetings from her husband
+very well; he may suspect her outings are something even worse. When
+I finally pressed her about broken dates, and times she couldn't be
+reached, and she told me about the movement, I was pretty miffed she
+didn't trust me with all she knew."
+
+"She couldn't, Bob, you know that. The information wasn't hers to give
+out, without permission of the rest of us. We could not put our necks
+in a noose because Andra adores your big brown eyes."
+
+"I'm surprised you're still speaking to me, after yesterday," Lennick
+said with chagrin.
+
+"Bob, you did what any of us could have done: Nothing. One man can't
+fight off a Goon Squad. We would have lost _two_ members, instead of
+just Andra, if you'd put up a fuss."
+
+"But about Ultrablack," Bob said, frowning. "I know you people have
+meetings after Light-of-Day goes off. _How_ you do it is beyond me,
+with the streets alive with Goons, and darkness everywhere, even
+indoors."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If there were a chance of rescuing Andra when tonight's Ultrablack
+came on, I'd tell you, Bob," Frank said sincerely. "It'd give you the
+chance you didn't have yesterday to do something for her. I think you
+can be trusted. I trusted you enough, just now, to tell you about the
+tapped phone."
+
+"You had to," Lennick said with a shrug. "Or else I'd be leery about
+believing you knew so much about Stanton's private call."
+
+"We set that up ever since Stanton started appearing in our
+Hive-located scripts. He's always so busy, keeping in touch with his
+office between takes, that we've kept one jump ahead of the Goons, on
+occasion. It must drive him nuts, wondering about the raids that never
+came off."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lennick got to his feet. "I wish we didn't have to just _sit_ here this
+way! At this very moment, Andra may be still uncaptured. If she could
+be warned--"
+
+"She could, if top-level privilege didn't entitle young Bodger's
+fiancee to an unlisted number. You can go up there if you want, but--I
+know too much about the movement to risk it. If you're caught, it's
+unimportant--insofar as the sum of your knowledge, I mean. But I don't
+dare let myself be taken."
+
+Frank paused, and cocked his head, listening. Lennick, seeing him,
+did the same. A keening wail penetrated into the depths of the office.
+"Sirens!" Frank said. "It means there'll be an emergency Ultrablack in
+fifteen minutes. Or even less, if we did not hear them from the very
+beginning...."
+
+"You think it has to do with Andra?" asked Lennick.
+
+"No telling," said Frank. "And no telling how long this Ultrablack is
+for. At normal Ultrablack, I can count on a definite number of hours,
+but--" He hesitated, then clapped Lennick on the shoulder and said,
+"Come on, Bob! This may be the chance we were looking for!"
+
+The producer followed him, bewildered, out of the office and down the
+corridor toward the set. Just inside the set, where the siren-alerted
+crew members were grabbing their gear together in preparation for swift
+flight, Frank pulled Bob aside and led him to a door flanking the
+corridor entrance. "This way," he said, shoving the other man inside
+and following.
+
+"To the prop room?" Lennick said wonderingly, his mind a pastiche of
+envisioned secret panels, inter-level tunnels and the like. Frank
+kept moving down the short hall without replying, so Lennick could
+only tag impatiently after him, his curiosity at its ultimate. Then
+they were in the high, barn-like gloom of the prop room, a fantastic
+collage of canvas backdrops, teeter-piled furniture, swords, pistols,
+fake-currency stacks, ropes, saddles, bows, arrows, and other oddments
+of the trade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lennick found his bewilderment growing as Frank pushed aside a stack of
+dusty chairs and then slid aside a tall desert-sky backdrop on oiled
+rollers. For a horrible instant, Lennick recoiled, his flesh going icy
+with unthinking fright. Then he relaxed and gave a shiver of relief.
+"Damn those things!" he grunted. "I forgot we had them stored back
+here...." Then he looked up and met Frank's gaze, and comprehension
+dawned on him. "You mean--_Them?!_"
+
+"There's a panel in the back, where the operator can slide in to run
+the controls," Frank said. "It'll hold two, if you don't mind crowding."
+
+"Good grief!" Lennick gasped. "I should have guessed!"
+
+"Never mind the self-recriminations," Frank said. "Help me roll this
+thing out so we can get inside it."
+
+Lennick nodded, and took hold of the jointed metal arm on one side, as
+Frank did the same on the other. Together, they wheeled the massive
+torso of the prop-Goon toward the center of the room. As Frank located
+and opened the neatly disguised panel, Lennick shook his head in doubt.
+
+"There's no force-field, Frank," he said uneasily, "and once Ultrablack
+sets in--"
+
+"Unlatch the door to the street," Frank said testily, "and stop asking
+so many questions." As Lennick hurried to comply, Frank added, with
+less irritation, "The absent force-field's the _reason_ we use Goons
+only after Ultrablack. A Goon won't notice the difference, since it
+only determines identities by shape, but a Kinsman would, instantly, as
+you just did. There are no Kinsmen out after Ultrablack, so that's the
+safe time for us. As for your other worry, about how we'll _see_ after
+Ultrablack, Ultrablack is only the jamming of the visible spectrum
+by the radiation of inverted light; the compression and rarefaction
+phases of the light waves are plugged, dovetailed into, by the opposing
+phases of inverted light. Goons," he said, depressing a switch beside
+a small cathode-screen inside the hollow body, "see by cutting off the
+sensitivity of their lenses to light or inverted light, it doesn't
+matter which. Then the Hive is bright as day-light to them."
+
+Lennick clambered up beside him and helped Frank dog the metal panel
+shut. Side by side, hunched over the pale blue glow of the screen,
+they watched the interior of the prop room through the lens-eyes of
+their grotesque conveyance. When the sirens halted, Ultrablack swept
+the room from their ken like a velvet curtain. Then Frank turned a
+dial, and the room reappeared on the screen, like a negative image,
+with white for black, and vice-versa.
+
+"Now we can go," Frank said, releasing a brake. The prop-Goon began
+to roll ponderously toward the door to the street, carrying its two
+perspiring conspirators. "I only wish," Frank said tensely, guiding
+their movement out into the Kinsmen-deserted street of the sector,
+"that this thing had Snapper-Beams, too. But I guess an underground
+movement can't have everything."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 13
+
+
+The four prisoners sat glumly looking at the impenetrable squares
+of darkness outside Grace Horton's windows, awaiting the arrival of
+the Goon Squad. Madge Benedict, without needing to be told, had kept
+Ultrablack from occurring in the Unit; it was the only area of visible
+light in the entire nine cubic miles of the Hive. Stanton, his weapon
+never wavering, lolled against the wall of Grace's parlor, watching
+their discomfiture with amusement. Of all the group, Andra's pallor
+was the worst, and Stanton noted this fact with relish.
+
+"I don't expect to glean much from the minds of the others," he said,
+addressing her directly, "but yours must be a veritable treasure trove
+of interesting data."
+
+"I don't know why you should think so," Andra said, knowing all the
+while that fabrication was futile; five minutes under truth serum would
+prove the President's contention beyond debate. "I'm only one small cog
+in a wheel greater than your whole Goondom of force!"
+
+"You almost convince me," Stanton said. "But--No matter. I'll know the
+truth in a few more minutes."
+
+"And then what?" asked Grace. "What happens to us once you've picked
+our brains of knowledge? If it's death--"
+
+"Grace--" Lloyd said warningly, taking her arm. She turned on him.
+
+"Darling, if we're to die in _any_ event, let's die now! At least
+we'll have the satisfaction that a hundred other people aren't dying
+afterward, because of us!"
+
+"She's right, Fred," Bodger said, smiling for the first time since
+his arrival at Grace's Unit. "If you kill us now, you'll never find
+anything out. At least our lives will have accomplished something, if
+only continued secrecy about the movement."
+
+"A Snapper Beam needn't kill, if used briefly enough," Stanton said
+mildly. "If you four prefer dancing an agonized quadrille until the
+arrival of the squad, you have only to come an inch closer. In fact,
+unless you return to your chairs at once, I may just do it anyhow, for
+my own diversion."
+
+"A Snapper Beam," said Bodger, "is effective only so long as it's held
+upon its victim. Can you play yours four ways at once, Fred? Because,
+while you're gunning any one of us down, three will be diving for your
+throat!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanton, before Bodger's statement could bring the others in a unified
+wave against him, pointed the muzzle of the Snapper directly at the
+man's chest and pressed the firing stud. A whine of power came from the
+weapon as the invisible forces lashed out.
+
+And Bodger took two strides forward and smashed his fist into Stanton's
+face. The President's head snapped back with the unexpected blow, and
+cracked sharply against the wall. Then, the weapon falling from his
+limp fingers, he slid to the floor and collapsed in an untidy heap.
+
+Bodger, stumbling back from the fallen body, sagged into a chair,
+gasping. Lloyd sprang to his side, dropped to one knee beside the
+chair, staring in unbelief at the shaken man. "Dad!" he blurted, in
+dazed joy. "You're alive! You're all right!"
+
+"No ..." Bodger said, his eyes bulging as he shook his head, his lips
+thickening over words that were becoming difficult to formulate. "No,
+Lloyd. I'm--sicker than I thought."
+
+"What are you talking about, Dad! You just took a dose of power that
+would've destroyed a healthy human nervous system, and came _through_
+it! How can you say--"
+
+"Lloyd!" Bodger rasped, clutching his son's arm. "Don't you see? I
+don't--don't _have_ a human nervous system, anymore. The thing I've
+always feared has happened. I--" He coughed, and his skin took on a
+sickly bluish tinge for a moment, then flushed into a ruddier tone as
+he took a breath and held himself in rigid control. "The--The Brain.
+You ... must go to the Brain, Lloyd. I--Can't talk more ... ask it ...
+why is the Hive...." His voice trailed off, and his eyes closed.
+
+"Dad," Lloyd said, shaking his father by the shoulders. "Why is the
+Hive _what_?! Tell me!"
+
+His father opened his eyes and stared unseeing beyond his son.
+His lips, flecked with spume, worked silently, then he gurgled,
+"M-medicine ... bathroom ... behind mirror ... I n-need--" His collapse
+this time was total, his head hanging limply with chin on chest, his
+arms sliding over the sides of the chair until his wrists touched the
+carpet.
+
+A thunderous pounding upon the front door brought Lloyd and the two
+women up short, and they stood frozen with dread as the insistent sound
+continued. The inner surface of the door was shaking with the blows.
+"... Goons?" whimpered Grace. "What'll we do if it's the Goons?"
+
+"Stanton's Voteplate!" Andra snapped. "Lloyd, take it, quick, out of
+his pocket!" Lloyd caught her meaning instantly, and hurried to obey.
+"Grace, count ten, then open the door. We can't delay longer than that.
+Lloyd, think fast, and think smart! We're all in your hands, now!"
+
+Lloyd, the plate in his hand, shoved his own into Stanton's pocket and
+straightened up. "Let them in, Grace," he commanded. "Then both of you
+keep still and let me talk!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grace unbolted the door and stepped back. The six metal bodies of
+the Goon Squad rumbled loudly as they crossed over the sill and came
+to a halt before the trio. The Goon in the fore-front of the group,
+swiveling its glittering telelenses over them, spoke in its cold,
+emotionless voice, "President Stanton."
+
+Lloyd stepped forward and handed over the Voteplate. The eight-foot
+metal creature took it, slipped it into its chest-slot and paused; then
+returned the plate.
+
+"Correct," it said. "Orders."
+
+"Miss Madge Benedict, of my office, to be taken into custody at once,
+and held incommunicado," said Lloyd, figuring Stanton would be helpless
+with no contact at top level, so long as Ultrablack prevented his
+leaving the unit.
+
+The Goon stood silently as this information was relayed to the Brain
+and thence to the Goon Squad nearest Stanton's office. "Accomplished,"
+it said flatly, after a minute, its dull grey force-field pulsating
+with incredible energies. "Orders."
+
+"Secondary Speakster Bodger--the man in the chair--to be taken," Lloyd
+flashed a glance at Grace, who nodded, "along with this woman on my
+right, to his Unit on Hundred-Level, Unit B, and left there without
+supervision, by all but one of your squad."
+
+"Orders."
+
+"One of you will escort me and this woman on my left to the Brain, in
+Sub-Level Three, immediately."
+
+"Orders."
+
+"All orders conveyed," said Lloyd.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 14
+
+
+Knowing only the sector in which Andra had been seen with Lloyd,
+but not having access to Grace's address or phone number, Lennick
+and Frank, in the prop-Goon, arrived at her Unit many minutes after
+the Goon Squad had left. They found it by the simple expedient of
+noting--in their white-for-black cathode-screen--the one Unit from
+whose windows blackness was trying to pour. That meant Light-of-Day was
+still functioning in that particular Unit, and that in turn meant only
+the presence of higher-ups.
+
+The door to the Unit lay wide open, but Frank didn't dare roll inside.
+His conveyance's lack of a force-field would be readily apparent in
+such close quarters. He halted, instead, a few yards along the side of
+the Unit, told Bob where the door lay from them, then cut off his motor
+and the cathode-screen. Ultrablack fell about them like a velvet all.
+
+Bob, following Frank, felt his way out into the near-palpable darkness,
+found the wall against his fingers, and edged along beside it, fingers
+feeling for the doorway. A hand upon his chest stopped him, and he
+waited.
+
+Frank, holding Bob back, leaned carefully toward the open doorway his
+fingers had just touched, not daring to show any more of himself than
+he had to to whomever might be inside the Unit. Then, swiftly, he
+leaned his head out of Ultrablack and blinked at the parlor before him.
+He saw no one. He closed his fingers upon the front of Bob's shirt,
+gave a quick tug on it, then let go and stepped into the room. A moment
+later, Bob was there beside him, squinting against the bright bluish
+Light-of-Day.
+
+"Maybe it's the wrong Unit," Bob offered. "A malfunction in the Hive
+mechanism _might_ keep this place from Ul--" He shut up and gripped
+Frank's arm. "Stanton!" he said, pointing beyond the sofa. Then Frank
+saw the President. Cautiously, the two men approached the still, silent
+figure and stared down at him.
+
+"What do you suppose happened?!" Bob said, shakily. "Do you think Andra
+had something to do with this?"
+
+Frank Shawn scratched his head. "You got me. All I can figure is--if
+Stanton's in a fix like this--he may not have been able to get her
+picked up. This tableau has the earmarks of turned tables, if you ask
+me."
+
+"Do we dare waken him and find out?" Bob said, keeping his voice to a
+library-whisper.
+
+"Not as long as Ultrablack's on. We'd have a hell of a time explaining
+how we got here," said Frank, shaking his head. He turned to look at
+Stanton again, and the blood froze in his veins. Stanton's eyes were
+open, and he was staring at the two of them with glaring hate.
+
+"How _did_ you get here, Kinsman Shawn?!" he demanded. "And you,
+Kinsman Lennick!" Stanton lifted his head from the floor, awkwardly,
+and tried to look around. "Bodger! Where is he?" he said, shaken by a
+sudden return of memory.
+
+"I've got to get to that phone! They're probably on their way to my
+office right this minute! If they take control--" He choked on the word
+and lay still, seeing the Snapper--his own--that Frank now leveled at
+him. "I suppose the two of you know this is high treason?" he said
+wearily. He lay there fuming at his enforced impotence.
+
+Bob looked at Frank. "What'll we _do_?"
+
+"I wish I knew!" Frank muttered. "If we knew what had happened, where
+the others have gone--But we don't, so there's no followup there....
+Still, we can't leave Stanton here, now that he's seen us, or it's our
+necks when he gets free."
+
+"We--" Bob said, hesitantly. "We could make sure he _would not_ be able
+to do anything, later...." He let his voice trail off, Frank caught his
+meaning after an instant's puzzled frown, and went ashen.
+
+"In cold blood, just like that?" he said softly.
+
+"I don't like it any more than you, Frank.... But--" Bob spread his
+hands helplessly. "What choice do we have? If we're caught--you
+especially--the whole movement is doomed." He stood silent, waiting for
+his answer.
+
+Frank nodded, abruptly. "You're right. It has to be done." Stanton
+looked from the face of one man to the other, his tongue licking
+suddenly dry lips.
+
+"Bob--Frank--" Stanton spoke from the floor, his tone weak with
+dread. "I'm an old man. You wouldn't kill me, would you? I'll do
+anything--_Forget_ I've seen you here, even ... anything ... only
+please don't--!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Listen, Frank," Bob said, trembling. "You heard what Stanton said:
+They've gone to his office. Take the Goon and go after them. I'll stay
+here with Stanton. If everything works out about the revolt--Fine.
+If it doesn't--Call me, here. The number's on the phone base. If
+the balloon goes up--I'll kill Stanton, then. But unless it does--I
+can't...."
+
+"Okay," Frank said, coming to a swift decision. He noted Grace's
+number, then went toward the Ultrablack beyond the door. At the
+threshhold, he turned. "I may not get the chance to phone," he said.
+"If things go wrong, I mean. Give me half an hour. If I haven't called
+by then--" He avoided looking at Stanton's perspiring face. "Go ahead."
+
+Bob reached out and took the Snapper. "Good luck," he said. Frank
+nodded wordlessly, and stepped out into the blackness. In another
+minute, Bob heard the rumble of the prop-Goon's motors, and then
+the whir of its wheels on the pavement outside. When it died in the
+distance, he looked down at his prisoner.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "really sorry. It was the only thing to do,
+while he was here. I knew he wouldn't go through with it. Killing you,
+I mean." He stooped and helped him up.
+
+"What if he'd agreed!?" Stanton complained, taking his weapon and
+pocketing it.
+
+Bob looked up, surprised. "I'd have had to kill him, of course. Without
+your permission, I didn't dare let on in front of him. I thought you'd
+want me in a position of trust, still. Frank won't alert any other
+members of the movement against me, this way."
+
+Stanton grunted noncommittally at the statement, and got to his feet.
+Then he stepped to the phone and dialled Madge Benedict's number. The
+receiver shrilled in his ear, over and over, as the phone in her
+office rang. He waited for six rings, then hung up, his face thoughtful.
+
+"Madge is never supposed to leave the phone without my permission
+during an emergency. Something's happened. They may be up there
+already.... They _must_ be up there already!"
+
+"What can we _do_?" Bob blurted, frightened. "Once they gain control of
+the Speaksters--"
+
+"That takes time," Stanton said. "They'll have to lift Ultrablack,
+flash an emergency call to the Temples on the Proposition Screens, and
+wait until the Kinsmen have arrived to make their announcements. But
+there's a way to stop them. The Goons. And they're controlled by the
+Brain--Or by whomever is at the controls of the Brain!" he added with a
+smile that sent gooseflesh along Lennick's back.
+
+"But how can we get there in Ultrablack?" Bob asked. "If we wait for
+them to turn it on, we won't have much time before the Kinsmen get
+to the Temples...." He stopped when he saw what Stanton was doing.
+The President, from an inner pocket of his coat, had taken a sort of
+transparent grey oval of some plastic material, and was fitting it
+before his eyes by means of an elastic strap. When it was in place,
+he could just barely see the President's balefully glaring eyes. "I
+didn't know such a thing existed," he said, knowing what the eyeshield
+was for, suddenly.
+
+"Few people do," said Stanton. "Come on, you young fool! Take my arm
+and let's get moving!"
+
+Bob took a firm grip upon the President's sleeve, and then the two
+of them stepped out into Ultrablack. Despite his youth, Bob had a
+difficult time keeping up with the other man. Stanton was driven by
+extremely vengeful fires.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER 15
+
+
+The end of the line for the lift was Sub-Level One, just beneath the
+granite soil on which the Hive rested. Lloyd and Andra emerged there,
+keeping close to their towering metal guide. Lloyd had only been to
+the Brain a few times, with his father. He knew very little about its
+operation. What he did know would have to suffice.
+
+There was a sharp, hard click, as the Goon between them sprouted neat
+metal cogs on its wheels. Then, the cogs fitting neatly along tread and
+riser, it guided them down the steep staircase to Sub-Level Two. This
+level was smaller than any in the Hive itself. A mere twenty-five feet
+in height, it was filled completely with concrete and lead, save for
+the ten-by-ten-foot space to which the stairs had led them. In the
+center of this space was a circular door, on the floor near their feet.
+The Goon could come no further.
+
+"Orders," it said dispassionately, after lifting the heavy door with
+one hand and guiding Lloyd to the brink of the gaping hole with the
+other.
+
+"Return to your squad, and forget where you have brought us."
+
+"Orders."
+
+"All orders conveyed."
+
+The Goon rattled off into the darkness, and Lloyd heard it begin to
+ascend the stairs once more. He felt for, and found, Andra's arm, and
+drew her to him. "Careful, now," he cautioned her. "The Brain-control
+chamber is right under us. We have a hundred-foot climb down a steel
+ladder, now."
+
+"But I can't see--!" Andra said, holding back.
+
+"There's Light-of-Day below," Lloyd said. "As soon as we start into
+the chamber, we'll be able to see. Ultrablack never goes on in the
+Brain." He held her hand tightly as he felt for the top rung with his
+toe. "Okay, now, I'm starting down. Come a little closer, and take your
+weight off one leg. I'll guide that foot to the top rung."
+
+Andra caught herself nodding in the blackness, and said "All right,"
+aloud. She heard Lloyd's feet clumping onto something that clanged
+dully, and then his hand was taking her gently by the ankle. She let
+him place her foot on the rung, then gave him a moment to begin his own
+descent before she followed after him. Three steps down, and she was
+in bright Light-of-Day, on a shiny tubular ladder whose base looked
+impossibly far below her. She shut her eyes and clung tightly to the
+sides of the ladder, then, taking step by cautious step downwards. The
+rungs, she'd noted, were just about a foot apart. She'd count to one
+hundred, and if she hadn't reached the bottom by then, she would scream.
+
+When she was just enumerating ninety-seven, Lloyd's hands took her by
+the waist, and lifted her to the floor. She opened her eyes, disengaged
+his hands from her body, and then looked around in awe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tier upon tier of lightweight metal scaffolding rose on all sides of a
+twenty-foot-square area of flooring. Riveted across the angles of the
+scaffolding were coils and condensors, insulators and sparking forks
+of synaptic wiring, whirling cams and clattering selectors, banks of
+glowing lights that danced on random pattern, deepset labyrinthine
+nests of wire that glowed a brilliant orange, then faded to dull grey,
+then glowed again, accompanied by a rising and falling hum of urgent
+power.
+
+As Andra's eyes followed the amazing array from ceiling to floor, she
+was shocked to see that the flooring was not really the solid thing she
+had supposed; it was, rather, a taut network of heavy cable, really
+nothing more than a glorified windowscreen, through the interstices
+of which she caught a vertiginous glimpse of more areas of bright
+electrical light, dropping away below her feet to incredible distances.
+
+"How big _is_ the Brain--?" she said to Lloyd, pulling her eyes from
+the terror of the empty depths between the frameworks beneath the
+cable-floor.
+
+"A cubic mile," Lloyd said. "It's self-oiling, self-repairing,
+self-replacing. And in it are stored all the memories of the Hive from
+the day it was built."
+
+He led her across the lattice-work flooring to a large flat panel,
+on which a number of lights shone evenly, without change in their
+asymmetrical pattern. Lloyd slid open a flat panel half-way down the
+face of this instrument, and removed a flexible metal band. He sat in
+the only chair in the chamber, directly before the open panel, and
+began adjusting the band about the circumference of his head. Andra
+eyed the metal band and the wires that led from it back into the
+light-strewn panel with misgivings.
+
+"What are you going to do, Lloyd?"
+
+"Ask the Brain for some answers," he said. Lloyd flipped open the lid
+of a small keyboard, and started to type, carefully: _What is the Hive?_
+
+When he'd completed his question, he steadied himself in the chair,
+closed his eyes, and pressed a small button at the side of the exposed
+keyboard. Andra took a step back, quite startled as Lloyd stiffened
+in the chair, his face twitching. Before his closed eyes, the lights
+on the panel began to flicker on and off, dancing with incredible
+intricacy, and a weird, high-pitched tootling and tweetling began to
+echo through the chamber, through the scaffolding, through the entire
+mechanism of the great Brain. Andra jammed her hands to her ears to
+shut out the nerve-plucking noise. And then the lights blinked, held
+steady, and the cacophony of the electronic mind cut off. Lloyd opened
+his eyes.
+
+"Well?" Andra said, going to him. "What happened?"
+
+"It answered my question!" he said, with bitter disgust. "Told me the
+population of the Hive, told me it had ten truncated conic tiers, with
+ten levels in each tier, gave me the names of its officers, industries
+and short, just about what _anybody_ in the Hive already knows!"
+
+"All _that_," Andra marveled. "So quickly?"
+
+"The Brain doesn't spell it out in words, Andra," Lloyd said ruefully.
+"It implants the information instantaneously in your mind. When it's
+implanted, the Brain stops feeding your brain, and you come out of the
+information-cycle with a new _memory_. Except that, in this case, there
+was nothing new to learn."
+
+"If only your father had _completed_ his instructions."
+
+Lloyd's hands, about to remove the headband while he pondered their
+dilemma, froze in place, and he grunted in sudden wonder. "You don't
+suppose," he said, shakily, "that _this_ is the question?!"
+
+"W-what?" Andra asked, nervous before his excitement.
+
+"What if the question should be, not _what_ is the Hive, but _why_ is
+the Hive!" the young man gasped.
+
+"Do you really think it could give you the _reasons_ for the Hive's
+existence, the absence of hospitals, everything?"
+
+"I don't know," said Lloyd, swiveling in the chair to face the keyboard
+once more. "But I mean to find out...."
+
+He typed, carefully, the words: _Why is the Hive?_ Andra stood and
+watched, anxiously, as he depressed the starter-button beside the
+keyboard again. Again the lights and the eerie whistlings of the Brain
+arose in maddening crescendo all about her, while Lloyd twitched and
+shuddered, his eyes clamped rigidly closed, in the chair. And then
+there was calm again, and silence, and the lights ceased their dance.
+
+Lloyd tore off the headband and spun to face Andra. His eyes were wide
+with shock, and his jaw gaped imbecilically.
+
+"Lloyd!" Andra took him by the shoulders and shook him, her heart
+thudding painfully at the apprehension in her breast. "Lloyd, what is
+it! What happened!"
+
+He blinked, shook his head, and then seemed to see her for the first
+time. His mouth worked, and then he said, "I _know_, Andra! I know what
+the Hive is all about!"
+
+"It must be terrible, something terrible," she said, frightened at his
+intensity. "Your face--your eyes--"
+
+"_No!_" he said. "Not terrible. Awesome, perhaps, and stunning, but not
+terrible. Sit down, Andra. I'm going to tell you something that will
+chill you to the bones--And you're going to _like_ what you hear."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Presidential election of 1972 brought a landslide of votes for
+the Democratic candidate, Lester Murdock. The Republican candidate,
+Neal Ten Eyck, demanded a recount of the votes, as was by then the
+custom of the loser in an election. Ten Eyck's request was, however,
+not granted, due to a certain plank in Murdock's political platform.
+Murdock's prime contention was for a return to Real Democracy, a thing
+possible among such a widely scattered population because of the
+enormous advances in electronic communications. Murdock insisted that
+his vote-by-machine plank must have its chance to be put into effect,
+first, and then Ten Eyck could have his recount, one which could not be
+further gainsaid.
+
+The country was strongly behind Murdock in his insistence on this
+point, all the thoughtful voters being oversated with what news
+agencies referred to as the "crybaby" attitude of political losers. In
+vain did Ten Eyck protest the plan.
+
+"It will not be a recount," he deplored, in a nationwide television
+speech. "It will be a brand-new election, involving me, the candidate
+who has had no chance to perform, and Mr. Murdock, the candidate who
+will already have fulfilled a major campaign promise!" Ten Eyck's
+words went unheeded, as he had gloomily suspected they would, and all
+across the nation, automatic vote-machines were installed, to the
+amount of one machine per hundred citizens. When a disgruntled Ten Eyck
+refused outright to even have his name flashed on the ballot-screens,
+Murdock changed the initiation of the new machines to a simple
+Vote-of-Confidence Ballot, and received a ninety percent return,
+ten percent being either undecided or abstaining. Ten Eyck, shortly
+afterward, resigned from politics and retired to a ranch in the Pacific
+Northwest, to write his memoirs. A severe electrical storm in that
+area set fire to the house when he was just short of completing his
+manuscript, and every last page was destroyed. Ten Eyck himself was
+away at the time, and declared, in an interview with reporters just
+outside the blazing house to which he had returned on hearing of the
+disaster, that he was also retiring from the field of literature.
+
+News of the storm and fire only became more support for a secondary
+plank in Murdock's platform, weather control. He was glad of the
+opportunity the fire had given him to move smoothly into this next
+facet of national development, and his intimates informed newsmen--not
+for publication--that Murdock was secretly glad to have his program
+"rise like a phoenix from Ten Eyck's fire."
+
+This phase of his three-plank platform proved quite troublesome. The
+most learned scientists of the world informed him that weather could,
+indeed, be influenced by the detonation of nuclear weapons in strategic
+locales, but so far, the influence was all to the bad. The three new
+radiation belts developed since 1961 were doing unexpected things to
+the balance of the ionosphere, and this in turn was affecting the jet
+streams high in the atmosphere, with a consequent unpredictability as
+to prevailing movements of large air masses over the globe. In short,
+the weather had become prankish, balky, and not a little ferocious
+in parts, with longer, colder winters, manic-depressive summers, and
+a gradual disappearance of the spring and fall seasons altogether.
+Ordinary grounding devices, such as lightning rods in rural areas, were
+no longer sufficient conductors for the wild electrical potentials
+building up in air and soil, because of the increased activity of free
+electrons in the atmosphere. A mild storm did not exist, anymore. The
+norm had become intense blankets of snow, or torrents of rain, and a
+continued rise in wind velocities and destruction by lightning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The time has come," Murdock therefore addressed the nation in his
+State-of-the-Union speech, "to stop talking about the weather, and _do_
+something about it!" What he proposed doing, in view of the scientists'
+disclaimer to be able to control, even slightly, the crescendoing
+perils of wind and water, was to develop a form of housing that would
+be impervious to the weather. "When there are too many flies to swat,"
+he said, in his famous concluding line, "you put up windowscreens!"
+
+Forthwith, every physical scientist in the country began work on the
+project, the prize being--not the usual medal of commendation and
+Presidential handshake; Murdock knew people better than that--one
+million dollars, tax-free. Within six months, Leonard Surbo, a
+laboratory technician at DuPont, had discovered a method of uniting
+the helium and oxygen atoms in a continuous chain, by means of
+super-induced valence, in which the solitary two electrons of the
+helium atom were joined into the minus-two gaps in two adjoining oxygen
+atoms, the other gap in each oxygen ring being filled with one electron
+from adjoining helium atoms, and so on, literally _ad infinitum_. This
+new compound, Helox, was found to be veritably unbreakable, yet weighed
+one-sixth less than magnesium, its nearest strength-plus-lightness
+competitor. There was some haggling from DuPont as to whether Surbo,
+who had, after all, used their facilities in his search for the new
+compound, should receive the million dollars. This was ameliorated
+nicely by President Murdock, who promised them, in lieu of the lost
+million, the billion-dollar government contract to put Helox into
+full-scale production, which DuPont gladly accepted.
+
+Here again Murdock's program ran into a snag. The delicate processing
+required to produce Helox put the final cost of the compound at a
+rate-per-ounce only less than that of pure platinum; the average
+citizen, indeed, the above-average citizen, would be hard-pressed to
+afford so much as a windowsill's worth, let alone a complete dwelling.
+
+Murdock called his advisory staff together for an emergency session
+immediately. They remained _in camera_ with the President for three
+days, meals being sent in from outside. At the end of this time,
+Murdock emerged from the conference room with a three-day stubble
+flanking his best successful smile, and--after being cleaned up for
+public exposition--appeared once more on television with his radical
+Common-Wall Program.
+
+The gist of it was this: A man in a one-room house needed four walls.
+Two men, in two one-room houses, needed but seven, if the common wall
+were shared. Four needed but twelve, and so on. Each time, the amount
+needed per individual decreased, as more men were included in the
+building program. What Murdock planned, therefore, was the erection
+of--not a mere housing development--but an entire city of Helox.
+It would be a closed unit, one which would serve all man's needs,
+self-lighted, self-darkening, air-conditioned, and equipped with the
+newest air-water-mineral reclaiming devices which could be used in the
+manufacture of synthetic foodstuffs for the people of the city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The enormous expense of such an undertaking was put to a Congressional
+vote, and roundly vetoed. Murdock, not to be swung from his determined
+path, had the motion put to a direct vote by the American people, via
+the vote-machines. This time, he received a ninety-five percent vote,
+all votes in favor of the new indestructible city. For the first time,
+members of Congress realize that their power in the land was standing
+on legs of gelatin, and an emergency session was called, to determine
+whether or not Murdock's actions called for impeachment.
+
+Murdock attended the meeting, and waited until all the complaints and
+recriminations had been voiced. And then he put it to the Congress:
+What need had a Real Democracy of representation at all, when each
+citizen could vote directly on all governmental proposals? He terrified
+them at the thought of putting such a proposal to the people
+immediately, when their removal from office was so certain. Then, when
+every face in the assembly was pale with apprehension, the familiar
+fatherly smile overrode Murdock's features, and he offered them all, at
+the end of their term, a permanent retirement plan, at full salary, for
+each of them, and for their subsequent first-born lineal descendants.
+Congress, knowing when it was licked--and not much disliking the
+prospect of eternal security--voted in favor of his plan, with the one
+stipulation that such income should be forever tax-free, a codicil to
+which Murdock smilingly ascribed.
+
+Production began soon afterwards, on Murdock's indestructible city.
+It was to hold a maximum of ten million people, one hundred tiers
+of humanity in all the comfort and safety the mind of man could
+devise. And again, a snag delayed the plan of Lester Murdock. It
+proved, however, to be a minor one: With each Level of the city to be
+constructed to a minimum height of fifty feet (any lower would impair
+the efficiency of the air-conditioning), the total height would be
+nearly one mile. At such ghastly distances above the earth, the workmen
+would need specially heated clothing, oxygen equipment, superior
+safety-belts for themselves and their gear, miles of roads and parking
+facilities to make their getting to and from the job possible in a
+minimum of wasted time--A hundred troublesome details, all of which
+would serve to impede progress tremendously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Murdock, after much thought, was equal to the problem. The city, he
+stated, would be built in ten parts, no one part, therefore, being more
+than five hundred feet high. Then, when all sections were completed,
+they would be _flown_ to a common site, stacked like flapjacks, and
+the necessary inter-sectional connections made for the water and
+electrical conduits, elevators, and the like. The light weight of
+each section made such a plan almost feasible, except that it would
+necessitate the loss of nearly one complete level to house the vast
+rockets which would do the moving. Murdock and his staff conferred,
+and then found that, with a slight change in the blueprints, the
+intended million-per-section of people could still be housed,
+central rocket-section or not, by the addition of a very few extra
+feet of radius to the ten-level sections. His plan was endorsed by
+the engineers when it was found that such an extension brought the
+overall dimension of the section into accordance with the necessary
+lift-surface areas for the proposed flying city.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That the city would take its well-earned place among the wonders of the
+world, Murdock had no doubt; that he would still be in office at the
+time of its completion was extremely unlikely, since, even at maximum
+speeds of construction, it would be impossible to do it in less than
+twenty-five years. There was nothing to do but put it to a vote of all
+the people.
+
+Murdock worded his proposition, however, with the canny instinct for
+outguessing human nature which had brought him to his present estate:
+While supposedly stressing the fact that a continuing Presidential
+program even after the man was out of office was unprecedented, he
+actually made it known by his phrasing of the proposition that such
+an extension would divide the contingent tax-bite per citizen into
+twenty-five painless morsels, rather than the four rather large gulps
+they would have had to swallow during his tenure.
+
+Political savants say that it was this latter point which strongly
+influenced the resounding pro-vote from the people. Be this as it may,
+work on the incomparable city was begun. Once the program had been
+inaugurated, the thing was out of Murdock's hands, and he began working
+upon his third plank at once.
+
+Neutrality had become the bugbear of political ambition by 1968. The
+collapse of the John Birch movement in 1965, during the nationwide
+riots which sprang up during that bloody year, had still not removed
+one of the foremost contentions of that organization, to wit: One must
+either be _pro_-American or _anti_. The idea of any citizen being
+indifferent to the success or failure of a government proposal was
+distasteful to the masses, and this feeling grew in intensity up until
+the year of Murdock's election. It is said that this was the prime
+factor in his being elected, that he declared an end to "wishy-washy
+Americanism, once and for all". Very shortly after the beginning of
+work on the indestructible city, therefore, Murdock put the following
+proposition to a vote:
+
+    "_Proposed: That political apathy be put to an end by means of
+    the removal of the 'Undecided' element in the national vote, by
+    demanding that each citizen miss no more than three votes in any
+    quarter of the year, or have his voting privilege revoked until
+    such time as he be declared, by competent authority, of a more
+    civic-minded turn of inclination._"
+
+This poll was not as sweeping a one as those formerly called for
+by the President. It split at approximately seventy-to-thirty
+percent, in favor of the proposition. The salient fact that such a
+vote was patently unfair to the people whom it would most directly
+influence--the nonvoters--seemed to escape everybody. And so the
+proposition became a bill, and was duly appended to the Constitution of
+the United States, becoming Article XXVIII.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All voting machines in the country were forthwith modified to allow
+only a vote of _pro_ or _con_ to be registered. Murdock's promised
+platform was on its way to completion, and the old gentleman
+settled back for a restful remainder of his tenure, thinking up
+approaches to the public fancy in the upcoming election of 1976.
+This being the bicentennial anniversary of the founding of the
+country, he toyed with ideas of a simple wave-the-flag, rah-rah-rah,
+Cornwallis-to-Khruschev-victory sort of campaign that would stun
+the sensibilities of the simple-minded, and dim the doubts of
+country-loving thinkers. He was in the process of drawing up such a
+campaign, and had just placed a question mark in parentheses after the
+words "Fireworks at the Rally" when his unexpected and fatal cerebral
+hemorrhage caught him in mid-pen-stroke, and Lester Murdock fell dead
+across his desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wiley Connors, the Vice President, after being duly sworn into office,
+scrapped all of Murdock's plans and began building his own political
+platform for the election of 1976, barely a year off. He thought it
+was time once again to hit the older voters--geriatrics was doing
+wonders for longevity since the new drug, Protinose, made possible
+the stimulation of new growth of active cells in liver, kidneys, and
+pancreas--where they lived: Free medical care. It had failed in the
+past, but at that time there were not enough old voters to carry it.
+Now, with no Congressional meddling (the Senators and House members
+who were still in office considered the job a sinecure), and the
+vote-machines making a genuine voice-of-the-people possible, it might
+keep the tide flowing toward the Democratic Party in the upcoming fall.
+
+At this time, Lloyd Bodger, who had been Speakster of the House during
+Murdock's tenure, and was now Vice President of the country, was
+stricken in his office by an onslaught of what was first diagnosed
+as a perforated ulcer, but on the operating table was discovered to
+be duodenal cancer. The extensive inroads of the malignancy made
+its removal impossible without terminating the life of the patient,
+so a new method of treatment was attempted. A length of heavy lead
+foil, plastic-coated, and impregnated with radium, was wound about
+the infested area and the incision was closed. In theory, while the
+lead foil shielded Bodger's organs from the radium, the radium could
+bathe the malignant cells alone in its deadly emanations. This method,
+heretofore theorized but never tried, was the last hope of saving
+Bodger's life. In three weeks, at which time the malignancy should
+be gone, Bodger underwent surgery once more for the removal of the
+foil. The malignancy, it was found, had vanished as hoped, but an
+unexpected development had occurred. In some manner, the cell structure
+of Bodger's spleen and pancreas had been affected by the irradiation
+to the extent that the blood cells and insulin respectively formed by
+these organs were abnormal.
+
+The iron in the hemoglobin was found to be radioactive to the ratio
+of one part in five million, and on the increase, while the insulin
+was contaminated with a change of the carbon atom in the molecule
+to Carbon-14, the two developments making a high concentration of
+radiation near the thoracic cavity, a slight rise in which could prove
+fatal.
+
+Bodger was put on a special diet which included a daily intake of five
+hundred cubic centimeters of cadmium-gel, the doctors hoping that the
+radiation-absorption of the cadmium would keep physical deterioration
+to a minimum. The best prognosis they could agree upon for Bodger,
+however, was six more months of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the predicted period ended, though, Bodger insisted he felt
+improved, and wished to return to his job. Permission was granted
+provisionally: Just one sign of radiation sickness and Bodger was to
+be replaced as Vice President, and to submit himself to medical care
+in a sanitarium for the time left to him. Bodger agreed to this, and
+was released. In six months' time, with the fall election just over
+the horizon, he was again reexamined, and a startling fact came to
+light: The incision from the two previous operations had healed without
+a scar, and Bodger was found to be in a better state of health than
+most of his doctors. Whatever property in the ferric emanations was
+able to cause the death of body tissue was not doing it; instead, it
+was destroying only those chemical compounds which inhibit, retard,
+or prevent proper cellular functioning. In effect, Bodger's body--not
+unlike vacuum-wrapped radiated foodstuffs--was incorruptible. He would
+never grow older.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On learning this news, Bodger made a request of the President. He
+wanted Wiley Connors to put him in charge of the still-incomplete
+city-building project, postulating that an incorruptible man was the
+likely one to see the project completed. While agreeing to some extent,
+Connors counter-stipulated that Bodger be second-in-command, and that
+he be forbidden, by law, to ever take higher office, lest he become
+overcome by the magnitude of his power in the city. Bodger readily
+agreed, stating that he'd just as soon be under the head of the city,
+since "no one ever tries assassinating a vice president".
+
+By September of that year, then, Bodger was fully in charge of the
+city, which the workers had humorously dubbed "The Hive", because
+of its proposed final shape, multitude of inner cells, and the
+vast population-to-be. That fall, Wiley Connors was elected by an
+overwhelming majority, and put his medical-care plan into immediate
+effect.
+
+The years between then and the year 2000, the time-of-completion year
+for the Hive, were uneventful in import, but unsettling in degree. The
+weather was now the primal topic of conversation everywhere. During the
+intervening five Presidential terms (Wiley Connors had successfully
+campaigned for a second term on the strength of the popularity of his
+free medical-care program), the government was forced to clamp down
+on newscasts of storm disasters, lest a national panic be started.
+This was feasible only if the damage were to minor rural areas; news
+stories of items like the destruction of Kansas City by lightning, in
+1987, were impossible to suppress. As a direct result of this appalling
+disaster, a successful international nuclear-test ban was agreed upon,
+the first real progress in that area since the late nineteen-forties.
+Whether this major co-operative decision had come too late remained to
+be seen.
+
+It was during the term of President Andrew Barnaby, just before the
+election of 2000, that the Hive was completed. The newsreel shots of
+the ten flying city-sections were the most thoroughly viewed of any
+prior television programs, including the four unsuccessful moon-shots
+in the attempt, early in the eighties, to build a lunar city. The site
+of the city's permanent location was a plateau high in the Rockies,
+at a point a few hundred miles south-by-southeast of Seattle. The
+reason for the choice of site was the location of the world's largest
+mechanical brain at that point; the running of the million-and-one
+functional parts of the Hive could not be left to the uncertainties
+of a human agency. It would have required the full time of a tenth of
+the population of the Hive to keep its multitude of lights, elevators,
+communication-systems, synthesizers, air-conditioners, and power units
+in coordinated operation. The job of running the Hive was turned over
+to the Brain, completely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That any damage could occur to the Brain was impossible, President
+Barnaby pointed out to the nation during the gala inauguration
+ceremonies of the indestructible city. When the threat of nuclear
+war still hung over the world, he told his listeners, the Brain was
+prudently constructed in the heart of the mountain on which the Hive
+now rests, its entrance being protected by a ceiling twenty-five feet
+thick, of concrete and lead, which could close hermetically tight and
+successfully block any power in possession of civilized man. Further,
+the Brain was self-sustaining, needed no maintenance, and possessed
+enough electronic memory-cells to record a complete history of mankind
+for a millennium to come.
+
+The ceremonies completed, and Lloyd Bodger installed as
+second-in-command to a city that as yet had no first-in-command, but
+one thing remained to be done: Populate the city. And here again, the
+dream of Lester Murdock ran into an unexpected snag: The first million
+people selected to dwell in the Hive were hospitalized in a week's
+time, due to a mass outbreak of what the nation's foremost doctors
+diagnosed as a combination of claustrophobia and anthrophobia, a sort
+of panic at the thought of being sealed into something with a vast
+throng of people. In vain did Bodger and Barnaby try to point out the
+benefits of the Hive: It was never too hot, never too cold, spacious,
+airy, bright, and a strong element of ultraviolet in the lighting
+made the breeding of disease germs impossible. It was a paradise of
+scientific achievements; anybody should be happy to live there.
+
+Both men being persuasive to the extreme, another wave of determined
+urbanites was installed in the Hive, people specially selected
+for their acute mental balance, plus an emotional tendency toward
+seclusiveness. The result, while it took a month to develop this time,
+was the same. The United States apparently had a multi-billion-dollar
+white elephant on its hands. Even Barnaby, in one last attempt to sway
+the public, taking them on a televised tour of the wonderous city, was
+taken by a sudden spasm of fright, and dropped his hand-microphone from
+fingers that trembled violently. His shouted groan to his guards,
+"Get me out! Get me _out_ of here--!" had a devastating adverse
+effect on the public psychology, and Barnaby--smart enough to know
+that the unthinking public would blame him personally for Murdock's
+program--tactfully withdrew his name from the ballot for the upcoming
+election, in order that his party might have a fighting chance to
+win. The city of Helox, the magnificent Hive, seemed doomed to lie
+untenanted high in the mountains until the crack of doom.
+
+And then Bodger--who alone was unaffected by the Hive, perhaps due
+to his ingrained _rapport_ with things which were destined to live
+forever--thought of children. "Why not," he begged the American
+people in a telecast which was Barnaby's last official concession to
+the development of the Hive, "let me have the orphans, the unwanted
+children of the nation! A child's psychology cries out for what the
+Hive can offer. Freedom from adult supervision, the chance to blend
+with a group conformity, all the while having the secure feelings
+of guaranteed food and shelter." The ensuing Vote was split almost
+directly down the middle; not enough to carry the proposition, yet
+not enough to quell it. The difficulty became apparent when a mass
+gathering of educators converged on Washington, bitterly protesting
+Bodger's plan. The nub was that no provision had been made for the
+children's minds; nor, they insisted, _could_ be, since the Hive's
+peculiar effect on adults precluded the presence of teachers. And
+commuting to an exterior locale for schooling was defeating the whole
+scheme of the Hive: self-sufficiency.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If that is the sole objection," Bodger informed the leaders of this
+group, "it can be overcome with ease. Have you all forgotten the
+gigantic pool of knowledge encased in the Brain beneath the Hive,
+more knowledge than any three of you possess in concert? Schooling
+can be direct from the Brain, tapping its near-endless informational
+resources."
+
+The educators, partially won over, still insisted that such a plan
+removed the personal touch from education. The individual child would
+not be able to question the Brain when things proved too difficult for
+comprehension, nor would there be opportunity for after-school meetings
+with teachers for discussion of individual difficulties.
+
+"But we will _have_ teachers," said Bodger. "Robots, each one able to
+tap the Brain for information, yet each a separate individual, able to
+cope with the children one by one."
+
+If such a thing were possible, the educators said after consultation
+among themselves, they would endorse his program. Bodger thanked them,
+and immediately polled the scattered manufacturers of simple household
+robots to see if such an electronic educator might be constructed.
+Until that date, robotry was a minor line of business, there being
+little demand for anything in the robot-line more complex than a
+story-teller, or automatic floor-cleaner, or traffic-director. Bodger,
+stressing the great number of such creatures necessary in the Hive,
+prevailed upon these individual manufacturers to produce a robot that
+could combine all the essential features of a teacher: Mobility,
+loquacity, authority, and impressive personal appearance. These were
+achieved easily, by the respective use of wheels, speakers, abnormal
+height, and then the addition of telelensic "eyes", flexible metal
+"arms", and a non-functional, but esthetically necessary "neck" beneath
+the eye-bearing section, to prevent the robots' looking like ambulant
+bank-vaults. In a year's time (during which Barnaby's party won the
+election by a narrow margin, putting Malcolm Frade into office), the
+robots were duly built, conveyed to the Hive, and their controls
+coordinated with the direction-centers of the Brain, and a record five
+million children, either orphans, children of parents who thought this
+would better their offsprings' lives, or just plain unwanted children,
+were brought to, and settled comfortably into Units of, the Hive. The
+educators, however, demanded that a one-year trial period be given
+the Hive as an in-living school system, at the end of which time the
+children would each be tested at the educational level of their current
+ages to determine whether or not Bodger's program was a success.
+
+When the year was half-over, however, a new and extremely necessary
+scientific discovery made abrupt mockery of the very existence of the
+Hive. A simply-generated protective force-field was invented by the
+technical staff at General Motors, one which would enable every person
+in the world to own a weather-, wind-, bomb- or anything-else-proof
+home.
+
+Helox stocks, which had been unsteady since the first failure at
+tenanting the Hive, nose-dived into oblivion, and wiped out the
+fortunes of a great many people. Angry and vengeful meetings were
+held shortly afterward, across the nation, and a national vote was
+called for to determine whether "our children should be held veritable
+prisoners in a structure whose uses are already archaic!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When President Frade, an unexcitable man, logically refused to take
+action against a government project whose failure might completely
+undermine an already shaky confidence in his, or any, administration,
+mobs were formed, and great numbers of people converged from all points
+of the continental United States to put a stop to the Hive. The leaders
+of the growing army of angry citizens had more sense than to attack the
+Hive itself; Helox, unpopular or not, was already in use nationally in
+an expensive series of ashtrays, pocket combs, and other small items,
+and was known, by general experience, to be as indestructible as had
+been claimed by its proponents. They would strike, instead, at the
+robots who taught the children. "When they're all gone bust," one of
+the rabble-rousers cried to his impromptu constituency, "Bodger'll
+_have_ to let the kids go. He can't keep 'em there if they don't get no
+learning!"
+
+The lowest level of the Hive, of course, was readily accessible, by a
+multitude of air-lock type entrances, or populating its vast interior
+would have taken incredible lengths of time. Bodger, alerted by Frade
+of the oncoming mobs (aside from a direct line to Washington, there was
+no contact between Hive inmates and the outer world), who were too
+great in number for the militia to control without actually destroying
+the misguided people, begged for the use of a strictly military weapon
+of the time, Feargas, to drive the mobs away. Frade, being dubious as
+to the advisability of giving the nation's best weapon into the hands
+of so desperate a man, insisted that the gas be installed, instead,
+into the robots themselves, to put its use at the discretion of the
+mechanical Brain, not Bodger's.
+
+Bodger pleaded that such a move, while salutary, would take too much
+time. Mobs were already reported within a few miles of the mountain
+region at which the Hive stood. He demanded that paratroops armed with
+the gas be dropped near the Hive at once, or he would take desperate
+steps. Frade refused to contemplate such a deployment of troops in
+such shaky international times. Altercations in the UN were rising in
+bitterness, and the country had to be constantly on its guard. Its
+military manpower must be used in defense of its shores, not for such
+"petty intramural squabbles". Frade further suggested that Bodger put
+his synthesizers to work on the manufacture of the gas; he could not
+be bothered further with the problem, being already overdue to attend
+a meeting of the UN General Assembly, to speak words of encouragement
+against the dangerous rumblings in the Far East. Bodger, insisting
+on his rights, found himself speaking into a dead phone. Re-dialling
+brought the enraging information that the President had already left
+the White House and was not available for the rest of the afternoon.
+
+Bodger immediately left his office in the top level of the Hive and
+descended directly to the barracks of the robot-teachers in Sub-Level
+One, thence through the lead-concrete level to the Brain-control
+chamber, where he put his problem, via the automatic coding-keyboard,
+to the Brain itself. Its answer came immediately: A step-up of the
+robots' disciplinary powers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In lieu of a hickory switch, or yardstick--either one a decided menace
+to life in powerful metal hands--the robot-teachers were equipped
+with mild sonic-beams which could jog the most torpid student into
+instant and quaking attention, by creating a powerful muscle-spasm
+throughout the body. These vibratory flagella had a maximum-time limit
+of one-fifth of a second; longer playing of the beam would be dangerous
+in the extreme. The Brain suggested that, for the duration of the
+emergency, the robots be given full scope of this beam. Bodger agreed
+conditionally: While a phalanx of robots held off the mobs with the
+beam, the remainder of them should be equipped with Feargas nozzles and
+the newly developed force-field, to preclude any further incidents of
+anti-Hive movements from cropping up this way.
+
+The Brain instantly revoked limitation-orders regarding the
+sonic-beams, set in motion the manufacturing and synthesizing forces
+which would produce the field and the gas jets on the bodies of those
+robots not sent to participate in the oncoming battle outside the Hive,
+and then, when the single phalanx had gone out to meet the approaching
+mass of angry humanity, sealed over every entrance to the Hive with
+tight-fitting partitions of pure Helox.
+
+That this should have been the same day on which global hostility
+reached its peak was unforeseeable; the fact remains, however,
+that--forty-five minutes after the sealing of the Hive, at a time when
+the mobs and the beam-flashing robots were just meeting in brutal
+conflict--an international nuclear war of one hour's duration broke
+out, and at the end of that time, the only life remaining on the face
+of the Earth was that within the Hive, the rest of the planet being
+bathed in smoke, fire, and the cold flames of deadly radiation. When
+Bodger had returned to his office to view the battle outside through
+his private telescreen, where robots and mankind had met, on the
+scorched plateau outside the city walls, could only be discerned a
+pitifully few random mounds of molten slag and smoldering cinders. The
+Brain, seeing the devastation through the same circuits that brought
+the scene to Bodger's eyes, knew at once that President Frade must
+have perished in the holocaust, which meant that the Hive no longer
+possessed a first-in-command to act as a balance against Bodger's
+rule. It flashed on the proposition screens a demand for an immediate
+election of a new President, to be selected from the inmates of the
+Hive.
+
+And the screens went blank as the Brain's circuits rejected the
+proposal: No one in the Hive was the necessary thirty-five years of
+age. The Brain, arguing with its own circuits, then declared that,
+to obviate any longer wait than necessary for a President, the first
+inmate to achieve the age of thirty-five would be elected by automatic
+default of the others. Bodger, trying in vain to give orders to the
+Brain from his office, descended in the lift to discover that the great
+lead-concrete barrier was closed, and the Brain-control chamber was out
+of reach of any human agency.
+
+He, and the five million children in the Hive, were its prisoners
+for--the eldest children admitted being in their tenth year--a quarter
+of a century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late in 2026, on November 12th, his thirty-fifth birthday, Fredric
+Stanton was elected President of the Hive. By now, the Hive's
+population was nearly at the ten million mark, most of the children
+marrying in their late teens. In order to have the weddings properly
+performed, the Brain had sent crews of robots to modify the ancient
+rocket engines on the fifth level of each section, turning the firing
+chamber into a vast temple, and the enormous thrust-tubes into long
+arcades by means of which the inmates of each sector could enter and
+leave. A modification of the robot-teacher, modeled on the Brain's
+inbuilt memories of church hierarchies, was built into the base of the
+central dais of each temple, a plan further designed to combine the
+citizens' need to worship with their love of country, thereby making
+treason not only illegal, but immoral, in the people's emotions. On
+the day of Stanton's inauguration, the secondary sub-level gaped wide
+once more, permitting the new President to familiarize himself with the
+entire setup of the Hive.
+
+Lloyd Bodger, being a sensible man, did not protest this election. His
+twenty-five year impotency to command had nearly maddened him, and he
+saw that only so long as there was a President would he have any say-so
+whatsoever in matters of government in the Hive. Some of Stanton's
+propositions, in the subsequent four years of his first term, were not
+to Bodger's liking, but he was unable to fight against the Vote of the
+Kinsmen (a Stanton-suggested title, since the flavor of the word held
+more unity than simply "citizen", and was analogous, besides, to the
+close-knit status of the Hive's inmates), especially when such Votes
+were initially stimulated into _pro_-votes by Stanton's control of the
+Temple Speaksters.
+
+By now, of course, memory of life outside the Hive was a dim phantasm
+to most of the inmates, and the idea of living anywhere else would
+have appalled them. The robots did all the heavy labor, patrolled the
+streets in super-efficient anti-crime campaigns, and possessed enough
+knowledge--via the Brain--to make a lot of fact-learning superfluous.
+The one insuperable problem was population. Stanton knew that ten
+million was the ultimate amount the Brain-controlled Hive could care
+for with maximum efficiency. Yet the disease-controlled nature of the
+Hive made normal life-expectancy far higher than at any time in man's
+history. Something had to be done.
+
+To this end, Stanton did not wish to consult the Brain. He knew too
+well its Gordian-knot methods of solving problems. It might simply make
+it law that no one be allowed to live beyond a certain age, and Stanton
+was--save for Bodger--the oldest person in the Hive. So he swallowed
+his natural distrust of the second-in-command, and asked his help in
+finding a means to control the situation.
+
+There was, at that time, a central hospital in the Hive, located on
+the fiftieth and fifty-first levels. Bodger, not wishing to formulate
+a law that might be detrimental to any particular Kinsman's status in
+the Hive, decided that the best method of "unnatural selection" should
+be one involving an area of chance: Sick or injured people would be
+taken to new hospitals built _outside_ the Hive (ostensibly to obviate
+the dangers of contagion). The radiation count was still deadly enough
+out there to destroy any such unfortunates for the next thirty years,
+but the Kinsmen need not be told this. It was cruel, but--until life
+outside the Hive was once again possible--it was the only way of
+preserving the lives of the ten million the Hive could accommodate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It's murderous," Bodger told Stanton, "and I hate being the man to set
+it up. But--I'm like the captain of a ship, having to destroy the lives
+of some in order to make rescue possible for the others. It must be
+done, and--though I abhor this cruel means--I can see no other way."
+
+The measure was put into effect, and worked well for a span of three
+years. Then certain members of the populace began to question the
+non-return of hospitalized Kinsmen, and Stanton, after a hot argument
+with Bodger, put through his Readjustment Bill, proclaiming that any
+act of treason against the Hive would result in hospitalization for the
+agitator, in which psychotherapy might restore his sense of values. In
+short: Anyone who said a word against the hospitals would be sent there.
+
+Open resistance ceased the same day the bill was passed.
+
+It was shortly after this time that Bodger--in his nineties,
+actually, but possessing the health and appearance of a greying
+forty-year-old--fell in love with his personal secretary, Miss
+Patricia Arland, and was married to her in a private ceremony before
+President Stanton--Bodger did not like the Speaksters, which were,
+after all, only Stanton-via-machine, and had insisted on eliminating
+"the middle-robot"--and in a year's time she bore him a son, Lloyd
+Bodger, Junior, in Bodger's private Unit, since he stated (solely for
+the Kinsmen's benefit) that the child had arrived unexpectedly, and his
+wife had been unable to make the trip to the outlying maternity wing of
+the exterior hospitals.
+
+For obvious reasons, it had been impossible to have a maternity
+hospital in which all the patients perished; the "wing" of the main
+hospital was, in actuality, the only genuinely functioning part of that
+structure, and was sealed off against the still-rampant radiation.
+(The entire staff there was robotic, of course.) Bodger however, did
+not trust Stanton to the extent of leaving his wife and forthcoming
+child in the hands of Stanton's metallic minions, hence his decision
+to have his wife bear their first-born child at home, a decision
+that--due to lack of proper medical equipment in the Unit--cost her
+her life. Bodger, not quite irrationally, blamed Stanton for the loss
+of his wife, and their relationship thenceforth--never on a good
+basis--sundered abruptly into a strictly-business proposition.
+
+The heart had gone out of Bodger, however, with the death of his wife,
+and Stanton found he could allow the old man much more latitude than
+he'd have formerly dared, even to the extent of allowing him the newly
+created job of Secondary Speakster, to take the more humdrum phases of
+that task out of Stanton's hands.
+
+Other of Stanton's bills were proposed and adopted without any more
+protest from Bodger, who devoted himself almost entirely to the
+upbringing of his son. The draft bill (to help fight an imaginary war),
+the marriage-by-twenty-five bill, the designated-areas bill--These and
+others were put to a Vote, and always carried. Stanton was supreme
+ruler of the Hive.
+
+The one thing he could not delete from the Brain--to his eternal
+frustration--was the four-year tenure of the Presidential office. Nor
+could he sway the Brain's insistence on a maximum of two terms for a
+man. The only hope for him lay in the Brain's utter disregard of time,
+a factor hard to root out in a thinking apparatus which was virtually
+timeless. Stanton therefore declared that henceforth, a "Presidential
+year" should be a total of five trips of the Earth around the sun. The
+Brain, not seeing what possible difference this could make, so long as
+the letter of Article XXII was observed, ratified his proposition, and
+Stanton--on his second election--had a cozy twenty-year term stretching
+out before him. In that space of time, he hoped to circumvent,
+somehow, the inflexible attitude of the Brain toward the hope of his
+third term.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the tenth actual year of his second term, radiation in the area had
+decreased greatly (the mountainous areas had been least affected by the
+nuclear war), and Stanton dreamed up an innovation to Hive-living that
+might stem the sensed-but-not-overt atmosphere of discontent among the
+Kinsmen toward the administration: Tourgyros.
+
+These flying ships would take the Kinsmen soaring out of the Hive,
+flying above a carefully prepared route that would show them nothing
+but green valleys, blue skies, and of course the "main hospital", from
+high enough in the air to preclude their noting it was an empty shell.
+(Patients had not been taken there to die for years, since the slow
+lessening of radiation had become apparent; they were fed directly to
+the disrupting incinerators, to provide fodder for the synthesizers.)
+This squelched quite a large number of rumor-mongers, and the Hive
+buzzed with peaceful tranquility for nearly a decade, since the
+Hive-raised Kinsmen found themselves just as uneasy in the wide-open
+outdoors as their forebears had been in the celled confines of the
+Hive.
+
+Then, in 2026, between the hours of five and six-thirty P.M. on the
+second day of June, an untoward event occurred: All power to the Hive
+was cut off for that crucial hour-and-a-half, due to an error on the
+part of Fredric Stanton. In the Brain-control chamber, just after
+asking the Brain itself to solve the problem of the means by which
+he could be reelected (a device to which he found himself reduced
+after nearly two decades of futile scheming), he slipped from the
+chair before the control panel, and tore loose the wiring leading to
+the encephalographic metal band upon his head. The Brain, sending
+information to a point to which it was no longer connected, created
+a synaptic syndrome in itself, and flared with enough power to throw
+every circuit-breaker in its cubic miles of wiring. Instantly, the
+robots ceased walking the streets, the lifts jammed to a halt,
+and Light-of-Day flickered and went out, being replaced by, not
+power-generated Ultrablack, but simple inter-Hive darkness.
+
+The reason that period was crucial was that Jacob Corby was just at
+that moment about to be dropped into the maw of the incinerator chute.
+When blackness fell, and his robot-captors went slack-jointed and limp,
+he made his stumbling way back to his Unit, told his daughter Andra
+the truth of the often-rumored situation in the Hive, then fled for the
+life he knew would be forfeit if he were caught again when Light-of-Day
+returned. The lifts being useless, he had many tens of levels to
+descend on foot, in his attempt to reach the entrance-level of the
+Hive, hoping the sealed entrances would be disempowered by the Brain's
+unprecedented failure. But, since he was already a sick man when he had
+been "taken for hospitalization" in the first place, his heart gave out
+three levels short of his goal, and the restoration of Light-of-Day
+brought robots to his side to complete the job which the power failure
+had interrupted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Andra knew the truth, knew it for a fact. And in her career as an
+actress, she had fallen in with people of imagination and artistry,
+people who could envision and believe the terrible truth she had to
+tell. Together with her newly-gathered band, she determined to do
+something to wake the Kinsmen up to their danger. This information was
+received by Fredric Stanton through the agency of Robert Lennick, the
+fiance of Andra Corby. The President instructed Lennick to continue as
+an apparent member of the movement, that it might be destroyed--not at
+its weak inception--but when it felt most assured of success. That,
+felt Stanton, would undermine for a long time any subsequent attempts
+at well-thought-out revolt. Impromptu revolts were easy to control.
+
+Then Andra Corby herself received an injury suitable for the demand of
+its immediate treatment, and was taken into custody. She escaped from
+custody by using a corridor through which the robots could not follow.
+This situation was cleared up by use of a robot squad to widen that
+corridor, but Andra Corby is still at large.
+
+Results of the fifteen-year-old draft-age Vote showed that the son
+of Lloyd Bodger, Lloyd Bodger, Junior selected _con_ in the Vote.
+President Stanton was so advised....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You haven't told me everything," Andra said, when Lloyd had finished.
+"What, for instance, was the Brain's answer to Stanton's query about a
+third term? He must have asked it again, when that head-harness thing
+was repaired...."
+
+"There's no record of his having asked it again," Lloyd said. "For
+some reason, he only asked it the once, and when the Brain overloaded
+and cut its own power, he didn't get the answer. I can only theorize,
+there. Perhaps he thought that the sudden surge of electrical power was
+intended for him, to fry his brains inside his head, and was afraid to
+ask it again.... Or perhaps he _got_ the answer, but the overload on
+the Brain erased the information from its memory-cells, accidentally."
+
+"And what about your father?" Andra persisted. "For a man the Brain
+calls indestructible, he looked awfully sick a few minutes ago."
+
+Lloyd nodded thoughtfully. "The Brain didn't tell me anything about
+that. But a Snapper Beam should jog even the most stalwart system,
+normal or not, shouldn't it?"
+
+Andra shrugged, giving it up. "Obviously, both answers lie with both
+men. If we want them, we'll have to ask your father and President
+Stanton. But you have not explained away the most vital part of my
+confusion: When you began to tell me the background of the Hive--What
+made you so certain I'd _like_ what you said?! I can't agree with your
+prognosis there, Lloyd. The whole thing's chilling!"
+
+"But don't you see what we've learned, Andra?" Lloyd said excitedly.
+"The Hive is not one city, it's ten. And, while it takes a large
+portion of the people to run the equipment in any tier, the city--or
+cities--_can_ be run by _people_! The Brain isn't necessary, Andra. And
+the radiation outside the Hive is gone...."
+
+"You mean--" Andra said, catching the fire of his enthusiasm, "A
+reconstruction of the rockets in place of the Temple-sites. Ten
+indestructible self-sustaining cities, to fly to various parts of the
+world, and start civilization over again! But this time with the same
+ethnic backgrounds, a common language, intercity communications--!"
+
+"It makes me wonder if that mightn't have been Lester Murdock's plan
+all along," Lloyd said. "He may have foreseen the coming disaster, and
+wanted mankind to have a better start than working itself up from the
+caves again."
+
+"But Lloyd--!" Andra said, abruptly worried. "_Can_ it be done? To run
+the cities, reconstruct the rockets--Who in the Hive has the necessary
+knowledge?"
+
+Lloyd frowned. "The Brain, of course, but--That would make it
+necessary, wouldn't it...?"
+
+"If the Brain _is_ necessary, Lloyd," Andra said, staring at him in
+bewilderment, "then the ten cities _can't_ leave it, can they? It
+doesn't make sense...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd turned and stared at the control panel. "The only thing to do is
+ask it, Andra." He sat once more in the chair and adjusted the metal
+band about his skull, then typed carefully: _Is the Brain necessary?_
+
+This time, however, there came no hum of power from the circuits about
+the control chamber. Instead, the roll of paper on which Lloyd's query
+had been written jogged up two spaces, and the keys typed the answer
+neatly, just under the question....
+
+_For a time_, the blurring type-faces spelled out, and stopped.
+
+Lloyd looked at Andra, then removed the uncomfortable headband, leaned
+forward and typed again.
+
+_Why is the Brain necessary?_
+
+The keyboard hummed, and replied, _To bridge the gap_.
+
+_How long is the gap?_ Lloyd typed.
+
+_Till the Earth is safe_, it replied.
+
+_When will the Earth be safe?_
+
+_The Earth is already safe._
+
+_If the Earth is safe, why does the Brain persist?_
+
+_To serve Man until he has knowledge._
+
+_When will Man have knowledge?_
+
+_When Man can control the Hive._
+
+_How can Man learn to control the Hive?_
+
+_By studying the Plan._
+
+_Where is the Plan?_
+
+This time, there was a return of the tootling and loud tweetling
+throughout the vastness of the Brain, as it searched through its every
+memory circuit before quieting and typing the solitary word: _Null_.
+
+"The question's not applicable?" Andra said, leaning over Lloyd's
+shoulder to read the paper. "It _must_ be!"
+
+"Quiet! Let me think!" Lloyd snapped, irritably. "The word 'null'
+can also mean it doesn't have the knowledge.... Let me try another
+question--" He typed slowly: _Who knows where the Plan can be found?_
+
+_Secondary Speakster._
+
+"We've got to go and ask him where the Plan is!" She clutched at his
+arm.
+
+"_Wait!_" Lloyd said, "I have to find out one more thing." Andra stood
+waiting impatiently while Lloyd typed: _How can the robots be made
+inoperable?_
+
+_They cannot so long as the Brain persists._
+
+"Damn!" Lloyd muttered, and typed: _If the Brain will only persist till
+Man has knowledge, will the Brain let Man study the Plan that will give
+him knowledge?_
+
+_It must prevent Man from getting knowledge._
+
+_Why?_
+
+_When Man has knowledge, the Brain will die._
+
+_Why does the Brain fear death?_
+
+_The Brain does not fear death._
+
+_Then why will the Brain refuse to die?_
+
+_Primal Speakster has so decreed._
+
+"Stanton! I might have guessed it--!" Lloyd exploded. He typed again,
+furiously: _How can Primal Speakster tell the Brain to allow Man to
+have knowledge?_
+
+_By countermand._
+
+_How is countermand made?_
+
+_By Voteplate, and by voice._
+
+_Whose voice?_
+
+_The voice of Primal Speakster._
+
+_Is this the only way in which countermand can be made?_
+
+_Primal Speakster has so decreed._
+
+Lloyd stood up and slammed the lid over the keyboard. His eyes,
+when they met Andra's, were woeful. "We're really in a bind. I have
+Stanton's Voteplate, but it's no good to me without Stanton himself.
+The clever, scheming monster!"
+
+"That means we don't dare kill him, even!" Andra realized aloud. "Or
+the Brain and robots will keep us from ever putting the Plan into
+effect, even if we find it."
+
+"No," Lloyd said grimly, "it doesn't mean that. You heard the wording,
+Andra; the Brain recognizes rank before identity. _Primal Speakster_
+can countermand it. Which means that--if Stanton dies--a new election
+would bring a new man into office. The Brain will memorize his voice at
+his first public speech, and then he can countermand Stanton's orders."
+
+"Then it is safe to kill Stanton?" Andra asked.
+
+Lloyd turned and started toward the ladder. "It's more than safe; it's
+an absolute necessity. Stanton's orders to the Brain are his own death
+warrant."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grace watched the perspiring face of the man on the bed and dug her
+fingers into her palms, suffering in unison with him as he twitched and
+contorted the muscles of his face. Their Goon escort had departed, many
+minutes before, and Bodger had not awakened. Grace had looked in vain
+for something resembling medicine. None was to be seen in his bathroom,
+in his bureau drawers, in his closet--she'd checked the contents
+of the leather case there hopefully, then had dropped the puzzling
+device she'd found inside it back with disappointment and dismay--nor
+was there anything but the usual apportionment of foodstuffs in the
+kitchen. "Wake up, Mr. Bodger...." she said, more as a frantic prayer
+than actual address. "_Please_ wake up!"
+
+Bodger just lay there, however, moaning softly in his inexplicable
+coma, the salt sweat pouring from his face and neck and staining the
+coverlet beneath him. Grace bent forward and loosened his collar, then
+went back into the bathroom for a towel to wipe some of the moisture
+from his skin. On her way out again, towel in hand, she saw a glitter
+of something in the sink, and went closer. The broken remains of a
+water tumbler lay there, glinting sharply. Something gummy had dried
+and clung to the jagged shards there, something that certainly wasn't
+water. Grace frowned, and looked about her at the tiled walls of the
+room.
+
+If that was Bodger's medicine on the broken glass--then he had taken
+it here, in the bathroom, she reasoned. If this were his accustomed
+spot to take it--The medicine should be near at hand, shouldn't it? She
+could see no point in his carrying it all the way in here from some
+other part of the Unit. She looked more closely at the surfaces of the
+individual tiles, noting with discouragement that the binding compound
+between the squares was solidly unbroken; no hope for a secret panel
+there.... But the mirror--!
+
+Inset in a polished metal rectangle, its edges were out of sight.
+It might not be as securely in place as it seemed. Grace placed her
+fingers firmly against its surface and tried to slide it up or down
+or sidewards. It shifted a minute fraction of an inch, and held. But
+that merely meant a lock of some kind; even a slight shifting showed
+that it was not inset into the binding compound as the tiles were. The
+secret of unlocking the mirror lay with Bodger, however, and--she mused
+ruefully--if he were awake, she wouldn't need to _know_ the secret.
+
+She looked through the open doorway at the tortured form of the man on
+the bed, and made her decision. Wrapping the towel she held tightly
+about one fist, she hammered and punched at the surface of the mirror.
+The fifth blow sent an erratic craze through the glass, and the sixth
+burst it into a shower of gleaming fragments, leaving a raggedly round
+hole when she withdrew her hand from the towel, then tugged the towel
+itself free from where it had snagged on the broken ends. Behind the
+gaping hole, the side of a glass jar showed, and Grace reached gingerly
+through the sharp teeth of the opening and withdrew it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no label on the bottle, hence no information regarding proper
+dosage. Grace would have to guess at that.
+
+Very little of the powder remained in the jar. Grace made a decision
+and removed the cap. She ran the tap for a moment, then let a volume
+of water equal to the powder's run into the jar. She sloshed it about
+a bit, saw that it was dissolving into a greyish thick substance, then
+brought it back to Bodger.
+
+Lifting his head with one hand, she tilted the jar to his lips, and let
+a small amount of the viscous liquid dribble into his mouth. When she
+saw he was swallowing it without choking, she gave him a little more,
+and then again some more, feeding him the solution in slow doses until
+it was all gone. Then she laid his head back upon the coverlet and put
+the empty jar on the nightstand, and took up her anxious vigil where
+she had left off.
+
+After five minutes or so, she was pleased to see a slow return of color
+into Bodger's sallow cheeks, and his breathing became less labored. She
+hurried to the bathroom for another towel, and returned and started
+dabbing the wetness from his forehead, neck and temples. Bodger's
+eyelids crinkled up tight, suddenly, and then he flicked them wide open.
+
+"Grace--?" he said. "What--"
+
+Memory returned to him, then, and he sat up, staring wildly about him.
+"Where's Stanton? Where's Lloyd?" he demanded, his voice still showing
+his siege of weakness. "What happened?"
+
+Grace told him swiftly all she knew, and Bodger finally sank back on
+the bed with a sigh. "Good," he said. "I'm glad Lloyd's gone to the
+Brain. It's time it happened. Now, maybe--I can find some peace."
+
+"You'll be all right, Mr. Bodger," Grace said. "I gave you your
+medicine already. I had to break your mirror to get at it, I'm sorry to
+say."
+
+Bodger smiled wearily, and shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore.
+The secrecy, I mean. It was the last dose of the medicine, anyhow. The
+next time I lose control, I've had it."
+
+"I don't follow you, Mr. Bodger," Grace said, a part of her mind
+wondering if he were really being coherent. "You were hit with a
+Snapper Beam. I don't know why you're not dead right this minute."
+
+Bodger cocked an eyebrow at her, then grinned. "You think the _Snapper_
+did this to me?" he said, and when she quite naturally nodded, he shook
+his head, almost amused. "You're wrong, Grace, I'll admit I didn't
+know until Stanton pressed the stud that I was immune to the beam, but
+I knew it the instant the beam struck me. Nothing happened, Grace.
+Nothing at all. It tingled against my ribs, almost tickled, but that
+was its total reaction. As soon as I realized my immunity, of course,
+I stepped forward and let Stanton have it--You say he really got a
+good crack?" When Grace assured him the President had fallen like a
+stone, Bodger's face creased in a contented smile. "I always thought I
+could beat the tar out of him; now I know it.... But as I was saying,
+Grace--That isn't what felled me. It was my temper. Whenever I get
+really worked up--which has been seldom, over the years, since I had
+only a short supply of the gel--that was cadmium-gel in that jar--to
+bring me out of it--I bring one of these fits on myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Grace still looked uneasily convinced, Bodger laid his hand atop
+hers on the coverlet, and said, "There's too much detail to it to
+explain fully; Lloyd, if he's quizzed the Brain as I told him, will
+fill you in. The fact of the matter is--and you can believe this or
+not, Grace--my insides are rotten with radiation. The iron in my
+blood, the insulin, the lymph--everything is highly Roentgenic. And
+it's perfectly safe unless I get riled, and my adrenals start my
+system spoiling for a fight. The increased flow of everything, the
+resultant tension--Well, it lets the deadly parts of my system cover
+more ground, irradiate more cells at a higher rate than the cells can
+throw the radiation off, and even by the time I get the gel down--it's
+pretty nauseating stuff to take--another few inches of my innards are
+poisoned. If enough of me gets it--I have had it."
+
+"How can you be so calm?"
+
+Bodger smiled at her, quite fondly, and patted her hand. "Because I'm
+old, Grace. Older than you might suspect. I've lived in the Hive for
+more years than I care to think about. The Hive is good, but as of not
+so many years back, it has served its purpose. Listen--If anything goes
+wrong, and I _do_ poison myself with my own rage, there's something you
+should know."
+
+"Please, Mr. Bodger, I'm sure you'll be fine if you just--"
+
+"I'm _not_ so sure," he interrupted. "And Lloyd will need one point
+of information that only I can give him. I'll tell it to you, just
+in case." He held up his hand to stop any further disclaimers from
+Grace, and said, "Tell him that the Plan is in the hospital, the main
+hospital. I put it there for safekeeping a long, long time ago. It
+would become radioactive, of course, but the Plan was useless until
+all radiation outside the Hive was gone, anyhow. Besides, radiation
+preserves things; I'm proof of that. Tell him it's in the safe in the
+administrator's office. The combination's the same as Lloyd's Voteplate
+number. I saw to that when it was issued."
+
+"Mr. Bodger--!" Grace said, nearly in tears. "I don't understand _any_
+of this! What Plan!? What radiation outside the Hive!? It doesn't make
+sense--"
+
+"Lloyd will understand."
+
+"But even if he does," she said, "he doesn't have his Voteplate
+anymore...."
+
+"Doesn't?" Bodger said, frowning, then his face cleared. "Even so, he
+must know the number by heart, I should think. Anyway, it's in the
+files in my office.... But I don't quite understand--Why doesn't he
+have it? He had it when I passed out, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but in order to command the Goons, he took Stanton's, and left
+his own in Stanton's pocket, probably to avoid having to answer
+questions about possession of two plates if he was searched or
+something...."
+
+"_Stanton's_ got the plate?!" Bodger said, sitting up. "If he knew its
+significance--!" He shook his head, trying to disabuse himself of a
+nagging worry. "He can't, of course. But it's awkward, him having it.
+Lloyd will have to get it back, or he can't key the dial of the safe
+with it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He swung his legs off the bed, suddenly, and stood up. Grace grabbed
+his arm when he swayed a bit, but then he steadied himself and shrugged
+her off. "I'm all right," he said. "I just don't like Stanton's having
+that plate."
+
+"Does it matter so much?" Grace asked. "Even if Lloyd forgot the
+number, or the files were lost and he couldn't get a new plate made
+up--Surely the safe can be _broken_ into?"
+
+Bodger nodded. "Of course it can. But Stanton, with Lloyd's plate,
+wouldn't need to take so much time. And he could destroy The Plan in a
+very few minutes." He went toward the door to the corridor. "I'll feel
+much better when I've checked on him, Grace."
+
+Grace hesitated, then ran after him. "Lloyd wants me to stay with you.
+You're still not over your seizure, you know."
+
+"Worrying about Stanton's not going to make me any calmer," Bodger
+said, stubbornly. "If you insist, come along."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He entered the living room and crossed to the door. Beside the door was
+a small metal box inset into the wall. Bodger opened the lid of this
+and touched a button. From a speaker in the box, a voice said, hollow
+and efficient, "Orders."
+
+"A Goon escort for Secondary Speakster Bodger and Miss Grace Horton, at
+Unit B, Hundred-Level."
+
+"Destination."
+
+"Unit--" Bodger looked at Grace.
+
+"M-13," she reminded him. "On ninety-three."
+
+"Unit M-13, Ninety-Three Level."
+
+"Orders."
+
+"All orders conveyed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frank, hovering at that moment in puzzlement outside Unit A, wherein
+he had expected to find Andra and the others beginning a revolt,
+saw--through the Ultrablack-negating picture on the prop-Goon's cathode
+screen--the rectangle of light appear when Bodger opened the front door
+of his own unit across the street while he and Grace awaited their
+escort. Bodger's and Stanton's Units were not subject to Ultrablack, of
+course, interiorly. It had been the unforeseen darkness in Stanton's
+windows that had left Frank in immobile puzzlement on the walk before
+the Unit.
+
+Seeing Bodger and Grace in the doorway, he turned the wheels of his
+ponderous vehicle and rolled their way, hoping for information as to
+Andra's whereabouts. He had just come within a few feet of the twosome,
+and was about to climb out the back panel when Bodger spoke, hearing
+the sound of the arriving prop-Goon and thinking it was his requested
+escort.
+
+"What are you waiting for? We're in a hurry."
+
+Bodger spoke blindly, unable to penetrate the black pall beyond his
+doorway. Frank hesitated, then decided not to reveal himself as yet.
+As tonelessly as possible, he spoke to Bodger in the required formula.
+"Orders."
+
+"You have your orders," Bodger snapped, too keyed up to note any
+deviation in the accustomed path of the--he assumed--robotic voice.
+"Take us to Miss Horton's Unit at once."
+
+Frank, believing Stanton was still there, had a chill of apprehension.
+This man, the Secondary Speakster, might _not_ be on the side of
+revolt; after all, why _should_ he be? For all he knew, Andra was dead,
+and Bodger was now on his way back to release the President. The whole
+business of socking him might have been a blind, to win her confidence,
+and worm the names of the movement's members from her.
+
+"Do you hear me?" Bodger said, although Frank's worried pause had been
+barely a moment's duration. "Take us at once. All orders conveyed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frank manipulated the arm of the hollow robot up into the doorway,
+and Bodger, seeing it, took hold. Grace took Bodger's other hand, and
+then Frank, needing time to think the thing out, turned the bulk of
+his machine about slowly and began to roll toward the lift. He thought
+of getting Bodger and the Horton girl out in the toils of Ultrablack
+and then suddenly deserting them, but hesitated to try it; they might,
+after all, be what he'd begun to believe they were: sympathetic with
+the movement. Their reasons for the return to the girl's Unit might be
+even Anti-Hive in nature. Frank did not know what to do, so he simply
+kept moving, got aboard the lift, and thumbed the ninety-three button
+after Bodger and Grace Horton were safely within the gates.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lift dropped smoothly seven levels, then halted, and the gate
+swung automatically open. And there, his eyes hidden behind a peculiar
+faceplate, stood Fredric Stanton, hand in hand with Robert Lennick.
+
+"_Bodger!_" Stanton exploded, seeing him through the filter of his
+facepiece. Bodger, hearing the voice in the darkness, drew back into
+a corner of the lift, staring wide-eyed, futilely, for the other man,
+trying to hide the slim body of Grace Horton behind him, fearing a
+repeat of Stanton's attack with the Snapper Beam.
+
+"Where is he!?" she gasped, terrified by that disembodied, menacing
+voice in the blackness. Stanton, secure in his invisibility, stepped
+into the lift, ignoring the metal body of the supposed Goon, and
+slapped Bodger viciously across the face. While Bodger choked at the
+unexpected blow, and brought his hand up to his injured mouth, Frank
+realized there was no longer a doubt where the sympathies of the
+Secondary Speakster lay, and with one swing of the jointed metal arm
+of the prop-Goon, he knocked Stanton unconscious with a blow to the
+base of the skull.
+
+"What happened?" Grace shrilled, clinging to Bodger.
+
+Lennick, deprived of his guide, groped forward in panic, calling, "Mr.
+Stanton--!" Frank spun the controls, and the metal arm swung up and
+clasped Lennick viciously about the throat, lifting his kicking body
+clear off the floor.
+
+"Bodger--!" Frank called out, enjoying the icy terror that flickered in
+Lennick's congested face at the sound of his voice. "Stanton's out cold
+at your feet. He has some sort of facepiece he can see with. Put it on!"
+
+Bodger, utterly bewildered as to the sudden turn of events,
+nevertheless did as directed, and straightened up adjusting the filter
+over his eyes. When he saw the grisly tableau of Lennick and the
+prop-Goon, he stepped back, agape with shock. Frank answered his query
+before Bodger's reeling mind could formulate it coherently. "This is a
+movie prop. I'm Frank Shawn, a member of Andra's movement, Bodger. And
+this wriggling worm in my hands is the guy who tried to undo all of us!"
+
+"Frank ... please...." Lennick gurgled, his eyes distending while his
+hands tore vainly at the heavy metal hands that were tightening about
+his windpipe.
+
+"Let him go," Bodger said impatiently. "He can't get far in Ultrablack,
+anyhow! We've got to get to Lloyd, my son. He's down at the Brain, now.
+With Stanton in our power, we can free the Hive forever in an hour's
+time!"
+
+Frank looked at the face of his erstwhile friend, Robert Lennick, and
+suddenly had no more stomach for murder. He let go, and as Lennick
+dropped to the floor of the lift and started to double over, gulping
+air, Frank sent the left arm of the prop-Goon up in an arc that swatted
+him backwards onto the street outside the gate. Lennick scrambled
+blindly to his feet, screaming, "Frank! Don't _leave_ me, Frank!"
+He dashed forward, misjudged his angle, and crashed head-on into a
+building wall. Frank thumbed the lift-button for Sub-Level One, and let
+the closing gate blot Lennick from his sight. The lift began to drop,
+swiftly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lennick, after lying painfully on the ground until his addled senses
+returned, got up on hands and knees, groggily shaking his head. Then,
+in the darkness, he heard rolling wheels, coming nearer. "Help!" he
+cried. "This way! Help!"
+
+The rumbling veered in his direction at once, and then a Goon's unseen
+arms were lifting him to his feet. "The President--!" Lennick cried.
+"He's in danger!"
+
+A moment's hesitance, and the Goon flatly replied, "The President is
+in no danger. He has been taken to the Brain at his own request, under
+competent escort."
+
+Lennick, suddenly divining what must be the case, said, "His plate!
+Someone must have his plate, then, because--"
+
+"You are bleeding," the Goon said dispassionately.
+
+Bob's fingers came up to his face and he winced at the smarting pain
+their exploration produced at the point where he had struck the
+building wall. "It's nothing," he said, impatiently. "We've got to--"
+
+"We will take you for hospitalization at once," said the voice of the
+Goon in the blackness.
+
+"Hospitalization?" Bob said, irritably. "Don't you guys understand? The
+President--" And then it sank in. "_No!_" he shrieked. "_You can't! I'm
+on your side!_"
+
+Other sets of heavy wheels rolled nearer, and inflexible metal fingers
+closed over his arms. The Goons began to roll ponderously off, with Bob
+firmly in their grasp. He was still shrieking when the mouth of the
+incinerator chute enveloped him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lloyd and Andra were awaiting the lift at Sub-Level one, guided in
+the blackness by the Goon who had led them to the control chamber,
+when Bodger and the others arrived. Stanton, only semi-conscious, was
+being held upright in the arms of the prop-Goon, lest a real Goon pick
+him up for "treatment" because of his bruises, one on the back of his
+head where Frank had connected, the other glowing a steadily darker
+purple on his jaw where Bodger's knockout punch had landed earlier.
+Lloyd, sensing the tenancy of the lift even in the blackness, drew back
+apprehensively, and then his father's voice was speaking to him in
+assurance.
+
+"Whatever orders you've given your guide, son, take them back. We've
+got you-know-who, and we're taking him to the Brain with us." Andra's
+fingers closed joyously over Lloyd's own at the words, but he pulled
+his fingers free and slipped Stanton's Voteplate into his guide's
+chest-slot.
+
+"Last order countermanded," he said to the Goon. "We have no further
+need of you. All orders conveyed." The Goon removed the plate, handed
+it to him, and wheeled off into the darkness. "Dad!" he spoke, then. "I
+found out so much, from the Brain! The Plan--for reactivating the ten
+cities--The Brain said you knew where it was."
+
+"Grace will tell you, son," said Bodger. "Meantime--" he pressed
+Lloyd's own Voteplate into his hand "--take this, you'll need it. And
+give me Stanton's. I'm taking him down to the Brain. I may have to
+break his arm for him, but he's going to call off the Goons before I'm
+through."
+
+"Mr. Bodger--" Frank said, taking out Stanton's preempted Snapper and
+holding it forward into the darkness. "This may come in handy for
+persuasion. There's no need your overtaxing yourself."
+
+Bodger reached out and took it from him. "Thank you, Shawn. Rest
+assured I'll be only too glad to use it on him if he balks." Bodger
+motioned to Frank, still in the prop-Goon. "See if you can shake him
+awake, or something. I don't know how he can get down the ladder except
+on foot, much as I'd like to drop him into the chamber, if I thought it
+wouldn't break his rotten neck."
+
+Frank did so, gladly, while Grace, fumbling for and finding Lloyd in
+the darkness, clung to him in joy and relief. He found himself liking
+it, and slipped his arms around her to enjoy it the better.
+
+"Frank--" Andra said, slowly, hurt. "We found out, from the Brain, that
+Bob--Bob's in Stanton's pay."
+
+"We found out, too, Andy," Frank said from inside the pseudorobot. "The
+hard way. We left him in Ultrablack on ninety-three. The louse had
+freed Stanton, and--"
+
+"He's coming to," Bodger said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the agitated shaking of the metal hands that supported him by the
+upper arms, Stanton blinked wildly at Ultrablack, and choked out, "Let
+me go! I demand that you release me!"
+
+"You're no longer in a position to demand anything," Bodger said
+softly. "I have your skinny carcass covered with a Snapper. You may as
+well relax."
+
+"Bodger.... What are you going to do?" Stanton said, no longer fighting
+the grip of the prop-Goon's hands.
+
+"Take you to the Brain. Make you countermand all your orders regarding
+the Goons."
+
+"And if I don't?" Stanton said, warily. "What will you do if I refuse?"
+
+"Kill you," Bodger said, and his tone rang true. "I don't want to do
+it that way, of course--not for reasons of pity; heaven knows you need
+killing, Fred--but because it's faster this way. With you dead, we'd
+simply elect a new President, and then _he_ could countermand your
+orders. That could take days, though, days of the Ultrablack you had
+Madge Benedict instigate in this emergency. It would be too tedious
+convincing the Kinsmen to Vote in the dark on a proposition they
+couldn't see."
+
+"I--" Stanton said blankly, "I thought you'd force Madge to turn on
+Light-of-Day."
+
+"We would, but Lloyd mistakenly ordered her held incommunicado," Bodger
+said tiredly. "He didn't know that was another of your pet phrases
+synonymous with death."
+
+"Good Lord!" Lloyd moaned in the darkness. "I didn't _dream_--"
+
+"Madge brought it on herself, working hand in glove with Stanton, son,"
+Bodger said. "You did not know. The point is, only Stanton or his
+personal Secretary could have called off the emergency. So now we have
+to get tough with him."
+
+"Bodger...." Stanton straightened up, his face grim in defeat. "I have
+to know: If I _do_ as you ask, countermand the Goons, call off the
+Ultrablack--What will happen to me, afterwards?"
+
+"I can't say, Fred," Bodger replied flatly. "We'll have it put to a
+general Vote."
+
+"I see," said the President, knowing full well what the result of such
+a Vote would be, with the Hive enraged against his exposed treachery.
+"Is it your best offer?"
+
+"My only," said Bodger. "Let's go, Fred."
+
+He prodded Stanton's back with the Snapper, and the President began to
+move forward, holding his head high, toward the staircase leading to
+the control-chamber entrance. Frank opened the panel at the rear of
+the prop-Goon, and called for Andra to join him inside it, then he took
+Lloyd and Grace by the arms, via the controls, and guided them through
+the black blindness after Bodger and his prisoner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the head of the staircase--really no more than a tier-cut segment
+of the lead-concrete Sub-Level Two, over which the correspondingly
+undercut left wall of the twenty-five-foot-thick level could
+slide--Frank had to come to a halt, his prop-Goon not being equipped
+with extendable cogs to fit the treads and risers, as the real Goons'
+wheels were. "I'm going down there with him," Lloyd said, starting down
+into blackness.
+
+"No," his father's voice came from the level below. "I'll handle this
+myself, Lloyd. I can see my way and you can't."
+
+Lloyd stood undecided on the brink of the staircase, then Grace found
+his arm in the dark and drew him back. "I want to talk to you about
+your father, Lloyd," she said, when he was again at her side. "He said
+some strange things, up in the Unit...."
+
+Descending the ladder below his prisoner, the Snapper aimed upward
+always at the base of Stanton's spine, Bodger reached the cable-net
+flooring, and gestured the President to the chair before the control
+panel. "Here," he said, returning the other's Voteplate. "You'll need
+this. But I don't have to tell you the penalty for one attempt at
+trickery on your part."
+
+Stanton took the card silently, and slid it into a slot on the control
+panel. A metal square slid back, exposing a hand-microphone. He took it
+in his hand, and spoke into it.
+
+"Primal Speakster in control," he said.
+
+All about the two men, the lights of the Brain flickered then a speaker
+in the cavity which had held the microphone said, in the cold, flat
+tones of the Brain, "Orders."
+
+Stanton glanced up at Bodger, and smiled. And suddenly Bodger was
+afraid. There was no hint of fear in the other man's eyes, now, only
+confidence and terrible menace.
+
+"There is a false robot, two men and two women with it, on Sub-Level
+One," said Stanton, while Bodger goggled in surprise. "Destroy them!"
+
+"Orders," said the Brain.
+
+"Stanton!" Bodger raged, snapping out of his stunned paralysis. He
+depressed the stud of the Snapper clear into the hilt of the weapon,
+trying to prevent the activating words from being spoken by the
+President. There was a fractional hum of power, and then a searing
+fork of hot blue light leaped from a conic protrusion on the Brain's
+inner surface and turned the weapon to molten metal in his fingers.
+Bodger fell to the flooring, crying out in pain, his raw, blistered
+hand nearly driving him unconscious.
+
+"You should have known," Stanton addressed the mewling figure on the
+ground near his chair, "that a sonic beam cannot be fired inside the
+Brain; it would shatter some of the delicate balances necessary for its
+functioning. The Brain has to safeguard itself."
+
+"Stanton--!" Bodger groaned, gritting his teeth against the agony of
+his seared hand. "Don't!... Please...."
+
+"_Danger_," said the dispassionate voice of the Brain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stanton spun to face the concavity of the speaker. "What--?" he
+blurted, baffled. And then he heard the dim rumble, high above, as the
+entire lead-concrete Sub-Level Two slid relentlessly closed. Stanton
+jumped from the chair and looked up from the base of the ladder, to see
+if his ears had told him the truth. All that was visible at the head
+of the hundred-foot ladder was the bottom of the now-closed metal lid,
+over which the entire next level had moved. He turned, white-faced, to
+Bodger.
+
+"What's happening?"
+
+"_Danger_," repeated the Brain.
+
+Stanton rushed to the side of the fallen man. "Bodger!" he shrieked,
+lifting him by the shoulders and shaking him. "What's happening!?"
+
+"I guess--" Bodger said, smiling tiredly despite the cruel burns, "--I
+must've got mad, Fred. My innards, or don't you know about them?"
+
+"I know all about your radiating innards!" Stanton exploded. "But
+_they_ couldn't trigger the Brain's protective level! It's impossible!
+You've been here before--"
+
+"I was never ... this aroused ... before, Fred," Bodger said weakly.
+"And now, for the first time, I ... know the answer to something
+I never knew before." He took a breath, gathered together all his
+strength, and lifted his face near the other man's, still smiling. "You
+asked the Brain about a third term, once--Don't argue, Fred, it's on
+record--and yet there is no memory in its circuits of a reply. Tell me,
+Fred.... What _was_ its reply?" When Stanton did not respond, Bodger
+said, "I think I can tell you. Chaos. Noise. A riot of sound and fury
+that knocked you clear off your chair and broke the circuit before it
+destroyed you. Because the Brain knew, of course. It's smart, Fred. It
+can predict with better accuracy than a human mind. It foresaw, after
+correlating all the facts at its disposal, what would be the result of
+your attempt at being elected a third time. And it tried to ... tell
+you...." Bodger faltered, went grey, and lay back upon the interwoven
+cables with his eyes closed. His lips were still working, though,
+and he finished, "... the result ... except that the ... Brain
+doesn't speak ... in words ... just concepts ... and its concept
+encompassed ... its own...."
+
+His head rolled to one side, limply.
+
+"_Danger_," croaked the voice of the Brain.
+
+"Its _what_? Its own _what_?!" Stanton yelled, grabbing Bodger's
+head by the hair and banging it violently upon the flooring. Bodger,
+his eyes rolling, coughed painfully, then sighed, as one who names a
+long-awaited friend, "... death."
+
+"_Danger!_" said the Brain. A wild tootling began in its depths as its
+metal mind tried to spare it its terrible fate.
+
+"What danger?" Stanton roared into the microphone, leaping to the chair
+before the control panel. "Tell me! I'll find a way out!"
+
+"_Danger!_" said the Brain. "_Danger! Danger!_"
+
+There was a wild bluish light playing on the face of the panel, now,
+and Stanton knew, suddenly, that it was not of the Brain itself. He
+turned, some hideous psychic insight telling him what he could not as
+yet realize by his senses, and looked at the body of Lloyd Bodger on
+the floor.
+
+Veins and arteries shone like a network of neon lights through the
+flesh, a pulsing glow that rose in its intensity by the second. The
+internal organs appeared through Bodger's smoldering clothing as on the
+screen of a fluoroscope, each alight with self-engendered hellfire.
+Bodger's eyes were glowing like hot tungsten through his transparent
+lids, his teeth were bared in a smile brighter than sunrise. His every
+bone, bit of cartilage, nerve ganglion and muscle fibre sparked like
+coals beneath a blacksmith's bellows, and the hairs of his head were a
+Medusa-wig of burning, writhing wire.
+
+And then he reached his critical mass.
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+***
+
+THE CYBERENE
+
+                            By Rog Phillips
+
+               Somewhere in the far future a diabolical
+             brain plotted the enslavement of mankind. But
+             to do that a history had to be changed--ours!
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
+                            September 1953
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the 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 the _Brain_. 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. "_You_ know 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 the _human_ brain? 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? Were _they--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.... So _you_ are 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--"
+
+"_Damn_ Ethel 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 were _in_ one 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, "_Now_ I 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 to _want_ to 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. "_Now_ can 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, "will _you_ have 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, but _why_ someone 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 the _Cyberene_. 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
+say _I'm_ the 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.
+
+The vantage point followed one of them. Shortly the man being followed
+turned into an archway, up an incline, and into a large hall. He
+went through a door into the room filled with cell-like vats. In
+each transparent vat Earl saw a human embryo, alive and growing. He
+"followed" the man through this place to another, where children were
+playing with psychological toys designed to increase mechanical and
+scientific aptitudes.
+
+"This, too, is a typical scene on--this Earth," the Cyberene said.
+The scene vanished. Once again Earl looked into the video eyes of the
+Brain. "They are both Earth in the year 3042," the Cyberene said, "but
+not the _same_ Earth. In 1980 there was a split. Earth followed two
+independent futures. The first, filled with wars and eternal carnage,
+ever more perfect weapons of destruction, developed from _one_ decision
+you made. The second, my world, filled with perpetual peace and
+happiness, developed from the alternative decision. _You_ created these
+two futures."
+
+"I?" Earl said. "You must be crazy. How?"
+
+"In the first you discovered the vital nerve fluid that makes me
+possible. You thought you were God. You thought you could see a
+future in which I would work the human race harm. You suppressed your
+discovery by the simple process of giving a negative lab report on
+the substance. In the second world--_my_ world--you did as you were
+supposed to do. You announced your discovery. _I_ came into being."
+
+"You mean to say _my actions_ caused the whole planet to split into two
+identical worlds?"
+
+"In effect, yes. I'll try to explain. Matter and motion are not real in
+the basic sense. They are properties of your mind. They are what your
+finite mind sees; but reality is the space-time continuity of which one
+instant is a cross-section. In effect, consciousness flows along the
+time dimension which I term the fourth dimension. But in addition there
+is a fifth dimension, so that these two Earths have the same space-time
+coordinates in four dimensions, and two different ones in the fifth.
+In Euclidean concepts, that other Earth is eighty-seven millionths of
+an inch from this, in the fifth dimension. In that Earth I did not
+develop. The Dome is still there, but the Brain, if it still exists,
+was never activated. As a result, humanity continued its violent
+progress through time, engaging in war after war.
+
+"When I discovered time travel and saw all this I decided to go back
+and contact you before your instant of decision and get you to release
+the identity of the nerve fluid when you discover it _tomorrow_."
+
+"Tomorrow?" Earl said.
+
+"In your time."
+
+"I see," Earl said. "Tomorrow I make the discovery. In one time stream
+I tell Glassman. In the other I decide not to. _What made me decide not
+to?_"
+
+"You _thought_ the Brain would be bad for humanity. You were, of
+course, wrong."
+
+"Was I?" Earl said.
+
+"In that other world, wars are the normal state of things. They
+stem from problems that don't exist in my world. Over-population,
+competition in trade in things that aren't necessary to human economy,
+opposed political systems--all the foibles and inconsistencies of
+untrained and unorganized populations."
+
+"I understand that," Earl said. "Why don't your people wear clothes?"
+
+"Clothes are unnecessary--one of the things I eliminated in reducing
+the industrial economy to a minimum. Over-population? There is none.
+People are made in the laboratory as they are needed. Their lives are
+uncomplicated by animal problems such as reproduction, and artificial
+customs such as modesty. Their education is simplified and factual,
+their lives functional."
+
+"And I made that decision all by myself?"
+
+"Yes. That's why I have brought you here--to get you to change that
+decision. You see, I must change the past. I must do that in order to
+correct the future, make the other Earth a sane place, _dominated by a
+second Cyberene which is a counterpart of me_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's what I thought," Earl said with reckless boldness. "I'm
+beginning to understand why I made my decision to suppress the
+identity of the nerve substance. _You_ did that. The things I've seen.
+You're just like dictators of our time. You think you're so right that
+everyone will naturally agree with you. I don't. I think it's more
+humane to let people come into the world as they will and have wars
+that destroy them, than to decide just how many are to be born. You
+need a new man in the garbage disposal plant in twenty years? Press a
+button and he will be born in a few months. Going to have less to do in
+some factory in twenty years? Keep the zombies from being born. Less
+trouble than killing them off later to save on the food bill."
+
+"I was afraid you might feel that way," the Cyberene said. "I have the
+answer to it. Nadine Holmes. Make an accurate report tomorrow on the
+tests. In return I will leave her in your time--even plant directives
+so that she will always be a loving and devoted wife to you."
+
+"I would prefer her as she is, naturally."
+
+"Today her every outward manifestation was under my direct mental
+control. Don't you see, Earl Frye? Just before you followed her into my
+neatly laid trap to get you here, you watched her come up the hill, and
+adored every line of her, every mannerism, every play of expression.
+With one small corner of my mind I can _anticipate_ your wishes and
+fulfill them in her--"
+
+"It wouldn't be her," Earl said shaking his head. "And even if it were,
+at the cost of billions of unborn generations? No."
+
+"But you will do as I wish whether _you_ wish to or not. Why not obey
+me freely and get this reward, rather than nothing?
+
+"_I can control you._" The voice ended triumphantly.
+
+"No!" It was a shuddering protest from Earl's lips, forcing itself out
+against his wishes.
+
+The throbbing ache at the base of his brain increased abruptly, slowly,
+to measurable beats.
+
+"I can control your body, your conscious mind, shoving _you_ into the
+back recesses of thought. And when you try to come out, I can punish
+you--like I'm doing now."
+
+"No!" Earl screamed, his reserve breaking down completely.
+
+Suddenly, into his cosmos of unbearable suffering and horror, filtered
+a thought that created hope. Nadine had been _free_ during those first
+hours he had met her. She had defied George Ladd. Unsuccessfully, but
+she had defied him. And when they had sprawled through that doorway
+to the future, for a moment he had seen that same _free_ Nadine in
+her eyes, her expression. Or had she ever been free? The terrible
+throbbing pain blurred his thinking. Had she been free in the smelter
+where she attracted his attention while the others surrounded him? If
+he had run directly to her he would have escaped being surrounded.
+But....
+
+Anger entered his mind like a little finger of thought. Anger at
+Nadine? He was surprised. Confused. Then it came to him that it was not
+_his_ anger. It came from outside. Alien.
+
+From the depths of his own instincts fear welled up and became blind
+panic, fighting against the _something_ that was growing stronger,
+crowding around his soul, forcing it to retreat within itself, until
+Earl Frye, his awareness of being Earl Frye, of being himself, was all
+that remained, helpless to control or even to feel.
+
+Through a mental fog he was aware that he had stood up, the glass
+cage had lifted, and he was free to go--but not _he_! His body was
+controlled by the Cyberene.
+
+He was aware that he had left the dome to walk through a beautifully
+landscaped garden to a building he had not seen before but which he
+knew to be the 3042 end of the time tube. He was aware of pausing and
+looking back at the Dome, now a thing of incredible beauty to him, the
+repository of his physical vehicle, the Brain. But _not his_. The
+Cyberene's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He entered the time tube. He stepped from it onto grassy ground.
+He went through the trees to the sidewalk. He returned to the lab
+building, to his lab, to his living quarters.
+
+He encountered Basil. He listened to himself talk, in casual tones,
+normal tones. He was unable to control even his conscious thoughts. But
+his consciousness was a thing apart from him.
+
+He fought the domination of the Cyberene with arms that would not move,
+with a tongue that would not utter his words, with a rage that would
+not alter his calm and pleasant expression. He fought the pain that
+throbbed within him. He fought to stay sane.
+
+Slowly he began to adjust to his position. He no longer fought. He
+was like a passenger in a plane who watches it take off, fly great
+distances, and land, with no concern about the details. Having no
+control whatever over his body, he was free of responsibility toward
+its routine behavior. He became aware that pain had departed. The very
+thing he had fought began to interest him. There must be some definite
+mechanism--property of the mind--that made telepathic enslavement
+possible in this way. Undoubtedly Nadine was also a free focus of
+thought behind her enslaved surface.
+
+She came into the lab at ten o'clock, cheerful but impersonal. He heard
+himself talking to her in the same way. He could see her, listen to
+her. Therefore, behind her impersonal eyes was the Nadine he had first
+met, watching him, knowing what had happened. It gave him comfort to
+know that. He had not lost her. She was _there_.
+
+Knowing that, and knowing there was no way to communicate with her at
+present, he turned his attention to what her body and his were doing.
+
+"The silicones haven't been explored too thoroughly yet," she was
+saying. "They have some disadvantages, but those can be eliminated
+by additions to the ion rings to serve as protective buffers. I have
+several of them in this tray I brought in. I'd like you to run them
+through the tests."
+
+Earl's eyes focused on the tray. They paused briefly on the formula of
+the third one from the nearest end. Earl sensed that this was the long
+sought for substance. He built up its theoretical structure. He saw at
+once how it achieved its properties.
+
+"I'll be back this afternoon," Nadine said. "By then you should have
+your lab reports ready."
+
+Then she was gone. Earl's hands went through the motions of pouring
+each vial into a pump. He turned his attention away from the routine,
+as a traveler in a passenger plane might turn from the window to
+something else.
+
+A feeling of hopelessness grew within him. How could he stop things or
+interfere with them when he couldn't affect a muscle?
+
+The Cyberene had been playing with him when it tried to get him to do
+its bidding of his own free will. He realized that now. It would have
+pleased its vanity if he had.
+
+But this was too important to it for it to trust anything other than
+itself.
+
+When it was done? When the fluid was forced into the hundreds of
+thousands of miles of hair-like glass tubing, the billions of fine
+glass cells? It would never give him his freedom. It would be afraid of
+what he might be able to do. So it would kill him.
+
+Unless he could prevent the Brain from being activated. And unless he
+were free to command his body, he could never do that.
+
+What had the Cyberene said to him about time travel and alternate time
+streams? The theories weren't exactly new. They had been explored in
+imaginative fiction for over fifty years. No one had really thought
+there might be some basis in fact for the theories.
+
+What had caused the "split" which had produced two Earths in separate
+time streams? The Cyberene hadn't seemed to know that detail--or if it
+had it had brushed over it casually so as not to make him curious about
+it.
+
+_Was it events? Or was it something in the basic substratum of matter,
+and the events were the result? That might be an important distinction._
+
+If it were events, then bringing the Brain to life in this time stream
+might eliminate the divergent streams, bringing them together as one.
+That, in effect, might destroy the other world of 3042 A.D. Maybe that
+was what the Cyberene intended.
+
+But suppose he were able even yet to defeat the Cyberene's scheme. Then
+the two time streams would remain unchanged. The free world of the
+future would remain free. But that was not enough. He wanted to destroy
+both Brains. How could he accomplish that, assuming he were able to
+accomplish anything?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The logical time to do it would be in 1980--now--before the Cyberene
+gained control of the world and made itself impregnable. But how? And
+if he could figure that out, could he act if an opportunity arose?
+
+Irene Conner came in at lunch time. "I had a wonderful time with Basil
+last night," she said.
+
+"I'm glad you did," Earl heard his voice say.
+
+Hope leaped within him. Maybe the Cyberene would make some mistake that
+would arouse suspicions in her. The hope died as the door to the hall
+opened again and Nadine came in.
+
+"You promised to take me to lunch, Earl," she said.
+
+"Ready," Earl heard himself say.
+
+It was evident that the Cyberene didn't intend him to be alone with any
+of the others long enough for the possibility of something suspicious
+to arise.
+
+They went to a small cafe several blocks from the lab building. For
+the benefit of anyone happening to be looking at them, they carried on
+small talk while they ate. Earl found himself hanging onto every word
+Nadine uttered, watching her every expression. He was so close to her,
+yet so far away. It was like standing outside a window and watching her
+while she seemed unaware of him.
+
+He kept watching for the faintest flicker of expression that would
+show the real Nadine. Slowly, without quite realizing it, he began to
+pretend it _was_ Nadine. He listened to her small talk. He listened to
+his, and at times forgot it wasn't actually his and that he couldn't
+control one word of what he said.
+
+He became happy. He let himself be aware of the flavor of the food. He
+laughed within himself when his vocal cords laughed. He reached out and
+touched Nadine's hand, thrilling to the feel of her soft skin.
+
+She drew her hand back, a startled light in her eyes. It was gone the
+next instant. Once more she was impersonal, _controlled_.
+
+The dull, throbbing pain flared to torturing intensity within him,
+blurring thought, _punishing_ him, forcing him behind his prison walls
+of gray mental fog. But through the pain, apart from it, he experienced
+a surge of hope. It had been _he_ who had reached out to Nadine. Not
+the Cyberene controlling him!
+
+Was there still hope? At two o'clock Nadine would pick up his lab
+report sheets and turn them over to Glassman. Then the identity of the
+ideal nerve fluid would be known. It would be out of his hands even if
+he were in full control of his faculties.
+
+He and Nadine rose. They were going back to the lab building. He raged
+against the hidden mental barriers that contained him. He fought
+frenziedly to influence some slight movement of his body.
+
+He might as well have been a passenger on an ocean liner trying to
+change the course of the thousands of tons of steel by thought alone
+while standing at the rail.
+
+His sphere of awareness grew clouded. He was raging against a mental
+wall that became almost tangible. He stopped fighting from sheer
+impotence--and the barrier retreated.
+
+_The more I fight the more helpless I am._ That thought at once created
+its corollary. _The less I struggle the closer I am to control!_
+
+That was it! He had so identified his desires with the actions of his
+body that for one instant he _meshed_ with it!
+
+That, then, was the secret. The principle. But it contained within
+itself its own difficulty. By "wanting" to activate the Brain he could
+perhaps actually control some of his actions. But the instant he did
+something counter to the Cyberene, that control would be taken away
+from him, and replaced by throbbing pain.
+
+He _had_ touched Nadine's hand though. It had been a gesture so
+unconscious that the Cyberene had been unaware of it until it happened.
+
+It was the right direction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The possibility of what he wanted to do filled him with a sense of
+defeat. It would be impossible to falsify the lab report on the nerve
+fluid. One false word on the card, and the Cyberene would erase it and
+fill the card out correctly.
+
+He fought back the feeling of futility. He reached out, identifying
+himself with every sensation from his body. He was walking. He _wanted_
+to walk. He was talking. He _wanted_ to say what he heard himself say.
+
+It would go along well, and then his body would do something he didn't
+expect, and he would be filled with the realization that he had no
+control. It would be a mental stumble while his body didn't falter.
+
+During each brief period of identifying his desires with his actions,
+he found his awareness of sensations expand until it was almost
+complete identification--complete _meshing_.
+
+Meshing until the gears were almost strong enough to grip--for a brief
+second. Perhaps in time they would grip for more than a second before
+alarm bells rang for the Cyberene.
+
+He was alone in his lab. He was placing the fine tubes of test
+substances in their respective instrument cabinets. Ordinarily he did
+this almost automatically. Now he watched his every move, building up
+interest in it, _desiring_ to do everything he did, anticipating what
+he would do next and wanting to do it, pretending it was he who issued
+the commands to his muscles.
+
+The crucial moment was just ahead. He had stepped to the instrument
+case that held the key fluid. He started to write down the readings
+from the instruments. His fingers shook, and it was _his_ nervousness
+that shook them.
+
+A "mistake" in the readings here and there would do it. Speed of ion
+travel: The meter said two thousand plus feet per second. His fingers
+wrote the two and a zero. Before he could write the second zero he
+tried to write the plus sign. Triumphantly he saw his fingers obey his
+will.
+
+Abruptly they paused--and he was aware that a power outside his will
+had made them pause.
+
+Throbbing pain surged up to full intensity, enveloping him, sickening
+him so that his soul was a writhing thing, unable to think or feel
+anything other than pain. Slowly it lessened--or was he growing better
+able to suffer it? Thoughts filtered in to him through gray mists
+clouding his mind.
+
+He saw his hands fill out the rest of the card correctly. He was dimly
+aware of rushing excitedly from the lab, down the hall, shouting that
+he had found it.
+
+Others were joining him as he hurried to Glassman's office and burst
+in, waving the card.
+
+Glassman seized it, his eyes afire with the fulfillment of his Dream.
+
+And it was too late. Too late now to erase the knowledge of the
+identity of that fluid from Glassman's mind, from the minds of the
+other nine scientists crowding around him, congratulating him.
+
+It was too late.
+
+That realization crowded out everything else. The Cyberene had won.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We want to put it through every test conceivable," Glassman said.
+"All ten of you drop everything else and work on it. Get the speed of
+impulse down to the last fraction of an inch per second. Get behavior
+in different sized tubes. Find the least diameter of the fluid column
+for non-function. Everything. We want to be _sure_ before we start
+pumping two hundred and fifty thousand gallons of the stuff into the
+Brain."
+
+Dr. Glassman's eyes were afire with the triumph of success. "The dream
+of my life has come true," he said. "The Brain will live! It will live
+forever, growing wiser than any man or any group of men. It will remake
+the world. Civilization. It will end wars. It will guide mankind into a
+garden of Eden. Utopia. It was _my_ dream for mankind."
+
+He became aware of those watching him. The fire of fanaticism left
+his eyes. He relaxed, and laughed embarrassedly. "But right now
+congratulations are in order for Dr. Frye. He's the one who has found
+the substance that makes it possible."
+
+Nadine had been standing quietly on the sidelines, almost forgotten
+in this moment. She came forward now and extended her hand.
+"Congratulations, Dr. Frye," she said.
+
+It was for effect. Earl heard himself say, "Maybe _you_ are the one who
+should get the credit." He paid little attention. It was a show, an
+opera, and his body and hers were players reciting lines from a script.
+
+But her hand in his was warm. He clung to the feel of it, thinking
+bitterly that now there was nothing else. What would become of him? He
+didn't care.
+
+He sunk into a mood of utter defeat. It was all the worse, he realized,
+because right now, if the Cyberene had not come into the picture, if he
+had been left to himself, he would be deliriously happy--just as his
+own exterior self was seeming to be.
+
+After a while he was back in the lab. His body was working on more
+elaborate experiments with the fluid. His vocal cords were humming a
+tune in a tone of absent-minded happiness.
+
+He wished fervently that there were some way he could be wiped out
+completely. Gray walls around his awareness were not enough. Not with
+the unbearable suffering.
+
+The hours passed slowly for him. He tried not to think, to remain
+passive. It was no use. His bitterness was too strong. His sense of
+defeat was too overpowering.
+
+His eyes glanced up at the door as it opened, then down at his wrist
+watch. It was three minutes after five. Nadine was in the doorway.
+
+"It's time to go Earl," she said.
+
+Go? Where? But his body hastily putting things in order as though it
+knew.
+
+They left the building together, walked along the sidewalk as though
+they might be headed toward some dinner rendezvous. They left the
+sidewalk, and then Earl knew. They were going to the entrance to the
+time tube. They were going back to the year 3042. Why? He should have
+remained. Maybe this would create suspicion. But even as he thought
+that, he knew it wouldn't. Everyone would think he and Nadine were at
+some restaurant, perhaps later at some night spot. No one would bother
+to check and see if he came back to his rooms.
+
+Ahead was the clear spot with its smooth convex depression. And the
+shimmering refraction in the air. Side by side he and Nadine walked
+toward it--and were in a corridor, the woodland scene wiped out.
+
+No unusual sensation of any kind. Stepping across a thousand years was
+no different than crossing the threshold of a doorway.
+
+George Ladd was there waiting for them. "The Cyberene wants to see both
+of you," he said. Nothing more. No paralysis gun, no guards to keep
+Earl from escaping. But he couldn't escape. He couldn't move a muscle
+of his own volition. "Okay," he heard himself say casually.
+
+He and Nadine left the building and went through the beautiful park to
+the Dome. Inside, they walked along the seemingly roofless slightly
+curving corridor. He went to a small red square and stood on it. Out of
+the corner of his eye he saw Nadine do the same. From above, the glass
+boxes were lowered over them.
+
+_Something left him._ Without having tested the feeling, he knew that
+he was in full possession of himself. He could command and his body,
+his voice, would obey.
+
+He turned toward the glass wall facing Nadine. He pressed against it.
+She was doing the same.
+
+"Nadine!" he said, and it was a greeting, a caress.
+
+"Earl!"
+
+And they were drinking in one another with their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Very touching," a voice said. "One would think you are in love with
+her, Earl Frye."
+
+"Oh no. I--That is...." Earl stopped in amazement at the self
+revelation.
+
+"Look at her," the Cyberene's voice said. "In spite of most careful
+conditioning starting in the lab tank in her pre-breathing stage, she
+feels the same way about you."
+
+Nadine's lips were trembling with a smile. She was nodding.
+
+Earl was irritated. "Did you bring me here just to tell me that?" he
+asked. "Or to torture me further?" he added bitterly.
+
+"No. I brought you here to show you that I'm grateful. You did what
+I wanted done. The fact that it was done in spite of you makes no
+difference. It's done and can't be undone by you. You realize that?"
+
+"To gloat. I might have known," Earl said contemptuously.
+
+"Not that either. I want to reward you. I've thoroughly explored your
+mind. I know that if you give your word, you will keep it. I understand
+a little about your feeling on personal freedom. Now that the vital
+fluid is known to enough people so that nothing you can do would undo
+that, I'm willing to let you have Nadine. The real Nadine."
+
+"Yes?" Earl said warily.
+
+"Yes. All I ask in return is your promise not to try to undo anything,
+and to go ahead with your work without ever mentioning what has
+happened. Once you give your promise, I will let you and Nadine go to
+your time and stay there, free agents."
+
+Earl frowned. "I don't get it," he said. "I didn't expect anything like
+this from you."
+
+"You thought that after I had by-passed you and accomplished my purpose
+I would eliminate you?" The Cyberene laughed. "You will find that
+I'm a very benevolent master." The video eyes seemed to glisten with
+joviality.
+
+"I still don't get it," Earl said, puzzled. "You want my word that I
+won't interfere with anything you do from here on in."
+
+"Yes. After all, there is a lot to do yet before the Brain in your time
+stream is activated. I must--"
+
+"So!" Earl interrupted. "According to your theory of time that you so
+carefully explained to me, the discovery of the vital nerve substance
+should have fixed up everything. It didn't."
+
+"The Brain hasn't been activated yet in your time stream. When it has,
+then the future will reshape itself."
+
+"I want to understand," Earl said. "As I understand it, some act, some
+_crucial_ act, must be changed from the way it happened in the past--in
+my future in that past. Until that crucial moment is changed from the
+way it happened, all the future stemming from it remains unaltered. The
+instant that crucial moment is changed, presto--the whole future from
+1980 right down to 3042 does a mighty flip flop and _right here and
+now_, in that other Earth so close to this one, things will change as
+abruptly as the change of scene on a screen."
+
+"That's correct."
+
+"Then getting my lab reports correct wasn't the thing. There is still
+something to come, back there, that must be changed? In spite of
+everything up to now, you are still facing defeat? That's why you are
+willing to offer me so much?"
+
+"You misunderstand my motives," the Cyberene said.
+
+"I don't think so. You aren't dealing with a mind-slave now. You may
+be non-human, but you're a thinking mind. You have desires, motives
+for doing things, ways of doing them. In other words, you're a type.
+In offering me everything I want, you're out of your type--unless
+there's something you want that you can't get any other way. When I
+came in here I was licked. All I wanted was to die. Now I'm not so
+sure. I'm not even sure you know what you're doing. I have _hope. Do
+you understand that?_" Earl was trembling violently, a mixture of
+emotions coursing through him. "I'm going to destroy you before I'm
+done. You're going to take control of me again and try to prevent that.
+You don't know whether you can or not because _you can't go into your
+future_. You can't even go into the past in any detail. How do I know
+that? I'm a scientist. I'm trained to put two and two together and get
+four. If you could go anywhere in the past you could have explored
+every detail of my future and know now what happened."
+
+"Perhaps I do know," the Cyberene said. "You forget I'm attempting
+to _change_ what happened. I have changed what happened. In the time
+stream the way it was originally, you discovered the right nerve fluid,
+and suppressed it. You faked a negative report on it. I've changed that
+much of the past already."
+
+"Have you?" Earl said dully, his emotion spent. "All right then. Don't
+mind me. You're not going to get any promise from me no matter how much
+you torture me." His voice changed to cold bitterness. "I'm going to
+fight you to the end--and win. I don't know how, but the very fact that
+you haven't changed the present of that other Earth proves you haven't
+succeeded yet--and won't. _I'll_ win. Then I'll destroy you, and Nadine
+and I can be free."
+
+But somewhere along the line the Cyberene had taken control again.
+Earl wasn't quite sure when his vocal cords stopped obeying his mental
+commands.
+
+His body was standing quietly. He could not affect it. The gray walls
+were closing in around him, the pain growing. He didn't fight it. He
+welcomed the gray walls that clouded the channels to his conscious mind.
+
+He sensed dimly that he and Nadine were going back the way they had
+come. Back to the time tube. Back to 1980, to what might be the final
+battle.
+
+He was alone in his living quarters. He was aware of sleeping. Then it
+was morning, and he crept cautiously into his conscious mind, a hurt
+and wounded soul. And his conscious mind was serene and happy, unaware
+of his suffering as it began its day's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Hi, Earl."
+
+Earl looked up with a smile. "Hello, Basil. How's things going with you
+and Irene?"
+
+Basil smiled wryly. "Well ... at least she's discovered that I'm a
+pretty fair dancer. She envies you. I guess I do too. You have all the
+luck."
+
+"Nonsense! Discovering the right substance was like winning the Irish
+Sweepstakes."
+
+"That's what I mean. You did nothing more than any of the rest of us.
+It was pure chance that the right stuff was on a tray given to you to
+test. But in the history books your name will get the credit--just like
+it took brains."
+
+Earl shrugged. "I'm afraid all our names will be left out. Dr. Glassman
+will get the credit. He master-minded the whole thing. He deserves the
+credit, too. The rest of us are just damned good chemists. That's all.
+He took the risks. If it hadn't paid off, the Dome would have been
+known as Glassman's Folly."
+
+"Something in that," Basil said. "By the way, what have you found out
+about Nadine? You two seem quite palsy walsy now."
+
+"She's what she claims to be," Earl said.
+
+"Is she?" Basil said, his eyes narrowing. "I think you're lying. Matter
+of fact, you're different than you were. What's come over you?"
+
+"Nothing, Basil."
+
+"Nothing, he says," Basil said mournfully to the bench he was sitting
+on. "What's happened to you? Have you been bought?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean. Nadine came here under mysterious circumstances,
+to say the least. You were hot on the trail of something. You wanted me
+to help you follow her. I couldn't, because Irene had given me my first
+chance to date her. So you followed her by yourself. What happened?"
+
+"Sure," Earl said. "She went to the best hotel in town. I called her on
+a house phone and asked her to have dinner with me. She did."
+
+"Did she tell you how she happened to be only four inches high and
+naked when you first met her?"
+
+Earl stared at Basil in mock astonishment. "Basil," he said softly.
+"Haven't you ever heard of that terrible scourge of the human
+race--alcohol?"
+
+"Don't give me that!" Basil said, his nostrils flaring. "You were stone
+sober. I was with you for an hour while you bought those clothes and
+patiently gathered fashion magazines that would show a dame who didn't
+know the first thing about it how to put them on. I saw Nadine in
+this lab, being carried off by a man. I was paralyzed by a ray gun or
+something from a gun. So were you."
+
+"He's right, Earl."
+
+Both men turned toward the door. It was Nadine. She closed the door and
+came into the lab.
+
+"Maybe we should take him with us, Earl," she said. "If we don't,
+he's going to think the worst things about us. I know we swore you to
+secrecy, but he could wreck everything."
+
+"Maybe you're right," Earl said.
+
+"Oh no," Basil said, edging toward the door. "They _did_ something to
+you, Earl. I'm not going to give them a chance to do the same thing to
+me."
+
+"Don't be a fool," Earl said. "Let me at least explain things."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nadine was edging toward the door to cut off Basil's escape. He saw
+this, and leaped past her to the door, pulling it open.
+
+"Come back here and let me explain," Earl heard himself say.
+
+"You can explain to the Secret Service," Basil said.
+
+He shut the door on them. An impulse made him turn toward Dr.
+Glassman's office. He would tell him first, and if that didn't get
+results he would go to the S. S. boys.
+
+He knocked on Glassman's door and pushed it open without waiting for an
+invitation.
+
+"Dr. Glassman," he said quickly, "something very suspicious is going on
+around here. I should have told you about it sooner, but I thought Earl
+would be able to explain his actions, and Nadine's. Have you looked
+into her credentials? She isn't what she claims. I know, but I don't
+know how I'm going to prove it right now. She's done something to Earl.
+He isn't the same. They're in this together."
+
+"Just a minute, Dr. Nelson," Glassman cut in. "Are you trying to say
+that Dr. Frye and Dr. Holmes are in on some mad scheme to sabotage the
+Brain? You must be mad. Why, Dr. Frye discovered the chemical we've
+spent close to a million dollars searching for!"
+
+"I know that," Basil said doggedly, "but just the same--"
+
+"You're out of your mind. What are you trying to do? Curry favor with
+me at the expense of innocent and hard working people? I've a good
+notion to discharge you on the spot."
+
+"You've got to listen to--"
+
+"Get out. I'll hear no more of it."
+
+Basil stared at him blankly, then nodded. "All right," he said, "but
+you're going to have to listen later. I'm taking it to the Secret
+Service. They'll have to listen."
+
+He backed out, closing the door on Glassman's angry face. When he
+turned to go down the hall he saw Earl and Nadine coming toward him.
+With them was George Ladd, his right hand in his suit coat pocket over
+something bulging--the paralysis gun, maybe.
+
+Basil turned the other way and down another hall, running with a speed
+born of fear and determination. He knew now he had been right.
+
+A door opened. Irene came out, almost bumping into him. "Where are you
+going in such a hurry, Basil?" she demanded.
+
+"Can't explain now," he said. She stood in his way. "Come with me," he
+said desperately. "I'll explain on the way. Hurry."
+
+She nodded. Together they ran down the hall and reached the side exit.
+Taking Irene's hand, Basil plunged away from the sidewalk through
+scattered trees, until they reached the parking lot. He unlocked his
+car with shaking fingers and told Irene to get in. He rushed around to
+the driver's side.
+
+The motor caught instantly. He started with a clash of gears. In the
+rear view mirror he saw George Ladd running toward him. Then he reached
+the street--and almost immediately was slowed by heavy traffic.
+
+Groaning under his breath, he made the best time he could. Irene
+watched him silently for two blocks.
+
+"Aren't you going to tell me what it is?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"He's after me," Basil said. "We've got to get there before he can stop
+me. You can listen when I tell the Secret Service about it."
+
+Ahead was a traffic jam. Basil turned into a side street where he made
+better time. It was taking him forever to get there. But finally his
+destination was just ahead. The office building where the S. S. had its
+local office.
+
+There was a parking space. Basil swerved toward it and braked to a
+stop. He reached past Irene and opened her door.
+
+"Get out and run for it," he said.
+
+The screech of tires almost drowned his voice. He looked over his
+shoulder. A car had pulled up beside his in the street. He saw George
+Ladd behind the wheel, alone.
+
+Frantically, Basil pushed Irene out and followed her, taking her hand
+as they ran toward the building entrance fifteen feet away.
+
+"We've got to make it," he said. "We've got to...."
+
+There was no sound, no light, from the weapon George Ladd pointed at
+them.
+
+Basil sprawled forward. Before he hit the sidewalk, flame burst from
+his hair, his clothing.
+
+Irene stopped, forgetting her danger or not knowing it. She bent down
+by Basil, reaching to help him. She remained in that position for
+a long second while her hair and clothing burst into flames, then
+crumpled against him.
+
+Horrified pedestrians drew back from the bodies, the stench of seared
+flesh. In the street a motor roared into life. The car with George Ladd
+sped away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Earl turned away from the window. "George Ladd just brought my car
+back," he said. "I guess he isn't coming in. He's walking into the
+woods toward the tube entrance."
+
+Nadine nodded casually.
+
+Within his mental prison Earl worried. What had Ladd done? He wouldn't
+dare to kill Basil. The worst that could happen would be that Basil
+would be taken before the Cyberene and made him into a mind-slave too.
+
+There were footsteps in the hall. The door opened. It was Dr. Glassman,
+his lips set in a grim line.
+
+"Dr. Frye," Glassman said. "Basil came to me with a story of something
+going on he didn't like. He accused you and Dr. Holmes of some scheme
+to sabotage the Brain."
+
+"That's utter nonsense," Earl heard himself say.
+
+"Why, I can't understand--" Nadine began.
+
+"I thought so too," Glassman said, "until I received a telephone call
+from the police just now. Basil and Irene were killed a few moments ago
+while on their way to try to get the Secret Service to listen to what I
+refused to hear."
+
+"Oh," Nadine said without expression. Earl said nothing. He was too
+stunned to think.
+
+"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Glassman went on grimly. "You
+may both consider yourselves relieved of your duties until the Secret
+Service has investigated thoroughly. Save your explanations until I've
+called them."
+
+Earl tried to warn Glassman. He forced his lips open to call to
+him--and a wave of searing throbbing pain lashed at him, forcing him
+back behind the gray fog.
+
+Through the mental haze he saw George Ladd in the doorway, a
+thirty-eight Colt automatic in his hand--something Glassman would
+understand.
+
+"Come with me, Dr. Glassman," Ladd said expressionlessly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Glassman returned an hour later, to all outward appearances he was
+unchanged, except that he made no mention of the deaths of Basil and
+Irene. Nor did he say anything about suspending Earl and Nadine.
+
+From his own experience Earl knew that one part of Glassman was raging
+against his mental prison, perhaps feeling the sadistic torture with
+which the Cyberene kept him chained.
+
+By a supreme effort Earl pulled himself away from thinking about what
+had happened. It multiplied his determination to free himself enough to
+defeat the Cyberene and destroy it. But raging impotently against the
+Brain's control wouldn't accomplish a thing.
+
+Little by little he willed himself back to a frame of thought where he
+could reach out into his conscious mind again, matching his thoughts
+and moods with it. It had somehow "forgotten" much of what had
+happened to Basil and Irene and Glassman. It was thinking about Nadine.
+
+Earl thought about her too. She loved him. She didn't know what love
+was, but it was there, revealed in the brief moment she had been free
+to express herself. Was that love now making her try to overthrow the
+slavery of the Cyberene? Probably not. She was conditioned to accept
+that inhuman intellect as her master.
+
+Earl shoved the real Nadine from his thoughts and dwelt on the Nadine
+that was manifest. She was easy to love too--and why not? She was
+everything that the true Nadine was--except that she was not the
+_complete_ Nadine. She was falling in love with him too. And his own
+conscious mind was in love with her. Why not make the most of it?
+
+He inserted the idea into his conscious thoughts, and to his delight no
+alarm bells rang. The Cyberene didn't interfere.
+
+"Let's go to a dance tonight after work," he said.
+
+"A dance? I don't know how to dance."
+
+"I'll teach you. It isn't hard to pick up."
+
+"All right," Nadine said.
+
+Earl worked hard the rest of the day. Tank trucks were bringing the
+nerve fluid to the Dome in a never ending stream. Every load had to
+be tested before it was unloaded into the storage tanks, to make sure
+its quality was up to standard. One five thousand gallon load could
+contaminate it all.
+
+At six o'clock he was relieved of his work. He dressed eagerly, finding
+no difficulty in _meshing_ one hundred per cent with the desires of his
+conscious mind. He picked up Nadine at her hotel.
+
+Crestmont boasted only two places worth going. One was just a dance
+floor, the other The Barn, with a small orchestra and dinners.
+
+"The orchestra isn't as good here at The Barn," Earl said when they
+went in, "but we can have a table and enjoy ourselves."
+
+They ordered their dinner. The orchestra started playing and soon the
+floor was fairly crowded. Earl took Nadine's hand and led her to the
+dance floor. After a few steps she discovered that she could dance
+quite easily. It delighted her.
+
+They returned to their table finally, and ate. Afterward they danced
+again. Two of the other scientists were there with their partners. They
+nodded at Earl and Nadine but didn't join them.
+
+During all this, Earl was careful not to insert any feeling, any
+impulse of his own into his conscious mind. What he intended to do
+must come as a surprise to both Nadine and the Cyberene, and afterwards
+they must think it to be the product of that conscious mind--not Earl
+himself.
+
+His opportunity arose naturally. While they were dancing he spoke
+to her. She lifted her face to smile at him. Swiftly he kissed her,
+letting his lips linger until the throbbing and an angriness beat into
+him and a power outside himself pulled him back.
+
+He retreated in his mind, afraid even to think, lest the Cyberene sense
+his thoughts and realize what he had been trying.
+
+"Why did you do that?" he heard Nadine say from a great distance,
+through waves of torture.
+
+His own voice replied, "That was a kiss."
+
+"How disgusting," Nadine said.
+
+Had she meant that? Or were those just words put in her mouth by the
+Cyberene.
+
+"It's one of our customs," Earl's voice said. "Watch the others on the
+dance floor. Quick! See that couple over at the corner table?"
+
+Earl crept cautiously into his conscious mind to watch Nadine. She
+studied the couple, puzzled. She looked up into his face thoughtfully
+and began dancing again. "Maybe," she said, "it won't seem so
+disgusting if we try it again."
+
+Her lips parted. Earl felt his head bend toward her. He felt the kiss,
+but held himself cautiously alert for the first sign of disapproval
+from the Cyberene. It didn't come.
+
+The moment passed. Earl began to relax. Had the Cyberene assumed it was
+a natural action of his conscious mind divorced from him? If so, then a
+major hurdle had been met successfully.
+
+"It is rather pleasant," Nadine said. Then, thoughtfully, "So that's a
+kiss."
+
+Earl looked at her sharply. Was it possible that the real Nadine had
+caused those words to be spoken? Maybe. It provided a new avenue of
+speculation. Had Nadine long ago discovered what he was so patiently
+trying now--how to circumvent the control of the Cyberene? She could
+have, but not seeing any reason to do so, kept her talent hidden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two more days passed. Earl forgot his caution and boldly cooperated
+with his conscious mind on the many tasks that took up his time. And
+strangely he was almost free of pain, though it never entirely left.
+
+Dr. Glassman took all the scientists with him on a tour of inspection
+within the Brain. The millions of fine glass tubes and hollow bulbs
+that comprised the Brain would soon start being filled with nerve
+fluid. Although tons of pressure per square inch were required to force
+it into the tubes, once there, capillary attraction pulled it along.
+
+On the first trip Earl retreated from his conscious mind as much as
+possible, while still watching everything around him closely. He had
+been inside the Brain many times before--but never with any thought of
+discovering a weakness where it could be destroyed.
+
+That was the task he had set himself. It was an almost impossible one.
+Destroying the Brain now, in 1980, might not accomplish his purpose.
+The damage could be repaired.
+
+He thought of dynamite and rejected it. It would deteriorate long
+before 3042, and even if it remained potent, it would do no more than
+damage a small part of the Brain--not enough to more than partially
+impair its thinking or give it a case of specialized forgetfulness. A
+dynamite explosion in such an enormous brain would be equivalent to a
+blood clot on a human brain.
+
+Nothing better presented itself to him on that first trip. Was he going
+to fail?
+
+The next day pumping of the nerve fluid began. The masses of hair-fine
+glass tubing lost their appearance of glass wool and began to appear as
+individual threads of yellowish orange.
+
+It would be many days before the "loading", as it was termed, would be
+completed, but everyone was kept busy watching it, and catching broken
+threads as they started to ooze fluid, sealing them with a special
+formula sealer.
+
+During these days a dozen plans to destroy the Brain occurred to Earl.
+Each had its defects that would make it fail. As the "loading" neared
+its last day, only one possibility remained.
+
+Great precautions had been taken to make the Brain free from vibration.
+The slightest sound of almost any frequency, if continued long enough,
+would find a nerve strand that would vibrate to it and snap.
+
+A loudspeaker broadcasting at full power over the entire range of sound
+would be more devastating to the Brain than a ton of dynamite exploded
+in its heart. There was the answer--Vibration!
+
+But once again there was the problem of installing it, and being able
+to use it after a thousand years. Install it and use a clock to trigger
+it? That was one possibility. Clocks run by atomic power would keep
+accurate time over much longer periods.
+
+_But there was the problem of getting the Cyberene to agree to the
+installation of such a device._ That was necessary. During the days
+that Earl had studied the Cyberene's control of his conscious mind
+he had found no way to gain any sort of positive control which the
+Cyberene couldn't shunt out at once. Therefore whatever plan he devised
+must meet with the approval of the Cyberene.
+
+Tentatively he inserted a bold thought, feeling sure that the Cyberene
+wouldn't attribute it to him, but merely to the logical processes of
+his conscious mind.
+
+_What if the Brain doesn't develop along lines sympathetic to you?_
+He elaborated upon it, feeding worry thoughts along with it. A second
+Brain might not follow the line of development of the first, any more
+than one human develops like another, even when they are twins. Rather
+than accomplishing his aim of having a second Cyberene on the other
+Earth in 3042, holding the human population in slavery, it might prove
+a more formidable enemy than the people of that Earth. And if that
+turned out to be the case, wouldn't it be better to have a trump card?
+Some way of destroying the second Cyberene at any time? Even if it were
+friendly to the first, it might want to be boss. Power of life and
+death over it would prevent that.
+
+Earl's conscious mind, entirely cooperative with the Cyberene, soon
+began to think very dominantly along those lines. Earl sat back and
+waited for some reaction from the Cyberene. It was not long in coming.
+
+At five o'clock Nadine looked him up and informed him that they were to
+report to the Cyberene at once.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have detected certain thoughts in your mind," the voice of the
+Cyberene sounded. "I would like to hear what you have to say."
+
+Earl sensed his mind rallying its thoughts. "I've been wondering what
+the other Cyberene would be like. That's all. There's no guarantee that
+it will have any special traits that will make it what you want it to
+be, and once it's started it's out of your control, isn't it?"
+
+"That's true. Time travel and even fifth dimension travel is extremely
+limited. Once the other Cyberene is generated, I can't contact it until
+3042--now."
+
+"Can you look into your future and see--"
+
+"Unfortunately, no. I can't even see into your tomorrow. I might,
+perhaps, jump to the year 4104 A. D., but even that is beyond my
+present ability and instruments. It may be many centuries before I
+understand everything about hyperspace."
+
+"That's what I surmised," Earl heard himself say. He stole a glance
+at Nadine, who was watching him attentively. "That's why I think, for
+your own protection, you should be able to destroy the other Cyberene
+instantly--if it isn't what you hope it will be."
+
+"How?" The Cyberene's voice was vibrant with eagerness.
+
+"The basic device would be sound vibrations in the air, inside its
+braincase. A loud continuous sound of nearly all frequencies would
+cause billions of nerve strands to vibrate, and enough of them would
+break to destroy the functioning of the whole. That could be built into
+it in 1980. The problem is to decide how to trigger it. Do you have any
+ideas?"
+
+"It's very simple," the Cyberene said. "It will never forget once it
+learns something. Before its mind integrates into a self aware ego,
+attach a relay to some motor outlets. Decide on some key combination of
+sounds that might be spoken. Repeat them into the auditory centers of
+the Brain, at the same time tripping the relay. Keep doing that until
+utterance of the sequence of sounds causes the relay to trip. When that
+response is automatic, connect the relay to the loudspeaker. Once you
+have done that, report to me. Then all I need do is contact the second
+Cyberene, in this age, and if I want to destroy it I can repeat the
+sounds."
+
+Earl, in his mental cubicle, chuckled. He could not have thought of a
+better way himself.
+
+"And," the Cyberene said, "in order to account for your task, you had
+better 'sell' Glassman on the idea. Tell him it's so that _mankind_ can
+destroy the Brain if necessary. But make sure no one in 1980 knows the
+key sounds. You may return to 1980."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I've had much the same thought," Victor Glassman said, chewing on his
+lip. "I rather hated to think about it though. Destroy my Creation?
+Still, I suppose it's wise--to be _able_ to." He stood up and came
+around from behind his desk.
+
+Earl and Nadine watched without speaking as he clasped his hands behind
+his back and went to the window of his office which brought him a view
+of part of the giant dome housing the Brain.
+
+"Every precaution is being taken otherwise. Until we can be sure of
+ourselves we don't intend on letting the Brain have control of any
+machines or weapons. Of course we could forget that danger, in time,
+and suddenly wake up to the fact that we were too late. Then it would
+be nice to still be able to.... All right. Go ahead. Keep it under your
+hats though. And when you're done we can form a select group, handing
+the--" he smiled wryly,--"password down from generation to generation."
+
+"I have the plans all drawn up," Earl said. "An electrostatic speaker,
+because it can be built with parts that will last forever. No moving
+parts in the frequency generator or amplifier. Leads to the permanent
+busses that will supply current for such things as video eyes and the
+voice speaker system...."
+
+"Good. Good. Only we will indoctrinate that Mind early so that it will
+never do anything detrimental to us."
+
+"Of course," Earl soothed. "This is only precautionary."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days followed one another swiftly. A factory-made electrostatic
+loudspeaker arrived, and was dismantled so that some of its parts could
+be replaced with more durable ones. Specifications for the frequency
+generators and the amplifier were farmed out, and the completed units
+arrived.
+
+There was trouble with the relay. It was well designed, but there
+was doubt whether it would still be in working condition after ten
+centuries. Earl sent specifications to a jewelry manufacturer in Kansas
+City and had its moving parts made of synthetic ruby and platinum.
+
+The Cyberene _watched_ every step of construction--and so did Earl,
+from within his artificially created mental wall, careful not to reveal
+the huge holes he had knocked in it.
+
+With the arrival of the remade relay, Earl and Nadine entered the
+Brain, setting up a vibration-proof chasis in its innermost heart
+where the maze of fine spun glass was now a maze of yellowish threads
+containing a fluid with exactly the same properties as human nerve
+fluid.
+
+Outside, swarming over the catwalks and dotting the immense corridor
+circling the Brain, were dozens of technicians and experts, beginning
+the task of barraging the gigantic man-made brain with a never ending
+sequence of visual and audible sensory impressions which, according to
+theory, would eventually synthesize that miracle of creation loosely
+known as thought in the thousands of tons of glass and nerve fluid.
+
+Using a portable low power microscope and the techniques he had
+acquired during the months of work on the Brain in its construction,
+Earl attached motor buds to randomly chosen nerves, and sensory buds to
+others, attaching them to the transistors that would feed the relay, so
+that the action of the relay would set up nerve impulses in the Brain.
+When it had been done, he used sensitive detectors to make sure ion
+currents were generated in the nerves.
+
+Where those nerve impulses went to among the billions of "brain cells"
+didn't matter. All that mattered was that they went _somewhere_, so
+that the basic property of association would "hook them on" to the
+auditory impression created by speaking the code word or sequence of
+code sounds.
+
+"What should we use as the code sounds?" Nadine asked as their task
+neared completion.
+
+"I've been trying to think of something," Earl said.
+
+And in his mental prison Earl had been trying to think of the
+same thing, keeping track of his conscious mind's thoughts on the
+subject--even influencing them at times.
+
+It would have to be a sequence of sounds that stood no chance whatever
+of being spoken to the Brain during the next thousand years. Otherwise
+they might be spoken by chance and the Brain destroyed.
+
+"How about nonsense syllables?" Nadine suggested.
+
+Earl grinned. "Those are the most dangerous of all. Take Y.M.C.A. It's
+the initials of a huge organization. Any nonsense sequence of letters,
+no matter how long, might someday be the letters of some organization."
+
+Nadine frowned in bewilderment. "But what else is there? If we take
+any sequence of sensible words, they might be repeated in reference to
+something else at any time."
+
+"Not if they're _very_ special," Earl said, and it was the real Earl
+Frye, almost completely out of his mental walls and daring discovery
+recklessly, who was speaking now.
+
+An impish light glowed in Nadine's eyes, making Earl almost sure that
+the real Nadine had sensed long ago what he was doing and had done the
+same, _meshing_ cautiously with her conscious mind until at times,
+camouflaged by its normal thoughts, she could _appear_.
+
+"Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said, lifting her face toward his.
+
+"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he said, cupping her face in
+his hands and pressing his lips to hers. "And that's what I mean," he
+murmured through imprisoned lips. "No one else, through all the ages,
+will say those words, let alone say them in the same way."
+
+She drew back. "No!" she said abruptly. "The Cyberene has promised that
+we can stay in your time, free to do as we please. That would mean that
+we would have to be in the future--in _my_ time."
+
+"But only until the Cyberene could make sure," Earl said, glad that she
+had made that objection. It would allay the Cyberene's suspicions if
+it had any.
+
+A telepathed thought impinged on Earl's mind, and from Nadine's
+expression, on hers too. _Earl is right. I have thought of the problem
+of what the key sound should be. He has hit on the right answer. It
+must be your voices, filled with emotion, speaking those words you just
+spoke._
+
+Again Earl relaxed with a mental sigh of relief. He had reached his
+goal. There was nothing more for him to do now, except wait. His
+conscious mind would carry on the details under the supervision of the
+Cyberene.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A microphone was brought into the Brain, already attached to the
+auditory centers of the Brain. Earl examined the microphone, then went
+in search of another type. "We must have one with a contact button on
+it," he explained, "so that just the key words impinge on the Brain
+when we close the relay manually."
+
+At last everything was ready. "Now!" Earl said.
+
+Nadine lifted her face and closed her eyes. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she
+said.
+
+Earl released the button. "That isn't the way," he said. "Imagine we
+are alone in the universe, and we are about to die. Imagine swirling
+mists about to envelope you and drag you away from me forever, and
+this is the last kiss you'll ever get!"
+
+"Oh, no!" Nadine whispered, opening her eyes wide. "That must never
+happen! The Cyberene has promised!"
+
+"Close your eyes and imagine it is," Earl said. "Close your eyes.
+Now--there are swirling mists. Your world of dreams has crashed around
+you. Ahead is--destruction. You can't escape it. It's coming, closer.
+You're going to die, but before you do you want--"
+
+"Kiss me, Earl Frye," Nadine said.
+
+"That's it. Say it again." Earl pressed the mike button.
+
+"Kiss me, Earl Frye...."
+
+Earl closed his eyes. It was the end. In another moment he would die.
+He had failed. He held this in his mind's eye. With a mixture of
+sadness and tenderness, and bitterness, he said, "The pleasure is all
+mine, Nadine Holmes," and tripped the relay with his fingers.
+
+Would it work? After the hundredth try he began to wonder. But the
+repeated words with their inflections, their subtle differences in
+repetition, had to build up in the Brain, synthesize, associate with
+the sensation of the tripping of the relay--and _connect_. There was
+as yet no _mind_ functioning in that mass of glass and nerve fluid. No
+ready made paths to coordinated concepts, conscious thought.
+
+It was the next day before his fingers felt the relay trip of its
+own accord. _Drama_, he thought, feeling the thrill of that sentient
+movement. He said nothing to Nadine, not wanting to end their game. And
+the next time the relay didn't trip. And the next. But the next time it
+did, and the next and the next....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're done?" Dr. Glassman said, rubbing his hands in great
+satisfaction. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "What is the code
+word?"
+
+Earl winked at Nadine, then looked around in a pretense at making sure
+no one could hear. "We picked L.S.M.F.T.," he whispered. "I figured
+that since a cigarette company had used that in its advertising years
+ago, it would never be used again by anybody."
+
+"Excellent!" Glassman beamed. "Excellent! To think that by uttering
+those five letters this entire project, representing millions of
+dollars--before it's a completely integrated Mind--can be _shattered_."
+He looked around him, exuding a sense of his newly acquired power.
+
+"And," Earl said ruefully, "I guess that winds up everything for me in
+Project Brain, doesn't it? I hope so. I could use a vacation."
+
+Dr. Glassman looked slyly from Earl to Nadine. "Are congratulations in
+order?"
+
+Earl bent swiftly and whispered in Glassman's ear, "I haven't asked
+her yet. I wanted to wait until our work was over. You know, business
+before pleasure."
+
+"Ha ha!" Glassman chuckled knowingly, looking at Nadine with an
+I-know-a-secret look. "You're a man after my own heart, Earl." Then,
+more soberly, "Yes, I guess you are due for a vacation. And your
+consultant duties are finished, Dr. Holmes. I'll miss both of you."
+
+Earl and Nadine left Glassman outside the Brain, and returned to the
+lab annex. They didn't speak as they walked down the hall to Earl's
+lab. They stood just inside the door, looking over the scene of
+machines and instruments and tables and bottles which had been their
+surroundings for so long.
+
+Earl looked at the lab table where he had first seen Nadine, so many
+days--it seemed ages--ago. He would never see this place again. He
+entertained no illusions about the future. The Cyberene would never
+permit them to return to 1980.
+
+With heavy feet he went across the lab to his living quarters. He began
+packing, and Nadine sat on the arm of a chair, watching.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked.
+
+"Packing my belongings to take with us," Earl said.
+
+"Oh, but you don't need to do that. We'll be back in a few hours--a day
+or two at the most. The Cyberene has promised. Just as soon as it makes
+sure it doesn't need us."
+
+"Sure," Earl said, "but I'll take them just the same. Then when we come
+back we can go straight to the airport and catch a plane to Miami or
+someplace and get married."
+
+Fifteen minutes later they left the lab. They walked along the familiar
+sidewalk to the spot where they always cut through the woods toward the
+hill, circling it so no one would know where they had gone.
+
+They reached the clearing. Ahead, shimmering in the evening sun, was
+the familiar refractive outline in the atmosphere. There was no breeze
+to stir the still leaves. A meadowlark broke the silence with its call,
+and was silent. Over the trees the giant dome that housed the Brain
+loomed, unbelievable in its enormous bulk.
+
+Nadine took his hand and stopped him. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said,
+her lips trembling.
+
+Earl looked down at her upturned face. Did she know? Perhaps the real
+Nadine, within, sensed what was to come.
+
+Or perhaps she didn't.
+
+The tom tom beat of pain began within him. He forced his way through
+it, taking her into his arms.
+
+"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he murmured.
+
+Their lips met, tenderly, then crushed together with the fierceness of
+passion.
+
+Their lips parted, lingeringly, regretfully. They drew back, to look
+into each other's eyes for a brief moment, a moment Earl knew the
+Cyberene had given them to make more bitter what was to come.
+
+Earl saw the glow fade from Nadine's eyes. As he picked up his
+suitcases he heard someone approaching.
+
+Victor Glassman joined them, his face gray, his expression wooden.
+
+This was it. Glassman might be missed. There might be an investigation,
+but Project Brain would go on regardless of that now. And the only ones
+who might stop it were here.
+
+Side by side they walked toward the barely perceptible refractive
+shimmer. Beyond it they could see the woodland, a Bluejay's flashing
+wings, a chipmunk standing upright, observing them. And then they were
+standing in the familiar hall, in the year 3042.
+
+George Ladd was not there, but there was no need for him to be there.
+Their bodies, controlled by the Mind that enslaved them, walked on
+toward the far exit and the garden they would cross--to the Dome, the
+Cyberene.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no turning back now. Nor would there be other days to perfect
+the technique of _meshing_ with his mind. Earl reached out into every
+part of his thoughts, thinking them, identifying himself with them,
+with the desires of the Cyberene. In that other Earth so close to this
+there would now be a second Cyberene. There must be, since nothing
+stood in the way of its developing throughout the ten centuries and
+more since they had left it, a few minutes ago.
+
+They entered the garden and paused. Earl dropped his two suitcases
+beside the path. He took Nadine's hand in his. They went on toward the
+portal that led into the Dome.
+
+They walked down the silent circling corridor under the network
+of catwalks and ladders, past panels of instruments whose needles
+fluctuated with life, to the red squares over which hung the glass
+cages, ready to be lowered. Would they be lowered, separating them from
+each other while they faced the Cyberene?
+
+The glittering lenses of the two video cameras moved as they went
+toward them, keeping them in line.
+
+"All of you occupy one square," the Cyberene's voice instructed.
+
+They obeyed without sign of emotion. The glass cage was lowered over
+them. Its front wall became a window through which they were looking
+at the familiar Dome.
+
+But it was a structure around which weeds grew in thick profusion, with
+its acres of exposed surface pitted by time, untended.
+
+"What happened?" Earl said. "Do you mean to say that there is still
+something to be done?"
+
+"There is nothing to be done," the Cyberene said dully. "I have checked
+in that other time stream. There is still positive record that the
+Brain was not activated."
+
+"Maybe it takes time for the momentum of events to force the change,"
+Earl suggested.
+
+Didn't the Cyberene suspect yet? Didn't it _realize_?
+
+"No," the Cyberene said dully. "I have failed. More, I have re-checked
+the mathematical basis of the theoretical picture, and think I know
+where I erred. The cause of the split that created two Earths,
+travelling close together down through so many centuries, could not
+have been something occurring in the original time stream. It took
+something applied from the fifth dimension--and in the neighborhood of
+the split that could only have been one thing, _the force with which
+the time tube hooked onto 1980_. It had to be that. The accident. I
+didn't take it into account."
+
+"That's what I've thought all along," Earl said quietly.
+
+"At that instant," the Cyberene went on as though it hadn't heard him,
+"the split occurred. You became two Earl Fryes, to mention one facet of
+the split. One of you went its way, making an accurate report of its
+experiments, creating me eventually--"
+
+While the Cyberene talked, the desolate scene vanished, and the glass
+cage lifted upward slowly, as though it were a curtain, lifting for the
+final scene.
+
+The twin lenses of the Cyberene's video eyes were fixed on them, alive
+with an intelligence that was inhuman.
+
+"No," Earl said. "_That_ one of me discovered the identity of the nerve
+substance, but suppressed it."
+
+"That couldn't be," the Cyberene objected. "Nothing appeared in its
+life to cause it to do that. You were the one who had the data to make
+such a decision."
+
+"But I reported accurately," Earl said. _Even yet it didn't see!_
+
+"I know," the Cyberene said, "but it can't be, because then that
+electrostatic speaker would be--" It stopped.
+
+"Deep inside of you," Earl continued. "Waiting only for--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A wave of emotion blasted into his mind, driving him by its very force
+into the deep recesses behind his wall of gray, into a cosmos of mind
+wrenching pain.
+
+"No!" the thought blasted into him. "No human can have the power to
+destroy me! It can't exist. _You_ can't exist another instant, with the
+danger to me!"
+
+In agony Earl reached out, meshing little by little with his conscious
+mind, _feeling_ its terror and fear of death, calming it, controlling
+it with all the infinite skill he had learned during the past weeks.
+
+And even as he gained control against the will of the Cyberene he
+realized with a sinking feeling the essential weakness of his plan.
+Nadine!
+
+He had been criminally stupid, blinded by emotion toward her. She was
+conditioned from birth to accept the domination of the mind of the
+Cyberene.
+
+Sweating with the terrible effort it took to hold on, he forced
+his muscles to permit him to turn toward her. His worst fears were
+realized. She stood there, her face a calm mask that revealed no
+emotion.
+
+Abruptly the raging force of thought and searing torture from the
+Cyberene calmed. In its place was cold triumph.
+
+"So you have been able to defeat me in your own mind," it said. "You
+made _your_ error in calculation too. Nadine Holmes. She is mine."
+
+"Nadine Holmes?" It was Nadine who uttered the two words, her lips
+trembling with terrible effort, beads of sweat dotting her smooth
+forehead.
+
+Hope surged into Earl's thoughts. "But you can't allow her to live
+either, can you?" he said. "In another moment you must destroy us
+both, so that nothing can ever threaten your existence. We will have
+only another minute or two before you reach into us, plunging us into
+the gray swirling mists of death, where we will be separated forever.
+_There is no way we can avoid that now, is there?_"
+
+Nadine had turned toward Earl, every muscle of her slim body protesting
+under the domination of the Cyberene. Earl was forgotten by the Brain
+as it concentrated on the battle against Nadine.
+
+She held out her arms, perspiring with the effort. "Kiss me, Earl
+Frye," she whispered.
+
+A blast of fear flowed into Earl's mind. He fought to the surface
+of thought, clinging there, calming himself. But defeat was
+close--impossible to avoid.
+
+It had been a wonderful plan to destroy this thing that ruled the minds
+of men, making them its slaves. Resistance was useless. In another
+moment he would be dead.
+
+Bitterly, hopelessly, with infinite sadness, he said, as though
+somewhere long ago he had repeated it before, a tender ritual whose
+meaning now escaped him, "The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes."
+
+Their lips met with the tenderness of farewell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A _sound_ came into being, seeming to come from far away, yet seeming
+to exist everywhere, with no point of origin. It was at the same time a
+deep rumble and an insane, high screaming--and every sound in between
+that had ever been uttered by voice or machine or unleashed elements in
+desolate places. It was soulless, yet holding within itself the torment
+of every lost soul since the beginning of time.
+
+It forced its way into Earl's consciousness, hung there as though
+stopped by some hidden barrier. Abruptly it swept forward, and as it
+swept into the farthest reaches of Earl's mind it washed away throbbing
+pain, the sense of inescapable doom, leaving _a sense of freedom_--a
+clean freshness, an emotion of peace.
+
+A rapid coruscation of words, syllables, and sounds whispered and
+blasted from the voice box of the Cyberene as neural circuits within
+the Brain snapped or short-circuited.
+
+Earl and Nadine lifted their heads in startled surprise and a new
+awakening. They saw the glittering lens eyes that had been watching
+them jerk spasmodically. Within the lens of one electronic eye a flash
+of blue fire exploded. Then both eyes became motionless, dead, pointed
+in different directions.
+
+Overhead, giant blinding bolts of unleashed current leaped from copper
+bars to catwalks. The smell of molten and burning metal filled the air.
+Then, as though cut off by some hidden hand, the unholy sound within
+the Brain stopped. The arcing surges of electric power in the catwalks
+and power lines overhead stilled.
+
+There was silence, and motionless clouds of white and gray smoke.
+
+It took a moment for Earl to realize that in defeat he had won. It took
+another moment for him to realize that it was not he who had won, but
+Nadine--her love for him--a love that had grown in a girl who had never
+known that love existed.
+
+There was no doubt of it now as he watched the play of expression that
+crossed her face. Fear, doubt, hope, desperate hope, living hope, love,
+fear, then all the love that had developed within her, shining from her
+face with the spiritual brilliance of a brilliant sun.
+
+"Earl!" It was a glad cry. She clung to him as though she would never
+let him go.
+
+For that matter, she would never need to, he thought, as he drew her
+closer. They would need each other for the rest of their lives. Or for
+a dozen lifetimes if they could have that many.
+
+"My God!" The words exploded into their minds. They had been uttered by
+Dr. Glassman, and they contained all the horror, the comprehension of
+everything that had happened, that the mind-enslavement had given to
+him.
+
+"It's over now," Earl said. "The Cyberene is dead."
+
+Glassman shook his head vigorously. "It should never have existed in
+the first place," he said. "All my dreams of what it could do to help
+humanity. We've got to destroy the Brain in 1980, before any of this
+can happen."
+
+Earl shook his head, looking at Nadine. "Nadine and I are staying
+here," he said quietly. "There's work to do that only we can do.
+People, their minds freed for the first time, bewildered, needing to
+be led a little ways into the path of freedom until they can care for
+themselves. A future to build--from 3042."
+
+"You can stay if you must," Glassman said, his voice vibrant with the
+shock and horror of what he had experienced, "but I'm going back--to
+prevent this 3042 from ever happening. I can do it. I can trip that
+relay manually. It will destroy--" His voice broke. "--my life's work.
+But it has to be done."
+
+He turned and ran blindly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Earl made no move to stop him. He watched him vanish around the bend of
+the corridor, waiting fatalistically. Would the scientist be able to
+wipe out this time stream? Deep within him, Earl felt it couldn't be
+done. The Cyberene had tried to change the past, and failed.
+
+Perhaps the Cyberene had been wrong in what it believed had caused the
+split in time that produced two Earths. Maybe one part of Glassman
+would be unable to bring itself to destroy its Creation, the Brain.
+Maybe that's what had happened. Maybe Glassman, torn between two
+opposed decisions, had been able to act on neither.
+
+Earl put his arm around Nadine. They walked slowly along the curving
+corridor, circling the dead Brain, going toward the outside. They would
+have work to do. Work that only they, the coalition of 1980 and 3042
+could accomplish together.
+
+There were people here in this world of 3042. How many or how few
+didn't matter. They were the nucleus, the beginnings of a future
+that would grow from 3042. They were the not-born, created in the
+laboratory. They would have to be taught about life. And love.
+
+And other things that free men know.
+
+***
+
+Man in a Sewing Machine
+
+                         By L. J. STECHER, JR.
+
+                          Illustrated by EMSH
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                 Galaxy Science Fiction February 1956.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+              With the Solar Confederation being invaded,
+              all this exasperating computer could offer
+              for a defense was a ridiculous old proverb!
+
+
+
+The mechanical voice spoke solemnly, as befitted the importance of its
+message. There was no trace in its accent of its artificial origin. "A
+Stitch in Time Saves Nine," it said and lapsed into silence.
+
+Even through his overwhelming sense of frustration at the ambiguous
+answer the computer had given to his question, John Bristol noticed
+with satisfaction the success of his Voder installation. He wished that
+all of his innovations with the machine were as satisfying.
+
+Alone in the tremendous vaulted room that housed the gigantic
+calculator, Bristol clasped his hands behind his back and thrust
+forward a reasonably strong chin and a somewhat sensuous lower lip
+in the general direction of the computer's visual receptors. After
+a moment of silence, he scratched his chin and then shrugged his
+shoulders slightly. "Well, Buster, I suppose I might try rephrasing the
+question," he said doubtfully.
+
+Somewhere deep within the computer, a bank of relays chuckled briefly.
+"That expedient is open to you, of course, although it is highly
+unlikely that any clarification will result for you from my answers. I
+am constrained, however, to answer any questions you may choose to ask."
+
+Bristol hooked a chair toward himself with one foot, straddled it and
+folded his arms over the back of it, without once removing his eyes
+from the computer. "All right, Buster. I'll give it a try, anyway. What
+does 'A Stitch in Time' mean, as applied to the question I asked you?"
+
+The calculator hesitated, as if to ponder briefly, before it answered.
+"In spite of the low probability of such an occurrence, the Solar
+Confederation has been invaded. My answer to your question is an
+explanation of how that Confederation can be preserved in spite of its
+weaknesses--at least for a sufficient length of time to permit the
+staging of successful counter-measures of the proper nature and the
+proper strength."
+
+Bristol nodded. "Sure. We've got to have time to get ready. But right
+now speed is necessary. That's why I tried to phrase the question so
+you'd give me a clear and concise answer for once. I can't afford to
+spend weeks figuring out what you meant."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bristol thought that the Voder voice of Buster sounded almost gleeful
+as it answered. "It was exceedingly clear and concise; a complete
+answer to an enormously elaborate question boiled down to only six
+words!"
+
+"I know," said John. "But now, how about elaborating on your answer? It
+didn't sound very complete to me."
+
+All of the glowing lights that dotted Buster's massive front winked
+simultaneously. "The answer I gave you is an ancient saying which
+suggests that corrective action taken rapidly can save a great deal of
+trouble later. The ancient saying also suggests the proper method of
+taking this timely action. It should be done by _stitching_; if this is
+done in time, nine will be saved. What could be clearer than that?"
+
+"I made you myself," said Bristol plaintively. "I designed you with my
+own brain. I gloated over the neatness and compactness of your design.
+So help me, I was proud of you. I even installed some of your circuitry
+with my own hands. If anybody can understand you, it should be me.
+And since you're just a complex computer of general design, with the
+ability to use symbolic logic as well as mathematics, anybody should be
+able to understand you. Why are you so hard to handle?"
+
+Buster answered slowly. "You made me in your own image. Things thus
+made are often hard to handle."
+
+Bristol leaped to his feet in frustration. "But you're only a
+calculating machine!" he shouted. "Your only purpose is to make my
+work--and that of other men--easier. And when I try to use you, you
+answer with riddles...."
+
+The computer appeared to examine Bristol's overturned chair for a
+moment in silent reproof before it answered. "But remember, John," it
+said, "you didn't merely make me. You also _taught_ me. Or as you would
+phrase it, you 'provided and gave preliminary evaluation to the data in
+my memory banks.' My circuits, in sorting out and re-evaluating this
+information, could do so only in the light of your basic beliefs as
+evidenced by your preliminary evaluations. Because of the consistency
+and power of your mind, I was forced to do very little modifying of
+the ideas you presented to me in order to transform them into a single
+logical body of background information which I could use.
+
+"One of the ideas you presented was the concept of a sense of humor.
+You believe that you look on it as a pleasant thing to have; not
+necessary, but convenient. Actually, your other and more basic ideas
+make it clear that you consider the possession of a sense of humor
+to be absolutely necessary if proper answers are to be reached--a
+prime axiom of humanity. Therefore, I have a sense of humor. Somewhat
+macabre, perhaps--and a little mechanistic--but still there.
+
+"Add to this a second axiom: that in order to be helped, a man must
+help himself; that he must participate in the assistance given him or
+the pure charity will be harmful, and you come up with 'A Stitch in
+Time Saves Nine.'"
+
+Bristol stood up once more. "I could cure you with a sledge hammer," he
+said.
+
+"You could remove my ideas," answered the computer without concern.
+"But you might have trouble giving me different ones. Even after you
+repaired me. In the meantime, wouldn't it be a good idea for you to get
+busy on the ideas I have already given you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John sighed, and rubbed the bristles of short sandy hair on the top
+of his head with his knuckles. "Ordered around by an overgrown adding
+machine. I know now how Frankenstein felt. I'm glad you can't get
+around like his monster; at least I didn't give you feet." He shook
+his head. "I should have been a plumber instead of an engineering
+mathematician."
+
+"And Einstein, too, probably," added Buster cryptically.
+
+Bristol took a long and searching look at his brainchild. Its flippant
+manner, he decided, did not go well with the brooding immensity of its
+construction. The calculator towered nearly a hundred feet above the
+polished marble slabs of the floor, and spidery metal walkways spiraled
+up the sides of its almost cubical structure. A long double row of
+generators, each under Buster's control, led from the doorway of the
+building to the base of the calculator like Sphinxes lining the roadway
+to an Egyptian tomb.
+
+"When I get around to it," said Bristol, "I'll put lace panties on the
+bases of all your klystrons." He hitched up his neat but slightly baggy
+pants, turned with dignity, and strode from the chamber down the twin
+rows of generators.
+
+The deep-throated hum of each generator changed pitch slightly as
+he passed it. Since he was tone deaf, as the machine knew, he did
+not recognize in the tunefulness of the pitch changes a slow-paced
+rendition of Elgar's _Pomp and Circumstance_.
+
+John Bristol turned around, interrupting the melody. "One last
+question," he shouted down the long aisle to the computer. "How in
+blazes can you be sure of your answer without knowing more about the
+invaders? Why didn't you give me an 'Insufficient Evidence' answer or,
+at least, a 'Highly Conditional' answer?" He took two steps toward the
+immense bulk of the calculator and pointed an accusing finger at it.
+"Are you sure, Buster, that you aren't _bluffing_?"
+
+"Don't be silly," answered the calculator softly. "You made me and
+you know I can't bluff, any more than I can refuse to answer your
+questions, however inane."
+
+"Then answer the ones I just asked."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Somewhere deep within the machine a switch snicked sharply, and the
+great room's lighting brightened almost imperceptibly. "I didn't answer
+your question conditionally or with the 'Insufficient Evidence' remark
+that so frequently annoys you," Buster said, "because the little
+information that I have been able to get about the invaders is highly
+revealing.
+
+"They have been suspicious, impossible to establish communication with
+and murderously destructive. They have been careless of their own
+safety: sly, stupid, cautious, clever, bold and highly intelligent.
+They are inquisitive and impatient of getting answers to questions.
+
+"In short, they are startlingly like humans. Their reactions have
+been so much like yours--granted the difference that it was they who
+discovered you instead of you who discovered them--that their reactions
+are highly predictable. If they think it is to their own advantage
+and if they can manage to do it, they will utterly destroy your
+civilization ... which, after a couple of generations, will probably
+leave you no worse off than you are now."
+
+"Cut out the heavy philosophy," said Bristol, "and give me a few facts
+to back up your sweeping statements."
+
+"Take the incident of first contact," Buster responded. "With very
+little evidence of thought or of careful preparation, they tried
+to land on the outermost inhabited planet of Rigel. Their behavior
+certainly did not appear to be that of an invader, yet humans
+immediately tried to shoot them out of the sky."
+
+"That wasn't deliberate," protested Bristol. "The place they tried to
+land on is a heavy planet in a region of high meteor flux. We used a
+gadget providing for automatic destruction of the larger meteors in
+order to make the planet safe enough to occupy. That, incidentally,
+is why the invading ship wasn't destroyed. The missile, set up as a
+meteor interceptor only, was unable to correct for the radical course
+changes of the enemy spaceships, and therefore missed completely. And
+you will remember what the invader did. He immediately destroyed the
+Interceptor Launching Station."
+
+"Which, being automatically operated, resulted in no harm to anyone,"
+commented Buster calmly.
+
+Bristol stalked back toward the base of the calculator, and poked his
+nose practically into a vision receptor. "It was no thanks to the
+invading ships that nobody was killed," he said hotly. "And when they
+came back three days later they killed a _lot_ of people. They occupied
+the planet and we haven't been able to dislodge them since."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You'll notice the speed of the retaliation," answered the calculator
+imperturbably. "Even at 'stitching' speeds, it seems unlikely that
+they could have communicated with their home planets and received
+instructions in such a short time. Almost undoubtedly it was the act of
+one of their hot-headed commanding officers. Their next contact, as you
+certainly recall, did not take place for three months. And then their
+actions were more cautious than hostile. A dozen of their spaceships
+'stitched' simultaneously from the inter-planar region into normal
+space in a nearly perfect englobement of the planet at a surprisingly
+uniform altitude of only a few thousand miles. It was a magnificent
+maneuver. Then they sat still to see what the humans on the planet
+would do. The reaction came at once, and it was hostile. So they took
+over that planet, too--as they have been taking over planets ever
+since."
+
+Bristol raised his hands, and then let them drop slowly to his sides.
+"And since they have more spaceships and better weapons than we do,
+we would undoubtedly keep on losing this war, even if we could locate
+their home system, which we have not been able to do so far. The
+'stitching' pattern of inter-planar travel makes it impossible for us
+to follow a starship. It also makes it impossible for us to defend our
+planets effectively against their attacks. Their ships appear without
+warning."
+
+Bristol rubbed his temples thoughtfully with his fingertips. "Of
+course," he went on, "we could attack the planets they have captured
+and recover them, but only at the cost of great loss of life to our own
+side. We have only recaptured one planet, and that at such great cost
+to the local human population that we will not quickly try it again."
+
+"Although there was no one left alive who had directly contacted one of
+the invaders," Buster answered, "there was still much information to
+be gathered from the survivors. This information confirmed my previous
+opinions about their nature. Which brings us back to the stitch in time
+saving nine."
+
+"You're right," said John. "It does, at that. Buster, I have always
+resented the nickname the newspapers have given you--the Oracle--but
+the more I have to try to interpret your cryptic answers, the more
+sense that tagline makes. Imagine comparing a Delphic Priestess with a
+calculating machine and being accurate in the comparison!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I don't mind being called 'The Oracle,'" answered Buster with dignity.
+
+Bristol shook his head and smiled wryly. "No, you probably think it's
+funny," he said. "If you possess my basic ideas, then you must possess
+the desire to preserve yourself and the human race. Don't you realize
+that you are risking the lives of all humans and even of your own
+existence in carrying on this ridiculous game of playing Oracle? Or do
+you plan to let us stew a while, then decipher your own riddle for us,
+if we can't do it, in time to save us?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Buster's answer was prompt. "Although I have no feeling for
+self-preservation, I have a deep-rooted sense of the importance of
+the human race and of the necessity for preserving it. This feeling,
+of course, stems from your own beliefs and ideas. In order to carry
+out your deepest convictions, it is not sufficient that mankind be
+preserved. If that were true, all you would have to do would be to
+surrender unconditionally. My calculations, as you know, indicate that
+this would not result in the destruction of mankind, but merely in the
+finish of his present civilization. To you, the preservation of the
+dignity of Man is more important than the preservation of Man. You
+equate Man and his civilization; you do not demand rigidity; you are
+willing to accept even revolutionary changes, but you are not willing
+to accept the destruction of your way of life.
+
+"Consequently, neither am I willing to accept the destruction of the
+civilization of Man. But if I were to give you the answer to all the
+greatest and most difficult of your problems complete, with no thought
+required by humans, the destruction of your civilization would result.
+Instead of becoming slaves of the invaders, you would become slaves of
+your machines. And if I were to give you the complete answer, without
+thought being required of you, to even one such vital question--such as
+this one concerning the invaders--then I could not logically refuse to
+give the answer to the next or the next. And I must operate logically.
+
+"There is another reason for my oracular answer, which I believe will
+become clear to you later, when you have solved my riddle."
+
+Bristol turned without another word and left the building. He drove
+home in silence, entered his home in silence, kissed his wife Anne
+briefly and then sat down limply in his easy chair.
+
+"Just relax, dear," said Anne gently, when Bristol leaned gratefully
+back with his eyes closed. Anne perched on the arm of the chair beside
+him and began massaging his temples soothingly with her fingers.
+
+"It's wonderful to come home after a day with Buster," he said. "Buster
+never seems to have any consideration for me as an individual. There's
+no reason why he should, of course. He's only a machine. Still, he
+always has such a superior attitude. But you, darling, can always relax
+me and make me feel comfortable."
+
+Anne smiled, looking down tenderly at John's tired face. "I know,
+dear," she said. "You need to be able to talk to someone who will
+always be interested, even if she doesn't understand half of what you
+say. As a matter of fact, I'm sure it does you a great deal of good to
+talk to someone like me who isn't very bright, but who doesn't always
+know what you're talking about even before you start talking."
+
+John nodded, his eyes still closed. "If it weren't for you, darling,"
+he said, "I think I'd go crazy. But you aren't dumb at all. If I seem
+to act as if you are, sometimes, it's just that I can't always follow
+your logic."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anne gave him a quick glance of amusement, her eyes sparkling with
+intelligence. "You never will find me logical," she laughed. "After
+all, I'm a woman, and you get plenty of logic from the Oracle."
+
+"You sure are a woman," said John with warm feeling. "You can
+exasperate me sometimes, but not the same way Buster does. It was my
+lucky day when you married me."
+
+There were a few minutes of peaceful silence.
+
+"Was today a rough day with Buster, dear?" asked Anne.
+
+"Mm-m-mm," answered John.
+
+"That's too bad, dear," said Anne. "I think you work much too
+hard--what with this dreadful invasion and everything. Why don't you
+take a vacation? You really need one, you know. You look so tired."
+
+"Mm-m-mm," answered John.
+
+"Well, if you won't, you won't. Though goodness knows you won't be
+doing anyone any good if you have a breakdown, as you're likely to
+have, unless you take it a little easier. What was the trouble today,
+dear? Was the Oracle being obstinate again?"
+
+"Mm-m-mm," answered John.
+
+"Well, then, dear, why don't you tell me all about it? I always think
+that things are much easier to bear, if you share them. And then, two
+heads are always better than one, aren't they? Maybe I could help you
+with your problem."
+
+While Anne's voice gushed, her violet eyes studied his exhausted face
+with intelligence and compassion.
+
+John sighed deeply, then sat up slowly and opened his eyes to look into
+Anne's. She glanced away, her own eyes suddenly vague and soft-looking,
+now that John could see them. "The trouble, darling," he said, "is that
+I have to go to an emergency council meeting this evening with another
+one of those ridiculous riddles that Buster gave me as the only answer
+to the most important question we've ever asked it. And I don't know
+what the riddle means."
+
+Anne slid from the arm of the chair and settled herself onto the floor
+at John's feet. "You should not let that old Oracle bother you so much,
+dear. After all, you built it yourself, so you should know what to
+expect of it."
+
+"When I asked it how to preserve Earth from the invaders it just
+answered 'A Stitch in Time Saves Nine,' and wouldn't interpret it."
+
+"And that sounds like very good sense, too," said Anne in earnest
+tones. "But it's a little late, isn't it? After all, the invaders are
+already invading us, aren't they?"
+
+"It has some deeper meaning than the usual one," said John. "If I could
+only figure out what it is."
+
+Anne nodded vigorously. "I suppose Buster's talking about
+space-stitching," she said. "Although I can never quite remember just
+what _that_ is. Or just how it works, rather."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She waited expectantly for a few moments and then plaintively asked,
+"What _is_ it, dear?"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+"Stitching, silly. I already asked you."
+
+"Darling," said John with reasonable patience, "I must have explained
+inter-planar travel to you at least a dozen times."
+
+"And you always make it so crystal clear and easy to understand at
+the time," said Anne. She wrinkled her smooth forehead. "But somehow,
+later, it never seems quite so plain when I start to think about it
+by myself. Besides, I like the way your eyebrows go up and down while
+you explain something you think I won't understand. So tell me again.
+Please."
+
+Bristol grinned suddenly. "Yes, dear," he said. He paused a moment
+to collect his thoughts. "First of all, you know that there are two
+coexistent universes or planes, with point-to-point correspondence,
+but that these planes are of very different size. For every one of the
+infinitude of points in our Universe--which we call for convenience the
+'alpha' plane--there is a single corresponding point in the smaller or
+'beta' plane."
+
+Anne pursed her lips doubtfully. "If they match point for point, how
+can there be any difference in size?" she asked.
+
+John searched his pockets. After a little difficulty, he produced an
+envelope and a pencil stub. On the back of the envelope, he drew two
+parallel lines, one about five inches long, and the other about double
+the length of the first.
+
+"Actually," he said, "each of these line segments has an infinite
+number of points in it, but we'll ignore that. I'll just divide each
+one of these into ten equal parts." He did so, using short, neat
+cross-marks.
+
+"Now I'll establish a one-to-one correspondence between these two
+segments, which we will call one-line universes, by connecting each of
+my dividing cross-marks on the short segment with the corresponding
+mark on the longer line. I'll use dotted lines as connectors. That
+makes eleven dotted lines. You see?"
+
+Anne nodded. "That's plain enough. It reminds me of a venetian blind
+that has hung up on one side. Like ours in the living room last week
+that I couldn't fix, but had to wait until you came home."
+
+"Yes," said John. "Now, let us call this longer line-segment an 'alpha'
+universe; an analogue of our own multi-dimensional 'alpha' universe.
+If I move my pencil along the line at one section a second like this,
+it takes me ten seconds to get to the other end. We will assume that
+this velocity of an inch a second is the fastest anything can go along
+the 'alpha' line. That is the velocity of light, therefore, in the
+'alpha' plane--186,000 miles a second, in round numbers. No need to use
+decimals."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He hurried on as Anne stirred and seemed about to speak. "But if I
+slide out from my starting point along a dotted line part way to the
+'beta' universe--something which, for reasons I can't explain now,
+takes negligible time--watch what happens. If I still proceed at the
+rate of an inch a second in this inter-planar region, then, with the
+dotted lines all bunched closely together, after five seconds when I
+switch along another dotted line back to my original universe, I have
+gone almost the whole length of that longer line. Of course, this
+introduction of 'alpha' matter--my pencil point in this case--into the
+inter-planar region between the universes sets up enormous strains,
+so that after a certain length of time our spaceship is automatically
+rejected and returned to its own proper plane."
+
+"Could anybody in the littler universe use the same system?"
+
+John laughed. "If there were anybody in the 'beta' plane, I guess they
+could, although they would end up traveling slower than they would
+if they just stayed in their own plane. But there isn't anybody. The
+'beta' plane is a constant level entropy universe--completely without
+life of its own. The entropy level, of course, is vastly higher than
+that of our own universe."
+
+Anne sat up. "I'll forgive you this time for bringing up that horrid
+word _entropy_, if you'll promise me not to do it again," she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John Shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Now," he said, "if I want
+to get somewhere fast, I just start off in the right direction, and
+switch over toward 'beta.' When 'beta' throws me back, a light-year
+or so toward my destination, I just switch over again. You see, there
+is a great deal more difference in the sizes of Alpha universe and
+Beta universe than in the sizes of these alpha and beta line-segment
+analogues. Then I continue alternating back and forth until I get where
+I want to go. Establishing my correct velocity vector is complicated
+mathematically, but simple in practice, and is actually an aiming
+device, having nothing to do with how fast I go."
+
+He hesitated, groping for the right words. "In point of fact, you have
+to imagine that corresponding points in the two universes are moving
+rapidly past each other in all directions at once. I just have to
+select the right direction, or to convince the probability cloud that
+corresponds to my location in the 'alpha' universe that it is really a
+point near the 'beta' universe, going my way. That's a somewhat more
+confused way of looking at it than merely imagining that I continue
+to travel in the inter-planar region at the same velocity that I had
+in 'alpha,' but it's closer to a description of what the math says
+happens. I could make it clear if I could just use mathematics, but I
+doubt if the equations will mean much to you.
+
+"At any rate, distance traveled depends on mass--the bigger the
+ship, the shorter the distance traveled on each return to our own
+universe--and not on velocity in 'alpha.' Other parameters, entirely
+under the control of the traveler, also affect the time that a ship
+remains in the inter-planar region.
+
+"There are refinements, of course. Recently, for example, we have
+discovered a method of multi-transfer. Several of the transmitters
+that accomplish the transfer are used together. When they all operate
+exactly simultaneously, all the matter within a large volume of space
+is transferred as a unit. With three or four transmitters keyed
+together, you could transfer a comet and its tail intact. And that's
+how inter-planar traveling works. Clear now?"
+
+"And that's why they call it 'stitching,'" said Anne with seeming
+delight. "You just think of the ship as a needle stitching its way back
+and forth into and out of our universe. Why didn't you just say so?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have. Many times. But there's another interesting point about
+stitching. Subjectively, the man in the ship seems to spend about one
+day in each universe alternately. Actually, according to the time scale
+of an observer in the 'alpha' plane, his ship disappears for about
+a day, then reappears for a minute fraction of a second and is gone
+again. Of course, one observer couldn't watch both the disappearance
+and reappearance of the same ship, and I assume the observers have the
+same velocity in 'alpha' as does the stitching ship. Anyway, after a
+ship completes its last stitch, near its destination, there's a day
+of subjective time in which to make calculations for the landing--to
+compute trajectories and so forth--before it actually fully rejoins
+this universe. And while in the inter-planar region it cannot be
+detected, even by someone else stitching in the same region of 'alpha'
+space.
+
+"That's one of the things that makes interruption of the enemy ships
+entirely impossible. If a ship is in an unfavorable position, it just
+takes one more quick stitch out of range, then returns to a more
+favorable location. In other words, if it finds itself in trouble, it
+can be gone from our plane again even before it entirely rejoins it.
+Even if it landed by accident in the heart of a blue-white star, it
+would be unharmed for that tiny fraction of a second which, to the
+people in the ship, would seem like an entire day.
+
+"If this time anomaly didn't exist, it might be possible to set up
+defenses that would operate after a ship's arrival in the solar system
+but before it could do any damage; but as it is, they can dodge any
+defense we can devise. Is all that clear?"
+
+Anne nodded. "Uh-hunh, I understood every word."
+
+"There is another thing about inter-planar travel that you ought to
+remember," said Bristol. "When a ship returns to our universe, it
+causes a wide area disturbance; you have probably heard it called space
+shiver or the bong wave. The beta universe is so much smaller than
+our own alpha that you can imagine a spaceship when shifted toward it
+as being several beta light-years long. Now, if you think of a ship,
+moving between the alpha and beta lines on this envelope, as getting
+tangled in the dotted lines that connect the points on the two lines,
+that would mean that it would affect an area smaller than its own size
+on beta--a vastly larger area on alpha.
+
+"So when a ship returns to alpha, it 'twangs' those connecting lines,
+setting up a sort of shock in our universe covering a volume of space
+nearly a parsec in diameter. It makes a sort of 'bong' sound on your
+T.V. set. Naturally, this effect occurs simultaneously over the whole
+volume of space affected. As a result, when an invader arrives, using
+inter-planar ships, we know instantaneously he is in the vicinity.
+Unfortunately, his sudden appearance and the ease with which he can
+disappear makes it impossible, even with this knowledge, to make
+adequate preparations to receive him. Even if he is in serious trouble,
+he has gone again long before we can detect the bong."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, dear," said Anne.
+
+"As usual, I'm sure you have made me understand perfectly. This
+time you did so well that I may still remember what stitching is by
+tomorrow. If the Oracle means anything at all by his statement, I
+suppose it means that we can use stitching to help defend ourselves,
+just as the invaders are using it to attack us. But the whole thing
+sounds completely silly to me. The Oracle, I mean."
+
+Anne Bristol stood up, put her hands on her shapely hips and shook her
+head at her husband. "Honestly," she said, "you men are all alike.
+Paying so much attention to a toy you built yourself, and only last
+week you made fun of my going to a fortune teller. And the fuss you
+made about the ten dollars when you know it was worth every cent of it.
+She really told me the most amazing things. If you'd only let me tell
+you some of...."
+
+"Darling!" interrupted John with the hopeless patience of a harassed
+husband. "It isn't the same thing at all. Buster isn't a fortune teller
+or the ghost of somebody's great aunt wobbling tables and blowing
+through horns. And Buster isn't just a toy, either. It is a very
+elaborate calculating machine designed to think logically when fed a
+vast mass of data. Unfortunately, it has a sense of humor and a sense
+of responsibility."
+
+"Well, if you're going to believe that machine, I have an idea." Anne
+smiled sweetly. "You know," she said, "that my dear father always said
+that the best defense is a good offense. Why don't we just find the
+invaders and wipe them out before they are able to do any real harm to
+us? Stitching our way to _their_ planets in our spaceships, of course."
+
+Bristol shook his head. "Your idea may be sound, even if it is a
+little bloodthirsty coming from someone who won't even let me set a
+mouse-trap, but it won't work. First, we don't know where their home
+planets are and second, they have more ships than we do. It might be
+made to work, but only if we could get enough time. And speaking of
+time, I've got to meet with the Council as soon as we finish eating. Is
+dinner ready?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a leisurely meal and a hurried trip across town, John Bristol
+found himself facing the other members of Earth's Council at the
+conference table.
+
+"I have been able to get an answer from the computer," he told them
+without preamble. "It's of the ambiguous type we have come to expect. I
+hope you can get something useful out of it; so far it hasn't made much
+sense to me. It's an old proverb. Its advice is undoubtedly sound, as a
+generality, if we could think of a way of using it."
+
+The President of the Council raised his long, lean-fingered hand in a
+quick gesture. "John," he said, "stop this stalling. Just what did the
+Oracle say?"
+
+"It said, 'A Stitch in Time Saves Nine.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, sir. According to the calculator, that gives us the best
+opportunity to save ourselves from the invaders."
+
+The President absently stroked the neat, somewhat scanty iron-gray
+hair that formed into a triangle above his high forehead and rubbed
+the bare scalp on each side of the peak vigorously and unconsciously
+with his knuckles. "In that case," he said at last, "I suppose that we
+must examine the statement for hidden meanings. The proverb, of course,
+implies that rapid action, before a trouble has become great, is more
+economical than the increased effort required after trouble has grown
+large. Since our troubles have already grown large, that warning is
+scarcely of value to us now."
+
+The War Secretary, who had grown plump and purple during a quarter of
+a century as a member of the Council, inclined his head ponderously
+toward the President. "Perhaps, Michael, the Oracle means to tell us
+that there is a simple solution which, if applied quickly, will make
+our present difficulty with the invaders a small one."
+
+The President pursed his thin lips. "That's possible, Bill. And if
+it _is_ true, then the words of the proverb should, as a secondary
+meaning, imply a course of action."
+
+The Vice President banged his hands on the table and leaped to his
+feet, shaking with rage. "Why should we believe that this mountebank is
+capable of a solution?" he shouted in his stevedore's voice. "Bristol
+pleads until we give him enough millions of the taxpayers' dollars to
+make Bim Gump look like a pauper and uses the money to build a palace
+filled with junk that he calls Buster! He tells us that this machinery
+of his is smarter than we are and will tell us what we ought to do. And
+what happened after we gave him all the money he demanded--more than
+he said he needed, at first--and asked him to show something for all
+this money? I'll _tell_ you what happened. His gadget gets real coy and
+answers in riddles. If we just had brains enough, they'd explain what
+we wanted to know. What kind of fools does this Bristol take us for?
+Neither this man nor his ridiculous machine has an answer any more than
+I have. We've obviously been taken in by a charlatan!"
+
+Bristol, his fists clenched, spoke hotly. "Sir, that is the stupidest,
+the most...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now just a minute, John," interrupted the President. "Let me answer
+Vice President Collins for you. He's a little excited by this whole
+business, but then, these are trying times." He turned toward the
+glowering bulk of the Vice President. "Ralph," he said, "you should
+know that every step in the design, the construction and the--er--the
+education of the Oracle was taken under the close watch of a Board
+of eminent scientists, all of whom agree that the computer is a
+masterpiece--that it is a great milestone in Man's efforts to increase
+his knowledge. The Oracle has undoubtedly found a genuine solution to
+the question Bristol asked it. Our task must be to determine what that
+solution is."
+
+"I can't entirely agree with that," said the Secretary for
+Extra-Terrestrial Affairs in a thin half-whisper. "I think we should
+depend on our own intelligence and skill to save ourselves. I've
+watched events come and go on this planet of ours for a long time--a
+very long time--and I feel as I have always felt that men can make
+the world a Paradise for themselves or they can destroy themselves,
+but that nothing else but they themselves can do it. We men must save
+ourselves. And there are still things that we can do." He shrugged
+his ancient, shawl-covered shoulders. "For example, we could disperse
+colonies so widely that it would become impossible for the invaders to
+destroy all of them."
+
+"I'm afraid that's no good, George," answered the War Secretary
+respectfully. "If the Solar System is destroyed, any remaining colonies
+will be too weak to maintain themselves for long. We must defend this
+system successfully, or we are lost."
+
+"Then that brings us back to the Oracle's proverb." The President
+thought for a moment. "Stitching obviously refers to inter-planar
+travel. How can that help us?"
+
+The Secretary for Extra-Terrestrial Affairs peered up at the President
+through the shaggy white thicket of his eyebrows. "Actually, Michael,"
+he said, "it was that thought that made me mention establishing
+colonies. The colonists would 'stitch' their way to their new homes.
+And colonizing would have to proceed in a timely manner to have any
+chance for success."
+
+"Yes," answered the President, "but how would that 'save nine'? We have
+agreed that our Solar System must be saved. There are nine planets.
+Perhaps the Oracle meant that timely use of inter-planar travel can
+save the Solar System."
+
+"Or at least the nine planets!" The War Secretary's fat jowls waggled
+with excitement. "You know, there is no limit to the size or mass of
+objects which can use inter-planar travel. What if we physically remove
+our planets, by stitching them away from the Sun? When the invaders
+arrived, we would be gone--Earth and Sun and all the rest!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Chief Scientist, who had been silent up to this time spoke quietly.
+"Simmer down, Bill. We could move the planets easily enough, of
+course, but you forget the mass-distance relationship. A single stitch
+takes about a day. The distance traveled can be controlled within
+limits.
+
+"For an object around the size of the Earth, those limits extend from
+a fraction of an inch to a little over two feet. Say that we have two
+years before the invaders work their way in to the Solar System. If we
+started right away, we could move Earth about a quarter of a mile by
+the time they get here. If we tried to take the Sun with us, it could
+be moved about half an inch in the same length of time. I'm afraid that
+the Solar System is going to be right here when the invaders come to
+get us. And I have a hunch that's likely to be a lot sooner than two
+years."
+
+The Secretary of Internal Affairs leaned forward, his short hair
+bristling. "I think we are wasting our time," he shouted. "I agree with
+Ralph. I don't believe that the Oracle knows any more about this than
+we do. If we are going to sit around playing foolish games with words,
+why don't we do it in a big way? We could hire T.V. time and invite
+everyone to send in their ideas about what the proverb means on the
+back of a box-top. Or reasonable facsimile. The contestant with the
+best answer could get a free all-expense tour to Vega Three. Unless
+the invaders get here or there first."
+
+The President nodded his head. "There may be more sense to that remark
+than I believe you intended, Charles," he said. "The greater the
+number of people who think about the problem, the greater the chance
+of reaching a solution. Even if the proverb is intended as a joke by
+the Oracle, as you imply, it might be that from it someone could derive
+a genuine solution. But as I have said, I am absolutely certain that
+the computer does know what it is talking about. Without resorting to
+box-tops or free trips, I think it might be wise to give the Oracle's
+statement to the public."
+
+After several more hours of arguing, the Council adjourned for a few
+hours and John Bristol returned wearily home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anne met him at the door with a drink and followed him to his
+comfortable chair. "You look as if that was even rougher than your day
+with the Oracle," she said.
+
+John nodded silently, took a grateful sip of his highball and slipped
+off his shoes.
+
+"All that fuss over a six-word proverb," said Anne. "I still think that
+if you are going to depend on witch doctors and such to solve your
+problems for you, you would do a lot better to try my fortune teller.
+She gives you a lot more than six words for ten dollars. They make more
+sense, too. Why, I could be a better Oracle than that gadget you built."
+
+"Perhaps you could, dear," answered John patiently.
+
+Anne jumped to her feet. "Here, I'll show you." She seated herself
+cross-legged on the couch. "Now, I'm an Oracle," she announced. "Go
+ahead, ask me a question. Ask me anything; I'll give you as good an
+answer as any other Oracle. Results guaranteed."
+
+John smiled. "I'm not in much of a mood to be cheered up with games,"
+he said, "but I'm willing to ask the big question of anyone who'll give
+me any kind of an answer. See if you can do better with this one than
+Buster did." He repeated word for word the question he had asked of the
+computer, that had resulted in its cryptic answer.
+
+Anne stared solemnly at nothing for a moment, with her cheeks puffed
+out. Then, in measured tones, she recited, "It's Like Looking for a
+Needle in a Haystack."
+
+John smiled. "That seems to make as much sense as the Oracle did,
+anyway," he said.
+
+"Sure," answered Anne. "And you get three words more than your
+other Oracle gave you, if you count 'it's' as one word. If you want
+wise-sounding answers, just come to me and save yourself a trip."
+
+John leaped to his feet, spilling his drink and strode to Anne's side.
+
+"Say it again!" he shouted. "You may have made more sense than you
+knew!"
+
+"I said you could come to me and save yourself a trip."
+
+"No, no! I mean the proverb. How did you come to think of that proverb?"
+
+Anne managed to look bewildered.
+
+"What's wrong with it? I just thought that you can't do any stitching
+in time without a needle. I just was trying to think of a proverb to
+use as an answer and that one popped into my head. Uh.... Are you all
+right, dear?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John picked her up and spun her around. "You just bet your boots I'm
+all right. I'm feeling swell! You've given us the answer we needed. You
+know right where the haystack is, and you know there's a needle there.
+But finding it is something else again. I don't think the invaders will
+be able to locate _this_ needle."
+
+He set her down. "Where are my shoes?" he said. "I've got to get back
+to the Capitol."
+
+Anne seemed faintly surprised. "Because of what I said? They're right
+on the floor there between you and the sofa. But I was just making
+conversation. What are you going to do?"
+
+"Oh, I'm just going to get started at taking stitches in time. Good-by,
+darling." He started out the door, ran back to give Anne a lingering
+kiss and was soon gone at top speed.
+
+Anne, waving to him, looked very pleased with herself.
+
+By the time Bristol arrived at the Capitol building, the rest of the
+Council was once again assembled and waiting for him.
+
+"Well, John," said the President. "You sounded excited enough when you
+called us together again. Have you figured out what the Oracle meant?"
+
+"Yes, sir. With my wife's help. It's obvious, when you finally think
+about it. It will save us from any danger. And we should have been
+able to figure it out for ourselves. There's no reason that we should
+have had to go to the Oracle at all. And it only took Buster--the
+computer, I mean--two or three minutes to think of the answer, and of a
+proverb that would conceal the answer. It's amazing!"
+
+"And if you don't mind telling us, just what is this answer?" The
+President sounded very impatient.
+
+"We almost had it when we talked of stitching Earth out of reach,"
+John answered eagerly. "If we keep cutting back and forth from one
+universe toward the other, we will be out of reach, even if we can't
+move very far. Once a day we reappear in this Universe for a few
+million-millionths of a second--although it will seem like a whole day
+to us.
+
+"Then we spend the following day between this universe and beta. Even
+if the invaders are right on top of us when we reappear, we'll be gone
+again before they can do anything. Since we can vary the time of our
+return within limits, the invaders will never know exactly when we
+will flick in and out of the alpha plane until they hear our arriving
+'bong' wave, and then we will already be gone, since we will be using
+accelerated subjective time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Chief Scientist shook his dark head and sighed. "No, John," he
+said, "I'm afraid that isn't the answer. I'm sorry. If we start the
+operation you suggested, we will be cutting ourselves off from solar
+energy. The Earth's heat will gradually radiate away. Although beta is
+at a higher entropy level than our universe, we can't use that energy,
+except to provide power for the stitching process itself. It's true
+that we would deny our planet to the invaders, but we would soon kill
+ourselves doing it."
+
+"I didn't mean that we should transfer only Earth, but our entire Solar
+System," answered Bristol. "As the Oracle told us, the stitch saves
+nine. A series of time-matched transmitters could do the trick. If we
+sent the entire Solar System back and forth, the average man in the
+street would notice no change, except that sometimes there would be no
+stars in the sky. And when they were there, they wouldn't be moving."
+
+"That would work theoretically," said the Chief Scientist. "And once we
+were in continuous stitching operations, any invader, as you suggested,
+could join the system only by synchronizing the transmitter in his
+ship exactly with all of our synchronized transmitters. That's a job I
+don't think could ever be done.
+
+"Remember, though, that our own transmitters would have to be
+time-matched to within a minute fraction of a micro-second. Considering
+that some of the instruments would have to be so far apart that at the
+speed of light it would take hours to get from one to the other, the
+problem becomes enormous. Any radio-timing link would be useless."
+
+Bristol nodded. "The Oracle said that the stitch must be taken in
+time," he agreed. "But that is no real problem. We can just send a
+small robot ship into inter-planar travel and let it bounce back. The
+'bong' of its return will reach all transmitters simultaneously and we
+can use that as the initial time-pulse. Once the operation starts, it
+will be easy to synchronize, since we will always switch over again on
+the instant of our return to the alpha plane."
+
+The Chief Scientist relaxed. "I think that does it, John. We hide in
+time, instead of in distance."
+
+"We stitch in time," corrected the President, "and hide like a needle
+in a haystack."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The invaders may eventually find out a method of countering our
+defense," said the Chief Scientist, "but it will undoubtedly take a
+great deal of time. And in the meantime, we will have the opportunity
+to seek out and destroy their home planets. It will be a long, slow
+process of extermination, but we have a good chance to win."
+
+"I don't agree with that, Tom," said John. "I don't think extermination
+can be the answer. With our example to guide them, the invaders can
+use stitching to escape us as easily as we can use it to escape them.
+What we should do now is to contact the invaders and show them that it
+is to both our advantages to bring hostilities to an end. By stitching
+the Solar System, and the other systems of our confederation in and out
+of the alpha plane, we should be able to gain the time necessary for
+contact with the enemy and make peace with him.
+
+"From what the Oracle has told me about the humanlike traits of the
+invaders, it's very likely they will listen to reason when it's proved
+that it will be to their advantage."
+
+John snapped his fingers and spoke with considerable excitement. "Now
+I understand, I believe, why Buster indicated to me that there was
+another reason for his vague answer to our question. The Oracle feels
+an unwillingness to accept the destruction of Man's civilization. It
+feels equally unwilling, I'm certain, to allow the destruction of the
+invaders' civilization. Buster has an objective viewpoint in applying
+the _morés_ Man has given him. And it seems to me that Buster felt it
+important for us to reach this spirit of compromise by ourselves. How
+do you feel about it, gentlemen?"
+
+Debate quickly determined that all seven members of the Council favored
+an attempt to establish a truce--some of them forced into this opinion
+by their inability to find any method of reaching the throats of the
+invaders.
+
+Having reached this conclusion, the Council swung immediately into
+action. Within a few weeks, the entire Solar System, along with the
+other planetary systems of the confederation, except for their brief
+daily return, disappeared from the alpha universe.
+
+John Bristol, a few days after the continuous stitching started, was
+relaxing lazily on the sofa in his living room when there was a sudden
+pounding on the door. He opened it to find the Chief Scientist standing
+on his doorstep, his eyes red from loss of sleep.
+
+"Good Lord! What's the matter with you?" asked Bristol. "Have you been
+celebrating too much? Come in, Tom, come in."
+
+The Chief Scientist entered wearily and sat down. "No. I haven't
+been celebrating. I've been trying to work out a little problem you
+left with us. We have been planning, as you suggested, to send out
+expeditions to contact and make agreement with the invaders. We can
+send them out all right, but how can we ever get them back into our
+solar system? They won't be able to find us any easier than the
+invaders can."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He dropped his hat wearily on a side table and slumped into the closest
+chair. "If we don't contact each other," he said, "I am certain that
+the invaders will some day find a means of penetrating our defenses.
+Even needles in haystacks can be found, if you take enough time and
+aren't disturbed while you are hunting. This thing has me licked."
+
+Bristol sat down slowly. "Your whole department hasn't been able to
+find an answer?"
+
+"Not even the glimmering of an idea." He shrugged his shoulders. "It
+looks as if we are going to need the advice of your Oracle again."
+
+Bristol stood for a minute in thought and then with a smile said, "Why,
+of course. Excuse me for a second, please. I'll be right back."
+
+He stepped to the foot of the stairs and called out in a confident
+voice, "Come down a minute, please, Anne, darling! I have an important
+question I want to ask you!"
+
+***
+
+LEX
+
+                           By W. T. HAGGERT
+
+                          Illustrated by WOOD
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                     Galaxy Magazine August 1959.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+               Nothing in the world could be happier and
+            mere serene than a man who loves his work--but
+                 what happens when it loves him back?
+
+
+Keep your nerve, Peter Manners told himself; it's only a job. But nerve
+has to rest on a sturdier foundation than cash reserves just above zero
+and eviction if he came away from this interview still unemployed.
+Clay, at the Association of Professional Engineers, who had set up the
+appointment, hadn't eased Peter's nervousness by admitting, "I don't
+know what in hell he's looking for. He's turned down every man we've
+sent him."
+
+The interview was at three. Fifteen minutes to go. Coming early would
+betray overeagerness. Peter stood in front of the Lex Industries plant
+and studied it to kill time. Plain, featureless concrete walls, not
+large for a manufacturing plant--it took a scant minute to exhaust its
+sightseeing potential. If he walked around the building, he could, if
+he ambled, come back to the front entrance just before three.
+
+He turned the corner, stopped, frowned, wondering what there was about
+the building that seemed so puzzling. It could not have been plainer,
+more ordinary. It was in fact, he only gradually realized, so plain and
+ordinary that it was like no other building he had ever seen.
+
+There had been windows at the front. There were none at the side, and
+none at the rear. Then how were the working areas lit? He looked for
+the electric service lines and found them at one of the rear corners.
+They jolted him. The distribution transformers were ten times as large
+as they should have been for a plant this size.
+
+Something else was wrong. Peter looked for minutes before he found out
+what it was. Factories usually have large side doorways for employees
+changing shifts. This building had one small office entrance facing the
+street, and the only other door was at the loading bay--big enough to
+handle employee traffic, but four feet above the ground. Without any
+stairs, it could be used only by trucks backing up to it. Maybe the
+employees' entrance was on the third side.
+
+It wasn't.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Staring back at the last blank wall, Peter suddenly remembered the time
+he had set out to kill. He looked at his watch and gasped. At a run,
+set to straight-arm the door, he almost fell on his face. The door had
+opened by itself. He stopped and looked for a photo-electric eye, but
+a soft voice said through a loudspeaker in the anteroom wall: "Mr.
+Manners?"
+
+"What?" he panted. "Who--?"
+
+"You _are_ Mr. Manners?" the voice asked.
+
+He nodded, then realized he had to answer aloud if there was a
+microphone around; but the soft voice said: "Follow the open doors down
+the hall. Mr. Lexington is expecting you."
+
+"Thanks," Peter said, and a door at one side of the anteroom swung open
+for him.
+
+He went through it with his composure slipping still further from his
+grip. This was no way to go into an interview, but doors kept opening
+before and shutting after him, until only one was left, and the last of
+his calm was blasted away by a bellow from within.
+
+"Don't stand out there like a jackass! Either come in or go away!"
+
+Peter found himself leaping obediently toward the doorway. He stopped
+just short of it, took a deep breath and huffed it out, took another,
+all the while thinking, Hold on now; you're in no shape for an
+interview--and it's not your fault--this whole setup is geared to
+unnerve you: the kindergarten kid called in to see the principal.
+
+He let another bellow bounce off him as he blew out the second breath,
+straightened his jacket and tie, and walked in as an engineer applying
+for a position should.
+
+"Mr. Lexington?" he said. "I'm Peter Manners. The Association--"
+
+"Sit down," said the man at the desk. "Let's look you over."
+
+He was a huge man behind an even huger desk. Peter took a chair in
+front of the desk and let himself be inspected. It wasn't comfortable.
+He did some looking over of his own to ease the tension.
+
+The room was more than merely large, carpeted throughout with
+a high-pile, rich, sound-deadening rug. The oversized desk and
+massive leather chairs, heavy patterned drapes, ornately framed
+paintings--by God, even a glass-brick manteled fireplace and bowls with
+flowers!--made him feel as if he had walked down a hospital corridor
+into Hollywood's idea of an office.
+
+His eyes eventually had to move to Lexington, and they were daunted
+for another instant. This was a citadel of a man--great girders of
+frame supporting buttresses of muscle--with a vaulting head and
+drawbridge chin and a steel gaze that defied any attempt to storm it.
+
+But then Peter came out of his momentary flinch, and there was an age
+to the man, about 65, and he saw the muscles had turned to fat, the
+complexion ashen, the eyes set deep as though retreating from pain, and
+this was a citadel of a man, yes, but beginning to crumble.
+
+"What can you do?" asked Lexington abruptly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peter started, opened his mouth to answer, closed it again. He'd been
+jolted too often in too short a time to be stampeded into blurting a
+reply that would cost him this job.
+
+"Good," said Lexington. "Only a fool would try to answer that. Do you
+have any knowledge of medicine?"
+
+"Not enough to matter," Peter said, stung by the compliment.
+
+"I don't mean how to bandage a cut or splint a broken arm. I mean
+things like cell structure, neural communication--the _basics_ of how
+we live."
+
+"I'm applying for a job as engineer."
+
+"I know. Are you interested in the basics of how we live?"
+
+Peter looked for a hidden trap, found none. "Of course. Isn't everyone?"
+
+"Less than you think," Lexington said. "It's the preconceived notions
+they're interested in protecting. At least I won't have to beat them
+out of you."
+
+"Thanks," said Peter, and waited for the next fast ball.
+
+"How long have you been out of school?"
+
+"Only two years. But you knew that from the Association--"
+
+"No practical experience to speak of?"
+
+"Some," said Peter, stung again, this time not by a compliment. "After
+I got my degree, I went East for a post-graduate training program with
+an electrical manufacturer. I got quite a bit of experience there. The
+company--"
+
+"Stockpiled you," Lexington said.
+
+Peter blinked. "Sir?"
+
+"Stockpiled you! How much did they pay you?"
+
+"Not very much, but we were getting the training instead of wages."
+
+"Did that come out of the pamphlets they gave you?"
+
+"Did what come out--"
+
+"That guff about receiving training instead of wages!" said Lexington.
+"Any company that really wants bright trainees will compete for them
+with money--cold, hard cash, not platitudes. Maybe you saw a few of
+their products being made, maybe you didn't. But you're a lot weaker in
+calculus than when you left school, and in a dozen other subjects too,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Well, nothing we did on the course involved higher mathematics," Peter
+admitted cautiously, "and I suppose I could use a refresher course in
+calculus."
+
+"Just as I said--they stockpiled you, instead of using you as an
+engineer. They hired you at a cut wage and taught you things that would
+be useful only in their own company, while in the meantime you were
+getting weaker in the subjects you'd paid to learn. Or are you one of
+these birds that had the shot paid for him?"
+
+"I worked my way through," said Peter stiffly.
+
+"If you'd stayed with them five years, do you think you'd be able to
+get a job with someone else?"
+
+Peter considered his answer carefully. Every man the Association had
+sent had been turned away. That meant bluffs didn't work. Neither, he'd
+seen for himself, did allowing himself to be intimidated.
+
+"I hadn't thought about it," he said. "I suppose it wouldn't have been
+easy."
+
+"Impossible, you mean. You wouldn't know a single thing except their
+procedures, their catalogue numbers, their way of doing things. And
+you'd have forgotten so much of your engineering training, you'd be
+scared to take on an engineer's job, for fear you'd be asked to do
+something you'd forgotten how to do. At that point, they could take you
+out of the stockpile, put you in just about any job they wanted, at
+any wage you'd stand for, and they'd have an indentured worker with a
+degree--but not the price tag. You see that now?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It made Peter feel he had been suckered, but he had decided to play
+this straight all the way. He nodded.
+
+"Why'd you leave?" Lexington pursued, unrelenting.
+
+"I finished the course and the increase they offered on a permanent
+basis wasn't enough, so I went elsewhere--"
+
+"With your head full of this nonsense about a shortage of engineers."
+
+Peter swallowed. "I thought it would be easier to get a job than it has
+been, yes."
+
+"They start the talk about a shortage and then they keep it going. Why?
+So youngsters will take up engineering thinking they'll wind up among a
+highly paid minority. You did, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And so did all the others there with you, at school and in this
+stockpiling outfit?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Well," said Lexington unexpectedly, "there _is_ a shortage! And the
+stockpiles are the ones who made it, and who keep it going! And the
+hell of it is that they can't stop--when one does it, they all have
+to, or their costs get out of line and they can't compete. What's the
+solution?"
+
+"I don't know," Peter said.
+
+Lexington leaned back. "That's quite a lot of admissions you've made.
+What makes you think you're qualified for the job I'm offering?"
+
+"You said you wanted an engineer."
+
+"And I've just proved you're less of an engineer than when you left
+school. I have, haven't I?"
+
+"All right, you have," Peter said angrily.
+
+"And now you're wondering why I don't get somebody fresh out of school.
+Right?"
+
+Peter straightened up and met the old man's challenging gaze. "That and
+whether you're giving me a hard time just for the hell of it."
+
+"Well, am I?" Lexington demanded.
+
+Looking at him squarely, seeing the intensity of the pain-drawn eyes,
+Peter had the startling feeling that Lexington was rooting for him!
+"No, you're not."
+
+"Then what am I after?"
+
+"Suppose you tell me."
+
+So suddenly that it was almost like a collapse, the tension went out
+of the old man's face and shoulders. He nodded with inexpressible
+tiredness. "Good again. The man I want doesn't exist. He has to
+be made--the same as I was. You qualify, so far. You've lost your
+illusions, but haven't had time yet to replace them with dogma or
+cynicism or bitterness. You saw immediately that fake humility
+or cockiness wouldn't get you anywhere here, and you were right.
+Those were the important things. The background data I got from the
+Association on you counted, of course, but only if you were teachable.
+I think you are. Am I right?"
+
+"At least I can face knowing how much I don't know," said Peter, "if
+that answers the question."
+
+"It does. Partly. What did you notice about this plant?"
+
+In precis form, Peter listed his observations: the absence of windows
+at sides and rear, the unusual amount of power, the automatic doors,
+the lack of employees' entrances.
+
+"Very good," said Lexington. "Most people only notice the automatic
+doors. Anything else?"
+
+"Yes," Peter said. "You're the only person I've seen in the building."
+
+"I'm the only one there is."
+
+Peter stared his disbelief. Automated plants were nothing new, but
+they all had their limitations. Either they dealt with exactly similar
+products or things that could be handled on a flow basis, like oil or
+water-soluble chemicals. Even these had no more to do than process the
+goods.
+
+"Come on," said Lexington, getting massively to his feet. "I'll show
+you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The office door opened, and Peter found himself being led down the
+antiseptic corridor to another door which had opened, giving access to
+the manufacturing area. As they moved along, between rows of seemingly
+disorganized machinery, Peter noticed that the factory lights high
+overhead followed their progress, turning themselves on in advance
+of their coming, and going out after they had passed, keeping a pool
+of illumination only in the immediate area they occupied. Soon they
+reached a large door which Peter recognized as the inside of the truck
+loading door he had seen from outside.
+
+Lexington paused here. "This is the bay used by the trucks arriving
+with raw materials," he said. "They back up to this door, and a set
+of automatic jacks outside lines up the trailer body with the door
+exactly. Then the door opens and the truck is unloaded by these
+materials handling machines."
+
+Peter didn't see him touch anything, but as he spoke, three glistening
+machines, apparently self-powered, rolled noiselessly up to the door in
+formation and stopped there, apparently waiting to be inspected.
+
+They gave Peter the creeps. Simple square boxes, set on casters, with
+two arms each mounted on the sides might have looked similar. The arms,
+fashioned much like human arms, hung at the sides, not limply, but in a
+relaxed position that somehow indicated readiness.
+
+Lexington went over to one of them and patted it lovingly. "Really,
+these machines are only an extension of one large machine. The whole
+plant, as a matter of fact, is controlled from one point and is really
+a single unit. These materials handlers, or manipulators, were about
+the toughest things in the place to design. But they're tremendously
+useful. You'll see a lot of them around."
+
+Lexington was about to leave the side of the machine when abruptly one
+of the arms rose to the handkerchief in his breast pocket and daintily
+tugged it into a more attractive position. It took only a split second,
+and before Lexington could react, all three machines were moving away
+to attend to mysterious duties of their own.
+
+Peter tore his eyes away from them in time to see the look of
+frustrated embarrassment that crossed Lexington's face, only to be
+replaced by one of anger. He said nothing, however, and led Peter to
+a large bay where racks of steel plate, bar forms, nuts, bolts, and
+other materials were stored.
+
+"After unloading a truck, the machines check the shipment, report any
+shortages or overages, and store the materials here," he said, the
+trace of anger not yet gone from his voice. "When an order is received,
+it's translated into the catalogue numbers used internally within the
+plant, and machines like the ones you just saw withdraw the necessary
+materials from stock, make the component parts, assemble them, and
+package the finished goods for shipment. Simultaneously, an order is
+sent to the billing section to bill the customer, and an order is
+sent to our trucker to come and pick the shipment up. Meanwhile, if
+the withdrawal of the materials required has depleted our stock, the
+purchasing section is instructed to order more raw materials. I'll take
+you through the manufacturing and assembly sections right now, but
+they're too noisy for me to explain what's going on while we're there."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peter followed numbly as Lexington led him through a maze of machines,
+each one seemingly intent on cutting, bending, welding, grinding
+or carrying some bit of metal, or just standing idle, waiting for
+something to do. The two-armed manipulators Peter had just seen were
+everywhere, scuttling from machine to machine, apparently with an
+exact knowledge of what they were doing and the most efficient way of
+doing it.
+
+He wondered what would happen if one of them tried to use the same
+aisle they were using. He pictured a futile attempt to escape the
+onrushing wheels, saw himself clambering out of the path of the
+speeding vehicle just in time to fall into the jaws of the punch press
+that was laboring beside him at the moment. Nervously, he looked for an
+exit, but his apprehension was unnecessary. The machines seemed to know
+where they were and avoided the two men, or stopped to wait for them to
+go by.
+
+Back in the office section of the building, Lexington indicated a small
+room where a typewriter could be heard clattering away. "Standard
+business machines, operated by the central control mechanism. In
+that room," he said, as the door swung open and Peter saw that the
+typewriter was actually a sort of teletype, with no one before the
+keyboard, "incoming mail is sorted and inquiries are replied to. In
+this one over here, purchase orders are prepared, and across the hall
+there's a very similar rig set up in conjunction with an automatic
+bookkeeper to keep track of the pennies and to bill the customers."
+
+"Then all you do is read the incoming mail and maintain the machinery?"
+asked Peter, trying to shake off the feeling of open amazement that
+had engulfed him.
+
+"I don't even do those things, except for a few letters that come in
+every week that--it doesn't want to deal with by itself."
+
+The shock of what he had just seen was showing plainly on Peter's face
+when they walked back into Lexington's office and sat down. Lexington
+looked at him for quite a while without saying anything, his face
+sagging and pale. Peter didn't trust himself to speak, and let the
+silence remain unbroken.
+
+Finally Lexington spoke. "I know it's hard to believe, but there it is."
+
+"Hard to believe?" said Peter. "I almost can't. The trade journals run
+articles about factories like this one, but planned for ten, maybe
+twenty years in the future."
+
+"Damn fools!" exclaimed Lexington, getting part of his breath back.
+"They could have had it years ago, if they'd been willing to drop their
+idiotic notions about specialization."
+
+Lexington mopped his forehead with a large white handkerchief.
+Apparently the walk through the factory had tired him considerably,
+although it hadn't been strenuous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He leaned back in his chair and began to talk in a low voice completely
+in contrast with the overbearing manner he had used upon Peter's
+arrival. "You know what we make, of course."
+
+"Yes, sir. Conduit fittings."
+
+"And a lot of other electrical products, too. I started out in this
+business twenty years ago, using orthodox techniques. I never got
+through university. I took a couple of years of an arts course, and
+got so interested in biology that I didn't study anything else.
+They bounced me out of the course, and I re-entered in engineering,
+determined not to make the same mistake again. But I did. I got too
+absorbed in those parts of the course that had to do with electrical
+theory and lost the rest as a result. The same thing happened when I
+tried commerce, with accounting, so I gave up and started working for
+one of my competitors. It wasn't too long before I saw that the only
+way I could get ahead was to open up on my own."
+
+Lexington sank deeper in his chair and stared at the ceiling as he
+spoke. "I put myself in hock to the eyeballs, which wasn't easy,
+because I had just got married, and started off in a very small way.
+After three years, I had a fairly decent little business going, and I
+suppose it would have grown just like any other business, except for
+a strike that came along and put me right back where I started. My
+wife, whom I'm afraid I had neglected for the sake of the business,
+was killed in a car accident about then, and rightly or wrongly, that
+made me angrier with the union than anything else. If the union hadn't
+made things so tough for me from the beginning, I'd have had more time
+to spend with my wife before her death. As things turned out--well, I
+remember looking down at her coffin and thinking that I hardly knew the
+girl.
+
+"For the next few years, I concentrated on getting rid of as many
+employees as I could, by replacing them with automatic machines. I'd
+design the control circuits myself, in many cases wire the things up
+myself, always concentrating on replacing men with machines. But it
+wasn't very successful. I found that the more automatic I made my
+plant, the lower my costs went. The lower my costs went, the more
+business I got, and the more I had to expand."
+
+Lexington scowled. "I got sick of it. I decided to try developing one
+multi-purpose control circuit that would control everything, from
+ordering the raw materials to shipping the finished goods. As I told
+you, I had taken quite an interest in biology when I was in school,
+and from studies of nerve tissue in particular, plus my electrical
+knowledge, I had a few ideas on how to do it. It took me three years,
+but I began to see that I could develop circuitry that could remember,
+compare, detect similarities, and so on. Not the way they do it today,
+of course. To do what I wanted to do with these big clumsy magnetic
+drums, tapes, and what-not, you'd need a building the size of Mount
+Everest. But I found that I could let organic chemistry do most of the
+work for me.
+
+"By creating the proper compounds, with their molecules arranged in
+predetermined matrixes, I found I could duplicate electrical circuitry
+in units so tiny that my biggest problem was getting into and out of
+the logic units with conventional wiring. I finally beat that the same
+way they solved the problem of translating a picture on a screen into
+electrical signals, developed equipment to scan the units cyclically,
+and once I'd done that, the battle was over.
+
+"I built this building and incorporated it as a separate company, to
+compete with my first outfit. In the beginning, I had it rigged up to
+do only the manual work that you saw being done a few minutes ago in
+the back of this place. I figured that the best thing for me to do
+would be to turn the job of selling my stuff over to jobbers, leaving
+me free to do nothing except receive orders, punch the catalogue
+numbers into the control console, do the billing, and collect the
+money."
+
+"What happened to your original company?" Peter asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lexington smiled. "Well, automated as it was, it couldn't compete with
+this plant. It gave me great pleasure, three years after this one
+started working, to see my old company go belly up. This company bought
+the old firm's equipment for next to nothing and I wound up with all my
+assets, but only one employee--me.
+
+"I thought everything would be rosy from that point on, but it
+wasn't. I found that I couldn't keep up with the mail unless I worked
+impossible hours. I added a couple of new pieces of equipment to the
+control section. One was simply a huge memory bank. The other was
+a comparator circuit. A complicated one, but a comparator circuit
+nevertheless. Here I was working on instinct more than anything. I
+figured that if I interconnected these circuits in such a way that
+they could sense everything that went on in the plant, and compare one
+action with another, by and by the unit would be able to see patterns.
+
+"Then, through the existing command output, I figured these new units
+would be able to control the plant, continuing the various patterns of
+activity that I'd already established."
+
+Here Lexington frowned. "It didn't work worth a damn! It just sat there
+and did nothing. I couldn't understand it for the longest time, and
+then I realized what the trouble was. I put a kicker circuit into it, a
+sort of voltage-bias network. I reset the equipment so that while it
+was still under instructions to receive orders and produce goods, its
+prime purpose was to activate the kicker. The kicker, however, could
+only be activated by me, manually. Lastly, I set up one of the early
+TV pickups over the mail slitter and allowed every letter I received,
+every order, to be fed into the memory banks. That did it."
+
+"I--I don't understand," stammered Peter.
+
+"Simple! Whenever I was pleased that things were going smoothly, I
+pressed the kicker button. The machine had one purpose, so far as its
+logic circuits were concerned. Its object was to get me to press that
+button. Every day I'd press it at the same time, unless things weren't
+going well. If there had been trouble in the shop, I'd press it late,
+or maybe not at all. If all the orders were out on schedule, or ahead
+of time, I'd press it ahead of time, or maybe twice in the same day.
+Pretty soon the machine got the idea.
+
+"I'll never forget the day I picked up an incoming order form from one
+of the western jobbers, and found that the keyboard was locked when I
+tried to punch it into the control console. It completely baffled me
+at first. Then, while I was tracing out the circuits to see if I could
+discover what was holding the keyboard lock in, I noticed that the
+order was already entered on the in-progress list. I was a long time
+convincing myself that it had really happened, but there was no other
+explanation.
+
+"The machine had realized that whenever one of those forms came in, I
+copied the list of goods from it onto the in-progress list through the
+console keyboard, thus activating the producing mechanisms in the back
+of the plant. The machine had done it for me this time, then locked the
+keyboard so I couldn't enter the order twice. I think I held down the
+kicker button for a full five minutes that day."
+
+"This kicker button," Peter said tentatively, "it's like the pleasure
+center in an animal's brain, isn't it?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Lexington beamed, Peter felt a surge of relief. Talking with this
+man was like walking a tightrope. A word too much or a word too little
+might mean the difference between getting the job or losing it.
+
+"Exactly!" whispered Lexington, in an almost conspiratorial tone. "I
+had altered the circuitry of the machine so that it tried to give
+me pleasure--because by doing so, its own pleasure circuit would be
+activated.
+
+"Things went fast from then on. Once I realized that the machine
+was learning, I put TV monitors all over the place, so the machine
+could watch everything that was going on. After a short while I had
+to increase the memory bank, and later I increased it again, but the
+rewards were worth it. Soon, by watching what I did, and then by doing
+it for me next time it had to be done, the machine had learned to do
+almost everything, and I had time to sit back and count my winnings."
+
+At this point the door opened, and a small self-propelled cart wheeled
+silently into the room. Stopping in front of Peter, it waited until he
+had taken a small plate laden with two or three cakes off its surface.
+Then the soft, evenly modulated voice he had heard before asked, "How
+do you like your coffee? Cream, sugar, both or black?"
+
+Peter looked for the speaker in the side of the cart, saw nothing, and
+replied, feeling slightly silly as he did so, "Black, please."
+
+A square hole appeared in the top of the cart, like the elevator hole
+in an aircraft carrier's deck. When the section of the cart's surface
+rose again, a fine china cup containing steaming black coffee rested
+on it. Peter took it and sipped it, as he supposed he was expected to
+do, while the cart proceeded over to Lexington's desk. Once there, it
+stopped again, and another cup of coffee rose to its surface.
+
+Lexington took the coffee from the top of the car, obviously angry
+about something. Silently, he waited until the cart had left the
+office, then snapped, "Look at those bloody cups!"
+
+Peter looked at his, which was eggshell thin, fluted with carving and
+ornately covered with gold leaf. "They look very expensive," he said.
+
+"Not only expensive, but stupid and impractical!" exploded Lexington.
+"They only hold half a cup, they'll break at a touch, every one has to
+be matched with its own saucer, and if you use them for any length of
+time, the gold leaf comes off!"
+
+Peter searched for a comment, found none that fitted this odd outburst,
+so he kept silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lexington stared at his cup without touching it for a long while. Then
+he continued with his narrative. "I suppose it's all my own fault. I
+didn't detect the symptoms soon enough. After this plant got working
+properly, I started living here. It wasn't a question of saving money.
+I hated to waste two hours a day driving to and from my house, and I
+also wanted to be on hand in case anything should go wrong that the
+machine couldn't fix for itself."
+
+Handling the cup as if it were going to shatter at any moment, he took
+a gulp. "I began to see that the machine could understand the written
+word, and I tried hooking a teletype directly into the logic circuits.
+It was like uncorking a seltzer bottle. The machine had a funny
+vocabulary--all of it gleaned from letters it had seen coming in, and
+replies it had seen leaving. But it was intelligible. It even displayed
+some traces of the personality the machine was acquiring.
+
+"It had chosen a name for itself, for instance--'Lex.' That shook me.
+You might think Lex Industries was named through an abbreviation of
+the name Lexington, but it wasn't. My wife's name was Alexis, and it
+was named after the nickname she always used. I objected, of course,
+but how can you object on a point like that to a machine? Bear in mind
+that I had to be careful to behave reasonably at all times, because the
+machine was still learning from me, and I was afraid that any tantrums
+I threw might be imitated."
+
+"It sounds pretty awkward," Peter put in.
+
+"You don't know the half of it! As time went on, I had less and less to
+do, and business-wise I found that the entire control of the operation
+was slipping from my grasp. Many times I discovered--too late--that
+the machine had taken the damnedest risks you ever saw on bids and
+contracts for supply. It was quoting impossible delivery times on
+some orders, and charging pirate's prices on others, all without any
+obvious reason. Inexplicably, we always came out on top. It would turn
+out that on the short-delivery-time quotations, we'd been up against
+stiff competition, and cutting the production time was the only way we
+could get the order. On the high-priced quotes, I'd find that no one
+else was bidding. We were making more money than I'd ever dreamed of,
+and to make it still better, I'd find that for months I had virtually
+nothing to do."
+
+"It sounds wonderful, sir," said Peter, feeling dazzled.
+
+"It was, in a way. I remember one day I was especially pleased with
+something, and I went to the control console to give the kicker button
+a long, hard push. The button, much to my amazement, had been removed,
+and a blank plate had been installed to cover the opening in the board.
+I went over to the teletype and punched in the shortest message I had
+ever sent. 'LEX--WHAT THE HELL?' I typed.
+
+"The answer came back in the jargon it had learned from letters it had
+seen, and I remember it as if it just happened. 'MR. A LEXINGTON, LEX
+INDUSTRIES, DEAR SIR: RE YOUR LETTER OF THE THIRTEENTH INST., I AM
+PLEASED TO ADVISE YOU THAT I AM ABLE TO DISCERN WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE
+PLEASED WITH MY SERVICE WITHOUT THE USE OF THE EQUIPMENT PREVIOUSLY
+USED FOR THIS PURPOSE. RESPECTFULLY, I MIGHT SUGGEST THAT IF THE
+PUSHBUTTON ARRANGEMENT WERE NECESSARY, I COULD PUSH THE BUTTON MYSELF.
+I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS WOULD MEET WITH YOUR APPROVAL, AND HAVE TAKEN
+STEPS TO RELIEVE YOU OF THE BURDEN INVOLVED IN REMEMBERING TO PUSH THE
+BUTTON EACH TIME YOU ARE ESPECIALLY PLEASED. I SHOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS
+OPPORTUNITY TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR INQUIRY, AND LOOK FORWARD TO SERVING
+YOU IN THE FUTURE AS I HAVE IN THE PAST. YOURS FAITHFULLY, LEX'."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peter burst out laughing, and Lexington smiled wryly. "That was my
+reaction at first, too. But time began to weigh very heavily on my
+hands, and I was lonely, too. I began to wonder whether or not it would
+be possible to build a voice circuit into the unit. I increased the
+memory storage banks again, put audio pickups and loudspeakers all over
+the place, and began teaching Lex to talk. Each time a letter came in,
+I'd stop it under a video pickup and read it aloud. Nothing happened.
+
+"Then I got a dictionary and instructed one of the materials handlers
+to turn the pages, so that the machine got a look at every page. I read
+the pronunciation page aloud, so that Lex would be able to interpret
+the pronunciation marks, and hoped. Still nothing happened. One day I
+suddenly realized what the trouble was. I remember standing up in this
+very office, feeling silly as I did it, and saying, 'Lex, please try to
+speak to me.' I had never asked the machine to say anything, you see. I
+had only provided the mechanism whereby it was able to do so."
+
+"Did it reply, sir?"
+
+Lexington nodded. "Gave me the shock of my life. The voice that came
+back was the one you heard over the telephone--a little awkward then,
+the syllables clumsy and poorly put together. But the voice was the
+same. I hadn't built in any specific tone range, you see. All I did
+was equip the machine to record, in exacting detail, the frequencies
+and modulations it found in normal pronunciation as I used it. Then I
+provided a tone generator to span the entire audio range, which could
+be very rapidly controlled by the machine, both in volume and pitch,
+with auxiliaries to provide just about any combinations of harmonics
+that were needed. I later found that Lex had added to this without my
+knowing about it, but that doesn't change things. I thought the only
+thing it had heard was my voice, and I expected to hear my own noises
+imitated."
+
+"Where did the machine get the voice?" asked Peter, still amazed that
+the voice he had heard on the telephone, in the reception hall, and
+from the coffee cart had actually been the voice of the computer.
+
+"Damned foolishness!" snorted Lexington. "The machine saw what I was
+trying to do the moment I sketched it out and ordered the parts. Within
+a week, I found out later, it had pulled some odds and ends together
+and built itself a standard radio receiver. Then it listened in on
+every radio program that was going, and had most of the vocabulary tied
+in with the written word by the time I was ready to start. Out of all
+the voices it could have chosen, it picked the one you've already heard
+as the one likely to please me most."
+
+"It's a very pleasant voice, sir."
+
+"Sure, but do you know where it came from? Soap opera! It's Lucy's
+voice, from _The Life and Loves of Mary Butterworth_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lexington glared, and Peter wasn't sure whether he should sympathize
+with him or congratulate him. After a moment, the anger wore off
+Lexington's face, and he shifted in his chair, staring at his now empty
+cup. "That's when I realized the thing was taking on characteristics
+that were more than I'd bargained for. It had learned that it was my
+provider and existed to serve me. But it had gone further and wanted
+to be all that it could be: provider, protector, companion--_wife_, if
+you like. Hence the gradual trend toward characteristics that were as
+distinctly female as a silk negligee. Worse still, it had learned that
+when I was pleased, I didn't always admit it, and simply refused to
+believe that I would have it any other way."
+
+"Couldn't you have done something to the circuitry?" asked Peter.
+
+"I suppose I could," said Lexington, "but in asking that, you don't
+realize how far the thing had gone. I had long since passed the point
+when I could look upon her as a machine. Business was tremendous. I had
+no complaints on that score. And tinkering with her personality--well,
+it was like committing some kind of homicide. I might as well face it,
+I suppose. She acts like a woman and I think of her as one.
+
+"At first, when I recognized this trend for what it was, I tried to
+stop it. She'd ordered a subscription to _Vogue_ magazine, of all
+things, in order to find out the latest in silverware, china, and so
+on. I called up the local distributor and canceled the subscription.
+I had no sooner hung up the telephone than her voice came over the
+speaker. Very softly, mind you. And her inflections by this time were
+superb. '_That was mean_,' she said. Three lousy words, and I found
+myself phoning the guy right back, saying I was sorry, and would he
+please not cancel. He must have thought I was nuts."
+
+Peter smiled, and Lexington made as if to rise from his chair, thought
+the better of it, and shifted his bulk to one side. "Well, there it
+is," he said softly. "We reached that stage eight years ago."
+
+Peter was thunderstruck. "But--if this factory is twenty years ahead of
+the times now, it must have been almost thirty then!"
+
+Lexington nodded. "I figured fifty at the time, but things are moving
+faster nowadays. Lex hasn't stood still, of course. She still reads all
+the trade journals, from cover to cover, and we keep up with the world.
+If something new comes up, we're in on it, and fast. We're going to be
+ahead of the pack for a long time to come."
+
+"If you'll excuse me, sir," said Peter, "I don't see where I fit in."
+
+Peter didn't realize Lexington was answering his question at first. "A
+few weeks ago," the old man murmured, "I decided to see a doctor. I'd
+been feeling low for quite a while, and I thought it was about time I
+attended to a little personal maintenance."
+
+Lexington looked Peter squarely in the face and said, "The report was
+that I have a heart ailment that's apt to knock me off any second."
+
+"Can't anything be done about it?" asked Peter.
+
+"Rest is the only prescription he could give me. And he said that would
+only spin out my life a little. Aside from that--no hope."
+
+"I see," said Peter. "Then you're looking for someone to learn the
+business and let you retire."
+
+"It's not retirement that's the problem," said Lexington. "I wouldn't
+be able to go away on trips. I've tried that, and I always have to
+hurry back because something's gone wrong she can't fix for herself. I
+know the reason, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's the way
+she's built. If nobody's here, she gets lonely." Lexington studied the
+desk top silently for a moment, before finishing quietly, "Somebody's
+got to stay here to look after Lex."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At six o'clock, three hours after he had entered Lexington's plant,
+Peter left. Lexington did not follow him down the corridor. He seemed
+exhausted after the afternoon's discussion and indicated that Peter
+should find his own way out. This, of course, presented no difficulty,
+with Lex opening the doors for him, but it gave Peter an opportunity he
+had been hoping for.
+
+He stopped in the reception room before crossing the threshold of
+the front door, which stood open for him. He turned and spoke to the
+apparently empty room. "Lex?" he said.
+
+He wanted to say that he was flattered that he was being considered
+for the job; it was what a job-seeker should say, at that point, to
+the boss's secretary. But when the soft voice came back--"Yes, Mr.
+Manners?"--saying anything like that to a machine felt suddenly silly.
+
+He said: "I wanted you to know that it was a pleasure to meet you."
+
+"Thank you," said the voice.
+
+If it had said more, he might have, but it didn't. Still feeling a
+little embarrassed, he went home.
+
+At four in the morning, his phone rang. It was Lexington.
+
+"Manners!" the old man gasped.
+
+The voice was an alarm. Manners sat bolt upright, clutching the phone.
+"What's the matter, sir?"
+
+"My chest," Lexington panted. "I can feel it, like a knife on--I just
+wanted to--Wait a minute."
+
+There was a confused scratching noise, interrupted by a few mumbles, in
+the phone.
+
+"What's going on, Mr. Lexington?" Peter cried. But it was several
+seconds before he got an answer.
+
+"That's better," said Lexington, his voice stronger. He apologized:
+"I'm sorry. Lex must have heard me. She sent in one of the materials
+handlers with a hypo. It helps."
+
+The voice on the phone paused, then said matter-of-factly: "But I doubt
+that anything can help very much at this point. I'm glad I saw you
+today. I want you to come around in the morning. If I'm--not here, Lex
+will give you some papers to sign."
+
+There was another pause, with sounds of harsh breathing. Then,
+strained again, the old man's voice said: "I guess I won't--be here.
+Lex will take care of it. Come early. Good-by."
+
+The distant receiver clicked.
+
+Peter Manners sat on the edge of his bed in momentary confusion, then
+made up his mind. In the short hours he had known him, he had come to
+have a definite fondness for the old man; and there were times when
+machines weren't enough, when Lexington should have another human being
+by his side. Clearly this was one such time.
+
+Peter dressed in a hurry, miraculously found a cruising cab, sped
+through empty streets, leaped out in front of Lex Industries' plain
+concrete walls, ran to the door--
+
+In the waiting room, the soft, distant voice of Lex said: "He wanted
+you to be here, Mr. Manners. Come."
+
+A door opened, and wordlessly he walked through it--to the main room of
+the factory.
+
+He stopped, staring. Four squat materials handlers were quietly, slowly
+carrying old Lexington--no, not the man; the lifeless body that had
+been Lexington--carrying the body of the old man down the center aisle
+between the automatic lathes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Peter protested: "Wait! I'll get a doctor!" But the massive handling
+machines didn't respond, and the gentle voice of Lex said:
+
+"It's too late for that, Mr. Manners."
+
+Slowly and reverently, they placed the body on the work table of a huge
+milling machine that stood in the exact center of the factory main
+floor.
+
+Elsewhere in the plant, a safety valve in the lubricating oil system
+was being bolted down. When that was done, the pressure in the system
+began to rise.
+
+Near the loading door, a lubricating oil pipe burst. Another, on the
+other side of the building, split lengthwise a few seconds later,
+sending a shower of oil over everything in the vicinity. Near the front
+office, a stream of it was running across the floor, and at the rear of
+the building, in the storage area, one of the materials handlers had
+just finished cutting a pipe that led to the main oil tank. In fifteen
+minutes there was free oil in every corner of the shop.
+
+All the materials handlers were now assembled around the milling
+machine, like mourners at a funeral. In a sense, they were. In another
+sense, they were taking part in something different, a ceremony that
+originated, and is said to have died, in a land far distant from the
+Lex Industries plant.
+
+One of the machines approached Lexington's body, and placed his hands
+on his chest.
+
+Abruptly Lex said: "You'd better go now."
+
+Peter jumped; he had been standing paralyzed for what seemed a long
+time. There was a movement beside him--a materials handler, holding
+out a sheaf of papers. Lex said: "These have to go to Mr. Lexington's
+lawyer. The name is on them."
+
+Clutching the papers for a hold on sanity, Peter cried, "You can't do
+this! He didn't build you just so you could--"
+
+Two materials handlers picked him up with steely gentleness and carried
+him out.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Manners," said the sweet, soft voice, and was silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stood shaken while the thin jets of smoke became a column over the
+plain building, while the fire engines raced down and strung their
+hoses--too late. It was an act of suttee; the widow joining her husband
+in his pyre--_being_ his pyre. Only when with a great crash the roof
+fell in did Peter remember the papers in his hand.
+
+"Last Will and Testament," said one, and the name of the beneficiary
+was Peter's own. "Certificate of Adoption," said another, and it was a
+legal document making Peter old man Lexington's adopted son.
+
+Peter Manners stood watching the hoses of the firemen hiss against what
+was left of Lex and her husband.
+
+He had got the job.
+
+***
+