copyright (c) 2009 by sfwriter.com inc. this ebook is available in rtf format, please see the accompanying files. note that it is an extract only, provided by the author. copyright (c) 2010 by robert j. sawyer this ebook is available in rtf format, please see the accompanying files. note that it is an extract only, provided by the author. 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.... 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 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 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. 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. 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 _morã©s_ 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!" 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. 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 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." [footnote a: transcriber note: printer error. text missing from original.] 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 hervery 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. it 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 