The Brain by Edmond Hamilton (best free ebook reader .txt) 📗

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