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

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