Part 2 (1/2)

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 G.o.d'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 gnas.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sociations 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 b.u.t.ton; 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 exact.i.tude 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 cla.s.sic; 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 subst.i.tuted 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 G.o.dfather 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 const.i.tutes 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 a.s.sent.