Part 6 (2/2)
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 a.n.a.lysis; I cannot disprove it though. That's all, I guess; I better be going now.”
”Here's your pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 t.i.tanic 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 a.s.sembled 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 n.o.body seemed willing to discuss or tread, not even Oona Dahlborg.
<script>