The Brain Part 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 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 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.

"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 a.s.surance 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", ma.s.s 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 gla.s.ses, yours too. This really deserves a toast."

The girl stepped between the two men. Handing Lee his gla.s.s 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 skysc.r.a.per 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_."