The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cyberene
    
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Title: The Cyberene

Author: Rog Phillips

Illustrator: W. E. Terry

Release date: August 29, 2021 [eBook #66163]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CYBERENE ***

                             THE CYBERENE

                            By Rog Phillips

               Somewhere in the far future a diabolical
             brain plotted the enslavement of mankind. But
             to do that a history had to be changed--ours!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                            September 1953
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


"Victor!"

Her voice shattered the cathedral silence, going the full four hundred
and fifty foot perimeter of the fourteen foot wide floor that encircled
the case of the _Brain_. The echo rebounded from the maze of ladders
and catwalks that went up and up until they were lost to view where the
fifteen foot thick outer wall began its upward slope to form the giant
dome.

The silence returned; as motionless as the needles on the instrument
panels resting on their zero pegs, unactivated; as enduring in essence
as the atom proof concrete dome built to last--as long as the Earth
itself.

Then--a sound answered. A faint sound. Footsteps. Movement appeared
through the grillwork of steel catwalks above. Trousered legs. A hand
sliding along a railing of chrome pipe. More rapid steps as the man
descended a steep stair well. Sharper as the man reached the marble
floor.

Dead video camera eyes let his passage go unregistered. Sensitive
quartz crystals inside glistening microphone shells vibrated to the
sound of his footsteps, his soft breathing, sending feeble currents
along wires--to dead amplifying circuits.

"What is it, Ethel?" Dr. Victor Glassman said to his wife.

"Don't you realize it's almost an hour past your lunch time?" she
chided. "Why do you come in here anyway? The Brain was completed six
months ago. It won't run away--and it won't come to life until someone
finds the proper chemical for the nerve fluid to make it work. My
goodness. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars sitting idle in here.
It gives me gooseflesh. Now you come and eat your lunch so I can
get the dishes out of the way. I'm going to be busy the rest of the
afternoon getting ready for the crowd--or did you forget that your ten
scientists are invited to dinner this evening?"

"Of course not, Ethel," he said, putting his arm around her waist. He
pulled her around so they were side by side, looking upward into the
maze of catwalks, seeing the marble panels of the wall that served as a
covering for the huge man-made brain. "_You_ know why I come in here,"
he said. "I like the feel. The sleeping giant. Not sleeping, really.
Just not born yet. Not living yet. Someday soon that will change. The
first non-human...."

"I understand, Victor," Ethel said softly. "It scares me. I know it
will be just like a human mind--same principles of thought--even if
it will be housed in so vast a brain. But how much do we know of the
capabilities of the _human_ brain? I'm afraid."

Dr. Glassman's eyes crinkled goodnaturedly. He tightened his arm around
her waist.

"I'll protect you, Ethel," he said.

She looked up at the giant structure that dwarfed them to
insignificance. "Against that?" she snorted. "What with? A lance and
prancing nag of leather and bones like Don Quixote of old?" She
slipped her arm around his shoulders, her expression softening. "But I
know what you mean. Only ... it's...."

"And I know what you mean, too. Sometimes even I'm afraid of it.
But once we activate it, it will take years for it to build up a
self-integrated mind even equal to a child's. And we'll both be long
dead before its intelligence starts climbing above that of man. You
know, I'm hungry."

Together, arm in arm, they departed, closing the door. And once again
the echoes died away, leaving only the silence.

And the Brain.

       *       *       *       *       *

"How about being quiet for a minute so I won't get these mixed
up?" Earl Frye said, a mask of tolerant good nature concealing his
irritation. "By the way, what's wrong with p. n. 9? Bottleneck?"

Irene Conner clapped her hand over her mouth and spoke from between her
fingers. "Go ahead and pour," she mumbled. "I'll keep quiet for five
minutes."

"Okay," Earl said, unaffected by the twinkle in Irene's clear blue
eyes, the smooth wave of her blonde hair, the quiet unscientific curves
under her lab apron.

He picked the first vial off the tray, read the number on its label and
carefully jotted it down on the lab card. He emptied the vial into
the small opening on top the pump and flicked the toggle switch. With
a smooth whir the pump started. The pressure gauge needle broke from
zero and started upward, finally hovering near the seven ton per square
inch mark. He watched as the fluid he had poured emerged into glass
tubing no thicker than a human hair, and, under the tons per square
inch pressure, stretched into fine fluid columns less than half a dozen
molecules thick.

He repeated the performance with another vial and another pump, and
another, until all ten pumps were working. He went back to the first
one. The fluid had reached the slightly enlarged bubble several inches
up the thread-like glass tubes. He shut off the pump, then went through
the same routine with the other ten.

"That show I want to see is on at the Rialto, Earl," Irene said. "Just
tonight and tomorrow night."

"Good," Earl grunted, starting to recheck the charts. "Let me know if
you liked it. If it's any good I might go see it."

"Why don't you come see it with me?" Irene said.

"Uh," Earl hesitated, not looking up from a chart he was studying.

He was saved by the hall door opening.

"Hi, Basil," he said, taking in Basil Nelson's expression of mild
haste, and the empty test tube in his hand.

Irene frowned in annoyance.

Basil looked at her with a mixture of apology and hopefulness, then
turned to Earl. "Uh, I came in to borrow some base formula," he said.
"Just need a few cc's and didn't want to take the time to get a full
gallon from the storeroom."

"Help yourself," Earl said. He grinned sidewise at Irene. "By the way,
Irene is looking for someone to go with her to see some show that's on
at the Rialto."

"I'll be glad to," Basil said eagerly.

"No thanks," Irene said. "I'm going with my aunt."

"Your aunt?" Basil said. "I didn't know you had an aunt living in
Crestmont." He went to a supply shelf over a wall bench and poured some
base formula from a rubber tube dangling from a large bottle.

"She just arrived in town," Irene said dryly.

"Can I meet her?" Basil said coming back from the supply shelf. He was
facing Irene and half facing Earl. He was in a position so that there
was nothing between him and the window across the room.

"Sorry," Irene said. "She's leaving town in the morning. I'm sure--Oh,
how can you be so clumsy, Basil?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The test tube had dropped from his hand. Small glass fragments and the
oily fluid were spattered on the floor and his shoes. He was examining
a small cut on the inside of his thumb that was beginning to bleed.

"Clumsy?" he said absently. "Oh no. I didn't drop the test tube. It
broke in my hand."

"It couldn't have," Irene said accusingly. "You dropped it."

"What's the difference?" Earl said. "Here. I'll get you another test
tube with some base fluid. No harm done."

He opened a drawer and took out a new test tube. When he was closing
the drawer he glanced absently toward the window. His eyes widened.
"What the devil!" he exclaimed. "Look at that. The window's broken too."

"That's odd--too strange a coincidence," Basil frowned.

"Supersonic vibrations?" Earl said, smiling. "Maybe a foreign spy has
heard of Project Synthetic Nerve Fluid and was trying to kill Basil
with a new secret weapon!"

"Ha ha," Basil said without humor. He accepted the test tube of base
formula from Earl. "Thanks, Earl," he said. He went to the door. There
he turned appealingly to Irene. "I would like to take you--and your
aunt--to the show, Irene," he said.

"Sorry," Irene said, smiling at him sympathetically. "We'll have too
much we want to talk about."

"Uh--okay," Basil said unhappily.

"He's such a jerk," Irene said when Basil had left. "All he would do is
fawn over me all evening. I'd--I'd rather go alone," she added, looking
at Earl appealingly.

"Sure," Earl said. "Be sure and let me know how you like the show.
Now--" He smiled half jokingly to take the sting from his words.
"Scram. I've got work to do."

Irene made a face at him and went to the door.

When she was gone, Earl sighed wearily. Then he frowned at the broken
window.

Carefully he stood where Basil had been standing when the test tube
broke. He held his hand in approximately the same position that Basil
had held it. Trying not to move his hand, he stooped and squinted over
his hand toward the broken window, and beyond it.

A hundred yards away, outside the room, a small hill rose above the
wall surrounding the research building. Earl fixed a spot and then went
to the window to examine it more closely.

Uneasily he stood so that he was half concealed by the wall of the
room. He studied the hill for a minute.

He went to a door at the far side of his lab, and went through into a
large room where he had his living quarters. He took some keys from his
pocket as he approached a desk. He unlocked the top right hand drawer
and took out a small blunt automatic. He checked it and put it in his
hip pocket. He slipped off his lab apron and put on a suit coat.

A few minutes later he was approaching the spot he had picked out on
the side of the hill. There were trees and shrubs that hid the ground.
He watched worriedly, the automatic in his hand now. But there seemed
nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing could be more peaceful than the
wooded hillside. And yet whatever had caused the simultaneous breaking
of the window pane and the test tube could not have been caused by
natural means.

_Something_, directly ahead, concealed by shrubs, had caused it. What?
He intended to find out.

He circled to the left, walking cautiously. With his left hand he
parted branches to see into a thicket.

Almost at once he saw the strange structure. It was shaped like a
puffball, three feet in diameter at its thickest part, and almost
as high. Its surface was of something that had an oily blue sheen.
Its base seemed partly buried in the soil, and the ground was freshly
damaged as though the ball-like shape had landed with great force.

To add to the evidence that it had fallen from great height, the side
was split open, and dozens of small semi-transparent balls of different
colors were spilled out onto the grass and weeds.

He pushed aside the bushes and approached, slowly putting the automatic
back in his hip pocket. He stooped and picked up one of the small
colored balls. It was a semi-transparent green.

He put the small ball in his coat pocket. He stooped and examined the
break in the wall of the structure. The break faced toward the windows
of his lab. He looked in that direction, and saw that leaves obscuring
his view were shredded as though by a violent wind.

He found a fragment of the broken wall of the structure, a piece that
was hardly more than a sliver. He put that in his shirt pocket. Then,
with sudden decision, he scooped up dozens of the marble-like colored
balls and loaded his pockets.

       *       *       *       *       *

Back in his lab again, he emptied the balls from his pockets into two
measuring flasks on a bench. They were strangely light, and one or two
had to be put back in the flasks again after they floated slowly upward
and down to the table surface where they rested without bouncing.

Earl was filled with excitement and eagerness. This was something
entirely outside his experience, something with mystery. It occurred to
him that the strange structure might be a new type of bomb. Certainly
all the evidence indicated it had dropped from a great height.
He dismissed the possible danger with a shrug. He considered the
possibility of it being some form of puffball that had sprung up in the
shaded woods. It was a remote possibility.

He took the small fragment of the shell from his shirt pocket and
stepped to the bench where his microscope stood. If it was living
substance it would have cellular structure.

Using the low power objective lens he examined the fragment. It showed
no signs of cellular structure. Instead, it was semi-crystaline,
similar to a plastic, under the low power lens.

A sharp sound behind him made him straighten and whirl around, his hand
going toward the gun that was still in his hip pocket. His hand froze
on the butt of the gun. He could only stare.

_On the table where he had placed the two measuring flasks with the
small colored balls, there were two people. A man and a girl. They were
perfectly proportioned--and no more than four inches high._

They seemed unaware of his presence. One of the measuring flasks was
tipped over--the sound that had attracted his attention. The colored
balls were spilled over the table surface. The miniature man was
trying to catch one of the balls which seemed to float weightless like
a bubble. On the miniature man's face was an expression of worried
concern.

The miniature girl was sitting down as though she had half risen from
where she had fallen. She too was reaching for one of the floating
balls.

This much Earl saw in that first startled, incredible instant; then
details began to filter into his awareness. The man was green. The girl
was blue. They were entirely nude, and the color of their skin was
uniform--of the same pastel softness as the colored spheres!

And the girl--Earl found his eyes drawn toward her almost to the
exclusion of everything else. She was beautiful beyond anything he had
ever imagined.

Her smile was calm, slightly amused, more than a little satisfied and
content at some inner thought.

Without thinking, Earl shouted and leaped toward them. His hand
descended to catch them. The miniature man looked up at him, startled,
then in a desperate attempt to escape leaped over the edge of the table.

The girl had no time to do more than attempt to rise before Earl's
fingers closed around her, imprisoning her. He lifted her so that he
could see her face more clearly. She stared at him, at first with
unmasked terror, then with slowly emerging perplexity and interest.

He became acutely aware of her contours against his hand. What should
he do with her? He remembered the man. He would have to catch the man
too!

He looked around on the floor--and saw the man peering at him from
behind a table leg.

Something would have to be done with the girl. He ran to the door of
his room and slipped inside. The windows were closed. She was certainly
too small to lift them and escape.

He looked around swiftly, then went to a bookcase and placed her gently
on the top shelf.

"Stay there!" he warned. He left the room, closing and locking the door.

       *       *       *       *       *

Across the laboratory he saw the miniature green-skinned man leap to
the window sill below the broken pane. The little man looked over his
shoulder and saw Earl. With a desperate leap he reached the jagged
edge of glass still in place, and pulled himself through.

Earl rushed to the window in time to see the little man disappear in
the high grass growing in the untended grounds outside the building.

Who were these two miniature people? Where had they come from? Had they
come in through the broken window in an attempt to steal the colored
balls? Were _they--were they from that strange thing out on the side
of the hill_? The questions burned through Earl's excited thoughts,
demanding answers that wouldn't come.

Those almost weightless balls--Earl crossed to the bench and gathered
them up and locked them in a metal drawer.

Nervously, he took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply. There
was the girl, but he found himself reluctant to go in and face her. And
yet he had to.

He started toward the hall door, then remembered the gun in his hip
pocket. He hesitated, then unlocked the drawer containing the colored
balls and placed it in there, locking the drawer again.

He went to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it.

He opened the door a scant inch, took a deep breath, then pushed
rapidly, jumped inside, and closed the door at his back so the girl
wouldn't have time to escape.

She wasn't blue any more. Her skin was faintly tanned, flawless. But
more startling, she was not four inches high. She was, he guessed, five
feet two or three. She was the same girl. There was no doubt of that.
Her face was the same face, now normal sized. She was the same all over.

"Sorry!" Earl gasped. He crossed quickly to his dresser, opened the
third drawer and found a pair of pajamas.

"Here!" he said, holding them out behind him. "Put these on."

He felt them taken from his hand. A moment later he heard her say, "All
right." It was her voice. He listened to it as it echoed in his mind,
flavored it. Actually it wasn't anything so wonderful, but it was nice.
Nothing seductive or elfin--but she wasn't miniature any more, either.
She sounded a little--amused!

He turned to face her.

"I'm Nadine Holmes," the girl said.

"Nadine. That's nice. Holmes.... I'm Earl Frye, up until a few minutes
ago a quiet research scientist who stays in his lab practically
twenty-four hours a day. Nadine Holmes. Were you really small a few
minutes ago--or did I imagine it?"

"Yes. I was small.... So _you_ are Dr. Earl Frye...."

"Yes. But how can you know me?" Earl asked, surprised at her tone. A
distant knocking sounded. He groaned. "That's probably Irene," he said.
"She'll pound the door down. You stay here and be quiet while I get rid
of her. She could cause both of us a lot of trouble."

He went to the door, slipped out, and carefully locked it. The knocking
was peremptory at the lab door. "Just a minute!" he said. He unlocked
the door, prepared to tell Irene she was interrupting some important
work. It wasn't Irene. "Oh, it's you, Mrs. Glassman. I didn't know.
I was busy and didn't want to be interrup--that is, come on in." He
opened the door invitingly, and glanced worriedly at the door to his
living quarters. Had he locked it? Of course he had. He distinctly
remembered locking it.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your work," Mrs. Glassman said. "I met
Irene--Dr. Conner, you know. She told me you might need some reminding
about dinner--seven thirty. I do hope you'll be there."

"I may not have my work done," Earl said weakly.

"Nonsense! It can wait. It will do you good to get away from the lab
for an evening. If you aren't there I'll come and get you."

"Okay," Earl said hastily. "I promise to be there--on time."

He locked the hall door after Mrs. Glassman.

       *       *       *       *       *

He glanced thoughtfully at the pump bench with its ten sets of
glass threads containing ten different fluids, ready for cutting
and connecting to the test instruments for measurement of speed and
sustainment of molecular chain action.

The theory of what he was looking for--what all ten of the scientists
were looking for in their planned exploration of a few dozen thousand
substances, was fairly simple. The molecule in theory had to be of a
special type, of which there were many examples. It had to consist of
two parts; one larger than the other, such that the smaller part could
break off easily and jump to the next molecule, combining with it and
freeing its counterpart on that next molecule, so that the freed part
would repeat the performance on the next, and so on. In that way, the
ion of the lesser molecular part, starting at one end of the chain of
identical molecules, would start a chain of reactions which would end
in an identical free ion at the farther end of the glass thread. In
effect it would be the same as though the free ion had passed quickly
through the full length of the fine tube--without any of the molecules
actually having moved at all.

Unfortunately, so far, none of the substances tried had behaved quite
as they should in theory. It was impossible to get a tube fine enough
for a thread one molecule thick, with the molecules lined up properly.

With some of the test substances the "nerve impulse" would go part way
and then turn around and come back. With others it would just "get
lost." Super-delicate instruments "followed" the impulse, telling what
happened to it in fine detail.

Nerve fluid from living animals had been tested and found to behave
properly even in the fine glass tubing. But it was highly unstable. If
a synthetic brain capable of integrated thought processes was to be
constructed, a non-deteriorating nerve fluid would have to be found.
One that duplicated the performance of the actual nerve threads of the
human brain.

All that held back Project Brain was the proper synthetic nerve fluid!
Maybe it's one of those ten, Earl thought. But he entertained that
thought with every ten he tested.

But right now there was a more pressing problem. Nadine Holmes. She
should have arrived on the afternoon bus--instead of appearing as a
pastel blue miniature girl on a bench in his lab--and growing to an
embarrassing full five foot three of emotion disturbing nudity in a few
minutes. An impossible fact, but still a fact.

Where had she come from? That was what he had been going to ask her
when Ethel Glassman barged in. Dear old Mrs. Glassman.

       *       *       *       *       *

Earl went to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it. Slipping
in quickly, he locked the door again. Nadine was curled up in a chair,
one of his technical books on her lap, looking altogether too domestic
for Earl's peace of mind. She had paused in her reading, and was
looking up at him questioningly.

"Now then," Earl said. He groped for a sequence of thought. She was
beautiful. "Now then," he repeated. "We've got to get you some decent
clothes and decide what to do with you. What sizes do you wear?"

"I don't know," Nadine said. "I've never worn clothes before. I don't
think I like them."

"You'll get used to them," Earl said hastily. "Those things you have
on are my pajamas. We'll need some nylon stockings, shoes, and other
things. I'll have to go buy them."

"Do you have other clothes like the ones you are wearing?" Nadine
asked. "Why wouldn't they do? They're too large, but I could wear
them."

Earl stared at her in amazement. And now the big question came again.
He moved closer to her. "Where do you come from?"

She puzzled over his words. "I'm not sure what you're talking about,"
she said, a tone of wariness in her voice. "Where I come from--perhaps
we'd better not discuss that now. I don't quite understand what
happened. Things didn't happen as they were supposed to. Could you take
me where you first found me?"

"Not until I get you some clothes. Imagine what people would think if
you walked out of here wearing my pajamas!"

"What would they think?" Nadine said, frankly puzzled. "Why are
clothes? Are they connected in some way with religion? I think that's
the word for it--religion. Do clothes bring you good luck? Is that it?
You seem so--so intense about it. Does everyone wear them?"

He ignored her question, went out, locking the door. Before he opened
the lab door to the hall he glanced at his watch. An hour ago nothing
had happened! He shook his head, opened the door and stepped into the
hall--almost bumping into Basil Nelson.

"Hi, Earl," Basil said. "You look like you're in a hurry."

"I am," Earl said. He started past Basil, who fell into step beside
him.

"I'll go along," Basil said. "That is, if you don't mind. I wanted to
talk with you. Pretty important. It's about Irene."

"What about Irene?" Earl said.

Basil waited until they were on the sidewalk before answering. "I guess
it's pretty obvious I'm in love with her," he said. "But--she seems
to have eyes only for you. Mrs. Glassman sort of hinted that you and
Irene--well--were going to get married. I wanted to ask you. If you and
Irene are--"

"_Damn_ Ethel Glassman," Earl said, irritated. "If you are in love with
her why don't you tell her?"

"She won't give me the chance to tell her," Basil groaned. "I think she
suspects, though," he added darkly.

"Fine," Earl said. "And there's no time like the present. Why don't you
go back and pop the question right now while you have your nerve up?"

Basil sighed. "I'll have to work up to it. Right now I'd rather tag
along with you. Mind?"

"No," Earl groaned. "Not at all. A--cousin of mine has a birthday
coming up. I thought I'd buy her some new clothes. No use you tagging
along."

"Don't mind at all," Basil said. "We can do some more talking. Maybe
we could cook up some scheme to make Irene fall in love with me. But
every time I think I'm going great with her I pull something like
dropping that test tube in your lab."

"Oh, that," Earl said. "I--" He clamped his lips shut.

       *       *       *       *       *

"See you at Glassman's at dinner tonight," Earl said firmly an hour
later. As Basil still hesitated, he added, "Maybe I can think of
something by then. Meanwhile I've still got work to do."

"Uh, oh sure," Basil said, "but I'm afraid it's no use. She's in love
with you, Earl."

"Nonsense!" Earl unlocked the door to his lab and went in with his
packages. He stacked them on a lab table and locked the hall door. A
quick survey showed the lab as it should be. Earl had been worried.
Since Nadine had become a full sized person, maybe the little green man
had too.

Earl crossed to the door to his living quarters and unlocked it.
Inside, he saw Nadine still curled up in the chair in his pajamas, a
stack of books beside her.

"Hi," Earl said, subdued. "I've brought you some clothes, and also
some literature on what they are. I think the literature will give you
enough data to work on in dressing."

He brought the stack of packages into the room and put them on a table.

"While you're dressing I'll finish some work out in the lab," he said.

"Clothes seem terribly important to you," Nadine said without moving
from her comfortable position. "I still can't understand why. I've
tried and tried." She picked up a book. "This book, for example. It's
a very vivid account of a murder. I can understand vaguely about the
murder. It seems to be some sort of game that people play. There are
official players who earn their living at it. The taxpayers pay them
for it, and they sit in their offices until some taxpayer wants to play
with them. The taxpayer kills someone. The detectives must find out who
he is if they can. I can understand that. But there are whole passages
where everyone seems to forget the game while they pay great attention
to what someone is wearing. That's it! It must be another game. No?"

Earl grinned. "That's pretty close," he said. "Do you have games where
you come from?"

"No. Games aren't functional."

"Oh," Earl said vaguely. "Well, get those clothes on, Nadine. You will
look terrific in them."

He backed out of the room and closed the door. While he worked he
wondered how Nadine could speak English without an accent. It was too
far-fetched to think it her native language. Even if it were, spoken
language changes so rapidly that the only possible explanations were,
(1) she was from some part of the United States, or (2), her people
were in constant radio contact with current broadcasts. But neither
alternative could account for her inability to grasp the purpose of
clothes. He hadn't had quite enough nerve to mention to her the main
purpose--sex. Maybe she had been too shy to mention it too. But that
didn't seem to jibe with her evident willingness to take off her
clothes. And she hadn't answered his question on where she came from.

       *       *       *       *       *

While Earl thought these thoughts he let his hands and one part of
his mind put the synthetic nerve filaments in place in the instrument
banks. There wouldn't be time to run the tests, but he could do that in
the morning when he was alone.

Alone. The thought struck him with dismaying force. He realized
suddenly that he had been trying to keep Nadine with him as long as
possible--and that was futile.

Was he in love with her? He faced the question squarely and felt his
stomach turn over and his heart start to pound wildly. He tried to tell
himself it was just the unusualness of the situation.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by the sound of high heeled shoes.
Nadine had opened the door and taken a few steps into the lab. His eyes
approved of what they saw.

"They're very uncomfortable," Nadine said. "Especially the shoes. But
I looked at myself in the mirror--and I think I begin to understand, a
little. Clothes are adornments."

"On you they are," Earl said. "I never before realized...."

"What's a kiss?" Nadine said.

Earl blinked. He cleared his throat loudly and said, "One thing at
a time, Nadine. There's lots for you to learn. In the meantime, how
does it happen you know English so well? If you're from--some other
planet--you certainly don't speak it as your native language."

"It was taught to us for the expedition," Nadine said. "I think there
must have been an accident. Can you tell me anything about it? The
first I remember is just before you picked me up in your enormous hand."

Earl told her everything he knew. She listened, nodding her head at
times.

"I think I understand now," she said when he finished. "The stasis
spheres. Somehow mine and George Ladd's were fractured, so that we
emerged on the bench. He was in the green one."

"You mean you were _in_ one of those marbles?" Earl exclaimed.

"Where is the ship?" Nadine said.

Earl took her to the window and pointed out the spot. "You can't see it
from here," he said. "But I have some of the--what did you call them?
Stasis spheres? I'll show you."

He unlocked the drawer. Nadine leaned over, seeming to look inside of
each translucent marble.

"Yes," she said, straightening. "It's gone wrong, somehow. The Cyberene
will be most annoyed."

"The Cyberene? What's that?"

Nadine stared down into the drawer, frowning. "You wouldn't
understand," she said. And then, "I'm hungry."

Earl frowned. "That reminds me. I have to go to dinner at Dr.
Glassman's in a little while, or Mrs. Glassman will come barging in
here. I'll fix you something first. After I get back I'll take you to a
hotel."

Nadine perched on the edge of the table in his kitchenette while he
opened some cans and heated their contents.

"How does it smell?" Earl asked after a while. "Good?"

"Strange," Nadine said. "Not entirely strange. Some of the smells are
familiar."

"Would you like a cocktail?" Earl said. He didn't wait for her answer.
He was acutely conscious of playing the host. "This is my favorite
drink. A dash of rum, a little vodka, lime juice, powdered sugar, ice
cubes and seltzer. There." He handed her one of the two glasses. "How
do you like it?"

Nadine sipped the drink cautiously. "Good," she said. "I was thirsty
too."

"What is the Cyberene?" Earl said, dishing steaming food into a plate
set precariously on the edge of the stove.

"The--the Cyberene," Nadine said as though that explained it. "How do
you eat that food without getting dirty? And there's such an enormous
amount of it. I'm used to capsules, with lots of water to help digest
them."

"Oh. Dehydrated foods," Earl said. "Damn! I wish I didn't have to go to
that dinner. Stay in here while I change my clothes."

"Earl," Nadine said as he was about to leave the room.

"Yes?" he said, turning to look at her questioningly.

"What does damn mean? I can't get the sense of it."

"It's an adornment of speech," he said. "Like clothes."

       *       *       *       *       *

With dinner over, Earl drifted toward the door after excusing himself
and thanking the Glassmans. Basil followed him.

"I need someone to talk to--to help me, Basil," Earl said as they
walked back toward the lab building. "Remember that test tube breaking?
And the window pane?"

"How can I forget?" Basil said ruefully.

Quickly Earl outlined everything that had happened.

"What you should have done," Basil said in amazement, "is gone directly
to Dr. Glassman with it. Now nobody will believe you. Even I find it
hard to believe. You must have fallen hard, the way you want to keep
her under lock and key."

"It's not that," Earl said. "Just a lot of little things. Like her
repeating my name as if she knew all about me. And her refusing to
say where she's from. And her knowledge of our language yet knowing
absolutely nothing about our social customs."

"What about time travel?" Basil said.

"Time travel? That's absurd."

"Why?"

"If time travel were possible at any future date, we would have time
travelers all around us. They'd come back."

"Maybe they have," Basil said darkly. "What did she call those colored
marbles you found? Stasis spheres? But the main thing right now is that
if I were in this George Ladd's shoes--"

"He doesn't wear shoes."

"Well, I would be trying to rescue Nadine Holmes this very minute.
It's dark now--"

But Earl wasn't listening. Basil hurried to catch up with him as he
walked rapidly, until they reached the lab building resting against the
giant starless bulk of the dome that housed the Brain.

"Be quiet," Earl warned as they stole down the hall toward the door to
his lab.

They reached the door and stopped. Through the panel came the sound of
a male voice, the words indistinguishable but the tones unmistakably
demanding and insistent.

Nadine's voice answered, its tones firm. Earl and Basil looked at each
other. Neither of those inside were speaking English.

The male voice uttered a harsh monosyllable. Nadine screamed. Earl,
abandoning caution, tried to open the door. It was locked. He wasted
precious seconds getting the key into the lock. Cursing at the delay,
he flung the door open and ran toward the two figures struggling near
the windows. One was Nadine, her clothes torn, her face a mask of
desperate effort to escape. The other, Earl recognized instantly as
being George Ladd. He also recognized the suit Ladd was wearing. It was
one of his own.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ladd didn't seem to be aware of him until he grabbed him by the
shoulder and pulled him around roughly. For a split second George Ladd
was motionless with surprise--and in that split second Earl lashed out
with his fist.

The blow sent Ladd stumbling backward until he brought up against a
table. Earl leaped toward him. Ladd made no attempt to escape, but
fumbled for something in the coat pocket of the suit he was wearing. A
glistening object appeared in his hand.

Earl swerved, thinking it must be a gun. Then he was sprawling full
length on the floor, his muscles refusing to obey his commands. His
consciousness was almost entirely dominated by a terrible tingling
sensation that seemed to possess every cell of his body from the neck
down.

He had fallen in such a way that he saw Basil leaping forward. The next
instant Basil was plunging floorward, his arms refusing to come up to
break his fall.

Nadine was running toward the open hall door. She too fell sprawling.

George Ladd appeared in Earl's line of vision. He closed the door and
locked it from the inside, then picked Nadine up and cradled her limp
body over his shoulder.

Earl tried to cry out. The tingling in his throat became unbearable.
In numb horror and frustrated rage he watched George Ladd, Nadine
over his shoulder, her arms dangling limply. A moment later he heard
a window raised. There were sounds of heavy exertion, a faint thud
outside the window. Then silence.

Earl's eyes fed on Basil's motionless form. For what might have
been minutes or hours the tingling continued. It died away with
imperceptible slowness. Finally he was able to move a little. A minute
later he was able to sit up. His entire body felt as though it had
"been asleep."

Almost immediately Basil moved. Earl reached out for the nearest table
and pulled himself to his feet, fighting to keep his legs from caving.

Basil rose to a sitting position, shook his head to clear his senses,
looked up at Earl, and grinned feebly. He said, his speech thick and
clumsy, "_Now_ I believe you. That paralysis gun did it."

Earl was startled. "You didn't believe me before?"

"Hell no!" Basil sighed. "I just thought you were going a long ways to
explain what some people would call a sordid affair." His grin became
more natural. "I was right though. This George Ladd is now a hero." He
frowned. "Only--your Nadine didn't seem to _want_ to be rescued."

"Get up and move around," Earl said desperately. "Get some circulation
back. We may still be able to catch up with them and get her back."

"I don't know," Basil said doubtfully, getting to his feet. "I hate the
idea of that paralysis gun."

"I've got a gun too," Earl said.

He half stumbled toward the bench with the locked drawer. He searched
for his keys, remembered he had left them in the hall door. He started
for the door, then stopped. The locked drawer was open and damaged. A
heavy screwdriver was on the table over it. The drawer was empty.

"He got my gun!" Earl said. "He got the stasis spheres too!"

Basil came to stand beside him and stare broodingly into the empty
drawer. "That does it," he mumbled. "Now you don't have anything."

"There's that thing out on the hill," Earl said. "Maybe George Ladd
headed for that. He hasn't had time to get located in town. We can find
him hiding out there. Wait until I get a flashlight."

From another drawer he brought out a high-powered flashlight. He went
to the open window and crawled out. Basil hesitated, then followed him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Behind them was the building they had just left, light streaming from
the open window and from half a dozen other windows. To their right
loomed the dark bulk of the dome that housed the gigantic Brain, an
obsidian shape in the night that hulked into the heavens, blotting out
a hemisphere of stars. Ahead, above the horizon, was a crescent moon
that served to silhouette the hill and its horizon of trees. Around
them were dark shapes, motionless.

Earl kept the flashlight ready, but didn't use it as they stole swiftly
forward. Neither man spoke, but their breathing was a stentorian sound
that blended with distant traffic noises and the nearby chirping of a
cricket, and the rustling of weeds as they forced them aside in their
passage.

They reached the hill and went forward more slowly, using caution
as they remembered the effects of the paralysis gun. Now Earl was
remembering the way he had come before, finding landmarks in the
darkness. At last he stopped and touched Basil's arm to bring him to a
halt.

"It's on the other side of these bushes," he whispered. "I'll use the
flash."

He parted the branches. Suddenly a cone of light exploded in the
darkness.

"Right there," Basil said. Then, in surprise, "It's gone!"

"Naturally," Earl said in some disgust. "It fits the pattern."

"What pattern?" Basil asked.

Earl was slow in answering. He said, "I don't know. I just felt it. Or
maybe I do know. Nadine and that guy Ladd were small and got big in a
hurry. What was to keep that thing from doing the same? That's part
of it. The other part is just a feeling. They don't seem to want to
advertise to the world that they're here. Maybe the damn thing became
invisible or something. With stasis spheres and small people that
get big, and paralysis guns, what's so impossible about that ship or
whatever it is getting big and becoming invisible? I'll bet it's still
there."

But though they passed back and forth over the entire area, with
increasing boldness, they encountered nothing, visible or invisible,
that was out of the ordinary.

There was a concave depression in the soil where Earl remembered the
puffball shape to have been. Even fresh scars in the dirt around the
depression.

For a while Earl blundered through the underbrush calling Nadine's
name cautiously, without hope. Finally they were forced to give up and
return to the lab building.

"We could call the police," Basil said doubtfully.

"Oh, sure," Earl said, his voice harsh. "What would we tell them? Dr.
Glassman would be called in. Next they'd call the boys in the white
jackets."

"Maybe they're just the boys we need," Basil said. "Or a good stiff
drink. I like the idea of the drink."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Irene Conner pushed open the
door without knocking and strolled casually into Earl's laboratory. She
saw him at the far end of the room, hunched over with his elbows on the
window sill, his back to her.

"Hi, Earl," she called cheerfully. "Want to have mid-morning coffee
with me?"

"No," Earl said without moving.

"You sound tired," Irene said, going over to stand beside him. "Or is
it spring fever--more accurately the summer doldrums."

"Neither," he said, glancing up at her with tired eyes. "I just want to
be left alone. I'm thinking." He straightened up with a deep sigh. "Why
don't you get Basil to have coffee with you?"

"That jerk?" Irene said. "He gets in my hair."

"Like you get in mine?" Earl said.

"That was cruel."

"Sorry," Earl relented. "I didn't get much sleep last night. I've got
problems. I'd much rather be left alone with them right now."

Irene inspected him critically as a man might inspect his automobile.
"Your eyes are bloodshot," she said. "Why not have some coffee with me
and tell me your problems. Maybe I can help you."

"Nobody can help me--least of all you."

The phone on the desk in the corner rang. Earl went to answer it.

"This is Glassman," the phone said. "I want a general staff meeting in
my office at once. Tell Dr. Conner she must be there too."

"Okay," Earl said. He hung up and looked at Irene. "Goat face," he
explained. "General staff meeting. We're to go to his office at once."

"Maybe this is it," Irene said, suddenly sober.

Earl nodded. That was the way it would come. A phone call for general
staff meeting. A quiet announcement that one of the scientists had at
last found the ideal nerve fluid for the brain. That's all there would
be to it. The greatest achievement since--if not including--the atom
bomb, and the historic moment would pass without a shout--with perhaps
only a tired sigh of relief, a glance of envy at the lucky one who had
found it.

"Well, let's get it over with," Earl said.

They went into the hall and walked side by side in silence toward the
back of the building where it joined the Dome. Basil joined them, for
once hardly noticing Irene as he looked questioningly at Earl, who
shook his head imperceptibly.

They entered Dr. Glassman's office. The director was sitting behind his
desk, ignoring them, pretending to be reading some typewritten papers.

Earl looked around. They were all there now, he and the other nine
scientists, and Dr. Glassman. Only there was something wrong with the
picture. One of them should have been beaming at the others, the light
of triumph in his or her eyes. Instead, the other nine reflected his
own puzzled bewilderment.

"Sit down, sit down," Dr. Glassman said, looking up at them. He waited
until they were all seated about the room, then cleared his throat
importantly, pushing aside the papers he had been reading. He started
to say something, then became aware of their expressions. He shook his
head. "The end isn't in sight yet. But we may be closer than we think.
I'll introduce you in a moment to a new addition to our staff. A person
who--from the reports I've seen from Washington--seems to be quite a
genius at creating new type molecules, tailor-made for specific tasks.
Our new associate won't be assigned a separate lab. Instead, will serve
as a sort of general consultant, observing all your work, and will make
suggestions for hastening things up a bit." A murmur of voices and
sharp footsteps came from the hall. "My wife has been showing our new
colleague the Brain. I think they're coming now."

The door opened. Mrs. Glassman's cheerful face appeared. "They're all
here now," she said over her shoulder.

The door opened farther. Earl, and everyone else, was staring at the
opening, waiting for their first glimpse of the newcomer.

Earl half rose to his feet before he stopped himself. Then he slowly
sat down, his eyes wide and puzzled.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Nadine. She wasn't wearing the clothes he had bought for her the
day before. Instead, she was dressed in a stylishly cut business suit
and low heeled slippers, a trim hat covering her hair. She had paused
just inside the room, a half smile on her carefully painted lips. Her
eyes surveyed each face pleasantly, passing over Earl's as though she
had never seen him before.

"Come up here, my dear," Dr. Glassman said in honeyed tones. And to
the others, "I want you to meet Dr. Nadine Holmes." Then back to her,
"What did you think of the Brain? Quite an imposing thing, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Nadine replied. "I felt quite--awed by it, sitting there
where it will remain for untold centuries, waiting only for the vital
fluid that will give it the ability to think."

"I'm sure it won't be untold centuries before it gets the fluid," Dr.
Glassman said, chuckling heartily at his own humor. "I'll introduce you
to your co-workers, Dr. Holmes. This is Dr. Paul Hardwick...."

Earl caught Basil's attention and shook his head warningly. He waited,
then, for his turn at being introduced, his heart pounding violently,
his pulse racing.

"... and this is Dr. Earl Frye ..." Dr. Glassman said.

"How do you do, Dr. Frye." Nadine's hand was smooth and cool as she
rested it in his. Her eyes sized him up with impersonal interest, but
without a flicker of recognition.

"... and this is Dr. Basil Nelson ...."

Nadine withdrew her hand gently and moved on.

"And now you may return to your work," Dr. Glassman announced. "I know
the male members of the staff will be waiting for a visit from our
charming new member, but you must be patient. She will get around to
all of you in the next few days."

Earl was in the hall before Glassman had finished. He wanted to think.
Rapid footsteps caught up with him. "_Now_ can we have coffee?" she
asked with humorous petulance.

"No!" Earl said with more fierceness in his voice than he had intended.
It had the effect of a physical blow on Irene. She fell back a step,
blinking.

Basil caught up with them. "I want to talk with you, Earl," he said.

"Basil," Irene cut in, "will _you_ have coffee with me?"

"Me?" Basil said in delight. "Sure." He linked his arm in hers. "Let's
go." He looked back over his shoulder at Earl. "Thanks, Earl," he said.
"I'll see you later." It was two hours later.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You sure it's her?" Basil said. "I'm inclined to agree with you. Of
course, I saw her only for a second or two.... Where do you suppose
she picked up those snazzy clothes? I was watching her when she was
introduced to you. Boy, is she some actress!"

"I'm wondering if it was an act," Earl said frowning.

"Of course it was--had to be if she's the same girl. But she didn't
let on she knew you at all."

"That's why I wonder if it was an act. There was something strange
about her. I can't quite put my finger on it--or yes I can. She's
changed. Today her whole personality is different. And where did she
get papers authentic enough to fool Glassman?"

"Why don't you ask her when she comes here?" Basil suggested.

Earl shook his head. "I wonder if she could be under some sort of
hypnosis? No, wait. It isn't any more absurd than a paralysis gun. If
she doesn't stay here tonight I'm going to follow her and see where she
goes. Are you with me?"

"Uh," Basil hesitated. "Depends on when she leaves the building.
Irene and I have sort of a date to have dinner at the Red Barn at six
o'clock."

"Go ahead," Earl said, grinning. "I'll probably have more success alone
anyway. We'd get in each other's way."

"Why don't you ask Glassman where she's staying? It's probably some
hotel in town."

"I'll think about it," Earl said.

When Basil left, Earl went to the window and looked toward the hill.
Would Nadine go there? Was there some hiding place on the hill where
she would go, to wait until tomorrow, after her "day's work" was done?

Earl nodded to himself. It had to be. Nothing else fitted into the
crazy pattern of events.

One thing he was certain of now. In spite of the accident that had
broken open the "ship" when it landed out there, its coming here--or
here and now--was no accident. Nor Nadine's apparent familiarity with
his name the night before, or her showing up now with credentials that
gave her the run of the place in an almost supervisory capacity.

And that meant that her interest was in the Brain. Hers--and who else?
George Ladd, of course. How many more? If each of those stasis spheres
had contained a person, there were dozens more in on it.

_Then why had Nadine been sent into the open when she was certain to be
recognized by him?_

That was what had been bothering him from the instant she walked into
Glassman's office. On the surface it was the most stupid thing that
could have occurred. On the surface....

Stupid. Yet somehow stupid didn't seem to fit. Maybe it had been
exceedingly cunning. Maybe there was something he had missed.

Cunning it might be--or stupid. But there was something else about it
that neither adjective quite fit. There was obviously organization
in back of Nadine. People. A "ship". Paralysis guns and what they
implied. Therefore planning, colored by one accident. Suppose every
detail of the plan had been worked out ahead of time, and was going
ahead without alteration. Suppose the original plan had specified that
Nadine was to be the "front", and the plan was proceeding blindly,
on the behavior level of instinct in animals who repeat instinctive
routines made senseless by changed environment. Or the blind function
level of a machine that keeps turning out parts when the conveyor belt
has stopped, until it wrecks itself.

It annoyed Earl not to be able to pin his thoughts down, to bring
everything into full focus.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went to his kitchenette and fixed a hasty lunch. All afternoon he
worked, immersed in the routine of testing chemicals in batches of
ten and making out report sheets on each one. And all afternoon he
puzzled over what could be behind Nadine's having shown up. Not so much
what might be behind her having returned to the scene, nor her not
recognizing him, but _why_ someone else hadn't been used.

No one dropped in. Irene's absence gave him only a sense of relief.
Basil, no doubt, was staying away because of a guilt complex.
Nadine--her continued absence could be because she wasn't ready for
him yet, or she truly didn't remember him and would get to him in due
time, perhaps tomorrow; or maybe the Plan involved some other member
of the research group. Or the destruction of the Brain? Earl shook his
head at this thought. That alternative didn't fit.

And then it was four-thirty. Already Earl had reasoned out what he
intended to do. Either Nadine would go into town and stay at a hotel,
remain in the building as a guest of the Glassmans', or she would leave
the building and make her way by some circuitous route to the spot on
the hill where the "ship" had been.

Only the latter possibility interested Earl right now. He quickly
slipped off his lab apron and put on a suit coat. He wished that he
still had a gun, but it had been stolen with the stasis spheres. He'd
have to do without it.

Leaving the building, he walked along the sidewalk until he was able to
approach the hill from the other side where he wouldn't be seen from
the windows.

It was ten minutes to five when he settled down to wait in the
concealment of a thicket where he could command a view of the
approaches from every direction, and a clear view of the slight
depression in the ground where the "ship" had dropped.

There was nothing to do now but wait--and stay awake. He was acutely
aware, suddenly, of his lack of sleep the night before. A warm breeze
rustled the leaves around him. A small hoptoad paused to stare up at
him in unblinking fixity.

Overhead in a large Maple tree a host of sparrows paused to hold a
brief political convention.

And then Nadine was coming up the slope from the side away from the
lab. Her chic hat dangled carelessly in her right hand, the warm breeze
mussing her hair. A too normal smart-looking woman's purse was under
her arm. The breeze caught her skirt, molding her graceful legs, her
slim body. She was too much the picture of a normal girl idly strolling
in a park.

A great nostalgia, an almost overwhelming yearning, took possession of
Earl. He wanted to rush forward, let her know he was there, waiting for
her.

Instead, he remained motionless, watching her approach.

She seemed to be heading straight for him. For an instant he thought
she must have seen him. But her expression held no excitement or
anything but half dreamy enjoyment of her surroundings.

       *       *       *       *       *

Scarcely fifteen feet away she came to a stop and turned to face toward
the concave depression in the ground, another fifty feet beyond her.
With her free hand she reached up and patted at her hair like any
normal girl would do, unconsciously.

Abruptly Earl became aware of something just beyond her. It wasn't
tangible. A shimmering in the air. A slight but definite refractive
quality that had not been there the moment before.

Nadine had seen it too. She walked forward a few steps.

"This is it!" Earl thought to himself. He crouched to run after her.

She took another step. She vanished, not abruptly, but as one might
vanish into a bright silver but otherwise transparent fog.

In that instant Earl moved hurtling forward so that when she
disappeared he was a step behind her.

Instantly the peaceful wooded scene vanished. His feet were on a smooth
hard floor. Ahead of him he caught a brief glimpse of walls, of people
without clothes.

Then he was falling over Nadine and trying to keep from falling on her.
His arms were around her. Somehow he twisted so that when he landed she
was on top, unhurt.

There was a stunned eternity when her eyes were looking into his,
recognition and gladness unmasked, hope and pleading sending him some
secret message, some unspoken word trembling on her lips.

But Earl had seen George Ladd even as he fell, and the never forgotten
instincts developed in him during World War III were in motion, making
him continue his roll so that in the next instant he was on his
feet, Nadine behind him. Ladd hadn't expected this and was caught by
surprise. Earl took advantage of that brief uncertainty, stepping in
and bringing a short chopping right against Ladd's jaw.

Before George Ladd reached the floor, Earl was running in great
strides, his eyes darting ahead in search of a place to escape.

"Wait!" Nadine called. But he didn't pause. He couldn't trust her.
George Ladd had been armed with his paralysis gun. He'd been waiting
for him. This had been a trap, and Nadine had led him into it.

Ahead was a doorway. He hesitated. Should he continue on down the
corridor or take the doorway? He decided on the latter. It opened into
a room, unoccupied at the moment. There were windows. One of them was
open. Earl didn't hesitate. Beyond the window was a wide paved street.
If he could get away, mingle with crowds....

No one was in sight. He sprinted along the pavement, away from the Dome
which he had glimpsed over his shoulder. It was beautiful, its basic
structure adorned with granite superstructures of fine workmanship. But
he didn't pause to admire it. He wanted people, lots of people, to mix
with and hide from pursuit.

For a hundred yards the street went through parkways. Then ahead were
buildings. He reached them, racing along a canyon formed by windowless
walls of buildings. He rounded a corner. The street was still deserted.

He ran on and on, turning corners when he came to them, but always
heading in one general direction so as not to circle back toward the
Dome.

       *       *       *       *       *

Abruptly he paused. Beside him was a door in a building. He darted
inside, closing the door behind him and leaning against it while he
breathed in rasping gulps of air.

Ahead of him was a corridor and more doors. After a brief rest he
sprinted down the hallway. If he could find a vacant room, a place to
hide until he could map out some plan.

He listened at the first door. There was no sound. He tried the knob.
The door opened silently under his touch. He stepped in. The room was
unoccupied. Its far wall was of glass. He glanced through it. He was
looking out over an enormous workshop of some kind. Row upon row of
small vats were there--and people.

He was seeing his first people of this world he had plunged into. They
wore no clothes. They seemed to be tending the vats, walking along the
aisles, pausing here and there at a vat to touch banks of controls and
watch what was in each vat.

From the hall Earl had just left came loud voices. The words were in a
strange language, but the tones carried their own message. His pursuers
had caught up with him. In another moment they would open the door and
find him.

He looked around for a way to escape. There was a trap door in the
floor. It undoubtedly led to the huge workshop. Earl lifted the door
and saw a ladder. He climbed onto it, letting the trap door fall back
into place as he descended.

He fully expected workers to see him and react to his presence in some
way. A worker was less than ten feet away. The worker didn't pause or
seem to notice him.

Silently Earl watched the man's eyes, dull and void of intelligence.
They seemed only passive recorders of what there was for him to see. He
was touching control knobs in front of a vat.

Earl looked into the vat and caught his breath. Floating in the tank
was a human embryo. It was alive, its umbilical cord growing from a
spongy mass on the floor of the tank.

Forgetting his danger, Earl grabbed the man's shoulder. "What is this?"
he demanded. "Human babies growing in tanks?"

The worker waited unresisting until Earl released his grip, then
continued on his routine way. He was, in every respect, a robot, doing
his specialized job, his mind a complete blank to anything else. A
zombie. Earl looked out over the vast baby factory and realized with
numb horror that all the hundreds of people working here were the
same. Walking dead, their minds capable of only one thing--doing this
specialized task. And the human embryos in the tanks? Would they become
walking zombies?

Over his head came the sound of the trap door opening. Earl didn't take
time to look up. He ran. Down an aisle between rows of unborn humans
tended by undead zombies. Up another ladder into another observation
room, ignoring shouts that caught up with him. Out another door, down
another hall, through another door, and into a street again.

Miles of streets, and then something recognizable. A factory with
belching smokestacks. He plunged toward it recklessly, desperately
hoping to find intelligent men. Men with minds. Men able to help him
hide.

He found himself inside a huge plant where giant ladles were pouring
molten metal into molds. There were men running the machines that
controlled the pouring. They wore thick asbestos-like suits.

As Earl ran toward them he saw one of them slip and fall so that his
arm went into the stream of molten metal. The man didn't cry out nor
jerk away. Splattering metal cascaded on the others. There was the
stench of burned flesh.

His mind numb with the shock of what he was seeing, Earl stood rooted,
watching the others continue their work with expressionless faces,
blank eyes. Mindless creatures, controlled like inanimate robots.

"Earl!"

He turned in the direction of the voice. He saw Nadine beckoning for
him to come to her. He started toward her, then stopped. She was
different from these--or was she? No, she wasn't any different. She too
was an automaton. She was beckoning him to walk into another trap.

He turned to run the other way, but in that moment of indecision he had
been surrounded by men like George Ladd, carrying the little paralysis
guns--and they were automatons too.

He turned, searching for a way of escape, the smell of molten metal and
cooked flesh strong in his nostrils. And then he felt the sting of the
paralysis gun and was falling forward.

A sharp pain entered the base of his skull. He lost consciousness then
with the monstrous horror of what was around him searing into his soul.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next instant, it seemed, he awakened, all the horror fresh in his
mind, the stinging sensation at the nape of his neck changed to a dull
throbbing pain. Nadine had led him into this. But she was like the
rest, a zombie unable to think for herself.

He shook his head slowly in pained bewilderment. She hadn't been that
way the first time he met her. She had been--_herself. What could have
created this nightmare?_

A voice somewhere sounded in deep resonant tones. "So you are awake,"
it said.

Earl rolled onto his side and searched for the source of the voice.
There was no one in view. He was in a room whose walls and ceiling were
heavy glass. He looked through the ceiling and saw the familiar maze of
steel catwalks inside the dome.

Outside his glass prison a pair of video cameras were trained on him.
Their lenses seemed somehow sentient, so that their motionlessness
partook of the quality of a fixed stare.

"I've always wanted to meet you," the voice said, and it seemed to come
from a small case atop the camera frames.

It was a dream, Earl decided. He had been hit on the head. In his
delirium he had conjured up the Brain, activated and intelligent as it
was designed to be in theory, possessed of a mind of its own.

"Of course," the voice went on, "I've seen film shots of you. You are
the discoverer of the nerve fluid that made me possible."

Earl sat up abruptly. "Who are you? And where--"

"I am the _Cyberene_. This is the year 3042 A. D., in the old calendar.
I had you brought here through what might be called a time tube from
your own period. Shortly you will return through that tube to your own
time--as many hours ahead from the time you left as you spend here
before you go back."

Earl got to his feet slowly, watching the glistening lenses. "Now it
begins to fit together," he said. "You're behind Nadine and Ladd. You
say _I'm_ the discoverer of the nerve fluid. You're mistaken. It hasn't
been found yet--and there are ten of us looking for it. One of the
others may be the one to find it."

"History says you found it."

"And you just wanted to see me because of that?" Earl asked.

"Watch," the voice said.

The plate glass wall in front of Earl changed suddenly, to become
apparently a giant window over-looking a huge sprawling city. There
were buildings that reached thousands of feet into the sky, with
fragile looking networks of bridges spanning the spaces among them.
There were giant aircraft in the sky. In the distance was a trail
of fire that might be from an inter-planetary rocket ship departing
spaceward.

And abruptly the elfin city was blotted out by a blinding sun. Seconds
later the blinding sun was gone, and Earl could see the city again. But
now it was only the skeleton of what it had been. Its spiderweb design
of bridges was torn and twisted. Many of its tall buildings were even
now toppling toward the ground. Fire shot skyward in a pyrotechnic
display of havoc.

       *       *       *       *       *

A giant airplane appeared, heading straight toward the window through
which Earl watched. It grew larger. For a brief second he looked into
its control cabin and saw its pilot and co-pilot. They were human, but
their faces were harsh and cruel, their eyes cold and inhuman. In the
next instant they were gone.

"That is a typical scene on--the other Earth," the voice of the
Cyberene explained.

The scene of the desolate city vanished. In its place appeared another
scene. A city under construction. Giant building machines were placing
it together, and the parts that were completed were even more beautiful
than had been that other city.

Earl, from his vantage point, seemed to drop closer and drift over the
scene of construction to a part that was inhabited. He saw the people
below. They wore no clothes and didn't seem to mind. Each appeared to
be intent on going somewhere. None of them were talking or paying any
attention to one another. Their expressions were blank, their eyes
vacant.

The vantage point followed one of them. Shortly the man being followed
turned into an archway, up an incline, and into a large hall. He
went through a door into the room filled with cell-like vats. In
each transparent vat Earl saw a human embryo, alive and growing. He
"followed" the man through this place to another, where children were
playing with psychological toys designed to increase mechanical and
scientific aptitudes.

"This, too, is a typical scene on--this Earth," the Cyberene said.
The scene vanished. Once again Earl looked into the video eyes of the
Brain. "They are both Earth in the year 3042," the Cyberene said, "but
not the _same_ Earth. In 1980 there was a split. Earth followed two
independent futures. The first, filled with wars and eternal carnage,
ever more perfect weapons of destruction, developed from _one_ decision
you made. The second, my world, filled with perpetual peace and
happiness, developed from the alternative decision. _You_ created these
two futures."

"I?" Earl said. "You must be crazy. How?"

"In the first you discovered the vital nerve fluid that makes me
possible. You thought you were God. You thought you could see a
future in which I would work the human race harm. You suppressed your
discovery by the simple process of giving a negative lab report on
the substance. In the second world--_my_ world--you did as you were
supposed to do. You announced your discovery. _I_ came into being."

"You mean to say _my actions_ caused the whole planet to split into two
identical worlds?"

"In effect, yes. I'll try to explain. Matter and motion are not real in
the basic sense. They are properties of your mind. They are what your
finite mind sees; but reality is the space-time continuity of which one
instant is a cross-section. In effect, consciousness flows along the
time dimension which I term the fourth dimension. But in addition there
is a fifth dimension, so that these two Earths have the same space-time
coordinates in four dimensions, and two different ones in the fifth.
In Euclidean concepts, that other Earth is eighty-seven millionths of
an inch from this, in the fifth dimension. In that Earth I did not
develop. The Dome is still there, but the Brain, if it still exists,
was never activated. As a result, humanity continued its violent
progress through time, engaging in war after war.

"When I discovered time travel and saw all this I decided to go back
and contact you before your instant of decision and get you to release
the identity of the nerve fluid when you discover it _tomorrow_."

"Tomorrow?" Earl said.

"In your time."

"I see," Earl said. "Tomorrow I make the discovery. In one time stream
I tell Glassman. In the other I decide not to. _What made me decide not
to?_"

"You _thought_ the Brain would be bad for humanity. You were, of
course, wrong."

"Was I?" Earl said.

"In that other world, wars are the normal state of things. They
stem from problems that don't exist in my world. Over-population,
competition in trade in things that aren't necessary to human economy,
opposed political systems--all the foibles and inconsistencies of
untrained and unorganized populations."

"I understand that," Earl said. "Why don't your people wear clothes?"

"Clothes are unnecessary--one of the things I eliminated in reducing
the industrial economy to a minimum. Over-population? There is none.
People are made in the laboratory as they are needed. Their lives are
uncomplicated by animal problems such as reproduction, and artificial
customs such as modesty. Their education is simplified and factual,
their lives functional."

"And I made that decision all by myself?"

"Yes. That's why I have brought you here--to get you to change that
decision. You see, I must change the past. I must do that in order to
correct the future, make the other Earth a sane place, _dominated by a
second Cyberene which is a counterpart of me_."

       *       *       *       *       *

"That's what I thought," Earl said with reckless boldness. "I'm
beginning to understand why I made my decision to suppress the
identity of the nerve substance. _You_ did that. The things I've seen.
You're just like dictators of our time. You think you're so right that
everyone will naturally agree with you. I don't. I think it's more
humane to let people come into the world as they will and have wars
that destroy them, than to decide just how many are to be born. You
need a new man in the garbage disposal plant in twenty years? Press a
button and he will be born in a few months. Going to have less to do in
some factory in twenty years? Keep the zombies from being born. Less
trouble than killing them off later to save on the food bill."

"I was afraid you might feel that way," the Cyberene said. "I have the
answer to it. Nadine Holmes. Make an accurate report tomorrow on the
tests. In return I will leave her in your time--even plant directives
so that she will always be a loving and devoted wife to you."

"I would prefer her as she is, naturally."

"Today her every outward manifestation was under my direct mental
control. Don't you see, Earl Frye? Just before you followed her into my
neatly laid trap to get you here, you watched her come up the hill, and
adored every line of her, every mannerism, every play of expression.
With one small corner of my mind I can _anticipate_ your wishes and
fulfill them in her--"

"It wouldn't be her," Earl said shaking his head. "And even if it were,
at the cost of billions of unborn generations? No."

"But you will do as I wish whether _you_ wish to or not. Why not obey
me freely and get this reward, rather than nothing?

"_I can control you._" The voice ended triumphantly.

"No!" It was a shuddering protest from Earl's lips, forcing itself out
against his wishes.

The throbbing ache at the base of his brain increased abruptly, slowly,
to measurable beats.

"I can control your body, your conscious mind, shoving _you_ into the
back recesses of thought. And when you try to come out, I can punish
you--like I'm doing now."

"No!" Earl screamed, his reserve breaking down completely.

Suddenly, into his cosmos of unbearable suffering and horror, filtered
a thought that created hope. Nadine had been _free_ during those first
hours he had met her. She had defied George Ladd. Unsuccessfully, but
she had defied him. And when they had sprawled through that doorway
to the future, for a moment he had seen that same _free_ Nadine in
her eyes, her expression. Or had she ever been free? The terrible
throbbing pain blurred his thinking. Had she been free in the smelter
where she attracted his attention while the others surrounded him? If
he had run directly to her he would have escaped being surrounded.
But....

Anger entered his mind like a little finger of thought. Anger at
Nadine? He was surprised. Confused. Then it came to him that it was not
_his_ anger. It came from outside. Alien.

From the depths of his own instincts fear welled up and became blind
panic, fighting against the _something_ that was growing stronger,
crowding around his soul, forcing it to retreat within itself, until
Earl Frye, his awareness of being Earl Frye, of being himself, was all
that remained, helpless to control or even to feel.

Through a mental fog he was aware that he had stood up, the glass
cage had lifted, and he was free to go--but not _he_! His body was
controlled by the Cyberene.

He was aware that he had left the dome to walk through a beautifully
landscaped garden to a building he had not seen before but which he
knew to be the 3042 end of the time tube. He was aware of pausing and
looking back at the Dome, now a thing of incredible beauty to him, the
repository of his physical vehicle, the Brain. But _not his_. The
Cyberene's.

       *       *       *       *       *

He entered the time tube. He stepped from it onto grassy ground.
He went through the trees to the sidewalk. He returned to the lab
building, to his lab, to his living quarters.

He encountered Basil. He listened to himself talk, in casual tones,
normal tones. He was unable to control even his conscious thoughts. But
his consciousness was a thing apart from him.

He fought the domination of the Cyberene with arms that would not move,
with a tongue that would not utter his words, with a rage that would
not alter his calm and pleasant expression. He fought the pain that
throbbed within him. He fought to stay sane.

Slowly he began to adjust to his position. He no longer fought. He
was like a passenger in a plane who watches it take off, fly great
distances, and land, with no concern about the details. Having no
control whatever over his body, he was free of responsibility toward
its routine behavior. He became aware that pain had departed. The very
thing he had fought began to interest him. There must be some definite
mechanism--property of the mind--that made telepathic enslavement
possible in this way. Undoubtedly Nadine was also a free focus of
thought behind her enslaved surface.

She came into the lab at ten o'clock, cheerful but impersonal. He heard
himself talking to her in the same way. He could see her, listen to
her. Therefore, behind her impersonal eyes was the Nadine he had first
met, watching him, knowing what had happened. It gave him comfort to
know that. He had not lost her. She was _there_.

Knowing that, and knowing there was no way to communicate with her at
present, he turned his attention to what her body and his were doing.

"The silicones haven't been explored too thoroughly yet," she was
saying. "They have some disadvantages, but those can be eliminated
by additions to the ion rings to serve as protective buffers. I have
several of them in this tray I brought in. I'd like you to run them
through the tests."

Earl's eyes focused on the tray. They paused briefly on the formula of
the third one from the nearest end. Earl sensed that this was the long
sought for substance. He built up its theoretical structure. He saw at
once how it achieved its properties.

"I'll be back this afternoon," Nadine said. "By then you should have
your lab reports ready."

Then she was gone. Earl's hands went through the motions of pouring
each vial into a pump. He turned his attention away from the routine,
as a traveler in a passenger plane might turn from the window to
something else.

A feeling of hopelessness grew within him. How could he stop things or
interfere with them when he couldn't affect a muscle?

The Cyberene had been playing with him when it tried to get him to do
its bidding of his own free will. He realized that now. It would have
pleased its vanity if he had.

But this was too important to it for it to trust anything other than
itself.

When it was done? When the fluid was forced into the hundreds of
thousands of miles of hair-like glass tubing, the billions of fine
glass cells? It would never give him his freedom. It would be afraid of
what he might be able to do. So it would kill him.

Unless he could prevent the Brain from being activated. And unless he
were free to command his body, he could never do that.

What had the Cyberene said to him about time travel and alternate time
streams? The theories weren't exactly new. They had been explored in
imaginative fiction for over fifty years. No one had really thought
there might be some basis in fact for the theories.

What had caused the "split" which had produced two Earths in separate
time streams? The Cyberene hadn't seemed to know that detail--or if it
had it had brushed over it casually so as not to make him curious about
it.

_Was it events? Or was it something in the basic substratum of matter,
and the events were the result? That might be an important distinction._

If it were events, then bringing the Brain to life in this time stream
might eliminate the divergent streams, bringing them together as one.
That, in effect, might destroy the other world of 3042 A.D. Maybe that
was what the Cyberene intended.

But suppose he were able even yet to defeat the Cyberene's scheme. Then
the two time streams would remain unchanged. The free world of the
future would remain free. But that was not enough. He wanted to destroy
both Brains. How could he accomplish that, assuming he were able to
accomplish anything?

       *       *       *       *       *

The logical time to do it would be in 1980--now--before the Cyberene
gained control of the world and made itself impregnable. But how? And
if he could figure that out, could he act if an opportunity arose?

Irene Conner came in at lunch time. "I had a wonderful time with Basil
last night," she said.

"I'm glad you did," Earl heard his voice say.

Hope leaped within him. Maybe the Cyberene would make some mistake that
would arouse suspicions in her. The hope died as the door to the hall
opened again and Nadine came in.

"You promised to take me to lunch, Earl," she said.

"Ready," Earl heard himself say.

It was evident that the Cyberene didn't intend him to be alone with any
of the others long enough for the possibility of something suspicious
to arise.

They went to a small cafe several blocks from the lab building. For
the benefit of anyone happening to be looking at them, they carried on
small talk while they ate. Earl found himself hanging onto every word
Nadine uttered, watching her every expression. He was so close to her,
yet so far away. It was like standing outside a window and watching her
while she seemed unaware of him.

He kept watching for the faintest flicker of expression that would
show the real Nadine. Slowly, without quite realizing it, he began to
pretend it _was_ Nadine. He listened to her small talk. He listened to
his, and at times forgot it wasn't actually his and that he couldn't
control one word of what he said.

He became happy. He let himself be aware of the flavor of the food. He
laughed within himself when his vocal cords laughed. He reached out and
touched Nadine's hand, thrilling to the feel of her soft skin.

She drew her hand back, a startled light in her eyes. It was gone the
next instant. Once more she was impersonal, _controlled_.

The dull, throbbing pain flared to torturing intensity within him,
blurring thought, _punishing_ him, forcing him behind his prison walls
of gray mental fog. But through the pain, apart from it, he experienced
a surge of hope. It had been _he_ who had reached out to Nadine. Not
the Cyberene controlling him!

Was there still hope? At two o'clock Nadine would pick up his lab
report sheets and turn them over to Glassman. Then the identity of the
ideal nerve fluid would be known. It would be out of his hands even if
he were in full control of his faculties.

He and Nadine rose. They were going back to the lab building. He raged
against the hidden mental barriers that contained him. He fought
frenziedly to influence some slight movement of his body.

He might as well have been a passenger on an ocean liner trying to
change the course of the thousands of tons of steel by thought alone
while standing at the rail.

His sphere of awareness grew clouded. He was raging against a mental
wall that became almost tangible. He stopped fighting from sheer
impotence--and the barrier retreated.

_The more I fight the more helpless I am._ That thought at once created
its corollary. _The less I struggle the closer I am to control!_

That was it! He had so identified his desires with the actions of his
body that for one instant he _meshed_ with it!

That, then, was the secret. The principle. But it contained within
itself its own difficulty. By "wanting" to activate the Brain he could
perhaps actually control some of his actions. But the instant he did
something counter to the Cyberene, that control would be taken away
from him, and replaced by throbbing pain.

He _had_ touched Nadine's hand though. It had been a gesture so
unconscious that the Cyberene had been unaware of it until it happened.

It was the right direction.

       *       *       *       *       *

The possibility of what he wanted to do filled him with a sense of
defeat. It would be impossible to falsify the lab report on the nerve
fluid. One false word on the card, and the Cyberene would erase it and
fill the card out correctly.

He fought back the feeling of futility. He reached out, identifying
himself with every sensation from his body. He was walking. He _wanted_
to walk. He was talking. He _wanted_ to say what he heard himself say.

It would go along well, and then his body would do something he didn't
expect, and he would be filled with the realization that he had no
control. It would be a mental stumble while his body didn't falter.

During each brief period of identifying his desires with his actions,
he found his awareness of sensations expand until it was almost
complete identification--complete _meshing_.

Meshing until the gears were almost strong enough to grip--for a brief
second. Perhaps in time they would grip for more than a second before
alarm bells rang for the Cyberene.

He was alone in his lab. He was placing the fine tubes of test
substances in their respective instrument cabinets. Ordinarily he did
this almost automatically. Now he watched his every move, building up
interest in it, _desiring_ to do everything he did, anticipating what
he would do next and wanting to do it, pretending it was he who issued
the commands to his muscles.

The crucial moment was just ahead. He had stepped to the instrument
case that held the key fluid. He started to write down the readings
from the instruments. His fingers shook, and it was _his_ nervousness
that shook them.

A "mistake" in the readings here and there would do it. Speed of ion
travel: The meter said two thousand plus feet per second. His fingers
wrote the two and a zero. Before he could write the second zero he
tried to write the plus sign. Triumphantly he saw his fingers obey his
will.

Abruptly they paused--and he was aware that a power outside his will
had made them pause.

Throbbing pain surged up to full intensity, enveloping him, sickening
him so that his soul was a writhing thing, unable to think or feel
anything other than pain. Slowly it lessened--or was he growing better
able to suffer it? Thoughts filtered in to him through gray mists
clouding his mind.

He saw his hands fill out the rest of the card correctly. He was dimly
aware of rushing excitedly from the lab, down the hall, shouting that
he had found it.

Others were joining him as he hurried to Glassman's office and burst
in, waving the card.

Glassman seized it, his eyes afire with the fulfillment of his Dream.

And it was too late. Too late now to erase the knowledge of the
identity of that fluid from Glassman's mind, from the minds of the
other nine scientists crowding around him, congratulating him.

It was too late.

That realization crowded out everything else. The Cyberene had won.

       *       *       *       *       *

"We want to put it through every test conceivable," Glassman said.
"All ten of you drop everything else and work on it. Get the speed of
impulse down to the last fraction of an inch per second. Get behavior
in different sized tubes. Find the least diameter of the fluid column
for non-function. Everything. We want to be _sure_ before we start
pumping two hundred and fifty thousand gallons of the stuff into the
Brain."

Dr. Glassman's eyes were afire with the triumph of success. "The dream
of my life has come true," he said. "The Brain will live! It will live
forever, growing wiser than any man or any group of men. It will remake
the world. Civilization. It will end wars. It will guide mankind into a
garden of Eden. Utopia. It was _my_ dream for mankind."

He became aware of those watching him. The fire of fanaticism left
his eyes. He relaxed, and laughed embarrassedly. "But right now
congratulations are in order for Dr. Frye. He's the one who has found
the substance that makes it possible."

Nadine had been standing quietly on the sidelines, almost forgotten
in this moment. She came forward now and extended her hand.
"Congratulations, Dr. Frye," she said.

It was for effect. Earl heard himself say, "Maybe _you_ are the one who
should get the credit." He paid little attention. It was a show, an
opera, and his body and hers were players reciting lines from a script.

But her hand in his was warm. He clung to the feel of it, thinking
bitterly that now there was nothing else. What would become of him? He
didn't care.

He sunk into a mood of utter defeat. It was all the worse, he realized,
because right now, if the Cyberene had not come into the picture, if he
had been left to himself, he would be deliriously happy--just as his
own exterior self was seeming to be.

After a while he was back in the lab. His body was working on more
elaborate experiments with the fluid. His vocal cords were humming a
tune in a tone of absent-minded happiness.

He wished fervently that there were some way he could be wiped out
completely. Gray walls around his awareness were not enough. Not with
the unbearable suffering.

The hours passed slowly for him. He tried not to think, to remain
passive. It was no use. His bitterness was too strong. His sense of
defeat was too overpowering.

His eyes glanced up at the door as it opened, then down at his wrist
watch. It was three minutes after five. Nadine was in the doorway.

"It's time to go Earl," she said.

Go? Where? But his body hastily putting things in order as though it
knew.

They left the building together, walked along the sidewalk as though
they might be headed toward some dinner rendezvous. They left the
sidewalk, and then Earl knew. They were going to the entrance to the
time tube. They were going back to the year 3042. Why? He should have
remained. Maybe this would create suspicion. But even as he thought
that, he knew it wouldn't. Everyone would think he and Nadine were at
some restaurant, perhaps later at some night spot. No one would bother
to check and see if he came back to his rooms.

Ahead was the clear spot with its smooth convex depression. And the
shimmering refraction in the air. Side by side he and Nadine walked
toward it--and were in a corridor, the woodland scene wiped out.

No unusual sensation of any kind. Stepping across a thousand years was
no different than crossing the threshold of a doorway.

George Ladd was there waiting for them. "The Cyberene wants to see both
of you," he said. Nothing more. No paralysis gun, no guards to keep
Earl from escaping. But he couldn't escape. He couldn't move a muscle
of his own volition. "Okay," he heard himself say casually.

He and Nadine left the building and went through the beautiful park to
the Dome. Inside, they walked along the seemingly roofless slightly
curving corridor. He went to a small red square and stood on it. Out of
the corner of his eye he saw Nadine do the same. From above, the glass
boxes were lowered over them.

_Something left him._ Without having tested the feeling, he knew that
he was in full possession of himself. He could command and his body,
his voice, would obey.

He turned toward the glass wall facing Nadine. He pressed against it.
She was doing the same.

"Nadine!" he said, and it was a greeting, a caress.

"Earl!"

And they were drinking in one another with their eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Very touching," a voice said. "One would think you are in love with
her, Earl Frye."

"Oh no. I--That is...." Earl stopped in amazement at the self
revelation.

"Look at her," the Cyberene's voice said. "In spite of most careful
conditioning starting in the lab tank in her pre-breathing stage, she
feels the same way about you."

Nadine's lips were trembling with a smile. She was nodding.

Earl was irritated. "Did you bring me here just to tell me that?" he
asked. "Or to torture me further?" he added bitterly.

"No. I brought you here to show you that I'm grateful. You did what
I wanted done. The fact that it was done in spite of you makes no
difference. It's done and can't be undone by you. You realize that?"

"To gloat. I might have known," Earl said contemptuously.

"Not that either. I want to reward you. I've thoroughly explored your
mind. I know that if you give your word, you will keep it. I understand
a little about your feeling on personal freedom. Now that the vital
fluid is known to enough people so that nothing you can do would undo
that, I'm willing to let you have Nadine. The real Nadine."

"Yes?" Earl said warily.

"Yes. All I ask in return is your promise not to try to undo anything,
and to go ahead with your work without ever mentioning what has
happened. Once you give your promise, I will let you and Nadine go to
your time and stay there, free agents."

Earl frowned. "I don't get it," he said. "I didn't expect anything like
this from you."

"You thought that after I had by-passed you and accomplished my purpose
I would eliminate you?" The Cyberene laughed. "You will find that
I'm a very benevolent master." The video eyes seemed to glisten with
joviality.

"I still don't get it," Earl said, puzzled. "You want my word that I
won't interfere with anything you do from here on in."

"Yes. After all, there is a lot to do yet before the Brain in your time
stream is activated. I must--"

"So!" Earl interrupted. "According to your theory of time that you so
carefully explained to me, the discovery of the vital nerve substance
should have fixed up everything. It didn't."

"The Brain hasn't been activated yet in your time stream. When it has,
then the future will reshape itself."

"I want to understand," Earl said. "As I understand it, some act, some
_crucial_ act, must be changed from the way it happened in the past--in
my future in that past. Until that crucial moment is changed from the
way it happened, all the future stemming from it remains unaltered. The
instant that crucial moment is changed, presto--the whole future from
1980 right down to 3042 does a mighty flip flop and _right here and
now_, in that other Earth so close to this one, things will change as
abruptly as the change of scene on a screen."

"That's correct."

"Then getting my lab reports correct wasn't the thing. There is still
something to come, back there, that must be changed? In spite of
everything up to now, you are still facing defeat? That's why you are
willing to offer me so much?"

"You misunderstand my motives," the Cyberene said.

"I don't think so. You aren't dealing with a mind-slave now. You may
be non-human, but you're a thinking mind. You have desires, motives
for doing things, ways of doing them. In other words, you're a type.
In offering me everything I want, you're out of your type--unless
there's something you want that you can't get any other way. When I
came in here I was licked. All I wanted was to die. Now I'm not so
sure. I'm not even sure you know what you're doing. I have _hope. Do
you understand that?_" Earl was trembling violently, a mixture of
emotions coursing through him. "I'm going to destroy you before I'm
done. You're going to take control of me again and try to prevent that.
You don't know whether you can or not because _you can't go into your
future_. You can't even go into the past in any detail. How do I know
that? I'm a scientist. I'm trained to put two and two together and get
four. If you could go anywhere in the past you could have explored
every detail of my future and know now what happened."

"Perhaps I do know," the Cyberene said. "You forget I'm attempting
to _change_ what happened. I have changed what happened. In the time
stream the way it was originally, you discovered the right nerve fluid,
and suppressed it. You faked a negative report on it. I've changed that
much of the past already."

"Have you?" Earl said dully, his emotion spent. "All right then. Don't
mind me. You're not going to get any promise from me no matter how much
you torture me." His voice changed to cold bitterness. "I'm going to
fight you to the end--and win. I don't know how, but the very fact that
you haven't changed the present of that other Earth proves you haven't
succeeded yet--and won't. _I'll_ win. Then I'll destroy you, and Nadine
and I can be free."

But somewhere along the line the Cyberene had taken control again.
Earl wasn't quite sure when his vocal cords stopped obeying his mental
commands.

His body was standing quietly. He could not affect it. The gray walls
were closing in around him, the pain growing. He didn't fight it. He
welcomed the gray walls that clouded the channels to his conscious mind.

He sensed dimly that he and Nadine were going back the way they had
come. Back to the time tube. Back to 1980, to what might be the final
battle.

He was alone in his living quarters. He was aware of sleeping. Then it
was morning, and he crept cautiously into his conscious mind, a hurt
and wounded soul. And his conscious mind was serene and happy, unaware
of his suffering as it began its day's work.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Hi, Earl."

Earl looked up with a smile. "Hello, Basil. How's things going with you
and Irene?"

Basil smiled wryly. "Well ... at least she's discovered that I'm a
pretty fair dancer. She envies you. I guess I do too. You have all the
luck."

"Nonsense! Discovering the right substance was like winning the Irish
Sweepstakes."

"That's what I mean. You did nothing more than any of the rest of us.
It was pure chance that the right stuff was on a tray given to you to
test. But in the history books your name will get the credit--just like
it took brains."

Earl shrugged. "I'm afraid all our names will be left out. Dr. Glassman
will get the credit. He master-minded the whole thing. He deserves the
credit, too. The rest of us are just damned good chemists. That's all.
He took the risks. If it hadn't paid off, the Dome would have been
known as Glassman's Folly."

"Something in that," Basil said. "By the way, what have you found out
about Nadine? You two seem quite palsy walsy now."

"She's what she claims to be," Earl said.

"Is she?" Basil said, his eyes narrowing. "I think you're lying. Matter
of fact, you're different than you were. What's come over you?"

"Nothing, Basil."

"Nothing, he says," Basil said mournfully to the bench he was sitting
on. "What's happened to you? Have you been bought?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Nadine came here under mysterious circumstances,
to say the least. You were hot on the trail of something. You wanted me
to help you follow her. I couldn't, because Irene had given me my first
chance to date her. So you followed her by yourself. What happened?"

"Sure," Earl said. "She went to the best hotel in town. I called her on
a house phone and asked her to have dinner with me. She did."

"Did she tell you how she happened to be only four inches high and
naked when you first met her?"

Earl stared at Basil in mock astonishment. "Basil," he said softly.
"Haven't you ever heard of that terrible scourge of the human
race--alcohol?"

"Don't give me that!" Basil said, his nostrils flaring. "You were stone
sober. I was with you for an hour while you bought those clothes and
patiently gathered fashion magazines that would show a dame who didn't
know the first thing about it how to put them on. I saw Nadine in
this lab, being carried off by a man. I was paralyzed by a ray gun or
something from a gun. So were you."

"He's right, Earl."

Both men turned toward the door. It was Nadine. She closed the door and
came into the lab.

"Maybe we should take him with us, Earl," she said. "If we don't,
he's going to think the worst things about us. I know we swore you to
secrecy, but he could wreck everything."

"Maybe you're right," Earl said.

"Oh no," Basil said, edging toward the door. "They _did_ something to
you, Earl. I'm not going to give them a chance to do the same thing to
me."

"Don't be a fool," Earl said. "Let me at least explain things."

       *       *       *       *       *

Nadine was edging toward the door to cut off Basil's escape. He saw
this, and leaped past her to the door, pulling it open.

"Come back here and let me explain," Earl heard himself say.

"You can explain to the Secret Service," Basil said.

He shut the door on them. An impulse made him turn toward Dr.
Glassman's office. He would tell him first, and if that didn't get
results he would go to the S. S. boys.

He knocked on Glassman's door and pushed it open without waiting for an
invitation.

"Dr. Glassman," he said quickly, "something very suspicious is going on
around here. I should have told you about it sooner, but I thought Earl
would be able to explain his actions, and Nadine's. Have you looked
into her credentials? She isn't what she claims. I know, but I don't
know how I'm going to prove it right now. She's done something to Earl.
He isn't the same. They're in this together."

"Just a minute, Dr. Nelson," Glassman cut in. "Are you trying to say
that Dr. Frye and Dr. Holmes are in on some mad scheme to sabotage the
Brain? You must be mad. Why, Dr. Frye discovered the chemical we've
spent close to a million dollars searching for!"

"I know that," Basil said doggedly, "but just the same--"

"You're out of your mind. What are you trying to do? Curry favor with
me at the expense of innocent and hard working people? I've a good
notion to discharge you on the spot."

"You've got to listen to--"

"Get out. I'll hear no more of it."

Basil stared at him blankly, then nodded. "All right," he said, "but
you're going to have to listen later. I'm taking it to the Secret
Service. They'll have to listen."

He backed out, closing the door on Glassman's angry face. When he
turned to go down the hall he saw Earl and Nadine coming toward him.
With them was George Ladd, his right hand in his suit coat pocket over
something bulging--the paralysis gun, maybe.

Basil turned the other way and down another hall, running with a speed
born of fear and determination. He knew now he had been right.

A door opened. Irene came out, almost bumping into him. "Where are you
going in such a hurry, Basil?" she demanded.

"Can't explain now," he said. She stood in his way. "Come with me," he
said desperately. "I'll explain on the way. Hurry."

She nodded. Together they ran down the hall and reached the side exit.
Taking Irene's hand, Basil plunged away from the sidewalk through
scattered trees, until they reached the parking lot. He unlocked his
car with shaking fingers and told Irene to get in. He rushed around to
the driver's side.

The motor caught instantly. He started with a clash of gears. In the
rear view mirror he saw George Ladd running toward him. Then he reached
the street--and almost immediately was slowed by heavy traffic.

Groaning under his breath, he made the best time he could. Irene
watched him silently for two blocks.

"Aren't you going to tell me what it is?" she asked abruptly.

"He's after me," Basil said. "We've got to get there before he can stop
me. You can listen when I tell the Secret Service about it."

Ahead was a traffic jam. Basil turned into a side street where he made
better time. It was taking him forever to get there. But finally his
destination was just ahead. The office building where the S. S. had its
local office.

There was a parking space. Basil swerved toward it and braked to a
stop. He reached past Irene and opened her door.

"Get out and run for it," he said.

The screech of tires almost drowned his voice. He looked over his
shoulder. A car had pulled up beside his in the street. He saw George
Ladd behind the wheel, alone.

Frantically, Basil pushed Irene out and followed her, taking her hand
as they ran toward the building entrance fifteen feet away.

"We've got to make it," he said. "We've got to...."

There was no sound, no light, from the weapon George Ladd pointed at
them.

Basil sprawled forward. Before he hit the sidewalk, flame burst from
his hair, his clothing.

Irene stopped, forgetting her danger or not knowing it. She bent down
by Basil, reaching to help him. She remained in that position for
a long second while her hair and clothing burst into flames, then
crumpled against him.

Horrified pedestrians drew back from the bodies, the stench of seared
flesh. In the street a motor roared into life. The car with George Ladd
sped away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Earl turned away from the window. "George Ladd just brought my car
back," he said. "I guess he isn't coming in. He's walking into the
woods toward the tube entrance."

Nadine nodded casually.

Within his mental prison Earl worried. What had Ladd done? He wouldn't
dare to kill Basil. The worst that could happen would be that Basil
would be taken before the Cyberene and made him into a mind-slave too.

There were footsteps in the hall. The door opened. It was Dr. Glassman,
his lips set in a grim line.

"Dr. Frye," Glassman said. "Basil came to me with a story of something
going on he didn't like. He accused you and Dr. Holmes of some scheme
to sabotage the Brain."

"That's utter nonsense," Earl heard himself say.

"Why, I can't understand--" Nadine began.

"I thought so too," Glassman said, "until I received a telephone call
from the police just now. Basil and Irene were killed a few moments ago
while on their way to try to get the Secret Service to listen to what I
refused to hear."

"Oh," Nadine said without expression. Earl said nothing. He was too
stunned to think.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Glassman went on grimly. "You
may both consider yourselves relieved of your duties until the Secret
Service has investigated thoroughly. Save your explanations until I've
called them."

Earl tried to warn Glassman. He forced his lips open to call to
him--and a wave of searing throbbing pain lashed at him, forcing him
back behind the gray fog.

Through the mental haze he saw George Ladd in the doorway, a
thirty-eight Colt automatic in his hand--something Glassman would
understand.

"Come with me, Dr. Glassman," Ladd said expressionlessly.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Glassman returned an hour later, to all outward appearances he was
unchanged, except that he made no mention of the deaths of Basil and
Irene. Nor did he say anything about suspending Earl and Nadine.

From his own experience Earl knew that one part of Glassman was raging
against his mental prison, perhaps feeling the sadistic torture with
which the Cyberene kept him chained.

By a supreme effort Earl pulled himself away from thinking about what
had happened. It multiplied his determination to free himself enough to
defeat the Cyberene and destroy it. But raging impotently against the
Brain's control wouldn't accomplish a thing.

Little by little he willed himself back to a frame of thought where he
could reach out into his conscious mind again, matching his thoughts
and moods with it. It had somehow "forgotten" much of what had
happened to Basil and Irene and Glassman. It was thinking about Nadine.

Earl thought about her too. She loved him. She didn't know what love
was, but it was there, revealed in the brief moment she had been free
to express herself. Was that love now making her try to overthrow the
slavery of the Cyberene? Probably not. She was conditioned to accept
that inhuman intellect as her master.

Earl shoved the real Nadine from his thoughts and dwelt on the Nadine
that was manifest. She was easy to love too--and why not? She was
everything that the true Nadine was--except that she was not the
_complete_ Nadine. She was falling in love with him too. And his own
conscious mind was in love with her. Why not make the most of it?

He inserted the idea into his conscious thoughts, and to his delight no
alarm bells rang. The Cyberene didn't interfere.

"Let's go to a dance tonight after work," he said.

"A dance? I don't know how to dance."

"I'll teach you. It isn't hard to pick up."

"All right," Nadine said.

Earl worked hard the rest of the day. Tank trucks were bringing the
nerve fluid to the Dome in a never ending stream. Every load had to
be tested before it was unloaded into the storage tanks, to make sure
its quality was up to standard. One five thousand gallon load could
contaminate it all.

At six o'clock he was relieved of his work. He dressed eagerly, finding
no difficulty in _meshing_ one hundred per cent with the desires of his
conscious mind. He picked up Nadine at her hotel.

Crestmont boasted only two places worth going. One was just a dance
floor, the other The Barn, with a small orchestra and dinners.

"The orchestra isn't as good here at The Barn," Earl said when they
went in, "but we can have a table and enjoy ourselves."

They ordered their dinner. The orchestra started playing and soon the
floor was fairly crowded. Earl took Nadine's hand and led her to the
dance floor. After a few steps she discovered that she could dance
quite easily. It delighted her.

They returned to their table finally, and ate. Afterward they danced
again. Two of the other scientists were there with their partners. They
nodded at Earl and Nadine but didn't join them.

During all this, Earl was careful not to insert any feeling, any
impulse of his own into his conscious mind. What he intended to do
must come as a surprise to both Nadine and the Cyberene, and afterwards
they must think it to be the product of that conscious mind--not Earl
himself.

His opportunity arose naturally. While they were dancing he spoke
to her. She lifted her face to smile at him. Swiftly he kissed her,
letting his lips linger until the throbbing and an angriness beat into
him and a power outside himself pulled him back.

He retreated in his mind, afraid even to think, lest the Cyberene sense
his thoughts and realize what he had been trying.

"Why did you do that?" he heard Nadine say from a great distance,
through waves of torture.

His own voice replied, "That was a kiss."

"How disgusting," Nadine said.

Had she meant that? Or were those just words put in her mouth by the
Cyberene.

"It's one of our customs," Earl's voice said. "Watch the others on the
dance floor. Quick! See that couple over at the corner table?"

Earl crept cautiously into his conscious mind to watch Nadine. She
studied the couple, puzzled. She looked up into his face thoughtfully
and began dancing again. "Maybe," she said, "it won't seem so
disgusting if we try it again."

Her lips parted. Earl felt his head bend toward her. He felt the kiss,
but held himself cautiously alert for the first sign of disapproval
from the Cyberene. It didn't come.

The moment passed. Earl began to relax. Had the Cyberene assumed it was
a natural action of his conscious mind divorced from him? If so, then a
major hurdle had been met successfully.

"It is rather pleasant," Nadine said. Then, thoughtfully, "So that's a
kiss."

Earl looked at her sharply. Was it possible that the real Nadine had
caused those words to be spoken? Maybe. It provided a new avenue of
speculation. Had Nadine long ago discovered what he was so patiently
trying now--how to circumvent the control of the Cyberene? She could
have, but not seeing any reason to do so, kept her talent hidden.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two more days passed. Earl forgot his caution and boldly cooperated
with his conscious mind on the many tasks that took up his time. And
strangely he was almost free of pain, though it never entirely left.

Dr. Glassman took all the scientists with him on a tour of inspection
within the Brain. The millions of fine glass tubes and hollow bulbs
that comprised the Brain would soon start being filled with nerve
fluid. Although tons of pressure per square inch were required to force
it into the tubes, once there, capillary attraction pulled it along.

On the first trip Earl retreated from his conscious mind as much as
possible, while still watching everything around him closely. He had
been inside the Brain many times before--but never with any thought of
discovering a weakness where it could be destroyed.

That was the task he had set himself. It was an almost impossible one.
Destroying the Brain now, in 1980, might not accomplish his purpose.
The damage could be repaired.

He thought of dynamite and rejected it. It would deteriorate long
before 3042, and even if it remained potent, it would do no more than
damage a small part of the Brain--not enough to more than partially
impair its thinking or give it a case of specialized forgetfulness. A
dynamite explosion in such an enormous brain would be equivalent to a
blood clot on a human brain.

Nothing better presented itself to him on that first trip. Was he going
to fail?

The next day pumping of the nerve fluid began. The masses of hair-fine
glass tubing lost their appearance of glass wool and began to appear as
individual threads of yellowish orange.

It would be many days before the "loading", as it was termed, would be
completed, but everyone was kept busy watching it, and catching broken
threads as they started to ooze fluid, sealing them with a special
formula sealer.

During these days a dozen plans to destroy the Brain occurred to Earl.
Each had its defects that would make it fail. As the "loading" neared
its last day, only one possibility remained.

Great precautions had been taken to make the Brain free from vibration.
The slightest sound of almost any frequency, if continued long enough,
would find a nerve strand that would vibrate to it and snap.

A loudspeaker broadcasting at full power over the entire range of sound
would be more devastating to the Brain than a ton of dynamite exploded
in its heart. There was the answer--Vibration!

But once again there was the problem of installing it, and being able
to use it after a thousand years. Install it and use a clock to trigger
it? That was one possibility. Clocks run by atomic power would keep
accurate time over much longer periods.

_But there was the problem of getting the Cyberene to agree to the
installation of such a device._ That was necessary. During the days
that Earl had studied the Cyberene's control of his conscious mind
he had found no way to gain any sort of positive control which the
Cyberene couldn't shunt out at once. Therefore whatever plan he devised
must meet with the approval of the Cyberene.

Tentatively he inserted a bold thought, feeling sure that the Cyberene
wouldn't attribute it to him, but merely to the logical processes of
his conscious mind.

_What if the Brain doesn't develop along lines sympathetic to you?_
He elaborated upon it, feeding worry thoughts along with it. A second
Brain might not follow the line of development of the first, any more
than one human develops like another, even when they are twins. Rather
than accomplishing his aim of having a second Cyberene on the other
Earth in 3042, holding the human population in slavery, it might prove
a more formidable enemy than the people of that Earth. And if that
turned out to be the case, wouldn't it be better to have a trump card?
Some way of destroying the second Cyberene at any time? Even if it were
friendly to the first, it might want to be boss. Power of life and
death over it would prevent that.

Earl's conscious mind, entirely cooperative with the Cyberene, soon
began to think very dominantly along those lines. Earl sat back and
waited for some reaction from the Cyberene. It was not long in coming.

At five o'clock Nadine looked him up and informed him that they were to
report to the Cyberene at once.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I have detected certain thoughts in your mind," the voice of the
Cyberene sounded. "I would like to hear what you have to say."

Earl sensed his mind rallying its thoughts. "I've been wondering what
the other Cyberene would be like. That's all. There's no guarantee that
it will have any special traits that will make it what you want it to
be, and once it's started it's out of your control, isn't it?"

"That's true. Time travel and even fifth dimension travel is extremely
limited. Once the other Cyberene is generated, I can't contact it until
3042--now."

"Can you look into your future and see--"

"Unfortunately, no. I can't even see into your tomorrow. I might,
perhaps, jump to the year 4104 A. D., but even that is beyond my
present ability and instruments. It may be many centuries before I
understand everything about hyperspace."

"That's what I surmised," Earl heard himself say. He stole a glance
at Nadine, who was watching him attentively. "That's why I think, for
your own protection, you should be able to destroy the other Cyberene
instantly--if it isn't what you hope it will be."

"How?" The Cyberene's voice was vibrant with eagerness.

"The basic device would be sound vibrations in the air, inside its
braincase. A loud continuous sound of nearly all frequencies would
cause billions of nerve strands to vibrate, and enough of them would
break to destroy the functioning of the whole. That could be built into
it in 1980. The problem is to decide how to trigger it. Do you have any
ideas?"

"It's very simple," the Cyberene said. "It will never forget once it
learns something. Before its mind integrates into a self aware ego,
attach a relay to some motor outlets. Decide on some key combination of
sounds that might be spoken. Repeat them into the auditory centers of
the Brain, at the same time tripping the relay. Keep doing that until
utterance of the sequence of sounds causes the relay to trip. When that
response is automatic, connect the relay to the loudspeaker. Once you
have done that, report to me. Then all I need do is contact the second
Cyberene, in this age, and if I want to destroy it I can repeat the
sounds."

Earl, in his mental cubicle, chuckled. He could not have thought of a
better way himself.

"And," the Cyberene said, "in order to account for your task, you had
better 'sell' Glassman on the idea. Tell him it's so that _mankind_ can
destroy the Brain if necessary. But make sure no one in 1980 knows the
key sounds. You may return to 1980."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I've had much the same thought," Victor Glassman said, chewing on his
lip. "I rather hated to think about it though. Destroy my Creation?
Still, I suppose it's wise--to be _able_ to." He stood up and came
around from behind his desk.

Earl and Nadine watched without speaking as he clasped his hands behind
his back and went to the window of his office which brought him a view
of part of the giant dome housing the Brain.

"Every precaution is being taken otherwise. Until we can be sure of
ourselves we don't intend on letting the Brain have control of any
machines or weapons. Of course we could forget that danger, in time,
and suddenly wake up to the fact that we were too late. Then it would
be nice to still be able to.... All right. Go ahead. Keep it under your
hats though. And when you're done we can form a select group, handing
the--" he smiled wryly,--"password down from generation to generation."

"I have the plans all drawn up," Earl said. "An electrostatic speaker,
because it can be built with parts that will last forever. No moving
parts in the frequency generator or amplifier. Leads to the permanent
busses that will supply current for such things as video eyes and the
voice speaker system...."

"Good. Good. Only we will indoctrinate that Mind early so that it will
never do anything detrimental to us."

"Of course," Earl soothed. "This is only precautionary."

       *       *       *       *       *

Days followed one another swiftly. A factory-made electrostatic
loudspeaker arrived, and was dismantled so that some of its parts could
be replaced with more durable ones. Specifications for the frequency
generators and the amplifier were farmed out, and the completed units
arrived.

There was trouble with the relay. It was well designed, but there
was doubt whether it would still be in working condition after ten
centuries. Earl sent specifications to a jewelry manufacturer in Kansas
City and had its moving parts made of synthetic ruby and platinum.

The Cyberene _watched_ every step of construction--and so did Earl,
from within his artificially created mental wall, careful not to reveal
the huge holes he had knocked in it.

With the arrival of the remade relay, Earl and Nadine entered the
Brain, setting up a vibration-proof chasis in its innermost heart
where the maze of fine spun glass was now a maze of yellowish threads
containing a fluid with exactly the same properties as human nerve
fluid.

Outside, swarming over the catwalks and dotting the immense corridor
circling the Brain, were dozens of technicians and experts, beginning
the task of barraging the gigantic man-made brain with a never ending
sequence of visual and audible sensory impressions which, according to
theory, would eventually synthesize that miracle of creation loosely
known as thought in the thousands of tons of glass and nerve fluid.

Using a portable low power microscope and the techniques he had
acquired during the months of work on the Brain in its construction,
Earl attached motor buds to randomly chosen nerves, and sensory buds to
others, attaching them to the transistors that would feed the relay, so
that the action of the relay would set up nerve impulses in the Brain.
When it had been done, he used sensitive detectors to make sure ion
currents were generated in the nerves.

Where those nerve impulses went to among the billions of "brain cells"
didn't matter. All that mattered was that they went _somewhere_, so
that the basic property of association would "hook them on" to the
auditory impression created by speaking the code word or sequence of
code sounds.

"What should we use as the code sounds?" Nadine asked as their task
neared completion.

"I've been trying to think of something," Earl said.

And in his mental prison Earl had been trying to think of the
same thing, keeping track of his conscious mind's thoughts on the
subject--even influencing them at times.

It would have to be a sequence of sounds that stood no chance whatever
of being spoken to the Brain during the next thousand years. Otherwise
they might be spoken by chance and the Brain destroyed.

"How about nonsense syllables?" Nadine suggested.

Earl grinned. "Those are the most dangerous of all. Take Y.M.C.A. It's
the initials of a huge organization. Any nonsense sequence of letters,
no matter how long, might someday be the letters of some organization."

Nadine frowned in bewilderment. "But what else is there? If we take
any sequence of sensible words, they might be repeated in reference to
something else at any time."

"Not if they're _very_ special," Earl said, and it was the real Earl
Frye, almost completely out of his mental walls and daring discovery
recklessly, who was speaking now.

An impish light glowed in Nadine's eyes, making Earl almost sure that
the real Nadine had sensed long ago what he was doing and had done the
same, _meshing_ cautiously with her conscious mind until at times,
camouflaged by its normal thoughts, she could _appear_.

"Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said, lifting her face toward his.

"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he said, cupping her face in
his hands and pressing his lips to hers. "And that's what I mean," he
murmured through imprisoned lips. "No one else, through all the ages,
will say those words, let alone say them in the same way."

She drew back. "No!" she said abruptly. "The Cyberene has promised that
we can stay in your time, free to do as we please. That would mean that
we would have to be in the future--in _my_ time."

"But only until the Cyberene could make sure," Earl said, glad that she
had made that objection. It would allay the Cyberene's suspicions if
it had any.

A telepathed thought impinged on Earl's mind, and from Nadine's
expression, on hers too. _Earl is right. I have thought of the problem
of what the key sound should be. He has hit on the right answer. It
must be your voices, filled with emotion, speaking those words you just
spoke._

Again Earl relaxed with a mental sigh of relief. He had reached his
goal. There was nothing more for him to do now, except wait. His
conscious mind would carry on the details under the supervision of the
Cyberene.

       *       *       *       *       *

A microphone was brought into the Brain, already attached to the
auditory centers of the Brain. Earl examined the microphone, then went
in search of another type. "We must have one with a contact button on
it," he explained, "so that just the key words impinge on the Brain
when we close the relay manually."

At last everything was ready. "Now!" Earl said.

Nadine lifted her face and closed her eyes. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she
said.

Earl released the button. "That isn't the way," he said. "Imagine we
are alone in the universe, and we are about to die. Imagine swirling
mists about to envelope you and drag you away from me forever, and
this is the last kiss you'll ever get!"

"Oh, no!" Nadine whispered, opening her eyes wide. "That must never
happen! The Cyberene has promised!"

"Close your eyes and imagine it is," Earl said. "Close your eyes.
Now--there are swirling mists. Your world of dreams has crashed around
you. Ahead is--destruction. You can't escape it. It's coming, closer.
You're going to die, but before you do you want--"

"Kiss me, Earl Frye," Nadine said.

"That's it. Say it again." Earl pressed the mike button.

"Kiss me, Earl Frye...."

Earl closed his eyes. It was the end. In another moment he would die.
He had failed. He held this in his mind's eye. With a mixture of
sadness and tenderness, and bitterness, he said, "The pleasure is all
mine, Nadine Holmes," and tripped the relay with his fingers.

Would it work? After the hundredth try he began to wonder. But the
repeated words with their inflections, their subtle differences in
repetition, had to build up in the Brain, synthesize, associate with
the sensation of the tripping of the relay--and _connect_. There was
as yet no _mind_ functioning in that mass of glass and nerve fluid. No
ready made paths to coordinated concepts, conscious thought.

It was the next day before his fingers felt the relay trip of its
own accord. _Drama_, he thought, feeling the thrill of that sentient
movement. He said nothing to Nadine, not wanting to end their game. And
the next time the relay didn't trip. And the next. But the next time it
did, and the next and the next....

       *       *       *       *       *

"You're done?" Dr. Glassman said, rubbing his hands in great
satisfaction. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "What is the code
word?"

Earl winked at Nadine, then looked around in a pretense at making sure
no one could hear. "We picked L.S.M.F.T.," he whispered. "I figured
that since a cigarette company had used that in its advertising years
ago, it would never be used again by anybody."

"Excellent!" Glassman beamed. "Excellent! To think that by uttering
those five letters this entire project, representing millions of
dollars--before it's a completely integrated Mind--can be _shattered_."
He looked around him, exuding a sense of his newly acquired power.

"And," Earl said ruefully, "I guess that winds up everything for me in
Project Brain, doesn't it? I hope so. I could use a vacation."

Dr. Glassman looked slyly from Earl to Nadine. "Are congratulations in
order?"

Earl bent swiftly and whispered in Glassman's ear, "I haven't asked
her yet. I wanted to wait until our work was over. You know, business
before pleasure."

"Ha ha!" Glassman chuckled knowingly, looking at Nadine with an
I-know-a-secret look. "You're a man after my own heart, Earl." Then,
more soberly, "Yes, I guess you are due for a vacation. And your
consultant duties are finished, Dr. Holmes. I'll miss both of you."

Earl and Nadine left Glassman outside the Brain, and returned to the
lab annex. They didn't speak as they walked down the hall to Earl's
lab. They stood just inside the door, looking over the scene of
machines and instruments and tables and bottles which had been their
surroundings for so long.

Earl looked at the lab table where he had first seen Nadine, so many
days--it seemed ages--ago. He would never see this place again. He
entertained no illusions about the future. The Cyberene would never
permit them to return to 1980.

With heavy feet he went across the lab to his living quarters. He began
packing, and Nadine sat on the arm of a chair, watching.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Packing my belongings to take with us," Earl said.

"Oh, but you don't need to do that. We'll be back in a few hours--a day
or two at the most. The Cyberene has promised. Just as soon as it makes
sure it doesn't need us."

"Sure," Earl said, "but I'll take them just the same. Then when we come
back we can go straight to the airport and catch a plane to Miami or
someplace and get married."

Fifteen minutes later they left the lab. They walked along the familiar
sidewalk to the spot where they always cut through the woods toward the
hill, circling it so no one would know where they had gone.

They reached the clearing. Ahead, shimmering in the evening sun, was
the familiar refractive outline in the atmosphere. There was no breeze
to stir the still leaves. A meadowlark broke the silence with its call,
and was silent. Over the trees the giant dome that housed the Brain
loomed, unbelievable in its enormous bulk.

Nadine took his hand and stopped him. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said,
her lips trembling.

Earl looked down at her upturned face. Did she know? Perhaps the real
Nadine, within, sensed what was to come.

Or perhaps she didn't.

The tom tom beat of pain began within him. He forced his way through
it, taking her into his arms.

"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he murmured.

Their lips met, tenderly, then crushed together with the fierceness of
passion.

Their lips parted, lingeringly, regretfully. They drew back, to look
into each other's eyes for a brief moment, a moment Earl knew the
Cyberene had given them to make more bitter what was to come.

Earl saw the glow fade from Nadine's eyes. As he picked up his
suitcases he heard someone approaching.

Victor Glassman joined them, his face gray, his expression wooden.

This was it. Glassman might be missed. There might be an investigation,
but Project Brain would go on regardless of that now. And the only ones
who might stop it were here.

Side by side they walked toward the barely perceptible refractive
shimmer. Beyond it they could see the woodland, a Bluejay's flashing
wings, a chipmunk standing upright, observing them. And then they were
standing in the familiar hall, in the year 3042.

George Ladd was not there, but there was no need for him to be there.
Their bodies, controlled by the Mind that enslaved them, walked on
toward the far exit and the garden they would cross--to the Dome, the
Cyberene.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was no turning back now. Nor would there be other days to perfect
the technique of _meshing_ with his mind. Earl reached out into every
part of his thoughts, thinking them, identifying himself with them,
with the desires of the Cyberene. In that other Earth so close to this
there would now be a second Cyberene. There must be, since nothing
stood in the way of its developing throughout the ten centuries and
more since they had left it, a few minutes ago.

They entered the garden and paused. Earl dropped his two suitcases
beside the path. He took Nadine's hand in his. They went on toward the
portal that led into the Dome.

They walked down the silent circling corridor under the network
of catwalks and ladders, past panels of instruments whose needles
fluctuated with life, to the red squares over which hung the glass
cages, ready to be lowered. Would they be lowered, separating them from
each other while they faced the Cyberene?

The glittering lenses of the two video cameras moved as they went
toward them, keeping them in line.

"All of you occupy one square," the Cyberene's voice instructed.

They obeyed without sign of emotion. The glass cage was lowered over
them. Its front wall became a window through which they were looking
at the familiar Dome.

But it was a structure around which weeds grew in thick profusion, with
its acres of exposed surface pitted by time, untended.

"What happened?" Earl said. "Do you mean to say that there is still
something to be done?"

"There is nothing to be done," the Cyberene said dully. "I have checked
in that other time stream. There is still positive record that the
Brain was not activated."

"Maybe it takes time for the momentum of events to force the change,"
Earl suggested.

Didn't the Cyberene suspect yet? Didn't it _realize_?

"No," the Cyberene said dully. "I have failed. More, I have re-checked
the mathematical basis of the theoretical picture, and think I know
where I erred. The cause of the split that created two Earths,
travelling close together down through so many centuries, could not
have been something occurring in the original time stream. It took
something applied from the fifth dimension--and in the neighborhood of
the split that could only have been one thing, _the force with which
the time tube hooked onto 1980_. It had to be that. The accident. I
didn't take it into account."

"That's what I've thought all along," Earl said quietly.

"At that instant," the Cyberene went on as though it hadn't heard him,
"the split occurred. You became two Earl Fryes, to mention one facet of
the split. One of you went its way, making an accurate report of its
experiments, creating me eventually--"

While the Cyberene talked, the desolate scene vanished, and the glass
cage lifted upward slowly, as though it were a curtain, lifting for the
final scene.

The twin lenses of the Cyberene's video eyes were fixed on them, alive
with an intelligence that was inhuman.

"No," Earl said. "_That_ one of me discovered the identity of the nerve
substance, but suppressed it."

"That couldn't be," the Cyberene objected. "Nothing appeared in its
life to cause it to do that. You were the one who had the data to make
such a decision."

"But I reported accurately," Earl said. _Even yet it didn't see!_

"I know," the Cyberene said, "but it can't be, because then that
electrostatic speaker would be--" It stopped.

"Deep inside of you," Earl continued. "Waiting only for--"

       *       *       *       *       *

A wave of emotion blasted into his mind, driving him by its very force
into the deep recesses behind his wall of gray, into a cosmos of mind
wrenching pain.

"No!" the thought blasted into him. "No human can have the power to
destroy me! It can't exist. _You_ can't exist another instant, with the
danger to me!"

In agony Earl reached out, meshing little by little with his conscious
mind, _feeling_ its terror and fear of death, calming it, controlling
it with all the infinite skill he had learned during the past weeks.

And even as he gained control against the will of the Cyberene he
realized with a sinking feeling the essential weakness of his plan.
Nadine!

He had been criminally stupid, blinded by emotion toward her. She was
conditioned from birth to accept the domination of the mind of the
Cyberene.

Sweating with the terrible effort it took to hold on, he forced
his muscles to permit him to turn toward her. His worst fears were
realized. She stood there, her face a calm mask that revealed no
emotion.

Abruptly the raging force of thought and searing torture from the
Cyberene calmed. In its place was cold triumph.

"So you have been able to defeat me in your own mind," it said. "You
made _your_ error in calculation too. Nadine Holmes. She is mine."

"Nadine Holmes?" It was Nadine who uttered the two words, her lips
trembling with terrible effort, beads of sweat dotting her smooth
forehead.

Hope surged into Earl's thoughts. "But you can't allow her to live
either, can you?" he said. "In another moment you must destroy us
both, so that nothing can ever threaten your existence. We will have
only another minute or two before you reach into us, plunging us into
the gray swirling mists of death, where we will be separated forever.
_There is no way we can avoid that now, is there?_"

Nadine had turned toward Earl, every muscle of her slim body protesting
under the domination of the Cyberene. Earl was forgotten by the Brain
as it concentrated on the battle against Nadine.

She held out her arms, perspiring with the effort. "Kiss me, Earl
Frye," she whispered.

A blast of fear flowed into Earl's mind. He fought to the surface
of thought, clinging there, calming himself. But defeat was
close--impossible to avoid.

It had been a wonderful plan to destroy this thing that ruled the minds
of men, making them its slaves. Resistance was useless. In another
moment he would be dead.

Bitterly, hopelessly, with infinite sadness, he said, as though
somewhere long ago he had repeated it before, a tender ritual whose
meaning now escaped him, "The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes."

Their lips met with the tenderness of farewell.

       *       *       *       *       *

A _sound_ came into being, seeming to come from far away, yet seeming
to exist everywhere, with no point of origin. It was at the same time a
deep rumble and an insane, high screaming--and every sound in between
that had ever been uttered by voice or machine or unleashed elements in
desolate places. It was soulless, yet holding within itself the torment
of every lost soul since the beginning of time.

It forced its way into Earl's consciousness, hung there as though
stopped by some hidden barrier. Abruptly it swept forward, and as it
swept into the farthest reaches of Earl's mind it washed away throbbing
pain, the sense of inescapable doom, leaving _a sense of freedom_--a
clean freshness, an emotion of peace.

A rapid coruscation of words, syllables, and sounds whispered and
blasted from the voice box of the Cyberene as neural circuits within
the Brain snapped or short-circuited.

Earl and Nadine lifted their heads in startled surprise and a new
awakening. They saw the glittering lens eyes that had been watching
them jerk spasmodically. Within the lens of one electronic eye a flash
of blue fire exploded. Then both eyes became motionless, dead, pointed
in different directions.

Overhead, giant blinding bolts of unleashed current leaped from copper
bars to catwalks. The smell of molten and burning metal filled the air.
Then, as though cut off by some hidden hand, the unholy sound within
the Brain stopped. The arcing surges of electric power in the catwalks
and power lines overhead stilled.

There was silence, and motionless clouds of white and gray smoke.

It took a moment for Earl to realize that in defeat he had won. It took
another moment for him to realize that it was not he who had won, but
Nadine--her love for him--a love that had grown in a girl who had never
known that love existed.

There was no doubt of it now as he watched the play of expression that
crossed her face. Fear, doubt, hope, desperate hope, living hope, love,
fear, then all the love that had developed within her, shining from her
face with the spiritual brilliance of a brilliant sun.

"Earl!" It was a glad cry. She clung to him as though she would never
let him go.

For that matter, she would never need to, he thought, as he drew her
closer. They would need each other for the rest of their lives. Or for
a dozen lifetimes if they could have that many.

"My God!" The words exploded into their minds. They had been uttered by
Dr. Glassman, and they contained all the horror, the comprehension of
everything that had happened, that the mind-enslavement had given to
him.

"It's over now," Earl said. "The Cyberene is dead."

Glassman shook his head vigorously. "It should never have existed in
the first place," he said. "All my dreams of what it could do to help
humanity. We've got to destroy the Brain in 1980, before any of this
can happen."

Earl shook his head, looking at Nadine. "Nadine and I are staying
here," he said quietly. "There's work to do that only we can do.
People, their minds freed for the first time, bewildered, needing to
be led a little ways into the path of freedom until they can care for
themselves. A future to build--from 3042."

"You can stay if you must," Glassman said, his voice vibrant with the
shock and horror of what he had experienced, "but I'm going back--to
prevent this 3042 from ever happening. I can do it. I can trip that
relay manually. It will destroy--" His voice broke. "--my life's work.
But it has to be done."

He turned and ran blindly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Earl made no move to stop him. He watched him vanish around the bend of
the corridor, waiting fatalistically. Would the scientist be able to
wipe out this time stream? Deep within him, Earl felt it couldn't be
done. The Cyberene had tried to change the past, and failed.

Perhaps the Cyberene had been wrong in what it believed had caused the
split in time that produced two Earths. Maybe one part of Glassman
would be unable to bring itself to destroy its Creation, the Brain.
Maybe that's what had happened. Maybe Glassman, torn between two
opposed decisions, had been able to act on neither.

Earl put his arm around Nadine. They walked slowly along the curving
corridor, circling the dead Brain, going toward the outside. They would
have work to do. Work that only they, the coalition of 1980 and 3042
could accomplish together.

There were people here in this world of 3042. How many or how few
didn't matter. They were the nucleus, the beginnings of a future
that would grow from 3042. They were the not-born, created in the
laboratory. They would have to be taught about life. And love.

And other things that free men know.



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