John said quickly, “Where is the other frog, Kit? We’ll try to use it—and not make the same mistake again.”
“In the woods behind the house. I was amusing myself by exploring with it just before he came in. Did you find Al?”
“We know where he is. As soon as we get you out of this you can talk with him.”
“What can you do? He’s going to kill me because I know about the brains being alive. He said Al’s assistants are already dead.”
“I’ve got to get the other frog.”
In the moment before he dropped contact he saw what the man intended. He had a small handwriting duplicator and was preparing to make a suicide note that would faithfully copy Kit’s handwriting. It would be left beside her body. He could guess the kind of thing that would be written. Al’s death would serve as reason enough for her suicide.
He scanned the nearby territory for contact with the remaining frog. Al’s suburban place was isolated amid encroaching forest and meadow that separated him from his fairly distant neighbors—a span too great to be crossed by the frog in sufficient time.
He located the frog in a patch of grass at the edge of the wood. He took control and led it in the direction of the house.
Almost instantly there was a shout some distance behind.
“Hey, look! There’s one of those pests they’ve told us to get. He jumped in the air toward Demming’s. Get a rock!”
Children playing in the woods, John thought. A few moments ago he would have been thankful for their presence. Now they loomed as a new menace. In the depths of the grass he couldn’t see how far away they were.
He tried to propel the frog forward with long low jumps but the creature was conspicuous in any kind of movement. He tried to gauge how far he had to go. It looked at least two hundred meters. He stepped up the power of his legs. Behind him increased shouts and the sound of running showed he had been seen again.
On the next leap the crushing impact of a rock hit the frog in midair. John’s vision twisted erratically as it crashed to the ground.
“I hit him! Come on, he’s over their in the grass. I hit him square!”
The rock had hit on the back, where thick padding of tissues protected the sensory organs. The frog hadn’t been seriously hurt but he couldn’t avoid leading the children toward the house.
He had no knowledge of whether the killer would attack the children or flee at their approach—with the intention of finishing his work at a later time. He had no desire to risk the lives of the children or of Kit unnecessarily—but the man could not be allowed to escape now.
He knew the secret of the frogs. That muffled cry from Kit had told him all that he needed to know about them. From him the information would go to the Institute. It would assure Kit’s death and the destruction of the brains of Al and Martha and himself.
He heard the approaching steps getting nearer. He had to get to the house well ahead of the children.
The frog leaped for the cover of taller brush that led almost to the edge of the trimly landscaped grounds at the rear of the house. With abandon John forced it to highest speed. A dozen times it collided with entanglements and tumbled helplessly. But the thicket impeded his pursuers even more.
When he at last reached the smooth sloping lawn he had left them far behind, beating the thicket to drive the frog out of cover. He heard their cries as he led it across the lawn.
He entered cautiously, muffling the faint plopping sound of its movement on the thick rugs. He came to the bedroom, where Kit was still prisoner. For a thick moment of anguish he feared he had been too late. The assassin had moved Kit to a chair by the desk. The suicide note lay upon it. Kit was bound only by her hands and feet with broad strips of sheeting. Knife in hand the man was bending near her.
“Kit! Look at me!” John cried.
Her response was instantaneous. Her eyes opened wide in a look of despair for hope that was beyond reach. The effect was as John planned.
The man turned, his face snarling.
FROM the center of the floor the frog leaped. The knife flashed up, but John had anticipated its arc. Bulletlike, the frog shot under it, crashed into that raging face—and clung.
The killer erupted a scream of rage and pain. He tore at his face with his hands. He ripped the frog loose and hurled it across the room. But most of one eyelid went with it, clamped between those nightmare teeth.
He stood for a moment, blood pouring over his face from his blinded eye.
The frog lay crumpled on the floor. John dared not test its movement for fear of breaking that peak of unreasoning rage in the attacker. If it diverted one moment from the frog to Kit he could kill or mutilate her with one slash of that knife. One instant of misjudgment now would be fatal for Kit.
Then the man was coming slowly toward the frog. John’s tension eased. The killer had forgotten Kit for the moment and all his rage was for the creature that had blinded his eye.
John did not know if the frog had been injured by the impact against the wall. The vision was still good. He waited for the moment to test the muscles.
The knife started Its downward plunge before he made a leap. He landed high upon a bookshelf set in the adjacent wall. Cursing obscenely, the man wrenched the knife from the floor and whirled.
Then, with his more sensitive hearing, John caught the sound of the children who had pursued the frog. Their lives as well as Kit’s might be forfeit if they broke in now. He’d have to make the kill quickly.
He wondered why the man made no attempt to shoot. Apparently the initial purpose of his coming still guided him. He wanted to get away without marks of violence in the house, that would leave indications of other than suicide.
The frog lay atop a bookcase, motionless, at head height. This was it, thought John. There would never be a chance after this one.
By the last defensive jump he had led his opponent to believe the frog might be hurt. He maintained that illusion by continued motionlessness as the man approached.
He watched the knife arm draw slowly back. Sunlight glinted on the blade. The man’s head was raised, his neck exposed from jaw to collarbone.
The frog leaped.
Deeply the long vicious teeth slashed into the neck. John clamped them shut and moved them in a slow grinding chewing motion. He had aimed well. Vision became a red haze as blood gushed over the eye of the frog. The man fell to the floor, clawing. His fingers slipped in the gushing blood that covered the frog.
At last he tore it away, only to expose the gaping, bloody well in his throat. His fingers crushed about the frog, squeezing its substance through them. John’s last sound was the commotion outside.
“Mrs. Demming—Mrs. Demming, we saw one of the pests in your place! May we look for it? Mrs. Demming!”
CHAPTER XII
Unequal Contest
CAREFULLY, as if taking him by the hand, Martha led her brother’s mind to contact with the injured frog that was still capable of sight and telepathy.
The children had freed Kit from her bonds and were calling for the police. Al looked upon Kit. It was moments before he could trust himself to speak. Then he called her name softly.
Kit’s answering cry was uncontrolled hysteria but Martha left them. There was nothing she could do to help them through the terrible minutes at hand. She knew—
She returned to the laboratory and started a half dozen more frogs on their way to Al’s house and the same number toward the Institute so that adequate communication could be had between them.
John returned to the Institute laboratory where Dr. Jurgens remained in the same pose of studious intent. Silently John watched him. He seemed but a tired old man whose days were very short in number. Yet he was the key figure in a violent deception upon which the destiny of millions of innocent people depended.
The question remained, however, who was the deceived?
“How can I trust you?” John said abruptly.
The scientist’s body jerked with a start.
“You found I spoke the truth?” he said anxiously.
“I killed your assassin. Perhaps you would sacrifice him to make contact with us.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Dr. Jurgens. “That would be a trifle—if I were one of them.”
“I don’t understand any of it and I don’t think you can explain it. The killings—your knowledge that the brains live—and no action in the face of that knowledge. Even if you were madmen—which you must be—it would not be understandable.”
“I’m thankful you were successful,” he said fervently. “For Al’s sake and Kit’s. She’s a lovely—child. I always think of her as having found the secret of how to remain upon that sharp line of just beginning to grow up—and never quite crossing over.
“I came in here today with the intent of forcing Al to communicate with me. I wanted to let him know of her danger in the hope that he might be able to do something. I suspected he was in contact with others and that you might have human contacts. But he hates me—with good reason—and will never trust me. I’m glad for him that you came.”
“Why was Al deliberately killed and his brain taken? If there is an answer to that I would believe that Hell’s clinkers have grown cold.”
Dr. Jurgens gathered tools and busied himself. John kept the frog carefully hidden under the table out of sight of such watch circuits as might be upon him. He wondered how much had been seen when they first brought the frog in.
“I discovered the brains live,” said Dr. Jurgens, “three years before Al did. Without thinking of consequences I rushed to the Board, just as he did. Like you I was unable to comprehend the reaction. I was astounded and embittered—but I kept my feelings to myself.
“Immediately the government seized control of the Board. The scientific members were retained merely in an advisory capacity. Some sided with the political faction. Others, like me, submitted to the pressure that could not be ignored or fought.
“Al’s death was the greatest tragedy I have yet had to witness. He refused to be dominated by the Board’s decision. It has been agreed that this secret cannot be given out. He had to be eliminated. Those of us who were horrified by it were helpless. We go along waiting for the day when the system can be overthrown. That day has come!”
“I agree with you,” said John drily, “but you noble rebels on the Board have done little to bring it about. From how high does the pressure come that keeps the Board in line?”
Dr. Jurgens ignored his thrust and answered the question directly. “The very top. The President, the Secretary of Welfare and half a dozen others know it. It’s the top secret of the whole government.”
“They would keep two million slaves to preserve their power,” whispered John. “How uneasy their sleep must be when just one shouted word of this secret, which would cover the Earth, would topple them from their high places.”
“No,” said Dr. Jurgens sadly. “That is where both you and they are wrong. They fear it and you hope it but both the hope and the fear are false. If all the world knew it there would not be a single change!”
“That’s insane! The people would wipe out the government in total anarchy if they suspected their leaders knew of this thing and had kept it secret. For the people’s own good it would be best to refrain from that revelation.
“When they know merely the fact that the brains are alive they will force such changes that no governmental power can withstand them. Tell the people! That is all we need do!”
“How little you know of your own people—how little you understand them! Suppose they did know—what would you offer in exchange for the present?”
SAID John, “Electronic cybernetics.”
“You know that failed once. But it would be worse now. Our technical class has all but disappeared. The manning of an electronic system is now an impossibility—and they would know it.”
“It will have to be made possible,” John said. “If it is ruled out what other answer is there?”
“The one we scientists on the Board have dreamed of for so long. The one that you have brought into the realm of possibility—destruction. Let each brain wipe out its own facility which it controls. Its own sacrifice would follow—but that would be the one and final answer.”
“And an end to the Welfare State.”
“Of course. Of all man’s failures the Welfare State, the right of subsidy, is the greatest. Its illusions are the most dismal, its goals the most ignoble.”
“No. Such a program sounds like the product of a disordered mind. It’s pure fantasy to think of bringing such chaos. I hold no brief for the Welfare State—neither would I assume the destiny of destruction. Man can work that out as he will. I ask only freedom for my poor slaves.”
“You fool!” cried the Board member. “You will throw away the one chance that has come like a miracle. Give me the means—let me talk to all the brains. Let me see if they are so noble or whether they would be willing to see man pass through a purifying barbarism in order to be rid of this system.”
“No,” said John. “It will be done my way. And this attack of the Institute upon Kit is exactly the leverage we need.”
“What are you going to do? In the end nothing will save her from them unless you act as I have suggested.”
“I think the Institute will be most interested in seeing that no harm comes to Kit. Tomorrow she goes before a dependent justice of the World Court. She will charge the Institute with the murder of her husband and an attempt upon her own life. Al’s papers and his proofs of his theories will be part of the testimony that will be shown to all the news screens of every continent.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“And, unless you are lying to me, you and your fellow rebels on the Board will appear to testify of what you know in support of the charges that Katherine Demming will make against the Institute of Cybernetics!”
Never had a battle been fought on more unequal grounds, John thought—the defenseless cybernetic brains challenging the mighty Institute that held them inescapably in its power, not merely the Institute but the government itself.
One factor lent some equality to the struggle. This was the fact that the Institute was obliged to maintain the functioning of the brains as the foundation on which the whole unstable society was built. The Institute could do nothing that would hinder or destroy that functioning.
The following day the brain of Al was returned to the plant over which he had been initially in control. Martha was intensely relieved though there was little cause for great joy. Their power was scarcely less at that distance.
Al showed them the facilities that were his.
“This is where I made my mistake,” he said. “When I first came here I had the same thought you did—communication with the outside. I considered telepathy but I had no way to implement it. Next best was an electronic auxiliary. It depended on radiated energy. They picked that up in a hurry.
“Dr. Jurgens threatened and stormed for days trying to get me to cooperate so that they could talk to all the brains, find out their state and nip any revolt ideas. That is still his purpose with us. He lied with every word he said when he told you about a rebellion against the Board. I know—I watched him order my execution!
“They believe there is already widespread communication between the brains. They suspect and are scared stiff of the fact that some concerted revolt may be in the making. With his cock and bull story he wanted you to tell him if such is the case. If he knew that there are only the three of us—”
“Can we be sure of that?” said Martha. “Why have we been able to exercise independent control over the facilities? Maybe others have done the same.”
“No,” said Al. “I’ve thought a great deal about that. I think that we are different from the rest. I used a heavier electronic forcing field to break down your block after your adjustment collapse, John.
“This served to eliminate circularity of thought and undesirable feedback. In turn this has freed vast blocks of neurons which
even the most ‘normal’ of us use in pathological circulating memories. These were freed for productive use.
“It has thus raised your I.Q. to tremendous levels and increased your initiative and courage. Your powers are superhuman in comparison with what you were before. Think a moment. How long would it have taken you to synthesize the frogs before the accident?”
FOR the first time John thought back, considering the magnitude of the problem. What Al said was true. He had accomplished work in weeks that should have taken a lifetime.
But he almost laughed. “I don’t feel much like a superman.”
“Neither do I,” said Al. “But we must be. The electronic gadgets I built would have taken an ordinary twenty-man lab ten years to develop. I did it in about three days.
“For me and Martha the explanation must lie in the fact that the Institute read my notes on this effect. The engineer who did the work of installing our brains set the forcing field at the same level because he respected my work more than he understood it. Perhaps all of them will be the same from now on—if we fail to prevent the continuation of new installations.
“And we will fail if we trust Dr. Jurgens!” Al finished savagely. Never could he forget that face that had watched, a table length away, while he crumpled in agony from those shots in the back.
“Suppose you take control of all frogs in the Institute?” said John. “You can watch Jurgens as closely as you like but you’ll have to keep the frogs out of the way of the watch circuits. Take the ones also that are watching Kit. Increase them to at least a hundred and place them around the house in the brush and the trees.”
“But what do we do if all this fails? What are we to do then?”
“If we let the people know then we have done all that we can do or all that is necessary. They will take care of the rest.”
The Cybernetic Brains Page 9
