"A sensation of murderous rage," I muttered through clenched teeth. "If I only could lay my hands on you…"
"Let's go on. He's completely abnormal. Everything's the other way round with him."
And when I was on the verge of passing out, ready to scream or groan, all pain was suddenly gone. There was sweat, clammy and cold, all over my body. My every muscle trembled.
Later some frequency made me see a blinding light which was there even when I shut my eyes, then I experienced wolfish hunger, heard a scale of deafening noises, felt cold as if taken out into the frost without a stitch on. But I persisted in giving the doctor wrong answers until he fumed with rage. I knew I still had one of the most terrible tests mentioned in the ward the day before coming to me: loss of will-power. It was will that had seen me through so far. It was this invisible inner force that had helped me fight the sensations created artificially by my tormentors. But they would get at it eventually with their hellish pulse generator. Now, would they be able to find I had lost it? I waited for that frequency in dread. And it came.
Suddenly I felt indifference. Indifference to being in the hands of the Kraftstudt gang, indifference to him and his associates, indifference to myself. My mind was a complete blank. The muscles felt flabby. All sensations were gone. It was a state of total physical and moral spineless-ness. I couldn't force myself to think or make the slightest movement. I had no will of my own.
And yet, surviving in some remote corner of my consciousness, a tiny thought insisted: You must… you must… you must.
You must what? Why? Whatever for? "You must… you must… you must," kept on insisting what seemed to me a single nerve cell by some kind of miracle impervious to the all-powerful electromagnetic pulses that held sway over my nerves, bidding them to feel whatever those hangmen wanted.
Later, when I learned about the theory of the central encephalic system of brain activity, according to which all the nerve cells in the cortex are governed by a single, master group of nerve cells, I realised that this supreme psychic authority was impervious even to the strongest outside physical and chemical influences. That must be what saved me then.
Suddenly the doctor ordered:
"You will collaborate with Kraftstudt."
I said:
"No."
"You will do all that you are told to do."
"No."
"Run your head against the wall."
"No."
"Let's go on. He's abnormal, Pfaff, but mind you we'll get at him yet."
I shammed loss of will-power just when a sensation of the strongest will flooded my whole being and I felt I could make myself do the impossible.
Checking on my "abnormalities" the doctor put me a few more questions.
"If the happiness of mankind depended on your life, would you give it?"
"Why should I?" I asked dully.
"Can you commit suicide?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to kill the war criminal, Obersturmfuhrer Kraftstudt?"
"What for?"
'Will you collaborate with us?"
"Yes."
"Damned if I can make anything out of him! I hope it's the first and the last time I have such a case to deal with. Loss of will-power at 175. Write that down. Let's go on with it."
And they went on for another half-hour. Finally the frequency chart of my nervous system was complete. The doctor now knew all the frequencies by means of which I could be made to experience any sensation or mood. At least he thought he did. Actually the only genuine frequency was the one which stimulated my mathematical abilities. And that was just what I needed most. The point was that I had evolved a plan of blowing the criminal firm sky-high. And mathematics was to be my dynamite.
It is an established fact that hypnosis and suggestion work best on weak-willed individuals. That was how the Kraftstudt personnel instilled in the calculators-their wills generator-treated- awed obedience and reverence towards their "teacher".
I, too, was to pass through an obedience course, but because of my "abnormal" spectre this;was postponed for a time. I required an individual approach.
While a working place was being specially set up for me I had comparative freedom to move about. I was allowed to go out of the ward into the corridor and glance into the class-rooms where my colleagues studied or worked.
I was not allowed to join in the common prayers held between the walls of a huge aluminium condenser for half an hour every morning, during which Kraftstudt's victims paid homage to the firm's head. Devoid of will and thought, they dully repeated words read to them over a closed-circuit broadcast system.
"Joy and happiness lie in self-knowledge," announced the relayed voice.
"Joy and happiness lie in self-knowledge," the twelve men on bended knees repeated in chorus, their will-power destroyed by the alternating current field "between the walls".
"By understanding the mysteries of the circulation of impulses across neurone synapses we achieve joy and happiness."
"… joy and happiness," repeated the chorus.
"How wonderful that everything is so simple!
What a delight it is to know that love, fear, pain, hatred, hunger, sorrow, joy are all nothing but movement of electrochemical impulses in our bodies!"
"… in our bodies."
"How miserable he who does not know this great truth!"
"… this great truth," repeated the slaves dully.
"Herr Kraftstudt, our teacher and saviour, gave us this happiness!"
"… happiness."
"He gave us life."
"He gave us life."
I listened to this monstrous prayer, peeping through the glass-panel door of a class-room.
Inert and flabby, with eyes half-closed, the men repeated the nightmarish maxims in expressionless voices. The electric generator hardly ten paces away pumped submission into their minds robbed of resistance. Something inhuman, vile to the extreme, bestial and at the same time exquisitely cruel was being done to them. Boggled for comparison at the sight of that herd of miserable creatures with no will of their own, my mind could only suggest dipsomania or drug-addiction at their worst.
The thanksgiving over, the twelve passed into a spacious hall with rows of desks. Suspended over each desk was a round plate of aluminium forming part of a mammoth condenser. A second plate was apparently sunk in the floor.
This hall reminded me somehow of an open-air cafe with shaded tables. But the idyllic impression was swept away as soon as I looked at the men under the plates.
A sheet of paper setting out the problem awaited each one of them. At first the calculators looked at these in dumb incomprehension, still under the influence of the will-destroying frequency. Presently the frequency of ninety-three cycles was switched on and a crisp order to begin work relayed.
And all the twelve, snapping up pad and pencil, pitched into feverish scribbling. This could not be called work. It was frenzy, a kind of mathematical epilepsy. The men writhed and squirmed over their pads, their hands shuttled to and fro till they blurred; their faces turned deep purple with the strain; their eyes started out of their sockets.
This lasted for the best part of an hour. Then, when their hands started moving jerkily, heads lowered almost to the table-tops and livid veins swelled rope-like in their extended necks, the generator was switched to eight cycles. All the twelve at once dropped asleep.
Kraftstudt saw to it that his slaves got some rest!
Then it all began afresh.
One day, while watching this horrible scene of mass mathematical frenzy I saw one of the calculators break down. Suddenly he stopped writing, crazily turned to one of his furiously writing neighbours and stared at him blankly for a while as if at great pains to remember something.
Then he gave a terrible guttural cry and began tearing his clothes. He bit himself, gnawed at his fingers, tore skin off his chest, battered his head on the table. Finally he passed out and slumped down on the floor.
The rest paid not the slightest attention, their pencils still working feverishly.
I was so enraged that I started pounding on the locked door. I wanted to call out to the poor devils, tell them to have done with it, to break out and fall on their tormentors…
"Don't get so worked up, Herr Rauch," I heard a calm voice beside me. It was Boltz.
"You are criminals! Look what you're doing to people. What right have you to torture them?"
He smiled his bland intellectual smile and said:
"Do you remember the myth about Ulysses? The gods offered him the choice between a long but quiet life and a short but turbulent one. He chose the latter. So did those men."
"But they were not offered any choice. It's you who aided by your pulse generator chose to stampede them toward self-annihilation for the sake of dividends!"
Boltz laughed.
"Haven't you heard them say they are happy? And so they are. Look at the way they're working in happy abandon. Does not bliss lie in creative labour?"
"I find your arguments revolting. There is a normal tempo in human life and it is criminal to try to accelerate it."
Boltz laughed again.
"You're not exactly logical, Professor. There was a time when people travelled on foot or horseback. Nowadays they fly by jet. News used to spread from mouth to mouth, taking years to snail-pace round the globe; now radio brings events right into your home even as they happen. Present-day civilisation accelerates the tempo of life artificially and you don't think it's a crime. And the host of all sorts of artificial amusements and delights, aren't they too accelerating life's tempo? So why should you consider artificial acceleration of the functions of a living organism a crime? I'm certain that these people, were they to live a natural life, would not be able to do a millionth part of what they can do now. And the meaning of life, as you know, is creative activity. You will fully appreciate that when you become one of them. Soon you will know what joy and happiness are! In fact, in two days' time. A separate room is being set up for you. You will be working.there alone, because, you will excuse my saying so, you are somewhat different from normal people."
Boltz slapped me amiably on the shoulder and left me alone to ponder his inhuman philosophy.
In accordance with my "spectre" they started my obedience training at a frequency which gave me enough will-power to achieve a feat of defiance. My first feat was easy: again I shammed loss of will-power. Kneeling down and staring ahead as vacuum-eyed as I possibly could, I repeated dully the now familiar thanksgiving balderdash. In addition a few truths about neuro-cybernetics were inculcated in me as a novice.
They boiled down to remembering which frequencies stood for what human emotions. Out of these, two were particularly important for my plans: the one stimulating mathematical thinking and another, which, luckily, was not far from the ninety-three cycles.
My training lasted for a week, after which time I was deemed obedient enough.to be put to work. The first problem I was given was analysing the possibility of intercepting an IGBM.
It took me two hours to do. The result was not cheerful for the Ministry: it couldn't be done under.the conditions indicated.
The second problem, also of a military nature, was calculating a neutron beam powerful enough to set off an enemy's nuclear war-heads. The answer was again cheerless. A neutron cannon as calculated would have to weigh several thousand tons.
It was indeed a delight for me to solve those problems and I must have looked as possessed as the other calculators, with the difference, however, that the generator, instead of making me an obedient tool, was infusing me with confidence and enthusiasm. A joyous feeling of being on top of the world did not leave me even during the sleep breaks. I pretended to sleep but in reality I was working out my plans of condign punishment.
When I was through with the Defence Ministry problems I began to solve in my mind (so that nobody would know) the problem most important for me, how to blow Kraftstudt and Co. sky-high.
I meant the phrase metaphorically, of course, having no dynamite and no chance of obtaining any in that prison-like madhouse. Anyway blasting was no part of my plan.
Since the pulse generator could stimulate any human emotion, why not try to use it, I reasoned, to rouse human dignity in its victims and make them rebel against the ex-Nazi criminals? If this were possible they would require no outside help to smash this scientifically-minded gang. But was there a way to do it? Was there a way, that is, to change the frequency stimulating mathematical thinking for one that unleashed anger and hatred in man?
The generator was operated by its aged creator, Dr. Pfaff, an able engineer but apparently with a strong sadistic streak. As he obviously delighted in the perverse way his creation was used, I could not count on any help from him. Dr. Pfaff was absolutely out. The generator had to work on the frequency I required without his help or knowledge.
Now if a pulse generator is overloaded, that is, if more power is taken off than its design allows, the frequency drops. That means that by adding an extra load in the form of a resister, a generator can be made to operate on a frequency lower than shown on the dial.
Kraftstudt and Co. exploited mathematical thinking at a frequency of 93 cycles per second. Anger is produced by 85. That meant the frequency had to be cut down by a total of eight cycles! I started calculating an extra load to do that.
During my visit to the test laboratory I had noted the readings on the voltmeter and ammeter of the generator. Their product gave me its power. Now for the mathematical problem of an extra load…
I first traced in my mind the way the gigantic condensers inside which those poor devils slaved were connected to the generator. Then, in forty minutes, I solved the pertinent Maxwell equations and did all the other, most complex calculations.
It appeared Herr Pfaff had an excess of power of only one-and-a-half watts!
This was sufficient to calculate how a frequency of ninety-three cycles could be changed to one of eighty-five. All I had to do was to earth one of the condenser-plates through a resister of 1,350 ohms.
I nearly shouted with joy. But where could I get a length of wire of that resistance? I thought next. It had to be very exact, too, or the desired effect would not be achieved.
I feverishly cast my mind about for substitutes but could think of none. A feeling of impotence swept over me when a black plastic cup suddenly appeared in my field of vision in the act of being placed on my desk by a small trembling hand. I looked up and could barely suppress an exclamation of surprise: standing in front of me was the thin girl with frightened eyes, the one who had delivered the Kraftstudt mail to me.
"What are you doing here?" I asked under my breath.
"Working," she answered, hardly moving her lips. "So you're alive."
"Yes. I need you."
Her eyes darted about.
"Everyone in town thinks you were killed. So did I."
"You go to town?"
"Yes. Almost every day, but…" I caught her tiny hand and held it In wine. "Tell everybody in town, especially at the University, I'm alive and kept here by force. Tell them this tonight. My friends here and myself must get help to get out."
There was terror in the girl's eyes. "What are you saying?" she whispered. "If Hen- Kraftstudt gets to know, and he can find out anything…" '
"How often are you interrogated?" "Next time will be the day after tomorrow." "You've got a whole day. Screw up your courage. Don't be afraid. Do as I tell you, please." The girl snatched her hand away and hurried out.
There were pencils in the black cup. Ten of them altogether, of different colours for different purposes. Mechanically I took the first that came to my hand and fingered it: it was marked "2B", a very soft pencil. It had plenty of graphite, a fair conductor. Then came "3B" and "5B" pencils, then those of the "H" range, hard ones, for copying. As I fingered them my mind seethed in a turmoil of speculation. Then all of a sudden, like a flash of lightning, I remembered the specific resistan
ces of pencil graphites: A "5H" pencil has a resistance of 2,000 ohms. The next moment I had a "5H" pencil in my hand. The problem was Solved now not only mathematically but practically. There in my hand was a length of wood-enclosed graphite with the help of which I could bring punishment to a gang of modern barbarians.
I secreted the pencil in an inner pocket as carefully as a priceless 'treasure. Then it occurred to me where I could get two pieces of wire, one to connect to the condenser-plate over my desk, the other to the radiator in the corner, with the pencil graphite in between.
I remembered the table lamp in the ward where I lived with the other calculators. It had a flex which, being about five feet long, could be unwound into a forty-foot length of thin wire, which would be more than enough for the job.
I had just finished my calculations when the relayed voice announced dinnertime for the calculators.
I left my solitary cell in high spirits and made for the ward. Glancing back in the corridor, I saw the doctor look with obvious displeasure at the solutions of the problems I'd been given. Apparently the fact that there was no way of intercepting an ICBM or setting off the enemy's atomic bombs by a-neutron cannon was not to his liking. He had no premonition though of what could be done with ordinary graphite from a copying pencil!
The table lamp I had in mind had not apparently been in use for a long time. It stood in a corner on a high stool, dusty, fly-specked, its flex coiled tight round the upright.
Early in the morning when the inmates filed out to wash, I cut off the flex with a table knife and put it in my pocket. At breakfast I pocketed a knife and when everybody went out for the prayer I locked myself in the toilet. In a matter of seconds I had skinned off the insulation sheath and exposed numerous strands of thin wire, each about five feet long. Then I split the pencil gingerly, took out the graphite core and broke off three-tenths of its length. The remaining part should have the resistance I required. I made tiny notches at either end of the graphite where I secured the wires. The resister was ready. All that remained to be done was to connect it to the condenser-plate and then earth it.
That I could do during my work.
The Maxwell Equations Page 4
