"Well, I must say," said Franstein as they sipped their coffee, "yours
is the first glum face I've seen around here since that test this
afternoon. Here we are, within sight of our goal at last, and look at
you! Weren't you satisfied?"
"Before I go into that," Snow replied, "there are a few things I want
to ask you."
"About the test?"
"In a way, but principally about Richardson. Have you ever had any
reason to suspect that there is anything unusual about him?"
"In what way?"
"In your line."
Franstein produced an enormous meerschaum pipe and proceeded to fill it
from an untidy plastic pouch as he replied.
"Yes, there is. One very unusual thing."
"There is?"
"He's got a very rare type of mind. It's probably perfectly balanced."
The little man lit his pipe and continued: "The vast majority of us
have some sort of imbalance, mentally. He hasn't. When I say imbalance,
I mean the sort of thing that makes for genius, a phenomenal memory, an
outstanding, effortless talent, amnesia, any form of insanity, or even
something like a violent temper. Anything, so to speak, overemphasized."
"Is it physical? I mean, does it have anything to do with the size or
weight of the brain, or anything like that?"
"You can take the brain of a genius and that of an ordinary person of
average intelligence, and find them exactly the same in measurements
and tissue condition. The popular conception of the genius as a man
with a bulging forehead is so much nonsense. Plenty of lunatics and
retarded individuals have bulging foreheads."
"Then what does it have to do with?"
"Ah! That's the big question. Nobody knows. You can take two men, equal
physically in every respect, equal in upbringing, education, health,
and with the same sized brain. One of them might turn out to be a
genius, the other an average individual, and nobody knows what makes
the difference. Nobody knows what makes an infant prodigy, or what it
is which enables a child of two to read easily, or a kid of five or
six to play some instrument as if he'd been at it for years or compose
symphonies, or master advanced mathematics. Same answer. Nobody knows.
It's got nothing to do with heredity. So few geniuses have had genius
offspring that they form exceptions to the rule. Again, why does an
infant prodigy sometimes lose his gift or talent entirely as he grows
older? We don't know. All we know is that the gift or talent is there,
but where it comes from, or why it is in one brain and not in another,
we don't know. But surely you don't have to have me to tell you all
this, Phil? What's on your mind?"
"Listen to this," Snow said, and went to the tape recorder.
* * * * *
He rewound the tape to its beginning, depressed the switch marked
_Play_, and presently they heard the two voices, Snow's and
Richardson's.
"Now!" said Snow as the point on the tape approached.
There came the sudden stopping of Richardson's voice in the middle
of an instrument reading, the short silence, then Richardson's voice
chanting the strange sounds. Franstein took his pipe from between his
teeth and his mouth fell open as he listened. The sounds ceased and
Richardson's voice resumed the instrument reading at the point at which
it had left off.
"That's all," said Snow, and switched off the machine.
Franstein put his pipe back into his mouth. "Is this the recording of
this afternoon's test?"
"Yes. What d'you make of it?"
"Let's hear it again."
Snow played back the recording a second and a third time, and then
said: "Well?"
Franstein went to the table and helped himself to more coffee before
replying. "It's a new one on me," he said presently. "I've got about a
thousand recordings of languages and dialects from all over the world,
and not one of them is anything like that."
"You think it is a language, not just sounds?"
"That we've got to find out, but I'd say, offhand, it's a primitive
form of a language of some sort."
"Then how the devil does it come out of a man like Richardson who's
never spoken anything but English--nor his forebears, for that matter?"
Franstein shrugged his shoulders. "How does great music come out of a
child of six, and so on? Same question, same answer. Nobody knows.
Have you spoken to Richardson about it?"
"No. I rang his bungalow just before dinner and spoke to Sandra.
Richardson was in the shower, and she said he was feeling fine. I
didn't tell her about this, of course."
"Then it couldn't have been some sort of mediumistic trance. They
usually feel the effects of that sooner or later."
"You're not suggesting spiritualism, are you?" and in Snow's voice was
a note of amusement.
"Don't laugh at it. If it's never been proved, neither has it been
disproved."
And that touched off a discussion which went on for two hours. It
covered many theories, many beliefs and faiths, all of which Franstein
spoke learnedly and with great respect. He talked of reincarnation,
spiritualism, the mystery of time, and in this last connection, he
paused in the middle of what he was saying and asked: "If this--" and
he waved a hand toward the machine--"is a language, and I'm pretty
sure it is, how can we be sure that it is a language of the past? Why
shouldn't it be one belonging to the future? All languages change with
time. We'd probably find it very difficult to understand the English
spoken ten centuries ago. What if this is the English that is going to
be spoken a thousand years hence?"
* * * * *
To all of which Snow listened with the skepticism of the exact
scientist, and Franstein, quick to notice this, went on: "You think
yourselves clever, you exact scientists, and so you are. You can do
a lot of things. You can split the atom, measure the stars, estimate
the life expectancy of the sun; you have conquered distance, you have
surrounded us with miracles like radio, television, invisible rays and
all the rest of it. Presently, you will conquer space and colonize the
planets, and so it will go until it will seem to you that you will
know everything. And you will too, except for one thing--the one final
mystery, the last secret of the universe--MAN. And that means you and
me, and any human being from a bum of Skid Row to the President. Man
is the eternal unknown quantity, and you've never had a more clear
demonstration of this than what happened to Richardson this afternoon.
Oh, I know what you've found out. You know all about man, his insides,
his glands, muscles, nerves, brain, and so on. You can even display him
on a table as a bucket of water and little piles of salts and minerals,
and you can point to them and say: 'That is what man is made of.' Only
the other day I was reading about some scientist who thinks he's on
the verge of producing a cell of life in a test tube. You may even do
that, and you may find out one day how to put the water and the salts
and the minerals together again and make a man. I've always thought the
Frankenstein story was a bit of inspired prophecy. But you still won't
be able to explain why great music can come from a child of six, or
what happened to Richardson this afternoon." He lit his big pipe, which
had gone out, and through the puffs asked: "And what do you propose to
do about Richardson?"
"Run the test again tomorrow with him and see if this happens again,
and then decide," replied Snow.
"But even if nothing happens tomorrow, you can't ignore this."
"That's true. We've got to get to the bottom of it, and that's where
you come in. You're the expert on this sort of thing."
Franstein looked at his watch. "Let's sleep on it and see what happens
tomorrow, eh?"
He was on his way to the door when the telephone bell rang. Snow picked
up the receiver, and he heard him say: "Sandra?... _What?_... I'll be
right over. I've got Abe Franstein with me. I'll bring him with me.
Don't worry dear."
Snow hung up. "Something's happened to Richardson," he said. "He's gone
into a deep sleep and won't wake, and he's talking to himself in some
funny language. Let's go."
Snow rummaged in a drawer of his desk and found a stethoscope.