Jane had never seen him so shaken.
"Well, find out! That's your business!"
Carroad's hand shook; one eye began to twitch. But he bent again to the
adjustment of the dials. He directed the exceedingly narrow beam along
the area from which the semantic waves originated. Only a high-pitched
gabble emerged from the speaker, for Carroad had increased the speed.
It was as if he were afraid to hear the normal rate of speech.
Jane's eyes began to widen. A thought was dawning palely, but horribly,
on the horizon of her mind. If, by some intuition, she was just
beginning to see the truth.... But no, that could not be.
* * * * *
But, as Carroad worked, as the beam moved, as the power was raised or
lowered, so did the voice, though always the same in tone and speed,
change in phrase. Carroad had slowed the speed of detection, and
individual words could be heard. And it was obvious that the age level
of the speaker was fluctuating. Yet, throughout the swiftly leaping
sentences, there was a sameness, an identity of personality. Sometimes,
it was a baby just learning the language. At other times, it was an
adolescent or young boy.
"Well, man, what is it?" bellowed the Secretary.
The mysterious voice had struck sparks off even his iron nerves.
Jane answered for her husband.
"I'll tell you what it is. It's the voice of my unborn son."
"Jane, you're insane!" said Carroad.
"No, I'm not, though I wish I were."
"_God, he's at the window!_" boomed the voice. "_And he has a knife!
What can I do? What can I do?_"
"Turn that off until I get through talking," said Jane. "Then, you can
listen again and see if what I'm saying isn't true."
Carroad stood like a statue, his hand extended towards the toggle
switch but not reaching it. Cramer reached past him and flicked the
switch.
"James," she said, speaking slowly and with difficulty. "You want
to make robots out of everyone. Except, of course, yourself and the
State's leaders. But what if I told you that you don't have to do
that? That Nature or God or whatever you care to call the Creator, has
anticipated you? And done so by several billion years?
"No, don't look at me that way. You'll see what I mean. Now, look. The
only one whose thoughts you could possible have tapped is our son.
Yet, it's impossible for an unborn baby to have a knowledge of speech.
Nevertheless, you heard thoughts, originated by a boy, seeming to run
from the first years of speech up to those of an adolescent. You have
to admit that, even if you don't know what it means.
"Well, I do."
Tears running down her cheeks, choking, she said, "Maybe I see the
truth where you don't because I'm closer to my baby. It's part of me.
Oh, I know you'll say I'm talking like a silly woman. Maybe. Anyway,
I think that what we've heard means that we--all of humanity without
exception--_are_ machines. Not steel and electrical robots, no, but
still machines of flesh, engines whose behavior, motives, and very
thoughts, conscious or unconscious, spring from the playing of protein
tapes in our brains."
"What the hell are you talking about?" said Carroad.
"If I'm right, we are in hell," she said. "Through no fault or choice
of ours. Listen to me before you shut your ears because you don't want
to hear, can't hear."
* * * * *
"Memories are not recordings of what has happened in our past. Nor do
we act as we will. We speak and behave according to our 'memories,'
which are not recorded _after_ the fact. They're recorded _before_
the fact. Our actions are such because our memories tell us to do
such. Each of us is set like a clockwork doll. Oh, not independently,
but intermeshed, working together, synchronized as a masterclock or
masterplan decrees.
"And, all this time, we think we are creatures of free will and chance.
But we do not know there isn't such a thing as chance, that all is
plotted and foretold, and we are sliding over the world, through time,
in predetermined grooves. We, body and mind, are walking recordings.
Deep within our cells, a molecular needle follows the grooves, and we
follow the needle.
"Somehow, this experiment has ripped the cover from the machine, showed
us the tape, stimulated it into working long before it was supposed to."
Suddenly, she began laughing. And, between laughing and gasping, she
said, "What am I saying? It can't be an accident. If we have discovered
that we're puppets, it's because we're supposed to do so."
"Jane, Jane!" said Carroad. "You're wild, wild! Foolish woman's
intuition! You're supposed to be a scientist! Stop talking! Control
yourself!"
The Secretary bellowed for silence, and, after a minute, succeeded. He
said, "Mrs. Carroad, please continue. We'll get to the bottom of this."
He, too, was pale and wide-eyed. But he had not gotten to his position
by refusing to attack.
She ordered Cramer to run the beam again over the previous areas. He
was to speed up the process and slow down only when she so directed.
The result was a stream of unintelligibilities. Occasionally, when
Cramer slowed Cervus at a gesture from Jane, it broke into a rate of
speech they could understand. And, when it did, they trembled. They
could not deny that they were speeding over the life thoughts of a
growing male named James Carroad, Junior. Even at the velocity at which
they traveled and the great jumps in time that the machine had to make
in order to cover the track quickly, they could tell that.
* * * * *
After an hour, Jane had Cramer cut off the voice. In the silence,
looking at the white and sweating men, she said, "We are getting close
to the end? Should we go on?"
Hoarsely, the Secretary shouted, "This is a hoax! I can prove it must
be! It's impossible! If we carry the seeds of predeterminism within us,
and yet, as now, we discover how to foresee what we shall do, why can't
we change the future?"
"I don't know, Mr. Secretary," said Jane. "We'll find out--in time. I
can tell you this. If anyone is preset to foretell the future, he'll do
so. If no one is, then the problem will go begging. It all depends on
Whoever wound us up."
"That's blasphemy!" howled the Secretary, a man noted for his
belligerent atheism. But he did not order the voice to stop after Jane
told Cramer to start the machine up again.
Cramer ran Cervus at full speed. The words became a staccato of
incomprehensibility; the oscilloscope, an almost solid blur. Flickers
of blackness told of broad jumps forward, and then the wild intertwined
lightning resumed.
Suddenly, the oscilloscope went blank, and the voice was silent.
Jane Carroad said, "Backtrack a little, Jason. And then run it forward
at normal speed."
James Carroad had been standing before her, rigid, a figure seemingly
made of white metal, his face almost as white as his uniform.
Abruptly, he broke into fluidity and lurched out of the laboratory. His
motions were broken; his shouts, broken also.
"Won't stay to listen ... rot ... mysticism ... believe this ... go
insane! Mean ... no control ... no control...."
And his voice was lost as the door closed behind him.