"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.