Chapter 8

As the elevator shot up through the concrete of The Brain’s “dura mater” toward Apperception 36, Lee was feeling grand. Now he was a man with a mission. Now he knew exactly what he had to do. Whether it would help, whether it would stop The Brain; that was a different question, but at least he had his plan.

He marvelled at the ease and at the lightning speed with which the great decision had come. It had been at the sight of the senseless robot-monsters, at the blood-spattered assembly line that the sense of sacred mission had come over him. It had been at the moment when, in Scriven’s grip upon his arm, he had read his condemnation that he had hit upon the plan.

He must take an awful chance and a terrific responsibility. For this he had to be morally certain that The Brain was a liar, that Scriven was a liar and that war was being provoked by The Brain despite all its assertions to the contrary because The Brain could assume power only over the dead bodies of millions of men like Gus; Gus whom The Brain had butchered like a guinea pig because he had refused to obey the Gogs and Magogs of the Machine God.

Now that he had this moral certainty Lee felt that strange and mystical elation which comes to the soldier at the zero hour in war. The worst was really over; the terrible waiting, the uncertainty, the struggle of morale in “sweating it out.” Now his nerves were steady, exhaustion and fatigue had vanished; in its place was that wonderful feeling of full mastery over all faculties which comes to fighting men as the battle is joined. There was that upsurge of the blood from fighting ancestors which obliterates the cowardice of the intellect, that inspired intoxication which sharpens the intellect into a battle axe. By his quick-witted postponement of the fateful appointment with the psychiatrists he had gained thirty hours. Whether this would be enough he didn’t know, but he felt in himself the strength to fight on endlessly.

The elevator stopped at Apperception 36 and Lee stood for a moment at the door of his lab for a last breath, a briefing addressed to himself:

“This is like walking into a mine field,” he thought; “one false step and things go Boom. All the sensory organs of The Brain are in action behind this door and some of them are pretty near extrasensory in their mind-reading capacities. I’ve got to walk back and forth amongst those observation screens; there may be other radiations too, following me, penetrating into the recesses of my mind without my knowing it. That means I must make my mind a blank. It’s like being quizzed by a lie-detector, only more so. I must not only seem normal and at ease, I actually must be so and harbor only friendly, innocuous thoughts toward The Brain. My actions will seem innocent enough; it is my thoughts wherein my danger lies. Whatever I do; I’ve got to direct that from the subconscious: act as by instinct and keep the mind a blank.”

He opened the door and looked around--as usual--in this vault as silent as the grave of a Pharaoh. There was a little dust on the glass cubicles of “Ant-termes-pacificus“ and there were a few lines scribbled on the yellow memo-pad on his desk:

“Thanks for the weekend, boss. Everything normal and under control. Next feeding time at 8 p.m. the 27th. So long, Harris.” Of course; he had given Harris, his assistant, the weekend off. That had escaped his mind in the excitement when The Brain’s mutiny began ... And now it was the 29th.

“They must be ravenously hungry by this time,” he thought, and that thought was in order because it was a normal thought.

He walked through the rows of the cubicles, halting his step every now and then. The fluorescent screens on which The Brain drew the curves of its observation-rays showed two sharp rises of the lines marked “activity” and “emotionality”. The lower levels of the glass cages already were opaque; the glass corroded by the viscous acids which the soldiers had squirted from their cephalic glands in their attempts to break out and to reach food.

“Poor beasts,” Lee thought, and he thought it without restraint because it was normal, a perfectly harmless thought. But then; below the layers of his consciousness his instincts told a different story.

“This is marvelous,” they triumphed. “Fate takes a hand; they are desperate; they’re ready for the warpath and even the tiger and the elephant would run for cover when their columns march.”

As if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do Lee walked over to the south wall, the one which separated the lab from the interior of The Brain. He removed a sliding panel marked “L-Filler-Spout” and there it was before his eyes, looking almost like a fireplug. There was one in every apperception center and there were hundreds more throughout The Brain, and their purpose was to replenish the liquid insulation which shielded the sensitive electric nervepaths of The Brain. Without looking at the thing, concentrating his every thought upon the hunger of “Ant-termes-pacificus“, Lee unscrewed the cap and put a finger into the opening. The finger came back covered with the thick, the syrupy lignin, this amber-colored sluggish stream of woodpulp liquefied, this soft bed of The Brain’s vibrant nerves. Unthinking, absent-minded, Lee wiped the finger with his handkerchief.

“Now, I’m going to try a slightly different arrangement of the tests,” he thought. “It’s normal; I’m doing that almost every day.”

The feeling he experienced as he swung into action was strange. As he walked back and forth it felt like somnambulic walk; something his limbs did without an act of will. As his hands did things expertly and skillfully the feeling was that they were instruments automatically moved not by his own volition but by some power outside himself.

His movements were those of a child serenely at play, a child incongruously tall and gaunt and grey-haired constructing little causeways and bridges on the ground with the logs of the fireplace; a happy child engrossed in an innocent game...

It took about an hour and then causeways of fresh pulpwood were laid from every termite hill to every feeding gate, from every glass cubicle to the south wall and along the south wall to the “Lignin-Filler-Spout”; and from the ground up to the spout a little tepee of sticks had been built.

Admiringly the grey-haired child looked at its handiwork through thick-lensed glasses. “It’s been an interesting game,” Lee thought, “it might turn out to be a valuable new experiment. I’ll sit down now and observe what happens...”

He went over to the desk again and settled down. He opened his files and laid out his charts on the desk and there were colored pencils to be sharpened for the entries. He was glad of that; his conscious mind rejoiced now over every little pursuit of routine, of normalcy, of the established scientific order of things; it concentrated on these. Pencil in hand, reclined in comfort, his heartbeat even, he kept expectant eyes upon the staggered rows of fluorescent screens, ready to note any significant developments.

He didn’t have to wait long; their strange sixth sense, the telepathy of their collective brains, the spirit of the hive with the immortality of their race for its supreme law, had already told them of a promised land and of new worlds to conquer.

On the fluorescent screens Lee watched their preparations for the big drive: The nasicorn-soldiers clotting together at the exit tunnels like assault troops at the bow of invasion barges when the bottom scrapes the landing beach; the fierce, virginal workers struggling up from the deep shelters of the nurseries, carrying in their mandibles the squirming larvae, the living future of the race. The walls of the queen’s prison broken down in the innermost redoubt and the guards closing in on the idol of the race, moving the big white body like a juggernaut.

In a matter of minutes the “activity” and “emotionality” curves on the fluorescent screens surged to heights which Lee had never seen.

It started with the crossbreeds of “termes-bellicosus,” with army-ants and devil-ants, and spread quickly all along the line of non-belligerent varieties. Famine had given them the impetus to change their mode of life; famine, the inexorable tyrant, whipped them onward into their exodus.

On the foremost fluorescent screens Lee saw it start: Small groups of warriors reconnoitering into no-man’s-land and quickly darting back again ... And then the dark columns of the first assault wave descending from their city-gates, lock-stepped like Prussian guards of old, marching as if to the beat of drums. On the visi-screens which magnified them a hundred times they looked an awesome sight with the rostrums of their horns, bigger than all the rest of their bodies, swinging like turrets of battleships being trained upon the enemy. From the loudspeakers which magnified all noise a hundred times, the excited tremors of their bodies, the locked steps of a million feet swelled into a vast roar sounding almost like thunder.

Jotting down observations in rapid pencil strokes, Lee thought: “Starvation is producing very interesting results; it’s a worthwhile experiment.” With all his mental energy he suppressed the silent prayer which struggled to arise from the deep of his unconscious: “Good Lord let The Brain not realize what is going on.”

The visi-screens now showed the second wave of the assault: endless columns of workers, their mandibles twitching with eagerness to devour, bustling along the logs, kept in line by two rows of warriors to their right and left. The noises they produced in the loudspeakers were as of some big cattle-drive.

With no interruption in the lengthening line the third wave followed: the virgin nurses, the frustrated mothers carrying the whitish larvae, like babes in arms, carrying them with the indomitable determination to preserve their lives which human nurses showed in the Second World War as the bombs crashed into maternity wards. And then at last the heavy rearguard: the holiest of holies, the living spirit of the hive, the queen. Majestically she was carried on her warrior’s backs; enormous as she loomed on the visi-screen, the white of her uncouth body was hardly visible, swarmed over as she was by her fanatical courtiers which, licking and caressing, kept her covered as by a shield. Her consorts trotted meekly in her trail; unhappy little men, rudely aroused from their harem sinecure, jealously guarded and prodded on by the queen’s countless ladies in waiting and the palace guard.

Things moved very fast now; Lee’s quick pencil strokes could hardly follow the events:

10:30 a.m. The foremost columns are now out of reach of the visi-screens. But I can see them moving along the logs with the naked eye. Interesting new fact: the crossbreeds from the most belligerent species are far and ahead of the rest. They don’t take time out to drive tunnels. But even the tunnels of the more pacific strains are forging ahead at an extraordinary rate; six feet across the floor already...

10:40: “Bellicosus“ has reached the south wall; it is now moving along the wall toward the “Lignin-Filler-Spout.” There is no hesitancy as they change direction at the angle of 90 degrees. The Queens are now coming up at a very rapid rate from the mounds farthest to the rear. It’s fortunate we have these differences in behaviorism and temperament because otherwise a terrific traffic jam would occur at the “Filler-Spout”...

10:50: “Bellicosus“ is now ascending to the “Filler-Spout.” The warriors have ringed the pipe. With their body-tremors they are giving the “come-on” signal to the workers. The workers are piling in--an average batch--about 65,000. It’s a good thing that there is an air space in these horizontal nerve-path pipes. That gives them a chance to march along the ceiling and work down from there...

11:00: There are now a score of columns converging at the “Filler-Spout.” Amazing that even under such provoking conditions “ant-termes“ won’t fight. The warriors act like the most accomplished traffic-cops; it’s marvelous how they keep their columns in order and keep them moving side by side into The Brain...

11:10: The first million, I should say, is now well inside the “Filler-Spout.” They’re marching at a rate of at least 300 yards per hour; amazing speed; I never saw them move that fast before. Even so I won’t have time to watch the outcome of the experiment. I’ve put everything I had into this thing. 500 hives--that would make it 35 million individuals of the species at a conservative estimate. It’s the biggest mass-migration I’ve ever seen, but will it be big enough to do the trick?

11:20: The foremost columns must have reached the neighboring apperception centers to the right and left of mine by now. But they won’t stop; I know that from experience in Australia. To them it’s just like any other “hollow tree”; they’ll drive right on to the top; they won’t bivouak before they are completely exhausted. That won’t be before five or six hours. At the rate of 900 feet per hour that would make it almost a mile, covering the whole “occipital region” of The Brain. And then they are going to feast; boy, will they be ravenous...

11:30: About 3 million are safely inside now I should say. Don’t think that I could stay at my post much longer. There’s a certain extracurricular idea coming up from the subconscious like a tidal wave. The dams of willpower don’t seem able to hold back that idea; I’ve got to get out before it spills across the dam and floods my consciousness. The phone rings; for once it is a welcome sound.

It was Oona’s voice; trembling with emotion as if she were still suffering from this morning’s shock or had suffered another:

“Semper, are you all right?”

Lee reassured her that he was and then listened astounded as she heaved a sigh of relief.

“Listen, Semper, this is terribly important. I’ve got to see you immediately. No, I cannot tell you over the phone; it’s a personal matter and it concerns you. You cannot make it? Is your business that important? You’re in the midst of a vital experiment? That’s awful, Semper; it really is in this case. No; I’m all right personally; it isn’t that. It’s you Semper, it’s you. 5 p.m. at the earliest, is that the best you can do? All right then. Meet me at the airport. And take good care of yourself, do you hear me: take good care of yourself, Semper, up to that time.”

She hung up quickly, as if suddenly disturbed.

Lee frowned at the clock: 11:35. He could have managed to meet Oona during her lunch hour at the hotel. But there were things he still had to do even more important than Oona. More important to him than even Oona. He shook his head; it wouldn’t have seemed possible a few days ago...

With the climax of the experiment now over Lee felt his mental resistance ebbing fast.

“They’re on the move,” he thought. “Nothing can stop them now; it’s beyond my control, but they’re marching. I’d better get out of here...”

With fevered eyes he glanced around the floor and like a victim of delirium saw it moving, crawling as with snakes, crawling into their hole all of them, black snakes, grey snakes, red snakes, endless their lengthening bodies...

He carefully closed the door of the lab, locked it and then pressed the button which opened the elevator door. Only as the cage tore down through the “dura mater”, only when he felt safe from the sensory organs of The Brain, only when he was sure that not even a human eye would see him in this racing little cage, only then did the dam of willpower collapse. He put both hands before his eyes in vain attempt to stop the tears from streaming; those tears of a soldier over the body of his fallen chum; those tears of a greying scientist who sacrificed the results of his life’s work to some higher cause.

Lee caught the one p.m. Greyhound-Helicopter for Phoenix only a second before the start. He panted from the run, but in his sunken eyes there was a light and in his mind a new serenity which comes to men when they are fortunate enough to meet with some very wonderful woman, when with admiration and humility they stand confronted with a courage greater than man’s. Gus’s wife had been that woman; the way she had taken the terrible news was the source of Lee’s new strength and confidence.

The flying commuter was almost empty.

Noting Lee’s astonished glance the stewardess gave a nervous little laugh:

“People get jumpy traveling,” she volunteered.

“That so; why do they?”

“Didn’t you hear the news all morning; wait...”

She flicked the radio on. On the television screen appeared an aerial view of a big city, vaguely familiar looking, yet as foreign as Venice, and then the voice of the announcer broke through.

“New Orleans: It is now ascertained that the break in the levees was caused by a huge trench digging machine left unattended overnight at a lonely spot twenty miles South of Baton Rouge. Levee engineers believe that its engine was started possibly by saboteurs, approximately at midnight and that it then proceeded automatically digging itself into the levee until it was drowned by the incoming river. The initial eight-foot breach has now been widened by the Mississippi to a width of 200 feet. Along Canal street and all over downtown New Orleans the flood has reached a level of ten feet above the streets as evacuation continues. The government has concentrated every available piece of equipment to close the breach. All normal activities have come to a standstill; property damages are estimated at 50 million dollars; the death toll has passed the 500 mark in this most catastrophic flood in New Orleans’ history.”

New aerial pictures, similar to the results of a blockbuster bombing attack flicked on the screen: