RULE OF THE BRAINS

CHAPTER 1

The machine-room of the Central Power House was droning to the current of infinite energy. It was the sweet, bass hum of inexhaustible atomic power, leashed by man. It was the song of mighty engines, which carried perpetual energy to the heart of the giant city, capital of the world.

As Chief Overseer Sherman Clarke went on his usual morning round, he glanced at each highly polished monster with the eye of familiarity. For fifteen years he had made his circuit of the machinery at exactly the same time. For fifteen years he had never seen as much as a milliampere of variation on the power-gauges. For fifteen years he had never seen even a hint of a breakdown. For fifteen years he—

It was becoming intolerable! Always the same men and women, dressed in their spotless overalls, standing or sitting before their completely foolproof switchboards.... Sherman Clarke knew exactly what each would say as he paused at their machine for the daily report.

“Everything O.K., sir.”

He was sick of the very words, wearied with the sight of almost expressionless faces. Every man or woman looked the same—calm, impersonal. A total lack of emotion born of scientifically nurtured bodies and brains. Never a gleam of inspiration in the eyes, a spark of sudden humour—nothing but calm, methodical, unvarying efficiency.

Preoccupied with his troubled thoughts, Sherman Clarke continued on his way down the long central aisle between the machines. Eyes followed him, but without interest. He was as familiar as the machines themselves. In stature he was a big man, lumbering in his walk, and with shoulders broad enough to bear the responsibility he carried. A casual observer would have placed him as generous and easygoing—but the more thoughtful would have noticed that his face was ruggedly strong, to the point of ugliness. His firm, powerful mouth was uncommon among the flaccid, pale-faced scientists who tended the city’s heart.

Sherman Clarke was uncommon in many ways. He looked like a living dynamo in the midst of sleepwalkers. Nobody had ever seen that apathetic look of resignation in his grey eyes: he always looked as if he were battling with inner thoughts...as in truth he was. A conflict had long been raging within him, and it was about due to explode.

Presently he paused before the great shining belly of one of the machines and glanced up at the figure in overalls leaning against the guardrail.

“Everything O.K., sir,” the man said, seeing Clarke’s unruly black hair below him. “Here’s the record chart.”

Clarke took it and examined the notations.

“From the writing, Turner, I imagine that you would have made a very good doctor,” he observed drily, glancing up. “You once made application to be one, didn’t you?”

Boyd Turner nodded. “Yes, sir, and I studied hard enough to have been able to take Certificate A in surgery—but what use is that in a world where accidents or ill health are as rare as a collision between two stars? I was young, then. As soon as I saw I was wasting my time, I applied to the Appointments Bureau for a position, and they put me here.”

The young man’s keen, high-cheekboned face was shocked for a moment out of its calmness into bitterness as he uttered the last words.

“A first-class surgeon wasted, eh?” Clarke sympathised.

Turner stared reflectively into the droning distances. “Well, not quite that; I have my degrees.... But there it is! With every comfort found by the State, and perfect health, I should be satisfied.”

“Damned waste!” Clarke muttered angrily.

He walked on again, leaving Boyd Turner looking after him in some surprise. And within Clarke the smouldering embers of his inner conflict were fanning into brightest flame.

He paused again at the Atomic Force Transformer, an immense four-purpose plant feeding the engines of light, power, traffic, and weather control. It was in fact the master-engine. Here, pacing the metal gridded balcony running round the switchboards, were two men and two women, their faces entirely inscrutable.

“Tell me something,” Clarke asked, as he took the report handed down to him; “do you four enjoy your work?”

The question startled them for a moment, then one of the women—a dark-haired, thoughtful type with cleanly cut features—answered slowly.

“It’s hardly a question of enjoying a thing, Mr. Clarke, when you’ve been ordered to do it. I’d much rather be in the nursing profession, but I’m not allowed to be. Nobody seems to need a nurse. And besides,” the woman went on wistfully, “I suppose I’m just chasing a shadow. I don’t need to do the thing I like. After all, I have security.”

“Lethargy—mental stagnation,” Clarke muttered, frowning to himself. Then he looked at the woman’s companions. “What about you three? Have you ever had any ambition?”

“Architect,” one of the men said seriously.

“Writer,” the other woman answered. “Only there’s nothing to write about. The basic concern of any writer is the human condition, but hatred, jealousy, and so forth died when the Scientific Age came in after the War.”

“But surely there must be something to write about, even yet?” Clarke reflected.

The woman shook her blonde head. “With the basic emotions reduced to one common level by the hand of science?” The woman’s blue eyes reflected profound doubt. “No, Mr. Clarke. Writing—indeed, anything at all which calls for a creative imagination—has no place in a world which believes it has achieved perfection.”

There was silence at that, then the remaining man spoke.

“I don’t feel as badly as the others, perhaps....” He was a sharp-nosed individual with rather less of the usual air of complacency about him. “I’m an engineer and a physicist as well, so machines are just part of my life. Of course I’d prefer to carry out research instead of just play about with switches on this board...but where’s the incentive?”

“So if you had the chance,” Clarke said, “you would much prefer to do things your own way? All of you?”

They nodded slowly, then the dark woman gave her tired smile.

“But why should we? We’ve got everything we need already!”

“Everywhere the same thing!”

Clarke seemed to be talking partly to himself; then with a sudden convulsive effort he tightened his big fist and crushed the report in his palm. He turned and went striding off down the centre aisle. All eyes followed him as he went—eyes that for once held surprise. It was unusual for him to hurry, unusual for him to crash a report so savagely that the head office would never be able to read it.

“Stagnation! Genius going to waste! A city so perfect that nothing ever happens! What kind of life is that for a human being?” Clarke’s thoughts were bitter.

At the end of the long aisle he stopped and looked through the gigantic window on to the city. It lay in all its grey and gleaming splendour, a symphony of slender towers and massive buildings. The metal shone with the iridescence of satin in the morning sunshine—Monolite, the wonder metal, even more endurable and tractable in manufacture than plastic compound.

Clarke looked down on the orderly streets with the dots of vehicles moving to and fro; then his eyes rose to the loftily perched pedestrian ways, to the even higher mono-rail tracks, and finally to the great rooftop parking spaces for aircraft. As he watched, a giant airliner crept across the blue sky like a silver shuttle.

Major City was the acknowledged capital of the world in this year of 2068. It housed commerce, power, and wealth. In it dwelt the Governing Party under the Presidency of one man, Luther Nolan, who was virtually controller of the world.... The city had perfection and scientific achievement embodied in every symmetrical line. And here in this giant power house was the heart of it all—humming and droning, manned by human beings in whom ambition was utterly strangled....

That strange look of conflict crossed Sherman Clarke’s face again. Finally he looked once more at the city, then behind him at the monsters, which fed it its lifeblood. Suddenly his thoughts came into focus.

Wheeling round, he strode back down the aisle and stopped when he came to the huge, four-purpose machine.

Grimly he climbed the ladder up to the balcony where the men and women were working. He pushed past them with the fierceness born of intense purpose and seized hold of the big knife-switch, which controlled the main source of power.

Breathing hard, he dragged it free of the imprisoning contact blades.

Instantly the steady rhythm that had pervaded the powerhouse since its inception began to whine lower and lower down the scale until it faded into an awesome silence.

Flywheels circled aimlessly to a standstill; power-needles sank gently to zero.

Then came an excited babble of voices and with it the violent ringing of the alarm bells.

“What the devil have you done?”

The would-be architect seized Clarke’s arm fiercely, but he found himself whirled back against the rail by unexpectedly strong muscles.

“Keep away from me!” Clarke ordered, his eyes watching the quartet intently. “Keep away—at least until you have heard me out.”

He was obeyed because nobody knew exactly how to handle the situation. Clarke turned and gazed below on to the workers who had come surging forward and were now looking up at him.

“All right, I’ve stopped the machines!” he cried suddenly, and his powerful voice carried even over the din of the alarm bells. “I’ve stopped them for our own good! I’d smash them too, if that were possible. Why? Because they have destroyed our initiative and individuality—!”

“He’s a revolutionary!” somebody shouted.

“No, my friend—I’m an ordinary man, but I didn’t go to sleep like the rest of you!” Clarke’s voice took on a fierce compulsion. “Look at yourselves! Rotting away, your minds in chains—”

Clarke stopped suddenly as in the distance the great sliding doors opened and a small army of uniformed officials came hurrying in. Within minutes they had crossed the vast space, then they pushed their way through the narrow gangway the workers made for them.

“Hey, you!” Their leader stood glaring up at Clarke. “What’s going on here? The power and light has failed throughout the city! You’re the Overseer, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Clarke agreed calmly. “And I know light and power have failed. I pulled out the main switch!”

The leader stared incredulously for a moment as the meaning of the words sank in.

“Have you gone mad?” he shouted. “Everything is at a standstill! The President will want to see you immediately.”

For a moment or two Clarke looked at the faces of the other workers. Most of them were thoughtful, as they were evidently weighing up the few brief truths he had managed to give them.... Abruptly he turned and slammed the power level back into position again. A mounting whine spread through the immense hall.

“That’s better,” the official said, clearly relieved. “Now you had better come with us and explain yourself. This will probably cost you your job.”

“Perhaps it will have been worth the trouble,” Clarke responded drily; then, after a final glance at the men and women returning to their posts, he descended from the balcony and joined the group of officials below.

CHAPTER 2

From the power house, he was taken by a fast official car along the private vehicular track to the city’s centre, and finally into the great building within which lay the President’s chambers and all Government authority.

Though he had never met the President, Clarke was at least familiar with the building. He was conducted through the great hallway where massive monolite pillars supported the transparent roof. Light and gleaming metal was everywhere. Upon the distant walls were maps of every part of the world, executed in relief and cunningly lighted from behind.

From the hallway one corridor led direct to the President’s quarters. Before he reached it, however, Clarke found himself facing an armed guard. Ordered to halt, he had to wait patiently whilst electric eyes and X-rays searched him. Finally, divested of everything save his overalls, he was permitted to finish the journey down the long corridor alone. He came to a monolite door of unusual thickness, studded with great rivets of polished copper. In the centre of the door was the world crest—a globe held in one strong hand.

A slide moved back in the door centre. Television, Clarke guessed, transmitting his image back to the controlling desk within. A pause, then the heavy door opened silently, to close again the moment he had stepped beyond it.

The President’s office was immense. The President himself sat at his desk, the big window behind him casting him into a partial silhouette. Clarke moved slowly towards him, trying to avoid making a noise as he crossed the highly polished metallic floor. When at last he reached the broad desk, he stood waiting until Luther Nolan laid aside his pen and sat back in his padded chair.

Looking directly into those searching grey eyes, Clarke understood why this man controlled the affairs of the world. He conveyed an impression of resoluteness. Mental and physical power were embodied in the sharply featured face and heavy shoulders. Wiry grey hair swept back from an expansive brow. But, if one looked closely, as Clarke, did, there were little seams and lines noticeable about the strong mouth, and at the corners of the eyes. Worry and responsibility had left their mark, even in this city where perfection had been achieved.

“Sit down, Mr. Clarke...,” the President motioned to a chair.

Inwardly surprised, Clarke did so. He had anticipated anger, an outburst against his action in the power house. He had expected also to be referred to by his census number. Instead, there was composure and politeness.

“Are you unwell, Mr. Clarke?”

Clarke looked back into the impersonal grey eyes.

“Unwell, sir?” he repeated. “That isn’t possible nowadays.”

“Then how do you explain the failure of the city’s light and power for exactly eight and a quarter minutes this morning?”

Clarke compressed his lips. He could now detect the hard-cutting edge behind the pleasant voice.

“I did it deliberately, sir!”

“Deliberately?” the President was genuinely surprised. “You realise the gravity of your statement?”

“I do, sir—yes.”

Silence; the President was momentarily off-guard. For a man to come in and admit that he had deliberately endangered the city was unheard of. It demanded delicate treatment.

“You are a sensible man, Mr. Clarke,” Luther Nolan resumed, his eyes searching Clarke’s face as he leaned across the desk. “And a highly efficient one, otherwise you would not occupy the position you do. For that reason I presume you had a motive for your astonishing action?”

“The whole thing is really very simple. I shut off the power as a warning to you and your Governing Advisers that we workers in the Power Room can paralyze the city at will.”

“And why should you wish to do that?” the President asked. “Aren’t you satisfied, with your every comfort and security provided by the State?”

“That’s where the State falls into error,” Clarke said quietly. “In giving us everything, it has given us nothing! We are practically dying, because we are too pampered and lethargic to use our minds any more. Many of my fellow workers have a great potential that will never be realised under the present set-up. Nobody has incentive to do anything!”

The President picked up his stylo. “Frankly, Mr. Clarke, I think you have the wrong impression entirely. We of the Government have so much to do—”

“I question that, sir,” Clarke put in quickly. “The only man who can lay claim to having much to do is yourself. Even your advisers and the Head Scientist, Dr. Carfax, are only reciting facts that have remained unchanged ever since the city was built!

“Half a century ago this city came into being. The world had at last recovered from the aftermath of war. We had harnessed atomic power, controlled the climate, overcome virulent disease, and built perfect cities all over the devastated earth. You and Dr. Carfax ran for election as World President, and you won....”

Clarke paused and smiled whimsically. His voice became reflective.

“Do you remember, sir, the promises of fifty years ago? You were young then, and so was I. Thanks to medical science we are still little changed. But do you remember the vast ambitions of those days? We were going to have interplanetary expeditions, the colonisation of other worlds, synthesis of life itself. Yet we have none of them! I know men and women who could still achieve these things, if only this stifling security were to be snatched away.”

The President got to his feet and walked slowly to the window. For several minutes he stood thinking, staring out over the city.

“You have a remarkable memory, Mr. Clarke,” he said at length.

“I’m simply a man of the people, a little more alert than the others perhaps. But as Chief Overseer I am able to pass on to you what the people think, to act as their spokesman.”

“I have to admit that I never suspected things were so unprogressive,” Nolan sighed. “But there is nothing that can be done. One cannot undo perfection.”

“If you don’t, sir, I shall start a revolution of my own.” Clarke’s voice was respectful but adamant. “I will make the need for us to fight to live by destroying the city’s source of light and power.” He raised a hand depreciatingly as the President turned. “It will happen—by another hand, even if you have me removed. It’s inevitable.”

The President ran a finger down his jaw. It was not often he revealed indecision.

“As Head of the World State I dare not formulate new laws calculated to upset the people by removing their security—yet on the other hand I cannot ignore your threat to force the issue. And to arrest you might well inflame the people who believe in you to precipitate the same action. I see only one way out of this impasse—arbitration.”

The word sounded strangely in the room. It had scarce been used for half a century. The President elaborated as Clarke sat thinking. ‘

“In the old days men used arbitration to settle disputes, sought the council of an impartial but fully qualified outsider.”

“And whom do you suggest?” Clarke asked. “Either he will be one of the mass of workers, or one of your own Advisory Staff. Naturally, each will support the claim of his own side.”

“Then we shall have to find some other way out,” Nolan decided. “I want to reach some basis of agreement with you because I can see that there is a good deal to your point of view. Suppose we leave things in abeyance for twenty-four hours whilst I discuss matters with my advisers?”

Clarke got to his feet. “That’s fair enough, sir. I’ll call at noon tomorrow for your decision. In the meantime I’ll make no move.”

“Good!”

The President watched him leave the great room, then he switched on the visiphone.

“Send Dr. Carfax in to me,” he ordered.

“Immediately, sir.”

CHAPTER 3

Presently a slide door opened in the wall of the great office and Dr. Vincent Carfax came into view. Tall, almost bald, there hung about his face an expression of childlike amiability. Luther Nolan knew though, perhaps better than any man, how much cold inhumanity lay under the guileless mask.

Carfax came forward to the desk and gave his little bow.

It had a quality of sardonic deference.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” he said levelly, and measured Nolan with his wide blue eyes.

“Sit down, Carfax. Unless we are very careful, we are likely to have a revolution on our hands!”

“Revolution?” Carfax repeated sharply. “How do you mean?”

“Listen.” Nolan gave a rather weary smile, then reached out and pressed a button on his desk. From concealed speakers the whole interview with Sherman Clarke began to play back. Carfax listened attentively until the last words had faded away.

“Obviously the man is a recessive unit,” he decided finally, leaning back and pressing his fingertips together. “Somewhere in his parents, unnoticed by the Eugenics experts, there must have lurked recessive genes. Clarke is a throwback to an earlier time—”

“The biological origin of Clarke is interesting, but irrelevant,” Nolan snapped impatiently. “What about his statements? Was there anything in them or not?”

Carfax smiled enigmatically. “Most certainly there was—though not entirely for the reasons Clarke imagines.”

“Go on.”

“The facts are plain,” Carfax continued slowly. “The reaction of perfect security, after many years spent in wars and struggle, is going directly against the adaptive strain Nature has developed. In earlier times, the human body was keyed up to every emergency, had something it could grapple with. The mind of Clarke—and others like him—is trying to find a new form of excitation in order to maintain its equilibrium.” Carfax leaned forward and stared directly into Nolan’s eyes.

“And here lies the seed of danger! Major City is resting on quicksand, Mr. President!”

Nolan felt a strange sense of unease stealing over him. Carfax was not given to making empty statements.

“It is clear to me that the Last War did not entirely kill the belief that force of arms is the only sure way to Right,” Carfax said deliberately. “Human nature cannot be altered that easily. The element of unrest typified by Clarke will grow rapidly. It might well seek to tear down the perfect structure we have created. But I say—if I may—that we must forever outlaw war as a disease.”

“Agreed. But how are we to do it? The earlier men tried it with pacts, treaties, and leagues of nations—and they all came to grief. I suggested arbitration to Clarke,” Nolan reflected thoughtfully, “but I am perhaps the only one who could arbitrate. But I don’t want to do it!”

Something of a haunted look had come into Nolan’s eyes. “My responsibilities will be greatly increased. I would have to decide on all sorts of issues that I really do not know anything about. Any wrong decisions would not be popular. I’d like to shift the responsibility, yet I don’t want to lose my personal authority.”

Carfax smiled innocently. “I understand. Like all rulers down the centuries you like power—but not the difficulties of holding it!”

The eyes of the two men met again. “I would remind you, Carfax,” Nolan said, “that our personal antipathy—because I became President instead of you—has nothing to do with the present problem.”

Carfax’s thin smile seemed to imply that he thought it had. A good deal of thinking was going on in his shrewd, scientific brain.

“Suppose,” Carfax said slowly, “we create an artificial arbiter? An indisputable mechanical arbiter, made up from the best brains among the Intelligentsia and the Workers? Say, six of each?”

Nolan looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“Since both sides will support their own conception of life, they ought to be willing to sacrifice six of their cleverest men and women. These twelve will have their brains removed. The twelve brains would then be linked up, and their knowledge pooled for the common good. The brains would work in unison to provide a common answer, and a just one, for every conceivable difficulty in every walk of life. Twelve brains, functioning as one unit, could be the judge of humanity’s future actions.”

Luther Nolan sat in dumbfounded astonishment for a moment. He had long suspected that Carfax held life pretty cheap, but this—

“Do you mean to suggest that twelve men and women should actually die in order that their brains may form a mechanical monster?”

“That’s it,” Carfax agreed calmly. “And I think Claythorne, our leading surgeon, will be able to do it according to my specifications. I have in mind six men among the Intelligentsia, experts in their own fields, biology, psychology, and so forth. In those six I think that every conceivable field requiring a judgment might be covered. Of course, to make the thing look right, we would have to add six from amongst the Workers themselves. Not that they would contribute much.”

Nolan traced a finger along one eyebrow in indecision. Carfax sensed that he was about to start hedging.

“It only requires two things,” he said. “Extreme scientific preparation—and your sanction.”

“Even though I am the elected representative of the people, Carfax, I am still human. Twelve people to die if I give the word is unthinkable!”

“Yet if you don’t, you will have no Arbiter,” Carfax pointed out. “You also have no guarantee either that you would win a revolution. That would mean the end of power and authority—absolute chaos in which not twelve people but thousands would die.”

To this Nolan frowned worriedly and said nothing. He was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Carfax waited for a moment or two, then he pushed back his chair and stood up. Nolan glanced up to find him smiling cynically.

“Though I think your sentiment misplaced, Mr. President, I will at least try to ease things for you. I will see if I can get the required people to consent to my plan of their own accord. That will make you happier, perhaps?”

“You can at least try,” Nolan admitted, in some relief.

Carfax nodded. “I will. Clarke expected an answer by noon tomorrow. I can do a good deal before then, believe me.”

CHAPTER 4

Shortly before noon the following day Sherman Clarke went through the usual security routine before being admitted to the President’s office. He was somewhat surprised to find Carfax also present in the great room. As he came forward, Clarke noticed that whereas the President was looking harassed, there was a complacent smile about the lips of the Head Scientist.

“Sit down, Mr. Clarke,” Nolan said. Before Clarke could make any reply he went on, “I think the problem of an Arbiter has been solved. Dr. Carfax will be better able to explain than I.”

Clarke listened attentively as the idea of twelve pooled brains was outlined to him.

“I realize the idea is unorthodox,” Carfax said, after a pause, “but there is no other solution. Each of the twelve people I have mentioned is willing to sacrifice him or herself voluntarily to the cause. They realise as we do that the future is at stake.”

“Have you agreed to this plan, sir?” Clarke asked.

Nolan shook his head. “Not yet. I want your reactions first.”

Clarke surged to his feet and banged an emphatic fist down on the desk.

“It’s diabolical—inhuman!” he declared savagely.

Carfax’s smile remained fixed. “But it’s the only way out.”

“And you say the twelve men and women have voluntarily agreed to sacrificing themselves?” Clarke asked.

“Yes.”

“Then there is nothing I can do about it,” Clarke muttered. “But I would like the details explained. to me, Dr. Carfax. I don’t understand the science involved.”

“Dr. Claythorne, our Chief Surgeon, has it all in hand,” Carfax answered smoothly. “For several years Claythorne and myself have debated the fact that the human brain is an imperfect interpreter of thought. Claythorne believes he has found an answer.

“We of this age have discovered that thought is everywhere, that it is expressed to a great or lesser degree according to the quality of the brain interpreting it. The brain is basically an electrical machine—a radio receiver, if you wish it. It absorbs and uses the ideas of all-pervading mind, expressing them clearly or badly through the medium of a physical body.”

Both Clarke and the President were clearly interested now. A faint unaccustomed flush of pleasure stole into Carfax’s pallid cheeks.

“The human brain can be completely duplicated in a mechanical, imperishable mould! Every convolution of a brain, every synaptic resistance, can be imitated. It can be done just as surely as the artificial leg of today has false muscles.

“With the President’s and your sanction, I propose to model twelve synthetic imperishable brains on the exact convolutions and measurements belonging to these twelve people. It will be done in the fashion of taking a death mask. When this has been done, the mechanical equivalent will take over from the natural organ, probably with even better results, because it will be devoid of the inevitable clogging of human construction. The real brain will shrivel and die afterwards, leaving the mechanical image.

“Once the operation is complete, the mechanical brains will be linked together, will go on gaining knowledge just as would an ordinary brain if it were permitted to live for eternity. That is how the Arbiter will become indestructible and a paragon of justice for all mankind.”

“I understand so far,” Clarke said. “But how can you be sure the brains will arrive at one decision?”

“In this particular case only one set of nerves will need to operate under the will of the brains—and those are the nerves of speech. Each brain will be linked to a voice box that is so devised that it will only function as a speaking voice if all twelve brains are in unison. This can be achieved by a thermostatic device by which different voltages can be graded into one fixed output. Each brain will pass its thoughts to the central brain-pan; the thermostat will sort the vibrations until they are in harmony, then the entire set of twelve coinciding vibrations will pass to the transformer, via the speech nerves, and so to the voice box. When that happens the verdict will be spoken.

“Power will be self-contained and provided by slow atomic disintegration of copper with a life of something like fifteen hundred years. Synthetic optic nerves and auditory mechanisms will serve as common eyes and ears....”

There was a silence as Clarke considered. “I have to admit it is a masterly conception,” he conceded.

“Would you be satisfied with decisions given by this Arbiter?” Nolan asked quickly.

“I think so, sir—yes. As far as I can see it ought to be infallible. But is the Head Surgeon capable of doing this job with science at a standstill? If he is as lethargic as some of the Workers—”

“He isn’t,” Carfax interrupted. “Science may be unprogressive at the present time, but you cannot unlearn what is already known. Claythorne could have performed an operation like this twenty years ago.”

“Yes, I suppose he could,” Clarke conceded. “There is one other point though. Where would this Arbiter operate from?”

“Right here in the administration complex,” Carfax answered. “We will take our problems to it, and any decisions can be implemented immediately.”

“Do you suppose that the operation will be 100% successful?” Nolan asked worriedly. “I can’t help thinking that the power of thought might be impaired somehow.”

Carfax gave a faintly contemptuous smile. “That just isn’t possible, Mr. President. Thought itself is everywhere; the brain is merely the apparatus that receives it. And the brains are unlikely to be damaged with such an expert as Claythorne in charge. In fact, the Arbiter should have tremendous mental power—within a given area it may well be able to read thoughts.”

“And you say six Workers have volunteered their brains?”’ Clarke asked.

“Yes....” The scientist’s cold blue eyes regarded him levelly. “Naturally both sides must be represented.”

Clarke nodded and glanced at the President.

“Very well, sir, speaking on behalf of the Workers, I’m prepared to accept this proposition. When it’s completed, I’ll put my case before it.... How long will that take, by the way?”

“Not more than a month,” Carfax said. “I can put things in train immediately. Of course, you can feel free to attend the operation.”

“I’ll see that you are notified,” the President added, as Clarke looked at him,

“Well, thank you, gentlemen—and let us pray for good results.”

* * * *

Sherman Clarke made his way into the heart of the city in a thoughtful mood. Though he hadn’t shown it in the office, he was not completely satisfied. He had accepted the proposition for two reasons: one, because his refusal would have looked like obstinacy; and two, because Nolan had sanctioned it. If there had been any other way, the President would not have embraced the idea.

Finally he entered a refreshment automat. While robots tended and fed him, he pondered the whole thing over. He was almost oblivious to the others about him lounging on their airbeds or absorbing the synthetic emotional vibrations radiated to them by ever-watchful creations parading up and down. Such techniques had long since replaced music as an aid to recreation.

Then Clarke became aware of a woman standing looking down at him. With a start of surprise, he straightened up and ordered the attendant robot away from him.

“May I speak to you, Mr. Clarke?” the woman asked.

He nodded, recognising her as Brenda Charteris, the machine-minder who had said she wanted to be a nurse. She sat down opposite him, and as she remained silent for the moment he found himself studying her serious face.

“I’ve just heard an announcement on the newscast,” she said finally. “It was a bulletin issued by the President—something about a mechanical Arbiter being made, by agreement between you and Luther Nolan.”

“Yes,” Clarke admitted slowly. “That’s right.”

“But according to the bulletin this Arbiter will just be another machine!” The woman’s distress became suddenly obvious. “That hardly tallies with your earlier speech about them!”

“This is different, Miss Charteris. It will be intelligent.”

“Perhaps—but still a machine!”

Clarke shifted rather uneasily. The argument was not at all to his liking: it was stirring up his own inner doubts. Yet, as the woman had appeared in the light of an accuser, he felt the need to defend himself.

“I think the real meaning behind all this has escaped you,” he said. “It will be a machine because there is no other way to pool the knowledge of twelve brains—but the decisions it makes will be completely impersonal, and therefore just. It will have the brains of six of us as well as the intelligentsia, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I know that: it was mentioned in the bulletin—but I also know that Dr. Carfax has chosen six of the dullest Workers he could find! Minders of the most trivial machines. Not one of them has a spark of initiative. It’s a sop—nothing more! Against six trained minds they’ll be swamped out!”

Clarke’s bushy eyebrows came down into a sharp V and he leaned forward again intently.

“Just how do you know about this?”

The woman shrugged. “It’s no secret. The six in question were just flattered and cajoled into it, by Carfax. Now they are telling everyone that science can’t get along without them—or words to that effect.”

Clarke clenched a great fist on the table. He was intelligent enough to appreciate the incredible egotism of the dull mind when it thinks it is indispensable.

“If I thought for a moment that Carfax is trying to trick us, I’d—” Then he pulled himself up short and forced a smile. “In any case—whether you’re right or wrong—we can’t turn back now. I’ve already agreed to it, chiefly because there’s no other way around it.”

The woman nodded her dark head, but without much conviction, Clarke thought.

“All I am trying to do is warn you,” she said. “I think there is trouble ahead, and because I admire what you have tried to do I—”

She stopped as the signal buzzer sounded for a resumption of work.

“I understand,” Clarke smiled, getting to his feet and patting her shoulder. “But I’ll be able to take care of things.”

CHAPTER 5

In the days that followed, while he was awaiting the summons to the operation, Sherman Clarke was made aware of definite misgivings amongst the Workers. It made Clarke’s daily contact with them almost unbearable at times, but he went on doggedly about his work, convinced in himself that he had acted for the best.

It was a month, almost to the day, when he did finally receive a summons from the President to witness the operation, which was to create the Arbiter. His permit card, signed by the President, gave him immediate admission into the Eugenical Centre. A uniformed official conducted him to a huge door marked Theatre No. 1.

Entering the wide, cool expanse Clarke paused for a moment. There was quite a gathering present—Luther Nolan, Dr. Carfax, many members of the press and television companies, and Dr. Claythorne. Around him again were grouped nurses and lesser surgeons, already masked and gloved.

Clarke moved forward slowly as glances were cast towards him. His gaze went beyond the surgeon and his retinue to the twelve immaculate tables upon which, shaven-headed, lay nine men and three women.

“Good morning, Mr. Clarke....” The President came forward and shook Clarke’s hand cordially. “I imagine that history is about to be made. This is Dr. Claythorne, our Chief Surgeon. He will be in charge of the operation, under Dr. Carfax.”

The little surgeon nodded a brief greeting and shook hands, then he turned away and plunged his hands and forearms in antiseptic. Dr. Carfax came level; as usual, he was smiling like a man keeping a secret to himself.

“The final details are now complete, Mr. Clarke. In the next room is the machine casing, which will receive the brains. I have designed the actual Arbiter personally, after consulting with the best scientists in the city. We have made it invulnerable.”

“Invulnerable?” Clarke repeated. “Do you mean by that that once the brains are sealed into it, the machine can never be opened?”

“I mean just that,” Carfax assented calmly.

When he was assured of the willingness of the twelve men and women concerned to sacrifice themselves President Nolan gave the order to begin.

From then on Clarke joined the President in watching activity in a field that was unfamiliar, even repugnant, to him. He saw the twelve human beings go willingly under the anaesthetic. He saw the brains, still living, being fed by synthetic bloodstream and artificial heart. Then, under orders from Claythorne, the first brain was duly imprisoned within a soft mould of ductile metal.

Atom by atom, molecule by molecule, under the control of instruments so sensitive that light-vibration disturbed them, metallic moulds were set up, fitted into place by slender rods of force timed to a split thousandth of a second. The slightest error would have meant utter failure.

But there was no error. Claythorne saw to that. He was coldly efficient, intolerant of mistakes. The controlling forces made no slip. They had no human qualities in them to err.

Finally the first brain was complete. The dried shell of the dead brain was removed and the mechanical counterpart, deadly precise in its way of reasoning, came into being. The actual entity of Unwin Slater, First in Mathematics, had vanished and given place to the computations of Brain Unit No. 1.

The eyes of Sherman Clarke and Luther Nolan met; for a moment the barriers were down. They were both very human beings, mutually shocked by a brilliant yet diabolical surgical miracle....

The removal of the remaining eleven brains was simply a replica of the first operation. Dr. Claythorne went through each operation with the same studied attention to detail, until every brain had been removed. Next would come the transference into the moulds.

Clarke found himself the guest of the President for lunch, following the successful completion of the first part of the operation. With them were Dr. Claythorne and the inscrutable Carfax. During the meal the operation was not referred to. In fact Luther Nolan deliberately avoided mentioning it, just as though he were afraid he might speak his own mind too freely if the subject came up. He confined himself to commonplaces, and in deference to him the others had to do likewise.

After lunch, the quartet adjourned to operating Theatre No. 2. Here Clarke saw the Arbiter for the first time, and the words of Brenda Charteris came back to him with acid sharpness.

The thing was a machine—blatantly so! It was a positive physical shock to Clarke. He forgot the surgical preparations going on about him in his troubled interest....

In appearance it resembled a great circle of metal about fifty feet wide, studded at regular intervals round the edge with unbreakable domes, which sheathed the metallic brains inside. Wires, protected by similar armour, led directly to the circle’s centre and the governing machine unit. The circle was perched on three massive pillars; high up on the central pillar were television lenses for visual contact, and below that a loudspeaker and auditory mechanisms. Outwardly, nothing more was visible, but Clarke could guess at the maze of complexity that must be inside.

“You find it interesting, Mr. Clarke?” Carfax had come up silently and was regarding the Arbiter with thoughtful eyes.

“Interesting enough, yes,” Clarke admitted. “But I fail to see how it can be invulnerable, as you said earlier. It seems to be mostly ordinary metal and plastic.”

“Hardly ordinary,” Carfax smiled indulgently. “Both the plastic and the metal of the Arbiter have interlocking atoms. As you may know, all matter has a great deal of empty space between its electronic systems, but in every form of matter they have a definite pattern. Many years ago I found a way to treat materials so that their atomic make-up fits into the empty space of ordinary material—just as wood dovetails. The law of attraction does the rest. And once the two metals or plastics are mated, they are impossible to separate!”

Carfax broke off whilst they watched the knitting of the artificial ganglion wires to the encased brains.

“Like locking yourself in a prison and throwing away the key,” Clarke muttered, but Carfax affected not to hear him.

Somehow, interest had gone for Clarke. He kept thinking of what Brenda Charteris had said.... To him it was like the closing of an impregnable door when the top cover was sealed over the twelve linked brains. Then the cover was fused into the metal of the Arbiter itself, Carfax adding the final touches with his own electrical instruments, which locked the metal in one piece—perhaps for all time....

Towards evening Clarke returned to his own quarters in the city with an invitation from the President to bring a deputation of Workers to consult the Arbiter three days hence. Then the problem of stagnant initiative and lack of competitive progress could be decided once and for all.

CHAPTER 6

The Workers whom Clarke chose to form the deputation were those he had spoken to on that morning when he had first revolted against security. There was Brenda Charteris, of course, then Boyd Turner, the incipient surgeon; Iris Weigh, would-be writer; Thomas Lannon, of architectural leanings; and Clifford Braxton, physicist. As representative Workers Clarke felt he could not better them.

What they thought of the Arbiter when they beheld it in the great room specially assigned to it in the Controlling Building, they did not say—but they, like Clarke, could feel the mental aura radiating from it.

Also present were the President and Dr. Carfax. The physicist had a sheaf of notes in his hand which, when he came to read them aloud, proved to be the case of Sherman Clarke versus the State stated in legal terms. Carfax read it out in a clear voice and then concluded—

“Such, Arbiter, is the controversy you are asked to settle. We now wait upon you.”

The Arbiter gave no visible sign of having heard, and still there was that unvarying aura of mental power emanating from it. A dead silence fell on the room until at length a mechanical bass voice spoke.

“My decision—the decision of twelve linked brains—is that Sherman Clarke has no case! To return to comparatively primitive ways of living in order that we might progress is in itself contradictory, since it involves going backwards in order to go forwards. Furthermore, since perfect economic and social stability have been achieved by the State, it amounts to a challenge to the State when it is alleged that it is preventing progress. No, Sherman Clarke, your plan is not feasible.”

Clarke sprang to his feet. “You mean,” he said hotly, “that we should rot and die in a too-perfect world?”

“You cannot question my decision, Sherman Clarke. I would warn you that your only safe course is to accept it.”

Clarke clenched his fists, his powerful face reddening—then the President spoke. As ever, his voice was quiet, yet vaguely troubled.

“I can appreciate your keen disappointment, Mr. Clarke, but you agreed to accept the decision when it was given.”

“That’s so, Mr. President, but at that time I did at least expect a reasonable explanation! I don’t consider one has been given....” Clarke made an effort, forced himself to regain control. “I accept the decision,” he said bitterly, “but under strong protest!”

The President nodded gravely, and Carfax, standing close by the Arbiter, permitted himself an impassive smile.

Clarke glanced round upon the men and women who had come with him. At his signal they followed him out of the room. Not until they were outside did one of them make a comment—and then it was Thomas Lannon, the would-be architect.

“Are you standing for this, Mr. Clarke?” he demanded.

“I gave my word to abide by the Arbiter’s decision.”

“The rest of the workers have realised by now that your earlier plan is the only one that could help us to find ourselves again,” Brenda Charteris said urgently. “They have almost come to believe that the decision would be given in our favour. This is going to hit them very hard.”

“I know it,” Clarke said grimly. “But it has to be....”

On the remainder of the journey back he said nothing further. At the back of his mind remained the disquieting memory of that smile on Carfax’s face....

The Arbiter’s decision in this first dispute was publicly broadcast and the State Department referred to the whole business as ‘eminently satisfactory’. As to this, Sherman Clarke and others had their own views.

But the Workers accepted the decision. For one thing they were not sure yet how much power the twelve-brained monstrosity could wield; for another, they were yet loyal to Sherman Clarke. They also believed in their President, and any precipitate action would have threatened his position.

Three weeks later, on arriving home, Clarke was surprised to find Boyd Turner and Clifford Braxton waiting outside his apartment door.

“Mr. Clarke!” Turner came forward eagerly as Clarke stepped from the lift. “I hope you won’t mind us taking up your time like this but—well, we’ve made an important discovery! You know us, of course? Boyd Turner, and—”

“Clifford Braxton,” Clarke finished, smiling. “Of course I do. Come in and tell me all about it,” he added, opening his apartment door.

Boyd Turner seemed almost too excited to take the drink of essence Clarke handed to him. Braxton was somewhat calmer—but he too had an air of suppressed excitement about him.

“We’ve neither of us been asleep like the others,” Turner explained, spots of colour on his high-cheekboned face. “Cliff and I got to talking over what you said about initiative. Although I realised long ago that I might never be a surgeon, I’ve spent my spare time experimenting—particularly in these last few weeks.”

Clarke put down his glass slowly. An extraordinary light came into his grey eyes. “What is this discovery you mentioned?”

“Bloodless surgery for one thing,” Braxton answered deliberately, “and superhuman intelligence for another.”

Clarke could only stare at them for a moment or two.

“How can you be sure?” Clarke asked finally, trying to assess essentials. “Have you proven it experimentally with human subjects?”

“Not yet. But we are confident of success.” There was no doubt in Braxton’s voice.

“I’ve worked out a system of bloodless surgery, produced by suspended animation and absolute cessation of molecular movement—or at least, almost complete cessation.

“By electrical means I can slow down the movement of molecules, working on the principle that the less molecular activity there is, the lower the temperature drops. You follow?”

Clarke nodded slowly. “Just as in outer space, which is near absolute zero—with scarcely any molecular activity at all. But what kind of electrical energy do you propose to use? I can’t follow that.”

“Nothing unusual about it. By producing a dampening circuit, I can retard the molecular speeds in any known substance. In a word, put a break on them. Even frost is a dampening electrical circuit of sorts in that it brings the molecules of water to a near standstill and causes it to turn to ice. The rate of molecular vibration in living creatures is well known. All I had to do was work out by mathematics the exact amount of electrical retardation required to slow up the molecular speed and so produce a frozen life, within a fraction of death. Difficult, but it can be done—and I have done it already, with animals.”

Clarke nodded admiringly. “It certainly sounds promising. But what about the superhuman intelligence you mentioned? Where does that come in? I don’t see the connection.”

“There is a connection,” Boyd Turner insisted. “Some time ago I worked out the details of a new departure in brain surgery—but the operation is too dangerous to carry out under normal anaesthesia. That’s where Cliff’s idea comes in. With the subject perfectly frozen, the operation can be carried out in absolute safety.”

Turner hesitated over the right words before plunging on with his exposition.

“It is a fact that a human being has five times as much brain material as he ever actively uses. That extra dormant material is probably there for future use,” Turner continued. “Nature has made that provision so that as man evolves, he will gradually come to utilise his full brain capacity. But I aim to beat Nature at her own game and produce a man who has all his brain power at his command.

“What is lacking with our brains is a nerve connection between the portion of the brain we use and the so-called useless portion. But by surgery it should be possible to make a synthetic nerve connection between the two to make the entire brain of use! It will mean a power of thought five times greater than we now have.”

“Superhuman intelligence,” Clarke whispered. He stood up, then put an arm round Turner’s shoulder. His steady grey eyes searched the eager face, then he glanced at Clifford Braxton.

“Do you trust me, gentlemen?” he asked quietly. The two men nodded, looked puzzled.

“Definitely we trust you—that’s why we came to you first,” Turner said. “We thought you should know, seeing as how you indirectly sparked off our research. Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t trust the Arbiter!” Clarke sat down again, doubt on his rugged face. “If your cases are brought before it, the thing is capable of draining your minds of every secret you possess! I do not say it will do so, but it would be safer for a second party to know the facts.”

“Yes, maybe you’re right,” Braxton agreed, thinking. “For that matter Boyd and I would keep things to ourselves, only that wouldn’t do any good. To benefit humanity at all, our ideas have got to be put before the President. Actually, my suspended animation apparatus is finished, and quite self-contained. I dare say you know enough to be able to operate it in my absence, Boyd?”

Turner nodded. “I believe so—but I don’t think....” He broke off as Clarke got to his feet, his eyes gleaming.

“Listen. There is an unused annex to Number Seven Machine Room to which, as Overseer, I have access. It is used occasionally, but only to store spare electrical equipment and machinery in case of a breakdown in the Machine Room itself. There is power there that can be tapped, too. Few people outside myself know where this annex is. I suggest we take your apparatus there—tonight—where a degree of safety is assured.”

“All right, if you think it’s necessary,” Braxton agreed. “It does sound as if you expect trouble, though. Surely the President would never stoop to such—”

“Not the President,” Clarke interrupted. “He is one of the straightest men on earth—but I have never trusted Carfax, and the Arbiter was his idea. Yet you must reveal your process, otherwise it becomes useless. So, do we take the precaution?”

Braxton agreed, then glanced at Boyd Turner. “What about Boyd’s brain surgery idea? He’ll have to see the President too, you know.”

“That can wait until we see how your interview goes, since his idea is only practicable with your apparatus.” Clarke looked at the surgeon. “You don’t mind holding back for the moment?”

“Suits me. But how do we transfer Cliff’s machinery?”

“That’s easy. We’ll get over to his place and I’ll order a large air-taxi. We’ll do it in one trip. No one will suspect a thing at the Machine Rooms when I tell them I’m merely moving in some auxiliary equipment....”

CHAPTER 7

The job was done shortly before midnight, and Clifford Braxton was still somewhat dazed by events. He took home with him the memory of Clarke’s tremendous sincerity. In his mind’s eye, as he retired, he saw again the large, deserted expanse of the annex to Machine Room 7, with its untapped power-points embedded in the wall. He saw again the flood of light from the arcs Clarke had provided, operating from their own batteries....

For a reason he could not quite understand, Braxton was glad of the interest Clarke was taking, in addition to that of Boyd Turner. It made his discovery seem doubly worthwhile. Even now he did not fully realise the terrific significance of his work.

The following morning, acting on Clarke’s advice, he received permission for an interview with the President—and after the usual searching routine found himself before Luther Nolan.

“Well, young man?” Nolan asked, smiling. “What can I do for you? And sit down, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir—thank you.” Braxton sat down with a nervous eagerness and inwardly wished the eyes of the President were not quite so searching. But the powerful mouth had an encouraging smile, so—Braxton plunged. He told the whole story of his research into suspended animation, as he had told it to Clarke, but with more technical detail. Not once did the President interrupt him, even though a variety of expressions crossed his face. At the end of it all Braxton sat in breathless silence and dabbed at his forehead.

“This, my young friend, is amazing—particularly so in a world dangerously close to intellectual sterility.” Though the President spoke carefully, there was little doubt that he believed—with Sherman Clarke—that initiative was fast dying. Then he went on, “For my part I will be only too glad to authorise a State grant if the idea is all you claim. I must have expert opinion, though. Pardon me a moment....”

Braxton decided that the greatness of the man lay in his easy courtesy towards others.

“Send Dr. Carfax in to me,” Nolan ordered into his desk-phone.

There was a brief silence afterwards as each pursued his own reflections—then the wall slide moved back and the bald-headed scientist appeared. He moved to the desk and waited expectantly.

“A matter needing your expert opinion has come up, Carfax,” Nolan said. “Please sit down and listen to this....”

Carfax drew up a chair, seated himself, then as usual closed his eyes as he concentrated on the playback machine’s recording. As the interview ended Carfax reopened his eyes.

“Impossible!” he stated flatly. “Excellent in theory, I admit, but impossible in practice. The subject would be dead when dealing with such low temperatures. lf it were otherwise, it would have been done long ago.”

“If science had not drowsed to a standstill, it would have been done long ago,” Braxton retorted, and wondered where he got his sudden courage from.

“To me,” the President said quietly, “the theory sounds very feasible.”

“It is,” Braxton insisted. “I can restore a frozen person to life!”

Carfax left his seat and stood pondering for a while, hands in his overall pockets. Then he glanced sharply at the President.

“I suggest this matter be put before the Arbiter. Twelve brains, six of them highly scientific, cannot possibly be wrong.”

Nolan nodded and got to his feet, led the way into the adjoining room where the machine stood. Clifford Braxton looked at it dubiously, then turned to Carfax as the scientist made the position clear to the Arbiter by switching on the recorded interview through a relay speaker.

When it was over there was a long, and for Braxton, an uneasy silence. Then the mechanical bass voice spoke.

“The verdict of Dr. Carfax is correct. Suspended animation—at least in respect of human beings—cannot operate safely.”

“But it can!” Braxton protested desperately.

“The Arbiter has spoken.”

“But surely, Dr. Carfax, if you were to witness a demonstration?” Braxton swung round to him. “This is simply condemnation without a shred of reason! I must be permitted to prove my statements!”

“Where is your experimental apparatus?” the scientist asked.

Braxton hesitated, an unbidden fear crossing his mind.

“It is to be found in the unused Annex of Machine Room Seven,” the Arbiter stated. “I have read that from Clifford Braxton’s mind. But you are forbidden to have any dealings with it, Dr. Carfax.”

A surprised expression crossed Carfax’s face as he looked at the machine. Then the bass voice went on, “And you, Clifford Braxton, will discontinue your experiments and destroy your apparatus forthwith!”

“Destroy it?” A grim obstinacy crept into the young man’s face. “I refuse to. do that! I am not going to smash a masterpiece just because twelve tinned brains order me to do it!”

“You have been warned,” the Arbiter said impartially.

Braxton strode angrily to the door, then he swung round.

“Thank you both, gentlemen, for listening to me,” he muttered—then with a final glance of contempt at the Arbiter he went out.

* * * *

Sherman Clarke and Boyd Turner were both waiting at Braxton’s home for him to return with the verdict. When midday passed they grew worried—then they had to split up and return to their duties. It was not until well into the afternoon before they heard the verdict—and so did every other Worker, through the public address system.

“A Worker—Forty-Six Stroke Nine by number—Clifford Braxton by name—today openly rejected the verdict of the Arbiter. Half an hour ago his body was found crushed to pulp on the Seventh Intersection. He had apparently jumped from the Sixth Pedestrian Walk.”

The announcement ended. White-faced, his jaw set, Clarke sat scowling at his desk in his little private office.

“Mind force!” he whispered. “Christ! That damned twelve-brained contraption killed him! Hypnotic suicide! By God, I should never have let the boy go....”

Clarke was not alone in his perturbation. The Workers looked at each other with bitter wonder, dawning anger in their faces. In his own office the President reflected indecisively.... In the Physical Laboratories Dr. Carfax looked passingly astonished, then he too frowned in doubt.

Only the Arbiter, sinister and impartial, remained undisturbed.

* * * *

Amongst the Workers the mysterious death of Clifford Braxton precipitated something of a crisis. Clarke found himself with quite a number of incensed people to deal with. Backing their angry protests were those who had supported him originally—the would-be nurse, writer, architect, and the surgeon, Boyd Turner.

Rather than deal with the trouble in the Machine Rooms or in an automat—where they might be overheard—Clarke convened instead a meeting the following evening in the annex, where lay the revolutionary machinery of the late Clifford Braxton.

“Why do we have to meet here?” demanded Brenda Charteris. “We aren’t fugitive!”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Clarke warned her—then at their looks of surprise he gazed round on the set, angry faces of the others. All the same, he felt he could trust them.

“I called this meeting here for one good reason,” he went on. “In fact, for the same reason that led me to have Cliff Braxton’s apparatus brought here. This annex is sheathed in lead walls, floor, and ceiling. Because of that thought waves cannot penetrate it.”

“You mean the Arbiter can read our thoughts at this distance?” asked Iris Weigh, the writer, incredulously.

“I regard it as possible—therefore, it’s best to take precautions. If that Thing gets one hint of how we feel towards it, it is liable to do anything. Here, in this annex, we have a measure of protection.”

“Then you knew, since you took these precautions, that Cliff was going to be killed?” Boyd Turner demanded.

“No, I did not. I would never have let him go if I’d thought that. But I did realise that the Arbiter might read his mind and find out where his invention was hidden. At his home it could have been very easily reached and destroyed—but here it is safer. Nothing short of blast rays can break into this place. Whether the Arbiter will strike here I don’t know: but we must be ready for it. Probably, though, it will regard Cliff’s death as sufficient if it does not know his invention has been preserved.”

“Just what is the matter with this Arbiter?” someone asked. “I thought it was brought into being to dispense justice. What kind of justice is it that kills a man because he has made a marvellous discovery?”

“I don’t know yet,” Clarke said slowly. “That there is something very much wrong with it I’m reasonably certain. Only one man could possibly explain it—Vincent Carfax. I believe he’s grinding an axe of his own. It’s pretty common knowledge that he would do almost anything to get the Presidency.”

“Then let’s go and ask him what he’s driving at!” shouted a man at the back. “What the hell are we waiting for?”

“Proof,” Clarke answered laconically. “We can’t take action against a man as powerful as Carfax without being dead sure of what we’re doing. Remember that he has the President behind him, even if they do dislike each other personally.... No, I asked you here to tell you that we must be careful, but at the same time we must keep our eyes open. We’ll wait and see if the Arbiter continues to behave as it has, and if it does, we can bring forth Braxton’s apparatus and demonstrate it. When we have proved that the Arbiter can be wrong, then the President will have no course but to order the use of the thing stopped!”

There was a grim silence for a while, then Thomas Lannon spoke.

“All right—you are our leader. We’ll do as you advise—but if anything like the Braxton tragedy happens again we’ll take action, whether you agree or not—even if we have to destroy the Arbiter ourselves!”

“You can’t destroy it,” Clarke reminded him. “It’s made of interlocking atoms, which no power we know of can tear apart.”

The quiet fell again, an uneasy one this time—then Boyd Turner spoke hesitantly.

“All this makes me feel mighty uncomfortable! I’m still waiting to put my brain surgery idea forward, for which I’ll need Cliff’s apparatus. Suppose I’m referred to the Arbiter? I could meet the same fate as he did!”

“I know,” Clarke answered him. “That’s why I say we should wait. Other Workers and scientists in other parts of the city are bound to come forward with their own ideas in due course. We’ll soon know whether or not their inventions have been sanctioned or thrown out.”

Again that uneasy silence, but Clarke sensed an undercurrent of approval for his council.

“That’s all we have to discuss now,” he added, glancing round on the people. “Everything depends now on what sort of reception the next inventor receives from the Arbiter.”

Three days later the President again granted audience to a young man who claimed to have made a discovery of immense importance. As indeed he had. Robert Craymond had stumbled upon a wavelength that could produce cold light. It could be accomplished, he claimed, by rearranging the molecules of a copper cube so that it transmitted cosmic radiation instead of absorbing it. The result being pretty much the same as a mirror reflecting a beam of sunlight.

The copper, once treated by his process, would never need recharging. Just as a mirror never needs attention to reflect a beam of sunlight. The lamps would be eternal, since cosmic radiation poured down upon the earth night and day from space. What Craymond had discovered, albeit accidentally, was a wavelength which changed the atomic make-up of any inorganic object so as to make it reflect cosmic radiation as a white luminosity, instead of absorbing it. Such a light would work anywhere, except perhaps in deep mines or heavily insulated vaults.

The light, Craymond claimed, had a magical quality—a pearly lustre of snow-white brilliance. Yet it did not hurt the eye. It penetrated into the darkest corners; it made conventional lamps look dirty yellow by comparison.

The industrial and domestic implications of the discovery were immense. Electrical energy such as normally gave light could be converted to something else—or else dispensed with altogether.

Once again the President called in Vincent Carfax to listen to the playback of Craymond’s exposition. This time the scientist did not pass an opinion, but called in the Arbiter.

The discovery was rejected as fallacious. A bewildered Robert Craymond found himself escorted from the building. The blazing injustice of the decision incensed him. He would construct a working model, and force the President to witness it....

His resolve was cut short as an overwhelming impulse swept through his mind.

The Arbiter had struck—again.

CHAPTER 8

At noon the following day the President himself broadcast the news of the latest death—in almost exactly the same terms as those explaining the fate of Clifford Braxton. Death through a fall from a pedestrian walk, following an interview in which he had received an unfavourable decision by the Arbiter....

This time, however, Luther Nolan did not let the incident pass and wonder at the murderous injustice of it. Instead he deliberated, then, his mind made up, he went into the adjoining room where the Arbiter stood in solitary, inhuman state.

For a moment Nolan studied the machine, then he spoke levelly.

“Arbiter, your dispensation of so-called justice does not please me! In the past three days two men have brought what could have been great advancements to science. In a world frozen of new ideas those discoveries would have been priceless, despite the fact that Dr. Carfax was not impressed. And what did you do? Not content with merely rejecting their ideas, you killed the men! Murdered, without mercy or purpose! You were created to be of benefit to Mankind, and instead this is what happens! I demand an explanation!”

“I give you no explanations,” the Arbiter answered. “Both the theories submitted were too fantastic to be entertained—”

“That’s damned nonsense!” Nolan interrupted angrily. “If there is any explanation at all, it is that you are too infernally conservative to know a good idea when you hear one—why, I can’t imagine. It’s as though you’re not thinking of the future at all, but are living in the past!”

“You are the President, Luther Nolan, but I have the last word,” the Arbiter said. “Both of those men fully intended to go on with their experiments in spite of my decision. My only course was to destroy them, because in defying me they threaten the State.”

Nolan’s fists tightened in sudden decision.

“This state of affairs can’t go on! I refuse to stand by and see innocent lives snuffed out just because you don’t approve of progress. I—”

Nolan stopped, aware for the first time in his experience of the Arbiter of the full, baleful power the thing possessed. That aura of mental power, which had always surrounded it seemed suddenly to expand into a flooding tide. Even as he stood there Nolan felt the impact of fiendish mental force bite deep to the roots of his brain....

He staggered helplessly in his agony, the room seeming to swirl about him. He went down into darkness with the dim impression that the attention buzzer on his desk was sounding noisily.... Dr. Carfax was ringing the President from his own apartment. Eventually Carfax desisted, reflecting on the disturbing fact that the President was not at his desk. A vague doubt stirred him, and at length it became so insistent that he went along to investigate.

The moment he drew aside the slide leading into the President’s office, he sensed something was wrong. Instruments on the desk were either buzzing or flashing for attention: the door leading to the Arbiter’s domain was wide open.

Carfax paused only long enough to cut the main contact, which killed the desk instruments, then he hurried across to the open doorway.... It took him only a few seconds to discover that Luther Nolan was dead. Slowly he straightened up, then going over to the door he closed it, turned back and faced the Arbiter.

“This, Arbiter, was not in the bargain!” he said grimly. “It may even cause serious trouble, coming on the heels of those other two deaths....”

“He was planning to raise help to encompass my destruction. I had to stop him.”

Carfax reflected, his eyes on the contorted face of the dead President. Then he shrugged.

“Well, as things have worked out I suppose it simply means that I shall become President a little prematurely.”

“You may become President, Carfax, but you will never rule,” the Arbiter stated. “Neither you nor anybody else!”

Carfax started forward, alarm on his usually calm face. He halted within a yard of the mechanical brains.

“Have you forgotten the bargain we made before you became the Arbiter?” he demanded. “With you six scientists—for of course your superior minds swamp those of the Workers to whom you are linked—I arranged that when you became part of the Arbiter you would learn all the scientific secrets you could from those placing their problems before you. Then you would give the verdict against them. That you have done, destroying those who owned the secrets.... But it was also agreed that you would share those secrets with me when I took Luther Nolan’s place! Between us—I moving about where you cannot—there are no limits to what we cannot do—”

“I have no need of a partner,” the Arbiter answered. “I am myself indestructible. As for the secrets, so-called, they were useless and have now been forgotten. I do not intend to pursue them.”

“But—but they were not useless! I am scientist enough to know that both theories were perfectly feasible. To say otherwise is to refuse to believe in progress. That you cannot possibly agree with, surely?”

“Progress in a perfect world is unnecessary,” the Arbiter said. “And I shall destroy anybody who attempts it! Just as I shall destroy those who question my absolute authority. The whole world must know that I alone shall rule the world’s destiny.”

Carfax nodded slowly, wily enough to keep his thoughts deliberately confused so that they could not readily be understood.

“I must broadcast the news of the President’s death,” he said.

“You have my full permission to do so—and to prevent any misunderstanding I will make the speech myself. Wheel the microphone across and give orders for a world hook-up to be made ready.”

Carfax obeyed because the overwhelming will of the thing made refusal impossible. But deep down in his scheming mind was a vague sense of incredulity. His bargain with the Arbiter to pick the brains of the more intelligent of the populace had utterly collapsed. For some reason this monstrosity did not want to advance; it existed, apparently, for an eternal Now.... But why was this?

Carfax was baffled—and frightened.

* * * *

The already smouldering resentment of the Workers spilled over completely under the stimulus of the news bulletins. First the deaths of the inventors—then of their beloved President! And to cap it all, there came the Arbiter’s own speech.

All over the world Workers and Intelligentsia alike listened to it in wonder; but it had the most meaning to those in Major City. To those Workers enjoying a break in the automat, the cold, biting words came as a physical shock, jerking them out of their usual somnolence.

“A new President will henceforth guide your destinies—the Arbiter. I was created for this purpose, and you have nothing to fear if you continue as you are and forget those fanciful notions, which brought death to their inventors. In a world of perfection further advancement is unnecessary.... Remember, then, I am the Ruler and can enforce my will. Obviously a human figurehead is both necessary and desirable, so I have decided that this position shall be occupied by Dr. Carfax, who will act expressly under my orders. This broadcast must be taken as implying the creation of a new order—not only for Major City but for the whole world....”

Whatever else the Arbiter might have said was certainly not heard in one particular automat for a small table, hurled by a Worker, went crashing into the speaker-equipment.

“Are we standing for this?” the man shouted fiercely, looking about him from the chair upon which he had leapt. “Do we take orders from this tin of brains and Dr. Carfax after they’ve murdered the President and two of our cleverest people?”

“No, we don’t stand for it,” the burly figure of Sherman Clarke pushed through the seething crowd and took the place of the man on the chair. “But we can’t rush into things unprepared! The Arbiter has power—great power, and it is backed by a body of militia. We’ve got to watch what we’re doing—“

Clarke stopped, unable to make his voice heard over sudden commotion. Then he realised what had happened. Armed officials had entered by the main door and were doing their utmost to clear the automat. Evidently the Arbiter knew already of the knot of dissention that had arisen—

Whatever it was, pandemonium broke out, the enraged Workers lashing out with their fists, the officers returning blow for blow with truncheons and stun-pistols. Everywhere was the sound of breaking windows, smashing furniture, mingled with cries of rage and pain....

Battered and bemused, his knuckles tingling, Clarke finally found himself outside the building with a small group of tattered men and women who had also escaped arrest or serious injury. Among them he recognised Brenda Charteris, Boyd Turner, and Iris Weigh.

“What happens now?” Turner demanded urgently, gazing at the swarming mob battling nearby.

“The annex,” Clarke rapped. “We’ll be safe there. Come on!”

They made the trip on foot, dodging down side streets and byways, and succeeded in reaching their destination without attracting attention and possible arrest. Only when Clarke had closed the heavily insulated door did the party feel they could breathe freely.

“Well, the die’s cast now!” Clarke looked round on the grimy, sweat-streaked faces, “All this might have been avoided if my original idea had been adopted. It has come to revolution after all, and we’ll learn things the hard way.”

“What can we do?” asked Brenda Charteris. “Attack the Arbiter?”

“Not yet—that thing is invulnerable. No, we must slip out of here and get provisions and medical necessities, choosing the right moment. Then we’ll stay in here, in readiness for a siege if need be, whilst Boyd Turner operates on me.”

“Operate on you?” Turner jerked the words out. “What are you getting at?!

Clarke regarded the anxious, determined faces turned towards him. “I want you to operate on me to give me that synthetic brain connection you mentioned. You can do it, can’t you? Using Clifford Braxton’s freezing apparatus?”

His eyes moved towards the corner of the room where the suspended animation casket lay, cables snaking into the wall power-sockets.

Turner was definitely uneasy. “It should be possible,” he answered slowly. “But I’ll need medical and surgical equipment—and an assistant....”

“I’ll assist you,” Brenda Charteris volunteered promptly. “I’ve had a full medical training—”

Clarke smiled, put an arm about her shoulders. “I was counting on that. Perhaps you can organise a party to get the medical necessities Turner will need? It shouldn’t be too difficult in the present chaos.”

“What’s the idea of this operation?” someone asked. “I’m damned if I can see what you’re hoping to achieve.”

“Superhuman intelligence,” Clarke answered deliberately. “The Arbiter was created by scientific genius, and the only way to fight it is to match it on its own terms. How, I’ve no idea at present—but I’m gambling an inspiration will come to me after Turner has operated. It’s our only hope....”

* * * *

When Sherman Clarke had remarked that the die was cast he had spoken absolute truth; but even he had underestimated the tremendous repercussions. They came to light when the second shift of Workers failed to go on duty.

Buzzers and sirens sounded in vain. The great Machine Halls, life-blood of the city—indeed of other places since the master controls were in the capital—were deserted for the first time in half a century.

When the news reached him, Dr. Carfax was seized with a real alarm. He sat at the main desk staring at the tele-plate as the news was given him from the Workers’ region by an excited official.

“Then get back the Workers who have just finished their shift,” Carfax ordered. “The automatic machinery that has taken over cannot function for long—the equipment wasn’t designed for complete automation so as to ensure a measure of employment for the Workers. The machines have got to be tended, or they’ll race themselves to ruin—”

“I’ve tried that, sir, but it’s no use. They’ve heard of the revolt of the other Workers and have joined them. Everything is in absolute chaos!”

Carfax snapped the contact-breaker and sat staring blankly in front of him. Loudspeakers began to chatter,

Cities wanted to know the reason for power fluctuation on the short-wave-energy band; others reported a severe drop on their feeder-lines—

Carfax glared impotently at the speakers; then he rubbed his forehead. There was a dull, throbbing ache there, the deadening, crushing force of the monster in the next room.

It was becoming intolerable....

Finally he got to his feet and went in to confront the Arbiter. It stood there, immovable as ever, radiating that deadly mental aura.

“Arbiter, something has to be done!” Carfax insisted. “Revolution has broken out and the Machine Halls have been left unattended.”

“Very well, Carfax. Summon all the scientists you can find and bring them here to receive my orders. Mere disordered rabble need cause us no concern. I have instructed the Duty Officers to kill all militant Workers on sight and to bring to me the ringleader—Sherman Clarke.... Now go and get the scientists, no matter how far you may have to travel to locate them.”

Carfax hesitated momentarily; then he nodded. He had no particular desire to run into a mob of incensed Workers, but if there was no other way.... He glanced towards the adjoining room where lay the twisted body of the late Luther Nolan. He had intended a lying-in state, but now that revolution had broken out—

Quietly, he went out, an unexpected realisation stealing over him. That ache in his head had gone; he was no longer under the Arbiter’s influence! For a moment the wonder of it impressed him, then he began to cast around for explanations. There could be only one: that the Arbiter did not realise its mental range was limited. In that case—Carfax’s keen mind began to formulate plans immediately.

Cautiously he scanned the street. Things were more or less quiet at the moment. The Duty Officers evidently had matters more or less in hand...but it could only be a false quiet, for in the Machine Room power was racing under an automatic control that would eventually break down, and once that happened—!

Carfax frowned over a recollection. He had to see Sherman Clarke, and there seemed to be only one place where he was likely to be found—the Annex of Machine Room 7, where, the Arbiter had said, lay the late Clifford Braxton’s suspended animation equipment.

An aerotaxi came whirring by, alighted with spinning helicopter screws as Carfax signalled.

“City Centre—Control Room Sector,” he ordered briefly, clambering in.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get you there safely, Dr. Carfax,” the driver said, turning. “There’s a lot of trouble—“

“Let me worry about that! Get started!”

The driver shrugged and started the motor. The taxi pursued the main street for a while, then the helicopters came into commission again as they rose towards the lofty Traffic Parallels.

Seated in the air-sprung cushions at the back of the vehicle, Carfax absently watched the everlasting symphony of windows and gleaming building frontages as the taxi climbed higher and higher. His mind was still busy, his plan almost complete. If he threw in his lot with Clarke, he might win the Workers over to his side and at the same time perhaps learn Braxton’s secret. Since the Arbiter’s mind-range was apparently limited, it could be isolated until a means of destroying it was discovered. Perhaps lead sheaths could be placed round the room in which it stood, blocking its mental compulsion....

Carfax smiled complacently to himself. There was, of course, that one profound problem to solve—why the Arbiter was so conservative. That, however, could come later....

The aerotaxi bumped gently as it reached the Third Traffic Parallel and began to proceed on its three wheels. Below, three hundred feet down, loomed the city canyons.

“So, Carfax, you are a traitor after all! I was not quite sure.”

Carfax jerked erect. He was quite alone in the vehicle, except for the driver beyond the partition—and yet he had distinctly heard that cold, merciless voice.

“You are listening to the thoughts of the Arbiter, Carfax! I removed my control over you deliberately when I sensed that you were confusing the issue. Thinking yourself free, you relaxed your mind and revealed your true intentions of contacting Sherman Clarke.... And now I see you are wondering why I did not wipe out Clarke when the revolution began. I couldn’t. There was a vast confusion of minds, all belligerent. I couldn’t single Clarke out amongst them. Now I cannot detect him at all; presumably he has placed himself behind the insulated walls of Machine Room 7 annex and thereby blocked my thoughts....”

Carfax felt himself begin to perspire. On each side of him was a three hundred foot drop....

“You thought my mental range was limited to the Presidential building, did you not? It covers the whole city! How do you think I destroyed Clifford Braxton and the other inventor? They died because, like you, they were a danger to my authority....

“Look down below, Carfax. You are looking into the abyss of Avenue Twenty-Seven. Deep, is it not? Open the door—look at it more attentively....”

Mechanically Carfax obeyed. There was an irresistible fascination about those depths. He leapt, suddenly—involuntarily....

He seemed to hover for a moment, poised beside the towering wall of the nearest building. Wind whipped his garments as he fell, twisting. Down, down—in an anguishing fall, which had eternity at its end.

A thin, high-pitched scream escaped Carfax’s lips then terminated with shocking abruptness as he smashed into the monolite pavement, blood pluming in a fine red rain.

CHAPTER 9

By mid-afternoon the Workers who were loyal to Sherman Clarke had gathered together the provisions he had suggested, together with a good range of other necessities and medical equipment.

“Any Workers handling the Machine Rooms?” Clarke asked.

“Apparently not,” Brenda Charteris replied; and Clarke set his lips.

“First breakdown will show this evening,” he said. “That Four-Purpose Atomic Transformer will eventually burn itself out. And if that goes—“

“You think we should let the city go to rot?” asked Thomas Lannon.

“I do, yes. For one thing it will give us a chance to free ourselves of the curse of machine control, and for another it will so shatter this city that Carfax and the Arbiter will have nothing left to control....”

“Carfax is dead,” remarked Iris Weigh. “I heard it over the speakers. He fell from a Traffic Parallel....”

“So, he too!” Clarke whistled. “The Arbiter is thorough if nothing else....”

“And what do we do now?” Iris Weigh asked.

Clarke glanced towards Braxton’s equipment and there was a general move towards it. For a moment he stood gazing down on the coffin-like casket, then he turned to look directly at Boyd Turner.

“You carry out that brain operation on me. What will happen when I come out of it—if I do!—I can’t say. I may be a fiend, a saint, or a genius!” He smiled grimly. “But one thing is certain—we must use the power while it is still running.”

“We haven’t much time,” Boyd Turner put in. “First of all I’ve got to shave your skull in readiness for the brain operation, then put you under the deep freeze. You’d best stand by, Miss Charteris.”

Brenda Charteris nodded promptly and moved to the side of the equipment. Fully conscious of the responsibility he was taking unto himself, Clarke moved across to a chair whilst Turner picked in an electric shaver.

“You realise,” Turner murmured as Clarke’s unruly hair was shorn away, “that you’re taking one hell of a risk? Here in this annex, with several people present, I won’t be able to take one-half of the normal sterilisation precautions for such an operation.”

Clarke rose from the chair, looking distinctly odd with his now completely bald head. “I realise it,” was all he said as he began to remove his garments.

“In here?” Clarke asked quietly, pausing at the broad lip at the end of the tubular casket.

“That’s it,” Turner assented, assisting him as Clarke pushed his feet and legs into the opening. Then he slid forward until he was stretched at full-length on the air-filled bed in the tube case.

Turner adjusted the air pillow so that Clarke’s shaven head was slightly raised, then with a taut look on his face, he closed the end of the tube and spun the heavy clamps, which secured it.

“Now—” Turner looked to where Brenda Charteris and Thomas Lannon were standing. The others had retired, by common consent, to the far end of the room. “You, Nurse, had better keep a watch on this bank of registers here. They will show exactly the state of Clarke as the freezing process continues. Respiration, heartbeats, blood pressure: they will all register.”

“I understand,” Brenda Charteris responded, studying the meters. “And if there is any divergence from what you consider safe, what am I to do?”

“Inform me immediately. Then I can vary the current to correct it.”

Turner turned to Thomas Lannon. “As for you, Tom, I’d like you to keep an eye on that specially-devised voltmeter beside you. If it gets beyond the red line let me know right away. My whole attention will be fixed on the control of the current, and I’ll have no time to watch anything else.”

“Right!” Lannon moved into position and fixed his gaze on the—at present—motionless voltmeter needle on the zero mark.

Within the tube Clarke lay motionless on his air bed, though his eyes were clearly watching everything through the transparent cover. He smiled faintly as Turner raised one hand with his fingers crossed—

Then he switched in the main power circuit, which transferred the current to the curious filigree of wires netted around the tube. Here and there contact points glowed brightly and there was a steady crackling as electrical energy surged and died, surged and died.

“Heartbeats seventy,” came the girl’s voice.

“Voltmeter fifteen hundred,” Lannon announced.

Turner made no comment. He knew the controls on the panel from previous experimentation with the late Clifford Braxton. Clarke himself was slowly becoming drowsy. He yawned prodigiously, and then at last made no movement at all. There was a faint mist on the inner side of the tube and Clarke’s nude body was covered with a myriad tiny droplets from the effect of condensation.

“Sixty-six,” Brenda Charteris rapped out.

Everything was going as it should. The noise of the machinery increased, and with this came a corresponding change in the needles of the various registers. In particular the thermometer registering the interior temperature of the tube began to show a decided drop.

In a matter of three minutes the register needle was down to 32 F. degrees, and after that it began a steady crawl into the depths towards the normal Fahrenheit zero.

Nor did it stop there. The register, specially devised for extreme below-zero temperatures, still continued the downward descent. Turner watched the meters intently and kept his hands on the controls; then he turned sharply at an exclamation from Brenda Charteris.

“The heartbeats are only registering sixteen to the minute! Sherman can’t possibly live at such a low pulse-rate!”

“I’m the best judge of that, Nurse Charteris. Even if the heartbeats only register two to the minute it will suffice.”

Brenda Charteris bit her lip. In the past few days Sherman Clarke had come to mean more to her than she had cared to admit. “Only two—!” her voice tailed off.

Turner took no notice. He knew exactly what he was doing. And only when the temperature was minus 120 F. degrees, did he switch the power off and turn to make a survey of the instruments Brenda Charteris had been watching. She gave him a troubled look. Over on the far side of the room the rest of the party were watching intently in complete silence.

“Everything is exactly as it should be,” Turner said, at that moment sympathetic to the white-faced girl’s anxiety.

“I would remind you that this experiment is right outside the field of ordinary medicine—hence the appearances are unusual. At the moment Sherman Clarke is in the coma caused by deep freezing. This is the vital part of the operation, where I start the brain surgery. Once I’ve set up these electrically controlled instruments through that tube I can complete the trepanning and synthetic nerve linkup without drawing a drop of blood.

“What has happened is that the molecules of his body have been slowed down to the minimum. With that slowing down we get the extreme coldness, since all energy of motion is purely molecular activity. Clarke will remain like this until the operation is over, and I set the counteractive electrical energy in being, which will restore his molecular activity to normal.”

Turner set to work, assembling his special instruments after he had sterilised his hands in the vat of antiseptic Brenda Charteris passed to him. In one respect Clarke was fortunate: the instruments would operate through specially prepared apertures in the tube just above the headrest, and the tube itself was effectively sealed off from the atmosphere—and possible infection—of the annex.

Turner performed the trepanning with consummate skill—expert even for the advanced knowledge of 2068 medicine. No blood flowed; the freezing prevented it. Then delicate probes knitted the vital synthetic nerve to the operative and inoperative sections of Clarke’s naked brain.

Almost an hour passed as he laboured on under the brilliant arcs, Brenda Charteris assisting tirelessly. The strain was intense, but at last his work was flawlessly done. He closed up the skull, grafted back skin and bone, wiped across pungent healing ointments. Broodingly he watched as the scar on Clarke’s forehead began to knit slowly to a thin pale line, rapidly disappearing. There was only the faintest trace that a surgical miracle had been carried out.

The girl expelled a low, long sigh of relief that was echoed by the intent onlookers. Turner stood aside, mopping his perspiring face with a towel, which Brenda Charteris handed to him.

“Stand by the gauges again,” he told her. “I’m going to attempt to restore him to normal temperature.”

Deliberately he closed the make-and-break switch. Instantly the machinery began to hum, swiftly rising to the steady whine of maximum.

Within the tube, nothing, so far, had happened. The filigree of wires around the tube immediately started to glow. The contact points shone brightly. Electric energy surged and then died away again.

“Any reaction?” Turner demanded tensely.

“Not yet. Heartbeats sixteen per minute. Temperature minus one-twenty Fahrenheit. Wait—seventeen!” The girl was exultant. “Eighteen! Heartbeats are becoming faster! Oh, this is wonderful! Temperature has risen one-eighteen. We’re on the right track!”

Keeping his emotions well in hand, Turner still went systematically about his task. He was reflecting on the tragedy that Clifford Braxton had not lived to see the vindication of his experiments.

There was no doubt that the reversal process was operating correctly. With the passage of seconds the temperature rose steadily and the increase in Clarke’s heartbeats and respiration kept exact step—until at length Turner had made all the possible moves on the switchboard, and there was nothing left for him to do but watch the outcome.

The frost inside the tube gradually faded away into moisture, and that too finally dried away into vapour and passed off through vents specially contrived for the purpose. Brenda Charteris, eager as she was to take a look at Clarke, remained at her post before the meters.

“Sixty-eight beats to the minute!” she exclaimed finally. “Temperature nearing seventy degrees, which is the room temperature. We’ve done it, Mr. Turner. Sherman is alive and well!”

At that the other men and women in the room surged eagerly forward, crowding round Turner and shaking his hand and congratulating him on the miracle of surgery.

The glaze of frozen solidity had left Clarke’s flesh. Into his face crept a faint flush of colour—and it was at this point that the hum of the machinery suddenly ceased.

Instantly Brenda Charteris and the others wheeled in alarm, staring at it. Then Turner’s taut, excited voice reassured them.

“Nothing to worry about. Cliff Braxton constructed his apparatus to automatically cut itself out on the thermostatic principle once the correct level has been reached.”

“Thank heaven for that!” someone exclaimed. “It seemed as if the apparatus had broken down at a vital moment—”

Then Clarke opened his eyes—not slowly like one aroused from sleep, but as though he had suddenly been called by name.

Immediately there was a flurry in the party. Now that Clarke was conscious there was even a sense of embarrassment amongst the women onlookers. The men stared fixedly in relief and incredulity.

As Clarke stirred within the tube, Boyd Turner went into action, spinning the wing nuts swiftly and then taking off the heavy cover. The airtight rubber sheath followed, and the end of the tube was wide open with Clarke’s shaven head facing towards him.

“Are—are you all right?” he asked, a slight catch in his voice.

Within the tube Clarke smiled. “Of course I’m all right. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

Getting out of the tube presented a certain problem. In the first instance Clarke had had to be ‘inserted’ in the tube: now the opposite performance was called for. He pushed with his bare feet until his head emerged, then Brenda Charteris fussed uncertainly at the vision of bare arms and shoulders sliding towards her.

“Er—perhaps you—” She looked hopefully at Turner.

He gave a nod, seized Clarke firmly under the arms and tugged. In a moment he had slithered headlong out of the tube and then stood up.

“Thanks,” he smiled at Turner, “for everything.” The emphasis on the last word was unmistakable. “And you too, Brenda—” he broke off as he saw the girl regarding him with increasing embarrassment.

“Perhaps someone could pass me my clothes—?” he suggested.

“Coming right up,” Thomas Lannon said, reaching to where Clarke had left them.

Clarke quickly donned his clothes with easy familiarity, then he regarded the assembly. They had gathered a respectable distance away from him. Something about his voice—an odd note of command—and the look in his eyes made them momentarily uneasy.

“I sense from your expressions and from your minds that you are wondering just what effect Boyd Turner’s experiment has had.” Again that strange smile. “Yes, your minds: I can read them clearly. I have certain powers. The experiment has succeeded.”

* * * *

By early evening, just as the first lights should have been coming up in the city, evidence of the breakdown in power which Clarke had forecast became noticeable. The Atomic Transformer in Machine Hall burned out its dampening controls. Unable to cope with a rapidly rising overload it caught fire, eating out its core.

The effect was immediate—and cataclysmic, since many other machines were linked to it—and they in turn sent their power to the vital feeder cables to other cities. The first collapse was seen in a universal failure of the lighting systems. Desperate radio signals flashed out to Major City, and were ignored by the Arbiter standing immovable in its darkened room.

Then the signals ceased as their source of power failed as well.... The stoppage of power brought a foretaste of hell to every city, and the capital in particular. It struck terror into the hearts and minds of renegade Workers in the streets, and the Duty Officers abandoned trying to quell the revolution, which had spread like a devouring flame.

Lifts crashed to the bottom of their shafts; radiation-power driven cars, aero-taxis, planes, and countless other vehicles went hurtling to destruction. In the darkness was an inconceivable and cumulative chaos.

Then the failure of the weather-machines became evident by reason of a sudden terrific storm which burst over the metropolis. A deluge of rain and hail, a thing unknown in such violence for fifty years, drove the people to the best shelter they could find. Jagged flashes of lightning revealed their pell-mell struggle to get out of the catastrophe that had descended. Here and there a voice called on the Arbiter for assistance—in vain.

The Arbiter, in truth, was otherwise occupied. Ever since it had destroyed Dr. Carfax, it had been trying futilely to nail down one particular mind to obey its orders, to force that person to get together a force sufficient to flush out Sherman Clarke and his followers and destroy them. But the confusion of thoughts, the terror abroad in the stricken city—the more horrible because it was unaccustomed—had prevented such action. It would have to wait until things were calmer.

Waiting, however, was not the wish of Sherman Clarke. He knew just how desperate things were. There was a real possibility of city after city being destroyed if an effort were not made to get order out of chaos and repair some of the ruined engineering giants. The people too, like hothouse plants exposed now to the winds of normal everyday life in a pitiless world, would die in the tens of thousands. His sensitive mind was fully attuned to the terror around him, the stark possibilities fully realised.

For two hours, whilst his body was recovering from the operation and freezing, Clarke had been in conversation with Boyd Turner and his comrades. They were discussing science, a plan of attack, and above all the Arbiter. Whilst they had talked in the light of the battery-driven lamps, their ears had become attuned to the savage onslaught of the elements outside.

“I underwent the operation for a purpose, and I mean to fulfil it,” Clarke said deliberately. “No matter what the possible consequences to myself.”

There was no response. The others could not possibly view the situation with the same standpoint as a mental colossus. The brain operation made them as apart as the denizens of two distinct planets.

“It would seem that you are still baffled by the Arbiter’s lack of interest in any future development,” Clarke remarked presently.

“We have been right from the start,” Brenda Charteris agreed. “I suppose it must be because the Arbiter is not normal flesh and blood.”

“At least you touch the hem of the truth. Carfax forgot that a brain, in progressing, must expand. Boyd Turner’s operation on me has proved that human beings use only a fifth of their full brain capacity that, later, will develop. But in the machine it was strangled. Carfax and the surgeon Claythorne made these mechanical brains fixed to what was, at that time, the present! To the Arbiter, it is always the present! Being rigid metal, the brains can’t expand, are unable to go a step beyond the day of their creation. And the replacement of flesh and blood by machinery means that the brains cannot apply human intuition or responses.

“That is why the Arbiter destroys all things that suggest progress, and also because it fears any sign of progress will bring its power to an end. Having no human sentiment, it destroys without question....”

“Conservatism gone mad,” Boyd Turner muttered. “And the thing is invulnerable,” he added dispiritedly. “Overwhelming mental force inside a framework of interlocked atoms. A hell of a combination!”

“Devilish, certainly, but not insurmountable.”

“You—you mean—?” Hope leapt into Turner’s eyes, and the rest of the assembly listened attentively.

“I mean that the Arbiter can—and must—be destroyed!”

Clarke sat brooding for a long time as the others waited anxiously. His calm, mysterious eyes watched the men and women moving about the chamber in restless anxiety. What thoughts were passing through his five-fold brain they did not know—until at last they were put into words.

“I’ve been pondering ways and means,” Clarke explained. “One can kill a human being by sealing it up in an airtight room, but you can’t kill a machine in that fashion. But I was wondering if I could devise a means of reflecting the Arbiter’s high-powered thoughts back on itself. They might recoil with sufficient devastation to unhinge the brains and cause insanity. But that might have repercussions. Even as it is, comparatively sane, the Arbiter is deadly....”

Sherman Clarke hesitated, then shook his head.

“No, that’s out. We need total destruction, so the only course is to destroy the machine which houses the brains, then the brains themselves.”

“But how can that be done?” Brenda Charteris asked anxiously, standing beside Turner. “The metal was specially treated by Dr. Carfax.”

“So it was. But since my operation I understand atomic science in all its complex detail because my mind is attuned to it. I understand it as clearly as normal people understand the processes that govern birth. Carfax once outlined a theory to me that the cosmos itself is structured from infinite thought, that all around us is a sea of thought. The moment that I was given that synthetic connection between the normal and subconscious areas of my brain, I became attuned to the outpourings of the universe. I am the first man possessing the necessary brain structure to interpret the vast selection of metaphysical radiations that go to make up physical reality.

“Hitherto science has only assumed facts about sub-atomic science. I understand them intuitively. Carfax was ingenious enough to find a way of mating materials so that their atomic spaces fitted into the atomic matter of the other, meshing as tightly as the cogs in a gear wheel. He also chose materials with opposite atomic poles, knowing that by the law of opposites the two would attract each other and therefore lock immovably.”

There was a silence at this astonishing scientific exposition. Brenda Charteris stared wide-eyed. There was something uncanny about Clarke’s transfiguration.

“But there’s no known power which can tear atomic charges apart!” Boyd Turner insisted.

Sherman Clarke gave a mystical smile. “I think there is. Opposite charges cancel out by neutralisation. In other words, all I need is a magnetism strong enough to force the poles of those atomic systems to point in one direction only. With both pointing the same way the charge will not be opposite, but identical—and of course like charges repel. The whole structure will fall to pieces....”

His mind made up, Sherman Clarke turned aside and examined Clifford Braxton’s apparatus. In a few minutes he had removed a section of the covering and was keenly examining the wiring within. His eyes strayed to the battery-driven lights dotted about in various positions. The lamps, as he well knew, used atomic force emitted in very slight charges. They utilised a tiny copper cube, which was atomically unstable, giving off its energy on a trickle-dispersion system.

Clarke’s eyes gleamed. “If I use the power-cores of these lamps, I’ll have a portable power system to provide the radiation I need.” His hands reached out to strip the wiring coils from the suspended animation casket. “These can easily be transformed....” He glanced up at the bewildered faces around him and smiled.

“Just do as I ask,” he ordered, “and leave the rest to me.”

CHAPTER 10

It was perhaps three hours before Sherman Clarke had finished. Though the men and women had stood about and watched they had not understood a fraction of the intricacies involved.

“Here, I think, we have the key to our liberty,” Clarke said finally, surveying the queer arrangements of coils and battery-cores he had fashioned into the shape of a projector. “The surest way to find out is to try it...if you are prepared for that?”

Heads nodded resolutely in the glow of the single remaining lamp.

“We’re ready,” Boyd Turner answered quietly. “Let’s get the thing over before matters get any worse.”

Clarke picked up the equipment in his powerful arms and led the way to the door. He opened it, then as a single body they went through the deserted hallway and out into the tempest.

It was still raining heavily. An icy wind buffeted through the darkness.

“Do you feel the Arbiter’s mind trying to reach you, destroy you?” Clarke asked through clenched teeth as they advanced down the empty main street towards the city centre.

“Not exactly,” Boyd Turner answered, doubtfully. “I can feel a headache, but nothing more.”

“As we come nearer to the Arbiter you’ll know what I mean! Being more sensitive, I can detect it at a distance.... We shall have to fight this thing by willpower alone, refuse to be smashed down by it. Perhaps I should have made protective helmets, except for the time it would have taken....”

Silence fell again, save for the steady march of their feet along the dripping monolite pavements and the freezing wind. Here and there, as they advanced, Workers appeared like phantoms and vanished again. Darkness and chaos were over the city. The real seat of the revolution lay underground, where Workers and Duty Officers alike had fled to escape the elements.

Eventually they reached the Controlling Building, and clambered up the steps into the wide hall. There was nobody in sight.

The main office door was closed, but not locked—just as Carfax had left it. Clarke could feel the probings of that deadly mind as he swung the door wide and stepped into the gloom of the great office. Abruptly something soft yet resistant slammed against his feet so that he stumbled, almost dropping the projector. Behind him he heard Brenda Charteris utter a gasp of sick horror.

Strewn across the floor were the twisted bodies of perhaps a dozen Workers, men and women, most of them still clutching weapons of some kind. As their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Clarke’s party realised the grisly implications. Desperate Workers had tried to storm the Arbiter’s citadel, only to be forced to destroy one another by the Arbiter’s telepathic commands.

They could feel the same thing now.

“Concentrate against it, all of you!” Clarke ordered, and intense strain was evident even in his voice. “I have the power of five brains, but I am fighting twelve!”

Momentarily he could not get beyond the threshold of the room in which the Arbiter stood. Fear had the Workers in its grip as that incredible mind, the force of twelve brains in one, was fighting them, battering, flooding them with an insane desire to run to a window and jump.

In the space of two minutes every member of the party began to collapse. Brenda Charteris made a mighty struggle to combat the awful flow of power from the machine, but failing, she sank down unconscious upon the floor. Boyd Turner and the others followed suit rapidly.

Only Sherman Clarke remained standing, his feet a little apart, the projector held rigidly in front of him. His eyes burned with a queer inner fire, and down came his thick eyebrows into a sharp V. He took a step forward, jerkily and clumsily, as though with colossal effort...then another. Then his mind reacted to a sudden change in the thoughts of the Arbiter—fear!

The Arbiter had read his mind, knew the purpose of the equipment he carried with him. It struck then with all the devouring, inhuman mental power it possessed.

Clarke reeled backwards, anguish tearing through his skull.... Still clinging to the last shreds of consciousness, he continued his silent struggle against that flood of mental destruction, shaking visibly against the dim grey of the window in his titanic efforts. His face was streaming with perspiration. With a creeping, leaden movement his hand moved to the switch of the apparatus.

He dropped to one knee, gasping. The switch moved—Clarke fell his length on the floor as there was a faint spark in the darkness and a violet beam fanned outwards towards that metallic monstrosity. Instantly there was sound—an unholy cracking and creaking of a myriad interstices of matter unlocking themselves, the twisting and whirling of atomic orbits, the bending of sub-atomic matter itself into new planes.

The vast mind-power weakened, became terror-stricken. The metallic side-plates crumbled outwardly away from the Arbiter, lenses tinkled and smashed on the floor. The supporting pillars collapsed, and that hideous mind-sense went out like a fused bulb as with a smothered explosion the central brain pan gave way. As the Arbiter came down in metallic ruins, shards of metal and wiring were flung out like gunshot.

Clarke jerked with convulsive agony as his chest was transfixed by a flying fragment of metal. Through the mists of pain that assailed him as his life-blood seeped away, a languorous sense of hope suffused his mind.

He knew that he was dying. It was better, perhaps.... Men such as he had become were not yet for this world.

Humanity could rebuild. A new leader would emerge. That woman—what was her name? Iris Weigh? She could write for the people and—and show them what they ought to have. That architect would redesign the city. Differently. No more overburdening power.

Weakly Clarke’s mind reached across the room. The others lay there, scattered amongst the corpses of those who had come before them. But they were only unconscious. They still lived. For an instant Clarke’s mind touched the consciousness of Brenda Charteris. A sense of regret stole over him. She had loved him, then.

The emotion passed. Humanity remained—and that was all that mattered. And he—he would soon be with that cosmic consciousness he had only recently discovered....

It was very still and dark.