These explanations made me giddy. I didn't know what to think. The man was either as mad as a hatter or really giving me a glimpse into mankind's future. I was still dizzy from the after-effects of the drug I'd been given in Kraftstudt's study. A wave of weariness swept over me, I lay back and closed my eyes.
"He's under frequency seven to eight cycles! He wants to sleep!" someone shouted.
"Let him have his sleep. Tomorrow he'll start learning life. They'll take him inside the generator tomorrow."
"No, he'll have his spectre recorded tomorrow. He might have abnormalities."
That was the last thing I heard. I slid into deep sleep.
The man I met the next day at first appeared to me quite pleasant and intelligent. When I was led into his study up a floor in the firm's main building he came forward to meet me, smiling broadly, hand stretched out in greeting.
"Ah, Professor Rauch. I'm indeed pleased to meet you."
Returning his greeting with restraint I inquired after his name.
"My name is Boltz, Hans Boltz. Our chief has given me an embarrassing commission-that of extending apologies to you in his name."
"Apologies? Is your chief really subject to pangs of conscience?"
"I don't know. I'm sure I don't know, Rauch. Anyway, he's extending his most sincere apologies to you for all that has happened. He lost his temper. He doesn't like being reminded of the past, you know."
I smiled wryly.
"Why, I did not come with any intention of raking in his past. My interest lay elsewhere. I wanted to meet those who so brilliantly solved-"
"Pray, be seated, Professor. That is exactly what I was going to speak to you about."
I settled in the proffered chair and studied the broadly smiling face behind the large desk. Boltz was a typical north-country German with an elongated face, fair hair and large blue eyes. His fingers were playing with a cigarette-case.
"I'm in charge of the maths department here," he said.
"You? Are you a mathematician?"
"Yes, in a way. At least I have a smattering of it."
"That means I can meet some of them through you?"
"You've already met all of them, Rauch," Boltz said.
I stared at him blank-eyed.
"You've spent a day and night with them."
I remembered the ward and its inmates with their nonsense about impulses and codes.
"Do you expect me to believe those crackpots are the brilliant mathematicians who solved my equations?"
Not waiting for a reply I broke into laughter.
"And yet they are, indeed. Your last problem was solved by a certain Deinis. As far as I know the same individual who last night gave you a lecture on neurocybernetics."
After a few moments' thought I said:
"In that case I don't understand anything. Perhaps you would explain it all to me?"
"With pleasure. Only after you've seen this." And Boltz offered me the morning paper.
I unfolded it slowly and suddenly jumped up. Looking at me from the first page was… my own face framed in black. Over it was the banner caption: "Tragic death of Dr. Rauoh."
"What's the meaning of this, Boltz? What sort of farce is this?" I expostulated.
"Please calm yourself. It's all quite sample really. Last night when crossing the bridge over the river on your way home from a walk near the lake, you were attacked by two escaped lunatics from the Wise Men's Home, killed, mutilated and thrown into the river. Early this morning a corpse was discovered at the dam. The clothes, personal belongings and papers helped to identify the corpse as yours. The police called at the Home this morning and have pieced together a complete picture of your tragic death."
It was only then I looked at my clothes and realised that the suit I had on was not mine; I dived into my pockets, all the things I'd had on me were gone.
"But this is preposterous-"
"Yes, of course, I quite agree. But what can be done, Rauch, what can be done? Without you Kraftstudt and Co. may suffer a serious setback -go bust, if you like. I don't mind telling you that we are up to our eyebrows in orders. They're all military and extremely valuable. And that means round-the-clock computing. Since we completed the first batch of problems for the Defence Ministry business has just snowballed, you could say."
"And you want me to become another Deinis for you?"
"Oh, no, Rauch. Of course not."
"Then why that farce?"
"We need you as instructor in mathematics."
"Instructor?" I jumped up again, staring wildly at Boltz. He lighted a cigarette for himself and nodded at my chair. I sat down, completely bewildered.
"We need new mathematicians, Professor Rauch. Either we get them or we'll very soon be on the rocks."
I stared at the man who did not seem to me half as pleasant now as he'd done before. I seemed to discern traits of innate bestiality in him, faint, but coming to the fore now.
"Well, what if I refuse?" I asked. "That would be just too bad. I'm afraid you'd have to join our-er-computer force then." "Is that so bad?" I asked.
"It is," Boltz said firmly, standing up. "That would mean you'd finish your days in the Wise Men's Home."
Pacing up and down the room, Boltz began to speak in the tones of a lecturer addressing an audience:
"The computing abilities of the human brain are several hundred thousand times those of an electronic computer. A thousand million mathematical nerve cells plus the aids-memory, inhibition, logic, intuition, etc.-place the brain high above any conceivable machine. Yet the machine has one essential advantage."
"Which?" I asked, still not understanding what Boltz was driving at.
"If, say, a trigger or a group of triggers is out of order in an electronic machine, you can replace the valves, resistors or capacitors and the machine will work again. But if a nerve cell or a group of nerve cells in the computing area is out of order, replacement, alas, is impossible. Unfortunately we are obliged to make brain triggers work at an increased tempo here. As a result, wear and tear, if I may call it so, is greatly accelerated. The living computers are soon used up arid then-"
"What then?"
"Then the computer gets into the Home."
"But that's inhuman-and criminal," I said hotly.
Boltz stopped in front of me, placed a hand on my shoulder and, with a broad smile, said:
"Rauch, you've got to forget all those words and notions here. If you won't forget them yourself we'll have to erase them from your memory for you."
"You will never be able to do that!" I shouted, brushing away his hand.
"Deinis's lecture was wasted on you, I see. Pity. He spoke sense. Incidentally, d'you know what memory is?"
"What has that to do with our subject? Why the hell are you all buffooning here? Why-?"
"Memory, Professor Rauch, is prolonged stimulation in a group of neurones due to a positive reverse connection. In other words, memory is the electrochemical stimulation that circulates in a given group of nerve cells in your head. You, as a physicist interested in electromagnetic processes in complex media, must realise that by placing your head in the appropriate electromagnetic field we can stop that circulation in any group of neurones. Nothing could be simpler! We can not only make you forget what you know, but make you recall what you have never known. However it's not in our interests to resort to these-er- artificial means. We hope your common sense will prevail. The firm will be making over to you a sizeable share of its dividends."
"For what services?"
"I've already told you-for teaching mathematics. We sign up classes of twenty to thirty people with an aptitude for maths-this country has an abundance of unemployed, fortunately. Then we teach them higher mathematics in the course of two to three months-"
"But that's impossible," I said, "absolutely impossible. In such a short time, I mean…"
"It's not impossible, Rauch. Don't forget you'll be dealing with a very bright audience, uncommonly intelligent and posse
ssing a wonderful memory for figures. We will see to that. That is in our power."
"Also by artificial means? By means of the pulse generator?" I asked.
Boltz nodded.
'Well, do you agree?"
I shut my eyes tightly and thought hard. So Deinis and the others in the ward were normal people and had been telling me the truth yesterday. So Kraftstudt and Go. had really developed a technique of commercialising human thought, will-power and emotions by means of electromagnetic fields. I sensed Boltz's searching glance on me and knew I must hurry with my decision. It was devilishly hard to make. If I agreed I'd be speeding my students on their way to the Wise Men's Home. If I refused I'd do the same to myself.
"Do you agree?" Boltz repeated, touching me on the shoulder.
"No," I said, my mind made up. "No. I can be no accomplice to such abomination."
"As you wish," he said with a sigh. "I'm very sorry, though."
After a minute's silence he stood up briskly, went over to the door and, opening it, called out:
"Eider, Schrank, come in here!"
"What are you going to do to me?" I asked, also getting up.
"To begin with we'll record the pulse-code spectre of your nervous system."
"Which means?"
"Which means we'll record the form, intensity and frequency of the pulses responsible for your every emotional and intellectual state and make them into a chart."
"But I won't let you. I will protest. I-"
"Show the Professor the way to the test laboratory," Boltz cut in indifferently and turned his back on me to look out of the window.
As I entered the test laboratory I had already formed the decision which was to play a crucial role in the events that followed. My line of reasoning was this. They are going to subject me to a test that will give Kraftstudt and his gang complete information on my inner self. They need this to know what electromagnetic influence to bring to bear on my nervous system to produce any emotion or sensation they want. If they are fully successful I'll be in their power beyond hope of escape. If they are not I'll retain a certain amount of free play. Which I might soon badly need. So the only hope for me is to try to fool those gangsters as much as possible. That I can' do so to a degree I deduced from what a slave of Kraftstudt's said yesterday about pulse-code characteristics being individual, except where mathematical thought is concerned.
I was led into a large room cluttered up with bulky instrumentation, the whole looking like the control room of a power station. The middle of the laboratory was taken up by a control console with instrument panels and dials. To its left, behind a screen of wire mesh, towered a transformer, several generator lamps glowing red in white porcelain panels. Fixed to the wire mesh which served as a screen-grid for the generator were a voltmeter and an ammeter. Their readings were used, apparently, to measure the generator's output. Close by the control console stood a cylindrical booth made up of two metallic parts, top and bottom.
As I was led up to the booth two men rose from behind the console. One of them was the same doctor who had taken me to Kraftstudt the day before, the other-a wizened old man whom I didn't know, with sparse hair disciplined into perfect smoothness on a yellow crane.
"Failed to persuade him," the doctor said. "I knew as much. I could see at once that Rauch belonged to the strong type. You will come to a bad end, Rauch," he said to me.
"So will you," I said.
"That's as may be, but with you it's definite."
I shrugged.
"Will you go through it voluntarily or do you want us to force you?" he then asked, looking me over insolently.
"Voluntarily. As a physicist I'm even interested."
"Splendid. In that case remove your shoes and strip to the waist. I must examine you first and take your blood pressure."
I did as I was told. The first part of "registering the spectre" looked like an ordinary medical check-up-breathe, stop breathing and the rest of it.
When the examination was over the doctor said:
"Now step into the booth. You've got a mike there. Answer all my questions. I must warn you that one of the frequencies will make you feel an intense pain. But it will go as soon as you yell out."
In my bare feet I stepped on to the porcelain floor. An electric bulb flashed on overhead. The generator droned. It was operating in the low-frequency band. The tension of the field was obviously very high. I felt this by the way waves of warmth swelled and ebbed slowly through my body. Each electromagnetic pulse brought with it a strange tickling in the joints. Then my muscles began contracting and relaxing in time to the pulses.
Presently the frequency of the warmth waves was increased.
Here it goes, I thought. If only I can bear it. When the frequency reached eight cycles per second I would want to sleep. If only I could fight it. If only I could fool the blackguards. The frequency was slowly increasing. In my mind I counted the number of warm tides per second. One, two, three, four, more, still more… Then sleepiness was on me with overwhelming sudden-ness. I clamped my teeth together, willing myself into wakefulness. Sleep was pushing me under like an enormous clammy weight, bearing me down, loading my eyelids. It was a miracle I was still on my feet. I bit my tongue, hoping pain would help me throw off the nightmarish burden of sleep. At that moment, as if from afar, a voice came to me:
"Rauch, how do you feel?"
"Not bad, thank you. A bit cold," I lied. I didn't recognise my own voice and bit my lips and tongue as hard as I could.
"Don't you feel sleepy?"
"No," I said, though I thought I would drop into sleep the next moment. And then, abruptly, all sleepiness was gone. The frequency must have been increased beyond the first terminal threshold. I felt fresh and cheerful as after a good snooze. Now I must fall asleep, I thought, and, shutting my eyes, snored away. I heard the doctor say to his assistant:
"Odd. Sleep at ten cycles instead of eight and a half. Write it down, Pfaff," he told the old man. "Rauch, your sensations?"
I didn't reply, still snoring loudly, my muscles relaxed, knees stuck against the side of the booth.
"Let's go on with it," said the doctor. "Increase the frequency, Pfaff, will you."
In a second I "woke up". The frequency band through which I was now passing made me experience a whole gamut of emotions and changes of mood. I was sad, then gay, then happy, then utterly miserable.
"Time I yelled out," I suddenly decided.
At the moment the generator's roar increased I yelled all I could, whereupon the doctor immediately ordered:
"Cut the tension! It's the first time I've met such a crazy type. Write down: pain at seventy-five cycles per second when normal people experience it at one hundred and thirty. Go on."
That frequency is still in store for me, I thought in dread. Will I be able to cope with it?
"Now, Pfaff, try the ninety-three on him."
When the frequency stabilised something entirely unexpected happened to me. I suddenly remembered the equations which had brought me to Kraftstudt and with perfect clarity visualised every stage of their solution. This is the frequency which stimulates mathematical thinking, I thought fleetingly.
"Rauch, name the first five members of the Bessel function of the second order," the doctor demanded.
I rattled off the answer. My head was crystal clear and my whole being was permeated with a wonderful feeling of knowing all and having it on my tongue's tip.
"Name the first ten places of it."
I named them.
"Solve a cubic equation."
The doctor dictated one with unwieldy fractional coefficients.
In two or three seconds I had the solution ready, naming all the three roots.
"Let's go on. He's quite normal in this department."
Slowly the frequency increased and I felt maudlin. There was a lump in my throat and tears welled in my eyes. But I laughed. I roared with convulsive laughter as if being vigorously tickled. I laughed, while the tear
s rolled down my cheeks.
"Some idiotic idiosyncrasy again. In a class of his own, you might say. I at once knew him for a strong nervous type subject to neuroses. When will he winge, I wonder?"
I "winged" when weeping was farthest from my mood, when all of a sudden my heart was overflowing with buoyant happiness as a nuptial cup with good vine. I wanted to troll and laugh and dance for joy. All of them-Kraftstudt and Boltz and Deinis and the doctor-seemed to me capital fellows, the jolliest chaps I had ever met. It was then that, with great effort, I started to whimper and blow my nose loudly. Though ghastly inadequate, my weeping soon elicited the now familiar comments of the expert:
"Oh, what a type. All upside down. Nothing even remotely resembling the normal spectre. This fellow will give us a lot of trouble."
How far is the one hundred and thirty? I thought, in abject terror, when the happy and carefree sensation had given way to a feeling of worry, ungrounded anxiety, the presage of impending doom… I started humming a tune. I was doing it mechanically, with a great effort, while my heart pounded away in premonition of something terrible, something fatal and inevitable.
I at once knew when the frequency approached the one stimulating the sensation of pain. At first there was just a dull ache in the joints of the thumb on my right hand, then a sharp pain seared through an old war-time wound. This was followed by a terrible toothache spreading at once to all the teeth. Then a splitting headache added.
Blood pulsed painfully in my ears. Shall I be able to stand it? Shall I have enough will-power to overcome the nightmarish pain and not show it? People have been known after all to be done to death in torture chambers without groaning once. History has recorded cases of people dying on the faggots mute…
The pain went on increasing. Finally it reached its peak and my whole body became one knot of gnawing, stinging, racking, throbbing, excruciating pain. I was all but unconscious and saw purple specks revolving before my eyes, but I remained silent.
"Your sensations, Rauch," the doctor's voice penetrated to me.
The Maxwell Equations Page 3