Rule of the Brains

by John Russell Fearn

  “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 conc
eption 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.”