"Lundy's being plain silly," I couldn't help saying. "What guarantee has he got that on your Mushroom Day, Country B wouldn't make a great display of destroying one Emsiac and one set of bombs while it had others in hiding? It's too great a chance for A to take--she might be throwing away all her defenses and laying herself wide open to attack." "See what I mean?" Len muttered. "You're a Boy Scout." Then he passed out, without saying a word about Marilyn. Hard to tell if he sees anything of her these days. He _does_ see some pretty peculiar people, though. I'd like to know more about this Steve Lundy. * * * * * _November 2, 1959_ I've done it! Today I split up the lab into two entirely independent operations, K and N. Did it all on my own authority, haven't breathed a word about it to the boss yet. Here's my line of reasoning. On the K end, we can get results, and fast: if it's just a matter of building a pro that works like the real leg, regardless of what _makes_ it work, it's a cinch. But if it has to be worked by the brain, through the spinal cord, the job is just about impossible. Who knows if we'll ever learn enough about neuro tissue to build our own physico-chemico-electrical substitutes for it? As I proved in my robot moths and bedbugs, I can work up electronic circuits that seem to duplicate one particular function of animal nerve tissue--one robot is attracted to light like a moth, the other is repelled by light like a bedbug--but I don't know how to go about duplicating the tissue itself in all its functions. And until we can duplicate nerve tissue, there's no way to provide our artificial limbs with a neuro-motor system that can be hooked up with the central nervous system. The best I can do along those lines is ask Kujack to kick and get a wriggle of the big toe instead. So the perspective is clear. Mechanically, kinesthetically, motorically, I can manufacture a hell of a fine leg. Neurally, it would take decades, centuries maybe, to get even a reasonable facsimile of the original--and maybe it will never happen. It's not a project I'd care to devote my life to. If Len Ellsom had been working on that sort of thing, he wouldn't have gotten his picture in the paper so often, you can be sure. So, in line with this perspective, I've divided the whole operation into two separate labs, K-Pro and N-Pro. I'm taking charge of K-Pro myself, since it intrigues me more and I've got these ideas about using solenoids to get lifelike movements. With any kind of luck I'll soon have a peach of a mechanical limb, motor-driven and with its own built-in power plant, operated by push-button. Before Christmas, I hope.