So much about the facts. I could and should have formulated those
yesterday. What kept me from doing so were the vistas opened by those
facts. These are so enormous, so utterly incalculable that my mind went
dizzy over these vast horizons. Consequently I mentally rejected the
facts as impossible. Somebody once slapped Edison's face because he felt
outraged by Edison's presenting a "talking machine." That's human
nature, I suppose. Small wonder then that my ratio felt outraged as it
was confronted with a machine that has a life and has a personality.
Come to think of it: Human imagination has always conceived of such
machines as a possibility, even a reality--in less rational times than
our's that is....
Think of Heron's steam engine; it even looked like a man and was thought
of as a magically living thing. Think of the Moloch gods which were
furnaces. Think of all those magic swords and shields and helmets which
were living things to their carriers. Think of the sailing ships;
machines they, too; but what a life, what a personality they had for the
crews aboard. Even in the last war pilots had their gremlins, their
machines to them were living things. All imagination, of course, but
then: everything we call a reality in this man-made world has its origin
in man's imagination, hasn't it?
Now, and to be exact as possible, what happened last night was this:
12:00. Entered station P. G. (pineal gland). Pulsemeter still at old
place, not taken out for repair work as I had feared. Main Power current
cut 12:20 as every night. Gus called to front room: rush of business as
usual at that hour.
12:30. Reestablished closest approximation to preexisting conditions
according to the most important of all experimental laws: "if some new
phenomenon occurs, change _nothing_ in the arrangement of apparatus
until you know what causes it." Plugged in from "nervusvagus" to "nervus
trigeminus." Result: wave oscillations, pulse beatings as of yesterday.
12:45. Plugged in P. G....
12:50. First manifestation of weird rasping sounds which precede speech
formation. This followed by The Brain's calling signal; much clearer
this time and slightly varied: "Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39; _sensitive_."
(Note: the synthetic quality, the metallic coldness of that voice so
incongruous with its emotional tones; it stands my hair on end.)
1 a.m.: (Approximately; things happen too fast). A veritable burst of
whispering, breathless communications. As a person would speak over the
phone when there are robbers in the house. The words fairly tumble over
one another. The Brain uses colloquial American but after the manner of
a foreigner who knows the phraseology only from books and feels
unnatural and awkward about using it. I understand only about one half:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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