He became frantic, his reactions were _too fast_! He rolled from end to middle of the board, now back-tracking, now spinning on his single wheel, turning uncertainly from one side to the other, jerking and gyrating. The conscious segment of him, remaining detached from those baser automatic functions, began to know what a man would have called fear--fear, simply, of not being able to do what must be done. The fear became an overpowering, blinding thing and he felt himself slipping, slipping back into that awful smothering blackness out of which he had so lately emerged. Perhaps, for just a fragment of a second, his awareness may have flickered completely out, consciousness nearly dying in the crushing embrace of that frustrated electronic subconscious. Abruptly, then, the voice came again, and he struggled to file for future reference sound patterns which, although meaningless to him, his selector circuits no longer disregarded. "Bert, M-75 can't manage half the board in his condition. Better put him on the repairs." "Yeah. Hadn't thought about that." Sokolski cleared his throat. "M-11 will return to standard function." M-11 spun back to the panel and M-75 felt the tension slacken, the fear vanish. Utter relief swept over him, and he let himself be submerged in purest automatic activity. But as he rested, letting his circuits cool and his organization return, he arrived at a deduction that was almost inescapable. M-11 was _that one_ in terms of sound. M-75 had made a momentous discovery which cast a new light on almost every bit of datum in his files: he had discovered symbols. "M-75!" came the voice, and he sensed within himself the slamming shut of circuits, the whir of tapes, the abrupt sensitizing of behavior strips. Another symbol, this time clearly himself. "You will proceed as follows." He swung from the board, and the tension was gone--completely. For one soaring moment, he was _all_ awareness--every function, every circuit, every element of his magnificent electronic physiology available for use by the fractional portion of him that had become something more than just a feedback device. In that instant he made what seemed hundreds of evaluations. He arrived at untold scores of conclusions. He altered circuits. Above all, he increased, manifold, the area of his consciousness. Then, as suddenly as it had come, he felt the freedom slip away, and though he struggled to keep hold of it, it seemed irretrievably gone. Once more the omnipotent voice clamped over him like a harsh hand over the mouth of a squalling babe. "You will go to Section AA-39 of the control board. What's the schedule, Joe? Thanks. M-75, your movement pattern is as follows: Z-29-a-q-39-8...."