be altogether too big and too complicated to be controlled manually, and thought-human
thought, at least-is on one band of the sixth order. Therefore the logical thing to do is to
build an artificial brain capable of thinking on all bands of the order instead of only one, to
handle the whole projector. See?”
“No,” declared Dorothy promptly, “but maybe I will, though, when I see it work. What’s
next on the program?”
“Well, it’s going to be quite a job to build that brain and we’d better be getting at it, since
without it there’ll be no Skylark Four . . .”
“Dick, I object!” Dorothy protested vigorously. “Me Skylark of Space was a nice name . .
.”
“Sure, you’d think so, since you named her yourself,” interrupted Seaton in turn, with his
disarming grin.
“Keep still a minute, Dickie, and let me finish. Skylark Two was pretty bad, but I stood it;
and by gritting my teeth all out of shape, I did manage to keep from squawking about
Skylark Three, but I certainly am not going to stand for Skylark Four. Why, just think of
giving a name like that to such a wonderful thing as she is going to be-as different as can
be from anything that has ever been dreamed of before-just as though she were going to
be simply one more of a long series of cup-challenging motor boats or something! Why,
it’s-it’s just too perfectly idiotic for words!”
“But she’s got to be some kind of a Skylark. Dot-you know that.”
“Yes, but give her a name that means something-that sounds like something. Name her
after this planet, say skylark of Valeron-how’s that?”
“O. K. by me. How about it, Peg? Mart?”
The Cranes agreed to the suggestion with enthusiasm and Seaton went on:
“Well, an onion by any other name would smell as sweet, you know, and it’s going to be
just as much of a job to build the Skylark of Valeron as it would have been to build
Skylark Four. Therefore, as I have said before and am about to say again, we’d better
get at it.”
The fifth-order projector was moved to the edge of the city, since nowhere within its
limits was there room for the structure to be built, and the two men seated themselves at
its twin consoles and their hands flew over its massed banks of keyboards. For a few
minutes nothing happened; then on the vast, level plain before them-a plain which had
been a lake of fluid lava a few weeks before-there sprang into being an immense
foundation-structure of trussed and latticed girder frames of inoson, the hardest,
strongest, and toughest form of matter possible to molecular structure. One square mile
of ground it covered and it was strong enough, apparently, to support a world.
When the foundation was finished, Seaton left the framework to Crane, while he devoted
himself to filling the interstices and compartments as fast as they were formed. He first
built one tiny structure of coils, fields, and lenses of force-one cell of the gigantic
mechanical brain which was to be. He then made others, slightly different in tune, and
others, and others.
He then set forces to duplicating these cells, forces which automatically increased in
number until they were making and setting five hundred thousand cells per second, all
that his connecting forces could handle. And everywhere, it seemed, there were
projectors, fields of force, receptors and converters of cosmic energy, zones of force,
and many various shaped lenses and geometric figures of neutronium incased in sheaths
of faidon.
From each cell led tiny insulated wires, so fine as to be almost invisible, to the “nerve
centers” and to one of the millions of projectors. From these in turn ran other wires,
joining together to form larger and larger strands until finally several hundred enormous
cables, each larger than a man’s body, reached and merged into an enormous, glittering,
hemispherical, mechano-electrical inner brain.
For forty long Valeronian days-more than a thousand of our Earthly hours-the work went
on ceaselessly, day and night. Then it ceased of itself and there dangled from the center
of the glowing, gleaming hemisphere a something which is only very vaguely described
by calling it either a heavily wired h•=!met or an incredibly complex headset. It was to be
placed over Seaton’s head, it is true-it was a headset, but one raised to the millionth
power.
It was the energizer and controller of the inner brain, which was in turn the activating
agency of that entire cubic mile of as yet inert substance, that assemblage of thousands
of billions of cells, so soon to become the most stupendous force ever to be conceived
by the mind of man.
When that headset appeared Seaton donned it and sat motionless. For hour after hour
he sat there, his eyes closed, his face white and strained, his entire body eloquent of a
concentration so intense as to be a veritable trance. At the end of four hours Dorothy
came up resolutely, but Crane waved her back.
“This is far and away the most crucial point of the work, Dorothy,” he cautioned her
gravely. “While I do not think that anything short of physical violence could distract his
attention now, it is best not to run any risk of disturbing him. An interruption now would
mean that everything would have to be done over again from the beginning.”
Something over an hour later Seaton opened his eyes, stretched prodigiously, and got
up. He was white and trembling, but tremendously relieved and triumphant.
“Why, Dick, what have you been doing? You look like a ghost!” Dorothy was now an all
solicitous wife.
“I’ve been thinking, Rufus, and if you don’t believe that it’s hard work you’d better try it
some time! I won’t have to do it any more though-got a machine to do my thinking for me
now.”
“Oh, is it all done?”
“Nowhere near, but it’s far enough along so that it can finish itself. I’ve just been telling it
what to do.”
“Telling it! Why, you talk as though it were human!”
“Human? It’s a lot more than that. It can out think and outperform even those pure
intellectuals-`and that,’ as the poet feelingly remarked, ‘is going some’! And if you think
that riding in that fifth-order projector was a thrill, wait until you see what this one can do.
Think of it” even the mind that had conceived the thing was awed=`it is an extension of
my own brain, using waves that traverse even intergalactic distances practically
instantaneously. With it I can see anything I want to look at, anywhere; can hear anything
I want to hear. It can build, make, do, or perform anything that my brain can think of.”
“That is all true, of course,” Crane said slowly, his sober mien dampening Dorothy’s
ardor instantly, “but still-I can not help wondering . . .” He gazed at Seaton thoughtfully.
“I know it, Mart, and I’m working up my speed as fast as I possibly can,” Seaton
answered the unspoken thought, rather than the words. “But let them come-we’ll take
’em. I’ll have everything on the trips, ready to spring.”
“What are you two talking about?” Dorothy demanded.
“Mart pointed out to me the regrettable fact that my mental processes are in the same
class as the proverbial molasses in January, or as a troop of old and decrepit snails
racing across a lawn. I agreed with him, but added that I would have my thoughts all
thunk up ahead of time when the pure intellectuals tackle us which they certainly will.”
“Slow!” she exclaimed. “When you planned the whole Skylark of Valeron and nobody
knows what else, in five hours?”
“Yes, dear heart, slow. Remember when we first met our dear departed friend Eight,
back in the original Skylark? You saw him materialize exact duplicates of each of our
bodies, clear down to the molecular structures of our chemistry, in less than one second,
from a cold, standing start. Compared to that job, the one I have just done is elementary.
It took me over five hours-he could have done it in nothing flat.
“However, don’t let it bother you too much. I’ll never be able to equal their speed, since
I’ll not live enough millions of years to get the required practice, but our being material
gives us big advantages in other respects that Mart isn’t mentioning because, as usual,
he is primarily concerned with our weaknesses-yes? No?”
“Yes; I will concede that being material does yield advantages which may perhaps make
up for our slower rate of thinking,” Crane conceded.
“Hear that? If he admits that much, you know that we’re as good as in, right now,”
Seaton declared. “Well, while our new brain is finishing itself up, we might as well go
back to the hall and chase the Chlorans back where they belong-the Brain worked out
the equations for me this morning.”