Chapter III: Part 3

Earl turned away from the window. "George Ladd just brought my car back," he said. "I guess he isn't coming in. He's walking into the woods toward the tube entrance."

Nadine nodded casually.

Within his mental prison Earl worried. What had Ladd done? He wouldn't dare to kill Basil. The worst that could happen would be that Basil would be taken before the Cyberene and made him into a mind-slave too.

There were footsteps in the hall. The door opened. It was Dr. Glassman, his lips set in a grim line.

"Dr. Frye," Glassman said. "Basil came to me with a story of something going on he didn't like. He accused you and Dr. Holmes of some scheme to sabotage the Brain."

"That's utter nonsense," Earl heard himself say.

"Why, I can't understand--" Nadine began.

"I thought so too," Glassman said, "until I received a telephone call from the police just now. Basil and Irene were killed a few moments ago while on their way to try to get the Secret Service to listen to what I refused to hear."

"Oh," Nadine said without expression. Earl said nothing. He was too stunned to think.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," Glassman went on grimly. "You may both consider yourselves relieved of your duties until the Secret Service has investigated thoroughly. Save your explanations until I've called them."

Earl tried to warn Glassman. He forced his lips open to call to him--and a wave of searing throbbing pain lashed at him, forcing him back behind the gray fog.

Through the mental haze he saw George Ladd in the doorway, a thirty-eight Colt automatic in his hand--something Glassman would understand.

"Come with me, Dr. Glassman," Ladd said expressionlessly.

* * * * *

When Glassman returned an hour later, to all outward appearances he was unchanged, except that he made no mention of the deaths of Basil and Irene. Nor did he say anything about suspending Earl and Nadine.

From his own experience Earl knew that one part of Glassman was raging against his mental prison, perhaps feeling the sadistic torture with which the Cyberene kept him chained.

By a supreme effort Earl pulled himself away from thinking about what had happened. It multiplied his determination to free himself enough to defeat the Cyberene and destroy it. But raging impotently against the Brain's control wouldn't accomplish a thing.

Little by little he willed himself back to a frame of thought where he could reach out into his conscious mind again, matching his thoughts and moods with it. It had somehow "forgotten" much of what had happened to Basil and Irene and Glassman. It was thinking about Nadine.

Earl thought about her too. She loved him. She didn't know what love was, but it was there, revealed in the brief moment she had been free to express herself. Was that love now making her try to overthrow the slavery of the Cyberene? Probably not. She was conditioned to accept that inhuman intellect as her master.

Earl shoved the real Nadine from his thoughts and dwelt on the Nadine that was manifest. She was easy to love too--and why not? She was everything that the true Nadine was--except that she was not the _complete_ Nadine. She was falling in love with him too. And his own conscious mind was in love with her. Why not make the most of it?

He inserted the idea into his conscious thoughts, and to his delight no alarm bells rang. The Cyberene didn't interfere.

"Let's go to a dance tonight after work," he said.

"A dance? I don't know how to dance."

"I'll teach you. It isn't hard to pick up."

"All right," Nadine said.

Earl worked hard the rest of the day. Tank trucks were bringing the nerve fluid to the Dome in a never ending stream. Every load had to be tested before it was unloaded into the storage tanks, to make sure its quality was up to standard. One five thousand gallon load could contaminate it all.

At six o'clock he was relieved of his work. He dressed eagerly, finding no difficulty in _meshing_ one hundred per cent with the desires of his conscious mind. He picked up Nadine at her hotel.

Crestmont boasted only two places worth going. One was just a dance floor, the other The Barn, with a small orchestra and dinners.

"The orchestra isn't as good here at The Barn," Earl said when they went in, "but we can have a table and enjoy ourselves."

They ordered their dinner. The orchestra started playing and soon the floor was fairly crowded. Earl took Nadine's hand and led her to the dance floor. After a few steps she discovered that she could dance quite easily. It delighted her.

They returned to their table finally, and ate. Afterward they danced again. Two of the other scientists were there with their partners. They nodded at Earl and Nadine but didn't join them.

During all this, Earl was careful not to insert any feeling, any impulse of his own into his conscious mind. What he intended to do must come as a surprise to both Nadine and the Cyberene, and afterwards they must think it to be the product of that conscious mind--not Earl himself.

His opportunity arose naturally. While they were dancing he spoke to her. She lifted her face to smile at him. Swiftly he kissed her, letting his lips linger until the throbbing and an angriness beat into him and a power outside himself pulled him back.

He retreated in his mind, afraid even to think, lest the Cyberene sense his thoughts and realize what he had been trying.

"Why did you do that?" he heard Nadine say from a great distance, through waves of torture.

His own voice replied, "That was a kiss."

"How disgusting," Nadine said.

Had she meant that? Or were those just words put in her mouth by the Cyberene.

"It's one of our customs," Earl's voice said. "Watch the others on the dance floor. Quick! See that couple over at the corner table?"

Earl crept cautiously into his conscious mind to watch Nadine. She studied the couple, puzzled. She looked up into his face thoughtfully and began dancing again. "Maybe," she said, "it won't seem so disgusting if we try it again."

Her lips parted. Earl felt his head bend toward her. He felt the kiss, but held himself cautiously alert for the first sign of disapproval from the Cyberene. It didn't come.

The moment passed. Earl began to relax. Had the Cyberene assumed it was a natural action of his conscious mind divorced from him? If so, then a major hurdle had been met successfully.

"It is rather pleasant," Nadine said. Then, thoughtfully, "So that's a kiss."

Earl looked at her sharply. Was it possible that the real Nadine had caused those words to be spoken? Maybe. It provided a new avenue of speculation. Had Nadine long ago discovered what he was so patiently trying now--how to circumvent the control of the Cyberene? She could have, but not seeing any reason to do so, kept her talent hidden.

* * * * *

Two more days passed. Earl forgot his caution and boldly cooperated with his conscious mind on the many tasks that took up his time. And strangely he was almost free of pain, though it never entirely left.

Dr. Glassman took all the scientists with him on a tour of inspection within the Brain. The millions of fine glass tubes and hollow bulbs that comprised the Brain would soon start being filled with nerve fluid. Although tons of pressure per square inch were required to force it into the tubes, once there, capillary attraction pulled it along.

On the first trip Earl retreated from his conscious mind as much as possible, while still watching everything around him closely. He had been inside the Brain many times before--but never with any thought of discovering a weakness where it could be destroyed.

That was the task he had set himself. It was an almost impossible one. Destroying the Brain now, in 1980, might not accomplish his purpose. The damage could be repaired.

He thought of dynamite and rejected it. It would deteriorate long before 3042, and even if it remained potent, it would do no more than damage a small part of the Brain--not enough to more than partially impair its thinking or give it a case of specialized forgetfulness. A dynamite explosion in such an enormous brain would be equivalent to a blood clot on a human brain.

Nothing better presented itself to him on that first trip. Was he going to fail?

The next day pumping of the nerve fluid began. The masses of hair-fine glass tubing lost their appearance of glass wool and began to appear as individual threads of yellowish orange.

It would be many days before the "loading", as it was termed, would be completed, but everyone was kept busy watching it, and catching broken threads as they started to ooze fluid, sealing them with a special formula sealer.

During these days a dozen plans to destroy the Brain occurred to Earl. Each had its defects that would make it fail. As the "loading" neared its last day, only one possibility remained.

Great precautions had been taken to make the Brain free from vibration. The slightest sound of almost any frequency, if continued long enough, would find a nerve strand that would vibrate to it and snap.

A loudspeaker broadcasting at full power over the entire range of sound would be more devastating to the Brain than a ton of dynamite exploded in its heart. There was the answer--Vibration!

But once again there was the problem of installing it, and being able to use it after a thousand years. Install it and use a clock to trigger it? That was one possibility. Clocks run by atomic power would keep accurate time over much longer periods.

_But there was the problem of getting the Cyberene to agree to the installation of such a device._ That was necessary. During the days that Earl had studied the Cyberene's control of his conscious mind he had found no way to gain any sort of positive control which the Cyberene couldn't shunt out at once. Therefore whatever plan he devised must meet with the approval of the Cyberene.

Tentatively he inserted a bold thought, feeling sure that the Cyberene wouldn't attribute it to him, but merely to the logical processes of his conscious mind.

_What if the Brain doesn't develop along lines sympathetic to you?_ He elaborated upon it, feeding worry thoughts along with it. A second Brain might not follow the line of development of the first, any more than one human develops like another, even when they are twins. Rather than accomplishing his aim of having a second Cyberene on the other Earth in 3042, holding the human population in slavery, it might prove a more formidable enemy than the people of that Earth. And if that turned out to be the case, wouldn't it be better to have a trump card? Some way of destroying the second Cyberene at any time? Even if it were friendly to the first, it might want to be boss. Power of life and death over it would prevent that.

Earl's conscious mind, entirely cooperative with the Cyberene, soon began to think very dominantly along those lines. Earl sat back and waited for some reaction from the Cyberene. It was not long in coming.

At five o'clock Nadine looked him up and informed him that they were to report to the Cyberene at once.

* * * * *

"I have detected certain thoughts in your mind," the voice of the Cyberene sounded. "I would like to hear what you have to say."

Earl sensed his mind rallying its thoughts. "I've been wondering what the other Cyberene would be like. That's all. There's no guarantee that it will have any special traits that will make it what you want it to be, and once it's started it's out of your control, isn't it?"

"That's true. Time travel and even fifth dimension travel is extremely limited. Once the other Cyberene is generated, I can't contact it until 3042--now."

"Can you look into your future and see--"

"Unfortunately, no. I can't even see into your tomorrow. I might, perhaps, jump to the year 4104 A. D., but even that is beyond my present ability and instruments. It may be many centuries before I understand everything about hyperspace."

"That's what I surmised," Earl heard himself say. He stole a glance at Nadine, who was watching him attentively. "That's why I think, for your own protection, you should be able to destroy the other Cyberene instantly--if it isn't what you hope it will be."

"How?" The Cyberene's voice was vibrant with eagerness.

"The basic device would be sound vibrations in the air, inside its braincase. A loud continuous sound of nearly all frequencies would cause billions of nerve strands to vibrate, and enough of them would break to destroy the functioning of the whole. That could be built into it in 1980. The problem is to decide how to trigger it. Do you have any ideas?"

"It's very simple," the Cyberene said. "It will never forget once it learns something. Before its mind integrates into a self aware ego, attach a relay to some motor outlets. Decide on some key combination of sounds that might be spoken. Repeat them into the auditory centers of the Brain, at the same time tripping the relay. Keep doing that until utterance of the sequence of sounds causes the relay to trip. When that response is automatic, connect the relay to the loudspeaker. Once you have done that, report to me. Then all I need do is contact the second Cyberene, in this age, and if I want to destroy it I can repeat the sounds."

Earl, in his mental cubicle, chuckled. He could not have thought of a better way himself.

"And," the Cyberene said, "in order to account for your task, you had better 'sell' Glassman on the idea. Tell him it's so that _mankind_ can destroy the Brain if necessary. But make sure no one in 1980 knows the key sounds. You may return to 1980."

* * * * *

"I've had much the same thought," Victor Glassman said, chewing on his lip. "I rather hated to think about it though. Destroy my Creation? Still, I suppose it's wise--to be _able_ to." He stood up and came around from behind his desk.

Earl and Nadine watched without speaking as he clasped his hands behind his back and went to the window of his office which brought him a view of part of the giant dome housing the Brain.

"Every precaution is being taken otherwise. Until we can be sure of ourselves we don't intend on letting the Brain have control of any machines or weapons. Of course we could forget that danger, in time, and suddenly wake up to the fact that we were too late. Then it would be nice to still be able to.... All right. Go ahead. Keep it under your hats though. And when you're done we can form a select group, handing the--" he smiled wryly,--"password down from generation to generation."

"I have the plans all drawn up," Earl said. "An electrostatic speaker, because it can be built with parts that will last forever. No moving parts in the frequency generator or amplifier. Leads to the permanent busses that will supply current for such things as video eyes and the voice speaker system...."

"Good. Good. Only we will indoctrinate that Mind early so that it will never do anything detrimental to us."

"Of course," Earl soothed. "This is only precautionary."

* * * * *

Days followed one another swiftly. A factory-made electrostatic loudspeaker arrived, and was dismantled so that some of its parts could be replaced with more durable ones. Specifications for the frequency generators and the amplifier were farmed out, and the completed units arrived.

There was trouble with the relay. It was well designed, but there was doubt whether it would still be in working condition after ten centuries. Earl sent specifications to a jewelry manufacturer in Kansas City and had its moving parts made of synthetic ruby and platinum.

The Cyberene _watched_ every step of construction--and so did Earl, from within his artificially created mental wall, careful not to reveal the huge holes he had knocked in it.

With the arrival of the remade relay, Earl and Nadine entered the Brain, setting up a vibration-proof chasis in its innermost heart where the maze of fine spun glass was now a maze of yellowish threads containing a fluid with exactly the same properties as human nerve fluid.

Outside, swarming over the catwalks and dotting the immense corridor circling the Brain, were dozens of technicians and experts, beginning the task of barraging the gigantic man-made brain with a never ending sequence of visual and audible sensory impressions which, according to theory, would eventually synthesize that miracle of creation loosely known as thought in the thousands of tons of glass and nerve fluid.

Using a portable low power microscope and the techniques he had acquired during the months of work on the Brain in its construction, Earl attached motor buds to randomly chosen nerves, and sensory buds to others, attaching them to the transistors that would feed the relay, so that the action of the relay would set up nerve impulses in the Brain. When it had been done, he used sensitive detectors to make sure ion currents were generated in the nerves.

Where those nerve impulses went to among the billions of "brain cells" didn't matter. All that mattered was that they went _somewhere_, so that the basic property of association would "hook them on" to the auditory impression created by speaking the code word or sequence of code sounds.

"What should we use as the code sounds?" Nadine asked as their task neared completion.

"I've been trying to think of something," Earl said.

And in his mental prison Earl had been trying to think of the same thing, keeping track of his conscious mind's thoughts on the subject--even influencing them at times.

It would have to be a sequence of sounds that stood no chance whatever of being spoken to the Brain during the next thousand years. Otherwise they might be spoken by chance and the Brain destroyed.

"How about nonsense syllables?" Nadine suggested.

Earl grinned. "Those are the most dangerous of all. Take Y.M.C.A. It's the initials of a huge organization. Any nonsense sequence of letters, no matter how long, might someday be the letters of some organization."

Nadine frowned in bewilderment. "But what else is there? If we take any sequence of sensible words, they might be repeated in reference to something else at any time."

"Not if they're _very_ special," Earl said, and it was the real Earl Frye, almost completely out of his mental walls and daring discovery recklessly, who was speaking now.

An impish light glowed in Nadine's eyes, making Earl almost sure that the real Nadine had sensed long ago what he was doing and had done the same, _meshing_ cautiously with her conscious mind until at times, camouflaged by its normal thoughts, she could _appear_.

"Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said, lifting her face toward his.

"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he said, cupping her face in his hands and pressing his lips to hers. "And that's what I mean," he murmured through imprisoned lips. "No one else, through all the ages, will say those words, let alone say them in the same way."

She drew back. "No!" she said abruptly. "The Cyberene has promised that we can stay in your time, free to do as we please. That would mean that we would have to be in the future--in _my_ time."

"But only until the Cyberene could make sure," Earl said, glad that she had made that objection. It would allay the Cyberene's suspicions if it had any.

A telepathed thought impinged on Earl's mind, and from Nadine's expression, on hers too. _Earl is right. I have thought of the problem of what the key sound should be. He has hit on the right answer. It must be your voices, filled with emotion, speaking those words you just spoke._

Again Earl relaxed with a mental sigh of relief. He had reached his goal. There was nothing more for him to do now, except wait. His conscious mind would carry on the details under the supervision of the Cyberene.

* * * * *

A microphone was brought into the Brain, already attached to the auditory centers of the Brain. Earl examined the microphone, then went in search of another type. "We must have one with a contact button on it," he explained, "so that just the key words impinge on the Brain when we close the relay manually."

At last everything was ready. "Now!" Earl said.

Nadine lifted her face and closed her eyes. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said.

Earl released the button. "That isn't the way," he said. "Imagine we are alone in the universe, and we are about to die. Imagine swirling mists about to envelope you and drag you away from me forever, and this is the last kiss you'll ever get!"

"Oh, no!" Nadine whispered, opening her eyes wide. "That must never happen! The Cyberene has promised!"

"Close your eyes and imagine it is," Earl said. "Close your eyes. Now--there are swirling mists. Your world of dreams has crashed around you. Ahead is--destruction. You can't escape it. It's coming, closer. You're going to die, but before you do you want--"

"Kiss me, Earl Frye," Nadine said.

"That's it. Say it again." Earl pressed the mike button.

"Kiss me, Earl Frye...."

Earl closed his eyes. It was the end. In another moment he would die. He had failed. He held this in his mind's eye. With a mixture of sadness and tenderness, and bitterness, he said, "The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," and tripped the relay with his fingers.

Would it work? After the hundredth try he began to wonder. But the repeated words with their inflections, their subtle differences in repetition, had to build up in the Brain, synthesize, associate with the sensation of the tripping of the relay--and _connect_. There was as yet no _mind_ functioning in that mass of glass and nerve fluid. No ready made paths to coordinated concepts, conscious thought.

It was the next day before his fingers felt the relay trip of its own accord. _Drama_, he thought, feeling the thrill of that sentient movement. He said nothing to Nadine, not wanting to end their game. And the next time the relay didn't trip. And the next. But the next time it did, and the next and the next....

* * * * *

"You're done?" Dr. Glassman said, rubbing his hands in great satisfaction. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "What is the code word?"

Earl winked at Nadine, then looked around in a pretense at making sure no one could hear. "We picked L.S.M.F.T.," he whispered. "I figured that since a cigarette company had used that in its advertising years ago, it would never be used again by anybody."

"Excellent!" Glassman beamed. "Excellent! To think that by uttering those five letters this entire project, representing millions of dollars--before it's a completely integrated Mind--can be _shattered_." He looked around him, exuding a sense of his newly acquired power.

"And," Earl said ruefully, "I guess that winds up everything for me in Project Brain, doesn't it? I hope so. I could use a vacation."

Dr. Glassman looked slyly from Earl to Nadine. "Are congratulations in order?"

Earl bent swiftly and whispered in Glassman's ear, "I haven't asked her yet. I wanted to wait until our work was over. You know, business before pleasure."

"Ha ha!" Glassman chuckled knowingly, looking at Nadine with an I-know-a-secret look. "You're a man after my own heart, Earl." Then, more soberly, "Yes, I guess you are due for a vacation. And your consultant duties are finished, Dr. Holmes. I'll miss both of you."

Earl and Nadine left Glassman outside the Brain, and returned to the lab annex. They didn't speak as they walked down the hall to Earl's lab. They stood just inside the door, looking over the scene of machines and instruments and tables and bottles which had been their surroundings for so long.

Earl looked at the lab table where he had first seen Nadine, so many days--it seemed ages--ago. He would never see this place again. He entertained no illusions about the future. The Cyberene would never permit them to return to 1980.

With heavy feet he went across the lab to his living quarters. He began packing, and Nadine sat on the arm of a chair, watching.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Packing my belongings to take with us," Earl said.

"Oh, but you don't need to do that. We'll be back in a few hours--a day or two at the most. The Cyberene has promised. Just as soon as it makes sure it doesn't need us."

"Sure," Earl said, "but I'll take them just the same. Then when we come back we can go straight to the airport and catch a plane to Miami or someplace and get married."

Fifteen minutes later they left the lab. They walked along the familiar sidewalk to the spot where they always cut through the woods toward the hill, circling it so no one would know where they had gone.

They reached the clearing. Ahead, shimmering in the evening sun, was the familiar refractive outline in the atmosphere. There was no breeze to stir the still leaves. A meadowlark broke the silence with its call, and was silent. Over the trees the giant dome that housed the Brain loomed, unbelievable in its enormous bulk.

Nadine took his hand and stopped him. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said, her lips trembling.

Earl looked down at her upturned face. Did she know? Perhaps the real Nadine, within, sensed what was to come.

Or perhaps she didn't.

The tom tom beat of pain began within him. He forced his way through it, taking her into his arms.

"The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes," he murmured.

Their lips met, tenderly, then crushed together with the fierceness of passion.

Their lips parted, lingeringly, regretfully. They drew back, to look into each other's eyes for a brief moment, a moment Earl knew the Cyberene had given them to make more bitter what was to come.

Earl saw the glow fade from Nadine's eyes. As he picked up his suitcases he heard someone approaching.

Victor Glassman joined them, his face gray, his expression wooden.

This was it. Glassman might be missed. There might be an investigation, but Project Brain would go on regardless of that now. And the only ones who might stop it were here.

Side by side they walked toward the barely perceptible refractive shimmer. Beyond it they could see the woodland, a Bluejay's flashing wings, a chipmunk standing upright, observing them. And then they were standing in the familiar hall, in the year 3042.

George Ladd was not there, but there was no need for him to be there. Their bodies, controlled by the Mind that enslaved them, walked on toward the far exit and the garden they would cross--to the Dome, the Cyberene.

* * * * *

There was no turning back now. Nor would there be other days to perfect the technique of _meshing_ with his mind. Earl reached out into every part of his thoughts, thinking them, identifying himself with them, with the desires of the Cyberene. In that other Earth so close to this there would now be a second Cyberene. There must be, since nothing stood in the way of its developing throughout the ten centuries and more since they had left it, a few minutes ago.

They entered the garden and paused. Earl dropped his two suitcases beside the path. He took Nadine's hand in his. They went on toward the portal that led into the Dome.

They walked down the silent circling corridor under the network of catwalks and ladders, past panels of instruments whose needles fluctuated with life, to the red squares over which hung the glass cages, ready to be lowered. Would they be lowered, separating them from each other while they faced the Cyberene?

The glittering lenses of the two video cameras moved as they went toward them, keeping them in line.

"All of you occupy one square," the Cyberene's voice instructed.

They obeyed without sign of emotion. The glass cage was lowered over them. Its front wall became a window through which they were looking at the familiar Dome.

But it was a structure around which weeds grew in thick profusion, with its acres of exposed surface pitted by time, untended.

"What happened?" Earl said. "Do you mean to say that there is still something to be done?"

"There is nothing to be done," the Cyberene said dully. "I have checked in that other time stream. There is still positive record that the Brain was not activated."

"Maybe it takes time for the momentum of events to force the change," Earl suggested.

Didn't the Cyberene suspect yet? Didn't it _realize_?

"No," the Cyberene said dully. "I have failed. More, I have re-checked the mathematical basis of the theoretical picture, and think I know where I erred. The cause of the split that created two Earths, travelling close together down through so many centuries, could not have been something occurring in the original time stream. It took something applied from the fifth dimension--and in the neighborhood of the split that could only have been one thing, _the force with which the time tube hooked onto 1980_. It had to be that. The accident. I didn't take it into account."

"That's what I've thought all along," Earl said quietly.

"At that instant," the Cyberene went on as though it hadn't heard him, "the split occurred. You became two Earl Fryes, to mention one facet of the split. One of you went its way, making an accurate report of its experiments, creating me eventually--"

While the Cyberene talked, the desolate scene vanished, and the glass cage lifted upward slowly, as though it were a curtain, lifting for the final scene.

The twin lenses of the Cyberene's video eyes were fixed on them, alive with an intelligence that was inhuman.

"No," Earl said. "_That_ one of me discovered the identity of the nerve substance, but suppressed it."

"That couldn't be," the Cyberene objected. "Nothing appeared in its life to cause it to do that. You were the one who had the data to make such a decision."

"But I reported accurately," Earl said. _Even yet it didn't see!_

"I know," the Cyberene said, "but it can't be, because then that electrostatic speaker would be--" It stopped.

"Deep inside of you," Earl continued. "Waiting only for--"

* * * * *

A wave of emotion blasted into his mind, driving him by its very force into the deep recesses behind his wall of gray, into a cosmos of mind wrenching pain.

"No!" the thought blasted into him. "No human can have the power to destroy me! It can't exist. _You_ can't exist another instant, with the danger to me!"

In agony Earl reached out, meshing little by little with his conscious mind, _feeling_ its terror and fear of death, calming it, controlling it with all the infinite skill he had learned during the past weeks.

And even as he gained control against the will of the Cyberene he realized with a sinking feeling the essential weakness of his plan. Nadine!

He had been criminally stupid, blinded by emotion toward her. She was conditioned from birth to accept the domination of the mind of the Cyberene.

Sweating with the terrible effort it took to hold on, he forced his muscles to permit him to turn toward her. His worst fears were realized. She stood there, her face a calm mask that revealed no emotion.

Abruptly the raging force of thought and searing torture from the Cyberene calmed. In its place was cold triumph.

"So you have been able to defeat me in your own mind," it said. "You made _your_ error in calculation too. Nadine Holmes. She is mine."

"Nadine Holmes?" It was Nadine who uttered the two words, her lips trembling with terrible effort, beads of sweat dotting her smooth forehead.

Hope surged into Earl's thoughts. "But you can't allow her to live either, can you?" he said. "In another moment you must destroy us both, so that nothing can ever threaten your existence. We will have only another minute or two before you reach into us, plunging us into the gray swirling mists of death, where we will be separated forever. _There is no way we can avoid that now, is there?_"

Nadine had turned toward Earl, every muscle of her slim body protesting under the domination of the Cyberene. Earl was forgotten by the Brain as it concentrated on the battle against Nadine.

She held out her arms, perspiring with the effort. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she whispered.

A blast of fear flowed into Earl's mind. He fought to the surface of thought, clinging there, calming himself. But defeat was close--impossible to avoid.

It had been a wonderful plan to destroy this thing that ruled the minds of men, making them its slaves. Resistance was useless. In another moment he would be dead.

Bitterly, hopelessly, with infinite sadness, he said, as though somewhere long ago he had repeated it before, a tender ritual whose meaning now escaped him, "The pleasure is all mine, Nadine Holmes."

Their lips met with the tenderness of farewell.

* * * * *

A _sound_ came into being, seeming to come from far away, yet seeming to exist everywhere, with no point of origin. It was at the same time a deep rumble and an insane, high screaming--and every sound in between that had ever been uttered by voice or machine or unleashed elements in desolate places. It was soulless, yet holding within itself the torment of every lost soul since the beginning of time.

It forced its way into Earl's consciousness, hung there as though stopped by some hidden barrier. Abruptly it swept forward, and as it swept into the farthest reaches of Earl's mind it washed away throbbing pain, the sense of inescapable doom, leaving _a sense of freedom_--a clean freshness, an emotion of peace.

A rapid coruscation of words, syllables, and sounds whispered and blasted from the voice box of the Cyberene as neural circuits within the Brain snapped or short-circuited.

Earl and Nadine lifted their heads in startled surprise and a new awakening. They saw the glittering lens eyes that had been watching them jerk spasmodically. Within the lens of one electronic eye a flash of blue fire exploded. Then both eyes became motionless, dead, pointed in different directions.

Overhead, giant blinding bolts of unleashed current leaped from copper bars to catwalks. The smell of molten and burning metal filled the air. Then, as though cut off by some hidden hand, the unholy sound within the Brain stopped. The arcing surges of electric power in the catwalks and power lines overhead stilled.

There was silence, and motionless clouds of white and gray smoke.

It took a moment for Earl to realize that in defeat he had won. It took another moment for him to realize that it was not he who had won, but Nadine--her love for him--a love that had grown in a girl who had never known that love existed.

There was no doubt of it now as he watched the play of expression that crossed her face. Fear, doubt, hope, desperate hope, living hope, love, fear, then all the love that had developed within her, shining from her face with the spiritual brilliance of a brilliant sun.

"Earl!" It was a glad cry. She clung to him as though she would never let him go.

For that matter, she would never need to, he thought, as he drew her closer. They would need each other for the rest of their lives. Or for a dozen lifetimes if they could have that many.

"My God!" The words exploded into their minds. They had been uttered by Dr. Glassman, and they contained all the horror, the comprehension of everything that had happened, that the mind-enslavement had given to him.

"It's over now," Earl said. "The Cyberene is dead."

Glassman shook his head vigorously. "It should never have existed in the first place," he said. "All my dreams of what it could do to help humanity. We've got to destroy the Brain in 1980, before any of this can happen."

Earl shook his head, looking at Nadine. "Nadine and I are staying here," he said quietly. "There's work to do that only we can do. People, their minds freed for the first time, bewildered, needing to be led a little ways into the path of freedom until they can care for themselves. A future to build--from 3042."

"You can stay if you must," Glassman said, his voice vibrant with the shock and horror of what he had experienced, "but I'm going back--to prevent this 3042 from ever happening. I can do it. I can trip that relay manually. It will destroy--" His voice broke. "--my life's work. But it has to be done."

He turned and ran blindly.

* * * * *

Earl made no move to stop him. He watched him vanish around the bend of the corridor, waiting fatalistically. Would the scientist be able to wipe out this time stream? Deep within him, Earl felt it couldn't be done. The Cyberene had tried to change the past, and failed.

Perhaps the Cyberene had been wrong in what it believed had caused the split in time that produced two Earths. Maybe one part of Glassman would be unable to bring itself to destroy its Creation, the Brain. Maybe that's what had happened. Maybe Glassman, torn between two opposed decisions, had been able to act on neither.

Earl put his arm around Nadine. They walked slowly along the curving corridor, circling the dead Brain, going toward the outside. They would have work to do. Work that only they, the coalition of 1980 and 3042 could accomplish together.

There were people here in this world of 3042. How many or how few didn't matter. They were the nucleus, the beginnings of a future that would grow from 3042. They were the not-born, created in the laboratory. They would have to be taught about life. And love.

And other things that free men know.