Hal Clement - Answer

In consequence, the arrangement was practically identical with that which had caused the disturbance a fortnight earlier; and Wren felt slightly uneasy as Rudd shuttered the room lights and pressed the button activating the eye. Each run of the past half-dozen had taken slightly longer than its predecessor, since each represented all the previous work plus the new subject material: so no one was surprised at the two or three seconds of silence which followed the activation of the computer. Then the wavering green hairline on the screens of the status indicators steadied and straightened, and Rudd, at Vainser’s nod, desensitized the eye, opened the shutters, and removed the answer sheet from its frame.

With a slight bow, which looked rather ridiculous from a man who was hanging in midair rather than standing on his feet, he handed the month’s work to Wren and remarked, “There, my friend, is your brain. If you can make that machine, we’d be interested in a model. It would probably be a distinct improvement on this thing.” He waved a hand at the walls around them as he spoke.

“Brain?” queried Wren in some surprise. “I thought I had made the matter clearer than that. I have no reason to suppose that this diagram represents what goes on in the human mind. The study was to determine whether the mental processes we know of can be duplicated mechanically. It would seem that they can, and there is consequently no need to assume the existence of anything supernatural in the human personality. Of course, the existence of such a thing as the soul is by no means disproved; but it is now possible for psychology and spiritualism to avoid stepping on each other’s toes — and the spiritualists will have to find something besides the ‘Taute de mieux’ argument to defend their opinions.

As for making such a machine as is here indicated, I should hate to undertake the task. You may try it, if you wish; but some of the symbols in this diagram have evolved during the course of our work here to the meaning of rather complex chemical and mechanical operations, as I recall, and at a guess I should say you have several lifetimes of work ahead of you in such a task. Still, try it if you like. I must now attempt to understand this mass of lines and squiggles, in order to turn the whole study into publishable words. I thank you gentlemen more than I can say for the work you have done here. I trust you have found it of sufficient interest to provide at least a partial recompense for your efforts. I must go now to look this thing over.” With a farewell nod that already bore something of the abstraction in which the man would shortly be sunk, he left the room.

Vainser chuckled hoarsely as the psychologist disappeared. “They’re all that way,” he remarked.

“Get the work done for them, and they can think of nothing but what comes next. Well, it’s the right attitude, I guess. His work certainly gave us a lot of worthwhile hints.” He cast a sideways glance at his companion. “Do you plan to build that machine, Rudd?”

The other reactivated the eye, producing another copy of Wren’s solution from the data which still lay on the tables, and examined it closely. “Might,” he said at last. “It would certainly be worthwhile doing it; but I’m afraid our friend was right about the time required. Any of several dozen of these symbols would have to be expanded to represent a lot of research.” He tossed the sheet toward a nearby table, which it did not reach. “Let’s relax for a while. I’ll admit that was interesting work, but there are other things in life.” Vainser nodded agreement, and the technicians left the room together.

They saw almost nothing of Wren for the next several days. Once Rudd met him in the dining hall, where he replied absently to the big man’s greeting; once Vainser sent a messenger to the psychologist to ask if he planned to leave on the next supply rocket. The messenger reported that the answer had consisted of a single vague nod, which he had taken for assent; Wren had not lifted his eyes from the paper. Vainser had the data packed away in the original cases, ordered and packed the sheets which resulted from their investigations, and forbore to disturb Wren further. He knew better.

And then the rocket came. It glided gently up to the great sphere, nuzzled the outer screen softly, and came to rest as the grapples seized it. Vainser, notified of its arrival, sent a man to inform the psychologist, and forgot the matter. For perhaps three minutes.

The messenger must have returned in about that time, though his voice preceded him by some seconds. He was calling Vainser’s name, and there was no mistaking the alarm in his tones even before he burst through the doorway into the chief technician’s room.

“Sir,” he panted, “something’s wrong with Dr. Wren. He won’t pay any attention to me at all, and… I don’t know what it is!”

“I’ll go,” replied Vainser. “You bring the doctor to him. It might be some form of gravity sickness; he was a ground-gripper before he came here.”

“I don’t think so,” replied the man as he turned to carry out the order. “You look for yourself!”

Vainser lost no time in proceeding to Wren’s room; and once there, he felt himself compelled to agree that something other than gravity sickness was wrong. The doctor, entering a minute or two later, agreed, but he could offer no suggestion as to what might actually be the trouble.

Wren was hanging in midair, relaxed, with the answer sheet that had cost so much work held before his face as though he were reading. There was nothing wrong with his attitude; anyone passing the open door and giving a casual glance within would have assumed him to be engaged in ordinary study.

But he made no answer when his name was called; not a motion of the eyeballs betrayed awareness of anything around him but that piece of paper. The doctor worked it gently from his grasp; the fingers resisted slightly, and remained in the position in which they were left. The eyes never moved; the paper might still have been there before them.

The doctor turned him so that he was facing one of the lights directly, waved his hands in front of Wren’s face, snapped his fingers in front of the staring eyes, all without making the least impression on the psychologists’s trancelike state. At last, after administering a number of stimulants intravenously without effect, the medical man admitted defeat.

“You’d better wrap him in a suit and get him to Earth, the quicker the better,” he said. “There’s nothing more I can do for him here. I can’t even imagine what’s wrong with him.”

Vainser nodded slowly, and beckoned to the messenger and Rudd, who had come in during the examination. They took Wren’s arms and towed him out of the room toward the great airlock, Vainser and the doctor following. With some effort, his body was worked into a spacesuit; and the old technician watched with a slowly gathering frown on his forehead as the helpless figure disappeared toward the outside. The frown was still there when Rudd came back to meet him in his office.

For several minutes the two looked at each other silently. Each knew what the other was thinking, but neither wanted to give voice to his opinion. At last, however, Rudd broke the silence.

“It was a better job than we realized.” The other nodded.

“Trying to understand perfectly the workings of a brain — with a brain. We should have realized, especially after what happened a couple of weeks ago. Each thought image is a mechanical record in the brain tissue. How could a brain make a complete record of itself and its own operation? Even breaking the picture down into parts wouldn’t save a man like Wren; for, with the picture as nearly complete as he could make it, he’d think, What change is this very thought making in the pattern? and he’d try to include that in his mental picture; and then try to include the change due to that, and so on, thinking in smaller and smaller circles. He was conscious enough, I guess, so naturally the stimulants made no difference; and every usable cell of his brain was concentrated on that image, so none of the senses could possibly intrude. Well, he knows now how a brain works.”