Lee felt a wave of red anger; it rose into his cheeks because he saw the sparks of frank amus.e.m.e.nt dancing in Oona Dahlborg"s eyes. He opened his mouth to some bitter remark about this hoax when Scriven put a restraining hand upon his arm.
"This is no joke, Lee. I have planned The Brain, have in part designed it, seen it under construction for the past ten years, managed its affairs--but I don"t know where it is and that"s a fact."
He led his speechless guest to a lookout on the west side of the room.
Beyond the lush, green oasis of Cephalon the desert stretched unbroken till on the far horizon the mountains of the High Sierra rose in a blue haze of scorching sun. His hand moved sweepingly from north to south.
"Over there," he said, "somewhere inside those mountains; that"s where it is. But its location? Your guess is as good as mine. Take your choice of any of the mountains, attach a name to it; I"ve done so myself. One of them must be "The Cranium", but the question remains: which? There are people who know, of course; military intelligence, the general staff; but that," he shrugged his shoulders, "... isn"t my department."
CHAPTER III
The Brain Trust car which took Lee out of Cephalon was a normal-looking limousine, a rear-engined teardrop like all the "60" models, slotted for the insertion of wings which most of the garages now kept in stock and rented at a small charge for cross-country hops. The only non-standard feature seemed to be the polaroid gla.s.s windows which were provided all around and not only in front.
"That"s a good idea," Lee said adjusting the nearest ones, "they ought to have that on every car, all-round protection to the eyes."
"Think so, sir? Must be the first time you"re driving out there," the young chauffeur said.
The car left the outskirts and the desert started to fly by as the speedometer needle climbed above the 100 mark. Lee sank back into his seat; the desert had no novelty for him and since the chauffer appeared not inclined to small talk he abandoned himself to thought.
His visit to his father had not been much of a success....
_Time_ magazine had carried an item in its personal column, briefly stating that General Jefferson E. Lee, "the Old Lion of Guadalca.n.a.l,"
had retired from the Marines to Phoenix, Ariz.... Phoenix, the hotel desk had informed him, was only some 300 miles away and there was hourly service by Greyhound helicopter-bus.
So he had taken the ride, a taxi had brought him to the small neat bungalow, and there he had seen his father for the first time in years.
It had been very strange to see him aged, the nut brown face a little shrunk. He had antic.i.p.ated that much. But somehow he had failed to imagine the most obvious change; to see his father in civvies and even less to see him tr.i.m.m.i.n.g roses with a pair of garden shears. It looked such an incongruous picture for a "Marines" Marine."
As he had come up the little path his father had looked up.
"So it"s you, Semper." Slowly he had peeled off the old parade kid gloves without a change in his face. "Nice to see you," he had said.
"Didn"t expect to before I start pushing up the daisies from below.
Where"s your b.u.t.terfly net?"
No, in character his father hadn"t changed a bit. He still was the old "blood and guts" to whom an entomologist was sort of a human gra.s.s-hopper wielding a b.u.t.terfly net, and a son indulging in such antics a bit of a freak, a reproach to his father, a failure of his life.
Even so, he had led the way into the house and things had been just as he remembered them: the old furniture, pictures crowding one another all over the walls, on the unused grand piano--Marines in Vera Cruz, Marines in China, Marines in Alaska, in the Marianas, in j.a.pan, at the Panama ca.n.a.l; Marines, Marines, Marines, wherever one looked, in ghostly parade. No, nothing had changed. It had been mainly jealously which had caused him to rebel against becoming another Marine, the first wedge which had driven him and his father apart.
"What are you doing now, padre?" he had asked.
"You"ve seen it. Nothing. Just puttering around. They"ve made me commander of the National Guard over here," and with a contemptuous snort, "--a sinecure; might as well have given me a bunch of tin soldiers to play with. What brought you here?"
Glad to change the subject Lee had told about Australia, had mentioned The Brain and the possibility of joining it. His father had not been pleased.
"Heard of it," he had grumbled. "Shows how the country is going to the dogs. Now they need machines to do their thinking with. If their own brains were gas they couldn"t back a car out of the garage. So you"re mixed up with that outfit; well--how about a drink?"
"Rather," he had answered, feeling the need for washing down a bitterness; thinking, too, that it might break the ice between him and his father.
And then there was that painful moment when they had stood, gla.s.ses in hand and remembered....
The selfsame situation fifteen years ago as the Bomb fell upon Hiroshima. He had been on convalescence furlough. They had been alone when the news came and there had been a drink between them just as now.
And after the announcer stopped he had cried out hysterically like a child in a nightmare.
"Those fools, that"s the end of civilization, that"s no longer war."
"Shut up," his father had shouted, "how dare you insult the Commander in Chief to my face. Get out of here and _stay_ out."
A highball gla.s.s had crashed against the floor. And that had been the end. He hadn"t returned after the war.
Yes, it was most unfortunate that now, after so many years, they should read that memory in their faces; that it was only the gla.s.ses and not the minds which clicked.
They had put them down awkwardly with frozen smiles on their lips and his father had said:
"Sorry. But an old dog won"t learn new tricks. Guess it"s too late in the day for me and you to get together, son."
"It"s never too late, Dad," he had wanted to say, but the words died on his lips.
So it had been the failure of a mission; but then it closed an old and painful chapter with finality and he was free to open a new leaf.
Lee looked ahead again. The speedometer needle trembled around the 150 mark. The sun drenched sand shot by, Joshua trees gesticulating wildly in the tricky perspectives of the speed, out-crops of rocks getting bigger now and more numerous, the road ahead starting to coil into a maze of natural fortresses, giant pillars and bizarre pyramids looking like the works of a t.i.tan race from another planet shone in unearthly color schemes of black and purple and amber and green. With the winding of the road and the waftings of the heat it was hard to make out a course, but the Sierra Mountains now were towering almost up to the zenith; like a giant surf they seemed to race against the car.
"Mind if I close the windows, sir?"
The chauffeur"s question was rhetoric; he had already pushed a b.u.t.ton, the gla.s.s went up and within the next second the inside of the car turned completely dark.
"Man," Lee shouted, gripping the front seat, "are you crazy?"
There suddenly was light again, but it was only the electric light inside the car. The blackout of the world without remained complete, and the speedometer needle still edged over the 150 mark.
"Crazy? I hope not." The chauffeur said it coolly; leaning comfortably back he turned around for a better look at his fare.
With mounting horror Lee noticed that he even took his hands off the wheel. Nonchalantly he lit a cigarette while the unguided wheel milled crazily from side to side and the tires screeched through what seemed to be a sharp S-curve. Still with his back to the wheel and in between satisfying puffs of his smoke he continued:
"It"s quite O.K. sir; it"s only that we"re on the guidebeam now. This here car doesn"t need a driver no more; it"s on the beam."
"What beam?" Lee relaxed a little; it was the unexpectedness which had bowled him over. "What beam? And why the blackout?"
"Just orders," the young man said. "The Brain"s orders and it"s the Brain"s beam. Seems to be new to you, sir; to me it"s like an old story; read about it when I was a kid: how they blindfolded people who entered a beleaguered fortress. "The Count of Monte Cristo," it was called; ever heard about it? Pretty soon now we"ll be stopped for examination before we enter the secret pa.s.sage underground. Romantic isn"t it?"
"Very much so," Lee dryly remarked. He continued to watch the behavior of the car with some misgivings. The controls appeared to be functioning smoothly enough and after a minute or so the brake pedal came down all by itself. Lee, with a breath of relief, saw the speedometer recede to zero.
But the doors would not open from the inside and as he tried them he found that they were locked. "What"s the idea," he asked, "I thought you said we would be examined at this spot?"
"Bet they"re at it right now," the chauffeur grinned. "I wouldn"t know how they do it, but they get us photographed inside and outside, what we have in our pockets, what we had for breakfast this morning and the very bones of our skeletons. I pa.s.s through here maybe half a dozen times a day, still they will do it every time: take my likeness. Makes me feel like I was some darned movie star."