down from the top. Each wire was tipped with a shiny round electrode about the size of a shilling.
Lord Leighton began plastering the electrodes to Blade's skin with tape. He was very deft about it. When he began to tape the shiny discs to Blade's temples and neck, the big man made a decision. He had been on the verge for minutes. Now he spoke.
'Before we go any further with this, sir, I think I'm entitled to know what it's all about. It is my body you're using, after all. Just what are we trying to do, sir?'
The little man adjusted a final disc and stepped back. He patted Blade's brawny shoulder. 'Of course, Mr. Blade. You must make excuses for me— I get so wrapped up in these matters that I even forget my manners. You have every right to know what we intend to do. You will note that I say intend, and not try, because I'm sure it will work this time. Very sure. We have had great success with monkeys, and some qualified success with humans, but in the latter case we were not using first dass brains. That, I am convinced, has been the chief difficulty. So you can readily see why we had to search out the best brain in all England— or at least what our computers tell us is the best and they are not often wrong, and— '
Richard Blade was becoming annoyed and he did not try to hide it. His tone was sharp. 'Sir! I am not a scientist. So far this has all been gibberish to me. I don't mind letting myself be used as a guinea pig, if it will help, but I damned well want to know what is going on, and in language I can understand.' Blade made a motion to get out of the chair. It would not have been easy, even had he really intended to carry it through. By now he was so festooned with wires and electrodes that movement was difficult.
'My dear Mr. Blade!' Leighton gave him a gentle push back into the chair. 'I am sorry. I will explain everything— everything. But you must not excite or agitate yourself. Please no! That might be fatal to the experiment. Above all your brain must be calm and receptive.'
Blade concealed a grin. Leighton was the one who was getting excited. He peered anxiously at Blade with his yellow eyes and did a little shuffling dance around the perimeter of the glass cage, carefully avoiding the wires.
'Well?' Blade asked grimly.
'I'll try,' said Leighton. 'Please listen carefully.'
He swept his hand around in a circle, indicating the giant computer that loomed over them like some silent and monstrous gray beast. 'This is the ultimate in computers, Mr. Blade. I have spent nearly all my life perfecting it. I have spent the last year programming it. It is fully programmed now, Mr. Blade, with a mass of highly specialized material. Material that is esoteric and sophisticated, in the form of symbols and words, and in combinations of both, and at this moment, Mr. Blade, with your brain as it now is, you could not even faintly begin to comprehend it. This machine, Mr. Blade, is programmed to solve problems and utilize knowledge that even / do not understand! Do you begin to understand at all?'
Blade did. It was beginning to come through. It seemed eons ago since he had been reading The Times at breakfast.
Direct interaction between the computer and human brain.
Blade had spoken the words aloud. Lord Leighton did not appear surprised, but rather pleased. The little man clapped his crippled hands together. 'Exactly, Mr. Blade! Exactly. I see that you have been reading the newspapers. I must take the blame, I am afraid, for misleading them a bit about dates. I stated 1990, I think, as the earliest possible date for such direct interaction? Yes, I did. I am a liar, Mr. Blade, but I am sure you will understand. They are working along the same lines, and the more we can get them to underestimate our progress the better it is.'
Blade knew all about that. It was in his line of work. 'So if this experiment works,' he said, 'I'll be carrying around a lot of high powered knowledge that I haven't had to sweat to get? That I haven't had to learn? It will just be there?'
'Precisely.' The little eyes glittered at Blade. 'It will just be there without any effort on your part. You will know, and be able to use, what it has taken me, and hundreds of my colleagues, all our lives to accumulate. The machine will impart it all to you in a few minutes. The machine is only a machine, after all, and can give you only what has been programmed into it, but nevertheless it will mean instant genius for you, Mr. Blade. Instant genius! And now, with your permission, we will get on with it.'
'But,' said Blade, seeing the catch, the trap, 'I won't be the same man afterward. I won't be me. And I don't think I want to be a genius. I'm quite satisfied with things the way they are.'
Lord Leighton raised a hand. 'Think, Mr. Blade. Think hard and long before you say no— think of your country and the relatively low estate to which we have fallen. I am a genius, Mr. Blade, but I am only one and can do only so much. But if this works, we can turn out geniuses by the dozens, by the hundreds, then England can find her place in the sun again. Without armies and navies. Without economic superiority. We can lead the whole world in scientific genius. Can you refuse, Mr. Blade? Can you?'
Blade was suddenly aware that he couldn't. Leighton had reached behind him and pressed a button. Blade was aware of a low humming sound, of gentle electrical charges surging through his body and making little waves in his blood.
Blade could not move now. He willed his legs to move and they did not respond. Nor did his hands and arms. There was no pain, yet the current held him in the chair like a giant repressing hand, a hand that had solidity but no weight. He was rigid, immobile, bound to the chair by invisible chains of electricity.
His vision began to blur. His head began to swell like a balloon. Lord Leighton's twisted body changed into a ball of color, a flame, a whorl of spinning haze that faded away and away and then was gone. The glass around Blade changed to water and began to run over him, yet he did not feel wet. The wires were tiny snakes now, biting at him with shiny jaws, yet their bites drew no blood, brought no pain.
The roaring began in Blade's ears. He was free now, no longer in the chair, soaring through the sky and rolling and dipping in an absolute freedom he had never known before. He was a spirit without body. He lived, and yet he was no thing; he was huge and he was tiny; he was an ant and he was a planet.
Storm now. A mingled wrath of darkness and light. Blade went curving into it at a trillion miles an hour, into an awesome boil of clouds. Lightning stabbed at him. Again. Closer. Blade knew cold and fear and he screamed as the lightning came again.
The massive lightning bolt was a crooked golden dagger slashing at Blade, skewering his head. His brain exploded. The pain was beyond bearing. There had never been pain like this before, never would be again. All the pain since the world began was being poured into his skull.
