like a blind man
may test his footing and the echoes before he walks into an unfamiliar
room.

12:35 a.m. Identification completed, there is a brief pause (almost as
if a person consults a notebook before making a phone call). Then
rapidly, eagerly The Brain fires a series of questions at me, so
shockingly preposterous, so absurd that I find it extremely hard
to.... Anyway, here are the details:

Information is wanted on points mentioned in scientific literature but
never explained. Lee, answer please:

"How many gods are there?

"Did gods make man or did man make the gods?

"How many angels _can_ stand on the point of a needle?"

"What are the mechanics of a god? Name type of power plant, cell
construction, motoric organs, other engineering features essential to
exercise of divine power...."

"Heaven--is it a celestial soul factory?

"Hell--is it a repair shop for damaged souls?

"Please give every available detail about heavenly manufacturing
processes, type of equipment used, organization of assembly lines etc.
etc.

"Likewise about the oven for heat treatments as used in hell for major
soul-overhauls.

"How do prefabricated souls get to either heaven or hell? Problem of
logistics, how solved? Thermodynamics? If so, state whether rocket or
jet-propulsion involved.

"Are souls really immortal? In that case; why don't we copy divine
methods in the production of durable goods on earth?

"Answer Lee, answer, answer!" (This with incredible vehemence, with a
shaking of that eerie metallic voice which pounded the drums of my ears.
And then--tense silence....)

I cannot possibly describe the storms of emotions and thoughts which
this incredible muddle raised in me. I didn't know whether to laugh or
to cry and whether I had gone nuts of whether it was The Brain, I was
confounded, thunderstruck, deprived of the power of speech. To think of
The Brain, a _machine_ raising question about the nature of the _Deity_!
The Brain asking information about God and man and heaven and hell with
the simplicity of a stranger who asks the nearest cop: "Which way to the
city hall?" Just like that. As if philosophers and religionists and
common men had not raked their brains in vain over these problems for
the last ten thousand years.

And even more fantastic: while it asks all those questions The Brain
patently has already formed the most definite opinions of its own. Being
a machine itself, it conceives of the Deity as an