ven's cheekbones quivered in his struggle to keep
control over himself: "For your own sake, Lee, and for the sake of
America, _stop that kind of talk_. You have been putting two and two
together; I rather expected that from a man of your intelligence. All
right then, something went wrong with The Brain; that is correct. We
have not been able to locate the disturbance yet, but the trail is
getting hot; it must be connected with those centers of 'higher psychic
activities,' the one's we know least about. But we cannot cut those out
because something of psychic activity goes into every kind of The
Brain's cognitions, even the purely mathematical ones. And it would be
utterly impossible to stop The Brain's operations altogether. I wanted
to, but the General Staff won't permit it. There's an international
crisis of the first magnitude. There may be war within a few days or
even hours. Our country has got to prepare counter measures; get ready
for the worst. A state of National Emergency already is declared. The
Brain is the heart of our National Defense: You know that. It is vital
and as indispensible at this hour as it never was before; it continues
to function perfectly with the exception of these isolated disturbances
in the civilian sector which we will have under control in no time.

"At present I am no more than a figurehead. If I were to give orders to
cut off The Brain's power, I would be court-martialed; if I would try
and force my way into the Atomic Powerplant, the guards would shoot me
on the spot. That's orders Lee. And they apply to you as well. Be
reasonable, man!"

Lee's fingers tore through his greying mane of hair.

"Scriven, this is maddening. I thought you knew what I know; I thought
you knew everything. Then let me tell you that you're absolutely wrong.
There is no technological, mechanical defect; it's worse, it's
infinitely worse: you've created a Frankenstein in The Brain. The
thing's alive; it's possessed with a destructive will, it demands the
unconditional surrender of Man; it has made itself the God of the
Machines. Behind all this there is a deep and evil plan by which The
Brain aspires to dictatorship over the world."

For a second Scriven jerked his head sideways, away from Lee in that
mannerism typical for him. His lips inaudibly formed words:
"dementia-praecox." As he turned back to Lee his face was changed and so
was his voice. There was calm and authority in it, the whole immense
superi