Cerebrum

For thousands of years the big brain served as a master switchboard for the thoughts and emotions of humanity. Now the central mind was showing signs of decay ... and men went mad.
Illustrated by BIRMINGHAM
The trouble began in a seemingly trivial way. Connor had wanted to speak to Rhoda, his wife, wished himself onto a trunk line and then waited. Dallas Shipping here, Mars and points Jupiterward, at your service, said a business-is-business, unwifely voice in his mind.
I was not calling you, he thought back into the line, now also getting a picture, first flat, then properly 3-D and in color. It was a paraNormally luxurious commercial office.
I am the receptionist at Dallas Shipping, the woman thought back firmly. You rang and I answered.
I'm sure I rang right, Connor insisted.
And I'm sure I know my job, Dallas Shipping answered. I have received as many as five hundred thought messages a day, some of them highly detailed and technical and—
Forget it, snapped Connor. Let's say I focussed wrong.
He pulled back and twenty seconds later finally had Rhoda on the line. Queerest thing happened, he projected. I just got a wrong party.
Nothing queer about it, his wife smiled, springing to warm life on his inner eye. You just weren't concentrating, Connor.
Don't you hand me that too, he grumbled. I know I thought on the right line into Central. Haven't I been using the System for sixty years?
Exactly—all habit and no attention.