Scriven wiped his forehead with a big silk handkerchief. The leonine face beamed. "Lee, that will be a tremendous help. You see, they will feel flattered being conducted by somebody with a big name. They want an 'objective' view and you are not one of our regular employees, you're a guest scientist from Australia. That makes you just about ideal. But, Lee, much as it is against my interest, I ought to warn you: Do you realize the utter impossibility of this thing? Laymen, outsiders coming to investigate and to pass judgment upon the most complex electronic organism in the world! In two hours at the most they expect to be fully informed as to how The Brain works and somehow to be magically transformed into authorities entitled to mouth considered opinions about radioactive pyramidal cells in houses of government. Do you really think you could survive it, Lee?"
"At least I can try," Lee smiled.
"Good man." There was a new spring in Scriven's step as he came over to shake hands. "I can never thank you enough for this."
"I suppose I could hold the hospitality front," Oona said calmly.
Standing between the two, Scriven put his hands upon their shoulders. "Oona, you arm yourself with a phone. Lee, you rush over to The Brain. Oona will give you a pass to the Thorax. Every assistance you need will be at your disposal. I'll sit down and whip up some kind of a speech. We'll all meet again afterwards."
Seven hours later, one hour before sunrise and just in time to see the big official plane from Washington shoot up into the first grey streak of dawn, they met. They were all pale and shivering with the chill of the air, of physical and nervous exhaustion. There was a note of hysteria even in Oona's voice as she ordered a tremendous breakfast from the Skull Hotel. But then as the fragrance of coffee mingled with that of bacon and eggs, things rapidly improved and there were sudden uncontrollable bursts of laughter. They had only to look at one another to feel the tickle of renewed mirth.
The first thing to strike Lee, as he remembered, as he met the senatorial group in the subterranean dome of the murals, was their incongruity with the functional beauty which surrounded them, and the sharp contrast they formed to the scientific workers of The Brain. As they descended from their cars after a late dinner at the Skull Hotel they resembled an average tourist group in Carlsbad Caverns bent upon a good time and in a holiday mood.
There were seven. Two women senators among them, as they ascended with Lee at the head along "Glideway Y," the "Visitors' Special" as the brain-crews called it. It was wider than the service glideways and equipped with comfortable seats. It led through The Brains median section in-between the two hemispheres describing a loop which opened vistas into but did not enter any of the grey matter convolutions. It was brilliantly illuminated in order to forestall claustrophobia and also to forestall too close a view into the black-lighted interior of The Brain.
To Lee it was like a ride in an enormous Ferris Wheel fused with a nightmarish dream wherein one shouts for help and nobody hears or seems to understand: "... More than nine billion electronic tubes, more than ten billion resistors, two billion capacitators, eight billion miles of wires, etc., etc." He struggled trying to convey some idea of the magnitude of The Brain. "Did you say billion or did you say million professor?" The senator from Michigan was busily scribbling notes.