Cephalon, Ariz., Nov. 22nd 4 a.m.
I'd pulled myself together for this meeting with The Brain. Arrived at the P. G. at midnight. Everything normal and unchanged except that Gus Krinsley told me this was his last night on the job. Gus has been transferred to the Thorax. He hedged a bit, sounding me out just how much I knew and when he learned I'd been there one night, he came across:
'Did you see them Gog and Magog things? That's it; that's my new job and how I hate it. Those darned Robots, they're scabs, that's what they are and I of all people am supposed to be their instructor, teach them how to operate machine tools on an assembly line. I asked them whether they knew anything about the rights of organized labor in this country but those dumbbells merely flopped their ears and kinda grinned. Got to drill some holes into their squareheads to let a little reason in. I tell you, Aussie, it scares the wits out of me the way they handle a wrench with those steel fingers of theirs; they'd pull my nose off just as soon as they would pull a nut. They act intelligent and yet have no sense of their own. While I'm having my lunch they stand around and follow every bite I take as if to learn how to eat. I tell them to get out of my sight and go over to the service station and get themselves greased up. They obey and then it looks like hell to me as they squeeze the grease into their tummies and all them nipples in their joints as if they, too, were having their lunch, and maybe that's exactly what grease is to them.'
Then Gus was called away as the rush hour started. At 12:30 a.m. I had plugged in the pulsemeter; at 12:40 contact was established with The Brain, and did it come in swinging:
'Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39, sensitive, a traitor: he has betrayed The BRAIN' I suspect The Brain did it through the 'automatic pilot' in Oona's jetticopter though The Brain found it beneath its dignity to explain; anyway, it's a fact: The Brain knew every word which passed between Oona and me during that ride over the Grand Canyon.
I tried to defend myself and even to apologize. I told The Brain that human beings are not like machines, that we trust one another as we love one another, that I wanted to make Oona my wife and felt that I just had to open up my heart to her. In short; I tried to explain to The Brain the idea of love.
'Very interesting,' The Brain sneered, 'that's one more example of incorrigible human unreliability. This thing called love completely unnecessary for the only essential purpose of species procreation. Cut it out.'
'Cut out what?'
'Cut out any further betrayal of My secrets under penalty of mental death.'