"It's a long story, Lee," Scriven continued. "It starts way back with a letter I wrote to the President of the United States. In this letter I pointed to the immense dangers which I anticipated in the event of an atom war; dangers to which the military appeared to be blind. I am referring to the inadequacy of the human brain and its susceptibility to mental and psychic shock. I explained how science and technology over the past few hundred years had developed by the pooled efforts of the elite in human brains, but that the individual brain, even if outstanding, was lagging farther and farther below the dizzy peak which science and technology in their totality had reached. I further explained, by the example of the Nazi and Jap States, how the collective brains of modern masses are reverting from and are hostile to a high level of civilization because it is beyond their mental reach. You know all this, of course, Lee. I made it clear that not even the collective brains of a general staff could be relied upon for normal functioning; that no matter how carefully protected physically, they remained exposed to psychic shock with its resultant errors of judgment. How much less then could production and transportation workers be expected to function effectively in the apocalyptic horrors they would have to face...."
Lee's eyes had narrowed in the concentration of listening; his head nodded approval. He wasn't conscious of it, but Scriven took note of it by a quick glance. His voice quickened:
"That was the first part of my letter, Lee. I then came out squarely with the project which has since become the work of my life. I told the President that under these circumstances the most needed thing for our country's national security would be the creation of a mechanical brain, some central ganglion bigger and better than its human counterpart, immune to shock of any kind. This ganglion to be established in the innermost fortress of America as an auxiliary augmenting and controlling the work of a general staff. I gave him a fairly detailed outline of just how the thing could be done. There was really nothing basically new involved. Personally I have held for a long time that Man never "invents", that in fact it is constitutionally impossible for him to do so. Being a part of nature Man merely discovers what nature has "invented" in some form of its own a long time ago. Mechanical brains. Lord, we have had them in their rudiments for the past hundred thousand years, at a minimum. The calendar is one; every printed book is one; the simplest of machines incorporates one. And ever since the first mechanical clock started its ticking we have developed them by leaps and bounds!"
"And did the President react positively to this project?" Lee asked.
Scriven shook his head. "He did not."
Then he paused. Little beads of perspiration had appeared on his forehead; he wiped them away with a handkerchief:
"That year, Lee," he began again, "when the decision was pending and I could do nothing but wait, knowing that there was no other defense against the Atom Bomb, knowing that our country's fate was at stake—it made me grey, it came pretty close to shattering my nerve.... But then...." His body tightened, the small fist pounded the rail of the chair: "... But then We BUILT THE BRAIN."
He said it almost in a triumphant cry.
Mounting tension had Lee almost frozen to his seat. Now he stirred and leaned forward.