“Go on,” Gross said. “I’ve already heard ten solutions today. What’s yours?”
“Mine is very simple. These creatures are superior to any mechanical system, but only because they’re alive. Almost any other life-form could compete with them, any higher life-form. If the yuks can put out living mines to protect their planets, we ought to be able to harness some of our own life-forms in a similar way. Let’s make use of the same weapon ourselves.”
“Which life-form do you propose to use?”
“I think the human brain is the most agile of known living forms. Do you know of any better?”
“But no human being can withstand outspace travel. A human pilot would be dead of heart failure long before the ship got anywhere near Proxima.”
“But we don’t need the whole body,” Kramer said. “We need only the brain.”
“What?”
“The problem is to find a person of high intelligence who would contribute, in the same manner that eyes and arms are volunteered.”
“But a brain….”
“Technically, it could be done. Brains have been transferred several times, when body destruction made it necessary. Of course, to a spaceship, to a heavy outspace cruiser, instead of an artificial body, that’s new.”