Montgomery was still staring as Norcross turned around and spotted Gunderson. He jumped to his feet and rushed forward with extended hand. “Soren! You made it, after all! I didn’t think you were ever going to get the lead out and leave that kite factory. How’d you like my music? Believe it or not, six months ago I couldn’t play a tin whistle.”
Gunderson took his friend’s hand warmly. “I’m no musician, but it sounded good to me. I had no idea you went in for composition. And I expected you to be spending all your time with stress analysis and engine-loading figures. How come the music?”
Montgomery interrupted before Norcross could make any answer. A slow, tight feeling was advancing along the skin of his back. “What happened to the orchestra?” he said.
As if he had made a joke, this was a cue for general laughter among all the men of the Institute. Dr. Nagle held up a hand even as he joined in the amusement. “I think we had better enlighten our visitors,” he said, “before we have a blown gasket or two.”
He gestured toward the stage. “There was no orchestra, of course. What you see is merely a shadow box in which the projections of the student’s mind are made visible and audible. You perhaps didn’t notice the small headpiece Mr. Norcross was wearing, but through it the impulses of his mental composition were conveyed to the mechanism of the shadow box and made perceptible to everyone in the room.”
“You mean you composed the music and imagined the motions of the orchestra as you went along!” Gunderson exclaimed incredulously.
Norcross nodded. “It’s tough going at first, but you can learn it. I hope we got a good tape. I want my wife to hear it. That’s about the best one I’ve done yet.”
Montgomery felt as if the whole situation had become completely unreal. In a moment someone would break down and give the trick away. The shadow box was some kind of movie projection device. It had to be. Nobody could be good enough to do what was claimed. Certainly not Martin Norcross, airplane engineer and designer —
But they were beginning to move out of the room and Nagle was speaking again. “If any of you still question the presence of a music department in an engineering school, let me assure you that what you have just seen and heard is a rigorous mental exercise on a par with anything you will ever do in creative science. You can estimate for yourselves the number of factors that must be coordinated and manipulated and kept under absolute control at all times. It is an excellent engineering practice!”
They entered an adjoining room which contained a dozen seats and had one wall that resembled a blackboard except that it was a smooth milky whiteness. At Nagle’s bidding, Norcross donned another headset. It was a small, narrow band that clamped a pair of thin electrodes above his ears.