"I've had much the same thought," Victor Glassman said, chewing on his lip. "I rather hated to think about it though. Destroy my Creation? Still, I suppose it's wise—to be able to." He stood up and came around from behind his desk.
Earl and Nadine watched without speaking as he clasped his hands behind his back and went to the window of his office which brought him a view of part of the giant dome housing the Brain.
"Every precaution is being taken otherwise. Until we can be sure of ourselves we don't intend on letting the Brain have control of any machines or weapons. Of course we could forget that danger, in time, and suddenly wake up to the fact that we were too late. Then it would be nice to still be able to.... All right. Go ahead. Keep it under your hats though. And when you're done we can form a select group, handing the—" he smiled wryly,—"password down from generation to generation."
"I have the plans all drawn up," Earl said. "An electrostatic speaker, because it can be built with parts that will last forever. No moving parts in the frequency generator or amplifier. Leads to the permanent busses that will supply current for such things as video eyes and the voice speaker system...."
"Good. Good. Only we will indoctrinate that Mind early so that it will never do anything detrimental to us."
"Of course," Earl soothed. "This is only precautionary."
Days followed one another swiftly. A factory-made electrostatic loudspeaker arrived, and was dismantled so that some of its parts could be replaced with more durable ones. Specifications for the frequency generators and the amplifier were farmed out, and the completed units arrived.
There was trouble with the relay. It was well designed, but there was doubt whether it would still be in working condition after ten centuries. Earl sent specifications to a jewelry manufacturer in Kansas City and had its moving parts made of synthetic ruby and platinum.
The Cyberene watched every step of construction—and so did Earl, from within his artificially created mental wall, careful not to reveal the huge holes he had knocked in it.