Cerebrum

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  CEREBRUM

  By ALBERT TEICHNER

  _For thousands of years the big brain served as a master switchboard for the thoughts and emotions of humanity. Now the central mind was showing signs of decay ... and men went mad._

  Illustrated by BIRMINGHAM

  The trouble began in a seemingly trivial way. Connor had wanted to speakto Rhoda, his wife, wished himself onto a trunk line and then waited."Dallas Shipping here, Mars and points Jupiterward, at your service,"said a business-is-business, unwifely voice in his mind.

  "I was not calling you," he thought back into the line, now also gettinga picture, first flat, then properly 3-D and in color. It was aparaNormally luxurious commercial office.

  "I am the receptionist at Dallas Shipping," the woman thought backfirmly. "You rang and I answered."

  "I'm sure I rang right," Connor insisted.

  "And I'm sure I know my job," Dallas Shipping answered. "I have receivedas many as five hundred thought messages a day, some of them highlydetailed and technical and--"

  "Forget it," snapped Connor. "Let's say I focussed wrong."

  He pulled back and twenty seconds later finally had Rhoda on the line."Queerest thing happened," he projected. "I just got a wrong party."

  "Nothing queer about it," his wife smiled, springing to warm life on hisinner eye. "You just weren't concentrating, Connor."

  "Don't you hand me that too," he grumbled. "I _know_ I thought on theright line into Central. Haven't I been using the System for sixtyyears?"

  "Exactly--all habit and no attention."

  How smugly soothing she was some days! "I think the trouble's in Centralitself. The Switcher isn't receiving me clearly."

  "Lately I've had some peculiar miscalls myself," Rhoda said nervously."But you _can't_ blame Central Switching!"

  "Oh, I didn't mean that!" By now he was equally nervous and only toohappy to end the conversation. Ordinarily communications were notmonitored but if this one had been there could certainly be a slandercomplaint.

  * * *

  On his way home in the monorail Connor tried to reach his office and hadthe frightening experience of having his telepathic call refused byCentral. Then he refused in turn to accept a call being projected athim, but when an Urgent classification was added he had to take it. "Foryour unfounded slander of Central Switching's functioning," announcedthe mechanically-synthesized voice, "you are hereby Suspendedindefinitely from the telepathic net. From this point on all paraNormalprivileges are withdrawn and you will be able to communicate with yourfellows only in person or by written message."

  Stunned, Connor looked about at his fellow passengers. Most of them hadtheir eyes closed and their faces showed the mild little smile which wasthe outer hallmark of a mind at rest, tuned in to a music channel orsome other of the hundreds of entertainment lines available fromCentral. How much he had taken that for granted just a few minutes ago!

  Three men, more shabbily dressed, were unsmilingly reading books. Theywere fellow pariahs, Suspended for one reason or another fromparaNormal privileges. Only the dullest, lowest-paying jobs wereavailable to them while anyone inside the System could have Central readany book and transmit the information directly into his cortex. Theshabbiest one of all looked up and his sympathetic glance showed that hehad instantly grasped Connor's changed situation.

  Connor looked hastily away; he didn't want any sympathy from that kindof 'human' being! Then he shuddered. Wasn't he, himself, now that kindin every way except his ability to admit it?

  When he stepped onto the lushly hydroponic platform at the suburban stopthe paraNormals, ordinarily friendly, showed that they, too, alreadyrealized what had happened. Each pair of suddenly icy eyes went past himas if he were not there at all.

  He walked up the turf-covered lane toward his house, feeling hopelesslydefeated. How would he manage to maintain a home here in the middle ofgreen and luxuriant beauty? More people than ever were now outside theSystem for one reason or another and most of these unfortunates werecrowded in metropolitan centers which were slumhells to anyone who hadknown something better.

  How could he have been so thoughtless because of a little lapse inCentral's mechanism? Now that it was denied him, probably forever, hesaw more clearly the essential perfection of the system that had broughtorder into the chaos following the discovery of universal paraNormalcapacities. At first there had been endless interference between mindstrying to reach each other while fighting off unwanted calls. Men hadeven suggested this blessing turned curse be annulled.

  The Central Synaptic Computation Receptor and Transmitter System hadended all such negative thinking. For the past century and a half it hadneatly routed telepathic transmissions with an efficiency that madeancient telephone exchanges look like Stone Age toys. A mind couldinstantly exchange information with any other Subscribing mind and stillshut itself off through the Central machine if and when it neededprivacy. Except, he shuddered once more, if Central put that Urgentrating on a call. Now only Rhoda could get a job to keep them from theinner slumlands.

  He turned into his garden and watched Max, the robot, spading in thepetunia bed. The chrysanthemums really needed more attention and he wasgoing to think the order to Max when he realized with a new shock thatall orders would have to be oral now. He gave up the idea of sayinganything and stomped gloomily into the house.

  * * *

  As he hung his jacket in the hall closet he heard Rhoda comingdownstairs. "Queer thing happened today," he said with forcedcheerfulness, "but we'll manage." He stopped as Rhoda appeared. Her eyeswere red and puffed.

  "I tried to reach you," she sobbed.

  "Oh, you already know. Well, we can manage, you know, honey. You canwork two days a week and--"

  "You don't understand," she screamed at him. "_I'm_ Suspended too! Itried to tell it I hadn't done anything but it said I was guilty bybeing associated with you."

  Stunned, he fell back into a chair. "Not you, too, darling!" He had beengetting used to the idea of his own reduced status but this was toobrutal. "Tell Central you'll leave me and the guilt will be gone."

  "You fool, I did say that and my defense was refused!"

  Tears welled in his eyes. Was there no bottom to this horror? "Youyourself suggested that?"

  "Why shouldn't I?" she cried. "It wasn't my fault at all."

  He sat there and tried not to listen as waves of hate rolled over him.Then the front bell rang and Rhoda answered it.

  "I haven't been able to reach you," someone was saying through the door.It was Sheila Williams who lived just down the lane. "Lately lines seemto get tied up more and more. It's about tonight's game."

  Just then Rhoda opened the door and Sheila came to an abrupt halt as shesaw her old friend's face. Her expression turned stony and she said, "Iwanted you to know the game is off." Then she strode away.

  Unbelieving, Rhoda watched her go. "After forty years!" she exclaimed.She slowly came back to her husband and stared down at him. "Forty yearsof 'undying' friendship, gone like that!" Her eyes softened a little."Maybe I'm wrong, Connor, maybe I said too much through Central myself.And maybe I'd have acted like Sheila if _they_ had been the ones."

  He withdrew his hands from his face. "I've done the same thing to otherwretches myself. We'll just have to get used to it somehow. I've enoughsocial credits to hang on here a year anyway."

  "Get used to it," she repeated dully. This time there was nodenunciation but she had to flee up the stairs to be alone.

  He went to the big bay window and, trying to keep his mind blank,watched Max re-spading the petunia b
ed. He really should go out andtell the robot to stop, he decided, otherwise the same work would berepeated again and again. But he just watched for the next hour as Maxkept returning to the far end of the bed and working his way up to thewindow, nodding mindlessly with each neat twist of his spade attachment.

  Rhoda came back downstairs and said, "It's six-thirty. The first timesince the boys left that they didn't call us at six." He thought of Tedon Mars and Phil on Venus and sighed. "By now," she went on, "they knowwhat's happened. Usually colonial children just refuse to have anythingmore to do with