"What?" I exclaimed- "First you explain to me by what honest or dishonest means you are exploiting the people who bring you profit."
Before my very eyes his face shrunk into a lump of dirty-yellowish skin. The pale-blue eyes behind the pince-nez turned into two slits that bore into me acidly. For a fleeting moment I had a feeling of a thing being examined by a prospective buyer.
"So you want me to explain to you how honestly our firm operates? So you're not satisfied with having your idiotic sums done for you as they should be done in the twentieth century? You want to experience for yourself what it means to be solving such problems?" he hissed, his vile face a mask pulsating with rage and hate.
"I don't believe all is above-board here. Your reputation is proof enough. And then I overheard one of your men screaming-"
"That's enough," Kraftstudt barked. "After all I never asked you to come. But since you are here -and in such a mood-we'll make use of you whether you like it or not."
I had been unaware that the doctor who had brought me there was standing all the time behind me. At a signal from Kraftstudt a muscular hand closed on my mouth, and a piece of cotton soaked in something pungent was thrust under my nose. I lost consciousness.
5
I came to slowly and realised that I was lying stretched on a bed. Voices of men in a heated argument crowded in on me. For a while all I knew was that their subject was scientific. Then, as my head cleared a little, I could understand what it was about.
"I can tell you this: your Nichols is no example. The coding of stimulation is highly individual, you know. What stimulates will-power in one man might stimulate something quite different in another. For instance, an electric impulse that gives Nichols pleasure deafens me. When I get k I've a feeling two tubes have been thrust into my ears with a couple of aircraft engines revving up at the other end."
"All the same the activity rhythm of neurone groups in the brain doesn't differ much from man to man. That's what our teacher's 'taking advantage of really."
"With not much success though," a tired voice said. "Nothing beyond mathematical analysis so far."
"It's all a matter of time. No short cuts here. Nobody would introduce an electrode into your brain to examine the impulses, because that would damage the brain and consequently the impulses. Now a generator allows for a wide range of change in coded impulses. And that makes for experiments without damage.to the brain."
"That's as may be," the tired voice demurred. "The cases of Gorin and Void don't bear you out. The former died within ten seconds of being put inside a frequency-modulated field. The latter screamed with pain, so the generator had to be switched off immediately. You seem to forget the principal thing about neurocybernetics, friends, and that is that the network of neurones in the human body effects immense numbers of synapses. The impulses these transmit have their own frequency. As soon as you are in resonance with this natural frequency your circuit gets tremendously excited. The doctor's probing blindfolded, so to speak. And that we are still alive is pure chance."
At that moment I opened my eyes. I was lying in a room that looked like a large hospital ward with beds lining the walls. In the middle stood a big deal table piled high with remnants of food, empty tins, cigarette stubs and scraps of paper. The scene was lit dimly by electric light. I rose on my elbows and looked round. Immediately the conversation stopped.
"Where am I?" I whispered, looking over the faces staring at me.
A voice whispered, "The new chap's come to."
"Where am I?" I repeated, addressing them all.
"So you don't know?" asked a young man in his underwear, sitting upright in the bed to my right. "This is the firm of Kraftstudt, our creator and teacher."
"Creator and teacher?" I mumbled, rubbing my leaden forehead. "What do you mean-teacher? He's a war criminal."
"Crime is relative. It all depends on the purpose. If the end is noble, any action is good," trotted out my neighbour on the right.
This piece of vulgar Machiavellianism made me look at the man with renewed curiosity.
"Where did you pick up that bit of wisdom, young man?" I said, letting my feet down and facing him.
"Herr Kraftstudt is our creator and teacher," they suddenly began to chant in chorus.
So I have landed in the Wise Men's Home after all, I thought.
"Well, friends, things must be very bad for you to say a thing like that," I said, looking them over again.
"I bet the new boy has his maths in a frequency band between ninety and ninety-five cycles!" a stout fellow shouted, half-rising from his bed.
"And he'll squeal with pain at no more than 140 cycles in the uniformly accelerated pulse code!" bellowed another.
"And he'll be forced to sleep by receiving a series of eight pulses per second with a pause of two seconds after each series!"
"I am certain the new boy will develop ravenous hunger if stimulated at a frequency of 103 cycles with a logarithmic increase in the pulse power."
The worst I could imagine had happened. I was indeed among madmen. The strange thing, however, was that they all seemed to have the same obsession: the possible influence of some kind of codes and pulses on my sensations. They thronged round me goggle-eyed, shouting out figures, giving modulations and powers, betting on how I would act "inside the generator" and "between the walls" and what power I was likely to consume.
Knowing from books that madmen should not be contradicted, I decided not to start any arguments but to try and behave like one of them. So I spoke in as inoffensive a tone as possible to my neighbour on the right. He seemed just a bit more normal than the others.
"Would you please tell me what you're all talking about? I must admit I'm completely ignorant of the subject. All these codes, pulses, neurones, stimulations-"
The room shook to a burst of guffaw. The inmates reeled with laughter, holding their sides, rocking and doubling up. The laughter became hysterical when I rose in indignation to shout them down.
"Circuit Number Fourteen. Frequency eighty-five cycles! Stimulation of anger!" somebody shouted and their laughter crescendoed.
Then I sat on the bed and resolved to wait till they calmed down.
My neighbour on the right was the first to do so. Then he sat on my bed and fixed his eyes on mine.
"Do you mean to say you really don't know anything?"
"Word of honour, not a thing. I can't make head or tail of what you were saying."
"Word of honour?"
"Word of honour."
"All right. We'll believe you, though you're certainly a rare case. Deinis, get up and tell the new boy what we're here for."
"Yes, Deinis, get up and tell him all about it. Let him be as happy as we are."
"Happy?" I asked, surprised. "Are you happy?"
"Of course we are, of course we are,".they all shouted. "Why, we know ourselves now. Man's highest bliss is to know himself."
"Didn't you know yourselves before?" I asked.
"Of course not. People don't know themselves. Only those who are familiar with neurocybernetics know themselves."