“To tell the truth, I haven’t the faintest idea of Dr. Garnett’s whereabouts,” Frobisher replied with prim satisfaction. “Things have been popping everywhere since this morning. In every project. We’d have to tour the Foundation to find him in any case.”
Opperly flashed Phil a look of humorous resignation. Dion da Silva pressed past Phil, flashing his wide white teeth at everyone and saying, “Is fine, fine.” Phil’s spirits rose. He felt certain that he was getting nearer to Lucky.
XV
INSIDE, the Humberford Foundation was a gloomy Edwardian mansion to which had been sketchily grafted a pleasantly disorganized scientific enterprise. Glassed shelves of leatherbound books that hadn’t been opened for decades were elbowed by trim microfilm files. Blackened portraits of John Junius Humberford and his ancestors looked down on machines for shuffling the eternal Rhine cards and on fluorescent screens-in-depth that blended a dozen recordings of a brain wave made from different angles into the shadowy semblance of a human thought. Stately drawing rooms that set one thinking of bustles and teacups instead held solemn faced, scantily clad girls with electrodes attached to twenty parts of their bodies. Laboratory technicians in loose smocks caught their heels in stair carpets a hundred years old.
But today there was an excitement that pushed the Edwardian half of the place far into the background and brightened the very grime on the walls. Chancellor Frobisher and his little train of visitors were not even noticed. Girls triumphantly calling Rhine cards stared past them unseeingly. Clairvoyants sketching objects being imagined by someone else three floors away didn’t look up from their blackboards. A technician darted out with a large syringe and took air samples under their very noses without seeming to be aware of their presence. Correlating engines hummed and spat cards.
Phil was so busy peering about for his green cat that he heard little of what Frobisher was telling them.
Occasional high pitched explanatory phrases floated back to Phiclass="underline" “… her 117,318thrun through the cards… telepathic communion with lower animals… perhaps some day share the thoughts of an amoeba… No, I really don’t know where Dr. Garnett is, I’m busy with important visitors, Miss Ames… telekinesis will make handies obsolete…”
Plodding behind da Silva up the stairs to the top floor, Phil started to listen to Frobisher consecutively. The Chancellor of Philosophy was saying, “Now in the room I’m about to show you, an experiment incomplete telepathy is underway. When telepathy is perfected, it will be possible for two individuals to lay their minds side by side and compare all their thoughts and feelings in the raw, as it were.”
“Is good!” da Silva interjected.
Frobisher frowned at the interruption before remembering it was a journalist talking. He went on smilingly, “In this case, however, we have only a preliminary stage: two individuals, by means of prolonged speech, writing, sketching, musical expression and so forth, are attempting to share their inmost thoughts to such an extent that they will tend to become telepathic, as seems to be the case with some husbands and wives.” As they came to the top of the stairs, Frobisher continued a bit breathlessly, “Incidentally, the young man in this experiment is one of our most consistent espers, while the young lady is a handie bit player who graciously devotes her leisure time to science.”
He paused with his hand on an ancient brass doorknob.
“Let’s not disturb them, Hugo,” Opperly suggested a bit faintly, leaning against the wall though he showed no other effects of the climb. “Sounds like rather an intimate experiment.”
Frobisher shook his head, “As I say,” he pronounced, “these two researchists are seeking to lay their minds side by side.”
He opened the door, looked in, gasped, and hastily slammed it – though not before da Silva, peering over his shoulder, had emitted an appreciative and rather whinnying chortle.
“As I say, theirminds, ” Frobisher repeated, walking away from the door a bit unevenly. “Perhaps you’re right, Dr. Opperly, we’d best not disturb them. Research is at times a strenuous affair.” He looked apprehensively at the purported representative ofLa Prensa. “I trust, Señor da Silva -”
“Is very good!” da Silva assured him enthusiastically.
Frobisher looked at him blankly, shook himself a bit and said briskly, “It now remains, gentlemen, to give you a glimpse of our crowning project – the one on the roof. If you’ll just precede me up this circular staircase…”
“I think I’ll stay here, Hugo,” Opperly told him. “Touring research can be strenuous too.”
“But I rather imagine Dr. Garnett must be on the roof.”
“Then bring him down.”
As Phil trudged up the musty cylinder lit by tiny bull’s-eye windows, his feet clanking on worn metal treads, it occurred to him that Lucky certainly seemed to have been having a field day here, bringing people together in understanding and love and what not. In fact, it made him rather jealous the way Lucky was strewing his favors around.
From behind Chancellor Frobisher’s fussy voice filtered up. “I should preface this ascent by saying that one of J. J. Humberford’s chief motives in establishing the Foundation was the conviction that mankind will soon destroy itself unless some superior power intervenes. So we feel bound to apply what little knowledge of esping we have gained to seeking such intervention. Even if there is only one chance in a million of contacting a superior power somewhere in the universe, the stakes are so great that we must not overlook the chance. Incidentally, gentlemen, please watch out for the next to the last step. There isn’t any.”
Phil, who was just putting his foot on it, caught himself, took a bigger step, and the next moment was out on the roof. The sodium mirror that orbited around earth was pouring sunlight down, though hardly enough to explain the dark glasses Frobisher handed him and da Silva.
Phil briefly studied the verdigris underside of the saucer topping most of the roof. He noted the flimsy looking beams supporting it and frowningly inspected the tiny penthouse under its center. Then Frobisher was urging him and da Silva up a ladder that led to a small platform next to the rim of the saucer.
Reaching the platform, Phil instantly realized the need for the dark glasses. The interior of the saucer was polished to such a degree that even the sodium-reflected sunlight flashed from it with a pale brown blindingness. He clamped his eyes shut and quickly put on the black specs.
“As you are aware,” Frobisher was saying, “the exact nature of thought waves is unknown. It may be that they move instantaneously, or at least at speeds far greater than that of light. We have yet to get a figure on them, although we have carefully timed thought-casts between here and Montevideo – but the human or physiological factor confounds us. They may not be waves at all. On the other hand it is possible that they are reflected and refracted like ordinary light.”
“Is right,” interjected da Silva, a vague blur beside Phil, who hadn’t yet got over the first blinding glimpse of the saucer’s interior.
“You believe so?” Frobisher questioned sharply.
La Prensa ’sfaun-like representative shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Just guessing,” he said.
“At any rate,” Frobisher continued, “we are working on that latter supposition here. This copper structure is a parabolic mirror. Thought waves originating at its focus are concentrated into a beam which is directed upward into the sky toward any stellar planetary systems which may happen to lie above.”
“Amazing,” da Silva grunted. “Explains everything.”