Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

because we mutate more rapidly, due to atomic radiation, and have therefore changed in many ways. . . . Also not proven.”

“But believed.”

“And as long as it is so believed, Procurator, and as long as we of Earth are treated as pariahs, you are going to find in us the characteristics to which you object. If you push us intolerably, is it to be wondered at that we push back? Hating us as you do, can you complain that we hate in our turn? No, no, we are far more the offended than the offending.”

Ennius was chagrined at the anger he had raised. Even the best of these Earthmen, he thought, have the same blind spot, the same feeling of Earth versus all the universe.

He said tactfully, “Shekt, forgive my boorishness, will you? Take my youth and boredom as excuse. You see before you a poor man, a young fellow of forty—and forty is the age of a babe in the professional civil service—who is grinding out his apprenticeship here on Earth. It may be years before the fools in the Bureau of the Outer Provinces remember me long enough to promote me to something less deadly. So we are both prisoners of Earth and both citizens of the great world of the mind in which there is distinction of neither planet nor physical characteristics. Give me your hand, then, and let us be friends.”

The lines on Shekt’s face smoothed out, or, more exactly, were replaced by others more indicative of good humor. He laughed outright. “The words are the words of a suppliant, but the tone is still that of the Imperial career diplomat. You are a poor actor, Procurator.”

“Then counter me by being a good teacher, and tell me of this Synapsifier of yours.”

Shekt started visibly and frowned. “What, you have heard of the instrument? You are then a physicist as well as an administrator?”

“All knowledge is my province. But seriously, Shekt, I would really like to know.”

The physicist peered closely at the other and seemed doubtful. He rose and his gnarled hand lifted to his lip, which it pinched thoughtfully. “I scarcely know where to begin.”

“Well, Stars above, if you are considering at which point in the mathematical theory you are to begin, I’ll simplify your problem. Abandon them all. I know nothing of your functions and tensors and what not.”

Shekt’s eyes twinkled. “Well, then, to stick to descriptive matter only, it is simply a device intended to increase the learning capacity of a human being.”

“Of a human being? Really! And does it work?”

“I wish we knew. Much more work is necessary. I’ll give you the essentials, Procurator, and you can judge for yourself. The nervous system in man—and in animals—is composed of neuroprotein material. Such material consists of huge molecules in very precarious electrical balance. The slightest stimulus will upset one, which will right itself by upsetting the next, which will repeat the process, until the brain is reached. The brain itself is an immense grouping of similar molecules which are connected among themselves in all possible ways. Since there are something like ten to the twentieth power—that is, a one with twenty zeros after it—such neuroproteins in the brain, the number of possible combinations are of the order of factorial ten to the twentieth power. This is a number so large that if all the electrons and protons in the universe were made universes themselves, and all the electrons and protons in all of these new universes again made universes, then all the electrons and protons in all the universes so created would still be nothing in comparison. . . . Do you follow me?”

“Not a word, thank the Stars. If I even attempted to, I should bark like a dog for sheer pain of the intellect.”

“Hmp. Well, in any case, what we call nerve impulses are merely the progressive electronic unbalance that proceeds along the nerves to the brain and then from the brain back along the nerves. Do you get that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, blessings on you for a genius, then. As long as this impulse continues along a nerve cell, it proceeds at a rapid rate, since the neuroproteins are practically in contact. However, nerve cells are limited in extent, and between each nerve cell and the next is a very thin partition of non-nervous tissue. In other words, two adjoining nerve cells do not actually connect with each other.”

“Ah,” said Ennius, “and the nervous impulse must jump the barrier.”

“Exactly! The partition drops the strength of the impulse and slows the speed of its transmission according to the square of the width thereof. This holds for the brain as well. But imagine, now, if some means could be found to lower the dialectric constant of this partition between the cells.”

“That what constant?”

“The insulating strength of the partition. That’s all I mean. If that were decreased, the impulse would jump the gap more easily. You would think faster and learn faster.”

“Well, then, I come back to my original question. Does it work?”

“I have tried the instrument on animals.”

“And with what result?”

“Why, that most die very quickly of denaturation of brain protein—coagulation, in other words, like hard-boiling an egg.”

Ennius winced. “There is something ineffably cruel about the cold-bloodedness of science. What about those that didn’t die?”

“Not conclusive, since they’re not human beings. The burden of the evidence seems to be favorable, for them. . . . But I need humans. You see, it is a matter of the natural electronic properties of the individual brain. Each brain gives rise to microcurrents of a certain type. None are exactly duplicates. They’re like fingerprints, or the blood-vessel patterns of the retina. If anything, they’re even more individual. The treatment, I believe, must take that into account, and, if I am right, there will be no more denaturation. . . . But I have no human beings on whom to experiment. I ask for volunteers, but—” He spread his hands.

“I certainly don’t blame them, old man,” said Ennius. “But seriously, should the instrument be perfected, what do you