Brain World

Chapter Four

The phone screen lit up and Ross Metaxa was there. As usual, he looked rumpled, tired, and as though he’d had too much to drink, or too little sleep, or both, the night before. The Commissioner of Section G was in his middle years, sour of expression and disposition, moist of eye, dark of complexion, as though he was of Mediterranean extraction.

He said now, “Irene tells me that Ronny is there with you. How did the Neu Reich assignment come off?”

Sid Jakes chuckled. “You know Ronny. Never fails. But we had to scratch that probationary agent we sent with him.”

“All right. Don’t bother me with the details. Both of you come to my office. I’ve got another job for Ronny.”

Sid said, “He’s recuperating from a wound.”

“Can he walk?”

“Sure. As Irene told you, he’s here in my office.”

“Then come on over.” The weary face faded.

Sid Jakes shook his head. “The Old Man’s a goddamned slave driver. Maybe we can talk him out of it.” He came to his feet and led the way.

Ronny sighed and followed. Damn little chance there was of ever changing Ross Metaxa’s mind about anything.

They went down the hall to a door inconspicuously lettered Ross Metaxa, Commissioner, Section G. Ronny wondered all over again at the lack of ostentation in all pertaining to this man, who was possibly the single most powerful figure in United Planets, all unbeknownst to the billions of persons who counted themselves citizens of the loose confederation.

Sid Jakes knocked briefly and pushed on through followed by his top agent, without waiting for response.

Metaxa was behind the desk. On their appearance, he opened a drawer and brought forth a squat dark bottle and a glass. “Drink?” he said, pouring a heavy shot.

“At this time of day? And that?” Sid Jakes snorted. “I’m much too young.”

Ronny made with an exaggerated wince. “Denebian tequila,” he said. “I wonder what the hell they make it out of.”

Metaxa knocked the water-colored guzzle back over his tonsils with the stiff wrist of the practiced drinker.

He said, “Sit down. How bad’s your wound, Ronny?”

“Not too bad. I’ll be taking the bandage off in a couple of days. However, I was looking forward to a vacation.”

“It’ll have to wait. But this assignment will be the next thing to a vacation.”

Sid Jakes chuckled, “I’ll bet.”

Ronny said in resignation, “What’s it all about?” The newcomers had taken seats.

But at that moment came another knock on the door and Ross Metaxa pressed a button beneath his foot to activate it.

There entered possibly the largest man Ronny Bronston could ever remember having seen. His size was considerably muted, however, by his ultra-conservative dress, the anachronistic pince-nez glasses he wore, and his air of the scholar. It was Doctor Dorn M. Horsten. All three knew him, though he and Ronny hadn’t been in contact since the noted research algae specialist had been recruited into Section G.

Ronny and Sid Jakes came to their feet and shook hands and exchanged the usual amenities.

Metaxa growled, “Sit down, everybody.” He looked at the big man. “You’re the least likely seeming agent in the section. I understand that Lee Chang Chu recruited you into her Special Talents class, as she calls it. ESPers, midgets, pickpockets and everything else off-beat. What’s your special talent?”

Doctor Horsten was a very nice, very soft-spoken man. He said, “I suppose that the best thing would be for me to demonstrate.”

He brought forth from its shoulder rig his H-gun. In his hands the large weapon was dwarfed. He took the barrel and twisted it into the shape of a pretzel.

The Section G Commissioner bug-eyed him. “You can’t do that!” he said indignantly.

Dorn Horsten said mildly, “Yes, I can. The standard prejudice that double-domes, as the expression goes, don’t have muscles fails to stand up on my home world of Brobingnag, Commissioner. You see, we have a 1.4 G planet. On top of that, the original colonists, from Scandinavia, were, ah, nature boys, I believe is the usual term of disapprobation. At any rate, I would wager than Brobdingnag produces the strongest citizens in United Planets. Besides that, since boyhood I’ve made a hobby of weight lifting and, ah, doing such things as tying knots in one-inch mild steel bars.”

“Wizard,” Metaxa sighed. “Happily, you won’t be needing your special talent on the brainworld. This assignment is purely routine.”

“Brainworld?” Ronny said.

“Einstein,” Metaxa said, looking over at him. “Ever heard of it?”

“I don’t believe so. Wasn’t Einstein a prominent physicist of the 20th Century?”

“I’ve heard of it vaguely,” Dorn Horsten said. “I met one of their scientists, a brilliant chap, at a conference on the phylum Thallophyta on the planet Firenze some time ago.”

Metaxa nodded. “He’d be brilliant all right, if he came from Einstein.”

“Member of the United Planets?” Ronny said.

His superior shook his head. “No. That’s why we’re here. They just applied for membership.”

He took up his bottle of tequila and poured himself another slug and gestured with the bottle in way of offering to Horsten.

Doctor Horsten shook his head. “I’ve heard about your tequila,” he said mildly.

Metaxa knocked the drink back and said, “Let me give you some background. When Einstein was first colonized, some time ago, there was one big basic requirement demanded of the colonists. Aside from good physical health, they had to have an I.Q. of at least 130.”

“What’s I.Q.?” Ronny said.

“An early method of measuring your intelligence,” Sid Jakes told him. “That’s a neat trick. Populating your world with double-domes, as Dorn calls them.”

Metaxa said, “Briefly, this is how it works. It was the French psychologist Alfred Binet who created, in 1904, the first systematic intelligence tests. Quite a few variations came along later. Here’s the general idea.”

He picked up a paper from his desk and began to read.

“Intelligence tests consist in general of a heterogeneous series of questions to be answered, problems to be solved, and tasks to be fulfilled, all of varying degrees of difficulty, which the individual is given to complete within a specified time. The questions and other parts of the test mean nothing in themselves, and so-called standardization of the test is essential before any conclusions as to intelligence can be drawn. Standardization of a test consists in its administration to as many individuals as possible of various ages. From the results thus obtained it is possible to determine the average number of questions answered, problems solved, and tasks completed of individuals of certain ages. For example, of 100 questions, the average answered correctly by a child of 7 might be 10; by a child of nine, 15; by a child of 12, 30; and so on. If then a child of nine answers thirty questions correctly, he is classed with the children of 12 and his mental age is said to be 12. The so-called Intelligence Quotient is a comparison between this mental age and his real or chronological age, in this case 9. It is computed by dividing the mental age, 12 by the chronological age (9) and multiplying the result by 100 to eliminate the decimal point. In this case the I.Q. comes to 133, which is relatively high. As the child grows, the mental age and the chronological age generally increase at a relatively equal pace so that the I.Q. varies to only a small extent.”

Metaxa looked up. “Most of the I.Q. tests used one hundred as the average, and it was found that the overwhelming majority of persons fell between 90 and 110. Comparatively few were below that, comparatively few above. 100 to 110 was considered to be Above Average; 110 to 120 was considered Very Intelligent; 120 to 130 was considered Superior; 130 to 140 was considered Very Superior; and above 140 was considered Gifted. Some of the tests considered above 160 to be Genius.”

Dorn Horsten demured mildly. “That’s a somewhat elastic term,” he said. “We shouldn’t confuse genius with high I.Q. It is usually, though not always, that a genius is very intelligent, but more is needed than that. A subtle something thus far never defined. In fact, the spark of genius can sometimes, especially in the arts, be found in persons of quite mediocre I.Q. It is debatable, for instance, that Edison had an exceptional I.Q. Fairly high, most likely, but not exceptional. When he got out of his own field and commented upon such matters as politics and economics, he seemed a veritable idiot.”

Sid Jakes said, “An indication of rating is to be found in the fact that the United States military at the time of the Second World War demanded an I.Q. of at least 110 for entry into OCS, the officer’s training school.” He chuckled. “Another indication is that at one time the U.S. Army decided that no man could hold sergeant’s rank unless he had an I.Q. of at least 90. So they gave all the sergeants an I.Q. test and so many of them failed to make 90 that they had to give up the requirement. They wouldn’t have had any sergeants left.”

“All right, all right,” Metaxa said impatiently. “But to get back to the point. Since being first colonized with Earthlings with Very Superior I.Q.s, or more, Einstein has evidently made a policy of upgrading their average intelligence.”

Sid Jakes whistled softly through his teeth. “That’s a neat trick. After all this time, what have they come up with?”

Metaxa looked over at him. “We don’t know. Practically nothing is known about the world. They have never encouraged visitors from elsewhere, and certainly not United Planets.”

Ronny was frowning. “But earlier you said that they’ve applied for membership.”

“Yes, and that’s what we’re wondering about. Why? For a long time, since Einstein was first colonized, they’ve held themselves aloof. Absolutely haughty. A too-good-for-us sort of attitude. The only communication they usually have is with the most technologically advanced planets, such as Avalon. From time to time they’ll send delegations to such worlds and swap scientific knowledge, and technological know-how. Usually, from what our records show, they have more to give than to receive, but from time to time they pick up something that they, themselves, have thus far not hit upon.”

Dorn Horsten said slowly, “It would seem to me that the acquisition of such a world as Einstein would fit in with the basic purpose of Section G. That is, to upgrade the human race, scientifically, technologically, so that when and if we come up against alien intelligent life we’ll be most suited to deal with it, on either friendly or other basis.”

“That is what we are hoping for,” Metaxa said. “But we still wonder at their motivation, at this late date. What if we bring them into our confederation, a world that is intellectually superior to such an extent that they might be able to take over, lock, stock and barrel, our institutions?” He shrugged and let his moist eyes go from Horsten to Ronny Bronston. “At any rate, that’s your assignment. To go to Einstein and thoroughly case the planet.”

Ronny said, “What’s our cover?”

“You have none. You don’t need any. You are preliminary representatives sent by the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs to investigate the workings of a world that has applied for membership. Nothing could be more reasonable. Later, after your report, if they are found acceptable, then, undoubtedly, a delegation from United Planets, probably including the President himself, will come to welcome them to membership.”

He wrapped it up. “You play it straight. You should have no difficulty whatsoever. As I said earlier, it should be like a vacation.”

Ronny’s face held puzzlement. “It doesn’t sound like my type of assignment. Why me? And why Dorn, for that matter? We’re both trouble shooters, hatchet men, as someone unkindly put it once.”

Metaxa sighed and eyed his bottle for a moment, but then shook his head and picked it up and returned it reluctantly to the drawer. He said, “Because we put it on the computers and out of all the thousands of Probationary Agents, First Grade Agents, Supervisor Agents, and all others, Doctor Horsten had the highest intelligence rating and you had second highest. Your experience, of course, is greater than Horsten’s, so the two of you go to this damned brain world.”

Ronny Bronston was flabbergasted. He had never thought of himself as having more than average intelligence.

Metaxa said sourly, “But, even so, don’t play any battle chess with them. We can’t afford to show ourselves up.”

Doctor Horsten said mildly, “They don’t play battle chess. The chap I met on Firenze introduced me to their planetary intellectual game. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the rules and gave up. It was too advanced for me. Evidently, on Einstein, even the children play it.”

Sid Jakes, characteristically, was chuckling. He said to Metaxa, “When they put into the computers the request for who had the highest intelligence in Section G, Chief, how did you rate?”

The Commissioner glared at him. “Shut up, you laughing hyena,” he growled. “You don’t need brains to get places in Section G. You’re the classic example.”

“I resemble that remark,” Sid Jakes said with mock dignity.

Metaxa said to Ronny and Dorn Horsten, “There it is. The sooner you get going, the better. The Director of the Commissariat isn’t too happy about this. I had to talk him into it. To him, it smacks of insincerity on our part. We should welcome them with open arms to our confederation of planets.”

Dorn Horsten had been straightening out the barrel of his Section G H-gun.

Sid Jakes laughed and said, “Forget about it. We’ll issue you another one. You’d never be able to hit a building with that shooter, after what you did to the barrel.”

“I hate guns,” Horsten said.

Metaxa said, “That reminds me. You two will take your communicators but not your H-guns, nor any other Section G equipment, no matter how hideable. They’d probably have metal detectors and so forth at the spaceport and it would look suspicious for you to arrive on your type of mission armed. Einstein is said to be one of the richest, one of the most scientifically advanced, planets settled by man. They undoubtedly have all sorts of ways to detect anything off-beat about you two.”

“Got it,” Ronny said, coming to his feet. “How do we get there? Do we have a Space Forces craft assigned to us?”

His superior shook his head. “No. You play it very unostentatiously. You travel by commercial carrier. First class, but not in one of the most expensive staterooms. On Einstein, if you are not offered accommodations by the authorities, you stay in a good hotel, but not a deluxe one. You play everything very earnest, very sincere.”