Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HUMPTY calculator knew those things, and the inhuman mind of an electronic calcula- tor cannot be read. Somewhere in the great machine was a tiny crystal of barium titanate bearing a series of frozen dots of energy in a binary digit code. And that code held the ‘secret of the deadly virus. If Jeff Cody took three steps for- ward and sat down in the cushioned operator’s chair before the control panel, and if he touched a certain button, a monitor device would ex- amine the electronic pattern of his brain and identify it as surely as fin- gerprints are identified. Only one man in the world could satisfy the question the monitor would silently ask. And then a light would begin to glow — somewhere — on the con- trol panel, and under it would be a number, and, seeing that number, Cody could make the calculator reveal its secret. Before Cody, Brewster had carried this crushing burden, And be- fore Brewster, Merriam. And after Cody—someone else would have the unendurable responsibility for deciding whether to say: The end of all flesh is come before Me... . behold, I will destroy them with the earth. The crash of protesting minds burst by sheer force through the shell of defense Cody had put up around his own as he took up the knife. From all over the busy cavern telepaths stopped in their tracks and hurled their strong urgent thoughts toward. the inter- locked center that was Cody. It was stunning. He had never felt so strong an impact before. He did not mean to falter, but the burden of their protest was almost tangible, almost a thing to stagger under. Even from above-ground he could hear and feel the instant thrust of down-driving thought. A quarter of a mile above this limestone sky, above the rock and the soil with the pine tree roots DUMPTY 37 clenched downward through it, a hunter in ragged buckskins paused among the trees and sent his own shocked, sympathetic protest drop- ping toward the cavern. The thought came blurred to Cody by the stone between, and starred with the tiny, bright, brainless thoughts of small burrowing things in the soil overhead. Someone in a helicopter high up in the hot blue sky locked minds with the group underground, faint and far- off, but as instant as the man in the nearest cave beyond Cody’s locked door. ‘“‘No, no,” the voices said in his mind. “You can’t! You are all of us. You can’t. Jeff, you are all of us!” He knew it was true. The way out was like a deep, dark well, and vertigo pulled him toward it, but he knew that he would be killing his whole race, a little, if he killed himself. Only tele- paths can experience death and still live. Each time a telepath dies, all the rest within mind’s reach feel the black- ness close upon an extinguished mind, and feel their own minds extinguish a little in response. It happened so fast Cody was still feeling with two fingers along the edge of his collarbone, and the knife was not yet firm in his fist, when the single, interlocking cry of anguished protest from a hundred minds speaking as one closed down upon him. He shut his thoughts and was obdurate. He could fight them off long enough. This would only take a second. The door was locked and physical force was the only thing that could stop him. But he was uneasy even in this urgent press of voices and action. For Allenby’s mind was not speaking with the rest. Why? Now the knife was firm in his hand. Now he spread his two fingers apart a little to make way for it, knowing the place to strike. Had Brewster felt as he felt, when Brewster stood here six connicloooks.c© iim