Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 42 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION Grath was more intelligent than most, yet he gobbled up the stuff, running through the entire gamut of emotions as the stops were pulled. So the millions of others in the underground cities—the exact population beinga secret, of course—must react the same as Grath. Thinking of Grath brought Kermit’s mind back to the wave. He was in the medical library, having received per- mission to visit the section. The library was complete. They had taken underground the recorded history of scien- tific thought. It was all on microfilm. And it was all neatly cata- logued. Just as Kermit had thought, the good brain sur- geon had done a paper on his work for the journal of his speciality. A very thorough paper, too. Kermit went through the whole thing. It turned out that the post- cortical node was not as un- common as the surgeon had thought when he wrote Ker- mit. Many people had such a node. As for the wave itself, it appeared as part of a com- plex of waves, some thrown off by the thalamus and lower 132 centres, others by the cor- — if tex—the thinking mechanism. The doctor had even dia- grammed the waves. others. Too carefully! Kermit gasped. There was Very — ie carefully he had separated the post-cortical wave from the ~ the unknown! Thedoctorhad | been a doctor, not a physicist. He hadn’t realised that he was creating an artificial schism. The post-cortical wave was — oi not a separate entity atall. It was the end result of a process that started at the thalamus. The doctor had thought he ue was merely separating the waves: actually he had cut out part of the post-cortical wave, creating troughs where there should have been highs. The equation had merely showed that something was missing. However, the doctor had more to say on the subject. ‘““While thalamic waves closely duplicate those of the higher animals in general, cortical waves are unique with Man. They must be _ considered waves of a higher type. And because of the type of indi- vidual in whom I have found these ‘post-cortical’ waves, they must be considered of a higher type still. There is comicloooks.c@ L =<,