...

But then: it _couldn't_ be memory.... Never before had Lee's memory
expressed itself in such a weird, such a theatrical manner: like a
metallic robot-actor rehearsing his lines ... like a little child which
has just learned a sentence and in the pride of achievement varies the
intonation in every possible way. Over and over it came:

"I _think_--therefore I am."

And then: "_I_ think--therefore _I_ am."

And then: "I think, therefore _I am_."

There was triumph, there was jubilance in that inhuman, that ghostly
voice as of a deaf mute who by some miracle of medicine has just
recovered speech. Behind that voice was a _feeling_, a swelling of the
heart, a filling of the lungs such as Christopher Columbus might have
experienced as he heard from the masthead of the Santa Maria the cry of
victory: "Land, Land!" and _knew_ that he had found his--India....

* * * * *

Whatever Lee had experienced in his life, there was no parallel to this;
in whatever manner he had expressed himself, there was no similarity to
this. Up to this point his ratio like a nurse had soothed him: "It isn't
so, child, it isn't so," but now ratio itself, thoroughly frightened,
was driven into a corner and had to admit: "This thing cannot be an echo
reverberating from the self; that's impossible.... Consequently it must
be something else; it must be something _outside_ the self; it
is--_another_ self."

The green dancer whirled across the stage like a mad witch; the
whispering voice in the earphones had turned into the shrillness of a
Shamaan's incantations. The irrationality of it all infuriated Lee: he
fairly shouted at the machine:

"What is this? Who are you?"

In the midst of a crazy jump the green dancer halted and came down to
earth; it fled, leaving only the train of its green costume behind. For
a few seconds there was nothing but the asthmatic pantings of a struggle
for breath in the microphones. Then the dancer reappeared on the other
side of the stage, hesitant-like, expectant of pursuit. All of a sudden
it rose into the air in that supreme effort called "ballooning" in the
language of the Ballet Russe and there was a simultaneous outburst of
that ghastly voice:

"Lee, Semper Fidelis, 39 ... I--am--The Brain."

"I Think, therefore I am: I am THE BRAIN."

"Lee, sensitivity 209: I AM THE BRAIN I AM THE BRAIN THE BRAIN."

He couldn't stand it any longer. His head swam, perspiration was gushing