Read Online The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert by Frank Herbert - Free Book Online
Authors: Frank Herbert
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filed a transgraph to Mrs. Bertz, his secretary, telling her to cancel his appointments for the next day. He snuggled up to the pillow, hugging it. Sleep avoided him. He practiced yoga breathing. His senses remained alert. He slipped out of bed, put on a robe and sandals. He looked at the bedside clockâ2:05 A.M. , Saturday, May 15, 1999. He thought, Just twenty-five hours agoânightmare. Now ⦠I donât know. He smiled. Yes I do; Iâm in love. I feel like a college kid.
He took a deep breath. Iâm in love. He closed his eyes and looked at a memory picture of Colleen. Eric, if you only solve this Syndrome, the world is yours. The thoughts skipped a beat. Iâm an incipient manicâ
Eric ruminated. If Pete takes that musikron out of SeattleâWhat then?
He snapped a finger, went to the vidiphone, called an all-night travel agency. A girl clerk finally agreed to look up the booking dates he wantedâfor a special fee. He gave her his billing code, broke the connection and went to the microfilm rack across from the foot of his bed. He ran a finger down the title index, stopped at âImplications of Encephalographic Wave Forms, A Study of the Nine Brain Pulses, by Dr. Carlos Amanti.â He pushed the selector opposite the tape, activated the screen above the rack and returned to his bed, carrying the remote-control unit.
The first page flashed on the screen; room lights dimmed automatically. He read:
âThere is a scale of vibratory impulses spanning and exceeding the human auditory range which consistently produce emotional responses of fear in varying degrees. Certain of these vibratory impulsesâloosely grouped under the term sounds âtest the extremes of human emotional experience. One may say, within reason, that all emotion is response to stimulation by harmonic movement, by oscillation.
âMany workers have liked emotions with characteristic encephalographic wave responses: Carterâs work on Zeta waves and love; Reymann on Pi waves and abstract thinking; Poulson on the Theta Wave Index to degrees of sorrow, to name a few.
âIt is the purpose of my work to trace these characteristic responses and point out what I believe to be an entirely new direction for interpretation ofââ
Because of the late hour, Eric had expected drowsiness to overtake his reading, but his senses grew more alert as he read. The words had the familiarity of much re-reading, but they still held stimulation. He recalled a passage toward the end of the book, put the film on motor feed and scanned forward to the section he wanted. He slowed the tape, returned the controls to single-page advance; there it was:
âWhile working with severely disturbed patients in the teleprobe, I have found a charged emotional feeling in the atmosphere. Others, unfamiliar with my work, have reported this same experience. This suggests that the characteristic emanations of a disturbed mentality may produce sympathetic reactions upon those within the unshielded field of the teleprobe. Strangely, this disturbed sensation sometimes follows by minutes or even hours the period when the patient was under examination.
âI am hesitant to suggest a theory based upon this latter phenomenon. There is too much we do not know about the teleprobeâits latency period, for instance. However, it is possible that the combination of teleprobe and disturbed personality broadcasts a field with a depressant effect upon the unconscious functions of persons within that field. Be that as it may, this entire field of teleprobe and encephalographic wave research carries implications whichââ
With a decisive gesture, Eric snapped off the projector, slipped out of bed and dressed. The bedside clock showed 3:28 A.M. , Saturday, May 15, 1999. Never in his life had he felt more alert. He took the steps two at a time down to his basement lab, flipped on all the lights, wheeled out his
He took a deep breath. Iâm in love. He closed his eyes and looked at a memory picture of Colleen. Eric, if you only solve this Syndrome, the world is yours. The thoughts skipped a beat. Iâm an incipient manicâ
Eric ruminated. If Pete takes that musikron out of SeattleâWhat then?
He snapped a finger, went to the vidiphone, called an all-night travel agency. A girl clerk finally agreed to look up the booking dates he wantedâfor a special fee. He gave her his billing code, broke the connection and went to the microfilm rack across from the foot of his bed. He ran a finger down the title index, stopped at âImplications of Encephalographic Wave Forms, A Study of the Nine Brain Pulses, by Dr. Carlos Amanti.â He pushed the selector opposite the tape, activated the screen above the rack and returned to his bed, carrying the remote-control unit.
The first page flashed on the screen; room lights dimmed automatically. He read:
âThere is a scale of vibratory impulses spanning and exceeding the human auditory range which consistently produce emotional responses of fear in varying degrees. Certain of these vibratory impulsesâloosely grouped under the term sounds âtest the extremes of human emotional experience. One may say, within reason, that all emotion is response to stimulation by harmonic movement, by oscillation.
âMany workers have liked emotions with characteristic encephalographic wave responses: Carterâs work on Zeta waves and love; Reymann on Pi waves and abstract thinking; Poulson on the Theta Wave Index to degrees of sorrow, to name a few.
âIt is the purpose of my work to trace these characteristic responses and point out what I believe to be an entirely new direction for interpretation ofââ
Because of the late hour, Eric had expected drowsiness to overtake his reading, but his senses grew more alert as he read. The words had the familiarity of much re-reading, but they still held stimulation. He recalled a passage toward the end of the book, put the film on motor feed and scanned forward to the section he wanted. He slowed the tape, returned the controls to single-page advance; there it was:
âWhile working with severely disturbed patients in the teleprobe, I have found a charged emotional feeling in the atmosphere. Others, unfamiliar with my work, have reported this same experience. This suggests that the characteristic emanations of a disturbed mentality may produce sympathetic reactions upon those within the unshielded field of the teleprobe. Strangely, this disturbed sensation sometimes follows by minutes or even hours the period when the patient was under examination.
âI am hesitant to suggest a theory based upon this latter phenomenon. There is too much we do not know about the teleprobeâits latency period, for instance. However, it is possible that the combination of teleprobe and disturbed personality broadcasts a field with a depressant effect upon the unconscious functions of persons within that field. Be that as it may, this entire field of teleprobe and encephalographic wave research carries implications whichââ
With a decisive gesture, Eric snapped off the projector, slipped out of bed and dressed. The bedside clock showed 3:28 A.M. , Saturday, May 15, 1999. Never in his life had he felt more alert. He took the steps two at a time down to his basement lab, flipped on all the lights, wheeled out his
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