Then he set down the
drink he was holding in his other hand and studied it intently.
"You know what you have here?" he asked. "This is a very close analogy
to the hearing organs of that animal I was working on. The comb, as
we've assumed, is the external organ. It's covered with small flaps
and fissures. Back of each fissure is a long, narrow membrane; they're
paired, one on each side of the comb, and from them nerves lead to
clusters of small round membranes. Nerves lead from them to a complex
nerve-cable at the bottom of the comb and into the brain at the base
of the skull. I couldn't understand how the system functioned, but now
I see it. Each of the larger membranes on the outside responds to a
sound-frequency band, and the small ones on the inside break the bands
down to individual frequencies."
"How many of the little ones are there?" Ayesha asked.
"Thousands of them; the inner comb is simply packed with them. Wait;
I'll show you."
He rose and went away, returning with a sheaf of photo-enlargements
and a number of blocks of lucite in which specimens were mounted.
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