The Fellowship of the Hand (22 page)

“And to Emily Watson,” Hobbes proposed, lifting his own glass. “Her generosity, her charm, has saved us more than once. If tonight sees the birth, or the rebirth, of a new man, he will have Emily Watson to thank along with us.”

O’Connor downed his martini with a single gulp. “Let’s get on with it. Why do we have to wait till nine o’clock?”

“The vaults have to cool gradually to a certain point,” Hobbes explained. “And I couldn’t start the process until we’re all assembled. If you were delayed, Freddy, and the operation postponed, we would have had a thawing body to refreeze.”

“I thought you thawed them after surgery,” Earl said.

“Only the final raising of the temperature to a normal level. Initially we have to bring them back from their storage in a capsule of liquid nitrogen. Obviously we don’t need them as cold as their capsule temperature of—320°F. At nine o’clock tonight the body temperatures will be suitable for surgery by established cryosurgical techniques.”

“And then we’ll know,” Emily Watson said.

Lawrence Hobbes nodded. “Then we’ll know.”

While Earl was setting up his photographic equipment in the operating amphitheater, he had his first opportunity to chat with Vera Morgan. She’d come down with him to lay out the various instruments of surgery—the nitrogen wand, the cannula, the scalpels and sutures, everything but anesthetic. They wouldn’t be needing that.

“Are you and Tony Cooper a team?” Earl asked while she worked.

“A team? No.”

“I wondered.”

“We go our own ways.” She brushed the blond hair from her wide, pale blue eyes and smiled at him.

“After O’Connor’s remark this morning …”

“Freddy O’Connor is a pig! I’ll deal with him after our work is finished.”

“Have you known him long?”

“Long enough. When Tony told me he’d be here, I almost turned down the job.” She finished laying out the instruments and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “I’m really a research chemist, you know. I’ll be doing a few lab tests for them later, but mainly I just came along because Tony wanted me to. Assisting at an operation is something I haven’t done in years.”

“Why didn’t Hobbes hire a regular nurse?” Earl wondered.

“He’s trying to keep this whole business as secret as possible. The men were necessary because of their special skills, but he fears a woman brought in merely as a nurse might talk.”

“Yes,” Earl agreed, remembering the deaf and dumb cook.

“Naturally, if the experiment tonight is successful he’ll want the world to know. But if it’s a failure the news could seriously affect ICI’s future business. Who’d trust them with a body after this?”

The operating room door opened and Freddy O’Connor entered, dressed in surgical greens. “Ah, caught you, Jazine! Makin’ points with Miss Vera!”

“Just talking.”

He gave them a smile that was almost a leer. “’Bout what?”

“ICI and the setup here,” Vera Morgan said.

Freddy chuckled, remembering one of his jokes. “I told Hobbes he should have named it the International Cryogenics Establishment. Then he could have called it ICE.”

Vera simply shook her head. “Don’t you ever settle down, Freddy?”

“I’d like to settle down with you, right here on this operating table.”

Before she could reply to the invitation, some of the others began drifting in. Whalen and Hobbes came in together, and Tony Cooper followed behind them. “All set, Jazine?” Lawrence Hobbes asked, surveying the camera setups.

“Just about.”

“We’ll want another angle on this.”

Earl nodded. “I have a remote camera I’ll use over there. This system operates something like a miniature TV studio. I’ll be able to monitor the views on all cameras from my position, using these little screens.”

“Good!”

Emily Watson came in next, leaning on the arm of Dr. MacKenzie. He was not yet in surgical costume, and when he’d escorted her to the front row of amphitheater seats he hurried off to change. Miss Watson hadn’t been present at dinner, which had been served by the silent Hilda with a speed bordering on indifference. They’d all eaten lightly, and followed the meal with an amphetamine compound designed to keep them alert during the hours of work to come.

It was obvious that Miss Watson was to be the only spectator. The others clustered around the operating table, preparing for their tasks, while Lawrence Hobbes surveyed it all with an air of anticipation. This was his night of triumph, and he was savoring it.

Dr. Armstrong entered next and took up his position on a high stool overlooking the scene. He would have no role until the surgery was complete and the life-support mechanism took over.

MacKenzie returned in surgical greens and gave the word to Hobbes. “We’re ready to begin.”

“Very well. Whalen, help me with the elevator.”

The men pulled down their Plexiglas breathing helmets and locked them in place. Earl and Vera did likewise. He glanced out at the seats to see if Emily Watson was taking any sterile precautions, then realized that an invisible ultraviolet barrier would separate her from the operating room itself.

“The capsule is coming up,” Hobbes announced from the elevator door, his voice crackling mechanically through the helmet speaker. The vaults were directly beneath the operating room, and the capsules to be used had been moved into position electrically. The first one would contain the body of the young man with the brain tumor—the shell body they’d be using.

While they waited for the elevator there was a break in the action (as Earl remembered the TV sports commentators of his youth saying), and he moved over to Armstrong on his stool, “Who is this fellow we’re resurrecting, anyway?”

The internist shrugged. “Nobody special. Hobbes is keeping all the identities secret so he won’t be sued by relatives.”

“Shouldn’t he have a name?”

O’Connor heard them from across the room and suggested, “Let’s call him Frank—for short.”

The elevator door opened and a long, slender cylinder emerged. “This capsule works on the same principle as a thermos bottle,” Lawrence Hobbes explained through his helmet speaker as he wheeled the cylinder into position at the foot of the operating table. “There’s an inner container chilled by liquid nitrogen, with a vacuum between it and the outer shell. The body itself is wrapped in one-inch insulating cover made of cotton and synthetic aluminized fabric.” He cast a disapproving eye at Earl through the Plexiglas faceplate. “And we speak of it as reanimation, not resurrection. We don’t want the Church down on us along with everyone else.”

The top of the capsule was quickly unscrewed as Earl pushed the button to start his cameras and tapes. He was aware that the temperature in the operating room was falling quickly, and he saw jets of frigid mist coming from the concave sides of the operating table. With Whalen and Cooper assisting, the fabric-covered body was slid slowly out of its tube and onto the table.

“This is the shell body,” Hobbes said, stepping aside as the surgical team went to work. “The next one up will be donor of the brain.”

Earl thought
donor
was an odd word to use since the owner of the brain had no voice in deciding the gift. He glanced over at Vera Morgan and saw her pass the nitrogen wand to Dr. MacKenzie, who looked about him, perhaps making sure his troops were in position, and then bent to his task.

The time was nine-fourteen.

At exactly three minutes past twelve MacKenzie stepped back and flipped up his faceplate. “That’s it. He’s all yours, Armstrong.”

Harry Armstrong came off his stool and moved quickly into position by the operating table. Five of the long cylinders now cluttered the area, and Earl’s cameras had recorded the transplant of a human brain, heart, kidneys, and liver.

“I hated to use so much from stock,” Hobbes said, lifting his own faceplate. “But that tumor did a damned lot of damage before it killed him.”

“He’s better off this way,” Tony Cooper said. “Everything new.” He unzipped his surgical green jumpsuit.

“We didn’t even need you, loverman,” Freddy O’Connor said. It was the first time he’d spoken anything but clipped instructions since the operation began. “His bones were in fine shape.”

From the operating table Armstrong gave a sudden command. “Electric shock!”

Whalen, standing by the switch, pulled it.

After a moment Armstrong lifted his head and nodded. “We have heartbeat and pulse. He’s alive.”

“O
F COURSE THE NEXT
several days will be crucial,” Harry Armstrong was saying in the morning as the medical team sat around the breakfast table and the silent Hilda went quickly about her task. “Science has pretty much licked the problem of rejection in transplant operations, but this is still new territory for us. As the body is brought up to its proper temperature and full consciousness resumes, he’ll be especially vulnerable to infection.”

Hobbes nodded impatiently. “But how long before he’ll be able to speak?”

Armstrong glanced at Freddy O’Connor for a reply. “You’re the brain man, Freddy. You tell him.”

O’Connor, all business, stared hard at his fingernails. “Well, the truth of the matter is he may never speak.”

“Never?”

“Functions like speech and movement and memory are controlled by specific sectors of the brain. In a transplant operation such as I performed last night, it’s virtually impossible to be certain that every portion of the brain survived uninjured until the patient is conscious. You must realize that brain transplants in dogs and monkeys are a great deal different from transplants in human beings. This specific case, with its cryonic overtones, is very difficult to predict. If any section of the brain was deprived of oxygen through its blood supply, once the brain was thawed, the cells in that section could be destroyed.”

“Can’t you check on it?”

“I intend to,” Freddy said. “This morning. I’ll run a scope test. It’ll tell me if any blood vessels in the brain are blocked off.”

“He’d better be fit,” Lawrence Hobbes rumbled, perhaps thinking of lawsuits. “I’m not paying you to deliver half a man!”

“Hell, that wouldn’t be much good for your news conference, would it?” Freddy replied, regaining his old irreverent spark.

For some reason Hobbes resented the flippancy at that moment. He took a step toward O’Connor and seemed about to strike him until Tony Cooper came out of his chair and stepped between them. “Let’s give it some time, Dr. Hobbes,” he reasoned. “We’ll know soon enough about Frank.”

Hobbes retreated a step. “And don’t call him Frank! We’re not actors in some third-rate horror movie! We’re scientists—and that’s a human being down there!”

Hilda reentered the room with coffee for everyone, Vera Morgan passed it by and asked for tea, then said, “I knew someone was missing. Where’s Miss Watson?”

“It was a late night for her,” Hobbes said, regaining his composure.

“But didn’t you say she usually breakfasts with you?”

“Not every day.”

“Maybe somebody should check to see if the old dame’s all right,” Freddy O’Connor suggested. “At that age you never know. The excitement might have been too much for her.”

“I’ll go,” Vera said.

“It’s not necessary,” Hobbes told them. “She’s all right.”

But Vera was already up from the table, starting for the door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Earl saw Hobbes shoot a look of alarm at the kitchen door, where Hilda stood with the tea. For just an instant there was an undercurrent of something he couldn’t quite catch. Then Vera was gone and Hobbes settled back in his chair. “The old lady’s probably asleep. Or out strolling on the beach.”

“You know something?” Dr. MacKenzie said. “Your sand out here is an unusual sort. I watch things like that since the moon trip. What’s underfoot can be very interesting at times.”

“I suppose it’s the high humidity from the cooling machines. You can see what it’s done to the rest of the island, with all our trees and grass. The place has changed a great deal since I purchased it thirty years ago.”

MacKenzie was staring out the window. “What sort of tree is that—”

He broke off as Vera Morgan reentered the dining room. Her face was white and she spoke quickly. “I … something’s happened to her! There’s blood—”

Earl Jazine was first on his feet. He followed Vera out of the room, with the others close behind. By the time they reached the second floor he was ahead of her. He went through the open door to Emily Watson’s room, not knowing what he might find.

The rumpled bed was empty and there was a smear of blood on the sheet. Her cane lay on the floor near the window.

“The bathroom!” Tony Cooper said, behind Earl. He ran to check it; it was empty.

“She has to be somewhere,” Earl said. “We’ll search the house.”

Phil Whalen entered the room and frowned at the bed. “It could be menstrual blood.”

“In a woman her age?” Hobbes snorted. “Don’t be silly! Jazine’s right—we’d better search the house.”

Earl found himself with Whalen and Cooper as they moved through the other second-floor bedrooms. He suddenly remembered the tiny pistol he’d seen strapped to Whalen’s leg, and he tried to determine if it was still there.

“Nothing up here,” Cooper said. “We’ve searched the closets and bathrooms and even looked under the beds.”

Earl looked up at the ceiling. “Is there a floor above this? An attic?”

Tony Cooper shook his head. “Rat roof, except for that TV and microwave equipment.”

“Let’s look outside,” Whalen suggested.

“She wouldn’t have gone out without her cane,” Earl said. But he followed the others downstairs.

While they went outside, though, he had another idea. He headed downstairs to the operating room, passing through the open bulkhead doors and finally into the amphitheater itself. The place was bathed in a cool white light, and he saw at once that Freddy O’Connor had preceded him.

The brain surgeon glanced up from the operating table as he approached. “Yeah, Frank’s still here—in case that’s what you were wondering.”

Earl moved closer, drawn by the hypnotic fascination of the thing on the table. The oxygen tent and protective closures had been removed, and for the first time he could get a clear, unobstructed view of the patient. Frank (he hated thinking of him by that name, but there was no other) was a young man, in his late twenties, well built and somewhat handsome, with dark brows and sharp features. His complexion was gradually taking on its proper color as the body temperature rose, and Earl noticed that the intravenous feeding line had been disconnected from his arms.