The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (43 page)

The next day a visitor came. It was Doctor.

He was greyer than when I had seen him, but healthy and happy and rich-looking. His beard was trimmed to a point instead of square,
and he had white edging on his vest. He shook my hand and acted glad to see me.

“You’re a real success, Congo,” he said over and over again. “I told you that you’d be.” We talked a while over this and that, and after a few minutes my owners left the room to do some business or other. Then Doctor leaned forward and patted my knee.

“I say, Congo,” he grinned, “how would you like to have some brothers and sisters?”

I did not understand him, and I said so.

“Oh, perfectly simple,” he made reply, crossing his legs. “There are going to be more like you.”

“More Kulakambas?”

He nodded. “Yes. With brains to think with, and jaws to talk with. You’ve been a success, I’d say – profitable, fascinating. And my next experiment will be even better, more accurate. Then others – each a valuable property – each an advance in surgery and psychology over the last.”

“Don’t do it, Doctor,” I said all at once.

“Don’t do it?” he repeated sharply. “Why not?”

I tried to think of something compelling to reply, but nothing came to mind. I just said, “Don’t do it, Doctor,” as I had already.

He studied me a moment, with narrow eyes, then he snorted just as he had in the old days. “You’re going to say it’s cruel, I suppose,” he sneered at me.

“That is right. It is cruel.”

“Why, you – ” He broke off without calling me anything, but I could feel his scorn, like a hot light upon me. “I suppose you know that if I hadn’t done what I did to you, you’d be just a monkey scratching yourself.”

I remembered the Kulakambas, happy and thoughtless in the wilderness.

He went on, “I gave you a mind and hands and speech, the three things that make up a man. Now you – ”

“Yes,” I interrupted again, for I remembered what I had been reading about Caliban. “Speech enough to curse you.”

He uncrossed his legs. “A moment ago you were begging me not to do something.”

“I’ll beg again, Doctor,” I pleaded, pushing my anger back into myself. “Don’t butcher more beasts into – what I am.”

He looked past me, and when he spoke it was not to me, but to himself. “I’ll operate on five at first, ten the next year, and maybe get some assistants to do even more. In six or eight years there’ll be a full hundred like you, or more advanced – ”

“You mustn’t,” I said very firmly, and leaned forward in my turn.

He jumped up. “You forget yourself, Congo,” he growled. “I’m not used to the word “mustn’t” – especially from a thing that owes me so much. And especially when I will lighten the labour of mankind.”

“By laying mankind’s labour on poor beasts.”

“What are you going to do about it?” he flung out.

“I will prevent you,” I promised.

He laughed. “You can’t. All these gifts of yours mean nothing. You have a flexible tongue, a rational brain – but you’re a beast by law and by nature. I,” and he thumped his chest, “am a great scientist. You can’t make a stand of any kind.”

“I will prevent you,” I said again, and I got up slowly.

He understood then, and yelled loudly. I heard an answering cry in the hall outside. He ran for the door, but I caught him. I remember how easily his neck broke in my hands. Just like a carrot.

The police came and got me, with guns and gas bombs and chains. I was taken to a jail and locked in the strongest cell, with iron bars all around. Outside some police officials and an attorney or two talked.

“He can’t be tried for murder,” said someone. “He’s only an animal, and not subject to human laws.”

“He was aware of what he did,” argued a policeman. “He’s as guilty as the devil.”

“But we can hardly bring him into court,” replied one of the attorneys. “Why, the newspapers would kid us clear out of the country – out of the legal profession.”

They puzzled for a moment, all together. Then one of the police officers slapped his knee. “I’ve got it,” he said, and they all looked at him hopefully.

“Why talk about trials?” demanded the inspired one. “If he can’t be tried for killing that medic, neither can we be tried for killing him.”

“Not if we do it painlessly,” seconded someone.

They saw I was listening, and moved away and talked softly for a full quarter of an hour. Then they all nodded their heads as if agreeing on something. One police captain, fat and white-haired, came to the bars of my cell and looked through.

“Any last thing you’d like to have?” he asked me, not at all unkindly.

I asked for pen and ink and paper and time enough to write this.

Since the 1950s, John Brunner has been one of the most prolific and influential of science fiction writers. He has won many literary awards, including The Hugo Award, The British Science Fiction Award (twice), The British Fantasy Award, the French Prix Apollo, and the Italian Cometa d’Argento (twice)
.

The author of such acclaimed SF novels as
Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, The Jagged Orbit
and
The Shockwave Rider,
he has also written mystery, fantasy and thriller fiction. More recently, he has successfully turned his hand to the horror story, with several tales published in
Dark Voices: The Pan Book of Horror
and
Weird Tales.

The story which follows, written especially for this book, blends a number of genres
. . .

A
N HOUR REMAINED
before sunset on this wet and windy autumn day, but in the sanctum of the Marquis de Vergonde it was always dark, and had been for more than seven years. The sole permitted luminance was shed on the portrait of Sibylle
née
Serrouiller, who had so briefly been his wife –
the
portrait, all there had been time for, though he had intended to commission one a year – before which, as on an altar, burned candles and sweet-smelling incense cones.

Few had laid eyes on it, but those who had might testify how beauty such as hers could snatch the breath.

Having re-dedicated himself to what had become his all-absorbing
purpose, the marquis withdrew and made ready to secure the room – its key being one of two that never left his belt, while the other had never been used save once and was destined to be used only once more, on his day of final triumph – before crossing the tiled floor of the
château
’s spacious albeit shabby entrance hall to the laboratory where he daily wrestled with the ultimate mystery of nature: the secret of life itself. His servant and confidant Jules (if the fellow had another name it had long been forgotten by all except himself) roused from the settle where he had been drowsing and started to draw back clumsy iron bolts.

At precisely which moment resounded from outside the noise of smashing glass. An instant later it was followed by a thunderous banging on the vast black oak front door.

But there were never any callers at this house.

Only intruders.

Lent arrogance by the brandy which was already empurpling his nose and cheeks despite his youth, Paul Serrouiller stared mockingly at his brother-in-law. How despicable he seemed! Unshaven, clad in garments fit only for a scarecrow, haggard as though he had not slept properly in years, and redolent of the chemicals wafting from the direction of the laboratory Jules had opened up and not had time to shut again –

Where had the lout vanished to, anyway, after admitting the newcomers? Why was he not bowing and scraping and offering to take this soaking Burberry and rain-dulled beaver hat, and the like outerwear from his companions? For an instant Paul’s sense of triumph was diminished. What, though, did a servant matter? The purpose of this visit was to be achieved at all costs, and those who had agreed to escort him hither stood to gain as surely as did he himself, so they would abet him in whatever he said or did. It was obvious that their first sight of the
château
had gone a long way toward convincing them that his wildest accusations against the marquis were likely to be borne out. Who but a madman would tolerate such conditions? The cobwebs that hung from the arched ceiling were as dense as tapestry!

Oh, Jules had probably fled in the sensible certainty that his employer was done for.

“You know me, brother-in-law!” he rasped. “Long though it be since we met! But you don’t know my friends, who have come to put a term to your squandering of what rightly should be my inheritance! I present Maître Poltenaire, doctor of civil law; Monsieur Schaefer, his
huissier
; and last but very far from least, Dr Michel Largot, the celebrated alienist from the Salpêtrière, who is accompanied by his trusted male nurse, Serge.”

Eyes bleared from years of study by inadequate light and constant exposure to noxious fumes, the marquis sought and finally donned thick spectacles just in time to find his attention directed toward Serge, who towered over his employer massive as a treetrunk, his shaven head round and smooth as a cannonball.

“What – what do you want?” he husked.

“Justice!” rasped Paul. “And even sooner, a drink! There used to be a fine cellar here. I recall it from my sister’s nuptials. Schaefer, try that room on the left –”

“No! No!” The marquis was almost babbling.

“You want to keep us out of there, do you?” sneered Paul. “I wonder why!” And with one swift stride planted his hand on the iron latch of the sanctum and flung wide the door the marquis had not had the chance to re-lock.

“
Faugh
!” he exclaimed as the draught of its opening disturbed more than a lustrum’s worth of dust and made the candles gutter. “Serge, pull back these curtains!”

“No, no!” The marquis was battering at him with futile fists. “You have no right! This is my home, not yours!”

The lawyer gave a discreet cough.

“Begging your excellency’s pardon, there is room for doubt on that score. If, as we have been advised, you have pretended for seven years that your wife, who is in fact dead, is still alive, in order to enjoy the estate she brought to your marriage for you to share, and I quote, ‘during her lifetime, and afterward –’ ”

Until the majority of your eldest child, if any! The marquis knew all the conditions of his late father-in-law’s will by heart, and all the threatening documents sent on his brother-in-law’s behalf by corrupt and venial lawyers like this new one.

Oddly, though, the stern legal voice had faded between words. Drawn aside amid a downpour of dead moths and flies, the curtains of the nearest window had parted to let the fading daylight fall squarely on the image of Sibylle, glorious in her nineteen-year-old nudity from her curly blonde crown to her tiny soles.

“You see?” the marquis cried triumphantly. “She isn’t dead! How can she be? Beauty such as hers can never die! It mustn’t be allowed to!”

Panting, he caught at the arm of M. Poltenaire, gesturing to attract the attention of the alienist as well.

“I can show you all the references to my work on the longevity of the
Bufonidae
– the toad family, that is. I have hundreds of reports concerning the way they can survive being enclosed in dry mud or even rock, including many from Australia where they are especially
abundant. We found an example right here on our estate, sealed up in a tree!”

Dr Largot raised a pale-palmed hand.

“One moment, please. Are we to believe what your brother-in-law has told us? When his sister, your wife, died –”

“She isn’t dead!”

“With respect –”

“Oh, forget the respect stuff!” Paul snarled. “The plain fact is, the man’s crazy! And never mind the ‘famous scientist’ rubbish! He simply can’t accept –”

“But I’ve proved my claim!” Behind his glasses the marquis was unashamedly weeping. “Having obtained her full permission, using the data I had garnered from my study of toads, at the very moment that the vital spark expired I perfused her system with the extracts my studies had convinced me would preserve her in a state of suspended animation.” He was regaining his composure. Wiping his eyes with a large silk kerchief, he continued.

“All that remained was to exclude air. The compounds I had injected would preserve her indefinitely against, dehydration and putrefaction, but until a cure could be found for her malady she must remain immobile, unthinking, unfeeling. So I put her mausoleum under a hermetic seal. Now if you will accompany me into my laboratory I can show you how much progress is being made towards a cure. I correspond with the most renowned physicians in this country, in Germany, England, America, even Russia where marvellous work is being carried on concerning the resuscitation of debilitated cell-lines . . . Is something wrong?”

“Mausoleum?” Paul scoffed. “That shack beside the driveway with her name scrawled over the door? Not even decently carved!”

“Why, you –!” But the marquis, mindful of his weakened state, let his fists fall at his sides. “I must admit,” he muttered, “I deemed it preferable to spend my funds on research rather than –”

“Whose funds?” Paul rasped. And added to the lawyer, “Make a note of that! Not that it matters, apparently.” He uttered a cynical chuckle.