_Ordeal_
Five bodies lay on the operating tables in Eliot Leithgow's
laboratory. The air, hushed and heavy, was pervaded by the various
odors of antiseptics and etheloid. The breathing cones had been
applied to each of the bodies, and they were now locked fast in
controlled unconsciousness.
On the first table lay the body of the robot-coolie, a man of medium
size, sturdy, well-muscled, with the smooth round yellow face and stub
nose of his kind. His short-cropped, bristly black hair had been
shaved off; the head was now bald. That head was destined to hold the
mighty brain of Master Scientist Raymond Cram.
On the second table lay a twisted, distorted thing, an apelike body
with which fate had played grotesque pranks. It was hairy, of middle
height, and its dark skin all over was wizened and coarse, almost like
the bark of a tree. The legs were short and bowed, the hands stubby
claws; the face, puckered even in unconsciousness, was that of a
gargoyle in pain. The long matted hair had been shaved away; the large
pate washed with antiseptics. Soon, were the operation successful,
that head would hold the brain of Professor Edgar Estapp, world-famous
chemist and bio-chemist.
On the third table lay a shape skeletonlike in appearance, so
emaciated was it, so closely did the bones press into the dry,
fever-yellowed skin. Of one leg, only the stump was left; this
creature had been forced to hop or crawl his way through the isuan
swamps. The head, too, was no more than a skull, with great sunken
dark-rimmed eyes, discolored fangs and loose, leathery lips. There had
been no hair on this death's head; it had long been bald, and now,
washed, clean for the first time in months or even years, it was to
hold the brain of Dr. Ralph Swanson, Earth's one-time leader in the
science of psychology.
On the fourth table lay a giant's body--but a hollow giant, a giant
made thin and pitiful by the ravages of his destroyer, isuan. A
roistering, free-booting space-ship sailor, this man may once have
been, but, from the drug, the mighty arms had been twisted and
shrivelled, the strong legs wasted away. One ear had been torn from
the skull in an old brawl, and what was left was naked and ugly to the
eye. Behind that bitter, drug-coarsened face would be the new home of
the brain of Sir Charles Esme Norman, wizard of mathematics and once a
polished, charming Englishman.
On the fifth table lay a dwarf. Its ridiculous body was not over four
and a half feet long, though the head was larger than that of a normal
man. In the old dark ages on Earth this body would have served for the
jester of a lord, the comic butt of a king; in more recent times as
the prize of a circus side-show. The huge, weighty head with its ugly
brooding mask of a face, the child's body below--this was for the
brain of Professor Erich Geinst, the solitary German who had stood
preeminent on Earth in astronomy.
* * * * *
These creatures were the result of Hawk Carse's desperate search. They
had composed, with one other, the band of isuanacs that had been
rooting in the swamp at the end of the lake when the asteroid had
first arrived. The Hawk had remembered them, and had quickly seen that
they were the only answer to the problem. And so, with Ban Wilson, he
had gone out for them, his mind steeled to the ghastly thought of the
great scientists' brains in such bodies. In space-suits they had swept
down on them. There had been no time for considerate measures: the
four isuanacs had been abruptly knocked out by the impact of the great
suits swooping against them, and carried back to the laboratory.
Eliot Leithgow had been shocked at the idea of a scientist's brain in
the head of the robot-coolie; how much greater, then, was his horror
when confronted by the need of using these appalling remnants of men!
But he could not protest. What else was there? Ku Sui, under the V-27,
had spoken the truth: the operations would be impossible without the
aid of his four assistants. The brains even now were dying. The choice
was: bodies of isuanacs or death for the brains. The scientist and the
adventurer had chosen.
Circumstances had required their use. Ku Sui's attempt to kill the
brains, thus inflicting a time limit: the presence of the band of
isuanacs near the laboratory; each circumstance with a long train of
other, minor ones behind it. Chance or Fate--whatever it is--whether
predetermined or accidental--men must wonder at its working, and know
awe from its patterns and results. Seldom, certainly, was there a
pattern more strange than this now being worked out in the laboratory
of Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow.
The bodies lay there, washed, shaved and swathed in customary loose
operating garments: globules of etheloid dropped steadily down into
the breathing cones, of hunchback, living skeleton, twisted giant,
dwarf and robot-coolie. One by one the isuanacs dropped with the
falling of the etheloid into unconsciousness--and that was their
farewell to the brains, each one debauched either by isuan-drug or
skill of genius, that they had known.
And movement began in the laboratory. White-clothed figures, masked
and capped, used gleaming instruments in their gloved hands; and all
the figures were mute--mute from their great concentration on the
delicate work in progress--or mute from horror that would not die....
* * * * *
So began the ordeal.
Of its details, Hawk Carse knew little. They were not of his world.
Only for the first half-hour could he follow intelligently what was
being done. He too had put on a white robe, as had Ban Wilson and
Friday; and he stood at one side of the room, a silent, intently
watching figure, with the two other men of action, Ban and the Negro,
while the rest moved in a kind of rhythm. The center-piece was the
black-garbed Ku Sui, moving from this table to that, slim gloved hands
flying, pausing, flying again, steadying, concentrating on a detail,
once more sweeping forward. No more than single words came from him;
he and his assistants worked almost as a whole, in perfect sympathy
and coordination, and a constant stream of instruments flowed to him
and then away, their task done.
The first table, and then to the second, with one white figure staying
behind at the first, finishing off details of the work, left by the
master. The third table; the fourth; the fifth; and then back to the
first, while two white figures detached themselves from the main group
and went to the nearby case of coordinated brains. An object held in a
specially formed type of pan was lifted out and carried to the first
table; and Carse sensed a crisis in the attitudes of the working men.
This, he knew, was the first great, step. A brain was being re-born.
The fingers of men, and one man in particular, were fashioning a
miracle.
How could he hope to understand? He could only hang on the movements
of that group of figures, and feel relief as he saw them settle into
smoothness again. Evidently the first crisis was past. A few minutes
more were spent at the first table; then once more Dr. Ku Sui went to
the second, and another object was carried from the coldly gleaming
case.
And in a long, deep pan standing on short legs beside the case,
something gray and shapeless and warm was placed.
The first phase came to an end when there were five similar things in
the open pan, and nothing, except the liquid and a multitude of
spidery, disconnected wires, in the case that but shortly before had
harbored the brains of five scientists....
* * * * *
A pause. Relaxation. Tests. The black-clad figure spoke to one in
yellow in a tone of pleased relief.
"Successful so far, Master Leithgow! We may congratulate ourselves on
the consummation of the first step. It has been done, I believe, well
within the time limit."
"Yes, Dr. Ku; yes. And now--how long will be needed to finish?"
"That is up to you. Normally, I would require a month. In that time
all could be done safely, with small chance--"
"Too long!" said Leithgow.
Carse intervened:
"Why too long, Eliot?"
The old scientist went over close to him, and, in a lowered voice,
explained:
"Ku Sui would develop immunity to the V-27 in a month. Two weeks of it
would give him part immunity. Even ten days might. He has to be
re-gassed four times a day."
"But, letting him come out of it every night and resting normally?"
the Hawk objected.
"I have allowed for that. The gas would still be in his system.
No--nine or ten days is the limit." He raised his voice again to reach
the Eurasian. "Can you complete the work within nine days, Dr. Ku?"
Ku Sui considered it. At last he said:
"That is a lot to ask, Master Leithgow. But--it might be possible.
However, it would mean prodigies of sustained, concentrated labor;
work and skill never-ceasing. We'll have to work in shifts,
naturally."
So it was arranged. All the assistants, both Ku Sui's and Leithgow's,
were portioned off into shifts of four hours' sleep and eight hours'
work: Carse, Ban Wilson and Friday, too, for now every one of them was
needed.
Nine days for the work of a month--and work as delicate and vital as
could possibly be! Small wonder that in the minds of all of them, the
Hawk and the old scientist, and Ban and the Negro, that period, when
remembered later, seemed no more than a confused, unreal, hazy dream;
rather, a nightmare connected imperishably with the odors of an
operating room, antiseptics, etheloid, and the glint of small, sharp
instruments.
It was a titanic task, an ordeal that stretched to the limit the
powers of the men working in that confined space. Normal life for them
ceased; the operating room became a new universe. Swiftly they lost
consciousness of time, even with the routine of the changing shifts
and the food which was brought in at regular hours. Antiseptics,
etheloid, the never-ceasing flow of the instruments, the five bodies
lying still and deathlike on the tables, the hard white glare of the
light beating down on them--all this and nothing more--all sealed away
underground from the life of the forgotten world above. On and on and
on....
* * * * *
It is impossible even to conjecture how the mind of Ku Sui saw the
colossal work that he was doing to aid his most bitter enemies. Even
when he was normal there are only moments when, through some recorded
speech or action of his, we can peer past the man's personality into
his brain; how great a sealed mystery must his thoughts remain to us
when held in that abnormal state by Eliot Leithgow's V-27! Envision
it: this arch-foe of Hawk Carse and Leithgow helping their designs,
lending all his intellect, his great skill, to their purposes, aiding
them in everything! Certainly, afterwards, the memory of what he had
been forced to do must have occasioned Dr. Ku many bitter moments.
Regularly, every four waking hours, he was led to the metal chair and
gassed afresh with the V-27; and his expression remained pleasant; his
eyes were always friendly. But the artificial state in which he was
kept showed soon on his face. It lost its clearness and became a
jaundiced yellow in color: and also it grew peaked and drawn.
But the other faces around him were peaked and drawn, too. The
terrific strain told in definite terms on all, no matter what
stimulants they took to keep going. Many a man would have been driven
to insanity by their sustained, terrible concentration, and the
knowledge that five lives hung on every action, however minute....
On and on and on, science made into a marathon. Four hours of
exhausted, deathlike sleep; eight hours more of the smells, and the
glaring light, and the moving instruments. Days of this, sealing the
brains permanently into their new homes, into their hideous new
bodies....
But finally came the climax, and the last exhausted spurt of work. For
the concluding twelve hours there was no sleep or rest for anyone; and
at the end a breathless, haggard tension held them as Dr. Ku Sui, a
shell of his former self, reviewed the results of the nine days'
ordeal. His verdict was:
"Four have come through, I think, safe. The fifth--I do not know. His
body was near death when he was brought here. He may live or die; it
is impossible to tell now. But it is finished."
Then the men slept. Some slipped to the floor and slept where they
were. In nine days, the work of a month had been done, and a miracle
wrought. The brains had been born again.