The Passing of Ku Sui Part 13

Completely docile and friendly, the Eurasian indicated the various instruments and devices he would need for the operations, and these were transported quickly. Then came the case of coordinated brains.

Dr. Ku detached in connections with expert fingers, and all but Leithgow took a corner and carried it with infinite care to the air-car outside.

"Do I stay here, suh?" Friday asked the Master Scientist in a whisper. Though informed of the change in Dr. Ku effected by the V-27, he was still very suspicious of him. "Seems to me he's a bit too meek and mild, suh. I think I ought to go down and watch him."

Eliot Leithgow did not quite know what answer to give. The Eurasian forced the decision.

"I will need," he observed, in his new, frank voice, "all the a.s.sistance you can possibly give me. I am faced by a tremendous task, and the use of every man will be necessary. I would suggest, Master Leithgow that the Negro be brought down."

And so Friday came and the asteroid was left unguarded. A mistake, this turned out to be, but under the circ.u.mstances Eliot Leithgow could hardly be blamed for it. There was so much on their minds, so much work of vital importance, so desperate a need for speed, that quite naturally other considerations were subordinated. The asteroid, to the naked eye, was invisible; it could attract no attention; its occupants had all been disposed of. Certainly it seemed safe enough to leave it unguarded for a while.

However, Eliot Leithgow took one precaution. Down in his own laboratory again, in the midst of the work of transferring Dr. Ku's operating equipment from the air-car, he called aside one of his a.s.sistants and instructed him to go and survey the asteroid through the infra-red device every ten minutes: and with this order the old scientist dismissed the matter from his mind, and turned all his energies to preparing the laboratory for the operations.

Under Ku Sui's directions his cases of equipment were brought in and arrayed, and the various drills and delicate saws, and such other instruments as worked by electricity, were connected. Everything was sterilized. Rapidly the plain, square room a.s.sumed the appearance of an operating arena, the five tables in the center, spotlessly white and clean under the direct beams of the tubes hanging from the ceiling, at the head of every table a stand on which were containers of antiseptics, bottles of etheloid, a breathing cone, rolls of gauze and other materials, and along the edge of the stand identical, complete sets of fine instruments.

The case of coordinated brains was brought into the laboratory last.

The inner liquid was now dark and apparently lifeless; to the casual eye, it would not have seemed possible that the five grayish mounds immersed in the liquid held life. And, indeed, Leithgow looked at them doubtfully.

"Are you sure they're still alive? Do you think there's still time?"

he asked Dr. Ku.

The Eurasian picked up a long, slender, tubelike instrument with a dial topping it. Then, going to the brain-case, he touched a cleverly concealed catch and a square pane set in the top of the case swung back. He dipped the instrument he held into the liquid, and for a moment stood silent, watching the dial. Then he took it out, re-closed the pane and turned to Leithgow.

"A test," he explained. "The indicator, interpreted means we have about forty-eight minutes in which to complete the first phase of the transplantation of the brains into human heads. It might be done if we start in eight minutes. But the human heads--?" He paused.

"Eight minutes!" said Leithgow worriedly. "Eight minutes for Ca.r.s.e to come! He promised the bodies, but ... well, we can only go ahead with the preparations and trust to him. Is everything ready?"

"All but my a.s.sistants. I had better see them now."

The Master Scientist issued an order to one of his men, and presently the four white a.s.sistants of Dr. Ku were led into the laboratory. For these men, no V-27 was needed; their brains were utterly subservient to Dr. Ku Sui, and his orders they would obey unquestioningly, no matter what the work. There was no danger from them.

They stood motionless, their eyes fastened on their master, as he spoke to them.

"Brain operations," he said. "These"--he indicated the case--"are to be transplanted again into human heads. You have done work similar to it before; you know the routine. But now it must be quick. Synchronize your speed with mine; I will be working very rapidly, and it is vital that you be in harmony with me every instant. When the bodies come, you will prepare the heads: and then you will attend me through every step. You understand." He turned to the old scientist. "Operating gowns, gloves, masks, Master Leithgow?"

"I have your own. Over there. Your black costume is among them."

But Leithgow's answer was abstracted. Four minutes for Ca.r.s.e to come!

Or else, everything lost! He busied himself helping the four surgeons and two of his own a.s.sistants into the white, sterilized gowns, and the masks that left only the eyes free and the skin-tight rubber gloves, but his mind was not with his actions. The old man looked very frail now; his age showed in the deep lines now eminent on his face.

Three minutes--swiftly two....

"At least," observed Ku Sui, "we have one body ... the coolie. I had better start immediately on him."

"Bring him out," Leithgow instructed one of his men. "One brain will be saved. But--_there!_ Thank G.o.d! Hear that? Coming down the pa.s.sage?

It's Ca.r.s.e, returning!"

It was Ca.r.s.e. He and Ban Wilson, coming down the pa.s.sage from the top of the tree-shaft. Everyone in the laboratory could hear plainly the heavy, sliding tread of the great s.p.a.ce-boots. Eliot Leithgow was first to the door. He opened it, peered through eagerly and called:

"Ca.r.s.e? You've got them?"

"Yes, Eliot. Here--we need help."

The Hawk's voice sounded weary. Friday and the scientist ran down the pa.s.sageway until they reached the adventurer. In the faint light, they saw he was carrying a limp body. He laid it carefully down on the floor.

"Ban's coming down with another," he said, "and there are two more above. Go up and get them, Friday."

The Negro started to obey. But Eliot Leithgow did not move, did not utter a sound. He stood staring at the body Ca.r.s.e had laid down. The parchmentlike skin of his face seemed to whiten; that was all; but he winced and slowly brushed his eyes with his hands when, in a moment, Ban Wilson floated down the shaft and, approached with a second unconscious body.

At last Leithgow whispered:

"They're all--like that, Ca.r.s.e?"

"Yes," answered the emotionless voice. "There were two others, but we let them go. They were worse." The gray eyes looked steadily at Eliot Leithgow. "I know," the Hawk said. "It's horrible--but it can't be helped. It was these or nothing. There was no choice."

Hawk Ca.r.s.e had fulfilled his promise. He had brought back four isuanacs.

CHAPTER XI

_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, st.u.r.dy, 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 s.p.a.ce-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-coa.r.s.ened 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 b.u.t.t 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 Ca.r.s.e'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 s.p.a.ce-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 a.s.sistants. The brains even now were dying. The choice was: bodies of isuanacs or death for the brains. The scientist and the adventurer had chosen.

Circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstance 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.