Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan (September 1950) (2 page)

Chapter 2: Unearthly Stratagem

GRAG carried Keogh through the forest and, tall man that Keogh was, he seemed like a child in the robot’s mighty arms. The wind howled, and the lichens shook and thundered, and it was growing darker.

“Hurry!” said Harker. “Hurry — there may still be a chance!”

His face had the white, staring look that comes with shock. Simon was still possessed of emotion — sharper, clearer emotions than before, he thought, divorced as they were from the chemical confusions of the flesh. Now he knew a great pity for Harker.

“The
Comet
is just ahead,” Curt told him.

Presently they saw the ship, a shadowed bulk of metal lost among the giant growths. Swiftly they took Keogh in, and Grag laid him carefully on the table in the tiny laboratory. He was still breathing, but Simon knew that it would not be for long.

The laboratory of the
Comet,
for all its cramped size, was fitted with medical equipment comparable to most hospitals — most of it designed for its particular purpose by Simon himself, and by Curt Newton. It had been used many times before for the saving of lives. Now the two of them, Simon and Curt together, worked feverishly to save Keogh.

Curt wheeled a marvelously compact adaptation of the Fraser unit into place. Within seconds the tubes were clamped into Keogh’s arteries and the pumps were working, keeping the blood flowing normally, feeding in a stimulant solution directly to the heart. The oxygen unit was functioning. Presently Curt nodded.

“Pulse and respiration normal. Now let’s have a look at the brain.”

He swung the ultra-fluoroscope into position and switched it on. Simon looked into the screen, hovering close to Curt’s shoulder.

“The frontal lobe is torn beyond repair,” he said “See the tiny barbs on that dart? Deterioration of the cells has already set in.”

Harker spoke from the doorway. “Can’t you do something? Can’t you save him?” He stared into Curt’s face for a moment, and then his head dropped forward and he said dully, “No, of course you can’t. I knew it when he was hit.”

All the strength seemed to run out of him. He leaned against the door, a man tired and beaten and sad beyond endurance.

“It’s bad enough to lose a friend. But now everything he fought for is lost, too. The fanatics will win, and they’ll turn loose something that will destroy not only the Earthmen here, but the entire populace of Moneb too, in the long run.”

Tears began to run slowly from Harker’s eyes. He did not seem to notice them. He said, to no one, to the universe, “Why couldn’t I have seen him in time? Why couldn’t I have killed him — in time?”

For a long, long moment, Simon looked at Harker. Then he glanced again into the screen, and then aside at Curt, who nodded and slowly switched it off. Curt began to remove the tubes of the Fraser unit from Keogh’s wrists.

Simon said, “Wait, Curtis. Leave them as they are.”

Curt straightened, a certain startled wonder in his eyes. Simon glided to where Harker stood, whiter and more stricken than the dead man on the table.

Simon spoke his name three times, before he roused himself to answer.

“Yes?”

“How much courage have you, Harker? As much as Keogh? As much as I?”

Harker shook his head.

“There are times when courage doesn’t help a bit.”

“Listen to me, Harker! Have you courage to walk beside Keogh into Moneb, knowing that he is dead?”

The eyes of the stocky man widened. And Curt Newton came to Simon and said in a strange voice, “What are you thinking of?”

“I am thinking of a brave man who died in the act of seeking help from us. I am thinking of many innocent men and women who will die, unless... Harker, it is true, is it not, that the success of your fight depended on Keogh?”

HARKER’S gaze dwelt upon the body stretched on the table — a body that breathed and pulsed with the semblance of life borrowed from the sighing pumps.

“That is true,” he said. “That’s why they killed him. He was the leader. With him gone —” Harker’s broad hands made a gesture of utter loss.

“Then it must not be known that Keogh died.”

Curt said harshly, “No! Simon, you can’t do it!”

“Why not, Curtis? You are perfectly capable of completing the operation.”

“They’ve killed the man once. They’ll be ready to do it again. Simon, you can’t risk yourself! Even if I could do the operation — no!”

Something queerly pleading came into Curt’s gray eyes. “This is my kind of a job, Simon. Mine and Grag’s and Otho’s. Let us do it.”

“And how will you do it?” Simon asked. “By force? By reasoning? You are not omnipotent, Curtis. Nor are Grag and Otho. You, all three of you, would be going into certain death, and even more certain defeat. And I know you. You
would
go.”

Simon paused. It seemed to him suddenly that he had gone mad, that he must be mad to contemplate what he was about to do. And yet, it was the only way — the only possible chance of preventing an irretrievable disaster.

Simon knew what the Harpers could do, in the wrong hands. He knew what would happen to the Earthmen in New Town. And he knew too what retribution for that would overtake the many guiltless people of Moneb, as well as the few guilty ones.

He glanced beyond Harker and saw Grag standing there, and Otho beside him, his green eyes very bright, and Simon thought, I made them both, I and Roger Newton. I gave them hearts and minds and courage. Some day they will perish, but it will not be because I failed them.

And there was Curt, stubborn, reckless, driven by the demon of his own loneliness, a bitter searcher after knowledge, a stranger to his own kind.

Simon thought. We made him so, Otho and Grag and I. And we wrought too well. There is too much iron in him. He will break, but never bend — and I will not have him broken because of me!

Harker said, very slowly, “I don’t understand.”

Simon explained. “Keogh’s body is whole. Only the brain was destroyed. If the body were supplied with another brain — mine — Keogh would seem to live again, to finish his task in Moneb.”

Harker stood for a long moment without speaking. Then he whispered, “Is that possible?”

“Quite possible. Not easy, not even safe — but possible.”

Harker’s hands clenched into fists. Something, a light that might have been hope, crept back into his eyes.

“Only we five,” said Simon, “know that Keogh died. There would be no difficulty there. And I know the language of Titan, as I know most of the System tongues.

“But I would still need help — a guide, who knew Keogh’s life and could enable me to live it for the short time that is necessary. You, Harker. And I warn you, it will not be easy.”

Harker’s voice was low, but steady. “If you can do the one thing, I can do the other.”

Curt Newton said angrily, “No one is going to do anything of the sort. Simon, I won’t have any part of it!”

The stormy look that Simon knew so well had come into Curt’s face. If Simon had been able to, he would have smiled. Instead, he spoke exactly as he had spoken so many times before, long ago when Curt Newton was a small red-headed boy playing in the lonely corridors of the laboratory hidden under Tycho, with no companions but the robot, the android, and Simon, himself.

“You will do as I say, Curtis!” He turned to the others. “Grag, take Mr. Harker into the main cabin. See that he sleeps, for he will need his strength. Otho, Curtis will want your help.”

Otho came in and shut the door. He glanced from Simon to Curt and back again, his eyes brilliant with a certain acid amusement. Curt stood where he was, his jaw set, unmoving.

SIMON glided over to the cabinets built solidly against one wall. Using the wonderfully adaptable force-beams more skillfully than a man uses his hands, he took from them the needful things — the trephine saw, the clamps and sutures, the many-shaped delicate knives. And the other things, that had set modern surgery so far ahead of the crude Twentieth Century techniques. The compounds that prevented bleeding, the organic chemicals that promoted cell regeneration so rapidly and fully that a wound would heal within hours and leave no scar, the stimulants and anesthetics that prevented shock, the neuron compounds.

The UV tube was pulsing overhead, sterilizing everything in the laboratory. Simon, whose vision was better and touch more sure than that of any surgeon dependent on human form, made the preliminary incision in Keogh’s skull.

Curt Newton had still not moved. His face was as set and stubborn as before, but there was a pallor about it now, something of desperation.

Simon said sharply, “Curtis!”

Curt moved then. He came to the table and put his hands on it beside the dead man’s head, and Simon saw that they trembled.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “Simon, I can’t do it. I’m afraid.”

Simon looked steadily into his eyes. “There is no need to be. You will not let me die.”

He held out a glittering instrument. Slowly, like a man in a dream, Curt took it.

Otho’s bright gaze softened. He nodded to Simon, across Curt’s shoulder, and smiled. There was admiration in that smile, for both of them.

Simon busied himself with other things.

“Pay particular attention, Curtis, to the trigeminal, glossopharyngeal, facial —”

“I know all about that,” said Curt, with a peculiar irritation.

“— pneumogastric, spinal accessory, and hypoglossal nerves,” Simon finished. Vials and syringes were laid in a neat row. “Here is the anaesthetic to be introduced into my serum-stream. And immediately after the operation, this is to be injected beneath the dura and pia mater.”

Curt nodded. His hands had stopped shaking, working now with swift, sure skill. His mouth had thinned to a grim line.

Simon thought, He’ll do. He’ll always do.

There was a moment, then, of waiting. Simon looked down at the man John Keogh and of a sudden fear took hold of him, a deep terror of what he was about to do.

He was content as he was. Once, many years before, he had made his choice between extinction and his present existence. The genius of Curt’s own father had saved him then, given him new life, and Simon had made peace with that life, strange as it was, and turned it to good use. He had discovered the advantages of his new form — the increased skills, the ability to think clearly with a mind unfettered by useless and uncontrollable impulses of the flesh. He had learned to be grateful for them.

And now, after all these years...

He thought, I cannot do it, after all! I, too, am afraid — not of dying, but of life.

And yet, beneath that fear was longing, a hunger that Simon had thought mercifully dead these many years.

The longing to be once again a man, a human being clothed in flesh.

The cold, clear mind of Simon Wright, the precise, logical unwavering mind, reeled under the impact of these mingled dreads and hungers. They leaped up full stature from their graves in his subconscious. He was shocked that he could still be prey to emotion, and the voice of his mind cried out, I cannot do it! No, I cannot!

Curt said quietly, “All ready, Simon.”

Slowly, very slowly, Simon moved and came to rest beside John Keogh. He saw Otho watching him, with a look of pain and understanding, and — yes, envy. Being unhuman himself, Otho would know, where others could only guess.

Curt’s face was cut from stone. The serum-pump broke its steady rhythm, and then went on.

Simon Wright passed quietly into the darkness.

Chapter 3: Once Born of Flesh

HEARING came first. A distant confusion of sounds, seeming very dull and blurred. Simon’s first thought was that something had gone wrong with his auditory mechanism. Then a chill wing of memory brushed him, and in its wake came a pang of fear, and a sense of
wrongness.

It was dark. Why should it be so dark in the
Comet!
From far off, someone called his name. “Simon! Simon, open your eyes!”

Eyes?

Again that dull inchoate terror. His mind was heavy. It refused to function, and the throb of the serum-pump was gone.

The serum-pump, Simon thought. It has stopped, and I am dying!

He must call for help. That had happened once before, and Curt had saved him. He cried out, “Curtis, the serum-pump has stopped!”

The voice was not his own, and it was formed so strangely.

“I’m here, Simon. Open your eyes.” A long unused series of motor relays clicked over in Simon’s brain at that repeated command. Without conscious volition he raised his eyelids. Someone’s eyelids, surely not his own! He had not had eyelids for many years!

He saw.

Vision like the hearing, dim and blurred. The familiar laboratory seemed to swim in a wavering haze. Curt’s face, and Otho’s, and above them the looming form of Grag, and a strange man... No, not strange; he had a name and Simon knew it — Harker.

That name started the chain, and Simon remembered. Memory pounced upon him, worried him, tore him, and now he could
feel the fear
— the physical anguish of it, the sweating, the pounding of the heart, the painful contraction of the great bodily ganglia.