The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (98 page)

“It can’t be right, Hodson. Preying on these primitive people who don’t understand what you are doing to them. That old woman – ”

Surprisingly, he nodded in agreement. But not for the same reasons.

“Yes, that was a mistake. I’d misjudged the potency of my process and, more important and less forgivable, I failed to consider the theory of parallel evolution. This creature wasn’t my first attempt, but it was the first to survive. The others didn’t bear up to the strain, although the post-mortems proved most enlightening. But we learn from our blunders, and I have at least proved that all modern man did not descend from the same common ancestor. I suppose that was a worthwhile discovery. Evolution in the New World, at least in this part of South America, developed without connection to the rest of the world and, more surprisingly, at a different time in history.” He had been talking softly, rather wearily, but now his oratorical tone returned, his eyes lighted once more.

“Twenty million years ago, sometime in the late Cenozoic era, and somewhere in Asia, the ancient primates divided into two branches. One branch led to modern apes, the other to creatures which became increasingly human. One million years ago, these creatures became
Homo
. Forty thousand years ago, they became
sapiens
. And they are our ancestors, Brookes. Yours and mine. But these men did not come to this part of the world. The same process of division occurred here, in much the same way and for much the same reason, but countless ages later in pre-history. The humans who developed here, like the New World monkeys, were different in many respects. Less advanced on the hereditary scale, because they emerged at a later point, and had to survive harsher conditions in some respects. The climate was the greatest factor responsible for the differences. The hominids developed in relation to this hostile climate, they became much tougher and resistant to extremes, able to exist naked in freezing wind and water. In that way they advanced faster, beyond our branch. But there were fewer natural enemies here, they were the predominant life form, and survival was gauged only against nature. While our branch of mankind developed tools, thumbs, uncurved spines, vocal cords and, finally, superior brains to enable them to exist against the powerful predators, these people had no need to advance along similar lines. Quite naturally, they did not. The physically stronger lived to breed and pass on those traits, while the intelligent, with no advantages in survival, succumbed to the evolutionary laws and advanced at a much slower rate. These creatures were as different from their Asian and European counterparts as llamas from camels, capuchin from rhesus.

“Who knows? Perhaps this branch was superior; given time they might well have developed into supermen. But they didn’t have that time. Our branch had a head start and developed too quickly. We became travellers. We ventured down here from the north and the natives could not survive against us, or beside us. They died out. Perhaps we killed them, perhaps we brought disease unknown to them, perhaps our superior brains succeeded in acquiring all the available food. At any rate, they did not survive. But there was some interbreeding. That was selective and the offspring retained the qualities of both branches – the mind of one, the strength of the other. They were remarkably adaptable to life. The native branch ceased to exist, but the crossbreeds survived alongside the new branch. God knows how long ago this cross-breeding took place, perhaps fifty thousand years. They were still here when Darwin came, I know that. But, little by little, the native traits had weakened in the individuals. Although they may have been predominant at first, they were bred
out by sheer weight of numbers, until only the odd throwback possessed them.”

He paused, choosing his words, while I waited in dumb fascination.

“The old woman is one of those atavisms, as far as I know the last and only living human to bear a prepotency of the vanishing characteristics. That was why I selected her for my experiment. Her genes were closer to the past, the memory was not buried so deeply, and the ancient traits were predominant. That was why I selected her, and that was where I blundered.

“Do you begin to understand?” he asked.

Behind him, the window had silvered as the sun began to slant down the hills. I was burning with fever, and a different fever had set my mind alight. I nodded.

“The experiment succeeded too well,” he continued. “The result – you have seen the result. It is human, because it was born of woman, but it is not human as we know the word. It is fascinating and fabulous, certainly the living ancestor of an extinct branch of mankind, but not our ancestor. Not yours or mine and only partially the old woman’s. And thus it is a dead end, a creature whose offspring are already extinct. There is much to be gained by studying it, but little to be learned of man. I have formulated the theoretical descent of a being that no longer exists, but it is not much different to tracing the remote ancestry of the passenger pigeon or the dodo. You can understand the frustration of that?”

“But my God, what an opportunity – ”

“Perhaps. But it is not my field. I will give it to the world when I have applied it to my own pursuits. Another experiment, eliminating the error. If only I can live long enough to see it through. With what I have already learned from this creature – from watching it grow and mature, with strictly clinical interest – ” His mind seemed to be wandering now, his thoughts confused, divided between acquired knowledge and the further knowledge he anticipated. “It killed its father when it was twelve years old. It developed much more rapidly than man. I judge its lifespan to be a mere thirty years, certainly not more. But it will not grow old. This branch could not survive an old age, it will retain its physical powers until it has attained its normal lifespan and then it will die. And with it will die its genus. Perhaps the post-mortem will be interesting. The study of its life has been frustrating. It can’t speak. It has vocal cords but they aren’t capable of mastering more than bestial sounds. That was the greatest disappointment. Think of being able to converse, in your own language, with prehistoric man! It’s cranial capacity is about 1,550 cubic centimetres – roughly the average of Neanderthal man,
but its brain is relatively free of convolutions. Its branch did not need a mind, it needed strength and endurance. Did you see its eyes glow in the dark? The inner wall of the eye is coated with guanin, like most night creatures. Perhaps that is more valuable than thought to the creature. It hardly thinks at all. It feels, it acts by instinct. Its basic instinct seems to be to kill. Only the old woman has any control over it now. The Indian used to manage it by his great strength, but soon it became too powerful and vicious even for him to handle. It attacked me one day. That was where the Indian acquired that scar, of course. He saved my life, but even he fears it now. Only the old crone – it shows the basic instinct of motherlove – it killed its father, but obeys its mother without needing to understand her . . .”

I shuddered. There was something terrible in this regard of a beast for a human, and even more terrible knowing that the pitiful old woman regarded that monstrous creation as her child. I wondered, with absolute horror, if she had given it a name. I closed my eyes, uselessly. The horror was behind them.

Hodson stood up and took my glass. He brought it back refilled and I took a long swallow.

“You intend to continue this experiment? To create another creature like that?”

“Of course. Not like that, however. The next one must be our ancestor. The same process, with parents of our branch of mankind. It is only necessary to treat the male, although the regressed mutation occurs in the female. The Indian might be an ideal specimen, in fact.”

“You can’t,” I said.

Hodson’s eyes widened, amused.

“It’s fiendish!”

“Ah, the moralist again. Do you consider the creature evil? Brookes, if you had been born a million years in the future – how would your behaviour seem to the men of that distant time?”

“I don’t know,” I said, very slowly. I had trouble forming the words. Something seemed to weigh my tongue down, and the same weight pressed on my eyes. Hodson’s eyes burned at me, and then they began to dull. The fire had left him, extinguished in his revelations, and he became solemn, perhaps knowing he had once again succumbed to his old fault; he had told me too much.

“Do you believe me?” he asked, smiling.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. I moved my head from side to side. It swivelled beneath a great burden, my neck faltered under the heaviness and my head dropped. I was staring at the floor. I could hear Hodson speaking, far away.

“It wouldn’t have taken much imagination to think of these
things,” he said. “But it would have taken fantastic discoveries to actually do them. Perhaps I have merely been toying with you, Brookes. You know how I have always taken pleasure in shocking people. Perhaps this is all simply a hoax, eh? What do you think, moralist? Have I been deceiving you?”

I tried to shake my head again. It hung down, lower, my knees seemed to be rising to meet my face. The chair receded from under me. I fought under this enormous gravity, struggled upwards and stood before Hodson. He was still smiling. The room whirled and spun, his face was the only fixed point in my focus, my eyes were held on his grinning teeth.

“You’re not well, Brookes?” he asked.

“I . . . dizzy . . . I . . .”

The empty glass was still in my hand. I looked at it, saw the points of light reflected along the rim; saw the tiny flakes of white powder in the bottom . . . Saw nothing.

I floated back through planes of awareness and Hodson’s face floated over me, lighted from beneath with weird effect. I wondered, vaguely, why he had stopped grinning, then realized I was no longer in the front room, that I’d been unconscious for some time. I was dressed, but my boots were off. They were on the floor beside the candle that shot dancing light upwards, sweeping Hodson’s countenance and fading out weakly in the corners of the room. It was the room I’d slept in on my last stay, and I was lying on my back on the cot.

“Ah. You are awake,” Hodson said.

I blinked. I felt all right.

“What happened to me?”

“You fainted. You have a fever, apparently you’ve been ill. I didn’t realize that, or I wouldn’t have deliberately shocked you so outrageously. I’m sorry.”

“That drink – you drugged me.”

“Nonsense. You simply fainted. In your feverish state my little amusement was too much for you. Your perceptions were inflamed. Why, for a few minutes, I believe you actually thought it was the truth.”

“You told me . . . those things . . .”

“Were all pure fabrication. Oh, there was a basis in fact; I have indeed experimented along those lines, but without success. I’m afraid I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to – pull your leg
shall we say? Of course, had you been thinking clearly you would have seen the impossibility of such a tale.”

“But I saw the creature.”

“An ape. I assure you it was merely an ape. A curious cross-breeding of Old and New World primates, resulting from one of my experiments in controlled mutation. Unsuccessful, from my point of view, actually, since it’s merely a hybrid, not actually a mutation – far less a regression.” He chuckled at the absurdity of such a concept.

“I don’t believe you.”

Hodson shrugged.

“As you like. Your opinions cease to interest me, now that I’ve had my little game.”

“Will you allow me to examine it then? There can be no harm in that, if it’s just an ape.”

“That, I regret to say, is impossible. The wound you inflicted upon it was more serious than it appeared. There were internal complications and my surgical skill is paltry. I’m afraid that the ape has expired.”

“An examination of the body will satisfy me.”

“I have no desire to satisfy you. If it weren’t for you, the ape would still be alive. At any rate, the remains have already been dissected and disposed of.”

“Already?”

“You have been sleeping for – ” he regarded his watch, “some ten hours. Sufficient time to derive whatever scientific benefit can be found in examining a deceased hybrid. You may see my notes, if you like.”

“Everything you told me was a lie?”

“Not a lie. What is a lie? A study in man’s gullibility, perhaps. An objective observation of the effect of the absurd upon the credulous. You have undoubtedly heard how I used to enjoy shocking people with unfounded theories? My pleasure was not so much in the outraged reception of my statements, as in observing a man’s reaction afterwards. This, in its way, was also a study of mankind. And that, Brookes, is my field, in all its manifold aspects.”

I shook my head. It should have been so much easier to believe him now than it had been before. But, somehow, I couldn’t quite do so. His tone lacked that enthusiasm and excitement it had carried before – an enthusiasm derived from success and pride in his accomplishments. And yet, I had not been thinking clearly, I’d been feverish and weak and susceptible to suggestion, and Hodson was a master of deliberate deception. I tried to reason, but my thoughts came helter skelter, my mind whirled, touching
on valid points and then spinning on before I could follow a line of reasoning.

“Rest now,” Hodson said, far away again. “You’ll be able to laugh at yourself in the morning.”

He took the candle with him. The room was black, and a sympathetic blackness began to nudge me towards sleep, a blank space growing larger in my brain.

The light had returned when I opened my eyes again.

Anna stood beside the bed, holding the candle. The curtains swayed behind her, the house was very quiet. She smiled down at me, looking concerned.

“You are all right?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I was worried for you.”

She hovered over me uncertainly. She wasn’t embarrassed, because she knew nothing of propriety or shame, but she seemed undecided.

“May I sit beside you?” she asked.

“Of course.”

I slid over. Anna sat on the edge of the cot. I was still wearing my shirt and trousers and she was still naked. She curled one leg beneath her and placed the candle on the floor, stared at it for a moment and then moved it a few needless inches. Her smile was shy, although she did not know what shyness was. She placed a cool hand on my brow. My fever seemed to have left me now, but that cool palm felt very good and I placed my hand over hers. She leaned slightly toward me and her firm breast brushed against my forearm. I remembered how much I had wanted her the last time we were together in this little cell; realized that desire was stronger now than before; wondered if she knew, if she understood, if she had come to me because she felt the same way.