I Will Fear No Evil

4

As Dr. Boyle came out of the operating theater Mr. Salomon stood up. "Doctor!"

Boyle checked his impatient strides. "Oh. You again. Go to hell."

"No doubt I will. But wait a moment, Doctor."

The surgeon answered with controlled fury: "Listen, chum—I've been operating eleven hours with one short break. By now I hate everybody, especially you. So let me be."

"I thought perhaps you could use a drink."

The surgeon suddenly smiled. "Where's the nearest pub?"

"About twenty yards from here. In my car. Parked on this floor. Stocked with Australian beer, both cold and room temperature. And other things. Whisky. Gin. Name it."

"My word, you Yahnk barstahds do know how. Right. But I must change first." Again he turned away.

Salomon again stopped him. "Doctor, I took the liberty of having your street clothes packed into your bag and placed in my car. So let's have that drink at once."

Boyle shook his head and grinned. "You do take liberties—too right. Very well, if you can stand the stink, I'll tub and change at my hotel ‘Lay on, MacDuff!'"

Salomon let it go at that until they were locked into his car and he had poured beer for them—the authentic kangaroo kick for the surgeon, a much weaker American brew for himself; he had tangled with Australian beer in his youth and was wary. The big car started smoothly and-continued so; Rockford had been warned that drinking might take place in the passenger compartment.

Salomon waited until his guest bad half a glass down him and had sighed in relief. "Doctor, bow did it go?"

"Eh? Smoothly. We had planned it, we rehearsed it, we did it. How else? That's a good team you got for me."

"I take it you are saying the operation was successful?"

"‘—but the patient died.' That's the rest of the old saw."

Jacob Salomon felt a wave of sorrow and relief. He sighed and answered, "Well, I expected it. Thank you, Doctor. I know you tried."

"Slow down! I don't mean that this patient died; I merely completed the cliché. The operation went exactly as planned; the patient was in satisfactory shape when I relinquished control to the support team."

"Then you expect him to live?"

"‘It,' not ‘he.' That thing back there is not a human being and may never be. It won't die, it can't—unless one of your courts gives permission to switch off the machinery. That body is young and healthy; with the support it is receiving it can stay alive—as protoplasm, not as a human being—for any length of time. Years. And the brain was alive when I left; it was continuing to show strong alpha-wave response. It should stay alive, too; it is receiving blood supply from that healthy body. But whether that brain and that body will ever marry into a living human being—what church do you attend?"

"I don't."

"Too bad, I was about to suggest that you ring up God and ask Him, as I do not know. Since I saved the retinas and the inner ears—first surgeon ever to do that, by the bye, even though they call me a quack—it might be able to see and hear. Possibly. If the spinal cord fuses, it might regain some motor control, even be able to dispense with some of the artificial support. But I tell you the stark truth, Counselor, the most likely outcome is that that brain will never again be in touch with the outside world in any fashion."

"I hope your misgivings are unfounded," Salomon said mildly. "Your contingent fee depended on your achieving sight, hearing, and speech, at a minimum."

"In a pig's arse."

"I'm not authorized to pay it otherwise. Sorry."

"Wrong. There was mention of a bonus, a ridiculously large sum—which I ignored. Look, cobber, you shysters are allowed to work on contingent fees; we butchers have other rules. My fee is for operating. I operated. Finis. I'm an ethical surgeon, no matter what the barstahds say about me."

"Which reminds me—" Salomon took an envelope from his pocket. "Here's your fee."

The surgeon pocketed it. Salomon said, "Aren't you going to check it?"

"Why should I? Either I was paid in full. Or I sue. Either way, I couldn't care less. Not now."

"More beer?" Salomon opened another bottle of Down-Under dynamite. "You are paid. In full, in gold, in Switzerland—that envelope contains a note advising you of your account number. Plus an acknowledgment that we pay your expenses, all fees of assisting teams, all computer time, all hospital charges, whatever. But I hope, later, to pay that ‘ridiculous' bonus, as you called it."

"Oh, I won't turn down a gift; research is expensive—and I do want to go on; I would like to be a respectable paragraph in medical histories... instead of being sneered at as a charlatan."

"No doubt. Not quite my own reason."

Boyle took a swig of beer and blinked thoughtfully. "I suppose I've been a stinker, again. Sorry—I always come out of surgery in a vile mood. I forgot he is your friend."

Salomon again felt that bittersweet wave of relief and sorrow. He answered carefully, "No, Johann Smith is not my friend."

"So? I had an impression that he was."

"Mr. Smith has no friends. I am a lawyer in his hire. As such, he is entitled to my loyalty."

"I see. I'm glad you aren't emotionally involved, as the prognosis on a brain transplant is never good—as I know better than anyone." Boyle added thoughtfully, "It might work this time. It was a good tissue match, surprisingly good in view of the wide difference between donor and recipient. And identical blood type, that helps. We might luck it. Even disparity in skulls turned out to be no problem once I could see that brain."

"Then why are you gloomy?"

"Do you know how many millions of nerve connections are involved? Think I could do them all in eleven hours? Or eleven thousand hours? We don't try; we just work on the nerves of the head, then butt the raw ends of two spinal cords together—and sit back and spin our prayer wheels. Maybe they fuse, maybe they don't—and no one knows why."

"So I understood. What I don't understand is how those millions of connections can ever take place. Yet apparently you were successful with two chimpanzees."

"Bloody! I was successful. Sorry. The human nervous system is infinitely inventive in defending itself. Instead of reconnecting old connections it finds new paths—if it can—and learns to use them. Do you know the psych lab experiment with inverting spectacles?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Some student has inverting lenses taped to his eyes. For a day or two he sees everything upside down, has to be led by the hand, fed, escorted to the jakes. Then rather suddenly he sees everything right side up again; the brain has switched a few hundred thousand connections and is now interpreting the new data successfully. At this point we remove the spectacles from the volunteer chump—and now his bare eyes see the world upside down. So he goes through it a second time—and again the brain finds new paths and eventually the images flip over again and he sees the world normally.

"Something somewhat analogous to that happened to my two prize chimps. Abelard and Heloise. Nothing at first, thought I had still another failure. Then they started to twitch and we had to restrain them to keep them from hurting themselves—motor action but no control. Like a very young baby. But in time the brains learned to manage their new bodies. Don't ask me how; I'm a surgeon and won't guess—ask a psychologist, they love to guess. Or ask a priest; you'll get as good an answer and maybe better.

Say, isn't your driver chap taking us around the barn? My hotel was only five minutes from the medical center."

"I must now admit to having taken another liberty, Doctor. Your luggage was packed, your hotel bill has been paid, and all your things were moved to my guest room."

"My word. Why?"

"Better security."

"That hotel seemed secure to me. Armed guards on every door, more armed men operating the lifts—I could not get in or out without showing my I.D. at least thrice. Reminded me of the army. Hadn't realized what an armed camp the States are. Isn't it rather a nuisance?"

"Yes. But one grows used to it. Your hotel is safe enough, physically. But the press are onto us now and they can get inside. And so can the police."

Boyle looked troubled but not panicky. "Legal complications? You assured me that all that sort of thing had been taken care of."

"I did. It has. The donor was married, as I told you, and by great luck husband and wife had given pre-consent. We had a good many thousands of that blood type quietly signed up—and paid retainers—but we couldn't predict that one would be accidentally killed in time; the statistical projection did not favor it. But one of them was indeed killed and there were no complications—no insuperable ones," Salomon corrected, thinking of a bag of well-worn Federal Reserve notes, "and a court permitted it as ‘useful and necessary research.' Nevertheless the press will stir up a storm and some other court may decide to look into it. Doctor, I can put you in Canada in an hour, anywhere on this planet in a day—even on the Moon without much delay. If you so choose."

"Hmm. Wouldn't mind going to the Moon, I've never been there. You say my clothes are in your guest room?"

"Yes. And you are most welcome."

"Is there a tub of hot water nearby?"

"Oh, certainly."

"Then I'll ask for another beer and that hot tub and about ten hours' sleep. I've been arrested before. Doesn't worry me."