Pilgrimage to Earth

THE BODY

When Professor Meyer opened his eyes he saw, leaning anxiously over him, three of the young specialists who had performed the operation. It struck him at once that they would have to be young to attempt what they had attempted; young and irreverent, possessed of encyclopedic technical knowledge to the exclusion of all else; iron-nerved, steel-fingered, inhuman, in fact. They had the qualifications of automatons.

He was so struck by this bit of post-anesthetic reasoning that it took him a moment to realize that the operation had been a success.

“How do you feel, sir?”

“Are you all right?”

“Can you speak, sir? If not, just nod your head. Or blink.”

They watched anxiously.

Professor Meyer gulped, testing the limitations of his new palate, tongue, and throat. Then he said, very thickly, “I think—I think—”

“He’s all right!” Cassidy shouted. “Feldman! Wake up!”

Feldman leaped up from the spare cot and fumbled for his glasses. “He’s up so soon? Did he speak?”

“Yes, he spoke! He spoke like an angel! We finally made it, Freddie!”

Feldman found his glasses and rushed to the operating table. “Could you say something else, sir? Anything?”

“I am—I am—”

“Oh, God,” Feldman said. “I think I’m going to faint.”

The three men burst into laughter. They surrounded Feldman and slapped him on the back. Feldman began to laugh, too, but soon he was coughing violently.

“Where’s Kent?” Cassidy shouted. “He should be here, damn it. He kept that damned ossilyscope on the line for ten solid hours. Steadiest thing I ever saw. Where the devil is he?”

“He went after sandwiches,” Lupowicz said. “Here he comes. Kent, Kent, we made it!”

Kent came through the door carrying two paper bags, with half a sandwich thrust in his mouth. He swallowed convulsively. “Did he speak? What did he say?”

Behind Kent, there was an uproar. A dozen men rushed toward the door.

“Get them out of here!” Feldman screamed. “They can’t interview him tonight. Where’s that cop?”

A policeman pushed his way through and blocked the door. “You heard what the docs said, boys.”

“This isn’t fair. This Meyer, he belongs to the world.”

“What were his first words?”

“What did he say?”

“Did you really change him into a dog?”

“What kind of dog?”

“Can he wag his tail?”

“He said he was fine,” the policeman told them, blocking the door. “Come on now, boys.”

A photographer ducked under the policeman’s arm. He looked at Professor Meyer on the operating table and muttered, “Jesus!” He raised his camera. “Look up, boy—”

Kent put his hand over the lens as the flashgun popped.

“Whatdja do that for?” the photographer asked.

“You now have a picture of Kent’s hand,” Kent said with sarcasm. “Enlarge it, and hang it in the Museum of Modern Art. Now get out of here before I break your neck.”

“Come on, boys,” the policeman repeated sternly, herding the newsmen away. He turned back and glanced at Professor Meyer on the operating table. “Jesus! I still can’t believe it!”

“The bottles!” Cassidy shouted.

“A celebration!”

“By God, we deserve a celebration!”

Professor Meyer smiled—internally only, of course, since his facial expressions were now limited.

Feldman came up to him. “How do you feel, sir?”

“I am fine,” Meyer said, enunciating carefully with his strange palate. “A little confused, perhaps—”

“But not regretful?” Feldman asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Meyer said. “I was against this on principle, you know. No man is indispensable.”

“You are, sir.” Feldman spoke with fierce conviction. “I followed your lectures. Not that I pretend to understand one tenth of what you were saying. Mathematical symbolism is only a hobby with me. But those unification principles—”

“Please,” Meyer said.

“No, let me speak, sir,” Feldman said. “You are carrying on the great work where Einstein and the others left off. No one else can complete it! No one! You had to have a few more years, in any form science could give you. I only wish we could have found a more suitable receptacle for your intellect. A human host was unavailable, and we were forced to rule out the primates-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Meyer said. “It’s the intellect that counts, after all. I’m still a little dizzy...”

“I remember your last lecture at Harvard,” Feldman continued, clenching his hands together. “You were so old, sir! I could have cried—that tired, ruined body—”

“Can we give you a drink, sir?” Cassidy offered Meyer a glass.

Meyer laughed. “I’m afraid my new facial configuration is not suited for glasses. A bowl would be preferable.”

“Right!” Cassidy said. “One bowl coming up! Lord, Lord...”

“You’ll have to excuse us, sir,” Feldman apologized. “The strain has been terrific. We’ve been in this room for over a week, and I doubt if one of us had eight hours sleep in that time. We almost lost you, sir—”

“The bowl! The flowing bowl is here!” Lupowicz called. “What’ll it be, sir? Rye? Gin?”

“Just water, please,” Meyer said. “Do you think I could get up?”

“If you’ll take it easy...” Lupowicz lifted him gently from the table and set him on the floor. Meyer balanced uneasily on his four legs.

The men cheered him wildly. “Bravo!”

“I believe I may be able to do some work tomorrow,” Meyer said. “Some sort of an apparatus will have to be devised to enable me to write. It shouldn’t be too difficult. There will be other problems attendant upon my change. I’m not thinking too clearly as yet...”

“Don’t try to rush things.”

“Hell, no! Can’t lose you now!”

“What a paper this is going to make!”

“Collaborative effort, do you think, or each from his own viewpoint and specialty?”

“Both, both. They’ll never get enough of this. Goddamn it, they’ll be talking about this—”

“Where is the bathroom?” Meyer asked.

The men looked at each other.

“What for?”

“Shut up, you idiot. This way, sir. I’ll open the door for you.”

Meyer followed at the man’s heels, perceiving, as he walked, the greater ease inherent in four-legged locomotion. When he returned, the men were talking heatedly about technical aspects of his case.

“—never again in a million years.”

“I can’t agree with you. Anything we can do once—”

“Don’t get scientific on us, kid. You know damned well it was a weird combination of fortuitous factors—plain blind luck!”

“You can say that again. Some of those bio-electric changes—”

“He’s back.”

“Yeah, but he shouldn’t be walking around too much. How you feeling, boy?”

“I’m not a boy,” Professor Meyer snapped. “I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”

“Sorry, sir. I think you should go to bed, sir.”

“Yes,” Professor Meyer said. “I’m not too strong yet, not too clear...”

Kent lifted him and placed him on the cot. “There, how’s that?”

They gathered around him, their arms linked around each other’s shoulders. They were grinning, and very proud of themselves.

“Anything we can get you?”

“Just call for it, we’ll bring it.”

“Here, I’ve filled your bowl with water.”

“We’ll leave a couple sandwiches by your cot.”

“Have a good rest,” Cassidy said tenderly.

Then, involuntarily, absent-mindedly, he patted Professor Meyer on his long, smooth-furred head.

Feldman shouted something incoherent.

“I forgot,” Cassidy said in embarrassed apology.

“We’ll have to watch ourselves. He’s a man, you know.”

“Of course I know. I must be tired...I mean, he looks so much like a dog, you kinda forget—”

“Get out of here!” Feldman ordered. “Get out! All of you!”

He pushed them out of the room and hurried back to Professor Meyer.

“Is there anything I can do, sir? Anything at all?”

Meyer tried to speak, to reaffirm his humanity. But the words came out choked.

“It’ll never happen again, sir. I’m sure of it. Why, you’re—you’re Professor Meyer!”

Quickly Feldman pulled a blanket over Meyer’s shivering body.

“It’s all right, sir,” Feldman said, trying not to look at the shivering animal. “It’s the intellect that counts, sir. The mind!”

“Of course,” agreed Professor Meyer, the eminent mathematician. “But I wonder—would you mind patting my head for me, please?”