The Perfect Creature

THE first thing I knew of the Dixon affair was when a depu­tation came from the village of Membury to ask us if we would inves­ti­gate the alleged curious goings-on there.

But before that, perhaps, I had better explain the word ‘us’.

I happen to hold a post as Inspector for the S.S.M.A. — in full, the Society for the Suppression of the Mal­treat­ment of Animals — in the district that includes Mem­bury. Now, please don't assume that I am wobble-minded on the subject of animals. I needed a job. A friend of mine who has influence with the Society got it for me; and I do it, I think, con­scien­tiously. As for the animals them­selves, well, as with humans, I like some of them. In that, I differ from my co-Inspector, Alfred Weston; he likes — liked? — them all; on principle, and indis­crimin­ately.

It could be that, at the salaries they pay, the S.S.M.A. has doubts of its personnel — though there is the point that where legal action is to be taken two witnesses are desirable; but, what­ever the reason, there is a practice of appointing their inspec­tors as pairs to each district; one result of which was my daily and close asso­ciation with Alfred.

Now, one might describe Alfred as the animal-lover par excellence. Between him and all animals there was complete affinity — at least, on Alfred's side. It wasn't his fault if the animals didn't quite under­stand it; he tried hard enough. The very thought of four feet or feathers seemed to do some­thing to him. He cherished them one and all, and was apt to talk of them, and to them, as if they were his dear, dear friends temp­orarily embarrassed by a diminished I.Q.

Alfred himself was a well-built man, though not tall, who peered through heavily-rimmed glasses with an earnest­ness that seldom lightened. The difference between us was that while I was doing a job, he was follow­ing a vocation — pursuing it whole­heartedly, and with a power­ful imagi­nation to energize him.

It didn't make him a restful com­panion. Under the powerful magni­fier of Alfred's imagi­nation the common­place became lurid. At a run-of-the-mill alle­ga­tion of horse-thrashing, phrases about fiends, barba­rians and brutes in human form would leap into his mind with such vivid­ness that he would be bitterly disap­pointed when we discovered, as we invariably did, (a) that the thing had been much exagge­rated, anyway, and (b) that the perpe­trator had either had a drink too many, or briefly lost his temper.

It so happened that we were in the office together on the morning that the Membury depu­tation arrived. They were a more nume­rous body than we usually received, and as they filed in I could see Alfred's eyes begin to widen in antici­pation of some­thing really good — or horrific, depen­ding on which way you were looking at it. Even I felt that this ought to produce some­thing a cut above cans tied to cats' tails, and that kind of thing.

Our premo­nitions turned out rightly. There was a certain confu­sion in the telling, but when we had it sorted out, it seemed to amount to this:

Early the previous morning, one Tim Darrell, while engaged in his usual task of taking the milk to the station, had en­countered a pheno­menon in the village street. The sight had so surprised him that while stamp­ing on his brakes he had let out a yell which brought the whole place to its windows or doors. The men had gaped, and most of the women had set up screaming when they, too, saw the pair of creatures that were standing in the middle of their street.

The best picture of these creatures that we could get out of our visitors suggested that they must have looked more like turtles than any­thing else — though a very improb­able kind of turtle that walked upright upon its hind legs.

The overall height of the appari­tions would seem to have been about five foot six. Their bodies were covered with oval cara­paces, not only at the back, but in front, too. The heads were about the size of normal human heads, but without hair, and having a horny-looking surface. Their large, bright black eyes were set above a hard, shiny projection, debatably a beak or a nose.

But this description, while unlikely enough, did not cover the most trouble­some charac­teristic — and the one upon which all were agreed despite other varia­tions. This was that from the ridges at the sides, where the back and front cara­paces joined, there pro­truded, some two-thirds of the way up, a pair of human arms and hands!

Well, about that point I suggested what anyone else would: that it was a hoax, a couple of fellows dressed up for a scare.

The deputation was indig­nant. For one thing, it convin­cingly said, no one was going to keep up that kind of hoax in the face of gun­fire — which was what old Halliday who kept the saddler's had give them. He had let them have half a dozen rounds out of twelve-bore; it hadn't worried them a bit, and the pellets had just bounced off.

But when people had got around to emerging cautiously from their doors to take a closer look, they had seemed upset. They had squawked harshly at one another, and then set off down the street at a kind of waddling run. Half the village, feeling braver now, had followed them. The creatures had not seemed to have an idea of where they were going, and had run out over Baker's Marsh. There they had soon struck one of the soft spots, and finally they had sunk out of sight into it, with a great deal of floun­dering and squawk­ing.

The village, after talking it over, had decided to come to us rather than to the police. It was well meant, no doubt, but, as I said:

“I really don't see what you can expect us to do if the crea­tures have vanished with­out trace.”

“Moreover,” put in Alfred, never strong on tact, “it sounds to ine that we should have to report that the villagers of Mem­bury simply hounded these unfor­tu­nate creatures — what­ever they were — to their deaths, and made no attempt to save them.”

They looked some­what offended at that, but it turned out that they had not finished. The tracks of the creatures had been followed back as far as possible, and the consen­sus was that they could not have had their source any­where but in Membury Grange.

“Who lives there?” I asked.

It was a Doctor Dixon, they told me. He had been there these last three or four years.

And that led us on to Bill Parsons' contri­bu­tion. He was a little hesi­tant about making it at first.

“This'll be confidential like?” he asked.

Everyone for miles around knows that Bill's chief concern is other people's rabbits. I reassured him.

“Well, it was this way,” he said. “ 'Bout three months ago it'd be—”

Pruned of its circum­stantial detail, Bill's story amounted to this: finding him­self, so to speak, in the grounds of the Grange one night, he had taken a fancy to investi­gate the nature of the new wing that Doctor Dixon had caused to be built on soon after he came. There had been consider­able local specu­lation about it, and, seeing a chink of light between the curtains there, Bill had taken his oppor­tunity.

“I'm telling you, there's things that's not right there,” he said. “The very first thing I seen, back against the far wall was a line of cages, with great thick bars to 'em — the way the light hung I couldn't see what was inside: but why'd anybody be wanting them in his house?”

“And then when I shoved myself up higher to get a better view, there in the middle of the room I saw a horrible sight — a horrible sight it was!” He paused for a dramatic shudder.

“Well, what was it?” I asked, patiently.

“It was — well, it's kind of hard to tell. Lying on a table, it was, though. Lookin' more like a white bolster than any­thing — 'cept that it was moving a bit. Kind of inching, with a sort of ripple in it — if you under­stand me.”

I didn't much. I said:

“Is that all?”

“That it's not,” Bill told me, approaching his climax with relish. “Most of it didn't 'ave no real shape, but there was a part of it as did — a pair of hands, human hands, a-stickin' out from the sides of it...”

In the end I got rid of the depu­ta­tion with the assu­rance we would look into the matter. When I turned back from closing the door behind the last of them I perceived that all was not well with Alfred. His eyes were gleaming widely behind his glasses, and he was trembling.

“Sit down,” I advised him. “You don't want to go shaking parts of yourself off.”

I could see that there was a disser­tation coming: probably some­thing to beat what we had just heard. But, for once, he wanted my opi­nion first, while man­fully contri­ving to hold his own down for a time. I obliged:

“It has to turn out simpler than it sounds,” I told him. “Either somebody was playing a joke on the village — or there are some very unu­sual animals which they've distorted by talking it over too much.”

“They were unani­mous about the cara­paces and arms — two struc­tures as thoroughly incom­patible as can be,” Alfred said, tire-somely.

I had to grant that. And arms — or, at least, hands — had been the only describ­able feature of the bolster-like object that Bill had seen at the Grange...

Alfred gave me several other reasons why I was wrong, and then paused meaningly.

“I, too, have heard rumours about Mem­bury Grange,” he told me.

“Such as?” I asked.

“Nothing very definite,” he admitted. “But when one puts them all together ... After all, there's no smoke without—”

“All right, let's have it,” I invited him.

“I think,” he said, with impressive earnest­ness, “I think we are on the track of some­thing big here. Very likely some­thing that will at last stir people's con­sciences to the iniq­uities which are practised under the cloak of scien­tific research. Do you know what I think is happen­ing on our very door­step?”

“I'll buy it,” I told him, patiently.

“I think we have to deal with a super-vivi­section­ist!” he said, wagging a drama­tic finger at me.

I frowned. “I don't get that,” I told him. “A thing is either vivi- or it isn't. Super-vivi- just doesn't —”

“Tcha!” said Alfred. At least, it was that kind of noise. “What I mean is that we are up against a man who is out­raging nature, abusing God's crea­tures, wantonly distort­ing the forms of ani­mals until they are no longer recog­niz­able, or only in parts, as what they were before he started distorting them,” he announ­ced, involvedly.

At this point I began to get a line on the truly Alfre­dian theory that was being pro­pounded this time. His imagi­nation had got its teeth well in, and, though later events were to show that it was not biting quite deeply enough, I laughed:

“I see it,” I said, “I've read The Island of Doctor Moreau, too. You expect to go up to the Grange and be greeted by a horse walk­ing on its hind legs and discuss­ing the weather; or perhaps you hope a super-dog will open the door to you, and in­quire your name?

“A thrilling idea, Alfred. But this is real life, you know. Since there has been a com­plaint, we must try to investi­gate it, but I'm afraid you're going to be dread­fully disappointed, old man, if you're looking forward to going into a house filled with the sickly fumes of ether and hideous with the cries of tortured animals. Just come off it a bit, Alfred. Come down to earth.”

But Alfred was not to be deflated so easily. His fanta­sies were an impor­tant part of his life, and, while he was a little irri­tated by my discern­ing the source of his inspi­ra­tion, he was not quenched. Instead, he went on turning the thing over in his mind, and adding a few extra touches to it here and there.

“Why turtles?” I heard him mutter. “It only seems to make it more compli­cated, to choose reptiles.”

He contem­plated that for some moments, then he added:

“Arms. Arms and hands! Now where on earth would he get a pair of arms from?”

His eyes grew still larger and more excited as he thought about that.

“Now, now! Keep a hold on it!” I advised him.

All the same, it was an awk­ward, uneasy land of ques­tion ...

The following after­noon Alfred and I presented our­selves at the lodge of Mem­bury Grange, and gave our names to the suspi­cious-looking man who lived there to guard the entrance. He shook his head to indi­cate that we hadn't a hope of approach­ing more closely, but he did pick up the telep­hone.

I had a some­what unworthy hope that his discour­aging atti­tude might be con­firmed. The thing ought, of course, to be followed up, if only to pacify the villagers, but I could have wished that Alfred had had longer to go off the boil. At present, his agi­ta­tion and expect­ation were, if any­thing, increased. The fancies of Poe and Zola are mild compared with the products of Alfred's imagi­na­tion powered by suit­able fuel. All night long, it seemed, the most horrid night­mares had galloped through his sleep, and he was now in a vein where such phrases as the ‘wanton tortu­ring of our dumb friends’ by ‘the fiend­ish wielders of the knife’, and ‘the shudder­ing cries of a million quiver­ing vic­tims ascend­ing to high heaven’ came tripp­ing off his tongue auto­ma­tically. It was awkward. If I had not agreed to accom­pany him, he would certainly have gone alone, in which case he would be likely to come to some kind of harm on account of the gener­alized accusa­tions of may­hem, muti­la­tion and sadism with which he would undoubt­edly open the conver­sation.

In the end I had persuaded him that his course would be to keep his eyes cunningly open for more evi­dence while I conducted the inter­view. Later, if he was not satis­fied, he would be able to say his piece. I just had to hope that he would be able to with­stand the inter­nal pressure.

The guardian turned back to us from the telep­hone, wearing a surprised expression.

“He says as he'll see you!” he told us, as though not quite certain he had heard aright. “You'll find him in the new wing — that red-brick part, there.”

The new wing, into which the poach­ing Bill had spied, turned out to be much bigger than I had expec­ted. It covered a ground-area quite as large as that of the origi­nal house, but was only one storey high. A door in the end of it opened as we drove up, and a tall, loosely-clad figure with an untidy beard stood waiting for us there.

“Good Lord!” I said, as we approached. “So that was why we got in so easily! I'd no idea you were that Dixon. Who'd have thought it?”

“Come to that,” he retorted, “you seem to be in a sur­pris­ing occu­pation for a man of intelli­gence, your­self.”

I remem­bered my com­panion.

“Alfred,” I said, “I'd like to intro­duce you to Doctor Dixon — once a poor usher who tried to teach me some­thing about biology at school, but later, by popu­lar repute, the inheri­tor of millions, or there­abouts.”

Alfred looked suspi­cious. This was obviously wrong: a move towards frater­ni­za­tion with the enemy at the very outset! He nodded un­graciously, and did not offer to shake hands.

“Come in!” Dixon invited.

He showed us into a comfor­table study-cum-office which tended to con­firm the rumours of his inheri­tance. I sat down in a magni­ficent easy-chair.

“You'll very likely have gathered from your watch­man that we're here in an official way,” I said. “So perhaps it would be better to get. the busi­ness over before we cele­brate the reunion. It'd be a kind­ness to relieve the strain on my friend Alfred.”

Doctor Dixon nodded, and cast a specu­lative glance at Alfred who had no inten­tion of compro­mising himself by sitting down.

“I'll give you the report just as we had it,” I told him, and pro­ceeded to do so. When I reached a descrip­tion of the turtle-like creatures he looked some­what relieved.

“Oh, so that's what happened to them,” he said.

“Ah!” cried Alfred, his voice going up into a squeak with excite­ment. “So you admit it! You admit that you are respon­sible for those two unhappy creatures!”

Dixon looked at him, wonder­ingly.

“I was responsible for them — but I didn't know they were un­happy: how did you?”

Alfred disregarded the question.

“That's what we want,” he squeaked. “He admits that he—”

“Alfred,” I told him coldly. “Do be quiet, and stop dancing about. Let me get on with it.”

I got on with it for a few more sen­ten­ces, but Alfred was build­ing up too much pressure to hold. He cut right in:

“Where — where did you get the arms? Just tell me where they came from?” he deman­ded, with deadly meaning.

“Your friend seems a little over — er, a little dramatic,” remarked Doctor Dixon.

“Look, Alfred,” I said severely, “just let me get finished, will you? You can intro­duce your note of ghoulery later on.”

When I ended, it was with an excuse that seemed neces­sary. I said to Dixon: “I'm sorry to intrude on you with all this, but you see how we stand. When supported alle­ga­tions are laid before us, we have no choice but to investi­gate. Obviously this is some­thing quite out of the usual run, but I'm sure you'll be able to clear it up satis­fac­torily for us. And now, Alfred,” I added, turning to him, “I believe you have a ques­tion or two to ask, but do try to remem­ber that our host's name is Dixon, and not Moreau.”

Alfred leapt, as from a slipped leash.

“What I want to know is the mean­ing, the reason and the method of these out­rages against nature. I demand to be told by what right this man con­siders him­self justi­fied in turning normal creatures into un­natural mock­eries of natural forms.”

Doctor Dixon nodded gently.

“A com­pre­hen­sive in­quiry — though not too com­pre­hen­sibly ex­pressed,” he said. “I deplore the loose, recurrent use of the word ‘nature’ — and would point out that the word ‘unnatural’ is a vulga­rism which does not even make sense. Obviously, if a thing has been done at all it was in some­one's nature to do it, and in the nature of the mate­rial to accept what­ever was done. One can act only with­in the limits of one's nature: that is an axiom.”

“A lot of hair­split­ting isn't going to —” began Alfred, but Dixon conti­nued smoothly:

“Nevertheless, I think I under­stand you to mean that my nature has prompted me to use certain mate­rial in a manner which your pre­judices do not approve. Would that be right?”

“There may be lots of ways of put­ting it, but I call it vivi­sect­ion — vivisection!” said Alfred, relish­ing the word like a good curse. “You may have a licence. But there have been things going on here that will require a very con­vin­cing expla­na­tion indeed to stop us taking the matter to the police.'

Doctor Dixon nodded.

“I rather thought you might have some such idea: and I'd prefer you did not. Before long, the whole thing will be an­nounced by me, and become public know­ledge. Mean­while, I want at least two, possibly three, months to get my findings ready for publi­ca­tion. When I have explained, I think you will under­stand my posi­tion better.”

He paused, thought­fully eyeing Alfred who did not look like a man intend­ing to under­stand any­thing. He went on:

“The crux of this is that I have not, as you are sus­pect­ing, either grafted, or re­adjust­ed, nor in any way dis­tort­ed living forms. I have built them.”

For a moment, neither of us grasped the signifi­cance of that — though Alfred thought he had it.

“Ha! You can quibble,” he said, “but there had to be a basis. You must have had some kind of living ani­mal to start with — and one which you wickedly muti­lated to pro­duce these horrors.”

But Dixon shook his head.

“No, I mean what I said. I have built — and then I have induced a kind of life into what I have built.”

We gaped. I said, uncert­ainly: “Are you really claim­ing that you can create a living creature?”

“Pooh!” he said. “Of course I can, so can you. Even Alfred here can do that, with the help of a female of the spe­cies. What I am telling you is that I can ani­mate the inert because I have found how to induce the — or, at any rate, a — life-force.”

The lengthy pause that followed that was broken at last by Alfred.

“I don't believe it,” he said, loudly. “It isn't possi­ble that you, here in this one-eyed village, should have solved the mystery of life. You're just trying to hoax us because you're afraid of what we shall do.”

Dixon smiled calmly.

“I said that I had found a life-force. There may be dozens of other kinds for all I know. I can under­stand that it's diffi­cult for you to believe; but, after all, why not? Some­one was bound to find one of them some­where sooner or later. What's more sur­pris­ing to me is that this one wasn't discov­ered before.”

But Alfred was not to be soothed.

“I don't believe it,” he repeated. “Nor will any­body else unless you produce proofs — if you can.”

“Of course,” agreed Dixon. “Who would take it on trust? Though I'm afraid that when you examine my present speci­mens you may find the con­struc­tion a little crude at first. Your friend, Nature, puts in such a lot of un­neces­sary work that can be simpli­fied out.”

“Of course, in the matter of arms, that seems to worry you so much, if I could have obtained real arms imme­diately after the death of the owner I might have been able to use them — I'm not sure whether it wouldn't have been more trouble though. However, such things are not usually handy, and the building of simpli­fied parts is not really difficult — a mixture of engi­neer­ing, chemis­try and common sense. Indeed, it has been quite possible for some time, but with­out the means of ani­ma­ting them it was scarcely worth doing. One day they may be made finely enough to replace a lost limb, but a very compli­cated tech­nique will have to be evolved before that can be done.”

“As for your suspicion that my speci­mens suffer, Mr. Weston, I assure you that they are coddled — they have cost me a great deal of money and work. And, in any case, it would be diffi­cult for you to prose­cute me for cruelty to an animal hitherto un­heard of, with habits un­known.”

“I am not con­vinced,” said Alfred, stoutly.

The poor fellow was, I think, too upset by the threat to his theory for the true magni­tude of Dixon's claim to reach him.

“Then, perhaps a demon­stra­tion...?” Dixon suggested. “If you will follow me...”

Bill's peeping exploit had prepared us for the sight of the steel-barred cages in the labo­ra­tory, but not for many of the other things we found there — one of them was the smell.

Doctor Dixon apolo­gized as we choked and gasped:

“I forgot to warn you about the pre­serva­tives.”

“It's reassuring to know that that's all they are,” I said, between coughs.

The room must have been getting on for a hundred feet in length, and about thirty high. Bill had certainly seen precious little through his chink in the curtain, and I stared in amaze­ment at the quan­tities of appa­ratus gathered there. There was a rough divi­sion into sect­ions: chemis­try in one corner, bench and lathes in another, elec­tri­cal appa­ra­tus grouped at one end and so on. In one of several bays stood an opera­ting table, with cases of instru­ments to hand;

Alfred's eyes widened at the sight of it, and an express­ion of triumph began to enliven his face. In another bay there was more the sugges­tion of a sculptor's studio, with moulds and casts lying about on tables. Farther on were large presses, and size­able electric furnaces, but most of the gear other than the simplest conveyed little to me.

“No cyclo­tron, no electron-micro­scope; other­wise, a bit of every­thing,” — I remarked.

“You're wrong there. There's the electron — Hullo! Your friend's off.”

Alfred had kind of homed at the ope­rating-table. He was peer­ing intently all around and under it, presum­ably in the hope of blood­stains. We walked after him.

“Here's one of the chief primers of that ghastly imagin­ation of yours,” Dixon said. He opened a drawer, took out an arm and laid it on the operat­ing table. “Take a look at that.”

The thing was a waxy yellow, and with­out other colour­ing. In shape, it did have a close resem­blance to a human arm, but when I looked closely at the hand, I saw that it was smooth, unmarked by whorls or lines: nor did it have finger-nails.

“Not worth bother­ing about at this stage,” said Dixon, watch­ing me.

Nor was it a whole arm: it was cut off short between the elbow and the shoulder.

“What's that?” Alfred inquired, pointing to a pro­tru­ding metal rod.

“Stainless steel,” Dixon told him. “Much quicker and less expen­sive than making matrices for pressing bone forms. When I get stan­dard­ized I'll probably go to plastic bones: one ought to be able to save weight there.”

Alfred was looking worriedly disap­pointed again; that arm was convin­cingly non-vive­sect­ional.

“But why an arm? Why any of this?” he demanded, with a wave that largely included the whole room.

“In the order of askings: an arm — or, rather, a hand —because it is the most useful tool ever evolved, and I certainly could not think of a better. And ‘any of this’ because once I had hit upon the basic secret I took a fancy to build as my proof the perfect creature — or as near that as one's finite mind can reach.”

“The turtle-like creatures were an early step. They had enough brain to live, and produce reflexes, but not enough for con­struc­tive thought. It wasn't necessary.”

“You mean that your ‘perfect creature’ does have con­struc­tive thought?” I asked.

“She has a brain as good as ours, and slightly larger,” he said. “Though, of course, she needs expe­rience — edu­ca­tion. Still, as the brain is already fully devel­oped, it learns much more quickly than a child's would.”

“May we see it — her?” I asked.

He sighed regret­fully.

“Everyone always wants to jump straight to the finished product. All right then. But first we will have a little demon­stra­tion — I'm afraid your friend is still uncon­vinced.”

He led across towards the surgical instru­ment cases and opened a preserv­ing cup­board there. From it he took a shape­less white mass which he laid on the opera­ting table. Then he wheeled it towards the elec­trical appa­ra­tus farther up the room. Beneath the pallid, sagging object I saw a hand pro­tru­ding.

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “Bill's ‘bolster with hands’!”

“Yes — he wasn't entirely wrong, though from your account he laid it on a bit. This little fellow is really my chief assis­tant. He's got all the essen­tial parts; alimen­tary, vascular, nervous, respi­ra­tory. He can, in fact, live. But it isn't a very exci­ting exis­tence for him — he's a kind of test­ing motor for trying out newly-made appen­dages.”

While he busied himself with some electrical connections he added:

“If you, Mr. Weston, would care to exam­ine the speci­men in any way, short of harm­ing it, to convince your­self that it is not alive at present, please do.”

Alfred approached the white mass. He peered through his glasses at it closely, and with dis­taste. He prodded it with a ten­ta­tive fore­finger.

“So the basis is elec­trical?” I said to Dixon.

He picked up a bottle of some grey con­coc­tion and measured a little into a beaker.

“It may be. On the other hand, it may be chemi­cal. You don't think I am going to let you into all my secrets, do you?”

When he had finish­ed his prep­ara­tions he said:

“Satisfied, Mr. Weston? I'd rather not be accused later on of having shown you a con­jur­ing trick.”

“It doesn't seem to be alive,” Alfred admitted, cautiously.

We watched Dixon attach several electrodes to it. Then he carefully chose three spots on its surface and injected at each from a syringe containing a pale-blue liquid. Next, he sprayed the whole form twice from different atomizers. Finally, he closed four or five switches in rapid succession.

“Now,” he said, with a slight smile, “we wait for five minutes — which you may spend, if you like, in deciding which, or how many, of my actions were critical.”

After three minutes the flaccid mass began to pulsate feebly. Gradu­ally the move­ment increased until gentle, rhythmic undu­la­tions were running through it. Presently it half-sagged or rolled to one side, expos­ing the hand that had been hidden beneath it. I saw the fingers of the hand tense, and try to clutch at the smooth table-top.

I think I cried out. Until it actually happened, I had been unable to believe that it would. Now some part of the meaning of the thing came flooding in on me. I grabbed Dixon's arm.

“Man!” I said. “If you were to do that to a dead body...!”

But he shook his head.

“No. It doesn't work. I've tried. One is justi­fied in calling this life — I think— But in some way it's a different kind of life. I don't at all under­stand why...”

Different kind or not, I knew that I must be looking at the seed of a revo­lu­tion, with poten­tiali­ties beyond imagi­na­tion ...

And all the time that fool Alfred kept on poking around the thing as if it were a side­show at a circus, and he was out to make sure that no one was putting any­thing across him with mirrors, or work­ing it with bits of string.

It served him right when he got a couple of hundred volts through his fingers...

“And now,” said Alfred, when he had satis­fied him­self that at least the grosser forms of decep­tion were ruled out, “now we'd like to see this ‘perfect creature’ you spoke about.”

He still seemed as far as ever from realiz­ing the marvel he had wit­nessed. He was con­vinced that an offence of some kind was being committed, and he intended to find the evi­dence that would assign it to its proper cate­gory.

“Very well,” agreed Dixon. “By the way, I call her Una. No name I could think of seemed quite ade­quate, but she is certainly the first of her kind, so Una she is.”

He led us along the room to the last and largest of the row of cages. Standing a little back from the bars, he called the occupant for­ward.

I don't know what I expected to see — nor quite what Alfred was hoping for. But neither of us had breath for comment when we did see what lum­bered to­wards us.

Dixon's ‘Perfect Creature’ was a more horrible grotes-querie than I had ever imagined in life or dreams.

Picture, if you can, a dark conical cara­pace of some slightly glossy mate­rial. The rounded-off peak of the cone stood well over six feet from the ground: the base was four foot six or more in dia­meter; and the whole thing supported on three short, cylin­dri­cal legs. There were four arms, paro­dies of human arms, pro­ject­ing from joints about half­way up. Eyes, set some six inches below the apex, were regard­ing us steadily from beneath horny lids. For a moment I felt close to hys­te­rics.

Dixon looked at the thing with pride.

“Visitors to see you, Una,” he told it.

The eyes turned to me, and then back to Alfred. One of them blinked, with a click from its lid as it closed. A deep, rever­be­rant voice emerged from no obvious source.

“At last! I've been asking you long enough,” it said.

“Good God!” said Alfred. “That appalling thing can talk?”

The steady gaze dwelt upon him.

“That one will do. I like his glass eyes,” rumbled the voice.

“Be quiet, Una. This isn't what you think,” Dixon interposed. “I must ask you,” he added to us, but looking at Alfred, “to be care­ful in your comments. Una naturally lacks the ordinary back­ground of experience, but she is aware of her distinc­tion — and of her several physical superior­ities. She has a some­what short temper, and nothing is going to be gained by offend­ing her. It is natu­ral that you should find her appear­ance a little sur­pri­sing at first, but I will explain.”

A lecturing note crept into his voice.

“After I had dis­covered my method of anima­tion, my first incli­nation was to construct an approxi­mately anthro­poid form as a con­vin­cing demon­stra­tion. On second thoughts, how­ever, I decided against mere imi­ta­tion. I resolved to proceed func­tion­ally and logic­ally, remedy­ing certain features which seemed to me poorly or weakly designed in man and other existing crea­tures. It also proved necessary later to make a few modi­fi­ca­tions for techn­ical and construct­ional reasons. However, in general, Una is the result of my resolve.” He paused, looking fondly at the mon­stros­ity.

“I — er — you did say ‘logically’!” I inquired.

Alfred paused for some time before making his comment. He went on staring at the creature which still kept its eyes fixed on him. One could almost see him causing what he likes to think of as his better nature to over­ride mere pre­ju­dice. He now rose nobly above his earlier, unsym­path­etic remark.

“I do not consider it proper to confine so large an animal in such restricted quarters,” he announced.

One of the horny eyelids clicked again as it blinked.

“I like him. He means well. He will do,” the great voice rumbled.

Alfred wilted a little. After a long expe­rience of patron­izing dumb friends, he found it discon­certing to be con­fronted by a creature that not only spoke, but patron­ized him as it did so. He returned its steady stare uneasily.

Dixon, disregarding the inter­ruption, resumed:

“Probably the first thing that will strike you is that Una has no distinct head. That was one of my earliest rearrange­ments; the normal head is too exposed and vulner­able. The eyes should be carried high, of course, but there is no need what­ever for a demi-detached head.

“But in eliminating the head, there was sight to be con­sidered. I there­fore gave her three eyes, two of which you can see now, and one which is round the back — though, properly speak­ing, she has no back. Thus she is easily able to look and focus in any direc­tion without the compli­cated device of a semi-rotatory head.”

“Her general shape almost ensures that any falling or pro­jected object would glance off the re­inforced plastic cara­pace, but it seemed wise to me to insu­late the brain from shock as much as possible by putting it where you might expect the stomach, I was thus able to put the stomach higher and allow for a more con­venient dispo­si­tion of the intes­tines.”

“How does it eat?” I put in.

“Her mouth is round the other side,” he said shortly. “Now, I have to admit that at first glance the pro­vi­sion of four arms might give an impression of frivol­ity. How­ever, as I said before, the hand is the perfect tool — it is the right size. So you will see that Una's upper pair are deli­cate and finely moulded, while the lower are heavily musc­ular.”

“Her respi­ra­tion may interest you, too. I have used a flow principle. She inhales here, exhales there. An improve­ment, you must admit, on our own rather disgust­ing system.”

“As regards the general design, she un­for­tunat­ely turned out to be consider­ably heavier than I had expected — slightly over one ton, in fact — and to support that I had to modify my origin­al plan some­what. I redesigned the legs and feet rather after the pattern of the elephant's so as to spread the weight, but I'm afraid it is not altogether satis­factory; some­thing will have to be done in the later models to reduce the overall weight.”

“The three-legged principle was adopted because it is obvious that the biped must waste quite a lot of muscular energy in merely keep­ing its balance, and a tripod is not only effi­cient, but more easily adapt­able to uneven surfaces than a four-legged support.”

“As regards the repro­duct­ory system—”

“Excuse me interrupting,” I said, “but with a plastic cara­pace, and stain­less steel bones I don't — er — quite see —”

“A matter of gland­ular balance: regul­ation of the persona­lity. Some­thing had to be done there, though I admit that I'm not quite satis­fied that I have done it the best way. I suspect that an approach on partheno­genetic lines would have been... How­ever, there it is. And I have promised her a mate. I must say I find it a fascin­ating speculation...”

“He will do,” interrupted the rumb­ling voice, while the creature continued to gaze fixedly at Alfred.

“Of course,” Dixon went on to us, a little hurriedly, “Una has never seen her­self to know what she looks like. She probably thinks she —“

“I know what I want,” said the deep voice, firmly and loudly, “I want—”

“Yes, yes,” Dixon inter­posed, also loudly. “I'll explain to you about that later.”

“But I want—” the voice repeated.

“Will you be quiet!” Dixon shouted fiercely.

The creature gave a slight rumbling protest, but desisted.

Alfred drew himself up with the air of one who after com­muning seriously with his princi­ples is forced into speech.

“I cannot approve of this,” he announced. “I will concede that this creature may be your own creation — never­the­less, once created it becomes, in my opinion, entitled to the same safe­guards as any other dumb — er, as any other creature.”

“I say noth­ing what­ever about your appli­ca­tion of your disc­overy — except to say that it seems to me that you have behaved like an irres­pons­ible child let loose with model­ling clay, and that you have produced an unholy — and I use that word advisedly — unholy mess; a mon­stros­ity, a perver­sion. How­ever, I say nothing about that.”

“What I do say is that in law this creature can be regarded simply as an un­famil­iar species of animal. I intend to report that in my profes­sional opinion it is being confined in too small a cage, and clearly with­out proper oppor­tunities for exer­cise. I am not able to judge whether it is being adequately nourished, but it is easy to perceive that it has needs that are not being met. Twice already when it has attempted to express them to us you have intimi­dated it.”

“Alfred,” I put in, “don't you think that perhaps —” but I was cut short by the creature thrumming like a double bass.

“I think he's wonderful! The way his glass eyes flash! I want him!” It sighed in a kind of deep vibrato that ran along the floor. The sound certainly was extremely mourn­ful, and Alfred's one-track mind pounced on it as addi­tional evi­dence.

“If that is not the plaint of an unhappy creature,” he said, stepping closer to the cage, “then I have never—”

“Look out!” shouted Dixon, jumping forward.

One of the creature's hands made a darting snatch through the bars. Simul­taneously Dixon caught him by the shoulders, and pulled him back. There was a rending of cloth, and three buttons pattered on to the linoleum.

“Phew!” said Dixon.

For the first time, Alfred looked a little alarmed.

“What—?” he began.

A deep, threaten­ing sound from the cage oblite­rated the rest of it.

“Give him to me! I want him!” rumbled the voice, angrily.

All four arms caught hold of the bars. Two of them rattled the gate violently. The two visible eyes were fixed un­waver­ingly on Alfred. He began to show signs of re­orien­ta­ting his out­look. His own eyes opened a little more widely behind his glasses.

“Er — it — it doesn't mean—?” he started, incred­ulously.

“Gimme!” bellowed Una, stamping from one foot to another, and shaking the building as she did so.

Dixon was regard­ing his achieve­ment with some concern.

“I wonder — I wonder, could I have over­done the hor­mones a bit?” he specu­lated, thought­fully.

Alfred had begun to get to grips with the idea now. He backed a little farther away from the cage. The move did not have a good effect on Una.

“Gimme!” she cried, like a kind of sepulchral public-address system. “Gimme! Gimme!”

It was an intimi­dating sound.

“Mightn't it be better if we—?” I suggested.

“Perhaps, in the circum­stances—” Dixon agreed.

“Yes!” said Alfred, quite deci­sively.

The pitch on which Una operated made it difficult to be certain of the finer shades of feelings; the window-rattling sound that occurred behind us as we moved off might have expressed anger, or anguish, or both. We increased our pace a little.

“Alfred!” called a voice like a discon­solate foghorn. “I want Alfred!”

Alfred cast a back­ward glance, and stepped out a trifle more smartly.

There was a thump which rattled the bars and shook the building.

I looked round to see Una in the act of retiring to the back of her cage with the obvious inten­tion of making another onslaught. We beat it for the door. Alfred was first through.

A thunder­ous crash sounded at the other end of the room. As Dixon was closing the door behind us I had a glimpse of Una carrying bars and furnish­ings before her like a run­away bus.

“I think we shall need some help with her,” Dixon said.

Small sparkles of perspi­ration were standing on Alfred's brow.

“You — you don't think it might be better if we were to—?” he began.

“No,” said Dixon. “She'd see you through the windows.”

“Oh,” said Alfred, unhappily.

Dixon led the way into a large sitting-room, and made for the telep­hone. He gave urgent messages to the fire-brigade and the police.

“I don't think there's any­thing we can do till they get here,” he said, as he put the receiver down. “The lab wing will probably hold her all right if she isn't tanta­lized any more.”

“Tantalized! I like that—!” Alfred started to protest, but Dixon went on:

“Luckily, being where she is, she couldn't see the door; so the odds are that she can have no idea of the purpose or nature of doors. What's worry­ing me most is the damage she's doing in there. Just listen!”

We did listen for some moments to the muffled sounds of smash­ing, splinter­ing and rending. Among it there was occasion­ally a mournful di-syllabic boom which might, or might not, have been the word “Alfred”.

Dixon's expression became more anguished as the noise conti­nued unabated.

“All my records! All the work of years is in there,” he said, bitterly. “Your Society's going to have to pay plenty for this, I warn you — but that won't give me back my records. She was always perfectly docile until your friend excited her — never a moment's trouble with her.”

Alfred began to protest again, but was inter­rupted by the sound of some­thing massive being over­turned with a thunder­ous crash, followed by a noise like a water­fall of broken glass.

“Gimme Alfred! I want Alfred!” demanded the stentorian voice.

Alfred half rose, and then sat down agitatedly on the edge of his chair. His eyes flicked nervously hither and thither. He displayed a tendency to bite his finger-nails.

“Ah!” said Dixon, with a sudden­ness which started both of us. “Ah, that must have been it! I must have calcu­lated the hormone require­ment on the overall weight — including the cara­pace. Of course! What a ridiculous slip to make! Tch-tch! I should've done much better to keep to the original parthenogen — Good heavens!”

The crash which caused his excla­mation brought us all to our feet, and across to the door.

Una had discovered the way out of the wing, all right, and come through it like a bull­dozer. Door, frame and part of the brick­work had come with her. At the moment she was stumbl­ing about amid the result­ing mess. Dixon didn't hesitate.

“Quick! Upstairs — that'll beat her,” he said.

At the same instant Una spotted us, and let out a boom.. We sprinted across the hall for the stair­case. Initial mobility was our advantage; a freight like Una's takes apprec­iable time to get under way. I fled up the flight with Dixon just ahead of me and, I imagined, Alfred just behind. However, I was not quite right there. I don't know whether Alfred had been momen­tarily trans­fixed, or had fumbled his take-off, but when I was at the top I looked back to see him still only a few steps up, with Una thunder­ing in pursuit like a rocket-assisted car of Jugger­naut.

Alfred kept on coming, though. But so did Una. She may not have been familiar with stairs, nor designed to use them. But she tackled them, for all that. She even got about five or six steps up before they collapsed under her. Alfred, by then more than half­way up, felt them fall away beneath his feet. He gave a shout as he lost his balance. Then, clawing wildly at the air, he fell back­wards.

Una put in as neat a four-armed catch as you could hope to see.

“What co-ordination!” Dixon, behind me, murmured admir­ingly.

“Help!” bleated Alfred. “Help! Help!”

“Aah!” boomed Una, in a kind of deep diapason of satis­faction.

She backed off a little, with a crunching of timbers.

“Keep calm!” Dixon advised Alfred. “Don't do anything that might startle her.”

Alfred, embraced by three arms, and patted affection­ately by the fourth, made no imme­diate reply.

There was a pause for assess­ment of the situation.

“Well,” I said, “we ought to do some­thing. Can't we entice her somehow?”

“It's difficult to know what will distract the trium­phant female in her moment of success,” observed Dixon.

Una set up a sort of — of — well, if you can imagine an ele­phant contentedly crooning...

“Help!” Alfred bleated again. “She's — ow!”

“Calm, calm!” repeated Dixon. “There's probably no real danger. After all, she's a mammal — mostly, that is. Now if she were a quite different kind like, say, a female spider—”

“I don't think I'd let her over­hear about female spiders just now,” I suggested. “Isn't there a favourite food, or some­thing, we could tempt her with?”

Una was swaying Alfred back and forth in three arms, and prodding him inquisi­tively with the fore­finger of the fourth. Alfred struggled.

“Damn it. Can't you do some­thing?” he demanded.

“Oh, Alfred! Alfred!” she reproved him, in a kind of besotted rumble.

“Well,” Dixon said, doubt­fully, “perhaps if we had some ice cream...”

There was a sound of brakes, and vehicles pulling-up out­side. Dixon ran swiftly along the landing, and I heard him trying to explain the situa­tion through the window to the men outside. Presently he came back, accom­panied by a fire­man and his officer. When they looked down into the hall their eyes bulged.

“What we have to do is surround her without scaring her,” Dixon was explaining.

“Surround that!” said the officer dubiously. “What in hell is it, anyway?”

“Never mind about that now,” Dixon told him, impa­tiently. “If we can just get a few ropes on to her from different directions—”

“Help!” shouted Alfred again. He flailed about violently. Una clasped him more closely to her cara­pace, and chuckled dotingly. A peculiarly ghastly sound, I thought: it shook the firemen, too.

“For crysake—!” one of them began.

“Hurry up,” Dixon told him. “We can drop the first rope over her from here.”

They both went back. The officer started shouting instruct­ions to those below: he seemed to be having some difficulty in making himself clear. However, they both returned shortly with a coil of rope. And that fire­man was good. He spun his noose gently, and dropped it as neatly as you like. When he pulled in, it was round the carapace, below the arms so that it could not slip up. He belayed to the newel-post at the top of the flight.

Una was still taken up with Alfred to the exclu­sion of every­thing else around her. If a hippo­pota­mus could purr, with kind of maudlin slant to it, I guess that's just about the sort of noise she'd make.

The front door opened quietly, and the faces of a number of assorted fire­men and police appeared, all with their eyes popping and their jaws dropping. A moment later there was another bunch gaping into the hall from the sitting-room door, too. One fireman stepped forward nervously, and began to spin his rope. Unfortu­nately his cast touched a hanging light, and it fell short.

In that moment Una suddenly became aware of what went on.

“No!” she thundered. “He's mine! I want him!”

The terri­fied rope­man hurled himself back through the door on top of his compan­ions, and it shut behind him. Without turning, Una started off in the same direction. Our rope tightened, and we jumped aside. The newel-post was snapped away like a stick, and the rest of the rope went trailing after it. There was a forlorn cry from Alfred, still firmly clasped, but, luckily for him, on the side away from the line of progress. Una took the front door like a cruiser-tank. There was an almighty crash, a shower of wood and plaster and then a screen of dust through which came sounds of conster­nation, topped by a voice rumbling:

“He's mine! You shan't have him! He's mine!”

By the time we were able to reach the front windows Una was already clear of obstruct­ions. We had an excellent view of her gallop­ing down the drive at some ten miles an hour, towing, without apparent inconve­nience, half a dozen or more firemen and police who clung grimly to the trailing rope.

Down at the lodge, the guardian had had the presence of mind to close the gates. He dived for personal cover into the bushes while she was still some yards away. Gates, however, meant nothing to Una; she kept on going. True, she staggered slightly at the impact, but they crumbled and went down before her. Alfred was waving his arms, and kicking out wildly; a faint wail for help floated back to us. The collection of police and fire­men was towed into the jumbled iron­work, and tangled there. When Una passed out of sight round the comer there were only two dark figures left clinging heroic­ally to the rope behind her.

There was a sound of engines starting-up below. Dixon called to them to wait. We pelted down the back-stairs, and were able to fling our­selves upon the fire-engine just as it moved off.

There was a pause to shift the obstructing iron­work in the gate­way, then we were away down the lane in pursuit.

After a quarter-mile the trail led off down a steep, still narrower lane to one side. We had to abandon the fire-engine, and follow on foot.

At the bottom, there is — was — an old pack-horse bridge across the river. It sufficed, I believe, for several centuries of pack-horses, but nothing like Una at full gallop had entered into its builders' calcula­tions. By the time we reached it, the central span was missing, and a fire­man was helping a dripping police­man carry the limp form of Alfred up the bank.

“Where is she?” Dixon inquired, anxiously.

The fireman looked at him, and then pointed silently to the middle of the river.

“A crane. Send for a crane, at once!” Dixon demanded. But every­one was more interested in empty­ing the water out of Alfred, and getting to work on him.

The experience has, I'm afraid, permanently altered that air of bonhomie which used to exist between Alfred and all dumb friends. In the forth­coming welter of claims, counter­claims, cross-claims and civil and criminal charges in great variety, I shall be figuring only as a witness. But Alfred, who will, of course, appear in several capacities, says that when his charges of assault, abduction attempted — well, there are several more On the list; when they have been met, he intends to change his profession as he now finds it difficult to look a cow, or indeed, any female animal, in the eye without a bias that tends to impair his judgement.