by Jerry
“I don’t mind that sort of deception,” said Owen. “Besides, this gives me a chance to prove some of my pet theories and maybe convert you—as well as congeal you.” Lambert shuddered at the Welshman’s dark humor. “I ought to be open to conversion. The procedure we’re going to attempt isn’t as foolproof anywhere else. Of considered quite acceptable.” Owen grinned. “It isn’t exactly legal here, either.” At Lambert’s quick look of concern, he amended this. “It isn’t criminal, but—well—
let’s just call it unauthorized.”
“I hope you’re not putting yourself out for me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Owen. “The test of a good worker is whether he can get around rules when he can’t follow them. The procedure is officially outlawed. But you are not a Soviet citizen—”
“Why is this particular application of cryogenics outlawed, anyway?” complained Lambert. “What business is it of any government what individuals want to do with their lives?”
“We are all socialists now, remember—the trend is evident even in your country. It is against society that some should be given—by the state—a longevity denied others. Remember the old arguments? What was the name of that club we belonged to? The Society for the Preservation of Experience—
“Bah. That’s not what I want to preserve—the law dispersed those fools like dry leaves. There was always more than a sprinkling of crackpots among them. I am somewhat of an authority on psychoceramics, having been exposed to the cancer-cure racket. But this is not just another cancer cure. It’s the simple matter of preserving life until science discovers a real cancer cure. And that’s just a matter of time.”
“Do you believe that?” asked Owen.
“Certainly. And cryogenics for this purpose is going to be accepted eventually, wait and see. Only I can’t wait.”
Owen peered out through the windshield. The fog had now lifted and they had emerged into bright sunshine. They were outside the limits of Oymyakon—only a few scattered old wooden buildings were visible here and there. Owen spoke a few words in Russian to the driver.
Lambert said, “Aren’t we going to a hotel or—”
“To my home? No. I thought you didn’t want any delay.”
“That’s right. I don’t.”
THE taxi pulled up before a low brick building, isolated in a field of snow. Lambert got out and experienced the cold again. He slapped his gloves to his face, while Owen talked to the driver. The taxi pulled away and they crunched across the squeaking snow. Lambert felt his nose was being frost-bitten. Maybe it didn’t matter now, but . . .
The building seemed not much warmer. This was a branch of the Permafrost Institute, Lambert learned. After a slight delay a young Russian technician took them to an elevator. They went down. And down. And down.
They stopped at the bottom level, apparently the sub-subbasement, then emerged into a large open space, not a basement, but an underground cavern. At one side were a partitioned office and laboratory from which an older man appeared, greeted Owen, nodded to Lambert.
Owen said, “This is the man I was telling you about—Dr. Oschepkov.” He spoke in Russian to the doctor, who looked at Lambert doubtfully, then spoke sharply to Owen, showing an irritation that transcended the language barrier. Lambert thought he understood some of the words, but he waited for Owen’s translation.
“He says it’s illegal to freeze before clinical death. I told him you couldn’t wait for that. He says he’s only experimented on foxes.” He turned back to Dr. Oschepkov, conducted a long argument, which Lambert didn’t try to follow. He felt discouraged—the pain was coming again and it was cold down here. The argument seemed interminable.
Finally Owen turned to him, grinned. “It’s all right. I have a bit of influence, you see. But you’ll have to sign some papers.”
They entered the small office, went through a legal ceremony about which Lambert understood little and cared less. Then the doctor and the young technician bundled up in additional clothing and they all proceeded briskly across the cavern. Lambert found it hard to keep up, but was glad to be walking again. The exercise warmed him a little.
The cave narrowed and became a tunnel. Dr. Oschepkov walked ahead with his assistant, talking in Russian, while Lambert and Owen brought up the rear. Somehow Lambert couldn’t think of questions, despite his curiosity, but Owen filled him in satisfactorily.
“This is a natural cave, although it has been expanded somewhat. We’re five hundred feet down, right in the heart of the permafrost. Here anything frozen will stay frozen forever without any power expenditure. You needn’t fear a power failure.”
Lambert said, “But permafrost isn’t cold enough for this.”
“It’s not cold enough to freeze you safely, but it’s cold enough to keep you after the freezing process. This is the same cave where they found a mammoth not long ago.” Owen grinned. “We’re thinking of calling it ‘Mammoth Cave.’ ” Lambert shuddered. He thought of the perpetually frozen earth all around him and wished he were already lying in it. To sleep . . .
Owen continued: “They use the liquid nitrogen technique—combined with some new methods—to get you safely past the zone of crystallization. He’s been successful with animals, mostly foxes. Frankly, I think he’s happy to get a human subject, despite his demurrals. Soon this will be a common thing, he says, though now it’s experimental. Don’t worry—they know their business. Lately the neighborhood fox farms have been getting some of their foxes back.”
This was encouraging, Lambert thought.
They turned into a side corridor, which was even narrower and lower. It was getting colder. The walls were covered white in the dim glare of small lights hanging at intervals. The cold was intense and seemed to make the gloom close in. Like catacombs, Lambert thought. Well, why not? That was what these were.
THEY came to the end of the lights, walked a few hundred yards farther by Oschepkov’s flashlight. At the dead end was a gloomy room stacked with strange metal boxes, mostly small, though there was one large one. Lambert tried to shudder but was too cold. He succeeded only in making his teeth chatter.
In the walls were many dark holes, their purpose obvious. Dr. Oschepkov said something in Russian. His assistant tipped the large box upright onto a dolly and trundled it across the room to some machinery. The technician and doctor busied themselves for a long time, setting up complicated tubing and wiring and occasionally seeming to curse and argue.
Lambert wanted to ask Owen, Do they really know what they’re doing? but his lips refused to open. Owen smiled reassuringly, but said nothing. Lambert huddled inside his inadequate winter clothing, shivering uncontrollably.
God, it was cold. Lambert, waiting, thought only of how cold it was. The tiny pain was almost forgotten in the larger discomfort. Finally the doctor said something and Owen interpreted.
“Strip, he says.”
Lambert could only shake his head and shiver wordlessly. He was powerless to answer, even to move.
Dr. Oschepkov spoke in Russian and Owen translated. “He says, ‘Do you want to be comfortable—or do you want to awaken?’ Cheer up, it won’t be long now.”
With shaking fingers Lambert tried to comply, but he had to be helped by Owen and the doctor. Finally he stood naked, burning with cold, blind to any other thought but icy, icy, cold, cold, cold. He could not move. He saw hands grasp him but he could not feel them. They moved him into the box.
He stood there freezing, freezing, and they sprayed him with shocking snow. The door shut and blackness closed in.
From somewhere came a clanging, a ringing. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky . . . Through the cold and the pain he felt the box fill up. Cold. Cold. A little pain—but this was replaced by cold. The cold seemed less. The pain was gone. So was the cold. Peace. Ring in the thousand years of peace . . .
HE partially awoke to the sound of bells again. Church bells, they sounded like. Church bells in Siberia? No, this was not Siberia—couldn’t be.
He felt warm. He lay back and slept again. He dreamed he was in school, reciting a poem, and he knew all the lines. Ring out wild bells, to the wild sky, the flying cloud, the frosty light; the year is dying in the night; ring out wild bells and let him die . . . Die? His thoughts were troubled, but there was peace. He skipped to Ring out old shapes of foul disease . . . felt a pain and opened his eyes.
He was in a hospital bed, he saw. He lay perfectly at ease and when he wanted to turn, something in the bed helped him. Tubes and wires seemed to be attached to his body beneath the soft blanket that covered him. The ceiling was of restful mixed colors and strange patterns, as was the rest of the interesting room, filled with odd furniture. Even his bed was barely recognizable as a bed. Suddenly his memory came back with a rush.
With knowledge came a nagging pain in his side, small but persistent. He had been revived from the freezer, but had not been operated on as yet. His trip had been successful. He was in the future.
He lay back, content with that knowledge. Then he wanted to know more and looked around for a button to push, a bell to rings omething. “Nurse—doctor—”
he croaked. What was “doctor” in Russian? He couldn’t remember. He groaned as the pain hit him.
The door opened and a darkhaired, not unhandsome woman in tasteful blue and white uniform, entered. “I am Dr. Ivanova.” She smiled. “You want something?”
Lambert stared admiringly. “You’re Russian.” He sighed. “But you speak English. If I am still in Siberia, what are those bells I hear? They sound like church bells.”
Her smile vanished, but friendliness remained in her dark eyes. “I speak English because you called for ‘nurse’ and ‘doctor’ in English. I am Dr. Irina Ivanova, Director of the Petrograd Hospital and Medical Museum. And you are no longer in Siberia. This is Petrograd—it is Sunday and those are church bells you hear.”
Lambert was puzzled. “Did you say, Petrograd? Not Leningrad? Am I in the past or the future—or what? I last remember being in Oymyakon, Siberia, in—ah—nineteen-seventy-six. I’m an American, my name is Charles Lambert and I froze to death. I mean—” He suddenly broke off as he felt a sharp pain in his side. “When are you going to operate?”
She frowned. “Nineteen-seventy-six? This is two thousand sixty-eight. Nearly a hundred years. Don’t you think we have had time enough to have gotten rid of your cult of Lenin? No, we didn’t have a revolution. The Soviet Union has always had all the forms of democracy. All we had to do was vote out the Party. Not any easy task, l admit.” She smiled again.
“This is the future, then,” said Lambert. “You’ve made changes—good. But—that’s not what I’m primarily concerned about. A hundred years—medical science must have advanced greatly. Have you found the cure for cancer?” He watched her face closely.
“Of course,” she said. “We have eliminated all major diseases. Occasionally a new disease comes up and takes a few months or years to eradicate. Here at the museum we study the old diseases to make sure they do not recur. The reason you are here now is that this is one of the few places that has the facilities to care for you.”
LAMBERT, now torn between home and suspicion, again asked, “When will you operate? It’s not that I can’t stand it, but—“We have already operated. Several times. The disease keeps spreading.” She shook her head sadly. “We have made you as comfortable as possible. There is nothing else we can do.”
Lambert leaped out of bed in alarm. He found it easy as the bed helped him. He disconnected the attachments. He found himself standing up, clad in close-fitting pajamas of soft material. He felt fit, then noticed his toes were missing, gasped, forgot what he was going to say.
Dr. Ivanova said, “We can replace your extremities easily. They were damaged in freezing.” Lambert remembered his protest. “But you can’t cure my cancer?”
“I am sorry. You have only a few weeks to live—hardly more than when we started.”
“You can’t cure me? Then refreeze me!”
“There are no facilities,” said Dr. Ivanova;
No facilities? This was a cruel blow, one he had not expected. It was not a refusal, but a statement of fact that allowed no argument. Yet he argued.
“No facilities? Don’t you do any freezing? Don’t you practice cryogenics?”
“Freezing is wrong,” she said flatly. “Such an application of cryogenics is against nature, against evolution, against eugenics—”
“Against God?” Lambert asked bitterly, slumping down into a bedside chair, its deep cushions enveloping him.
She frowned. “We have freedom of religion here—we are not bigots. Atheism is acceptable.” She shook her head. “No, it is reason that this form of cryogenics is against. Preserving the unfit, keeping human discards, saving obsolete diseases for posterity. Thank God you are one of the last of the trespassers. Not many are found these days.”
“How did you find me?” asked Lambert, curious in spite of his despair.
“The underground city of Oymyakon expanded into your forgotten tunnel,” she explained. “Luckily you were not crushed. Apparently records were lost or concealed, maps were altered and personnel scattered, so that the existence of the tunnel was not known until the mole-dozers broke through. They found some inferior fur-foxes in the cave, but no human survivors other than you.”
“Were there only a few successful freezers?” he asked.
“There were millions,” she said, in a voice filled with contempt. “Your century was a very selfish one. You tried to use up all natural resources, polluted the Earth irreversibly, saddled the future with your impossible debts and, not content with that, you wanted to impose on your children the care of your corrupt bodies.” She modified her tone, apparently remembering that he was a sick man. “But now there are only about a hundred trespassers left undiscovered. This is not an actual count—we don’t really know how many there are or where they are—it is only a computer estimate. There once was a huge number. Would you like to know what happened to them? Or would you rather not?” she asked coldly.
“I want to know,” said Lambert hopelessly.
“They died, those who were not already dead. Preserving a dead body is useless, of course. When the brain dies, who can recreate it?”
“I know that,” said Lambert. “But why did the others die? Didn’t the machinery function?”
“Yes, most of the time, even in early experimental efforts like yours. Later efforts were quite successful. Too much so. As I said, millions were being frozen, millions every year—before the war.”
“Tell me about the war,” Lambert asked.
“Which one?”
“The one that killed off the freezers.”
“Oh, they all did, in one way or another,” she answered. “You can imagine how. Some were damaged by neglect, constant relocation, bombs. Failure of power killed many—you were relatively safe in your permafrost. Let me tell you about an interesting incident. For a time there was a serious food shortage—you are not listening. No, it was not cannibalism on our part. There is a certain sect in India—one of the famine areas—that does not bury or burn its dead, but consumes them, so to speak. We traded—for other products of the soil.”
Lambert felt sick.
Dr. Ivanova snapped, “Well, what would you have? Should the living die so that the dead may live? That is what is wrong with your whole trespasser philosophy you seek to displace your own children. You are not fit to survive—in more ways than one.” With an effort she resumed her calm history. “There was a series of wars. The final one was a war of the sciences.”
“War of the sciences?”
She nodded. “Science against science. For thousands of years science has been helping both sides in wars. For hundreds of years some people have been predicting that one day science would fight its own war against its enemies. They didn’t think of the logical counterpart to the long succession of previous wars. Tribe against tribe, nation against nation, religion against religion, economic
philosophy against economic philosophy. They failed to predict a war between different scientific viewpoints. You may have guessed that this war included those who believed in immortality via cryogenics and those who put their faith in eugenics. It was finally settled by a breakthrough in eugenics that made human immortality not only useless but anti-progress. Freezing was forbidden and the frozen were awakened—those who were left. Few survived this period. Feeling ran high against the trespassers.”
LAMBERT, tiring, lay back in the chair, which adjusted itself to his new position. “I appreciate all this. I expected to find radical changes: What I can’t understand is that you haven’t a cure for cancer.”
“Oh, but we have eliminated cancer.”
“But you can’t cure me. I don’t get it. Am I a special case?”
“No, yours is an ordinary form, common in your time. We have all the past medical records here in the museum. You may be assured that we have done all that doctors in your time and some years beyond could have done—and with much less difficulty. We have better instruments and techniques. But we can’t do anything to eliminate your cancer without eliminating you. We have eliminated cancer through eugenics. Don’t you understand what eugenics is?”
Lambert closed his eyes, groaned. “Then I froze myself for nothing.”
“That is true,” she said with sympathy. “Would you like to hear about the breakthrough in eugenics?”
“Yes,” he lied.
“The real purpose of eugenics is not to create a super-race but to fight degeneration. There has always been resistance to eugenics, because of humanitarian considerations. We could not breed humans like animals, because this involved destruction of the unfit or refusing them reproduction rights. The other, much greater barrier to human eugenics was in the slowness of human generations. What could be accomplished in less than ten thousand years? But if one reduced the generation’s span to a half-day the same result could be obtained in a year—one ten-thousandth of the time.”
