The Transcendent Man

by Jerry Sohl

  “The next thing you know,” he said to himself, “you’ll be believing in ghosts.”

  He ate his eggs at a place set for him in the kitchen.

  “If you want more coffee,” Ethel said, “you’ll find it on the stove.”

  “You make me sound like a lazy, late-rising roomer, Ethel. Aren’t you going to keep me company?”

  “I have work to do,” she said, stepping to the door of the room. “And I have to wake Bobby and get him ready for school.”

  “Wait. Sit down.” When she looked at him in surprise, he added, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I just want to talk to you, that’s all.”

  “And what am I supposed to do with my work?” Her eyes held the merest glimmer of anger.

  “Did Dr. Penn tell you, too, not to talk to me?” he asked.

  “He certainly did not. Why shouldn’t I talk to you?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.” He shot her a smile and she relented, sitting then at the table.

  “How long have you worked for Dr. Penn?”

  “Ever since he came to Park Hill.”

  “You never saw him before that?”

  “No. Why?” Her grey eyes were alarmed.

  “Just trying to fill in his background. He told you I’m doing a story on him for National Scene didn’t he?”

  She nodded. “He mentioned it, but I didn’t think you’d be asking me anything. I don’t know anything about him.”

  “You know what he likes to eat. That would tell something about the man, wouldn’t it? Our magazine tries to make its sketch of a man as complete as possible.”

  “Well, if you’re going to put that in,” Ethel said, “you can say he loves pot roast and noodles. Homemade noodles.”

  “The way Ethel Winters makes them, I’ll bet.”

  “Well.” The housekeeper-cook lifted her head with pride. “If I do say so, I’ve never tasted noodles like mine.”

  “Promise you’ll make some for me sometime, will you?”

  Ethel’s eyes fairly glowed. She saw his cup was empty, poured him more coffee.

  “How long has Dr. Penn been at Park Hill?”

  “It was a year last month, Mr. Enders.”

  “Does he have any unusual habits?”

  She looked away. “No. Except... well, Park Hill isn’t like living anywhere else.”

  “Why did you look away, Ethel?”

  Color seeped into her face and she drew her lips into a thin line. “It’s nothing, Mr. Enders.”

  He had finished his eggs. He lit a cigarette and sipped his coffee. “Tell me about it,” he said casually.

  “There’s nothing to tell. Really, Mr. Enders.” Her voice quavered and held a note of dismay.

  “Why are you so disturbed, Ethel?”

  “I’m not disturbed,” she said hastily. “If you don’t hurry”—she waved toward the clock—“you’ll be late. It’s nearly eight now.”

  “But this is interesting. Much more interesting than keeping the appointment. You’ve got my curiosity aroused.”

  “It’s nothing, believe me!” She was frightened now.

  “Are you afraid I’ll use it in the magazine? Is that it?”

  “No!” she cried. Then her shoulders sagged. “It’s that, that Dr. Penn—sometimes, the way he looks at me... I’d be afraid to say anything.”

  “Now isn’t that just like a woman,” he said, laughing. “Leading you on and then refusing to tell you anything.”

  “But I didn’t lead you on. You only guessed—”

  “There is something,” he said calmly. “And you’re going to tell it to me. You can trust me.”

  Ethel’s eyes glittered and she bit her lower lip. “All right,” she said at last. She got up, went into the dining room. Coming back, she closed the door between. She then went to the back door, opened it and looked out, seemed satisfied, then resumed her place at the table. She was trembling. She leaned toward him.

  “He doesn’t sleep in his bed,” she whispered.

  “He doesn’t sleep in his bed!”

  Ethel nodded. Her face flushed, she went on, “He used to mess it up so I’d think he slept in it, but he doesn’t any more. He doesn’t bother.”

  Martin was puzzled. “Where does he sleep, then?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. And that’s not all. Sometimes Virginia doesn’t sleep in her bed either and once or twice Bobby... Oh!” She was suddenly distraught. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “But where could they all sleep? At the laboratory?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Enders. But they all come home sometime during the night, or early in the morning before I get up. I’ve given up trying to make any sense out of it.”

  “Well, that is odd.” Could the whole family have slept a time or two at the laboratory? Certainly they wouldn’t want Bobby to do that, a mere child. But why didn’t Dr. Penn ever sleep at home? Did he have a bed at the lab? It was a bewildering development.

  “Something else, Mr. Enders. At first I was afraid I was losing my mind, but now I know I’m not. It’s when you don’t know you’re going crazy that you go crazy, you know. So I’m not afraid.”

  “What is this other thing?”

  “Well, after I had been here a few months I was putting the fresh ironing away. I had some of Dr. Penn’s shirts to put in his dresser, so I walked upstairs to his room and the door was closed. I knocked, but there was no answer. So I walked in and put the shirts away. Dr. Penn was not in his room. I was sure of that.

  “When I came out and closed the door, I stood there for a few minutes thinking about what I ought to do next. All of a sudden the door behind me opened and Dr. Penn came out. I screamed and the doctor wanted to know why. I told him he frightened me, that I didn’t think he was in the house. I didn’t tell him I was just in his room putting the shirts away.”

  Her eyes were big with wonder and she was almost breathless with the telling of it. “How do you account for that, Mr. Enders?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think of it?”

  “I can’t imagine,” she said solemnly. “Dr. Penn must have climbed up the outside of the house. But at his age!”

  “Do you think he suspects that you know?”

  “He’s never mentioned it. Do you think he does?”

  Martin snubbed out his cigarette in his saucer. “Let me ask you another question. Do you sleep well?”

  She blushed. “Of course I do. With all the work there is to do around here I’m dead tired at the end of the day.”

  “Have you always slept well since you came here?”

  “Well, I have had my dreams. I’ve always had dreams, but never like the ones I’ve had since I’ve been here.”

  “What kind of dreams are they?”

  Her color deepened. “They’re silly. I always get scared afterward. I was so scared when I first started having them I thought of leaving.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t, Mr. Enders. Really.”

  It was a long shot. “Does somebody ask you questions when you’re asleep?”

  It hit the mark. Her mouth dropped open. “How—how did you guess? Say...” Her face blanched.

  “No,” he said reassuringly. “Don’t be frightened. I only know because someone was asking me questions in my sleep last night.”

  “Dr. Penn?”

  “I don’t know. Could it have been?”

  “It is with me. Only sometimes I dream about all three Penns. Just as if they were right in my bedroom with me and we’re having a visit. At first I didn’t remember the dreams but when they happened so often I began to remember what they were like. Do you think I am losing my mind, Mr. Enders?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He looked at the clock. It was 8:18. “I’d better go.” He rose. “Look, let’s keep this just between you and me. All right?”

  “I won’t tell another living soul, Mr. Enders
.”

  “Where have you been?”

  Dr. Penn shot the question the moment Martin opened the door to his office in the administration building. He was sitting behind his desk, his arms folded.

  Martin could feel the informality he had expected withering and dying in the air of the room. There was an annoyed edge to the voice. Gone was the mildly bantering tones of the previous afternoon.

  “People don’t keep me waiting.”

  “I’ve been talking with Ethel,” Martin replied truthfully, taking a chair. “She said you wanted to see me.”

  “What else did she have to say?”

  Martin shrugged. “A few little essentials I might find useful in National Scene “ he said brightly. “Like your penchant for pot roast and noodles.”

  The tension lifted momentarily as the doctor rocked back in his squeaking chair, lighting his pipe. “She does make a fine pot roast. I’ll say that for Ethel.” He continued to rock, sucking his pipe, studying Martin through the clouds of smoke that always whirled around his head when he rocked and smoked at the same time.

  “What,” Martin ventured gently, “did you want to see me about? I thought I was to go to your laboratory this morning.”

  “You didn’t go to the movies last night.”

  Martin sighed, kept the doctor waiting while he lit a cigarette and contributed to the haze of the room with a long plume of smoke.

  “Why were you so insistent that I go, Doctor?”

  “Damn it!” The chair rocked forward and the doctor’s fists hit the desk. It made Martin jump. “I’m responsible for you, man! You are a guest of mine and if anything happened to you I would be held to blame.”

  “You mean like what happened to Forrest Killian?” It was worth taking a chance.

  The doctor’s grey eyes snapped and his short-cropped hair bristled. “So Dr. Merrill went through that, did he? What else did he tell you?”

  “You’re wrong, Doctor. It was your daughter who told me about Killian.”

  “But you’re not denying you talked to Dr. Merrill!”

  “Of course I talked to him,” Martin snapped. “I’m not one of your technicians, you know. I’m a free agent.”

  “Not so free. Not so free. Not while you’re here. You have to abide by reservation rules.” His pipe had gone out and the doctor savagely struck a match on the underside of the desk, puffing vigorously at the pipe to get it started again.

  “Do the reservation rules say I have to report to you my every action, where I am at every hour of the day?”

  “There is no written rule. But the head of every research unit wants to know where his people are.”

  “But I’m not one of your people! I happen to be an associate editor of a magazine. I’m here to do you a favor, write you up for it.” Martin thrust his cigarette into an ashtray. “I don’t see why I should do the story on you at all, in the light of this development.”

  “I agree,” the doctor said bluntly.

  Martin looked at him carefully. A changeable, unpredictable man, the doctor. His reasoning was ulterior and hard to analyze. His eyes, his mouth with the pipe, the folded arms across the chest, the slight rock of the chair—none of it gave a clue to his logic.

  “If that is the way you feel,” Martin said slowly, “why did you approve of the story in the first place?”

  “Originally I had some idea it might help the profession. I thought, too, it might inspire someone to enter research. I didn’t think the magazine would send someone here to stay for a while—I was not prepared for that,” the doctor answered.

  “You didn’t know I would be cleared for technical information either, did you?”

  The doctor coughed. “That had nothing to do with it. It’s—it’s just that I can’t spare the time, Mr. Enders.”

  “You should have said so yesterday. What’s happened? Are you afraid I’ll find out something terrible about you?”

  “I suppose that’s a joke,” the doctor said, a bright curiosity behind his eyes. “The truth is I don’t think you’re good for morale. It hurts Dr. Merrill, for example, to think you are writing a story on me when he feels he has done as much for science.”

  “Dr. Merrill doesn’t seem to mind.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me he thinks it’s great.”

  “No. He doesn’t agree with you, that’s all. He doesn’t like the way you’re running things. He thinks you’re holding up your own project. Would you care to confirm or deny that?”

  The doctor took a deep breath and a hot rush of angry blood darkened his face. The room itself seemed to sense the rising tide of resentment and Martin found the air hard to breathe. As suddenly as it came on, it was gone. The doctor drew the pipe out of his mouth, sent it skittering across the desk, leaned back in his chair and laughed. Then he came around the desk and sat on it, facing Martin, good humor in his face.

  “This is ridiculous, Martin. Why does everybody think I stand in the way of my own project? It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “Not the way things stand right now,” Martin said darkly. “It might if a reason could be discovered.”

  The doctor laughed again. When he stopped, he took Martin by the shoulder and led him out of the office. “Let’s visit the laboratory,” he said. “Then you can decide whether or not I’m stalling the project.”

  There was no way to tell that Building P-22 in the northeast sector of Park Hill Research Reservation was the regeneration research center. Like all the laboratories on the reservation, it was a single-story structure occupying an entire block, painted dead white and bearing the usual “Authorized Personnel Only” signs.

  The thing that marked it apart from other smaller buildings about it was the opaque glass windows, standard equipment at the field for research centers. There were only two doors: one at either end.

  When Martin and Dr. Penn slid up to it in the doctor’s jeep, there was a workman cutting the grass around it.

  “It isn’t my idea of a laboratory,” Dr. Penn said as they got out of the vehicle and started for the door. “This is the army’s conception of one. But it is adequate.”

  The inside of the long, narrow structure was divided into two sections. One for the actual research, the other, at the opposite end, for Dr. Penn’s office and the offices of the other resident scientists.

  When they entered the lab end, Martin found himself surrounded by the usual laboratory sights and smells—retorts, animal cages, shelves of bottles, charts, assorted devices he could not name, and a faint odor of formalin, a trace of alcohol and ether. The technicians, who were busy at long tables, were wearing white smocks and Martin caught a glimpse of Dr. Merrill among them. The doctor did not look up.

  “I hope you’re not disappointed,” Dr. Penn said. “We don’t equip laboratories as they do in the movies. This is our working area. Back here we have our offices.”

  They walked through the wide aisles between equipment and lab tables to the corridor at the other end of the building.

  “There are three offices on each side of the building here,” the doctor explained. “Mine is here at the end. Dr. Merrill’s is across the corridor.”

  Virginia, looking pert and efficient in her white smock, looked up as they came through the door, flashed a smile at Martin.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  It had been nothing special, but the way she said it reaffirmed a feeling he had been having about her.

  “Good morning,” he returned, irked that he could think of nothing bright to say.

  “If you don’t mind, Virginia, Martin and I have something to talk over.”

  The girl excused herself and when she left, the doctor closed the door and motioned Martin to a chair while he unlocked a drawer and drew out a sheaf of papers.

  “The secret of regeneration,” the doctor said, seating himself in the desk chair and swiveling around with the papers on his knees, “is in the cell. The early cell. The embryonic cell. In the beginning there
is rapid cell division. What determines what each cell is going to do? How does one know it is supposed to form part of the head or the arm? You see?”

  Martin nodded, noticed that the walls of the room were covered with graphs, charts and diagrams. There were technical words and descriptions he did not understand. Biology was not one of his fortes.

  “These papers,” the doctor went on, “are records of experiments we have been carrying on. For your information, we are experimenting mostly on frogs, though there are the usual animals out there—hamsters, white rats, guinea pigs, rabbits. We’re interested in frogs because a frog is unable to replace a limb but is able to regenerate one as a young tadpole. Why has he lost this power? This morphological repair—the restoring of the limb—is lost with adulthood because the special cells held in reserve for the purpose of restoring the lost parts as tadpoles undergo a differentiation. By that I mean they have specific tasks for an adult frog, but for a tadpole they are a plastic material, indifferent to what they may be called upon to form.

  “These cells are created in layers of tissue which, since the development of the embryo, have not undergone any special alteration or else serve for purposes other than connecting different parts of the body.

  “If a differentiated cell could undergo dedifferentiation, then we’d have the trick.”

  Martin frowned, trying to digest the information. “You mean if you could take a normal cell and make it into one of these regenerating cells, then you’d have the answer to growing an arm or a leg on a frog—or a man.”

  The doctor smiled. “Roughly, that’s it. But how to change the cell? How can we get it to do what we want it to do? Why does a cell suddenly break away and start multiplying chaotically to form a cancer? Our purpose is very similar, except it must be in a definite direction.”

  “Dr. Merrill said you were doing research that had already been done. How about that?”