by Curt Siodmak
White’s voice while he moved quietly about was feverish. He had lived at the station eight years. There had never been an accident or irregularity. Once a few trout fishermen stole gasoline from one of the beacons for their stove. That is a Federal offense, but White had not bothered reporting it.
He felt strangely responsible and obsessed by the idea that he might be accused of negligence. He tried to drown his guilt in a torrent of explanations. He took it as a personal misfortune that the crash had occurred near his station.
The water was boiling and I sterilized the instruments. Infection can follow even the most rigid asepsis and his dusty kitchen for an operating theater hardly gave the man on the table a sporting chance. For a minute I considered not operating at all and letting fate decide.
I stepped closer to the man and studied his face. These features were somehow familiar, the thin colorless mouth, the high cheek bones, the short nose, the prominent forehead. Even the scar which ran from the left ear to the tip of the chin seemed known to me.
White had cut the man’s coat from him and thrown it on a chair. I took the wallet from the breast pocket. Blood had soaked it and glued the sheaf of big bills together. The man carried a fortune with him! The wallet was old and worn and stamped with the initials W. H. D. Warren Horace Donovan!
Now that I knew who he was I had to save his life. This man was too important. In a few hours dozens of specialists would be poking their noses into this case and if I did not get him down alive I would be accused of negligence. I had to make a clean job of it.
I did not tell White who the man on his kitchen table was. If I had, he would have been too awed and excited to help me.
After cutting away Donovan’s trousers and underwear, I injected a spinal anaesthetic between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae. If the man became conscious now, he would feel no pain.
His respirations were irregular, and I lowered his head by shoving a couple of books under the back legs of the table. The blood pressure was falling alarmingly. I gave Donovan a half cc. of 1-1000 adrenalin intravenously. The pressure rose again. I began the amputation and finished it in less than an hour.
I was obliged to cut through the femur, because the femur bones had suffered multiple fractures and the arteries were severed. A steady stream of arterial blood gushed forth as soon as the tourniquets were loosened. His toes were ice-cold and clammy. Nobody could have saved Donovan’s legs. And all the time I was operating I was aware of the futility of my endeavor.
The sun stood high when we tied him to the stretcher to take him down the trail. We fastened the litter between two horses, lowering the rear to carry the body in a fairly level position. The tedious descent began.
I left White behind. Matthews had recovered from the shock and seemed ashamed of his weakness and desertion. He wanted to make good now and walked beside the stretcher, letting me ride the horse.
Every few minutes we had to stop to take Donovan’s pulse. It was around one hundred and forty and very weak. I gave him one cc. of 1-1000 adrenalin intravenously.
When we were two hours on our way, Donovan stopped breathing. I had to pull his tongue forward and administer some oxygen which I carried with me in a small steel flask. He needed an intravenous injection of Coramine, but I did not have it.
I had not slept for two days and I could feel I was close to the end of my resistance. A few times the trail blurred before my eyes. I had to hold tight to the neck of the horse.
The sun seemed to stand still in the sky and the heat became unbearable as we trailed down the pass. Once the horses shied, but Matthews caught the reins in time to keep them from bolting. A rattlesnake was sunning itself across the path. While I held the excited horses, Matthews killed it with a club. Then he threw the crushed body as far as he could, but the dead snake caught in the branches of a tree and we had a bad time leading the horses past. This was torture, climbing downhill with a dying man strung between the horses.
When we finally heard voices hailing us, we stopped at once and sat down, exhausted.
Four men came up the trail to meet us. Schratt had phoned to Phoenix, and the hospital had sent an ambulance. But Schratt had declined the assistance of a doctor from Phoenix. It was his job to take care of these injured. He was sticking to his job, and I was doing it!
Phoenix was still unaware that the plane which had crashed was Warren Horace Donovan’s; otherwise all the ethics of the medical profession would not have kept the hospital from sending every available specialist up the mountain to save W. H. Donovan’s life!
SEPTEMBER 17
Just before we got to Washington Junction, Donovan reached a crisis. His strong heart had delayed the coma, but it was too late now to send him on to Phoenix. He could not have arrived alive.
I had him carried into my laboratory and put on the operating table. The men looked around curiously. They had not expected such an elaborate layout. None of them knew my name or anything about me. But people who live in the desert are not very curious or talkative. The heat which thins the blood makes the brain sluggish, and no one thinks more than is necessary for the primitive functions of life. I lived secludedly; nobody asked what I was doing. The desert is full of anchorites and lonely people with strange habits.
I sent the men away, then changed to a clean shirt which Janice had left in the laboratory. I found iced coffee on my desk and some food. She was silently waiting in her room for me to call her. The accident had interrupted the monotonous routine of our days and she was hoping I would want to talk to her.
I examined the dying man. His pulse was rapid and his heart-sounds so weak I could hardly hear them with my stethoscope.
I called Janice.
“Where is Schratt?” I asked. I could see she had not slept, waiting for me to return.
“He took the other man to Phoenix,” she answered.
“Call up the hospital and tell him to get over here right away. Then come and help me.”
She ran out of the room to obey my order.
I had to come to a decision. I had to make up my mind now At once! Before it was too late. I did not feel exhausted any more. The opportunity was unprecedented. Too tremendous. This man was dying, but his brain was still alive. It was an extraordinary brain, the dome large and of perfect shape, the skull broad, the forehead wide.
I tested its reactions with the encephalograph. It showed strong delta deflections.
An animal’s brain has weak reactions and very little resistance. An animal gives up when it is going to die. The brain is a minor organ of its body, less important than the weapons of defense. But the man on my table had exercised his brain all his life, trained it, strengthened it. Here was the perfect specimen a scientist might wish for!
If only Schratt were here!
Donovan’s skull was nearly hairless. That made it easier. He was in a coma; it was not necessary to use an anaesthetic.
I switched on the sterilizer and put in a surgical scalpel and a Gigli saw.
When the instruments were ready, I picked out the scalpel and make a semi-circular incision in the skin just above the right ear, continuing the incision around the back of the head to the upper surface of the left ear. I pulled the scalpel forward until it completely exposed the top of the calvarium. There was very little bleeding from the exposed surfaces.
Taking the Gigli saw, I made an incision in the bony vault completely around the skull. To leave the brain uninjured, I was very careful not to cut through the dura mater. I then lifted off the entire top of the cranial vault in toto.
The glistening surface of the dura mater was still warm to my finger’s touch.
I made the same semi-circular incision in the dura mater that I had in the outer skin.
I pulled the dura forward, and there lay exposed Donovan’s brain!
Donovan’s breathing stopped; white asphyxia due to cardiac failure began. There was no time to apply stimulants. That would have taken precious minutes. I had to open his brain whi
le he was still alive. I had made that mistake before with the Capuchin, and I could not take any risk now.
I heard Janice at the phone talking to Phoenix. Schratt was on his way back. She repeated the information loudly so I could hear.
If Schratt’s Ford didn’t break down!
Janice came in. She stopped, seeing me at work over the body.
“Come here,” I ordered gruffly. I wanted to give her no time to think. She had studied medicine to please me and have the chance to be closer to me. Concentrated, cool, precise even in emergencies, she was an ideal nurse. But, like Schratt, she deeply resented the work I was doing, for it took me away from her and she was jealous. I was married to my apparatus and scalpels.
“The Gigli saw! Quick!” I said. I stretched out my hand without looking at her. She hesitated, standing there in the doorway. Then I heard her move. She stepped close behind my shoulder and passed me the instrument. I pressed the Gigli saw to the occipital bone. I was so concentrated on my work I did not bear Schratt enter.
Finally I felt someone watching me. Schratt was standing two yards behind me, staring. His face twisting, he battled with himself, undecided whether to run away or come to my assistance, but finally he overcame the shock of seeing me steal a man’s brain.
I lifted up the cranium, severed it by cutting the medulla oblongata just above the foramen magnum.
“We would like to be alone, Janice,” I said.
She left at once, relieved to go, I felt, and for a second I regretted having called her to help me. I did not want witnesses!
“Put on those gloves and a smock,” I said to Schratt, while I loosened the frontal gyrus with a blunt dissector, carefully feeling my way not to injure the eyes.
Schratt impulsively hid his face in his hands and stood motionless for seconds. When he uncovered his face again, his expression had changed. He had known what I was going to do as soon as he entered the laboratory. I was violating his creed and ethics, but he did not refuse to help me, though I had no power to coerce him.
The frustrated potential Pasteur had broken through and Schratt’s vocation was stronger than his conscience. I knew that afterward he would have pangs of remorse, fits of repentance he would try to drown in tequila. He knew it too, but he helped me.
He stepped over to the table and pulled on the gloves. Without waiting to put on a smock, he grabbed the knife. His hands, heavy and coarse-fingered, became subtle. He worked with great speed.
“I’ll have to cut here,” he muttered, and as I nodded he severed the medulla oblongata.
I took blood serum from the heater, affixed the rubber tube to the rotary pump, and turned on the ultraviolet lights.
“Ready?” Schratt asked.
I nodded, took a steaming towel from the sterilizer, and held it over the brain which Schratt was lifting out of the lower cranium. He carried it over to the glass bowl and submerged it in the serum, fastened the rubber tubes to the vertebral and internal carotid arteries, and set the pump in motion.
“Better hurry,” Schratt said, pulling off his gloves. “They may come for the body any minute.” His face suddenly looked gray and shriveled. He nodded toward the body. “Better get him in shape. Stuff some cotton in the skull or the eyes might fall in.”
I filled the skull cavity with cotton bandages and replaced the cranium, taping it with adhesive. I pulled the scalp back over the calvarium, then I bandaged the head carefully and had foresight enough to soak a few drops of Donovan’s blood into the bandages as if a wound from the accident had bled through.
I eagerly turned to see if the brain was still alive, but Schratt stopped me.
“We have done all we can,” he said. “Let’s get the body out of here. You wouldn’t want them to see that?” He indicated the brain with a jerky movement of his head. “If we get the body out into the sun, it will decompose fast. I don’t want an autopsy.”
Excitement had fuddled my judgment, and I submitted to Schratt. But he did not seem to enjoy his new authority.
For years Schratt had been inhibited in my presence, I knew that. He had lost his own ambition and drive, and he envied me my persistence in carrying through the researches. But now, though he had the upper hand at last, he did not take advantage of me. Cowardly he walked out on his opportunity to avenge himself for the humiliations I had involuntarily inflicted upon him through all these years.
We put Donovan’s body on a stretcher, covered it with a sheet, and carried it outside. The heat would do fast work. We returned to the laboratory and washed up.
“Write the death certificate before the ambulance gets here,” I said calmly.
He did not answer and I divined that his remorse had already begun.
Now he must register his crime in black and white, set down evidence that could send him to jail at any time. He was not afraid of the prison so much, but he had lost his last shred of self-respect.
“Sorry. I would write it myself, but I’m not the coroner. Besides, it was your duty to take care of the victims of the crash.”
“I’m being blackmailed,” he said with a wan smile, but I knew he meant it. He was dangerous. He might give us both away in one of his fits of pathological depression.
“Want a drink?” I asked.
He looked up, astonished, read my thoughts and shook his head.
“You don’t have to get me drunk for me to write the certificate,” he muttered, walking over to the desk, “What’s the man’s name?”
When I told him he paled.
“W. H. Donovan,” he repeated, and sat down trembling, I waited for him to recover. “We have stolen Donovan’s brain!”
He laughed suddenly, turned to the desk, picked up a pen, and took a blank coroner’s report from his pocket.
“I had better leave the name off,” he said. “I just hope the heat melts that carcass away before every doctor in the country comes poking his nose into it.”
He wrote and passed the paper to me.
“Death due to bleeding and shock preceding amputation of both legs,” I read.
“They can see for themselves it’s true what I wrote down.”
He spoke swaggeringly to hide his uneasiness and walked over to the door. “I’ll see that Phoenix collects it.”
He put on his big hat and walked away without glancing at me or saying good-by. He was walking out on me again.
He stopped outside for a moment to talk to Janice. They have a curious conspiracy I have never bothered to intrude on and I was not interested now in what they were saying to each other, but I went into my bedroom and called her.
Janice entered at once.
“You ought to sleep a little”; she dropped the suggestion casually. For the first time in years she was telling me what to do. She was tapping hesitantly at the door to my consciousness, timidly trying to remind me of her.
“The ambulance from Phoenix will call for the body. If anyone calls don’t disturb me whoever it is.” I sank on the bed. I really needed some sleep.
Even while I was turning to the wall, I could feel sleep blacking out my mind.
SEPTEMBER 18
I woke at a very early morning hour. There was food near the bed, where Janice had left it in a thermos to keep warm. I ate hastily and went back to the laboratory. I heard Janice moving in her room, but she did not leave it.
Through the garden window I could see that the body had been taken away. On my desk lay the evening paper and a message. The hospital at Phoenix had phoned for me to come over and report to the coroner. Since Schratt was the coroner in the case, I tossed the paper into the wastebasket.
The Phoenix Herald had a big headline:
“Tycoon Dies. W. H. Donovan Killed in Plane. Crash in Snake Mountains.”
I put the paper into a drawer of my desk and toned to Donovan’s brain.
The pump was faithfully supplying blood to the main artery, and the ultraviolet lights shone through the glass tubes in which the serum circulated.
I wheel
ed the table with the encephalograph close to the vessel which contained the brain and fastened the five electrodes to the cortical tissue. One near the right ear, two high on the forehead, one above each eye cavity.
The brain of any living creature has an electric beat that is conducted by neurons, not by blood vessels or connecting tissue. All cells show varying degrees of mechanical, thermal, electrical, and chemical activity.
I switched on the current that drove the small motor, which, in turn, drew out a white paper strip an inch per second at a frequency of sixty cycles. A pen scratched a faint line on the moving paper. I amplified the infinitesimally small currents the brain was sending until their power was great enough to move the pen.
On the paper strip the activity of Donovan’s thought processes showed in exact, equal curves. The curves repeated themselves; the brain was at rest, not really thinking now. The pen drew smooth alpha curves, concise as breathing.
I tested the occipital lead. The deflections were continuous, ten cycles per second, with very low seven to eight cycles per second waves.
I touched the glass and at once the alpha waves disappeared. The brain in the glass was aware that I was standing there!
Delta waves appeared on the moving strip, a sure indication that the brain was emotionally disturbed.
It seemed fatigued, however, and suddenly it fell asleep again. I saw the repeating pattern reappear. The brain slept deeply, its strength exhausted by the grave operation.
I watched its depthless slumber while the pattern of this sleep drawn by a pen on white paper, slipped through my fingers.
I watched for hours. I knew I had succeeded.
Donovan’s brain would live though his body had died.
SEPTEMBER 19
The hospital in Phoenix phoned three times asking me to come over and answer some questions about Donovan’s death.
Janice told them I was too busy now and would see them later.
