John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  One thing he did not realize—at least not very clearly—was that the harder he concentrated, the more energy he consumed. Soon, very soon, that gnawing, maddening void was within him again. Inevitably he was driven to satisfy it, and so launched himself into a vicious circle. More concentration, more energy—more living fuel for the raging fires of his genius and eternality. The range of his mind constantly expanded as he added knowledge upon knowledge, as life blazed steadily within.

  Months—years—he lost all track of time as he consumed, always involuntary, the life about him; until after what seemed an age he realized that there was no more material life left to consume. Through the blur of his avidity he studied a city in which no living thing moved. There were bodies, yes, in the thousands—men and women’s corpses rotting in the weak sunlight, but their minds were locked within his own.

  The truth—that he had used the entire race to satisfy his own craving was slow to dawn. It only penetrated to him as he wandered through the deserts, consumed by hunger and gigantic speculations. Then out of the scientific confusion of his mind, thoughts of vital import began to impress upon him.

  Though they were in his own mentality the thought waves seemed like those of the now dead chief of the savants.

  “You are confused, Rad Vaza—even appalled at the apparent horror of what you have done. You have colossal wisdom and yet you are afraid to use it … That is natural. But you must not fear. You have given our race a future, a mighty future indeed free of the shackles of materiality. Normally, evolution consists of the birth of more individuals, cleverness coming by gradual mutations. Instead you have achieved evolution through contraction. Instead of fresh individuals being born you have caused every mind to flow into your own. You are not just Rad Vaza: you are the entire race condensed into one!”

  “Yes, yes, I understand that.” Rad answered what seemed to be his own thoughts. “But this awful craving for sustenance! What am I to do?”

  “Step out of yourself! Become a pure mental unit!”

  Rad stood for a moment thinking it out, then at last he made a tremendous effort, and found himself looking down through omniscient vision upon his own body. It lay there in the sand and that appalling hunger had gone. He had smashed the bonds of materiality!

  Above, the sky was growing dark, bright stars winking in the thin atmosphere. Up there, beyond, were other worlds to which he—the entire Martian race in one combined unit of thought—could travel.

  He surveyed the desert again and a multitude of minds surveyed it with him. Travellers from other worlds would come here one day and marvel at the silent cities, at the canals, at the total absence of life, for by that time tell-tale bones would be powdered into the sand and become part of it.

  By then the purely mental survivors of Mars would be far away in the universe—wandering, searching, anxious to find a resting place where their vast power could flourish for the good of the universe … unto eternity.

  World Without Women

  Chapter I

  “We Are Facing Extinction…”

  A solemn hush brooded over the mighty Chamber of Deputies in the new White House at Washington. The innumerable seats, rising tier on tier to the granite walls, were lined with grave, anxious faces. Men’s faces, of every age and hue. All eyes were directed toward the small rectangle of dais in the center of the vast place.

  A voice boomed out suddenly over concealed loudspeakers.

  “Gentlemen, Kindon Gregory, President of the Americas!”

  There was a shuffle and scrape of countless feet as everybody rose. Then seats were resumed as the small, compact figure of the President arrived at the dais. He surveyed the radio television transmitters around him, then gazed round on the great assembly.

  “Gentlemen…”

  His voice was somber and colorless, so different from the fierce, commanding tone he had used at his election campaign in 2016, four years previous. Now it was the voice of a man who has little left for which to live.

  “Gentlemen—deputies of every science from every land. I need hardly elaborate the circumstances of the terrible crisis that faces us. Unless science can master the present conditions, humanity and all life as we know it must pass from the earth! At the very most, human beings cannot be present for much longer than eighty years. All of us have experienced the biting sting of tragedy, have seen our womenfolk die around us, subtly and mysteriously, from an unknown malady which medical science utterly failed to diagnose.

  “In 2015, we had a happy, prosperous world. War had been banished; prosperity reigned everywhere. Then—if I may be permitted this harassing resumé—in the Christmas period of that year, the blight started. Women, young and old, rich and poor, began to die. Not only women, but everything female in every branch of life. The blight was all inclusive, was in every country almost simultaneously. Wherever a female child was born it died almost instantly, despite all efforts to keep it alive, until … Until by the end of 2018, two years ago, there was not a woman left in the world!”

  The President’s voice was quiet for a moment. He gripped the sides of his desk with obvious emotion. When he spoke again, his voice was suddenly desperate.

  “Gentlemen! Men of science the world over, wherever my voice reaches you, I beg of you to use your abilities to master this horrible thing which has come upon us! Maybe it is selfish to regard a woman as a necessity to the continuance of life, but I do state that in cold truth. Throwing aside all love and natural human longings, the cold biological fact remains that without women in the world, mankind must perish. And, my friends, we shall perish unless some woman can be found who has escaped the trouble. That, I know, is utterly improbable. The earth has apparently been swept clean. If we fail in that search there is only one other course—Synthesis!”

  “Synthetic life?” cried a voice from the back of the hall.

  The President shrugged slender shoulders. “What else? I appeal to you scientists, particularly the biochemists, to give every ounce of your knowledge to the problem. The natural means of creating life has gone—there remains only synthetic womanhood. If not that, then synthetic life itself, either man or woman. But obviously a synthetic woman is simpler and demands less material. Even one alone can start a race once more. That has got to be done. If not, humanity is finished!”

  “But synthetic life is impossible!” cried Jonathan Hale, the famous British chemist.

  “Nothing,” answered the President quietly, “is impossible. To science least of all. Gentlemen, I urge you—”

  Perry Mills reached out a languid hand and switched off the small televizor by his bedside. The speech and face of President Gregory disappeared.

  For a long time Perry lay in silence, listening to the faint, drowsy sounds of the great New York nursing home. Occasional coughs, the sound of rubber soled feet. Men in white drifting to and fro. Men, men, men … Everywhere men! Perry sighed deeply, lay staring up at the white enameled roof.

  “Queer,” he muttered, “to pull a guy back from double pneumonia when the human race is finished anyway. If they haven’t eliminated pneumonia germs after all this time, they’ve got slim hopes of producing synthesis!”

  He closed his eyes, only to shortly open them again at the awareness of somebody near to him. He beheld a neatly dressed young man with close cropped black hair and keen gray eyes, carrying a pile of magazines under his arm.

  “Hiya, Perry!” he laughed, saluting. “Any room for Bill Tanner around here?”

  “I’ll say!” Perry exclaimed eagerly, sitting up. “I can just do with some company…” He glanced at the magazines. “What? More stuff to read?”

  Tanner shrugged as he sat down. “Afraid they’re pretty old—four years old, in fact. All sorts of periodicals. I had a clean out of my cupboards yesterday and thought maybe you’d like to read through them until you get out of this place.”

  “Be out in another week, so the doctor says … Thanks, old man; I’ll be glad to have them.” Perry stopped a
nd frowned, his blue eyes thoughtful. “Hear the President’s speech?” he asked briefly.

  “Most of it. It was relayed to the street televizors … I guess things look pretty bad, Perry. Since woman vanished from the earth things have gone to pot. Only to be expected, of course.” There was a moody silence for a moment, then Tanner spoke again.

  “You know, Perry, I don’t see why you can’t do something about all this. You’re a first class biochemist. You’ve got all the degrees and you’ve got the money, too. If you hadn’t been ass enough to get pneumonia through making a tomfool experiment in the rain, I guess you’d have been invited to the Chamber of Deputies.”

  “Mebbe,” Perry shrugged moodily, “I’m not so hot.”

  “Oh, snap out of it, Perry. This is no time for false modesty. Some of your chemical inventions have advanced science a hundred years, and you know it. Sure, you don’t like publicity, and keep in the background for that very reason, but more things have come out of that laboratory of yours than all the concentrated efforts of fifty bearded experts. Look at the money you’ve piled up! Governments don’t pay huge sums like that unless you’ve given them something worthwhile.”

  “So what? Oh, I get it! You’re suggesting I should turn my attention to synthesis of life?”

  “Sure I am. You’ve got the brains to solve it if anybody has.”

  “Perhaps so, but synthesis is something just beyond science. There’s a missing element which makes all the difference between inert clay and living, breathing humanity … Oh, I admit I’ve thought about the idea as I’ve lain here convalescing. I’ve read several medical textbooks on human structure, have made a pretty thorough study of the stuff that makes up a human being, but … No, Bill! I guess synthesis of life is right outside the pale.”

  Tanner sighed and got slowly to his feet. “Well, you’re the scientist, not me. I’m sure you could do it if you only had some incentive.” He paused and glanced at his watch. “Sorry I can’t stay any longer, but I haven’t your ability to be independent. The Bureau of Statistics don’t like their experts to be late, you know. See you again.”

  “Okay! And thanks for the magazines.” Perry waved a cordial hand and watched Tanner’s lithe form disappear down the long ward.

  For a long time he lay pondering, then picked up the topmost magazine and glanced idly through it.

  Being an issue of the pre-Blight era, its social pages were filled with color photographs of men and women celebrities. Somehow, Perry found it gave him a queer sensation to gaze on women of all ages and types. They had been rather attractive and, at that, had done an enormous lot to make the world decorative—far different from this new coldly masculine, harshly designed world of men alone.

  He turned the page of social celebrities and found a full length color portrait of a young and decidedly good looking girl staring back at him. Her eyes were very blue, her hair the color of well-ripened corn. Her dress of pale blue with pink whatnots and ribbons was a masterpiece of feminine allure.

  Perry’s gaze dropped to the caption under the picture.

  Miss Kay Wancliffe, daughter of Dr. Elrond Wancliffe, the famous scientist and engineer. Kay will be twenty-one next month. Congratulations, Kay!

  “Oh boy, oh boy!” Perry whistled, staring at the picture again. “What a girl! Elrond Wancliffe, eh? Seem to have heard of him somewhere in connection with a rare metal. If only…

  “Synthesis…” he breathed, eyes closed. “Make a woman … If only I had the incentive! Carbohydrates, phosphorus, lime—Hell! Incentive! Who says I haven’t got incentive?” He sat up with a jerk and snatched the magazine again. “By all the saints, I have!” he whispered. “If it can be done, I have the model right here. Get all the dope I can concerning her. Yeah, that’s it! Make a woman! Just like this one. One of the nicest girls I’ve ever seen! It’s possible, perhaps—”

  He stared into space, tugging at his underlip. Already his keen brain was racing far ahead, hurdling natural difficulties. His whole horizon was filled with a view of Kay Wancliffe. Kay, the inspiration. A girl he had never known or seen in the flesh, now dead.

  An hour later Perry was still staring into space, was positively rude when the male nurse came around and ordered him to lie down.

  Chapter II

  “I Have Created Her Body…”

  Tanner was agreeably astonished when next day he received a telephone call from the nursing home and heard Perry’s clipped, eager voice at the other end of the wire.

  “Say, Bill, I’ve been thinking over what you said—and I guess there is something in your ideas at that. Listen! You’re in the Bureau of Statistics: can you get me all possible details on a girl named Kay Wancliffe, daughter of Elrond Wancliffe, scientist? She’d have been twenty-one in July, 2016. I think she lived in New York here. I want her exact age as it would be today, her dimensions, coloring, every darned thing about her. A complete record of her entire life, her medical record, and all photos you happen to have. According to the new world census law of 2007, there ought to be as much detail about her and her family as there used to be about wanted criminals. Even to the fingerprints. Get it?”

  “All the facts will certainly be tabulated—everybody’s are,” Tanner answered. “But what the devil do you want it all for?”

  “I think I’ll make a woman … Tell you more later. How long will it take you to rush through those details?”

  “I’ll ring you back in an hour. That do?”

  “O.K.”

  In the intervening hour Perry occupied himself making a skeletal design of Kay Wancliffe’s head and face from her photograph. Then the phone rang again.

  “Perry? Here’s the lowdown. Kay Wancliffe would now be twenty-five years old—July 6. She didn’t die from the Blight. Her body, and that of her father and mother, were found dead in rather curious circumstances a year before the Blight came. The bodies were discovered in the private surgery of Doctor Danver Hall, the famous American neurologist. He too was dead. All four were buried in the Fourth Precinct Cemetery. Since all relatives of the Wancliffe’s were women there are of course no living witnesses to explain matters.”

  “Hmmm…” Perry grunted. “Any photographs or records?”

  “Sure. There are six good photographs you can have, some from the family possessions and others taken professionally for census reasons. I’ll send them around if you want.”

  “Of course I want!” Perry snorted. “Bring them around the moment you get the chance. And thanks.”

  But it was next morning before Tanner found the time to come around; and then Perry became so absorbed in the prints it was impossible to get a word out of him. Tanner gave it up at length and departed. Thereafter, excess of work kept him busy for several days. The next time he met up with Perry, he found him in his old laboratory once more, a tattered smock covering his spare form, a pipe clenched resolutely between his teeth.

  Denham, Perry’s old retainer, closed the laboratory door gently. Tanner stood staring across at his friend over a wilderness of benches and bottles, wrinkling his nose in disfavor at the variety of unsavory odors curling round him. Slowly he walked forward, stared down into an oblong bath of highly polished metal, at the bottom of which floated and stirred a mass of pungent compounds.

  Perry’s only greeting was an abstracted nod. His eyes were on the bath. Facing it, on the opposite wall, was a tremendous life size chart of a woman, fenced around with all available enlarged photographs of Kay Wancliffe.

  “So you’re back on the job?” Tanner asked at length. “What this time? What was there about Kay Wancliffe that suddenly turned you into a dynamo?”

  “Everything,” Perry answered briefly. “That’s the second Kay Wancliffe in the bath there.”

  “Huh?” Tanner stared blankly at the weird mess.

  “The world wants synthetic life,” Perry went on slowly, his brows down. “It wants a woman—the first of a race of synthetic women. I’m going to do my best to fill that need. The first woma
n will be the image of Kay Wancliffe. If I were the marrying sort, Bill, she’s the one I’d go for. Queer, perhaps, to fall in love with a photograph, but there it is. She’s the posthumous inspiration of my work … Even as a sculptor models from real life, so I am modeling from a photo and records. Every measurement will be identical with Kay Wancliffe. Then, maybe, I can make the model live…”

  He became silent, hands thrust in his smock pockets. After a while he spoke.

  “This stuff in the bath is only the beginning—it’s a mixture of glycerols, albumens, hydrocarbons, sugars, and so forth, all the elements that go to make up a human being. These compounds have to be formed, moulded cell by cell. Every scrap has to be syntheticized, until at last comes the time when I must try and infuse life into the whole. There will lie the biggest problem.”

  “How long do you imagine it’s going to take you?” Tanner asked quietly.

  “How can I say? Many months, certainly. Not a single detail must be overlooked. In order to live, everything about this model must be correct. What does it matter if it takes me a lifetime, so long as I succeed in the end?”

  Tanner remained silent. The last thing he could picture was the mess in the back turning into a desirable woman. That was where his limitation came in. He had not the vivid imagination or the genius of Perry Mills. To Perry, the end of the experiment was known while he was still at the beginning.

  While the scientists and political leaders of the world wrangled and argued and experimented, Perry Mills worked. Day in, day out, ceaselessly, regardless of everything—through the weeks and the months. He never left his home, frequently toiled all night, deaf to all the exhortations of both his retainer and Tanner to give himself a rest or take some exercise … No, he’d have none of that! More important things to do than take exercise.