“To believe in a scientific theory strongly enough to be willing to use one’s own son as the ‘guinea pig’ is faith indeed!”
Hall Paget, one of London’s greatest brain specialists and surgeons in the year 1975 made the announcement—and Russell Sheldon, equally famous and equally skilled, listened. And not for the first time either. So far the B.M.A. had no inkling that two of its cherished members had notions about performing an operation that was illegal. Hall Paget had spoken of his theory to nobody except Sheldon, who was both his dearest non-professional friend and professional rival.
“I don’t see how it can fail,” Russell Sheldon admitted, musing. “We’ve gone over everything relevant, we’ve made countless X-rays and charts; we know exactly what we’re going to do.”
He was a tall, high-cheekboned man with an almost bald head and abstracted professional manner. At the moment, folded deeply into the hide armchair in Paget’s Harley Street consulting room he looked like an eagle guarding its young, and in this case the “young” was represented by the files and memoranda relative to the theory.
Hall Paget himself, shorter and fatter, yet with the hands of an impresario, was standing by the window looking out on to the grey of London. He had the blue eyes of a visionary and the chin of a bulldog.
“As you say, Sheldon, there’s no reason why it should fail,” he said. “The greatest scientists have averred that the human brain has actually five times as much material as it uses. We utilise only a fifth of our real brain capacity.”
“Quite,” the other agreed, reflecting that they had been over this ground numberless times before.
“That extra material is probably there for future use,” Paget continued. “Nature has made that provision so that, as man evolves, he will gradually come to using all the brain substance he possesses. But we shall beat Nature at her own game and produce a man who has all his brain power when he reaches maturity. The surgical part is simple enough—a synthetic nerve connection between the operative and inoperative sections of the brain. There is no reason why it should not carry neuronic impulses even as a wire carries electric current …”
“The risk is yours,” Sheldon remarked, as Paget paused for a moment. “You are prepared to make your son the subject of the experiment, and it ought to succeed. But if it does not … Have you considered what you will do?”
“No. Because I refuse to think of failure.”
“Commendable, Paget, but let us be sensible. If your son dies the truth will be bound to come out. Both of us will be finished professionally even if we don’t get brought up for murder.”
Paget’s dogged jaw was firmly set. “There will be no failure, my friend. We have planned too thoroughly for that. We have no opposition, either. My boy is one year old today, and his dear mother—who would doubtless have raised many objections—has unhappily passed on. We need concern ourselves no further. The boy’s nannie I have appeased with a statement to the effect that I am sending him—or rather taking him—to relatives of mine for a change of air. As a medical man I am in my rights to prescribe such a move …”
“Then there’s nothing to stop us.” Sheldon unfolded from his chair and stood up. “The only thing to be settled is—when?”
“Tonight. Everything is ready. The operation will be performed in my private surgery here.”
“How about a nurse, an anaesthetist——”
“I have both—entirely reliable. They don’t know the nature of the experiment, and they will probably wonder what I’m up to when they see me perform it, but they dare not question or speak of it afterwards. Ethics forbid it. With your help, my friend, we shall create a new era in brain surgery and, who knows, perhaps lay the foundation for a race of supermen. If that is to be so, little Simon will be the first.”
So it was decided. The two famous surgeons made a final check over their records and charts and fixed the time of the operation for eight o’clock that evening. On the stroke of that hour little Simon Oscar Paget, entirely oblivious of the proceedings since he had been drugged all day for this crucial moment, went under the anaesthetic—and three hours later he began to emerge from its fogs.
For several days and nights, one taking duty whilst the other slept, the anaesthetist and nurse between them kept guard over the child, and at intervals the busy surgeons came and studied their handiwork. That the child was his own son did not seem to perturb Hall Paget in the least: he was as detached and professional as with all his patients.
As the days passed there were no signs of crisis, and little Simon steadily gained in strength. In a month he was allowed to get up; in a year the experiment seemed to the surgeons like a vanishing dream. There were no apparent changes in little Simon. He behaved as other children of his age and revealed no flashes of astounding genius or intuition. The only reason, according to Paget, for the absence of results must be that Nature was taking time to adjust the balance—and in this he was correct. Something was happening to the boy, but he would be a fully matured man before it revealed itself.
In 1980 both Hall Paget and Sheldon found themselves unable to watch their “experiment” with their usual care, for the relentless demands of atomic war kept them constantly on the move. They became separated: they travelled to the fighting fronts in far countries: they vanished in the holocaust and slaughter which brought civilisation to its knees in 1985 … and Simon Oscar Paget was thrown into the aimless, drifting sea of homeless children, his only identification a charred label about his neck bearing the first two names “Simon Oscar——”
The welfare authorities found him: the family of Slade, who had lost their own children in the onslaught, adopted him. He seemed so unusually bright for a ten-year-old, and not at all sullen or embittered by the fury of the war which had raged around him.
He began to take his place in the scheme of things, entirely ignorant of two famous surgeons who had endeavoured to turn him into a genius.
During the next ten to fifteen years the world underwent a vast change. Interplanetary voyages, which were a fact before the millennium of 1985, became universal. Contact was made with all the inhabited planets, and voyages of discovery were made to many dead worlds.
Cities, new and wonderful, were constructed over the ruins of the old. The atomic blasts of that awful era of the final world war had laid waste civilisation’s monuments of the past. There was not one big capital city left standing.
The men and women that were left worked as nobody has worked before or since. Worked with a common aim that was truly commendable and which brought rewards that no man could believe.
Thus it was that in the year 2,000, with the wonderful knowledge that was possessed, and with the astounding scientific instruments of that time, mankind had rebuilt the Earth, and the Universe was an open book.
The “President Cavendish,” named after the President of the British Commonwealth, was in trouble—a million miles from the moon on the homeward run from Venus. Down in the rocket-holds a team of engineers sweated and strained over mechanical complexities and mathematics to solve why the main cooling entrail system had risen to boiling point. The fault was a serious one: it meant that the jets would reach white-heat with extreme rapidity and that in turn would fuse the great barrels of super-toughened metal themselves. And yet the jets had to be used—to stop the drift towards the moon’s field on the one hand and retard the drop towards Earth on the other.
“Can’t make it out,” the chief engineer snapped, and swore. “This cooling system is the same as all of ’em on the long distance runs and there’s never been a blink of trouble from any of them that I know of.”
“First time for everything, chief,” one of the men commented, and frowned at his blue-print showing the cooling system layout.
The chief opened his mouth and then shut it again. He was too perplexed and worried to comment any further. He had used every trick he could think of to correct the fault—without success. Now he and his men, all of them stripped to the waist in the bright lights, stood around and pulled their ears or scowled pensively at the bewildering maze of metallic entrails around them.
Abruptly the signal bell from the control room sounded. The voice of Commander Richards boomed out into stifling silence.
“What luck, chief? I’ve got to use three or four jet-assemblies in fifteen minutes to check the lunar drift. Hurry it up, man!”
Impatiently the chief engineer turned to the microphone.
“You’ll have to hold out longer than that, skip. We’ve made no headway yet. Cooling system’s completely seized up. Liquid air vents don’t seem to be working and the refrigeration tributaries are all to blazes!”
There was ominous quiet for a moment, then: “How long do you reckon?”
“No idea. I never ran into anything like this before. The safest course would be to take to the emergency ships and let this liner take its chance——”
“Take its chance!” the commander gasped. “Dammit, man, this is the ‘President Cavendish,’ the pride of the year two thousand. If we desert her she’ll crash on the moon and there’ll be hell-fire back at the Interplanetary Corporation. Anyway, it can’t be done. I’m carrying a full complement of passengers. There aren’t enough emergency ships to go round. We’ve only six of ’em, remember, carrying a dozen souls apiece.”
The chief engineer compressed his lips and gave a hopeless look at the grim-faced men around him.
“Hang on as long as you can, skip,” he said finally. “We’ll make another check-through.”
“I’ll give you ten minutes. If you’re no nearer then let me know and I’ll send out a radio call for an emergency vessel to take us off. But that’s the last resort. We’re not going to ditch this three-million pound liner if there’s any way out.”
The line went dead and up in the control room Commander Richards gave the first mate and navigator a troubled glance. They had heard everything over the intercom, but passed no comment. Set-faced they looked out towards the blazing silver of the full moon. Small though the satellite was its gravity field was commencing to make i. . .
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