The Frozen Limit

by John Russell Fearn, Volsted Gridban

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Defying the edict of the Medical Council., Dr. Robert Cranston, helped by Dr. Campbell, carries out an unauthorised medical experiment with a 'deep freeze' system of suspended animation. The volunteer is Claire Baxter, an attractive film stunt-girl. But when Claire undergoes deep freeze unconsciousness, the two doctors discover that they cannot restore the girl. She is barely alive. Despite every endeavour to revive the girl, nothing happens, and Cranston and Campbell find themselves charged with murder...

Release date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 222

Sample

Eva Cranston knew the moment her husband entered the lounge that his mission had failed. He had left the house that morning in the highest spirits—a young doctor with, as yet, an anything but flourishing practice—determined to at last place before the Medical Council the greatest discovery since Lister had discovered antiseptic. Nothing less than bloodless surgery, produced by suspended animation and absolute cessation of molecular movement—or at least, almost complete cessation. Not yet had Dr. Robert Cranston solved the problem of absolute material rest.

“Nothing doing?” Eva asked, as her husband mooched into the lounge, hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

“Not a sausage! They didn’t laugh outright, bless ’em, but they did hover on the verge of suggesting that I ought to be either certified or rested from practice. Rested! Great heavens, I’ve hardly enough patients to keep me occupied!”

Dr. Robert Cranston sat down and Eva looked at him and sighed. She had never been fool enough to think that becoming the wife of a struggling doctor would be a bed of roses, most certainly not in these fiercely competitive days of 1970, when all the professions were battling under their own power without State subsidies, but she had thought there would be something worthwhile. Now she was commencing to doubt it. Her husband’s practice was woefully small; he himself was not a particularly brilliant medical man … But he was a scientist with distinct medical leanings, and so far these two co-related states had somehow not teamed up very satisfactorily.

“No hope of them giving you a second chance?”

Cranston laughed shortly. “My dear girl, once the M.C. has given its decision it never changes it. The whole thing’s over and done with—far as they are concerned, anyway.”

“Which means you’ll have to give up experimenting?”

Eva rose to her feet and came across to where her husband had dropped himself on the settee. She was as petite as he was big, and if it came to that as pretty as he was ugly. But Bob Cranston’s ugliness was of the attractive kind. He had an all-over-the-place kind of face with a big, generous mouth. The contrast between the two—he dark and Eva fair—was about as absolute as it could be.

“No,” Bob Cranston said slowly as Eva sat beside him, “I shall not give up experimenting. What would have happened if Lister had given up? Or Pasteur? Or——”

“Yes, dear, but is your discovery so important after all? Most of the great things in surgery have already been discovered—such as anaesthetics and things. Why not give up this dabbling and confine yourself to bread and butter? After all we’re not exactly rolling in wealth, are we?”

Bob grinned and clapped an arm about Eva’s slender shoulders.

“Eva, my sweet, you’re a grand girl, but you haven’t a scientific bone in your body! Not for a moment do you realise the importance of slowing down the molecular vibration——”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” Eva looked troubled. “I keep thinking of the bank account and struggling to devise ways to make it bigger—only I just can’t think of anything. You’re the one who could make the money, only you don’t.”

“I can’t make people ill, sweetheart; nor can I make them come to me when they are.”

“Your heart isn’t really in medicine, Bob, is it?”

He looked gloomy. “ ’Fraid not. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it at all but for dad insisting. Scientific research is my real line, and this molecular business really is something! It can put a patient under for as long as need be—years if required—and restoration is, or would be, simple. Thanks to the M.C. I’m not allowed to use anybody on whom to practice, and if I ignore that decision and try to go ahead I’ll no longer be able to practice. Vicious circle——”

Eva glanced up as the front door bell buzzed. Bob looked vaguely astonished and got to his feet.

“Wonder if by some miracle it’s a patient?”

“Hardly! What’s the surgery for? That was the front door.”

In another moment the rather faded-looking general peered in the lounge, her bovine eyes travelling to Cranston.

“Who is it, Ella?”

“A Dr. Campbell, sir. Says it’s very important and can you see him now?”

“Not as a patient I suppose?”

Ella shook her head. “Didn’t say so. Doesn’t look like one, either. Big, well-set-up man he is, and——”

“All right Ella thanks. Ask him to step into the surgery, will you? I’ll be with him in a moment.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“I’ve not the vaguest idea what he can want,” Bob said as the door closed and Eva looked at him inquiringly. “Unless by some extraordinary fluke the M.C. has reversed its decision and sent this blighter to tell me so.”

Eva did not look particularly hopeful. “Easiest way to find out would be to see what he wants.”

“I know—but I don’t believe in dashing to these fellow doctors. Creates a bad impression.”

For the life of her Eva could not see the point, but she did not stress the matter, She settled down more comfortably on the settee, then straightening his jacket Bob left the room, whisked on his white surgical overall from the hall wardrobe and finally entered the surgery with all the briskness of a famous surgeon about to perform a major operation.

The man waiting in the solitary hide armchair did not look impressed by this grand entrance. He was young, bony-kneed, with twinkling blue eyes and tumbled blond hair.

“Ah! Dr. Campbell!” Bob Cranston came forward as though he had made an epic discovery—and Campbell got to his feet. He was long and gangling, even taller than Bob, who topped the measure at six foot one.

“That’s right—Boris Campbell. Remotely a Scot, born in London.” The handshake was powerful. “Can you spare a moment to discuss?”

“Spare a moment? Well, I—er——” Bob Cranston made noises in his throat and appeared to reflect. There was all the time in the world, of course, but it might not present a good impression if he were to say so.

“I can come back later,” Campbell volunteered anxiously.

“Great heavens no, old man. Since you’ve taken the trouble to come and see me we might as well finish it. My patients can wait. What’s the trouble?”

“I’d hardly call it trouble, Dr. Cranston. I’m here because of that ridiculous farce at the Medical Council. I was in the audience even though I had no ruling vote.”

“Oh, I see.” Bob looked dubious; then he motioned to the armchair again and drew up a stool for himself.

“Those fossils on the M.C. Board want strangling,” Campbell announced refreshingly. “You present the greatest idea of the century and ask for a volunteer to be permitted, and all you get is part ridicule and an absolute ban.”

“Uh-huh,” Bob agreed, sighing. “So?”

“So this: I’m a medical man too, with about enough knowledge of science to grasp what you’re driving at. Because of that, if you’re prepared to take a risk, I think I can help you.”

“Risk?”

“Well, the Council did warn you that if you tried anything without permission you’d be liable to lose your practice.”

Bob grinned. “You’ve no idea how funny that is, Dr. Campbell.”

“Oh, call me Boris. I’m sure we’re good friends already. And how do you mean?—funny?”

“It’s funny because my practice is nearly non-existent on account of my scientific experiments. I spend so much time on scientific medical investigation I’ve no time to attend to those who are ill. The wife takes a very dim view of my activities.”

“Since your practice is small,” Campbell said, thinking, “that makes it you have little to lose even if we fail—which we shan’t——” Then as Bob waited in puzzled silence Campbell hurried on: “I’ve made several medical experiments in my time, chiefly on a small scale, and have been lucky enough to have had the Council’s blessing each time. For those experiments I have hired the services of Jimmy Baxter, the human guinea pig. He is an amateur strong man, chief blood donor to the local hospital, and so bursting with good health he’s a doctor’s despair. But his iron constitution makes him useful for experiments.”

“Mmm,” Bob Cranston murmured none too cheerfully.

“He only charges two guineas a time, and for that you can do anything you like with him—within reason, of course. I have him sign a letter of exoneration before I start, in case something does go wrong and he gets killed. The long and short of it is, Cranston—or should it be Bob?—that Jimmy Baxter will be willing to be put into suspended animation for two guineas.”

“You really think so?” Bob Cranston was definitely interested at last.

“I’ll ring him up before I leave here and find out—always granting you’re willing.” Boris Campbell’s blue eyes were twinkling brightly. “You see, it’s this way. Once you have put Jimmy into suspended animation and shown that bloodless surgery is practicable the M.C. won’t dare take any action against you for flouting their decision. The possibility is that they’ll publish an apology for being so short-sighted and the world will be compelled to acknowledge that Cranston’s system of bloodless surgery is the greatest advancement of modern times. If anything goes wrong——”

“Nothing will. Nothing can.”

“Good! If it does, though, the exoneration letter will clear you of manslaughter even though you’ll inevitably lose your practice.”

Bob got to his feet and stood meditating for a moment or two. Then he looked back at the genial Campbell. In the brief time he had known this young and lanky medico he had come to like him immensely. He appeared to ring true in every respect—but most of all he was providing the one thing Bob most needed at the moment—encouragement.

“I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t take the risk,” Bob said finally. “Are you sure Jimmy What’s-his-name will do it? It’s absolutely new, you know—suspension of molecular activity.”

“No need to worry about that. Jimmy will do anything I ask him, and we’ve known each other since being at school. Incidentally, he has a smashing sister—Claire. Strictly off the cuff, I keep in with Jimmy because I more than like his sister.”

“Very original,” Bob grinned.

“She’s a stunt girl,” Campbell added rather vaguely. “Blonde, absolutely forthright, entirely without fear, and pretty as hell.”

“Mmm. Stunt girl? Meaning what?”

“Oh, that?” Campbell smiled. “She’s a stand-in for stars—female of course—who have to dive from cliffs, fall in raging fires, hang from bridges by their teeth, and so on. I tell you straight, Bob, Claire and her brother are the two most fearless people I’ve ever known. They live together in a little flat in London here and—— But never mind all tha. . .