Man Made, Albert Teichner [little readers txt] 📗

I went to another doctor and asked for Stabilizine. "Perhaps you need a checkup," he suggested.

That was the last thing I wanted and I said so. He, too, shrugged resignedly and made out my prescription for the harmless drug. After that the hammer of pain did not strike again but often I could feel it brush by me. Each time my self-administered dosage had to be increased.

Eventually my equations stopped tying together in my mind. I would stare at the calculation sheets for hours at a time, asking myself why x should be here or integral operation there. The truth could not be avoided: my mind could no longer grasp truth.

I went, in grudging defeat, to Erics. "You have to win," I said and described my experiences.

"Some things are inevitable," he nodded solemnly, "and some are not. This may solve all your problems."

"Not all," I hoped aloud.

Marla went with me to hospital. She realized the danger I was in but put the best possible face on it. Her courage and support made all the difference and I went into the second matter chamber, ready for whatever fate awaited me.

Nothing happened. I came out of the chamber all protoplast except for the spinal zone. Yet I was still Treb Hawley. As the coma faded away, the last equation faded in, completely meaningful and soon followed by all the leads I could handle for the next few years.

Psychophysiology was in an uproar over my success. "Man can now be all protoplast," some said. Others as vehemently insisted some tiny but tangible chromosome-organ link to the past must remain. For my part it all sounded very academic; I was well again.

There was one unhappy moment when I applied for the new Centauri Expedition. "Too much of a risk," the Consulting Board told me. "Not that you aren't in perfect condition but there are unknown, untested factors and out in space they might—mind you, we just say might—prove disadvantageous." They all looked embarrassed and kept their eyes off me, preferring to concentrate on the medals lined up across the table that were to be my consolation prize.

I was disconsolate at first and would look longingly up at the stars which were now, perhaps forever, beyond my reach. But my sons were going out there and, for some inexplicable reason, that gave me great solace. Then, too, Earth was still young and beautiful and so was Marla. I still had the full capacity to enjoy these blessings.

Not for long. When we saw the boys off to Centauri I had a dizzy spell and only with the greatest effort hid my distress until the long train of ships had risen out of sight. Then I lay down in the Visitors Lounge from where I could not be moved for several hours. Great waves of pain flashed up and down my spine as if massive voltages were being released within me. The rest of my body stood up well to this assault but every few seconds I had the eerie sensation that I was back in my old body, a ghostly superimposition on the living protoplast, as the spinal chord projected its agony outward. Finally the pain subsided, succeeded by a blank numbness.

I was carried on gravito-cushions to Erics' office. "It had to be," he sighed. "I didn't have the heart to tell you after the last operation. The subvirus is attacking the internuncial neurones."

I knew what that meant but was past caring. "We're not immortal—not yet," I said. "I'm ready for the end."

"We can still try," he said.

I struggled to laugh but even gave up that little gesture. "Another operation? No, it can't make any difference."

"It might. We don't know."

"How could it?"

"Suppose, Treb, just suppose you do come out of it all right. You'd be the first man to be completely of second matter!"

"Erics, it can't work. Forget it."

"I won't forget it. You said we're not immortal but, Treb, your survival would be another step in that direction. The soul's immortality has to be taken on faith now—if it's taken at all. You could be the first scientific proof that the developing soul has the momentum to carry past the body in which it grows. At the least you would represent a step in the direction of soul freed from matter."

I could take no more of such talk. "Go ahead," I said, "do what you want. I give my consent."

The last few days have been the most hectic of my life. Dozens of great physicians, flown in from every sector of the Solar System, have examined me. "I'm leaving my body to science," I told one particularly prodding group, "but you're not giving it a chance to die!" It is easy for me to die now; when you have truly resigned yourself to death nothing in life can disturb you. I have at long last reached that completely stoical moment. That is why I have recorded this history with as much objectivity as continuing vitality can permit.

The operating theatre was crowded for my final performance and several Tri-D video cameras stared down at me. Pupils, lights and lenses, all came to a glittering focus on me. I slowly closed my eyes to blot the hypnotic horror out.

But when I opened them everything was still there as before. Then Erics' head, growing as he inspected my face more closely, covered everything else up.

"When are you going to begin?" I demanded.

"We have finished," he answered in awe that verged upon reverence. "You are the new Adam!"

There was a mounting burst of applause as the viewers learned what I had said. My mind was working more clearly than it had in a long time and, with all the wisdom of hindsight, I wondered how anyone could have ever doubted the outcome. We had known all along that every bit of atomic matter in each cell is replaced many times in one lifetime, electron by electron, without the cell's overall form disappearing. Now, by equally gradual steps, it had happened in the vaster arena of Newtonian living matter.

I sat up slowly, looking with renewed wonder on everything from the magnetic screw in the light above my head to the nail on the wriggling toe of my left foot. I was more than Achilles' Ship. I was a living being at whose center lay a still yet turning point that could neither be new nor old but only immortal.

THE END