The Man Who Was Six, F. L. Wallace [best ereader for comics TXT] 📗

The doctor's eye, my boy. The doctor's diagnostic eye."

The other just didn't understand. "But the size—it doesn't match my arm!"

"Doesn't match?" cried the doctor. "Do you have any idea of the biological ways in which it does match? True, it may not be esthetically harmonized, but here we delve into the mysteries of the human organism, and we can hardly be striving for Botticelli bodies and Michelangelo men. First, your hand moves freely at the joint, a triumph of surgical skill." He moved the hand experimentally, to show Merrol how it was done. He dropped the hand and hurried to a screen against the wall.

Crander drew his finger across the surface and the mark remained. "You know about Rh positive and negative blood. Mixed, they can be lethal. This was discovered long ago, by someone I've forgotten. But there are other factors just as potent and far more complex."

He scribbled meaningless symbols on the screen with his finger. "Take the bone factors—three. They must be matched in even such a slight contact as a joint ... this was done. Then there are the tissue factors—four. Tendon factors—two. Nerve-splice factors—three again. After that, we move into a complex field, hormone-utilization factors—seven at the latest count and more coming up with further research.

"That's the beginning, but at the sensory organs we leave the simple stuff behind. Take the eye, for instance." Merrol leaned away because Dr. Crander seemed about to pluck one of Dan's eyes from its socket. "Surgical and growth factors involved in splicing a massive nerve bundle pass any layman's comprehension. There are no non-technical terms to describe it."

It was just as well—Merrol didn't want a lecture. He extended his arms. One was of normal length, the other longer. "Do you think you can do something with this? I don't mind variation in thickness—some of that will smooth out as I exercise—but I'd like them the same length."

"There were many others injured at the same time, you know—and you were one of the last to be extricated from the ship. Normally, when we have to replace a whole arm, we do so at the shoulder for obvious reasons. But the previously treated victims had depleted our supplies. Some needed only a hand and we gave them just that, others a hand and a forearm, and so on. When we got to you, we had to use leftovers or permit you to die—there wasn't time to send to other hospitals. In fact there wasn't any time at all—we actually thought you were dead, but soon found we were wrong."

Crander stared at a crack in the ceiling. "Further recovery will take other operations and your nervous system isn't up to it." He shook his head. "Five years from now, we can help you, not before."

Merrol turned away miserably. There were other things, but he had learned the essentials. He was Dan Merrol and there was nothing they could do for him until it was too late. How long could he expect Erica to wait?

The doctor hadn't finished the medical session. "Replacement of body parts is easy, after all. The big trouble came when we went into the brain."

"Brain?" Dan was startled.

"How hard do you think your skull is?" Crander came closer. "Bend your head."

Merrol obeyed and could feel the doctor's forefinger slice across his scalp in a mock operation. "This sector was crushed." Roughly half his brain, it appeared. "That's why so many memories were gone—not just from shock. In addition, other sectors were damaged and had to be replaced."

Crander traced out five areas he could feel, but not see. "Samuel Kaufman, musician—Breed Mannly, cowboy actor—George Elkins, lepidopterist—Duke DeCaesares, wrestler—and Ben Eisenberg, mathematician, went into the places I tapped."

Dan raised his head. Some things were clearer. The memories were authentic, but they weren't his—nor did the other wives belong to him. It was no wonder Erica had cringed at their names.

"These donors were dead, but you can be thankful we had parts of their brains available." Crander delved into the file and came up with a sheet.

"Here are some body part contributors." He read rapidly. "Dimwiddie, Barton, Colton, Morton, Flam and Carnera were responsible for arms and hands. Greenberg, Rochefault, Gonzalez, Tall-Cloud, Gowraddy and Tsin supplied feet and legs."

He was not a man, Merrol thought. Not now. If anything, he was a convention and one body was not a large enough hotel to hold it in comfort.

"These were the major human donors, but there were others I didn't bother to read, for the kidneys and so on. And I think our four-footed friends deserve some mention." He looked up. "The skin on your face is from a pig embryo."

That explained why it was hard to shave. "Oink?" he said. "I mean did it have to be a pig?"

"You'd be surprised how hard it is to transplant human skin," commented Crander. "Besides, we wanted to give you a masculine look. The finest face there is, genuine pigskin."

Merrol felt like a wallet.

The doctor droned on through the list, but Merrol scarcely listened. Only once did he interrupt, to ask incredulously, "Did you say a horse?"

"Is there anything wrong with a horse?"

Merrol thought back. Come to consider it, there was nothing wrong—in fact, compliments were more in order.

"The skill that went into matching the unrelated parts that are now you is a landmark in medical history, quite comparable to Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood," said Dr. Crander. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't participated in it myself. There have been limb and brain replacements before, but never on such a scale. One of these days, we'll get out a report that will astound the medical world."

Without doubt, it would. Merrol tried to feel grateful, but gratitude refused to come. They had saved him—but was it worth it?

Puzzled, Crander frowned at the buzzer. He'd been pressing it intermittently for the past few minutes. "Doesn't seem to be working," he muttered, heading toward the door through which Merrol had entered. "Wait here—I'll be back. I have to cancel an appointment."

As soon as the door closed, a voice behind Merrol hissed. "I fixed the buzzer. He went for the guards."

He whirled. Miss Jerrems stood in the doorway that led into the filing room on the opposite side of the office. "Guards?" he repeated.

"Of course—guards for the violent patients."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You escaped once, didn't you?"

He hadn't escaped, he had merely walked out when he felt he could. Did that qualify him as violent? It might. "What of it? I'm no longer a patient. The doctor said I had recovered."

"That's what he said to you. But even if he means it, there's always psychotherapy, post-re-growth orientation."

Orientation—he hadn't thought of that. They'd want to keep him under observation for several days and he had no desire to stay hospitalized. Erica would come to the hospital in a few hours. Perhaps she was there now, waiting to see someone. Come to think of it, he had got past the receptionist with remarkable ease. At any rate, if she was insistent about it, she must eventually get to see the evidence he had just studied.

And then there would be orientation—for both of them.

Without doubt, he would be taught to accept himself as he was, and Erica would be trained to look at him without laughter, and together they would know that beneath his piebald exterior lurked a lovely personality. Then, well adjusted, they would go home and live happily ever after. Or would they?

"Don't stand there, if you want to get away," Miss Jerrems whispered urgently. "Next time they won't take any chances."

They wouldn't. He would be confined to a room he couldn't break out of with guards disguised as nurses. Blindly he moved toward the door.

"Not there," she exclaimed. "Do you want to walk right into them? This way. They won't look for you in here." She clasped his hand in her bony fingers and led him through the maze of files to an elevator. "This takes you to the ground floor," she said. "Once outside, you can get away."