by Anthology
It was not entirely true. Wood knew something had happened. But he refused to believe that the face of the crawling man gazing stupidly at him was his own. It was, though. And Wood himself stood on the four legs of a dog, with a surgical plaster covering a burning wound in the back of his neck.
It was crushing, numbing, too fantastic to believe. He thought wildly of hypnosis. But just by turning his head, he could look directly at what had been his own body, braced on hands and knees as if it could not stand erect.
He was outside his own body. He could not deny that. Somehow he had been removed from it; by drugs or hypnosis.
Moss had put him in the body of a dog. He had to get back into his own body again.
But how do you get back into your own body?
His mind struck blindly in all directions. He scarcely heard the three men move away from the door and enter the next room. But his mind suddenly froze with fear. His human body was complete and impenetrable, closed hermetically against his now-foreign identity.
Through his congealed terror, his animal ears brought the creak of furniture. Talbot’s cane stopped its nervous, insistent tapping.
“That should have convinced even you, Talbot,” he heard Moss say. “Their identities are exchanged without the slightest loss of mentality.”
Wood started. It meant—— No, it was absurd! But it did account for the fact that his body crawled on hands and knees, unable to stand on its feet. It meant that the collie’s identity was in Wood’s body!
“That’s O.K.,” he heard Talbot say. “How about the operation part? Isn’t it painful, putting their brains into different skulls?”
“You can’t put them into different skulls,” Moss answered with a touch of annoyance. “They don’t fit. Besides, there’s no need to exchange the whole brain. How do you account for the fact that people have retained their identities with parts of their brains removed?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know,” Talbot said doubtfully.
“Sometimes the parts of the brain that were removed contained nerve centers, and paralysis set in. But the identity was still there. Then what part of the brain contained the identity?”
Wood ignored the old man’s questioning murmur. He listened intently, all his fears submerged in the straining of his sharp ears, in the overwhelming need to know what Moss had done to him.
“Figure it out,” the surgeon said. “The identity must have been in some part of the brain that wasn’t removed, that couldn’t be touched without death. That’s where it was. At the absolute base of the brain, where a scalpel couldn’t get at it without having to cut through the skull, the three medullae, and the entire depth of the brain itself. There’s a mysterious little body hidden away safely down there—less than a quarter of an inch in diameter—called the pineal gland. In some way it controls the identity. Once it was a third eye.”
“A third eye, and now it controls the identity?” Talbot exclaimed.
“Why not? The gills of our fish ancestors became the Eustachian canal that controls the sense of balance.
“Until I developed a new technique in removing the gland—by excising from beneath the brain instead of through it—nothing at all was known about it. In the first place, trying to get at it would kill the patient; and oral or intravenous injections have no effect. But when I exchanged the pineals of a rabbit and a rat, the rabbit acted like a rat, and the rat like a rabbit—within their limitations, of course. It’s empiricism—it works, but I don’t know why.”
“Then why did the first three act like . . . what’s the word?”
“Catatonics. Well, the exchanges were really successful, Talbot; but I repeated the same mistake three times, until I figured it out. And by the way, get that reporter on something a little less dangerous. He’s getting pretty warm. Excepting the salivary retention, the victims acted almost like catatonics, and for nearly the same reason. I exchanged the pineals of rats for the men’s. Well, you can imagine how a rat would act with the relatively huge body of a man to control. It’s beyond him. He simply gives up, goes into a passive revolt. But the difference between a dog’s body and a man’s isn’t so great. The dog is puzzled, but at any rate he makes an attempt to control his new body.”
“Is the operation painful?” Talbot asked anxiously.
“There isn’t a bit of pain. The incision is very small, and heals in a short time. And as for recovery—you can see for yourself how swift it is. I operated on Wood and the dog last night.”
Wood’s dog’s brain stampeded, refusing to function intelligently. If he had been hypnotized or drugged, there might have been a chance of his eventual return. But his identity had been violently and permanently ripped from his body and forced into that of a dog. He was absolutely helpless, completely dependent on Moss to return him to his body.
“How much do you want?” Talbot was asking craftily.
“Five million!”
The old man cackled in a high, cracked voice. “I’ll give you fifty thousand, cash,” he offered.
“To exchange your dying body for a young, strong, healthy one?” Moss asked, emphasizing each adjective with special significance. “The price is five million.”
“I’ll give you seventy-five thousand,” Talbot said with finality. “Raising five million is out of the question. It can’t be done. All my money is tied up in my . . . uh . . . syndicates. I have to turn most of the income back into merchandise, wages, overhead and equipment. How do you expect me to have five million in cash?”
“I don’t,” Moss replied with faint mockery.
Talbot lost his temper. “Then what are you getting at?”
“The interest on five million is exactly half your income. Briefly, to use your business terminology, I’m muscling into your rackets.”
Wood heard the old man gasp indignantly. “Not a chance!” he rasped. “I’ll give you eighty thousand. That’s all the cash I can raise.”
“Don’t be a fool, Talbot,” Moss said with deadly calm. “I don’t want money for the sake of feeling it. I need an assured income, and plenty of it; enough to carry on my experiments without having to bleed hospitals dry and still not have enough. If this experiment didn’t interest me, I wouldn’t do it even for five million, much as I need it.”
“Eighty thousand!” Talbot repeated.
“Hang onto your money until you rot! Let’s see, with your advanced angina pectoris, that should be about six months from now, shouldn’t it?”
Wood heard the old man’s cane shudder nervelessly over the floor.
“You win, you cold-blooded blackmailer,” the old man surrendered.
Moss laughed. Wood heard the furniture creak as they rose and set off toward the stairs.
“Do you want to see Wood and the dog again, Talbot?”
“No. I’m convinced.”
“Get rid of them, Clarence. No more abandoning them in the street for Talbot’s clever reporters to theorize over. Put a silencer on your gun. You’ll find it downstairs. Then leave them in the acid vat.”
Wood’s eyes flashed around the room in terror. He and his body had to escape. For him to escape alone, would mean the end of returning to his own body. Separation would make the task of forcing Moss to give him back his body impossible.
But they were on the second floor, at the rear of the house. Even if there had been a fire escape, he could not have opened the window. The only way out was through the door.
Somehow he had to turn the knob, chance meeting Clarence or Moss on the stairs or in the narrow hall, and open the heavy front door—guiding and defending himself and his body!
The collie in his body whimpered baffledly. Wood fought off the instinctive fear that froze his dog’s brain. He had to be cool.
Below, he heard Clarence’s ponderous steps as he went through the rooms looking for a silencer to muffle his gun.
Gilroy closed the door of the telephone booth and fished in his pocket for a coin. Of all of mankind’s scientific gadgets, th
e telephone booth most clearly demonstrates that this is a world of five feet nine. When Gilroy pulled a coin out of his pocket, his elbow banged against the shut door; and as he dialed his number and stooped over the mouthpiece, he was forced to bend himself into the shape of a cane. But he had conditioned his lanky body to adjust itself to things scaled below its need. He did not mind the lack of room.
But he shoved his shapeless felt hat on the back of his head and whistled softly in a discouraged manner.
“Let me talk to the chief,” he said. The receiver rasped I in his ear. The editor greeted him abstractedly; Gilroy knew he had just come on and was scattering papers over his desk, looking at the latest. “Gilroy, chief,” the reporter said.
“What’ve you got on the catatonics?”
Gilroy’s sharply planed face wrinkled in earnest defeat, j “Not a thing, chief,” he replied hollowly.
“Where were you?”
“I was in Memorial all day, looking at the catatonics and waiting for an idea.”
The editor became sympathetic. “How’d you make out?” he asked.
“Not a thing. They’re absolutely dumb and motionless, and nobody around here has anything to say worth listening to. How’d you make out on the police and hospital reports?”
“I was looking at them just before you called.” There was a pause. Gilroy heard the crackle of papers being shoved around. “Here they are—— The fingerprint bureau has no records of them. No police department in any village, town or city recognizes their pictures.”
“How about the hospitals outside New York?” Gilroy asked hopefully.
“No missing patients.”
Gilroy sighed and shrugged his thin shoulders eloquently. “Well, all we have is a negative angle. They must have been picked damned carefully. All the papers around the country printed their pictures, and they don’t seem to have any friends, relatives or police records.”
“How about a human-interest story,” the editor encouraged; “what they eat, how helpless they are, their torn, old clothes? Pad out a story about their probable lives, judging I from their features and hands. How’s that? Not bad, eh?”
“Aw, chief,” Gilroy moaned. “I’m licked. That padding I stuff isn’t my line. I’m not a sob sister. We haven’t a thing to work on. These tramps had absolutely no connection with life. We can’t find out who they were, where they came from, or what happened to them.”
The editor’s voice went sharp and incisive. “Listen to me, Gilroy!” he rapped out. “You stop that whining, do you hear me? I’m running this paper, and as long as you don’t see fit to quit. I’ll send you out after birth lists if I want to.
You thought this was a good story and you convinced me that it was. Well, I’m still convinced! I want these catatonics ‘tracked down. I want to know all about them, and how they wound up behind the eight-ball. So does the public. I’m not stopping until I do know. Get me?
“You get to work on this story and hang onto it. Don’t let it throw you! And just to show you how I’m standing behind you . . . I’m giving you a blank expense account and your own discretion. Now track these catatonics down in any way you can figure out!”
Gilroy was stunned for an instant. “Well, gosh,” he stammered, confused, “I’ll do my best, chief. I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“The two of us’ll crack this story wide open, Gilroy. But just come around to me with another whine about being licked, and you can start in as copy boy for some other sheet. Do you get me? That’s final!”
Gilroy pulled his hat down firmly. “I get you, chief,” he declared manfully. “You can count on me right up to the hilt.”
He slammed the receiver on its hook, yanked the door open, and strode out with a new determination. He felt like the power of the press, and the feeling was not unjustified. The might and cunning of a whole vast metropolitan newspaper was ranged solidly behind him. Few secrets could hide from its searching probe.
All he needed was patience and shrewd observation. Finding the first clue would be hardest; after that the story would unwind by itself. He marched toward the hospital exit.
He heard steps hastening behind him and felt a light, detaining touch on his arm. He wheeled and looked down at the resident physician, dressed in street clothes and coming on duty.
“You’re Gilroy, aren’t you?” the doctor asked. “Well, I was thinking about the incisions on the catatonics’ necks——”
“What about them?” Gilroy demanded alertly, pulling out a pad.
“Quitting again?” the editor asked ten minutes later.
“Not me, chief!” Gilroy propped his stenographic pad on top of the telephone. “I’m hot on the trail. Listen to this. The resident physician over here at Memorial tipped me off to a real clue. Fie figured out that the incisions on the catatonics’ necks aimed at some part of their brains. The incisions penetrate at a tangent a quarter of an inch off the vertebrae, so it couldn’t have been to tamper with the spinal cord. You can’t reach the posterior part of the brain from that angle, he says, and working from the back of the neck wouldn’t bring you to any important part of the neck that can’t be reached better from the front or through the mouth.
“If you don’t cut the spinal cord with that incision, you can’t account for general paralysis; and the cords definitely weren’t cut.
“So he thinks the incisions were aimed at some part of the base of the brain that can’t be reached from above. He doesn’t know what part or how the operation would cause general paralysis.
“Got that? O.K. Well, here’s the payoff:
“To reach the exact spot of the brain you want, you ordinarily take off a good chunk of skull, somewhere around that spot. But these incisions were predetermined to the last centimeter. And he doesn’t know how. The surgeon worked entirely by measurements—like blind flying. He says only three or four surgeons in the country could’ve done it.”
“Who are they, you cluck? Did you get their names?”
Gilroy became offended. “Of course. Moss in New York; Faber in Chicago; Crowninshield in Portland; maybe Johnson in Detroit.”
“Well, what’re you waiting for?” the editor shouted. “Get Moss!”
“Can’t locate him. He moved from his Riverside Drive apartment and left no forwarding address. He was peeved. The board asked for his resignation and he left with a pretty bad name for mismanagement.”
The editor sprang into action. “That leaves us four men to track down. Find Moss. I’ll call up the other boys you named. It looks like a good tip.”
Gilroy hung up. With half a dozen vast strides, he had covered the distance to the hospital exit, moving with ungainly, predatory swiftness.
Wood was in a mind-freezing panic. He knew it hindered him, prevented him from plotting his escape, but he was powerless to control the fearful darting of his dog’s brain.
It would take Clarence only a short time to find the silencer and climb the stairs to kill him and his body. Before Clarence could find the silencer, Wood and his body had to escape.
Wood lifted himself clumsily, unsteadily, to his hind legs and took the doorknob between his paws. They refused to grip. He heard Clarence stop, and the sound of scraping drawers came to his sharp ears.
He was terrified. He bit furiously at the knob. It slipped between his teeth. He bit harder. Pain stabbed his sensitive gums, but the bitter brass dented. Hanging to the knob, he lowered himself to the floor, bending his neck sharply to turn it. The tongue clicked out of the lock. He threw himself to one side, flipping back the door as he fell. It opened a crack. He thrust his snout in the opening and forced it wide.
From below, he heard the ponderous footfalls moving again. Wood stalked noiselessly into the hall and peered down the well of the stairs. Clarence was out of sight.
He drew back into the room and pulled at his body’s clothing, backing out into the hall again until the dog crawled voluntarily. It crept after him and down the stairs.
All at once Cl
arence came out of a room and made for the stairs. Wood crouched, trembling at the sound of metallic clicking that he knew was a silencer being fitted to a gun. He barred his body. It halted, its idiot face hanging down over the step, silent and without protest.
Clarence reached the stairs and climbed confidently. Wood tensed, waiting for Clarence to turn the spiral and come into view.
Clarence sighted them and froze rigid. His mouth opened blankly, startled. The gun trembled impotently at his side, and he stared up at them with his fat, white neck exposed and inviting. Then his chest heaved and his larynx tightened for a yell.
But Wood’s long teeth cleared. He lunged high, directly at Clarence, and his fangs snapped together in midair.
Soft flesh ripped in his teeth. He knocked Clarence over; they fell down the stairs and crashed to the floor. Clarence thrashed around, gurgling. Wood smelled a sudden rush of blood that excited an alien lust in him. He flung himself clear and landed on his feet.
His body clumped after him, pausing to sniff at Clarence. He pulled it away and darted to the front door.
From the back of the house he heard Moss running to investigate. He bit savagely at the doorknob, jerking it back awkwardly, terrified that Moss might reach him before the door opened.
But the lock clicked, and he thrust the door wide with his body. His human body flopped after him on hands and knees to the stoop. He hauled it down the steps to the sidewalk and herded it anxiously toward Central Park West, out of Moss’s range.
Wood glanced back over his shoulder, saw the doctor glaring at them through the curtain on the door, and. in terror, he dragged his body in a clumsy gallop to the comer where he would be protected by traffic.
He had escaped death, and he and his body were still together; but his panic grew stronger. How could he feed it, shelter it, defend it against Moss and Talbot’s gangsters? And how could he force Moss to give him back his body?
But he saw that first he would have to shield his body from observation. It was hungry, and it prowled around on hands and knees, searching for food. The sight of a crawling, sniffing human body attracted disgusted attention; before long they were almost surrounded.