The Mind of Mr Soames

by Maine, Charles Eric

  Table of Contents

  – Copyright –

  – Dedication –

  Introduction (by Harry Harrison)

  PART ONE: THE AWAKENING 1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  PART TWO: THE CREATION 6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  PART THREE: THE DESTRUCTION 13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  First published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd in 1961

  © 1961 by Charles Eric Maine

  Introduction to this edition © 1976 by Harry Harrison

  •

  FIRST NEL PAPERBACK EDITION AUGUST 1977

  •

  Conditions of sale: This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  NEL Books are published by

  New English Library Limited from Barnard’s Inn, Holborn, London ECIN 2JR

  Made and printed in Great Britain by Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks

  FOR HAL

  who will disagree,

  point by point, with

  everything herein.

  Introduction

  The more one reads about education the more it seems obvious that there is a certain lack of agreement among the authorities as to the best possible teaching techniques to be followed. Most newsworthy will always be the picketing of schools by parents, and investigations of teaching staff. More revelatory will be the campaign to teach mathematics through the ‘new math’ and the resulting backlash and abandonment of this particular technique. It might seem obvious, after all the centuries it has been around, that the teaching of mathematics would be a cut-and-dried thing. Apparently not. If the teaching of such basic concepts as one plus one equalling something can cause controversy—what then of the entire field of teaching, the theory and practice of education?

  This is a good question and one that has been answered in a great number of texts on theories of education. I find almost all of these books dull, obscure, uninteresting—and often very wrong. I know that there is a great tendency among educationalists of disciplines such as anthropology and physics to look down upon degrees in education and upon people who attempt to teach others to teach. I fight hard to avoid this point of view, but there is controversy—no one will attempt to deny that.

  Charles Eric Maine is a classic science fiction writer. Classic in the sense that this kind of writing is at the core of sf, the hard centre without which the fringes would not exist. (This does not mean that the outer edges of science fiction, where the discipline merges into that of pure fantasy, are inferior in any way. Many of the best sf novels written are in this category. But without the core of classic science fiction they would simply be fantasy and sf would be swallowed up in that greater field.) By science fiction of this nature I do not mean the galactic extravaganzas of E. E. Smith, PhD, or the vivid brain-flights of van Vogt, but rather the extrapolitive care of Clarke with his Moon, or Asimov with his robots.

  These are the ‘what-if?’ stories that provide the solid meat of science fiction. What if men explore the surface of the moon? What if we have intelligent robots? After these questions are asked the answers must be carefully thought over by the author. First in technical or philosophical form; the dust on the Moon may react in certain ways, robot intelligence will need to be controlled by certain fixed laws. Only after this cogitive step is the story written. The first is technique. Turning the theories into fiction is the art. (As someone remarked, science fiction authors must work twice as hard, first imagining their worlds before they can set a story in them. I hope that someone else answered that this is also the glorious pleasure of writing sf.)

  Charles Eric Maine is obviously very interested in education. He has done his homework on the subject and has formulated his own opinions of what is good and bad. As the introduction to this book shows he is not above indulging in heated controversy if necessary. Where a lesser writer would have given us a pedestrian novel about a school and the frictions and methods therein, Maine has presented a stunning, yet simple, idea that most graphically will involve both author and reader in the very basic theories of education. He gives us the straightforward, yet incredibly complex, story of Mr Soames.

  We meet John Soames in the first paragraph of the first page, for this is his story. He appears to be a physically sound individual a little over thirty years old. But he was born unconscious and has remained so ever since. His mind is blank, it must be blank, so if he ever regains consciousness he will have to be taught.

  And that is the story. A personal one for Mr Soames, and a deeply personal one as well for the medical staff and the people around him. This is a novel of character, and a very good one. Yet, by its very nature it is still sf, and must be sf just as On the Beach is pure science fiction. (Shute involved us in the lives of his characters so that we care what happens to them. But the basic theme is a story of the aftermath of atomic warfare, classic sf—as well as being one of the most exploited themes in the genre.) While early science fiction used the idea, and the idea only, as hero, more developed sf exploits an idea or concept in a setting of solid characterisation and story.

  The idea of a blank infant’s mind in a man’s body is a fascinating one that Maine exploits to the full. If the book has a weakness it is one shared by far too many other sf novels; a dependence on gratuitous action to further the plot ends. (We see this in another classic, Cyril Kombluth’s Syndic, which has story and interest enough on its own without the jeep-mounted, flame-spouting, calibre .50 machine-guns.) But this action does not detract from the story—may even make it more attractive to some readers—and certainly leaves us in no doubt regarding the efficacy of the educational techniques practised on Mr Soames.

  Of particular attraction is the author’s successful attempt to avoid the pitfall of black-and-white characterisation that marked all pulp writing, which has been the deformed legacy of too many modern sf writers. You could always tell who the hero was by his white space helmet. Maine gains our sympathy with Dr Takaito, a surgeon, a theoretician, and a character in his own right. He appears to be a superman—but he is not. Upon occasion he can be wrong as well. We also feel a great deal of sympathy for Conway, through whose eyes we see much of the action developing. He is not the firm-jawed, always-right hero we have come to expect in science fiction. Kimball Kinnison would look upon him with horror. Conway is a man with doubts, who tries to be right but knows that he fails from time to time. If this is realism in science fiction let us have more of it. I have always felt that Kinnison would be a bore to meet—with absolutely no sense of humour. Conway and Takaito can both laugh at themselves, most human and winning traits.

  Concept made solid; idea turned into story. Classic science fiction. It is hard to do because it requires thought, hard work, extrapolation, intelligence, as well as the artistic ability to write a moving and human story. The Mind of Mr Soames succeeds in accomplishing what its author set out to do. And is a fine read as well.

  Harry Harrison, 1976

  PART ONE

  THE AWAKENING

  1

  During the morning, after a wash and shave and a half-hearted nibble at a small breakfast, he went over to the operating theatre in the research annexe to observe some of the preparations for the Takaito experiment. It
was the first time he had seen John Soames for more than two years. He looked much the same as ever, apart from the white glaze of his skin and the faint purple cyanosis of his lips, but that was because they had taken him from the cold tank in the basement just a few minutes earlier. His metabolism at the moment was probably still ticking over at a gentle thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit, but within an hour or two the relative warmth of the room would seep into his chilled flesh and he would begin to look more human and less like a wax dummy.

  Stretched out on the tilted operating table Soames appeared tall and muscular enough, but his eyes were still closed as they had been for nearly thirty years, and he needed a shave and a haircut. However, despite the superficial lack of masculine toilet—and that was not regarded as a matter of priority for patients in cold storage, where aesthetic values were somewhat irrelevant—he was handsome enough in a dark, swarthy way.

  The theatre sister and two nurses were fussing around him in a quiet, efficient manner under the shadowless lights, while Dr Barr did interesting things with instruments under the watchful eye of Dr Emil Schearer, the consultant specialist who had been called in to vet the preliminaries. Schearer was something of an expert in metabolic refrigeration techniques, though it was suspected that he had gained much of his knowledge in a certain German concentration camp during the second world war; but that was a long time ago and now he was an old man, nearly seventy, dedicated to what he regarded as his mission in the world of medical science. Whatever the ethics of his past life may have been, he had certainly done a great deal for humanity since, and a considerable amount for the unconscious John Soames.

  Conway looked around. There were three or four others in the small theatre apart from himself, mostly doctors from the various departments of the clinic who were interested in the Soames case and could afford the time to stand and watch. Nearest to him was young McCabe from the psychoneural laboratory, looking hollow-eyed, unshaven and in need of a cigarette—and probably a drink, too, even at this early hour of the morning.

  ‘What’s the latest communique on Takaito, Andy?’ Conway asked, moving closer to McCabe, The other man winced visibly. ‘Not so bloody loud,’ he whispered in mock anguish. ‘I’m a cerebral hyperaesthesia case this morning. The slightest sound is likely to drive me off my rocker.’

  ‘For a psychoneurologist that’s quite an admission to make.’

  ‘I admit everything, Dave. Remind me never to drink whisky on top of champagne again, and always, repeat always, to go bed before six o’clock in the morning.’ He regarded Conway darkly. ‘Not that I slept even then, thanks to a couple of whoring birds outside the window.’

  ‘Celebrating?’

  ‘No. Just whoring...’

  ‘I mean you.’

  ‘Me?’ He looked puzzled for an instant. ‘Oh, me I Well, yes, in a way. It was Morry’s last night of freedom. He gets married today, though how he’s going to keep awake and find the necessary stamina I’m damned if I know. I’ve stuffed him full of dexedrine, and me too—but all it’s done is make me feel jumpy and more tired than ever. Hell, you should have been there, Dave.’

  ‘I was on duty—apart from which I wasn’t invited.’

  McCabe looked slightly crestfallen for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot that you and Morry aren’t exactly friends. Anyway, there were eight of us and we got through six bottles of whisky and eight bottles of champagne, not counting the wine and brandy at dinner.’

  Conway made a sympathetic murmur. ‘Not to worry. You’re still alive, I think, though whether you’ll survive the day seems doubtful. You on duty?’

  ‘Not until midnight, thank heaven. I meant to snatch some sleep this morning, but then I remembered they were hoisting Soames out of the ice box and I couldn’t resist the temptation to be in on it.’

  They remained silent for a while, watching the theatre staff at work. Odd to realise, Conway thought, that John Soames and I are of almost identical age, and yet there is more than a generation of living between us—that is, if you count living as active participation in the business of being alive. Soames has never participated in anything since the moment of birth, and even before that, but he’s managed to grow well enough and achieve maturity under prolonged clinical supervision.

  His mind clicked back to the earlier question which had been swamped and left unanswered in McCabe’s alcoholic reminiscing.

  ‘What’s the news about Dr Takaito?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t they have a grape-vine in the psychiatric ward?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m normally too busy to use it.’

  ‘Dave, you work too hard,’ McCabe said laconically. ‘All I know is that Bennett had a telephone message from Cowley early this morning to say that Takaito had left Tokyo by jet-clipper and would arrive late this afternoon.’

  ‘Does he intend to operate today?’

  ‘Just like that.’ McCabe made a chopping motion with his hands. ‘Everything has to be ready. He’s got to catch another plane just after midnight—flying to New York for some conference or other on morbid neurocerebral pathology which starts tomorrow.’

  ‘Busy man.’

  McCabe shrugged and made a huffing sound. ‘Seems strange to me that we should have to call in a Jap to do what we can’t do ourselves.’

  ‘I see your point, but Takaito is recognised as top dog in his own sphere of diagnostic psychoneurology,’ Conway pointed out.

  ‘Dog is the appropriate word,’ McCabe snorted. Takaito took up where Pavlov left off. Did you know he has special breeding kennels with an output of more than two thousand dogs a year for research and vivisection? That’s about six dogs a day every day including Good Friday and bank holidays. All the same, if he can do anything for this Soames character’—he jerked a thumb towards the inert body on the table—‘I’ll take my hat off to him and his honourable ancestors.’

  The chances were slender enough, Conway thought. During the past thirty years some of the world’s most brilliant psychoneurologists had carefully deployed their skill and experience in futile attempts to trigger Soames’s dormant brain into conscious awareness, but had failed consistently and completely on every occasion. There was a word for his condition, in fact there were several words for it, and a few rather complex phrases. Part of the difficulty was that nobody had as yet accurately diagnosed the trouble. Soames was unique. He was perfectly normal in every respect, except that he had been born in a state of total unconsciousness and had stayed that way ever since. In some obscure fashion his brain seemed to be utterly disassociated from the rest of his nervous system so that he perceived nothing and was incapable of responding to external stimuli, even quite vicious electric shocks. True, the expected muscular spasms would occur during such tests, but that was merely involuntary motor reaction; his mind continued to remain in its blank condition of unawareness. Electroencephalograph tests revealed regular alpha and beta rhythms of considerable amplitude, characteristic of deep sleep. In the end it was tacitly agreed that for diagnostic purposes John Soames was suffering from congenital synaptic coma, which was simply a more pompous way of saying that he had been unconscious from birth.

  The fact that Soames was still alive was regarded as something of a minor miracle, even among specialised medical circles. The miracle had been achieved unspectacularly by the long-term application of perceptive care over the years, with intravenous feeding coupled with physical and electrical exercise and massage to prevent muscular atrophy. For nearly fifteen years he had been kept in a refrigerated tank (refrigerated, that is, to a controlled temperature level of a few degrees above freezing point) in order to reduce the rate of metabolism to match the effete action of heart and lungs. How long the game of keeping John Soames alive could continue before his comatose body decided to surrender unconditionally was any body’s guess, but in recent years, despite his superficially excellent physical development, he had begun to show signs of deteriorating resilience during the frequent clinical tests and experiments that were carried out
on him.

  ‘What’s Takaito’s angle?’ Conway asked.

  McCabe stroked his nose thoughtfully. ‘Only Takaito himself knows that. Some kind of cortical by-pass, I gather, involving a direct nerve graft to certain lobes which he believes are isolated by a neural barrier.’

  ‘Mm—tricky, these nerve grafts, if not impossible.’

  ‘It’s been done before—Menshekin in Leningrad, and Sankey in Chicago, and some unpronounceable Chinese surgeon in Peking, if I remember rightly. But it’s certainly tricky, as you say. I wish him the best of Japanese luck.’

  ‘I take it he hasn’t seen Soames before—in the flesh, I mean.’

  ‘No, but he’s spent over a year studying stereo x-rays of his brain, and he’s worked out his own theory.’

  ‘This must be costing the earth,’ Conway murmured doubtfully. ‘I wonder who’s paying the fee.’

  ‘Strangely enough, it’s for free,’ McCabe said. ‘I gather that Takaito’s genuinely interested. No doubt a human being makes a change from dogs, especially Japanese dogs. Anyway, he’s merely breaking his journey from Tokyo to New York long enough to perform the operation.’

  ‘New York to Tokyo via London. That’s doing it the hard way.’

  ‘Why should Takaito care? The BMA are chipping in on the additional expenses involved—all in the interests of psycho-neural research.’

  Conway considered for a moment. ‘Supposing Takaito achieves a break-through, and John Soames becomes conscious for the first time in his life. What then?’

  McCabe grinned maliciously. ‘That’s when the fun begins, Dave. The instant he opens his eyes and begins to take an interest in the outside world he becomes the responsibility of the psychiatric department, and so far as I’m concerned you’re welcome to him.’ He paused reflectively. ‘Actually, it shouldn’t be too difficult—a spot of high-pressure education and rehabilitation and he might even become an MP.’