The Mechanical Monarch

by E. C. Tubb

  “I’m trying to widen the split in the hull.” Wendis sounded irritated at the other’s query. “I’ve fastened the line and with the metal as rotten as it is it shouldn’t be hard to lift the outer skin, Anyway, I’m curious to see what’s inside.” He grunted again as he gripped the jagged edge of the split and tugged at the thin metal.

  “Holy Cow!”

  “What is it?” Menson’s voice rose as he snapped the question. “What have you found?”

  “You were wrong, Menson,” said Wendis unsteadily. “This wasn’t one of the old automatics.”

  “No? “No? What was it then?”

  “A manned rocket ship.”

  “Impossible. The first manned ships weren’t anything like what you described, and anyway, they were all accounted for.”

  “Not all of them, Menson.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that someone will have to start revising the history books. This was a manned space ship, and, if I know anything at all about metals, it must be all of two hundred and fifty years old. As far as I know, the first manned ships only reached Mars just over a hundred and the Moon a hundred and twenty years ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s wrong. We can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “With this ship.” Wendis sighed, the sound coming clearly over the radio. “It was a manned vessel, there can be no doubt about it, and it must have left Earth more than two centuries ago.”

  “It couldn’t have done that. They didn’t have the barrier screen then. Are you sure?”

  “Yes. It was a manned ship, Lars. I know it. The poor devil is still sitting in his control chair.”

  “What!”

  “Didn’t you hear me? The pilot is still inside the ship. Dead of course, frozen, he must have died when the air escaped through the split in the hull, but . . .” Wendis broke off and Menson reached for the controls.

  “Get back here,” he snapped. “I’m radioing Mars.”

  Tensely he adjusted the controls.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Mars Centre rested on the bed of a long-dried sea three hundred miles from the North Pole. It looked as it had always done, a huddled collection of adobe huts, domed, tamped from the chemical-treated sand of the arid planet. Over the course of the years the settlement had grown, and yet, despite the slow increase of population, the settlement still seemed a rough and temporary affair as if the inhabitants had always known that one day they would have to move.

  Five miles from the settlement the squat atomic pile rested, half-buried from the wind-blown dust. From it thick cables snaked to both the settlement and to the idle machines of the refining plant, and the flame-scorched area of the landing field with its high control tower, lay a full mile to the south. Of agricultural land there was no sign, none existed, the sand of Mars, radioactive and sterile couldn’t grow a single blade of grass. Instead, the scoured aluminium of the synthetic food plant rose above the clustered domes of the living quarters, and the low building of the one hospital was the second largest building on the entire planet.

  Mars was a bleak place.

  Doctor Lasser shivered a little as the early chill of night bit through his heavy clothing and gnawed at his fatless body. He was an old man, thin, his gaunt features reflecting something of an inner bitterness, his sunken eyes glinting with a secret torment. He paused for a moment, staring at the sunken ball of the setting Sun, then, shrugging, he thrust himself through the double doors of the hospital.

  “Doctor Lasser!” A man stepped towards him from where he stood by two men. “I’m glad you’re early.”

  “Why, Carter? In a hurry to get away?” The old man didn’t trouble to hide his sarcasm as he looked at his assistant, the only other doctor on Mars. Carter flushed.

  "You misunderstand me, Lasser. Perhaps you’d better reserve your judgment until you hear what these men have to tell you.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Wendis and Menson. Two Asteroid miners. They have only just landed. You must remember their radio message two days ago.”

  “Yes.” Lasser stared at the two men. “When did you arrive?”

  “An hour ago.” Wendis looked at his partner. “What’s all this about a radio message?”

  “I told them about what we found.” Menson glanced at the

  tall, thin figure of the old doctor. “Well, Doc? Can it be done?”

  Lasser bit his lips. “How can I answer that? I haven’t even seen him yet, and anyway, what makes you think that it would be a good idea, even if it were possible?”

  “Can there be any doubt?” Carter stared curiously at his chief. “What else can we do? As doctors our duty is clear, and even if we could ignore that duty, -there is another reason.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you haven’t thought of it for yourself then I’m not telling you.” The young man seemed to be on the edge of anger. “What’s the matter with you, man? What has changed you in the past few days? I remember the time when you would have been burning with enthusiasm for what we propose.”

  “You ask me that?” Twin spots of anger burned on the gaunt cheeks and something glowed deep in the sunken eyes. “You heard the Matriarch’s commands. You heard the ultimatum. Within two weeks we have to evacuate Mars. Within two weeks a hundred years of hope and struggle will be thrown away and forgotten. You know how I feel about that. How can I take an interest in anything now?” He turned away, shrugging out of his thick coverall.

  “For the younger men the move means nothing. You probably welcome the chance of getting away from here, of going to Earth and all the comfort that planet offers. Things like patriotism, loyalty to old dreams, independence, those things mean nothing to you.”

  “You are wrong, Lasser, quite wrong.” Carter stared at the old man. “We feel just as you do, and if there were a chance, the slightest chance of breaking from the chains of Earth, we would do it. But enough of that now. Will you see him?”

  “I suppose I must.” Lasser stared at Menson. “Your message stated that you found him in a ship of old design, a design obsolete for more than two hundred years. You realise what you are saying of course.”

  “I do.”

  “The pilot of that ship has been dead for all that time. He was born before the Atom War, he would know nothing of what has happened since that time, and yet you suggest that we should attempt to revive him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Menson stared at the old man, half-believing that the doctor was joking. “Are you serious.”

  “I am.” Lasser sighed a little as he stared at the young miner. “I am an old man, Menson. I see things a little differently than you younger men. Would it be humane to bring him back? He has already known death, have we the right to force him to face it again?”

  “I think that we have.” Menson stared seriously at the tall doctor. “He died it is true, but it was . not a natural death. He must have been a young man when it happened, and, aside from all that, he could tell us a great deal of what happened before the Atom War. I think that you should do what you can.”

  “I see. Is he here?”

  “Yes. We’ve kept him in cold storage. The ship is in an orbit around Deimos, we can get it if necessary, but I thought that this came first.”

  “Very well. I will examine him.”

  Lasser glanced at his assistant and together, the two doctors and the two young Asteroid miners, they left the room and passed into a laboratory almost filled with gleaming apparatus and ranked phials of drugs and surgical instruments. Carefully Carter lifted a sheet from a high-walled vat, and together they stared at what had once been a living man.

  “Death was due to asphyxia of course, that and instantaneous freezing as the air in the ship expanded into the void. The wound on his arm is superficial. The blood on his body seems to have come from that wound. Some rupture of the capillaries of course, that would be inevitable from the sudden drop in
pressure.”

  “Do you think that we can revive him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lasser thoughtfully. “So much depends. If his blood has coagulated, or if his inner organs were ruptured in the pressure drop . . .” He shrugged. “Men have been revived who have died in space, but for each one who has been brought back to life two others have died under the treatment. Also, and we mustn’t forget this, he has been exposed to the free radiations of space for over two centuries. They must have affected him in some way; how, we can’t even guess, but it makes a new variable, an unknown factor.”

  “The time element isn’t too important,” protested Cat ter. “Space is sterile, and, when he died, his every cell froze solid. There couldn’t have been any deterioration, as we see him—so he was on the day of his death.”

  "Aside from the radiation effects,” reminded Lasser quietly. “But I agree with you about the lack of deterioration.” He sighed and glanced at the other men. “Well, we may as well get started. The usual procedure?” Carter nodded.

  “Yes. .Immersion in a temperature controlled fluid. Slow thawing to prevent internal damage. Eddy currents and electronic surge pulses to ensure even heating. Energen flow to revive the individual cell-life. Stimulants for the heart, artificial breathing, heart massage, the whole procedure. We may fail, but if we don’t . .

  “A dead man will live again.” Lasser glanced at the two Asteroid miners. “You had better return to your duties. This will take some time, we shall have to be careful in arousing his mental awareness,, shock could kill him beyond recall.”

  Wendis hesitated, and Menson looked at Carter.

  “I want them to stay here,” said the young doctor evenly. “Now that the ultimatum expires within two weeks there is no point in them continuing with their work.” He hesitated, glancing at the old man. “I can use them here anyway,” he said abruptly. “We have a lot to do before we leave.”

  Lasser nodded, not really caring what happened now that his life-long dream of an independent Mars was at an end, and stooped his thin figure over the high-walled vat.

  Delicately he fingered the cold flesh, the iron-hard, solidly frozen flesh of a man who had been dead for almost a century and a half. Carefully he switched on a power source, adjusting a row of vernier controls and slowly opening a valve.-

  “Had support and mask.”

  Carter adjusted a support 'beneath the dead man’s head and strapped a mask over the contorted features. “Ready.”

  Lasser nodded and from the valve beneath his hand spurted a stream of iridescent green liquid. Lights flickered over a panel, and from a squat machine came the smooth hum of power beneath perfect control. N

  The battle for life had started.

  It took three days. Three days in which the temperature of the green liquid slowly rose to well above blood heat, in which the invisible surges of electronic eddy currents warmed-the dead body through and through, melting the buried specks of ice within each cell, thawing the dead flesh and relaxing the stiffened limbs. Machines hummed- into life at the exact moment they were needed. The artificial lungs pumped almost pure oxygen into the flaccid chest, the loaded hypodermics with their cargoes of stimulants for nerves and muscles.

  Carter never left the side of the vat. He crouched over the controls of the energen generator, adjusting the flow of the current which emulated life itself, restoring vitality and individual life to each cell.

  Still the body didn’t respond.

  Lasses- stared down at the vat, his thin features drawn and almost haggard with strain and worry. Before him, totally immersed in the shimmering green liquid, the dead man seemed to live with a travesty of life. The chest rose and fell, impelled by the artificial lung. The blood circulated, forced by the devices which by-passed the natural organ. Almost it seemed as if the man would rise and throw off the, mask and tubes attached to his body, but the old doctor knew that once the machines stopped, the man would truly die, and this time there would be no second chance.

  “How is the energen content?”

  “At normal, plus ten per cent, for extra stimulus.” Carter

  wearily rubbed his tired eyes. “Body heat one hundred degrees, saline content normal, circulation increased by fifteen per cent, air almost pure oxygen. Damn it all, Lasser. The man should be alive by now.”

  “Muscular reaction?” The old man ignored his assistant’s outburst.

  “Motor nerves respond. Involuntary reactions absent.”

  “I see.” Lasser thinned his lips as he stared into the vat. “Expose the heart,” he snapped. “We’ll try direct massage and electro-shock treatment. If we don’t get him breathing beneath his own power soon we may as well give up. Deterioration in the motor nerves must already have commenced. We daren’t wait any longer.”

  Carter nodded and reached for a heavy scalpel.

  It took ten hours. Ten hours in which the old doctor’s hands within their sterile gloves kneaded the exposed heart of the dead man, massaging it in time to the pulse of the blood pump. Carter hovered over him, ready to take over „ should Lasser weary of the delicate task, injecting stimulants into the muscle and keeping a watchful eye on the bank of flickering dials.

  Finally the heart pulsed, stopped, beat again, then, fitfully at first but with increasing power, it took over the task of the blood pump. Wearily Lasser leaned back and watched as Carter sewed back the flap of bones and muscle.

  “At least his body is living,” he said tiredly. “Now, unless the shock of death has affected his mind, he should recover.” “Shall I disconnect the artificial lung?”

  “Not yet. We must relieve his heart as much as possible until his own lungs regain awareness. That is the next job.” “Shock treatment?”

  “No. I don’t like it, there is too much danger of damaging the brain. Use pain and direction. You know what to do.” The old man slowly stripped the gloves from his hands. “Call me when he recovers.”

  Carter nodded, already at work on the problem of awakening the dormant memory and awareness of the man in the vat.

  Always there was this problem. Death seemed to be something more than just the stopping of the heart. The delicate, almost immeasurable electrical potential of the brain, played a still larger part. Men, once they knew that they had died, were impossible to revive. There was a mental refusal to accept awareness, and so, even though their bodies lived, their brains did not, and without the personal awareness they remained mindless idiots, or lapsed again into oblivion.

  “Who are you?” Carter spoke into a microphone, his words drumming against the ears of the man in the vat, carried through the earpieces of the mask covering the man’s head. As he asked the question he pressed a button and electricity stabbed at the sensory nerves of the dead man.

  “Who are you?” Again the question and again the stabbing flow of current. • “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?”

  It went on for hours. It went on until Carter hated the • sound of his own voice, until his face and neck dripped with sweat, and his fingers trembled with weariness as they adjusted the controls. He didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t hope for anything better than that the man should answer his call and struggle up from his oblivion to an unconscious awareness of life.

  “Who are you?”

  A direct appeal to the ego. A challenge to the self. A call from light and life into the darkness of death.

  “Who are you?”

  Gently Carter slowed, then stopped the smooth rhythm of the artificial lung. If the man was going to live he would do so now, and the sooner he could take over the natural functions of his body the better. Staring at him Carter felt a swift panic as the even rise and fall of the chest stopped, stopped, hesitated, then, erratically, began to rise and fall again.

  The man breathed.

  Quickly he stripped off the mask, transferring the earphones, and a fresh urgency came into his voice as he repeated the monotonous question.

  “Who are you?”

 
The man writhed, his mouth twisting and his arms threshing at his sides.

  “Who are you?”

  “Ro . . The man’s voice trailed away into a gurgling silence.

  “Who are you?”

  “L ... Y ... N ...” It was like a cracked record, grating and filled with some terrible pain. The man writhed again, his lips parting, his muscles quivering to the twin stimuli of voice and surging current.

  “Rosslyn . . . Rosslyn . . . Rosslyn.”

  Carter grunted with satisfaction and triumph, but he had to make quite certain, he had to be cruel now so that the fact of his own identify would remain in the man’s pain-twisted brain.1 He reached for the button controlling the electric current.

  “Who are you?”

  “Rosslyn ...” A terrible fatigue seemed to drain the voice of all vitality. Carter bit his lip and twisted the vernier control of the energen generator.

  “Who are' you?”

  “Rosslyn. Curt Rosslyn. Leave me alone will you. Leave me alone.

  Carter smiled and gently took the earphones from the sagging head. Carefully he adjusted the limp body, making sure that the retaining straps held the man so that he could do himself no harm, then, leaving the sterilizing lamps blazing down on the vat, left the room.

  “Rosslyn,” he murmured as he walked towards Lasser’s room. “I wonder who he was?”

  Tiredly he summoned his relief.

  CHAPTER IX

  Curt Rosslyn sat in a chair and stared with wondering eyes at the sandy wastes of Mars. Before him, clear through the transparent plastic of the hospital dome, the settlement sprawled, the narrow streets thronged with busy men and women, as they made last-minute preparations for the evacuation. A ground car churned down the street, dust pluming from beneath its Treads, and Lasser, his thin body muffled in his coverall, plunged towards the building. Carter followed him, and Curt, still weak even after ten days beneath the healing lamps of the hospital, waited impatiently for them to enter the room.

  “Well, Curt?" Carter smiled as he brushed dust from his coverall. “How are you feeling to-day?”