If All Else Fails (24 page)

"Be careful, Dr.
Santell," she cautioned him. "I don't think I am happy with your choice of words. We are not
going to kill him. Many of our first tissue-regeneration ex­periments are still alive—alive after
a fashion, that is. Then-bodies still function, their cells still grow, it is only their minds
that are dead." She smiled.

"It's still murder!
You have no right!" Dr. Santell looked away from Miss Dow. He had suddenly realized that the
things he was saying could be considered treason.

"When's the last
time you had an attitude check, Dr. San­tell?" asked Miss Dow. "I almost thought I heard you say
something that was opposed to the wishes of our govern­ment. You did agree that my patient can be
made ready for transport by tomorrow morning, didn't you?"

"Of course," said
Dr. Santell. "He will be ready."

"And did I hear you
use the word murder, Dr. Santell? I did hear you use the word! I'm sure General Talbot will be
most interested in your attitude."

Dr. Santell turned
and began walking out of the room. He knew that he was in trouble and nothing he could say would
make it any better.

"Dr.
Santell!"

He turned to look
at her.

"I'm not really all
that hard to get along with," said Miss Dow. "You have a reputation of being a brilliant
scientist. I've handled your type before. I am willing to overlook a small measure of
eccentricity. But I draw the line at treason."

His expression
remained blank.

"It's only natural
that you're defensive about your patient after seven years," she soothed. "You have personalized
him, lost your objectivity. But you must know as well as I do that the bleeding man is a
brainless vegetable, hopelessly re­tarded since birth. You can see that, surely?"

Dr. Santell stared
at her wordlessly.

"It would be a lot
easier for me," she continued, "if I had your cooperation on this thing. You've had seven years'
ex­perience on this project and you could help us smooth over any rough spots we might encounter.
This isn't exactly a normal case. It will undoubtedly require special procedures —procedures that
your cooperation will make possible." She smiled at him. "My report could be a very positive one.
It depends on you."

Dr. Santell forced
himself to smile. "Believe me," he said, "I shall cooperate in any way I can. I apologize for my
be­havior."

Miss Dow nodded.
"Good. Now, how much blood could, let's say, ten of his regenerations produce in a
forty-eight-hour period?"

Dr. Santell began
punching up figures on his desk calcu­lator.

The bleeding man
continued to drink. The men studying the glass streaks on the floor had fled.

A security guard
unlocked the door and looked into the room. The bleeding man did not seem aware of the other's
presence. A call went out for Dr. Santell.

Dr. Santell,
followed by Miss Dow, arrived just in time to see the heavy door buckling outward.

"He's gone
berserk!" screamed Miss Dow, as the door was battered off its hinges. The bleeding man walked
through the wreckage of the door. He advanced upon them, a crim­son trail of blood behind him on
the floor.

Miss Dow fled,
screaming. Dr. Santell stood his ground. The bleeding man brushed him lightly as he walked past.
He looked neither to the left nor right. He strode down the corridor, moving quickly,
relentlessly.

Dr. Santell ran in
front of him and tried to push him to a halt. His hands slipped, coming away blood soaked. His
efforts to stop him were futile. Through the plastiglass corri­dor walls he could see the
security guards gathering around Miss Dow at the corridor exit. Dr. Santell took hold of the
bleeding man's arm and tried to drag him to a stop but found himself being dragged instead. The
bleeding man did not even break stride.

Miss Dow stood
within a cordon of security men. Dr. San­tell knew what she would order them to do even before
the bleeding man smashed through the exit door. "Aim for his head!" she shouted.

A burst of stunner
fire took the bleeding man full in the face. He walked several steps, then toppled.

Dr. Santell rushed
to his side and put a hand on his chest. "He's still alive," he muttered to himself.

"Good shooting,
men," congratulated Miss Dow. "A cou­ple of you men carry the body down to the lab.

"Is there very much
damage to his head?" she asked. "Is he still alive? Not that it matters. We can't risk another
epi­sode like this. We might as well do the dissection here. It'll make him easier to handle.
We'd have to ship him frozen anyway, now that we know more about his capabilities." The security
men carried the body away.

"He's still alive,"
Dr. Santell said, pronouncing each word slowly and distinctly. "He's very much alive."

Miss Dow had a
surgical gown on and a mask. "Are you sure you can handle the dissection all by yourself, Dr.
San­tell? I could fly someone in to assist."

"Quite sure," said
Dr. Santell, bending over the still form on die surgery table. "I'll begin soon. You'd better
leave now."

"I'll be waiting at
the military base in Intercity for the body," said Miss Dow. She came over to the table and stood
beside him. Her voice was cold and emotionless as usual. "You realize I still must report your
treasonable remarks to General Talbot."

Dr. Santell nodded,
not looking in her direction.

"However, your
behavior has shown marked improve­ment. That too will be noted in my report. Trying to stop this
creature single-handedly in the corridor like you did was a very brave, if somewhat foolish,
thing to do. You real­ize after that the matter is out of my hands. General Talbot will be the
one deciding, not I. Perhaps, after a short period of retraining, you may even be reassigned. A
man of your reputation, I'm sure, will find it very easy to rejoin the fold. Only a fool—or a
traitor—bucks the system."

Dr. Santell seemed
not to be listening. He stuck a needle into the arm of the body on the dissection
table.

"What a shame a
body like that should have no mind," mused Miss Dow. "Just think of the power he must have in
order to smash through those doors like he did."

"Yes," Dr. Santell
replied tonelessly.

Miss Dow pulled her
mask off and turned to leave.

"Wait," said Dr.
Santell. "Before you go, could you hand me that box of clamps under the table here?"

She bent over and
looked under the table. "I don't see any—"

His scalpel sliced
through her right carotid artery. Her body jerked convulsively and she crashed heavily to the
floor.

"Yes," said Dr.
Santell with a strange look on his face. "It is always a shame to find a good body with a
defective mind."

It took him a
little over two hours to dissect her. By the time he finished, the stimulant he had injected into
him had brought the bleeding man back to consciousness.

As he was putting
her dismembered body into the liquid-nitrogen packs for shipping, he kept his eyes on the body of
the bleeding man. The body sat up slowly and opened its eyes. The head swiveled and the eyes
regarded him. The eyes were alive with raw intelligence. The body slid off the table gracefully
and stood up, the wound on his chest com­pletely healed.

"I knew," said Dr.
Santell. "I knew."

The medicine
shaker, the bonebreaker. I have seen and
been all these. It is nothing but trouble.

I have sat on the
good side of the fire. I have cried over
young women. It is nothing but trouble.

These are the words
I heard written in his skin. He
ade me
kill her. I had to do it. I am not sorry. I knew.

That is enough,
knowing.

-Paul
Santell

((This suicide note
was found near the charred body of Dr. Paul Santell, who, Intercity Police say, apparently soaked
himself with an inflammable liquid and then set himself afire. Dr. Paul Santell, twice recipient
of the Nobel Prize in psychochemistry, police report, had been experiencing . . . —excerpt from
Intercity Demo­graphic Area Telepaper.))

The bleeding man
cured of bleeding, walked without

haste toward the
door leading outside. He remembered the taste of blood, he who no longer had need of it. He
pushed the door open and stepped outside. The sky pulled at him but he resisted for that last
little moment. His feet touched the ground. His lungs filled with air. His eyes danced on the
horizons of the world. Raising his hands into the air, he let the sky pull him away from the
earth. He took the air in his lungs and thrust it out with a shout. Silently his lips formed
words.

And then he had no
more need of air and words. His fingers curled into the hands of the sky. He disappeared in a
cloud.

He Who No Longer
Bleeds is gone. He will return. To bleed again.