Читать книгу Other Eyes Watching - John Russell Fearn - Страница 5

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At three o’clock that afternoon Douglas received a visiphone call from the Ophthalmic Council. It was the face of Dr. Grant Hurley, the chairman, who appeared on the screen.

“The members have asked me to summon you to a meeting, Dr. Ashfield,” he said coldly. “A matter has come up which is—er—rather outside normal ethics in the matter of optics. The meeting will be an extraordinary one and will be held at four this afternoon. You will make it convenient to be present, please?”

It was not a request but an order.

“Of course, Doctor,” Douglas acknowledged, and switched off.

He had no illusions. Mason Brooks had evidently kept his word and tipped off the council. By law they controlled all the oculists and ophthalmic city surgeons, who worked only with their permission, and stayed within their prescribed boundaries.

It was good in one way, for it stopped the inexperienced dabbler from injuring patients, but from Douglas Ashfield’s point of view it was bad. Very bad! Nor dare he refuse to attend a meeting if he wanted to remain in practise.

So at four o’clock, he was in the Board Room with the seven directors of the council and chairman Hurley at the head of the long, shining table.

“Dr. Ashfield, I am in possession of a special letter sent to me this afternoon by Mr. Mason Brooks, the Chief Physicist with the City Scientists.”

Dr. Hurley laid the letter on the table, open.

“Were it from a lesser member of the community I might have ignored its contents, so amazing are they,” Hurley continued. “But from a man of Mr. Brooks’ standing, the matter at once assumes serious proportions. He declares that you are trying to persuade his sister, Miss Vera Brooks, recently blinded in an accident, to undergo an operation by which you can give her artificial eyes which can see!”

Douglas smiled bitterly at the pedantry of the man, the verbal groveling to a man worth nine million dollars.

“The allegation is correct, Doctor,” he answered briefly.

This started a hum of excited conversation round the table until Hurley’s insistent, beating gavel silenced it.

“I can only presume, Dr. Ashfield, that you are joking,” Hurley said acidly. “And I consider it very bad taste.”

“Gentlemen, I have created an artificial eye,” Douglas said, rather weary of having to repeat the details. “It can do everything which a normal eye does. It can give sight to the blind and thereby advance optical science a century. It can remove the biggest blight, barring death, that threatens humanity.”

“It hasn’t been done before,” said Wilson, reckoned as the best optic nerve man in the States.

“That’s no criterion,” Douglas retorted, looking round on the incredulous faces. “I’m not going to recall to your minds what men said about Watt with his steam engine, Bell and his telephone, Lister and his antiseptic. I think you are intelligent men, willing to listen to anything that means advancement. I can provide it—and prove it.”

“Since you can prove it, we are willing to listen,” Dr. Hurley answered expansively. “How soon can you produce this proof?”

“The moment I have operated on Vera Brooks.”

“This is becoming a vicious circle,” Hurley decided, ominous again. “We cannot permit an operation on a woman, and especially one so high in the social scale, without the method and result being thoroughly considered beforehand. We, the Council as a whole, forbid such an operation unless you have first submitted convincing proof.”

Douglas gestured impatiently.

“How in the world can I prove it until a human being has had the benefit?” he demanded. “To try it on an animal would not convince you. An animal cannot tell us if it can see, even though we can discover if it reacts as though it can. I well know that the Council always need sweeping proof, beyond a shadow of doubt. And the only way I can get it is by performing an operation—on a human being—on Vera Brooks!”

There was a silence, then the chairman cleared his throat noisily.

“If you could perhaps find somebody less important?” he suggested. “Maybe an itinerant from the city’s lower quarters? A blind worker, maybe? After all, the financial resources of Miss Brooks and her brother have a great deal to do with the welfare of the city as a whole.”

“If, as you suggest, I were to use these artificial eyes on a beggar, it would take me ten years to make another pair?” Douglas retorted. “Do you imagine I would leave Miss Brooks, my future wife, in her present condition that long? No, gentlemen! In any case she has given her own personal sanction to the operation.”

It was plain Dr. Hurley was not convinced.

“Prompted by the elusive hope of regained sight, no doubt,” he said pompously. “I am sorry, Doctor Ashfield. Either you operate on an unknown and show the results, or we cannot be interested. If in spite of everything, you proceed with an operation on Miss Brooks, you will be precluded forthwith from practise, and that, I am afraid, would terminate the career of a very clever ophthalmic surgeon.”

“Even if Miss Brooks herself asked you to let me do it?” Douglas asked despairingly.

“Even then,” Hurley replied adamantly. “Miss Brooks is in no position to make a decision. She is a drowning woman clutching at a straw. In matters medical it is the Council, not the individual, which makes the decisions these days. That is the law, you know.”

Douglas hesitated for a moment, his bitter eyes glaring at the stony faces. Then without a word he pushed his chair back under the table and left the room.

Ten minutes later the visiphone was ringing in the Brooks’ rebuilt residence, and the manservant answered. After a while Vera’s face with the dark glasses appeared on the viewplate.

“Vera? Doug speaking. I’m going to operate. Your brother has done his worst with the Ophthalmic Council and they’ll disown me for it. I’m risking that—if you’ll risk your life?”

“Doug, you know I will! I believe in you and always shall. I meant it when I told you to name the day.”

“All right then. This evening. I have two expert nurses I can call upon. I’ll perform the operation in my own surgery. All I want you to do is go without food from now on. Can’t undergo an operation on a full stomach. I’ll call to see you on the pretext of taking you for a drive, then Mason won’t suspect—I hope.”

“I think he’ll be out anyway,” the girl answered. “He’s hard at work in the city laboratory after hours trying to reshape that idea of his which got us into this mess. When it’s over, Doug, the Ophthalmic Council will just have to believe!”

“Yes.” Douglas had a mental vision of Hurley’s beefy, pompous face. “Perhaps. Anyway, I’ll be with you at seven this evening.”

“Seven it is,” Vera agreed, and switched off.

Promptly at seven Douglas was at the Brooks residence. As the girl had anticipated her brother was absent, and probably would be until a late hour.

Douglas helped her into the car and, driving it himself, he threaded his way through the city streets towards his own suite in the Cosmopolitan Building.

“Cheerful?” he murmured, as the girl sat beside him.

“More than I’ve ever been since I became blind,” she said. “At first it seemed that there was no way out. I’d forgotten all about that talk we had at the Golden Comet about artificial eyes. But now—Oh, I know you’ll succeed!”

“I’ve got to,” he said grimly. “Not only because you are the most precious possession I have, not only because I want you to be a happy, carefree girl again, but because of what success will mean to humanity in general. But you must understand, dearest, that there is the risk of failure. I have to be fair with you on that point. In any event, Mason will no doubt kill me if I fail. I’m sure of that.”

“I’ll take my chance,” she answered quietly. She added rather plaintively, “I suppose I can’t have something to eat? My sides are nearly touching.”

“All the better—and you can’t have a bite,” Douglas said firmly. “I’m a surgeon now, not your fiance. Well, here we are.”

He ran the car into the big private garage, helped the girl out and guided her fumbling feet up the steps and so through the hall to the elevator. Once in his office he took her straight through to the surgery and settled down in a chair. The two nurses he had summoned caught his nod and one of them began to remove the girl’s hat and coat.

While they prepared her for the operation, he went into his private office and stood for a moment with his fists clenched and his eyes tightly shut.

“All I ask is the strength of my hands, the infallibility of my instruments, and the judgment of posterity,” he breathed. “Grant me that—no more.”

His brief prayer over he straightened up and went back into the surgery. As he washed his hands and snapped on rubber gloves, the girl sank into unconsciousness under the anesthetic. He came to the table at last, stood looking down on the eyeless sockets, at the shaven scalp. Then he took the instrument the leading nurse handed to him, and began.

For an hour he labored—for two hours, struggling under the hot glare of the shadowless lamps. Now and again as he worked, he caught the astonished eyes of the nurses above their face masks as they saw him insert and connect the artificial eyes. He could see they were incredulous.

The eyeballs themselves he never touched. The platinum claws did the work, handling them as gently as if they were thistledown. Little by little he progressed, knitting the optic nerve to the appropriate portion of the brain, making new nerve connections, reknitting the blood vessels.

In two hours he was feeling tired but the work was done. The girl’s skull had been restitched and the scar coated in fast healing astringents. She lay now in the soft air bed adjoining the surgery, a bandage round her head and eyes.

When he felt fit enough after his labors—towards two in the morning—Douglas crept in to look at her. The nurse was dozing in the chair by her side. The girl was breathing regularly. Her temperature and pulse were normal. Douglas gave the nurse a nudge and then went out again to his private office to sit down and await the dawn.

This time it was the nurse who awakened him. He got into his coat hurriedly and walked through to the bedroom. The girl was fully conscious again, and apparently in good spirits.

“Doug?” she asked quickly, recognizing his footsteps. “How am I getting on? I still can’t see anything.”

“You’re not supposed to, dearest.” He gripped her hands. “You are all bandaged up. But you’re doing fine. Think yourself lucky you don’t live in the Nineteen-thirties or this operation would have taken months of convalescence. Surgery has upped a bit since then. How’s your appetite?”

“Last night my sides were touching. Now they’ve stuck together. Do something, please.”

“Okay. Nurse!”

The woman came in and Douglas gave his orders. He turned back to the girl.

“While you have your meal I’ll freshen up a bit. Then we’ll see how things are. By that time you should be able to stand it.”

“It’ll be all right, Doug. I know it will!”

He patted her hand and left her. He had hardly reached his office preparatory to getting a shave when he heard the door of the reception office being thumped good and hard. He went out to it and found Mason Brooks on the threshold, his face white with ill-controlled fury.

“Where’s Vera?” he blazed, striding in. “She’s here?”

“Yes, she’s here,” Douglas assented quietly, shutting the door. “And take it easy.”

“Easy! That’s a fine thing to tell me! I’ve been at work all night and I arrive home to find my sister has been absent the entire time, ever since you called for her last evening in your car. What the devil have you been doing? Where is she?”

“She’s eating her breakfast at the moment. There’s a nurse with her, and has been all night.”

Douglas took off his coat leisurely and turned to the mirror. He had just picked up the electric razor when Brooks caught his arm and whirled him round.

“You can’t treat this matter as of no consequence, Doug,” he snapped, his eyes glittering. “You’re hoping to make that experiment on Vera, in spite of all I’ve done to try and stop you.”

“And in spite of your very ungallant efforts with the Ophthalmic Council,” Douglas retorted. “I’m not making the experiment, Mason. I’ve already made it! I performed the operation last night and Vera still lives, and is well.”

The physicist perspired visibly in sudden relief. He took off his hat and sank into a chair. Then he passed a hand over his smooth dark head.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” he said agitatedly. “I got all worked up. It—it was for Vera’s sake, of course.”

“Of course.” Douglas ran the razor down his jaw.

“Can she—see?” Brooks questioned abruptly.

“That I don’t know yet, but we’ll find out when she’s had her breakfast.”

There was silence between them for a while. Douglas finished his shaving and washing as the scientist thought things out.

“Better get a grip on yourself,” Douglas suggested, half smiling. “Let’s see how things are. Shall we?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

Mason Brooks went into the girl’s room beside him. He stood looking at his sister fixedly, but said no word. Since he evidently did not wish to disclose his presence, Douglas did not do it for him. He dismissed the nurse and took hold of the girl’s hand tightly.

“It’s zero hour, Vera,” he said tensely. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Her voice was subdued. “I’m ready.”

He reached behind her head, unfastened the clip to the eye bandage and began to unravel it. As the last shred fell away, Brooks could not help a little gasp of amazement at the sight of the beautiful eyes in the formerly dead sockets. They were big and gray, even prettier than the girl’s own had been.

There was a long, deadly silence. Douglas could feel himself perspiring freely under the suspense. Brooks leaned very slightly forward his eyes sharpened to needle points.

Slowly the girl turned her bandaged head. She looked above, to either side of her. Then she fixed her eyes wonderingly on Douglas. He stared back fixedly—but to his astonishment she clapped her hands to her face.

“What?” he asked desperately, catching her shoulder. “Vera, what is it? What’s wrong? Can’t you see? You must, I tell you!”

“Yes—yes, I can see,” she answered breathlessly, lowering her hands again. “I can see you—and Mace over there—and this room. I can see myself. But—but I can see two things at once! Nothing looks solid any more. I can see through the walls. There is a crazy looking landscape out there, weirdly vast. And some ruins of some sort—like cities. It’s—it’s awful!”

She covered her eyes again and Douglas stood looking at her in bewilderment.

“Brain reaction maybe,” he muttered. “Hallucinations.”

“More likely you’ve damaged her brain!” Brooks declared hotly, crossing the room. “Two things at once, man! Do you realize she’s delirious?”

He caught Douglas’ arm. The way the two men looked at each other was a prelude to blows. But the girl’s voice stopped them.

“Fighting over it isn’t going to do any good—and certainly not to me. Try behaving yourselves instead. Come here, both of you.”

They hesitated a moment, then came to the bedside. Vera had lost that expression of alarm now and instead was looking more puzzled than anything else.

“At least I can see,” she decided. “That is something for which I shall be eternally grateful, Doug. But you’ve got to do something about this double vision if you can. Maybe you made a mistake in the lenses. After all, it was your first attempt.”

“Yes, it’s possible,” he admitted.

“Just what are your impressions?” Brooks asked, his anger cooling into interest. “Explain them in detail.”

“Well, I can see as far as the walls of this room. Beyond them I can see New York spread out on all sides. In the midst of it, like a double exposure photograph, is some kind of landscape. It’s deserted and seems to go on forever and forever. Same with the sky, too. No horizon. Endless—utterly endless.”

The girl looked up at the ceiling, then jerked her eyes back again and blinked.

“The sun’s up there. But it looks different. It’s got curly things flickering round its edges and there’s a blaze of white light behind it.”

“Great Scott, the solar prominences and corona!” Brooks whispered incredulously. “Well—go on!”

“I can see through my own body,” the girl went on. “But not into it, if you understand. And although I can see through these immediate walls, I cannot see through more distant ones. Yes, I can see through the floor, down through this building, into the underground railway and sewage system, then deep down into the earth. Like lying in midair over a colossal pit!”

Mason Brooks scowled in deep thought. First and foremost a physicist, the girl’s impressions had arrested something in his mind. To Douglas, purely an oculist, the matter was alarming.

“We can’t leave things like this,” he decided. “Rest until this afternoon, Vera, and then you’ll be fit to get up and dress. First thing I’ll do is get you into the surgery and make an examination. Obviously you’ve got X-ray eyes. You shouldn’t have them. I must have made a mistake somewhere in those lenses.”

The girl closed her eyes and gave a serene smile.

“There, that’s better. Now I can’t see anything at all.”

“Did you say something about cities—ruins?” her brother asked presently.

She opened her eyes again and regarded him queerly. It was a rather unnerving stare she gave him, a perfect example of looking straight through him.

“Yes, I did,” she assented. “They’re behind you. It’s mixed up with New York’s buildings somehow. But there are ruins on a sort of rough plain.”

“Hum!” Brooks said, and patted her shoulder. “Okay. You just close your eyes and take it easy. We’ll discuss this later. And don’t say anything to the nurse, either. You may have acquired a gift.”

The girl shrugged and closed her eyes again. Douglas gave her a final puzzled look and followed Brooks from the room. The nurse went in and took over her duties again.

In the reception office the physicist rubbed his unshaven jaw thoughtfully.

“You’re a man of optics, Douglas. What’s your verdict?”

“I must have made an error in the formula somewhere. Or else synthetic material doesn’t react like normal tissue. That’s the only explanation. Given time I could probably right it. Or even the use of spectacles might cut out that distant superimposing wavelength, perhaps.”

Brooks gave a grim smile.

“I’ve other ideas. I’m beginning to think that you have all unwittingly unlocked a closed door. My sister isn’t looking through things, but into things. If she could see through things, in the fashion of X-rays, she would simply see all New York and the ground as though it were glass.

“But apparently she doesn’t. Only at very short focus can she penetrate a wall. Beyond that, she sees an entire second landscape. Broken down cities, solar prominences and corona, a sky and plain which go on forever in a straight line. To me, as a physicist, that hints at only one thing—the fourth dimension!”

“What!” Douglas yelped. “You’re crazy, man.”

“Maybe,” Brooks shrugged. “But remember that the greatest discoveries of science are often the outcome of the sheerest accident. It’s only a theory yet, and I’ve got to think about it.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m going home for breakfast and a freshen up. I’ll be back here this afternoon and we’ll go into the thing properly.”

He strode to the doorway, then half way through it he paused and looked back.

“Sorry I blew up.” He grinned cynically. “Maybe this will have justified your work after all!”