The Frankenstein Factory Read Free Page B

they would object to coming back in another body!”
    “Maybe yes, maybe no.” Dr. Armstrong smiled slightly. “Of course Hobbes was quite clever when he founded the institute thirty years ago. There were other groups, like the Cryonics Societies of California and New York, operating in the 1970s, but Hobbes chose the word cryogenics instead of cryonics. Cryogenics covers the entire field of very low temperatures, and much of the research here has been directed toward operating techniques at low temperatures.”
    “I’d think an operation on a frozen body would be impossible.”
    “Quite true, if the body is solidly frozen. But the temperature can be regulated for optimum effect. In that first heart-transplant operation I mentioned, the heart was chilled to 50°F. And the patient’s body temperature was powered to 70.88°. You see, when the body is chilled, blood and kidney circulation naturally decrease. At a temperature of 68°F. blood flow is barely ten percent of normal.”
    “But that’s a long way from freezing. The bodies they’ll be working with have been down in those vaults for up to thirty years!”
    “A man named Openchowski was freezing the brain cells of dogs back in 1883, and Dr. Irving S. Cooper—no relation to Tony Cooper—was performing cryosurgery at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York forty years ago. Using a surgical wand about the thickness of a knitting needle, Cooper delivered liquid nitrogen to human brain tissues, lowering their temperature to minus four degrees Fahrenheit. You see, cryosurgery is especially useful when dealing with the brain. The cut of a scalpel is irreversible, but freezing is not—at least for a time. If the wrong tissues of the brain are frozen, the surgeon simply warms them again before any cells are actually killed.”
    “Can it be used in other parts of the body?”
    “Almost anywhere, these days. Cataract operations have been common for decades, as have treatment for cancer and certain bone diseases. All they will do tonight is simply bring together all the established techniques of organ transplant and cryosurgery into a single crowning operation.”
    “And will it succeed?”
    Armstrong smiled. A breeze was coming up and he placed a hand to his head, holding down his long dark hair. Earl wondered if he might be wearing a toupee. “Its success doesn’t really concern me. My job comes afterward. If the patient survives, and comes alive again, my job will be to keep him alive. We’ve come a long way in postoperative care, but something as mundane as pneumonia can still be a problem.”
    They were just rounding a bend of beach when they suddenly came upon the bushy-haired Philip Whalen. He was down on one knee in the sand, as if tying a shoelace. When he saw them he pulled down his pants leg and got quickly to his feet. “Beautiful day,” he muttered and hurried past them.
    “Not a very friendly fellow,” Armstrong remarked. “Don’t know why Hobbes hired him.”
    “He’s a good surgeon, isn’t he?”
    “I suppose so. But a team has to work together. They’ve got their hands full handling O’Connor as it is.”
    Earl Jazine grunted and they strolled on for a bit in silence. Whalen had not been quite fast enough in pulling down his pants leg, and Earl had gotten a glimpse of something metallic.
    He wondered why the unfriendly surgeon carried a small pistol strapped to the calf of his leg.
    The cocktail hour was celebrated with little concern for the coming evening’s activities. Earl had been checking over his miniaturized motion-picture and taping gear, trying to remember all the hurried instructions he’d received back in New York. He had no intention of joining in the general drinking until Freddy O’Connor poked his head around the corner of the door and shouted, “Hey, boy! Everybody downstairs for booze!”
    “Sure,” Earl said, getting to his feet.
    “You’re one of them New York photographers, huh?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I