The Martian War

CHAPTER SIXTEEN


THE MUTABLE NATURE OF THE MARTIAN FORM


FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. MOREAU

The dead crewman lay on the shadowed lower deck of the steamer. Fortunately, no one had discovered him yet.

In the uncertain light, I gathered the syringes from where Lowell had scattered them. Only one of the glass barrels had broken; the rest lay intact—a fortunate occurrence, for I would need them to keep feeding the Martian. After pocketing the syringes, I put my hands under the dead crewman’s arms. The bully stank of sour sweat, dirt, and urine. I was not surprised to find that he had fouled himself upon his death, as many animals will do.

Moving quickly, I dragged him along the dim corridors. It was well after dinner, and at night the ship grows quieter. Every few moments I paused to listen, fearing that someone might come to investigate all the commotion. Still I heard no shouts, no pounding footsteps. Perhaps no one had heard the man scream after all.

I hid the corpse inside my small cabin until I could properly dispose of it, then hurried back to wipe up any remaining bloodstains from where he had died. No one would ever know what had really happened to the brute.

With my door firmly latched, I spread the pallid body onto a makeshift operating table and proceeded to drain the remaining blood from his circulatory system—I saw no sense in letting it go to waste, if this was indeed the nourishment our specimen required. When I finished, I had several beakers of fresh blood. The Martian regarded me hungrily as I worked. It made no sound, but its tentacles waved as if stirred by air currents.

I reassembled my medical kits, gathering up the vials scattered on the floor of my laboratory. I would have to begin the next step quickly, if I had any hope of success. After the crewman was dead, his delicate organs and tissues would begin to spoil.

Turning my back on the Martian, I surreptitiously slipped a potent sedative into an open beaker of blood. The Martian was as large as a bear, and I could only guess at the proper amount of anesthesia it would require. I came back to the cage, holding the beaker of scarlet fluid, and stared at my specimen, looking for some sign of communication in its eyes. If it was ravenously hungry, perhaps I could trick it.

The Martian reached out with its tentacles and touched the beaker. I let it draw the glass between the bars of its cage. I then offered it two of the intact syringes, and the Martian rapidly began to inject the blood into itself. I watched with a morbid fascination as the beaker was drained.

I noted the signs of sickness on the Martian’s flesh, discolorations, blotches. Maybe the fresh blood would keep it strong for a while, but I intended to effect a more permanent cure of the Earthly germ. As soon as it was time.

When the sedative rapidly began to take effect, the captive Martian seemed astonished that I, a lowly human, could have deceived it. As the alien struggled against imminent unconsciousness, I turned to the dead crewman on my operating table, stripped off his shirt, mopped sweat and grime from his pasty chest, then disinfected his skin. He must be clean before surgery.

I prepared my operating tools as best I could. Normally, I harvested organs from a still-living donor in order to ensure their freshness and integrity, but I had no choice right now. Much finesse is required when grafting organs from one species onto another. The pieces don’t fit properly together, and junctures must be rigorously sealed. In addition, I had only a minimal working knowledge of the Martian anatomy, unlike other vivisection subjects upon which I had so often practiced. But I could draw some generalizations, and I did my best. The Martian’s very survival was at stake.

I used a scalpel to cut into the redhead’s flesh, after which I took up a heavy bone saw to crack open his sternum. Then I began my longest and most exhausting surgery ever.

I grafted the crewman’s strong heart and fleshy lungs into the Martian’s body. It was bloody work, but necessary. The two organisms were not meant to coexist, but I forced the issue. Neither the dead crewman nor the dying Martian had any choice.

With my surgical apparatus, and the expertise I had developed over years of working with dissimilar species, dragging them unwilling up the evolutionary ladder, I now applied connections and junctures. This was what the Martian needed to survive.

I took meticulous care that the tools were sterile, that the sutures were tiny and even, that the components from two different planets matched perfectly. I took no shortcuts with my vital work, in the hope that the grafts would heal properly and the organs continue to function, so that this hybrid creature could survive on Earth. It would be able to breathe our air and, with the crewman’s blood, perhaps even find a bit of immunity to fight off our terrestrial germs.

In my travels around the world, I have discovered many unusual drugs and medicines from the jungles of Borneo and Thailand, from uncharted islands in the South Seas. I always keep a store of them in my medical kit. Some of these substances—poisonous lichens and fever-reducing fern leaves—proved to be quite beneficial in helping one body accept the organs from another. Otherwise, biological instinct leads to a rejection of what does not belong there.

Finished with the surgery, I sewed up the Martian’s tough brown skin and applied sterile cloths. I wrapped more bandages around the incision sites and hoped the alien would heal quickly, for within ten days the steamer would reach New York harbor. I did not want the specimen weakened while we moved it down to Boston and Percival Lowell’s family holdings … .

Much later, a shaken and half-drunk Lowell returned and looked stupidly at what I had done. But nothing else could shock him. He had told the captain his fabricated story, and the man believed him implicitly.

“That redhead was a rogue,” the captain said, “always getting into brawls, never doing his share of work. I’ve had to club him several times myself, and I had more than half a mind to kick him off the ship once we reached port. You’ve saved me the trouble, Mr. Lowell. I doubt anyone will miss him, certainly not the man he was bunking with.”

Stunned at how easily we got away with the crime, Lowell had downed three, perhaps four, snifters of brandy before coming back to find me finishing my efforts. He stared aghast at the redhead’s mutilated body, but I soothed him. “The poor victim was already dead, Percival. But I used him to keep our Martian alive.”

“Of course you did.” Lowell’s words were somewhat slurred. If I was lucky, he would go back to his cabin and drink even more brandy; by morning, he might have doubts about what had occurred here.

“I need your help in one last thing, Percival. The two of us must toss the body overboard.”

At first Lowell quailed at this, but five minutes later he dully reached down to take the dead man’s feet after I had wrapped him in a bloodstained sheet to keep his cut-up form together. We hustled along the silent corridors, climbing metal stairs. Each time, I took a careful look and waited until no one was there to see.

It was the darkest part of the night, when all other passengers were asleep and only a skeleton crew remained at their duties. We soon reached the open salty air and the starlit darkness, and wasted no time. The breeze was brisk, carrying the dampness of impending storms. The waves behind us were choppy.

“Come, Percival. No time to delay.” We hoisted the dead crewman. “Up, up—heave.”

In a flash, the redhead tumbled overboard, his loose arms and legs still flopping, pale skin showing through his torn clothes. The splash made almost no sound at all, and the steamer forged ahead, leaving him far behind within moments. Soon only the fishes would know what we had done.

Lowell and I stood together at the rail, quietly looking into the milky wake of the steamer. “It was what we had to do, Percival,” I said. Without a word, he turned and went back to his stateroom.

I stayed on deck for a while longer and then went back to my patient.