Albert Teichner - Man Made.pdf - Albert Teichner - widez2

Man Made

Teichner, Albert

Published: 1960

Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction

Source: http://gutenberg.org

Also available on Feedbooks for Teichner:

• Cerebrum (1963)

• Sweet Their Blood and Sticky (1961)

check the copyright status in your country.

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If I listed every trouble I've accumulated in a mere two hundred odd

years you might be inclined to laugh. When a tale of woe piles up too

many details it looks ridiculous, unreal. So here, at the outset, I want to

say my life has not been a tragic one—whose life is in this day of ad-

vanced techniques and universal good will?—but that, on the contrary, I

have enjoyed this Earth and Solar System and all the abundant interests

that it has offered me. If, lying here beneath these great lights, I could

only be as sure of joy in the future… .

My name is Treb Hawley. As far back as I can remember in my child-

hood, I was always interested in astronautics. From the age of ten I spe-

cialized in that subject, never for a moment regretting the choice. When I

was still a child of twenty-four I took part in the Ninth Jupiter Expedi-

tion and after that there were many more. I had a precocious marriage at

thirty and my boys, Robert and Neil, were born within a few years after

Marla and I wed. It was fortunate that I fought for government permis-

sion that early; after the accident, despite my high rating, I would have

been denied the rare privilege of parenthood.

That accident, the first one, took place when I was fifty. On Planet 12

of the Centauri System I was attacked by a six-limbed primate and was

badly mangled on the left side before breaking loose to destroy it. Surgic-

al Corps operated within an hour. Although they did an excellent pros-

thetic job after removing my left leg and arm, the substituted limbs had

their limitations. While they permitted me to do all my jobs, phantom

pain was a constant problem. There were new methods of prosthesis to

eliminate this weird effect but these were only available back on the

home planets.

I had to wait one year for this release. Meanwhile I had plenty of time

to contemplate my mysterious affliction; the mystery of it was so great

that I had little chance to notice how painful it actually was. There is

enough strangeness in feeling with absolute certainty that a limb exists

where actually there is nothing, but the strangeness is compounded

when you look down and discover that not only is the leg gone but that

another, mechanical one has taken its place. Dr. Erics, who had per-

formed the operation, said this difficulty would ultimately prove a bless-

ing but I often had my doubts.

He was right. Upon my return to Earth, the serious operations took

place, those giving me plastic limbs that would become living parts of

my organic structure. The same outward push of the brain and nervous

system that had created phantom pain now made what was artificial

seem real. Not only did my own blood course through the protoplastic

but I could feel it doing so. The adjustment took less than a week and it

was a complete one.

Fortunately the time was already past when protoplast patients were

looked upon as something mildly freakish and to be pitied. Artificial

noses, ears and limbs were becoming quite common. Whether there was

some justification for the earlier reaction of pity, however, still remains

to be seen.

My career resumed and I was accepted for the next Centauri Expedi-

tion without any questions being asked. As a matter of fact, Planning

Center preferred people in my condition; protoplast limbs were more

durable than the real—no, let us say the original—thing.

At home and at the beach no one bothered to notice my reconstructed

arm and leg. They looked too natural for the idea to occur to people who

did not know me. And Marla treated the whole thing like a big joke.

"You're better than new," she used to tell me and the kids wanted to

know when they could have second matter limbs of their own.

Life was good to me. The one-year periods away from home passed

quickly and the five-year layoffs on Earth permitted me to devote myself

to my hobbies, music and mathematics, without taking any time away

from my family. Eventually, of course, my condition became an ex-

tremely common one. Who is there today among my readers who has all

the parts with which he was born? If any such person past the childhood

sixty years did, he would be the freak.

Then at ninety new difficulties arose. A new Centaurian subvirus at-

tacked my chest marrow. As is still true in this infection, the virus

proved to be ineradicable. My ribs weren't, though, and a protoplastic

casing, exactly like the thoracic cavity, was substituted. It was discovered

that the infection had spread to my right radius and ulna so here too a

simple substitution was made. Of course, such a radical infection meant

my circulatory system was contaminated and synthetically created living

hemoplast was pumped in as soon as all the blood was removed.

This did attract attention. At the time the procedure was still new and

some medical people warned it would not take. They were right only to

this extent: the old cardioarterial organs occasionally hunted into defect-

ive feedback that required systole-diastole adjustments. Protoplastic cir-

culatory substitutes corrected the deficiency and, just to avoid the slight

possibility

further

complications,

the

venous

system

was

also

replaced. Since the changeover there hasn't been the least trouble in that

sector.

By then Marla had a perfect artificial ear and both of my sons had lost

their congenitally diseased livers. There was nothing extraordinary

about our family; only in my case were replacements somewhat above

the world average.

I am proud to say that I was among the first thousand who made the

pioneer voyage on hyperdrive to the star group beyond Centaurus. We

returned in triumph with our fantastic but true tales of the organic planet

Vita and the contemplative humanoids of Nirva who will consciousness

into subjectively grasping the life and beauty of subatomic space. The

knowledge we brought back assured that the fatal disease of ennui could

never again attack man though they lived to Aleph Null.

On the second voyage Marla, Robert and Neil went with me. This took

a little political wrangling but it was worth throwing my merit around to

see them benefit from Nirvan discoveries even before the rest of human-

ity. Planetary Council agreed my services entitled me to this special con-

sideration. Truly I could feel among the blessed.

Then I volunteered for the small expeditionary force to the 38th moon

that the Nirvans themselves refused to visit. They tried to dissuade us

but, being of a much younger species, we were less plagued by caution

and went anyway. The mountains of this little moon are up to fifteen

miles high, causing a state of instability that is chronic. Walking down

those alabaster valleys was a more awesome experience than any galactic

vista I have ever encountered. Our aesthetic sense proved stronger than

common sense alertness and seven of us were buried in a rock slide.

Fortunately the great rocks formed a cavern above us. After two days

we were rescued. The others had suffered such minor injuries that they

were repaired before our craft landed on Nirva. I, though, unconscious

and feverish, was in serious condition from skin abrasions and a com-

minuted cranium. Dr. Erics made the only possible prognosis. My skull

had to be removed and a completely new protoskin had to be supplied

also.

When I came out of coma Marla was standing at my bedside, smiling

down at me. "Do you feel," she stumbled, "darling, I mean, do you feel

the way you did?"

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