Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 07.djvu/92

Rh tude, rushed it off to its incubator—the same, as a matter of fact, that the orang had ones occupied—Doctor Santurn examined it carefully.

With an air of disappointment he finally turned to his assistants and remarked, "There has been some slight error of calculation. The infant is a cretin. We shall be delayed with its brain development until we have subjected it to radio-glandular therapy for a while."

Then, against his inner loathing to be present on several succeeding occasions, Mason had witnessed the delicate treatments which transformed the hideous creature into a seraphic-faced, physically perfect specimen of babyhood—like the forced growth of some ugly bulb under hothouse methods into a blooming orchid of rare beauty.

Doctor Santurn, however, would not declare himself satisfied until he should have implanted a section of brain tissue into the child's cranium, for subjection to rapid growth by means of neo-wave stimulation.

Mason had by now passed the bounds of rational reasoning which might have led him to perceive the valuable by-products of the biologist's experiments, the means for eradicating many of the woes and much of the suffering of the peoples of the world. He nursed his fear assiduously, on the Doctor's oft-repeated statement that he meant to use his discoveries, not as a relief measure for "miserable humanity," but to destroy their "erroneous belief" in the Divinity of Creation, and in Spiritual Immortality.

Helplessly, desperately, Mason strove to stem the tide of this blasphemy, but no opening presented itself for favorable action by him.

A bit of the Doctor's irony recurred to him again and again.

In commenting on the birth of the child, Johnssen had said, "We ought to name it."

And Doctor Santurn, head bowed in deep thought for a few moments, had looked up and replied,

"We shall call it MacDuff. Like his namesake, he was not born of woman!"

MILD, Indian summer's evening in late September was declared favorable by Doctor Santurn, for the final brain treatment that should transform MacDuff's mentality from mediocrity to precocity.

Mason stood by, in sterile garb, and watched the preparations that centered about the anterior fontanels of the infant's cranium.

Trembling, hardly daring to speak for fear of betraying his emotion, he managed to subdue his excitement, and asked to be allowed to participate in the experiment.

"Ah, Gary! I'm delighted to see you running up the 'white flag' at last, after all your opposition! I knew you'd come around in time to the proper way of thinking if I kept you here long enough. Stevens! Kindly set the controls for Friend Mason, and we'll have him close the circuit that will make of this infant a genius."

Grouped on either side of the swaddled infant, intent on its proper placement by Johnssen, stood the Doctor and his assistants. They instinctively moved back a step, through force of habit, as Stevens called, "Ready?"

"Quite ready!" croaked Mason, standing by the controls. He would have to work rapidly with the thirty six seconds of exposure which the apparatus was set to deliver.

"Go!" called the Doctor, intent on the prone infant.

A metallic shriek pierced the quiet of the domed room as Mason threw on the current, and drowned the slight click of another device on the switchboard, which he suddenly shifted without having been bidden to touch it.

With desperate haste he pivoted the wave generator, raised its focus, and swept it slowly across the heads of the unsuspecting group that stood apparently intent on MacDuff.

His actions had been accomplished within fifteen seconds, and then, with a sob, Mason broke the circuit with a hand switch, and let quiet fall again in the laboratory.

Had he failed?

He did not know as he peered intently, fearfully at the immobile faces of the scientists. They stood so quietly—almost like petrified men!

He shrank back in terror as the Doctor raised his head suddenly and pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Gary", said the Doctor bitingly, "you have abused the most sacred canon of hospitality in planning the destruction of your hosts. Don't attempt to deny it!" he barked, as Mason raised a trembling hand.

"If we had been in proper relation to the receptor, we'd have been idiots by this time. The ray you directed at us would have destroyed our brain tissues. You've been carefully watched, you bigoted would-be murderer, despite the fact that you appeared to be free from observation!"

Mason, still white and shaken, was stung to retort by the sharpness of the Doctor's tone.

"Hospitality be hanged when Humanity's happiness is at stake! I'd do it again, if I had the chance!"

"You would?" asked Doctor Santurn, his voice silken with an ominous threat.

"Assuredly!"

"Then listen to this:"

A few whistled notes issued forth incongruously from the lips of the elderly scientist.

"Do yon recognize the quaint little air, Gary? It's from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Mikado'. To refresh your memory, I'll quote the words. 'To make the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime!"

He paused for a moment to let his meaning impress itself on Mason's mind, and then continued,

"In simple, unadulterated English, my good man, you've asked for a taste of your own medicine!" He nodded to his assistants.

HERE was a wild threshing and straining and heaving of bodies as Mason fought to evade his captors. He reviled and cursed them and spat in their faces as they secured him to the table from which the infant MacDuff had been tenderly removed. Finally, when he perceived the futility of