Read Ebook: Charley de Milo by Janifer Laurence M Emshwiller Ed Illustrator

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Ebook has 298 lines and 13081 words, and 6 pages

"Washington," the professor said instantly. "New York. London, Paris. Rome. The world, Charley. The world that's going to do us homage."

Charley shifted a little in the bed. "Look, professor," he said, "I've got a job, right here in the carny. I couldn't leave here. So suppose we just--"

"Your job?" the professor said. "Your job's gone, my boy. Wait. Let me tell you what I've discovered. Let me tell you what has happened--happened to you, my boy. To you, and to me."

Charley sat upright, slowly. "Well," he said, "all right, professor."

Professor Lightning beamed, and his eyes glittered brighter and brighter. "Limb regeneration," he said, and his voice was as soft and quiet as if he'd been talking about the most beautiful woman in the world. "Limb regeneration."

Charley waited a long minute before he admitted to himself that he didn't have the faintest idea what the professor was talking about. "What?" he said at last.

Professor Lightning shook his head slightly. "Charley," he said softly, "you're an Armless Wonder. That's right, isn't it?"

"Sure it is, professor," Charley said. "You know that. I was born that way. Made a pretty good thing out of it, too."

"Well," Professor Lightning said, "you don't have to be one. Can you realize that?"

Charley nodded slowly. "Sure I don't," he said. "Only it's pretty good money, you know? And there's no sense in sitting around back home and feeling sorry for myself, is there? I mean, this way I can make money and have a job and--"

"No," Professor Lightning said emphatically.

Charley blinked. "No?" he said.

Professor Lightning shook his head, meaningfully. "Charley, my boy," he said, "I don't mean that you should go home and mope. But think about this: suppose you had your arms? Suppose you had two arms, just like everybody else."

"Why think about anything like that?" Charley said. "I mean, I am what I am. That's the way things are. Right?"

"Wrong," Professor Lightning said. "I can give you arms, Charley. I can make you normal. Just like everybody else."

"Well," Charley said. After a few seconds he said: "Gee." Then he said: "You're kidding me, professor."

"I'm perfectly serious," Professor Lightning said.

"But--"

"Let me show you," Professor Lightning said. He stood up and went to the flap of the tent. "Come with me," he said, and Charley got up, dumbly, and followed him out into the cool darkness outside.

Later, Charley couldn't remember all that Professor Lightning had showed him or told him. There were some strange-looking animals called salamanders; Professor Lightning had cut their tails off and they'd grown new tails. That, he said, happened in nature. But he had gone a step farther. He had isolated the particular factor that made such regrowth possible.

Charley remembered something about a molecular lattice, but it didn't make any sense to him, and was only a puzzle. But the professor told him all about the technique, in a very earnest and scientific voice that was convincing to listen to, and showed him mice that he'd cut the tails off of, and the mice had brand-new tails, and even feet in one or two cases. There were a whole lot of small animals in cages, all together in back of the professor's tent, and Charley looked at all of them. The professor had a flashlight, and everything was very clear and bright.

When the demonstration was over, Charley had no doubts at all. It was obvious to him that the professor could do just what he said he could do: grow limbs on things. Charley scratched his head with his left foot, nervously.

"That's why I came to you," the professor said. "I need a human being--just to show the scientific world that my technique works on human beings. And I've worked with you for a number of years now, Charley."

"Five," Charley said. "Five since you came with Wrout."

"I like you," the professor said. "I want to make you the first, the very first, person to be helped by my technique."

Charley shifted his feet. "You mean you want to give me arms," he said.

"That's right," the professor said.

"No," Charley said.

Professor Lightning nodded. "Now, then," he said. "We'll get right to work on ... Charley, my boy, what did you say?"

Charley licked his lips. "I said no," he said.

Professor Lightning waited a long minute. "You mean you don't believe me," he said at last. "You think I'm some sort of a crackpot."

"Not at all," Charley said politely. "I guess if you say you can do this ... well, I see all the animals, and everything, and I guess you can do it. That's O.K."

"But you're doubtful," Professor Lightning said.

Charley shook his head. "No," he said. "You can do it, all right. I guess I'm sure of that, professor."

"Then," the professor said, in a tenser voice, "you think it might be dangerous. You think you might be hurt, or that things might not work out right, or--"

"Gee," Charley said, "I never thought of anything like that, professor. I know you wouldn't want to hurt me."

"I certainly wouldn't," Professor Lightning said. "I want to help you. I want to make you normal. Like everybody else."

"Sure," Charley said uncomfortably.

"Then you'll do it," Professor Lightning said. "I knew you would, Charley. It's a great opportunity. And I offered it to you because you--"

"Gee, I know," Charley said, feeling more uncomfortable than ever. "And don't think I don't appreciate it. But look at it my way, professor." He paused. "Suppose I had two arms--just like everybody else, the way you tell me. What would happen to me?"

"Happen?" Professor Lightning blinked. "Why, Charley ... why, you could do anything you liked. Anything. You'd have the same opportunities as anybody else. You could be ... well, my boy, you could be anything."

"Could I?" Charley said. "Excuse me for talking about this, professor, but I've had a lot of time to think about it. And it's all sort of new to you. I mean, you weren't born the way I was, and so you just don't understand it."

Professor Lightning said: "But, my boy--"

"No." Charley said. "Let me explain this. Because it's important." He cleared his throat, sat down on the ground and fumbled for a cigarette. He found one in his shirt pocket, carried it to his lips with his right foot, and lit a match with his left. When he was smoking easily, he went on.

"Professor, do you know how old I am?" he said. "I'm forty-two years old. Maybe I don't look it, but that's how old I am. Now, I've spent all my life learning to do one thing, and I do a pretty good job of it. Anyhow, good enough to get me a spot with Wrout's show, and probably with anybody else I wanted to work for."

"But your arms--?" the professor said.

"That's what I mean," Charley said. "I don't have any arms. I never had any. Maybe I miss 'em, a little--but everything I do is based on the fact that I don't have 'em. Now, professor, do you know what I am?"

Professor Lightning frowned. "What you are?" he said.

"I'm an Armless Wonder," Charley said. "That's a pretty good thing to be. In a carny, they look up to an Armless Wonder--he's a freak, a born freak, and that's as high as you can go, in a carny. I get a good salary--I send enough to my mother and my sister, in Chicago, for them to live on. And I have what I need myself. I've got a job, professor, and standing, and respect." He paused. "Now, suppose I had arms. I'd have to start from scratch, all over again. I'd have to start from the bottom up, just learning the basic elements of any job I signed on for. I'd be a forty-two-year-old man doing the work of an eighteen-year-old. And not making much money. And not having much standing, or respect."

Charley took the cigarette out of his mouth with his right foot, held it for a second and put it back.

Professor Lightning tried everything, but it wasn't any good. "Fame," he said, and Charley pointed out, calmly and reasonably, that the kind of fame he'd get from being an experimental subject was just like being a freak, all over again--except that it would wear off, and then, he asked, where would he be? Professor Lightning talked about Man's Duty to Science, and Charley countered with Science's Duty to Man. Professor Lightning tried friendship, and argument, and even force--but nothing worked. Incredible as it seemed to the professor, Charley was content to remain a freak, an Armless Wonder. More, he seemed to be proud and happy about it.

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