Kiss Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

arteries and the veins. Then I would simply pick it up
in my hands and transfer it to the basin. This would be the
only other time during the whole proceeding when the blood
flow would be cut off; but once it was in the basin, it wouldn’t
take a moment to re-connect the stubs of the arteries and veins
to the artificial heart.
      
“So there you are,” Landy said. “Your brain is now in the
basin, and still alive, and there isn’t any reason why it shouldn’t
stay alive for a very long time, years and years perhaps,
provided we looked after the blood and the machine.”
      
“But would it function ?”
      
“My dear William, how should I know? I can’t even tell
you whether it would ever regain consciousness.”
      
“And if it did?”
      
“There now! That would be fascinating!”
      
“Would it?” I said, and I must admit I had my doubts.
      
“Of course it would! Lying there with all your thinking
processes working beautifully, and your memory as well . . .”
      
“And not being able to see or feel or smell or hear or talk,”
I said.
      
“Ah!” he cried. “I knew I’d forgotten something! I never
told you about the eye. Listen. I am going to try to leave one
of your optic nerves intact, as well as the eye itself. The optic
nerve is a little thing about the thickness of a clinical thermometer
and about two inches in length as it stretches between
the brain and the eye. The beauty of it is that it’s not really a
nerve at all. It’s an outpouching of the brain itself, and the
dura or brain covering extends along it and is attached to the
eyeball. The back of the eye is therefore in very close contact
with the brain, and cerebrospinal fluid flows right up to it.
      
“All this suits my purpose very well, and makes it reasonable
to suppose that I could succeed in preserving one of your eyes.
I’ve already constructed a small plastic case to contain the
eyeball, instead of your own socket, and when the brain is in the
basin, submerged in Ringer’s Solution, the eyeball in its case
will float on the surface of the liquid.”
      
“Staring at the ceiling,” I said.
      
“I suppose so, yes. I’m afraid there wouldn’t be any muscles
there to move it around. But it might be sort of fun to lie there
so quietly and comfortably peering out at the world from
your basin.”
      
“Hilarious,” I said. “How about leaving me an ear as well?”
      
“I’d rather not try an ear this time.”
      
“I want an ear,” I said. “I insist upon an ear.”
      
“No.”
      
“I want to listen to Bach.”
      
“You don’t understand how difficult it would be,” Landy said gently.
“The hearing apparatus—the cochlea, as it’s called—is
a far more delicate mechanism than the eye. What’s more,
it is encased in bone. So is a part of the auditory nerve that

connects it with the brain. I couldn’t possibly chisel the whole
thing out intact.”
      
“Couldn’t you leave it encased in the bone and bring the
bone to the basin?”
      
“No,” he said firmly. “This thing is complicated enough
already. And anyway, if the eye works, it doesn’t matter all
that much about your hearing. We can always hold up
messages for you to read. You really must leave me to decide
what is possible and what isn’t.”
      
“I haven’t yet said that I’m going to do it.”
      
“I know, William, I know.”
      
“I’m not sure I fancy the idea very much.”
      
“Would you rather be dead, altogether?”
      
“Perhaps I would. I don’t know yet. I wouldn’t be able to
talk, would I?”
      
“Of course not.”
      
“Then how would I communicate with you? How would
you know that I’m conscious?”
      
“It would be easy for us to know whether or not you