The Far Arena Read Online Free PDF

has to have a good heart, be in perfect physical condition, and ideally be in the late twenties. Then we drain his blood, rapidly replacing it with a substance, probably glycerol, which also has a very good chance of killing him at normal temperatures, and we lower his temperature fast enough during this process - a very chancy combination of blood transfer and temperature reduction. Do I have any volunteers?'
    There was a hush in the hotel room, rented for that meeting.
    'That may work if we had a volunteer,' Dr Petrovitch went on. 'Let me tell you what will not work: terminal cancer patients, already weak from the ravages of the disease; old people whose bodies have given out and have little chance of surviving now, let alone against the massive assault upon the body a freezing process entails; and, most of all, those people who have just died. If their bodies are not capable of sustaining life at ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit, how are they going to do it at below zero degrees Celsius?'
    And then came that persistent rationale for the most unscientific of expectations. A hand had been raised and that old statement made. Dr Petrovitch kept reminding himself not to be cruel as hi heard it.
    'Sir, I am not a scientist or a doctor. But I do know this. If we bury someone, put them into the ground to decompose, there is a zero chance of recovery. There is no chance. But if we freeze someone, on the chance that a later age will have cures for the disease, that person has a better than zero chance of recovery. Isn't that so?'
    And Semyon, stifling his rage, his voice lower than normal, each word precise, had answered:
    'Yes, better than zero. You are correct. It is as good as this lucky krone I have in my pocket, which I will sell you for everything you own. Put this krone in your mouth and you will never die. It is magic. Now, the odds are certain you will die. We have precedent for that assumption.
    'So, you are certain of dying. But perhaps the psychic belief that holding this krone in your mouth will give you eternal life, will keep you from dying. That, too, is a better than zero possibility. And just as good. If you want resurrection, may I recommend some excellent Lutheran churches in this country.'
    The meeting had broken up. There had been a protest to the embassy that if Dr Petrovitch was an example of the Soviet-Scandinavian Friendship Pact, he was certainly not doing the Soviet Union any good, and that the writer had been previously well disposed toward communism before Dr Petrovitch's appearance at their meeting and now felt otherwise.
    The real tragedy of the meeting came with a beautiful, pale blonde woman in her early twenties. There was an offer of seduction, and Semyon had taken it. In the second week of the affair, Semyon, glowing from every active corpuscle in his forty-two-year-old body, was asked to look at the girl's father. Perhaps Semyon could do something with low-level temperatures to help the father. What diseases did the father have, Semyon had asked; heart failure had been the answer.
    'I would suggest a heart specialist.'
    'But they failed, Semyon darling. That's what killed him.'
    The woman had wanted him to get her father dug up after eleven months of burial.
    After that, Semyon Petrovitch refused even to consider any prospect concerning his field that did not come from a reputable scientist.
    Early spring was coming to Norway, and Dr Petrovitch breathed gusts of moisture as he trotted through the courtyard between building and hospital. He tried to remember what the American scientist looked like, but all he could remember was Texas and that the man was somewhat tall.
    At the emergency room, he saw someone who had to be Dr McCardle, but he didn't remember him that tall. The man was dressed like an Eskimo. A giant in fur.
    'Dr McCardle?'
    'Yes. Dr Petrovitch ?'
    'Yes. Where is the specimen you have for me? A whole body, yes?'
    'Yes,' said the American.
    He stuffed a big glove in his