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said to him. “You can stop there. It’s a
repulsive idea, and even if you could do it, which I doubt, it
would be quite pointless. What possible use is there in keeping
my brain alive if I couldn’t talk or see or hear or feel?
Personally, I can think of nothing more unpleasant.”
      
“I believe that you would be able to communicate with us,”
Landy said. “And we might even succeed in giving you a
certain amount of vision. But let’s take this slowly. I’ll come
to all that later on. The fact remains that you’re going to die
fairly soon whatever happens; and my plans would not involve

touching you at all until after you are dead. Come now,
William. No true philosopher could object to lending his dead
body to the cause of science.”
      
“That’s not putting it quite straight,” I answered. “It seems to
me there’d be some doubt as to whether I were dead or alive
by the time you’d finished with me.”
      
“Well,” he said, smiling a little, “I suppose you’re right about
that. But I don’t think you ought to turn me down quite so
quickly, before you know a bit more about it.”
      
“I said I don’t want to hear it.”
      
“Have a cigarette,” he said, holding out his case.
      
“I don’t smoke, you know that.”
      
He took one himself and lit it with a tiny silver lighter that
was no bigger than a shilling piece. “A present from the people
who make my instruments,” he said. “Ingenious, isn’t it?”
      
I examined the lighter, then handed it back.
      
“May I go on?” he asked.
      
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
      
“Just lie still and listen. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.”
      
There were some blue grapes on a plate beside my bed. I
put the plate on my chest and began eating the grapes.
      
“At the very moment of death,” Landy said, “I should have
to be standing by so that I could step in immediately and try
to keep your brain alive.”
      
“You mean leaving it in the head?”
      
“To start with, yes. I’d have to.”
      
“And where would you put it after that?”
      
“If you want to know, in a sort of basin.”
      
“Are you really serious about this?”
      
“Certainly I’m serious.”
      
“All right. Go on.”
      
“I suppose you know that when the heart stops and the
brain is deprived of fresh blood and oxygen, its tissues die
very rapidly. Anything from four to six minutes and the
whole thing’s dead. Even after three minutes you may get a

certain amount of damage. So I should have to work rapidly to
prevent this from happening. But with the help of the machine,
it should all be quite simple.”
      
“What machine?”
      
“The artificial heart. We’ve got a nice adaptation here of
the one originally devised by Alexis Carrel and Lindbergh.
It oxygenates the blood, keeps it at the right temperature,
pumps it in at the right pressure, and does a number of other
little necessary things. It’s really not at all complicated.”
      
“Tell me what you would do at the moment of death,” I
said. “What is the first thing you would do?”
      
“Do you know anything about the vascular and venous
arrangements of the brain?”
      
“No.”
      
“Then listen. It’s not difficult. The blood supply to the brain
is derived from two main sources, the internal carotid arteries
and the vertebral arteries. There are two of each, making four
arteries in all. Got that?”
      
“Yes.”
      
“And the return system is even simpler. The blood is drained
away by only two large veins, the internal jugulars. So you
have four arteries going up—they go up the neck, of course—
and two veins coming down. Around the brain itself they
naturally branch out into other channels, but those