The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix | Page 8

though they were reassembling a piece of machinery.
Lastly, the opening was sewed up in a manner which would have delighted any
seamstress.
The two long silver pipes were left protruding. Now, for the first time, Billie saw where
they led to.
On a stand alongisde the operating-table stood an extremely small, flat box, with its lid
open. The pipes ended there. And as the surgeon inspected the outfit Billie saw that it
comprised, in effect, a pair of diminutive air-pumps. There were two tiny dials, a
regulating device, some sort of an automatic electric switch, and what looked like a steel
storage tank; all on a watchlike scale.
Looking more closely, Billie made out two pairs of electric wires running from this case
to another of the same size. The surgeon lifted its lid, disclosing two electric storage
batteries, each with its own circuit.
In short, the arrangement provided duplicate sources, in vest-pocket size, of power for
operating a mechanical heart. The electricity worked the air-pumps, which in turn
supplied the little silver egg--implanted in the patient--with both pressure and vacuum,
while doubtless the artificial organ itself housed a valve system which did the rest. The
regulating device kept the blood circulating at the proper rate.
The surgeon seemed satisfied with it all, and, after another critical examination of the
patient, glanced about the room, straightened up, took a deep breath, and spoke:
"Quick work. Thanks very much, everybody."
And Billie did not know which to be the more astonished at: the fact that the voice was

unmistakably a woman's, or that she, Billie, was able to understand all that was said. She
did not fully appreciate until afterward that it was her own brain which did the translating;
the surgeon's subconscious mind had merely furnished a thought-image which would
have been exactly the same, regardless of language.
"Any special instructions, Surgeon Aldor?" inquired one of the white-clad, face-swathed
figures.
"No. The usual handling. Simply keep the batteries charged in rotation."
The surgeon took off a mouth mask and a blood-soaked apron, and then swiftly washed
her hands. Next she stepped briskly from the room; and the architect who was using her
eyes rejoiced to see the door-knobs of the standard height of thirty-five inches, indicating
that this agent of hers was of about her own height. From the sound of her footsteps,
however, Billie concluded that she was somewhat heavier than herself.
Reaching another room, the surgeon proceeded to don hat and coat. Next, she stepped in
front of a long mirror; but the action was so quick, and it took Billie so completely by
surprise, she was not able to inspect the image closely. To be frank, she looked first at the
woman's clothes, finding that her suit was a very trim affair of blue leather, cut in a
semi-military fashion. Slashes of dark-red material across the sleeves were repeated about
the collar, while the cap, a jaunty affair with a bell crown, matched the suit. The lower
ends of the breeches, much like ordinary riding trousers, were tucked into high lace-up
boots of red leather.
Before Billie could see any more other than that the surgeon was small-featured in
striking contrast to the robustness of her body, she stepped from the room. A moment
later an automatic elevator took her to a lower floor, where she was greeted by a person
whom Billie assumed to be a head nurse.
"Anything out of the ordinary, surgeon?"
"No," with a bruskness which was startling by comparison with her cheeriness upstairs. "I
understand that Dr. Norbith wishes to go home as soon as possible?"
"Yes."
"He may go as soon as the cast is hard. Make sure his machine is a smooth one."
The nurse simply nodded as the surgeon stepped on, through a very ordinary pair of
sliding doors, and so on out into an anteroom and thence to a porch, where she stood
looking into the street for a moment.
It was exceedingly broad, and lined on both sides with imposing structures whose
architecture was entirely strange to Billie. She would liked to have examined them all in
detail; but she had no control over her agent, who straightway walked down a short flight
of steps and thence to a sidewalk.
Here Billie became perfectly willing to neglect the architecture. People were coming and
going; people apparently quite as human as herself. Except for a certain gorgeous
voluminousness of dress, they seemed for the most part simply men and women of
affairs.
For it was comparatively easy to distinguish the sexes. The women's garments, while not
making any display of the strictly feminine lines, nevertheless did not attempt to disguise
them. Billie saw that loose breeches had completely displaced the skirt with these women;
while the men invariably