(ch. one)
Jeremiah Grimslade is ninety years old, grizzled, uniformly grey: skin, hair, stubble, clothes, eyes, all grey. He sits immobile, stares ahead, his jaw set.
He looks as if he doesn't even know Alis is here.
He turns, finally. _You're 37542?_
Alis nods, starts the dictaphone. Grimslade begins.
(ch. two)
Alis was called here to record and upload Grimslade's memories of his work.
Jeremiah was once among the developed world's most talented surgeons; a medical innovator regarded as brilliant, and yet ethically bankrupt.
As he talks to Alis, he slips into the present tense.
(ch. three)
When Jeremiah Grimslade discovers that the human soul, far from being
intangible, is in fact housed within an organ the size and shape of a pea somewhere inside
the sternum, he immediately begins to investigate the possibility of a soul transplant.
(ch. four)
Of course, all medical innovations require testing.
Jeremiah decides to perform his work in secret, since his previous activities - he was the
first to experimentally separate the halves of a person's brain, for example - have
brought on him the suspicion of the medical establishment.
Jeremiah's fascination with the mind and soul are lifelong, and it was early in his career that he began to see that there was a factor which existed alongside those already catalogued; so that two people with the same upbringing, the same education could still end up as completely different people.
(ch. five)
Jeremiah begins with the dissection of dead bodies, but soon realises that a person's soul - or at least its physical presence in the body - dissolves into thin air shortly after death.
Jeremiah decides to experiment on living subjects.
(ch. six)
Short of volunteers, Jeremiah experiments on living patients, unaware that they are in the theatre for more than their scheduled operations.
First, he extracts the soul from a patient under anaesthetic for a routine operation on the bowel.
The patient dies.
(ch. seven)
In fact, none of Jeremiah's patients, no matter how healthy, survive
without a soul, and the extracted souls dissolve within minutes of their owners' death,
which fact proven he moves on.
If their souls are taken out, examined and reinserted within a few minutes, his patients
survive with no ill effects.
In his research, Jeremiah finds some variation of appearance and texture in the souls he extracts. The soul of an accountant he finds to be the colour and texture of any other internal organ. But the soul of a career criminal - who may or may not be a murderer, too - is flaccid, damp, colourless; while that of a priest, a man who is known as one who campaigns for the right of asylum, is as bright and hard and translucent as an uncut ruby.
(ch. eight)
(Alis advises Dr. Grimslade that it is preferred that he not add subjective editorial comment to his account.
He apologises and continues.)
(ch. nine)
Jeremiah sees the trend exhibited in a way that surpirses him - the loving, the truthful, the honest, have souls which are hard and bright; the selfish, the petty, the criminal, have souls which are flaccid, slimy, grey.
Education, native intelligence, fitness, have no bearing on the state of one's soul; Religion does, but only a little, and in a few individuals.
Jeremiah suddenly becomes very frightened.
(ch. ten)
Jeremiah instructs his assistant, one Albert Hardwicke, to aid him in his next step: the temporary extraction, examination and re-insertion of his own soul.
Jeremiah goes under anaesthetic, and wakes up to be told by Hardwicke that the operation was a success.
And his soul is, as he expected, small, shrivelled, and almost liquid.
(ch. eleven)
Jeremiah, obsessed with his own health, decides that something must be done; like all true researchers, he first finds a guinea-pig.
He calls in two of his unwitting experimental subjects. One, a Conservative MP of his acquaintance, he calls in on the pretence of another minor but essential operation.
The other, a terminal patient who, before things went too far, had campaigned with great courage for the rights of those who suffered with her illness, has had so many operations that she scarcely notices.
Besides, she has barely a week to live.
Jeremiah removes the grey, flaccid soul of the honourable member and the bright hard soul of the woman, and exchanges them.
(ch. twelve)
In the next few months, Jeremiah follows the career of the newly
ensouled MP with interest.
A miracle: the man changes his ways, stands against the party line on issues that
previously were no matter of conscience for him, promotes compassion and the difficult,
honourable path. of course, he is ejected from his party.
The last Jeremiah hears of the man, he has travelled to a distant country, where he now risks all to campaign for human rights.
(ch. thirteen)
Jeremiah's experiments are, or course, leading up to his own soul transplant. With Dr. Hardwicke's help, he seeks out a suitable subject.
This he finds in a priest, who, now that his illness is more acute, is at the mercy of his surgeon.
(ch. fourteen)
Hardwicke performs the operation; Jeremiah, under local anaesthetic, supervises.
The operation is a success, although at one point, Hardwicke, unnerved by Jeremiah's increasingly urgent orders, fumbles and drops Jeremiah's soul, which, when it hits the floor, bursts into several droplets of black liquid; these dissolve almst instantaneously.
The healthy soul now having been implanted in Jeremiah's body, the clergyman is left without a soul; he dies.
(ch. fifteen)
With the soul of a good man now contained within his body, Jeremiah continues with his life, all the time, waiting to see what happens.
He feels no different.
After about six months, Grimslade decides that Hardwicke must once again perform an examination of the state of his soul.
(ch. sixteen)
Jeremiah ends his story at this point.
Alis, breaking off the upload, presses him for more information.
Jeremiah, it turns out, made sure that Dr. Hardwicke showed him his soul; disappointed, he arranged for another transplant. Later examination proved that this, too, was a failure.
Alis fails to understand, and asks for Jeremiah to spell it out.
This is what he tells her: that he underwent six soul transplants in his lifetime, each
time arranging for an examination of his soul some six months afterwards.
And every time, his soul was still, black, dull and liquid.
Jeremiah sinks back into his chair.
(ch. seventeen)
It is late, and, once she has finished uploading Dr. Grimslade's account, signed out, disconnected, Alis goes straight home.
Stephen is already in bed.
As she gets into bed herself, she asks him: _do you think that people really have souls?_
_What?_
He looks at her as if she is breaking down.
_No,_ he says. Then he turns over and sleeps with his back to her.