The two men sat at the back of the cathedral, and watched as the congregation gathered around them.

'More and more every year,' said the tall man in the bowtie.

'A measure of scientific progress?' asked the shorter man next to him. He had the air of a genial man, a good man, a parson, or a country GP, and indeed he was.

'I don't know what it is with your patch, that so many need my talents,' said the bowtie.

'Do you remember any of them?'

'No. I never look at faces.'

'Just the insides, I suppose. It's the opposite for me,' said the GP, 'I only see the without, never the within. I like it that way, otherwise I would have specialised.'

'My commiserations,' said the bowtie, 'but even I have dreams of country practice, foregoing the blood and steel of the theatre.'

'Really,' said the GP turning to look at his old friend, 'you, the pioneer of so much new and exciting?'

'Exciting the first time you do it. And then immediately there is the need to be innovative again.'

The men watched a line of elderly men walk by and sit in the pew ahead of them. One turned around. 'Hello Dr Turner, remember me. You did me proud.'

The GP shook his hand. 'Hello Fred, you are getting on well. Mr Cosmos was the one who did you proud. I only put you in the way of greatness.'

'Thanks then to you, mate' said Fred, winking, 'I feel half the man I was, and all the better for it.'

The medical men laughed. Half of Fred's insides, his pancreas, liver, kidneys and small bowel were donations.

'Amazing that they should commemorate the charity of others in such a way,' said Dr Turner.

'How do you mean?' asked Mr Cosmos, adjusting his bowtie.

'With this memorial service, this public thanks for the organs donated for these operations. All in an effort for man to become superman. Whereas should man not be content with being mortal?'

'An expert on medicine, such as you, finds it easy to keep healthy. The right diet, regular exercise, the sense never to smoke, all the right checkups, blood pressure, cholesterol, stress: the sense never to marry, but to be the sociable bachelor, content with adventurous treks abroad and the freedom to map your destiny as you see fit. A less able man would have to work hard at staying so healthy.'

'Man is mortal, yet he finds it hard to come to terms with the fact.'

'One day, he will erase the fact, and he will ask for the ultimate. And one day that too will be provided.'

Dr Turner looked at Mr Cosmos. He had never found it easy to be in his presence. 'I thought that was impossible, as well as unethical.'

'Ethics are merely the moral scruples of a generation.'

The men fell silent. The cathedral filled with visitors. Some caught Dr Turner's eye and waved to him. He waved back. Occasionally a patient remembered Mr Cosmos, the man in the mask and the blue gown with the cold, dark eyes in the ante-chamber before his injections took hold, and Mr Cosmos conceded the recognition with a slight adjusting of his domed forehead downwards.

The priest appeared, and beckoned everyone to kneel.

Dr Turner was surprised to find his old friend kneeling beside him. 'Not a sign of humility, I hope' he whispered, 'this protestation in front of the Lord?'

'I quite freely admit that humility is power beyond me.'

Dr Turner nodded as if amused, but he despaired at how cold his friend had become.

The congregation said the opening prayers and sat back in the pews. The priest led them through the service, a memorial to those charitable souls who had donated their bodies to medicine.
D
r Turner listened as the congregation chimed in with the responses. Perhaps they were all churchgoers, although he found that unlikely, but they spoke clearly and together, almost with once voice. He shifted uneasily in his seat, and glanced sideways. Mr Cosmos, a colleague since medical school, never really a friend, was intoning the responses in unison.

'Amen,' chanted the crowd.

'Amen,' said Mr Cosmos.

Unusually, the reading was read in unison by two people: a middle-aged woman who squinted at the bible in front of her, and a young, thin man who adjusted his glasses to read the text.

'Not rejuvenated in the ocular department, then,' joked Dr Turner.

'Actually, yes: single eye transplants in both. I remember now: mother and son took the eyes from the same man.'

'I had forgotten. How ghoulish.'

'Not at all, heart and lung transplants are often from the same donor. It makes perfect sense.'

Dr Turner shifted in his seat again. 'Logic, sense, that's what we're about, more and more these days.' He could feel Mr Cosmos looking at him. 'You know, the other day I read about a spinal cord transplant. In an adult. Pons, medulla, the lot. I thought that was impossible.

'It's brand new,' said Mr Cosmos, 'but it's not impossible. Merely the beginning.'

Dr Turner felt the weight of Mr Cosmos's eyes fall on his face.

'You don't mean that, I don't believe that is possible.'
Dr Turner's face set hard, and it remained troubled until the end of the service.

At the end, many in the congregation caught sight of their beloved GP, and thanked him for his referral. One particular group of ex-patients was quite persistent and wanted to keep Dr Turner until the end. They were led by Fred, and included the mother and boy who did the reading, and a red-faced man who wheezed every now and then.

'Do you know what, Dr Turner?' said Fred. 'I've learned something new today.'

'Really, what's that?'

'All my new bits, well you'd never believe it.' Fred laughed a short nervous bark, and those around him joined in.

'Believe what; what's the joke?'

'All my new stuff, me kidneys, and me intestine, and his ticker and lungs, and her eyes and his also, well they all came from the same geezer.'

'Well I never. What are the odds against that?'

'Amazing isn't it. I only worked it out today. Wonder what the old boy was like.'

'A very acceptable man, I should think,' said Dr Turner, and everyone laughed, enjoying the joke until their laughter was cut short by a scream from the vestry. They were the last people in the church.

'Here we go,' said the red-faced man, 'I knew it.'

'Knew what? What do you mean?' Dr Turner inched towards the huge double doors of the cathedral, but his former patients stood in the way.

'It's not right, is it? He wants to be reunited. I mean, he's all here, bar the important part.'

'What do you mean? I think this is ridiculous.'

'Your friend doesn't. Mr Cosmos doesn't think it's ridiculous.'

The mother and boy piped up. 'He gave everything to us,' they said. 'We partook of his body, and here we are today.'

'Yet,' said the red-faced man, 'he is not here himself.
It's not right.'

'But with the knowledge today, he could be,' said Fred. 'Isn't that right Dr Turner?'

'Whatever you have in mind, is not for me,' said Dr Turner. 'So I'll be off.'

A familiar voice called down to him from the vestry. 'We can't let you go, Jim. Not you. You're such an acceptable man.' Mr Cosmos strode forward. 'We need to be quick, and quiet.'

They placed their hands on Dr Turner's jacket and tugged him along.

'What on earth are you doing?'

'Taking part in a medical advance,' they said in unison.

'You were a good friend to us, Doctor,' said the middle-aged woman by his side. 'You should be honoured that we have chosen you.'

They hauled him, struggling and churning against his captors, to the vestry. Inside the oak door, the body of the priest lay on the floor. 'He's fine,' said Mr Cosmos, as he placed a large metallic container on the floor. 'But he saw too much.' A dense white mist began to issue from the container.

'The ultimate, Jim,' said Mr Cosmos, as the handkerchief fell over Dr Turner's face. 'Only the most robust homo sapiens could possibly survive the procedure. And who more robust and expert at preserving himself than a doctor of the finest quality.'

Mr Cosmos held his unconscious friend to him like a lamb, and lifted the lid off the steel container. The head was thawing nicely.

He addressed the crowd in the vestry, who stood back, wreathed in white mist. 'Your donor was a sixty-one year old tee-totaller who ran marathons, and one day got knocked down and killed by a car. He left everything he had to charity, and you know that I mean everything. He was a good-looking man, even more so than our friend Dr Turner, and I am sure it is not just me who senses that he should be here with us today, especially today.'

Mr Cosmos laid Dr Turner on the floor. He donned thick gloves and his hand reached into the container. A face appeared in the cooling mist. The crowd gasped.

'Our saviour,' said the middle-aged woman.

'Returned to earth,' said Mr Cosmos, as his first injection in Dr Turner's neck took hold.

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