Part 2

Shock of horror stiffened Jeff's face. He had expected the external eye processes to be atrophied but hardly the great, scar-blackened holes that stared at him. It would be a wonder if there was any optic nerve left to tie into. Even the optic chiasma might be dead. This extreme degeneration might extend all the way to the frontal lobe of the brain.

"Let us begin your magic at once," croaked The Assassin, his death-pale face acrease with hope.

"This is not magic to be worked with the wave of a hand," Jeff replied. "It is a series of delicate operations done in quick succession: one to clear away dead tissue and see exactly what repairs need be made; a second to prepare surviving afferent and efferent nerve paths and the necessary artery and eye-muscle attachments; the third, extremely difficult, to plant the eye, to make the nerve, vein and muscle connections. These electrolystic, hormone-catalyst splices are so minute I will have to do most of the work under at least fifty power magnification."

"Then let us begin at once. There is little time."

Jeff wondered what the old man meant by that. His time? Whose time?

"As you say. My advisor and I go now to select eyes from the Body Bank. Your spies can no doubt lead you to my house. The consulting room opens on Harspa Way."

When the Earthman rose to go, a thin voice spoke from the shadows: "If this should be your idea of revenge. If our master should die upon your operating table, your end, and that of your wife, will be particularly unpleasant."

"That one is next in line when I am finished," croaked The Assassin.

Although he strained to see among the dancing shadows Jeff could not make out that one's face.

III

Dawn turned the great dome a delicate pink, but the chilled layer of smog within gave the jagged forms of the city a bluish cast. Cold, distorted roofs swept past them as the street escalator bore them down the interior hill. A tiny figure walked with bowed head beside a glint of water in the gray courtyard behind a kidney shaped roof.

"Look sire, it is Konrad. Perhaps he cannot sleep because he knows death is at his shoulder too. From here I could loose my kauri and before the guards awake--"

"No. I'm going to speak with him."

"But sire, if you enter his garden that would give him an excuse to kill you for trespass."

"He wouldn't risk the unfavorable publicity. That is why he is dealing through The Assassin."

When they reached the fog-snaked street that led to Konrad's, Taen found his voice in a rush of complaints. He even forgot to say, "sire."

"You are doing this all wrong. Treating The Assassin is craziness. What will it do except bring your death if you fail? Your wife is already doomed. The Assassin's bargain is made. And Konrad, he won't speak with you. He'll order his machines to shoot you. Go home and be with your wife while there is time."

But Jeff reached for the iron handle. Konrad's door swung in, as an electric eye buzzed in the wall, revealing a small metal-lined vestibule with slots in its low ceiling, for gunfire or for gas. A recorded voice rasped: "The master is not at home."

"I wish to see Konrad," Jeff shouted in a loud clear voice that set hidden mechanisms buzzing frantically.

As they droned into silence, Konrad's face, appearing drawn and strangely aged, flashed on the visa-screen.

"Go away Jeff, or I shall call the Security Guards."

"Why don't you kill me, not Kit," Jeff shouted.

At this Konrad's eyes opened huge and bright. Then they squinted again and a tiny smile rippled across his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The screen blanked out and the stinging odor of chlorine began to flood the vestibule, a hint to depart, for the door was still open.

Not until they reached the spiked gate of the doctor's house did either speak.

"Sire, in my helpless anger I underestimated your wisdom. Now I see that giving The Assassin sight, if you succeed, will surely cause him to give your wife a most painless death in his gratitude, and of course he will withhold his skars until the operation is--Look sire," Taen interrupted himself, "that man at the corner, he turns his face away, Konrad's spy. Shall I--"

But Jeff was gone to find his wife.

As he held her tightly so she would not see his face he told her the truth; she had the note in her hand; she had guessed it anyway, what little she had not already known. But she didn't begin to cry until he came to the eye operation.

"Don't do that, Jeff. Since I've known you you've never done any complicated eye operations. Even the man with the ripped cornea, you sent him on the rocket back to Earth. If that murderer doesn't see, he'll kill you too. You've got so much to live for."

"Not without you, dimples. Show me your smile. That's doctor's orders. There, that's the way." Jeff forced a grin across his face. "Your hubby's subtler than he looks. Taen's underestimated me and so have you. I may not have performed this operation, but when I was an intern at Johns Hopkins I witnessed several. We'll give The Assassin sight, but by a somewhat roundabout method with rather surprising consequences. Your hubby may look dumb, but he can think more than a couple of moves ahead."

"Taen," he called, then to Kit: "Now you take good care of that son of mine. We're going to have a lot of fun watching him grow into a man."

"Pardon me sire."

"Taen, have you anyone you can absolutely trust?"

"No sire."

"Garth?" The bulky jungle man who had been leaning quietly against the pillar nodded.

"Sire, I have a brother."

"Does he closely resemble you?"

"It is said, sire, that he does not."

"Good. Take 20,000 credits from the safe behind Kit's portrait and give them to him. Tell him that when The Assassin's party reaches my house he must go to the Body Bank and purchase all the eyes--I think there are eleven pair--all they have in stock. Now he must let it slip to the attendants while he waits for the eyes to be capsuled that he was sent by Konrad. And when he is outside again, he must go to the river, open the capsules and throw the eyes far out into the water."

"Sire!"

"Do you understand?"

"Yes sire."

"Taen, you will assist me as usual. I won't need you for this, Kit. Taen will be pretty enough for this patient. So you can catch up on your knitting. Right now I'm going to study up on the nervous systems of mountain men." As he pulled open one of the drawers of the capacious files in his study he called to Taen: "Sterilize and lay out the instruments as if we were going to do a Class 9 operation. I'll add anything else I'll need later."

When he came out to look for his cigarettes he saw Garth. Jeff's Adam's apple jerked nervously as he addressed Garth for there was frighteningly little written about the brain structures of mountain men. What there was indicated major physiological differences from Earthmen. "Garth; take your gas gun and go help Kit with her knitting. If you should hear the mountain men killing us, sneak her out her bedroom window onto the side street. She'll be completely in your care."

Taen blurted: "You could give him sight if you had the eyes from the Body Bank. Garth can't hide her very long at best. I don't understand sire."

"You will. Remember, we're playing this by ear. Things will open up as we go along. I want to see The Assassin's reaction before I decide exactly what will be your part in my next move."

"Even assuming you have a plan, sire, how will The Assassin get past the Security Guards to come here for the operation?"

"That's his worry," Jeff retorted curtly. "Fight his way, bribe his way. He knows what he's doing." Already the young doctor's fingers were stiffening. He was painfully conscious of the aches in his legs and back from the long climb. His head hummed. He needed sleep. Not so good for a delicate operation. He shrugged and went back to his reading.

* * * * *

When The Assassin finally came, he came in style. Jeff heard the firing while the mountain men were still blocks away.

Bursting in, bristling with sten guns, bomb throwers, dripping-beaked skars, they carried the old man in their midst like a sack of tubi.

"The guard who is regularly stationed at the hill gate had been replaced by an idealist," the earless young man panted. "But the master has sent twenty men to the Coliseum to create a diversion that may give us a few hours."

"Even under the best conditions this operation takes six hours," Jeff exclaimed.

As Taen stripped off his filthy robes, The Assassin croaked: "It had better take much less. I have not that many men to throw away."

He snarled as Taen in his haste nicked his blue-veined skull with the razor. And he muttered with senile detachment as he was swabbed with K2X, sheeted and strapped down upon the table. His black eye cavities turned with suspicion, as though they could see, when Jeff's damp hands squeaked into the rubber gloves.

"May the gods lean over your shoulder, sire," Taen whispered.

The two stepped into the glare of germicidal lamps, steel instruments, steel table, glinting knives of light, while the followers of the old man like dark crags lined the wall, a barrier to the door.

"Hypo."

The Assassin's breathing was as thunderous as the air blasting of a skar.

"Crank down the variable reflection viewer."

Desultory gunfire echoed through the dome city as Jeff focused the eyepiece until the scar tissue appeared like two black radishes extending into the gray blur of the forebrain. But when he increased the reflective depth the myelin covering of the optic chiasma glistened whitely. He exhaled with relief. There was still a gateway to the cerebrum.

The Assassin's breathing subsided to a gentle whisper.

"Scalpel."

While the gunshots rattled closer, Jeff cored into the dead tissue with the apparent unconcern of a boy cutting out the eye of a potato. But when he reached tissue of a pinkish tinge he moved with infinite caution.

The doctor was conscious of the huge cables of the efferent nerves that lay beneath his low-powered microscope and of the delicate two-fingered probe that moved among them, guided by control knobs rather than the coarse direct hand of man, testing, searching for life.

A sound so quick it eroded diseased tissue, yet did not harm the living cells, an ultra high frequency vibration that sand-blasted with the molecules of the air for sand, became his tool. It cleared the way where muscles would be soldered with quick-growing hormone and cell solutions. It brought neurons to the surface like the skeletons of dinosaurs and made them wince visibly beneath the microscope. It cut with inhuman precision for it was the extension of a semi-robot who saw with echoes and obeyed Jeff's hands only in the broad, general plan of the operation. It found live muscles and made their striated bodies shorten and lengthen agonizingly like great slugs when it laid them bare. It did all the work in an area less than an inch square.

A copter roared low and someone near the wall dropped a sten gun with a hand-shaking clatter. Straightening quickly, Jeff blinked his eyes and swore at the world in general. Taen nudged his side, then wrote on a pad: "What do you intend to do for eyes?"

Jeff's paw sagged. Lost on his microscopic battleground he had forgotten primary considerations. It took him a moment to remember what they were.

"No eyes, yes. Eyes. Send the earless one to the Body Bank to get them."

"But Garth's brother has thrown them away...."

"Yes, but send for them anyway. The description and order are in my shirt pocket. Also my personal check. Get him started."

Long before the outer door clicked shut Jeff was lost in his microscopic universe, snipping veins and small arteries, lightly sealing them so they could be opened again.

IV

By the time the earless one returned, wide-eyed and breathless, Jeff had stepped away from the table for a cigarette. The Assassin was moaning gently in the short time of consciousness the young doctor had planned for him between rounds. It was important that the old man be conscious. To make sure, Jeff had given him a hypo of a far different action than the first.

"Gone," The Assassin echoed his follower's words.

As he struggled feebly against his straps, the earless one managed to gasp that an agent of Konrad's had bought them just a short time before, all eleven pair.

Jeff swore appropriately.

"Let him up," hissed the earless one, "You Earthmen are all in this together."

"Don't stand there, you fool," Jeff shouted theatrically. "Konrad is in this alone. He could not permit the power of an Assassin with sight. Go to him. Take back those eyes."

"Quickly," The Assassin echoed.

"But you must go too," Jeff exclaimed as he unfastened the old man from the table. "Only you can lead them against such a one as Konrad. Taen, give me those bandages. Great Assassin, here I give you an injection to give you strength. And Taen will accompany you."

While his followers helped the old man into his robes, the young doctor drew Taen aside.

"Take a robe from one of these men so that you will not be recognized. You have said you understood these people, how to handle them. Now is your chance to show me, for our lives, yours included, depend on it. All you have to do is plant the proper suggestions in their minds. They will force you to do the rest." He handed Taen a satchel of surgical tools and a small tubular freezer, and he explained in detailed steps what he had in mind.

Finally Taen nodded, his eyes fierce with excitement. "I understand, sire. There are moments when men will agree to anything."

"Let him suggest it himself. Just plant the thought there."

Taen patted the satchel and followed the motley crowd of mountain men out into the morning.

Pacing the empty room, Jeff lit another cigarette, threw it away and lit another. Maybe he should have gone himself? But he would have been recognized. Then it would be the Security Guards--

"Somebody shot a hole in my wall," a small voice announced.

Jeff surprised himself with laughter. It seemed like everybody was out to get them.

"Shall I plug it with my finger, dimples?"

She bluffed as if to spill the coffee on him.

"No sugar this time, sugar." He stepped quickly to the window and fitted his eye between the drawn curtains, but the siege apparently had turned into a pursuit of the mountain men for the street was empty except for a Security Guard curled in a pool that reflected the redness of the morning sun. The mountain men could take care of themselves, handicaps or no. They had better. His life and Kit's depended on it. It would be ironic if The Assassin were killed.

"What are you staring at?"

"Just ogling a jungle Venus." The strain of the operation had lifted with such sudden relief that he could take nothing seriously. Even the thousand things that could go wrong did not weigh upon him as he sipped the scalding coffee. It was the moment between pains.

"I keyholed the operation even though Garth got angry. You were wonderful, hubby. At least I guess you were. But isn't that old murderer apt to die of shock."

"If he does that, and his men come back here, Garth will take you out of the window. But he's a tough old devil, have to be to last this long." He explained that Konrad had bought all the eyes, cauterizing the lie with scalding coffee. His nerves were beginning to hum again. This was dirty business, he thought, as he watched her over the coffee cup, memorizing the tilt of her head, the gloss of her eyelids, the gentle S-curve of hair down her cheek with a little roll-over where it touched her shoulder; but nobody was going to hurt Kit.

He closed his eyes, saw her as he first saw her, bright with silk, twirling beneath the masks at the Festival Ball. But the man with broad shoulders who bent her back and whispered in her hair, then looked up for all the world to see his pride, was Konrad. Even after his threats, she had said very little against him. Perhaps she had a vaguely guilty feeling too. People were the way they were. Konrad was a prime example. When you pressed the proper buttons they did what they were set to do. Could you blame such a man as Konrad? He shivered and prayed Kit would never learn what was happening to Konrad just then.

When the next rocket came in two months, they'd be on it. She'd be happier if she never knew.

"It's awfully quiet Jeff."

"Not for long."

* * * * *

The Assassin's men returned in comparative silence. Bloodsoaked and weary, they filed in and laid the old man upon the table. Immediately, Jeff prepared another hypo, for The Assassin was white and shallow-breathing from shock. It would be better to postpone the last phase of the operation, but Taen was already opening the freezing cylinder to show him their success.

The earless man set a moist package on the floor beneath the table. "Guards fought like women," he smiled. "We can keep them off till you're done."

Jeff looked around. Kit had already left the room. Quickly he stripped off the bandages as Taen raised his hands to the germicidal light, then moved rather clumsily to assist.

"What happened?" Jeff hissed from the corner of his mouth.

Taen failed to answer. Jeff cursed softly. Without knowing what had passed between Konrad and The Assassin, how was he to act?

With an unsteady hand that could ruin the operation, Taen jabbed the suction hose at the orbital cavity. As Jeff turned to him the mountain man fell heavily against the table, reeled back with an apologetic expression on his oddly pale face and sat down with a thud on the floor.

"What's the matter, you hurt?"

The mountain man's jaw opened and closed like that of a stranded fish. His eyes bulged and perspiration beaded his brow but words would not come.

The earless man squatted beside them. "Perhaps when he was cutting out the eyes he stayed too long in the room where the gas was."

"What kind of gas?"

"I don't know the names of gases."

"Dammit, what did it smell like? Salty? Stinging?"

"No, like the flower with the red and white petals. Leave him alone," the young man's voice rose in sudden authority. "You haven't time for him. Put in the eyes."

But Jeff hastened to the medicine cabinet and took out an emetic and a heart stimulant. He knew that gas.

"Get to work on the master, I said." The earless one's voice rose a notch. "Quick or I shall kill you." He brought the large muzzle of his sten gun in line with Jeff's eyes.

"And The Assassin will die on the table," the doctor retorted as he pried open Taen's mouth.

"Garth," he shouted as he injected the heart stimulant into the now retching Taen.

When the jungle man came in, Jeff said, "Put him to bed. I'll be in to see him in a little while. You, throw away that sten gun and stick your hands close to that light. You're going to assist me with the operation."

"Me?" shrilled the young man.

"Yes. Turn the palms of your hands to the light. If you don't follow my directions, if you make the slightest mistake, you will have killed your master." Jeff examined the eyes in the solution. A neat job of removal, he thought. Plenty of surrounding meat to fill in the spaces. The one way to play this was as if the plan had worked. "Come here, stupid, let me show you the correct way to hold the hose."

As he pruned unnecessary tissue from the right eye, and injected the cell-stimulating pro-op into the six loosely hanging muscles that would turn it, Jeff tried to find out, without giving his plan away, what had passed between The Assassin and Konrad, presuming that they found Konrad. But the earless one was so nervous his replies didn't make sense.

V

A grenade exploded outside, followed by a moaning voice. A mountain man burst into the operating room. "We can't hold them much longer. They must have finished the boys at the Coliseum because now there are hundreds of them. They're shooting at the house down the block. Pretty soon they'll figure out this is the house. Hurry it up."

Deliberately Jeff forgot the outside world and concentrated on the operation. With steady hands he drew out the end of the optic nerve like a small white worm and brought it close to the cross street of nerves in the old man's forehead, the optic chiasma. Wielding the high frequency sound nozzle with more speed than care, he eroded plenty of working area from the frontal bone. If he lived, this old man's forehead would be a veritable silver mine.

Nudging the earless one to use the suction hose so he could see what he was doing, Jeff slid the eye closer into its socket. He cranked down the reflection viewer and focused its rays through the eyeball. Now he had to work down through the cut between eye and forebrain and the going, even with the help of the semi-robot's steady hand, was uncertain. He didn't bother too much with the muscles, just sewed them in and injected the growth catalyst. The arteries he sealed neatly together, squinting through the micro of the reflection viewer and focusing tediously on each one. A lot of blood was leaking down the old man's cheek though. If Taen were there to help he'd order a small transfusion.

As he worked on the second eye, The Assassin grew paler. Jeff gave him a hypo.

It was then that he saw what he should have seen all along--the golden necklace was gone.

An honest old devil, he thought. Probably left it on Konrad's chest, I hope. Unless he dropped it somewhere, the deal must be cancelled. Kit's safe--unless the old devil dies on me or can't see.

He stopped worrying about that and concentrated on making The Assassin see.

When it was over Jeff grinned with more confidence than he felt. The young man sat down on the floor with his head lowered between his knees. The Assassin began to groan very faintly. A grenade exploded against the side of the house.

Fumbling in his pants pocket for a match, Jeff addressed the few assassins that remained. "Better get him out of here right away."

"But how do we know it wasn't a trick? How do we know he can see?" A short, weary-faced mountain man leaned against the door jamb, a skar cradled under his arm. His voice had the unpleasant sound of the one The Assassin said was to be successor. "He sees or you die."

"Come here." Jeff raised one of the eyelids. As he shadowed the staring eye with his hand the pupil enlarged perceptibly.

"But can he see out of it?"

"It may be some days before he can even distinguish light from darkness," Jeff replied cautiously.

With luck the old man might be able to do that now but there was no use sticking his neck out with his and Kit's lives depending on it.

"Then you are coming with us."

As Jeff opened his mouth to protest, the old man groaned loudly, then croaked: "The sky so blue. My crags, my people, the bright and glorious sun." He strained toward the germicidal light.

The earless young man rose to his side gasping: "He is dying."

"No," Jeff insisted. "He has just distinguished light from darkness. You'd better get him out of here before the Security Guards close in on this house."

"But first I must see the woman," the old man cried. "The cancellation of her death has cost me my necklace. After we disarmed Konrad, your advisor spoke alone with him; that accursed one begged me to cancel our agreement. To be ethical I had to give him the necklace since it was where the money went." He paused for breath. "I must see this woman who is worth more than a necklace. While Konrad was screaming some nonsense about your advisor double-crossing him, I swore I would see her who has cost me my necklace and the waste of a skar."

"But your eyes won't focus yet."

"We shall see. Let me up. Shade me from the sun."

So what if she sees him, Jeff thought. He will be just "that old murderer" with stranger's eyes.