Chapter 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.