Chapter 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.

He switched off The Assassin's "sun." Kit entered. The followers sidled from her advance, until the old man sat alone before her upon the operating table, turning his head vainly from side to side. For there was little current in the great nerves of his eyes as yet. The unused synapses did not make full contact.

"Woman, I hear your breathing. Your scent is close to me. Ranad, give me light again."

The heir swept back the curtain, throwing a beam of sunlight across the operating room. It gilded the side of the old man's face and as he turned his head blindly toward it, it lighted his strange eyes huge and bright.

Wide and deep, with buried spiders of red, fringed by lashes that beat as frantically as the wings of a wounded kauri, the eyes glowed. Their small black centers mirrored in duplicate Kit's face. They reflected in miniature her slow collapse into Jeff's arms in the instant of silence that followed her one word: "_Konrad_."

As Jeff carried her from the room, the earless young man crowded ahead of him, unwrapping his damp package.

"Please sire, am I not next?" He waved a freshly cut pair of ears in Jeff's face.

"Not right now," the doctor mumbled absently as he pushed through the doorway.

The door closed. The weapons of the assassins clashed bravely as they prepared the retreat to the crags and the old man croaked ecstatically of the beautiful woman he could not possibly have seen.

Two months later the outgoing rocket carried two passengers who held hands. A third passenger was on the way, an Earthman to be.