The surgeon moistened his lips. His Emma--they would hurt his Emma ... and his little Rose. But he must be brave, as Emma would have him be. He was playing for high stakes--for all of them. "They cannot be worse off dead," he answered firmly, "than they are now." It was many hours before the Leader was convinced that Lans could not be budged. He should have known--the surgeon had learned fortitude at his mother's breast. "What is your fee?" "A passport for myself and my family." "Good riddance." "My personal fortune restored to me--" "Very well." "--to be paid in gold before I operate!" The Leader started to object automatically, then checked himself quickly. Let the presumptuous fool think so! It could be corrected after the operation. "And the operation to take place in a hospital on foreign soil." "Preposterous." "I must insist." "You do not trust me?" Lans stared straight back into his eyes without replying. The Leader struck him, hard, across the mouth. The surgeon made no effort to avoid the blow, but took it, with no change of expression. "YOU ARE WILLING TO GO THROUGH WITH IT, SAMUEL?" The younger man looked at Doctor Lans without fear as he answered, "Certainly, Doctor." "I can not guarantee that you will recover. The Leader's pituitary gland is diseased; when I exchange it for your healthy one your younger one may not be able to stand up under it--that is the chance you take. Besides--a complete transplanting has never been done before." "I know it--but I'm out of the concentration camp!" "Yes. Yes, that is true. And if you do recover, you are free. And I will attend you myself, until you are well enough to travel." Samuel smiled. "It will be a positive joy to be sick in a country where there are no concentration camps!" "Very well, then. Let us commence." They returned to the silent, nervous group at the other end of the room. Grimly the money was counted out, every penny that the famous surgeon had laid claim to before the Leader had decided that men of his religion had no need for money. Lans placed half of the gold in a money belt and strapped it around his waist. His wife concealed the other half somewhere about her ample person. IT WAS AN hour and twenty minutes later that Lans put down the last instrument, nodded to the surgeons assisting him, and commenced to strip off operating gloves. He took one last look at his two patients before he left the room. They were anonymous under the sterile gowns and dressings. Had he not known, he could not have guessed dictator from oppressed. Come to think of it, with the exchange of those two tiny glands there was something of the dictator in his victim and something of the victim in the dictator.