"What could possibly be of value?" "No. Nothing that I have any knowledge of." "That's it! Knowledge! All of the advanced work in neurosurgery is there. All in colored, detailed three-dimensional pictures with a running comment by Murdoch himself. Things that we cannot do today. Get it, Cal. It'll tell you how to fix this crushed spinal cord." Cal knew she was right. Murdoch, in his illegal surgery had advanced a thousand years beyond his fellow surgeons who could legally work on nothing but cadavers or live primates while Murdoch had worked on the delicate nervous system of mankind itself. Murdoch's Hoard was a board of information--invaluable to the finder and completely unique and non-duplicative. At least until it was found. "I can't leave you." "You must ... if you want me! I'm good for six or seven hours. Go and get that information, Cal." "But I'm no physician. Much less a surgeon. Even less a neurosurgeon." "Murdoch's records are such that a deft and responsible child could follow them. According to history, his hoard is filled with instruments and equipment. Cal--" "Yes?" "Cal. _This is the place where Murdoch worked on living nerves!_" * * * * * Tinker Elliott closed her eyes and tried to rest. She did not sleep, nor did she feel faint. But her closed eyes were a definite argument against objection on Cal's part. Worrying, he left her and went back to his flier. He called for help and then he went to work on the Key. Cal does not remember the next four hours. It was a whirling montage of dismal swamp and winking pilot lights and thrumming whistles. It was a lonely boulder with a handle on it that Cal lifted out of the ground with ease. It was an immaculate hospital driven deep into the murky ground of Venus. Three hundred and fifty years ago, Dr. Allison Murdoch worked here and today his refrigerating plants started to function as soon as Cal snapped the main switch. On a stretcher that must have held many a torn and mangled set of nerves before, Cal trundled Tinker through the muggy swamp of Venus and lowered her into Murdoch's hospital. In contrast, the next few hours will live forever in Cal's mind. He came to complete awareness when he realized that he did not know his next move. "Tinker?" he asked softly. "Here ... and still going," she said. "Ready?" Cal swallowed deep. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "In that case over there ... see it? Take an ampule of local--it's labeled Neo-croalaminol-opium, ten percent. Get a needle and put three cubic centimeters of it into space between the sixth and seventh cervical vertebra. Go in between four and five millimeters below the surface of the bone. Can do?" "I ... I can't." "You must! How I wish we had a duplicator." Cal shuddered. "Never." "Well, I could show you how it's done on the duplicate, and then the duplicate could fix me up." Cal gritted his teeth, "And which one would I dispose of? No, Tinker. It's bad enough this way!"