For a full hour, and then another, Akers watched in un-believing fascination as Illia freed the twelve separate nerve filaments serving it, then cut the artery and filled the vessels with the chemical solution that would feed the cells until Underwood's blood could be sent pouring through it. At last all that remained was the severing of the connecting tissues that held the organ in place. Illia cut them and plunged her hands into the sterilizing, protecting compound that had been prepared at Jandro's instructions. She salved the organ and lifted it out, then thrust it quickly into the corresponding cavity in Underwood's brain pan. This phase of the operation was less than half over. Blood vessels had to be prepared to serve the new organ in Underwood's body, and the twelve nerves had to be connected into the Great Sympathetic where no such nerves had ever been connected before. * * * * * Another two hours passed before the final sutures closed the wound in Underwood's head. When at last she laid the needle down, Illia's hand suddenly trembled and she quivered throughout her body. "Can't we postpone the others for a time?" asked Akers. "You surely can't go on with two more like that." "I'm afraid the tissues will degenerate too much if we delay. If I were only as fast as those Dragboran surgeons. What men they must be! Get me a shot of neostrene and better have one yourself. We'll go on." Akers was willing, but he didn't believe that Illia could stand more hours of exacting surgery. After a moment's rest, however, and a shot of the stimulant drug, she stepped back to the operating tables to perform the adbominal operation. Once again, Akers made the preliminary incisions. In the control room the group leaders waited for news in nerve-racking inactivity. Terry Bernard paced about, his flaming disheveled hair like a signal flare swinging through the room. Phyfe stood at one of the observation panels watching the inexorable approach of Demarzule's fleet. Dawson sat at his Captain's position fingering the inactive switches on the panel before him. Most placid of all, Dreyer simply sat in the navigation chair and smoked cigars so unrelentingly that it taxed the ventilating system of the ship. * * * * * Terry glanced at the clock anxiously and stopped his pacing. "It's been over thirteen hours since Underwood went in there. Don't you think we ought to ask Illia--" "There are only two alternatives," said Dreyer. "Success or failure. Our questioning will not assure success. We had best keep out of the way." Mason kept anxious watch of the progress of the fleet. No one knew what would happen when the battleships arrived and surrounded the _Lavoisier_, but they had not long to wait. The ships were hardly more than minutes away from the planet.