Dawn turned the great dome a delicate pink, but the chilled layer of smog within gave the jagged forms of the city a bluish cast. Cold, distorted roofs swept past them as the street escalator bore them down the interior hill. A tiny figure walked with bowed head beside a glint of water in the gray courtyard behind a kidney shaped roof. "Look sire, it is Konrad. Perhaps he cannot sleep because he knows death is at his shoulder too. From here I could loose my kauri and before the guards awake--" "No. I'm going to speak with him." "But sire, if you enter his garden that would give him an excuse to kill you for trespass." "He wouldn't risk the unfavorable publicity. That is why he is dealing through The Assassin." When they reached the fog-snaked street that led to Konrad's, Taen found his voice in a rush of complaints. He even forgot to say, "sire." "You are doing this all wrong. Treating The Assassin is craziness. What will it do except bring your death if you fail? Your wife is already doomed. The Assassin's bargain is made. And Konrad, he won't speak with you. He'll order his machines to shoot you. Go home and be with your wife while there is time." But Jeff reached for the iron handle. Konrad's door swung in, as an electric eye buzzed in the wall, revealing a small metal-lined vestibule with slots in its low ceiling, for gunfire or for gas. A recorded voice rasped: "The master is not at home." "I wish to see Konrad," Jeff shouted in a loud clear voice that set hidden mechanisms buzzing frantically. As they droned into silence, Konrad's face, appearing drawn and strangely aged, flashed on the visa-screen. "Go away Jeff, or I shall call the Security Guards." "Why don't you kill me, not Kit," Jeff shouted. At this Konrad's eyes opened huge and bright. Then they squinted again and a tiny smile rippled across his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about." The screen blanked out and the stinging odor of chlorine began to flood the vestibule, a hint to depart, for the door was still open. Not until they reached the spiked gate of the doctor's house did either speak. "Sire, in my helpless anger I underestimated your wisdom. Now I see that giving The Assassin sight, if you succeed, will surely cause him to give your wife a most painless death in his gratitude, and of course he will withhold his skars until the operation is--Look sire," Taen interrupted himself, "that man at the corner, he turns his face away, Konrad's spy. Shall I--" But Jeff was gone to find his wife. As he held her tightly so she would not see his face he told her the truth; she had the note in her hand; she had guessed it anyway, what little she had not already known. But she didn't begin to cry until he came to the eye operation.