Jeff continued, his mind eyeing his plan from many angles, "I am a healer. Apart from desire for my wife's life, without obligation, I offer you sight." The Assassin's fingers rose trembling to his mask. "This is not a bribe?" "It is not a bribe unless you accept it in that spirit?" "I had not realized an Earthman would help a mountain man." "Let your attendants tell you of my advisor's hands." As the earless one spoke quickly in The Assassin's ear, the old man's hands struggled clumsily with the straps of his mask. When the equally nervous fingers of the earless young man replaced them, The Assassin croaked breathlessly: "If you can give me sight and your advisor hands, perhaps you will return the arms and legs, the eyes and ears of my followers. Since you are by no means a wealthy man, we will contrive to pay you for your work." As his hands rose to the heavy circle of gold about his neck, the mask clattered across them to the floor. Shock of horror stiffened Jeff's face. He had expected the external eye processes to be atrophied but hardly the great, scar-blackened holes that stared at him. It would be a wonder if there was any optic nerve left to tie into. Even the optic chiasma might be dead. This extreme degeneration might extend all the way to the frontal lobe of the brain. "Let us begin your magic at once," croaked The Assassin, his death-pale face acrease with hope. "This is not magic to be worked with the wave of a hand," Jeff replied. "It is a series of delicate operations done in quick succession: one to clear away dead tissue and see exactly what repairs need be made; a second to prepare surviving afferent and efferent nerve paths and the necessary artery and eye-muscle attachments; the third, extremely difficult, to plant the eye, to make the nerve, vein and muscle connections. These electrolystic, hormone-catalyst splices are so minute I will have to do most of the work under at least fifty power magnification." "Then let us begin at once. There is little time." Jeff wondered what the old man meant by that. His time? Whose time? "As you say. My advisor and I go now to select eyes from the Body Bank. Your spies can no doubt lead you to my house. The consulting room opens on Harspa Way." When the Earthman rose to go, a thin voice spoke from the shadows: "If this should be your idea of revenge. If our master should die upon your operating table, your end, and that of your wife, will be particularly unpleasant." "That one is next in line when I am finished," croaked The Assassin. Although he strained to see among the dancing shadows Jeff could not make out that one's face. III