"Why, no, my friends! I wish I were able to, but I cannot perform the operations by myself, unaided. That would be impossible, absurd.... You seem startled. Surely you must have known that those assistants would be vital to the work! I have taught them, you see; trained them; they were specialists in brain surgery to begin with, and I do not believe there are any others this side of Mars who could take their place in operations of this type. Without them, I could never transplant the brains." This, then, had been the trick up his sleeve! This was why, in the control room of the asteroid, he had shown relief when the Hawk told him what bodies were to be used for the transplantation! For he had known that, whatever Eliot Leithgow's method of forcing him to perform the operations might be, and no matter how efficacious, the coordinated brains simply could not be put in the heads of his four assistants--because the assistants were themselves needed for the operations! "Then--it's hopeless!" said the Master Scientist bitterly. "All this for nothing! You might find other bodies in Port o' Porno, Carse--condemned men, criminals--but Porno's an hour away, two hours' round trip, and in thirty minutes the brains will be too weak to save...." "I am sorry," Ku Sui continued. "I should have told you before, perhaps. If there were any way out I knew of, I would tell you but there does not seem to be...." "Yes," broke in Hawk Carse suddenly. His left hand had been pulling at his bangs of flaxen hair; his brain had been working very fast. He added coldly: "Yes, there is a way." * * * * * Leithgow and Ku Sui looked at him inquiringly. "We need four bodies," he went on. "We have one--the coolie; he is not needed to assist in the operations. Four bodies--and here, ready, in twenty-five minutes. Not the bodies of normal men, of those with life ahead of them. No. That would be murder. Four bodies of condemned men--men with no hope left, nothing left to live for. I can get them!" He brushed aside Ku Sui's and Leithgow's questions. He was all steel now, frigid, intent, hard. "Ban!" he called. "Ban Wilson!" "Yes, Carse?" Ban had been waiting outside the laboratory. "Put on your propulsive space-suit. Hurry. Then here." "Right!" Carse ran over to where he had left his suit and rapidly got inside. As he did so, he said: "Eliot, there's fast work to be done while I'm gone with Ban. You must take your assistants and Dr. Ku up to the asteroid in the air-car and transfer down here all the equipment Dr. Ku says he'll need. Be extremely careful with the case of coordinated brains. If you possibly can, have everything in readiness by the time Ban and I return with the four bodies." Ban Wilson, in his suit, entered the laboratory. The Hawk gestured him to the door which led to the tree-shaft to the surface. "But, Carse, _what_ bodies? Where can you get four more living human bodies?" Leithgow cried.