Hayden Howard

“ 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. ”

“ Hitching up to full height, he raced ahead like a great ground bird and with a challenging war screech hurled his kauri from its perch stick toward the crags of The Assassin, bulbous and black, close-packed like a herd of great bulls upon the field of the Milky Way, a long climb, a high flight for skar or kauri.
The bird arched back in the windmoan, hissed over their heads, plunging toward the dome of the city.
"Sire, she stoops. A mountain man!" ”

“ The heir swept back the curtain, throwing a beam of sunlight across the operating room. It gilded the side of the old man's face and as he turned his head blindly toward it, it lighted his strange eyes huge and bright.
Wide and deep, with buried spiders of red, fringed by lashes that beat as frantically as the wings of a wounded kauri, the eyes glowed. Their small black centers mirrored in duplicate Kit's face. They reflected in miniature her slow collapse into Jeff's arms in the instant of silence that followed her one word: "Konrad." ”

“ But The Assassin's mask turned with the pulsing of the airsquid. His voice rasped with such painful effort that the doctor in Jeff tentatively listed it as a symptom of cancer of the larynx: "Whoever you are, return my weapon to its cote. If the doctor so wishes, his advisor may remain." His mask stared straight ahead once more. "You have come to purchase the life of Konrad. Good. If I were not The Assassin, with an ethic more rigid than man's, I would have ended him myself, for it is said that he is the Earthman who ordered death to the City of Three Spears." ”

“ Taen forestalled Jeff's question: "Yes sire, it is hardly what one would expect. You see, The Assassin's palace was magicked to sand and steam by the weapons of the first of your comrades to land upon this planet. They did not understand—they never have understood—that The Assassin's person is inviolate. They have blown away his prestige with their own mightier weapons. Every man can now be his own assassin, they say, or at least so my people have understood. Many of The Assassin's followers have joined your Security Guards. Many of his wealthiest clients now deal through them. ”

“ With the mismatched hands the doctor had fitted him from the Body Bank, Taen unsheathed his kauri's spurs. A year before, when Jeff found this mountain man lying with bleeding wrist stumps in the jungle he readily admitted he had killed without hiring The Assassin. Caught, he had been maimed and left to die in the jungle. Since only The Assassin could directly take life, since he was too expensive to be hired to execute any but the most aristocratic murderers, Taen had been merely maimed and deserted. ”

“ He felt he owned the power of the city, and, since few clashed with his managerial decisions, for they were usually wise ones, this illusion grew in him until he felt like a god holding the world in the palm of his hand. ”

“ Jeff dressed in his study, slung his sten gun and, pressing the signal-emitter in his pocket, opened the spike-topped gate characteristic of all the great houses of the dome city. They stepped echoingly along the sidewalk.
"Sire," Taen's voice hissed. His face was searching the shadows. "I wouldn't take that sten gun. It would give The Assassin the fear to kill you. The excuse too, if your life has been purchased. If you are unarmed while you are on his territory it would be hardly honorable to kill you. ”

“ Sometimes when I start thinking of all the planets you've seen, the strange and wonderful people, the monsters and kings you've healed, I get frightened. This one planet—and I—won't be enough to hold you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They walked slowly, for the path was deeply eroded by cave drip.
"Taen," Jeff whispered. "Are all of his followers like that? It seems to me the old man at the entrance had a bent back—there was something wrong with him too."
"No doubt, sire. The Assassin has recently come to favor those who are not whole. They have greater loyalty, for there is no place else they could earn food, and there is another reason he likes their company which you shall soon see." ”

“ A very broad-shouldered Earthman masked in brass climbed the long path to The Assassin's crags two nights ago. No doubt he purchased your wife's life, enabling The Assassin to reclaim his necklace."
Jeff leaned wearily against the pillar. "Konrad."
Taen raised his kauri on its perch-staff in assent. "No doubt he retained clothing that had touched her body and with that The Assassin was able to train the skar." Taen whipped the hood from the kauri and it clattered its beak and hummed its incredibly small wings. "Are we in turn to purchase the death of Konrad?" ”

“ While he lives there is still hope for Kit."
"But such a man does not relent."
"We shall see. But first I want to try to learn The Assassin's thoughts. Perhaps Taen, there are certain conditions under which he does not operate entirely by custom that you do not know about."
"He is incorruptible, sire."
"Sometimes a man's price is not wholly monetary." Jeff fitted on his respirator, then inserted their pass cards into the mouth slot of the automatic gate guard. The rush of wind as the gate of the city swung outward swept them into the ammoniated world of jungles and mountains. ”

“ A mountain man burst into the operating room. "We can't hold them much longer. They must have finished the boys at the Coliseum because now there are hundreds of them. They're shooting at the house down the block. Pretty soon they'll figure out this is the house. Hurry it up."
Deliberately Jeff forgot the outside world and concentrated on the operation. With steady hands he drew out the end of the optic nerve like a small white worm and brought it close to the cross street of nerves in the old man's forehead, the optic chiasma. ”

“ That's doctor's orders. There, that's the way." Jeff forced a grin across his face. "Your hubby's subtler than he looks. Taen's underestimated me and so have you. I may not have performed this operation, but when I was an intern at Johns Hopkins I witnessed several. We'll give The Assassin sight, but by a somewhat roundabout method with rather surprising consequences. Your hubby may look dumb, but he can think more than a couple of moves ahead."
"Taen," he called, then to Kit: "Now you take good care of that son of mine. We're going to have a lot of fun watching him grow into a man." ”

“ Jeff retorted, but at the corner he threw the gun over the wall into his garden.
Taen crowhopped behind, still in his shortlegged stance.
"But sire, to purchase the life of Konrad and a painless end for your wife is the way these things are done. Where could you hide her? There is no rocket leaving this planet for two months, and even in the jungle The Assassin's followers would find her." ”

“ You have to lug them around, hoist them up and down, clean off the rust. But without an anchor in a storm, a ship, a man and a woman, will go on the rocks.
"Taen?" Jeff called. Hawklike eyes appeared around the pillar. "Would you ask Garth to come sit with Kit."
"You going someplace at this time of night." Then she inhaled with a great gasp of breath as she noticed the crushed skar. "Konrad!"
"Very unlikely. He's probably more interested in bossing the city than in carrying out any crazy threats he once made. This airsquid undoubtedly blundered through the dome ventilators. It's a wild one. ”

“ Now he had to work down through the cut between eye and forebrain and the going, even with the help of the semi-robot's steady hand, was uncertain. He didn't bother too much with the muscles, just sewed them in and injected the growth catalyst. The arteries he sealed neatly together, squinting through the micro of the reflection viewer and focusing tediously on each one. A lot of blood was leaking down the old man's cheek though. If Taen were there to help he'd order a small transfusion.
As he worked on the second eye, The Assassin grew paler. Jeff gave him a hypo. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He brought the large muzzle of his sten gun in line with Jeff's eyes.
"And The Assassin will die on the table," the doctor retorted as he pried open Taen's mouth.
"Garth," he shouted as he injected the heart stimulant into the now retching Taen.
When the jungle man came in, Jeff said, "Put him to bed. I'll be in to see him in a little while. You, throw away that sten gun and stick your hands close to that light. You're going to assist me with the operation."
"Me?" shrilled the young man.
"Yes. Turn the palms of your hands to the light. ”