ustration]

She nodded. "You'll probably have to push them out of the way to get out
of Surgery."

* * * * *

Her prediction was almost perfect. The group of men in conservative
business suits, wearing conservative ties, and holding conservative,
soft, felt hats in their hands were standing just outside the door. Dr.
Mallon glanced at the five of them, letting his eyes stop on the face of
the tallest. "He may live," the doctor said briefly.

"You don't sound very optimistic, Dr. Mallon," said the FBI man.

Mallon shook his head. "Frankly, I'm not. He was shot laterally, just
above the right temple, with what looks to me like a .357 magnum pistol
slug. It's in there--" He gestured back toward the room he had just
left. "--you can have it, if you want. It passed completely through the
brain, lodging on the other side of the head, just inside the skull.
What kept him alive, I'll never know, but I can guarantee that he might
as well be dead; it was a rather nasty way to lobotomize a man, but it
was effective, I can assure you."

The Federal agent frowned puzzledly. "Lobotomized? Like those operations
they do on psychotics?"

"Similar," said Mallon. "But no psychotic was ever butchered up like
this; and what I had to do to him to save his life didn't help
anything."

The men looked at each other, then the big one said: "I'm sure you did
the best you could, Dr. Mallon."

The neurosurgeon rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead and
looked steadily into the eyes of the big man.

"You wanted him alive," he said slowly, "and I have a duty to save life.
But frankly, I think we'll all eventually wish we had the common human
decency to let Paul Wendell die. Excuse me, gentlemen; I don't feel
well." He turned abruptly and strode off down the hall.

* * * * *

One of the men in the conservative suits said: "Louis Pasteur lived
through most of his life with only half a brain and he never even knew
it, Frank; maybe--"

"Yeah. Maybe," said the big man. "But I don't know whether to hope he
does or hope he doesn't." He used his right thumbnail to pick a bit of
microscopic dust from beneath his left index finger, studying the
operation without actually seeing it. "Meanwhile, we've got to decide
what to do about the rest of those screwballs. Wendell was the only sane
one, and therefore the most dangerous--but the rest of them aren't what
you'd call safe, e