Ku looked at them as though astonished.

"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