o. But if you align the edges exactly, at once, they may join
almost immediately healing by First Intent. Likewise in the brain, if
they line up cut nerve fibers before the cut-off bit degenerates, it'll
join up with the stump. So, take a serum-conditioned brain and fit it to
the stem of another brain so that the big fiber bundles are properly
fitted together, fast enough, and you can get better than ninety per
cent recovery."

* * * * *

"Sure," I said, parading my own knowledge, "but what about injury to the
masses of nerve cells? And you'd have to shear off the nerves growing
out of the brain."

[Illustration]

"There's always a way, Willie. There's a place in the brain stem called
the isthmus, no cell masses, just bundles of fibers running up and down.
Almost all the nerves come off below that point; and the few that don't
can be spliced together, except the smell nerves and optic nerve. Ever
notice I can't smell, Willie? And they transplanted my eyes with the
brain--biggest trick of the whole job."

It figured. But, "I'd still hate to go through with it."

"What could I lose? Some paraplegics seem to live a fuller life than
ever. Me, I was going mad. And I'd seen the dogs this research team at
my hospital was working on--old dogs' brains in whelps' bodies, spry as
natural.

"Then came the chance. Da Sanhao was a Brazilian wrestler stranded here
by the war. Not his war, he said; but he did have the decency to
volunteer as medical orderly. But he got conscripted by a bomb that took
a corner off the hospital and one off his head. They got him into
chemical stasis quicker than it'd ever been done before, but he was dead
as a human being--no brain worth salvaging above the isthmus. So, the
big guns at the hospital saw a chance to try their game on human
material, superb body and lower nervous system in ideal condition,
waiting for a brain. Only, whose?

"Naturally, some big-shot's near the end of his rope and willing to
gamble. But _I_ decided it would be a forgotten little-shot, name of
Edwin Scott. I already knew the surgeons from being a guinea pig on
ICEG. Of course, when I sounded them out, they gave me a kindly
brush-off: The matter was out of the their hands. However, I knew whose
hands it _was_ in. And I waited for my chance--a big job that needed
somebody expendable. Then I'd make a deal, writing my own ticket because
they'd figure I'd never collect. Did you hear about O