Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

be alive-” The tone was an open threat.

Lans spread his hands, did not answer.

“Well-I am informed that you have a family…”

The surgeon moistened his lips. His Emma-they would hurt his Emma. . . and

his little Rose. But he must be brave, as Emma would have him be. He was playing for

high stakes-for all of them. “They cannot be worse off dead,” he answered firmly,

“than they are now.

It was many hours before the Leader was convinced that Lans could not be

budged. He should have known-the surgeon had learned fortitude at his mother’s

breast.

“What is your fee?”

“A passport for myself and my family.”

“Good riddance!”

“My personal fortune restored to me-”

“Very well.”

“-to be paid in gold before I operate!”

The Leader started to object automatically, then checked himself. Let the

presumptuous fool think so! It could be corrected after the operation.

“And the operation to take place in a hospital on foreign soil.”

“Preposterous!”

“I must insist.”

“You do not trust me?”

Lans stared straight back into his eyes without replying. The Leader struck

him, hard, across the mouth. The surgeon made no effort to avoid the blow, but took

it, with no change of expression….

“You are willing to go through with it, Samuel?” The younger man looked at

Doctor~Lans without fear as he answered,

“Certainly, Doctor.”

“I can not guarantee that you will recover. The Leader’s pituitary gland is

diseased; your younger body may or may not be able to stand up under it- that is the

chance you take.”

“I know it-but I am out of the concentration camp!”

“Yes. Yes, that is true. And if you do recover, you are free. And I will

attend you myself, until you are well enough to travel.”

Samuel smiled. “It will be a positive joy to be sick in a country where

there are no concentration camps!”

“Very well, then. Let us commence.”

They returned to the silent, nervous group at the other end of the room.

Grimly, the money was counted out, every penny that the famous surgeon had laid

claim to before the Leader had decided that men of his religion had no need for

money. Lans placed half of the gold in a money belt and strapped it around his

waist. His wife concealed the other half somewhere about her ample person.

It was an hour and twenty minutes later that Lans put down the last

instrument, nodded to the surgeons assisting him, and commenced to strip off

operating gloves. He took one last look at his two patients before he left the room.

They were anonymous under the sterile gowns and dressings. Had he not known, he

could not have told dictator from oppressed. Come to think about it, with the

exchange of those two tiny glands there was something of the dictator in his victim,

and something of the victim in the dictator.

Doctor Lans returned to the hospital later in the day, after seeing his wife

and daughter settled in a first class hotel. It was an extravagance, in view of his

un

certain prospects as a refugee, but they had enjoyed no luxuries for years back

there-he did not think of it as his home country-and it was justified this once.

He enquired at the office of the hospital for his second patient. The clerk looked

puzzled. “But he is not here.”

“Not here?”

“Why, no. He was moved at the same time as His Excellency-back to your

country.”

Lans did not argue. The trick was obvious; it was too late to do anything for poor

Page 14

Samuel. He thanked his God that he had had the foresight to place himself and his

family beyond the reach of such brutal injustice before operating. He thanked the

clerk and left.

The Leader recovered consciousness at last. His brain was confused-then he

recalled the events before he had gone to sleep. The operation!-it must be over! And

he was alive! He had never admitted to anyone how terribly frightened he had been at

the prospect. But he had lived-he had lived!

He groped around for the bell cord, and, failing to find it, gradually