THE MAN in the chair had shifted slightly, bringing his left eye into position before the long steel tube. The light at the other end of the tube had flicked on; its quick white beam had penetrated the watery cavity of the man's eyeball to probe the moist red-purple retina, scan the inputting tip of the optic nerve; then the light had flicked off. The room was dim, almost dark. The man, foolishly, was tense.

"Look right," Sam Brant told him.

Xavier, moving his dilated eyes as directed, saw from their corners the sheened white of an enamel washbasin, the pallid green of hospital walls, and far over, the examination room's single window, tall, with its slatted blind pulled firm against the brightness of the day. He smiled tightly. But his chin remained steady on the tissue-covered black rubber rest provided for it. He didn't blink at the returning light.

Sam Brant hunkered forward on his stool, peered again through the intricate arrangement of lenses to which the tube was connected on his side of the machine. Frowning, puzzled, he scrutinized Xavier's eye. The light remained on. "Left," Sam Brant instructed his patient. Then, after a moment, "Down." After another moment he turned off the light and straightened.

Swiveling away from the machine, he nodded to Xavier, who pushed back his chair and stood, hands in pockets, waiting. Xavier knew what the verdict would be. Yet he needed to hear it--to have it official.

Brant, still sitting, gazed at him. "They're both fine," he said at last. "Retinas clear. Muscles perfect."

"And my vision, Dr. Brant?"

"Excellent, Dr. Xavier." Sam Brant's smile was a questioning one, its nervousness reflecting that of Xavier" s grin. Xavier shrugged, said nothing. He had heard what he expected to hear.

Sam Brant got to his feet. He was a heavy man, not big, not young, with iron-gray hair, what there was of it, and pasty, coronary-colored flesh, of which there was too much, hanging too loosely. When he walked, as now to the window, too much of him moved, yet there was purpose in his step, purpose and authority. He opened the blind, adjusting its slats so that the afternoon sun streaked across the acoustically tiled ceiling and was deployed without glare around the room. He took off his tortoise-and-gold-framed glasses, huffed at the left lens, huffed at the right, cleaned them on the sleeve of his seersucker jacket, and holding them, turned to regard Xavier, who merely smiled.

Brant gestured him toward a narrow couch at the far end of the room. He watched him go, watched him perch, lanky and long legged, dark and thinly handsome, taut on the couch's edge, watched him readying another smile; then he looked away. He was fond of Xavier, and proud of him too--as a teacher is proud of an apt and admiring student whom he has since encouraged and advised, and fond of one whom he has now and again over a period of a dozen or so years consoled with greater quantities of whisky than were absolutely necessary.

With thumb and forefinger Brant pinched the bridge of his nose, and massaging it, rubbed the small grit of weariness from the corners of his eyes. After putting his glasses back on, he went to the medicine cabinet above the washbasin and found a bottle of anesthetic eye drops, which he carried to the couch. "Lie back, James," he said in his bedside manner voice and with his bedside-manner smile. "I want to take a pressure reading."

Xavier nodded, and pulling up his legs, stretched out on the couch. His breath was shallow with fatigue, his smile tentative and difficult to interpret.

Using the eyedropper that was attached to the bottle's cap, Brant squeezed a drop of the desensitizing fluid into each of Xavier's eyes, which Xavier then dutifully closed.

Brant stepped away from him. It would be a moment before the drops had done their work. He started to leave the room. Then, turning, he moved instead to the instrument cabinet, took out a pressure gauge, and fiddling with it turned again, this time to look long and steadily at Xavier. "Why are you here, James?" Sam Brant asked in a soft tone.

"You had the same examination three months ago," Brant said matter-of-factly. He poised the pressure gauge over Xavier's right lid, waited, cleared his throat, waited a bit longer, then said. "Look at my finger."

Xavier quickly opened his eyes, stared at Brant's extended forefinger.

"What makes you think your eyes will change in three months?"

"Nothing," Xavier said. Out of his range of vision the Pressure gauge descended toward his right eyeball. "Nothing yet--"

The gauge had touched Xavier's anesthetized cornea. Brant removed the instrument and noted its reading. Normal. "Then this has something to do with your research," he said. It was a question.

Xavier didn't answer.

Sighing, Brant reset the gauge and moved it to Xavier's other eye. "My finger again," he said, holding it out again.

Xavier looked at Brant's finger.

Brant lowered the gauge, let it register, removed it. "You're planning to experiment on yourself." He glanced at the gauge, then set it aside. "Aren't you?"

Pushing himself up on his elbows, Xavier blinked at Brant; then, twisting about, he sat straight on the edge of the couch and smiled slowly.

For several moments the two men looked at each other in silence. "All right," Brant said at last. He sighed again.

"You're a fine doctor. You know what you're doing. But you only have one pair of eyes."

"And with them, I want to see," Xavier interrupted. He groped in his pocket for a handkerchief, found it, and used it to wipe the remainder of the drops from his eyes. Then, balling the handkerchief in his fist, he stood up, facing Brant.

"You see fine," Brant said, turning from him.

"Sam,"--Xavier moved after the older man--"what"s the range of human vision?"

"Distance?" Brant turned again.

"No, wave length."

"Between thirty-nine hundred and seventy-five hundred angstrom units. You know that."

"Less than one tenth of the actual wave spectrum."

Brant was puzzled, mystified. He knew almost nothing of Xavier's current work, and this, in itself, was unusual. Gazing at Xavier, he hesitated to guess.

But Xavier didn't give him a chance. "Sam," his voice rose in excitement, "what could we really see if we had access to the other ninety per cent?" Xavier swept out his arm. Not waiting for an answer, he hurried on. "Sam, we're virtually blind! All of us! You tell me my eyes are perfect. They aren't! I'm blind to all but a tenth of the universe!"

"My dear friend," Brant moved closer to him. "Only the gods see everything."

My dear Doctor," Xavier smiled challengingly, clutching the balled handkerchief hard in his fist. "I'm closing in on the gods!"

"RIBS--a blurred gray, moderately deep. Lungs and heart--lighter in tone, hazier, harder to distinguish. Near the center of the plate, a dark spot--small, fuzzy around the edges, clearly out of place."

Xavier tugged a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat, tapped the side of the X-ray viewer. "Go on, Doctor," he said gruffly, "make a diagnosis."

"Foreign object--looks like a bullet--in the chest cavity." The voice, which came from behind Xavier, was feminine, soft, deeply melodious.

Grunting, Xavier whipped the plate out of the viewer and threw it onto the desk. Other X-rays were scattered across the top of the desk. Xavier chose one at random, inserted it in the viewer, grunted again. "And this?" he said, pointing at it with his pen.

"Lesion in the heart area," Xavier's visitor said uncertainly. She leaned forward, studying the pattern of overlapping shadows at which Xavier continued to point. "Maybe in the lungs," she said, then paused. "Might be carcinoma."

"Or a clot?" Xavier drew an imaginary circle around the portion of the X-ray in question, then he put away his pen and shrugged. "Or just a fog on the plate?" He snapped off the viewer and turned to face Dr. Fairfax.

Dr. Diane Fairfax was young. Most lady doctors were extraordinarily good looking. Not the blonde, blue-eyed, pixie-faced, dimpled and darling little Diane. She was beautiful. Even with her yellow-gold hair pulled into a severe French knot. Even with her charming, delightful curves half hidden in a fashionable beige linen bag. Entirely modest, obviously intelligent, wholesome to a fault, Dr. Diane Fairfax, nonetheless, consistently inspired some men to daydreams and others to practical thoughts along very basic lines. In women, she tended to inspire resentment. She couldn't help this. She was beautiful. Among men, only Dr. James Xavier could have failed to notice and approve.

Dr. James Xavier was too busy, too absorbed in his work, too anxious to protect it. Hostile, barely polite, he stared at Diane; he waved her to a chair, and when she was seated, he stationed himself beside the darkened X-ray viewer and lectured at her. "Yes," he said condescendingly. He struck backward at the viewer, hitting the plate in it with the knuckles of his open right hand. "Yes, it could be any number of things. But what is it really? Just a shadow play--a pattern to be used for intelligent guesswork--a slight help toward saving the life of the man who reflected those shadows."

"An immense help, Dr. Xavier," Diana Fairfax said in quiet protest.

He stepped toward her, and with a deprecatory shrug, he pushed simultaneously at the two red buttons in the base of a pivoted fluorescent desk lamp. "When we have nothing better, anything is an immense help," he said, watching the pair of fluorescent tubes, one after the other, flicker to life.

As a silent Diane Fairfax turned to follow him with her widened and slightly startled eyes, Xavier strode the length of the laboratory to the three large windows that filled its southern end. Quickly, impatiently, he raised the blinds on all three, hooking the drawn cords back, out of the way. Thin metal slats clattered for an instant. The laboratory, with its tangle of beakers, retorts and tubes, meters, chart drums and scopes, glowed in a sudden access of hot, brilliant sun.

"Light!" Facing Diane again, Dr. James Xavier stood outlined in the blaze of it. "Waves of energy that excite the eye. The nerve cells transmit this pattern of energy to the brain, and inside the brain, we see." He paced up and down before the windows. "But..." He stopped and gestured widely. "There are other forms of energy, on different wave lengths."

"Dr. Xavier," Diane Fairfax said calmly, "I've read your report."

"But did you understand it? Do you have any idea of what I'm trying to accomplish?"

Gazing across the laboratory at him, she nodded slowly. Yes, she knew. She knew, too, that Xavier"s original project had been studies to determine the effect of certain metabolic exudates on low-grade photo-receptivity. But the project, the approved of investigative techniques, the revised outline (submitted by Xavier on the basis of unexpected preliminary findings and, in due course, approved by a special committee of qualified experts), the second revision (provisionally approved by the same committee), and the third (also provisionally approved) had long since been abandoned. Dr. Diane Fairfax knew precisely when, and she had guessed why.

Xavier moved closer to her, then, stopping, leaned forward over the clutter of equipment on a zinc topped laboratory table. "Dr. Fairfax, I am developing a way to sensitize the human eye so it sees radiation up to and including the gamma rays and the meson wind!"

Diane straightened to the limit of her five feet and four inches, sensible little heels included. "Yes," she said, struggling to control her impatience. "I understand. I understood your objective as soon as I read your latest report."

"Then why are you here now?"

"Because the report in question was dated nine months ago! Since that time you have drawn over twenty-seven thousand dollars of the Foundations money, and we haven't heard a word from you!"

"There have been problems!"

"Then report them!"

"To whom?" Xavier thumped an angry fist on the top of the lab table, then raised his voice to make it heard over the chattering of disturbed glassware. "A group of businessmen who don't know one quantum jump from another?"

"No!" Diane's voice rose also. "To me!" She stepped toward Xavier.

He stepped back, surprised into silence.

Diane drew in a sharp breath and managed, with grudging concentration, to regain a measure of equanimity. "The Foundation considered your research worthy of support," she said firmly and very quietly. "The Foundation also appointed me as liaison to these special projects." She stared at Xavier, watched him appraising her, and waited a moment for him to speak.

His gaze, slitted and aggressive, settled on the slender curve of her ankles. He smiled thinly, then looked up so she would have the full effect of it.

"Listen, Dr. Xavier," she said, returning his smile with a carefully patient grin, "I've given up my own research to help the Foundation, and I won't be talked to as if I were a child in kindergarten." The grin faded and was replaced by a mighty frown, a threatening frown that, inevitably, lost most of its menace because a face as elfinly lovely as Diane's was too beautiful to contain it.

"I knew your reputation," Xavier told her dryly, and smiled again. "But I hadn't heard about your temper." He motioned her toward a closed door in the laboratory wall opposite the desk. "Come with me," he said, striding past her to stand, half smiling, half glowering, with his hand on the knob.

"Dr. Xavier, I--"

"You want a progress report?" he asked sharply."

"No." He cut her off. He had no time now. No time to accept apologies, listen to explanations, or be bothered with appeals to his reasonable nature. He had made up his mind. Too suddenly? Too much in anger? Well, he'd find that out soon enough. If not, he'd think about it later.

Diane hadn't moved.

He signaled to her again. "Come on," he said, and started to open the door. "I'll give you something better than a progress report. I'll give you a demonstration!"

Confused and wary, and a little frightened by Xavier's intensity, but above all, curious, Dr. Diane Fairfax crossed the laboratory and allowed herself to be guided through the door which Xavier immediately shut behind them. She was confronted by a large white screen of the sort used to barricade sickbeds and hold exhibits in galleries and shops. Xavier pushed it aside, and standing next to it, gave Diane a moment to look around.

This was the animal room, windowless and warm enough to be stifling. More white screens were ranged several feet away from the back one, hiding a row of cages, keeping drafts from their tenants. Only monkeys could speak so shrilly, or rattle bars with such incessant demand, cutting off their view of the rest of the room. Still more screens, like the white ones, but painted in a variety of brilliant colors, were lined up against the adjoining wall. Cabinets and counters, a laboratory table in the center of the room, sacks of food, a refrigerator, sink, a bookcase crammed with spiral, clip, and loose-leaf binders in just about every size and shape made. There was little else to see.

Three continuous light strips were recessed into the ceiling. The one directly above the animals was already burning. Xavier reached behind Diane to switch on the other two; then, gesturing at Diane to come with him, he moved toward the cages.

The animals being used were spider monkeys, long tailed, long limbed, and, compared with the rhesus, infinitely good-natured. There were eight of them. Xavier stopped in front of the last cage on the right, and Diane, standing on tiptoes to peer over his shoulder, saw from the card on the cage door that the animal inside had been named Joe. Joe poked his arms through the bars and whistled softly. Had he disliked Xavier, or feared him, he would have run to the farthest corner of the cage and cowered there, keening his lungs out.

After a moment, Xavier felt along the top of the cage, found a pair of rubber gloves, and turning, tossed the gloves to Diane. "Here," he said crisply as she fumbled, but retrieved them. "You can be of some help. Put them on."

Startled, then puzzled, Diane complied.

From the cabinet nearest him, Xavier took another, heavier, pair of gloves, which he slipped on before he extracted, from the same cabinet, a pair of metal tongs and a thick lead box marked Danger Radioactive Material.

These last two items he carried to the laboratory table. Depositing them there, he stooped and squinted at the coded labels on a group of carboys beneath the table, and choosing a bottle filled with a pale bluish liquid, lifted it into place beside the box and tongs. A rack of clean test tubes was already on the table. From drawers, Xavier obtained, a clamp stand, then a funnel and an eyedropper. He had everything he needed.

He glanced at Diane, who had come, still puzzled, to watch him. He picked up a graduated test tube and secured it in the stand, tilted the carboy and carefully funneled off just enough of its unidentified contents to fill the test tube to the four-cc line. Next, he got a firm grasp on the tongs, and using them with practiced dexterity, opened the lid of the lead box and that of a smaller lead box nested inside it, from which he brought out a tiny black vial. "These are hormones," he said to Diane, "enzymes. They've been highly radiated." He turned his back to her, but went on with the explanation as, out of sight, he manipulated the test tube and vial. "Their molecular structure has been altered," he said, then proceeded to reel off a series of chemical equations so complex and advanced that even Diane had difficulty understanding it.

Finally, turning again, he gestured toward the caged monkeys. "Prepare the one in number eight," he told Diane.

She shrugged, then, moving to the indicated cage, opened it and lifted out the animal named Joe. She handled him expertly, and he responded to her gentle skill with prolonged whistles and whinnyings of pleasure.

With the noisy Joe happily perching in her cupped hands, Diane started back to the lab table. Xavier met and stopped her. He was carrying the eyedropper and test tube, which was still in its stand. "This compound," he said, guiding Diane to a counter alongside the cages, "used in drop form, changes the receptivity of the eye. The sensitivity is enormously increased."

"You've tried it?" Diane asked, unconsciously tightening her grip on the monkey.

Xavier stood still and looked matter-of-factly at Diane. He answered her in a matter-of-fact voice, "No."

"You're blunt, Doctor," she said. She stared at him for a moment, then, responding to his gesture, she put down the monkey, sitting it on the countertop and holding it there in readiness for Xavier's ministrations.

Xavier placed the test tube near the animal. He noted its excitement, its wildly gesticulating arms, the newly harsh character of its cries. He saw that Diane was staring at him again, waiting to see what he would do. "The monkey's been conditioned," he told her. "Standard pleasure-pain techniques." Making an obvious effort to control himself, he wiped a thick fog of perspiration from his brow.

Diane smiled nervously.

"When it sees a blue screen," Xavier continued, "It rings that buzzer, there, in the cage." Xavier still had the eyedropper in his hand; he pointed it toward the floor of cage eight, then started slightly, as if surprised by the sight of it.

Diane was nodding, looking at the cage.

Xavier leaned against the counter for an instant, and thought of at least a dozen things that might go wrong. Of how important they could be. How crucial. He glanced at Diane, who was nodding, waiting. He took a deep breath.

"When it sees a green screen," he said, "it pushes a second button, which causes a light to blink."

Diane saw the button, which was near the first one, but on the wall of the cage rather than on its floor. This time it was she who pointed.

Xavier smiled. He indicated the light, mounted above the cage in such a way the monkey could see it, but couldn't tamper with it.

Diane looked at it, nodded once more.

Xavier spoke more confidently, his voice rising and the words coming faster. "With a red screen, it uses the buzzer again, this time continuously."

He grinned at Diane, then, turning abruptly, he plunged the eyedropper into the test tube and drew up one centimeter of fluid. Without further explanation, he went to the monkey, took its head, and carefully let the contents of the dropper into its right eye.

Glancing at the electric clock on the wall above him, he waited a moment to make certain all of the fluid was absorbed. He released the animal. As it blinked dazedly at him, he found an unused notebook and entered the time and a few hasty observations about the monkey's initial responses.

Once more, he grinned at Diane, then drew another centimeter of fluid into the eyedropper and introduced this fluid into the monkey's left eye. The monkey reacted with dazed blinking, just as it had before. It closed its eyes, and to all appearances, fell asleep.

Leaving Diane to hold the animal, Xavier cleared the floor space in front of its cage, then hurried across the room to the row of colored screens.

"I don't understand," Diane said.

"Watch," he interrupted, tugging at a blue screen with one hand and a green with the other.

"But--"

"Watch," Xavier repeated breathlessly. He set the blue and green screens in front of the cage, went back across the room, and found a red screen, which he was now carrying toward the cage.

In obedient and puzzled silence Diane watched him put it behind the other two screens.

The three screens--blue, then green, then red--Xavier sandwiched before the cage in such a way that, facing them from the cage door, he could see only the blue screen. Taking the drugged monkey from Diane, he carried it to the cage, put it inside, and buckled its head into an arrangement of blinders and straps. The monkey, when it opened its eyes, would be unable to fix them on anything but what was directly before them.

Satisfied now, Xavier stood back. "How long?" Diane asked.

He glanced up at the clock. "Soon," he said, and signaling Diane to join him, he moved to an observation point behind and a little to the right of the screens. "The excitation should be a surface phenomenon."

Suddenly, as Xavier was looking at Diane, and she at him, the buzzer sounded, on, off, on, off.

"Ah!" Xavier whirled about, watched the roused animal stare forward and punch the buzzer on, off, on, off. "It sees the blue," Xavier said, and added worriedly, "the one it would normally see."

On, off, on, off, the buzzer sounded again and again. Xavier, nervously flexed and unflexed his fingers, almost keeping time with it.

As suddenly as the buzzer started, it stopped.

Gasping in unison, Xavier and Diane craned forward to look into the cage.

The monkeys eyes were wide, bloodshot, bulging. Saliva dribbled from the comers of its open mouth. The eyes widened further. Then, stretching out a paw, it began excitedly to punch at the second button. Above the cage a light blinked. The button Joe was thumping wildly to activate the light, was the one he had been trained to push at the sight of the green screen.

"He can't see it," Diane said, turning to Xavier for confirmation. "It's covered by the blue screen!"

"He does see it!" Xavier said exultantly. "He--"

The light had stopped blinking. The monkey whimpered--one small, weak whimper, then his paw moved back to the first button, depressed it, and held it firmly. The buzzer rang continuously.

"And the red!" Xavier shouted. "He sees the red!"

"It's covered," Diane protested. "Covered by two others!"

"Yes! Don't you understand yet? He's seeing through them! Through them as if they were glass!"

Almost in the same instant that Xavier finished speaking, the monkey twitched convulsively; his paw left the button; the buzzer stopped. For a moment, all was paralyzed, silent. Then, slowly, the monkey began to wail low. harshly and deeply. It was unbearably drawn out--an agonized wail that suddenly became a gurgle of sickness and utter horror.

Xavier rushed forward, toppling the screens in his haste.

The monkey reached through the bars, then his arms went limp. He was dead.

Xavier, and Diane beside him, stared at the cage and the animal whose name had been Joe. His head was still held by the straps, and he stared forward, through widened dead eyes that, calmly, hideously, mimicked those of the living.

"What did he see?" Diane whispered softly. "What did he see?"

ON THREE sides the research building was a black hulk against the clotted glow of the city's midnight sky. The fourth side was seemingly perforated, by two rows of tiny lights, twenty-five watts per landing on each set of fire stairs. Between them the watchman's twenty-five watts burned dimly behind the plate-glass doors of the entranceway. In the whole building, no other lights showed except those of Xavier's laboratory.

Xavier stood near the windows, looking out into the darkness. His rumpled and dirty lab coat hung open. His conservative tie was radically askew. His face was haggard, crosshatched with thin lines of exhaustion and defeat. He was smoking a cigarette, or rather, the butt of one. In a moment it would be consumed to the point where the filter would smolder and start to smell.

He inhaled deeply, let the smoke curl slowly from his nostrils and mouth. After lighting a second cigarette from the remains of the first, he stubbed out the butt in an ashtray on the stool beside him. Xavier moved toward Diane, who was sitting at the desk, bending wearily over a microscope. The body of the monkey, Joe, lay half covered on a dissection table. Xavier threw the sheet completely over it as he passed. He took the cigarette from his lips, and put it between Diane's.

She looked up, wiped her tired eyes and smiled. "Thanks, Doctor." She glanced toward the microscope and the pile of slides lying near it on the desk. "Can't find a thing," she sighed. "The tissues are fine."

Xavier nodded and shrugged. He accepted her verdict without question. It was what he expected.

Diane sat back. She twiddled the adjusting screw of the microscope, throwing the instrument out of focus, then looked once more at Xavier. "The autopsy?" she asked.

"Heart failure," he said, and shrugged again. "Nothing else. I'd call it shock."

"Because of what he saw?"

"Because he couldn't adjust, or comprehend what he saw or saw through. That's all. No pathology, no degeneration. The tissues are healthy." Xavier started to move away. Then, turning back, he gazed for a moment at Diane's worried blue eyes, her questioning lips, the impertinent loveliness of her face. "Dr. Fairfax--"

Flushing slightly, she brushed back a wisp of blonde hair that had escaped from the gleaming gold coil at the nape of her neck. She smiled. "I think after this night's work you can call me Diane."

Xavier returned her smile. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee."

"That's the best experiment I've heard all night," Diane said. She wiggled her stocking-clad toes, then fished under the desk for the shoes she had kicked off hours earlier. Putting them on, she stood and looked up at Xavier. "You're on, Doctor," she said spiritedly.

As Diane waited for him, Xavier took off his lab coat and tossed it over a chair. He went into the animal room, glanced quickly at the seven remaining monkeys, and shut off the light above them. Closing the door to the animal room, he came back to the laboratory and turned off all the lights. He led Diane through the opened lab door, along the deserted corridor beyond, and down two flights of echoing concrete stairs to the basement.

He held a waxed cup under the spigot of the coffee machine, and looked at Diane. "Black?"

She nodded and took the filled cup from his hands. She grinned her thanks, then made a face when she tasted the hot liquid. "Very black," she said.

Xavier chuckled. He dropped another dime into the machine and filled a cup for himself. "Come along," he said, grasping Diane's elbow to turn her toward the exit. He held the door open for her and joined her on the stairs, then pushed held open the outside door, releasing it and letting it thud slowly back into its frame after they had passed through.

For a moment Xavier and Diane stood side by side in silence, sipping their coffee. They were grateful for the cool night air, and each other's company. Still silent, they moved easily along a wide grass-lined walk.

Around them were the numerous buildings that, taken together, formed the great complex known as Area Memorial--the general hospital and the lying-in hospital, the children"s pavilion, cancer pavilion, special surgery pavilion, Area Clinic, Center for Psychiatric Studies, Craely and Whelan research institutes, the orthopedic institute, the nurses' residence and that of the interns, the medical school and its residences. Some of the buildings were dark and monolithic. Others were lit, obviously in use even at this late hour.

Near the general hospital the walk was flanked with stone benches. Xavier motioned Diane to one of these, waited until she was seated, then sat beside her. "You're a good worker," he said. "Why'd you give up research for money-lending?"

"I don't lend it. I give it away--a million dollars before breakfast every morning."

"How do your eggs taste then?

"Flat." She crumpled the empty coffee cup in her hand.

Xavier took it from her, touching her hand for an instant, then let it go. He looked at her. "You didn't answer my question," he said.

"I did, in a way." She gazed back at him. "When the Foundation picked me for the job, I didn't want it--and then I did."

"Why?"

"It needed somebody who cared. Somebody who'd support some of the more untraveled paths."

"Like mine."

Diane nodded, then frowned. "James, why do you want to see so much?"

"Why do you want to keep breathing?" He shifted a little away from her on the bench. "To stay alive!" He stood and paced the walk in front of her. "I'm curious," he said. "Frantically curious."

"No, I mean the purpose? How can you use your new vision?"

"A thousand ways!" He stopped pacing to gesture toward the lit hospital. "There. You're looking at probably the most important one! In that building there are people I could help, by being able to look inside them as if they were windows; search out their sicknesses with a clarity that would make X-rays a tool for witch doctors. Oh, the uses are there..." Xavier"s arm dropped to his side. He smiled wryly. "You could even see the worm in the apple before you bite."

Diane looked at him intently for a moment. Then she, too, stood. "There's more," she said, "isn't there?"

"Yes, so much more." He turned and seized her shoulder. "We're frail," he said. "We snap and break like dry weeds. The Universe, the sky and all the stars, everything pushes in on us." His hand tightened on her shoulder. "But we could push back if we dared." He released her, and as she took an uncertain step back, he looked up at the sky.

Diane's gaze followed his. The stars flickered brightly among the late summer constellations.

Xavier resumed slowly, carefully weighing his words. "My friend Dr. Brant says I want the power of the gods." He glanced at Diane, spoke quickly and feverishly, his eyes lit with excitement. "Well, I do! I want to rip the mask away from the universe! I want men to see it so clearly they'll no longer be afraid! And all the demons who hide behind the blackness of space--if they have faces--I'm going to look on them!"

Diane gasped softly and stared at Xavier, wondering about him. She shuddered slightly because she was afraid. With Xavier at her side, she started walking again.

Xavier was calmer, spent. His long legs fell automatically into pace with Diane's shorter ones. They were silent.

They passed the hospital, circled behind it. Xavier looked at his hands. He was still holding the two empty coffee containers, Diane's crumpled and his intact. Stopping, he tossed both into a nearby trashcan.

Diane glanced up at him and smiled gently.

"Your foundation," he said, forcing himself to smile back. "They don't like my work, do they?"

"They don't understand it. They want you to appear before the Board the day after tomorrow."

Xavier nodded. "I'll be there, and they'll have more than just a report." He grinned. "It's grown cold," he said abruptly. See you to your car."

"James." Diane turned to him. She was shuddering again, but it wasn't the cold that made her do so.

"Yes," he answered as if from a great, great distance.

"Be very careful, Doctor."

Nodding absently, he took her arm.

"Very careful," she repeated softly as he led her toward the only car still in the unreserved section of the research building's parking lot.

If he heard her, he gave no sign of it.

Xavier held the car door open for her.

"Please," Diane said, looking up at him, then climbed into the vehicle.

Xavier smiled. He slammed the door and watched Diane drive off into the night. He turned back to the research building, to his laboratory.

He would be careful. Not "very careful" perhaps. Not overcautious. Not timid. But as careful as he could be--under the circumstances.

He rang for the watchman to let him back into the building.

"NO!" SAM BRANT said vehemently. "It's too dangerous!"

"Then who is going to try it?" Xavier's eyes were hard and set. He was overwrought, feverish perhaps, but utterly determined; his voice was angry and harsh. "Some student? Some intern?"

Angry, too, and upset, Sam Brant moved across the laboratory to confront Xavier, who was standing near the desk, gripping the sheaf of papers on which he had worked until five that morning. "Yes!" Brant insisted. He glared at Xavier, and the papers Xavier held. "Or better yet some convicted murderer! Anyone who has less to lose than you!"

"And how would he report it? "My eyes feel funny"? "Gee, doc, I've got a headache"? No!"

"That monkey died!"

"It was a monkey, not a man!"

"I tell you no!" Brant said, lowering his voice and almost hissing.

Xavier slammed the papers down to the desk, and pounded them with his fist. "Yes!" he shouted.

Gasping, Sam Brant stepped back a pace. He sputtered incoherently for a moment. Then, staring at the younger man, he struggled for control, and understanding.

In a way, Brant did understand. He understood that Xavier had always been brash and a dreamer, too impatient with authority, arbitrary boundaries and restraints, with anybody or anything that kept him from trying, from finding out, from helping. He understood that today, Xavier was on the verge of something, and Xavier, if no one else, thought it was something big, and new, and tremendously important.

Brant knew that tomorrow, ready or not, Xavier would be judged. Tomorrow, four hidebound and demanding men, not one of whom was capable of grasping scientific detail, would expect Xavier to justify himself and his work. If he didn't, his funds would be cut off. Tomorrow.

Sam Brant turned away. He took off his glasses, found a handkerchief, and cleaned them. He understood, but he couldn't go along. It was too precipitate, entirely too risky. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, put his glasses back on, and looked again at Xavier. "I won't be a party to it," Brant said.

Xavier shrugged. "I'll proceed without you then," he said coldly.

Brant looked at Xavier for a moment longer. It was useless to go on arguing. Worse than useless, it was idiotic. He had said all he had to say. He had explained, cajoled, and insisted. Xavier hadn't budged. Well, then let Xavier him, Brant scowled, and stalked off toward the door.

"Sam," Xavier called softly after him.

Brant's hand hesitated on the doorknob, but he didn't turn around.

"I need you, Sam."

It was a few minutes before nine o'clock, and the building was beginning to fill with workers. A group of technicians chattered noisily in the hall. Brant listened, and partly opened the door. Then his head drooped. Slowly, he pulled the door shut and faced Xavier. "All right," he said in a choked voice. "When do you want to do it?"

Xavier smiled thinly. "Now," he said.

Nodding wearily, Brant went to the desk. He sat down, extricated the telephone from beneath the jumble of notebooks, and picking up the receiver, waited for the operator to answer. All the buildings of Area Memorial were connected to a central switchboard. At this hour of the morning it was particularly busy, and the wait for service seemed interminable. Brant grimaced, and impatiently tapped his fingers against the base of the phone. He glanced idly at some of the worksheets that were scattered ever the desk.

Xavier stood by and gripped the side of the desk as he leaned toward Brant. He straightened and smiled, trying to conceal his anxiety. Brant gave his extension number and almost immediately, spoke with his secretary about the morning's schedule.

As Brant and his secretary debated over which appointments could be canceled and others rescheduled, Xavier went into the animal room, and took out the tongs, heavy gloves, the box marked DANGER RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL and all the other equipment he needed. Then, finding the bottle of bluish liquid, he began rapidly to prepare the drops that were soon to be put into his eyes. The compound was the same that had been given to the monkey, the same that had indirectly--Xavier was certain--caused the animal's death. Xavier wanted it freshly made, just as it had been before.

Brant was still sitting at the desk when Xavier, test tube in hand, returned to the laboratory.

"Ready, Doctor?" Xavier asked.

"Ready, Doctor," Brant answered, and stood, looking glum but resigned.

Xavier set the test tube into a stand on one of the lab tables. A chair was set beside the table; a small portable tape recorder on the floor. Xavier snapped on the instrument, saw its reels begin to spin. Sitting he picked up the microphone and spoke into it: "August fourteenth. Notes on experiment designated "X." Experimental subject is myself, James Xavier. Assisting in the experiment, Dr. Samuel Brant.

"The compound, fully described in the written report, has been prepared. Dr. Brant will administer one cubic centimeter into each eye of the subject."

Sam Brant had winced at the first mention of his name. At the second, he smiled crookedly and started to move toward Xavier, who indicated with a nod that Brant was to get the eyedropper. Brant held it now. "One cubic centimeter," he repeated solemnly, drawing enough of the compound from the test tube to make the fluid level drop the requisite one cc.

Xavier glanced up as Brant came to stand before him. He put the microphone on the table to his right; then settled back into his chair. At his feet the tape recorder's reels went on spinning as three and three quarter inches of tape continued to pass the recording head every second. He smiled at Brant.

Brant, smiling grimly in return, extended the filled dropper and pointed it at one, then the other of Xavier's eyes. "Any choice?" Brant asked.

"Start with the right one," Xavier said quietly.

Brant nodded. "Tilt your head," he said. "Look directly up at my forehead."

Brant poised the dropper over Xavier's right eye. The dropper descended. Lower and lower, ready to expel its contents. Brant sighed. "Here goes, James," he said, and squeezed the bulb. "Good luck!"

Suddenly, Xavier felt as if his eye was being soaked in boiling glue. He struggled to keep his lid open. In a few seconds, the sensation was gone; the eye was prickly numb and seemed to have been packed in damp lint. Xavier felt very sleepy. He yawned.

Brant had refilled the dropper. He administered a cubic centimeter of the compound into Xavier's left eye, but Xavier, yawning, was scarcely aware of it. Unable to control the urge, Brant yawned also once. Scowling, he caught himself up. "Close your eyes, James," he said sharply, then sighed.

Xavier's eyes closed; his expression was smiling, but noncommittal. The tiny veins of his eyelids appeared to be somewhat distended; they throbbed rapidly, strangely out of rhythm with the pulse in his forehead and neck. His fingers twitched occasionally on the arms of the chair. Except for this, he didn't move.

Brant watched him, for a full minute had elapsed. "How many seconds?"

"Four to eight now," Xavier said, stiffening his body as he made the estimate. His forehead was beaded with perspiration. His mouth was taut in the grin he had forced upon it.

"All right," Brant said at last. "Open your eyes!"

There was a split second of blinding red. Xavier grunted, grimaced as if in agony.

"James!" Brant shouted.

Slowly, Xavier's lids parted. Grunting at the pain and shock, Xavier admitted to his vision a succession of exploding images: diabolical pinwheels, sharded and shatteringly bright, flaring nebulae, great stabbing flashes of color, then edges, sides, tiny geometrical chunks of real objects, all of which were out of focus, bathed in light of almost unbearable intensity, reflecting the light in every direction, distorting everything. "It's like..." But Xavier couldn't go on.

"James?" Brant gripped Xavier's shoulder.

"Like ... a splitting ... of the world." Xavier craned forward. He felt the tightening of Brant's hand on his shoulder. After a moment he spoke in a purposefully calm voice, "Vision fragmented. More light than I've ever seen. Filled with light! I..." Xavier's lids snapped closed. "I have to shut my eyes!" He sat back in the chair, reached up to wipe the perspiration from his brow, and instead, threw his arm over his eyes and kept it there, covering his closed lids.

Brant moved around him, looked at him. "Are you..."

"I'm fine," Xavier interrupted, letting his arm drop to the arm of the chair. "I'm going to try again."

As slowly as before, but without any grunting, pain or shock, Xavier opened his eyes. Light streamed into them, flickering randomly out and back, then gradually assuming a pattern. "It seems..." Once more, Xavier craned forward. "It seems all normal." He fixed his eyes on the desk and the sheaf of typewritten pages that constituted his report.

Brant's eyes followed Xavier's to the desk and the papers, which were near its edge, some two and a half or three feet from them. They were the same papers Xavier had slammed down and pounded upon when Brant had refused to participate in the experiment. The top sheet was blank except for a centered heading--Report of Experiment X.

"Wait!" Xavier cried, and gasping, he rose a little from his chair. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He squinted, peered. The top sheet of paper seemed to be slowly losing part of its substance--not dissolving, but bleaching out, becoming transparent. The heading was still there; the black ink of the letters was as black as ever, but the paper beneath the letters was beginning to look like cellophane.

Brant whirled about. He stared at Xavier, glanced at the headed sheet of paper, stared at Xavier again.

Suddenly, triumphantly, Xavier shouted, "I can see through it! Through it!"

"Read it!" Brant barked at him.

Xavier sat down. He smiled. Then, reading, he said, "The exact combination of hormones and enzymes is to be determined by analysis of the--" He stopped.

Grabbing at the desk, Sam Brant seized up the papers, and tearing away the top sheet, scanned the one that had been beneath it. The words were there at the bottom of the page. "Good Lord!" Brant said. "James, it's true. You can--"

Xavier nodded.

Brant turned to the next page of the report, read the rest of the sentence Xavier had started reading, then, very rapidly, the rest of the paragraph that sentence began. Shaking his head in disbelief, he restored the pages to their original order and put them back on the desk. Head still shaking, he looked at Xavier. "James!" he gasped. "Your eyes..." He bent toward Xavier. "They're shining."

It was no illusion. Brant stooped, and stood tall; he moved to the right, and the left. He saw Xavier's eyes straight on and from every possible angle. Xavier's eyes did indeed glow with a light of their own.

Xavier reached up, touched the lids. They were hot. He watched Brant, who had backed a few paces away. He watched Brant stoop and stand again. In a sudden access of flickering light, he watched Brant sway from side to side--or rather, he realized that was what Brant was doing.

Brant backed a few paces farther, then stopped. The two men continued to peer at one another.

"Sam, your jacket!" The flickering light was gone. Xavier could again see clearly. What had happened to the paper was happening now to Brant's white sharkskin suit.

"My jacket?" Brant fingered it.

"Transparent," Xavier said. "I can see the pen in your shirt pocket, and a button is missing."

Xavier's eyes fairly blazed now. He touched the lids again, felt the heat. He looked quickly around the room. At first glance everything seemed normal. For a moment Xavier was dumbfounded, but he didn't move.

Suddenly, there was a flickering change and Xavier started violently. Some things became transparent. He could see through the pasteboard covers of his notebooks, through the waxed bag that held a breakfast roll he had ordered and paid for, but neglected to eat. The lab coat hanging on a peg next to the door seemed to be made of cellophane, as did the lab coat Xavier was wearing, and the sheet that had been left on the dissection table after he removed the monkey's body, and the set of three color-screens he had brought in from the animal room before Brant arrived.

Xavier stared at ... through ... the screens, which he had quite forgotten until now. "It works," he said quietly, and in tones that were husky with awe. "Sam, it works!"

Brant had been observing Xavier in silence. He noted that Xavier began trembling, almost imperceptibly, that under a thin film of perspiration, Xavier's skin was inordinately pale, and the veins in his temples were throbbing at a rate that verged on being alarming. Knowing Xavier had seen through the paper, and the jacket, he guessed Xavier was now looking through the screens, and surmised he could look through other objects as well. It was very important. To Brant at least, it was totally unexpected. Nevertheless, Brant remained silent, and frowned.

"Only the surface has been penetrated," Xavier said. "My eyes aren't fully conditioned. I still can't see deeply enough." He turned toward Brant. "But it's a start!" His voice was jubilant, his body tense.

He wasn't trembling now, but his pulse had quickened dangerously, and his breath was growing shallow. His eyes, grown even more luminous than before, burned warningly in the deathlike pallor of his face.

Worried, Sam Brant moved closer to him, then he stopped, startled.

"Sam," Xavier was saying, "administer another centimeter into each eye!"

Brant gasped. "Not now," he said. "There should be tests." Once more, he frowned. "James, there might be side effects."

Xavier stood up. "All right," he said harshly, "I'll do it myself." He found the eyedropper.

While Brant hesitated, wondering whether or not to try to stop him, deciding yes, then wondering how, Xavier filled the dropper, tipped back his head, and squeezed approximately one centimeter more of the compound into each eye. With eyes tightly shut, he groped his way back to the chair and sat down. The eyedropper fell from his hand, bounced on the vinyl floor and rolled under the table.

Xavier kept his eyes closed while he clamped his fingers over the arms of the chair. By tapping his right foot and mumbling to himself, he tried to stay aware of the passing seconds. He strained every muscle in an attempt to remain awake, but the initial drugging effect of the compound was too strong. He lost count, and for a brief instant, he drowsed.

Suddenly, he thought he heard Brant speak his name. He jerked up. And his eyelids jerked open too soon.

He screamed. "No-o-o-o--" he moaned, throwing his arm up to protect his opened eyes. "The light!" His body was racked by hideous spasms. His arm flailed wildly, uncoordinatedly. His face was inhumanly twisted. His eyelids wouldn't close.

Through one contorted corner of his mouth, he screamed again. His lips writhed back against his teeth. As Brant ran to catch him, he collapsed, smashing into the table, then toppling to the floor.

XAVIER"S TAPE recorder sat at the far end of the large teakwood conference table. The reels were turning. The recorder's speaker was small and gave back Xavier's voice with little fidelity. The voice was clearly recognizable as Xavier's.

"I'll do it myself." Then a long pause that, toward its end, was filled with static through which only Sam Brant could identify the irregular tap Xavier"s foot, and the all but inaudible mumble of his counting. Next, the first scream, terrifyingly shrill, followed by the moaned "No-o-o-o--" and "The light!" Another, shorter, pause. Then the second scream and the sounds made by the test tubes, bottles, and retorts that had broken when Xavier smashed into the table. Finally, the dull thump of Xavier's body as he fell to the floor.

Sam Brant snapped off the recorder.

Although she had heard the tape before, Diane Fairfax winced. Slowly, she got to her feet and addressed the four elderly and distinguished and inimical men who were seated around the table, "That's the tape, gentlemen, and of course, the reason Dr. Xavier can't be present this afternoon." She smiled at each director in turn; then looked at Brant, and deferring to him, she said, "I've asked Dr. Brant to represent him here."

Brant stood wearily. He cleared his throat, glanced around the table, and fixing his eyes on the chairman, began, "Dr. Xavier has been unconscious since yesterday morning when this experiment took place. I've been asked by Dr. Fairfax to speak in his behalf about the continuation of his research funds." He gestured at the photo copies of Report on Experiment X that had been placed before the directors then, except for the chairman's copy, returned to the center of the table. "You've looked over Dr. Xavier's report. You've heard Dr. Fairfax's comments on some of its more technical aspects. You've heard the tape of Dr. Xavier's first experiment. I ... I think you can agree that a fantastic breakthrough is possible."

"Unbelievable might be a better choice," the chairman interrupted. This was Gordon F. X. Huggins, portly, potbellied and authoritarian, accustomed to having his own way because, as he would coldly but politely inform anyone who was fool enough to ask, he knew best. After all, he was the Gordon F. X. Huggins who owned the railroads. His co-directors were Waters, the banker, Harbman, who collected dividends with one hand and modern art with the other, and Southland, who was pharmaceuticals really, but preferred to think of himself as a foremost philanthropist. He looked meaningfully at them. "X-ray vision--men who see through paper. It doesn't sound likely."

"Gentlemen," Diane Fairfax said, standing again, "Dr. Xavier is unable to speak for himself, but his work speaks for him. It can and will be repeated by others. It is up to this foundation to finance the further work that is necessary."

"I must confess, Doctor," the chairman said with an elaborately know-nothing grin, "that I do not believe in the continuance of this work. I mean, there is still nothing positive that has come out of it--"

"But--"

"And secondly, our funds are becoming much more limited--"

Rising to stand at Diane's side, Sam Brant added his protest, "But, gentlemen--"

He was cut off by Waters, the second director, who rapped for attention with his pipe, knocked the dottle out of it, and said, "What if he succeeded? The experiment sounds extremely dangerous. Who would dare repeat it?"

Sam Brant sat down again. He looked at Diane, nodded unhappily. His eyes showed resignation.

"We have enough information to bring the matter to a vote," the chairman said, and stood--out of respect for Diane, who was expected to take Sam Brant with her and go. A transcript of the meeting would be mailed to her; however, she could, if she so desired, wait in the corridor and return to the room after the vote, had been taken, the final decision reached.

The decision would be no. Diane knew it; Sam Brant knew it; all the directors knew it. The case would not be given any further consideration. It would not be referred to any special committee. Not this time.

For nine months Xavier had no more to do with the Foundation than to requisition too much of its money. He hadn't kowtowed, hadn't even reported. Therefore, he had shirked his obligations. He was irresponsible. Could such a man produce anything that would be a credit to the Foundation? Obviously, he couldn't. Whatever the evidence, it was ridiculous to countenance the notion that he could. Therefore, Xavier was done.

Looking defeated, Diane Fairfax signaled Sam Brant to get the tape recorder. Then she signaled the chairman she would wait.

Brant waited with her. It took no longer than five minutes.

When she returned to the conference room he stayed in the corridor, waiting for her to come out again. Ten minutes, more or less. Afterward, he bought her a drink, then they went to the hospital.

Xavier had regained consciousness, and with the unneeded, unwanted help of a nurse, he had eaten his dinner. It was about half past five when Brant and Diane arrived. A kitchen worker was removing Xavier's tray; a nurse's aide was putting a thermometer into his mouth. Xavier smiled, tentatively optimistic, and cheerful. The aide shoved the thermometer back under his tongue and left immediately.

Moving to the side of the bed, Diane took hold of Xavier's hand. She was the Foundation's liaison officer, and the news was properly hers, much to the relief of Sam Brant, who rubbed at his glasses and stayed a nervous distance from the bed. Diane told the story.

Xavier mumbled, he chewed the thermometer, he wrenched free of Diane's hand and gestured uncomprehendingly as he listened, stunned. His face seemed suddenly thinner than it had ever been before. He looked haggard, old. His temperature, which had been normal throughout the day, went up a full one and a half degrees.

Diane had said just about all there was to say when the aide came back, took the thermometer from Xavier's mouth, read it and made a note of the reading, then shook it down and carried it away with her. Temporarily, Dr. James Xavier was speechless. Had he been alone with Brant, he probably would have cursed.

"And that's all," Diane said after the aide had gone. "They voted against you. I tried, Dr. Brant." Over her shoulder she glanced helplessly at Brant, who started toward her now. "Sam and I ... we tried--"

"Everything," Brant finished for her. "They decided to withhold the funds."

"My report?" Xavier propped himself on an elbow, looked toward Brant.

"They read it."

"But the experiment, the tape?"

Diane shook her head. "It made no difference to them," she said softly.

"Sit me up," Xavier demanded. He pushed himself forward to let Diane plump out his pillows while Sam moved to the foot of the bed and began cranking. "The directors ... Huggins, the others ... what were their reasons?"

Diane straightened, sighed. "Oh," she said, "the usual lines of research--too many grants this year, not enough--"

"No," Xavier interrupted, quiet but furious. "It wasn't any of those. They were afraid" his voice rose slightly, quivered with anger. "Weren't they?"

Diane looked at Brant, who came back to the side of the bed, and stared at Xavier for a moment. "James, you mustn't tire yourself."

"I'm fine, Sam. I'm perfectly fine!" Xavier had almost shouted. He caught himself, and clenching his fists, tried to speak more calmly. "They were afraid. Afraid of me, my work." He stopped, seemingly to think; then, hissing violently, he said, "But do you know what they really fear? The unknown--and any man who dares to plunge into it!"

"Please--" Diane said, worried.

Sam Brant scowled. He leaned closer to Xavier, spoke warningly, "James!" Assigning his own fears to the directors, he said, "They were afraid of the effects of the experiment, and the side effects on you!"

"So they cut me off like an arm with gangrene!

"And maybe they're right!" Brant said, exasperated.

"No!" Xavier's voice became stiff, ominously determined, and very quiet. "They're wrong. I'll show them just how wrong!"

Brant stood back. He and Diane exchanged glances. "We'd better leave," Brant sighed. "He needs rest."

Nodding, Diane reached down to touch Xavier's hand. She held it for a moment. Then, letting releasing it, she smiled gently and started toward the door.

Xavier had subsided. He returned Diane's smile, then sadly whispered her name.

Diane was moving through the doorway, and didn't hear him. Nor did Sam Brant, who was holding open the door. Brant started to follow Diane out. Then he paused, turned about, and looking back at Xavier, said, "James, I'll order the bandages removed tomorrow-a"

"The bandages?" Xavier asked, staring at Brant in momentary puzzlement. He put a hand to his eyes. "Oh, yes," he said, and smiled wryly now. "Why, I've hardly noticed them!"

The door shut silently after Brant. Xavier gazed intently at it, and felt for his eyes, but they were covered with layer upon tight layer of close-woven gauze bandages. "Hardly noticed them at all," he mumbled to himself.

He looked at the door a few seconds longer. He shifted his head on the pillows and looked around the room. He looked at the nightstand, the dresser, two chairs, the bedtable which had been wheeled down over his feet; the Van Gogh sunflowers on the wall; and finally, at the leaf-patterned yellow drapes that were drawn across the window, but failed to obscure his view of it. Looking upward, he could see many of the buildings that surrounded the hospital and he could, he thought, make out a corner of the research building, most of which was hidden by a pair of taller, more imposing structures.

Through the layers of gauze covering his eyes, through the folds of patterned cloth covering the window, he watched the moon's lopsided progress as it rose between the two buildings and over the flat roof of the third. He chuckled unpleasantly.

THE BIGGEST of the movers wiped the sweat from his forehead; stuck his cigar back in the comer of his mouth, and bent over a crate of packaged glassware. Noting that it was labeled "fragile," he picked it up, sniffed at it, and roughly heaved it onto a dolly. Xavier winced.

Turning toward Xavier, Dr. Willard Benson shook his head and smiled thinly. "You'll get your chance again, James," he said.

"Yes," Xavier said. "I will." Two men from the maintenance department were disassembling his equipment. Two other movers--there were three in all--were packing it into barrels and baskets, cartons and crates. A man from the linen service traipsed back and forth in the laboratory and the animal room, gathering up a surgical sheet here, a lab coat there, a towel or two in the next place, and stuffing them into his bag.

"I think it's for the best in any case," Benson said. "You need a rest from research. A return to doctoring will be just the right prescription."

"Couldn't the hospital--"

"No." Dr. Willard Benson was an M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.S., and F.R.C.S. All the initials were strung out, one after the other, on his deckle-edged vellum letterhead. He was in his late fifties, which was his prime--just as his early fifties and his late forties, his sixties and his seventies, and every age in his imaginable past and his foreseeable future had been or would be his prime. He was important in the medical world and in society, and very important in his own estimable judgment.

Xavier frowned, but said nothing. He understood he was to consider himself honored by Dr. Benson's interest in him.

"We've been through it before," Dr. Benson continued. "We need all our funds just to keep this place going." He glanced quickly around the laboratory. "Well," he said crisply, "that's it." Then, clapping a hand on Xavier's shoulder, he declared, with all due reverence for the boon he was granting, "I want you in surgery tomorrow. You'll assist me."

"Thank you, Dr. Benson," Xavier said quietly.

"It's good to have you back with us," Willard Benson said. He smiled at Xavier for a moment, then released Xavier's shoulder and turned to go.

Xavier nodded--not too dismally, he hoped. He followed Benson across the lab.

"Oh," Benson said, turning again when he had gained the doorway. "You might look in on the patient. Name is Stanton, third floor, north. I've left the reports and diagnosis on your desk."

"Right," Xavier said. Benson had turned once more and Xavier had spoken to his retreating back.

Shrugging, Xavier went to the desk. He sat, dug in the bottom drawer for a towel, and held it out to the linen man, who pounced at it, delightedly stuffed it into his bag, and departed the lab. The movers and maintenance men continued noisily about their business. Xavier sighed. He found the folder Benson had left for him and began reading.

A short while later he got up, and stood beside the desk until a pair of workmen had removed the lab table and the clutter of boxes blocking his path. He went into the animal room.

The monkeys had been taken to the basement that morning, to await either assignment to another project, or adoption by the city zoo. A few small objects were missing from the room, but most of the equipment was still there, and essentially undisturbed. Xavier breathed a sigh of relief. If the compound would only be stable--

He worked swiftly, but with extreme care. When he was through there were two test tubes of newly prepared compound on the table before him. One was full, and the other three-quarters full.

Leaving the test tubes for the moment, Xavier carried the lead-housed vial of irradiated materials to the laboratory, and there, to the desk, where he labeled the outer container Property of Dr. James Xavier--DO NOT REMOVE! He set the container square in the middle of the desk, on top of some similarly labeled papers, picked up another label, and returned to the animal room. It was a few minutes past four o'clock. The maintenance men had quit for the day; the movers, with another hour to go, were starting to haul away some of the laboratory's heavier furnishings.

In one of cabinets in the animal room, Xavier found a large brown eyedropper-topped bottle, the largest such bottle he could get comfortably into his pocket. He labeled the bottle "X," then filled it from the pair of test tubes. It took all but three centimeters of the compound. These he used, one and a half cc's in the right eye, and a one and a half cc's in the left.

It was nearly eight when he awoke, feeling hungry. His eyes felt fine. His vision was as he had expected, or hoped it would be.

He put the bottle of "X" compound in his pocket, then went back into the laboratory. The movers had gone, taking everything but the desk, the desk chair, and filing cabinets, which they had shoved out from the wall alongside the desk. The floor was littered with scraps of paper, cigar and cigarette butts, ashes, cut-off rope, and miscellaneous other debris. Near the door there were two one-gallon cans of white paint, some folded drop cloths over them.

Before he left the lab Xavier telephoned Sam Brant, and reaching him at home, arranged to meet him after he'd had a look at Dr. Willard Benson's patient. He hung up without mentioning the compound, and in particular, without mentioning that he had used it again. He hurried then to the children's pavilion.

Ward 3N was for serious cases. Depressing enough during the daytime, it was incomparably dismal now. Toys were scattered about, shades were drawn, and the lights dimmed. The children were sleeping, as best they could.

There were twelve beds, six on either side of a wide center aisle. Xavier started down it, looking for Stanton. He glanced at each bed for a moment, got almost to the end of the aisle.

"Can I help you, Doctor?"

He looked up, saw that the duty nurse had entered behind him. "A patient," he said. "Mildred Stanton."

"Oh, yes, Doctor," she said, and pointed to the first bed, which was partially hidden when the door was opened. "Right here." She was middle-aged and motherly. "You passed the bed." She waited for him, but perfunctorily. She didn't notice his eyes.

He kept them somewhat averted. They had glowed the first time he used the drug--glowed strangely and rather frighteningly according to Sam Brant, an eminently qualified observer. Strange and frightening. For all his training, experience, and keenness, Brant could describe the phenomenon in no better words than that.

How long had the luminosity persisted? Xavier didn't know. He had been slapped into bandages so quickly, it was, again according to Brant, very intense when the bandages were applied. The glow was gone completely when the bandages were removed. That had been two days, later; his vision had returned to normal then. Brant had made an ultra-thorough examination of Xavier's vision, and the eyes themselves, and had turned up nothing pathological, nothing unusual or suggestive.

Xavier thought the glowing was probably a harmless and transitory side effect, like the reddening of skin after certain kinds of injections. There were so many things he didn't know--yet.

Suddenly, his eyes began to feel warm. He wondered--

"Doctor, are you all right?" The nurse's tone was impatient. Etiquette, and hospital rules for that matter, required she wait for her dismissal. She wanted it now.

"That'll--" Xavier said, intending to excuse her. But he couldn't finish. His eyes seemed to be on fire. They throbbed mercilessly. Wincing, he closed them and pressed his hand to his forehead.

He turned away for a moment, then controlling himself, he turned back. His hand was still on his forehead. His eyes were slitted open, tears welled from their corners. "A headache," he said. "A sudden headache, that's all."

"May I get you something?" the nurse asked, concerned now. She moved toward him.

"No." He waved her off. "Nothing, thank you." Again, he turned away for a moment.

When he turned back the throbbing was gone from his eyes, and the fire in them was less fierce. Keeping the lids almost closed, he smiled wanly. "That'll be all," he said.

"Yes, Doctor." The nurse glanced dubiously at him. Then, a little reluctantly, she went to answer a call light at the far end of the ward.

Xavier drew a chair up to the bedside of Mildred Stanton, and took her wrist to feel the pulse. Heavily sedated, the child didn't stir. She was twelve years old, brown haired, sparsely freckled, and very pretty. Xavier sat quietly, looking at her.

After a short while he tensed forward.

Inch by inch he studied the child's blanketed body. His eyes settled on her chest, stayed there. He gripped the arms of the chair, rose a little from it, then he sank back, exhausted. The chair grumbled softly against the tile floor. Xavier shook his head and closed his eyes a moment, opened them again, shook his head again.

"Benson's wrong," he mumbled to himself. "The diagnosis is wrong."

"Doctor?" Mildred Stanton blinked up at him. She smiled sleepily, trustingly.

"Hush, Mildred." He smiled back, patted her hand. "Sleep."

"Your eyes ... they're nice eyes..."

"Shhh," Xavier said.

Smiling, she drifted off.

And shaking his head, Xavier watched her.

"She's pretty, isn't she?"

"Yes," Xavier murmured abstractedly. "Yes, she is." He turned and starting a little, he recognized Dr. Willard Benson.

As Benson left the foot of the bed to move toward him, Xavier stood. "Doctor," Xavier said, and glanced from Benson to the sleeping child, to the corridor outside.

Benson nodded, stood back, and gestured at Xavier to precede him through the open door.

"Doctor," Xavier said again when they were in the corridor. He paused until a passing nurse was out of earshot. "I want you to reconsider this operation."

"Why?" Benson asked, frowning first, then arranging his features to show that he--Dr. Willard Benson--was attentive, open-minded, always willing to hear and weigh the opinion of a junior colleague.

"You're going to operate to remove a clot in the heart," Xavier continued quickly, urgently. "But it isn't a clot. It's a growth on the back wall--a shallow growth--on the exterior of--"

"Nonsense," Benson said. He had heard enough and was ready to explain the other man's error. He smiled, as if to a disciple, then said patiently, of course, "The X-rays were taken at every possible angle." He smiled again.

"Doctor, please, I know what I'm saying." Xavier stared at Benson, exhorting him. Realizing at last that he would never penetrate Benson's smile, he said hotly, angrily, and in a voice that was almost rude, "You'll be cutting into a perfectly good heart."

Dr. Willard Benson bristled. "Doctor," he said, "I will expect you in surgery at six, and I will perform the operation as I've outlined it." Turning on his heel, he stalked toward the elevators at the far end of the corridor.

Xavier looked after him for a moment, then went to the door of the ward, and standing near it, gazed down at the sleeping child. She was still smiling innocently, trustingly. Xavier's smile was thin with determination.

Diane Fairfax saw him turn away and move slowly down the corridor. She slid her feet back into the high-heeled calf sandals, patted the coil of golden hair at the nape of her neck, and the two soft golden curls that tumbled provocatively at either side of her forehead. She stood and left the darkened reception bay, darting a quick tongue over her lips before Xavier reached her.

His head was down.

"I..." She stepped into his path. "I was waiting for you."

He stopped, but kept his head down. He shut his eyes, and squeezing hard on their lids, trying to control the sudden vicious burning, the throbbing.

Diane didn't understand. "Sam..." she said brokenly. "I called Sam Brant to ... to find out how you were ... whether you were all right. He told me you'd be here, and that you'd probably be glad if I..." She gave up, and sighing deeply, waiting for Xavier either to move or speak.

For several instants longer, Xavier was incapable of anything more than knowing pain and fighting it.

"James!" Diane gasped when he finally looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" He shook his head. "Nothing, just a readjustment--"

"Your eyes!" Diane peered into the slits he had made of them. Weirdly shining slits. "You're continuing to use the--"

"Yes, of course I am," he interrupted sharply. He was silent for a moment. He closed his eyes completely, and spoke as much to himself as to Diane. "The vision--it comes and goes, but tonight I saw deeply--very deeply."

Diane followed him as he started toward the elevators. His movements were stretched out, mechanical, lank. Eyes open now, he seemed to be dazed, almost in a state of trance.

Diane wanted to say some things. She wanted, for example to tell him she was afraid. But it would have sounded too personal. Anything would have sounded too personal. Frowning, she scolded her unscientific self, her mushy self, and kept her own counsel.

He jabbed a long, stiff finger at the button marked 'm', for main. The red arrow brightened, showing that the cage of the elevator was riding down the shaft from above. Xavier saw the arrow thicken and swell, its head hovering and tilting, dipping in and out of a vast sea of flickering lights.

He gave Diane a most peculiar look.

She stared up at him, puzzled.

"Why, Diane," he said, and laughed. "You--you're quite--lovely."

"James, what are you talking about?" Tentatively, she dimpled. But his eyes were shining so ... Not weirdly now. But ... She stepped back a pace.

"You..." he said, and paused. His eyes held onto her; his mouth smiled amusedly. He fingered his chin as if in profound meditation. "You're very attractive."

"Why, Doctor," she said, bewildered now. "Such talk--here--"

He was thorough. He began with her feet, and laughed again. She seemed to be standing on tiptoes--except the toes weren't quite flat enough, nor the heels high enough, and the arch was too relaxed.

Good ankles, slender and very well turned, but he'd noticed this before. Fine calves, excellently fleshed; interesting knees; very interesting thighs, soft probably--but not too soft. Nice development in the adductor brevis, the pectineus, the piriformis, and--oh, yes indeed--

The elevator door opened.

"James?" Diane said.

He glanced up. "Very attractive," he repeated slowly, emphatically. Then he resumed at her navel. It was tenderly whorled, of course.

"James, the elevator..."

"I suppose," he said, considering the waist and its environs, "you might say I'm really seeing you for the first time."

The elevator door was beginning to slide shut. Diane reached out and held it open.

"You do have an intriguing birthmark above your third rib," Xavier said.

"But how do you know that?" Surprised, Diane let go of the door. It closed, and the elevator started to move. "You can see me!" she gasped, then, blushed and turned away.

Xavier studied for a moment her small, but magnificently picturesque rump. Then he counted one, two, three, four, five hooks and eyes on the back of her brassiere. He shook his head, clucked silently. "My..." he said. And considering, "Such charming vertebrae!"

Confused, Diane turned back to him, and blushed again.

"Please," Xavier laughed. "Remember I'm a doctor."

"Well, you remember I'm a woman!"

He laughed again. "I'll never forget," he said as he jabbed at the button that would recall the elevator.

SAM BRANT had a steak sandwich and one cup of coffee, which he drank as quickly as good conscience would allow. Murmuring a few gallant, but implausible lies, he left Xavier and Diane to dawdle and moon over the cherries jubilee and cafe filtre that came with their rather more elaborate meals.

On his way out, Brant gave the waiter a credit card and arranged to have Dr. Fairfax's and Dr. Xavier's checks charged to his, account. Looking back into the tiny restaurant's candlelit dimness, he saw that Diane and James had moved closer together on the red plush banquette and were smiling happily at a trio of satin-smocked fiddlers come to serenade them with soulful gypsy airs. Brant smiled too, and wondered whether he should spend the rest of the evening at the movies or reading a thriller--or perhaps, catching up on some of the medical journals. There was always television to solace a lonely widower--and there were always women. So many of them, so eager to please. In the end, he decided in favor of the journals.

It was long past midnight, and Sam Brant had been asleep for hours, when Xavier escorted Diane Fairfax to the door of her apartment.

It was getting toward dawn when Xavier came out of that door. He was humming "Play Gypsies, Dance Gypsies." Nevertheless, he went directly to his lab.

He had a desk, a bookcase, and a dozen file drawers to empty, papers to be sorted and notes to write. There were things to be packed, discarded, or returned to the friends from whom he had borrowed them. There was one other task.

The watchman admitted him to the research building at ten minutes to five. He left via the fire stairs some forty minutes later. Trying to hurry, he stumbled more than once. His eyes were shining very brightly, very insistently.

He was all right getting from the research building to the hospital. And he was all right in the locker room, and leaving it.

As he stepped from the elevator that had carried him up to the seventh floor, everything seemed suddenly to tremble and melt, to become shapeless and loose. Detached from reality, everything appeared to float toward him lazily, menacingly, to come close to his distended eyeballs, then snap out at them, and missing them by the barest fraction of an inch, retreat in an eerie flickering of lights. The sensation lasted only a few moments, accompanied by excruciating pain.

Xavier kept his eyes almost closed as he moved down the corridor. He had used one and one half cc's of the "X" compound in each eye, just as he had the previous afternoon. This time, he had fortified himself against the compound's sleep producing action by taking a whopping dose of amphetamines first. His heart was pounding too fast.

He turned the comer, and quickening his step as he neared the scrub room, he braced himself to open up his eyes.

"Good morning, Doctor." The voice was masculine, unfamiliar.

"Good morning," Xavier replied. He frowned. There was an instant of stabbing pain. He looked full at the approaching intern-and saw only a welter of flickering silver lights, a dim form behind them.

The intern passed him and the flickering subsided. Glancing back over his shoulder, Xavier saw the intern striding away in nothing more than a pair of ragged and outsized shorts. The effect was not amusing.

Xavier winced. Then, eyes open, he continued along the corridor, looking at its walls. They seemed to have been peeled of paint. He saw the mottled plaster, some of the lathwork, a few splintery studs and the nails that pierced them.

A nurse walked by. She was crepe skinned, naked. She was old. She was malign.

Another nurse, who was beautiful, tall and ivory nude, firm of bosom, broad of hip, moved jauntily, and was all the more sinister for it.

There were still other nurses, some beautiful, some not. All were naked. There were naked interns, naked orderlies. There were figures obscured as the flickering returned, some distorted, others made grotesque. There was Xavier's heart, pounding insanely.

He stumbled through the double doors to the scrub room. Two naked interns were washing up for the operation, as was Willard Benson, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.S., F.R.C.S., and despite all that, stark nude. They turned as Xavier came in.

"Good morning, Doctor," Willard Benson said coldly.

"Good morning, Doctor," Xavier said after he clutched at the doorframe long enough to be able to answer. He exchanged ritual greetings with the interns, then went to the first open sink, which was next to the one Benson was using.

Pressing the water pedal, he bent to begin his scrubbing. He could see the metal faucet, but not the water splashing from it. Nor could he see the soap. He groped for it along the top of the ledge.

"Here, Doctor," Willard Benson said, and handed it to him.

"Thank you," Xavier said. He held onto it while he looked around for the brush. But the brush, too, was invisible. Putting the soap where he could find it, he began, once more, to grope along the ledge.

Willard Benson straightened. He put the brush in Xavier's hand. Then, staring at Xavier, he asked, "Are you all right, Doctor?"

"Perfectly all right," Xavier said, forcing a taut grin in Benson's direction. Retrieving the soap, Xavier started scrub.

Willard Benson stared at Xavier's back for a moment, then he moved to the other side of the room to put on his gown, cap, gauze mask, and rubber gloves. The interns finished scrubbing and went to assist him.

One of the interns waited, holding out a gown while Xavier turned from the sink. Xavier could see the extended arms. He could see some of the muscles below their flesh, the intern's hands and the muscle pattern there. He guessed accurately at the position of the invisible gown, and after he had been helped on with it, he knew that what was next held out to him must be the cap and mask. He took these, one after the other and donned them without assistance. Then he held up his hands to be gloved.

"Shall we begin, gentlemen?" Willard Benson asked. He looked at the interns, who nodded. He looked at Xavier, nodded also. Smiling behind his mask, Willard Benson said, "I understand we have quite an audience."

"Audience?" Xavier was puzzled.

"We're operating in the theater room," Benson explained "They know the work's going to be unusual." He glanced at Xavier, saw his contracted brow. "Bother you, James?" he asked quietly.

"No," Xavier said in a voice that was ominous, and quieter even than Benson's. "I think they'll see everything they've come for."

Nodding, Willard Benson started out of the room. The interns followed him, but Xavier lingered a moment.

He watched three naked forms move across the room. Three human bodies. Three sets of human components captured in ghastly cellophane skins. One of them opened the pair of double doors which led directly from the scrub room to the operating arena. All three passed through.

Xavier gazed after them, heart pounding, eyes throbbing independently of it. One beat was deafening and over fast. The other was slow, silent and attenuated, incredibly painful. Neither was regular.

He clenched his fists, hard. He raised them to knuckle at his eyes. And stopped. The gloves--

Opening his hands, he held them stiff before his face. Long fingers, broad and competent palms--but what he saw was the strength inside. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, stiffened them again, regarded one. Stretched over it was a thin sheath of sterile rubber, which he could neither see nor feel. He flexed it apart from the other fingers, returned it stiff once more. The control was perfect. He was ready now.

Quickly, he crossed the scrub room, shouldered open the doors, and entered the arena. His step was resolute. His eyes blazed steadily, brilliant and intense above the gauze of his surgical mask.

The clock on the wall of the arena read 6:14. Xavier could see the metal hands, but not the painted numbers. He could see the works thrusting and turning beneath the face of the clock, and the second hand smoothly circling above.

He glanced at the gallery. There were about fifteen people sitting in its steep rows. Interns mostly, and a few residents, Xavier supposed. A man and woman were moving down the center aisle.

Diane Fairfax and Sam Brant took seats in the first row. Leaning close to the glass wall that separated the gallery from the rest of the room, they peered at the operating area below. They looked directly at Xavier, who turned away without recognizing them.

"They're almost ready," Sam Brant said. "Diane, why did you want me here?"

"I'm ... I don't know. I think I'm frightened."

"What do you know?" Brant asked matter-of-factly.

"Only that he's been taking the drug again."

Suddenly, Sam Brant was very worried.

Diane Fairfax tried to keep herself from trembling.

They watched in silence.

The anesthetist had placed an endotracheal tube, connected it to the anesthesia machine, and started the flow of gas before the surgical team arrived. He checked the heart action, blood pressure, and other vital functions.

The patient, Mildred Stanton, age twelve, was asleep. One of the interns inserted, in her leg, a needle through which intravenous glucose would momentarily begin to drip. The drape had been removed from her chest, and the area had been scrubbed and painted.

Dr. Willard Benson stepped forward. The chief nurse started the glucose. The interns came to stand opposite Benson, the scrub nurse behind him; Xavier at his right. The anesthetist signaled that all was well.

"Ready?" Benson asked. Everyone nodded except Xavier, at whom Willard Benson was now looking.

"Dr. Benson," Xavier said slowly, and with his eyes fixed on the patient's chest, "you must reconsider this procedure." Willard Benson grunted once and shook his head. He held out his hand, and receiving a scalpel from the nurse, made the initial incision.

The child's face was composed, her breathing regular. Her expression was innocent, trusting.

In the gallery above, a few spectators leaned forward, anxious to observe Benson's approach. Most were relaxed in their seats, waiting for the heart to be exposed, the real show to begin. Sam Brant, watching Xavier's eyes, scowled heavily. Diane Fairfax, watching Xavier's hands and the play of tension in his gloved fingers, found it harder and harder not to tremble.

Willard Benson poised his scalpel to cut deeper.

"No!" Xavier shouted through his mask.

As Benson turned, Xavier grabbed the scalpel from his hands.

"Good Lord!" Benson gasped in shock.

An overhead microphone carried his words to the gallery. Those of the spectators who had been relaxed bounced forward, eager and alert. Some rose from their seats; some whispered to their neighbors to find out what was happening. Sam Brant sat dumbfounded, frowning still, and shook his head in astonishment. Diane Fairfax turned deathly pale.

Xavier was holding up the scalpel, its blade tilted toward the operating table. "Doctor," he said, speaking in firm tones about a matter that had been quite decided. "I will perform this operation."

Willard Benson quivered barely an instant. Then, managing himself proudly in an emergency situation, he moved a step back, stared at Xavier, and asked, "James, have you gone out of your mind?"

"I want that child to live!"

Abruptly, Willard Benson turned to the scrub nurse, who was standing at rigid attention behind him. "Another scalpel!" he demanded, stretching out his hand to accept it. Closing his palm over the handle of the instrument, he turned back to Xavier, glowered at him, and said, "I'm going to continue!"

Willard Benson readied himself.

The interns glanced up from their labors at the site of incision.

Xavier, his eyes shining, looked at the shallow cut, and saw far beneath it. He saw the heart, and the organs surrounding it, saw the bones, muscles, blood vessels, and nerves. Mildred Stanton was laid out before him as if her body were a masterpiece of dissection. Her heart pumped. The blood rushed.

He glanced up, saw the honed metal edge of Benson"s scalpel. Once more, Benson had poised his instrument. Once more, a knife was about to enter between the spread lips of the incision, to move around the ribs, to slice the muscles, blood vessels, nerves, to slice the heart--wrongly.

Xavier glanced farther up, and a little to the side. He saw, under the mask that hid Benson's face from others, an expression that was grim, unyieldingly ugly, and full of contempt. Xavier blinked, then he saw Benson normally. He blinked again, and looked below the mask, below the skin, deeper. With another blink, he worked his way outward, back to the surface--the skin, the expression, and the mask that concealed it.

Suddenly, Xavier realized he was able to focus. He could see as deeply as he wished, and then no more. For an instant he was wholly triumphant. For an instant he forgot the child, forget the peril in which she lay.

Bensons scalpel was descending now.

Xavier still held the first scalpel. He lashed out with it, cutting across the knuckles of Benson's right hand. Blood welled through the gashed rubber of Benson's glove, started to drip away from it.

Quickly, Benson withdrew his hand, and looked at it. The scalpel fell to the floor. Then, unbelievingly, Benson looked at Xavier.

"It seems you're unable to continue, Dr. Benson," Xavier said, his eyes shining fiercely at the other man.

Horrified, William Benson backed away. "You're mad!" he hissed as he took a sponge from the nurse and pressed it over his bleeding knuckles.

"No!" Xavier said. "I know exactly what I'm doing! More exactly than any doctor has ever known before!" He let his scalpel drop, reached out to be given a sterile one, and continued, speaking very rapidly now, looking at the microphone, and aiming his voice to the stunned audience in the gallery above, "You think I'm mad! Well watch! All of you. Watch!"

Diane Fairfax clutched Sam Brant's arm. She nodded downward, and following her gaze, Brant saw the operating room orderly, who had risen from his stool in the corner of the arena and hurryied toward the table.

The orderly stood behind Xavier, and braced to seize him, whispered to Willard Benson, "Doctor, we could stop him."

Xavier's hand was still extended. No scalpel in it. He turned, and as the scrub nurse stood totally paralyzed while the orderly waited for Benson"s go-ahead, he found the scalpel he wanted, took it from the tray, and turned back to the table.

Benson signaled the orderly to remain where he was for the moment.

"You know of my experiments," Xavier was saying. "Benson, you know." He began to work, the scalpel flicking in and out, cutting neatly. "And what I'm doing is the result of them. The heart, lungs--all the internal structures--I can see them clearly."

"Doctor?" the orderly asked.

"No," Benson answered him quietly, fascinated. He motioned him away, motioned to the nurse to pass Xavier the instruments he needed, and to the interns that they were to assist him. Then, watching Xavier, he said, "You're operating well, Doctor, but I can't believe what you're saying to me!"

"Then look!" Xavier said. He straightened, faced Benson, and slowly, keeping his brilliantly luminous eyes fixed on Benson, he lifted his surgical mask and pulled it up until it covered those eyes. Then, as Benson gasped, he bent over the child again. He positioned his scalpel, and blindfolded, he continued the operation.

An hour passed, during which Diane Fairfax and Sam Brant stood breathless staring down, terrified. The other spectators, staring down, stood wide-eyed, frozen behind them. Dr. Willard Benson gasped from moment to moment, and signed urgently and impatiently to the interns, the scrub nurse, the other nurses, motioning them to stop staring, go about their proper business, assist Xavier, to apply clamps, pass instruments, start transfusions when the anesthetist called for them.

During that hour Mildred Stanton slept on, and Xavier's scalpel worked swiftly, surely, edging ever nearer to her living heart. Xavier's own heart pumped almost as rapidly as the one he was exposing. Sweat oozed from Xavier's brow and held to it, quivering, and Xavier's eyes remained completely masked.

Then the small growth was visible on the back wall of Mildred Stanton's heart.

A few seconds later, Xavier straightened again. He looked around, eyes still covered. Relaxing, he held up a pair of tongs and displayed the severed growth. "Not a 'clot,' Dr. Benson," he said softly.

"Close up," Dr. Willard Benson snapped to one of the interns.

"Yes, Doctor," the intern answered, taking over.

Dr. Willard Benson turned. He glared at Xavier, spoke slowly to him, in a voice that was thick with hatred. "Are you finished now, Dr. Xavier?"

"Yes," Xavier nodded tiredly. He untied his mask, and taking it off, let it dangle in his hand.

In the gallery, Diane Fairfax was hugging Sam Brant, shouting, "He's done it!"

"Yes," Brant said, "but there's going to be hell to pay! Let's get out of here!"

The other spectators were already rushing toward the doors.

THE STRETCHER was being wheeled out of the operating room.

For a moment Xavier stared after Mildred Stanton, age twelve; pulse normal, respiration normal, heart soon to become so. For the briefest fraction of a moment he was bothered by his eyes, by over-illumination, distortion, flickering--all of which he instantly controlled. He smiled. Then he turned to Benson.

"I'm ... sorry," Xavier said. "There was no other way."

The nurse who was binding Benson's cut hand glowered at Xavier. Benson turned away. "Thank you," he said to the nurse as she tied off the dressing.

"The child will live," Xavier said.

Benson looked at his hand. Despite the initial profusion of blood, the injury was superficial. "That's fine," he said, dismissing the nurse.

The girl looked from him to Xavier, then left quickly. Benson and Xavier were alone in the operating room.

Benson removed his surgical mask, balled it in his left fist. He glanced at the waste bucket only a few feet distant. He started to toss the mask; then, grimacing, he thought better of it. He walked over to the bucket, held his fist above it for several moments, and at last, opened his fingers to release the mask. He watched it fall. Only then did he turn to Xavier. "Of course," Willard Benson said quietly, "you know what you've done is unethical."

"I had no choice," Xavier said.

"And," Benson continued, ignoring him, "that news of it has probably spread already around the hospital--even to the newspapers."

"You saw what I've accomplished!"

"I don't know what I saw in here." Willard Benson shrugged disparagingly. "But this I do know--you're going to be tried for malpractice." Turning abruptly then, Willard Benson strode to the far doors and pushed through them into the scrub room.

Xavier gave Benson time to disappear. Then he, too, went into the scrub room. It was empty--at least Xavier thought it was empty. His eyes--flickered, the horror of too much light, the backing and filling of monstrous pain. His heart pounded. The word 'malpractice' echoed in his ears, shrill and vindictive above the low rumble of some sort of commotion in the corridor outside.

He stripped off his gown, cap, and sterile gloves, dropping them on the floor where he stood. Hesitantly, he moved toward the corridor doors. Bracing himself, he pulled them open.

A small crowd was waiting for him. It shoved toward him, noisily, excitedly. For a moment he was almost surrounded. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes. He lowered his head and shook it, warding off questions. Animal-like, he tried to plunge through the rim of people and away, but someone had hold of him.

Sam Brant pushed Xavier back into the scrub room. Brant held the doors until Diane Fairfax was in, then he leaned against them.

Diane rushed to Xavier, who was standing near the row of sinks. He flinched from her. "James!" she said, touching his hand. "It's me."

He looked at her, rubbed his eyes, looked again. "Diane?" His hand moved around hers, gripped it. "Diane--" He was seeing beneath her skin, seeing veins, muscles, and two lines of translucently white teeth, a chipped incisor, the other teeth even and flawless. He blinked, trying to bring her face into focus. He couldn't do it.

"James," she was saying, "you've got to get out of here!" Xavier's vision flickered. Light stabbed into his eyes, darting before them.

"James." Sam Brant took his arm. "You're coming with us."

"Yes..." Xavier nodded. "I'm very tired--"

They led him out through the operating room doors and across the operating arena. Members of the cleaning crew glanced up, curious and annoyed. They started to object, then shrugged and returned to their mopping. Diane was on Xavier's right side, Brant on his left. Through doors at the far end of the arena, they entered a back corridor, which led to the recovery room. There was an elevator a few steps down. Brant summoned it.

Sam Brant accompanied Xavier to the locker room, helped him change out of his operating greens. Diane Fairfax went directly to Brant's office and arranged several charts of test letters in the examining room. She closed the blind over the window, dimming the light. Then she waited.

Xavier sat in a straight chair twenty feet from the charts. Diane was standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her lips not quite brushing his forehead. Sam Brant stood beside the charts, pointing his finger at the fourth row of the top one. The letters were: C H P K R A.

"Read it!" Brant snapped at Xavier.

Xavier strained forward, and blinked. Then he read, "L, T, N, U, E, X."