inside of the skull. Cooper sawed this back and forth and it cut
cleanly through the bone. Four times he repeated the procedure, cutting
out the sides of the square, and when he at last lifted out the detached
piece of bone he had opened a trapdoor into Debra's skull.
As he worked David's gorge had risen until it pressed in his throat, and
he had felt the cold glistening sheen of nauseous sweat across his
forehead, but now as the camera's eye peered through the opening he felt
his wonder surmount his horror, for he could see the pale amorphous mass
of matter, enclosed in its tough covering membrane of the dura mater
that was Debra's brain.
Deftly Cooper incised a flap in the dura.
We have exposed now the frontal lobe, and it will be necessary to
displace this to explore the base of the skull. Working swiftly, but
with obvious care and skill, Cooper used a stainless steel retractor,
shaped like a shoe horn, to slide under the mass of brain and to lift it
aside. Debra's brain, staring at it, David seemed to be looking into
the core of her being, it was vulnerable and exposed, everything that
made her what she was. What part of that soft pale mass contained her
writer's genius, he wondered, from which of its many soft folds and
coils sprang the fruitful fountain of her imagination, where was her
love for him buried, what soft and secret place triggered her laughter
and where was the vale of her tears? Its fathomless mystery held him
intent as he watched the retractor probe deeper and deeper through the
opening, and slowly the camera moved in to peer into the gaping depths
of Debra's skull.
Cooper opened the far end of the dura mater and commented on his
progress.
We have here the anterior ridge of the sphenoid sinus, note this as our
point of access to the chiasma David was aware of the changed tone of
the surgeon's voice, the charging of tension as the disembodied hands
moved slowly and expertly towards their goal.
Now this is interesting, can we see this on the screen, please? Yes!
There is very clearly a bone deformation here, The voice was pleased,
and the two students beside David exclaimed and leaned closer. David
could see soft wet tissue and hard bright surfaces deep in the bottom of
the wound, and the necks of steel instruments crowding into it, like
metallic bees into the stamen of a pink and yellow bloom. Cooper
scratched through to the metal of the grenade fragment.
Now here we have the foreign body, can we have a look at those X-ray
plates again, sister The image cut quickly to the X-ray scanner, and
again the students exclaimed. The girl puffed busily on her stinking
Gauloise.
Thank you.
The image cut back to the operating field, and now David saw the dark
speck of the grenade fragment lodged in the white bone.
We will go for this, I think. Do you agree, Dr. Friedman? 'Yes, I
think you should take it.
Delicately the long slender steel insects worried the dark fragment, and
at last with a grunt of satisfaction it came free of its niche, and
Cooper drew it out carefully.