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.

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