“Joan makes sense,” Langford said. “If she were stone blind I’d still worship her.”
Dr. Crendon held his hands straight out before him and looked down at them. “I did my best,” he said, simply. “There were slight peculiarities of structure in the choroid but I’m sure that the new cornea will adjust. It’s the retina itself, the innermost nervous tunic of the eye, that I’m worried about.”
He paused, then went on quickly: “A mutant’s retina is hypersensitive. It responds to light in a peculiar way and has a tendency to distort images. But that distortion vanishes when the mind becomes really active.”
Langford looked at him. “Just what are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m not sure I know!” There were little puckers between Crendon’s eyes. “Put it this way. If she doesn’t brood too much, if she leads an active life and has complete confidence in her inner vision, her sight may improve. I think the failure of a mutant’s sight may be partly due to—well, a kind of fear. Mutants feel cut off from ‘normal’ humanity—whatever that may be—and are tempted to use their inner vision as a means of escape. And when they do that the outer vision dims to the vanishing point.”
“Then you think—”
“Make her feel that she can be of assistance to you in every moment of your waking life. Give her some important task to perform. Keep her with you, lad, as much as you can. She’s missed you these many months. Make her realize you can’t get along without her.”
Langford’s eyes held a dawning wonder; he seemed like a man from whom an immense weight had been lifted. “I was just about to tell you that I need her inward vision,” he said. “Not only the eyes you’ve done your best to restore, but her powers of clairvoyance.”
“You mean that?”
“Why should I lie to you, doctor?”
For the second time Crendon smiled. “No reason, I suppose. But I thought you might be deceiving yourself by pretending you needed her when you didn’t. You’ve been under something of a strain.”
It was Langford’s turn to smile. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh, yes I do! She saw you crossing the skyport with scanner beams trained on you; she saw you playing hide and seek with annihilation. I had to give her a sedative injection to quiet her.”
Langford did not move. Something in Crendon’s face told him he was not expected to say anything.
“So that makes me an accessory!” Crendon said, the smile still on his lips. “Her vision went blank when I decided she’d seen enough for her own peace of mind.”
He nodded. “I didn’t know whether you managed to escape or not; it kept me on the tetherhooks until you showed up in my office twenty minutes ago. I’ve always liked you, Langford; I flatter myself I know an honest man when I see one.”
His hand went out and tightened on Langford’s palm. “Come on, now! We’ve got to remove those bandages before she reads my thoughts, and knows how scared I get when I operate. Mutants know what humbugs we all are, Langford; they can see all the flaws in us, and if they can still trust us and believe in us despite that, they must be the forerunners of a new humanity in more ways than we dream!”
If Joan Langford had eavesdropped, using her strange sight, she gave no sign when her husband returned to her side. The conversation in the corridor had taken him from her for the barest instant, but that instant had seemed like an eternity to Langford and the inner vision of his wife.
For how could ‘time’ be measured in minutes or hours by a woman wearing a blindfold, shut away in the dark, and waiting a verdict that could cause the future to slough away into chill gulfs? And how could ‘time’ have any meaning when the stars faded out of the sky and a sunset gun boomed farewell to the joys of the physical world? And to one who loved and hoped—could ‘time’ be measured by the moving hands of a clock?
Quickly Langford’s fingers interlocked with those of his wife. “This is it, darling!” he said.
Crendon’s fingers fumbled a little as he turned Joan’s head gently from the light and began to unwind the bandages.
“Don’t open your eyes until I’ve removed the gauze pads,” he warned. “And don’t look directly at the light. At first you may not see at all; you must be prepared for that.”
Crendon hated himself for his sternness, but experience had taught him that it was best to arouse a faint antagonism in his patients; it prevented them from regarding him as a miracle worker. He wanted them to face reality with courage, for healing depended on many things and was often a matter of blind, fanatical trust.
“Now then!” he said.
As he spoke he raised the last fold of the bandage, and carefully removed the small, moist pads beneath, one from each eye. He straightened, his back to the light.
Langford looked away quickly. As though from a great distance he heard Crendon say: “Now you may open your eyes. Remember, you may not see at all for five full minutes!”
Mentally he added: Or ever! I shouldn’t be discouraged. A man does what he can. Ten years of it, ten years of trying to save human sight. And every day I learn something. And every day I envy men who endure merely the loneliness of space. Why pretend? I have never felt compassion for humanity in the abstract. It is only when I look into eyes that I have failed to heal and realize that I can do nothing at all.
“Dr. Crendon, I can see! Everything—clearly.”
And so it was that Dr. Crendon—moody, skeptical Dr. Crendon—received the greatest shock of his
