Haynes went back to his office and tried to work, but he could not concentrate. He made his way back to the hospital. There he waited, and as Lacy came out of the operating room he buttonholed him.
"How about it, Lacy, will he live?" he demanded.
"Live? Of course he'll live," the surgeon replied, gruffly. "Can't tell you details yet—won't know, ourselves, for a couple of hours yet. Buzz off, Haynes. Come back at six o'clock—not a second before—and I'll tell you all about it."
Since there was no help for it the port admiral did "buzz off," but he was back promptly on the tick of the designated hour.
"How is he?" he began, without preamble. "Will he really live, or were you just giving me a shot in the arm?"
"Better than that, much better," the surgeon assured him. "Definitely so; yes. He is in much better shape than we dared hope. Must have been a very light crash indeed—nothing seriously the matter with him at all. We won't even have to amputate, from what we can see now. He should make a one-hundred-per-cent recovery, not only without artificial members, but with scarcely a scar. He couldn't have been in a space crack-up at all, or he would not have come out with so little injury."
"Fine, doc—wonderful! Now the details."
"Here's the picture." And the doctor unrolled a full-length X-ray print, showing every anatomical detail of the Lensman's interior structure. "First, just notice that skeleton. It is really remarkable. Slightly out of true here and there right now, of course, but I believe that it is going to turn out to be the second absolutely perfect male skeleton I have ever seen. That young man will go far, Haynes."
"Sure he will. Why else do you suppose we put him in gray? But I didn't come over here to be told that. Show me the damage."