"Sire, I have a brother."
"Does he closely resemble you?"
"It is said, sire, that he does not."
"Good. Take 20,000 credits from the safe behind Kit's portrait and give them to him. Tell him that when The Assassin's party reaches my house he must go to the Body Bank and purchase all the eyes—I think there are eleven pair—all they have in stock. Now he must let it slip to the attendants while he waits for the eyes to be capsuled that he was sent by Konrad. And when he is outside again, he must go to the river, open the capsules and throw the eyes far out into the water."
"Sire!"
"Do you understand?"
"Yes sire."
"Taen, you will assist me as usual. I won't need you for this, Kit. Taen will be pretty enough for this patient. So you can catch up on your knitting. Right now I'm going to study up on the nervous systems of mountain men." As he pulled open one of the drawers of the capacious files in his study he called to Taen: "Sterilize and lay out the instruments as if we were going to do a Class 9 operation. I'll add anything else I'll need later."
When he came out to look for his cigarettes he saw Garth. Jeff's Adam's apple jerked nervously as he addressed Garth for there was frighteningly little written about the brain structures of mountain men. What there was indicated major physiological differences from Earthmen. "Garth; take your gas gun and go help Kit with her knitting. If you should hear the mountain men killing us, sneak her out her bedroom window onto the side street. She'll be completely in your care."
Taen blurted: "You could give him sight if you had the eyes from the Body Bank. Garth can't hide her very long at best. I don't understand sire."