"Proceed!" Jandro suddenly commanded. "I retire to the seaa-abasa. Farewell!"
The flowing pictures ceased and Illia felt suddenly alone, like a child lost amid a blinding storm. There was nothing to depend on now but her own skill and the telepathic instructions.
She faltered for an instant and breathed a name, "Del—Del!"
Akers was watching her sharply as she stood staring at the strange, unearthly organ lying in the brain pan of the dead Dragboran.
But it was not strange. She knew its constitution and anatomy and the complex nerve hook-up that connected it with the brain. They were as clear as if she had studied them for many years.
A surge of gladness and confidence filled her. She was alone in this yes, but that did not matter any more. She alone possessed the ability to perform the operation, and a world awaited the results.
Her scalpel entered the incision and touched the flesh with a pinpoint of destruction that sheared away the tissue from the delicate white nerve channels serving the abasic organ.
For a full hour, and then another, Akers watched in un-believing fascination as Illia freed the twelve separate nerve filaments serving it, then cut the artery and filled the vessels with the chemical solution that would feed the cells until Underwood's blood could be sent pouring through it.
At last all that remained was the severing of the connecting tissues that held the organ in place. Illia cut them and plunged her hands into the sterilizing, protecting compound that had been prepared at Jandro's instructions. She salved the organ and lifted it out, then thrust it quickly into the corresponding cavity in Underwood's brain pan.
This phase of the operation was less than half over. Blood vessels had to be prepared to serve the new organ in Underwood's body, and the twelve nerves had to be connected into the Great Sympathetic where no such nerves had ever been connected before.