enly everything else was gone from his
mind but the immediate task at hand. His fingers began to move more
swiftly, with a confidence he had never felt before. The decisions to be
made arose, and he made them without hesitation, and knew as he made
them that they were right.

And for the first time the procedure began to move. He murmured
instructions to Jack from time to time, and placed Tiger's clumsy hands
in the places he wanted them for retraction. "Not there, back a little,"
he said. "That's right. Now hold this clamp and release it slowly while
I tie, then reclamp it. Slowly now ... that's the way! Jack, check that
pressure again."

It seemed as though someone else were doing the surgery, directing his
hands step by step in the critical work that had to be done. Dal placed
the connections to the heart-lung machine perfectly, and moved with new
swiftness and confidence as the great blood vessels were clamped off and
the damaged heart removed. A quick check of vital signs, chemistries,
oxygenation, a sharp instruction to Jack, a caution to Tiger, and the
new prosthetic heart was in place. He worked now with painstaking care,
manipulating the micro-sutures that would secure the new vessels to the
old so firmly that they were almost indistinguishable from a healed
wound, and he knew that it was going _right_ now, that whether the
patient ultimately survived or not, he had made the right decision and
had carried it through with all the skill at his command.

And then the heart-lung machine fell silent again, and the carefully
applied nodal stimulator flicked on and off, and slowly, at first
hesitantly, then firmly and vigorously, the new heart began its endless
pumping chore. The Black Doctor's blood pressure moved up to a healthy
level and stabilized; the gray flesh of his face slowly became suffused
with healthy pink. It was over, and Dal was walking out of the surgery,
his hands trembling so violently that he could hardly get his gown off.
He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, and he could see the silent
pride in the others' faces as they joined him in the dressing room to
change clothes.

He knew then that no matter what happened he had vindicated himself.
Half an hour later, back in the sickbay, the Black Doctor was awake,
breathing slowly and easily without need of supplemental oxygen. Only
the fine sweat standing out on his forehead gave indication of the
ordeal he had been through.

Swiftly and cl