The doctor permitted himself a small smile of satisfaction, but the room was pregnant with tension as he turned his attention to the gauze covering Savage's head.
The snip-snip came again as the cold steel slid slowly over his skin. An eternity passed before the sound again ceased and a nurse carefully removed the freed gauze. For a long moment there was no sound and Savage looked anxiously from face to face and tried to interpret what he read there. The nurses stared in disgust and horror while the doctor looked satisfied. The General beamed.
"Beautiful job," the General said finally, and the doctor nodded in agreement.
"Let me see," Savage croaked through stiff lips.
A nurse took the hand mirror from the bedside table and held it in front of him. From the glass the bearded face of a Trygonian stared at him; there was no mistaking the narrow chin, the high, broad cheekbones and aquiline nose.
Almost a month later Savage stood at attention in the General's office. He wore the flamboyantly brilliant uniform of a Trygonian officer. Medals and orders sparkled on his breast. His new face wore a sardonic scowl.
"Fleet captain Choon reporting, sir," he said, and the General's stern face relaxed to a half smile.
"Sit down, Ross," the General invited and indicated the chair beside his desk. "So you're ready to go, eh? How do you like yourself?"
"Well," Savage smiled, "I have to keep myself from going for my gun when I see myself in a mirror, but outside of that I'm pretty used to it by now."
"We've made tremendous strides in the twenty years since we went underground. I guess it was the pressure. But Phillips told me that by every test you're a Trygonian. I hope however, that you haven't become one emotionally. That was the one thing we were afraid of when we decided to use the Ceregraph. Choon died, of course, but how was it for you?"
"Nothing to it, sir. I just seemed to go to sleep and when I awoke I knew everything Choon knew, but Doctor Phillips almost drove me crazy testing me to find out whether I'd picked up Choon's mental outlook. Apparently, though, the Ceregraph transfers only knowledge, not emotions."
"Thank the Lord," exclaimed the General heavily.
"I want to thank you for this opportunity," Savage said. "I've wanted to do something concrete against them since they killed my parents twenty years ago."