Free Into the Fire by Peter Liney Page A

told us, and Lena immediately headed for the two chairs in front of his desk. “Very impressive,” Dr. Simon noted.
    He proceeded to ask Lena an almost endless list of questions—not only about her blindness, but also every aspect of her background, feeding every detail into his computer.
    Lena was plainly reluctant to fill in so many blank spaces, particularly when he asked her about her time living with the Wastelords. On more than one occasion she simply refused to answer and he was forced to move on.
    At last he stopped talking and started to examine her, shining attachments into her eyes, using a scanner over her head to draw across her, over and over, as if taking the thinnest slices of salami. The screen was showing all kinds of colorful images—hot-spots, stimulated areas. It meant nothing to me, but the Doc was concentrating as hard as could be. Meanwhile, Lena did whatever he asked without comment or reaction. Her face was a real study of seriousness; I couldn’t begin to guess what was going through her mind. Finally he got a nurse to take blood tests and a bunch of different scans, more standard stuff.
    At last she resumed her seat and the Doc sat across from us scrolling through the initial information.
    “Mm. Interesting,” he commented.
    I turned to Lena, expecting her to ask the obvious question, and when she didn’t, I did. “In what way?”
    “Well, as best as I can make out, it is possible.”
    “What are the odds?” I asked, wanting to hear it in layman’s terms.
    He made a face like he really didn’t want to reduce it to simple terms, but eventually he hit a few keys on his computer as if checking something before saying, “Well, my program, her profile—it’s not complete but . . . I’ve got a provisional forecast of eighty-two percent success with a corneal graft. It would be greater, but there’s always a risk of infection and perhaps even rejection.”
    “That doesn’t sound good.”
    “The computer minimizes it, of course, but in cases like these the possibility of rejection one day never goes away completely.”
    I turned to Lena, again expecting her to make some kind of comment, but still she said nothing.
    “It’s up to you,” Dr. Simon continued, “but . . . at the very worst, you’d be no worse off.”
    “How much would it cost?” Lena asked, finally joining in on the conversation.
    Dr. Simon hesitated, looking to me as if he expected me to say something.
    “We’ll talk about it later,” I told Lena, in something of an aside.
    “Clancy, we have no money,” she reminded me, obviously irritated by my continued refusal to discuss the subject. “And we have no way of getting any.”
    I took her hand and squeezed it. “Let’s wait and see, huh?”
    She sighed and turned away, and I could see she was as much bemused by my behavior as annoyed by it.
    Faced by her obvious doubts and degree of antagonism, Dr. Simon visibly softened, even resorted to a little persuasion himself. “Well, talk it over,” he said. “I always program in a degree of caution—it avoids disappointment later. The odds are probably a little better than I said.”
    “Wow,” I commented, trying to wring a little enthusiasm out of Lena.
    “As for the cost, I’ve already told you, I’m happy to waive my fee. Maybe some of my technicians, too . . . it’s possible.”
    There was a pause, as if he felt he’d just delivered his knockout blow and was giving us a chance to appreciate it, then he checked his watch and announced, “I must go.”
    Realizing I had no way of receiving a link, he pulled out a drawer and started hunting through until he produced an old appointments card and wrote the details on the back. “I can fit you in on the weekend.”
    We said our goodbyes and declined the offer of a lift back to the security gate. Lena was still surprisingly mute, despite him repeating his more optimistic prognosis. Plainly she had her doubts about the guy, and in a way, I could see