The high-pitched whine of the air-powered razor-sharp turbine was barely louder than the hum of a mosquito. But inside the high-pressure trailer, it seemed to fill the entire room.
In the center of the sterile field, Echo lay on a bed of chilled silicone gel inside the glass petri dish. Arthur had given two drops of diluted benzocaine solution across the axolotl’s dorsal skin. A mild cutaneous anesthetic that slowed the creature’s nervous heat flow without depressing its fragile automatic heart pacing. In an amphibian weighing eighty-five grams, anesthetic drop-testing was a razor’s edge. A single extra microgram would cause permanent heart arrest, while too little would trigger sudden reflex spasms during bone milling.
Arthur had tuned the dosage to the microgram, factoring in the underground heat of eleven degrees and the animal’s suppressed body-energy rate. The little pink amphibian was fully relaxed, its stubby legs splayed comfortably against the soft silicone. Its tiny black eyes stared blankly at the ceiling halogens.
Arthur Vance sat on an adjustable swivel stool. His forearms were locked securely against padded steel armrests bolted to the razor-sharp table. In micro-neurosurgery, the slightest tremor of a human fingertip—a single reflex twitch of half a tiny fraction of an inch—was the difference between a successful pressure drop and a fatal jagged cut of the lower brain.
