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plasma or blood groupings. With its infinitely adjustable lasers it could lay back the flesh surrounding a single nerve and lift out that nerve without nicking the sheath. It was as precise as a diamond cutter and as unemotional as a vending slot.
    Logan didn’t want to get on the Table. It could carve and change him, make him into another man. Holly 13 fastened down his ankles and wrists, then attached the sensors. The Table rippled, accepted his weight, positioned him.
    “I like dark hair,” said Holly, leaning close to him. The blue spark danced in the depths of her eyes. “Have him give you dark hair.”
    Doc returned to his patient. “Got anything special in mind?” he asked. ‘Bone structure like yours I could give you most anything.”
    “That’s your decision,” snapped Logan. “Just get it over with.”
    “Look, runner,” said Doc, his voice hard, “just you ease down. I tell you where to go, how to go and when to go. You runners are always in a hurry. Always trying to rush me. You don’t go nowhere without Doc . I handle this end of things. Can’t use the next key anyhow till nine forty. Got plenty of time for the new you.”
    Doc danced his, fingers over the control board as he studied Logan’s face. “We can widen those cheekbones for a start.”
    The Table began to hum as a pair of thin silver probes separated themselves from the overhead cluster and poised above Logan; a stun needle lowered toward his face; a vibrosaw began to keen.
    Abruptly all motion ceased. The keening died. An alarm buzzed insistently.
    Doc’s eyes narrowed. “Something’s wrong. We’ve got metal on the Table. You empty your pockets?” Logan nodded.
    Doc looked at him suspiciously. “ Something ain’t right”
    He came out from behind the console, stood over Logan. The slight bulge of the Gun was visible in Logan’s waist. Doc pulled open his shirt, baring the weapon.
    “Lock the door, Holly.”
    “What is it?” she asked, moving forward. Doc shoved her back. “Gun!” he said. “We got a Sandman.”
    “What’ll we do?”
    “I’m thinking.” Doc glared at Logan, helpless on the Table.
    “You’ve seen my hand,” said Logan. “I’m on Lastday. Does it figure I’d still be working for DS?” 
    “You got a Gun,” said Doc . “Only DS men got Guns.” 
    “I’m not the first Sandman to run.”
    “Why should I take a chance?” said Doc , moving back to the console. “I’m scrambling the Table. You’ll get more than a new face, Sandman.”
    Logan lunged against the straps, but they held fast.
    “What will it do to him?” asked Holly. The blue light gleamed in her eyes.
    “Anything. It’s on its own.”
    The Table hummed to life.
    “I want to watch,” said Holly, flushing.
    Doc chuckled.
    Logan looked up, sweating, into the moving cluster of pointed, bladed objects suspended above him. A stun needle lanced into his cheek, and the left side of his face went dead. A pair of metal clamps bit into his right leg below the knee. A surgical scapel slit his shirt from shoulder to waist, leaving a thread of blood in its wake. A sponge dipped to wipe the blood neatly away.
    Desperately Logan sucked in his belly and tried to flatten himself into the Table.
    Beside him, Holly was breathing fast.
    A wide serrated blade shifted its downward sweep, moved three inches to the right and hovered. A pair of nervescissors snipped viciously at empty air, lowered abruptly and sliced through the strap that confined Logan’s right arm.
    Doc took a shocked step back as Logan clawed the Gun free.
    A rain of silver knives dropped toward him, and he hacked at them with the barrel. They snapped like icicles.
    Logan attempted to swing the Gun in Doc’s direction. “Kill the Table!” Lizard-quick, Doc was out the door, the girl behind him.
    The Table pumped a cooling alcohol spray on Logan’s chest as he clumsily freed his other wrist. Tiny lubricated gears inside the machine’s housing slid into new