Freaks

They were the legacy of the U.S. chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Children who were blind, deaf, mute and so deformed they could only live in the artificial environment of a life support capsule. But one child, Phạm, was functional enough to move around in an electric wheelchair. The mutant children knew nothing of the world beyond the care provided by one Dr. Reginald Greene, a scientist assigned by the U.S. government to observe them, study them. Then one day Pham discovered just how special he and the other children were…..

It all stared with a picture he made!

He didn’t try to do this thing. He would never have thought of it on his own, wouldn’t even have known how to go about making a picture like this. He discovered he could do it accidentally one night when he was trying to do little more than simply fall asleep.

All that day it’d been cold and stormy. There’d been a heavy rain, driven into the soil with fury, as if the gods of his ancestors were angry at Earth. This oppressive rain caused a steady, incessant roar which made it difficult to focus on anything else, hard even to think of anything else. He’d spent all that day watching the rain from his window. There was nothing to see by the gunmetal gray curtain of rain. His heart grew heavier and sadder by the minute. He hated the storm and feared it, and he wasn’t alone in his feeling. The storm’s violence and its tyranny bothered the Big Ones even more than they bothered him. He never went outside, rain on shine. He was used to being trapped, snared, so to speak, by his body; never able to escape. The Big Ones were not trapped. They could go wherever they pleased, anytime they pleased, but not today, not this day. This day they were trapped inside by the storm, and that shortened their tempers, evaporated their patience. They were frustrated and angry at being deprived of their incredible freedom. When they spoke to him their voices were tight, their words clipped and brief, and they kept their distance. They blocked him out, hid their feelings from him and from one another. This troubled him. Soon, he was as nervous and irritable as they were. There’d been bad days before, but not like this. The least little thing ignited his fury. The wheels were grinding all day long. Every tiny little problem blew up into a big fight. It was wearisome. He was glad when night came, glad for the darkness, glad for the chance of rest from the work of the day. He felt like lead when he crawled into his bed. His weariness ate away at him, but sleep evaded him. The hours of the night crept by, and still he could not sleep. He tossed and turned. He lay on his back with his eyes open, listening to the rain pounding, pounding and mocking him. Sleep was a fleeting thing made of quicksilver, fluttering just out of his reach. Now, when the miracle happened, he was passing the dark hours staring at the bare, white wall on the other side of the room, his weary mind numb and not capable of thinking about anything in particular. Across the room the bare white surface of the wall was crisscrossed with the hard shadows of the windows’ frames.

Just then, the clean white surface began to move!

It was only a small spot of color at first. A dot of color with fuzzy, crazily moving edges. Then the bright colors began shifting and changing, simmering and dancing, melting and blending. Slowly they expanded outward, a spreading stain of shimmering color. In seconds, the whole wall was smothered in colors. As they danced and melted and blended and flowed like water across the surface of the wall, the room started to grow warm, the air in it becoming thick and heavy.

The “artist,” Pham, his name, kicked his bed covers off and drew his stunted, thin legs under his body. He sat up. The experience grew increasingly astonishing, increasingly scary, for when he sat up the cold of the night air was gone and he was basking in warm air. He didn’t understand anything, but, frightened as he was, he couldn’t resist this glowing warmth. And, after some moments, he became less fearful. He was now curious, and the warmth of that curiosity drove away the cold of his previous fear. Pham wasn’t a slave of fear, never had been. In his few years of life, because of his miserable, deformed shape, he’d been no stranger to fear, but he was determined never again to be a victim of it, not anymore. He’d just tell it “go away!” There was just no room in his life for being frightened. His life was a wonder, and this….thing was a wonder. Why be afraid when such wonders exist? Not afraid at all, but curious and enjoying it, he just closed his eyes and let the warm air roll over him in gentle waves. He floated freely in the odd warmth. He was comfortable and happy, and his mind was free of all care.

His memory began to work. From a pit somewhere deep within him, details came forth like swimmers emerging from dark water. They came from a memory he couldn’t recall or command. The memory and its people etched a picture on the white surface of the wall. Pham wasn’t controlling it. He didn’t even know that it was happening. It moved with a life of its own.

How wonderful it was!

Green leaves formed along the top border of the wall. The tips of the leaves were molten, and their color dropped and splashed to the wall’s bottom, where it spread like a pool of thick liquid, until it coated the wall’s bottom with a green carpet. The green grew in all directions, quickly covering all but the very center of the picture. In the center yellow burned like a blazing sun. The yellow turned to golden brown. A small, round-topped house of straw began to form. At its base lay a sandy road that went around the corner of the house and vanished into the trees. There were humanlike shapes in the distance.

There was no door to the house, but there was a gaping entrance. The opening was dark and black, and in the blackness there was a shifting motion and a dry rustle. It was barely more than a whisper, a trick on the ears, but he knew there was something moving in there. He could not see what it was.

A warm, gentle breeze started to blow through the room. He glanced back out the window. The fierce wind beat the glass with freezing rain. The breeze had to be coming from the picture! It was soft, gentle and balmy; rippling through the hanging leaves of the trees, and causing them to rub against each other, to sing a dry, insectile song.

Pham grinned with delight. His heart soared like a giant kite. The breeze wafted his spirits up, up into the clear blue of an endless sky. He could hear the world singing with his heart.

And there was one thing more, now a new thing.

Riding on the breeze was the smell of food. It was sharp, spicy, tangy. It made his stomach rumble with impromptu hunger. He couldn’t recognize the smells, but he could feel their tastes on his tongue. And there was another smell, the sweet aroma of ripened fruit. Yes, he recognized that. Sometimes the Big Ones fed him fruit that smelled like that.

And then he thought he heard….No! He heard the distant clatter of human voices. They were speaking in a language he couldn’t understand…..but he could understand it. He caught a word here and there, odd, strangely shaped and made, yet all somehow familiar and comforting. The words rode the wind like men on horses and were held there until they drifted like flecks of dust caught in a ray of golden sun. He heard and he understood, but he didn’t know that he did. There were no familiar words. He cocked his misshapen head, trying to hear more, to hear better.

The darkness began to come out the door of the little house like a bursting black bubble. Small at first, no bigger than the door, it grew bigger and bigger. Now he could see that it was a man dressed in black. The man was wearing black robes, and he was wearing a round-crowned, flat-brimmed black hat. The man had come out of the house backwards. Now he slowly turned and faced Lan.

It was the Father!

Joy surged through him. He could feel a smile spreading over his mouth.

Long ago the Father had taken care of him. Pham could remember, barely, dimly; but he couldn’t remember where or when exactly it was. Nobody else wanted him, except the Father, and he would have died alone without the Father. The Father had fed him, warmed him, always spoke to him with gentle words. Now, here the Father was, in the middle of the picture! The Father was looking down from him smiling the same kind of smile Pham remembered so well. The Father had not changed. He was still tall and spindly, with the same long bones and delicate features. His long black robe was smeared white with dust. There was gray brushing the tips of his thick, unruly hair and his full beard, and it gave his head a glowing effect. It was the Father just as….

Pham’s breath caught. His throat tightened. His heart thundered.

The Father could not be here. He had gone away! The Father had died!

Others—-strangers—-had come to the place where the Father cared for him. He trembled even now as he remembered their loud voices and the crackling noises of their weapons. There was the heat of many fires. The other Big Ones had killed the Father!

But here he was! The Father was in the wall picture!

Pham turned away from the picture, rolling on his bed, his eyes blurring with tears. But he could not shut the picture out. The heat still shimmered in the air, the warm breeze still caressed him. He marshaled his sadness and turned back, and nothing had changed. The Father was still there, smiling down at him.

Now the Father took off his hat and dusted it against his robe. Clouds of dust flew and quickly vanished in the air. From a pocket deep inside his robe, the Father brought out a snow-white handkerchief. He wiped his forehead with it. Then he ran the cloth, soiled with dust and sweat, around the headband of his hat.

“Father,” Pham found himself whispering.

“Hello, Pham,” the Father said. The voice was the same heavy, solid one that Pham remembered. “I’m delighted that you’ve finally come.” The Father put his had back on and rubbed his hands with the cloth. Although it was limp and filthy, he carefully folded it and put it away. He looked up, smiling, and said, “I have been waiting a long time for you to come back.”

“But…” He thought and did not say it.

“Please don’t be afraid, Pham. There is nothing to fear here, nothing to fear from me. I,” he raised his hands to indicate the rest of the picture, “all this—-all that you see, hear and smell—-it’s all just part of you. I have come because you summoned me.”

I do not understand, he thought. He discovered before he could form these words, before he could shake his head, that the Father heard and understood them.

The Father laughed. “Of course you do not understand. You will soon enough.” He stepped out, away from the house. The sounds of his footsteps in the dust was like the crinkling of old, dry parchment. “This belongs to you, Pham. It is your freedom. Oh, not this place, not quite. This place here is but a mere station in your memory, nothing more. It will serve as your starting place on the journey you will take to understand your powers. You must understand them; and this is the best place for you to start.” He shrugged, turned, and looked. Pham could hear a wistful sigh. Then the Father turned back. “It’s all part of you, this place, deep within your memory.” He placed his hand upon his breast, his long, delicate fingers extended. “I am part of that memory. This is your power.”

“I have no power.”

“Yes, you do. It is simply that you do not yet know how to wield it. You will learn how. And you will learn more about your power as you do wield it. You will use it, and learn how to use it, until it it strong, until you can use it whenever you wish, without fear. Just as you are doing right now. And, Pham, you are not alone in having this power. The others have this power, too. You are but the first among them to discover it. You must learn to use it well, that you may teach the others.” The Father smiled, warm and comforting. He stretched out his hands, the shadows of his long fingers dancing on Pham’s face. “The time draws near for you to speak to the others, to tell them of their lives, to tell them of their powers.”

“I cannot do…..cannot do this! I don’t understand!”

The Father merely smiled. Then he made the sign of the cross, as he’d always done. He turned and started back into the house, then stopped and looked back at Pham. “Remember what I used to teach you, Pham….about love and goodness. Never, never use this power you possess for evil.” A wistful look came on the Father’s face. He put a finger to his lips. “I used to teach you as I would teach any child…I knew that you heard me, but I never knew you understood. I can only hope, now, t hat you did.” Without another word, he turned and vanished into the darkness of the house.

Pham shut his eyes tightly, so tightly they hurt. He squeezed tears from them, and they burned down his cheeks. He gritted his teeth and shook his head.. He didn’t scream out loud, though he felt like it. He bit his scream off in his throat, and it ricocheted around in the turmoil of his own brain. He would not scream, because he knew the Big Ones were listening. If he screamed, they would come here to see what was wrong with him, and they must not see him like this!

One word tumbled over and over in his brain. No! Tumbling once upon the next time. No! He opened his eyes and through the blurring of tears he could see the images in the picture fold up on each other. It was like a magic box folding up. Everything—-the leaves, the road, the sky—-was folding up into the darkness within the house.

Then everything was gone. The wall was white again. Hard shadows made by the window frame lined it. The rain beat on the glass of his windows and streamed down in wide rivulets. The wind howled angrily, like a great beast locked out.

He was cold and he was afraid.

He trembled with his fear and his cold. He slid from his sitting position down to his back and struggled to get back under his blankets. He hoped that, when he was again under the covers and was warm and comfortable, his fear would evaporate. It didn’t. He trembled still. He didn’t look at the wall anymore, tough he knew there was nothing but shadows there. He looked up at the ceiling and tried to understand the bizarre happening. He couldn’t. It was like fighting with smoke, and he couldn’t do that.

He thought about getting up and going to check on the others, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to leave the warmth of his own bed. So he checked them from his bed by listening. He lay still, holding his breath, and listened to the sounds of their machines. Their machines hummed along, and the humming away as it always was. It was no different. The others were all right.

He remembered, then, the Father’s words. He had told Pham that he had made the picture, and that it was a power, and that the others had this power too. And that Pham could—-should—teach them of it and how to use it. But how? How could he teach the others, those things, to use a power he didn’t even understand?

How can I show the others? How? Oh, if only I could! If only they could—-ever—-see something like that! Or anything at all. Anything! If they could see anything! They have so little.

He felt the bitter sting of tears on his cheeks. For them. He was crying for them.

It is hopeless. They cannot see. They cannot hear. They cannot feel anything. They stay locked in their machines, wired to their machines. If I could show them anything!

He thought of them. Blobs of flesh, and barely that. Alive only by the power and grace of their machines.

He wept.

How I want to reach out and touch them! If only I could!

One by one, they marched across his brain, and he called them each by name: Hàn, Le, Minh-Tu, Tammy…..

As he said the name “Tammy” in his mind, he heard a shy, timid voice far away in the darkness.

“What, Pham?” it asked, and was then silent.

“Visiting diggers,” the young lab technician said.

Without looking directly at him, Greene recognized the voice as the same one that just moments ago had roused him from the blissful depths of a deep sleep.

The lab technician went on. “Wanna see you now.” He exaggerated the articulation on the word “now,” rounding his lips and popping his eyes. Then he vanished behind a closing door, his face comically owlish, and Green was all by himself in the bright, gleaming, sparkling clean central hallway of his facility.

He shrugged tiredly to the shut door and, rubbing the high bridge of his nose, turned in the direction of the conference room, where he knew the “visiting diggers” would be, waiting for him. Then he wheeled about and started off towards the children’s ward, in the opposite direction. His steps quickened. His heels cracked like pistol shots in the deserted hallway. It was so quiet. There was just the faint hum of all the unseen machines.

A big electric clock with a stainless case and broad white white face and bold black letters jutted out from the wall above his head. He glanced up at it as he passed beneath it. The time was 3:00 A.M.

It was warm and humid in the hall, as it was throughout the whole building. It was kept that way for the children’s benefit.

Green’s “freaks.”

Dr. Reginald Green was a tall, thin, gangling man. His joints seemed to be insecurely bonded. Nothing in his body seemed to work just like it should. His movements were full of quick jerks and quirks, and were comical to most of his youthful staff. When he put his odd body in motion, like he was doing now, he resembled a funnily constructed, loose-jointed comic doing an imitation of some great landlocked bird who long, impossibly, for the sky.

Dr. Green was by no means a funny man, though. He was dour and gray. His thinning hair was as tight as a coat of paint on his little head. A numb anguish always seeped from his big, sad eyes. His long, thin face was always pulling downward into his chest. Most people who worked for him on the project thought him sour, aloof, and cold. That was ignorance talking and was not true. He was distant from his fellow workers and withdrawn, that much was true. But Green couldn’t help that. He had no social grace, didn’t really know how to deal with other people, and, more importantly, he cared so deeply and fully about his project he had no time to learn or practice social graces. His charge was the freaks, his children. They had been his project from the beginning, from their discovery. He’d been the originator of the project, directly after the first of them had been found. At first, he was excited because of the scientific possibilities of the freaks, but he had changed. Things beyond his control, basically exposure to the freaks, had changed him. Now, of all the project’s workers, he was the only one to whom the mutants were more than just an interesting job. He cared for them with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsessiveness. It was this obsessive care he lavished on them that had driven the wedge between him and his co-workers on the project and had anchored it so securely that it would never be moved. He spent his every waking hour with the mutants, he had to be goaded into eating and he only surrendered to sleep when his outraged body slammed him down into it; then he slept like a corpse.

Dr. Greene was fifty-one, single and alone in the world. His world was his work, and more and more his world was the freaks, his children. Gradually they had become the only important people, if they could be called people, in it.

Now, after only two hours of much-needed sleep, he was still shaky from exhaustion as he walked down the hall to the ward to check on the freaks, his children.

“Visiting diggers.” His mind rolled the phrase over and over like a mouthful of unpleasant-tasting food. He was squirming and shivering inside his skin. That someone from the world beyond was here to see him, watch him, check up on him angered him. Greene was best left alone. As long as he’d been in charge of this project he’d done all he could to keep the “diggers” away. He’d made all his reports on time, and they were always complete and comprehensive. He figured their weight in pages alone would convince the bigwigs he was taking good care of the project. On time, and in great detail. He knew this was the nest insurance for keeping them out of his hair and away from his project. All he expected, all he wanted, all he hoped for from them—-besides leaving him the hell alone—-was that they wouldn’t cancel the funds and prevent the project from continuing. Fear whispered to him now that an end to the project was what had brought these “diggers” here in the middle of the night.

He turned the corner and drew up sharply. There was a high counter in front of the door to the freak ward. A dark-haired young man leaned against the counter, reading a magazine.

“Where is the nurse?” Greene demanded.

“Uh…what?” The young man jumped, crunched up the magazine, and tried to hide it behind his back.

“There’s supposed to be a nurse on duty, Mr…..Ortiz, isn’t it? Where is she?”

“Who?”

“The nurse, you dumb sonofabitch! Where is she?”

The young orderly, Ortiz, dropped his head. His brownish skin blushed. He didn’t reply for some heavy seconds. Greene waited for the reply, tapping the floor nervously with his toes.

“There isn’t one,” Ortiz mumbled.

“Since when is there no nurse? Where’s the duty roster? Who’s supposed to be working tonight?” He pushed past Ortiz, picked up the roster, and thumbed through it.

“It won’t make any difference. Nobody’s going to work this shift anymore.”

Greene looked up at him from the roster, incredulously. “What kind of bullshit….?”

Now Ortiz boldly looked at him. What fear he’d had of Green had vanished. “Doc, you wouldn’t believe the things that’ve been going on this shift. Really weird shit, I’m tellin’ ya. It’s got the girls scared outta their panty hose. They appealed to the head nurse, and she took them off this shift.”

“Weird things, eh? Can you be more specific?”

“They’ve heard things—-seen things.” He chuckled embarrassingly. “They say there’s some kinda fuckin’ ghost creepin’ ‘round down here.”

Greene became even angrier. “Ghost?”

“A priest—-some of them have seen a priest in the ward, walking through the ward.”

“A priest!”

“Well….something that looks like a priest.”

“Bullshit!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Doc. It’s got all of ‘em spooked.” There was no explanation or apology in Ortiz’s eyes.

Greene folded up the roster and set it down on the counter.

“Why wasn’t this brought to my attention?”

Ortiz shrugged. “The head nurse didn’t want to bug you with it, sir.”

Greene nodded.

He went on. “There wasn’t any need to, sir. The freaks are being taken care of. I do all the things a nurse could do, if there was one here. It really don’t matter none.”

Greene wanted to shout that it did matter. He’d set up the policy that there would be a nurse on duty at all times. He’d thought it was necessary or he wouldn’t have done it. Rules are rules, and he’d made them specific for important reasons. He caught the shout in his throat and withheld it. There was no reason to get mad at Mr. Ortiz. He was just doing what he’d been told to; he knew nothing of Greene’s rules or the reasons behind them, and probably didn’t really give that much of a shit.

Greene nodded again. Wordlessly he stepped around Ortiz and through the double doors into the dark ward. He was furious, but the cool darkness of the ward had a calming effect. His fury wound down. He stood silently with his back to the doors, and shut his eyes as his anger ground to a halt. Sharp, clearheaded, he nodded his head quickly. Tomorrow, he told himself, first thing, I’ll find out from that head nurse just who the hell she thinks she is, going against my orders that way!

They just don’t give a shit! Not enough.

That’s the one thing he’d learned about most of the people who worked on this project. They just didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t that they weren’t good people. They were. They were the best qualified he could get; he’d made sure of that. But they never thought, as he did, of these freaks as living beings that needed every ounce of the most careful attention just to survive. No, most of these “professional” people, these nurses and orderlies and even the other doctors on the staff, they would likely just let the freaks die if it were left up to them.

Something rustled in the dark at the far end of the ward. Greene strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness and see. For a moment he thought there was a man’s figure shifting through the Stygian darkness.

“Who’s there?” he asked quietly.

Nobody answered.

He broke away from the doors and went down the middle aisle of the ward on tiptoe. The only sound was the hum of the life-support machines. Except for Pham, those machines were the children’s homes, their whole world. The machines were needed for their survival. Without them all would die within seconds.

He stopped and peered about.

Nothing.

The rustling sound had stopped.

“Hello?”

There was a quick flash of the rustling sound. As if someone who’d been holding still, burst loose in a fit of quicksilver steps.

Then silence.

“Hello!” He kept his voice to a savage whisper and controlled the growing urge within to shout.. There was nothing wrong with shouting in the children’s ward. The only one who could hear it was Pham. That kept Greene from shouting. He didn’t want to wake up Pham, and he didn’t want to bring Ortiz in so he didn’t shout. He smiled. Spooks! Ghosts! Bullshit! Pham—-it must be Pham. “Pham! Is that you?”

Out of the still, dense pitch-blend at the end of the ward came the familiar whirring sound of Pham’s electric wheelchair. Gradually, his eyes adjusting to the dark, Greene caught glints of captured light reflected from its chrome frame. The sound grew closer, and he could see the small form of the boy sitting in it.

“Father-Doc?” Pham asked. His strangled voice was barely more than a gurgle, but it was all the verbal communication he had. It was understandable to anyone who spent enough time around him.

“Pham,” Greene said with relief, "you startled me. What are you doing up at this hour?" He bent down and squatted in front of the chair. Even though it was too dark to see him, Greene knew exactly the confused expression on the boy's face.

"They might need me."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, but I check to see."

Greene rose and patted Pham on the head. "I appreciate it, Pham, but you should be sleeping yourself. There are people here to do that job." He walked past Pham towards the machines that contained the other freaks. He was glad to have his back to the boy, for he wanted to hide the tears that were glistening in his eyes. "You go on back to bed now."

"Yes, Father-Doc." The whirring electric motor carried Pham back to his room.

With a mini-flashlight, Greene read charts of the other freaks. He didn't expect to find any changes. He was right. Everything was normal, except for the female they called "Tammy." Her heartbeat was slightly faster than normal. That wasn't all that unusual, nothing to get worked up about. Probably just a dream.

Do they dream? Do they have minds that can? Are their minds able to produce and see visions? If so, what visions go through them?

Who knows?

Greene looked briefly into each of the capsules that were the freaks' permanent homes. All of them, except for Pham, needed a totally artificial environment. Their capsules resembled the old "iron-lungs" but were smaller, totally self-contained, and much more sophisticated. The temperature and humidity were kept constant in the capsules, and a battery of probes kept a running tally of all body functions. This data was printed automatically on their charts. Everything about these poor creatures was observed and recorded. Should anything change, the computer running all the machines took control of the environment and corrected it to keep the organisms alive.

Inside the capsules, dim in the light, they lay. The freaks. His children. They were nothing more than gross, ugly blobs of flesh in their slim aluminum worlds. It took a lot of imagination to see that they were even related to human beings. They looked unformed, as if an embryo had been plucked from a womb, massaged by rough hands, then kept alive in this state. Actually, it was wrong to compare them to human embryos. They resembled nothing human, resembled nothing in nature except one another. Each of the freaks weighed about thirty-five pounds and was twelve to eighteen inches in length. They were all blind, deaf, and mute. They could not walk or move around. They could do nothing, not even survive, without the help of their capsules.

He rested his hand against the cold metal of the capsule that contained the freak "Tammy." A little machinery vibration tingled the palm of it. The reality of the moment came crashing back down on him. The "diggers" were waiting for him. He was sure they'd come to close all this down, to let these monstrosities die. He straightened up and started back to the double doors.

"Good night, Father Doc," Pham called to him.

He veered and stepped into Pham's room. The little boy was struggling under his blanket, trying to wriggle down and under it. Greene bent down and helped him, tucking him in.

"Sleep, my child, sleep," he mumbled.

He stepped back into the corridor, but, before he went back through the doors and into the light, he glanced back into the darkness one last time.

Sleep now, children.

Greene drew up short before triggering the electric eye that would have whooshed the door to the conference room open. He was weary and numb. He tried to pull himself up to his full height, but this only made him dizzy. He almost toppled over backward. He steered away from the door and leaned against the opposite wall. His head was thin and airy. It was whirring with a hollow, husky roar. He shook it a few times, to clear it, and blinked his eyes rapidly. In a few seconds, he was sufficiently clearheaded to face the ordeal.

He passed in front of the eye. The door whooshed open, and in he went.

The room he entered was just as clean and bright as the hallway, though done in darker, more soothing tones. All the lights were on. A bank of white curtains lined the back wall. Seated at the long conference table in front of these curtains were four men. Three of them looked up and smiled at Greene. The fourth man sat hunched over a notebook, writing feverishly. Greene knew only one of the men by sight. He was very familiar with the older man in the middle. He'd seen this man a hundred times over the years, and, while they were not friends, they'd never been truly enemies. Amiable (sometimes) adversaries---that's how Greene would have described their acquaintanceship.

The doors hissed shut behind Greene.

The man he knew was General Roosevelt Sellers, U.S. Army, Retired. He was the overall project foreman out of Washington.

When Greene and the general first met, the Vietnam War was going full-blast and Sellers was the top commander in Southeast Asia. Because the war had become very unpopular back home, it was necessary to "sell" it to the people. Rumor was that Sellers had been chosen for the top job in the war because he was a great salesman and presented just the right image of the war. He looked the part of commander. Most Americans can still recall the tall, handsome, white-haired, strong-jawed general; impeccably groomed and tailored. He gave countless reports to the nation through Congress and he was always available to the press for pithy, tough, optimistic comments. Whatever had catapulted the general into his prominent position, he'd held on to the command for several years, giving it up only when he decided to retire from active duty. He got out, the wags said, "while there was still some getting possible." Before the war ended. When he returned home, he made an unsuccessful run for high office, then returned to government service. He was given control over Greene's project---officially because of his Vietnam experience---and found the job to his liking. The pay was good, and the assignment certainly didn't tax his nerves any; this was only Sellers's second visit to the research center in as many years. The first, right after the general's appointment, had been to "touch base with my people."

Greene expected the worst possible reason for this visit.

Sellers greeted him with a large official smile. "Ah, Dr. Greene. Have a seat, dear boy!" His gracefully Southern accent was polished but genuine. He indicated a single chair across the table from himself and the three other men. He held his smile until Green was down in the chair, then it vanished quickly and he turned to the other men beside him. "You gentlemen will give us some privacy now, won't you?"

Without a word, the three men got up and left.

When the doors hissed shut behind them, the general turned and indicated a thick, loose-leaf volume on the table before him. "Your latest report," he said, smiling. Then his smile soured into a serious look.

"Yes, sir." And what are you telling me this for? What difference does it make?

Sellers opened the report at random and looked down. After a few seconds, he sighed and flipped the rest of the pages over, shutting the report. "I've just been studying it---again." He brought his hands, prayerfully, together. "Don't you have anything new to report, Doctor?"

Should I tell him about the phantom priest?

Greene smiled inwardly and shook his head. "I do not, sir. That's a two-week-old report."

"I see," Sellers said smoothly, his thick bushy eyebrows arching up. "Haven't you had anything new happen in the past two weeks? Aren't there any breakthroughs?" There was just a hint of scorn in the question.

Greene again shook his head.

Sellers nodded to this, closing his eyes. "Uh-huh, I thought as much." He smiled his bland smile.

Green cleared his throat. "General Sellers, scientific projects such as this seldom have overnight breakthroughs---as you call them. That's more for popular entertainment than scientific reality. A project like this is a long, involved, difficult job that takes time."

"That, unfortunately, is what you've run out of."

"Excuse me?" The words stuck in Greene's throat like a bone hung up sideways. He wanted to cry out in protest, but all he could manage was an open mouth and a foolish gagging sound.

The general quickly sucked in his breath, and, putting a long, clean, and finely manicured finger up beside his nose, said, "Dr. Greene, I'm sorry to be the one to bring you the bad news, but it's part of my job as the project foreman, as well as my responsibility. The government has come to the sad conclusion that this project simply isn't providing returns commensurate with its expenditures." He became silent, and his smile faded again.

"No! You can't...."

"Now, before you have a coronary, Doctor, let me explain a little more about the government's conclusion and what it means to you and your project. The government wants it made clear---up front---that it's not deserting you or the freaks. Whatever actions the government takes for purely financial reasons, it still accepts its responsibility for the freaks and still believes in their status as human beings. The government will continue its policy of taking care of them as long as they continue to.....enjoy that status." The general looked up, away from Greene, and around the empty room. He seemed very comfortable when talking about the government, but he was equally uncomfortable when he talked about the freaks.

Number one son of a prominent family talking about his mentally retarded brother, Greene thought.

"What I'm trying to tell you is, Doctor, the government can't continue to operate this facility as the home for your project. This is a wonderful and expensive facility and can be put to much more profitable use." He looked back at Greene. "As you know, we've elected a new president. That means there'll be budget cuts in all departments. A clean sweep, if you prefer. Promises were made to cut government waste. Someone and someone's pet projects must suffer. So the government has decided to shut your project down, because, well, to put it bluntly, it's just not getting its money's worth." He paused.

Green leaped into the pause like the Light Brigade. "But, in the long run...."

The cannon in front of him shot him down. "Dr. Green, it's atypical of our government to give itself over to long-term projects. Our Vietnam experience should have taught you that. God knows it taught me." Sellers shook his head sadly.

"But...." Gamely, Greene came up again.

And he went down just as fast. "Even a program as magnificent---and as important---as the space program had to pay off in visible results in a matter of a few years. It was under a deadline if you remember. If the NASA boys hadn't been able to meet their deadline, all their rockets would have ended up on the scrap heap. But it paid off! They met their deadline! They accomplished their mission! Man left his footprints in the still cold sands of the Moon." Sellers' eyes followed his index finger up into the air, and, for a moment, he looked like a dreamer. But the moment faded quickly, and his hands came down, to rest, palms flat, on the table. His blue-gray eyes bored into Greene. "But this project? What have you learned? I can tell you---quite frankly----I've been poring over all your reports from the beginning of the project to this one right here---and there's just not much there. Oh, it's not your fault. You've done an outstanding job. Nobody can take that away from you. It's just the nature of this project, that's all. Nothing meaningful can be learned from the freaks except over years or until they die. And the government isn't going to force those circumstances."

In the following silence, Greene studied the general's face, trying to put together the right words. His mind was racing, like a crazy, runaway horse, through an obstacle course of words and phrases. He couldn't concentrate on even getting one, complete, sensible phrase out. He was lost, confused, and frantic. After five long minutes of this agony, he managed to say dryly, raspingly, "What's going to happen to them now?" He wanted to add "and to me" but he didn't.

Sellers leaned back and pulled a neatly bound sheaf of papers from the briefcase on the floor beside him. The smile held as he laid the papers out in front of him, pushing Greene's report to the side. Finding what he was looking for, he said, "Like I just said, the government isn't forgetting its responsibility toward the freaks. It's not going to pull the plug on them or you. The project is only being 'wound down.' The government can no longer afford to continue it as a full-blown project, and you---if you choose to stay with the freaks---will be moved to another, smaller facility, with a corresponding cut in budget and personnel." He paused, folding the papers up and waiting for Greene to reply.

The doctor only nodded.

"Good. All of this will take place over the next ninety days."

Conditioned now, Greene nodded again.

"The government, of course, will continue to pay the bills, and you'll continue to report to me, but only every six months. And the reports need only be in summaries, not in needless detail." He folded his hands on top of the document and looked at Greene.

"I see," Greene said lamely.

"Of course," Sellers continued, "if anything of any importance develops with the freaks, the government must be informed of it right away, and, in a case like that, every facility and service will be opened to you and the project. You have my word on that."

Greene sighed, shrugging his shoulders and looking down at his feet. "As long as they're to be taken care of---that's the important thing."

"Absolutely! And you've got my word on that. Sellers rose and extended his hand. Greene followed the general in rising and put out a limp hand. The general took it with force, his grip seeming to climb, like a scampering beast, up Greene's arm and shake his shoulder. "All of you will be well taken care of. As the Director of Special Projects under the new administration, I'll see to that."

"Thanks," Greene said, extricating his hand from the general's grip.

"You can go about your business now, Dr. Greene. You'll get official word on any development as soon as I get it." Sellers sat back down and began to place the papers in his briefcase. "Would you send my staff back in here on your way out?"

Greene was dismissed. Silently, he turned and left the room.

The doors hissed shut behind him.

Hullbeck, Mississippi---population 461---broiled in the midday Delta sun. The air hung still. Heavy like a wet army blanket--hot, stinking of mold and mildew, stifling. Not a creature, so to speak, was stirring.

Dorian Dumont, a local to the core, recklessly wheeled his truck into an empty parking space in front of Keaton's store, the tires bumping back from the curb. He shut off the engine and leaped from the cab, slamming the door behind him, and marching into the store with great force and energy. So much force and energy that he caught the attention of one of the old men sitting on the bench in the shade across the street, who nudged the other and pointed to him. They both laughed.

From the cooler interior of the store, Jester Sandon intently watched Dorian's approach. With his eyes shut, his glasses hanging on the tip of his nose, and his hands folded over his stomach, he'd been listening to Spider reading to him from the newspaper about some poor broad who'd been kidnapped and raped by aliens in a flying saucer. Now he lifted a half-full coffee can and spat a stream of brown juice into it, then he interrupted Spider. "Here comes Dorian in a huff. Wonder what kinda stick he got up 'is ass?"

Spider Keaton lowered the paper, raised his glasses up, and looked, snorted, "Wi' him, it don't gotta t' be too damn much."

"Yep, but it oughta be int'restin' jus' th' same." He sat up straighter on the couch. Spider tossed the Enquirer aside.

"Spider Keaton!" Dorian shouted as he burst in through the door, furiously jingling the little bell that hung over it.

"Yo, Dorian. What y'all want?"

"What th' fuck's goin' on out at the ol' Serrano place?" Dorian came to the back of the store in long strides. His heavy steps jiggled the jars and bottles of the shelves. "I was jus' passin' by out there, 'n' they's folks movin' in all kindsa funny-lookin' things."

"Well," Jester drawled with a grin, "looks lak' they made it. It's 'bout time."

"What the fuck you talkin' 'bout, Spider Keaton?"

"Spider sold that ol' place," Jester said.

"Sold it?"

"Yup," Spider said proudly, "I fin'ly got that eyestore offa my han's."

Dorian stepped up in front of the two men. They were all three in a tiny alcove in the back of the store tucked under the stairway. The stairway led to Spider's living quarters. A cooler rumbled and hissed in a small rear window, sending out waves of chilly air. Spider and Jester were sitting on a threadbare sofa. Tufts of filthy cotton padding exploded through its old dark covering like smoke from a thousand cannons.

"You fin'ly sol' thet place?" Dorian repeated.

"Yup, thaz a fac'! Thought I'd never be free of the fucker, but I am!"

"Grab a pop over there, Dorian, 'n' sit for a spell." Jester made the offer, though it wasn't his store. Spider was his son-in-law, and Jester treated the store like it was his own property. He waved his arm in the direction of a big, squat, bright red cooler.

Dorian, however, didn't take him up on his offer. He sat down in a straight-backed, wooden chair, facing the two men on the sofa. Leaning forward, he inquired. "Now, who was fool 'nuff 't' buy it?"

"Aw, some ol' Yankee doctor, or somethin'."

"He gonna farm it?"

"God, I hope he don't!" Jester laughed. "For his own fuckin' sake."

Spider joined Jester in the laughter. The two men jabbed each other in the ribs. Dorian chuckled, too, but his eyes stayed narrow and serious. When the laughter had slowed down some, he said, "Wazzee wan' wi' that ol' place?"

"Well," Spider began, "he ain't no farmer. He's some kinda scientist. Leastways, thazz wa' they said. I never met the dude. He bought that place through his agents. They said he 'needs some quiet, out-of-the-way place for his work.'"

"His work?"

"Yup. Some young'un---'bout thirty he was, dark hair cut short an' quick, dark eyes lak' a flock o' blackbirds, wore a fancy suit---he come 'round, a-askin' me 'bout tha' place. Said he represented some foundation or somethin'. Seemed to know just what it was he wanted. We made th' deal right here--'n' he paid th' whole fuckin' thing off with a check!"

"Jus' lak that?"

"Jus' lak that."

Dorian raised his head and moved it around in a jerky little arc, the way a dog does when sniffing the air. He lifted his hand and scratched his turkey red and scaled neck, the two-day's growth of blue-black stubble hissed under his fingernails. "'S funny!"

"Whazz s' funny 'bout it, Dorian?" Jester asked.

"Why th' fuck would he want---I mean, he's s'posed t'be a doctor 'n' all---why in holy hell would he want an ol' goddamn place lak' tha'?"

Spider sighed, then, with all the patience of a kindergarten teacher explaining a simple task to his students, began to explain to Dorian. " 'Cause---lak' I tol' ya---he needs an out-of-the-way, quiet place---an isolated place---so's he can do his work without nobody botherin' 'im."

"Why? He doin' somethin' dangerous?" Dorian's face clouded up.

"Now, how would I know that?"

"What kinda work does he do?"

"Hell, I dunno!"

"You mean you didn't ask?" Dorian was suddenly on his feet, towering over the other two men.

"Well, no, I didn't ask."

"Why th' fuck didn't you try 't' find out?!"

"'Cause t'ain't none 'o' mah bizz-nuzz."

"Ain't none 'o' you bizz-nuzz! Christ-damn-almighty! Ain'tcha the mayor 'round here?"

Spider nodded his head and smiled. "But that don't gimme th' right 't' pry into other folkses' bizz-nuzz." His words were soft, his accent thick, but there was steel behind them.

"You 'sposed 't' be lookin' out fer folks 'round here---protectin' 'em!"

"From what?"

"From shit lak dis."

"M' duties as mayor don't include checkin' up on folks. The man paid his money 'n that wuz that."

Dorian narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice to a rough, shaggy whisper. "What iffen he's up 't' somethin' dangerous? Somethin' that'll kill us?"

"Dangerous?" Jester laughed.

"Yessir!" Dorian picked up Jester's copy of the Enquirer. "Doncha read 'th' fuckin' newspapers? He could be one o' them goddamn A-bomb people ---or some kinda Frankenstein scientist. Somethin' lak that!" He threw the paper back down and looked questioningly from one of the men to the other and back again.

Spider and Jester only stared dumbly back.

"I don't trust none o' them crazy bastards!"

"What bastards?" Jester asked.

"Scientists!" Dorian roared. "They already fucked up the world! Bigod! This is my home, an' I doan wan' 'em shittin' up my home!"

Just then, Roscoe Sloan---the Fanta delivery man----stepped through the front door. He was a big, burly man with a full head of yellow-cotton hair, a great unflagging smile, and a booming voice, point-blank like cannonfire. A blue baseball cap with the Fanta emblem on it rode like a little boat on the sea of his hair. Sloan and Dumont were old enemies, stemming from a time years ago when Sloan had been game warden and had arrested Dumont for hunting out of season.

"How-dee-do!" Sloan called.

"Jesus Christ, Roscoe! You out workin' on a day lak' t'day?" Spider rose carefully from the sunken depths of the ancient sofa and hobbled up towards the front of the store, on legs half-numbed from being too long in one position.

"Somebody's got to."

Dorian made a big "Hrrrrrmmpph!" and stalked past Keaton. At the door, he turned and shouted, "You jus' wait, ya money-hungry dickmunchers! Mark 'm' words! There's somethin' funny 'bout this whole goddamn bizz-nezz!" And out he went, slamming the door behind him. On the porch outside, he turned and slammed the middle finger of his right hand against the window.

Roscoe's smile was glued to his face. He turned slowly from the window and looked at Spider. "Whut the fuck's eatin' on ol' Dorian?"

"Oh," Jester said, grunting with effort as he hauled his fat, old body up from the sofa, "he's worried 'bout science." He patted Keaton's shoulder as he walked by heading up to the front window to watch Dorian pull his truck out into the street and drive away.

"What the hell's he know about science?"

Spider nodded his head. He quickly told Sloan about the sale of the Serrano place. "Dorian's scared it's gonna be a bad influence on the town./"

Sloan looked after the disappearing Dorian. "Bad influence? Shit! Ain't nothin' could be as bad an influence as Dorian is hisself!"

All three men laughed loudly.

Despite the wonder of his wall pictures and the freedom they gave him, Pham had begun to grow cautious about them. No, it wasn't the pictures that scared him, for they were a joy. He knew he had nothing to fear from the wonderful creations of his imagination. It was the Big Ones that frightened him. What would they do to him if they found out about the pictures and his ability to make them? It was his secret, one he guarded with his very life. Even though he could make his pictures anytime he wanted---all he had to do was think about it---he had be very careful when and where he made one. It was out of the question if there was any chance of the Big Ones discovering it.

It'd been very hard for him at first because there were at least two Big Ones constantly watching him. He could only squeak out a picture in between the regular and frequent visits the Big Ones made to the place where he stayed. Later, this changed. The Big Ones came to visit less and less at night, and this gave him more and more time to make his pictures.

It was always the same picture. The hot jungle green, the baked golden sand, the unfamiliar but tantalizing smells, and the Father smiling and talking to him. The Father sat, squatted, in front of the house, and told Pham of the place and the times. "No matter what you're thinking, Pham, this place is all inside your memory. If it's not stored here," the Father put a finger to his head, "then you can't present it here." He stood and extended his arms. His arms dropped, and a heavy frown fell into place. "That's why you have to help the others, for they have no memory. They remember nothing, and----as their power grows---it's you who must guide them. You." He smiled again. "For now, it is well that you try again and again, that you flex the muscles of your power."

One night Pham tried to make another, different picture. He wrestled with another subject, for he had very little to choose from. The picture had to be something already in his memory, and he had few memories. All he knew was this place where he and the others lived. Then he remembered there was another part to this place he'd seen. It was the part outside the room, and Father-Doc had let him go there on special occasions. He began to think of that place beyond his room. His canvas, the bare, white walls across from his bed, burst into a yellowish-white. The hard shapes of the walls and ceiling and floor began to form. At once the hanging clock in the hallway took shape. He'd made the place outside the door!

Now, at the far end of the long, empty hallway, the figure of a young lady emerged through the double doors and walked towards Pham. She was one of the women who cared for him and the others, one he remembered most vividly. She was tall and blond, and she had blue eyes that had dancing golden lights in them. She was always kind to him, and now, in the picture, she smiled as she saw Pham.

Uh-oh! Something was wrong!

Fear exploded in his heart as he found out what was wrong. He buried his face in his hands. This wasn't his picture at all! He'd been found out! In his sleep, somehow, he'd wandered out into the hallway and had been seen there. But how did his bed get in the hallway? What was a dream and what was real tumbled together in his mind. He was confused and scared and didn't know what to do next---fly or confess.

But the lady said nothing to him. She came on towards him. He could hear the loud click of her heels on the floor, getting louder and louder as she came closer and closer.

Then she stopped.

Through the cracks between his fingers, he peeked and saw her standing in front of him.

"Pham," she said, softly, gently.

He recoiled from her.

"It's all right. I'm not here to hurt you. I can't hurt you." Her voice was soft and lilting and comforting just the way he remembered it. She added, "I'm you," in a different voice, one he'd never heard before....and yet.....? It sounded like his own, but the words came easy and clear. And there was no effort in saying them.

He took his hands away from his eyes and stared at her.

"You can speak through me," she said in her normal voice. Then, in the new voice, she said "Speak!"

He began to form words carefully with his misshapen jaw.

"No, not that way. Think about what you want to say. Think! You can speak through me by only thinking the words."

Why? he thought, and the word came out in the new voice, but the word came from her mouth. She smiled as she said it, cocking her head slightly.

His voice!

"I'm from your memory, just like the Father was. If you could remember the Father now, you could bring him here as well. I'm just a part of your memory. But you can speak through me." She placed her hand to her throat. "Using my throat. You can also do this with the Father."

"What's this picture, Pham?" Tammy's voice came to him.

He jerked his head in the direction where she lay in her machine. He wasn't surprised to hear her speak to him in his mind. They had often spoken together since the first time. She was always there, watching his pictures.

"This is outside the door, where the Big Ones are, Tammy."

When he spoke the woman turned towards Tammy and nodded her head.

"Is that you?"

"Yes and no. It's what I remember, but I can be in it too."

Tammy was silent for a few moments, then: "What do you look like, Pham?"

He lay back on his bed and crossed his hands on his stomach, staring at the dark ceiling. He began temporarily absorbed in the patterns of darkness forming and fading there, but Tammy's question kept pricking at his mind. He couldn't ignore it much longer. How could he answer her? He thought of his body, and he thought of the Big Ones' bodies, and he painfully saw the differences. He knew enough, understood enough to know the Big Ones thought he was ugly, so ugly they could not bring themselves to look at him. What would Tammy think? It worried him. What of her? What if she saw herself?

"Someday I'll show you," he said quietly. He tried sounding cheerful, and he hoped she believed in his cheer, but his mind was plagued by pain and doubt. Would he ever show her? Could he?

He found a new hope against this fear in the freedom of his picture. He was tethered to it, and more than just through the voice. If he thought of flexing an arm, the lady in the picture moved her arm. Using only his thoughts, he could move her, could move the people in his pictures. Hooray!

He drew back, thinking of what it meant. The potential and the possibilities excited him and overwhelmed his mind. He could barely control himself. But he cautioned himself, calmed himself down. The Big Ones would find out about his excitement. Still, it was hard to calm down. He was, after all, too young to understand the possibilities.

He glanced up at the lady. She stood there, waiting, a vacant smile on her face. She was waiting, waiting for him.

He flexed the bubble that was his brain and flipped it outward like the blinding flash of light that happened when the Big Ones took pictures of him. Just as suddenly, he found he could look through her eyes, look down on himself. It was a giggly freedom. He wanted to jump, and she jumped. She rose in the air, clicked her heels, and came down again. She twirled and kicked, and all simply because he thought about it. He was within her. He could move inside her! He would walk like a Big One using her body. He could fling his arms about and dance!

This exciting freedom stunned him, and another feat grew out of his excitement over this freedom. He pulled back from the lady, drew everything back into his body, and crouched back within himself in fear. There she stood, waiting again.

What wonder was this? That he could make a picture was wonderful enough. That he could put people in his pictures and make the people move and act and talk. More wonder, yes. But that he could go inside the picture himself, and take a shape in the picture, become part of it! This was all too much for him.

He couldn't resist, despite his fear. Almost unconsciously, he slipped back into the lady's body.

She leaned against the counter in the picture. He moved her hands over the contours of her body. They were his hands, and it was his body.

Then the fear crept in again.

He blacked out the picture and drew himself up in a sitting position on his bed. He had to think. The pictures were more wonderful than he'd thought! They were more than pictures. He could use what he created to move about and to be free of his body. To move from his wheelchair, to move just as the Big People did.

He brought forth the Father, and he moved into the Father's body. Again he flexed his arms and stared at them as he brought them up. He was thrilled with joyful excitement. "I'm free!" His voice came through the Father's lips. "Free!" As he danced around the Father's body, he stepped down out of the picture and onto the floor.

The floor?!

He could feel its hardness against his feet. He was free! Now his fear grew, but with his growing fear and excitement, the thrill running through his body, exploded. He was free! He turned slowly and looked behind him. He spread his arms and tried to hug the wall, but his arms fell through its surface into the warm, damp air of the picture.

Then the realization of what happened struck him. He wheeled around.

He was in his room. It was dark and still, but he was in the Father's body. And he was free of the picture! It was behind him. He was absolutely free of it! He was walking on the Father's legs. His steps were sure and confident. Then he kicked up a leg. He danced a little, feeling the sweat tingling on his body.

He was free!

But where was he?

He went over to the bed, his bed, Pham's bed, and bent over. There on the white plane of the sheets was a small, deformed, ugly dark spot. Him. Pham. What he truly was. He reached over to touch the skin of this thing. His skin. His hand held inches above the surface and trembled like a hovering moth. He couldn't bear to touch the skin. He felt nothing coming from it. There was no warmth or feeling there. Finally, he forced his hand down through the barrier his fear and disgust had made. He touched the deformed shape. He touched coldness. Brutal coldness. He leaned his head over and listened at the chest. His chest. Nothing but silence there. Silence. His heart wasn't beating. There was no rise and fall of breath. He might as well be listening to an empty can.

He was dead!

And yet---not dead. He was here, alive within the Father.

Confused and scared, he thought of going back into his body. He belonged there. And, instantly, he was there. The Father's image flickered in the air in front of him, then it vanished as if it'd been nothing more than hazy smoke.

He was back in his own body, the body he knew well, the body that was his prison. Had been his prison. Had been.

No more. He could exchange his prison for freedom, all at the flick of a psychic switch.

He was giddy with pleasure. And he slipped back into the Father's body.

Throughout most of the night, he stayed in the Father's body. He used it to move about the ward, then beyond the ward. This he did with great, trembling caution. He walked up and down the halls, and took such pride in his freedom that he thought he'd die from it. But, no, he wouldn't die. Not now, now as he was only starting to live. As dawn approached, he went back and slid from the Father's body back into his own. He tried to sleep, but could not. He could only dream of the next night, when he could be free again.

"Free?" Tammy asked him.

"Yes, free!"

"What is 'free'?"

"To get out of your body....to be able to move around like the Big Ones do. To walk....to dance...to see the other places....to...."

"What other places are there? What is there to see? What does it mean to move outside my---body?"

He strained for the words to tell her what "free" meant. The strain wrinkled and tore at his face, and still he couldn't find the right words. She lay there in the dark of his mind, awaiting an answer.

"Tonight," he said at last, "tonight. I'll show you."

But it was taken away from him.

And not just the pictures were taken away from him, from all of them, all was taken away from him. His whole life was tossed upside down.

The Big Ones who came in the morning were strangers. Pham had never seen them before. They were friendly enough. They smiled and cooed at him in the same way most of the Big Ones did. They were full of pity and professional concern, but when he tried to talk to them, they brushed him off. That was the way most of the Big Ones treated him. One of them wrapped him in a long, heavy blanket and put him in his chair, and strapped him in, while another packed his things. When his things were packed, which didn't take much longer than it took to strap him in his chair, the Big One pushed him down the hallway and out through the double doors.

He tried to see everything, tried to miss nothing, tried to log every detail in his mind, but he was so excited at what was happening that he couldn't focus on any detail. It all passed before him in a blur of color and motion. He was thrilled with it all, but sure that he wouldn't remember any of it.

Then they wheeled him through another set of double doors, and he was blasted with cold air the likes of which he'd never felt before. He shivered and cried, but did so silently, ashamed of his tears. Suddenly, he was scared, again really scared this time. He was scared he was going to die. Then there was a warm hand on his shoulder, and he looked up into Father-Doc's long face. Father-Doc was sad, Pham could tell. Father-Doc's long face was longer, and all the lines pointed downward, but he smiled and spoke softly.

"Everything's going to be all right, Pham" was what he said. "I thought I told you not to start before I got there," he said to the two Big Ones who'd brought Pham and his stuff outside.

One of them was a large, pinkish lady who looked soft but whose eyes were as cold as the air. She stiffened up and faced Greene. She was much larger than he was. "Dr. Greene, there's a plane waiting, and a front moving in. They don't have all day to wait."

He nodded, turned, and knelt in front of Pham. "We're going away, Pham," he said softly, "to a new home.....a place just for us. You've got to help me with the others. Do you understand that?"

Pham nodded.

"We don't have time for this, Doctor."

He nodded. "Don't be frightened, Pham. I'll be there for you.....always."

They rolled Pham up a ramp and into the back of a big square box on wheels. It was warmer inside, and there was a black man dressed in white who grinned easily at Pham. "I got him," he said to the two women, and he took Pham and wheeled him to the far corner of the dark box. "Now, you jus' wait up here while they get the others. It's warmer here, and you'll be fine." He set the brakes on Pham's chair.

One by one, Big Ones brought the others into the box. They rolled the machines up the ramp, set them so they wouldn't roll, and plugged them into the wall. Pham released the brakes and started rolling forward. "Don't worry, dude, I'll check 'em out."

"Let him," Father-Doc said. He was standing by the door. "He always has---let him."

The black man shrugged. "Whatever ya say."

They took them all away. They stayed in this box for a short time. The black man had reset the brakes on Pham's wheelchair after the boy had checked the others in their machines. "Better lock this thing down, it's gonna get rough in here." He was right. The box bounced and shifted and moved, and Pham was scared all over again, of this box, of the movement. He bit his fear back, refusing to show it.

His worry was for nothing. In a brief time, all movement ceased. After a few moments, the back door opened and there were other Big Ones there, smiling and nodding at him. There was a tunnel made from heavy, black cloth attached to the rear of the box, and beyond that, another dark box.

"All right," the black man said cheerfully, "everybody out." He released the brakes on Pham's wheelchair and pushed him up through the tunnel.

It was lighter inside the new box, cleaner, brighter. The black man rolled him over to a bed. "You're gonna make this trip first class, dude....." He laughed, showing off his bright white teeth. "Hell, even the big shots who pay for first class don't get a bed." He lifted Pham from the chair and laid him in the bed. "Stay straight, my man." He moved away.

Pham was in a little compartment, and there was a woman in starched white who smiled a lot but who didn't speak. She put something in his arm with a needle, something that made him drowsy and slowed down his fear and wonder. It didn't drive the fear away, but it turned it into a little, silent, dark bird, that perched on his shoulder and refused to fly.

All through his sleep, Pham sensed the movement.

They put Tammy and the others somewhere else in the machine. He didn't know where. At times, through the noise of the travel and the fog in his mind, he could hear her voice calling to him. It was weak and he could have been wrong. She sounded far away. He didn't try to answer her.

They stayed in the machine for a long time. Pham couldn't make his pictures. There was no place, no privacy, and whatever the Big Ones kept putting in his arm confused and clouded up his mind. He understood nothing of what was happening to him. Even Father-Doc wasn't around to explain it to him. Pham worried that he'd die of fear.

Then they were taken out of the big machine. There was bright, warm sunlight. It hurt Pham's eyes. He fought through the pain of the glare so he could see where he was. They were taken into a big house that was set in the middle of a wide, open green field. The strange Big Ones put all the others in a big room like the one they'd left behind. Pham had a bed of his own in a room of his own, near the others.

As soon as he could, he vowed he'd try to resume his routine again. As soon as the fog drifted away from his mind, he got into his chair and went to check the others. They were all right. Their machines were purring along just like usual.

Then Father-Doc came and told Pham that this place was to be their new home.

When all was quiet in their new home, Pham woke and gathered the others. He told them they were safe, that they were at their new home. He told them of their new home, of what he'd seen of their new home. They all cooed and hummed in pleasure, and their fears soon died away. Pham lay back and began to make a picture.

"Pham?" Tammy asked.

"What?"

"Can you make our new home?"

"I'll try."

There was silence. He went back to remembering what he'd seen when they arrived.

"Pham?"

"What?"

"Is Father-Doc happy in our new home?"

"I think so, Tammy. He was----worried at first, but he's not worried now. He's got a big eye that shows him the outside world, and he thinks we'll be safe here. He works very hard, taking care of us, but I think he's happy."

"I'm glad that he's happy, Pham. I love Father-Doc."

"We all love Father-Doc."

The wall erupted into a picture. It rolled and pitched at first, then snapped---click!---into focus. There was a long, flowing green area. In the distance was a row of trees that blotted out everything that lay beyond. On this side of the trees, Pham could see a fence and an iron gate with stone columns to either side of it. A blue-white sky, with thin puffs of clouds, lay above the trees. All was bright and beautiful.

Pham knew this place.

He'd seen it when they carried him from the big machine they'd traveled in.

It was the front of their new home. This was what was on the outside of the door.

But it wasn't Pham's picture!"

"Who did that!?"

"I did," Tammy said proudly., She giggled then, and addy shyly, "So did you. This place is in your thoughts, Pham. It felt good---so open and clean---I thought I'd like to see it."

Pham said nothing.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, no. I'm just surprised. I didn't know that you could make pictures----yet."

"Neither did I. This is my first one."

Pham studied the picture carefully. It was good. "This is the front of our house. This is where we live."

There was a chorus of sighs and gasps of awe and wonder from the others. They didn't speak yet, but it wouldn't be long.

"Tammy?"

"Yes, Pham?"

"Your picture's good. It's better than I could make."

"Thank you, Pham. But it's yours too. I couldn't make this picture if it weren't already in your mind. You were going to make this picture, but then you waited. I wanted to see it."

He nodded with satisfaction. "The power is growing, Tammy, like the Father told me it would. Soon the others will be able to make pictures."

There were giggles and shouts from the others.

"We've got to have new pictures, Tammy. All the pictures come from what I see. I'm the only one who can bring the pictures. I must get new pictures."

"And new people, too."

"New people?"

"Like the Father, Pham. Big Ones. Like you made before."

He looked up, and the father was speaking, only his voice was the voice of Tammy. Pham churned his chin down into his chest, Tammy's picture all but forgotten.

New people? How could he bring them "new" people? He thought of those Big Ones he'd seen. He could do the black man in the box on wheels. The other Big Ones who had smiled and nodded. But that was it. He saw nobody who was "new". He was only slightly less a prisoner than they were. The only person he saw regularly was Father-Doc. He saw nothing and nobody else. Nothing but what he could see from the windows.

What else could he give them?

Father-Doc?

No! That wouldn't be right. Father-Doc was special. He was Father-Doc. It wouldn't be right to make Father-Doc appear in a picture. Not at all. They all loved Father-Doc too much. Out of the question.

He lay quietly, thinking of how he could bring the others more and more.

Everyone else was quiet, too. They all watched Tammy's picture. Their eyes roamed like freed birds over its expanse. They tried to capture every detail. They entered it all on the almost blank slates of their memories.

He walked through the dark hallway that led to the big rooms in the rear of the house. He was on the ground floor. Those big rooms had been converted into a ward for his freaks. They were big, spacious, bright, and private, just right. His footsteps were the only sounds in the house, and he recalled how Pennington, one of the general's aides, had described their new home. "It's a big place---two stories, twenty rooms----built by a New Yorker who'd made a fortune off World War II. He had great plans for draining the swamps around there and turning the whole area into a big agricultural empire. Lost his ass. Nothing'll grow down there but scrub trees and snakes. After a few years of trying he quit and walked away from it all, almost dead broke. Instead of draining the swamp, the swamp drained him of all his money. It's been vacant since the '50s. We've fixed it up to meet all your needs, and I think you'll find it satisfactory."

It was indeed satisfactory. Downstairs, there was plenty of room for the lab and the freaks' ward. His living quarters were upstairs. There was also a small sleeping room down here if he ever felt a need to be close to the freaks. And there were other bedrooms upstairs if anyone ever visited.

All was well.

Only one assistant had come down here from the facility to help Greene set up his new home. Soon, even that assistant was taken away. But it really didn't matter. Once a routine was established, there wasn't enough work to keep an assistant working anyway. It was a major job for Greene, consuming most of his waking hours, but that helped the time to pass. He didn't care.

And there was Pham.

The little freak was priceless. He'd found ways to use most of the equipment in the house, and more and more he took on the duties of a butler. This was in addition to helping with the other freaks. He was slow and clumsy at this work, but he was diligent and untiring.

All was well.

Greene pushed open the swinging door into the freaks' ward. It was quite dark inside, but he could make out the little shape on the bed in the little room beside the door. He saw Pham move and shift to an upright position.

"Yes, Father-Doc?"

"Just checking on you, Pham."

Pham shifted again on the bed, facing Greene, his tiny legs dangling over the side. "All is well, Father-Doc. The machines stay the same." He cocked his little head and was quiet for a moment, as if he were listening, hearing something nobody else could in the silent dark. His eyes clouded over, a thin film slipping like a lid over their quiet darkness. "The others are fine."

A strange thought crossed Greene's mind. Did Pham establish some kind of communication with the others? Could they....? No, he ruled out that thought. He chuckled loudly. "Thanks, Pham. You take such good care of them, pretty soon you won't be needing me."

"That's not true, Father-Doc. We'll always need you. You're all we have in the whole world."

"Yes. Well, good night, Pham." Greene slipped back out into the hallway as Pham returned the good night. He turned and went back up the hall towards the stairway, then, changing his mind, went back down the hall to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of milk and stood drinking it, leaning against the kitchen cabinet.

Yes, he thought, I am all they've got in the world. I always will be. That's right.

Some of Greene's fellow scientists had expressed shock and alarm when they learned he'd chosen to stay with the freaks after the project had been shunted out of the light. They believed that the study of the freaks was only an interesting sideshow, and ultimately, a dead-end street. Green was a man of great potential. Some believed he was brilliant. "A man who's going to make a difference," some of them said. Nobody believed that much could be learned from the freaks. They weren't a full-time occupation for a man of his talents. After all, there was really nothing to do for them, except those maintenance tasks that a well-trained nurse could do just as well.

If Greene were up-front with himself, he, too, knew it was a dead-end street.

What had caused the freaks to be born as they were was already known. One of the chemical defoliants used to clear away the savage undergrowth in Vietnam, a reddish liquid nicknamed "Gonzo" by the soldiers, was the cause. Apparently "Gonzo" had somehow gotten into their mothers' systems when they were being formed. And they came out horrible and twisted. This much was known. But why and how this had happened, nobody knew. Greene secretly believed it might never be known. The parts weren't there. There was no consistency in the event of freak births. There were only these five surviving freaks. One more had died before it could be brought safely to the U.S. for study. Of course, no one knew how many others like these were buried in unmarked graves in the jungles. Too horrible to be kept, to even look at. How many? Hundreds? Thousands? There were horror stories, but they didn't seem likely. There wasn't any hard evidence that the freak firth was ever widespread, even during the height of the war. There had been a lot of propaganda, but nothing else. Stories, phony photographs, legends, tall tales. Nothing "hard." As far as Greene knew there were no other freaks but his. These poor things seemed to be only isolated causes, and nobody knew how they had happened.

The only positive thing to occur because of the freaks and Greene's work with them was that Gonzo was reclassified. It now carried the Dangerous label, which restricted its use. But even that small victory was being worn away. Lately, he'd been reading that the government was thinking of using Gonzo to defoliate the unprofitable undergrowth in the forests of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Whenever he thought about this, a little grin came to Greene's face. He couldn't help but wonder if, just maybe, this was the true reason why his project had been shuffled off into oblivion, why he and his freaks had to leave their so-visible home and come to this godforsaken bayou. Were they, maybe, a little too obvious even in that "secret" lab? Did they pose a threat to the government's proposed actions? Were they a potential embarrassment?

What did it matter?

It didn't matter at all----unless there would be another generation of freaks born in the Northwest.

He shuddered at the thought and sent it flying from his mind, put his empty milk glass in the sink, and shut out the light. He went back up through the house, turning off all unnecessary lights, and, finally, checking the TV monitor of the elaborate security system the government had installed for their protection. From this central control point, he could monitor, on a little black-and-white TV set, every inch of the 8-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounded the house. There were TV cameras placed at intervals all along the fence, and he could see what any one of those cameras saw just by flipping a switch.

When they'd first been brought here, he'd followed instructions explicitly. Every night he'd gone through the elaborate ritual of checking what every single one of the cameras saw. It didn't take that long, but it was a rather cumbersome procedure. He soon discovered it was a worthless ritual. Nobody had ever come over the fence. There was seldom anything to see but the ghostly wire in the lights. He'd developed a simple ritual of his own. His ritual was to change the view on the screen every night by switching from one camera to another. It was that simple.

All was quiet tonight. Just like all nights.

"We can't afford any publicity," Pennington had warned him, "so keep a low profile. The townies are friendly enough, but they're curious. They'll come to you openly and ask you every damn question in the book. Don't answer them---or at least, watch what you say to those people. Don't tell them anything about the freaks. They're unlikely to understand, and what they're unlikely to understand, they'll be afraid of. First thing you know, they'll be sending a delegation from Washington, asking us to move you because they think you're some kinda threat or some such bullshit."

"What do you want me to say----if they ask me?"

"Just tell them that you're working on----some kind of a simple experiment. Tell them it's for the government, something for national defense. Most of these rednecks down here back the government if they think it's against the commies, no matter what. Tell them it's delicate and secret---but that it's safe. Beyond that, keep your damn mouth shut. I won't be telling you again."

Greene complied with his directions. He told none of the townies who'd come to visit him since he'd moved there about the freaks.

He always met them at the front of the house. He would open the big, iron main gate for them, and they would drive up the long, circular driveway. He was always friendly and polite to them. But he denied them entrance into the house, and he evaded all direct questions about the nature of his "experiment." Pennington had been right about the people. They came. Everybody came, in the spirit of "good neighbors," a Southern tradition. And they were open and friendly. They were curious and sharing. The local men came and sat on the porch and talked to him about the weather and the crops, and gave him tidbits of local history and color. The women came and brought him home-cooked sweets and chatted about personal things. Mostly: Was he married? Did he have a family? What church did he attend? Greene was not easy in the company of strangers. He worked hard at keeping a smile on his face. He suppressed a hard, lumpy discomfort, which was a part of his natural shyness. But he started to handle these encounters very well. And, to his shock, he found new enjoyment in other people, in being with other people, strangers even. The people sensed his pleasure with them, and they returned it. The men all thought Doc, as they called him, was a straight guy. The women all thought him mysterious and, therefore, attractive. Everyone was disappointed that he was so secretive, but, after a period of embarrassed adjustment, they all respected the limits he imposed.

All was well.

There was only one light left to be turned off downstairs. It was in the foyer, by the front entrance. He generally left this light on. It bathed the bottom of the stairs and the foyer with soft, yellowish light. He didn't want to risk a fall in case he had to come downstairs quickly in the night. Greene stepped on the first step, sighed, then began climbing with a heavy, measured tread. He went to his bedroom and shut the door. His large double bed was unmade. He grinned and silently chided himself for not being as good a butler as Pham was. He made for his bed, undressed, and put on a pair of lightweight, flannel pajamas. Lying down, he propped himself up on a pillow and picked up a book from the bedside table. He found where he'd left off the night before and tried to pick up the threat of the story, but, after a few minutes, he closed the book and laid it aside, clearly unable to focus on the detective story.

Why? That was the question he asked himself. It was the same question everybody else asked him. Why did he stay with the freaks? All his hard years of study and work, all the promise, all the faith of others. This was where it ended up? Playing nursemaid to a bunch of poor, deformed nonentities! That was really all he was doing.

There was a stabbing pain of disappointment, but.....

Here in the quiet warmth of the Southern night, he knew why, and he knew he couldn't change it. He'd broken a rule, a rule of his profession, a rule he believed in. He'd gotten emotionally involved!

Greene was attached to the freaks. There was none of the needed detachment a scientist has to have. He'd learned to---oh, shit!---to love them. His destiny was---good, bad, or in-between---locked to theirs.

To him, they were not just shapeless subjects of a research project. They weren't just a job. They weren't blobs of flesh in life-support capsules. They were his family, his children. They were a ruin. They were things nobody would ever look at except with horror and revulsion. There was nothing to redeem them. Except for Pham, there was no guarantee that they were even aware of other people. But they were his. They were his!

His eyes stung when he thought of them.

Like any loving parent, he could never leave his children, not for as long as they lived.

He reached up and shut off the lamp and lay back down. In the silent dark, he smiled. Yes, he was happy with his decision to stay with the freaks. Happy and content.

Mrs. Keaton---Spider's wife---was an unfortunate scarecrow of a woman. She was as tall as an old pine, with a waistline no bigger than a whistle. She was all angles, sharp turns, and flat spaces. Her small, dark eyes were set too close together. They closed in on a narrow, beaklike nose. Her hair was thin and oily black. It always smelled of chemical preparations, as she constantly tried to give it more body, luster, and life. When she parted her thin lips to speak, she revealed a complete set of long, horselike teeth. But for all her physical shortcomings, she was a compassionate "Christian" woman. A good wife to the placid Spider, she was actually the driving force behind whatever ambition he displayed.

Standing in the doorway of the store with her arms crossed over her narrow breasts, she was looking down at Spider and Juster, and Dorian Dumont. It was getting late in the afternoon. The sun was at their backs now. It was cooling off. The men were talking about Doc Greene. The doc was just about all everybody talked about nowadays. Dorian sat silently, the muscles in his face working feverishly beneath his skin. He didn't even act like he heard what others were saying.

Finally, with a grunt of anger, Dorian moved. He threw his chair back against the wall and propped himself up by placing his feet on the porch support. "I've had jus' 'bout all I can take!"

Both Spider and Jester looked at him in surprise. Mrs. Keaton, sensing that Dorian was about to blow up, closed the screen door, and moved back inside.

" 'Bout what?" Jester asked.

" 'Bout that scientist out there---thet's wha'!"

"The doc?"

"You can say all you like, but I still say they's somethin' strange goin' on out there."

Jester squinted his eyes into the gathering dark of the shadows. Calmly, he bent over and spat into a Folger's Coffee can at his feet. "Now, Dorian, I been out there 'n' I've had me a long talk wi' th' doc. I don't think they's anythin' funny at all goin' on out there. What 'bout you, Spider?"

"No, sir, I don't. I think th' doc's jus' 'bout as nice a feller as you'd hope t'meet---for a damn Yankee, thet is."

Jester grinned at Dorian. "You remind me of some ol' hound dawg what thinks he's snared a coon, but he's jus' barkin' up th' wrong tree. Ain't you had it happen afore? They's maybe scent 'round th' roots, but they's nothin' up the tree? And that stupid ol' dawg keeps on a-barkin'!"

"Well, listen Jester," Dorian began, trying hard to sound patient and calm, "I know what a nice feller th' doc is 'n' all, but----I tell ya!---they's somethin' bad 'bout th' whole thing." He paused and turned his eyes inward. "Have ya seen all that fence he got 'round that place? Now, why would anybody in his right mind fence off all that ground lessen he's got somethin' 't' hide?"

"You know 'bout th' doc's work...."

"Th' hell I do! An' you don't, neither! All ya know is jus' what he tells ya---what he wants ya 't' know."

"It ain't...."

" 'N' ya know what I heard? When they was a-puttin' up that fence, Blackburn, down at Piney Acres, he drove by there 'n' he seen people a'-puttin' up what looked like big ol' Tee-Vee cameras."

Jester said, "You talked 't' Blackburn? Now, you know you cain't take his word on 'nuthin, Dorian." He chuckled and Spider joined him.

Mrs. Keaton stepped back on the porch. "Dorian Dumont! I jus' don't know what t'do wi' th' like o' you! Honestly, th' way ya talks 'bout that man! He ain't harmed ya one bit, now has he?" The screen door shut with a loud bang behind her.

Dorian brought his chair down on all four legs. He hunched over at the waist, hugging his thin torso in his arms. "Shoulda knowed you'd stand up fer 'im. He's got all th' women 'round here in th' palm o' 'is 'and."

"Ain't nobody got me in th' palm o' 'is 'and, an' I resent you or anyone else sayin' so."

Dorian paused and smiled sagely.

"I'm jus' sayin' that yew been down on that pore man even a'fore he moved in out there! Why, ever'body knows it for a fact! Now, I wanna know why this is?"

Dorian started to confront her, but one look at the determined and angry cast in her cold eyes, and he gulped and turned away from her. "Aw, ya wouldn't un'erstand," he mumbled.

With mock seriousness, Jester said in a conspiratorial whisper, "Ol' Dorian believes that th' doc's some kinda mad scientist."

Keeping up the act, Spider joined in with the same whispered tone. "Lak' Dr. Frankenstein!"

Mrs. Keaton snorted.

"Well, you go on 'n' make fun---see iffen I give a shit!"

She broke into her trademark cackling laugh, put her hand over her mouth, and bent double at the waist. Through the laughter, she was saying , "Oh m'God! If that don't beat all I ever did hear!"

Now Dorian blew up. He burst out of his chair and took a fighter's stance in the empty parking spaces in front of the store, his tight, small fists rolling in a slow arc in front of his chest. "Ain't nobody seen what's inside'a that house. How d'ya know he ain't workin' on some kinda monster or some shit like that?"

Mrs. Keaton's laughter died away like a drop of water in a sandbox. She moved from the curb and faced Dorian. "'Cause I know th' man, Dorian Dumont! I don't have to snoop 'round in 'is 'ouse!" Her serious expression began to twitch, a tremble shot up through her face, and she broke up into laughter. She turned in the doorway and said, "Mad scientist!" Bending double with laughter, she was gone.

"Fuckmunchers!"

"Whatchoo mean by that?" Spider asked, dumbly.

"Hidin' behind yer ol' lady's skirts---both o' ya!"

Spider started to get up, but Jester stopped him with a hand on his chest. Jester rose and stepped out to face Dorian. He sighed heavily. Jester was an old man---a good twenty years older than Dorian---but he was still big and strong. His fists were ham-sized. They clenched and unclenched. "Dorian, you full o' shit! You always been fulla shit, 'n' ya always will be fulla shit!" He maneuvered his well-used plug of Mail Pouch tobacco around in his mouth so that it covered his teeth.

Dorian reached forward and caught the old man by the shirt collar. His other hand arced back and was about to come forward, but it was stopped by a sudden noise in the street behind him. Dorian turned and looked, his fist poised in the air, ready to strike.

There was a black-and-white car sitting behind him, and the big, full-moon face of Sheriff Hogan was leaning out the window.

"Howdy!" he said, loud enough to be heard by Dorian.

Dorian glanced over his shoulder with a tight, ferret glance.

None of the men spoke.

"Dorian, you 'bout t' hit pore ol' Jester there? Is that what yer a'fixin' t' do?" There was some humor around the edges of Hogan's question.

Dorian dropped his hand and let go of Jester's shirt. He dropped his head and tried to have his shoulders swallow it as if they were a turtle's shell.

"That's shore whut it looked like t'me. Was that whut you was gonna do, Dorian?"

Dorian shook his head.

"Hm. Guess'n I made a mistake then." He looked away from Spider. "Evenin', Mr. Mayor, how y'all?" Seeing the dim outline of Mrs. Keaton through the screen, he tipped his hat. "Evenin' Missus Keaton."

She stuck her head out of the door. "Hi, Sheriff Hogan. How y'all?"

The sheriff looked back to Spider and Jester. "Is there anything that I can do for you boys?"

Jester said, "No, sir, I don't believe so." He glanced at Dorian who was still trying to pull into his protective shell. "At least, not now."

"Well now, if there is, you be shore t'call me, y'hear?"

Nobody spoke.

"D'yuh hear me, Dorian?"

Dorian nodded his head.

"Well, I'll see y'all later." The sheriff drove off down the street.

Dorian waited until the sound of Hogan's car had totally died away. Then he turned to Jester. His face was red, his eyes afire, his mouth was wide open, but before he could speak, the old man held up a hand. "I may not be young 'nuff t' take ya on, Dorian, but I think I am and that's what counts in this here game." His voice lowered to a menacing whisper. "But I promise you one thing---you ever lay a hand on me, ever again, 'n' I'll fuckin' kill ya!"

Dorian straightened and raised his head defiantly. He sniffed the air once, wheeled about, and stormed off down the street, mumbling loudly to himself.

When Dorian was out of earshot, Jester said, shaking his head, "Crazy!"

"Really down on th' poor ole doc." Mrs. Keaton added.

"Like ya said," Spider added, "'always was, 'n' always will be.'"

"Yup!"

With a laugh, Mrs. Keaton said, "Next time I see the doc, I'm gonna have t' ask 'im 'bout his monster."

They all laughed and stepped inside the store.

His name was Tom Hall.

He was called "that crazy hippie sonofabitch" by most of the people around Hullbeck until they learned that he was a wounded Vietnam veteran. Then they called him "that crazy shell-shocked sonofabitch." Whatever they called him, they left him alone. Before they learned of his wounds, the men of Hullbeck and roundabouts threatened him with midnight haircuts and wire-brush baths. Now they just left him alone. They nodded and spoke to him when he passed by. They were polite enough. They figured since he was a veteran, they owed him that much. But they kept their distance. It was their considered opinion that he was harmless, but they didn't want to take any chances. He was considered a poor, pitiful man--a casualty of the war.

At about 10:00 one bright sunny morning, Tom rode his motorcycle before the closed gate of Greene's house. He killed the motor and propped the big black BMW up on its center stand and walked to the gate, searching for some kind of device to use to communicate with the scientist inside.

Tom Hall was a big, bearlike, young man with shoulder-length locks of sandy red hair and a great, exploding beard. He was a casualty of the war all right, but it wasn't his brain that was wounded. At least it wasn't specifically in his brain where his wounds were. It was his legs that were damaged. He carried a heavy weight of shrapnel in both of them. This caused him to walk slowly and with a slight limp. His wound had left him with only limited use of his legs. After an extended period of walking, standing, or working on them, they folded up and went limp, and he suffered severe, shooting pains for quite some time after. The doctors at various veterans' hospitals had operated many times. They had relieved him of a lot of metal, but they couldn't get it all. They told him that even if they got it out of him, he still wouldn't have his legs back the way they were. They would never be really strong or powerful again. They were too damaged, too far gone, shot. The muscles were so riddled and weakened that they would never again be of any use to him.

And for the loss of his legs, or for the pain, or for whatever thwarted destiny there might have been for him, the government sent Tom a sizeable check every month and promised to do so for the rest of his life.

He found a little black button on one of the stone columns beside the gate and above it a black box that looked like a speaker. He pushed the button and looked through the iron bars of the gate to the great house within.

After some moments of silence, there was an electronic squawk from the box and a voice said, "Yes, may I help you?"

"Yeah," Tom answered down into the box. "Um, I'm Tom, Tom Hall. I'm a neighbor. I live just a few miles from here. I thought I'd just drop by and---uh, get acquainted." He looked hopefully past the column towards the silent house. "I've been meaning to come by and say hello for some time, but.....well, you know how it goes----put things off, you know."

Only silence came from the box.

Tom finally said, "Hello! Is there anyone there?"

The voice answered quickly. "Yes, yes, I'm here. I'd be glad to talk with you, but it'll be in a few minutes. I'm in the process of...."

"How 'bout if I come back some other time?"

"No, no. It'll just be a few minutes. You wait there. I'll open the gate."

"Are you sure it's all right?"

No answer.

Tom stepped back and looked at the house. It was a dream of a place. Someone's idea of a pre-Civil War plantation house. Great stone columns lined the front and side porches and a magnificent set of stairs leading up to the front doors. Like a glistening jewel in a beautiful setting, the house sat on the top of a little knoll in an excellently landscaped garden. Both it and its grounds could easily have been built as a set for some antebellum romantic movie.

A wrinkle of a frown tickled Tom's face.

As much as he was impressed and awed by the house, it didn't really concern him. He wasn't as interested in the place as he was in the man who lived there.

Tom chose to live in this pleasant, sleepy backwater. He loved the slow-moving, undemanding pace of life here. It had very few bothers and burdens. But Hullbeck was a lonely place for him. He was a strange fish in the backwater. He'd not found anyone in the town or the surrounding countryside with whom he could discuss the books he was reaching or the ideas he had, or with whom he could play chess, or share any of the special pleasures that were so important to him. He lived like a hermit, grubbing around his cabin, and fixing things up. Most of the time he cherished the privacy his isolation gave him, but, sometimes, loneliness gnawed at him. It was as persistent as a hungry rate gnawing at a cupboard door. It ached at him so bad, sometimes, he thought of packing it all in and going back to live in the fast-moving stream of the city.

Now, perhaps, he wouldn't have to.

He'd overheard two people talking about the "doc," and his heart leaped. The man sounded just like the kind of friend Tom needed around here. He'd left his house the very next morning with months of unspoken conversation stacked up on his tongue.

Suddenly, the gate swung open with a squawk.

Tom passed through the gate and began to walk up the wide, graveled drive towards the house. The gravel was sun-bleached white and the glare of the sun bouncing off it hurt his eyes. They stung as if they were filled with tears. He shielded them with his hand.

A tall, stooped man dressed in slacks and a white shirt, open at the collar, stepped out of the front door. He shut it behind him, then turned and shook the lock a couple of times to make sure it was secure before again turning to wave at Tom. "Hello! Hello!" he called.

When Tom was at the foot of the great staircase leading up to the porch, Greene jumped down lightly and went toward him, extending his hand. His steps were light and lively. "Reginald Greene, at your service---folks around here just call me 'Doc.'" He shook Tom's hand firmly, quickly, then dropped it. "And you're Tom Hall."

"That's right."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Hall?"

"Call me Tom."

"Tom. Are you 'just visitin'' as they say around here, or do you have a special reason for coming here?" Greene studied Tom carefully from behind his welcoming smile.

Tom looked away from Greene's probing eyes. "To tell you the truth, Doc, I only just heard about your being here, and I got to wondering....do you play chess, by any chance?"

"Yes. Love to, love to." Greene quickly dropped his smile and rubbed his hands together, looking down at the ground. "Haven't had too much time to play lately, the grind being what it is, you know, but I do enjoy a game every now and then." The smile quickly returned to his face.

"That's what I was hoping for. There're not too many people around here who play at all. I've missed it. That's why, when I heard about you being here----well, I came right over."

Greene took Tom's hand again. He put his other arm on Tom's shoulder and led the young man up the steps to the porch. He gestured towards a wrought-iron table and chairs. "Here. Sit here, and I'll fix us some coffee." He walked back to the front door and pulled a key out of his pants pocket. He put the key in the lock and clicked it open, he turned at the door ane said, "I'll get the chess set, too, if I can find it."

"Great," Tom said. He was proudly beaming.

Later, looking at him over a half-empty coffee cup, Green asked Tom, "Did you serve in the war?"

Tom hesitated before he answered. He looked down and away, and a quick shudder ran through him, then vanished. Finally, he said slowly, "Yeah, I was in 'Nam. I don't say that I 'served' because I don't see how killing people is 'serving' anyone, do you?"

'Yes, yes," Greene said. He felt Tom's pane and looked away from him. "I know what you mean," he added with a great weariness in his voice.

This day was the first day of their friendship. The chess game was finished. Tom had won, but it hadn't been too easy. Greene was a skilled, determined player, though his game was erratic. It fluctuated from brilliant to sloppy, as if, at times, he was so distracted he wasn't even concentrating on his moves. He lost well, complimenting Tom on his skill. An easy, relaxed tone settled over both men. They sensed that they could be totally calm and comfortable in each other's presence, understood that they could share thoughts and feelings and that no true barrier existed between them.

Tom came every day after that. His visits became a normal part of the daily routine. He was expected, and Greene would open the gate automatically minutes before he was due to arrive. They played long games of chess and drank countless cups of strong, black coffee. Mostly, they talked.

"I came back from the war hating everything," Tom said one time, "just burning up with hate for everything. And it wasn't just because of what happened to my legs. That was part of it, right enough, but it was nothing compared to all the other things I saw. It was what they did to everybody and everything. It was all so damned stupid!" Frustration and anger shook his broad body for a few wild seconds; he looked away from Greene in embarrassment. "I joined up with all the others. I was ripe to show my hatred in any way that I could think of. I marched and shouted and all that---burned the flag, threw a brick or two. I even went so far as to not cash the checks the government was sending me every month---payment for my legs. As a protest against the rotten damn system, I refused to take their 'blood money.' but," he grinned slyly, "I wasn't dumb enough to throw them away."

Greene laughed. "And yet you stopped doing all that and brought yourself out here. Why?"

"I got to thinking that somewhere, somehow, the same damn trick had been pulled on me again. My left hand hadn't been watching my right. Y'see, the Army made me lose myself---that's their job, they gotta do it. Being a soldier means---in part---not being yourself anymore. Later, when I'd think about it sometimes, it just scared the livin' shit outta me that something like that can be done so easily---and to me! I spent many nights in the hospital, awake, in a cold sweat, thinking that over. And I swore I'd never let it happen to me again. But there I was, marching with all the rest of them, shouting the same slogans, throwing my rocks at the same windows, and setting the flag on fire while someone else held it. And it dawned on me----I was doing the same thing as before. I was becoming a 'social man,' and I was getting lost again. I'd just about forgotten who the fuck I really was." He looked over at Greene. His broad, handsome face was dark and clouded. Then, slowly, a hesitant smile curled his lips. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes, it does."

"So I took a bunch of those monthly checks----I had a good pile of 'em by that time---and I bought that motorcycle and I left. Just took out on my own. For a while, I just rode around---all parts of the country----looking at everything I could see, making friends 'n' stuff like that. Mostly, just spending a good deal of time by myself. I happened on this place, and I liked it. Backwater town where nothing much ever happens." Tom paused and walked out to the railing of the porch and looked over the silent countryside.

The sun was molten brass in a soft white sky. Puffy white clouds floated lazily on the upper breeze. The crushing heat hadn't taken control yet. It was still pleasant, just warm, and the air as soft as a lover's caress.

"I just want to live as an 'I.' I can only---really---stop one war, and that's the war inside myself with all those forces outside myself. And I have to fight that war alone." He turned back to Greene. "If I can win that war, then maybe I can learn to forgive the government for what happened to me and all the others. Maybe I can learn to forgive everybody for what they've all done." Tom's face was flushed, and his eyes were glassy with tears.

Greene didn't answer. He looked away from Tom and out across the lawn and into the trees. He knew the feelings Tom was expressing. Greene hadn't been a soldier in the war, but he'd been there. He'd been a confused, doddering participant around the fraying edges, and the anger and frustration that he'd felt were vague and undirected; but, now, each day, when he looked at his children, he knew more anger and more frustration; and it was more solid and direct. It all tumbled back over his mind now, as he sat in embarrassed silence.

"So that's how I came to be here," Tom said, breaking the silence easily and brightly. He walked back over to the table and threw one leg over the back of a chair. "And you're in this backwater working on some kind of super secret experiment. And you won't even tell me what it's about."

Greene looked up. He put on his polite smile of refusal. This was the smile he used on everyone who got near to asking questions about his work. It came automatically, like a mask. He sipped some coffee from his cup. It was cold and thick, and he thought for a second that he'd gag on it. "It's of little importance, but I do have my orders to keep as quiet about it as possible." He shrugged. "It's just a small experiment that really doesn't mean anything."

Tom leaned forward on the table. "Why are you saying it wouldn't mean much to me?" he asked, slyly. "Don't you think Momma Hall's super-smart number-one son can handle it?"

"It's not that, Tom. It's just that---to be perfectly honest with you....I, like you, get a monthly check from the government."

"So? I guessed it was a government project."

Greene's head bobbed like a duck's on the water. He was obviously uncomfortable. "And I'm under strict orders not to talk about this---experiment with anybody. Surely you can understand that? I'm afraid, like you as a soldier, I can't make individual choices."

Tom drew back. "Okay," he answered with a shrug.

"It's nothing against you, Tom. You should know that. It's just a policy matter. With all the other folks around here, it's just to keep them from walking all over the experiment, and, I must admit, that suits me fine. But you're a friend, a true friend," Greene placed his hand on Tom's arm. "I'd like to tell you, take you into my confidence, but I'm still bound by the same policy."

"No, problem, Doc." Tom smiled at Greene, shaking the problem away.

Greene was silent. He knew the arrangement was a problem for them and their friendship, no matter what Tom said. For some days, Greene had seen the problem, like an insidious worm, cutting its way into the solid wood of their friendship. Tom felt that he deserved special consideration. But Green couldn't share his family with Tom, no matter how much he wanted to. He could not tell Tom the truth. Not yet.

The next day, after a lunch of cold roast beef sandwiches and kosher dills, Tom pushed his chair back and rose from the table. "I gotta go over to New Orleans for a few days." It was an announcement, cold and formal.

Greene rose also, "I'll miss you."

"I won't be gone long. I'll be back in a couple of days." The old smile swept back into place on his face. "You can bet that my first stop when I get back will be your place. Bet on it."

As he watched Tom fire up the motorcycle and ride away, Greene felt confident that Tom had adjusted to the terms of the arrangement. The hush-hush experiment. The locked front door. The need for total secrecy. It wouldn't worm its way through their friendship and cause it to collapse.

He waved from the porch. Then Tom was out of sight. Greene unlocked the front door and went inside. A turn into a side room, which had been a closet, and he stood in front of the panel that controlled all security to the place. He shut the iron gates, keeping himself and his family safe from the outside world.

It'd been a good picture this night.

Because she was the best at bringing out all the sharp details, Tammy had made the picture. Pham helped her only where her attention flagged or her memory had not cataloged some minute thing. It was the world outside their front door. It was as it was this day: hazy sunshine, a high, thin layer of clouds, a dark, threatening cloud bank to the west, and a little wind that played with the trees and grasses and made them dance. All of the others watched the picture in awed silence for a long time. Although they'd seen the same picture many times, it was still their favorite. Tonight, it held a special fascination for them. One by one, they dropped off to sleep, lulled by the whisper of the wind. When they were all gone, Tammy shut down the picture and slept herself.

Pham rose and crawled into his wheelchair. He wheeled himself into the ward and made one last round, checking on the others, seeing that all the others' machines were operating correctly and that the children were silent and peaceful. All was going smoothly. Then, feeling warm and satisfied, Pham lifted himself back into his own bed.

Although he sank like a stone into deep, untroubled sleep and rested on its bottom, some crawling worm wouldn't let him stay there. Something---a light sound, a rustling---something somewhere---in the dark reaches of the night---something---feeble scratching at a door.....but it woke him. He came awake easily, and he wasn't worried. Whatever it was that had awakened him was not a danger sign....no warning buzzers, sirens, or anything like that. He lay there, listening, trying to locate an identify what it was.

He sat up and looked about. All in the ward was dark, still.

He held his breath and concentrated on the sound he'd heard before.

There!

A soft gurgle----a whimper----a moan.

He tried to follow the sound. Someone or something was in pain, crying in the dark.

"Tammy," he whispered in his mind.

There was no answer. Yet the moaning continued.

"Tammy!" he cried louder.

Still no answer.

He rose and slid down into his waiting chair. The metal arms were cold, and he winced from the bite of it. He fumbled for the control box and set the chair in a grinding motion across the floor, calling Tammy's name over and over in his mind. But she stayed silent.

Silent, yes, except for the sobbing.

Pulling up beside her capsule, he shouted her name, leaning up and forward to see inside. He could see nothing but her dark shape on the light background. But he was so close to her now, and he knew the sobbing was hers. He pulled himself up and held onto her capsule with both hands. "Tammy," he cried, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Ohhhhh!" she cried in his mind.

"What's wrong, Tammy? What's the matter?"

She only sobbed.

He tried to smile through his worry and fear, but it was like trying to cut through thick ice with a piece of rope. "Should I call Father-Doc?"

"Noooooooo!" she screamed. Anger now.

He waited until she was quiet again, then ventured carefully, "Would you like to make me a lovely picture to look at, little one?"

"Nooooo! I don't want to see the pictures!"

"But you love the pictures."

"Not anymore!"

She sobbed on and on. Time crawled by like a snail across a moonlit leaf, and it left a silver trail of worry in Pham's mind. He didn't say anything more. He waited for Tammy to cry herself out and talk to him.

Slowly the sobs did let up...like an engine running down, catching, letting go, catching. Out of a wracking cry, in a tiny voice that trembled with pain, came, "I wanted to see----what I---look like, Pham."

"No," he said, shaking his head.

"I waited for you and all the others to sleep; then I made a picture. I went into that picture, Pham, and I could see---what I am!" She began to cry again.

He recoiled, shattered by the thought of the horror she must've felt. "My little one!" he cried over and over again. He spread his arms and caressed her capsule. He laid his head against the cold glass, and he could feel the cool wetness of his tears against his skin. He stayed like this for a long time.

When she spoke again, there was a glimmer of light struggling into the morning.

"Pham," she said. Her voice was dry and cracked, a dull thwang on old rubber. "Why are we like this? Like we are? Why aren't we like Father-Doc and all the other Big Ones? Why can't we move and speak and see as they do? Why must we stay here, locked in these machines? I know we're----ugly to look at, but why? Why, Pham? Why are we like this?"

He could only shake his head.

"Who made us like this, Pham?"

"I don't know."

"Why did they do this to us?"

"I don't know."

"You've got to find out. We've got to find out." She began to cry again, quietly, softly. There was no desperation in her tears now, no panic; there was only sadness.

The morning light had become strong enough for Pham to see the objects in the room begin to take shape out of the darkness left behind by the passing night. Slowly, he pulled back from her and struggled back over to his own bed, feeling tired from his all-night vigil. But he couldn't sleep. He couldn't answer her questions. His mind ached with the pain of asking. What had happened to them? Why did he not remember? Who had done it to them? Finally, he sighed and gave it up.

There wasn't any way to know.

But in her own darkness, Tammy had no such confusion. She had set her brain on a course with grim determination. She would find out who'd done this thing to them----and why.

Greene had these days alone.

None of the local people came to see him. The novelty of "goin' out t' see th' doc" had worn thin, and when Tom had become a daily guest, the locals sensed the depth of the friendship and felt a little awkward joining in with the two friends. Now Tom was away in New Orleans, but the others didn't know about his trip so Greene had few interruptions. He spent more of his time with the children and catching up on his work.

He wasn't excited about his findings, because there was nothing new to record.

The poison had done its work on them, inexplicably, while they were still in their mothers' wombs. It didn't matter who the man was who'd committed the fatherly act of copulation with their mothers. Gonzo was their true father. It was the dastardly culprit behind their terrible tiny lives.

The human body is a remarkable thing, Green knew this. He never ceased to be amazed by its survivability. Their bodies had done their best to keep them alive, even as misshapen lumps, horrible and twisted. Outside the machines, they would live only minutes, but inside them, their bodies might keep them alive for years. There would, however, never be a victory for them. None of them would live much longer, machine or no machine.

But Pham might.

Pham might survive for twenty years or more, like the thousands of other children confined to wheelchairs by crippling illnesses. But Pham would never live to a ripe old age. It was likely his heartbreak over the deaths of the other children would kill him first. Pham had always buzzed around the others like a queen bee over her hive. He had no life except for them. It was he who had named them. When they died, it would kill him.

And there was no one to know or care when Pham died. Nobody but Greene. Greene would write a final report, and it'd be like all his reports. It'd be comprehensive and written in great detail. That would be his only tribute to Pham and the others.

Greene shook off these morbid thoughts and tried to get back to work on the dry pages of his ledger. The scratch of his pen was the only noise in the little room he used for a study.

Then Pham's voice came to him. "It's midafternoon, Father-Doc. Would you like some tea?"

"Yes, thank you," he said out loud. He looked around and felt immediately foolish. Pham wasn't in the room. Talking to myself, he thought, been working too hard. I'm imagining voices now. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Should I go up and take a nap?

I should've known. It didn't even sound like Pham.

He raised up straight in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. The chair creaked and laced his fingers behind his head. The chair creaked under the strain. In his memory, he saw and heard the childish way Pham spoke. The memory brought a gentle smile to his face. He loved Pham and the simple, crude sounds the boy had made with such great difficulty. They were like a simple form of music to him, somehow beautiful and pure. The music of man's determination. Even this poor misshapen piece of humanity, Pham, had learned languages and spoke them despite the great hardship it caused him. He spoke, he heard, he understood.

But it hadn't been Pham this time. The voice had been clear and steady, the words crisp and clean. No, it wasn't Pham.

Mind playing tricks on me. Still, he thought wistfully, a cup of tea would be a good thing right enough. He made up his mind to go and get one as soon as his completed the page he was currently working on.

Suddenly he heard the insectlike sound of Pham's wheelchair and he turned, smiling to welcome him. Then his smile vanished. On the small metal tray fixed to the chair was a cup of tea.

Pham manipulated the chair through the doorway with one hand, his stubby fingers working the familiar buttons with a dexterity that would have made an experienced typist envious. And furthermore, his other hand, with the ease of a circus juggler, steadied the cup. His sloppy, distorted face was molded into what Greene recognized as his grin.

"Here's your tea, Father-Doc." He spoke in his clumsy, painful speech.

"How did you know I wanted some tea?"

"You told me you did," Pham replied, still grinning. He turned his chair and drove out of the room.

Greene watched him go, unbelieving. He couldn't manage a word, not even a gasp. The door shut quickly and quietly behind the whirring wheelchair. Greene couldn't move. His rasping breath was the only sound in the room. He sat perfectly still and stared down into the amber depths of the cup of tea as if the answer were there. It wasn't.

What just happened was impossible! Impossible!

He rubbed his face. His skin tingled electrically. It felt harsh and brittle, and it was remote, somehow not connected to him. He was only swimming inside it, a fish in a bowl.

It simply could not have happened!

"Do it again," he mumbled.

"Do what again?" the voice said in Greene's mind. "You wish some more tea?"

"No." He shook his head. "Just come back in here to me." He spoke aloud, but just above a whisper. That way no one could hear him without being in the room.

The door opened again, and Pham came rolling in. "Yes, Father-Doc?"

Excitedly, Greene got up off the stool. He went to the boy and knelt in front of the chair. "What are you doing, Pham?" He held Pham's tiny, bony knee and looked up at his pitiful face.

Pham rolled his one good eye at the doctor. He spoke again, but this time it was in that unfamiliar voice that had been intruding into Greene's brain. And his lips didn't move. The words were clean and crisp. "I'm talking to you, Father-Doc," he said simply. There was absolute innocence in his voice, and surprise.

"No, you can't be talking! Your lips aren't moving! You're not making any sounds!"

"Oh, I can talk that way, too. It's just that this way is so much easier. But, if it makes you happier, I'll talk to you the other way."

Greene could only look at him. The doctor's face was pale, its muscles slack.

Pham read the doctor's shock as sadness. He hung his head and said contritely, "If it makes you sad, Father-Doc, I won't do it anymore. I'm sorry." He began the painful struggle to form words with his mouth.

"No!" Greene declared. He placed his hand on the boy's face. "It's all right, Pham. I'm just a little----surprised, that's all."

"Don't you mind?"

Greene waved casually at the boy. HIs mind was too clouded with surprise and fear and....wonder....to have even heard.

"Good. It's easier for me to talk this way."

Greene rose and walked back to his worktable. He felt cold and clammy. Absentmindedly, he picked up his dead pipe and struck a match. As he brought the flame near the bowl of the pipe, and directly in front of his eyes, he noticed that his hand was shaking.

"You really don't mind if I talk like this?"

Expelling a cloud of yellow-white smoke, Greene replied, "No, of course not."

What else could he say?

His mind raced. Finally, except for the fact that he lived at all, here was a remarkable thing about Pham: telepathy!

Telepathy! he scoffed. I'm a scientist! I don't believe in----but there was proof----it happened to me!

Pham had a---gift for mental speech. This poor, horrible creature to whom the forming of a simple sound was such an agonizing task somehow was able to speak directly to the mind, clearly, with no defects and with some degrees of sophistication.

Greene quickly ran over everything he knew about Pham. The boy's life had been carefully documented from the moment he'd been found. Greene knew more about Pham than he could remember about his own past. But there wasn't anything in Pham's history to indicate any special gift.

Greene knew very little about anything as exotic as telepathy, so he had no leg to stand on, no place to begin to understand. He'd known some people who studied parapsychology, but he'd never had any interest in it or in them. Always, and now he couldn't help smiling, he'd thought of the field as "voodoo science," a playing field for charlatans, conmen who bilked poor, deluded, hopeful people, and "scientists" who live more by hope than by facts, thereby denying the basic tenets of their calling.

A new thought exploded in his brain.

Was he one of those "poor, deluded, hopeful people"? One of those who turned their backs on the facts because they didn't like the conclusion the facts led to, one of those who gave everything to baseless hope---hope for his----children.

Delusions! Madness!

Fear soared in him. Sweat popped from his face. It tickled under his clothing---itched.

Madness!

He feared madness, had always feared madness. And now....

He grinned. Now he could recognize it as madness. Of course, it was madness----wishful thinking. Rising up out of too much work and worry, too much isolation. He'd been a fool to even think.......!

With a stricken look on his face, he turned back and studied Pham.

He smiled. Madness, yes, madness. I am dreaming this. I am going mad! But the fact that I can recognize I am going mad is a good thing.

Pham moved his head slowly to and fro, with a huge effort. Then he spoke in Greene's mind. "No, Father-Doc, it's no dream. I'm really speaking to you in your mind."

Cold slivers of shock went through Greene. He trembled.

Stronger than I thought---even after I recognize it and call it what it is----madness---and still it remains!

He gathered his sound, sane parts and confronted Pham. He asked, aloud, "Can you tell me what I'm thinking?"

"Sometimes. But I have to think just about you to understand what you're thinking."

Greene knelt again in front of Pham. Speaking, forming the words, was like pulling up something stuck in the earth, they wouldn't come. "How long have you been able to do this?"

"Not long. Since we came here to live in our new house." Pham paused and there was heavy silence.

Greene studied him carefully, raking his eyes over the poor boy.

Pham announced proudly, "I'm teaching the others."

Greene's head rocked back as if he'd been shot. "The others?"

"Yes, they're learning."

Oh God! I'm going crazy! He gave up any hope of regaining his sanity now. Those poor creatures cannot live away from their machines. They're not even.....

"Yes, they are," Pham's mind-voice again. "They're still very young, and they have no memories, but they are they. They're real, and each one of them is different. And they're learning to speak, just as I'm speaking to you." There was a trace of impatient anger in Pham's voice now.

Greene leaned back, slowly reacting to Pham's anger. Part of him wanted to laugh and part of him wanted to cry. All parts lost out to the part that loved Pham. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I didn't mean to...." He let it drop and stared at his hands resting in his lap. Without looking up, he said softly and slowly, "Pham, I love all of you. I've prayed and hoped for some kind of a chance for all of you. You know that."

"Yes."

"But I never thought---I could have never conceived that---I'm just not prepared for this! Can you understand that? He turned and looked at the boy. He could feel the lopsided eye studying him, and he felt something else. It was a soft, gentle probing of his mind, like a finger on a soft spot, not painful. Curious. It was an itch he could not possibly scratch.

"Yes, Father-Doc, I think I understand."

Greene nodded. He rose and walked to the far side of the room. He pried open two bars of the Venetian blinds and stared out at the hot, bright Mississippi reality. His mind was rolling, flashing, trying to grasp what was happening, and he didn't hear the whine of the wheelchair as Pham brought it up close behind him. The boy reached up and tugged the back of Greene's long lab coat. After a few seconds of insistent tugging, the tall man turned and looked down at the boy in the chair.

"Father-Doc, would you like to talk to the others?"

What? Indulge this madness further? No! Crush it now! Tell this boy---tell him----Tell him what? Pham was part of it all. There was nothing Greene could tell him. No! Call up Pennington and tell him---tell him I've gone nuts....tell him to relieve me....take me off this project...turn me loose. The children, they---yes, they. Ah, if only they could talk, if I could talk to them......

"You can, if you want to. They want to talk to you."

Greene nodded, unthinking. He couldn't think now----his most prized talent----to think, to reason through----gone.....

"Then come along," Pham said after a long silent moment.

Greene nodded again.

Pham turned and began to move the wheelchair toward the hallway. Greene fell in behind him. He walked slowly. They went out the door, turned down the hall, and went towards the ward. The sunlight didn't penetrate this deep inside the ho use. It was dark and cool in the long hallway. Greene reached up and steadied himself with a hand to the wall.

When the government purchased and refurbished this place, the supervisor had wanted to rip out all the darkwood paneling in the hall and replace it with clean, new acoustic tile. Only Greene's heated argument had prevented this lovely, old, polished wood from being destroyed. What skimpy particles of light wormed their way into the hall, the wood captured and reflected back, glowing deep and softly.

The sounds of Pham's wheelchair were muffled on the thick carpet.

Greene stopped at the doorway to the ward and peered in through the glass window at the row of clean, metal gray machines. His hand trembled as he reached to push the door open.

"Don't be scared, Father-Doc," Pham said. He pushed by Greene and went on in.

The room was big, clean and bright. Highly polished tile gleamed on the floor, throwing back the bright flood of sunlight that came exploding through a full bank of open windows. The only sound was the electrical pop and whir of the machines. It was warmer here than in the rest of the house.

"All of you," Pham called, "here is Father-Doc. He wants you to talk to him."

A chorus of young voices chimed in Greene's mind. "Hello, Father-Doc, they sang.

He stood wavering. He could feel blood rush through his veins with a force and power that staggered the heart. His own internal machine thumped loudly. His temperature climbed rapidly, and he felt that the air was closing in on him. He was dizzy and had to lean against the doorframe to keep him from falling. His mouth tasted chalky and dry. Tears fell from his eyes.

"He's sad," one of the voices said. It was thin and fragile, like a wisp of fog dancing on still water in a quiet morning.

"No," Pham answered.

"He doesn't want to talk to us, another declared. This was stronger, deeper, thicker, but still it was young and fresh. "He doesn't care about talking to us, doesn't want us talking to him."

"That's not true!" Pham's voice.

"Wait!" It was another voice, a girl's voice, sweet, clean and strong. The tone was commanding. "Be quiet, all of you!" The chorus ceased. "Father-Doc?" the girl's voice said.

He looked around, not knowing where to direct his answer. "Yes?"

"I'm Tammy."

"Tammy?" He walked down and stood in front of the capsule where the little body lay. There was a small, brass nameplate on its surface, above the window. He bent down and looked into the capsule. The little body inside didn't move. "Yes, Tammy?"

"Father-Doc," she said, "we're so glad to talk to you. We've wanted to talk to you for such a long time."

"Yes," Greene thought, nodding his head.

"But, if you want, we won't talk to you again."

"No, no, it's just...."

"But we want to tell you---all of us----that we love you."

Now the other voices, like a chorus of bells, all repeated the phrase. "We love you."

The tears came freely now to Greene's eyes, and they didn't sting or hurt; they felt warm and salty, like the mother sea of emotions. They rolled and flowed, making a sweet, singing music all their own. He fell back against Pham's bed, threw his head back. It took some minutes for him to realize that he was laughing.

Greene heard a familiar muffled roar. It was coming from somewhere, still far away.

"Wait!" he shouted.

The children were silent.

Greene raised his head and strained his ears, concentrating on the sound. He recognized it. It was Tom Hall's motorcycle. Tom had returned.

"Somebody's coming," he said, hurrying to the door, "and I've got to go out and meet him."

"Who?" one of the voices asked.

"A friend who comes to see Father-Doc every day," Pham told them.

"Ahhhh!" they said loudly, joyfully.

He froze. They were "talking" too loudly! Anyone could hear, couldn't they? Tom would hear them and know. His secret would be out, and a secret that was even greater than his.

If you're not going mad, a sly voice---his own---whispered in his ear.

At the door, Greene turned and ordered them, "Keep quiet now, all of you. Keep this----talent of yours a secret----and be careful with it. I've got to go see and welcome him. I'll do my best to get rid of him, quickly, so I can get back to you."

"Yes, Father-Doc," the chorus said, obediently.

Tears welled in his eyes as Greene looked back into the room at Pham and the machines of the others. Not at them. He couldn't see them. They were prisoners in those machines, prisoners of the obscene things that passed for their bodies. But those things weren't them. His heart soared with that knowledge. They were his children, and they were free. Maybe they were free only in his mind, free only in the bizarre landscape of his madness. Right now, he didn't give a damn. They were free!

He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his white lab coat and pushed open the door.

They all added a "goodbye" for him as he squirted out the door and went to the front of the house.

Sudden flashes of anger shot through Greene. What a hell of a time for him to come! As much as I've missed him, I'm tempted not to answer the door. Not today. I could pretend there's nobody here. I could not open the gate and just let him sit out there. He'll get tired and go home. No, I couldn't do that. He's a friend and I owe him some courtesy, at least. I'll welcome him; then I'll just have to make some kind of excuse to get rid of him. That's that.

He pushed the button that opened the gate and went out to wait for his young friend on the porch.

Tom road up the gravel driveway and stopped just in front of the house. He shut the engine off and slowly took off his helmet and gloves. Looking up at Greene, he smiled broadly and said, "Hey, it's sure good to see you, Doc."

"Yes, yes, Tom. It's good to have you back." Greene came clambering down the steps and took Tom's hand. He shook it quickly and dropped it. "But I can't visit with you just now, I'm sorry. I'm performing some important and very delicate work in the lab, and I've got to get right back to it. I'll have to ask you to come back tomorrow. I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm awfully busy." He turned and started back through the door.

"Wow! They must be keeping you busy today," Tom said, a floppy, lopsided grin on his face.

Greene stopped halfway up the steps. "Uh, what are you talking about?" he asked, turning.

"The people you got inside."

"I don't understand, Tom."

Tom laughed embarrassedly, ducking his head. "I guess I owe you an apology, Doc, but I've been doing a little snooping. He swung his leg over the tank and came to the bottom of the steps. "That's what I went away for. I've been spending a lot of time in the library in New Orleans." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. "I'm not like the rest of the folks around here, Doc; you can't keep me in the dark quite so easily. I know how to use a library, and I know how to do research." He paused, smiling slightly. "I didn't mean to be sneaky, Doc, but I didn't see any other way. You sure weren't going to tell me anything on your own. God knows, I tried to worm the information out of you any way I could but----There's not much there, Doc. It's your bio, but it told me enough about you and your 'experiment.'"

Greene took the paper and unfolded. He stared at the words, stupidly. They blurred into long lines of specks. He handed it back to Tom.

"You want me to read it, Doc?"

Greene shook his head.

"Well, there's one part I would like to read. The last entry. The bio stops at about two years ago, but this last part is interesting." He read from the paper. "'Dr. Greene was last engaged in a project concerning a group of mutants from Vietnam. The mutations were caused by the American use of the chemical defoliant, Gonzo, to clear undergrowth from the jungle during military operations in Vietnam.'" He folded the paper up. "That's all," he added.

Greene studied Tom's face. He could tell that the young man had put enough together to know what was going on inside the house. It would do no good to spin out another lie.

"All right," he sighed. "You know." He sat down on the steps, dangling his long hands over his knees.

"Just this. I couldn't find out anything else. All kinds of hush-hush. I was able to learn that those freaks---and you---were brought to the U.S. sometime in '72 and were kept in an Army installation up north---"

Greene interrupted to give him the name of the installation.

Tom nodded and went on. "You stayed there in great secrecy until a permanent facility could be built for them." He gestured up at the house, then looked back at Greene, and paused, watching the slow rise and fall of Greene's shoulders.

"And you were the project manager. It doesn't take a genius to guess---since you're so goddamn protective of your so-called 'experiment'---that you've got some of those mutant kids in there." He gestured at the house.

Without looking up, Greene said, "Yes, they're here......the ones that survived, that is."

Seeing how shaken his friend was over to the discovery of the secret, Tom felt guilty. "Hey, it's not like I was out to get you, or anything," he said softly.

Greene nodded. His knees were up, his elbows resting on them, his face in his hands.

Tom looked past Greene, up to the still house. It could have been his imagination, but he thought he saw the edge of a curtain fluttering, then going limp. Was there someone watching? One of the freaks? He felt a sudden, quick chill rumble through him. He shook it away.

He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Doc. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. If I've upset anything, I'm sure sorry. I just had to find out. And I won't do any more snooping, okay? I just had to know."

Greene nodded again, but it was a long time before he answered. He raised his face and let his hands dangle. He stared down at his feet and slowly swung his big hands to and fro. Finally, he answered, "It's all right, Tom. I knew someone would look into it eventually." He sighed heavily. "Still, I can get into serious trouble if you....."

"You don't have to worry about that, Doc. I won't say anything to anybody, true me."

Greene nodded.

"These rednecks around here would turn it into some kind of sideshow---if they didn't run you out of town."

"That's why I've had to be so secretive, to take the kinds of precautions....."

"And I sure don't want anything to happen to you---or them."

Greene nodded again.

"Still buddies?" Tom stepped over and extended his hand.

Greene rose and took it. "Yes."

Both men fell into an uncomfortable silence. Embarrassed, they didn't look at one another. They looked at the fields, the sky, the house---at anything but each other.

"I feel like a son of a bitch," Tom whispered.

"Don't feel that way, please." Greene clamped a hand on his shoulder. You didn't do anything so terribly wrong---just exercised your curiosity, that's all." And he felt buoyant, suddenly. He had someone to share his children with. He grinned. "Listen, Tom, I've got an idea---how would you like to have coffee inside for a change?"

"You mean it? I can see them?"

"Only one of them. Pham. He's the oldest and the best---in our turns. He can speak, after a fashion, and he can move about. He does everything for me---is sort of an all-around helper, you might say. I can laugh about it, but, honestly, I couldn't get by without his help." Greene paused, and a deep frown dug into his face. "I should point out one thing, though."

"Yeah?"

"Most people who see him for the first time are somewhat....well, they're taking aback by the sight of him. Some have even gotten physically ill. While I'm quite accustomed to his appearance, I can understand how others might think him hideous."

"You don't have to worry about me, Doc. I've seen a lot of things that'd make most people barf. I won't have any trouble."

"Good. I'm trusting you. Pham is quite well adjusted to his appearance, but he's sensitive to the reactions of others. I'm just giving you fair warning, that's all. It's not a pleasant thing, seeing Pham for the first time, but he's a sensitive human being."

"Consider me forewarned."

Greene stepped closer to Tom and studied the youngster's face for any trace of laughter or cynicism. He saw no indication of either. Nor did he notice any nervousness. Tom's big face was open, steady, and calm.

"Glad to hear that," Greene said. He put an arm around Tom's shoulder and propelled him up the stairs. He took the key from his pocket, clicked the lock, and pushed the door open. It swung slowly open. "Welcome," he said.

The door swung open, admitting him.

Tom stepped into the foyer and looked around. There was a central hall that was dark and subdued, and a stairway leading to the second floor. To his left, bright light poured from double doors. He walked into the patch of it and looked around. It was a big living room decorated with bright, lively colors. But it looked unused, like a display room in an expensive furniture store.

"There," Greene said, locking the front door. "Now, I'll go see if I can get us some coffee. You just relax in the living room." He hustled off down the hallway, speaking as he went. "It's a beautiful room, the government decorator did an excellent job. I don't use it much, though...." And he was gone.

Tom walked into the room. It was richly furnished but so quiet and artificial that Tom felt awkward, as if he were being observed. As if he were "the guest," another part of the decoration, as if he were another piece of furniture. The sofa and chairs were of bright, light-colored fabrics with gay prints on them. The carpet was an off-white, of a deep, shag cut. The decorator did have good and expensive taste. But Tom was overly conscious of every move he made. The room made him aware of the rush of his breath and the beat of his heart.

Quickly, Greene went down the hallway to the ward. He whisked open the door, slipped in, and closed the door behind him. He put a finger to his lips and said, "Shhh!" Then he thought that telling them, saying the words, was dangerous. Tom would hear. He focused on the words: "Quiet! Quiet!" They were all quiet, hushed in anticipation.

Thinking the words was uncomfortable for Greene, so he walked deep into the ward, and he spoke softly, whispering. "We have a guest in the house. Our first guest. He knows very little about you, and I don't want him to know more.... not now. So, please, don't talk. Make no noise of any kind. Wait until I tell you that it's safe." He went to the door, turning and putting a finger to his lips. "Shhhh!"

Once back in the hall, he called, "Pham!"

Pham appeared at once, coming out of the kitchen. He formed the words with his mouth. "I know. I'm preparing coffee for you."

God! Having his every thought picked up and acted upon! That's got to take some getting used to.

But Greene managed to smile at Pham. "Good. Thank you. Can you make sure the others are quiet? I cautioned them, but I know they'll listen to you." He said nothing more. His eyes, however, were silently pleading.

With a nod on his head, Pham went back into the kitchen.

Greene returned to Pham in the living room. "Sorry to have to leave you alone this way. Pham's preparing some coffee for us." He closed the double doors and took a seat facing Tom.

"No problem, Doc, but you didn't have to go to all the trouble."

Greene waved off the objection. "Pham gets around pretty well. And he likes so much to help out---fix things, you know."

Silence again. They stared at each other, then looked away. Cleared their throats.

Finally, Tom said, "Doc, just what the hell kind of experiment are you running on them?"

Greene spread his hands out on his lap. "Actually, it's not an experiment at all. It began as one, because we wanted to find out what it was about Gonzo's chemical composition that had brought about their condition. In most cases, we couldn't find the mothers, so all we had were the freaks themselves. In time, we found out what had happened, that's the good news. Unfortunately, there's nothing really more to learn about them, not while they're alive anyway."

Except for today---but I'm not going to tell you about that.

"You all right, Doc?" Tom said, leaning forward, concerned about the peculiar look on Greene's face.

"Oh, yes." He paused and looked down at his hands. "I'm little more than a caretaker, now. I just watch over them and take care of them. That's really all I have to do. In the beginning, when the project first started, the government was very interested in them. They gave us all kinds of staff and facilities, a giant budget. There were six of them then, but one died. It was from his death that we learned the most about what had happened to them." Greene rose and walked to the window. "I just watch over the surviving ones, fill out forms, keep records. And, I guess, watch them die, too. There's nothing I can do for them, nothing anyone can do for them. Just watch over them. " He was silent, digging his chin into his chest.

Somewhere a clock ticked out loud.

"I guess," Greene began again, sighing. "I shouldn't really complain. I've got a fairly remarkable situation. This great house---all of our supplies---and the government foots the whole bill. And they leave us alone. I'm grateful for that anyway."

"You're telling me the government just doesn't give a living shit about them anymore?"

"Nobody does."

"Except you."

"Except me. And I guess I'll be with them until they're all gone. They've become---something like a family to me." Greene turned and smiled a shy, embarrassed smile. "I guess I've ended up in the backwater, just like you. Most of my colleagues think I've thrown away what promised to be a brilliant career. I know it sounds crazy," he flinched at the word, "but I can't turn my back them. I've come to love them."

Tom studied the cauliflower-thick piles of the carpet. "Are you sure nothing can be done for them?"

With a great sigh, Greene replied, "Yes, absolutely. Apparently, one of the key chemicals in Gonzo caused some radical change in their mothers when they were carrying the freaks. This radical change led to even more radical deformities of almost every system in their bodies. It's beyond the capabilities of science---now, at any rate---to reverse something that total, that catastrophic."

"Then why keep alive at all? Why would the government spend so much money on a dead-end project like this?" Tom had spoken before he'd thought out what he wanted to say. And he felt bad about the question, but he refused to retreat. It was a question someone needed to ask. "I mean, from their point of view. I've never known any government that went out of its way without some hidden agenda. So, why?"

Greene wined as if he'd been punched in the face; then he smiled, to show that he'd half expected the question and wasn't angry about it. "Oh, for a lot of reasons, I supposed. Responsibility, for one. I think, believe it or not, the government does feel responsible for these poor creatures. Guilt. After all, it was a government program that sprayed the jungles with Gonzo, wasn't it? I think you could safely say that the government feels responsible." He grinned slyly. "I don't think it'd be wise to build a career on the government's sense of guilt, but I don't think you can rule it out totally.....not in this case." He was quiet for a moment, rubbed his chin. "And there's always weapons research."

"Weapons?!"

"Yes. There's a chance that the government has lumbered into a new weapon. They meant Gonzo to simply eat up all the undergrowth, but it did more than that. I'm sure someone in Washington must've thought, what if we could channel these----effects; What if we could direct them, control them? It makes a whole other ball game, doesn't it? I think they want to find that out." He smiled, humorlessly."

"Weapons research," Tom said scornfully.

"As sad as it may sound, sometimes in scientific research the end does justify the means. There're great sums of money available for weapons research---always have been---but sometimes in weapons research the scientist learns a great deal about a lot of other things while he's doing it. A great many medical and technical developments we take for granted nowadays were discovered in carrying out weapons research. It may seem shameful, but it's not completely so."

"So what have you found out?"

"There wasn't any pattern to this thing. Out of the hundreds----thousands----of babies born under similar circumstances, there are, or were, only six known freaks." He paused and paced. "There could be many more, but these six are all we ever found out about. There may be hundreds of little unmarked graves containing demons and devils. We just don't know. If a priest hadn't found Pham, we might not have found out about any of them." Greene stopped and stood directly in front of Tom. "What we do know is that there were hundreds of perfectly healthy babies born during the same period under the same circumstances. And that means there isn't enough evidence to reclassify the chemical as a weapon."

"You mean this stuff can be used again?!"

"Certainly. When we first discovered the freaks, it was reclassified as 'dangerous' for a while, due to all the questions about the freaks, but that classification has since been taken away. As a matter of fact, there's some talk of using the chemical now to clean up the undergrowth in the forests of the Northwest."

"In this country?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

Tom shook his head slowly back and forth.

Greene sat in his chair and leaned forward, speaking with a great deal of energy. "You spoke a little while ago about the government's point of view, well you have to understand it in this. To the government's representatives, the freaks are anomalies, don't you understand? Mistakes. We don't know what caused them, not exactly. It could be that their mothers carried the twisted genes around in their bodies long before, and Gonzo only triggered the results. Or maybe the chemical had nothing whatsoever to do with them. Maybe it's harmless."

"No way that stuff is harmless!"

"I agree with you, but I can't prove it's harmful."

"And what about the vets who claim they've been injured by Gonzo?"

"The links are tenuous and largely unprovable. I agree with them and their claims, but again, I can't prove it. It was my hope----and the hope of others----that the freaks would help to prove a direct link, would open up a whole new field of research, that those poor vets would become part of; and....maybe....we could begin to understand just what it does to.....us. Then Gonzo would be taken completely out of circulation. Those poor vets who've been---contaminated would benefit from the freaks."

There was a knock. Greene quickly jumped to his feet. "That'll be Pham. Remember what I told you about his appearance. Don't let it scare you."

Tom rose and nodded his head.

Greene opened the door. "Yes, Pham, come on in."

The doctor was right. At the sight of the grotesque figure in the wheelchair, a wave of choking sickness swept over Tom. He tried to smile to hide it, but his smile twitched and ticked. He swallowed heavily and turned aside. He started for the fireplace, but Greene caught him and spun him around.

Looking steadily into Tom's eyes, Greene hissed under his breath, "Look at him!"

Tom straightened and stiffened in Greene's arms.

"Don't upset him by backing away from him now." The doctor turned his friend and made him face Pham. "Tom, this is Pham."

Tom dropped his head and mumbled, "Hi, Pham."

Pham said in his distorted, painful way, "Greetings, Tom," or what passed for it.

Tom nodded his head. Sickness rolled through him. His temperature went up. Sweat was popping from his body. He was sure n ow that he'd made a very serious mistake. Although he'd thought he was ready to meet Pham, he knew he couldn't go through with it. He couldn't look at Pham, and he wouldn't be able to face Greene ever again. His breath was coming short and quick, his eyes stung, and he was just barely checking a mouthful of bile. He started to run from the room, but a voice stopped him.

"No, don't go. Please. Father-Doc needs you. I need you."

He stopped and looked around. No one had spoken---yet he had heard the voice.

"We all need you," the voice said. "We have no friends now, except Father-Doc. And he has only us. Please. There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing. I know that you're afraid of me now, because I'm ugly to you. But I can't hurt you. We'll be friends, please!"

Tom quickly glanced at Greene to see if the doctor had heard the voice. There was no indication on his face that he had. His skin was tight and shiny, his eyes were piercing points of dark light. There was a small, unsure smile on his mouth.

Pham forced himself to look over the doctor's shoulder to Pham. One dark eye on what was Pham's face looked directly at him.

"Hello, Tom," the voice in his mind said.

The wave of sickness ebbed. He felt suddenly clean and welcomed. He didn't understand the light that had come in the darkness of the torture and given him comfort, but he felt the comfort. He was trembling, yes, as if he were a poor bastard that had stumbled on the face of God, but he was excited and thrilled. And no longer scared. He brushed past the doctor and went to Pham. He took the tray with two mugs of steaming coffee from Pham's wheelchair.

"Here, let me help you." The words were thick and heavy in his mouth.

Struggling with his own words, Pham muttered, "Thank you, Tomhall."

It was working out.

Pham was sharing the new shape that he'd snared in his memory with the others, the shape of Tom Hall. Pham was coaxing, goading them out of their shells and into the new body. One by one, they came. They were shy and awkward at first, clumsy, but they gained strength and confidence very quickly.

All except Tammy.

Tammy, who was cold and quiet. Anger burned coldly in her mind. It'd been burning there ever since she'd discovered what she and the others truly were. The awfulness of it and the why of it. All this ate at her, gnawed away and made her uncomfortable.

Pham goaded her, pleaded with her. After a long while of just watching, Tammy began to giggle. When he offered her a turn, she took it.

For a little while, all of them forgot about the terrible prisons they were locked in.

The picture on the wall was built with the one they had made before. It was the view from the front of their house. But they added to it. The gate swung open and a man rode through it on a motorcycle. He came up the driveway, parked in front of the steps and got off. He reached up and removed his helmet. A loose, shaggy head of hair cascaded down. There he stood, smiling, in the center of the picture.

"This is Tom," Pham explained. "He's Father-Doc's friend. Today, he came to see Father-Doc, and Father-Doc let him come into the house. This is the first time he's permitted anyone to come in."

There were "Ahs" and "Oohs."

Despite her blinding anger, Pham looked at the image of Tom with great curiosity. She liked him instantly. There was a warmth about him. It reached out and touched her delicately, like a soft breeze through the trees.

"He's much bigger than Father-Doc," one said.

"Younger, too," another put in.

"Yes," Pham answered, speaking through Tom's mouth, "but he's kindly, like Father-Doc. This is the new one that I promised you. I'll go first, then someone else may try. I will go first, then someone else may try. Maybe even Tammy?"

"Maybe," she thought.

Upstairs, Greene was having trouble sleeping. Since giving up this long and eventful day and going to bed, he'd not slept at all. His body and mind were numb with exhaustion, but sleep was an evasive phantom, always just beyond reach. He'd been up three different times since retiring, walking about the upstairs room, padding around to the slop-slop sound of his slippers. It was a warm night, and he didn't tie the belt of his old, faded robe. He let the ends dangle and flop. His body seemed to be crying out for big doses of tobacco. For that reason, and because it was more convenient, he skipped the familiar ritual of the pipe and was chain-smoking cigarettes. He normally did not keep cigarettes in the house. He reminded himself now to put a carton on his next grocery order. He'd found an old pack that someone (the assistant, most likely) had left behind. They were stale, dry and hot, but they did the trick. They were giving his mind a soft buzz and causing him to be just slightly sick.

What was keeping Greene awake and on his feet was his growing nervousness over all that had happened that day: the discovery of the children's unearthly powers, the visit---intrusion---of Tom into his closed universe, and, most of all, his gnawing indecision about whether or not to report any of this to General Pennington in Washington. His next regular report was not due for another two months, but surely the discovery that the freaks could speak to each other---and to other people---using telepathy warranted a special report. He began his draft in pencil, writing on long, legal tablets with blue-lined yellow pages. He started it over and over, and every time the paper ended in wads he'd crumpled up and tossed angrily into the gaping maw of a wastebasket. Each time. He'd start to outline the startling abilities of the children; then he would draw up short. He was not sure he totally believed in their powers himself. He had simply accepted them. He'd gone along with the children, conducted conversations with them. But there was a nagging voice in his mind, which he suspected was the voice of his once-powerful but now-fading reason. It seemed to be warning him that the whole business was just a symptom of madness. He had such hopes that they were driving him crazy, into a land of illusions and delusions. As he wrote in his scrawling, tight hand across the lined, yellow paper describing what he'd experienced, carefully choosing the words, constructing his sentences, he would slowly become convinced that he was truly going mad.

Could this be the maddest act of all? Why should he report his madness to the general? That's all that conniving bastard would need. It would spell doom for both Greene and the children.

He fumed and fussed. Started the report. Crumpled it up. Began the report again. Walking from room to room, growing progressively more and more ill on the strong cigarette smoke. Becoming more and more distracted and frustrated. A fragmented life rising from the ashes of one so orderly. A scientist's carefully regimented life, now over. A fool. A scarecrow man confined to wandering around the darkened corridors of a foolish, phony antebellum house. A fool who was at least 1/3 convinced that the horrible creatures he cared for had magical powers!

Finally, all Greene could decide to do was not to decide at all. Just postpone the report. Wait and see what happens.

He recognized that if he couldn't reestablish the order of his life, he wouldn't ever be able to make a rational decision....when the time came. And that time most surely would come. And, even more important, he would disintegrate to the point where he couldn't take care of the children. They'd be taken away from him!

It always boiled down to that, didn't it? The children.

Report what I've learned, and the general will think I've lost my mind and take my children away.

Try to live with that I know, and it'll make me mad, and they will take my children away.

Don't let go of what sanity I have left. That's what I've got to do. I've got to hold on to whatever solid rocks I can find from my training, from my past, from my life, while all this madness sweeps by me.

It's my only hope.

Sleep.

That's the first step.

He needed sleep. He would resort to self-hypnosis. It was a tactic he hadn't used since his frantic medical school days, when there was never enough time to allow the body and the mind to "drift away." He would force himself to sleep. Get a good night's sleep. Keep the body well and the mind will follow, like the night the day.

He stumbled back to bed and switched off the lamp. He lay down, flat on his back. Starting with his toes, he began to relax his muscles, talking to himself, in his mind. The relaxation crept over him like a wave of warm water, with a massaging action that stunted his impulse to jump and run. His breath settled into a slow, steady rhythm, the intake going deep into his lungs. It hurt at first; then it calmed. It caused a loose dizzy explosion in his mind. He became a live, electric mind in a deadening, loose body. Only his head left to clear and relax. He talked in the hollow space; he echoed in the hollow space. It was black, lonely, ever-space. He started to clear up the remains of frustration, worry, doubt, and the fear of spidery madness. In the clear blackness of the wiped mind, he was soothed by the coolness and calm.

Then he heard an odd sound. It was still far away. Fragile and joyous, clear and bright. Like the tinkling of glasses across a crowded room, or sunlight glitter dancing upon a smooth sheet of water. It took some seconds for him to realize what it was. He was hearing the laughter of children. And the clear, rising timbre of their exuberant voices made him feel he was in a glass house beside a park where kids played. The crystal sound did not get louder, but neither did it go away.

He attempted to wipe this new intrusion from his mind. He concentrated, forced his mind to start at the beginning, to laboriously go back through the words, back through the steps, back through it all. But he discovered that he couldn't do it! It wouldn't got away. Slide down and out. Go and begone. A new panic grew in his mind. Had he even lost the ability to control what his own mind could do?

No!

This wasn't a fever-brain creation!

It was coming from outside his mind!

The children!

He quickly swung his feet to the floor and switched on the lamp. From his little mental exercise, he felt disconnected and limp. His muscles responded only slowly and reluctantly. Once sitting up in the glare of the lamp, everything came smashing back into place. Panic roared back into his mind, a flood of turbulent, savage images, words, fragments. And he could no longer hear the children.

I'd better check on them anyway.

He rosed quietly and put on his robe. Fitting his feet into the slippers, he remembered the slop-slop they made when he walked. He took them off and went barefoot. He wouldn't need them anyway. It was a warm night, after all. He crept from his bedroom and turned down the hall towards the stairway. When he reached the top of the stairs, he paused and, looking down, saw an eerie glow in the downstairs hall.

Mightily, he tried to concentrate on the children, but he couldn't. His tired mind was rolling around with curiosity and fear.

He started down the stairs, one slow step at a time, holding onto the railing. It was the only anchor he had into the real world. At the foot of the stairs, he stepped into the glow. There was a temperature change in the downstairs hall. It was warmer here. And the air seemed to have a freshness about it, unlike the air in any other part of the house. He turned down the hall towards the children's room. He paddled silently on his bare feet. He trembled. The hair on the back of his neck rose in electric abandon as he crept closer and closer.

Now he could hear their voices.

The voices came clearly in the night. They were loud and joyful, laced with bell-ringing laughter. Within the sullen, quiet eye of his face, Greene wept for their joy.

Joy?

He frowned, and the question forced itself up: How could such things know joy?

He was beside their door now. The explosion of their voices and laughter swamped him. He peered around and through the window in the door.

The room glowed with warm, summer light. Patterns played on the beds and machines. He could not see the source of the light from where he was. He came around full in front of the window.

On the long wall, facing the beds, was a picture. He couldn't think of any other word to describe it, and yet that word seemed so inadequate. No, it wasn't. It wasn't a picture. What in God's name was it? A movie? No, that wasn't quite right either. A view? Yes, maybe that was best. It was the world outside the front of the house. It moved! More, it had depth and reality. It breathed!

The central figure in the moving mosaic was Tom. He was young and bright and smiling broadly. He ran and jumped, lifting his arms in an expression of total joy.

Greene's hand hovered above the surface of the door. It trembled violently, fluttering almost, like a butterfly. It was flat-sided. He couldn't bring himself to touch the door. It took him some seconds to summon up the energy and strength to push open the door. It gave and he staggered into the room.

All the voices suddenly fell silent.

In the picture, Tom stopped and looked down at Greene. He was surprised at first; then his face broke into a big smile. "Hello, Father-Doc!" he shouted.

Greene gasped.

"It's me, Father-Doc. Pham. I'm in here," Tom/Pham said.

This whole world's fucked up! Dorian Dumont was thinking.

He sat on the moist ground, leaning back against a tree, listening to the solid baying of his hound. Ol' Pete ran through the swamp, hoping to stir up a coon. Dorian stubbed out his cigarette in the ground beside him. The small hiss seemed a perfect matching sound for the night. The flame had touched wet grass. He reached into his pocket for another cigarette.

The pack was empty.

"Shit!" he grumbled, throwing the empty pack off into the bushes.

He rosed and began to move off in the direction of Pete's baying, but he only went a few steps then stopped. He jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his frayed jeans. He didn't really want to be out hunting tonight. He'd only left his house because he couldn't take any more damn sitting around that damned place with that scrawny damn woman and that damn smartass kid. Neither of them gave a shit about him, anyway.

To make matters worse, he had to go through this tramping around in the swamps without any smokes! He cursed himself, thinking he should've stopped at one of the little roadside convenience stores and picked up some.

Oh well, what the hell!

He cupped his hands around his mouth and tried to call the dog back in. Pete's bugle call was farther off now. And it had a different quality. He was telling Dorian he was onto something. And when that old bastard got on a scent, he wouldn't let go until something was treed. He'd stay there until he was totally sure Dorian wasn't coming in to finish up the job.

"Fuck it," Dorian said aloud. "That ol' sonofabitch'll come home this mornin'." He thought he'd go over and have a beer or two with the boys at Piney Acres.

The woods were thick and tangled. There was no visible path, no logical direction to take. A stranger would have turned and turned in confusion, but Dorian wasn't a bit confused. He knew just where he was and how to get to where he wanted to go. No trouble at all. He knew his way through those woods like he knew the back of his own hand. He was born and raised here and had tromped these woods and swamps almost every day of his life. Expertly, he threaded his way through the briars and brambles and slapping, grasping bushes, following a well-known but nonexistent route.

When he reached a little clearing next to a stinking, scum-covered slough, he stopped and looked at the night world around him. It was warm and cloudless. A great silver-ball moon rolled slowly along the waters of the slough. There was not a whisper of wind. The night was quiet, except for the ever-present churn and hum of the insect hordes. They buzzed through the air and rustled over the earth.

Dorian walked to the water's edge. A frog splashed into the water in front of him. Squatting in the damp grass, he picked up some clods and chunked them into the water, making tiny explosions of silver-white on the surface.

Fuck! he thought, looking up at the moon resting in the velvet-black sky, I oughta jus' git muh ass home. But why? It's too damn early t'go back----there ain't nuthin' for me there, nohow. They'll jes' be sittin' watchin' that damn idiot box. That stupid, damn cunt whut won't gimme th' time a' day an' that pissant kid with jackoff bumps all over his face! They don't give no shit if I ever come back. Don't wan' me there. Never mind th' fact that I gotta work my goddamn ass off t' keep a roof over their heads an' put vittles on th' table an' run that goddamn idiot box they're both glued to all th' time. Naw, they don't think 'bout that. They jus' take everythin' from me, an' then act like they don't want me 'round at all! I jus' git in their way. They jus' don't give no shit fer me!"

He shifted his stance and looked across the dark back of the scrub forest.

I oughta jus' go over to Piney Acres an' drink wi' th' boys. Piss th' ol' lady off if'n she finds out. Well, good for it! Got me a couple a' bucks left she don't know nuthin' 'bout----after she done cleaned out m' britches. I'll jus' have me two beers, get some smokes, an' have me a good time. Shit, if I ain't due fer a good time. It's been a helluva while!"

He stood, dusted off the seat of his pants, and quickly took his bearings. Piney Acres was up on the highway, and the straightest line to it from where he was took him across the corner of the doc's place. His grin died under the cloud of a frown.

Big fence, big-eyed TV cameras, what would happened if....?

Well, bullshit! it won't make no nevermind!

It made him mad that somebody from outside could come in here, buy up the damn land, and put fences across it. He'd had the freedom of this country since he'd been a little boy. And it wasn't right that some Yankee sonofabitch could do this!

Resolutely, Dorian cut a path up through the woods, in a straight line, heading for Piney Acres.

His anger at the fences soon subsided into childish delight. He didn't like people putting up fences and telling him where he could and couldn't go. 'Specially not some goddamn motherfuckin' egghead from up fancy-assed North! This trespass was his chance to show that sonofabitch doctor---and the rest of the goddamn world for that matter---that Dorian Dumont was still a free man and couldn't be pushed around.

He broke out of the woods, coming up a slight rise in an area where the trees had been cut down for the fence and the no-man's-land that lined it. From his place in the shadows, Dorian could clearly see the fence. Carefully, he studied the posts nearby, making sure none of them had what looked like a TV camera on it. They all didn't. He stepped out of the shadows and approached the fence, glowing faintly in the moonlight. Showing his contempt for it and all it stood for, Dorian shook it violently and watched the ripples fire down the line until they stopped completely. Then he laced his fingers through the loops and started to climb. When he was a third of the way down the other side, he dropped to the ground, lost his balance, and fell over backward. It was exhilarating! He was on the doc's property! No fence could stop him! He laughed loudly, lying on his back in the grass.

Pricks! A world full of pricks! Even my goddamn wife. She's a prick! One of worldful. Well, I'll show 'em! Show 'em all. Pricks!

He jumped to his feet and began running in the direction of the big house---Doc's sancutary. There was a wide swath of cleared ground on this side of the fence also, which made his running easier. He ran a zigzag course, from the shadow of one small tree to another, and he kept a steady fast speed. When he was close enough to see it, he stopped and peered at the great house looming up through the trees like a mirage. He knelt down at the base of a tree and caught his breath. His straight line to Piney Acres would take him well south of the house, well in the corner of the trees, but Dorian felt bold and daring.

Hell! I'm here already! Might as well show 'em what kind o' man they's dealin' with in Dorian Dumont's! They kin fool 'round with th' likes of me, or buffalo me either. I'll jus' take me a little visit to th' big house, and maybe I kin see somethin' that'll prove all th' weird things I know are goin' on out here! Then th' others---smart-ass shits---they'll hafta listen t'me then!"

His voice cracked in sharp, shrill laughter. He threw himself back against the tree. He'd just had the best idea he'd ever had: he would take a dump on Doc's doorstep. Leave a calling card. That'll show 'em!

He slipped out of the defensive veil of the tree's shadow and went for the house in a tight, crouching run. He came up on the left side of the house. The house itself was dark, silent. He leaned against the house, flattening his body and catching his breath. When his breath was almost back to normal, he turned, went up on tiptoe and peered through a window. He was looking into the kitchen. It was deserted and dark. Moonlight reflected on the polished surfaces in the kitchen. Quickly, quietly, he went around the back of the house, staying in its shadow.

As he inched along, he saw a dancing display of lights in the open area beyond. It was unlike anything else he'd ever seen before. It dazzled him, halting him completely in his tracks. Slowly, drawn by the lights, he moved forward. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. He neared the corner of the house, and his mind throbbed with sudden, loud noise. Children's voices and laughter, jangling, jarring, growing louder. He shook his head violently, but he could not free himself from the sound. He put his hands up, covering his ears, but this didn't help, either.

Holding his hands over his ears, he turned the corner and----stepped into a summer day.

There was green grass, blue sky, and a yellow-warm summer sun.

The voices roared in his head.

And a familiar-looking man ran and jumped in this summer's day...

Dorian staggered back. His body now responded in fear to what he was seeing. He stumbled as he backed up and fell, tumbling in the grass. Gasping for air that came hard, and just barely holding back the scream that was building in his head, he turned, fought his way to his knees, then to his feet, and started a headlong run towards the fence.

It took a long forever to reach it, but at last he did. He fell against the fence and began the long, hard climb up it. His ragged breath felt like a red-hot knife slicing down into his lungs. He was scared to look anywhere but straight ahead. The wires of the fence were giant and fuzzy before his eyes. He climbed up and up, dizzily, until he reached the top. And he fell onto the other side and rolled away in the dark, crashing into some bushes. He lay there---perfectly still----scared even to breathe for fear that something terrible was coming up behind him.

Tentacles of light came after him, slipping like snakes through the dark woods, reaching for him, coming for him. They would get him.....

Gotta git my ass up an' run.....

But he couldn't. His legs were spidery, and their power was gone. He was yards behind his breath and couldn't catch it. His heart thundered, hammered against his breastbone, stretched his skin.

He couldn't do anything but cry and whimper and wait for his.....death.

Tom came awake suddenly. He'd been deep in sleep, but now he jerked up into a blinding light. He raised his head and looked around.

No.

It was still night. Dark. The darkness in his bedroom was clenched around him like a fist. Yet, in his brain, there was a glowing light.

What the fuck?

And he had driving sharp pains in both legs.

Pain. It was the pain that had jerked him up out of deep, sound sleep. It was the pain that was exploding in his mind. It was the worst pain he'd had in months, in years. He screamed with it. He grabbed both legs and lay there, shaking violently from the pain. He couldn't remember when the pain had ever been this bad....except....except for that other dark night when he'd been lying in the high, dry grass and the heavy air was thick with the rotten smell of the jungle, of death and decay around the roots, and the bright, sharp, acrid smell of cordite and the sweet smell of ruptured and bleeding human flesh and the odorless-----taste of death and the copper taste of fear----Thick smoke from the fighting hung low in the darkness, like a ghostly shroud just over their heads. It had rained lately, and the ground was mud for a whole foot down. But it wasn't raining tonight, and above the shroud of smoke, the stars glittered dimly. He lay in the mud, with his head buried in it against the clumped roots of the elephant grass. He could hear the explosions all around him, felt the ground shake with each one. Mortar rounds----Charlie had them zeroed in....somewhere back in the thick jungle, he dropped rounds down into the tubes of his mortars. Tom could hear the quick little thump as the round fell against the firing pin in the tube and was fired. He could hear the round scream as it fell to the ground.....then the explosion. His buddies were all around him, pinned down and pelted with molten shrapnel....dead or dying. They screamed and called for help. He was like them all----paralyzed by fear. Then there was a blinding flash near him. The sound of the explosion ripped his helmet off his head and crushed his ears and sent splinters of pain all through his head. Coldly, sliver they were, and as sharp as razor blades. Now he was screaming. He rolled over onto his back and saw his legs....molten red and jagged flesh....and pain....

It all came back to him now....tonight. "Nooooooo!" he cried.

Then something like reason calmed him. A sudden, cool breeze blew through his mind, clearing the smoke. He wasn't in 'Nam. His buddies weren't dying again all around him. There weren't incoming rounds. He was alone in his cabin in Mississippi, and the night was dark and cool and filled with nothing but the common mysteries of darkness. And this unexpected, blinding pain.

The pain ran along his legs as if he'd been running for miles in his sleep.

Reason drove him to do something to fight it. He turned on his bedside lamp. In the drawer of his night table there was a supply of painkillers. He went for them. He jerked open the drawer with too much force, and the contents spilled onto the floor. Leaning off the bed, he rummaged around the split articles until he found the familiar plastic bottle. He couldn't open it with shaking hands. It had one of those tamper-proof caps on it. One of those with the two little arrows that had to line up. The light in his eyes didn't allow him to see the cap and certainly not the arrows on it.

"Can't....open...." he gurgled.

He crushed the plastic bottle in his hand, and the pills exploded into the air. They flew and rolled, clattering across the floor. He flopped off the bed after them, scooped up a handful. He popped them into his mouth, dry, knowing that his legs would never carry him to the kitchen or the bathroom for water. Wincing, he chewed the pills. They were bitter, but he could stand the bitter taste....if they would only do their job! Rolling on the floor he prayed over and over that they would and that they would do it fast.

Within seconds, the pills cast a numbing spell on his brain. He crawled back onto his bed and studied his bare legs in the glare of the beside lamp. They were twitching, the muscles were dancing under the skin. He knew he should be worried about them since nothing like this had ever happened before but the drug had separated his head from his body. He only stared at them in wonderment. He moved backward on the bed, dragging his feet like dead weights, and propped himself up to look down better at his legs. It all became comic to him, and he began to laugh. A part of his mind which was still untouched by the drug tried to warn him that he must get to a doctor as soon as he could make it. But all that seemed unimportant. Mostly, he just laughed. He wagged his big head back and forth to the rhythm of some unheard music.

His mind was strangely clear and ghostly calm.

The stillness of the night hummed in his ears. Then, faintly, like a faraway sound carried on the wings of the wind, he heard something else, something odd and out of place.

He shook his head in disbelief. Can't be. No way.

But as he strained to hear better, he grew more certain. What he heard was the tinkle of children's laughter.

In the drug-layered chaos of his mind, the tinkling-glass sound only made him laugh louder. The voices came nearer to him, but he could not see the children. He looked about his room for them, but he saw nobody. There was nothing there to see. His bare walls were dull and drab. There were no children.

All the shapes in the room began to melt and run together. He stared at the bizarre sight in amused wonder. Nothing was left of a recognizable shape. Everything became one mass of blending molten color. And the light began to change. It brightened. He seemed to be in a summer day.

The children's voices increased in volume.

Still, he couldn't see anybody. But the day had brightened and become real before his eyes. The place he found himself in looked familiar, but he couldn't place it. He bit his lip, trying to recognize where he was. Then it came to him: he was out in front of Doc's house. For some nutty reason, he was running about and jumping for joy. His arms were spread wide. He was insane with joy.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it all stopped. He was bounced back into the reality of his room. He hit reality like a concrete wall, like hitting the ground after a fall. He was clearheaded. Some of the drug lingered, and it kept him at some distance from everything. It was only a pleasant, moderate high, something like an alcohol buzz, jingly and euphoric. The core of his mind was solid and whistle-clean. His breathing was short and quick, and his pulse was faster than normal. His body was reacting as if he'd been running, but that could have been caused by anxiety and fear. He was soaked in sweat. It was dripping from his forehead into his eyes, blinding him. With a corner of his damp bedsheet, he wiped his eyes clean. And gradually, his mind became clearer. Transparent layers of confusion were lifted away, like the rinds of an orange. He raised his head and looked around.

Everything was just as he remembered it. He was alone in his bedroom, propped up against the back of his bed, sitting in the glaring circle of light thrown by the lamp. There was nothing new or remarkable in what he saw. Come awake any night or any morning and he'd see the same things. There was no sunny day, no field of green grass; no laughing children played in dappled shadows.

He shrugged away a whimsical sadness that nothing was there except just what he would have expected to be there.

He ran his hands over his legs and looked down at them, checking them. They were calm now. The skin was flat and smooth over calm muscles. And there was no pain now. They were relaxing back to normal. Still the muscles tingled, and the legs felt heaven and leaden. If he needed to leave his bed suddenly---a fire or something like that-----he wanted sure his legs would even work. He didn't believe they could stand his weight. All he could do was hope for the best.

But the drug had done its job.

Hey, what about his----experience?

He grinned. He was no stranger to drugs. He'd been a social user with his friends and buddies before, during, and after Vietnam. He'd never been as serious about drugs as a lot of them had. He'd never had an experience quite like this before.

A fear leaped into his mind----overdose.

He ran a quick check----again---over his body, checking breathing and pulse rate.

Normal---maybe a little fast, but within the safe range.

He lay back down on his bed and flipped off the light.

"Well," he said aloud, "I've never seen anything like that before. I'll have to ask Doc about it."

Leaden tiredness sucked him down into deep water. He quickly went back to sleep.

Darkness.

Darkness surrounded him. He swam in its stygian depths without making a sound. He paddled through the dark surface of a nightmare.

Dorian lay there for what seemed to be hours. He sobbed quietly in pain and fear. It was a long time before he could slowly open his eyes and chance a look around.

The moon sailed peacefully along.

Thin drifting clouds slowly slid over it.

The fence was behind him.

Everything was quiet. So quiet.

He was all right.

There was nothing coming after him.

He was drenched in his own sweat. His clothes were sopped with evil-smelling, sulphorous fear sweat. He ached in a hundred small places where he'd been scraped and bruised. And he was shaking like a dog shitting peach pits.

He cursed and grumbled and tried to move. It seemed impossible. He was paralyzed. He had no control over any part of his body. He might as well have been a stranger in a strange body. He didn't recognize any part of it, and it all should have been so familiar to him. Certainly he could not control any of the parts needed to move this strange body.

Then he discovered one familiar thing. It was his fear. That was still there. It would never be gone. Never!

He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. He struggled for control. For all his faults and weaknesses, Dorian was not a stranger to pain or to fearsome, demanding situations and the willingness to overcome them. Once when he'd been a young man, in these very swamps, he'd proven, out of necessity, he could survive.

He'd been tramping the woods, with his .410 on his shoulder, casually hunting but really more interested in just being alone in the swamps. Where his mind had been, what he'd been thinking of, he didn't know, but it cost him his natural woodsman's wariness. He'd carelessly stepped over a log without glancing at what might be on the other side of it, and he'd stepped on a sunning snake. The snake rose and struck. Dorian felt the fangs prick his skin at the ankle. Instantly, all his father's warnings and teaching came back to him. He grabbed the snake behind its head. Its fangs were still embedded in his ankle. He lifted the snake so he could see what species it was. He saw the spade-shaped head and the white of its mouth.

His worst fears were confirmed---cottonmouth!

Deadly venom was coursing through his veins.

He fought his panic. His sole support in this moment of fear was the memory of his father's strong words. "Most folks die from snake-bite not 'cause o' th' poison but 'cause they get scared an' let it kill 'em!"

He laid his shotgun down, killed the snake, took off his belt and tied it around the upper part of his leg, sat down, and removed his shoe and sock. The fang holes were already coloring, yellowish and ugly. He took his pocketknife and cut the punctures open, letting them drain. Then, using his shotgun as a crutch, he hobbled home.

His father had been proud of him for controlling his fear; then he'd whipped him for not keeping his mind on business when he was out in the swamps.

Now Dorian was fighting the same kind of battle. It wasn't so easy this time. The snake had been a creature who belonged out here in the swamps, something he knew how to deal with. But this other thing....

He strained and struggled for control, and gradually he could feel it coming back. It was tenuous and shaky, but it was here. He was mastering it. Control. It slid down his neck to his shoulders, and down his arms and his legs. His muscles responded, straightened. They worked! They clenched and unclenched!

At long last, his breath slowed down and his heart quieted.

He rolled over and rose to his feet. He groaned from a sudden pain in the shoulder he'd struck when he'd fallen. He was cold now from his sweat. He shivered. He didn't know what had happened to him. He didn't understand what it was that he'd seen up at Doc's place. The only thing he knew for sure was that whatever it was it was impossible. And he knew that everyone else ought to know about it. He didn't think he could ever explain what he'd seen to anyone else. No one would ever believe it. But he knew he had to try. People had to know something weird was going on out here. The town had to know.

As his strength came back, so did Dorian's anger.

He raised a fist and shook it defiantly at the fence. "I'll fuckin' kill ya, Doc! Ya hear! I dunno whatcha did t' me, but yer gonna pay!" He was blind with fury. He repeated his curse. He shook the fence; the metal twanged up and down its length.

Nothing but the wind answered him.

He spun around and began to run off in the direction of Piney Woods. There'd be people there who'd listen to him.

Piney Acres was like a thousand other roadhouses throughout the South. Buck Hess, the owner, had simply cut a rough, square, open area out of the pine trees alongside the highway and had built a squarish, bunkerlike building out of concrete blocks in the middle of the open space. Two truckloads of gravel in front made a parking space. A metal sign, supplied by a beer company, on a tall metal pole beside the road was advertising enough. Inside were a bar, crude tables, chairs, and the small, raised platform at the rear. Bright beer signs laced the two windows at the front. They were chest-high to a man, one on either side of the single, central wooden door. All Buck could serve in Piney Woods, legally, was beer, but it was well known to the regulars that harder stuff was behind the bar. For the right price----if Buck knew you---you could get something stronger to punch up the beer. On Saturday nights, a country band played loudly and badly; the tables were pushed back to allow for a dance floor. Couples danced, and there were a few fights, now and then a serious cutting.

Regulars had a cautious, wary, even hostile attitude towards strangers who might be dumb enough to wander into Piney Woods. It was a fiefdom with laws and rules all its own that didn't conform to the laws of the outside world; and Buck Hess was its king, its absolute ruler with the power of life and death over the creatures of his fiefdom. His rule existed alongside the law for the larger outside world, but in an edgy, nervous coexistence that made all the strangeness suspect.

It was peaceful in the fiefdom tonight. Buck was sitting with three of his regular customers, playing poker. When anyone needed another beer or some pretzels, he got up and got it for himself. A radio behind the bar was blaring out hillbilly music.

Buck was one of the most feared men in these parts. He was a big man, six five, two twenty-five, all of it hard and solid. He had legendary, touchy, mean streak. If his size didn't warn you off, it was rumored that he was always armed and not afraid to use his gun. And it wasn't a very well-kept secret that he was Grand Dragon of the KKK in this part of Mississippi. Nobody asked him directly about that. It was said that he killed four men in a bar fight down in Florida some years ago, and one of them with his bare hands.

But now Buck was contemplating his hand.

There was a loud thump outside the door, and then it swung open. Dorian Dumont fell (literally) into the room.

The four men at the table were on their feet right away. They ran to help Dorian, pulled him over to the table, and sat him down. One of them ran to the bar and opened a beer. Dorian drank thirstily, draining more than half the bottle in one gulp before spitting it back. The cold beer ran through his body like a jolt of electricity.

"What the hell's wrong, Dorian? Somebody chasing you?"

"Ain't nobody chasin' me, I made damn certain sure o' that!"

"Then why you been a'runnin'?"

Dorian waved the question off with an impatient hand. He picked up his beer again and drank the rest of it down. then he let out a great, satisfied sigh, farting at the same time.

"I'm runnin' from somethin' horrible thet I jus' saw!"

The men all looked at each other and laughed. "What'd ya jus' see, Dorian, a ghost?"

This brought more laughter. Buck stepped up in front of Dorian, and the laughter ceased. The men all looked at Buck.

"I can't believe it," Buck said seriously. "Look!" He jerked Dorian's cap off.

There was a collective gasp.

Dorian searched the men's eyes wildly. "What the fuck you guys lookin' at?!"

Buck pulled him to his feet and dragged him over to the bar. There was a mirror behind it. "Take a look, bud!"

Dorian looked at his reflection in the mirror.

His jaw dropped.

His fine full head of black Cajun hair had turned a ghostly white.

"I'm gonna kill ya, Doc!" he whispered fiercely.

It was in the morning, as he was showering, the Tom realized he truly was all right.

Oh, he was still a little dull and slow from the painkillers, but there wasn't any lasting pain in his legs. They seemed solid and normal.

He dressed quickly, and, without eating any breakfast, fired up the motorcycle and headed for Doc's.

Today was going to be wet, hot, and muggy. But now it was pleasant. Early in the morning before the heat had risen. He was riding the familiar two-lane, black-top, farm-to-market road between his place and Doc's. The bugs were up early and in great numbers. They sacrificed themselves to create a wild pattern of colorful splotches on the visor of his helmet.

He had to slow down before he reached Doc's gate because cars were parked along both sides of the road. They rested at angles in the ditches on both sides and were parked on the surface of the road itself. People were standing around, milling about, talking with each other in low, mumbling voices. Most of them gave Tom flat, icy stares as he rode by, though one or two nodded at him and spoke. He turned off into the driveway, stopping suddenly, for the gate was still closed. Rather than get off the motorcycle and use the squawk box, Tom just waved his arms in the direction of the house. He hoped Doc would see him. Nothing happened for a few seconds so he started to dismount and resort to the electronic gadget, but, just then, the gate swung slowly open. With a quick look behind him at the other people, he gunned the motorcycle and went up the gravel driveway. As the gate closed behind the motorcycle, a chorus of disgruntled comments rose from the people still on the road.

After Tom shut the engine off and took off his helmet, Greene came out and down the front steps to greet him. The doctor's face was ashen, his eyes were weak and runny, and he rubbed his hands together over and over in agitation. "What's going on out there, Tom?"

"Damned if I know, Doc." He glanced back at the people on the road. They were just standing along it in small clumps. He looked back at Greene. "You worried about something?"

Greene sighed, spreading his hands. "A little. I don't know what this is all about. They started gathering out there early this morning. They haven't done anything except just standing around. They didn't even ask to come in. They've just sat out there in their cars or gathered together in little groups and talked." He sighed and lowered his head. "It's like they were standing guard over me or something. I know that sounds silly." He smiled up at Tom. It was a hesitant, unsure, smile, as if it was the first time he'd tried those muscles this morning. His eyes were cloudy with confusion and uncertainty. "It's good to see a friendly face. You are most welcome, Tom."

Tom easily returned the smile, though his smile didn't hide his worry. He looked back at the people on the road. "Weird," he said. "Nobody's tried to talk to you or anything?"

Greene shook his head. The tension showed in his face again, the little muscles scampering under the skin.

"How 'bout if I go out there and talk to 'em, Doc?"

"No." There was a heavy pause, and confusion spread over his face. "I don't know. I don't want to get you involved in something that could----get you in any kind of trouble, Tom."

"Are you in some kind of trouble, Doc?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then why the hell should I get in trouble?"

"It's just that----well, you know how these people can be about people they think are meddling w here they don't belong."

"But, hell, Doc, we're buddies. And what's a buddy for? I'll go down and rap with them." Tom threw his leg over the motorcycle.

"No, no, no---not just yet. I'd rather not involve you any more than necessary right now. Thanks, anyway."

"Dammit, Doc, I'm already involved. When you opened the gate for me, you got me involved." He pulled the kick-started out from the side of the engine and kicked the motor into life. Greene came down the steps and grabbed him by the shoulder. Tom shut the engine off and asked, "What?"

"Wait! Look!"

Tom turned and looked back at the road.

A long, silver car was pulling slowly through the crowd, and those gathered on the road were reacting to its appearance. They waved and surged forward. With a clear purpose in their movements, they fell in behind the car, which pulled up into the driveway and halted at the gate. The horn blared three times.

"Looks like they got what they were waiting for," Tom said.

"I'd better go open the gate," Greene said, hurrying up the stairs. He vanished through the door, then reappeared a few seconds later.

The crowd halted at the back and around the sides of the car. One person came forward and opened the door on the driver's side. Spider Keaton got out of the car on one side and a tall, thin man got out on the other.

Spider fired a large, friendly wave up toward Greene. Doc Greene waved feebly back. Then Keaton turned back around and spoke to the crowd. Neither Tom nor Green could hear what he was saying, but, from his gestures, they figured that he was trying to quieten and calm the crowd. Spider then turned and faced the house again. He started walking up the driveway, and the crowd---now a close knot of people---followed a few paces behind him.

"Mornin' Doc," Mayor Keaton called when he was close enough to be heard. "Mornin' t' ya too, sir." He nodded to Tom.

"Mr. Keaton," Greene said brightly, and, without missing a beat added, "What can I do for you this morning?"

Keaton smiled. "I'm here in my official capacity as the Mayor o' th' City o' Hullbeck, Doc." He let that tidbit of information hang in the still morning air.

"Yes, Your Honor?" Greene answered with a quick, little bow. There was a thick coat of irony in his words, and he smiled easily.

"Well, m'friend, seems we got ourse'ves a bit of a pro'lem here this mornin', sir." He was still smiling.

"Problem?!"

"Yessir."

Greene waited for an explan==ation, but the mayor just smiled. Tom noticed the nervous muscle action was increasing in Doc's face.

"Well," Keaton was obviously embarrassed. He quickly looked around at the crowd behind him. Then he cleared his throat. He was a large man, fat, with a small head topped off with oily, black curls that hung out from under the brim of his filthy straw hat. His eyes were narrow and small. They were almost buried in the ruddy red surface of his face. He cleared his throat again. "I'm here, like I said, as th' mayor, representin' th' good cit'zens o' Hullbeck." He took a white handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his forehead, pushing his hat back. He glanced at the damp handkerchief; then he unceremoniously stuffed it back into his pocket and resettled his hat. "There's some concern, 'mong the folks....uh, cit'zens.....'bout th' nature o' yer 'speriment, Doc."

Greene said, tiredly, "I thought I'd cleared all that up to your satisfaction, Mr. Mayor."

"Y'did before, thas' a fact. We been happy t' have ya'll here an' a part o' our lil' town, Doc."

"What's the problem, then?"

"Well," Keaton looked down to the ground and then back to the quiet crowd before turning back to Greene. "We 'preciate ya bein' honest an' fair wi' us, Doc." His index finger came up. "Up t' now. They's somethin', Doc, that ya ain't tol' us 'bout....somethin' that yer doin' here an' now. Somethin' that's kinda dangerous."

"Maybe, hell!" a voice rang out from the crowd.

Keaton turned his back to Greene and Tom and faced the crowd. His hands came up in a calming gesture. "Now, I done tol' you folks t' let me handle this. Jus' calm down!" His voice rose from a simple chide to a booming shout.

"Easy fer yew t' say, Mayor!" another voice called.

"Now, lis'en t' me. We don't know nuthin' fer shore! This man's been fair wi' us up t' now---we all know that! We all been here 'fore, an' met wi' 'im an' enjoyed his hosp'tal'ty. Ain't no reason not t'be civ'lized 'bout this!"

A ripple of derisive laughter ran through the crowd. It was fast, dark-streaked....mean. Tom and Greene shared a private, quizzical look.

With the condescending smile of a superior man who must deal with the mob, Keaton turned back to Greene. "As ya kin see, Doc, th' folks are a mite worked up 'bout this."

"About what?"

"Yer 'speriment, whatever it is."

"I've told you..."

"We heard whatchoo tol' us, Doc, but....dontcha think....that iffen they was some danger t' us and t' ours that you should tell us 'bout that too?"

"If there were any danger---which there isn't---yes, I would've told you about it." Greene spread his arms and half turned, taking everybody in. "You're all my neighbors, and I owe you that. But there's no danger. There isn't."

"Then," a sweet, all-encompassing smile, "why dontcha tell us a lil' mo' 'bout this here 'speriment o' yers?"

Greene shrugged. He stepped forward and raised his hands to talk to the crowd. "I've told all of you before that there's nothing---absolutely nothing---to fear from my experiment. My God! How many times do I have to repeat myself on that score? There's nothing to worry about. My experiment doesn't concern you more than that. It's a completely contained, safe procedure. And that's all I can say."

"Well, it's shore 'n' fuck not all I can say!" The tall, thin man who'd ridden up with the mayor stepped out of the protective coloring of the crowd. He was a ragged shadow of a man---thin, bony, jagged. Dressed in faded coveralls, he wore a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Greene squinted at him, sure that he'd never seen him before. "Who are you, sir?"

The man's attitude shifted from open hostility to complacent arrogance. He folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels, then quickly glanced around at the crowd. "I'm the first one t' get hurt by yer damn 'speriment!" he shouted and whipped off his hat. He had a full head of shocking white hair.

Greene stood dumbfounded.

Keaton stepped up and grabbed the man by the arm. "God-damn it, Dorian, why cantcha ever do anything yer asked? I done tol' ya that I'd handle this here thing. You jus' calm down an' shut up!"

"Calm yer own fuckin' self down! He didn't turn your hair white!"

The crowd suddenly caught Dorian's anger and fear. It mumbled and surged forth, like a rising tide.

"Hey! Hey! People! Stan' back! Stan' back!" Keaton had to let go of Dorian and was raising both his arms over his head.

The surging crowd didn't hear or respond to the pleas of the mayor. It drowned him out. From his belt, Keaton pulled a little silver pistol. He fired it once in the air. The shock of the shot and the lingering blue smoke stopped the crowd. But it also jabbed a copper-edged knife of fear into the atmosphere. Everyone was suddenly aware of how much he was sweating. The men looked at each other, and embarrassed, excited, they turned away.

"Now, awright, you folks, move on back there. G' on, move on back." Keaton tried to sound calm, but his voice twittered and cracked.

The crowd moved backward a few feet and began to break up, scattering into small, muttering groups of twos and threes.

The mayor turned back to Greene. He was embarrassed, red, and not a little scared by the pistol shot himself. "Sorry, Doc, but folks is jus' a lil' shook up 'bout what happened t' ol' Dorian here." He put his hand on the white-haired man's shoulder. "Somethin' happened t' him that none o' us kin unnerstand, but it sure scared him some. Scared him s'bad it done turned his hair all white." Keaton indicated the shock of white hair with his little silver pistol. "Didja ever hear o' such a thing? I heard tell o' it happenin' but I never seen it. But I know Dorian, and it sure did happen t' him. Now, Doc, a person's gotta be a mite scared 'bout that thing happein' t' 'im, wouldn't ya say?" He waited, calmly, letting his question just hang in the air along with the blue smoke from the gun shot. His grin didn't fade.

Greene walked over to Dorian, who stood sullen and straight, a snarl devouring his long, thin face. Every eye was on Doc, and the breathing in the crowd seemed to stop; it was so calm and still. Greene walked directly to Dorian and stood silently looking at him for some minutes. Then he reached up toward the white hair.

"May I?" he asked.

"Knock yerself out," Dorian mumbled, shrugging.

Greene touched the hair, rubbing it between two fingers. It had the texture and feel of thin-gauge wire. Letting it go, he said, "I'm sorry about what happened to you." And he smiled reassuringly at Dorian.

Keaton sidled over and stood close to Dorian and Greene so he wouldn't miss anything. He put the gun back in his belt. "I hope yer ownin' up t' bein' responsible for wha' happened to Dorian." He narrowed his eyes and looked accusingly at Greene.

"No. How can I when I don't know exactly what happened?"

Keaton shrugged and took one step back. "Tell 'im, Dorian."

Greene looked at Dorian, and his calming smile fell back into place. "Can you tell me exactly what happened to you?"

Dorian cocked an eye, near closing the other, and spat close to Greene's foot. As the memory rose to the angry surface of his mind, it brought back the fear. He started to tremble. He cut his trembling short, shaking his hands, then growled in Greene's face. "I was a-comin' outta th' woods back there---a cuttin' crost' yer place las' night an...." The words seemed to hang heavy in his throat.

"Yes," Greene prompted. "Go on. Last night....." He looked sharply at Keaton. "I'll overlook his trespassing, just tell me what happened."

Dorian was silent.

"I'm listening, dammit! Now, last night...."

"Aw, shit. Well, I was on m' way over t' Piney Woods." His arm came up to show the direction he was going the night before. "And I come through back there---not close t' th' house or nuttin'. But when I was a-comin' through I heard some funny sounds an' I saw some funny lights."

"Exactly what was it you saw and heard?"

Dorian looked over at Keaton.

"Well, spit it out, Dorian. Ain't got all day."

"Well, they was some real funny lights, an' I heard a bunch o' yung'uns a-laughin' an' a-playin'. This was in th' middle o' th' night, dontcha know? I thought it was kinda funny, so I come o'er here by th' house t' see what was a-goin' on...." He looked back at the crowd. "Jus' like anybody else woulda done."

There were shouts of agreement.

"What did you see then?"

"I come 'round th' backside o' th' house, like I don' tol' ya, an' as I turned th' corner, I...." Dorian slightly trembled. He swallowed loudly and dropped his head. He began to nudge the ground at his feet with a toe.

"What was it, for God's sake?" Greene insisted, gently yet impatiently.

"I was like nuttin' I ever did see in m' life! Jus' like steppin' offa the edge o' somethin' an' steppin' into somethin' else. It was green an' bright---jus' lak' daytime---an' they was folks up a-runnin' an' a-jumpin'." Dorian's body began to shake more violently now. He rubbed his forehead. "I ran from it, back out 'crost the woods. When I got t' Piney Woods, that was when I foun' out much hair'd been turned all white!"

Greene nodded and turned away, his mind racing. The man had seen the children's picture, he'd heard their laughter.

After a few moments of confused silence, Greene turned and tried to smile at Dorian.

It must've been frightening all right. It scared me at first, though I had Pham to help me understand it. But this poor fellow! He just saw something totally inexplicable, and there was no one to help him understand what he experienced. Something terrible that he can't explain, and that makes it all the more terrible. Like a UFO. He knows he saw something, but there's no way he can tell anyone else just what he saw.

Greene turned away again and paced a few steps, holding his jaw in one hand.

One thing is for sure, he can't reveal the children's secret. He can't explain what he saw to the others, so the children's secret is secure. But he does present a danger to them. Just by having seen something---and by telling others. That could make trouble for him....unless....unless he can....somehow....explain it away.

Suddenly, Greene turned and stared at Dorian. Dorian glared back at him, but Greene only smiled and walked on, absorbed in his own thoughts.

An explanation! That's what I have to come up with. A reasonable and plausible explanation that the rest of these people will accept. Not the man who saw---no, he'll never accept any explanation. Probably, to make others believe. I'll have to hurt this man more, will have to make him look stupid, childish, foolish.

He looked back at the cold, narrow, flinty eyes of Dorian.

It might not be too hard to do. But I will need a plan. I will need time to think.

The crowd still watched Greene as he paced.

And I don't have time for that.

He could feel the panic rising in him on a warm, slick wave. He turned and went back to the stairs.

Tom, standing on top of them, could see the racing panic on Greene's face. He wanted to help, but he was totally mystified, like the crowd.

Greene mounted the stairs, then turned and faced the crowd. "Mr. Mayor," he said, nodding to Keaton, "and all the rest of you good people. I think I can explain. To tell you the truth, I've not been totally up front with you."

A sigh of agreement went up from the crowd. Dorian looked around at them, confidently and happily. "What'd I tell ya!" his expression said.

"I've been less than honest with you for the best of reasons, though I've not been happy about having to lie. What I told you was an 'experiment' isn't one---not in the true sense and meaning of the word. But I'm working on a project---an important government project. And one thing I've said all along is totally true---it doesn't present any danger to any of you. You've still got my word on that."

Dorian's confident smile struggled into a snarl.

"The project's perfectly safe and harmless. This incident," Greene pointed to Dorian, "was most unfortunate, but I can explain what happened, very simply."

How?

The crowd waited, everyone looked directly at Greene. How? Truth? Yes, maybe....partial truth.

"I'm not alone in this house. There're some other....other beings who live here with me. I'm responsible for them. They're a group of....well, they're children, but only by age. They don't resemble anything human, anything that you'd recognize as human. They don't look like anything you've ever seen before." He paused. "They're victims of chemical warfare in Vietnam. Their being is a mistake, an accident, but they're alive. They're in there, lying motionless on beds, hooked up to machinery that keeps them alive. They can't live without it. They're not able to see, not able to feel, not able to hear, not able to do---anything. They're totally harmless, and they can't hurt anyone."

"The hell they cain't! Look what they fuckin' did to me!"

"Well, uh...." Greene mumbled. He still searched for an explanation. Then he heard a familiar voice in his mind.

"Father-Doc, tell them it was a show for the children."

Pham!

Greene looked up.

Tom turned his head towards the house.

They looked at each other.

"Uh," Greene began, "from time to time, I try to make their poor lives a little better. I try to bring a little color and joy to them. I show them films, movies; and that makes them, for a little while, happier."

"Thought you said they couldn't see?"

"Um, well, they can't see as we see. They can tell colors and shapes. They like those movies. It's the only form of enjoyment. They don't understand them, of course, but they like the color and the movement. It's a little thing. I was showing them a movie last night, when this poor man came by...." He let his sentence drop, but he pointed down at Dorian.

"That warn't no movie pitcher I seen las' night!" Dorian insisted. "Leastways, it warn't lak' no movie pitcher I ever seen a'fore."

"Right!" Tom chimed in. "It was an experimental film, made just for the children. I made it for them." He turned to Greene and smiled.

Green smiled gratefully. Sweat was popping out on his face; lying was such a tough business.

Dorian's hand came up. He pointed to Tom. "You! You was there! I done seen ya!"

Tom swallowed loudly. "No, it only looked like I was there. Experimental film technique. Something too complicated for me to explain to you out here, but I can show you sometime. Light shows, mirrors, uh, magic."

Everyone was quiet.

Dorian frantically looked around at the crowd for support. Most just looked away from him. Some ducked their heads and hid their faces.

"Leave it to Dorian to git scairt by some movie."

"Goddamn it, Jester! It warn't no fuckin' movie pitcher that I saw."

A murmur of laughter rippled through the crowd.

"No movie pitcher done this t' me!"

The tension that crackled earlier like live electric wires was completely gone now. The angry crowd wasn't angry anymore. With smiles, nods, and dipped hats, they turned and filed down to their cars. Some of them talked loudly to each other, others laughed loudly. They got in their cars and drove away, leaving the small group of Keaton, Dorian, Tom, and Greene.

Keaton grabbed up Dorian and walked him toward his car. With a big wave to Grene, the mayor went around, got in the driver's side, fired up the big car and drove away.

Waving at the departing car, Greene said. "God bless you, Tom. You really helped me out of a tight spot."

"I aim to please, good doctor. But I can't take all the credit." He nodded his head back toward the house. "We had a little help from a most unusual source."

Greene flushed and ducked his head. "Yes, unusual indeed." He looked at Tom. "It must've come as quite a shock to you."

"Uh, no it didn't." Tom smiled shyly and squinted up to the house. "It wasn't the first time he's---talked----to me in that fashion. It's getting to be an old thing with me." He laughed.

"Really?" Greene turned and looked at Tom, an eyebrow cocked up questioningly.

Tom grinned sharply. "Really. Yesterday when I met him, I thought I was gonna go ape shit and run; but he calmed me down."

"Oh, yes, yes. Now I understand."

Greene placed his cup back in the saucer. It clinked loudly, causing him to wince at the sudden, sharp noise. "I'm afraid I'm still a little shaken over what happened this morning."

Tom shrugged. "I don't blame you. That was scary."

Greene rose and paced. "It's not only that----although that was surely enough to put anyone on edge---it's just----I'll....." He paused and rubbed his brow. His shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. "Honestly, I'm just about beat from everything that's happened to me in the past few days."

Tom leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

Greene said nothing. He sighed heavily and collapsed in a chair.

Tom asked, "I thought you wanted to talk about it?"

Greene swung around. "I do, I do! I've got to unburden myself to someone, but it's---well, it's not easy." His face clouded, and he shook his head. "But I've---I've got to talk about it----I just don't know where or how to begin. I'm convinced if I do talk about it you'll think I've gone stark raving mad."

"You know better 'n that, Doc. I already know some of it, remember? Pham spoke to me too."

Greene's eyes lit up. "Right! And people rarely share other each other's madness." He was up pacing again. "It's impossible for it to be some kind of 'shared madness' is impossible." He turned sharply to Tom. "You believe in your sanity, don't you?"

"I guess. I never thought about it too much."

"Good." He came pressing towards Tom. "Now, you weren't imagining things? Pham actually talked to you in your mind?"

"Twice. Once yesterday, when I met him for the first time, and this morning, on the porch, when he gave us the movie idea."

They were sitting in the kitchen. It was still morning, and the house's shadow lay before them outside. Since they were still in the shadow, the heat wasn't uncomfortable. They sat at a clean white table. Greene was chain-smoking and had enticed Tom to join him.

"You must understand something," he said. "I'm a scientist. I'm not used to things happening that are unexplainable and miraculous. It's my job to find out why these things happen. To put everything in order, everything in its proper place. There's no place in my world for the kind of thing happening here. It just doesn't belong. In my world when something that doesn't make sense happens, there's only one reason for it---madness! I've just been dreaming all this----dreams, hallucinations, madness!"

"Not true, Doc. Something's happening, all right."

Greene looked at Tom and smiled. "I guess I have no choice but to recognize that. Something I can't explain is happening in my world. I just have to accept it, but you don't know what such acceptance does to all my training, all my experience." He lit another cigarette.

"Can you tell me more about it?"

"Only what little I know."

"We can start from there."

"Apparently the children----all of them---have recently developed telepathic abilities. They're now able to communicate with each other, and with other people. People like me."

"And me."

"Yes."

The look was quickly broken by both men. Embarrassed, they both turned away, as if they shared something so intimate that neither wanted to admit it. Greene was as confused as Tom. Both of them were like poor Dorian and couldn't understand what was happening to them.

"Amazing," Tom mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just said 'amazing,' that's all."

"Ah, but the communication isn't the only thing we'll have to watch out for."

Tom bent forward across the table and pulled a cigarette from the package. "What are you talking about?"

Greene smiled obscurely. Then he rose and paced to and fro again. He puffed on the cigarette madly and clasped his hands behind his back. He paced in this manner for some minutes; the only sound in the room was the dry shuffle of his feet and the ticking of a clock. Suddenly, he stopped and put his cigarette out in the ashtray. He looked directly at Tom. "I don't know how to tell you this. What do you think that man saw here last night?"

"How the hell should I know? He was probably drunk and...."

"He may have been drinking, yes, but it wasn't the booze that did that to him. No, he saw something....something that could scare a man that much."

"What?"

"I think the children can make---- 'pictures' on the wall."

"Pictures?"

"Pictures."

"What kind of pictures?"

"Pictures like you've never seen before. He said it right----Dorian. 'Like stepping off something and into something else.' I couldn't have said it better myself."

"I don't get it, Doc."

"I wish I could put it better, but I can't." Greene glanced at Tom and saw stubbornness in the young man's face. He knew he had to try. "Okay, okay, I'll try. Last night, when that idiot stumbled by here, they were re-creating the view from the front window of this house. Everything that's out there, they were creating on the wall in their room. And it had all the appearance of reality----it was real! It looked like you could just walk right into it." He paused and looked down, the memory of the "picture" vivid in his mind. "I've never seen anything like it. And that drunken fool! No wonder his hair turned white."

Tom rose and paced. It was now his turn. "So, how do they make these 'pictures'?"

"That I don't know. I wish I could tell you in layman's terms what they do and how they do it, but I can't. All I know is that they can create---on the blank surface of the wall---the reality of something else. It's how they entertain themselves. My guess is that the picture is made from memory. Pham is the delivery system since he's the only one who can move about and 'see' in a normal sense. He brings the memory picture to them; maybe it's Pham who 'makes' the picture, I don't know. But they all take part in it. All of them." There was a shocked expression in his gray eyes. "And there's something more you need to know."

"What?"

"I didn't know about the pictures until last night, though---from the children---I've learned they've been doing this for some time. But last night, I couldn't sleep. I heard a noise, and I came down here to investigate. I walked into their room and, there, on the wall, was the overpowering reality of my front yard. And something more. You were in the picture."

"No way!"

"It was you---in appearance---yet not you."

Tom couldn't say anything.

"When I came in the room, I saw you. You were running and jumping, having the time of your life. Then you saw me and you stopped. You spoke to me, but it wasn't your voice; it was Pham's!"

"Pham's?"

"Yes. He had somehow recreated your body---from memory---and he was using it to show the others. Before the night was over, all of them had used your body. They'd all slipped into it."

"Jesus!" Pham collapsed in his chair and hunched over, dangling his hands over his knees.

"I know how you feel." Greene put a hand on Pham's shoulder. "It's just as astonishing to me, too."

"Astonishing hell! It's goddamn scary!"

"Yes, it's that too."

Tom looked up at Greene. "Could there have been any of this 'slipping in and out' going in the other direction?"

"What do you mean?"

"I woke up this morning, about three, with pain in my legs. I took painkillers and---wow!---they've never had such an effect on me before. I had the same sensations you described in the picture. I dreamed I was running and jumping in your front yard."

There was an empty chair beside Tom, and Greene pulled it out and sat on it, looking his young friend squarely in the eye. "You experienced pain?"

"Yeah, like it is when I use my legs too much."

"You felt what they were doing to your body?"

Tom shrugged. "I didn't know about it. I didn't understand what was going on. I thought it was the drugs."

More to himself than to Tom, Greene said, "Now, that shouldn't be happening. They're only creating 'pictures,' re-creating reality, but just in a limited way. They can't recreate everything about you. It's just not possible. Something can't be made out of nothing."

"Tell that to my legs."

"It must've been some kind of sympathetic reaction on your part. You responded well to Pham; you were intrigued by his telepathic powers, and concerned over the freaks. Maybe your subconscious just reached out and played along with what they were doing. And the drugs---those helped---they probably blotted out all of the normal interferences that your mind would have put up to prevent this kind of thing from happening. It's all explainable." He buried his chin in his chest, rose, and paced in silence. "But----suppose the impossible is real! Suppose there's some connection between their 'pictures' and reality. That opens up a whole new spectrum of possibilities." He stopped and snapped his fingers, turning. "I'm afraid I have no choice but to report this."

"Report it to whom?"

"Good God, man! I may have been shuffled off into a dark corner out of everybody's sight, but this is still a government project. I have to report this to them!"

Tom got up and blocked Greene's pacing. "You haven't told anyone about all this yet?"

"I've tried. I've written reports, but when I read them over, I'm too sure of my own sanity. Therefore, if I can't convince myself I'm not crazy, I can't convince anyone else I'm not crazy. They'll just think I'm a crackpot and take the kids away from me. I've got a wastebasket full of reports!" Panic fluttered in Greene's eyes, ringing in his voice like a clanging, jangling bell. "But I can't keep this a secret anymore. They've got to know. This is an amazing discovery!"

"Why hurry, Doc? I mean, you said you really don't understand what's happening, right? So, what can you tell them now? I mean, you can tell them that the freaks are doing something weird and that you don't know what it is, but that's okay, isn't it?" He stopped until Greene nodded his head. "I'm sure you can wait a little longer, at least until we know more about this weird-ass thing." Tom moved forward. "If they think you're nuts, they'll take the kids away from you. But if you can convince them you're not nuts, they'll overpower you with 'experts,' won't they? And the effect will be the same---they'll end up taking the kids from you. So, wait a little longer, until you've got enough data to make a report that'll convince them you're not nuts and that you know more about this thing than anyone else ever can?"

Greene understood. He nodded his head. "I don't trust my government, either. You're right. If I tell them now, and I convince them that I'm not mad, they'll put the kids in some kind of special research center staffed with people whose fields are bullshit, like parapsychology, and I'll be out of the picture."

"Then wait."

"I shall."

Tom walked away. "We can study them, learn about them and their powers, and, when we know something, we can report it."

Greene looked at Tom. His eyes searched out every corner of the young man's face. "Have you been paying attention to what you're saying?"

Tom only looked questioningly at him and shrugged.

"You keep saying 'we.'"

With a laugh, Tom put out his hands. "We," he said.

Greene looked down at Tom's big hand. His eyes narrowed, his brow clouded. Doubts raced through his mind. He had no right to involve Tom in this. There was a question of ethics. And....He couldn't think of what else he should be thinking about. He looked up at Pham. The young man's face was sunny. His eyes were wide and warm. Friendship, Greene thought. It's a question of friendship. Nothing else matters as much. Quickly, he took Tom's hand.

"We."

Afternoon.

The startling morning turned into a flaccid, limp afternoon. The ground turned into a griddle. The world became a baking oven. The air thickened to a density you could almost see. It was like smoke. The wind was silent. The damp, moldy smell of the swamps rose and covered everything like a pall.

Lunch was eaten in a hurry. Between mouthfuls of food, Greene tried to bring Tom up to date on the freaks. He tried to tell him all their history and explain all his findings about them. The telling could have gone on through the afternoon, but it didn't. Overtaken by a heavy weariness, they both yawned repeatedly, and neither of them could keep his mind on the subject very long. Greene suggested a nap, and Tom readily agreed. The doctor put Tom on the sofa in the lab, and he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

As he slept, Greene felt something tugging at the edges of his mind. He wanted to fight back, but found the probing was not dangerous, so he slept on, peacefully. Eventually, he didn't give a damn at all.

Tom slept peacefully for a while; then he began to relive old dreams. They were dreams of the war. Dreams he hadn't dreamed for years. There was the coppery smell of fear and death. The stench seeped out with all the sweat. The jungle was closing in. It shut off any relief. It shut out all light. The stench stayed in the nose. It stayed in the fibers of cloth, and it could never be washed away. There was the sharp, hollow bark of M-16s and AK-47s. And the booming exhaust of grenades, of artillery, of cunning mines, hung with wires, that exploded once and bounced into the air and exploded again at the waist. Of men screaming in pain. Voices giving panicked orders. Blood soaked through everything. Puddles of it lying on the ground and soaking into the earth.....

He woke up about three in the afternoon. He was drenched in a foul sweat. The coppery taste was still in his mouth. He moped about the rest of the afternoon, caught in the grip of the memories., He was half-remembering, and he was half-fearing any remembering. He was unable to ignore, unable to really forget, unable to shake the grip the memories had on his mind.

"Do you think it's going to work?" he asked Greene over supper.

Greene only shrugged his answer.

Pham's voice echoed through their minds. "Yes, it'll work, I'm sure. Let's try now."

Tom and Greene rose from the table and carried their dishes to the sink. They weren't careful and just piled them into it. Greene ran some water. Then they started across the hall to the ward, but Pham stood in the doorway, blocking them. He smiled and shook his head. "Father-Tom, you can't go in yet. You've got to wait."

"But I want to be part of this. It was my idea, after all."

"I'm sorry, Father-Tom. Tammy doesn't want you to see her the first time as she is. The others, I think, feel the same."

"Hold it right there!"

"Please. It's only until the picture's made. Then you can come in."

Greene touched his shoulder, then left him, following Pham into the ward.

The young girl was the first to appear. She came walking over the rise of a hill. Only her head was visible at first. As she came closer, her shoulders appeared. Gradually, the rest of her was visible. She walked with an easy, flowing grace. She had smooth, slow steps. She came across the waving grass of the meadow as naturally as if she were a part of it. Now and then, she paused, bent down and picked a wildflower. She was weaving these flowers into a garland she carried in her hands.

The picture on the wall of the children's room was a broad and open alpine meadow. Above the waving sea of dark greens, there was a brilliant blue sky. Great white puffs of clouds floated lazily in the sky. In the distance, just visible, rose a solid, purple curtain of mountains. The shadows of the clouds melted across the day and the meadow.

The girl came closer. She was dressed in a clean, white blouse and a brightly colored, wide, blowing skirt. She was barefooted. Her hair was long and golden. It wafted like a bank of warm smoke in the wind. As she drew nearer, she stopped and shyly looked down at her feet, then back up, without lifting her head. She peered through the golden haze of her hair, put a finger to her mouth, and twisted her body. The garland of wildflowers dangled in her hand. She smiled, easily, shyly, openly; then she began, slowly, to come forward, kicking up her toes with each step. She still held her head down, looking up through her hair when she stopped and said, "Father-Doc, you can ask Father-Tom to come in now."

Greene walked to the door and pulled Tom into the room.

Tom's face turned white and his mouth popped open when he saw the picture. He had to be led across the room. But the picture meant nothing when he saw the face of the girl. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, and he knew he'd never be able to get that face out of his memory---ever.

"Father-Tom," she said as he crossed the floor.

Then, as lightly as she'd walked across the meadow, she stepped do wn from the picture and onto the floor of the room.

Both Greene and Tom gasped.

The girl came on, across the floor, walking directly to Tom. When she drew up in front of him, she stopped and shyly brought her eyes up to meet him. A tight, little smile inched up the corners of her mouth. Without a word, she lifted the garland of flowers she'd made and offered it to Tom. As he reached for it, she pulled it away, lifted it, and placed it upon her head.

Tom's eyes were glistening with tears, and his body was shaking. He was afraid of what was happening, but he was also enchanted and spellbound.

The girl backed up slightly and looked fully at him. The smile grew larger, but it was still shy and sweet. Her eyes were sparkling blue. They danced in the creamy white and smooth contours of her face.

Then a voice called from some distance away.

She turned, grinning, to look in the direction she'd come, and Tom's eyes followed her gaze across the open, sunlit, and dappled meadow.

Across it came a young man. He was about the girl's age and just as blond and fair, his face just as fine and unlined. He wore a bright, rough-material shirt and a faded pair of brown working pants. He was hatless, and his blond hair floated in the wind.

The girl laughed gaily and waved to him.

"Hurry," she called. "Hurry!"

She turned back to Tom and bent forward. She kissed him on the cheek. Her face flushed and she turned to Greene and kissed him. She held Greene's face and said softly, "Thank you, Father-Doc. Thank you for everything. You've made us very happy."

"Don't thank me, thank Tom. The picture was all his idea."

She looked at Tom, but he barely even noticed. He lightly touched the place on his cheek where she'd kissed him. That patch of skin was warm and tender. He could still feel the imprint of her lips there. The kiss was real. He had to remind himself of who and what she was. Still, the kiss was real and genuine. Even now he could recall the feel of her lips brushing against his skin. Real! The girl was real!

He'd suggested to Pham that they try to make a "picture" from one in a book. Pham was excited by the idea, and Tom found a picture of a Swiss family on an outing in the Alps. Pham spent the afternoon studying the picture in the book. This wonderful reality was the result. It was a complete masterpiece! The warmth of the sun was like glowing brass. There was the kiss of the mountain wind in the air. It was all here.

"I love you, I love you all." Greene was still a captive in the girl's hands. Tears ran from his eyes, glistening silver. "You must excuse me, but please tell me, which one are you? I've got to know."

She threw her head back in easy laughter. The long, golden hair flowed like a stream of running water lit with shining sunlight. "I'm Tammy, Father-Doc."

Suddenly, Greene rose and put his arms around her. He was a full foot taller than she, and she laid her head on his chest and looked over at Tom. She blushed again and shut her eyes.

"Tammy, oh, Tammy! I don't know what you do. I don't know how you do it. If it's all black magic---the devil's work, or whatever---I don't care. I'm just so glad you do it. So glad to have all of you here, like this." He held her at arm's length. "My God, you're beautiful!"

"Only because of what you and," she looked shyly over to Pham, blushing, "and Father-Tom have done for us, for all of us."

The young man stepped out of the meadow and onto the floor. He was wearing boot-like work shoes, and his heels clicked sharply on the hard surface of the floor. "Tammy," he said, "the others are coming." He turned and gestured back down the meadow.

There was the sudden, shrill peel of children's laughter and the three bright, blond children came running out of the meadow. They all screamed "Father-Doc!" and came running to Greene.

Greene bent down at opened his arms. The children ran---slam!---into him, almost toppling him. He hugged them all, saying over and over in a tearful voice. "My children, my children!"

The blond young man and the girl looked on, lovingly.

Everybody was ignoring Tom, but it didn't bother him. His pleasure was watching Dr. Greene have this pleasure. It was Father-Doc's show. After a few seconds, he began to feel like an intruder upon the scene. Slowly, quietly, without drawing any attention, he crept out of the ward.

Outside of it, the house was deathly still. He walked on tiptoe down the hall to the front door. He opened it and stepped out into the night. A breeze had come up. There was a comfortable chill in the night, after such a torpid afternoon. The thin layer of clouds that had covered the sky in the afternoon was gone, and the stars were sparkling, bright and clear.

"Father-Tom?"

He turned to see the girl standing behind him.

"I'm Tammy."

"I know who you are."

She brushed past him and went to the railing. She was totally absorbed in the night sky. "Beautiful," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "What are those lights called?"

"Stars."

"Stars. Oh, I love the stars. I've seen blackness before," a shadow crossed her face and made her frown, "but I didn't know the blackness could be so beautiful." She was silent, gazing up into the heavens. "I should say something to you. I don't know how to say to you what I have to," she looked over at him, "but I must say something."

He found it hard to look at her. He'd loved before and knew the pain of sudden loss, but just looking at her was a sweeter anguish than he'd ever known. "What is it you want to say?"

"Today, when you slept, I looked inside of you."

His dreams flew back into instant memory.....the war.....the death.....He shook them aside and looked at her. "You made me...."

"Yes."

A tremble shot through his body. He looked down at his hands on the railing. His knuckles were white. He held the wooden railing in a death grip and might crush it. He released his grip and pulled his hands away.

"I realize it was painful for you, but I just had to know."

"Know what?"

"What made me the way.....I am." She shuddered, trembling like a leaf in a slight wind. "The way I am in there!"

"Don't you know?"

She shook her head. "No. I understand some of it. I understand that there were Big Ones, like you and Father-Doc, and they were trying to kill each other. I don't understand why, and I don't understand all the.....things they used to kill each other, but I understand killing....I understand death....death has always been with me, with us, I think, like a shadow in the corner." She paused and raised her eyes to the stars again. The starlight played games in her eyes and down the silver tracks on her cheeks. "I learned that I.....all of us.....were made by one of those things the Big Ones used against each other." She looked back at him. "I had to find out what you and Father-Doc knew."

He looked away from her but heard the rustle of her skirt as she came near him. There was the light touch her her finger against his burning cheek.

"I know that you're strong and kind," she said, "and that you were hurt there, too. What I did was wrong, but I'm not sorry for doing so. I don't like the thought of hurting you, but I wouldn't have known these things otherwise."

He turned and looked at her. Tears ran down her cheeks. With his thumb, he brushed them away. Her skin was warm and flush. His thumb was big and clumsy. She smiled and sniffled a little.

"And what are these called?"

"Tears?"

"Tears. Tears and stars! What a beautiful world this is!" Quickly she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Then she backed away and looked at him. Her eyes were frantic. They shifted to and fro, raking across his face. There was great joy in there, and yet there was panic as well. Then, suddenly, she turned and ran towards the door. In the doorway, she stopped and said, "I don't know how to say I love you, as I feel I want to say it."

Tom ducked her head. "You've said enough right now, Tammy."

"You know then how I love you." She closed the door behind her, leaving Tom alone on the porch.

"The children would like you to do them a favor, Tom," Greene announced, as they walked out the front door.

The night was falling, and they walked over and out in the deep shadows of the front porch. They used the metal porch furniture. It had the comforting, familiar quality of good old shoes. This was where Tom's and Greene's friendship started. Now, they hardly had time to sit on the porch. All their days since discovering the children's powers were full of work. After this full day's work, they had just finished a pleasant light supper of cold cuts and potato salad and washed it all down with a stinging white wine. They were satiated and entirely comfortable. The day's heat had been intolerable, as it was midsummer. Now it was being slowly pushed aside by the creeping night.

"What kind of favor?" Tom asked. He didn't look at the doctor. He didn't look at anything in particular. He was tired, and he wished to sleep. A full stomach didn't help his attention span. He sprawled in his chair, his arms dangling, his legs spread wide apart, his head thrown back. His mind skipped across the still waters of sleep like a smooth stone. If he had any worry, it was tossed back to the dark depths of his brain, and he was at peace. Give him a few, unbroken moments of silence and he would drift off into sleep. But it wasn't to be.

Greene tapped Tom on his knee, causing him to bob his head and look over at Greene. The doctor smiled grandly. Lately, as they worked with the children, Greene had taken on a strange, happy glow. He was totally content and satisfied with the work and progress of the children. These had been grand weeks. They were event-filled, and there were long hours of just plain hard work. But it all had been immensely gratifying. Tom and Greene had undertaken to educate the children, and the children had accepted the effort with excitement and enthusiasm. They had an amazing capacity to learn, sometimes two or more subjects at the same time. Except for sleeping, they kept to the bodies from the picture. They felt safer sleeping in their capsules. When awake and in their chosen bodies, they used all the normal information-gathering organs available to them. They walked the grounds of the estate carefully, making sure they kept out of sight. They read books, but, often as not, they found they could digest the information from a book more easily if Tom or Greene read for them. They silently scanned the reader's mind. They listened to music. They cooked and ate and drank. Greene was hesitant to do it, but Tom insisted they watch TV. They ordered a TV set for the children. The children watched it some. They were not totally happy with it, however, and preferred their new world firsthand. Their IQs took quantum leaps and within very short periods of time, they were able to discuss complicated subjects that sometimes even baffled Greene.

All of Greene's worries and doubts were gone. He had the one thing that mattered the most to him: his children, his family. He'd never been happier. The Washington bigwigs still didn't know what the freaks were doing, but now Greene felt under no obligation to tell them. Why s should he take any chances with a world that was exactly as he dreamed it could be?

"They want you to come and live with us. Will you?"

Tom nodded his answer. The request came as no surprise to him; he'd been thinking of making the suggestion himself for the past few days. This period of learning for the children had been especially hard on Tom. He got up each morning before the sun rose, rode over to the house, had breakfast with Greene and the kids, spent the day working with them, then rode back to his lonely cabin. This was generally a long time after sundown.

"Yeah, that'd be great.....if it's okay with you?"

"Of course, it surprises me that you'd think otherwise. You're part of the family."

"Well...." He let it drop, went back to leaning his head on the chair, and closed his eyes.

Greene stared at the young man in wonder. He sensed that something was bothering Tom, and that worried him. He chalked it up to simple fatigue. He clapped Tom on the knee again. "God, Tom! I can't tell you how happy I am! To be able to watch the children grow and learn---live!---as they're doing! It's a miracle---a dream come true. I just can't tell you what it means to me." He shook his head at his inability.

"Yup," Tom said dumbly.

The frown creased Greene's face again. It sat rigidly on his brow. He leaned forward. "There's something troubling you, Tom. What is it?"

Tom shrugged. He rose and walked to the railing. In silence, he looked over the dark front yard. The quiet was deep and thick, a gelatinous substance, palpable. The night bugs hummed and buzzed, but their noise seemed only to add some nuance to the night's silence. The shadows of the trees that lined the road were a deep, black line of looming shapes. It was a typical, peaceful, quiet Delta night, like any other of the year. But it brought no peace to Tom. He looked at it, and saw all of its surfaces, but he saw a world of evils in their gloom.

Greene had waited for a response from Tom. After long moments of silence, he cleared his throat and asked, "Tom, what's troubling you? Tell me, please."

Tom didn't look at him. He shook his head, then he shrugged again and sighed deeply. "I---I can't tell you."

"You've got to. Remember, we're in this thing together."

Again, Tom was quiet for some moments. He avoided looking at Greene during this time. He just stared ahead. When he spoke, the words were simple, the voice deep and heavy. "What are they?"

Greene answered. "They're just children, Tom."

"Children hell! Children can't do what they do, Doc. How can they do that?"

"I don't know that, Tom. I can't answer you."

"I know you're happy, Doc, and I'm just as happy for you. At least, I try to be. But...." He brought his hands up in front of him, trying to find the right word or gesture for his thoughts. But his hands only trembled violently for a few seconds. He dropped them and again turned his back to Greene. A tremble jolted through his body. All the words he could think of seemed as hard to use and as deadly to Greene as rusty weapons. He couldn't use them. He was ashamed of his silence, ashamed that he couldn't talk.

Almost to himself, Greene mused, "It'd be easy to think of it---their powers---as a kind of justice. Just think of all they've been deprived of; then think of what they've found to replace all that." He sighed. "I mean, there's a precedence for this kind of justice. Think of a blind person. A person who loses the sense of sight and replaces that loss----in a manner of speaking----with a profound development of all the other senses. To compensate for the loss. The children have done the same thing but on a .....total scale. Everything was taken away from them, but they compensated for that loss by developing a whole new set of abilities locked up inside us, but....because we haven't been deprived as they have.....they can't be set free. It's a kind of justice, wouldn't you agree?"

"Has it ever happened before?"

"No, not as far as I'm aware."

Tom turned to Greene. He brought up the rusty sword. It trembled in his hands. He was about to strike a blow at his best friend. "I'm scared of it, Doc. I'm scared of them." He waited, trembling, for the inevitable cry of pain. It failed to come.

"Why?" Greene asked quietly. He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. The soft night cradled his face gently. "There's nothing to be scared of. They...."

"Doc---goddammit! ---they're----demonic or something! Their powers are-----well, they're scary to me. We---hell, they---don't even know all they can do!"

"Well, if you want to stop......"

Tom answered quickly. "No. No. It's not that.... I don't really want to......Oh, sweet Jesus!" He paused and leaned over the railing. "The lack of humility before the unknown that you're displaying here....it staggers me, Doc."

"Thank you, Tom, but I think things are different than you fear."

"They're worse! Don't you see the danger, Doc? These kids......they've got an awesome power nobody's ever seen before. What if----it grows? What if what we see, what we know about them, is only the.... tip of the iceberg? You've been so.... preoccupied with encouraging them to use that power that.......you haven't taken time out to think.... if you should!"

" Tom, I'm a scientist! How can I stand in the light of discovery and not act?"

"Well......when I started this thing with you, it was.....exciting, interesting, but the more I see of them, the more....." Tom shrugged, turning back. Then he leaned back against the railing, folded his arms across his stomach, and dropped his head.

Greene glanced up at him. Suddenly, he understood. A knowing look came into his face. "It's not the children who frighten you so much, is it?" Greene waited, carefully studying Tom's dark face. In a quiet voice, dry like parchment, he asked, "It's Tammy, isn't it?"

Tom's head came up. His eyes were wide. "Tammy....Tammy is.... she's beautiful, Doc....and she...." He shuddered and turned away.

Greene studied the set features of the young man. "Are you----do you think you're becoming----attached to her?"

Tom didn't answer. He only lowered his head.

"Are you----in love with her?"

After a few more silent moments, Tom nodded his head.

"So what? Greene asked quietly.

Tom's face grew distorted. "How can I....how can I love a thing like that?"

"Am I so bad?" Tammy called.

Both men turned around.

She had come from the back of the house, and she was standing at the end of the porch. At first, they thought she was nothing but an illusion. She had no more substance than a shadow, but the moonlight touched her, and she shimmered. She became more solid, as solid as reality.

"Tammy," Greene said, moving toward her. "But you're supposed to be resting."

She shook her head and moved out of his grasp. Her eyes saw only Tom. "I wasn't as tired as the others. I wanted to go for a walk."

Tom turned away from her pale blue eyes, eyes that held such anguish.

"Tom, do you find me so horrible?"

Tom violently shook his head.

"Then why do you worry so much about loving me?"

He didn't answer her.

"It's because you're afraid of what you think I am. You think I'm that thing in there in the capsule. But I'm not, not really. I'm what you see before you. I'll always be what you see me as now. I'll never be that thing in there again."

"But," he looked at her now, feeling the stab of this hopeless love more sharply than ever before, "this is just a picture---something you've seen. It's not real."

"Touch me," she commanded. "Is my flesh real? Does it feel real under your touch. When I kiss you, isn't that real? Don't you feel the brush of my lips?"

"Tammy, I...." The words wouldn't come.

Greene interrupted, coming up behind them and placing a hand on each one's back. "Tom, why don't you take Tammy out for a walk. It's a grand night for it. Walk with her and talk with her. You can work this out."

There was panic in Tom's eyes, but Tammy was resolved. She took him by the hand and led him down the steps, out across the lawn.

Greene watched them until they disappeared into the darkness. Then he turned and went back into the house. He went to the lab and picked up his pipe and tobacco. Since the children's birth, as he liked to call it, he'd been able to ease back into the slow ritual of the pipe, leaving the cigarettes behind. Comfortable, the smoke encircling his head, he leaned back in his chair and thought of Tom and Tammy. Lovely together. He envisioned them as lovers and perhaps as marrying.

He leapt up. He was shocked into remembering exactly what Tammy was. She was that "thing" in there in the capsule. Was, is, and always would be.

He was aghast at what he'd done, what he'd encouraged. He riffed through the telephone directory until he found the secret number of General Sellers in Washington. He'd put a stop to this insanity right now. He must! He couldn't allow it to go on. He lifted the receiver and started to dial the number, but he stopped upon spying the book on the desk. It was the book Tom had chosen for the children. There was the Swiss family, his family now, on the Alpine meadow. He put the receiver down and picked up the book. There, in the middle of the group, looking at the camera and smiling, there was what Tammy had become. Her face was fresh and beautiful, her smile was warm and friendly.

I can't, he thought. I can't take it all away from her now. This is her only chance to know what it's like to live. If I must do it sometime----and, I suppose, I must---let it wait. Do it later, after she's had a chance to know something about life.

He closed up the book and rose from his chair. At the door, he turned and looked back at the telephone. He switched off the lights and went upstairs to his bed.

"I don't hate you," Tom was saying to Tammy, "I only---I don't know if I should feel as I do."

"Do you love me?"

They were some distance from the house now, in a deep thicket of trees. It was dark and gloomy, the sounds of their footsteps in the grass swallowed up by the gloom. There was no other sound, except the hushed whisper of a breeze in the upper branches of the trees.

Tom stopped, turned, and looked at her. In the darkness, he could see the highlights of her lovely face, the curve of her nose, the gentle slope of her cheekbones. The rest of her face was a soft gray in the darkness. This only jabbed at his memory that what he was seeing wasn't real. "I think I do, Tammy, but I---I can't."

"Why not?"

"You're not real. Not like me. You're beautiful and I don't doubt your love for me, but...."

"I'm real. Touch me, feel my skin, it's as real to the touch as yours. I told you that I'm never going back to being that---whatever I was before. I'm going to stay this way forever." She reached down and took his hands, bringing them up and placing them on either side of her face. He could feel the warmth of her tears. "Tears," she said. "See, I'm real. I'm what you see and touch and love. Love me." Her voice was as soft as the rushing whisper of the breeze.

Tom bent forward and kissed her. She responded fully, hungrily to his kiss. He wrapped his arms around her body and fiercely pulled her to him. "Yes, I do love you. Oh, my God! I do love you!"

Just then, they heard a low, throaty chuckle. It came from the bushes, but it was like a ratchet wrench winding up in the quiet. It seemed to surround them.

"Who's there?!" Tom called.

Tammy stood frozen in fear, then she ran back towards the house, her golden hair streaming behind her. Her figure danced through the play of light and shadow.

The chuckle erupted into sinister, obscene laughter.

"Who the hell's there? Where are you hiding, you sonofabitch?"

Then there was the sound of running footsteps.

Tom started to run in the direction of the footsteps. His legs gave out too soon and he stumbled and fell. He picked himself up and hobbled on after the running sounds and pealing laughter. They were both growing weaker. The man was getting farther away. When Tom broke into the cleared no-man's land around the fence, he could make out the figure of a man, climbing the chain-links. The man reached the top and straddled it and looked back at tom.

Tom stopped. He was sure his weak and trembly legs wouldn't take him another step. He doubled up his fist and shook it.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Tom demanded. "This property is posted!" It was a weak, ineffectual threat, and Tom felt like a weak child in using it.

The man, still perched on the fence, shouted, "Gotcha this time, motherfuckers! You can't lie this'n 'way. This'll put th' kibosh on yer fuckin' 'speriment!" With a blast of laughter, the man jumped from the fence. He landed lightly on his feet, but the jump had stopped the laughter. He turned and his laughter was back with all its power, as if it'd never stopped. He spun around and vanished into the dark woods.

Tom managed with slow, deliberate steps to walk across the open ground to the fence. He laced his fingers through its wire diamonds and pressed its face against it. He stood this way for a long time. His legs began to gain their strength back, but he stayed by the fence until he was sure that everything was quiet and that the man wasn't coming back. Then he turned and limped back to the main house.

The lights were all on. It was a welcome blaze of light. Tom felt his spirits come back to him, felt them climb at the sight. He wished his legs would let him run back to the house's sanctuary, but he knew better than to demand that from them.

Greene met him at the door. He was in his robe and was haggard from sleep. "Tammy told me there was someone out there." HIs voice was light and dry. "Who was it?"

Tom sighed. "That bastard with the white hair. I just knew he was gonna be trouble!"

The motor hummed as if it were part of the Mississippi night.

Considering the months that it'd sat without being run, the truck ran pretty well. Oh, it was rough, and it needed a tune up, but there was enough reserve of power in its big eight-cylinder engine to propel them down the road with relative ease.

The sun was a glaring ribbon of orange on the eastern horizon, behind them. The Delta country was coming alive under the blanket of golden and amber light. Birds and animals scurried for cover in the spreading daylight.

Tom drove easily, as if it were something he did all the time, perfectly attuned to the demands of the road and the machine. He was tired. The long night without sleep was beginning to tell on him. He could feel his responses slowing down. His face was long and haggard. Tammy sat beside him in the front seat. She didn't speak. With excited eyes, she watched the world go by. The three children were in the back seat. They were asleep in a clump, leaning in against each other. Since Pham had stayed at home, she was the leader. In that role she frequently looked away from the passing pageant of the morning world and looked at them, like a good mother---or big sister---checking the brood.

The trip was the children's idea. Dr. Greene had called them all together the night before, just after Tom had seen the white-haired man on the fence. "I'm expecting trouble in the morning," he told them. "I want all of you to forget the bodies you're in now and go back to live in the capsules."

They protested.

"It's just for a little while." Greene looked to Tom for reassurance. "The man Father-Tom saw, he's the one who saw your picture before. He'll bring the police this time, I'm sure, and I can't explain you away if you look like this."

"But why do we have to go back to our capsules and give up our lives?" This was Tammy. Her face was as soft and as painful as a damaged bird.

"I said it's only for a little while!"

"That doesn't matter," she argued. "We still shouldn't have to give up what's ours."

Greene was at a loss. "Do you have a better idea, Tammy?"

"Yes. Take us away and hide us."

"Hide you---where?" His face was open and questioning, as if he'd spied something he'd never seen before. He wasn't sure what it was, except that it was a chance.

"Take us away in the car. Tom can drive us somewhere until the danger's over; then he can bring us back. We've never seen the world outside of our home."

"Oh, yes! Please, take us outside, somewhere!" they all piped in enthusiastically. And, in the end, Greene relaxed. He gave Tom the keys to the van the government had parked in his garage and which he very seldom used. He told Tom to take the kids out for an extended drive in the country. Pham would stay to help Father-Doc with the strangers when they came.

"But, Pham, you should come with us," Tammy protested. "You've never seen the outside world either, and you're the oldest. You've got a right."

He smiled and patted the soft folds of golden hair. "Father-Doc needs me here. Besides, I'll see everything when you come back."

That was true, and so it was agreed that Pham would stay. Tom and Tammy bundled the others up and put them in the truck. In the dim, predawn hours, Tom drove down the driveway and turned the truck west. For two hours now their "escape" had been unopposed. There was little traffic on the road, until the farmers started coming out with the sun, and the children were in high spirits. Tom and Tammy didn't speak of what had happened before, when they had kissed. In fact, he shied away from speaking directly to her or looking directly at her. Although it troubled her to do it, she probed his mind as he drove, and began to get some glimpse of understanding of what he feared. Not completely, though. She still wondered.

A large revolving sign caught Tom's attention. It showed a traditionally dressed cook holding a plate of pancakes aloft. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. He pulled off the road into the big graveled driveway and parked.

"What are we stopping for?" Tammy asked.

"Food. I'm hungry. I thought maybe you guys might be too."

The kids came awake in the back seat. "Oh, yeah, Father-Tom," they cried.

"Okay," he said, smiling back at them, "but let me do the talking and the ordering. You haven't been in a place like this." He led Tammy and the other kids across the near-empty parking lot and into the restaurant.

There was a hostess, a chubby, middle-aged lady with auburn hair piled up on top of her head. She wore a pair of glasses with a sequined butterfly in the lower right corner of one of the lenses. As they walked through the door, she pulled out five menus and smiled brightly at them. "Good mornin' y'all. C'mon in." Turning, she surveyed the cafe, saying over her shoulder, "A table for five, let's see. Ah, yes, won't y'all follow me?" She led the way toward the rear of the large room.

When they were seated, she laid their menus out in front of them.

"My, what cute li'l ol' outfits you kids got."

Tom flinched. He'd forgotten all about the little Alpine outfits the children were still wearing. "Um, it's the uniform of their club----Sons of the Alps."

"Sons?' She looked questioningly at little Minh-Tu.

"Uh....sons and daughters...children of the Alps. I can never remember the name."

She smiled understandingly. "Well, they're just darlin' in them outfits."

She waddled away.

The meal went off without a hitch. Once back inside the van, Tom told Tammy he'd stop and buy them all clothes and get them out of the "Children of the Alps" outfits.

Not far ahead, they found a small town. And a modern shopping center of one-story, uniform, white, concrete buildings. Tom parked and took everyone into a clothing store. He used Greene's money and bought the children nice play or casual outfits. He also bought some casual clothes for Tammy, but of a more adult style and cut. As they left the store, she tugged at the sleeve of his shirt.

"What's this?" Tammy asked.

He turned and saw a poster in the window proclaiming a carnival. It had today's date.

"A carnival," he answered her.

She read his eyes, and he could feel her reading deeper, behind them. "Fun," she suggested, "noise, many people, many experiences?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go."

Would there be any harm in the kids being at a country fair? He couldn't think of any. As long as he took the time to instruct them, and they obeyed him and kept together, it might be fun to watch the kids enjoy the carnival. He'd always suspected that fairs and carnivals were as much fun for the observant adult as for the child.

"Why not?" he said. Laughing, he took her by the arm and led her out to the van.

It'd been years, but the sight of the fairgrounds immediately brought memories flooding over Tom. A flat, level area was fenced off by stakes and ropes. The only permanent facilities were those for livestock---pens, barns, and corrals---and the rodeo ground with rough, wooden bleachers on either side. Everything else---the rides, the tents, and even the toilet facilities were temporary, only erected for the carnival. Gay, colored pennants and banners surrounded the grounds, hanging from wires; and they flapped noiselessly in the breeze. The crowd was in the hundreds; mostly dressed in common, working clothes. There were armies of towheaded little boys and girls. They squirted through the crowd like water jets. And there were worried, harassed mothers and fathers, working hard at having fun. And there were grandfathers and grandmothers, moving through it all with a graceful serenity and unconcern that their age afforded them. The loud, tuneless music blaring from loudspeakers caught them a long time before the sights did.

Tom slipped the truck into a tight parking spot and warned the children. "Listen, you don't have to worry about anything. Nobody's going to notice you here. But try to stay together, hold hands, and don't get separated. If you do get lost from the rest of us, find a cop and have me paged. Just use your own names. I'll know who you are and come running. Got it?"

He got an enthusiastic nod of agreement from everyone. They were just bursting to get out of the car and join the crowd.

First, he bought them all a big cone of cotton candy. They were delighted with it. For all of their advanced skills and knowledge, they were no better at eating cotton candy than other kids. When they were finished, they had about as much of the sticky, colored stuff on the outside as they had on the inside. Tammy took them---one by one---into a toilet and washed their faces. Then they had hot-dogs all around. To the kids, they were also a great treat, but to Tom they were dry and tasteless. After the hotdogs, they strolled along the midway, looking at all the sights and listening intently to all the sounds.

"Why so quiet?" Tom asked Tammy.

"They're concentrating on everything, so Pham won't miss anything." She laughed and threaded her arm through his. they walked a few steps more, and then she reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

They all rode the rides. Even the great swooping machines that carried screaming people up into the air and twisted them and turned them in all kinds of unlikely ways. The children had to ride them all. Tom wasn't willing to let them go alone, so that meant that he had to ride each time. He thought his cotton candy and hot dogs were going to come up, but he was able to keep that from happening. The children were nonplused by it all. They were ecstatically happy and no worse for wear.

He tried to pass by the games of chance explaining to the children that most of the games were rigged in the "house's" favor and that it was very hard to win anything. But Minh-Tu wanted a teddy bear so Tom tried to win her one; but he only served to prove his contention that the odds favored the "house." He gave up and explained to her that he'd already spent more than the teddy bear was worth. She took the loss bravely, hiding her disappointment. A little sadness crept into her eyes, though, shading the bright blue, dimming the flecks of gold and turning them amber. She smiled, and that was sad, too.

And as the sun dipped down into the afternoon sky, Tom's legs began to give out. He took slower, shorter steps and he flinched with each one.

"Your legs are hurting?" Tammy asked.

"Yup. Gotta find a place to sit down."

Some distance away from the midway, the fairgrounds became a small park. There were tables and benches there, carelessly placed around under the spreading arms of old oaks. A few people were taking advantage of them, eating picnic lunches or just resting. Tom led his little troop down in the park's direction. Tammy halted the parade. "Tom, let me go back with the others. They want to see more."

"Aw, Tammy, I don't know....."

"I'll watch over them and see they all get back safely."

He hesitated. Would letting them out of his sight be asking for trouble?

"Please, Tom. It won't be for long. Then we can go home."

He looked past her into the bright, guileless faces of the children. "Okay," he said. Their eagerness had won him over. He watched them as Tammy towed them all back into the throng of people; then he went to sit on a bench.

Tammy felt a tug slowing her up, and she looked back down the line of kids to see that Minh-Tu had stopped dead-still by the baseball booth where Tom had lost his money. She could tell what little Minh-Tu was thinking: if this is like Father-Tom said, then these people are cheating us. Cheating is wrong. I should have my bear. The little girl's face was pinched in a scowl.

"This isn't our concern," Tammy told her. "Please, there's still much to see."

In the middle of the midway was a big, square booth. A crowd had clustered around the four sides. In the middle were random stacks of vases with simple, flat dishes atop them. It was ten cents a throw, and if your dime landed in the middle of the dish---and stayed there---you won a prize, which was a piece of cheap glassware.

The kids surged up close to watch. Quietly, they watched for a few minutes, studying the players, then following the flight of the coins through the air. There were more misses than hits.

Tammy's attention strayed from the game over to a tent that Tom had embarrassedly steered her away from earlier. In front of the tent was a crude, wooden stage. Two women dressed in scanty clothes stood on the stage; they moved their bodies in odd ways and made remarks to the crowd of men standing around the stage. She found herself drawn to that tent, to the stage, to the women, because she was sure there was something there that had to do with Tom's feelings towards her. She didn't understand it, but she felt an urgent need to learn about it. In all her knowledge, she'd found the word "love" and the word "sex." And she knew that---somehow----one was connected to the other. But there here knowledge stopped. She loved Tom, she knew that, and she could sense his feelings for her, but there was an angry frustration in him that she didn't understand. She knew only that it had something to do with a man and woman, with love and sex.

As she wondered, she walked, leaving the children. She walked until she was standing in front of the tent with the two women on the stage. They looked contemptuously down at her. Both were fat and old; their sagging skin was pale and sickly white.

"Hey, sweetie pie!" she heard a voice beside her call. She turned to see a tall, thin man wearing a white shirt and cowboy hat looking at her. His hair was long and black, and he had streaks of thick hair growing on the sides of his face. His small, blue eyes studied her with a frightening rawness. A toothpick jutted from between his thin, bloodless lips. "Y'all wanna go inside?" He moved up beside her and slipped an arm around her waist. "If that kinda thing turns ya on, y'all come with me and I'll show ya somethin' a whole lot better." His smell, foul and pungent, was a scent Tammy didn't recognize.

She slid out of his embrace and quickly ran back to where the children were.

Something odd was happening at the booth. Almost every coin tossed, no matter in what crazy arc it was forced to fly, landed flat in a dish and stayed there. The people who ran the place were going crazy, trying to hand out all the prizes and eyeing the crowd with anger. Tammy realized the children were causing the streak of luck. With their minds, they were grasping the coin in flight and guiding it down to a safe landing.

"Quit it!" she growled in her mind.

They all looked innocently at her. She took Hàn by the hand and started to lead them away.

Again, as they passed the baseball booth, Minh-Tu halted. She looked up at the gaily colored teddy bear hanging around the inside, the longing in her eyes almost tangible.

"Please," she pleaded.

The fat man running the booth thrust a handful of softballs at Tammy. "Wanna try your luck?"

She shook her head. "I don't have any money."

"Try it free," he said. He threw his head back and shouted to all the people walking along the midway. "Just to show you good folks what kind of game Flashie runs, I'm gonna give this little lass a free chance to win a teddy bear. Step right up! Step right up!" He handed the balls to Tammy.

She took them and looked at the bottles. There were three bottles in three stacks. The angle was down from where she stood. She glanced back at the three children. They were all smiling up at her.

Well, cheating was wrong, wasn't it? And it didn't matter who did it. It was just plain wrong, wasn't it?

They agreed.

Calmly, she turned and tossed one of the balls. It went directly for the first stack of bottles and knocked them over with a crash.

"Hey! You won!" The fat man reached around and pulled a teddy bear down and handed it to her. "The lady wins a teddy bear!"

"No," Tammy said coolly, " I have two more chances."

A crowd began to form around them, and she could read its attitude. It was in her favor. The man seemed to sense it too, for he backed off. Tammy nodded at the children. With less power and direction than the first throw---almost casually, she tossed the other two balls. Both took strange, unnatural paths. But both struck home. Each knocked over a stack of bottles.

The crowd cheered.

Grumbling, the man handed Tammy two more teddy bears.

Now each of the three kids had their own teddy bear.

"Hey, lady," the fat man snarled, "don't come back!"

Pouring himself another cup of coffee, Sheriff Hogan asked for the umpteenth time, "Y'all shore o' this, Dorian?"

"As shore as shit stinks! I done seen 'em!"

"Now, what th' hell was you doin' out there anyways?"

"Lookin' out fer th' public welfare, since it seems I'm th' only one who gives a shit 'bout it 'round here."

"You ain't got no bi'ness out there---it's private property."

"I got bi'ness anywhere there's a threat 'gainst me an' m'people. Damn! I gotta right!"

Hogan let it pass. He knew Dorian well enough to know that it didn't do any good to argue with him when he got his mind set on something like this.

"G'wan, Dorian," he sighed. "Gimme it again."

"Well, they was this purty li'l ol' gal an' that hippie bastard. I done seen 'em! They was a'walkin' hand in hand and a'kissin' and a'carryin' on!"

Dorian was coming down from an elated, exuberant night. He knew he had that goddamn Yankee doctor by the pubic hairs. He'd laughed him all the way from the fence to the side road where he'd left his truck. It was all he could do to walk, he was laughing so much! He wasn't scared of what he'd seen there this time. There wasn't anything damn strange going on. Not this time. And he knew he'd caught Doc in a lie. There were other people out there. Damn! He had him.

Hogan spun around in his chair and looked through the glass into the big outer office at his smirking deputies. His back was to Dorian, and he made a gesture of helplessness for them. He shrugged and rolled his eyes upward. Then he turned back to Dorian. "You been drinkin' some, have ya, Dorian?" He slid in behind his desk again.

Dorian ducked his head. "Not before, nossir!"

After he'd seen that hippie and that girl, Dorian had driven as fast as he could to the county seat and stormed into the sheriff's office. On the way he'd killed a bottle of bootleg hooch that he kept in the truck. When he got to town, he was very careful to take two breath mints before going in to see the sheriff. The sheriff wasn't there, and a lanky, dumb-shit deputy had put him off.

He hadn't even tried to stifle his grin when he saw Dorian come in. "Turnin' yourse'f in, are ya, Dorian?"

"Not by a long sight. I wanna see th' sher'f."

The deputy leaned over the desk with a serious look on his face. "Oh? What 'bouts, Dorian?"

Dorian's words caught in his throat before they came out. He leaned back and wagged his head, his lips pursed shut. "That's fer th' sher'f---and jus' th' sher'f t' know. I ain't a-gonna tell nobody else."

The deputy laughed. "He's a right busy man, an' he doan got time fer ever' lil' nickel-an'-dime thing ya got t' complain 'bout, Dorian."

Dorian lost his temper then. All the goodwill he'd ridden into town with was gone. "By God! I come t' see th' sher'f! An' I doan' wan' no diddly-squat! I wanna see him now!"

"Dorian, ya best hold that shit down or you'll getcher ass tossed in th' drunk tank! Mebbe th' sher'f'll see ya in th' mornin' when he completes th' paperwork on ya."

That shut Dorian up. He stormed out of the office and spent what remained of the night sleeping in his truck.

Now he bristled and leaned back, squaring his shoulders. "'Sides, that ain't got nuttin' t' do wi' nuttin'. I'm tellin' ya what I seen wi' my own two peepers. An' what I done seen proves that that smartass Yankee doc is a fuckin' liar, don't it?"

"Um....."

"An he's been a'lyin' t' us---alla us---all 'long. Tellin' us they's nobody out there. They's somethin' goin' on out there, an' it's yer duty t' go out there an' put a stop t' it."

Hogan sighed and leaned back. He was a big, fat man. He bulged out all over his khaki-drill uniform. When he moved, the leather of his Sam Browne belt squeaked. He was the most familiar of all public servants in the county. Hogan had been sheriff for so long that he could be safely regarded as an institution. He was good at his job, was visible, knew everyone in the county by his/her first name, and seemed to know more about people's business than they themselves did, he kept the peace well and without bothering any more folks than was needed, and he was less corrupt than almost anyone else in county government. He was a safe bet to win the next election, and as many of them as he entered in the future. He leaned forward on his desk and made a steeple of his fingers. He cleared his throat and said, "'S that what ya wan' me t' do? Jus' go on out there an' bust ever'body an' close down th' doc's place?"

Dorian leaned forward expectantly. His eyes danced in his narrow, twisted face. "Couldn't ya? I mean, jus' look whut they's done t' me---an' you jus' don't know what thet man's a'plannin' t' do to ever'one else 'round these parts." He drew back fast, when he caught a scornful grin on Hogan's face. "Yer s'posed t' be the fuckin' law 'round here an' protect people n' stuff like that. Now why dontcha git th' hell offa yer dead ass an..."

"Now, you wait jus' a goddamn minute, Dorian Dumont!"

Dorian was up and out of his chair, breathing as if he'd run a mile. "What th' fuck am I s'posed t' think? There's this goddamned mad scientist out there what's scarin' folks ha'f t' death an' you won't do shit 'bout it!"

"Dorian!" Hogan shouted. The shout was like the roar of a cannon in the tight confines of the office. It boomed and echoed off the walls.

And it silenced Dorian, but it didn't take the hateful look out of his eyes.

Hogan was on his feet. He towered over the crouching Dorian. He was seething mad, and his eyes were popping. "Goddamn it, Dorian. I'm sick an' tired o' your bullshit stories 'bout th' Doc. So's ever'one else 'round here. But I'm a'gonna put th' quietus on 'em once an' fer all. You an' me's goin' out there an' talk to th' man---one more time. An' iffen we don't find nuttin'---nuttin' lak yew said---then I'm gonna barbeque yer ass in honey! Com-pren-day?"

That was the mood in the sheriff's car as he drove the fourteen miles from the county seat out to the doc's place. Hogan just kept his eyes on the thin ribbon road. He fumed. He clenched the wheel with a viselike grip and leaned forward over the wheel. He didn't say another word to Dorian for the whole trip.

Dorian was smart enough and knew enough about Sheriff Hogan to know when to keep his mouth shut. He'd been a reluctant guest of the county more than once. He knew Hogan was a man you stayed on the good side---if you could find it. He made the trip slumped against the passenger-side door. He kept his arms folded. And he leaned his head against the window. He hummed, quietly and softly, trying to hide his delight.

At last, we'll get some action! he was thinking.

Greene's gate was locked when Hogan pulled up in front of it. The sheriff didn't feel like hefting his weight out of the car and using the intercom system, so he just sat on the horn. Since it was a still, quiet morning, the sound of the blaring horn carried like the trumpet of an ancient battle force.

The gate swung open, and Hogan drove up to the house.

The doc was on the front step as the sheriff's car came to a halt. He waved and called, "Hello, Sheriff!"

Dorian and Sheriff Hogan both got out of the car at the same time, but only Hogan spoke. "Mornin' Doc, how's ever' lil' think wi' ya?"

"Fine, fine, Sheriff. What brings you out this way?"

Hogan walked to the foot of the steps and didn't climb up. He was reluctant to speak, looking down at his feet embarrassedly. "Well, Doc, ol' Dorian here---he thinks maybe ya ain't been honest wi' us."

Greene's face darkened. "I've told everyone as much as I've been given permission to, Sheriff."

"Ah kin 'preciate that, I shorely can, but...." He glanced back at Dorian, then turned back. He climbed the steps and took Greene by the shoulder, then marched him down the porch, away from Dorian. "See, Doc, ya doan know ol' Dorian there as well as I do, an' the rest o' the folks 'round here do. Now mos' folks don't pay a lot o' attention to Dorian. He's kind of a pain in th' ass, if you'll pardon my plain talkin'."

Greene nodded.

"But he's on yer case 'bout somethin'. I doan know whut it is, but it don't matter none. Ol' Dorian's lak' a snappin' turtle---onc't he sinks his teeth in ya, he doan let go."

Greene waited for the sheriff to continue. When he didn't, Greene said, "What do you think I should do about it, Sheriff? Have him arrested for trespassing?"

"No, sir, that won' do ya no good. He'll be right back on ya this afternoon. Ah think th' bes' thing ya kin' do is let 'im see that there ain't nuttin' dangerous 'bout whatcher doin' here."

"You want me to let him into the house?!"

Sheriff Hogan nodded.

"Give him a tour?"

He nodded a second time.

"But..."

Hogan's hands came up, stopping Greene. "I knows thet y' ain't s'posed to let nobody in, but it'd be th' best way t' git 'im off yer back." He glanced back to Dorian. "Otherwise, he gonna grind 'way atcha."

Greene held his chin. He walked away from the sheriff, as if he were in deep contemplation. Truthfully, he was secretly delighted, because this was the course he wanted to take. He was glad to see that it was the sheriff who'd suggested it. He stepped back up to Hogan. "All right, he can come in. However, I'll have to insist that you accompany him, and the both of you do exactly what I tell you to do."

Hogan looked please. "Good deal," he said brightly. "Dorian, c'mon up here." He waited until Dorian was on the porch. "Okay, Dorian, th' doc's agreed t' let us go inside and see iff'n he's hidin' somebody in there."

Dorian nodded.

"Now, ya gotta promise me that you'll stick wi' me---an' that ya won't do anythin' Doc says not to do."

Dorian nodded. His hopes soared. Now he'd find out just what was going on out here. He held his face rigid and stiff, not allowing the sheriff or Doc to read his hope.

"Okay, gentlemen, if you'll follow me."

Greene opened the front door and held it for them. He followed them into the house, closed and locked the door behind them.

"This front part of the house isn't used for any scientific purposes."

The two men were peering down the hall, around corners, trying to take in everything at once.

"It's just a normal house up here. As you can tell, it doesn't get used much. I'm afraid my work doesn't allow me to have a very active social life."

He'd maneuvered himself between the men and the darker recesses of the hall.

"Where ya hidin' them kids?" Dorian asked.

"You'll see one of them in a minute. I must warn you before see Pham that he's.....not pleasant to look at. He's hideously deformed....unformed, technically speaking....and most people don't find it easy to look at him."

Dorian scoffed.

"Dorian, ya either listen t' this guy, or I'll take ya back on outta here," the sheriff barked.

Dorian zipped his mouth closed. He scowled at Hogan.

"G'wan, Doc."

"I guess that's all I have to say." Greene grinned. "You have been warned." He turned and called down the hall. "Pham! Come up here!"

Out of the darkness, they heard the buzz of Pham's chair. The features of the machine began to emerge out of the darkness. Both Dorian and the sheriff stared intently at the form in the chair.

Greene watched them, a slight smile on his face, happy with his plan.

As Pham became more visible, Dorian turned away first, then the sheriff.

Pham came up beside Doc and stopped.

"Gentlemen, meet Pham. He's the only one of the freaks able to get around, and he's an invaluable help to me. Pham, meet the sheriff and Mr. Dorian Dumont."

"Hello," Pham managed to say in his guttural, halting way.

Dorian said nothing, but the sheriff waved with his hand.

"Pham, as you can see, speaks----after a fashion. And don't let his trouble with speech fool you, he's got a very quick mind. He understands things very well. It saddens me when I think of what he could accomplish, if only...."

"Are they all as fucked up as----him?" Hogan asked. He steeled himself enough to look at Pham. His face turned purplish. The bile was rising in his throat, and he was just able to keep it down.

"Some of them are much worse. Pham is the most human-looking of them." Greene rubbed his hands together. "Follow me and you'll see what I mean. Pham, will you please lead the way?"

The little boy turned his chair in the tight hall and started back toward the rear of the house. Greene followed, and the rear was brought up by the sheriff and Dorian.

"As I explained to you, they---except for Pham---are confined to containers---life-support systems, you could call them, like the astronauts use---they provide a total environment for the freaks. They're the only home the freaks have ever known. Ah, here we are."

Greene opened the door to the ward and allowed the two men to go ahead of him. Pham was already speeding down the center aisle.

Hogan went to the first capsule and looked in. There was a quiet moment of awed silence; then he whispered. "My Gawd! Ah didn't know ya could keep somethin' lak' thet 'live! Mah everlovin' Gawd!"

Dorian said nothing. He peered through the windows of all the capsules. When he reached the end of the room, he stood back and stared at the wall. It was the wall where he'd seen the "movie." He walked over it and put his hands on it. It was solid and real; there was nothing special about it.

"Dorian, dontcha go wandering off on me," Hogan ordered him.

"This here's where it was," Dorian said. "Whut ah saw, it wuz here!"

Hogan moved closer to the wall and gave it a quick look.

"As you can see, Sheriff, there's nothing.... remarkable about that wall. It's just like any other wall."

Hogan nodded and came back over to Greene.

"Now," the doctor continued, "the machine not only provides a safe home for them, but it also tells me---constantly---what's going on their bodies. See?" He pointed to the readout sheet for one of the capsules. "Heartbeat, breathing, pulse, temperature----the works!"

"Can they git outta them things?"

Greene laughed. "Oh, no. No way. Not only would it be physically impossible for them to do that, but it would also be.... fatal to them. They would die if they were taken out of their capsules. Maybe not instantly. It might take.... oh, a few minutes, a half-hour, but they would die, as sure as the sun comes up in the morning."

Hogan raised himself to his full height. "Well, I shore do thank ya' Doc. It's been ed-u-ca-shun-all. Y'seen 'nuff, Dorian?"

Dorian slowly walked back to them. He had a smug, superior expression on his face. In front of Greene, he spread his feet apart and dug his fists into his hips. "Where y'all hidin' that chick?"

"What 'chick'?"

"The one ah saw yer hippie friend with last night! Where the fuck you got 'er stashed?"

Greene looked at Hogan. "Sheriff, what in the hell is he talking about?"

Hogan grinned and ducked his head. "Ol' Dorian thinks they's some other folks out here. He says he saw that Hall feller wi' a gal out here last night."

"Where's that hippie fucker anyways?"

"Tom is at his house, I suppose. As to their being anyone else here, you can search the house. There's nobody else here, I assure you."

"Let's git t' lookin'."

Dorian started to brush past the sheriff, but Hogan caught him and held him fast, turning the bony Dorian like a rag doll until the younger man was facing him. "Forget it, Dorian. We got no need t' be buggin' th' Doc here no more."

"But...."

"No buts. Now you doan really think they's anybody else here, do ya? They ain't nobody anybody's seen 'round here but th' doc. Why don't you jes' forget 'bouts it 'n' leave the poor feller be?"

"But...."

"Now, you know them po' li'l things in them tin cans here can't hurt ya? Or anybody else? And that pore li'l ol boy over there---Pham---you think he's dangerous?" Hogan blew up with laughter. "The doc's been good 'nuff t' show ya his place an' his 'speriment," he propelled Dorian toward the front door, "an' th' least ya kin do is be good 'nuff t' realize that all yer prol'ems is in yer noodle an' leave th' doc alone from now on."

"Ya gotta search th' house!"

Hogan colored. If Greene weren't present, he would probably have cold-cocked Dorian. "Doc, he ain't a'gonna be satisfied....."

"All right, all right." Greene led them out of the ward and back up the hallway. At the bottom of the stairs, he bowed and indicated the stairway to them. "You guys go ahead, feel free to look into whatever you want. If you don't mind, I'll stay down here with Pham. I climb the stairs enough times during the day without inviting another trip."

Dorian shot up the stairs. Hogan grinned and followed.

Greene and Pham grinned at one another as the sounds of the two men moving about upstairs shook the house.

"Wal' Doc, thanks fer th' gran' tour, and I'm shore sorry 'bout all th' trouble."

Greene waved at them just as they pulled out the gate. When they were clear, he shut the gate.

Pham was alone. His misshapen body sat, cold and rigid, in the wheelchair. Pham himself---in his mind, his thought---was somewhere else. It stood in the still, cool darkness of the hallway. He was looking into the ward, at the body in the wheelchair, at the machines, at the lifeless bodies in them.

After the sheriff and that man left, Father-Doc had climbed the stairs to his bedroom, telling Pham, "I'm gonna lie down for a few minutes....just a few minutes, and if I sleep more than that, you wake me up, okay?"

"Okay, Father-Doc."

He'd leaned over the banister, looking down at Pham. "We did good, I think. We convinced the sheriff, and probably that other man for a while. If he does bother us, we can call the sheriff in on him." Greene smiled for what seemed the first time all day. The smile looked unfamiliar and uncomfortable on his face. "You did well, Pham. Thank you."

"What about that other man? Did we convince him?"

Greene's smiled faded fast. "No, and we never will. We made him look more the fool than before, but he's seen too much that he can't explain and that scares him." He dropped his head and sighed. "We've got an enemy there, Pham, and we'll always have to be on the lookout for him. He'll always be watching, hoping to catch us in one mistake." Worry clouded his face. "I'm afraid---it's just one more prison, Pham. After you've just escaped on, it's one more....and that man's our jailer."

Pham studied Father-Doc's long face, so loved, so familiar. The sadness there made him want to cry. He slipped behind the mask and probed Father-Doc's mind, quickly and fleetingly. He almost drew back with a gasp, for there was something lumpish lingering there. It was something evil and dark with silvery flames seeping out from underneath its edges. He'd seen it many times himself, but he'd never seen it like this. It was fear. Father-Doc was afraid. Fear was at his core. Pham forced himself to ignore the hurt it brought him. He went on, forced himself to touch it.

Anger welled up inside Pham. A shooting light sparked through him. He didn't understand it. He'd never felt anything like it before. It was a fire, white-hot, and it made him want to strike out. It blinded him and made his teeth grind until they hurt.

"Pham? Are you all right?"

He nodded his head, extinguishing the fire. He looked up at Father-Doc. "What can I do to help?"

Father-Doc tried to smile but could not. "There's nothing any of us----prisoners can do but watch out." He turned and started up the stairs, then turned back. "You'll have to explain the situation to the others and warn them to be careful, Pham, very careful."

Then, Father-Doc went on upstairs. Pham quickly exited the body in the wheelchair. He was more comfortable in this young, strong body. He grew more comfortable in it every time he moved into it. He spread his arms and looked at the muscles moving under the skin. He knew there was power here. He knew he could run and jump, could twist and shake this body. In this body, and only in this body, could he feel the joys of youth, strength, and wellness.

His body in the chair sickened him. It was deformed, crippled, and hideous. He knew now what the others, the Big Ones, felt when they looked at him. He understood their disgust, their sadness.

He wheeled the body into the ward and turned his back on it. He would never go back to it, unless he had to. This was what he was now.

He studied his reflection, and he was pleased. Beneath the shock of blond hair, the face was broad and well-made. The eyes were even and wide set. The nose was strong and clean. The mouth was full, and it was capable of grinning.

This was what the Big Ones thought of as......handsome. And this was what they'd see whenever they looked at him in the future.

A question ached in this mind. The ache stabbed at him. It was as sharp and slender and silver as a knife blade. With all his power, why was he locked inside of this house?

He pushed away from the wall and went to the front door. He reached for the knob with one of his strong, beautiful hands and grasped the lock with the other. The lock clicked open, and he turned the knob. A crack, and the outside poured in. The morning breeze was warm and sticky. It smelled of sunlight and green things, of blue sky, of freedom. Light streamed in. He moved to look through the crack at the outside world.

It beckoned and called to him.

He opened the door the rest of the way and stood in the open doorway, embracing the outside world.

Then the memory of Father-Doc's words came to him.

"We've got to watch out," Father-Doc's voice warned him.

"Watching out" didn't mean running outside, no matter how much the outside world enticed him. If the white-haired man, or if Father-Doc caught him outside, Pham would be in trouble. Trouble!

He slammed the door and leaned his back against it. His breath came hard. His heart thundered loudly in his chest. He could feel his blood racing through his veins. He was weak and giddy. Dizziness wobbled him. Grateful that he had the door to lean against, he listened for any sign that Father-Doc had heard the slamming door.

All was quiet.

To make sure, he sent a probe to Father-Doc's mind. Mostly it was quiet and flat. Father-Doc was asleep. Pham was surprised to find that even though Father-Doc was asleep, the fiery fist of fear was still there. It was banked, but its coals glowed.

Pham smiled, despite the fear. He let the probe linger in Father-Doc's mind. He caressed the man's mind. He thought of nothing but how much he loved Father-Doc. He found in the sleeping depths of Father-Doc's mind a jumble of color and energy. And then deeper, there was a central core of love and calm. Pham learned that Father-Doc was happy here with him and the others. He was content. Pham sensed his contentment. Then, in another part of Father-Doc's mind, the probe touched ice and fire. Anger! There was anger at something called "the government." It was a throbbing, steel shaft of cold anger. Pham felt Father-Doc's hopeless frustration at the blindness of "the government."

He shrugged. He didn't understand Father-Doc's anger. He was relieved only to find that Father-Doc wasn't angry at him.

Then he moved towards the glowing bank of fear. He found what he expected to find there. It was fear of the white-haired man. Fear of what he'd seen and of what he could do about it. But there was something else. It was something deeper, darker. Pham had to grit his teeth and go ahead through the first fires of Father-Doc's fear to find out what it was. When he found out, he drew back. He was burnt and hurt for the first time.

In a small, dark space there was fear of Pham and the others.

Father-Doc was scared of him!

Pham felt a cold grin pull up the corners of his mouth. He didn't know why it made him smile, but it did.

Pham screamed in his mind. Why would Father-Doc be scared of me? I wouldn't......

It went no further. A warmth surged through Pham. And another thought. He was happy. He was happy that Father-Doc was scared of him.

Then another thought: Why am I happy that he's scared of me?

He pulled the probe back. He sat in a clump, drawing inward. Shame washed over him. It was hot and moist fire. Its heat didn't burn, didn't score the flesh, but it was painful and hurting all the same. The pain seemed deeper. The scoring would be on the inside, where nobody but Pham would ever see it.

And, yet his pleasure in Father-Doc's fear of him didn't go away.

He tried to change the subject. Find something else to do, he thought. He looked upstairs. I can't go outside, but I can go upstairs. I've never seen the 2nd floor.

I don't have to walk, he thought. I can fly!

He closed his eyes and sent himself to the top of the stairs. And there he was. He felt, again, a sense of power like nothing else he'd ever felt before. Power!

I can do whatever I want! Anything! And I can do it anytime I want! Anytime! And I can do it to anybody! He wanted to scream it, but he didn't.

He was suddenly elated with his power. He floated up and down the stairs a few times, then he wafted through the upper story, slipping through doors and down hallways. He was frisky and fun-loving, like a young bird who had just learned it's got the power of flight, but he soon grew tired of this game. He solidified again at the foot of the stairs. It was a good game, but it was too simple.

The outside still called to him.

He went to the door and pulled the curtain back, peered outside.

What's on the other side of that fence? I long to know. And I'll find out! I'll get outside!"

He looked down at his miserable shape, and his heart fell.

But not in this shape. I've got to find another.

A shadow flitted across the window, and he looked up. He saw a small darting black bird in the limbs of a nearby tree. He grinned. He knew how he could get outside now. He opened the door a crack so he could escape, then he became the little black bird. He flew out of the house like a shot and flew to the top of the fence and got his first look at what lay beyond.

It was a patch of chaotic wilderness. There were weeds and brambles and bushes. It looked as wild and ferocious as when the world had begun.

Just looking wasn't enough for him. He longed to learn what lay in the chaotic world below him.

But I can't go there.

No, I can't.... but my power can!

Tentacles of his power slithered along the ground, pushing the barbed brambles aside. He found many small creatures. Some were slippery and cold; others were furry and warm. Most of them were furtive. They were all killers and victims, hunters and hunted. Their minds too simple to be interesting to Pham. They were only driven by the need for food and survival. He instinctively realized one thing, and what he saw of their torrid little lives reinforced it. It was better to be one of the hunters than the hunted. A black bird, such as he was now, wouldn't be a safe thing to be down there.

He found what his knowledge told him was a snake. He slipped into its shape and began to move easily over the warm earth in the snake's fashion. The warmth of the earth was comforting on his belly. His new skin was thin there, and through it he could feel every small imperfection of the earth and its covering. Suddenly, an alarm went off in his brain. He froze. The snake's hunter's instinct took over. Pham lay silently in the serpent's shape, waiting. A furry creature, small enough to fit into the palm of a human hand, came scratching along. It was silent and wary. It took a few quick, running steps, then halted, looked about. But it wasn't wary enough. It came too close. Pham let the snake's instincts go, and the snake shot its head forward and bit the small, furry creature. Poison flowed through hollow fangs. The furry creature tried to run. It managed a few steps, but it stopped and began to shake. Curiosity got a hold of Pham, and he went into the dying creature's mind. He recoiled. There was such agony and suffering. He trembled and cried out, but he had no voice. His voice was a mere silent scream. To escape he pulled back, free of any creature. He became a witness only.

The small furry creature struggled against the poison for only moments. Soon, it was dead.

The snake, after a few minutes, slid forward and found the dead furry creature. Pham watched, fascinated, as the snake unhinged its jaws to an improbable width and took the furry creature in its mouth. Within minutes, the furry creature was nothing but a lump in the snake's body.

Pham shaped the blackbird again. He flew up to the fence and sat there, thinking about what he'd seen and experienced. Two things came into his mind: Fear and Power. He cocked his head at the simplicity of his answer. Doubt clouded his mind. Maybe it was fear and power. Fear was the driving force of all those creatures who had little or no power. Power was to be used by those who had it.

Like me. Father-Doc fears us, because we have power. Power far beyond what anyone else has.

And Pham knew then that he had more power than he had even thought about having. He didn't need to tie himself down to a body, any body. He didn't even need the blond and handsome one. He could be free of them all. He was free!

He returned to the house and made the blond boy's shape. A hard, grim smile curled his lips. He had the power and there was nothing anyone could do but fear him.

But he doubted. Doubt swallowed up his smile. Was that what he really wanted? Did he want everyone to be afraid of him? He didn't think so. What he wanted, what he thought he wanted, was for everyone to love him. He didn't want to be separated from them. He didn't want that. He didn't want everyone to fear him. They would anyway, no matter what he wanted. They would fear him because he was so powerful.

But what was this cold, empty feeling?

He was alone. And he didn't want to be alone.

He buried his head in his arms and cried softly.

Dorian uncorked the jug and tipped it up. The clear, scorching liquid ran like fire down his throat.

He sat in the seat of his truck, in the sunlight, on a country lane. He had the door open and was dangling his legs out, sitting sideways on the seat. He wasn't far from town, not far from his house, but he might as well have been a million miles away, because he was alone. What he knew, what he'd seen, what nobody else would believe made him alone.

Goddamn!

With bitter fury, he doubled up his hand, making a small, knotty fist, and pounded his leg.

"Bastards! Ever'one o' 'em! Ignorant, blind bastards!"

He drank again. The raw, powerful alcohol hurt going down, and the shock to his mind was immediate. Already the edges of it were fuzzy and furry. But that wasn't enough. His anger was still blinding-bright. The whiskey couldn't melt it. He tipped the jug and looked at it; thinking, will the whole damn jug be enough?

He burned as he remembered the humiliation of the visit to the doc's place. "Fuck that smartass Yankee doctor in th' ass! Tryin' t' make me look lak' a foo'!"

The sheriff had tried to make the ride back to his office just as quiet as the ride out had been.

Dorian had tried to break the silence many times but every time he made a move to speak, the sheriff cut him off with a murderous gaze and an impatient, world-weary gesture. Finally, Dorian could do nothing but crumple over against the door, cross his arms and grumble to himself.

"Whazzat?"

"You ain't gonna do nuttin', are ya?"

"What the fuck ya 'spect me ta do, Dorian? They ain't nuttin' to it, so there ain't nuttin' t' do."

He glanced at Hogan. "Then iz nuttin' I guess." His dark eyes were cold with anger.

Hogan sighed wearily. "Tell ya th' truth, Dorian, it'd better be nuttin'. I've had it up over muh assho' wit' yer goddamn suspicions 'bout Doc. I don't wanna hear 'bouts 'em no more, and I don't give shitwads whatcha think ya see!"

Dorian finally gave up. He knew his string had been played out. Nobody would listen to him, until---until he could prove what he knew to be the truth. Hogan and everybody else, they'd just go on laughing at him and thinking he was a damn fool, but he wo uld prove he wasn't---someday!

So he crossed his arms over his chest and sat rigidly, staring straight ahead.

When they arrived back at the sheriff's office, Hogan breezed back through the main, outer room without a word to the deputies and went to his private office in the rear. Dorian tagged along. In his office, the sheriff calmly poured himself a cup of coffee, without offering Dorian one, and sat down behind the desk. He drank a long sip of the scalding liquid and sighed heavily.

Dorian anxiously waited for him to speak.

"Dorian," Hogan said, finally, his voice quiet and level but seething with anger. "Ah'm serious when I tell ya that I've had it up t' here wi' ya and yer stories. Th' doc's a helluva nice man, keepin' them poor critterss 'live that way, an' th' last thing he needs is someone like yew a-buggin' him. Now, I'm a-only gonna say this once an' once't only: getcher ass outta muh office, an' if'n ya don't stop harassin' Doc, I'm gonna rip yer balls off."

Dorian rose, sputtering.

"Yer damn lucky someone ain't shot ya yet. An' iffen the doc shoots ya, he got all th' case in th' world fer justifiable hom'cide, an' I wouldn't blame him, and shorely wouldn't work too hard seein' him git punished fer it. Now git the fuck outta here!"

At the door, Dorian should. "Jes' yew wait! Yer gonna re-gret treatin' me lak this! Jes' yew wait!"

"Don't let th' door hitcha in th' ass!"

"If you're so tired, why don't you sleep? There's no hurry in getting back, is there? We can afford a couple of hours, can't we? The children can use the rest, too."

Tom awoke suddenly at Tammy's voice, amazed that he'd ever been asleep at all. He looked around, wonderingly; then everything came back to him. He'd needed a break and had sat down on a park bench just a short distance from the fairgrounds. He'd dozed off, obviously. His head was light and airy. His mouth felt as if it were furlined.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was that tired." His voice sounded weak and lame.

She sat down beside him, looking at him, a concerned frown wrinkling her face. "You didn't get any sleep last night." She touched the side of his face. His skin felt clammy.

"And we've got that long drive back." He shuddered, imagining the trek back home.

"But we do have time for you to sleep a couple of hours, don't we? We don't have to go right back, do we? There's no hurry, and we're not in any danger here, are we?" She asked the questions not expecting answers, then turned slightly and nodded her head. "We're safe here for now."

He glanced at the kids. "What about the kids? I can't just let them go wild."

"It's been a long day for them, too. We could all use some rest."

"Okay." He grinned suddenly. "Let's all sack out in the truck. There's enough room for there for everyone." He rose, painfully. He had to stand very still for a few seconds before taking a step, one hand to his head. With a few deep breaths, he regained control and smiled at the look of worry on Tammy's beautiful face. "I'm all right. Just got up too fast. Hey! Wait a minute! Where'd the kids get those teddy bears?"

She turned away from him. "I was luckier than you were."

"Three times?"

"It was my lucky day." She smiled back at him, slyly.

They walked across the grass towards the truck, arm in arm, looking very much like a family. Many people turned and smiled at them. As they walked, Tom asked, "Did you...." he made a little whirling gesture with his hands, ".....you know, do a little magic for the bears?"

She blushed. "What do you mean?" she asked softly.

He stopped, held her. "You know what I mean."

"Yes, I did," she said with a gentle nod of her head.

"Tammy!"

"Well, you said it was very hard to win, because the games were rigged in their favor. I just made it a little more even, that's all."

They laughed at the justice of it.

When they reached the truck, Tom told her to sleep on the front seat. He went to the back and stretched out among the three kids. They were more than tired than they realized, and were sound asleep within minutes, clutching their fugitive bears. Tom was snoring hoarsely.

Tammy didn't sleep, though the numbing effects of the long day were dragging her down. She couldn't sleep. A weird excitement was coursing through her. It baffled and delighted her. She searched back through the extensive store of her knowledge, but she could find no answers for it. She'd been brimming with----joy? ----all through the day, but----this was different. Whatever it was, it was there, aching sweetly inside her. She knew only one thing about it: it had something to do with this man/woman thing, which she didn't understand. This pained her. She drew up the muscles of her face around the question: what? What was it? What was it all about?

Tom was her only chance to comprehend it.

She rose in the seat and looked at him. He was sound asleep. He lay openly and honestly, just as the children stacked around him. His breath rose and fell evenly and deeply.

She felt guilt for what she was about to do. The guilt turned to sharp pain, and tears stung in her eyes. She'd promised him that she would never penetrate his mind again. She'd promised. She could probe the minds of passing strangers in a fleeting almost casual way, but she had to respect the privacy of his mind. She'd promised. Not while he slept and was defenseless.

But what else could she do? How else was she ever to know?

It was a shock, but she was already in his mind. He was sweet and tender there. But it was different somehow. He kissed her differently and held her in a different way. They lay together on a bed, kissed by bright sunlight. He was beside her, kissing her and rolling so that he lay on top of her. They were naked and their bodies were glowing amber in the light.

She retreated from his mind. Afraid! She wouldn't know this way. She forced herself back into the picture and shifted to a broader perspective of what was there. She was above the two figures on the bed, looking down on her body.

And her body had such parts!

There were places and things on and of it that she'd never seen before. Growths of flesh on her chest. Tom was (in the dream) taking these growths in his mouth. And down between her legs, there was hair growing. It covered what was there from her eyes.

She retreated again. She covered her mouth and turned away. But she couldn't shut the picture out altogether.

In his dream Tom rose to his knees and faced her. Parts of his body, too, were new to her. What was that thing that grew so big and pointed at her so threateningly?

She shut down the dream. Buried her face in her hands.

The dream scared it---and excited her....in a strange way she couldn't understand. But she couldn't master her fear enough to go back into his mind. She would have to learn of this in some other way.

She turned and looked at him. Tom still slept. But the dream had moved him too. She could see the part between his legs growing under the fabric of his slacks.

Couldn't she escape from this anywhere? Dream? Reality? Was there no safe place from it?

Amidst her fear and confusion, a powerful determination to know was forming. And a plan for finding out.

From her memory she built the tall, thin man in the cowboy hat who'd spoken to her in front of the tent where the women were. She pictured him on her closed eyelids----every detail she could remember and pressed these details into her flesh.

The man, as furtive as a thief, stepped down from the truck and quietly closed the door behind. He stood for a moment in the half-light of evening and looked over his body as if it were the first time he'd ever seen it. Then, shifting the toothpick in his mouth and hitching up his trousers, he started walking back toward the midway. He mingled with the crowd, as if he were in a daze, but he went directly to the tent where the two women dressed in gaudy clothes stood on the bare, wooden stage. Once there, he stopped in front of the stage and looked up at them wonderingly.

"God, you again!" one of the women said. "Didn't you see enough all the other times?" She came to the front of the stage and squatted down. Her fleshy breasts bulged and threatened to burst out of their binding. She smelled like caked, powdery make-up and sweat.

The man only shrugged. He stared at the globes of flesh.

"The strong, silent type, eh?" She laughed, and straightened up, looked at the man over to one side of the stage, the one who sold tickets to the show. She saw that he was paying no attention to her, so she squatted back down again and whispered to the man in the cowboy hat, "Wanna see somethin' more, honey?"

The man nodded.

"Go 'round back. There's a red camper. Jus' g'wan in, an' I'll be there in two shakes."

Unquestioningly, the man turned and walked around the corner of the tent. He found the red camper parked in a row of others and went inside.

When the man was gone from sight, the woman went to the ticket taker and told him she was going to take a break. She disappeared through the back of the tent.

"Hon?" she called as she opened the camper door. "You in here?"

"Yes," the man said.

She smiled at him in a broad way and stepped past him into the back. There was an unmade bed. She flopped down on it and looked at him. "Phew! What a day! As th' man says, what a way to make a livin'!" She laughed and took off her slippers and rubbed her feet. "Yer some kinda shy type, ain't ya? Diff'rent from whatchoo were before, huh?" Some diff'rent. Now, whazzit gonna be, mister?"

The man shrugged.

The woman stood up. "I heard a' shy before, but not lak' this." She fiddled with the belt of the skimpy skirt she was wearing. Suddenly it dropped, and she was naked from the waist down.

The man stared at the mass of hair between her legs.

"Ya lak' whatcha see, babe?" She now took off the bolero-type jacket she was wearing. Now she was completely naked, and she posed for him, extending her arms and turning slowly. Then she walked over towards him. "Now, ya don't hafta worry none. Ain't nobody gonna bug ya. We jus' gonna have us a good time." She stood directly before him. "'Smatter, boy? Way yer starin', it's like ya never seen no snatch before." With one hand behind the man's head, she buried his face in the fur between her legs. When the man didn't respond she said, "You have 'nuff eatin' out there, didja? Well, we'll find somethin' t' do t' entertain ya." She sprawled down on the couch beside him, crinkling his hair around her fingers. Her other hand slid down into his crotch.

"No wonder yer kinda shy, baby, yer very small, ain't ya?"

She was working back and forth across the man's crotch. Expertly, she opened his fly and went inside.

"My God! Wh-what are ya, fella? I can't find...."

And she screamed. The scream frozen on her face, the racking noise reverberating in the little, close quarters, she backed away from him, pushed open the door and ran out from the camper, naked, screaming.

He followed her out, but veered off in another direction, and vanished into the shadows.

A crowd of people gathered around the crying, hysterical woman. One of the men in the crowd picked up a Louisville Slugger and went gingerly into the camper. He came right back out. "He ain't there no more. Lis'en, Dale, get th' word out. He's still somewheres here on th' grounds. Find that bastard!"

The other woman who'd been on the stage, hugged the crying woman, rocking her gently. "What's wrong, Raylene? What th' fuck did he do t' ya? C'mon, tell me!"

Blubbering, the woman said, "He's some kinda monster! He don't got nothin'!"

There were shouts all over the midway, as the carnies searched for the man.

"I thought he wanted....y'know.....an' I took 'im back t' th' camper. An' he jus' looked at me lak' he ain't never seen a lady before. An' when I felt in his pants, they was nothin' there!" She broke into sobs again.

"Oh, Raylene, that sounds t' me like it wuz jus' some lesbo pervert tryin' t'....

The first woman shook her head. "No, they wasn't nothin' there at all! Jus' some kinda smooth place b'tween 'is legs!"

The sobs were bigger now, they took control and shook her entire body.

It was almost midnight when they pulled up in front of the house.

Greene was there to greet them, standing in the porchlight's glare. He was clad in his pajamas, but he'd never gone to bed.

Pham was behind him, now back in the body of the young man. He ushered them into the house.

The night was beautiful. The sky was clear and exploding with millions of stars. A full, silver-dollar moon sailed peacefully through the open plain of the sky. It was cool. A breeze wafted in from off the Gulf, bringing with it the smell and feel of the salt water.

"I have to hear about everything," Pham exclaimed.

"Not now," Greene cautioned him. "They're very tired, Pham. Let them rest now. You'll have a full day tomorrow."

Pham nodded in agreement.

"How'd it go?" Tom asked Doc.

Greene turned to him. "Everything's okay, for now, and it's a good story that I'll be more than happy to share with you. But you look worse than the children, so that story, too, can wait."

"Appreciate it," Tom mumbled.

The children, a disappointed but silent Pham following, went to the ward, where they would cast off the bodies they were in and return to the safe comfort of their capsules. Greene offered Tom one of the upstairs bedrooms, but he declined, saying that he'd be fine in the sofa in Greene's work room.

In minutes the house was silent as a tomb.

Greene made one final round, turning out lights and making sure that everything was all right. He shut the front door and locked it, then paddled up the stairs to bed. As he lay back against his pillow, he realized how tired he was, and, without more thought about the events of the crowded day, fell asleep.

Tammy was quiet, but not sleeping. She was alert, wary, watching, lying in wait like an animal along a jungle trail. She couldn't sleep. The excitement of what she'd learned and what she could do to her body was too much for sleep. As soon as she felt that it was safe, she would---she'd planned this on the drive back---fulfill the promise of her knowledge. She would realize the hope of Tom. It didn't take her long. She sent her mind out to those of the others, and she found they were all asleep, Pham included. But she waited a little longer, just to be on the safe side. When it was right, she rose from the capsule and slid back into the body of the young lady. She crept out of the ward and went down the hall to Greene's work room. At the door she hesitated, then veered off and went into a small bathroom. She shut the door behind her and pulled on the light. She surveyed her image in the mirror, then began to remove her clothes, slowly and sensually. She loosened the little tie at the center of her blouse. The blouse fell open. She laid the sides of it back, pushing her breasts up and clear. Her hands found these, and she caressed herself, feeling the full richness. Then her hands went to the waistband of her skirt. It came loose, and the skirt dropped away. She stepped back so she could see her whole body in the glass. She remembered now the sights and smells of the woman at the carnival. Carefully, she began to build all the details into her own body. Seeing with a magic camera she cut through her skin and formed all the internal organs, all the parts that would make her complete. Done, she touched herself and felt the excitement.

She turned off the light and quietly slipped out of the bathroom and into the hall. She felt a new sensation of freedom as she moved through the house. The night softly caressed her skin.

And Tom lay alone, waiting for her.

She opened the door of the workroom and moved like a shadow into the darkness. The room reverberated with the honking of his snoring. She tiptoed across and looked down on him. He lay on the sofa, his head propped up on one of his arms. He'd taken off his pants and shirt. They were in a jumble on the chair. A thin blanket covered him. He'd pulled it up close under his chin, and still he shivered. She jerked the blanket from his grip and crawled in under it, lying close beside him. He snuffled in his sleep and turned over onto his side, flinging an arm over her. She froze, expecting him to come awake. He snored on, and she began breathing again. She took his hand and closed it on her waist, and she moved up in the crook of his chest. Idly, she played with the thick matt of golden hair on his chest. Then she moved downward over the tight plane of his stomach to between his legs.

He mumbled in his sleep.

And she felt him coming to life in her hand. It grew and grew hard. She drew back in fear, but then curiosity and a sense of wonder drove her back to fondling him.

He came groggily awake. She suppressed his question with a kiss. He responded to her presence---the scent, the closeness of a woman----and his hands began to wander over her body. Tammy could feel her body coming alive to his touch.

They worked in the steamy confines of the workroom; she following his every move and suggestion. He loved her gently, persistently. He rose from beside her and covered her body with his own. Her mind screamed with the sensation that she did not understand. But she didn't fear it. She had nothing in her scant memory with which to compare it, but she thought of high-flying birds with long, tapering wings. Birds that rode on the back of the wind, swinging effortlessly in great arcs across the sky---music, the mechanical line of emotion, weaving through all the sound----a golden thread of love and laughter----the first glimpse she saw of the splash of stars in the dark carpet of night....the first warmth of tears on her cheeks.....she had the words but nothing else to cling to---nothing solid----every piece of her was awash in an alien, viscous sea.....there it exploded in a flash of blinding light. She wanted to cry out, but the cry came squeezed out short, popping.

It was warm where she was, and all was soft edged. Here she was alone, the stars staring down at her.

When she woke up, the air in the room was full of a scent that brought the entire experience slamming back into her mind.

Cigarette smoke.

Tom was awake, leaning down, watching her as she came awake. He held the stub of a cigarette in his other hand. She was lying against his chest, his arm around her shoulders. Instantly, she was scared, and then the memories flooded back over her, all of them. She knew the warmth, comfort, and anguish of what she'd experienced. She giggled, then snuggled in closer to him.

"You scare me," he said softly.

"Why?" She looked at him, an awed, pained expression on her lovely face. "I didn't do anything wrong."

He smiled and shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think you did. But I don't know. It's all so.....I've never made love to a.....Oh, what in the hell do I call you?"

"You call me woman."

He held her tightly and kissed the tip of her nose. "Yes, you're a woman. But a phantom woman."

She studied his handsome face. There was tiredness there and pleasure and something more. Pain? Fear? "I didn't mean to hurt you."

He thought for a moment, then he said, "Well, you did, unfortunately."

"I'm sorry. You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. I just wanted....."

He shut her up by kissing her again. When the kiss was done, he drew back out of it and stared at her eyes for a long moment. His eyes probed hers. Finally, he half-smiled and gave his head a little shake. He said, "Don't try to figure out what I'm thinking, Tammy, just listen to me."

Confused, she began to protest. There was a firmness in his eyes, and this stopped her. The words stuck in her throat. She pulled everything back and tried to blank her mind. She said, "Okay."

"Good. Now, I know you're a woman, Tammy. I know this body's borrowed, that you're only----wearing it while you're with me, and that you can---throw it off---anytime you want. But I know now that you're a woman inside, too. That's the important thing. No matter about that poor little----body back there in the capsule. What's inside you---the real you----is a lady." He tried to smile. It was only faint, halfhearted. He sighed and turned away from her, drawing deeply on his cigarette. The smoke hurt his lungs.

"Still," she said softly, "you worry. You're confused and don't know what to do."

"I told you not to read my mind." The words came out more angrily than he'd wanted, but he smiled quickly, to cover any real hurt the anger might have caused. A frown clouded his forehead and drove his smile away. "You've got to admit, it is----a little odd." He hugged her and looked off into the darkness. "What do I do with you, can you tell me that?"

She read his confusion, then quickly stopped probing. He had asked her not to and she had promised. Simply, quietly, rolling against his body, she said, "Love me."

They loved once more before the sun rose. This time there was none of the awful urgency and anger of the time before. He was sweet and slow this time. He brought her up out of the shadows of her existence, up into a blinding light on a slow continuum. There was no break, halt or hesitation. It was just a long, slow climb, a sparkling arc into the heavens.

She relished every step of it.

As the sun was coming up, the house came awake.

Greene was up and padding around in the kitchen, fixing breakfast. There were other steps in the ward.

Probably Pham, she thought. He probably can't sleep, anxious to know all that we learned yesterday.

Tom shook off his sleep and nudged her.

"I'm awake," she said, kissing him. "I was awake before you."

"Sun's up----the others are awake---it's time for you to go."

She made the face of a petulant child. "Do I have to go?" she asked. Her voice was soft and moist. It sounded like it was bruised.

He nodded. It was all he could do to keep from laughing at her. Her sadness was pitiful and charming, deep and sincere, like that of a child.

She didn't move away from him. She hugged him closer. She wanted to go inside his skin. She wanted never to be apart from him. "I don't ever want to go."

He broke the embrace and crawled out of the bed, over her. "Well then, I have to go. I'm hungry." As he put on his shirt, he turned to her and asked, "What'll you tell the others?"

"What I've learned." She sat up on the couch, allowing the cover to fall across her lap. Her breasts fell free. "These are things they should know about."

"Not right now, okay? And not on a personal level. When you tell them, tell them as if it were something you read about, not something you and I did, okay?"

"Are you embarrassed?"

"Yes."

She laughed shortly. Then she closed her eyes and thought her body wrapped up in clothes. Clothes formed over her body. She came to him and embraced him. "This," she gestured back to the bed, "this---between you and me----it's important, and they'll have to know----sometime---about it. But there's something more important that they have to know now. Tom, you're a good man. I know that for I've been up and down, all through you, and there are other good men among the----Big Ones---no matter what they do to each other, what they did to us." Confusion jiggled her eyes, made them dart about, flit like dark birds in summer trees. "But to be with someone, to be this close to someone else----to---love---that's what's important---that's what they have to learn about."

Tom felt his eyes fill with tears. He held her close. For a moment, they didn't move. They couldn't move. Their heartbeats matched and melted. For a few moments, drops of time, there was nothing and nobody in the world but the two of them. Then Tammy broke the spell. She lifted her head back and looked at his face. She touched a tear on his cheek and brought her finger to her mouth, tasted the tear.

"Tears....what a wonderful world this is!"

He laughed and kissed her.

"I'll go now." She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

There was Pham. "I thought you were asleep," he said.

"Oh, I was, but I'm awake now." She held her brother close and kissed him on the ear.

A cold look came into Pham's eyes. "I want to hear all about it."

"You will." Laughing, Tammy went back to the ward.

Pham followed her with his eyes; then he went over to the workroom door. He didn't knock or go in. He just stood there, watching Tom dress. There was a cruel smile on his face.

Dorian's mind wouldn't release him. He'd been through a quart jug of corn whiskey. The powerful, raw liquor had done its chore on his body, but his mind refused to stop tormenting him.

He was down in the swamp, sitting on a piece of high ground, leaning up against a tree. The jug was empty. It lay not far from one of the Dorian's limp, extended hands. His legs were spread, and his arms hung to the ground. If someone were to come across him like this, they'd swear he was dead, that is, until they got a whiff of his foul breath. He wasn't dead. He only felt that way. When he permitted himself to feel. His body, that is. But his mind wouldn't even let him rest, let alone die.

He kept seeing all the asshole deputies in the sheriff's office laughing at him when the sheriff kicked his ass out. The laughter followed him as he ran down the front steps of the courthouse, falling on them, and across the grassy lawn to his old truck. He didn't leave with his tail between his legs though, he stood up on the running board of his truck, clenched his fist in the air and shouted back at them. "All you gonna be sorry fo' th' way y' treated me!"

But this memory didn't ease the pain much. Nor did the memory of driving back to Hullbeck, shooting the finger to every driver he met on the road. Nothing gave Dorian much ease now. And he worried that, maybe, nothing ever would again.

Nothing except proving the truth to everybody else.

Dammit! I know what I seen! I know they's a-lyin' t' me an' t' ever'body else! I knows it!

The truth is a lonely place. Being the only one who knows it is like standing in a dark, tight place with the wind roaring all around your ears and trying to yell you out of what you know. No peace there.

He pried open one of his eyes and looked at the whiskey jug.

Empty!

No peace there either.

No peace anywhere---not 'till I make 'em all see!

Now was not the time. He couldn't rise from where he sat. His body wouldn't let him move, except to fall over.

And that's exactly what he did, eventually. He fell over and slept on the cold, damp ground until the heat of the sun revived him.

His head was too big for his body, and, from the way it was throbbing, threatened to get bigger. The ache wasn't sharp, but it was doggedly painful. And what could his body say in protest? Nothing! It was just a sack of disjoined, painful muscles. The only arguing they could do was against him, for trying to move. All the foul fires of hell burned in his mouth. His tongue had taken on a life of its own. In the night, while he'd slept, it'd changed into a woolly-backed caterpillar, and now it had a mind of its own. The long, woolly, slinky thing crawled, played, and cavorted among his teeth.

He rolled over into a sitting position and looked up into the bright morning sun.

Today's the day, it said to him.

His mind wouldn't let him go. Today was the day he'd have to prove he was right and everybody else was wrong. There was no help from the police or from any of his friends. He was all alone in knowing the truth. And he must prove it today!

He rose and made a zigzag, shaky trail up through the bushes, back to where his old truck was parked on a country lane. A plan was forming in his mind. He fired the engine into life and started towards his house.

He slid the truck to a noisy stop in front. It took over five minutes for him to gain enough to control of his body to rise and get out. During that time, his son came out the front door, gave him a shocked look, waved timidly, and slipped off into the woods. Dorian's wife also stepped out onto the front porch, the screen door slamming at her back. She didn't look shocked or timid. She looked angry as hell. She folded her arms across her breast and waited for Dorian to dismount from his truck. When he did so, she snorted loudly, threw her hands up in a gesture of surrender and went back inside.

Dorian didn't veer off his path to talk to her. She went back into the kitchen and bent over her work. He roared right past her and strode directly through the house to his bedroom, which was located at the rear. In the kitchen, she looked up at the noise of his passing, caught just a glimpse of him as he scooted past the doorway.

"Dorian! she called, much louder than necessary for her. "Where th' hell ya been? Ya didn't come home at all last night!" She stopped her work and followed his shadow down to the bedroom.

Dorian was tossing clothes out of the dresser drawers in a flurry.

"Dorian! Whut in th' hell ya doin'? Makin' a mess lak this?"

"Jus' leave me be. I'm lookin' fer somethin'."

And, just then, he found what he was looking for. He stopped and caught his breath. Then, carefully, he reached into a mound of clothes and brought up a little, silver pistol. He held it to the light and checked it.

"Whatchoo gonna do wi' that gun?"

"Never ya mind whut I'm gonna do." He brushed past her, aiming for the truck outside.

She was in tears, following him. "Dorian, what th' hell you gonna do?"

The truck was hissing and the engine didn't come to life all at once. Dorian flopped onto the seat, grabbed the wheel, and ground away at the starter. Finally, it exploded into shaky, rattly life.

"I'm gonna show every'body jus' what kinda man ah am, goddamn it!" He backed the truck out and onto the road, turned and headed back towards town.

Mrs. Dumont, her first name Chastity, sat heavily on the porch. She was a plain lump of a woman, short, stout with reddish skin and bright black hair. Even though everyone had known Chastity would never have the chance to be choosy about the man she married, they'd warned her not to marry Dorian Dumont. But she'd been anxious to wed and hadn't listened to their warnings. She never stopped regretting that. She reminded Dorian of her mistake all the time. He was a worthless, crazy fool then, and he was the same thing now. And today he was going out with the little gun in his pocket----the little gun that he himself said, the day he brought it home, wasn't worth anything except to kill a man.

She cried soundlessly, but not for Dorian. He wasn't a hell of a lot, but he was all she had.

He heard someone calling his name.

In his lonely place, the ground was hard rock, and the wind blew. It was teeth-shaking strong, and it carried the cold of the distant mountains. The cold bit at his flesh with razor-sharp teeth. Somehow it seemed right. The cold reminded him of the hardness he felt in his heart.

He'd left the hallway, left Father-Tom dressing, and floated up into the air with his newfound freedom. Wafted as free as the air itself. For a while he'd wandered. He didn't know where to go. Then he'd remembered the high, cold mountain meadow, where he'd started in this shape. He'd gone there.

The sunlight was bright, and the very earth seemed hard and reflective. The light bounced from the bended stems of the waving grass. The wiry stems whispered hoarsely in the wind. The wildflowers glittered. Their bright colors had no warmth in them, they were cold and flinty.

He'd walked across the meadow until he found a rocky outcrop. It was a place, just as cold and hard as he felt inside, where the wind howled and moaned. There was no warmth and no protection. He sat down there. Within minutes he was lacerated with the cold. His eyes watered. His teeth chattered. He knew he could go back. He knew it'd be easy for him to be comfortable and warm. But comfort wasn't what he wanted, not now. No, this place would do. It was what he felt. This was his anger. This was his hurt. Hurt.

He raised a fist and smacked it against the rock. Pain shot up through his hand. It was a living, grasping thing. The back of his head turned blackish and swelled up. The skin was cracked. Dark, red blood oozed from the crack. He kissed it. He sucked his own blood, tasting it, tasting his hurt.

Then he extended the hand all the way out to arm's length. He studied the wound. He opened and closed his fingers, turned his hand this way and that way. And he made it well, thought it well.

The skin knitted. The blackish color melted away. His hand was healed.

Power and fear, he thought bitterly.

Someone was still calling his name. He cocked his head and focused on the sound. It was Tammy. He huddled in closer, ignoring her.

And he smiled crookedly.

He didn't need Tammy to tell him what had happened. Not any part of it. He'd learned. While the others slept, he'd watched over them. He was quiet and seemingly resting himself. But he was working feverishly. He sent tentacles of power. The tentacles roamed free. They probed and embraced. He saw the outside world, tasted the food, and thrilled to the sights. The little ones slept, and in their sleep, he led them through a re-creation of their day. They laughed and chortled, and he laughed and chortled with them. He knew what they'd seen, knew it all. It expanded his experience, and his power.

When he'd lived all they'd lived through, he went searching for Tammy. He found her in Father-Tom's arms. He was suddenly blinded by angry tears. He hadn't understood at first, but not understanding hadn't stopped his hurt or anger. It exploded. He bit back his bitter reaction, but he couldn't stop his tears. This thing between Tammy and Father-Tom burrowed into and expanded his hurt. He was determined to comprehend it.

What he found was intense energy. It almost blinded him with its power. He held back, let his own power seep forward like liquid sliding down a gentle slope. Then he started picturing what was happening. He saw the entwined bodies. They glistened with sweat. The physical energy being expelled was almost at the same level as the mental energy. He was awed, thunderstruck. He wanted to know everything about this he could learn, but as he neared the core of it, he drew back. It was sweet and painful, too much so. And he was scared.

Fear---and something else.

Loss.

Somehow, he knew then, knew it surely that he'd lost Tammy. Lost her somehow, and he didn't really understand how.

He fled then. Came here to this cold, hard place. Here he could sit in the cold. Too angry and hurt to cry.

"Pham!" she called to him, closer now.

He felt her shadow over him. He crouched in its blue depths.

"What are you doing here....alone?" She clasped her arms around her shoulders. "It's cold." She came down and stood beside him. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but something told her that she mustn't. "Day is beginning."

"A new day," he mumbled.

"Yes," she said, sitting beside him. "Oh, it's cold here. Come back, we've got so much to share with you."

He looked at her with a glance as cold as the wind. "I've learned what----I have to. I couldn't wait. While you slept, I learned."

She blushed. "The others will be---disappointed. They wanted to experience the sharing."

"I'll make it up to them." Pham waited, watching the shadows of the clouds float across the land. "And you? Do you have something to share with me----do you want to experience the sharing?"

"Yes," she said again, dipping her head. Then she raised her head and looked boldly at him. "Hope."

He laughed. He glanced at her and saw the genuine innocence in her face. He was flushed with a feeling for her. Not a small part of it was pity for ignorance. In a stream of words, like water bursting through a busted dam, he told her of what he'd learned of fear and power, of the serpent in the grass and the small creatures who lived with nothing but fear for all their lives, and of Father-Doc's fear of the white-haired man, of all the Big Ones outside the family, and of......us, he fears us and our powers."

Her muscles clenched and unclenched, tightening each time. She shivered, but it wasn't just the cold wind that made her do so; it was Pham's words, the coldness of his vision.

"There's more, Pham. There's got to be more."

He turned to her. "Then teach me, show me what more there is." And he reached for her, both with his arms and with his mind. His touch was arrogant and rough. There was no gentleness in it. There was fear and anger and anxiety and yearning. Yearning as hard as the rock.

She backed away. "No, Pham, not this...."

He drew back, the lumpish hurt growing in him. "Then you've got nothing to show me."

"I do, but now this way. Love, Pham, love....for them, for each other, four ourselves." But she stopped. She sensed that he wasn't listening anymore.

The cold in the wind, in the sky, was harsh, but none of it was as harsh as the cold in his mind.

Dorian slowed down in front of the only store in town. Spider and Jester were out, sitting on the porch, taking in the sun like two fat snakes.

"Ah'm a-givin' yew shitheads one last chance t' he'p," Dorian called to them.

"T' do whut?" Spider asked.

"He'p me prove that goddamn doctor's a monster, thaz whut!"

Jester rose and walked toward Dorian. "Ah thought th' sheriff tol' ya ta leave Doc alone. Yew jus' stay 'ways from out there now!"

"I'll leave 'im 'lone all right, after I shows 'im jus' who he's a-dealin' with." Dorian pulled the little pistol and waved it about.

Spider popped out of his seat now. "Dorian! Whutchoo gonna do wi' that gun?!"

Just then the Fanta truck pulled up in front of the store. Roscoe Sloan got down out of the cab. His big body jiggled from the impact with the pavement. He didn't see the pistol. He looked over at Dorian and called, "Yo! Dorian! Seen any good movies lately?" He laughed loudly.

"Goddamn it! That tears it!" Dorian pointed the pistol in the general direction of the Fanta truck and fired. Being a much better carrier of guns than an aimer of them, Dorian missed both Sloan and the truck. His shot went far wide, splintering a wooden sign on down the street. But the sharp report did its duty. For a second the men stood dead-still, shocked. Then they dove for cover. Spider went crashing back through his front door, Jester around the corner, and Sloan under his truck.

"That'll show juz' whut I'm 'bout, ya sonsofbitches!" Dorian shouted, laughing. His truck had died, and he tried to restart it. It wouldn't come back to life. He jumped from the cab and walked around in a small circle in the middle of the street, waving the pistol.

The shot had drawn everyone in town. Heads popped out of all the doors along main street.

"Alla you fuckers! Ya think yer so fuckin' smart! Well, ya ain't! Yer dumb! Yer dumb 'nuff t' buy any ol' bullshit story in th' world! An' you laugh at me! Ya think I don't know! Ya think I'm ape-shit!" He reached up and jerked his cap off, the sun gleaming off his white hair. "You ain't had yer hair turned white! Ya ain't been scared shitless! But you are dumber than a bunch o' guinea pigs! You'll believe jus' any ol' thing yer tol'! You believe that bullshit story 'bout movies! Well, I didn't see no damn movies!" He fumed and fussed, humming loudly, spittle dotting his two-day growth of beard. "I'll show ya, alla ya! I oughtta jus' let 'em go after you, that asshole doctor an' that hippie! I oughtta jus' let 'em take ya. Let 'em turn yer hair white, see how ya lak' it! Then maybe y'all'd know a lil' o' what I been sayin' t' ya!"

He kicked the front wheel of his truck, then started off down the street, waving the pistol at everyone he saw. When he reached the edge of town, he turned and laughed once again at everyone. Then he crashed into the woods and was seen no more.

The people slowly came out of hiding.

"Phew!" Jester said. "He really scared th' shit outta me!"

"Thank God he's a lousy shot!"

Sandon shook his head, but he managed an idiotic grin. "He's crazy---gone 'round th' bend. He gonna hurt somebody!"

"Er get his own fool se'f kilt!"

"Better get th' law!"

As a group they flowed to Spider's store. Most of them waited outside, peering through the windows while Jester called the sheriff.

Sheriff Hogan listened patiently, saying "Yup" and "Uh-huh" when he heard Jester's excited rendition of what had happened.

"Yeah, well, don't ya worry yer head off, Jester. I'll take care of it," he told Jester solidly. Then he hung up and went out into the outer office. "Winslow and Bart, take ya a car an' go over to Hullbeck an' pick up Dorian Dumont's."

"Whut fer?" Winslow asked, climbing up out of his chair as if it were a horse.

Bart added, "Dorian been seein' movies 'gain?"

Sheriff Hogan frowned and forced the air between his lips making them buzz. He ran a big, beefy hand through his thinning hair. "T'ain't as simple as that. He got hisself a pistol, an he shot up th' town this mornin'."

Their smiles vanished. Solemnly, they took their hats and left.

Greene was having morning coffee on the porch. The golden sun was bathing the world with a cozy warmth. For these few quiet moments, Greene was as cozy and warm as the world. He had no problems, no worries.

Tom stepped out onto the porch and took a seat across the table from him. For some reason the young man avoided Greene's eyes.

"Is everything all right?" Greene asked.

"Yeah. They're eating breakfast in the kitchen."

Greene smiled at the mental picture of his family. Tom reached over and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Are you going to move over here with us, Tom."

"Yeah, I guess I will."

"Good! Why don't you start today? You can take the truck."

Tom toasted him with his coffee cup. "As soon as I finish my coffee, Doc."

They ate their breakfast in silence. Then Tom scooted his chair back and walked out to the truck. "I'll be back after a while," he said. He climbed into the truck. The engine ground alive. He drove off.

When the final sounds of the truck had died away, Greene was alone with his thoughts. He always came back to how. Every possible test in the world had been run on Gonzo. There were a lot of indications of danger, but there was nothing to indicate that it could produce extraordinary beings, like the children. He'd seen all the evidence, and there had never been anything about beings like the freaks, his children. The public knew nothing about them. Their existence was a secret. The birth deficiencies other people had claimed were never substantiated. Since the war ended, numerous soldiers who'd been exposed to Gonzo had experienced many strange physical disorders. None of these had been substantiated either.

There had never been a whisper about beings like the children.

Greene's idea of compassion came back to him, and he smiled at the simple irony of it. If you take away a man's eyes, he makes up for the loss in other ways. If you take everything away, just look at the compensation! It could almost make you believe in some kind of divine intervention.

But....

He rose and walked to the railing and leaned over it. For a moment he felt like a king looking out over his realm from a high place. And all his worries vanish, if only for a moment. It was such a warm and golden morning. The sun was bright and cheerful. The scorching heat hadn't risen yet. There was a slight breeze that teased his thinning hair.

On such a morning, one could almost believe......

No!

He frowned suddenly and walked away, turning his back on the morning's beauty.

The necessity of writing the report. Maybe, as the days closed in and the children grew and experienced more and more, all his options would be taken away from him. Time and the children's phenomenal progress were whittling them down. That poor man who'd seen the children's "picture," and the sheriff, what would they say to the locals? The man had seen Tammy, walking among the trees with Tom. Greene was sure he'd convinced the sheriff the mutants were trapped in their capsules and Pham in his horrible body. But what if he hadn't? What if cars formed up outside the gate again? What if the locals demanded the truth? Before they began to gather like carrion birds over a dying animal, Greene knew he must make a report.

The morning was less beautiful than he thought.

What would he say?

"Dear General, I think you should come visit the freaks. They're extraordinary......"

All of the old fears came welling back upon him. The government would take him away from them. He'd be considered a crazy old man, unable to care for them. Or they would take them away from him. Beings so extraordinary must be studied by experts. Either way, he'd lose his family, he'd be alone again. After having them, after being with them, he wasn't sure he could live alone ever again.

And what about Tom? Did he know too much? Would the government lock him away somewhere safe to keep him from telling anyone else what he knew?

Greene felt a sharp stab of guilt for bringing Tom into this.

What about the children? How would they take to being put somewhere else, under the care of someone else, taken away from him? The children. They must be taken into the equation. No matter what they were told, they wouldn't like being taken away from Greene. And their powers? The question suddenly became - - how much can I know about the true extent of their powers, and therefore, how can I assume I can control them? I have plants right here in this building, for example, that are poisonous. I picked them because I think they're pretty, but these are powerful beings that have no true idea what kind of world they're living in and will protect themselves. Violently, if need be.

Dorian was miles from town. He ran crashingly through the woods. He was excited and his heart beat wildly. He hadn't meant to shoot the gun---not yet!---but, dammitall, they'd laughed at him. At Dorian Dumont!

Now he felt oddly elated. He waved the little pistol about in the air, his eyes glued to its shiny surface, and not watching where he was going, he fell down a steep-backed ditch. He fell and slid and came to rest in a dry wash of warm, golden sand. He lay laughing for a few minutes thinking about how scared all those bastards had looked when he'd shot at them.

The pistol caught the sun and light danced over it.

Damned if it didn't feel good! Better than he'd felt in a long, damned time! He felt like a man again! A long, long, long time since he'd felt this way.

Well, I've pulled it and I've fired it. There ain't no turnin' back now, might as well go whole hog. I'll jus' go over t' that doc's place an' make him sweat out his story----turn his fuckin' hair white! See how he likes it! Then, when I got th' real story, I'll bring him to town an' make 'im tell th' others what kinda craziness is goin' on out there. Gotta do it. Gotta do it now!"

He jammed the pistol back into his pocket, then rose and started off down the wash.

This direction took him past Piney Acres, and he had the sudden urge to go in and buy a cold beer. And maybe Buck'd help him. Buck was a good ol' boy---he'd been there the night all this bullshit started. He'd never laughed at him.

He came up from the woods behind the roadhouse, staying hidden in the low, thick brush. Buck was out back emptying garbage cans into the large barrel in which he burned stuff. He had his back to Dorian. There wasn't anyone else around.

"Whooooeeee! Buck!" Dorian called, coming crashing out of the trees.

Buck jumped upright. His hand went inside his shirt. When he saw it was only Dorian, he quickly drew the hand out. It was empty.

"Goddamn it, Dorian! Ya oughta know better 'n t' slip up on a man. It's an invitation t' gettin' yer head blowed off!"

Dorian bounced up out of the bushes, running towards Buck. "Oh, hell! Lis'en. I'm sorry. I jus' wanted t' drop by an' say howdy t' ya. That's all." He fairly bounced as he talked, like a top.

"Wha' th' fuck's got ya all fired up?" Buck read the tattered edges of excitement in Dorian, and he didn't understand it. It just wasn't like him.

"Nuttin', nuttin'." Dorian broke into a broad grin. "Well, might as well tell ya, as I 'spect you'll be hearin' bouts it soon 'nuff. Can I bum ya fer a beer?"

Buck studied Dorian's thin, scraggly features. He was curious about Dorian's jumpy excitement. Curious enough to buy him a beer. "Yer on," he drawled. "Wait her while I git ya one." He disappeared through the back door of his place. Then he reappeared carrying two brown bottles of beer. He handed one to Dorian and sat down on an overturned bucket. "Now, whut th' fuck's a-goin' on?"

Dorian turned his bottle up and drank half of it. Taking it away from his mouth, he said, "Ahhhh!" and wiped his lips on his sleeve. Casually, he added, "I took a shot at 'em this mornin'."

"Took a shot at who?"

"That bunch o' smart-assed bastards in town, that's who!"

"What'd ya go an' do a fool thing lak' that fer?"

"'Cause they wuz a-laughin' at me, that's why!" He laughed like a madman, his laughter soared like black-winged birds.

Buck moved away and slowly shook his head. "Ya didn't hit nobody, didja?"

"Naw, shit! But I put a scare into 'em some!"

"That warn't a smart thing t' do, Dorian." Buck stabbed at Dorian with his eyes.

"Bes' thing in th' world ah coulda done! Shoulda done it a long time ago." Dorian knelt down in front of Buck and thrust his face up into the big man's. "Now it's all out in th' open! The shit's hit the fan! I'm goin' up t' th' doc's, an' I'm a-gonna make 'im confess to what he's been a-doin' all this time. I'm a-gonna take 'im back t' town, and I'm gonna make 'im tell everyone!"

Buck gently pushed Dorian back. He rose and walked a few steps away and stared into the dark, silent woods. All sound was hushed and whispered. Standing with his back to Dorian, he took two small, slight sips from his beer. Turning back, he said, "Why dontcha jus' leave 'im 'lone, Dorian?"

"Who?"

"Doc. He ain't done nuttin' t' ya."

Dorian exploded in frustration. He jiggled around, his fists tightly clenched, as if he couldn't find the words he wanted to say. Then he stopped, bolt upright. He spat. "The hell he didn't do me no harm! He tried t' make a foo' outta me! He turned my hair white! An' you know it!"

"Dorian, somthin' turned yer hair white, but there ain't nobody knows 'xactly whut did it---not even you. Now, why dontcha jus' leave 'im th' fuck alone! Why can't ya do that?!"

"Well, I'll be go-to-hell!" He drained his beer bottle and tossed the empty vessel into the bushes. "I done come p 'ere t' give ya a chance t' he'p me but I guess I was wrong. Yer jus' lak' them bastards in town---a-laughin' at me! An all this time, I thought I could trust ya where I couldn't trust nobody else. I thought you was m' buddy!"

"Dammit, Dorian, don't be a stupid asshole! I am yer good buddy, an thaz why I'm tellin' ya t' fergit it!" He stepped closer to Dorian, his big arms moving up.

Dorian backed away, pulling the little pistol. When Buck saw the flash of sunlight on the silver barrel, he stopped. Dorian laughed. "Makes things a little diff'rent, don't it?"

"Damn ya, Dorian, fer pullin' a gun on me. Ain't nobody pulls a gun on me!" Buck drew up to his full height, his brown eyes flaring. "Ya better intend t' shoot me, ya sonofabitch, an' kill me. 'Cause, iffen ya don't, I'll gitcha fer pullin' a gun on me!"

"Aw, I ain't gonna shoot ya, Buck. I don't gotta shoot ya now." A serious look crossed Dorian's face. "But ya better drop yer piece on th' ground there---jes' t' make sure ya don't shoot me." He waited and Buck didn't move. "C'mon, I know ya got a pistol in yer shirt. Now whip it out an' toss it o'er here."

With a sigh, Buck pulled his pistol out and tossed it on the ground at Dorian's feet, Dorian picked it up. "This here un's better 'n mine!"

"You better, b'God, disappear, Dorian Dumont, 'cause I see yer face again, I'll fuckin' kill ya." Buck's voice was quiet, the words level, but there was a truth in them, a promise.

Dorian shivered for just a moment. Then he laughed and ran off into the woods. He ran until his breath came burning, then he stopped and looked around. He held his breath and listened for any sound.

Nothing.

Buck wasn't chasing him.

He slumped back against a tree and looked at his guns.

He was a two-gun man now.

The children. What could they do to keep the government from separating them from him?

Why, any damn thing they wanted.

I don't even know what that might be. They're only just now learning what they're capable of, and I surely don't know the extent of their powers. They can restructure a kind reality from those pictures, and if they can do that, what's to stop them from tearing our reality apart?

He shuddered at the thought. Just as he turned to go inside, he heard a strange rustling sound in the bushes beside the porch. He went forward and leaned over the rail to see what had made the sound.

"'lo, Doc," a voice called from the bushes.

He froze.

The white-haired man, Dorian Dumont, stepped out. He held two pistols, both aimed directly at Greene. When he saw the frozen, shocked expression on Greene's face, he laughed cruelly. "Wanna tell me that movie bullshit again, right now?" He stepped clear of the bushes nad moved around to the front steps. The pistols were out at arm's length, glistening toys in the sunlight. "Shore would lak' t' hear that goddamn movie story 'gain, Doc. Face t' face, jus' you an' me." He was up on the porch now, jamming the pistols into Greene's thin chest. "After all I seen goin' on out here, that movie bullshit o' yourn'll be jus' a good laugh." His face went sour. "An' I shore could use a good laugh." Dorian laughed loudly, moving away from Greene. "Yer th' one what's scared shitless now, aintcha Doc? Things look a little bit diff'rent now, don't they?"

"What----do---you----want?"

"Th' truth!" he thundered, the pistols shaking.

Greene tried a smile, but it felt icy and foreign to him. He allowed it to fall away in ragged pieces. "My good man...."

"Don't yew 'good man' me! Ya don't give no shit fer me, or any o' th' other folks in these parts. We jus' a bunch of shithead rednecks t' ya. Folks ya can bamboozle. Well, you done metcher match, Doc. Yer gonna tell me ever'thing that's goin' on out here, an' when yer done you an' me's gonna go into town an yer gonna spill th' beans to th' folks in town. Then they'll stop a-laughin' at me....they'll know the truth."

Greene Greene couldn't speak. He looked directly at the guns. His mouth was as dry as chalk. His mind tumbled over words. "Sir," he started.

"Well, hot-shit! I gotcha a-callin' me 'sir'!" Dorian laughed lewdly; spittle dropped from the corners of his mouth. "These lil' things do make a difference, don't they? I'll be damned!" He waved the pistols.

"Father-Doc!"

Greene heard Pham's voice scream in his mind. He turned and looked back at the house. The windows were all dark and empty, a wind played with the curtains. Then he saw Pham standing in the door. The boy was the fair, Bavarian boy.

Dorian looked toward the house. He swung the pistols around.

"Pham!"

"An' here's one o' 'em pore freaky kiddos! Shore looks good t' me!"

Pham spoke rapidly in Greene's mind. "What does this man want here? What does he want with you? Does he mean harm? Is he going to harm you? Us? What's going on? Please tell me now."

Greene smiled. The smile made his face ache like a throbbing tooth. He turned to Pham and raised his hands.

Dorian misinterpreted the gesture. "You gitcher ass back here or....."

Pham nodded his head quickly. His brows furrowed over his eyes.

The hammer of the pistol cracked loudly and went flying off into the air. Dorian watched it go by him with total shock on his face.

"Wha' th' f....?"

Now Pham concentrated on Dorian.

And suddenly the man dropped the other pistol and brought both of his hands up to his throat. He looked as if he were choking. He began to shake uncontrollably. He tried to speak, but he couldn't. Only a gibberish of sounds gurgled out of him. He staggered back off the porch and fell to the ground. Then he stumbled to his feet and started to run away from the house. He didn't get far. He fell after three paces and rolled over on his back. His legs kicked the air. The inconsistent, hesitant groans formed into one long, continual scream that raked open the world like a flaming sword.

And then he was quiet.

Shaken, Greene ran to the man. He knelt and felt for a pulse. There wasn't any. Dorian's eyes were popped. He had torn open his throat with his own fingers. His face was a frozen grimace of unspeakable pain.

"Lord!" Greene whispered. He felt down to both knees and wept.

He could hear the light, faint footsteps of Pham coming up behind him. He didn't turn and face the boy. He wasn't sure he could ever face Pham again.

"What did you do to him?"

"I saved you," Pham said simply.

"But, my God, what did you do to him?"

"He was going to hurt you, Father-Doc. I saved you."

Greene bent over Dorian's body and cried, the tears falling easily in streams.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Greene didn't answer.

Pham probed inside the incident, repeating it. Then, solidly, stubbornly, he said, "No, I didn't do anything wrong. He was going to hurt you, Father-Doc, and I couldn't permit him to hurt you." He was very satisfied with what he'd done.

Greene managed to lift his head and look at where Pham had been. Pham was gone. Gone on about his duties, as if nothing had happened.

It seemed long hours before Greene could collect himself and decide what to do. First, he must get the body off of the front lawn. Controlling his stomach, he forced himself to look at the corpse. He couldn't move it alone. Should he wait until Tom got back? No, don't involve Tom in this. Tell him to go and never come back.

But how can I move the body?

Pham?"

No, I don't think I can ever look at that boy again.

Slowly Greene pulled himself away and went to the tool shed. There was a wheelbarrow there. Before he reached the building, he heard Pham in his head. "I'll help, Father-Doc."

Greene started to protest. He turned and began to speak, but he stopped.

Dorian's body was burning, a spit of flashfire.

He ran to the spot. By the time he got there, the body was completely engulfed in fire. The first was hissing out. Nothing remained of Dorian Dumont but ashes.

Calmly now, as if nothing worse could have happened, Greene went back to the toolshed and got a long-handled shovel and a black plastic trash bag. Choking on the stench of burning flesh, he shoveled the ashes into the bag. He carried them to the rear of the house.

There was no choice now. The options were all closed off.

He went inside, passed wordlessly by the clump of children, passed by Pham's innocent smile and went to his workroom. He turned the desk lamp on and sat, placing his hands on the telephone.

No matter what he thought, what he felt, he had no choice left now. None.

He lifted the receiver and began to dial the number.

"What're you doing, Father-Doc?"

Flushed, he put the receiver down in the cradle and looked around. There wasn't anyone else in the room. He started a lame excuse. "I'm...."

"There's no need to tell anyone about what's happened. It's our secret. The man tried to hurt you, and I destroyed him."

"Pham, it's not that simple......"

"Please, Father-Doc, don't think any more about this thing. It's over and done with."

"I have no choice but to...."

"No."

"I'm not....

"No."

Greene lifted the receiver, but, suddenly, his arm went rock solid. He couldn't move it. Sweat exploded from his brow as he tried. "Pham, no! Don't...."

"I don't want to hurt you, Father-Doc. But I must insist that you forget this thing. It's over and we should all forget it." There was no threat in his cool, steady voice. "We're happy here, a family, and I can't allow you to change that."

The bright morning sun went behind a cloud. Shadows slipped into place around Greene.

The house was strangely cold and dark when Tom pulled in.

It was early evening, and the shadows were beginning to get longer, but there was a foreboding quality about the house that made Tom shiver.

He'd spent the day in his cabin, putting together all the scattered pieces of his existence. He'd packed what he could in boxes. Those things that couldn't be packed, and so much of a man's life cannot, he'd very carefully carried to the van. Some things he didn't move at all. He didn't want to totally abandon the cabin. He felt a need for a refuge nearby, someplace where he could go to be away and by himself. As the afternoon hours drew down toward evening, his excitement at seeing and being with Tammy again began to grow. He drove back to Greene's place an anxious, happy man.

Then he saw the house, and his happiness slipped away like an earthworm squirming out of his hand.

He parked and ran up the steps to the front door. "Hey, Doc?"

Pham, still the boy in the meadow, opened the door. "Come in, Father-Tom. We've missed you all day." He shut the door and locked it.

"Where's Doc?"

"He's in his workroom." Pham didn't look directly at Tom. He didn't say any more. He stalked off down the hall and turned into the kitchen.

Strange. Wasn't Pham usually more friendly than this? But Tom shrugged it off and stepped into the workroom.

Greene sat at his desk in the thick darkness, nothing visible of him save his dark outline. He said nothing when Tom stepped into the room. Tom turned the light on, gasping when he saw Greene. The doctor looked shrunken, two-thirds his normal size. His sky was gray and ashen. His eyes seemed about to fall out of his head. His right arm lay straight out on top of the desk, and he was rhythmically flexing his fingers. Tom ran to his side and knelt on the floor. "I'm back, Doc. Something wrong?"

Greene's eyelids flicked in recognition, but he made no other sign that he knew Tom was there.

"Doc, you're scaring me. My God, what's wrong?"

"Help," Greene whispered. "We've got to get help."

"Why? What happened? Something happen to the children? Where's Tammy? Is everybody all right?" It was a storm of questions, but Greene gave no sign that he heard any of them. He just went on staring at his right fist and flexing his fingers. Finally, Tom put one of his big hands over the doctor's and the flexing stopped. Greene slowly turned his face towards To's. He still said nothing for long, slow moments. Tears welled up and rolled from his popped eyes. Finally, he said, "Pham killed a man today."

Tom couldn't believe it. "Killed? How?"

Greene only shook his head.

"Doc, are you sure about this? Pham couldn't kill anyone. He's...."

"I know what he is---what he appears to be!" Greene hissed, so suddenly and violently that Tom withdrew. "I know what he's done. I saw it. I don't know how he did it---I don't know anything about how they do anything---but he did it. I was standing right there. It was just after you left this morning, and this man came up with a gun. Two guns. He was holding the guns on me, and suddenly Pham killed him." Greene continued to cry soundlessly. "I put him---what's left of him---in the tool shed. There's nothing left but ashes. I had to scoop him up with a shove."

"He's burned up?"

"Pham burned him up because I couldn't carry the body."

"Who'd he kill?"

"That poor fellow you saw the other night---the man who's hair turned white."

Both were silent.

Tom leaned back on his heels, overwhelmed by what Greene was telling him. Pham was now a killer! Tom felt as helpless and confused now as the freaks felt before they discovered what to do with the powers. And now they had the power to kill?

"So---where do we go from here?"

"It's out of my hands. He killed a man. Maybe they all can kill, I don't know. They've got to be reported."

Yes, Tom nodded. Doc was right. But what would happen to them now? He rose and paced the room.

"What'll they do to Pham?"

"It's irrelevant now. They have to be reported!" Greene grabbed Tom's hand and stopped him from pacing the room. "Tom, you've got to get out of here---get to a phone----call General Sellers, tell him what we got here."

"Why me?"

"You're the only one. Pham won't let call."

"What do you mean he won't let you call?"

Greene raised his right arm and flexed the fingers again. "He won't let me. Each time I reach for the phone, he paralyzes my arm so I can't move it."

Tom couldn't do anything but stare helplessly at Greene's arm.

"I think he senses the danger to him and the rest if I report this. He won't let me." Greene swung back around to face Tom. He grabbed the young man and literally shook him astonishing energy. "You've got to get out of here---take the truck---drive to a safe telephone, where he can't get to you. Call the general. Tell him what's happened, what is happening. Now!"

"All right, I'll do it." Tom turned and started for the door. Just then a fierce shooting pain ripped through his legs. He fell in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor. He grabbed his legs and screamed in agony. Like the calm eye of a hurricane, in the center of all his swirling pain, he could hear Pham's clear voice.

"No, Father-Tom. No. I can't let you go. I'm sorry for hurting you like this, but it's the only way I can stop you. I want you to forget all about this thing. It's over and done with."

He felt a sudden and complete coldness cover him. Sensed a separation from his body. It was still in the grip of the pain, but he had moved to a barren, cool place, a place he didn't know.

"You want to talk about the man?"

"Yes."

"You think I did something wrong?"

"Yes."

"But the man was going to hurt Father-Doc. I could read it. He was going to hurt Father-Doc. I couldn't let him hurt Father-Doc. When someone tries to hurt Father-Doc, they hurt me. They hurt all of us."

"That still doesn't make it right, in spite of your good intentions."

"How could I stand by and let the man hurt Father-Doc?"

Tom couldn't answer.

"Was the man right? He wanted to hurt Father-Doc. Was that a right thing to do?"

"No."

Pham said nothing.

"Pham, you killed a man."

"Yes, I did."

"Life is important, and it's wrong to kill."

There was a pause, in which the wind in the someplace, barren place, rose and whistled.

"If that's true, Father-Tom, what're we doing here?"

"What?"

"We children. What're we doing here?"

"I don't understand, Pham."

"Aren't we, ourselves, accidents of war?"

"Well, yes. But...."

"Many men come and try to kill each other, do kill each other. I've read the war in your own mind, Father-Tom. You were one of those who came to kill other men. You did. You killed other men." Again the wind roared into the pause. "Was that a right thing to do, Father-Tom?"

"No, but..."

"But?"

"It's hard to explain, Pham."

"You said that all life is important."

"Yes, but..."

"And still you tried to kill many men you didn't know."

Tom was silent.

"Life is important?"

Tom nodded.

"All life?"

"All life."

"I'm important too since I'm alive?"

"Yes."

"All of us are important?"

"Yes."

"And Father-Doc? His life is important?"

"Yes."

"That man was going to hurt Father-Doc. He was going to hurt us all. I kept him from doing that. I saved us all. I saved life, our life, and our life is important."

"Pham, to kill a man....."

"To save another man. Isn't this a fair trade?" Pause. "It doesn't matter anyway, Father-Doc. It's done. I've got the power to do these things. We all have this power. It matters little now, what's right or wrong. I've got the power. I'll use this power to protect the children and Father-Doc---and you."

It was over. Pham was slammed back into his body. He was still on the floor. The pain was gone, but he was weak and trembly and covered with sweat. He sat up and looked at Greene---helplessness meeting helplessness.

"They'll have to take the children away from me," Greene said wearily. "I can't control them anymore. I'm not capable of handling them."

Tom slowly shook his head back and forth. "Doc, nobody's going to be able to handle them. Not with powers like they've got."

"I should've reported it when it started," Greene whispered sagely. Tears seeped through his closed likes. "I would've lost them, but that man would still be alive."

"You didn't know...."

"It doesn't make any difference. They're dangerous. I should've suspected the dangers. Extraordinary powers like theirs can only lead to dangers like this." He smiled sweetly and sadly. "You were right, Tom. I shouldn't have been encouraging them like I did."

Tom dropped his head. Greene was right; he was right. He clasped the doctor's knee. "We meant well. Remember, we agreed that this was the only chance they had for some happiness? Without the pictures and the people we've given them, they'd have just been those---things in the capsules.

Greene smiled. "The wrong execution of the right idea?" he asked drily.

"Something like that, yeah."

Greene's smile dried up. He looked as old and as fragile as the Dead Sea Scrolls. He sighed heavily, lifting and dropping his shoulders. "There's a dead man in the tool shed. What're we going to do about it?"

"I don't know." He rose carefully and tried placing his full weight on his legs. They held and seemed strong enough. He began to pace. Then, suddenly, he stopped, snapping his fingers. "Look, it's even more important now that we find out how they do what they do."

"Why?"

"Control."

"Yes. Don't you see? They have no control now, and we don't know how to control them. They're like great beasts without a sense of their own power. They've got no check on it. They're just children---even Pham---with no moral background. In that respect they're like any other children. They're just as blindly destructive as if they were a----a force of nature, a hurricane or earthquake."

"Like any other children?" Greene interrupted.

Tom nodded.

"Can other children kill with a thought, with a nod of the head?"

"No. Children can't.....normal children can't kill that way. They don't have that kind of power, no. But they can be destructive, simply because they have to destroy to get what they want, with no more thought about the ramifications of their actions than an animal might have, because they are children. It's not a matter of definition, it's a matter of scale."

Greene was noncommittal. His long face was clouded with thought.

Tom pressed him. "If we reported them no one would know what to do with them----any more than we do----except destroy them, as people destroy anything that scares them."

"If they can be destroyed, that is."

"Yes, if they can be destroyed." Tom dragged over a chair in front of Greene. "We've got an even greater responsibility now. We've got to teach them some kind of---moral sense, so they won't go about using their powers anywhere and anytime they choose to. If we can do that, we just might make them safe enough to hand over to someone else. We've got to help the children understand how to use their powers."

Greene slowly studied Tom's face. He could read the depth of the young man's conviction. It was as good a plan as anything he could come up with. "What about the man? Won't someone miss him?"

"Probably. But that doesn't guarantee someone will come looking for him. The body is----unrecognizable, right?"

Greene nodded.

"Then I can carry it down to the swamp and bury it for now. No one need ever know what happened to him."

"We can't keep a thing like that a secret!"

"For now---just for now---until the time's right, then we can tell everybody."

"When the time is right?!"

"That's what I said," Tom nodded vigorously.

"What do you consider----the right time?"

"When the children are safe enough to hand over to someone else."

The woman came bursting through the front door of Spider's store.

It was nine in the morning and Spider had been open for one hour now. She was the first customer. Spider was still slow and groggy, and late about his business this morning. He was counting coins out into the change drawer when the woman came through the door. He started, thinking he was about to be robbed. Then he recognized her.

"Mornin' Missus Dumont. How's ever'thing by y'all this mornin'?"

"Mr. Keaton!" she cried, shrilly, "Ya gotta he'p me fine m' husband!"

"Ain't Dorian back yet?" He leaned over the counter, forcing himself not to smile.

"He been gone for two who' weeks now. Ever since he done that shameful thing an' shot at ya. I'm fuckin' worried!"

"Two weeks?! It's been that long?" Keaton shook his head, suppressing his grin. The look in the woman's eyes killed the grin altogether. He drew his face up serious. "Two weeks now! Holy Jee-zus! I s'pect, missus, that ol' Dorian he jus' hidin' out in th' weeds, scared 'bout what he done."

"Ah doan give a flyin' shit 'bout what you s'pect, Spider Keaton! I want my man found an' brought back t' me." Her round, plump face had, since the last time Spider saw her, gone long and haggard. Her color was gone. She looked as if she hadn't slept at all since Dorian'd been gone.

"Now, y' shore ol' Dorian's not jus' off a-huntin' somewheres?"

She shook her head. "He'd never stay gone this long wi'out hi' doggie."

"Mebbe he jus' visitin' a friend."

"I got his truck back at th' house. He wouldn't go off wi'out takin' his truck. 'Sides, Dorian don't have no buddies anyplace else but here."

Spider began to catch the woman's worry. Dorian'd done a damn fool thing---screwed up royally---and the law was looking for him. But it wasn't like that crazy fool to just up and vanish. Not without his truck and his dog.

"Did he take his gun?" Spider came around to her side of the counter and took her hands.

She shook her head. "Jus' tha' lil' ol' pistol."

And he didn't take his gun!

"He ain't never done nuttin' lak' this before, has he?"

"He ain't never been gone this long a time before, no. Never. He goes off by hisself somtimes, but that's jus' fer a night or two, an' he always comes back. But he ain't been quite right since he had his hair turned white. He ain't stayed home hardly at all since then. But I always knew he'd show up again sometime, if only t' come home t' eat. An' now he gone." She broke down, sobbing. "He gone! I jus' know it!"

Spider was a capable man in a lot of ways, but he knew nothing about handling a crying woman. He turned and called up the stairs. "Josie, kin ya come on down here. I needs yer he'p."

Mrs. Keaton came bounding down the stairs. "Whassamatter? My God! Missus Dumont! Whassamatter?" She came over and took Mrs. Dumont by the shoulders and led her back towards the rear of the store, casting an evil eye on her spouse.

"T'ain't mah fault. She's worried 'bout Dorian. It's been two weeks, an' he ain't come home."

Blubbering, Mrs. Dumont told Mrs. Keaton the same story she'd just told Spider.

"What's th' sher'f say?" Mrs. Keaton asked.

"He says they's nuttin' he can do."

"Well, I never! Spider, ya get that sher'f on th' pone an' ya tell 'im that as Mayor o' Hullbeck ya demand he look into Dorian's disappearance. I'm gonna take Missus Dumont uptstairs an' make 'er a cup o' sweet tea. Now ya do that."

As soon as the two women had gone up the stairs, Spider dialed the sheriff.

"Hallo, Mister Mayor! An' whut kin' I do fer ya?"

"Didja know that Dorian's still missin'?"

"Well, count yer blessin's, I always say!"

"I couldn't agree more, but Dorian's wife is over here at muh place, a-cryin' an' a-carryin' on. She seems really convinced that somethin's happened t' Dorian." Spider paused. He waited for the sheriff to fill the pause. When nothing came from the phone but the sheriff's labored breathing, Spider continued. "Can ya do somethin', Sher'f?"

"Well, I don't know whut. Mebbe I could go ast Buck at Piney Acres. Dorian used t' hang out wi' that bunch 'round there. An' th' doc---y'know how Dorian felt 'bout th' doc---maybe he knows somethin'."

"Could ya come o'er an' pick up Missus Dumont, an' take her wi' ya? It'd pro'bly do her good t' see whatchoo do."

Hogan sighed. "'Kay, Spider. I'll come by an' pick 'er up in a few minutes."

" 'N Sher'f? Call me up iffen y'find out an'thin'."

"Will do," Hogan said as he hung up.

Piney Acres was all quiet. Hogan pulled his big patrol car into the gravel driveway and parked in front of the door.

"Missus," he said to Mrs. Dumon, "ya wanna jus' stay 'ere, whilst I talk t' Buck?"

She shook her head. "No, I wanna go wi' ya."

He nodded and got out of the car. She got out on her side, and they walked up to the front door; Mrs. Dumont stayed a step or two behind him. He peered in through the windows. It was dark inside. He banged on the door, but there was no answer.

"Well, Buck's got a room in back." He started around one side of the building towards the rear. At the back corner, he turned and stopped Mrs. Dumont with an upraised hand. "Now, ya best jus' stay there, fer now. He sleeps back 'ere an' 'e may not be decent t' see....for a lady. Iffen it's okay, I'll call ya over."

She nodded and held her place.

Hogan walked over to the door. It hung open a little way, latched on the inside with a screen door hook. He peered through the crack, but couldn't see anything in the darkness. He leaned back and banged on the door.

The metallic click of a gun's mechanism answered his knock. And a voice. "What ya'll want?"

"Buck? This here's th' sher'f."

"Oh shit, Sher'f, I ain't runnin' no hooch 'round here."

"That ain't whut I come fer."

"Well, whut'd ya come fer?"

"You seen Dorian lately?"

"Nope. Why?"

"I got Missus Dumont out here, an' she's worried. Seems he ain't been 'round fer two weeks."

There was a scurry of noise inside. Then the door came open. Buck, wearing only a pair of faded Levis, stepped out, closing the door behind him. He looked angry and sullen, as if he'd just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.

"I ain't seen Dorian since he went ape-shit. Guess that was 'bout two weeks ago."

" 'zactly!"

Buck cocked his head and squinted at the sheriff. "Ya don't reckon he's up an run off on 'er, do ya?" He spoke in a whisper so that Mrs. Dumont couldn't hear, but this only drew her nearer.

"Don't believe he got th' balls t' do somethin' lak' that."

Mrs. Dumont came up to them.

Buck backed up a step and dipped his head. "Mornin'," he said softly.

"Mr. Hess, if y'know anythin' at all, I shore would 'preciate.....Do y'know anythin' 'bout where m' hubby might be?" Her voice was trembling, fearful.

"No, ma'am, I shorely don't. I ain't seen 'im." Buck took a stub of a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it with a wooden kitchen match swiped across the seat of his Levis. He blew out a cloud of yellowish smoke. "Now, y'might wanna try th' doc's place."

"I was gonna do that," Hogan replied.

"Yeah, that day Dorian," he glanced over at Mrs. Dumont, "....had that li'l trouble in town? Well, he come by here, yup. He was a-talkin' crazylike, sayin' 'e was gonna make th' doc own up t' all the things he'd done t' him. He had that li'l 'ol pistol wi' 'im."

"What'd ya say t' 'im?"

"I tol' 'im it was a crazy idee an' t' leave that man be."

"Y' think Dorian's got th' guts t' do somethin' to the doc?"

Buck looked thoughtfully off into the deep shadows of the woods. "I didn't at th' time. Nope, I didn't. Thought he was jus' blowin'. Y'know how ol' Dorian is." He laughed, then shut it off and dipped his head in Mrs. Dumont's direction. "No offense, ma'am. I shorely meant no offense."

Hogan sighed deeply and hitched up his pistol belt. "Well, th' doc's our next stop. Thankee, Buck."

"Okay. Mornin', Missus Dumont. See ya, Sher'f."

Buck followed them back around to the car and watched them drive off, waving as the sheriff's car pulled back out onto the highway. When it disappeared behind the trees, Buck dropped his wave and walked back towards Piney Acres.

He went back to his room, hoping to catch a few more winks of sleep, but he couldn't. So he rose and lit up a brand-new cigarette and went back outside. He sat on a little stool in his back yard. He felt a brooding wariness and restlessness, and if something was about to happen---bad or good, it didn't make any difference.... something big, that would change things.

The cigarette was dry, its smoke harsh and raw. The air seemed thick with anticipation. The dark and solemn woods seemed to close in on him, a fist tightening around his throat.

He remembered crazy Dorian that morning---the jagged, jangling eyes, the stretched skin, the drool at the corners of his mouth, the madness when he held the guns on Buck. He knew there was something more to Dorian's insane words than idle threats. Dorian'd been operating on something more than he usually had. An insane spark that gave his engine more power---made him something more than the silly blowhard he usually was. There was something solid and powerful about him that morning.

Buck rose from his stool and walked a ways in the direction of Doc's. Not far, he didn't have to go far to see the doc's place in his mind. He didn't leave the clearing and go off into the woods. He only looked in that direction.

Iffen the sher'f, he don't turn up nuttin', Dorian, me an' the boys----we'll do a little checkin' on our own.

"No, Sheriff, it's just as I've already told you. I didn't see that man at all. I haven't seen him since the morning you brought him out here to see me." This was Greene. He was standing on the front steps. He kept his worry from showing, put on a big smile.

Sheriff Hogan sat in the car, one big arm propping up the roof. Mrs. Dumont had gotten out. She stood on the opposite side of the car and glared across the roof at Greene. Her eyes were tearful and bruised, but there was accusation in them.

"Well, Doc, I cain't understand it. In spit o' all my warnin's, ol' Dorian appeared t' go a li'l----crazy that mornin'. He shot up th' town, and stopped by Piney Acres o'er th' way. Las' word we had was that he was powerful bent on comin' t' see ya, and th' last place he was tol' th' man that he was on 'is way 'ere."

Greene smiled placidly. He looked at the woman, smiling boldly in the face of her terrible stare, then back at the sheriff. "I don't know what happened, but he never got here. Maybe he had a change of heart, took another path."

"But nobody's seen 'im fer two weeks!"

Greene only shrugged.

"You wouldn't lemme look 'round inside, would ya?"

Green shook his head. "Oh, not today, Sheriff. This isn't a good day for visitors. Besides, there's nothing to see but what you've already seen. Nothing."

The sheriff ducked his head to look at Mrs. Dumont. " 'Fraid we'll hafta go in 'nother direction."

But she was solid. She shook her head. "M' husband said he was comin' here. If he said he was comin' 'ere, he meant t' come 'ere."

Greene walked down the steps and took Mrs. Dumont's hand. "He didn't come here that day, or any day since that other time. I'm sorry, but there's nothing more I can do for you, Mrs. Dumont." He stared at her, a strange, grasping excitement in his eyes.

She looked away from him and pulled her hand from his. "Thanks anyway." Her voice was small and constricted. She opened the door and slipped back inside the car.

The doc walked back around to the sheriff's side of the car. He leaned in. "If there's nothing more I can do for you, Sheriff?" He let the question hang in the air, his grin as solidly in place as if it had been set in granite.

The big sheriff looked back, a thoughtful look clouding his face, then he shook his head. "I 'spose not. Thanks, Doc." He ground the starter, and the engine fired. Tires crunching on gravel, he drove back out, with a wave at the gate.

Dr. Greene waved to them. The sheriff waved back as they pulled out of the driveway, onto the road. Then Dr. Greene went inside and shut the gate. Within moments, he melted into the little Bavarian boy.

"They're gone," Pham announced. "Father-Doc and Father-Tom, you're both free again."

She'd been quiet for almost the whole trip, but in the silence on the way back to town, Mrs. Dumont began to weep quietly.

"Missus, don't fret none, we'll find 'im. It ain't over yet. We got a few mo' tricks t' try. We know he was at Buck's an' we know he said he was headin' fer th' doc's. I'll git me some men out in th' mornin' an' we'll comb th' woods fer 'im. Could be he had accident out there, somewheres. An' we can't leave th' doc all alone, nossir. Iffen we don't find nothin' in th' woods, I'll git us a search warrant, an' we'll look over th' doc's place real proper, that ah kin' promise ya!" He reached over and patted her knee.

She glanced over to him with gratitude in her eyes. "Thankee Sher'f, I know y'all will do th' bes' ya can, but---but m' Dorian's gone. He ain't ne'er comin' back!"

Hogan didn't say anything. More and more, his own mind was telling him the same thing.

He wasn't frightened by any of it. He was confident of his power against anything this world might toss at him. He didn't walk in fear.

But he was awed by everything he saw, and he walked oh-so-slowly through the nighttime world. He paused with almost every step to pull in and soak up another wonder. The grass hissed as his steps crunched it down. The breeze whiffled at his shirt collar. It was cool going down his back. The night was full of strange-sounding comings and goings. He knew very little of the creatures that made the sounds, but he reveled in their music. The trees were oily black. His hands hovered over their night-slick textures, never actually touching. He had no need to touch. His mind could touch and feed him the sensation.

It was a hard thing he'd done, rebuilding the man and the man's memory, but he'd done it. And now the man's hate raged in his mind as if it were a roaring fire. It told him the direction to go. Yet, he'd stumbled in the wrong direction at first, and he'd come across two men in a boat in the swamp. The man in the front of the boat held a lantern high, casting an odd aura about over the dark water. The other man rowed.

He crouched back in the bushes, out of their sight. It was vital that they didn't see him.

He watched the boat slowly come abreast of his hiding place and pass on by. The men in the boat, they were looking for him. That's what they thought. If they'd seen him, they would have thought their job was done. They'd have found their man.

Or would they?

It would be a good joke, he thought, to let them to find him. But that wasn't his purpose this night.

He turned and went off through the woods in the right direction. Travel was easy for him. When he came across a difficult object in his path such as the slough or a highway, he just thought himself on the other side. And he'd pass over the object on the wings of the breeze itself. He told himself he could've placed himself at his final destination. But no. He wanted to experience traveling on foot through this night world. He used his power only when he had to.

The house was dark and silent when he got there. It was a little house, so much smaller than his own. Even in the protective coloring of the night's lovely shades, the place looked shabby. It didn't rise majestically on the top of a hill as his own did. This little house squatted on high, thin legs in a clump of trees. The wind moved freely under it. Its uncurtained windows glistened in the moonlight. They reflected back black night and the cold sparks of the moon's light. The house looked forlorn and a little scruffy.

But none of this bothered him. From the man's memory, he knew what to expect. He stayed some distance away, hidden in the dark trees, and watched. Gradually, as if peeling away layers of an onion's skin he peeled out of the darkness. He tore the man's body down and wafted through the air. He went into the house.

He heard sleeping.

In one room there was a young boy. He was thin and pale. About thirteen, fourteen? Sleeping very soundly, the boy lay sprawled on a tight, narrow bed. His chest, arms, and one leg were free of the covering. Half on his back, he snored loudly.

Pham moved in closer and saw the boy's face. Youthful and fresh, the face still had enough of the pinched, dark quality in its features to clearly relate it to the man who'd fathered him. In his own memory, Pham could see the man and the boy become the man. This brought another cruel, little smile to his face. He moved out of the room on silent feet.

In the other room there was another sleeping person, and this was what he'd come for.

The woman was completely covered. She lay on her side. Her head was turned away from his approach. The window beside the bed was open. The night wind stiffened the curtains. He stood just inside the doorway. He waited a moment or two, taking in all the details of the room; then he began. He added layers of flesh back to the wafting spirit. Within seconds, he stood before the bed as the real man would have. Done, he walked beside the bed and stood directly over her, looking down at her. And he slowly reached out and brought the hair back out of her eyes and patted it smooth.

Her eyes fluttered open. She turned to look at him. "Who's there?" she asked groggily, her eyes trying to focus on him. Then she saw who it was and her face came alive. She pushed herself up on the bed and threw her arms around his waist, burying her face in his stomach. "Oh m'God! Dorian! It's you! You came back!" She was crying. Through the tears, she said, "Never did think I'd see ya again. I though you was dead. Oh, m'God! Oh, m'God!"

He said nothing. He reached up and grabbed the fleshy orb of one of her breasts, feeling the weight and bulk of it in his hand. He wasn't thinking of her now or what she was saying. In his mind he was reconstructing what he'd seen Father-Tom and Tammy do. That part of him he borrowed from Tom was rising between his legs.

She felt his desire and need. Still crying, she moved over on the bed to allow him room. "C'mon, honey, lay down. I'll take care o' ya, honey, lay down here."

He hurriedly undressed, tossed his clothes aside in a heap, and slid into bed. It was warm from her. His hands lifted her thin nightgown and explored the mysteries of her body. She responded fully and breathlessly to his touch. Something cold entered her mind. He felt a shocking mastery over her. It was like his power over everything, but then, it was different. It was a different kind of power. He moved down and parted her legs and rose to take a position over her. Her guidance led him to the right place. Her body was deeply penetrated by his thrust.

"Oh, m'God!" she screamed.

He was pulled deeper into her by her legs as they rose and wrapped around him. The woman rocked and thumped against him, cradling him so tightly that it seemed as if he might not ever be able to escape. She moved up, rocking on the crown of her head and the heels of her feet, meeting power with power. Then she dropped down, sucking him down with her. And, again, the same terrible, wonderful action. Both were drenched in their own and each other's sweat. It rained on them, from them. She reached up and bit his ear, moaning to him, her words punctuated by rhythmic grunts for wind. "You ain't m' Dorian! You ain't m' Dorian!"

But she didn't stop. Loving, devouring him with her loving.

His power---his real power---was waning. Going. He could think of nothing now but the thrust of his loins. He was defenseless now, except as a man. He could feel the power of his manhood, and he gave himself---totally----to the feverish, wonderful painful experience.

She suddenly screamed. It was a long, arching scream, full of valleys and mountains. And she shuddered violently against him. He could feel himself letting go---just as Father-Tom had done inside Tammy. In that agonizing minute he feared he might die. He didn't. But swift moments passed, and he was clear-headed and calm and unbearingly content. He separated from her and lay on his back, afraid now that he might die of contentment and peace. His breath came hard and labored, piercing parts of his lungs he'd never used before. His heart thumped madly.

But he was alive---oh, God, was he alive!

She shivered for a while beside him, saying nothing, softly whimpering with each breath. When she'd regained enough of her strength, she propped herself up on one elbow and studied the man beside her. In the soft, silver glow of the moonlight, she could clearly see his features. The same narrow face, the same beaked nose, the same heavily lidded eyes. With a finger, idly, she traced his face.

He made no response.

"You ain't m' Dorian," she said quietly, speculatively, with no fear in her voice.

He said nothing.

"Y' know how I know?"

He shook his head.

"You look t'be m' Dorian---exactly! Ever'thin' looks t'be m' Dorian, but," her hand went down and grabbed the part that he'd rebuilt from Tom, "this ain't Dorian. Dorian was never lak' this."

"I'm different?" he asked. Alarm frayed the edges of his voice.

"Yep, yer diff'rent," she murmured. She moved her head down to him there and kissed him. "Ah don't know who y'are, or whutcher doin' makin' lak' yer Dorian, but fer right now, I doan give no shit." Her voice softened and grew thin and wistful. "I miss ol' Dorian, but I could fergit 'im' wi' yew." He was ready again, and she moved him into her with her hands. She lay beside him now, moving against him with a subtle and supple grace. She kissed him and stared into his eyes. "Now, jus' who th' hell are ya, buster?"

"I'm Dorian," he gasped, the words coming harder for him.

"No, you ain't him." Still, there was no anger in her voice. She purred, without taking her eyes off his. "Who are ya, really?" She continued to move against him, taking him and imprisoning him inside of her. The momentum was only slowly growing.

He moved so easily within her, hearing the soft, liquid sounds of the movement, the flesh on flesh, that he cared not for what would happen. It never occurred to him. He let his precautions fall. Simple, he said to her, "Do you want to see?"

"See?"

"Yes. See who I really am?"

"Yeah." Her eyes were partially closed now, and she was slipping over the edge into the shadow world of sex.

He nodded and changed back to the other body he'd worn, the body from the mountain meadow, the handsome young man.

"See now."

Her eyes flickered open, and she looked at him. Suddenly her motion stopped, and her face went rigid with fear. She drew back and screamed, pulling herself up and running from the bedroom.

Her scream tore through the house. The walls shook with it. The glass in the windows rattled. It hovered and lingered and clawed at him. Confusion and horror. He lay on the bed, twisting and turning, not knowing what to do, where to turn. His power was sapped and totally gone.

The boy in the other room came awake to his mother's screams. He jumped from his bed and ran out into the hall, catching his nude mother in his arms. She looked at him and screamed. With a fitful gesture, she pointed back to her bedroom, broke from his arms and ran off, screaming, into the night. Although he was fearful and shaking, the boy was calm enough to know that something in the bedroom had hurt his mother. He took his father's shotgun from the rack on the wall, pushed open the door with its long, black barrel.

A strange man stood in the middle of the room. He was a young man, not much older than Dorian's son. He was naked and he looked at the boy with fear on his face.

The boy knew what had happened. He lifted the shotgun and opened fire on the strange man.

The blast threw Pham back against the wall. He felt the tearing, burning pain in his left shoulder. He grabbed for it and felt a large, wet, warm, oozing area. He tried to stop the boy from firing again, tried to stop everything from happening. He couldn't. In a blinding flash, he knew that he could not get through the barrier of pain in his mind to use his power. He was trapped in this hurt body. As the second roaring shot went off, he spun around and leaped through the window. He shattered the glass and rolled in the wet, moist dirt underneath it. Flashes of pain erupted all over him. He managed to pull himself to his feet and run off into the woods.

He couldn't do anything but run. He crashed through the bushes, following no path, having no sense at all of where he was going. Just away, away from the noise and the light and the pain. But no, he couldn't outrun the pain. He ran until he collapsed, gasping for breath.

And then everything went black.

Bright light---and pain!

He lay there until the morning sun woke him. And when he woke up his mind was a-tumble with the events of the night. Fractured images rolled through his inner eyes. He could remember the pleasure, but that memory was so fragile and fleeting. it was consumed by the terrible noise and flash of light and the grinding pain. He rolled onto his back and felt the wound in his shoulder. It was still wet and gooey. Blood was oozing from it. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, and his head went dizzy. He ran after his breath. Everything he knew told him that he must get out of this body. He didn't know if he could make it through the pain and get to his power.

There was a shimmering pool not far from him. He crawled over to it and dropped his face into it. The shock of the cold water went through him like raw electrical current.

He must try!

He willed himself calmer, willed his racing heartbeat and racking breathing to slow down. When he was calmer, he concentrated on getting out of this poor, weak, and painful body and going home, back where he was safe.

He could feel the extremities fading, getting lighter. He could feel his self moving out of this body, but....

Not altogether.

He couldn't do it....not all of it.

He fell back against the earth in exhaustion.

He would try again later.

Oh, this world he'd looked at with such awe only hours before! How ugly it all was! The green was dusty and dirty. The sunlight hurt. The earth was hard and unfeeling. All things looked down on him with no care for him. He might die here, and there was nothing in all of us that would care. Nothing.

What did it matter? If he could get out of this body, he had power over everything else. If he could only get out of this body.....

He flexed his hand and watched it move. In spite of his situation, he laughed. How poor and weak these human beings are! So easily hurt. So easily killed. Imprisoned as he was in a human body, he felt a scornful pity of humans. And, when I'm free of this, he told himself, I'll never again be dependent on them. They're far too puny for me. I'll never need anyone again.

But now, he did need something and someone. He was trapped now. He could not break free, could not escape this pain-racked and dying body---not by himself. If he was to free himself from this painful trap, to break free and rise and return to safety.... Someone.....

Tammy!

Yes, she could help. She's powerful, almost as powerful as me. If I can....reach her...she can pull me out of this painful prison.

He concentrated on talking with Tammy. HIs voice rose and flew directly home. "Tammy!"

"Yes, Pham?"

Aha! She answered. She answered! She can hear me!

"Tammy, I need help!"

"Where are you, Pham? What can I do for you?"

"I'm far away, but no matter. I've been hurt...."

"Hurt?"

"I'll explain when I see you. Now, think of pulling me free."

"Yes."

He ducked his head, gritted his teeth, and cut through the pain barrier. He could feel her strong power pulling him free, and, gradually, the pain grew less and less. He leapt out of the body and felt his own thoughts sailing free, above the trees, the houses, the people.

And he was home.

He came to rest in his former body, on his bed. He blinked his eyes and realized that there was no more pain.

"Are you all right, Pham?" There was Tammy, standing over him. She was a beautiful young girl, Tammy.

He nodded.

"What happened?"

"I've learned," he said. Then full power flowed through his mind. He re-created the young man's body, without the wound. And naked. His manhood was full and strong. "I've learned all that you know!" He laughed sharply. She turned away from his blood-gorged nakedness. "We all now know all that we need to know." He jumped from the bed and grabbed her from behind. "They're small and weak, and we're so much more powerful than they are! They're so easy to hurt. I know." He held her tightly and moved against her, holding her breasts. They're not as large as that other woman's, he told himself, but that can be fixed. "We have no need for them anymore, Tammy. We have no need for anything anymore, nothing but ourselves."

"Don't!" She moved out of his grasp.

"You don't owe them anything. Fear and power, remember? We've got the power, and they have nothing for us but their fear. Our power can feed on their fear."

She wouldn't look at him. She kept her face hidden and shook her head.

"What have they done for you? Made you what you were before. Made you that horrible little thing that could only live in a machine! They took every chance away from you---everything! Why do you care for them? What do you care for them?" He closed in on her as she backed gingerly towards the door. "Would you care to see what they did to me?" He made the wound on his shoulder. Raw, pink, exposed flesh, spurting blood. Now he controlled it. Now there was no pain. "Look!" he shouted. "Look at what the humans did to me!"

She closed her eyes and hid her face in her hand, then bolted from the room.

"Bitch!" he shouted after her.

But then, she's just like me. She will---eventually----see that what I say is true. We've got power now. We, not them! They'll never have power over me ever again! Never again!

Greene was lying down with a headache. Tom was in the downstairs bathroom, brushing his teeth. They were both frozen in motion. Pham materialized in front of them, the blood still flowing from his wound.

"Doc! Tom!" he announced. "You live now only by my choice, my wishes. I can destroy you both anytime I want. You no longer tend to me like some poor, sick child. You tend to me now like the slaves you are. I know fully how weak you humans are. Even if you band together against me, I can still defeat you. You're only alive now because of past services. Don't expect to remain in my good graces just for those. Not indefinitely."

Something had to be done---now!

Buck let Rufus Switzer in through the front door and rebolted it behind him. Of the group he'd summoned, Switzer was the last man to arrive. Five, including Buck, six, good men all together.

Switzer called his hellos to the others already waiting around a large table at the rear of the room. The seated men responded loudly and enthusiastically. Then they fell back into the odd quiet that had held them until Switzer arrived. All had been called here by Buck. None of them knew exactly why.

Buck got the newcomer a bottle of beer and again took his seat at the head of the table. As soon as he was down, all of them looked expectantly at him. Buck waited, dragging out the suspense. He took a long belt from his bottle, then looked around at their faces, pausing a few times on the face of each man. When he spoke, he did it quietly and softly. But there was a tension in his words, a restless, supple force that made the men pay intense attention. They listened quietly; eyes fixed on him. "'Fore I called you boys, I spent most o' th' mornin' down watchin' th' sher'f's op'ration down in th' swamp. Y'all know 'bout what's been happenin'?"

He looked at them all again. Some nodded, but most just looked at him blankly.

"Well, y'know tha' Dorian's been missin' fer some time now. Ain't none of y'all seen 'im, have ya?"

They all shook their heads.

"Yep. Thought as much."

He waited, taking another pull from his bottle.

"I guess," absentmindedly he tore at the wet label on the bottle with a thumbnail, "I was 'bout th' last man t'see Dorian Dumont alive. Never thought too much of it at th' time, but it's been a-preyin' on my mind ever since."

The men all bent forward, joining their hands in front of them on the table.

"Dorian come by here th' mornin' he disappeared. It was th' same day he took a shot at th' folks in town."

Slight smiles played around the corners of the men's mouths.

"He come up outta th' woods out back. He drank a beer wi' me, an' he wanted me ta he'p 'im." Buck sighed loudly. "I turned 'im down, thought he was plumb loco, y'all know how it wuz wi' 'im." They all nodded, some grinned, but Buck's face was dark and heavy. "But ah guess, seein' how things turned out, I shoula he'ped 'im." He looked at each man again, looking for understganding and forgiveness. Since none of them understood, there was nothing to forgive. They clung to his words, waiting for the next one.

"He had a gun, as y'know, an' a damn-foo' scheme 'bout goin' up t' th' doc's place an' makin' the doc own up t' whut 'e wuz doin'."

He paused to let that information sink in.

"Y'know what ah thought. I thought th' same shing any o' you would've thought---that it was jus' nutty ol' Dorian shootin' 'is mouth off, the way he always does."

Nods came from the men.

"I tol' 'im not t' do it----tol' 'im I thought he was loco an' t' leave th' goddamn thing 'lone." Buck sighed deeply and brought his hands up to his face. He touched his thick, rubbery lips. "Same as any a' yew woulda done."

There were more nods.

"But, it didn't do no good. 'E wuz actin' wi' some kinda strange power---lak' a crazy man. 'E took muh gun 'way from me an' he went off laughin'." Buck inhaled and drew back in his chair. "Ain't a soul whut seen hide or hair a' him since."

The men all looked at each other questioningly. Then all of them looked at Buck.

"Sher'f was by 'ere jus' t'other day, an' he had Dorian's ol' lady wi' 'im. I tol' 'im whut ah knowed, an' they went off t' th' doc's. But they didn't learn shit. Now, the sher'f, he's a good ol' boy, an' 'e's jus' tryin' t' do 'is duty, y'know? But he's sorta got 'is hands tied. Th' law's always got their hands tied right proper. An' right now with this otha thing..."

"Whaz th' other thing?" One of the men asked.

"Ain't ya heard?"

They shook their heads and moved in closer.

"Laz night they was somebody in Dorian's house. The ol' lady found 'im. An, she says, he looked jus' lak Dorian, but...." He raised his index finger and waited until every eye was upon him. "It weren't Dorian."

"How'd she know it weren't?"

Another of the men answered, laughing. "Betcha an'thing is cause 'e wuz nice t' her!"

There was a generous spattering of laughter, but it all ceased when the men looked back at Buck.

"It ain't funny, y'all!"

They all sobered up.

"This 'ere feller---whoever 'e was----tried to rape 'er---ripped all 'er clothes offa 'er. Dorian's boy was awake, an' he took th' shotgun an' went into th' bedroom. 'E took a shot at the feller, an' he thinks 'e hit 'im. The feller took off out th' window an' he run away." Buck leaned in a little closer. "An th' boy says that feller didn't look at all lak' 'is daddy."

The men were silent. Then one of them said, hesitantly. "Mebbe she's 'avin'....y'know.....a little on th' side."

"Dorian's ol' lady?" Buck scoffed. "You believe that?"

The man shook his head.

Buck continued. "The sher'f's out there right now a-lookin' for th' boy---an' for Dorian's body too. I been he'pin' out when I can. Thaz where I was this mornin' when I had th' idea t' call you guys up."

"Whachoo want from us, Buck?"

"S'pose we been wrong all 'long?" He looked up at them. "S'pose they is somethin' spooky goin' on up there at th' Doc's place. S'pose Dorian was right?" He waited for a response from them. They said nothing, and he continued. "Ever'thing points to th' doc." He spread his right hand and clicked off his fingers with the left hand. "I mean, I know thaz where Dorian wuz a-headin' that mornin'. An' I couldn't change 'is mind, so it ain't very likely an'thing or an'body could've changed it. An' nobody's seen 'im since."

That made sense. The men nodded to each other.

"An, secondly, we ain't never 'ad nuttin' weird 'appen 'round 'ere til' th' doc showed up. Right?"

They nodded again.

"Now, th' sher'f, 'es got 'is 'ands full, an' 'e could use all th' 'elp 'e kin git." He leaned back in his chair. "So, it looks lak' it's time some folks lak' yew an' me did somethin'."

There was a heavy pause. Finally, one of the men ventured into the silence. "Whachoo think we should do, Buck?"

A sly, easy grin fell across Buck's face. "Well, we've settled pro'lems lak' this in th' pas', pro'lems th' law couldn't he'p us wi' by joinin' together 'gainst common en'mies. I think we oughtta be able t' find a way t' solve this."

He looked at each man again.

They caught the meaning from him and exchanged tight, anxious looks.

"Ah think, first o' all, we oughtta jus' go up there to th' doc's place an' 'ave ourse'ves a little look-see. I think ol' Dorian was on t' somethin'. There's somethin' goin' on up there, an' ah doan think, by Gawd, we oughtta jus' let Doc get 'way wi' it!"

There was a tentative, hesitant agreement among the men. They nodded and mumbled among themselves.

"'Kay, now most o' you got a gun in yer trucks, right?"

All but one or two nodded.

"an' I got plenny t' spare 'ere...."

"What're we gonna take guns fer?"

"Somethin' 'appened t' Dorian an' 'e 'ad a gun. Ah doan think we oughtta go up there unarmed. Thaz jus' askin' fer trouble."

He waited for argument. There wasn't any.

"'Kay, it's seven o'clock now. Y'all go on home an' 'ave dinner wi' yer families. We'll meet back 'ere at nine, 'kay?"

There was a general scuffling of chairs as the men got up. Buck walked them to the front door and spoke to each man on his way out.

"It'll be jus' lak' th' ol' days!" he shouted to them.

Alone, Buck walked back to his room behind the bar. He took a pistol from a locked cabinet. It was wrapped in an oily cloth, and with loving hands, he took it out of its wrapping and studied it, holding it up to the light. Then he sat down on his bunk and carefully polished it. When he was finished, he put it in a shoulder holster and laid that out on the bed. He then went through the same ritual with a shotgun. The shotgun came from a rack of long guns over his bunk. Finally, satisfied, he opened himself another beer and lay down to read a detective magazine to pass the time until nine o'clock.

It was quiet in the house.

Greene was asleep upstairs. Exhaustion from battle, and resignation over sure defeat, had finally taken their toll. He'd just given up, surrendered. Sleep, deep and narcotic, had reached up out of its peaceful depths and pulled him down. He had no will left to resist it.

The children were quiet---most of them.

Tom had not surrendered. He thought it was a hopeless battle, but some small twinge of resistance held up. He kept hoping, though he didn't know what he had to hope for.

Whatever had happened to Pham the night before had closed his mind to all argument and had cast his will in iron. Neither Tom nor anyone could do anything to dent it. He was still just a child, a petulant and angry child. His behavior was just a tantrum, but a tantrum from Pham was on a level with a tornado. He sat cross-legged on his bed. He looked like an evil parody of the Buddha. He'd sat there through most of the day, holding a wicket court for the others. He kept the ugly, obscene wound in his shoulder, the blood flowing like water from a spring as he harangued the little ones, his dark eyes slitting and becoming snakelike, about "fear and power." they listened, sitting at his feet, but Tammy could tell they were only listening because they were afraid of him. She was the only one who refused to sit at his feet. Still, Pham was in his glory, with a bought and paid-for audience, he easily breached anything she or Pham could say against him.

Tammy retired to some spirit world where he wouldn't follow her.

Pham toyed with Tom---a cat with a dying mouse. Gloating over him, filling the others with his arrogance.

All so hopeless.

Tom cried in numbing sadness. If there ever had been an opportunity to shape the children, to teach and guide them, it was gone.

When Pham left him alone, he paced the floor in Greene's small study, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders hunched up around his ears, and wished for a cigarette---and a drink. There was no lock on the door, but he knew he'd never make it out of the house. What need had Pham for locks? His power was a most effective cage. Pham had left one of the children to stand guard over him. There was nothing for Tom to do but pace.

In this quiet time between Pham's attacks, he became aware of subtle fingers probing around the edges of his mind. He blanched in fear, crying silently.

Don't do that! he screamed in his head. He tried to turn the fingers away.

"Tom," came her voice. It was shy, hesitating.

"Yes, Tammy," he answered out loud. "What do you want? To have some more fun with me? Pham explain it all to you? Are you going to show me how powerful you are and how weak I am?"

"Of course not."

"Then what do you want? Am I......at your service?"

"I want to talk to you."

It's your nickel, he thought, smiling. He sat in one of the armchairs, crossed his legs, and massaged his forehead.

"You want to talk to me?"

"I do."

"About what?"

"Us."

He laughed.

"Tammy, there is no 'us.' There can never be an 'us' as long as you and Pham are holding me prisoner.....and Doc Greene."

She was silent.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

"I think so."

"We've got nothing to talk about, then."

"Yes, we do."

"No, Tammy, not while you're doing this terrible thing."

Despite himself, he could feel a thin glimmer of hope flashing through the blackness in his mind.

"Do you want to help me and the doc?"

She was silent again.

"Tammy, you know what he's doing is wrong, don't you?"

Silence, then faintly. "Yes, I think I do."

"Then why don't you help me?"

Again, no answer.

"Where's Pham?"

Suddenly, she was here before him. The girl from the mountain top....Tammy....the only Tammy he'd ever really known. She was wearing the light, casual dress he'd bought for her on carnival day. So long ago. Yesterday. Her golden hair fell forward over her eyes. She was barefoot. She didn't look at him.

"Pham is asleep. I'm guarding you. I wouldn't help him before, but I asked for a time to guard you, because....I wanted to talk to you again."

He dropped his head and shook it slowly. "He trusts you. You're still a part of what he is."

"Maybe not anymore."

"Do you think he's right?"

"I don't know."

He stared at her now, noticing how she refused to return his stare.

She turned and walked to the far end of the desk, keeping her back to him. "No," she said, "I don't think he's right. I don't like what he's doing to you and to Father-Doc." There was a tremor in her voice. She was about to cry. She acted as if she wanted to hide her face from him.

Tom jumped to his feet. "Then...."

"But I don't think there's anything I can do to stop him." She looked down, her eyes glazed with tears.

"But you've got power too. You can fight him."

She shook her head. "He's more powerful than I am."

"Are you sure he's resting?"

"He wouldn't allow me to speak to you this way if he were awake."

"Tammy, let me make a phone call. Now. Can you do that?"

He reached for the phone and pulled it toward him across the cluttered desk top. It made a short, sharp squeak. They both held their hands.

Noting.

"I don't know," she said, "if he finds out...."

"Tammy, it's my----our----only chance. Please."

He was gently lifting the phone from the desk.

"It's Father-Doc's only chance. You love Father-Doc, don't you?"

She nodded.

His mind was racing, grasping at anything he could think of, anything to convince her.

"You know what Father-Doc means to you---to all of you. You owe him your lives. He kept you alive. You owe him everything. He can't live like this. This thing that Pham's doing to him is killing him. Don't you see that? Do you want Father-Doc to die?"

She shook her head.

He had the telephone in his lap and was lifting the receiver from the cradle.

"I don't want anything to happen to Father-Doc----or to you, Tom."

"Then, dammit, let me make this call!"

The receiver was to his ear. He had come this far, but he knew she could stop him anytime she wanted. He could go no further without her permission.

The dial tone honked, protestingly in his ear.

He looked up at her. "Please," he pleaded.

She was silent.

One step at a time, he told himself. He took her silence as approval and extended a finger to the dial.

Silent.

Abruptly, she turned and walked away. Her footfalls were soft, whispered rushes on the floor. She went to the window and stood with her back to him, wrapping herself in her arms.

Relief surged through him. He dialed the number Greene had given him. The long-distance circuits beeped and squeaked and bleated. It was taking longer than he'd ever thought possible. Forever. The signal he'd put into the phone lines was an electric snail---blue-white and livid---and it slowly crept through the connections.

His breathing was becoming harder and harder.

Suddenly, the connection clicked into place and the phone began to ring on the other end---flat, dead-sounding, far away....too far to be any help.

One ring.

No answer.

Two rings.

No answer.

Three rings.

Oh, God, be there---somebody!

Four rings.

"General Sellers's office, this is Matthew." The voice was flat and mechanical, but it was alive! It was alive!

It was a couple of seconds before Tom could control himself enough to speak.

"Listen---Matthew," he said in a harsh, quick whisper, "you don't know who I am, but I'm with Dr. Greene, and it's important that the general come down here to Mississippi and Doc Greene and stop what's going on---if he can."

"Could I have your name, please?"

"To hell with that! You've gotta listen to me! There's a situation developing...no, something's happened here that....Oh, shit! Just get the goddamn general down here as soon as possible. It's an emergency!"

"If this is some kind of a crank call......"

"No, this is not a crank! Just do what I'm asking you to do. Get the general down here---and tell him to bring help---I don't know what kind---but hurry, hurry! It's a matter of life and death!"

He jammed the receiver back into its cradle and returned the phone to the desk.

Is it enough? Will the SOS get through?

"You've done all you can," she said.

"Did I, Nikki? Did I?"

She kept her back to him. Her voice sounded wounded. "Will they take us away now---like Pham says?"

He sighed. "Who knows? You all have probably gotten so powerful that nobody can do anything with you. I'm sure they'll take me away, since nobody else was supposed to be involved in this thing except Father-Doc."

"They'll try to do something with us."

He shrugged and said nothing.

"Pham won't let them."

"Yeah, he'll only kill the first person that touches you guys."

She came to him and stood in front of him. "Tom," she said, shyly.

"What?"

"Will you stay with me?"

He looked up at her. He could see her love for him in her eyes, and he knew his own eyes said the same thing. He reached out and took her hand. It was cold and trembling. "If I can. Yes, I'll stay with you for as long as I can."

She knelt before him and placed her head in his lap.

Tam looked up at the dark somber walls of the little room. It was then that he realized he was crying. His breath was rushing hoarsely through him. His heart was thumping wildly.

Her voice rose out of the deep silence like a cunning silver fish breaking the waters of a still lake. "Tom, the day is done. It's dark and cool outside. I'll wake one of the others to watch over the house and Pham. Will you walk with me? It may be our last chance."

He rose and stretched. "Yes. Yes, I'd like that."

"Go and I'll be there soon."

He walked through the silent and dark house as if he were all alone in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. His steps were leaden and as loud as cannon shots. All sounds inside the house seemed amplified, bangingly loud. It seemed an army of trapped demons were crying out for release. This house, which had once been such a happy place, was now a chamber of horrors. Pham was glad to be free of it as he stepped outside in the cool night air.

A pale circle of a moon sat placidly in the sky. It was as cold, as bright, as unfathomable as the smile of a Cheshire cat. There was nothing---not even distance---between Tom and the cold room. It seemed he could reach out and touch it. Stars flickered around the fat, placid orb like children of light in a dark sea, dancing. Alive, as vital as the breath in his lungs and the beating in his heart.

A breeze was rising off the swamps. It smelled like dark, brackish water, mold and mildew. The water's surface would be rippling with the motion or lurking creatures who could bite and poison.

The whole world was shushed and quiet. Even the multitude of night animals and bugs was quiet. The day was not fully dead, and the night was an infant. It was the shadowtime, light and dark jibble-jabbling together like different oils.

He sighed and gave himself over to the night. He could do nothing else. In its infancy, it was pale and weak, but it held portent. It demanded surrender.

The moon was cold and lifeless. There was no air there, and he would die quickly. Around him, in the lurking dark of the swamps, he would drown in the murky waters, or be bitten and eaten totally by the wild creatures, be sucked down by the sand. Death and terror hung around him everywhere. Yet he would welcome it all rather than face the inside of the house again.

He wasn't alone.

She was beside him in a whisper of movement. She took his hand and started to lead him off into the night. At first, she held him tightly as they made their way through the trees. Then, where the wood was at its thickest, she let him go and ran a few steps ahead into a clearing. The moonlight bathed her, glowing like a bath of silver water. She spun her arms and stretched them.

"Oh, I love this place so! I love what I am....what you helped me to become. I love what you are. And this world!"

He was silent and brooding. She stopped and looked at him.

"Our world, I mean."

She ran back and leaped into his arms. She touched his face, and her touch was as soft as a beam of gentle light. The sun's glow was in her eyes. Her skin glowed fresh and clean. She bent down and kissed him.

She was like that the first day he saw her. On that summer's day, so long ago, in the Alpine meadow. He turned away biting back bitter tears.

"Please don't cry, Tom."

She moved away from him and leaned against a tree, looking at him, absorbing his sadness.

"You said that I'm powerful. That there's no one who's got powers such as mine. Perhaps, I'm powerful enough to escape what's going to happen. Maybe I'm powerful enough to stay with you."

He turned from her, doubts clouding up his mind.

She came up behind him and laced her arms around his chest and buried her face in his back.

"Dear Tom, I know what's in your mind. I know you love me and that the love makes you feel fear and guilt. You don't know what's going to happen to us, and you're fearing the worst. You fear nobody, not Pham and not me, nobody, will escape what's likely to happen. And you brought it on us. Well, not really. Pham did. I don't know how.....why....but Pham sees things in a narrow way, maybe you taught him that."

His eyes widened and he shook his head.

"No, not you....all of you...Big People, as we used to say. This is your world; you've built it and sometimes you......all of you see things in narrow ways---black and white. Maybe that's why it was easy for Pham to. Or maybe it was because he was lonely and jealous."

"Jealous?"

"Jealous of you and I---us. I think he thought that he and I would...." She shook her head, her blond hair moving like fast water in the moonlight. No, I don't think he became----what he is now because of that. I think his jealousy was only a trigger, a.....what's the word?"

"A....catalyst?"

She nodded. "Yes. Whatever, it was easy for him to...." She searched for words, but those she found she feared. They needed, however, to be said. "He turned....evil, and he must be....helped. You did the only thing you could do. I love Pham, and I feel----sorry for him, but I know he's got to be stopped."

He turned around and caught her by both shoulders. He lifted her and held her above him. "If only I could be sure of what'll happen to you!"

Twin streams of tears reflected in the moonlight on the silvery planes of her face.

"I know it had to be done to help Doc. But..."

She struggled out of his grip and backed away from him. For a moment she studied him, shaking her head. Then she ran to his arms, laid her head on his chest.

Her voice was small, tiny, as fragile as a bird's wing; yet was strong enough to carry her conviction that the wing would carry a bird for as long a distance as she needed to go. "If I knew that we'd be together, no matter what happens, I wouldn't care what happened to me."

He lifted her face and bent down to kiss her, softly, timidly.

Breaking out of the kiss, he whispered, "I don't care what you are, who you are. We can't be apart---not ever." He kissed her again, long and tender, then held her back so he could gaze into her eyes. "Tammy, let's get away from here now! There's nothing more I can do. The general's been called. He'll come here and find out what's going on and change things. Nothing'll ever be the same her again. But you and I can get away. Run. They won't find us, I promise."

She broke out of his arms and backed away. "And Pham? What's going to happen to Pham and the others?"

"It doesn't matter---not to us---not anymore. There's nothing you can do for them."

"But...."

He pulled at her and started to run. She followed a few steps, then held back. Their arms stretched out, then their hands dropped. He feared he'd lost her forever.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't...." She pulled a hand from his and turned back to look at the house. "I can't just leave them."

He took hold of her again. "You don't have a choice. Come with me, now!"

She fought against him, but she wasn't strong enough and he dragged her from the grove of trees into an open clearing. They were running up a slight rise and just beyond them, on the crest of the rise, was the wire fence. It glistened in the silvery moonlight like a ghostly barrier.

Then there was a blast of wind, strong enough to stagger them. A giant, towering pillar of fire erupted in front of them.

"Pham!" she screamed.

A powerful voice boomed out of the fire. "You can't leave here. I won't allow it!"

Tammy screamed his name again. Tom grabbed her roughly and pushed her behind him. "Run!" he ordered. "Run!" He faced the strange fire. It was moving toward him. He could feel the heat of it. The air was full of the stench of singed hair. "Pham, listen to me...."

"I'm not going to listen to you, you traitor!"

"Pham----brother----" It was Tammy. She hadn't run. She was crouching behind Tom.

"I'm your kind!" Pham bellowed. The voice was earth-shattering. The very ground seemed to shake. "The Big Ones made us what we are. These puny humans." An arm of fire slithered away from the pillar and came towards Tom. He cringed away from it. Pham laughed. "They made you! But I'm the instrument of what you can become. I'm the bringer of power."

The arm of fire hovered over Tom. He could feel his skin begin to sear. He looked at Tammy. "Please," he whispered. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking over his shoulder at the pillar of fire. She was undisturbed by the heat, and there was no fear in her. Cool and calm, she stood. Her eyes were stone-hard. "Tammy, run," Tom begged her. " I can't...." The words were coming harder now. Each word was extracted like a rotten tooth. He could hardly breathe. The heat was stifling, suffocating. If I don't get my ass out of here now, he though, I'll die, roasted. "Please!"

Still she didn't look at him. She shook her head. Her eyes never left the pillar. She put a hand on his shoulder, and she tried, slightly to push him away, then she hissed at him. "No, Pham, I can deal with him alone. You run. Go get Father-Doc. Get help." There was only the faint nuance of a smile. She raised her head and shouted to Pham. "Pham, you're my brother. I love you and I want to help you."

"How? By bringing others to harm us?" He laughed. "To try to harm us. They can't harm us."

"Run Tom. They won't harm us. They'll help us."

"You've helped them to die. You've just killed more of your friends. They can't stop me. I'm indestructible!"

"Run, Tom!"

He couldn't take the heat anymore. He didn't want to leave her, but she wasn't making any effort to move away from Pham. He could have lifted her and carried her. But that wouldn't have been right. She was in her place. He sensed that. He sensed that she was doing what she'd been left no choice but to do. He couldn't stay. He turned and ran. There was nothing more he could do. The heat was killing him. He ran for the shelter of the trees. It was dark beyond the fire's light, and the darkness promised coolness. As he ran for it, suddenly, his legs buckled and threw him forward. He rolled on the hard ground. Splinters of bright pain exploded and ran through his body. He screamed and rolled, clutching at his legs, holding them close to his body. Above the pain, he could hear laughter, low and throaty.

He didn't know how long he lay there. It couldn't have been more than seconds. When he opened his eyes, it was a bright day. He was lying face down in deep mud. He was in an open space, surrounded by high grass. There wasn't any wind. The air was still and thick, oppressive. He rolled over so he could look up. There were a few puffy white clouds, but mostly the sky was wide and open. It was a pastel blue. There was silence. It was hot and humid, and Tom began to sweat. He was drenched in seconds, swimming in wet clothes. Fear began to rattle through him. He had an idea where he was, and it sure as hell wasn't in a Mississippi night. Deep in the silence, there came another sound. It was distant and soft, but he knew what it was. He recognized it from a deep pit of bad memory. It was the wop-wop-wop of a Huey helicopter. He knew where he was now.

Vietnam.

Then he heard the laughter again. He sat up and looked over the grass, perfectly still in the thick air. A man was walking towards him. The man wore a khaki uniform and had a pith helmet on of the same color. He carried an AK-47 at the ready. Tom could see the yellowish-brown face under the helmet's brim. The eyes were dark slits. The cheeks were broad. A sadistic smile curled the lips.

Tom knew the man was an NVA soldier bent on killing him.

He looked down at his own hands. They were empty. He was dressed as a US soldier. He was in a uniform of green turned dirty black with his perspiration. He had a pistol belt on, had a canteen and ammo pouches, but he was weaponless. Nothing. Not even a Mark II combat knife.

He decided to run. He got up, but his legs refused to hold him, and he toppled. He tried again and again. He just couldn't do it. The man came on. Tom pounded at his useless legs in frustration. He was crying now, tears mixing with sweat on his face. Blood pounded at his temples, and he could taste it in his mouth. His heart raced. It threatened to explode.

The NVA man came on until he was within close proximity. Then he stopped. Tom looked up at him. His image was distorted by tears. The North Vietnamese looked at Tom and laughed. There was no humor in his laughter. He lowered the AK-47 at Tom. The open bore looked as big as a cannon. "Now, Father-Tom," he said, "it's your time to die." The rifle came up. The black hole centered on Tom's chest. Tom cringed and tried to hide. He heard the scream rise in his throat.

Then suddenly he was out of it. It was gone. He was still screaming. The scream was roaring loud, arcing high overhead, like a frightened bird. It was night. He was surrounded by trees. He still covered with sweat, and a cool breeze blew against him. It chilled the sweat of on his body. He shivered violently. It was too much for him. He felt himself sinking into darkness.

"Jay-zus! Didja hear that scream?" the man asked Buck.

They were near the fence. There'd been laughter and joking as they left Piney Acres. The closer they got to the Doc's place, the quieter they'd become. As they stood in a rough semicircle, staring at the fence across the open "no-man's-land," they were quiet. Tom's scream arced through the night.

Buck shook his head. His face was dark, its muscles tight, the lines punctuated. The tension on it was clear. His eyes were wary and quick. "Let's see whut th' 'ell we kin find out." He led them to the fence and started over.

Pham fired before Tom vanished. As one went away, another appeared. Tammy. She stood where Tom had been. The bullet caught her thigh in the shoulder. It spun her halfway around and she almost fell. She touched the ground for support, then turned back to face Pham. There was a spreading stain at her shoulder. It was brilliant red.

"Is this what you want, Pham?" she calmly asked him.

The hot, Delta day vanished, and they were standing in a brilliant white laboratory. Pham was still the Vietnamese man, but now he was dressed in a long white coat. He was smiling and unctuous. In one hand he carried a clipboard. Beside him was one of the giant life-support capsules the children had lived in. He was pointing to it and smiling at her.

"Is this what you want?" he asked her.

Tammy was shivering. She too was dressed in a lab coat. She knew what would be in the capsule. She didn't want to look. She felt Pham propel her to look through the small glass door in the capsule.

Inside, on a blinding-white blanket, was a blob of yellowish-brown flesh. It was shapeless and formless. The largest piece could have been a body, and there were appendages that could have been arms and legs. She'd seen it before, but something about it was different; that compelled her to look. It had a head and when it turned the head, she could see it had a face----her face, the face she was wearing now! She screamed. In blind anger, she ran at Pham, flailing at him with her fists. He laughed and blocked her blows with the clipboard.

Suddenly, she was alone in the Mississippi night. She stumbled and fell. Dust rose and caked around her tears. She could hear Pham's laughter, and she looked up. There was the pillar of fire again. Then it collapsed into a ring. A ring of fire spread around her.

Pham's laughter seemed to come from everywhere.

"Whut th' fuck....?" Buck stopped in the thick shadows of the woods. The other men were in a ragged line to his left and right. They stopped also, without any orders from him. Pham's laughter echoed in the still night. The men were fearful. They clung to the hard trunks of the trees or knelt on the earth---needing to touch anything that was a part of the familiar world. Something solid in a storm. Buck, the least susceptible of men, pumped his sawed-off shotgun once, kicking a cartridge up into the chamber. Fear clattered through his body as it did the others', but he had control over it. "C'mon," he growled. Around him, the other men took safeties off, cocked hammers, readied their weapons for firing. They started moving forward.

There was a clearing ahead of them. Normally, it was a pleasant glade in the woods, a brief break of dappled light. Now it was a working nightmare. Fire ringed it. A fire that hovered in the air and didn't burn the earth. A young blond girl knelt in the circle of unearthly fire. The night was full of lunatic laughter.

Some distance away from them, on the other side of the circle of fire, Tom struggled up out of the deep darkness. He could hear the laughter. Nothing made any sense to him. He was out, but at the same time he was there. He could hear, yet what he heard was something right out of a nightmare world. An evil force that he was powerless against. Then there was a blessing in the darkness, a warmth upon the cold. He thought of her. Tammy! Her name rolled over and over in his brain. Wakefulness pushed back the dark. Thousands of points of light, as sharp as needles, exploded in his mind. He was awake. Tammy! Tammy! He looked up. She was in front of him. She was only a few feet away from him. She sat on the grass in the clearing, sat easily, like a girl resting at a family picnic. But she was encircled by fire. She needed him. Needed his help. Needed him to be awake. He rolled over to a sitting position. Pain roared in his legs, and he knew they were not working yet. The muscles fluttered and jumped with pain. He pounded on them with doubled-up fists. He was soaked in sweat, blinded by tears of frustration.

"Tammy!" he called. Her face came up. It glowed in the light of the fire. It was yellow and bright. Twin streams of tears marred each cheek. The light danced in them.

"Run!" she cried to him.

"I can't!" He started to crawl toward her.

Pham's laughter increased. "He can't," he said.

A stream of fire broke from the ring. It rolled across the ground towards Tom. He tried to move, but it wavered with him. Whatever direction he moved in, it followed. He froze.

The men on the other side of the clearing heard Pham's angry worlds. They saw the probing tongue of fire go into the darkness. In its light, they saw Tom lying on the ground. One of the men said in a breathless voice, "Damn! Buck, let's get our asses outta here!"

It was getting harder for Buck. His control was weakening. He was trembling. Shit! He'd never trembled before. Nothing had ever made him tremble. Nothing. He set his jaw and gritted his teeth. He was angry and bitter over his weakness. He shook his head to shake it away. Blindly he ran towards the girl.

"Buck, no!" the others called after him.

The tongue of fire came closer. There was nothing Tom could do to escape it. The pain in his legs worsened. He was almost blind with it. He could barely manage speech through it. "Tammy, Pham's doing this to me.....to my legs!"

Pham's booming voice split the night. "I'll deal with you when I've finished with the others."

Buck halted at the ring of fire. The heat was intense, searing. He covered his face with his arms, and quickly the heat burned through the fabric of his jacket. The fire grew taller. It roared upwards as if it were a gas jet. The men with Buck had hung back. They were still in the dark protective ring of the trees. Now they retreated, fighting a collective desire to flee. Those who could find their voices begged Buck to run; everyone prayed for him.

He looked back at them, as if hearing them. Did he? He shook his head.

The rising jet of fire sprouted arms up high, ten, twelve feet from the ground. It became like a great, towering, burning cross.

The men fell to their knees. Buck turned back and faced the fire. He felt the flames scorch his skin, felt them singe his hair. He started to plunge through, but he didn't get far. He was halted by a change in the flame.

The towering cross was transformed into a giant figure. It was an image straight out of Hell. The fire shifted and changed. The colors deepened and darkened, became varied. The flame became a giant man. The man was at least eight feet tall. He was a towering demon. The details of his physical makeup began to emerge. He was a giant black man, a Watusi. He wore a grass skirt and a vest made of leopard skin. There were rings of flowing fur around his wrists and ankles. His skull cap was made of leopard fur topped with elaborate feathers. His face was painted in grotesque patterns. In his hands he carried a long shield and a spear. He threw his head back and sent a yell rising up into the air. Then he crouched and came at Tom with his spear leading.

Tammy could see the energy Pham was spending in building the giant Watusi warrior. It was weakening his other efforts. "Now, Tom, run!" she called. "He's busy with the others. Run!"

Some of the pain was slipping away from Tom's legs, and some of his power was coming back.

Buck brought up his shotgun. The giant Watusi laughed. He knocked the rifle aside with his spear. Then the spear point rose in the air. It was coming down. Buck's heart was the target. He fell backward, sprawling, but he couldn't escape it. He screamed as the spear point came closer.

One by one the other men woke up from the nightmare. One put a shotgun to his shoulder and fired without aiming. The shot scattered and a good share of the pellets hit the Watusi. The report brought others awake. They began to fire. The Watusi recoiled from the bullets. He didn't back away. He didn't run. He lowered his arms and looked at the tree line. The bullets kept pocking into his body, each one as an explosion of flesh. The black skin cratered. A blossom of pink flesh bloomed in each crater, and blood erupted from each one, spurting into the air. The Watusi's dark body was glistening with the blood that ran from a score of wounds, but nothing phased him. He stood his ground, though his body twisted and turned with the impact of the bullets. He just looked around; then he began to grin. He raised his arms and threw back his head and laughed crazily. Then he was gone.

The fire was gone. It was now dark and quiet, except for Tammy's sobs.

Tom stood. His legs were strained and aching, but they felt normal enough for him to walk on them, even to run on them. He took a few unsteady steps and ran to Tammy and lifted her to her feet.

"He....he....." She sobbed.

"It's okay. You're okay." He wrapped his arms around her. "Let's get the hell outta here." He propelled her forward into the dark of the night. "He's not as powerful as he thinks. He can't handle more than one problem at a time."

The men looked at each other. Darkness hid their faces, except for the whites of their popped eyes. The air was electric and dry. It seemed to crackle with a life all its own. It seemed ready to explode of its own accord. The men were full of fear and wonder, both so great and pounding that they couldn't deal with them.

Buck squared his shoulders and exhaled. His breath was raw, and it whistled as it came out. His muscles ached; his mind was confused and tumbling. "Holy Fuck! Dorian was tellin' th' truth!" he whispered to the others.

One of the men handed him his shotgun. "Lezz go git 'im, boys." He looked around at them. "Lezz git that fuckin' doc. Sonofabitch!"

They all joined him in a yell and then started forward across the clearing.

"Those men," Tammy said between gulps of air.

"I don't like 'em, either, but they are saving our asses. As long as he's worrying about them, he'll leave us alone. C'mon, run for it!"

Buck and his men stopped in the middle of the clearing. There was a line of lumpy white things on the ground. He gestured to the other men to hold their places while he stepped forward. As he got closer, he saw the white things were bodies. There were six of them in the line. All dressed in white. Boots and pant legs stuck out from the bottom of the sheets. Buck knew the uniform, knew it without seeing the emblem on the chest. These were Klansmen. He couldn't see their faces, because they were hooded, but he knew what he'd find if he lifted the hoods. He forced himself to kneel beside one and pull back the hood. His worst fears were realized. The face behind the hood was his own!

"Whazzit?" someone called from behind him.

Buck stood. "Somebody's tryin' t' fuck wi' our brains. Don't believe a goddamn thing y' see from hereon out." He started out the other side of the clearing, followed by the men.

Nobody saw the bodies disappear from the ground behind them.

Tom and Tammy broke from the trees. The house was clearly visible, but it was still some distance away. Tom's legs were beginning to show some fatigue. It didn't startle him. It was the normal fatigue. There was no mystery in it. With the house so close, and his legs giving out, Tom slowed and held Tammy back.

Then the world before them changed. There was bright, blinding light. The heat---once again---of a Mekong Delta day.

"Oh, fuck, no!"

"Wha....?" she cried.

The tall grass was full of khaki NVA soldiers. They were firing at Tom and Tammy. He pulled her to the ground.

"Fight him," he yelled to her. "Fight him."

Pham's voice boomed out of the sky. It rose over all other sounds. There was no sound in the world except his voice. "You betrayed me, us, and for that you're going to die!"

Tammy choked. Her throat was tightening on her. She reached for it. Her breath was coming shorter and thinner.

"Fight him!"

The man on Buck's right drew up short. He barked out a single yell, then made a short gurgling sound. He staggered and turned to Buck. His hands came up and took Buck by the shoulders. Blood came out of his mouth. Buck mused on how much it looked like chocolate syrup in the dark. He stepped back, and the man fell, facedown. There was a spear sticking in his back!

"Oh, shit!" someone said.

"Is right," Buck added.

There was a yell in the darkness, then another. Then the dark world around them erupted in high, savage yells, one building on the other.

The little band of men clenched together, their weapons facing outward.

"Wha' th' hell is it?"

"Don't know."

All they knew was that they were surrounded by an army of dark figures. Hundreds of feathered headdresses bounced in the air. Hundreds of spears rattle against shields. The army began a new chant: "Wa-TU-si, Wa-TU-si, Wa-TU-si...." It went on and on like a train barreling down a track, roaring closer, ever closer. Then it charged the small group of men. They all fired into the shadows. They heard the splat of their bullets hitting objects, but they couldn't tell what the objects were. Trees? Flesh? They had no way of knowing. There were screams, and the air was rich with the smell of blood. The shadowy figures of the screaming Watusis came on. Spears were raised and jabbed forward. Buck and his men shrank into a tighter and tighter fist.

Her will rose above her fear. Tammy concentrated on Pham, on overpowering his mind. She felt the borders of his world weaken. They frayed. The dark Mississippi night began to creep through the bright day. He was fighting her, fighting her will; and she could read the start of panic in his mind. This made her press harder. She doubled her will. Big tatters began to appear in the fabric of his picture. The cold Mississippi breeze fluttered through. It took a toll on her and she fainted away.

Tom's arms were around her. "C'mon," he was saying to her, "Let's get to the house. He's busy with the others. C'mon."

He was stumbling along, but making an effort to run. Tired as she was, she could keep up with him. They staggered forward. Ahead of them, lights through the trees. The house. They broke into the open. Greene's house was ablaze with light. Every light in the place was on.

"C'mon," Tom shouted.

Smoke was beginning to cling to the areas under the trees. The air became as close as that of a too-small, stuffy room. The heat wash heavy, the smoke choking thick.

Bodies were stacked around them. Most were dark and feather-decorated. Some were those were Buck's friends. Spears poked out of their bodies. For a few quiet moments, the attack had stopped. It wasn't over, however. The dark shadowy figures still gathered in the trees. The spears were still raised. Their points caught the moonlight and reflected it back coldly.

"Wha' th' fuck?" one of the men asked.

"Don't ask me," Buck replied. He looked at the faces of the other men. They were all pale and haggard. Blood was splattered on them. There was a frantic wildness in their eyes. "But it ain't gonna stop us. I don't give a shit what he throws at us. It ain't gonna stop us!"

The wild laughter began again.

Buck pumped his shotgun and faced the trees. The Watusis didn't come. They'd disappeared from the edge of the woods. They were gone. Only the laughter remained.

"C'mon. It's not much further. C'mon. You can make it." Tom was pulling Tammy along. She'd stopped, hesitated a moment, looking at the house. A long-fingered, frail hand came to her half-opened mouth. "C'mon, baby."

She looked at him. Her eyes were wide with fright. "He's coming! I can feel him!"

And he loomed in front of them. The Vietnamese man was there, bigger than before. He was now a giant. He laughed and turned his AK-47 on them. Tom pushed Tammy behind him, tried to face the nightmare. Pain shot through his legs, and he fell, grabbing at them and doubling up. He rolled on the ground, screaming. The giant NVA soldier laughed. He turned the weapon on Tammy. She crouched back, small and weak.

"I can beat you," he said. There was cruelty in his voice. It was thick and syrupy.

She tried to speak, but he was controlling her. She could say nothing. She couldn't fight him.

He fired, but there wasn't a shot. There wasn't the shock of the bullet. She wasn't knocked backwards. A light came from the end of his weapon and a "whooshing" sound. Something gripped her, enclosed her. She felt herself changing. Her flesh was melting away. She was dissolving. Fear shot through her. She knew what she was changing into. She felt her arms and legs shrivel. She felt the blobbishness of her body increasing. He was changing her back to that thing in the capsule. She screamed, but she had no voice. It was taken away from her.

"No!"

It was Greene's voice.

Her agony stopped. Tom's agony stopped. For a moment there was nothing in the night but silence.

Pham turned and looked at the house.

Dr. Greene stood on the porch. He looked frail and weak. He was dressed in his pajamas. He carried Pham's former body in his arms. "Stop this, please, Pham. You've done enough already. In God's name, stop this now." His voice was low and level, but it carried clearly through the night. It was an effort for the weak old man to carry his burden. He came down the steps slowly and walked across the grass to the giant Pham. "Pham," he whispered, "you've been like a son to me. Even when you were like this, I loved you. I thought you loved me. If you did, if you ever did, and if there's any of that love left---a drop, something---please, I'm begging you....please, stop this killing." Now he stood in front of the giant.

Pham began to dwindle back to his normal size.

Tammy reassembled her parts and returned to the blond girl.

The pain was gone from Tom's legs. He rose and stood, shakily. He held on to Tammy for support.

Pham reassumed the shape of the blond boy from the meadow. He stepped up and touched the misshapen body in Greene's arms. The shape that had once been his, that had once been him. He looked up into Greene's eyes.

Greene said, "Pham, I know you didn't mean to....kill.....to become what you became. You don't know. You just don't know. You've got so much to learn."

Pham looked at Greene. There was pride and anger in his glance, but he couldn't maintain it for long. He dropped his eyes, then his head. For one second, he was Greene's adopted son again.

Buck turned the corner of the house. He stopped in his tracks and shouted, "There 'e is! Waste tha' fucker!"

He leveled his shotgun and fired once.

There was a yellow-white explosion at the muzzle, then eerie silence.

Dr. Greene was lifted by the force of the blast. He was jerked up like a rag doll on a string. Blown back against the steps. And Greene wasn't the only one wounded.

Pham was hit also. Part of the blast struck him and tossed him over into the grass.

There were two other men with Buck, all that was left. They ran for the house. Buck stopped and leaned over Greene's body. He snorted, turned, and followed the others into the house.

Tammy dropped by Father-Doc's body.

From the waist up there was nothing but an oozing, raw wound. Nothing was left of Father-Doc.

Buck and his men were wild with terror and blood. They rampaged through the house. They fired at everything. Their shots shattered mirrors and windows. They crashed down doors and panels. They shattered the door to the children's room and began to tear up the machinery. There was no more thought in them now than a bulldozer had.

The children themselves were huddled in the dark at the rear of the room. They clung to each other. One of them cried.

Buck turned at the sound. He fired blindly into the corners of the room.

Tammy's voice came into the children's minds. "Go, children. Fly up and away! Now!"

Pham pulled himself to his feet. He pushed Tammy and Tom away from Greene's body, then bent down and laid his head on the lifeless corpse. Slowly, he began to rebuild Father-Doc. When Greene looked as he had in life, Pham bent and picked up the body. He carried it towards the house. He was a small figure, struggling under the weight. A sad and forlorn parody of the deadly demon had had been only moments before.

Tammy and Tom followed him.

A fire had started downstairs.

Buck and his men were exhausted from their rage. They began to leave the house. Aside from the crackling of the fire, the place was silent. They had done their so-called job. As they were filing out the front door, they heard a noise from upstairs. They froze. The madness came back into Buck's eyes. He led them back up the stairs. Every man carried his weapon at the ready.

Tom and Tammy were standing at the door to Greene's bedroom. They watched as Pham placed Father-Doc's body back on his bed.

Buck screamed when he saw them. He raised the shotgun to fire.

Tammy stopped him. She put her will against him like a massive fist and tossed him back down the stairs. He knocked the others down as he fell.

Tammy left Tom's side and went to the head of the stairs. Buck and the other two men were crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the steps. Her face became cold and rigid.

Tom was at her side. "Tammy," he pleaded.

She stopped him. "They must pay for what they've done."

"Don't become like Pham was. Don't...."

"Get out of here now. Go!"

He was dazed and confused.

"Go!" she commanded.

He could do nothing to fight her. Her will was stronger, and he found himself running down the steps, jumping over the three corpses that lay there and racing through the flames. He was outside. The house was crashing down behind him. Once outside he thought of her. He turned and called her name.

"I'm right here." She was standing beside him.

"C'mon, let's get outta here." He took her by th e arm. She let him pull her along, as if, for a moment, she had no will of her own. They went toward the motorcycle.

Then she pulled away from him. "It's not finished here. I can't go. There are others."

He started to protest, but again he felt he had no will. She was driving him away. He fought against her. All he could manage to do was say what was in his mind, "Don't.....become....what.....Pham is."

She turned towards the house.

Inside, Buck was a mass of pain. He rolled up from under the other two men and tried to climb to his feet. He had to pull himself up, using the banister. The flames were crackling at his back, and the smoke made it hard to see anything. He thought he saw a girl float up the stairs through it. He couldn't be sure. His eyes stung and he was choking. He didn't know where his gun was. The two men with him were quiet, and he was sure they were dead. He knew he couldn't fight this anymore. There wasn't anything left to do but run. He started for the door, staggering, half walking and half dragging his feet.

Tammy was blind with anger as she stood over Greene's bed, watching Pham and Father-Doc. In Pham's mind there was nothing but cold, lonely pain. She knew the sear went too deep. He would never again be what he was before. The emptiness would be filled with anger and hatred.

Any future, she knew, would be without Pham. He couldn't ever be a part of this world again. She and the others would have to go on alone. And what would she be----what would all of them be----without Pham?

A raw shout from below: "I'll gitcha, you pieces o' shit!"

Pham acted like he hadn't heard.

Tammy's blind anger drove her. She knew she would kill this man. She knew she must. He was the one who had done this to them all. But it must be an adequate death. It must be suitable. She'd learned enough from Pham to realize that the man's mind held the answer. She probed it and found a suitable shape.

Buck was almost to the door. He was beginning to breathe easier. Then she appeared.

The shape was in the doorway. It was a Watusi warrior again, with the headdress and the shield and the spear, but this one was a woman. She was tall and shapely, tall enough to fill the entryway. She smiled at him as she raised the spear. He had no weapon with which to fight back. All he could do was cover his face and cry, "Hey, c'mon lady. We....we didn't....we didn't...."

The spear came forward. The giant woman-warrior didn't throw it or push it with all her might. She just let it come forward. The smile was still on her face. The point of the spear dipped down and went to Buck's stomach, then lower.

He felt the spearpoint touch his skin before the slight pouch of his belly. He looked through his fingers. She was smiling. "Nooooo," formed on his lips. It was the last sound he made.

She drove the spear in just above his penis. The point broke the skin easily, and the broad part of the point cut off his genitals totally. He screamed as he fell down. She raised the spear and jabbed it into his back. There was ecstasy for a moment. A heady exhilaration over the slaying. She could smell the blood, a sharp, coppery smell, as it flowed from the man. It was perfume and it shot through all the passages of her mind like a drug. She knew Pham's power and why he loved it so much.

"Don't!" a voice said.

It was Tom. He was somewhere in her mind, somewhere small and quiet. It was enough.

She drew back from her death-lust. The shape of death. She became again the girl int he meadow. And she trembled when she saw the man's body at her feet. She bit back tears and fled, running from the house.

Tom was outside. He hadn't left. He stood in the middle of the driveway. She came across the porch and ran down the steps and into his arms.

"I could," she whispered.

"I know, I know."

There was an explosion. Everything went light, and they were falling through space.

Tom was lying face down in mud. It was warm and bright. He could feel the sweat on his body. He knew where he was again. Vietnam. He looked up.

Tammy was there. She was wearing the NVA uniform now, and she carried the AK-47. She looked terrified and confused. Slowly, she brought the weapon around and pointed it at Tom. "He's making me do this," she cried. "Pham....don't....."

"Kill him!" It was Pham. He stood behind Tom.

"Fight him, Tammy. You can fight him."

The barrel came up. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

The bright sunny day was fractured. Its seams frayed and popped. The night and the burning house broke through. The two wills collided. They smashed against each other. Both Pham and Tammy were shaking with effort.

Tammy whispered savagely, "No, Pham. Don't harm Tom! Let him go free----away from here!"

"No! He's got to die with the others!"

"I'll take him from you."

Pham laughed. "You're not strong enough."

"Yes, I am."

"I'm stronger."

"You were stronger."

For moments they glared at each other. The flames of the burning house began to burn through more and more of the picture. Pham's picture was burning up. Then he rolled and bounced as if he were being swept away by a raging sea. He fought back, trying to push her back into the flames. His vision was locked into a steel gray curtain. He could do nothing but hold. Hold. And his grip on Tom was lost. "Go now, Tom!"

Pham was pulled into the flames.

The iron gate hung open.

The long black limousine pulled off the highway smartly. It came through the two stone columns and threw up a curtain of loose gravel. Pebbles clattered against the stone columns. The driver didn't slow down until he was nearly on top of the tight group of men standing in front of Doc Greene's house. The house was a still-smoking ruin. The men scattered in all directions as the car squealed to a stop. A small cloud of dry, white dust rose up in front of the car.

The driver quickly got out of the car. He was dressed in a somber black uniform and wore a little cap. He attempted to open the passenger door. The passenger was quicker by the wink of an eye. He was coming out of the door by the time the driver got there.

The passenger was a tall, white-haired man. He carried his years and weight with great presence and bearing. He wore an expensive, elegantly cut business suit and a black hat. He paused for a moment outside the door, looked around at the men who were standing there watching him. His eyes settled upon the sheriff. The sheriff was the only man wearing a uniform. The man from the car recognized him as the man in charge. He walked over to the sheriff. There was a solid purpose in his steps. Clearly, this was a man used to giving orders---and having them followed.

Sheriff Hogan had no idea who the visitor was, but in response to the man's manner Hogan immediately snapped to attention. It was a loose gesture, a little sloppy and somewhat comical. But it was genuine and instinctive. He tipped the brim of his hat.

"Mornin' sir," he said.

"Sheriff, can you tell me what the hell happened here?"

"Oh, sure, sure."

The man's hand prowled in his pocket, seeking out his identification. "Here," he said, opening his wallet and showing the card to the sheriff. "I'm General Sellers. This," he stretched out his arm to the smoldering ruin, "is.....used to be....my project."

"Oh, yes, sir. Sorry, sir, but y'know how these things are."

"Absolutely! Security is vital, yes. If anybody understands that I do." He slipped his wallet back into his pocket. "All right, getting back to what happened here....."

"Well, we ain't too sure 'bout that, sir." Hogan looked away and spat a stream of brown tobacco juice into the grass. "We don't know a whole lot 'bout it ourse'ves. We saw th' fire las' night an' we got th' volunteer fire department out here soon as we could, but it was already too late. Th' place jus' wen' up like a firecracker on th' 4th." He squinted in the direction of the ruined house.

"What started it?"

"We don't rightly know that neither, sir. Th' only thing we know fer sure is it went up mighty quick. Lak' an 'splosion or somethin'." He spat and ducked his head again. "An' we found more bodies inside than we were lookin' fer."

"Really?"

"Really, sir. Seems some o' th' local boys was up here fer some reason or 'nother."

"And the.....freaks....did you find them, too?"

"We did, sir." He pointed at the back of the house. "They wuz all in their machines at th' back o' th' house, 'cept fer th' one that could get 'round. He wuz out 'ere on th' grass. He'd been shot."

Wide-eyed, Sellers turned. "Shot?"

Hogan nodded.

The general suddenly looked away. Little worry lines played on the surface of his skin. "Weren't there any survivors?"

"Jus' this hippie-type feller who used t' he'p Doc out some. Now, we got 'im out there in th' car." He pointed to his black-and-white, sitting off to one side. "Don't believe you'll git much outta 'im, sir." He laughed, a loud, crude laugh like the cackle of a warlock. "He's kinda popped 'is cork. A-runnin' 'round 'ere yellin' 'bout 'powers' an' 'children' an' some chick called 'Tammy.'"

Sellers looked at the car. He pressed his lips together and made a little, squeaking noise. "So, what happens to him now?"

"Well, sir, he's a disabled vet'ran an' the Vee-Ay hosp'tal's got someone comin' over t' git 'im."

Sellers nodded, absentmindedly. He was looking back into the ruins. He thought of what they meant to him, to his possibilities. What the sheriff had said didn't register for a long moment. When it did, he looked up. "Is he responsible for the fire?"

"As far as we know, he ain't."

Sellers walked closer to the house; the sheriff close on his heels.

"Mind if I ask ya somethin', sir?"

"What?"

"Jus' whut th' hell was this project o' yers?"

The general shrugged, seemingly preoccupied with the scene of destruction before him. "I can't tell you any more than you already know, I'm afraid. Dr. Greene was simply in charge of caring for some poor freak children." He swung around on Hogan, slightly angry. "I assume he told you about them even though he was under strict orders not to?"

"He did, he did. But was there somethin' else goin' on 'ere? Some kinda weapon bein' tested?"

"Weapon?!"

"Lemme tell ya why I ask. See, we done found three bodies, down there, in that grove o' trees. They was cut t' ribbons. We cain't figger out how they got down there, lak' they was. I was hopin' you'd be able t' tell me somethin' 'bout it."

"I can't think of anything about this project that could produce that kind of.....No, I'm afraid there's no way I can help you, Sheriff. I can tell you that this particular project had nothing whatsoever to do with any weapon of any kind. I hope that helps." He turned and walked up on the porch.

The sheriff followed.

"Tragedy," Sellers mumbled. He breathed deeply, crinkling his nose at the smell of charred wood and human flesh. "Damn tragedy. I had no indication of anything like this. I got a regular report from Dr. Greene, and there was never any hint of any trouble or anything bizarre happening. Then I got this strange call last night, and I decided to come down here and investigate. I only learned of this tragedy as I was stepping off the plane in New Orleans." He shook his head. "God!"

Hogan cleared his throat. "Bein' as how this here wuz a fed'ral gov'ment project 'n all, th' county's gotta bow t' yer wishes on how t' handle lit." He dug his thumbs into his belt. "Whachoo want me t' do now?"

His brain quickly calculating, the general looked up. His eyes darted back and forth. His tongue protruded between his lips. After a few seconds, he said, "I don't want you to do anything. This is still government land. We'll just fence it up." This seemed to be the only logical thing to do. Forget this thing; hide it deep enough, and maybe everyone else will forget about it, too. "Fence it up, Sheriff, put a button on this whole thing. We'll just treat it as if it were nothing but a fire, an unfortunate, tragic event. Don't talk about the riddles of this occurrence, just let the whole thing die down. You get my drift?"

The sheriff nodded.

"Good man." The general put his arm around the sheriff's shoulder and led him off towards the cars. "You see, there's a new administration in power right now, and I don't think it wants to be burdened down with an incident like this---not right at this time. Understand?"

He stopped and looked back at the house.

"Well probably never know what happened here, and maybe that's for the better. Silence, that's the best thing for it. Silence."

With a quick nod to the sheriff, the general marched back to his limousine.

This time the driver had the rear door open for him. The general stopped before climbing into the car and called, "I'll have a security team here in the morning to start fencing this place up." He waved and disappeared into the car.

The limousine drove off at a slower pace than it had arrived, the driver pausing at the entrance to the highway, then slowly turning back in the direction they'd come.

Hogan watched the big, black car until it was out of sight. Then it turned and said, "Let's wrap it up, boys. It's all over."

6 months later.....

He was back now, thanks to time's ability to loop, jump, circle and bite back into its own tail.

Tom had almost lost track of just how many months it had been since it happened. To him it seemed longer, he knew, than it truly was. Those months in between then and now he'd spent them in a VA hospital. At first, it'd been confinement in hell, because nobody listened to him. Oh, they paid attention to him, all right. Every day a doctor or a pimply-face grad student would come around and "talk" to him. The bastard would sit on his only chair, a plain, straight-backed wooden monstrosity, about as comfortable as he guessed a seat in hell must be.....cross his legs and ask him questions, all the time taking scores of notes on a pad on a clipboard. They all nodded a lot and smiled in that patronizing way those who are sure of their sanity use when they're talking to lunatics. They weren't scared of him----his profile wasn't violent---so they were never anything but polite and empathetic, though they kept him drugged just to be on the safe side. They gave him a nice rubber room to sleep in. And mushy, one-color meals were slipped through a crack in the door. He never saw who did it, some faceless person. He wasn't mistreated, but it was an agony for him all the same because nobody ever listened to him.

He was in a ward with other men who suffered from delusions, some of them terrifying and some of them quite harmless, even hilarious. They were all together not for the quality of their delusions, but for the fact that they had them. He never met any of these other men. He heard them at night, when all else grew quiet. Some of them laughed and some of them yelled, others just cried quietly and continuously. There was manic joy in the laughter, good anger in the shouting, but those who cried were suffering the most. Sure the others were crazy, too, but they seemed to be having a good time at it. At times their laughter was catching, and Tom could've joined them, except---except for the crying, those that cried. Their sobs split his heart wide open, infected him. He began to cry with them, not for the same reasons, but because he wasn't sure what they were crying about. He wasn't like them, because he knew what he was crying about: Father-Doc and Pham and the others.....Tammy....especially Tammy.

Some nights, when the ward was quiet, he dreamed, and that was almost as scary and as painful as his tears were.

He stayed, endured the meaningless conversations with the helpful people who came and talked to him every day, survived the agony of the long nights. He became numb enough to tolerate staying there forever, but one day he decided it was time to go, and he knew the way out; he'd known it all along, he'd just been hesitant to play the game they wanted him to play. It meant denying what he knew to be true. When he realized that no matter how passionately he told the story, they never listened to him, and would never believe him even if they listened, he saw his way out and knew it was time to take it. After all he was sick and tired of being her. He missed the outside world. So he played the game with them, a simple game, their game.

"I could've been mistaken," he said calmly one day to one of the doctors. It was said out of context as if it were only a casual thought. He kept his voice level and quiet, but he watched the doctor carefully for signs of excitement and anticipation.

His cure was miraculous from that point on. He was released not long after.

He never told anyone about his dreams, knowing they could negate his "cure."

But at night he saw the fire exploding in the sky. He saw the faces melting like wax too near the flame. He smelled the death and.....

(He woke up in the still night in a sweat, feeling the burn of the fire on his skin.)

Once he heard the flutter of wings rising into the clear night sky.....and someone called his name.

The checks piled up again. When he was finally released, he cashed them in and bought a Volkswagen bus. Tour the country, he told himself, forget the past; but his bus tour was in a straight line. It brought him right back to where it all happened.

Now there was a full moon again, and a whisper of thin, diaphanous clouds veiling a sky full of stars. A chilly and damp breeze came in from across the swamps.

He parked the bus by the stone columns and walked to the gate. There was a big white sign on the gate, and in big, bold, black lettering it warned: No Trespassing! U.S. Government Property! He stood there for a while, just looking through the bars of the gate. It was all quiet and lonely. There were no guards, no warning system, just that silly, little sign. After a while, he climbed up and over, dropping without a sound onto the gravel driveway inside. He walked up the driveway, his trembling getting worse as he neared the house. Everything came slamming back in his memory, all the loss, all the pain of this place. He stopped, still some distance away.

The wind whistled mournfully through the crumbling timbers of the once-stately house.

He went on and climbed the steps and stood on the porch and looked into the black pit of death beyond. He tried to remember all the sunny mornings when he'd had coffee with Doc here on this porch, but darker memories cast out the light, and no memory of sunlight could quell the night's reality.

Far away there was the soft, heavy roar of thunder and the brilliant flash of lightning.

He looked up into the night sky and felt the light kiss of little raindrops, barely more than mist.

It'll be coming down soon, he thought. Another rain.

He turned and walked away, turning up his collar, hunching his shoulders, trying to pull his head in, turtlelike.

What good had it done to come back here? It was all gone. She was gone. All it did was make it hurt worse. What a damn foolish thing to do!

Halfway to the gate, he stopped and looked back, just once---just once more, and again he felt the strange, drawing power of this place. It'd drawn him all across the country, and it still didn't want to release him. In the dark, with the rain riding in on the wind, he felt the bonds tightening around his chest. It was as if his name was being called by someone very far away, too far away to be clearly heard, merely a whisper on the wind. For one second, he felt a warm rush, and the beating of wings in the air. He wanted to call out her name, but he didn't. Insanity lay in that direction. He shrugged off the bonds and turned away in a rush of warm air, beating before the storm.

She's gone.

He barely made it back to the bus before the rain struck. It was winter, and these sudden, violent rainstorms were frequent. He'd been driving in and out of them for several days. Now he backed onto the dark highway, threw the bus into first gear, and took off, without taking one final look at the house.

He had recent experience in driving in the rain, but it was of little help in this majestically violent storm. It sent its rain down with crashing force, and the wipers, even at their fastest speed, couldn't keep the windshield clear enough for him to see in order to drive safely. He could see only a short distance ahead in the short, dim tunnel made by the headlights, and he figured he'd better pull off the road and let the worst of the storm pass. Something caught his eye up ahead. A sign hanging by the side of the road. He aimed for it, and pulled off onto a wide, gravel parking lot.

It was the old roadhouse they called Piney Acres.

But that wasn't what the sign read now. He squinted at it in the dark, through the distortion of the water on the windshield. He could just barely make it out. It read: Playtime Paradise.

What an odd damn thing to call a roadhouse!

Lights were on in the building. He could see the shapes of people moving around inside. The cool neon signs that used to advertise beer were gone from the windows. He felt hunger and decided he'd get out and have something to eat. He ran from the bus to the front door and threw it open.

It wasn't what he thought it would be, though. It was bright and cheerful inside. The bar was gone. Simple, light-colored tables were scattered across the floor. Brilliant lights shone from the ceiling. The floor was clean, glistening. Gay green and red and yellow decorations festooned the walls.

There were three young people sitting at one of the tables, two boys and one girl. All three handsome, almost beautiful, young people, finely made, with fair, white skin and clear blue eyes. The boy's hair was pale blond and worn long. The girl's hair was cut short and was crinkly-curly. They all smiled at him instantly, as if they knew him.

He stammered, "Uh.....do you guys serve food?"

"Normally, yes, but it's too late now. We do have some coffee, though," one of the boys had answered in unaccented American English. His voice was rich and firm.

"Guess that'll have to do."

The boy who'd spoken rose and went to a giant coffee urn.

Tom was careful not to stare, but he just couldn't resist looking again and again at these young people. They were all dressed in casual, sloppy clothes, jeans and sweatshirts and sandals; but they wore them with a casual elegance as if they were Sunday best. They all smiled. The atmosphere in the place was one of welcome. He felt good.

"Shut the door," the girl said, mischievously winking at him. "It's cold."

He shut it and walked on into the room. "And wet. That storm came up quickly." He smiled and they returned his smile. He felt comfortable as if he were home.

"They do that around here this time of year," the other boy said. He, too, looked at Tom with a knowing smile on his face. They all seemed to be teasing him as if they knew who he was.

"I'm sorry, you guys seem to know me, but I don't know any of you."

They looked at each other, grinning broadly.

The boy who'd spoke first said, "Follow me." He walked to the rear of the room, indicating that Tom should indeed follow him.

There, in an alcove hidden from general view, was a king-size framed portrait. At first Tom couldn't see what was in the picture, it was just a big black square, but as he moved towards it, slowly, details began to emerge.

"Get sis and tell her he's here," the boy said to the girl.

Close enough for the picture to emerge from the darkness, Tom stopped, staggered, trembling. The sudden sting of tears was in his eyes. His heart began to thump, as if it were trying to break out of the prison of his chest. His knees went rubbery, and his head became light and giddy. He felt himself falling down a long, dark tunnel. Afraid at first, he then felt a gentle hand of warm air breaking his fall, allowing him to fly.

In the fall he heard a voice, Tammy's voice, cry, "Fly away, children!"

Then she spoke softly to him through the haze. "But they couldn't, the poor things, because they hadn't seen what I'd seen, what you'd shown me."

"What happened?" he asked in his dream, his voice raw and urgent.

"I made them birds and we flew from the flames up into the night. We flew until our wings grew so tired we feared we would fall from the sky. It was becoming day then, and the sky was bright. Though we were still scared, we couldn't fly anymore, and we landed in a tree and rested. They were so scared. Always before they'd had the safety of their bodies, in the tight world of their capsules. They hated those bodies, but they were safe, and they always went back to them. Now, they knew those bodies were gone. They could never return to them. They cried then, fearing they would die without that anchor, unsure if they could exist forever in another body. They didn't know then, what they know now. That they were free, truly free. We thought we would lose our shapes, go back to what we were, fall from the trees and wallow in the mud until we died of exposure, of not being able to breathe---but we didn't. We clung together and cried and felt our spirits move to every part of the birds we were, until we realized that we were forever free to be whatever we wished.

"We didn't know where we were, but from our tree we could see the sea, and soon the morning sun danced upon it. That brought us some comfort. We were alive and well. And we were free. We never had to go back to being anything we di dn't want to be."

"What happened to Pham?"

She paused in the telling, and he thought he heard her gasp. Was it a sob?

"Pham isn't with us anymore. He chose to....die with Father-Doc."

There was a swirling silence, a rush of wings, then quiet.

"But you know what Pham said about power and fear?"

"Yes."

"He was wrong. I learned how wrong that morning. As we rested there in that tree, watching the sunlight dance on the sea, proud and happy in our newfound freedom, we saw there were boys below us, boys with guns. The urge to kill them---before they killed us---was great. We were so small and so weak. But we struggled against that. We had had enough of killing, but something had to be done to save us. I threw the force of my will against those boys, and they couldn't fight it. They lowered their guns. It's not power and fear, as Pham said. It's power, yes, we can't deny that. But it's power and love. Love is where we temper our power and shape the world so that it's a peaceful place for us. Like it is now."

Bright light pried open the corners of the darkness in his mind. He was lying on the floor in someone's arms. There was no fear in him. On the wall he could see the picture, the portrait in rich and loving detail of Dr. Reginald Greene, and on his lap in the picture sat the deformed Pham. They were both smiling directly at Tom, looking so real that he felt he could reach out and touch them.

A bronze plaque at the bottom read: "Father-Doc and Pham."

He clambered to his feet and turned from the picture. The boy was standing there. With a smile, he said, "I painted it from memory."

"Tammy?"

The boy smiled. "Yes, she's here. She's been with us all along, living, learning, and waiting for you. It was she who taught us to use the full extent of our powers to live and love. She's brought you back here to us, Father-Tom."

The back door opened, and an older, more beautiful Tammy stepped out. She carried a fair, blond baby in her arms. "Hi, Tom," she said. Tom knew he had come home!

THE END