Mason was standing back, watching the respirator. He kept having to remind himself to breathe as he willed the bag to rise and fall. He, too, was growing increasingly frustrated and more than a little embarra.s.sed.

Susan looked up from the body. She was debating whether to attempt another defibrillation. Emergency medical care had generally already ended at this point and it was simply a matter of p.r.o.nouncing death. She felt a wave of doubt wash over her as she stepped back from the table.

"Any suggestions?"

The question was directed at those present in the room, but it was Dr. Goldstein coming through the door who answered it.

"Yeah, how about burying that thing?"

Susan looked over at him. "Goldstein, I'm glad you're here," she said, trying to sound convincing, "we've got a patient in a p.r.o.nounced vegetative state-"

"Nurse," Goldstein interrupted, "what do you show for pulse?"

The nurse looked down at her clipboard, although that was unnecessary. "Zero."

"Respirations?"

"Umm, zero."

"Blood pressure?"

"None."

Goldstein peeled off the gloves he had just pulled on. "There you have it. I hope that's not why you called me in here, Susan."

Susan felt stubbornness war with her doubt, and the sarcasm in his voice increased that stubbornness. "David, we've seen several signs of life. I heard her cough in the morgue-"

Goldstein was incredulous. "You brought her up from the morgue? Have you lost your mind, Susan?"

Susan started to say something to defend herself, then snapped her jaw shut. Goldstein continued his sarcastic tirade. "Now, I know how precious your research is to you, but this is real-world, Susan. This person is dead, and none of your patented procedures are going to bring her back."

The silence was suddenly very loud in the room. Susan glanced down at the mangled corpse, the hot flush now traveling from the back of her neck to her cheeks. She wondered if her face was as red as her hair. She tried to salvage whatever dignity she could from the situation.

"Mason," she said calmly, her voice betraying only the faintest quiver. "Perhaps it was just the body settling as we discussed. Better to err on the side of caution. Would you please continue with the original arrangements for this body?"

Mason nodded, embarra.s.sed for himself but even more so for the doctor. He felt terrible at the humiliation he had caused her. "I'll get on it right away, Dr. Ryerson."

Susan nodded to the intern, the resident, and to the two nurses. "Thank you for your a.s.sistance. I'm sorry if I caused you any inconvenience."

She brushed by David Goldstein without another word.

Susan slowly pulled her lab coat back on. What in G.o.d's name had gotten into her? She was normally so calm, so logical, so rational. Yet she had just dragged a body out of the morgue and attempted to bring it back to life, a la Frankenstein. And to make matters worse, David Goldstein had been there to witness her folly. She was certain to hear about this at the next staff meeting.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a banging on the lab door. She had been so engrossed in self-reproach she had not heard the elevator. She looked out the window and was shocked to see Mason peering back at her, the gurney in front of him. She quickly opened the door, pulling both him and the body inside.

"Mason, what are you doing?" she exclaimed, "Have you lost your mind?"

Mason was apologetic but unrelenting. "I'm sorry, doc. I think something's going on here. I think you should hook this lady up to some of your equipment."

Susan was exasperated. She had already suffered enough humiliation for one day. She did not want to be seen smuggling bodies into her lab in broad daylight. In fact, she corrected herself, she did not want to be seen smuggling bodies into her lab at any time of day.

"Mason," she began, trying to sound calm and convincing, "This woman is dead. She's been dead for quite some time now. There's nothing we can do for her."

Mason's jaw was stubborn. "Then it won't hurt to hook her up to some equipment."

Susan started to argue, then relented. Nothing she was going to say was going to sway him. "Okay, we'll hook her up to an EKG one more time to see if we get anything. If not, we call it quits and I put her back on ice." She glanced over her shoulder. "But bring her in here, for G.o.d's sake. I can't believe you brought her up here."

Mason pushed the gurney into the next room and Susan pulled the door closed behind her. She used this room to conduct experiments on the effects of sleep deprivation on the immune system, and it was full of monitoring equipment for that purpose.

Susan pulled the sheet down from the woman's torso and placed the pads from the EKG on the corpse's chest, feeling mildly foolish as she did so. She flipped the switch to the monitor, and the display immediately settled into a flatline. She gazed at the screen for a few moments, then at Mason.

"How long are we going to wait until this convinces you?"

Mason glanced down at the hard, cold flesh, then at the glowing screen with the thin blue line running across it. He himself was starting to lose conviction. Perhaps he was just trying to make up for the damage he had caused in the emergency room. Perhaps he just didn't want to accept the death of this beautiful woman. Perhaps he should just let things go.

The single beep was very loud in the quiet of the room. Both pair of eyes turned to the monitor to watch the single jagged peak travel across the screen before it returned to flatline.

"That's probably a malfunction," Susan offered uncertainly in the silence.

"It's not," Mason said, his conviction returning. He glanced over at the edge of the gurney. "Look at that."

The bag of blood from the emergency room was still hanging from its hook. They had turned the stopvalve when all attempts to revive the woman had failed. The blood trapped in the tube remained. As both of them watched, the blood level in the tubing slowly dropped until it disappeared. Susan reached up and turned the stopvalve. The blood from the bag began to snake downward through the curving tube. The IV that had been so haphazardly inserted held and the blood disappeared into the woman's arm.

"The blood should be pooling underneath the skin." Susan said hesitantly, finding no signs that it was doing so. She glanced up at the bag, which was now a third gone. "Or not going in at all."

Another beep broke the silence and another jagged peak swept across the EKG screen. Susan stared at the screen, then down at the body in front of her. She was baffled by what was going on, but knew she was not taking this body back to ER. She turned to Mason. "Do you think you could *acquire' some more blood? Most of the samples I have up here are not sterile."

Mason nodded. "Sure doc, I can *acquire' anything you need." He took one last look at the body, then quickly disappeared.

Susan turned back to the body, which still looked like a cold, dead corpse. She tried to come up with a plausible explanation. She knew of cases where people had fallen into ponds or lakes and were trapped beneath the ice for several hours. Their vital signs slowed to nothing, including brain activity. Perhaps this woman was in a similar state, although it hardly seemed possible. If the woman were capable of being revived, she most certainly would sustain severe brain damage.

Mason returned in a frighteningly quick time considering the illegal activity he was engaged in. He carried four bags of thick, red blood. While Susan prepared to replace the original bag, which was now almost empty, Mason watched the blue flatline move across the screen. "Why don't you hook her up to the EEG?"

Susan glanced over her shoulder. "What?"

Mason motioned to the EEG. "Hook her up, see if you can get any brain activity."

Susan was still skeptical, still not quite accepting what was in front of them. "Well, the brain requires oxygen to function. If you don't have a pulse, and you don't have respirations, you're probably not going to get any brain activity."

Mason returned to his earlier argument. "What have you got to lose?"

Susan glanced over at the EEG. Mason was right. What did they have to lose? They had already stolen a body, four bags of blood, and jumped to some wild conclusions on what was probably a malfunctioning EKG. She sighed, then moved to the EEG. She attached the electrodes to the woman's temples, then stepped back.

Mason was standing ready and he flipped the switch on the monitor, causing the screen to spring to life. He stepped back in satisfaction.

"Would you look at that."

An even, sinusoidal pattern began snaking across the phosphorous screen.

Surprise was evident on Susan's face. She still sought a logical answer, although the logical answer was becoming less and less plausible.

"This machine could be malfunctioning, too."

She moved to study the readout. "But I don't think so. This pattern is entirely too regular, but not one I've seen before." Her voice trailed off as she touched the peaks on the screen. "These look like alpha waves, but far more exaggerated than normal." She stepped back, a thoughtful look on her face. "It's almost like a sleep disorder."

Mason glanced over at the body. Now his doubt was evident. "You're telling me she's just asleep?"

The pattern on the screen changed dramatically and the regular wave began arcing up and down the grid in an erratic pattern. Susan stared at the screen in dawning recognition.

"No, I'm telling you she's dreaming."

CHAPTER 4.

THE PRIEST WATCHED THE SMALL BOY and his groin stirred beneath his rough ca.s.sock.

A useless stirring it was, he knew, for he could have anything in this village except the boy.

The priest picked some food from his teeth with a twig and shifted his position slightly so he could watch the boy's father. The blacksmith was as dark as the child was fair, and as hairy as the boy was smooth.

The boy's mother came into view, carrying a basket of bread. The priest wondered if the bread was fresh and contemplated taking his tribute. His belly was full, however, so he turned his attention back to the boy.

Tall for his age, he was, slender and well formed. He helped his mother with the basket and the two walked around the thatched hut out of the priest's view.

The priest threw the twig to the ground. Now that his one appet.i.te was sated, it was time to sate the other.

The blacksmith watched his wife and son as he pounded the metal on the anvil in front of him. He wondered if the boy had taken his swim in the creek as required. His wife would see to that, he was sure.

The blacksmith, or "Hans" as he was known to the others, watched the priest slink away. He knew that some young girl in the village would likely lose her maidenhead, but such was life. It was the priest's privilege as a man of G.o.d to act as he would. It was not up to men like him to judge the priesthood, nor question G.o.d's way.

Hans glanced over at Will's hut. The door was tightly closed and no smoke rose from the roof's opening. Will's wife and child had been run from the village. They had shown signs of the "death" and the others in the small town had feared the spread of the disease.

Hans continued his rhythmic hammering. It was of no consequence to him; he had no pity for the woman or child. G.o.d's judgment was swift. He had nearly lost his own wife one time before and had wondered what sin she had committed to become so ill. She had lived, so G.o.d had obviously forgiven her.

Hans again glanced after his wife and son. The boy, on the other hand, had never been sick a day in his life. He must have been truly blessed by G.o.d.

The thought, for some reason, made Hans uneasy. Perhaps it was because he lived in a world where good things were often looked on with trepidation because they were forerunners to disaster.

Perhaps it was because he believed as strongly in the evil spirits of the forest as he did in the G.o.d in the heavens. Or perhaps it was because he was simply afraid of anything he didn't understand.

The boy set the basket down at his mother's feet. A woman of few words, she merely grunted at him. He set back on his haunches and glanced over his shoulder. The priest had disappeared.

The boy turned his attention back to his mother. He didn't like the priest. Didn't like the way he looked at him.

"Give me."

His mother motioned to the rock near his foot and he picked it up and gave it to her. She seemed surprised at the weight of it as she began to crush the grain. She glanced at her fair-haired son.

He was strong, strong for his size and tall for his age. She could not help but feel a little proud. It was common for women in the village to have many children; in fact it was wise as most of them died as infants. If they did not die as infants there were any number of misfortunes that could befall them. Why, young John the other day had done no more than tripped on a root. But he had broken the bone and bled out, and he died before the sun went down.

She glanced at her young son again. Perhaps he had gotten her luck. She did not know how many seasons she had been alive; she could not count and had no grasp of numbers beyond one or two. She could not know she was nearing twenty-eight years. She only knew she was one of the oldest women in the village, and had lived a very long life.

The boy was her only child. She glanced down at the few loaves of bread in her basket, comparing them to the seasons the boy had been alive. He had perhaps one more season than loaves of bread. It was hard to remember. He would be a man before too long.

"You take your water today?"

The boy glanced down at the creek. He had doused himself early this morning, as he did every day. He nodded to his mother and she continued grinding her grain.

The boy had the sudden urge to ask why he was supposed to go into the water every day, year-round. But he knew there were questions he was not allowed to ask; if G.o.d wanted him to know, he would know.

But still he pondered why he had to go into the water when no one else in the village did. In fact, everyone seemed to avoid water and only on the hottest days would they join him.

He would often overhear the other villagers talk about him, wondering aloud why his mother was required to baptize him so often. He would hear their furtive whispers, wondering why he was not allowed to take his clothes off as were the other children.

But his parents maintained their stoic silence. As long as the gold continued to come, they would continue their strange practices with their son. And truly, even if the gold stopped, their fear would give them cause to continue.

The boy wandered back toward the village. Will's son was gone, so he could not play with him. Bertha's daughter was older, almost a woman, and she probably would not play with him either.

He thought he would look for Bertha's daughter anyway. He knew she was often with the chickens and set out towards the barn. He was halfway there when he heard a scream.

He paused looking back at his father. His father also paused, hammer in mid-air, then went back to his pounding as if nothing had happened.

The boy hesitated, uncertain, then continued on towards the barn. He stood on a wooden bench so he could see over the window ledge into the stalls.

The priest was there, and he was on top of Bertha's daughter. He had hiked his ca.s.sock up around his waist and had pulled the girl's shift up to her chin.

The boy knew what the priest was doing. He had seen the animals do it, indeed, had even seen his parents do it in their one-room hut. They had awakened him with their pounding and grunting and he had watched curiously as they performed the act less than three feet from him on their shared mat. He had quickly lost interest and turned his attention to the bugs crawling through the woven mattress.

But the boy was curious now. He knew that men had an organ much different from women's, indeed much different from even a boy's. He didn't see how the priest could fit such a thing into Bertha's daughter.

That seemed to be part of the problem as the sweating priest cursed. He could not seem to accomplish what he wished to, and the squirming girl was not helping matters.

The boy c.o.c.ked his head to one side. He had seen the priest's organ; the priest had shown it to him. But when the boy just stood there with his unblinking, gray-eyed gaze, the priest had shown a flash of fear and quickly left.

With a shout of triumph the priest accomplished his goal and pierced the girl. Bertha's daughter screamed which startled the boy and he fell backward off the bench. He brushed himself off and ran back towards his father. He did not want to hear the grunting priest any longer.

The boy settled down at his father's side, taking comfort in the steady clink of the hammer that drowned out the screams.