SUSAN TAPPED THE BLOOD FROM THE SYRINGE onto the gla.s.s slide, then tapped a cover slip into place. She held the syringe up to the light, noting the bend in the needle. She had finally gotten up the courage to re-enter the room, and had discovered the skin of the woman was not any easier to pierce.

She slid the sample beneath the electron microscope and brought the image into focus. She furrowed her brow, staring into the eyepiece.

She sat upright, tiredly rubbing her eyes. She glanced over at her computer screen. Her conversation with the machine had become more and more informal. "Well, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but I've never seen anything like this before." She leaned down to peer into the microscope again. "They look like leukocytes. But they're entirely too large and entirely too many. If they are white blood cells, then her T-cell count is in the hundreds of thousands. The red blood cells don't appear to be normal, either." Susan sat upright, the faintest sign of delirium in her voice. "This is not possible. Her blood is pathological. It's not infected by a virus, it doesn't appear to be antibodies, it's not anything."

Susan's vocabulary was beginning to fail her due to her exhaustion. But her fatigue was also making her extremely creative. She reached over to open a drawer and removed a test-tube from a tray. She withdrew a sample from the test-tube with a pipette, then tapped the pipette on the slide.

"I'm now introducing a fairly virulent strain of streptococcus, in vitro." Susan said as she peered through the microscope. She pushed away from the table and flipped a switch. The image from the microscope projected up onto the screen.

Susan watched as the "leukocytes" violently attacked the cocci. Within seconds, the bacteria was destroyed and no trace was left on the screen. The corpuscle-like creatures settled into smug inertness.

"Okay," Susan said, the delirium even more evident in her voice, "that wasn't what I expected."

She was starting to feel even more creative. She glanced over at a row of test tubes that were labeled with biohazard stickers. They were locked tight and would require her security card to release them. She pulled the card from the chain around her neck and ran it through the reader.

"Okay," she said, returning to the microscope, "I am now introducing cancerous cells to the blood sample, again in vitro." She pushed away from the desk and turned to gaze at the screen. This reaction didn't take much longer than the streptococcus. She watched as the white blood cells demolished the cancerous invader. She could not think of a thing to say.

Susan suddenly realized how exhausted she was. She had just witnessed the unimaginable and could not articulate her observations. She had not slept in over 36 hours, and had not been home in three days. She was faced with the penultimate find of her medical career, and could not find a voice to record it.

She turned in her chair to stare at the woman through the gla.s.s. The woman's face was different and it took Susan a minute to realize she was healing, literally before her eyes.

The beeping to her right attracted Susan's attention and she glanced tiredly over at the EEG that began to chatter. She looked through the window and for once was jealous of the rapid eye movement she saw.

The boy was found the next morning, lying pale and unconscious in front of his hut. His mother's screams rent the air as his father gazed down in horror at his son's body. Hans was not certain at first if the boy was even alive, but the shallow rise and fall of his chest indicated he was. Hans' second fear was that the boy was ill and the illness would befall him. It was only a greater fear that forced him to pick up the child: the knowledge of what would happen to him if the boy died.

Hans carried the limp body into the hut and laid him on the rough mat. He backed out of the hut, leaving his wife to tend the child.

The boy lie unmoving while the sun traveled across the sky and the sliver of a moon appeared. Word came that the band had moved on. Hans returned fearfully to find the boy's condition unchanged. He was relieved to find his wife still healthy and reluctantly stayed the night in the hut.

The sun traveled across the sky thrice more before the boy opened his eyes. It was another fortnight before he was strong enough to rise.

He could remember little of his ordeal, other than he had been attacked from behind by some beast. He had little recollection of events prior to the attack, and none of those that occurred after. He did not know how he had gotten back to his village, nor how he had survived the a.s.sault.

He had many questions but did not speak them. He did not know why a wild animal would attack him and cause little more than bruising. He did not know where his weakness had come from when he was obviously uninjured.

His mother commented it seemed almost as if he had been poisoned. This seemed a strange explanation to him, but it would at least explain the odd, metallic taste in his mouth upon awakening.

Susan paid the cabby and stepped out onto the curb. She had been afraid to drive, so great had been her exhaustion. She could not remember what day it was and had been surprised it was dark outside when she left the hospital.

Dark or not, it did not stop Jason from tearing out the front door to come scrambling down the front walk. Even as tired as she was, she picked him up as he ran into her arms. She held him tightly, raining kisses on his freckled face.

"I'm sorry, munchkin. I didn't mean to be gone so long. I missed you so much!"

Jason held her cheeks in his little hands, then pressed them together. She obligingly made fish-lips for him and he dissolved into laughter, scrambling to be free. She set him down and he ran back up the walk, calling over his shoulder.

"Neda says you must be working very hard," he said, obviously parroting his nanny's words. He stopped at the edge of the porch, his little body barely able to contain his energy as his words spilled out. "She says that maybe you will cure cancer and help lots of people." His eyes grew bright, "And," he said, "you'll make lots of money and buy good little boys candy!"

Neda came out the screen door. "You hush, little monster. Your mommy will buy you lima beans if you don't quiet down. You're going to wake the dead."

Jason screeched in mock terror at the threat of the vegetable sanctions, then ran into the house laughing. Neda turned to Susan, her expression changing to one of concern. "Are you all right, dear?"

Susan's expression was sober. The comment about cancer brought work flooding back to her. Whatever peace Jason had brought her fled as his words. .h.i.t an unintended mark.

Susan shook her head. "No, no, Neda, I'm fine." She started up the walkway once more. "I'm just exhausted."

Neda was not completely satisfied with Susan's response, but helped her young mistress into the house. She clucked over her, telling her she should get straight to bed, but Susan would have none of it. She went up to Jason's room.

Jason's room was a complete contrast to the rest of the house. He was an angel when it came to caring for her antiques, her hardwood floors, her china dishes and Persian rugs. But the trade-off was that his room was completely his domain. He took full advantage of this deal and decorated it in the glorious standards of a 5-year-old.

Susan removed her coat and laid it across his chair, on top of the pile of stuffed animals that were sitting there. Jason ran over and removed the coat. "They can't breathe, mom!" He carefully laid the coat across the back of the chair.

"Sorry, kiddo. But I know CPR if things go bad."

This made Jason dissolve into giggles. "Yeah, I know. But I know B-U-T."

Susan laid down on his bed. "Okay, I give, what's B-U-T?"

"It's b.u.t.t, mom! Don't you know how to spell?"

She could not help but laugh at his exuberance. "I think there's another *T' in there, pal, if you're using it in the sense I think you're using it." She pulled his Star Wars comforter over her. "But I'm glad to see you've been reading again."

He pulled a Dr. Seuss book from the shelf. "Want me to read this to you mom?"

Susan nodded, making room for him in the twin bed. He began reading aloud to her, deeply concentrating on his p.r.o.nunciation.

Neda stopped in the doorway, a tray with a bowl of steaming soup in her hands. She smiled at the picture of the two. The young doctor was already asleep, wrapped around the little boy who was so diligently reading to her of green eggs and ham. Neda would not disturb the two, and she slowly pulled the door closed behind her.

CHAPTER 8.

SUSAN SLEPT NEARLY SIXTEEN HOURS. Jason was at school when she awakened, and she was saddened by the fact he would come home to find her gone again. But the thought of the woman patiently sleeping in her laboratory made her anxious, and she could not delay her return.

She made it into the lab without incident and quickly returned to the printout of the MRI. Now that her head was a little clearer, she tried to make sense of the internal anatomy. Familiar landmarks were missing; other organs were much smaller or much larger than normal. She glanced over at her computer, not really surprised to see she had failed to turn the voice activation off. Her last, delirious words blinked at her from the screen. She turned back to the printout and began anew.

"The musculature of the patient seems fairly normal, at least for an extremely well-developed athlete. The quadriceps and gastrocnemius muscles show minor tears, possibly where the bone was protruding through earlier."

Susan paused. If she had to actually stop and think about what she was saying, she wouldn't say it. What she had accepted so blithely in her delirium was starting to sink in. She continued her a.s.sessment, trying to refrain from making subjective observations.

"The skeletal system also appears fairly normal. There are what appear to be hairline fractures to the femur and the right tibia. These fractures are in the approximate locations of the compound fractions observed less than a week ago."

Susan paused. Don't think too much, she warned herself. She glanced over at the computer screen, then continued.

"The patient appears to be suffering from some type of genetic abnormality, or perhaps a state of advanced pathology. The heart is enlarged to nearly three times normal size. The lungs are shrunken, as are the liver and the pancreas. I am unable to locate the stomach or the spleen. The entire body is covered with extreme capillarization. The network of veins and arteries is extensive." Susan let her eyes travel down the picture. "s.e.xually, the woman appears normal externally; however, there are no apparent reproductive organs internally. No uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, or ovaries can be seen."

Susan glanced through the gla.s.s window. "The epidermal layer is now intact, with the exception of the right cheek which is rapidly healing. The EEG machine continues to record extraordinary brain activity."

She turned her attention back to the picture on the screen in front of her. "The brain appears to be normal-sized, but the ganglia and a.s.sociated nerves are-"

Susan stopped. Are what? Too numerous to mention? Too long? Too d.a.m.ned developed?

The phone rang, startling Susan. She suppressed her irritation, brushing at her lab coat self-consciously. She didn't know why she was jumping around like a scared rabbit. Even so, she stared at the phone a long moment before reaching over to press "speaker."

"Dr. Ryerson," she answered guardedly.

"Yeah, Dr. Ryerson," came the breezy voice over the intercom, "this is Patty, down at the lab?"

Susan didn't know if she was supposed to know "Patty" or not. "Yes?" she answered.

"Yeah, doc, I've got the blood panel results from that sample you sent down the other day."

Susan's thoughts raced. She forgot she had sent a test-tube down for a blood workup. It had been one of her first acts upon bringing the body upstairs, and she never would have done so after her examination. But her motivation at the time was to determine why a "dead" body was drawing blood, hoping to eliminate the possibility that it was indeed a.s.similating it.

"Yes?" Susan answered even more cautiously.

"Well, I know you're going to be disappointed, but I think you've confused your samples."

"What do you mean by that?" Susan asked.

"Well," the breezy voice went on with some authority, "you've got it marked as human but it has to be contaminated with some animal blood."

Susan tried to sound noncommittal. "Oh really? Why is that?"

It was obvious by the pause and rustle of papers that Patty began to read off a chart. "Well, some blood levels are normal. Plasma is about right. Blood creatine levels are really high. Hemoglobin is a little low."

Susan nodded, then felt foolish because she realized "Patty" couldn't see her. "Go on."

"Well, this is the bad news. We found L-gulonolactone oxidase in that blood sample."

Susan tried to hide her impatience. She worked extensively with blood panels in the field of immunology, but that didn't mean that she had every flipping, obscure enzyme memorized. "And this is a bad thing...?" she asked.

Patty snorted on the other end of the line. "Well, no, it wouldn't be a bad thing, doc. But it's just not found in human beings." She snickered some more, then regained some composure, adding, "Unfortunately for us."

Susan leaned a little closer to the phone. "Why unfortunate for us?"

Patty was happy to share her knowledge, and Susan wondered if she was reading out of a textbook. "Well, L-gulonolactone is an enzyme found in all animals, with a handful of exceptions, human beings and guinea pigs being two of the exceptions. That's too bad, because this enzyme is required to convert glucose to vitamin C, so..."

Susan finished the thought for her. "So any animal that has this enzyme is capable of producing vitamin C."

"That's right," Patty said smugly, "vitamin C from their livers, not from a jar."

Susan's thoughts raced furiously. She would have been familiar with this enzyme had it been found in humans because Vitamin C was central to immunology. Vitamin C, once thought of as simply a cure for scurvy, was now known to maintain the body in homeostasis when faced with disease, infection, cancer, and other stresses on the immune system.

In other words, vitamin C was turning out to be one of the penultimate players in preventing the disintegration of the body.

Susan stared at the woman through the gla.s.s, the woman who was healing before her eyes. Patty's voice droned on over the speaker.

"And something else we found. Do you think you might have mixed this up with a rat or something?"

Susan tried to focus on what the other woman was saying. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, this isn't as weird as the enzyme, but it's still kind of strange. If this were a human, I'd say he or she built up a resistance to some interesting diseases, judging by the antibodies in the blood."

Susan felt a chill go down her spine. "What kind of antibodies?"

"Well," came the voice over the intercom, "bubonic plague for starters."

CHAPTER 9.

HANS WATCHED HIS BOY WORK THE METAL with a close eye. His vigilance was unnecessary, however, because the boy's skill was already as great as his own.

His son had grown taller and although still slender, was as strong as any man in the village. Where many had sickened and died, the boy had never been sick a day in his life.

Except for that one time, Hans thought, mentally making the sign of the cross. And the time just like it when the boy was an infant. Both times he had been pale and weak, near death for days with no cause in sight. But then he recovered and seemed stronger than ever.

The steady clink brought Hans out of his reverie. He grunted at the boy and walked around the side of the hut.

A figure out of the corner of his eye caught the boy's attention. It was the fat priest, come to stare at him again. If anything, the last few seasons had seen the priest grow fatter, and more insolent.

There was the sheen of grease on the priest's chin and the boy wondered what hearth he had just pillaged. Although no one else in the village thought to question the priest's actions, secretly the boy harbored a great resentment against him. He did not think much of this G.o.d who would give power to such a man as the priest.

The priest watched the handsome young man at work, wishing the boy would wear less clothing.

"Hail, lad."

The boy barely paused in his work. "Hail, priest," he muttered.

The priest put his hand on the boy's arm. "I said *hail,' boy."

The boy stopped his pounding, gripping the handle of the hammer tightly in his hand. The priest did not move his hand from the boy's arm. "I would think you would have more respect for the Church, lad."

The boy stared at the hand gripping his arm and the priest slowly removed it, taking a step backward. The boy stared at the priest for a long moment, then went back to his rhythmic clinking as if nothing had happened.

Angered, the priest waddled off under the worried gaze of the boy's mother.