The red second-hand sliced the last minute away.

"Ruth!" Thiela shook her shoulder firmly. "Waking up time!"

Ruth's eyes could hardly open, but her hand groped for Thiela's.

"What will I do?" Her voice was mushy with hopelessness. "The Pain's coming back. But I can't go back into Suspension. I can't sleep!" She twisted against the Pain. "I can't stay awake with the Pain! Oh, Thiela!" "Ruth, I have something for what ails you," said Thiela briskly, uncorking the green bottle. "Open your mouth. The spoon has to be br.i.m.m.i.n.g!"

"What is it?" asked Ruth, wincing away from the spoon.

"It's Aunt Sophronia's stuff for what ails you," said Thiela. "Here, don't let it spill." She thrust the spoon into Ruth's reluctant mouth. Ruth swallowed, gagged, coughed, and gasped. "Is it poison?"

"I don't think so," said Thiela doubtfully, frowning at the bottle. "But just to keep you company-" She poured out a br.i.m.m.i.n.g spoonful and swallowed the dose. "Ig!" she gasped, bleary-eyed. "Tastes just like Aunt Sophronia!"

"No-wonder-people-got-well-" Ruth slid down the pillows. "Self-defense." Her eyes closed and her face smoothed.

"Ruth!" whispered Thiela, the stuff in the green bottle sloshing as she tucked it hastily away from the swoosh of the opening door. "Oh, Ruth!"

"Hmmm?" Ruth snuggled her cheek to the pillow. "Hmm?" And her breath came softly and regularly.

"Is she-is she-?" The Nurse was clutching, wild-eyed, at the foot of the bed.

"She's sleeping," said Thiela, "Don't wake her. Let her sleep until the Pain comes." Ruth slept most of the week, waking with sleepy smiles and drifting off again, happy, relaxed, blissful, excepting when the Pain wakened her.

Which wakenings became more and more frequent at the week wore on. All of the Gwen-shots were used up-pebbles thrown against a storm.

So, patiently, Thiela and Ruth submitted to preparations for return to Suspension. They said their last, private farewells to each other the night before, toasting, "Hope," and "Sweet dreams!" with two more gaggingly large spoonsful of Aunt Sophronia. "just in case," said Thiela, "just in case my dreams start going sour too."

"Bless Aunt Sophronia's weedy old heart," said Ruth, her cheeks inpuckered.

"But couldn't she have put something in to hide the taste?"

"Medicine's not medicine," said Thiela, "unless it's nasty. How else can you know you've been medicated?" She waited out a wave of the Pain, her knuckles white on the big bottle, then she knelt at the dresser and tucked the bottle away under odds and ends of long outmoded underthings.

Suspension always seemed to Thiela like a chilly nap- one where you are awake enough to feel the need of another cover, but where you can't wake up quite enough to pull one up. Of course this was only the edge of entering and emerging from Suspension. The first consciousness was a shiver, blossoming into gooseb.u.mps across her shoulders, and then the awakening.

"Already?" She smiled at her own unthinking question. Time goes into Suspension, too. "How long?" she amended.

"Less than halfway through the period."

Thiela screened the doctor's face in her half-opened lashes and finally put a name to him-Dr. McGady. "At first," he went on, "we thought the instruments were not functioning correctly because they-"

"And Ruth?" Thiela cut into his hardly heard words.

"Beat you out this time!"

Thiela turned her head cautiously toward Ruth's bed. Ruth smiled at her as she busily braided a heavy hank of hair into a second braid to match the one over her other shoulder. "And happy dreams to you, too. Don't be so cautious.

We have more Gwen-shots. According to the muchly maligned machinery we've been in Suspension long enough to make them effective again."

Thiela smiled and stretched. "And Eileen and Glenda?"

"Dead," said Dr. McGady solemnly. "They died just a while after we attempted return to Suspension. Their dreams-" The three shared a brief memorial servicefor their two dead, Ruth's br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes catching Thiela's questioningly.

It wasn't until Dr. McGady had left that Ruth slipped over the side of her bed and inched along its support until she managed to stagger to the dresser and unearth the green bottle and big spoon. "Bless Aunt Sophronia," she said, tacking cautiously back to the bed. "For what ails you!" she whispered as she trembled the br.i.m.m.i.n.g spoon to Thiela's open mouth.

"And to you, too," gasped Thiela through the jaw-locking gulp of nastiness, and Ruth downed her dose with hardly a gag. "Ruth, do you suppose if we had given Eileen and Glenda-" Thiela shuddered as she licked a stray drop off the comer of her mouth.

"That's something we are not given to know," said Ruth :firmly. "Rather give praise that we are preserved-if we are. It might not be Aunt Sophronia, you know." She put the bottle and spoon away again and climbed on her bed. She laughed. "You should have seen Dr. McGady and the others. Their ears fairly lighted up Tilt! We're not conforming the way the machines say we should--or rather the way they used to say we should."

"Well, machinery I've never liked-" Thiela began. Her words broke off and they both leaned to listen.

People were crowding down the hall past their closed door-lots of people.

Heavy steps of carrying people, light., hurried child steps, half skipping.

And the sounds-they both knew the sounds. The sobbing under-moan, the caught breath, the broken sentence and the heart-squeezing sudden child-cry.

"There's more!" whispered Thiela. "Go look, Ruth! There's more!"

Ruth scuttled to the door and opened it a crack. She shut it quickly as though to shut out a cold wind.

"Lots more!" she whispered. "And men and children! Some still walking. That means they're still in the fever stage! Oh Thiela! What they will have to go through!" She trembled back to the bed. "All the dead children! All the dead men!"

"Oh, no more!" cried Thiela, "No more!" She turned her grieving face to the wall.

It was all dark except for the ghosty flip of a window curtain in a breath of night wind. Thiela slid cautiously from her bed. Not trusting her recently awakened legs, she crept on all fours across the floor toward the dresser. Her outstretched hand touched something warm and moving. For a moment, fear paralyzed her, then she collapsed on the floor with a soft, relieved laugh.

"After all!" she breathed. "She was my Aunt Sophronia!"

Ruth's face was a dark blur near hers. "Mine now, too," she laughed back. "How much of her is left?" She sloshed the bottle she had already extracted from the dresser drawn "No more than two thirds of a bottle. Won't go far."

"I'll make more-"' Thiela started, then remembered. "I can't. It's the wrong time of the year. No jack-o'-lantern blossoms."

"Let's get back to bed," said Ruth. "And do our figuring out.

"The children die," said Thiela from against her pillows. And so do the men.

The women could wait until blossom time-"

"If we knew how many-" said Ruth.

"Even if we had enough for everyone," said Thiela, how would we ever get it into them without someone knowing? "

They both inspected a dark ceiling for a while. "Quote," sighed Thiela, "quote Aunt Sophronia, 'Tell the truth and shame the Devil!' Let's tell Dr. McGady." "He'll say 'no.' He'll take Aunt Sophronia away from us." warned Ruth.

"Over my dead body!" Thiela's eyes glinted in the dark. Over my dead body!"

After they had finished telling him in a breathless antiphonal style, expecting at any moment to be interrupted by laughter, Dr. McGady stood tapping his bottom teeth with thumb nail and stared at exhibit A-the big green bottle.

"We know nothing about this Pain, even yet," he said. And we're getting lots of no-answers. That's why we have fall back on Suspension. Odder things than big green bottles have happened in medical research. Just think of how leukemia was finally eliminated. And yon two aren't dead. I'd say try it."

"Well!" Thiela melted back against her pillows. "I'm almost disappointed! I armed myself with all sorts of arguments! Polished lovingly! Very moving! And here I am caught with my mouth full of unneeded eloquence!" She sobered. "But to use or not to use is not our biggest problem. It's supply and demand. It's a long time until we'll have more blossoms. Meanwhile, who lives and who dies?"

"The women live past the acute stage. Then we can put them into Suspension,"

said Dr. McGady. "The men die-every one of them. And so do the children."

"How many are there of the men and children?" asked Ruth, eyeing the bottle dubiously.

"Too many," said the doctor, "Unless we cut the dosage way down. And then it might not work. We'd be advised to stick to the original dosage until we find out for sure."

"We can't cold-bloodedly pick people to die or to live," said Thiela. "What shall we do?"

"We don't even know if it will work on men and children," reminded Ruth. "Or if it will work on anyone this early in the game."

"And if you two need more medication?" suggested the doctor.

"There's always Suspension," said Thiela, smiling faintly. "Until jack-o'-lantern time again."

"Well, let's start by measuring what we do have and subtracting one spoonful for the lab to get started on," said Dr. McGady. "Then at least we'll know how much we have to go on."

"There's not enough!" cried Ruth the next morning, "There's not enough for everyone. How can we decide?" Her fingers sc.r.a.ped distractedly back through her front hair.

Dr. McGady reached over the bed table and crossed two more names off the list that Ruth had crumpled and smoothed again. "It's closer by two more," he said, "than it was last night. How far is it off now?"

"So close-so very close!" Thiela flexed the bottom edge of the paper. "It would be so much easier if there were twice too many people for Aunt Sophronia. Then we could just draw a line across the paper and say, 'Thus far it'll go and no farther!" But it's so close!"

"Just delay another day or so, then the problem will solve itself," suggested Dr. McGady."Just-wait-to let some more die?" Thiela pushed the list from her and gathered up the bottle and spoon. "No. I'm going now."

"How will you choose?" asked Ruth, rocking her head in her hands.

"I won't," said Thiela from the doorway. "You and Dr. McGady are going to be praying in here and I'll be praying in there and the choice will be made."

The two, left behind, exchanged startled looks. Then Ruth dropped her face into her hands, her fingers spread across her scalp under her hair, and Dr.

McGady, looking most uncomfortable, sank back in his chair and contemplated the upper corner of the room with considerable intensity.

All of the stricken were in wards, segregated men, women and children. Thiela hesitated at the door of the children's ward, memory loosening her still fluid knees and making the weight of the green bottle burdensome. Her own three children had died in just such sobbing, burning suffering. Her own had cried out for cooling that didn't come short of death. The ghosty fingers of her own clung, hot and bony thin, to her wrists. She shuddered and stepped into the ward.

She took the wrist of the first child, a silent, large-eyed girl whose face seemed sunken in the ma.s.s of her disordered hair. Thiela smiled at her, folded her hand back against the scarcely lifting chest and went on to the next.

Again she lifted a wrist, but this time she dropped it and poured a carefully huge spoonful of Aunt Sophronia and, lifting the furnace-hot child, she carefully poured the concoction into her mouth. The indignant, sputtering gurgle of the child as the awful taste penetrated, sprayed Thiela's face thoroughly. She mopped off the worst of it and, releasing the child, moved on to the next one.

Minutes later, she stood at the door of the ward and looked at the children.

Every one that had fought and gurgled against Aunt Sophronia was sleeping, deeply, quietly. Every one she had pa.s.sed by after lifting a hot wrist, lay moaning and crying, all but the first one. They had taken Thiela went back to her room, her face coagulating where the medicine had sprayed. "You can relax a minute now," she said as she closed the door behind her and carefully deposited the big green bottle on the dresser. "I've got to wash Aunt Sophronia off me. If there should be a difference between adult and child dosage, there is," she caller back from the bathroom. "Every child spewed like a fountain when it tasted the horrible stuff."

"You know," said Dr. McGady, eyes shining as he limbered his stiff neck. "It's been rather amazing! I never tried this aspect of prayer before and I experienced the most -"

"How did you choose?" interrupted Ruth, leaning back on her pillows. "How could you possibly-"

"I touched them," said Thiela, coming back into the room, drying her hands as she came. "I took each one's wrist like this," she lifted Ruth's arm. "The ones I-skipped-I could tell just by the touch. It was like holding a limp plastic hose that had hours of hot water poured through. All limp and lax and spent. The others felt as though there was a steel spring inside that was still tw.a.n.ging against the fever. Once-" she swallowed with an effort, her eyes closing, "once I felt the spring go out, right while I was holding: a wrist. Just-go-out. Just like that! Poor child!" She dropped Ruth's arm and blinked to clear her eyes. She gathered up the bottle and spoon again. "Tostations, me!, Forward!" And she marched out, robe swishing her ankle as the two in the room resumed their prayerful positions.

Thiela closed the door carefully behind her and leaned against it, her head drooping, her shoulders sagging. "Just like that!" she whispered. "Oh, Ruth, the spring went out, just like that!" Then she backhanded the tears from her eyes, almost stabbing herself with the spoon, and started briskly down the hall the other way.

By now the word had spread and there were people by the door of the men's ward.

"The general's in there," said someone.

"The whole staff of our department," insisted another.

"The most brilliant mathematician," urged another.

"Don't tell me anything," said Thiela, shaking her hear:. "I don't want to know. I'm not equipped to decide who's important and who's not. They're all.

sick. I'll get to all I can."

"But such a brilliant career to be cut short-" insisted someone.

"Maybe the brilliance is spent," said Thiela. "Maybe someone else is to shine now. I don't decide. Please-" She pulled the door open and went in.

The bottle poured almost empty. Two more curtained cubicles to visit. Thiela shook the scanty remnants in the bottle. If these next two lives were already spent, there would be enough for-maybe, maybe- She slipped between the next-to-the-last curtains, and, catching the flailing wrist, held it gently for a moment. She put it aside and left, the dose unpoured. Only one to go. One more dose. If only-if only- Under the groping of her fingers, she felt the resilience of life tw.a.n.ging away at death, stubbornly fighting back against the fever.

"Amen," sighed Thiela. "So be it. The last dose, here, then. The last one."

She poured it out.

She fled back along the hall past the huddled group, not listening to the half-formed questions and quick, soft inquiries. She stopped in front of her door and composed herself. Quickly, quietly, she went in.

Ruth was lying flat in bed, her body hardly making a mound under the sheet.

Her face was turned to the wall. Dr. McGady stood at the foot of the bed, rubbing his neck and looking bewildered.

"Just all at once," he said. "She just went limp all over."

"I know," said Thiela, rounding the bed to take Ruth's hand. "Probably even before you were born, I know." She moved into the focus of Ruth's eyes. "There isn't a drop left," she said. "Not one single bit of Aunt Sophronia left for you." She let the tears flow as she relinquished the bottle to Dr. McGady.

"Did it work?" Ruth's lips formed the words around the soft whisper of her breath.

"I think so," said Thiela. "I almost know so. But for how long, we can't tell.We thought that we-"

"No," breathed Ruth. "Maybe you. Remember, my dreams went bad. Yours didn't-"

" But if only we had another dose-"

"No, thanks." Ruth smiled faintly. "This is dying time for me. There'll be Les and the kids. And I'll tell Aunt Sophronia-" Her eyes closed deeper and deeper- Ruth wasn't there any more. Thiela turned away Dr. McGady walked her over to the window. "Will Aunt Sophronia be pleased?" he asked.

"Unless you refine her down to a shot or a pill." Her mouth trembled, then turned upward a little. "How can you tell you've had medicine unless it tastes bad?"