His mind returned to his meeting aboard the Ansor, to the facts he had presented, and he knew that he had failed to make them see. Panidyne wanted more testing. Julie was in danger.

I won't let them touch her, he vowed. I won't let them hurt her. Yet he knew if his mission failed, there would be nothing he could do.

"My sister called the house this morning," she said, breaking into his thoughts. "She left a message on my answering machine."

He lowered the paper. "I hope she's all right."

"She sounded all right. Sometimes it's hard to tell with Laura." She folded her section of the paper with a snap and laid it on the table. "She bought a gun, Patrick. She says it makes her feel safer."

"Where the h.e.l.l did she get it?"

"I'm not sure. Somebody she knows knew somebody who had one for sale."

"Does she even know how to use it?"

"I guess she's taking some sort of cla.s.s. With Laura's psychiatric problems, I certainly don't approve, but the truth is I own one myself, so what can I say?"

Val didn't answer. Finally he sighed. "In this town, maybe you need a gun."

"I took a cla.s.s way back when. I go in for recertification once a year."

He nodded. Antique weapons like guns didn't exist on Toril. There was simply no need for them.

"Laura's abduction group is meeting again tonight at the Stringer house," Julie continued. "Laura wants me to go with her."

"Are you going?"

"Yes. Whatever the truth is, whatever might have happened to her, my sister needs all the support she can get."

"Then I'd like to go with you."

She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow in his direction. "Why?"

"I told you why. Because I want to help her. You said yourself, she needs all the support she can get." Of course that was only partly the truth. He wanted to study Laura, determine the extent of trauma she and the others in the group had experienced as a result of the Ansor's testing. Living as Patrick, he was beginning to understand as he hadn't before the magnitude of what they were doing to the people they brought aboard the ship.

Julie shook her head. "I don't know. This whole thing is pretty far out. I have a hard time believing you'll keep an open mind."

That was the second reason he wanted to go. To discourage the sisters' belief in Laura's tale. Fostering the public's growing concern about UFOs only made the Ansor's mission more difficult.

He gave her one of Patrick's winsome smiles. "I promise you I'll listen as objectively as I can. I really would like to go with you."

Julie smiled. "All right. We'll go together. I could use a bit of support myself."

Fourteen.

The meeting was almost ready to begin when Julie and Patrick arrived. Laura, who had mended fences with Brian Heraldson and agreed to his plea to let him join her, was already seated next to him on the sofa in the living room, a white-carpeted, silk-draped area that looked out over the channel.

Julie introduced Patrick as a friend of hers and Laura's then, at Dr. Winters's urging, they went in and sat down with the others.

"It's good you all could make it." Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt, the doctor surveyed the room full of familiar faces. "I hope no one had an exceptionally difficult week."

The gardening expert, Willis Small, shifted a bit in his chair. "I'm afraid mine hasn't been all that pleasant. I've had several disturbing dreams this week, Dr. Winters."

"Dreams that involved the Visitors?" he asked.

Willis Small nodded. "I don't remember too much. I dreamed I was taken aboard one of their ships. They did some testing. I dreamed they took a s.e.m.e.n sample and I remember seeing several woman they'd brought aboard. I think the women were pregnant. They were begging the Visitors not to take their unborn babies."

Leslie Williams, the tall willowy black woman from San Diego, leaned forward. "Are you certain, Mr. Small, that you were dreaming? Are you sure what you're telling us didn't really happen?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That is exactly what happened to me."

Willis fidgeted nervously. "It must have been a dream. At one point, I remember waking up and walking downstairs to get a gla.s.s of water. Then the dream picked up again when I went back to sleep."

"The part about going downstairs could have been a screen memory," Robert Stringer put in. "For years after my abduction, I thought my son and I had stopped for several hours at an inn for dinner on the way back from our fishing trip. It used to bother me, since we had gone fishing in the first place because we wanted to cook fresh trout for supper. Why would we go to a restaurant when we had exactly what we wanted to eat in the trunk of the car? Then I started to remember."

Laura inched up her hand.

Dr. Winters nodded in her direction. "Go ahead, Laura. You don't have to be shy. You can say whatever you wish."

Laura fiddled with a strand of her long blond hair. "II may have had a screen memory. Under hypnosis, I told Dr. Heraldson that I had been taken to a hospital on the afternoon of my abduction. It wasn't the truth. I haven't been in a hospital in years."

"It could have been any number of things," Brian Heraldson quickly put in. "Trauma, perhaps, over problems in your youth."

He was alluding to Laura's abortion, Julie knew. It was a plausible explanation. She wondered if the theory might not be correct.

Patrick spoke up just then. "I came here for Laura and Julie. I don't know much about what any of you might have experienced but I've read that childhood trauma can surface in any number of ways. If what happened was painful enough, I imagine it might even come out as a belief in alien abduction."

"That's right, Patrick," Brian said. "It's called False Memory Syndrome. It's like a screen memory, only in this case the false memory is the one of alien abduction."

"How do the rest of you feel about that?" Winters asked. "Is the abduction phenomenon a memory created because of some earlier trauma? Is it merely coincidence, then, that your experiences are so much the same?"

"It isn't coincidence," Carrie Newcomb, the pretty young hairdresser, argued. "We were abducted. All of us remember it nearly the same, the humiliation, the experiments, the s.e.xual manipulations. If it's motivated by problems from our past, why do all of us remember the same things?"

"All right," Brian conceded, "perhaps for some of you it isn't trauma. Perhaps it's simply a shared hallucination. As Carrie just mentioned, many of the overtones are s.e.xual in nature. Given the climate of repression we face in this country, that might mean the delusions are self-inflicted, invented by a society that has trouble dealing with its unfulfilled physical needs. Freud would most probably think so."

"Well, I think you and Dr. Freud are full of s.h.i.t," Laura said hotly, eliciting a ripple of laughter from the group. "If you had been there, you wouldn't have a single doubt that what happened to you was real."

Both Brian and Patrick fell silent. Julie noticed that Patrick in particular seemed absorbed by the stories being told. The group talked for a while, each person relating his personal experiences, repeating incidents he had mentioned before, expressing fears or asking questions. It was a painful session, just as it had been before. Carrie Newcomb had tears in her eyes when Willis Small finished his pitiful tale, and Robert Stringer's face looked drawn and pale.

Julie noticed Patrick was frowning, the muscles across his shoulders knotted with tension. She hadn't realized the suffering these people spoke of would affect him in such a way.

Then Laura's voice caught her attention. "There's something I need to say."

Dr. Winters turned in her direction. "Go on, Laura," he urged.

"It's something I remembered, something I have to tell Julie." Laura's eyes swung nervously in her sister's direction.

Brian Heraldson reached for her hand. "Laura, we talked about this. Think about what you're about to do."

Beginning to feel apprehensive, Julie sat forward in her chair. "It's all right, Laura. What is it you have to say?"

"I know you don't want to hear this, Julie. I know deep down you don't believe any of this is real, but you were there with me. I remember seeing you. I don't know why you can't remember, but I know you were there-I saw you."

A chill splintered down Julie's spine. She locked her hands together in her lap. "I couldn't have been there, Laura. Even if your incredible story is true, it couldn't have happened to me-I don't feel any of the things you and the others feel, and...and I don't have that mark on my arm."

"Actually, any physical marks are rare," Dr. Winters put in gently. He gave her a rea.s.suring smile. "I realize the concept is frightening, Julie, but just for a moment why don't we explore the possibility that your sister is correct?"

"I don't...I don't think that's a good idea."

"Julie's right," Patrick agreed. "It isn't a good idea. Laura has enough problems trying to deal with this. Dragging Julie into the picture will only make matters worse."

Laura ignored him. "Please, Julie-do it for me?"

"I think it's time for us to go home." Patrick stood up and reached for Julie's hand.

"It's all right, Patrick. If Laura wants me to try, what could it hurt?" She turned to the doctor. "What should I do, Dr. Winters?"

"I thing the best way to start is just to tell us what you remember. Relax for a moment and just take it easy. Try to think of that afternoon on the beach as if it were pa.s.sing in slow motion."

Julie nodded. "All right. I can do that." Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes, returning her thoughts to that afternoon, imagining the hours they had spent on the beach.

"There was a dog, I remember. A big black dog way down the beach, trailing along near the water. It was really hot and Laura and I were tired. I remember hearing this thick, funny buzzing, then the radio went dead."

"Go on," the doctor urged.

"That's about all I remember. We fell asleep a few minutes later and when we woke up, I had this terrible headache. Over the next few days the headaches got worse, but I don't think they had anything to do with my falling asleep on the beach, and lately they've been fading."

"How long were you asleep?"

"A couple of hours at least."

"On such a hot day, you must have been badly sunburned lying out there in the open."

"No, I...actually, now that you mention it, I wasn't burned at all. I remember being surprised at the time. I wasn't wearing much sunscreen." She frowned, uneasy with the thought. "I don't...I don't know why I wasn't burned."

"Anything else you recall? Odd things you might have noticed later?"

Her frown deepened, digging tiny lines across her forehead. "I remember I had a small pin dot scab at the bend in my elbow. It looked like a puncture of some sort, but of course it couldn't have been. And my wrists were sore. In fact I was a little bit sore all over."

Laura surged to her feet. "You see, Julie? Robert Stringer heard the same thick buzzing sound, just like we did. Neither of us was sunburned because we were inside the ship."

Julie said nothing. It was nonsense. It had to be. Yet her heart was thudding painfully.

"The soreness could have come from fighting against restraints of some kind," Leslie Williams suggested. "That happened to me."

"Wait a minute." Brian stood up beside Laura. "This whole thing is getting out of hand. It's hardly fair to suggest something like this to Julie. Up until now she hasn't had the least thought of any such occurrence."

"Dr. Heraldson is right," Dr. Winters agreed, to Julie's surprise. "A bit of exploration is one thing, the power of suggestion is something completely different. There is no point in placing thoughts in Ms. Ferris's head."

"No, there isn't," Brian finished, casting a reproachful glance at Laura.

"I'm sorry," Julie said to the group. "I realize you can make any number of deductions from what I've just told you, but the fact is I don't remember anything remarkable about that afternoon. I fell asleep on the beach and woke up with a headache. That's as far as it goes." She smiled sadly at her sister. "I can't say I'm unhappy I don't remember, Laura. Even if what you think happened turns out to be true, what you're going through makes me glad I can't recall." She felt Patrick's hand on her shoulder, his touch gentle yet persuasive.

"I think we ought to go home."

Julie nodded.

Laura reached over and squeezed her hand. "Thanks for trying, sis." She managed to smile but it came out wobbly. "In a way, as you said, I'm glad you don't remember."

The two girls hugged, and Julie left Laura in Brian Heraldson's care for the ride back to her apartment. No matter their differences on the subject of abduction, there was a growing attraction between them. Compared to the sort of men her sister usually dated, Julie couldn't help but feel glad.

Walking next to Patrick, she waited while he opened the door to his Porsche and settled her inside, then he rounded the car and slid into the driver's seat.

In silence he started the engine, sat for a moment listening to the powerful roar, then he shifted the car into gear. The evening had been even more bizarre than she had warned him. And some of the things she'd remembered about that afternoon did made her think.

Julie wondered what Patrick was thinking.

Layers of pink and orange seeped over the brightening horizon. Since Julie had an early morning meeting with her clients, the Harveys, to gather additional loan information for their condo purchase, Val woke her before sunrise so she would have time to go home, shower and change. Val walked her to her car, kissed her goodbye and watched her drive away, then he climbed into his Porsche and set off for the hills.

He needed some time alone. He needed time to think, to go over the things he had learned at the meeting he had attended with Julie last night. The things he had felt when the subjects of the Ansor's testing-victims they called themselves-had spoken of their ordeal.

He had known it affected them, of course. There were medical procedures involved, and any sort of bodily intrusions, no matter how sophisticated, were always uncomfortable. It was the mental anguish he had not until now understood.

In theory, yes. He had known Earth subjects experienced a certain amount of trauma. For a special few like Julie, it could even be life-threatening.

Still, it wasn't until he had joined with Patrick that he could actually understand the intensity of their subjects' emotions, the amount of suffering they endured. It had to be a hundred times worse than he had believed, perhaps a thousand. The sensations he experienced here on Earth, the colors, sights, sounds, tastes and smells had finally given him the ability to relate to their ordeal. The emotions he was now capable of feeling gave him an insight into the terror, humiliation and helplessness a Torillian couldn't begin to understand.

Last night, listening to their stories, seeing the pain in their faces, feeling the agony they had endured, he finally understood.

The engine purred. He had come to love the somehow soothing sound. Turning the car down an empty stretch of highway, he pulled into a deserted overlook that peered down on the awakening city and turned off the motor. Lights sparkled like tiny stars below him. Somewhere above, the Ansor's lights flashed in the rim of its hull. He couldn't help thinking of his comrades, that at this very moment they might be bringing another subject aboard, setting free all the emotions he had encountered last night and dozens of others he could only begin to imagine.

For the first time it occurred to him to question the Ansor's mission. Was the damage they were inflicting worth the information they were gaining? Where did science stop and humanity-in whatever form-begin?

And what was his responsibility in all of this? Was it his duty to somehow persuade his people to end the testing, at least in its current form?

But the answers did not come and as the sun rose higher, the peace of the morning faded. Val started the car and headed back to Beverly Hills, back to the problems he faced in his office.

At present, his most pressing concern was Sandini and McPherson. He had been holding his so-called "partners" at bay with one excuse after another. Sarah Bonham of the Teachers' Pension Fund was calling him every other day. It seemed their executive committee was just itching-as Patrick would have said-to buy all of Westwind's phony discount paper.

He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold them off. Another week perhaps. After that, he didn't know. He only knew he needed time, time with Julie, time with the other subjects in the abduction group. He wasn't going to get it-that fact was becoming more and more clear.

And there was something else.