"Well, cherub," said Mark, retrieving her from Johannan, "let's go salve your wounded feelings with an ice cream cone."They sat at one of the tables in the back of one of the general stores and laughed at Lala's reaction to ice cream; then, with her securely involved with two straws and a glass full of crushed ice, they returned to the topic under discussion."The only way they ever referred to the doctor was just Doctor-"He was interrupted by the front door slapping open. Shelves rattled. A can of corn dropped from a pyramid and rolled across the floor. "Dern fool summer people!" trumpeted Dr. Hilf. "Sit around all year long at sea-level getting exercise with a knife and fork then come roaring up here and try to climb Devil's Slide eleven thousand feet up in one morning!"Then he saw the group at the table. "Well! How'd the hearing go?" he roared, making his way rapidly and massively toward them as he spoke. The three exchanged looks of surprise, then Mark said, "We weren't in at the verdict." He started to get up. "I'll phone-""Never mind," boomed Dr. Hilf. "Here comes Tad." They made room at the table for Tad and Dr. Hill."We're on probation," confessed Tad. "I felt about an inch high when the judge got through with us. I've had it with that outfit!" He brooded briefly. "Back to my bike, I guess, until I can afford my own car. Chee!" He gazed miserably at the interminable years ahead of him. Maybe even five!"What about Rick?" asked Mark."Lost his license," said Tad uncomfortably. "For six months, anyway. Gee, Mr. Edwards, he's sure mad at you now. I guess he's decided to blame you for everything.""He should have learned long ago to blame himself for his own misdoings," said Meris. "Rick was a spoiled-rotten kid long before he ever came up here.""Mark's probably the first one ever to make him realize that he was a brat," said Dr. Hill. "That's plenty to build a hate on." "Walking again!" muttered Tad. "So okay! So t'heck with wheels!""Well, since you've renounced the world, the flesh, and Porsches," smiled Mark, "maybe you could beguile the moments with learning about vintage cars. There's plenty of them still functioning around here.""Vintage cars?" said Tad. "Never heard of them. Imports?"Mark laughed, "Wait. I'll get you a magazine." He made a selection from the magazine rack in back of them and plopped it down in front of Tad. "There. Read up. There might be a glimmer of light to brighten your dreary midnight.""Dr. Hilf," said Johannan, "I wonder if you would help me.""English!" bellowed Dr. Hilf. "Thought you were a foreigner! You don't look as if you need help! Where's your head wound? No right to be healed already!""It's not medical," said Johannan. "'I'm trying to find a doctor friend of mine. Only I don't know his name or where he lives.""Know what state he lives in?" Laughter rumbled from Dr. Hilf."No," confessed Johannan, "but I do know he is from this general area and I thought you might know of him. He has helped my People in the past.""And your people are-" asked Dr. Hilf."Excuse me, folks," said Tad, unwinding his long legs and folding the magazine back on itself. "There's my dad, ready to go. I'm grounded. Gotta tag along like a kid. Thanks for everything-and the magazine." And he dejectedly trudged away.Dr. Hilf was waiting on Johannan, who was examining his own hands intently. "I know so little," said Johannan. "The doctor cared for a small boy with a depressed fracture of the skull. He operated in the wilderness with only the instruments he had with him." Dr. Hilf's eyes flicked to Johannan's face and then away again. "But that was a long way from where he found one of Ours who could make music and was going wrong because he didn't know who he was."Dr. Hilf waited for Johannan to continue. When he didn't, the doctor pursed his lips and hummed massively."I can't help much," said Johannan, finally, "but are there so many doctors who live in the wilds of this area?""None," boomed Dr. Hilf. "I'm the farthest out-if I may use that loaded expression. Out in these parts, a sick person has three choices-die, get well on his own, or call me. Your doctor must have come from some town."It was a disconsolate group that headed back up-canyon. Their mood even impressed itself on Lala and she lay silent and sleepy-eyed in Meris's arms, drowsing to the hum of the car.Suddenly Johannan leaned forward and put his hand on Mark's shoulder. "Would you stop, please?" he asked. Mark pulled off the road onto the nearest available flat place, threading expertly between scrub oak and small pines. "Let me take Lala." And Lala lifted over the back of the seat without benefit of hands upon her. Johannan sat her up on his lap. "Our People have a highly developed racial memory," he said. "For instance, I have access to the knowledge any of our People have known since the Bright Beginning, and, in lesser measure, to the events that have happened to any of them. Of course, unless you have studied the technique of recall it is difficult to take knowledge from the past, but it's there, available. I am going to see if I can get Lala to recall for me. Maybe her precocity will include recollection also." He looked down at his nestling child and smiled. "It won't be spectacular," he said, "no eyeballs will light up. I'm afraid it'll be tedious for you, especially since it will be subvocal. Lala's spoken vocabulary lags behind her other Gifts. You can drive on, if you like." And he leaned back with Lala in his arms. The two to all appearances were asleep.Meris looked at Mark and Mark looked at Meris, and Meris felt an irrepressible bubble of laughter start up her throat. She spoke hastily to circumvent it."Your manuscript," she said."I got a box for it," said Mark easing out onto the road again. "Chip found one for me when you took Lala to the rest room. Couldn't have done better if I'd had it made to measure. What a weight-" he yawned in sudden release-"What a weight off my mind. I'll be glad when it's off my hands, too. Thank God!Thank God it's finished!"The car was topping the Rim when Johannan stirred, and a faint twitter of release came from Lala. Meris turned sideways to look at them inquiringly."May I get out?" asked Johannan. "Lala has recalled enough that I think my search won't be too long.""I'll drive you back," said Mark, pulling up by the road."Thanks, but it won't be necessary." Johannan opened the door and, after a tight embrace for Lala and an un-English word or two, stepped out. "I have ways of going. If you will care for Lala until I return.""Of course!" said Meris, reaching for the child who flowed over the back of the seat into her arms in one complete motion. "God bless, and return soon.""Thank you," said Johannan and walked into the roadside bushes. They saw a ripple in the branches, the turn of a shoulder, the flick of a foot, one sharp startling glimpse of Johannan rising against the blue and white of the afternoon sky and then he was hidden in the top branches of the trees."Shoosh!" Meris slumped under Lala's entire weight."Mark, is this a case of folie a deux, or is it really happening?""Well," said Mark, starting the car again. "I doubt if we two could achieve the same hallucinations simultaneously, so let's assume it's really happening."When they finally reached the cabin and stopped the motor, they sat for a moment in the restful, active silence of the hills. Meris, feeling the soft warmth of Lala against her and the precious return of things outside herself, shivered a little remembering her dead self who had stared so blankly so many hours out of the small windows, tearlessly crying, soundlessly wailing, wrapped in misery. She laughed and hugged Lala. "Maybe we should get a leash for this small person," she said to Mark. "I don't think I could follow in Johannan's footsteps."