Her heart pounding, Sylvia strode forward and spun the dial. She searched across the band, hunting more details, but heard only the same information in almost exactly the same wording. All the stations must have received identical releases.
She flicked off the set.
Complications of a long-standing illness.
That was a relief. She had worried that the senator or his staff might try to lay the blame for what had happened on Alan. Normally such a fear would never have crossed her mind, but after what had happened lately…
The realization struck her: Alan could come home!
She checked the slip of paper that Ba had given her and called Chac Tien Dong's number. It went four rings before it was answered by a Vietnamese woman. Sylvia could barely hear her over the wild babble of voices in the background at the other end of the-line.
"May I speak to Dr. Bulmer, please?" There came a confusion of noise over the wire. "How about Chac?" Sylvia said. "Can I speak to Chac?"
More confusion, then a male voice.
"Yes? This is Chac."
"This is Mrs. Nash, Chac. May I speak to Dr. Bulmer?"
There was a long pause, then Chac said, "He not here."
Oh, my God! "Where is he? Where did he go? Did someone come and take him away?"
"No. He leave all by self."
That, at least, was a relief. It meant that none of the Foundation people were involved.
"But why didn't you stop him?"
"Oh, no," Chac said. "Never stop Dat-tay-vao! Very bad!"
Alarm spread through her like a cold wind. Ba said he had warned Alan against mentioning the Touch. How did Chac know?
"Did he use the Dat-tay-vao?"
"Oh, yes! Many times!"
Sylvia slammed the receiver down and shouted, "Ba!"
___50.___
Ba
Ba pushed his way through the thinning crowd in the tiny apartment to where Chac was standing and waving his reborn fingers in the air. His anger must have shown in his face, for the older man looked up at him and paled.
"I couldn't help it, Ba!" he said, retreating a step.
"You promised!" Ba said in a low voice, feeling hurt and angry. "You said you would keep him from all eyes except your family's, and here I find a party!"
"The Dat-tay-vao! He has the Dat-tay-vao!
"I know that. It was why I asked you to hide him."
"I didn't know that! Perhaps if you had told me, it would have made a difference!"
"Perhaps?"
"Little Lam Thuy would have died if he hadn't been here! Don't you understand? He was sent here! He was meant to be here at that very moment! The Dat-tay-vao knew it would be needed and so it brought him here!"
"I brought him here! And I'm glad with all my heart that he saved Lam Thuy, but that does not justify inviting the entire community to come here!"
Chac shrugged sheepishly. "I boasted. I was so honored to have the Dat-tay-vao in my home that I had to tell someone.
The news spread. Like fish to the spawning ground, they descended on me. What could I do?"
"You could have turned them away."
Chac gazed at him reproachfully. "If you had heard that someone with the Dat-tay-vao was down the street when Nhung Thi was dying of the cancer, would you have been turned away?"
Ba had no answer. None, at least, that he wished to voice. He knew that he would have fought like a thousand devils for a chance to let the Dat-tay-vao work its magic on his withering wife. He sighed and placed a gentle hand on Chac's shoulder.
"Tell me, old friend. Which way did he go?"
"He was looking northeast. I would have kept him here, but he was seeking someone. And as you know, one never impedes the Dat-tay-vao."
"Yes, I know," Ba said, "but I've never understood that."
" 'If you value your well-being/Impede not its way.' What more is there to understand?"
"What happens if you do impede its way?"
"I do not know. Let others learn; the warning is enough for me."
"I must find him for the Missus. Can you help me?"
Chac shook his head. "We did not follow him. He was under the spell of the Dat-tay-vao—he was not walking right and his thoughts were clouded. But he kept saying the same word over and over again: 'Jeffy.' Again and again: 'Jeffy.' '
Spurred by a sudden and unexplainable sense of danger, Ba stepped to the phone and dialed the Missus. He now knew where the Doctor was going. But if he was walking and if his mind was not right, he might never reach his destination. Ba would do his best to find him, but first he had to call the Missus.
Glancing out the window, he saw the first thunderheads piling up in the western sky.
___51.___
During the Storm
Sylvia had watched the gathering darkness with a growing sense of foreboding. Her longtime general fear of all storms paled before the dread that rose in her minute by minute as she watched the billowing clouds, all pink and white on top but so dark and menacing below, swallow the westering sun. Alan was out there somewhere. And he was coming here. That should have thrilled her; instead it filled her with an even greater unease. Ba had hinted that Alan wasn't quite in his right mind. Alan and the storm—both were approaching from the west.
The phone rang. Sylvia rushed to it.
It was Charles. He seemed to have regained his composure since yesterday. Quickly, Sylvia relayed what Ba had told her.
"The bloody fool!" he said. "Did Ba say how many people he worked his magic on before he wandered off?"
"He wasn't sure, but from what he could gather from Chac, maybe fifty."
"Good lord!" Charles said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse.
Sylvia pressed on, hoping that if she kept feeding information to Charles he might be able to give her an idea of what had happened to Alan.
"Chac also told Ba that Alan was walking funny—as if his left leg wasn't working right."
"Oh, no!"
"What's wrong?"
"That poor stupid bastard! He's gone and knocked out part of his motor cortex! God knows what will go next."
Sylvia felt as if her heart were suspended between beats. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that this Touch or whatever you call this bloody power of his has apparently used up most of the nonvital areas of his brain, and now it's moving into more critical areas. No telling what will go next if he goes on using it. If it hits a vital motor area, he could wind up crippled; if it knocks out a part of the visual cortex, he'll be partially or completely blind. And if he should happen to damage something like the respiratory center in the brainstem, he'll die!"
Sylvia could barely breathe.
"God, Charles, what'll we do?"
"Isolate him, keep him safe and happy, and don't let him go around touching people when the tide is in. Given time, and, assuming he hasn't caused too much damage, I think his brain will recover. At least partially. But I can't guarantee it. Of course, the first thing you've got to do is find him."
"He's coming here," Sylvia said with a sinking feeling.
"Well, good. No problem then."
"He's coming for Jeffy."
"Oh, yes, he mentioned Jeffy at the Foundation." There was a lengthy pause, then: "That does present a problem now, doesn't it? A moral dilemma, one might say."
Thunder rumbled.
Sylvia couldn't answer.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do," Charles said. "Anything. I owe that man."
Sylvia hung up and corralled Jeffy from the now dark sunroom. She pulled the drapes closed across the tall library windows, then sat on the couch and snuggled with the ever more placid Jeffy as she listened to the growing din of the storm.