"Oh yes, Mr. H! Thank you!"
She clutched the stone and rubbed it with her hand. She polished it on the front of her hospital gown.
"How are you feeling today?" he asked.
"Better," she said. "A lot better."
He studied the small face, dark eyes beneath dark bangs, freckles sprinkled everywhere. There was more color to it than there had been a day and a half earlier when she had received the treatment. Her breathing was no longer labored. She was now able to sit up, propped with pillows, and could speak for fairly lengthy periods of time. Her fever was down and her blood pressure was almost normal. She was displaying curiosity and recovering the animation one would expect in a child her age. He considered the treatment a success. He no longer thought of the nine graves in the forest, or the others that lay farther behind him.
"... I'd like to see Claana someday," she was saying, "with its blue sun and all those moons ..."
"Perhaps you will," he told her, guessing far ahead, however, and seeing her with some local boy, a housewife in Italbar for all the days of her now recovered life, with perhaps only an orange stone to remind her of the dreams of childhood. Well, it could be worse, he decided, remembering that evening in tile hills above the city. A town like Italbar might be a pleasant place to end one's wanderings .
Dr. Helman entered the room, nodded to them both, took her left wrist in his hand and watched his chrono.
"You are a bit excited, Luci," he announced, lowering the wrist. "Perhaps Mr. H has been telling you of too many adventures."
"Oh no!" she said. "I want to hear them. He's been everywhere. --See the stone he gave me? I'll bet it's a lucky one. It's from Claana--a world with a blue sun and eleven moons. The people live in the sea ..."
The doctor glanced at the stone.
"It is quite pretty. Now I want you to get some rest."
Why doesn't he ever smile? Heidel asked himself. He should be happy.
Heidel scooped up the rest of his stones and deposited them in tile monogrammed _kuhl_-skin hag he carried.
"I guess I'd better be going now, Luci," he said. "I am glad that you are feeling better. If I don't see you again, it has been pleasant talking to you. --Be good."
He stood and moved toward the door, along with Dr. Helman.
"You'll be coming back, won't you?" she said, sitting up away from the pillows, her eyes widening. "You'll come back--won't you?"
"I can't say for certain," Heidel told her. "We'll see."
"Come back ..." he heard her say, as he passed through the door and into the hallway beyond.
"She has responded amazingly," Helman said. "I still find it difficult to believe."
"What of the others?"
"All the ones you visited have either had their conditions arrested or are undergoing small rallies. I wish I understood how it worked. --Your blood, by the way, is even more of a mess than those reports indicated--according to our laboratory. They would like more samples, to send to Landsend for further analysis."
"No," said Heidel. "I know my blood is a mess, and they won't discover much new about it by sending it to Landsend. If they are especially interested, they can request very detailed reports concerning it from Panopath in SEL. It has been tested in every possible way, and the reports are still inconclusive. Besides, it will be getting dangerous again soon. I have to be going."
The two men moved toward the lift shafts.
"This 'balance' you speak of," said Helman. "There is no such thing. You speak as if the pathogens formed ranks, warring against one another, and then sign a truce for a time where none of them misbehaves. This is nonsense. The body does not work that way."
"I know," said Heidel, as they entered the lift. "It's just an analogy. As I said, I'm not a doctor of medicine. I've coined my own simple, pragmatic terms for referring to what occurs to me. Translate them as you would. I'm still the expert on the effects."
The lift dropped them to the ground floor.
"Shall we stop in the office?" said Helman, as they emerged.
"You say you have to be going soon, and I know when your air car is coming in. This means you want to go up into the hills and undergo another coma. I'd like to arrange to observe it and--"
"No!" said Heidel. "That's out. Definitely. I don't allow anybody near me when I do that. It's too dangerous."
"But I could put you in isolation."
"No, I won't allow it. I've been responsible for too many deaths already. Things like what I did here are my way of trying to partly make up for them. I won't chance causing more by having people around me during the coma--even trained people. Sorry. No matter what the precautions, I'd still be afraid that something would go wrong."
Helman shrugged slightly.
"If you should ever reconsider, I'd like to be the physician in charge," he said.
"Well ... Thanks. I'd better go away now."
Helman shook his hand.
"Thanks for everything," he said. "The gods have been kind."
To your patients, maybe, Heidel thought. Then, "Good afternoon, Doctor," he said; and he walked through the door that led to the lobby.
"... Bless you," she was saying. "May the gods bless you!"
She had seized his arm and drawn him near as he passed her chair.
He looked down into the tired face with its red-rimmed eyes. It was Luci's mother.
"She'll be all right now, I think," he said. "She's a nice little girl."
While she clung to his left arm, his right hand was taken and pumped by a thin man wearing light slacks and sweater. His weather-beaten face was split by a smile that showed a row of irregular teeth.
"Thank you so much, Mr. H," he said, his palm moist against Heidel's. "We must have prayed in every house of worship in town--and all our friends were doing it too. I guess our prayers were answered. May all of the gods bless you! --Would you care to come home with us for dinner tonight?"
"Thank you, but I really have to be going," said Heidel. "I have an appointment--something I have to take care of before my transportation arrives."
When he was finally able to draw away from them, he turned to find the lobby filling with people. Among the sounds of many voices, he heard the words "Mr. H" being spoken over and over again.
"... How did you do it, Mr. H?" came from five different directions. "--May I have your autograph? --My brother has an allergy. Will you ... ? --I would like to invite you to attend services this evening, sir. My parish ... --Can you heal at a distance? --Mr. H, would you care to make a statement for the local ... ?"
"Please," he said, turning his head from face to camera to face. "I _must_ be going. I appreciate your attention, but I have nothing to tell you. Please let me through."
But the lobby was filled and the front door was held open by the pressure of bodies pushing forward. People were raising children into the air to see him. He looked to tile coat rack and saw that his staff was missing. Looking through the glass wall beyond that place, he saw that a crowd was forming in front of the building.
"... Mr. H, I have a present for you. I baked them myself ... --May I drive you to wherever you're going? --Which gods do you pray to, sir... ? --My brother has this allergy ..."
He backed to the desk and leaned toward tile woman who had received him there.
"I wasn't warned of this," he said.
"We didn't expect it either," she told him. "They assembled in a matter of minutes. There was no way of knowing. Get back in the corridor, and I'll tell them no one is allowed beyond here. I'll call for someone to show you out the back way.