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Shepherd by Joan Hunter Holly

PROLOGUE

Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes. . . . The shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape. A voice of the cry of the shepherds … shall be heard…

Old Testament: Jeremiah 25, 34-35

After the turn of the century, it became apparent that Man could not survive as a rational being in the fast-changing, overcrowded and threatening environment his technology had created. Trying to cope with an existence too complicated and mind-shocking to handle overwhelmed the human psyche until nervous breakdown and mental collapse grew to epidemic proportions. Few people remained emotionally intact past the age of 25.

With the world's population degenerating, an international conclave of the human sciences was convened to find a solution. But its answer lay in drastically changing the environment and the structure of society itself. Since these ideas were impossible to carry out, there appeared to be no solution.

The behaviorists abstained from this gloomy conclusion and offered a unilateral remedy of their own. It consisted of three callous but logical statements: Man cannot survive emotionally in modern society. Society cannot be changed. Therefore, Man must be changed. And the behaviorists had the method. They called it Anti-Emotion Conditioning (AEC).

Under their plan, the warring, nationalistic posture of nations must give way to AEC which, in turn, guaranteed to provide them with populations living peacefully in a state of non-emotion. Conditioning would leave them capable of gainful work and of being profitable citizens, but would strip away their ability to "feel," thereby erasing the cause of their breakdowns. Drastic or not, nations accepted the plan because they had no choice. And the people surrendered to it as their only protection against insanity.

Anti-Emotion Conditioning was adopted, and its laws and processes numbered four:

1. AEC clinics will be established in every major city of the world to serve that city and its surrounding countryside. At the age of three, every child will be taken daily to a clinic. There, his emotional responses will be deliberately stimulated and then punished by minor jolts of electric shock, which will gradually condition out his responses.

The child will graduate as "conditioned" when he can respond to nothing but anxiety, irritation, pride and fear—the four emotions necessary to keep him alert, striving and productive as a citizen.

Upon graduation, the child will receive a Sensitivity Score varying from one (most precarious) to ten (guaranteed stable). This score will indicate his overall sensitivity and alert him to the danger of relapsing into an emotional, feeling state due to some future trauma that may override his conditioning.

2. An override of conditioning (called Re-Emergence) will be said to have occurred when the individual's emotions return in confusing and maniacal torrents. Deviants of this kind will be arrested by the Special Police and incarcerated in a Re-Conditioning laboratory where their childhood conditioning will be re-established.

Re-Conditioning will be carried out by a trained Re-Conditioner and be accomplished by the use of electric shock of a brutal nature, in order that the restoration may be effected quickly. Upon release from the laboratory, a certificate of Re-Conditioning will be issued and the subject returned to society under the stigma of being a deviant.

3. To guard against the buildup of subconscious pressures that might result in trauma, every citizen will make regular use of three drugs: Equilibria, to relieve anxiety and act as a balancer; Euphoria, to simulate a state of happiness; Depressant, to imitate melancholy.

4. In addition to the preventive drugs, a vicarious outlet will be provided in the form of an un-conditioned, free-emotioned Viewing Child, who will perform emotions the citizens can no longer feel for themselves. The Viewing Child will be on public display three times a day via the television networks.

The child will be capable of unrestrained outbursts and will be shown in the throes of a basic emotional crisis such as grief, joy or hatred. It will be the duty of his two viewing directors to manipulate him into these displays either psychologically or by using pain. To insure his ease of manipulation and extend his usable time, the child will be a mentally retarded defective, selected from among a few such children saved from lawful destruction for this express purpose.

An adult companion will be assigned to the Viewing Child to attend to his physical needs and to spend a maximum of six hours each day in his company. The companion will be chosen on the basis of having a low Sensitivity Score, which will allow him to be attuned to the child and also let the child better relate to him. His duties will consist of directing the child into quiet pastimes between crisis performances and to note any clue as to how the child's emotions are running. The companion will report this information to the viewing directors so they may use it for the next Viewing.

Under AEC's rule, society was altered by more than just the absence of human feeling. Without emotion to stimulate imagination and initiative, progress virtually halted. Visionary programs faded and technology gradually regressed to an earlier status quo. The population shrank as people became loath to produce the noisy-emotioned children they had to live with for three years before AEC took them over. The advent of AEC had done the impossible and actually altered the environment, enough to sustain "feeling" people again.

This fact was first discovered by the Re-Conditioners who found that Re-Conditioning had ceased to work in many cases. More and more of their subjects were returned to the labs two or three times.

Keeping the startling statistics to themselves, the Re-Conditioners entered into a debate that split their ranks into two opposing factions: liberal and conservative.

The conservatives insisted on forcing the "repeaters" back onto the shock-tables as often as they Re-Emerged, despite the possibility that the exhausting pain would ultimately kill them.

The liberals interpreted the high and repeated rate of Re-Emergence as evidence that the environment was changed enough to allow people to live without AEC, or at least in a semi-Conditioned state. They argued for the right to let the worst repeaters go free and attempt to live normally.

The government finally decided the issue. It ruled the liberal proposal to be treason and placed the death penalty on any Re-Conditioner found guilty of trying to carry it out. Nevertheless, a small group banded together to put its beliefs in action and to secretly reclaim any person whose fate was shock-death in the labs. Their goal was the future overthrow of AEC itself, but in the meantime the system went right on conditioning three-year-olds, abusing mentally defective children for the public's benefit and inflicting electric agony on the helpless prisoners inside the dark cells of its laboratories.

This was the world of Frederic Dainig, who served as companion to an especially winsome and volatile Viewing Child named Peter. Triggered by the child's great love for him, Dainig went into Re-Emergence and came out a unique man. He was able to feel emotions such as love. He also felt compassion, the emotion considered the greatest of human feelings, but feared lost to the world forever. With his rebirth, Dainig found that Peter was the most important thing in his life and gave his love wholeheartedly to the boy.

When Dainig was thrown into the Re-Conditioning cells, Peter fell into a siege of hysterical crying and longing that left him exhausted, starving and slated for destruction. With the child's death imminent, Dainig fought his Re-Conditioner—Lawrenz Bretton—to a standstill, refusing to give up his love for Peter and wanting only to escape and save the boy. Not to be thwarted, Bretton administered extra doses of prolonged and brutal shock that took Dainig to the brink of his endurance.

When death seemed near, help finally came to him in the form of Re-Conditioner Laine Todd, a leader of the liberal group. She saw Dainig's powerful and unique emotions as invaluable assets for her new society and offered him the chance to leave as a semi-Conditioned man. Unwilling to wait for that process to be accomplished, Dainig tricked her into providing him with the artificial means to fool Bretton (secret doses of Equilibria, which made him appear calm) and was released with all of his emotions intact.

On the day he left the cells, he rescued the now stuporous Peter and smuggled him out of the Viewing Complex. Through threats and a compelling demonstration of his love for the boy, he persuaded Laine Todd to shelter both of them in one of the liberals' "safe" places—the village of Torpela.

But Dainig's crisis was far from over. As a man who had not even been semi-Re-Conditioned and who possessed astounding depths of feeling, he remained in a precarious and frightening emotional state. He loved the little boy more than he loved his life, but his rampaging emotions boded disaster for both the child's survival and his own.

CHAPTER 1

Frederic Dainig jerked upright in bed, his eyes arrowing to the door. He expected to see Re-Conditioner Bretton bearing down on him, eager to send another surge of electric shock through his body and listen to his agony.

But the door was wood, not metal. The color was soft green, not gray. And there was no vicious, icy-eyed Bretton outlined against it because this was not a lab cell, but a bedroom in Hugo Warner's apartment.

Shaking in reaction, Dainig expelled his breath and oriented himself. Although the threat of Bretton's brutality was gone from his life, he still felt embattled. The powerful dose of Equilibria and a brief sleep had done him no good at all, and he wondered if anything ever would. Would his out-of-control emotions bedevil him forever?

Laine and Hugo tried to help and he wanted so much to trust them, since he knew their concern was real. But his state of mind twisted their attempts until they appeared devious and made him wary. That left him exactly where he had been two days ago: standing alone, in turmoil, and fighting to protect himself and Peter.

Peter. Just the thought of the child created a need to see him, so Dainig padded across to the other bed where Peter lay in a little hump under the covers. The boy was still sleeping off the exhaustion of his ordeal. He was actually eight, but looked six and, because of his retardation, sometimes acted even younger. The sight of his recently battered face raised anger in Dainig. But it was quickly transformed into resolve. He had saved this child from death. He had suffered for him, won the right to him, and now their lives were as closely bound as though they were one. As long as he safeguarded Peter, they would both survive.

He adjusted the covers around the frail body and walked into the bathroom, hoping a cold shower would subdue his emotional demons. But, afterward, as he dressed his too-thin body in a burgundy-colored coverall and combed his brown hair, he knew it hadn't helped. Nevertheless, he had to face the day, which meant confronting Laine Todd and Hugo Warner.

Hiding his distress from them loomed as nearly impossible, but failure was out of the question. The most innocent statements touched fire to him if they aroused any feeling at all, and such emotional outbursts were humiliating. He must keep himself intact for Peter's sake and also to find relief for himself, because he constantly felt assaulted and afraid.

This morning, he was determined to layer himself in a veneer of calm, and seeing no evidence of his true condition, they wouldn't try to take advantage. Even as that last thought entered his mind, he negated it. As the only other people he knew who could feel emotions as he did, they were his sworn friends and his promise of security. They would never try to hurt him. Why, then, did he feel he must protect himself?

He heard them talking in the kitchen and halted, unnoticed, just outside the door to watch them. Laine was placing leftover food in the warming oven and Dainig felt a little twitch in his stomach when he first looked at her. It was the same impulse to touch and caress her he had felt two years ago when they had first met.

His glance traveled downward from her black hair to her body, and with no warning, the memories changed into an involuntary near-retch. She was wearing gray—the drab color of the lab where she worked as a Re-Conditioner. That profession had made him shy away from her two years ago, and today his revulsion was doubled. He had just escaped from the lab, and its horrors hung onto him like painful, metal tentacles.

She turned and saw him. "Are you up already, Rick?" she asked in surprise. "I was hoping you'd sleep another hour or two."

He drew back his shoulders and walked to the table, relieved that she hadn't noticed his reaction. "I slept enough. I feel like a new person, in fact," he lied, determined to have this go his way.

"Then maybe you'll eat something for a change? I'll make it a big order because you need fattening."

"There's no hurry, Laine. My taste buds aren't awake yet." His bluff was working and she believed what he said.

"The cotton-mouth comes from the extra Equilibria you're taking," Hugo said. He stood as gentlemanly calm as usual, his blond hair combed and an easy smile on his face. But the ferreting gleam in his eyes warned Dainig to be wary. He wasn't fooling this man. Hugo proved him right, adding, "Even with the heavy doses, you're still as tense as a drumhead, aren't you? I didn't really think four hours of sleep could produce a metamorphosis."

"Leave me alone, Hugo. I'm fine!" In spite of himself, the words came out belligerently.

"When you fly off like that?" Hugo pressed the point. "I was merely considering your welfare, Dainig. You don't have to pretend to be what you're not. Laine and I both understand and don't think you're any less of a man because of it."

His bluff was failing, so he veered off on a new tack, trying for a smile and an excuse. "All right, Hugo, I'm still skittish. That will soon go away."

"Not for some time, I'm afraid," Laine said, approaching the table, an overloaded plate of food in her hands. "My experience says you'll have it harder than most people, because I believed your lies and got you out of the lab too soon. If you had let Bretton condition down your emotional highs, it would be easier. Instead, you have to do it all for yourself." She looked down at him, her head tilted. "Did I see you shiver when I mentioned Bretton?"

"You did," he admitted. "But it has nothing to do with my state of mind. Everyone shivers at monstrosities."

Laine's eyes swept to Hugo's with a message not to press the topic; then she started a new one. "How is Peter this morning? Has he roused at all?"

"No, he hasn't, but that's as I want it," Dainig told her.

"He behaved the same way when he had that other siege of hysteria, and he woke up stronger because of it."

Hugo's disappointment betrayed his disagreement. "It's been two days now, Dainig."

"And you think that means he's beyond hope and not worth the effort!" Dainig lashed out with an unexpected fury. "Well, you don't know anything about it. All he needs is to rest and then open his eyes and find me beside him. Me! Whether you think he's worthwhile or not, that boy is my life and he has to be well, so he will be!" The sound of his own voice told him his bluff was over.

Hugo was startled, but Laine said quietly, "That's enough Rick. Hugo doesn't want to quit with Peter any more than you do. You should be ashamed to accuse him of it."

Dainig felt more chastized than if she had yelled at him. "You're right, and I'm sorry, Hugo. I don't know why I said it. I behave like a madman sometimes."

"Outbursts are natural in emotional-neophytes like you. But I must admit I've never come across one with so much bite." He shrugged the episode aside and went to the heating unit. "I'll pour your tea while you start on that plate of food. There are important things to be done this morning."

"What things? Has something happened?"

Laine sat beside him and reached to take his hand, her grasp firm as though he needed steadying. "Our plans to keep you here for the rest of the week have changed, Rick. You must get out of the city immediately. The lab has instigated a general search, and your picture's been on the newscasts all morning."

"The lab?" He was caught on the one word. "But that means Bretton, and we were sure he'd keep quiet about me. It would hurt his professional standing to confess that he failed to Re-Condition me."

"We figured him wrong," Laine said. "I talked to him at the lab this morning and he's decided to admit his fault and try to reap political glory by recapturing you. He's made his news releases lurid, describing you as maniacal and dangerous and naming himself as the only man who can run you to ground."

Dainig shuddered. "What a hellhound to have chasing me. If he gets his hands on me, I'm dead. He'll put me back on his shock-table and kill me inch by inch!" He was building momentum, but couldn't restrain it. "And he'll give Peter back to Cooper and Mattison and let them starve him to death!"

Laine's other hand grabbed him, too. "Bretton will not find you," she said, spacing the words for emphasis. "Hugo and I will see to that, but you'll be no help if you don't hold yourself under control."

"I'm all right! Show me how to keep Peter safe and I'll always be all right." He said it, but his hands shook so hard that hers trembled with them.

Laine left him and motioned Hugo to follow her into the other room. They stood just outside the door, speaking softly so he wouldn't overhear. But he heard anyway, because his tension-heightened senses rendered him acutely alert.

Laine was saying, "Do you see what I mean, Hugo?"

"Most certainly, and I feel for the poor devil. Even when he's fighting to contain himself, he's far too overreactive."

"The worst part of it is that I can't break through and help him."

"Don't blame yourself. I'm aware of how special you think he is and how you feel about him. It can't be easy to see him such an emotional mess—up and down and leaping subjects every two minutes. But you must shield yourself because he'll only get worse."

"Exactly. I can't predict anything about him or even guess what might touch off a crisis. That's why I called you out here. I'll need your strongest backing from now on, Hugo, because Rick won't like what I'm going to do. I've decided that the only safe way to transport him is to put him under sedation."

Dainig's chair clattered over backward as he leaped to his feet. "I will not take any sedatives! I won't let you disable me so I can't watch out for Peter! I'll see both of you dead first." He faced them, crouched and ready.

"Stay away from him, Hugo," Laine warned. Then she approached Dainig by herself. She was all authoritative Re-Conditioner, ignoring his threat and taking control of him. "Pick up that chair and sit in it, Frederic Dainig. Do it. Right now!"

Her cold orders set off the intended Bretton learned reflexes in him and he obeyed. But just as when he was under Bretton's command, he didn't let her control him entirely, either. He held onto enough of himself to curse, "I don't suppose I deserve enough respect to get a hearing."

"You can't have reasons sensible enough to pay us to listen," she spat nastily.

Hugo saw him wince and interceded. "He's come out of the fit, Laine, so let him explain himself. I don't like to see him bullied this way. This isn't the lab."

Laine stared at Dainig, gauging his composure. Satisfied that he was no longer bent on attack, she relinquished her Re-Conditioner's severity and asked quietly, "When a sedative can give you the relief you need, why does the idea scare you so much, Rick?"

"It's not fear. It's simple truth. Don't you understand at all? I have to stay alert for Peter's sake. It's my responsibility to protect his interests. I can't be sure what you'll do with him if I'm—"

She cut him off. "You're afraid we'll turn on you and Peter? Then I know Equilibria won't be enough to hold you."

"It's always worked before," he argued. "I handled myself well enough to fool Bretton once your people started sneaking it into my drinking water."

"You're taking more Equilibria today than we ever gave you in the lab, Rick. Your performance there was a fluke due to your one overwhelming focus—to become free and rescue Peter. It gave you a sham strength, but once it was done, you reverted and you've gone too far to manage it again. Peter won't be truly safe until he's in Torpela, and you're incapable of taking him there alone. Your own weakness can kill him unless you protect against it."

"Which means accepting the sedative," Hugo said gently.

They were making sense and Dainig ached to accept their help. Instead, he moaned, "I just can't." He looked up at Hugo. "Though I suppose you can overpower me and force it."

Hugo turned away, but not before Dainig saw how his remark had hurt.

Laine tried a new course. "You'll do it for yourself once you understand everything, Rick. So I'm going to tell you exactly what we have planned and let you make your own decision."

She laid it out in unemotional statements. Before the day was over, she would drive Dainig and Peter to Torpela, one of the "safe" villages of shepherds and farmers her organization used as havens for the re-claimed people who couldn't manage to live in open society. She had secured a week's leave from the lab so she could stay in Torpela to guide him through his first days of readjustment and teach him to control what she called his emotional "fevers."

"I'll learn quickly," he interrupted confidently.

"Only if you'll cooperate," she said. "I'll need your complete obedience. You'll have to do exactly as I tell you, any time I tell you."

He felt the hairs on his neck rise. "Treat you like a Re-Conditioner, you mean? It can't be that way, Laine.. I ended my knee-jerk days when I left the cells."

"If you keep to that notion, you're going to flounder your way through hell," Hugo warned. "You're a stranger to feelings, Dainig, and from what I've seen of you, I think your fevers are going to be real rippers."

"It will be close to what your Totality was, Rick, except that the emotions will come one at a time instead of all jumbled together," Laine tried to explain. "Their singularity won't make them any less terrifying. I hate to think how far you'll go if I'm not in control of you."

Confused and doubtful, he looked from one to the other. He had sworn that Bretton was the last person he would allow to play the tune that made him dance. Maybe it was insane to feel so strongly about it, but he couldn't help it. Not even when he saw Laine's persuasive face.

"All right, Dainig!" she switched to his last name, which meant, Here comes authority! "How will you like laughing so hard at nothing that you finally fall unconscious? Or being depressed to the point of suicide over a simple stubbed toe? That's what you'll have; it's all yours if you want it. Heaven knows, I'm not looking forward to being your teacher. I'll withdraw my offer,instantly if you won't promise to cooperate."

"Then have it your way! I agree!" he blurted, because there was no other way. "But I'll trade my slavish obedience for your idea of using a sedative. One for one."

"You must agree to that, too," Hugo said sternly. "Without it, you probably won't get out of the city. If something happens to trigger a fever while you're en route, the Special Police will descend on you. They'll take you and Laine and Peter. So stop cutting Laine to pieces like this and bare your arm, Dainig. She wants to leave here as soon as possible."

He reared up from the table and staggered away from them. They suddenly seemed to be giants while he was a quivering, quaking jumble of inadequacies. But he chose the wrong escape route because, in the living room, he found himself face to face with Laine's gray case that held her supply of professional drugs. He halted abruptly, his mind torn with indecision. There was no way he could allow this, and no way he could refuse. There was no one to listen to his fear or to advise him.

"I won't use enough to leave you unconscious, Rick," Laine said from behind him. "I'll just give you the stability you need for the trip, in case we run into trouble. Please accept it. I have to insist, but I don't want to use force. Do it for Peter's sake, if nothing else."

He gulped in a deep breath and surrendered. But the hand he used to unzip his coverall from the neck to the waist trembled so hard he had to steady it with the other. Saying nothing, he pulled his left arm out of the sleeve and faced her, watching her fill a syringe with yellow fluid. If they were going to betray him, this was the time, and as the needle touched his flesh, tears and fury hovered just a gasp away. He refused to let her see them. With one quick sting, it was done and Laine was directing his arm back inside the sleeve almost tenderly.

"Go get Peter ready, now," she murmured, adding, "It will be all right, Rick. Always. I'll never hurt you."

He plodded off, heading for. the bedroom and the only person in the world who made no demands on him but the asking of love. Peter.

"Can I help you with him?" Hugo offered.

"Thank you, but I'll manage. I like to carry him; myself—if you don't mind."

"Of course. I only wanted… I am your ally, you know, Dainig. And I'd like to be your friend."

"You already are," Dainig finally admitted and went through the doorway.

He sat on the bed beside the little boy, wanting some private moments before the dangerous trip began. The child's face was so thin it was almost skeletal, and Dainig stroked the fine yellow hair, trying not to see the swollen eyes and cracked lips that remained from the endless days of hysterical crying.

He loved the boy beyond anything he had dreamed he could feel. He knew he was the only one who really cared about Peter's loneliness and abuse. Hugo and Laine said they did, but their caring was bound to be shallow. They hadn't spent any time with Peter or even seen him, except when he was on display as the Viewing Child. Dainig had watched it all firsthand and lived it with him.

But Peter was safe, now. All he needed was this long, quiet sleep and the promise of waking up to find Dainig beside him. Dainig vowed to provide those two conditions no matter what the cost to himself. It was only because of Peter's freely given love that he had broken through his own childhood conditioning to become a fully "feeling" man. And the one consuming emotion in his life was his love for the little boy. They were so closely linked in experience and heart that they had to stay together to survive.

Facing that clear reality, Dainig felt relief wash over him. Some of it might be the result of the sedative, but whatever it was, when he carried Peter from the bedroom he resolved not to fight Laine any more.

When she came to peer under the blanket at Peter's sleeping face and extended a hand to smooth the blond hair, he surrendered all his doubts. She did care about the little boy. That meant she also cared about him, and whatever she demanded would only be for his good.

Once he was ready, everything flew into motion. The trip down to Laine's traveler was full of risks, so they used the deserted stairways. The underground garage was barren, too. Few people owned private vehicles, and the ones who did were safely at work.

Laine led the way to her pale yellow traveler, climbed into the back and lifted the rear cushion, exposing the under-seat luggage compartment. "Put Peter in here," she said. "Hugo made some good-sized ventilation holes, so he'll be fine."

It seemed akin to closing the child in a coffin, but when Dainig laid him down, he found there was ample room. The space was larger than it looked and Peter was small. He kept one blanket out and folded it on the floor; then, replacing the cushion, he sat down on it. "I'll ride back here where I can keep track of him."

"That was my plan from the beginning," Laine smiled and turned to say some quiet things to Hugo. He wished them good luck and goodbye.

They were underway immediately, too soon for Dainig, since he had never ridden in a traveler. Although only the pedestrian traffic was heavy, the street was aroar with giant commuters that made the small vehicle seem particularly vulnerable when they loomed up beside it. After ten noisy blocks he needed no admonitions to keep his head lowered. That was all he wanted to do.

"I thought the sedative was supposed to calm me," he muttered.

"It can't do anything about faintheartedness," Laine laughed. "Tune your reflexes down, Rick. Once I turn onto Dexter Avenue, the traffic will fall behind and—Oh-oh. Hit the floor!"

He thumped to his elbows and knees just as the klaxon of a Special Police van bellowed to life close behind. His every instinct screamed, "Get out of here!" but Laine braked to a slow crawl, finally halting altogether.

The klaxon howled, unceasingly closer and louder, its noise deafening. Just as Dainig reached sideways to press the side of the box where Peter lay, in case the noise woke him, the van towered up on his left. Taller than the traveler, it placed him in plain view if any Police eyes happened in his direction.

The klaxon died.

"Oh God, they're stopping!" he hissed.

"Keep still," Laine ordered. "They're after a Re-Emerger, and once they reach the sidewalk, we'll be free to leave."

The van door opened and boots hit the cement near Dainig's head. He waited for them to rush on by, but they didn't.

"Stay down, Rick," Laine whispered loudly. "He's coming right up to us."

Dainig tried to flatten out but there was little room.

"You in the yellow traveler!" a bass voice shouted.

Dainig stopped breathing.

"Move that vehicle out of the way, lady. Fast!"

His body lurched against the seat as Laine sped forward to safety, but he had no strength to raise himself back to the seat. He barely caught the last part of Laine's angry words, "… need free space to do their nasty business. They've already battered the poor devil to his knees." She made a noise that sounded like a curse; then she changed her tone, saying, "I can't see you, Rick. Are you all right back there?"

"If scared to death is all right, then I'm fine."

"Put them out of your mind. They didn't get us. Dexter Avenue is coming up soon and there are no uniforms in Torpela."

He concentrated on that promise and had himself back in hand by the time Laine turned the corner onto Dexter. "Is it safe to sit up again?" he asked. "Actually I'd just as soon not. I'm pretty shaky."

"I wish you'd relax altogether. But keep slouched until we're clear of these skyscrapers. And, Dainig—" she used his last name which told him something official was coming "—you have to help the sedative work, you know. It's not impossible to keep control of yourself."

"Are the lessons beginning already?" he grumbled.

"Absolutely. I only have a week to get you subdued and trained, so I won't hear any complaints. I don't want Peter to wake up to an emotional maniac."

"You're exaggerating, Laine. I'm not like that."

"You will be."

He couldn't win, so he gave up trying. When he regained the seat, the sunlight was brighter, indicating their passage from the shadow of the high structures into the sprawl of the outskirts. It wouldn't be long, now. Another five minutes and Dexter Avenue would arrow down its final non-access approach to the highway that led to open countryside. At the end of a six-hour trip lay Torpela.

Soon the fenced-in forms of immense warehouses huddled on both sides of the avenue, unbroken by side-streets, their business accomplished by freight hovercraft. Now Dainig just kept his head low to hide himself from traffic. There wasn't much. Dexter was a lonely avenue, and Laine had selected it for that reason. He finally saw open sky ahead and leaned back against the cushion. They had done it. He had saved Peter and now Laine had saved both of them.

The traveler slowed. As Dainig raised himself to see why, Laine snapped, "Keep down. There's something strange up ahead."

He sensed her hesitation as it was reflected in the slowing motion of the vehicle. "What do you mean, 'strange'?"

"I'm not sure, but I don't like it. There's a parked Crime Control van and the officer has obviously stopped a traveler. He's talking to the driver and— Rick! He's making a search! You don't suppose… ?"

"He's looking for me."

"Well he's not going to get you. I'll run right through him."

"No, Laine. Then he'll know we're the ones and give chase. He'll find Peter!"

"But what else can I do? I can't turn back because he's already seen me!" She was frightened.

Dainig's mind surged, barreling through panic to ideas. "Let him stop you, then. I'll hide down with Peter. Stay calm—don't act nervous—and use your professional status for all it's worth."

He was already on the floor, trying to fold himself inside the concealed space with the child. There wasn't room, and the traveler was fast approaching the officer. He picked up the extra blanket, threw it over himself and the clothes bundle Laine had brought and lay as flat as he could manage.

"The other traveler's moving on," Laine announced.

He could hardly hear above the thump of his heart. "Brave it out, Laine. Scare him off with your lab badge if you can." That was their only hope—that no one would dare subject a Re-Conditioner to inspection.

As the traveler slowed, Dainig tried not to disturb the blanket, scarcely breathing and praying he made few angular human lumps. He wished he had something to clutch hard enough to still his trembling. Then the traveler stopped dead and he listened to the approach of the officer's footsteps.

Laine powered down the window and asked grumpily,

"What is this, Officer? A deliberate attempt to delay me?"

The officer sucked in a breath when he noticed her gray coveralls—the garb of a Re-Conditioner. "Oh. I'm sorry, Re-Conditioner. Of course you wouldn't be… I had no way of knowing."

Laine played it hard. "Forget the apologies and let me be on my way. Even if you have nothing better to do than pester people, I do."

"Yes, Re-Conditioner. And, I'm very sorry."

The man had bent slightly inward as he apologized, and Dainig clenched every muscle in his body against the tremors that shook him.

"You can proceed right along" the officer said. "Have a nice journey, and—" His tone rose a full pitch. "Wait! There's something sticking out from under that blanket. It looks— a shoe!"

Dainig was caught.

"For pity's sake, Officer," Laine protested weakly.

Dainig cut her short by taking the crisis into his own hands. He reared up from the floor, scooping the blanket around the clothes bundle and holding it against his chest to resemble a small, wrapped body; then he lunged for the door on the opposite side of the traveler. "Get Peter out of here!" he hissed at Laine as he hit the cement.

She was stunned to inaction, but the officer shouted in recognition, "Dainig!" and careened around the back of the traveler. "Put that boy down and stand where you are!"

Dainig dashed headlong from the road, leading him away from Laine and Peter. His path was blocked by the high fence around the warehouses, and he tried desperately to climb it one-handed. It was useless, so he gave it up and ran along beside it, back toward the city. He had to outdistance the officer, but his sedative-laden legs couldn't carry him fast enough. Laine still hadn't come to her senses and driven away, and if he fell before she left, then Peter… !

Just then the traveler surged ahead and cut quickly onto the highway. Dainig turned his head to watch and found the man only twenty feet behind him. There was no escape. He had to stand and fight, which meant having both hands free.

He mustered more energy and sprinted to the fence where he deposited the blanket-wrapped clothes. When he straightened, he was looking smack into the panting face of the big officer. The man threw himself the last few feet, his hands clutching Dainig's coverall. Together, they, hit the ground.

Dainig lay breathless as the huge hands grappled at him, trying for a secure hold. It suddenly hit him that the officer knew nothing else to do. His targets always surrendered unemotionally and he expected the same thing here. But Dainig wasn't a conditioned man and had already learned the power of pounding fists.

He grabbed the man's wrists and thrust him away, giving himself room to roll and struggle to his knees. Bewildered, the officer hesitated too long and reaped a solid blow to the face. He grunted and fell backward. Dainig lurched away but the man caught his left ankle and he hit the dirt face first.

Kicking hard to release his foot, Dainig struck the man in the face and slithered out of reach. He jumped up and took advantage of his edge, grasping the stunned body by the shoulders and heaving it up to teeter and sway until his clenched fist beat it back to the ground. He took every chance he found, kicking, gouging, elbowing and battering with his fists, hearing the officer's cries, until the uniformed body went limp and didn't respond again.

Staggering upright, Dainig wiped the sweat from his eyes and stared down at his sprawling adversary, once again feeling the power of passionate action. But only for a moment, because he quickly realized he was standing in the open—exposed; that he may have saved Peter but had probably doomed himself.

There was no way out. He was caged in right and left by the towering fences, which marched for miles behind him toward the city. Ahead was open countryside. Out there he would stand silhouetted like a lone tree on a plain where no one walked. His wild exhilaration vanished and desolate loneliness took its place. He had fashioned a trap that had no door.

With a burst of willpower that surprised him, he shook himself free of that feeling. Laine would have labeled the mood overreactive, and since she wasn't here, he had to guide himself. He reminded himself that he wasn't a helpless man. He had escaped from Lawrenz Bretton, the one believed to be the lab's most brutal practitioner, and he was damned if he was going to let fences or miles defeat him.

The first order of business was to put distance between himself and the unconscious officer. The "how" of it was decided quickly. The Crime Control van was parked just off the avenue and promised a mobility his legs didn't have. He had never driven a vehicle before but it did not deter him. He searched the officer's pockets for the ignition-impresser, found it and closed it inside his hand with reckless determination.

Returning to the fence, he unwrapped the bundle of clothes to carry with him, but left the empty blanket rippling in the wind as evidence that Peter had been here but was gone. Feeling good about that touch, he loped for the van. He had to hurry. If another traveler came along, his chance would be ruined.

The van started easily, but Dainig was wary of the surge of power under his hands. Nevertheless, he let the machine have its head. It vaulted forward over the uneven ground, bouncing and tilting dangerously. He veered it sharply to the left, almost sending it straight across the pavement before he heaved it back on course for the highway. There, he turned south, in the opposite direction Laine had taken.

Driving fast because he found it easier to steer, and staying in the center lane so he didn't threaten to run off the edge, Dainig gritted his teeth and fled. He knew this couldn't last long. The officer would eventually come to and report the van as stolen; so it was necessary to abandon it as soon as possible, yet still put a good distance between himself and Dexter Avenue.

The highway exits were spaced one mile apart; he let five of them go by, all the time feeling more and more pursued by something invisible racing up behind him. Traffic was becoming thicker, and irritated drivers motioned him out of the center lane, but he held his spot for one more mile before he jerkily angled the van to the side of the highway.

The next exit was Hardick Road. Dainig swung onto it because he could see trees rising along its edges—stands of trees and brush that might serve as hiding places for the van.

The narrower road was harder to navigate, but he managed until he found exactly what he wanted—a line of tall bushes about 20 feet back from the pavement. He steered to the right, hit the ground with a rasping thump of undercarriage, and bobbled and bounced in behind the brush.

He wanted to sit and just pant for a while, but he still had no time. The van would soon be found and he had to be well away from it by then. He picked up the clothes-bundle, resigned to journey on foot, when it hit him that he'd been a fool not to think of the van's communicator. Yet, what number could he possibly call? Not Laine's. He didn't know hers, anyway. And any conditioned person he knew would turn him in with no qualms.

Frustration hit so hard that he pounded the communicator, wanting to eviscerate it for promising so much and providing nothing. If it was an overreaction, he was entitled to it. And no one was here to admonish him otherwise. No Bretton, no Laine, not even Hugo Warner.

Hugo! Of course! Dainig had Hugo's number embedded in his brain because it had been so important when he rescued Peter and chose Hugo as his shelter. He punched the number. When Hugo answered he explained what had happened and gave his location all in one breath.

"Inhale, Dainig," Hugo said. "And hold yourself in check until I get there. My traveler is dark blue and once I reach Hardick, I'll keep swerving slightly from side to side so you can recognize me. Run out and get in and I'll take you on to Torpela myself." He halted and abruptly asked, "Are you well enough in hand to follow those directions?"

"I got this far, didn't I?" Dainig answered indignantly.

"So you did. Watch for me, then."

An hour later, Dainig was in the front seat of Hugo's traveler, and they were back on the highway headed toward Torpela. For Dainig, it was like returning to a home he had never had—a place of security, friendship and warmth.

Hugo had digested the details of the Crime Control officer and the flight. Now he said, "That business of checking the highway entrances must have been Bretton's doing. He has enough power to instigate a search of that kind, and he's the only one who wants you badly enough to do it. You handled yourself well for the most part, Dainig, but running away from Laine was foolish. You forced her to leave you stranded."

"I had to draw that man away from Peter, and I knew he'd chase me if I ran," Dainig protested.

"You could have attacked him right where he stood and then gone on with Laine. What you did was rash and unthinking. If you hadn't gotten away and had instead wound up back in the hands of the authorities…" Somewhat shaken and upset, Hugo changed to an accusatory tone. "You've been swearing that Peter can recover only if he sees you beside him when he awakens. But you didn't consider that, and because you didn't, you almost made us lose both of you."

"I don't need or want your criticism, Warner. I saved both of us, whether you'll admit it or not. I proved myself to be a fully capable man who doesn't have to submit to anyone in the name of anything. I don't need retraining. Not when I can accomplish what I did today."

"Is that right?" Hugo asked, pointedly. "Then tell me why your hands are trembling."

Dainig hadn't noticed, but now that his attention was called to them, they went beyond trembling into all-out shaking. "I don't have that answer, but I'm sure it's nothing."

"Nothing more than the beginning of your first reactive fever," Hugo said irritably. "The sedative Laine gave you has worn off, and I didn't think to bring along any Equilibria."

"I don't need it," Dainig lied, sure he didn't get away with it because the tremors had spread into his arms and legs now, and he felt the rise of a quaking monster in his chest. He was suddenly afraid, yet there was no reason to be. Without explanation, he felt like running—far and fast. And he knew he was going to whimper and cry in spite of the fact that he wasn't unhappy. What was happening to him? He was through with this sort of thing. He had left it behind in the dark of the lab with his Re-Emergence madness. He wanted to scream at Hugo to keep on talking, but didn't dare trust his voice.

Finally Hugo spoke on his own, but it wasn't comfort that he offered. "It's coming, Dainig, and if you can't control it enough to stave it off, maybe the experience will teach you that you're not as self-sufficient as you think. That you're not ready to live as an emotional man and won't be, until you submit to our guidance."

Dainig straightened to defend himself and instead doubled over, caught and bound by a churning of emotions that had no stimuli. He put his hands over his head and curled into a tight ball, helpless against anything Hugo wanted to inflict on him. Simultaneously, a cry of sorrow and a whimper of fear emerged from him, and he had no power to stop them, feeling each one of them to their depths.

"Is there no chance of controlling it?" Hugo asked in a gentler voice.

"Uunnhh...." Dainig shook his head violently from side to side.

Hugo pressed his shoulder in sympathy and understanding. "Then go ahead and have it out. I won't say another word."

It all hit him at once: the fear he'd felt at being discovered; the wrath of the physical fight; the pride and exhilaration; and the desolation of realizing he had lost Peter. One at a time the emotions exploded in him, raging and magnified a hundredfold; then they gathered for a united onslaught. He suffered with them, shaking and writhing, until Hugo stopped the traveler and helped him into the back seat where he had more room to move his body and more privacy to hide his shame.

For two hours the fever stormed in him, and he emerged from it limp and exhausted. Even with the sobs and moanings long over, Hugo said nothing, giving him time. At last the traveler stopped again and with kind hands, Hugo led him back to the front seat.

When he had managed to put the hottest part of his embarrassment aside, Dainig said softly, "You were right, Hugo. I'm not a strong man. I'm more of a victim—of myself."

"You have the potential to become a very strong man, Frederic Dainig. Don't let this episode convince you otherwise. You're going to suffer many of these fevers, but all you need is time and tempering."

"I have the time and I'll accept the tempering, now. Willingly."

Hugo sighed in relief. "Then the experience wasn't useless. Laine has such hopes for you that she's made me catch the bug, too. I don't want you to fail her. Or yourself, for that matter."

"My main reason for recovering is Peter. You know that, Hugo. He's actually the only reason for my existence, any more."

"Now I will say control yourself,' because that statement is part of your sickness and cannot be allowed. It was melodramatic."

"So it was," Dainig admitted. "But… it was also true."

"Then turn your mind to a happier vein, because it's not much farther to Torpela. You'll have your boy back again."

"Do you really think Laine took him there?"

"I don't see that you left her any other choice. I'm sure we'll find them both waiting and worried frantic about you."

"Laine, maybe. But Peter… He'll either still be unconscious, or he'll be hysterical at waking up to a stranger's face." The idea frightened him. "He has to wake up calmly, Hugo, and he has to see me. It will prevent a continuation of the hysterical seizure he was in before he fell unconscious. Otherwise… Much more of that wildness will kill him. He's not strong, you know."

"I think that boy is just exactly as strong as you are, Dainig, because you are his strength."

Dainig liked the words, but said anyway, "Now that, Hugo Warner, was melodramatic. You must learn to control what you say."

Hugo laughed, and for the first time, Dainig let himself join in.

CHAPTER 2

Laine called it the "high cabin" because it wasn't actually in Torpela, but lay three miles farther up the rolling mountainside. It stood alone, the forest pressing against its back and sides, and a rocky dropoff opening the view of the valley in front. The native villagers knew Laine was often in residence, but they stayed prudently away. She was, after all, a Re-Conditioner.

The cabin consisted of one large room with a stone fireplace, a square table, three straight-backed chairs and one bed, which was given over to Peter. Laine used the lumpy sofa while Dainig slept on a mattress of blankets on the floor. The fact that the cabin was small gave it an air of security he liked.

Laine set right to work, teaching him the rudiments of mastering his undisciplined emotions, and he quickly learned what her role as guide would be. It was primarily a process of steadying him and pulling him back from excesses of overreaction, but she sometimes turned tyrannical. A great deal of touching was involved when she thought he needed physical sensation to counter the intangible emotional flights.

He found his way through two small episodes on the first day by following her instructions. She didn't once humiliate him, and he was relieved at that. Now that they were alone, he also enjoyed her company. Her slender, stubborn strength and her candid admission of reciprocated interest raised his desire, but she refused to let him unleash it until he was more stable. Even so, she acted as though she had finally retrieved something very highly valued.

On the second day, he awoke in an elated frame of mind. The cabin was quiet, but he heard Laine outside chopping up pieces of wood for the fireplace. He reminded himself to take over half of that chore, but not right now.

He already had a plan for this morning. He intended to rouse Peter and bring that elfin presence back into his life. He missed the clasp of the boy's arms, his silly games and most of all, his unceasing expressions of love.

Striding eagerly to the bed, he called out the words he had always used to wake the child when he was a prisoner in the Viewing Complex. "All right, Peter, it's time to wake up. Let's have those brown eyes open."

At the lack of response, he bent over the bed and tried again. "It's time for breakfast, Peter. You've slept too long already. Come on now, little boy."

There was still no answer. Dainig caught his breath as he looked at the child closely. Most of the swelling had ebbed from Peter's face and his cracked lips were healing, but he lay so still that he resembled a wax mannequin, the color of his cheeks seeming to be only painted there against his pallor.

Struggling to hold down the beginnings of dread, Dainig placed his hand on the fragile shoulder and prodded it gently, urging Peter to open his eyes. Nothing happened. Frightened, he used both hands; then the dread took over, forcing his voice to desperation as he shook the child harder and harder, yelling, "Peter! Open your eyes and answer me. For God's sake, Peter, don't play games with me!"

Laine's footsteps slapped the floor, and suddenly she was beside Dainig, forcing his hands off the boy and shouting in her own turn, "Stop it, Rick! It's no use—can't you see that? Let him be."

"But I can't wake him up, Laine! He doesn't even try." He pulled his hands away from her but she caught them back and held fast, tugging him away from the bed. "Let go of me," he protested. "There's something wrong with him and I have to… He wasn't like this yesterday. Help him!"

"Take hold of yourself before you go too far, Dainig. I won't have any more of this, do you understand? And I won't do a thing for Peter until you're sane enough to listen to what I have to say."

She was being cruel, making his own self-control the prerequisite for helping the boy. She wouldn't relent, and finally Dainig had no choice but to gulp down his panic and try to act sensibly. He walked to the center of the room, drawing her with him. "I'm listening, Laine Todd. But I don't intend to hear anything. Just see to Peter. Please! I don't know how to help him."

"I've been taking care of him ever since I brought him in here, Dainig. You've watched me try to give him water every two hours, day and night, so you know I've been doing the best I can."

He admitted it. She had been squeezing water into Peter's mouth from the corner of a clean towel, and he had even parted the boy's lips for her.

"Don't you understand that's all we can do for him right now?" she persisted. "He's gone too far. And I'm afraid he's—"

Dainig wouldn't listen. "His cheeks are rosy!"

"From fever. You've only been looking at your own image of him, Rick. It's time to face the truth. Peter is not asleep. He's in a coma. And my measly drops of water aren't going to be enough."

Dainig stared at her. His voice was low and measured as he said, "You can't tell me that he's going to die. Don't try."

She stared back, ready to say it anyway, but then relented. "I'm only saying that he's reached a crisis point. If I had to guess which way he's liable to go…" She paused, unwilling to utter the words and give them reality. "We'll do everything we can for him, Rick. Mostly, we'll wait. Together."

Her face was so full of sympathy that he could hardly bear to look at her. He glanced toward the bed and couldn't look at Peter, either, fear mixed with revulsion strong in him. He didn't want to face the possibility of death. He wanted to run from it, far and fast, to save himself, but he was compelled to stay and fight for Peter's life just as he had fought before. The emotions banged together, sending shudders surging through his body. He didn't know whether to curse or plead or cry.

"I'll get the Equilibria," Laine said quickly. "I'll even give you another sedative if you—"

"I don't need anything! I'll either face this undrugged or never face anything else in my life."

"That's irrational, Dainig. Do as I say and take the pills."

He turned his back on her.

"Then there's only one other way to go," she said in a way that sounded like a threat she resolved to put in force. "I'll have to let you suffer it out alone and just do everything I've learned that can make it easier."

"There's no way in the world to make it easier."

"I know of one. Looking straight at your worst fears takes the edges off of them. Being prepared for something lessens the shock. Be decent enough to let me show you, Rick. Come and sit with me. Please."

He walked to the sofa like a robot, obeying out of the habit instilled in the lab. She had the will and the power, so for the moment he would follow. He needed time to nurture the tiny impulse he felt beginning in his heart: the impulse that told him to hang on, that nothing was certain. By the time he took his seat, he felt able to defend his own beliefs.

She sat beside him, plainly unsure of where to begin and just as plainly determined to force herself. "First I want you to add up all the facts, Rick. Don't hide anything from yourself. Listen to all of them. Peter is in a coma. He has a high fever and is growing weaker by the hour. He was already half-starved when he fell into this seizure, and we can't possibly give him any water or nourishment when he's unconscious. Do you agree to those statements?"

"I have no choice, have I? But it doesn't have to mean—"

"You're arguing again, Rick. You have to stop thinking of Peter and yourself as one entity so you can see this clearly. It's time to put aside your prayers as impossible and prepare yourself to face the truth. It won't be so hard if you're ready for it."

"I won't prepare myself for something that isn't going to happen," he insisted adamantly. "And I won't stop hoping. I know Peter and his resilience. He's delicate, but he's also stubborn. So he has a chance, in spite of what you want me to believe."

"Not when he isn't fighting. He's given up and we can't change that."

"If I can bring him around just once, it will put the fight back into him. Right now he doesn't know there's anything to fight for. When I took him from the complex, he was too groggy to realize it. But if I can show him where he is and let him see me, he'll rally so fast it will astound you. I know it." As he said it, he did know it. Thoroughly.

"Even if that's true, how are you going to rouse him? Nothing has worked so far."

Her logic hit like lead in his stomach and he let his head sink into his hands, but raised it again, determined not to go her way. "You said I could suffer this out alone, Laine. Does that still stand?"

"You don't know what you're asking of yourself. You're going to hope and doubt, pray and grieve and despair. You'll feel them all magnified 100 times because of your unschooled condition."

"I'll accept it."

"And me? You're asking me to watch and hear you, and—"

"To wait with me. Stand by for me."

Laine felt dread now. Tears filled her eyes, but she made her decision quickly and nodded her head. "I'll be here. I'll even yell at you once in a while to keep you from hysteria of your own. 'Feel' it through, Rick, and heaven help us both."

Dainig had knelt beside the child for 18 long hours, determined to will life back into the frail body should it begin to flicker away. Many emotional frenzies had attacked him, but now he felt stifled and bound by one thing only: concentrated, apprehensive waiting.

The day was smothering under the approach of a storm that startled him when it suddenly boomed across the valley. The only illumination in the cabin came from the hearthfire, which sputtered low. Laine sat outlined before it, the clenched attitude of her body telling him that she was waiting, too.

Despite her admonitions, Dainig had been talking to the child, pleading with him to fight and stay alive in this safe world he had provided. No matter what Laine said about his dependence on the boy, his own life would be worthless without him. Straining with the need for Peter to hear him and respond, he circled the tiny wrist with his hand.

He dropped it back on the blanket instantly—afraid. Something was wrong! Something in the child had changed.

Panic closed his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Laine! I think… He's not breathing, Laine. Help him!"

She was there immediately, checking Peter's throat for a pulse, her face drained to ashen white. She straightened up with a loud, shuddering sigh. "He's alive, Rick. As alive as he was ten minutes ago, at any rate."

"Thank God." It emerged as a moan and his eyes echoed it, filling with warm tears. He didn't try to stop them because he couldn't any more.

Seeing them, Laine broke her word and gave vent to her frustration. "I've begged you to stop creating these false crises, Dainig. I sit here dreading the time when Peter actually turns for the worse, and you make me live the moment over and over again."

"I couldn't see him breathe," he said defensively.

"We've already been through that twice. His breath is weak and shallow so it's hard to discern. It doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't even be noticed, but you watch him so intensely—"

A jab of blue-white lightning cut her short. Thunder crashed behind it and a whoosh of chilling wind blew in as hail whacked on the roof.

She ran to close the door, yelling, "Put another blanket on Peter. Hurry!"

As he bent to do it, the whole sky broke into wild turbulence. Lightning flashes illuminated the room and thunder hit in shock waves. Whistling yowls of wind skidded by the walls, and tree limbs buffeted windows they shouldn't have been able to reach.

Dainig had never heard such violence and felt personally assaulted. The thunder was a cannonade directly overhead and the cabin threatened to twist off the earth. He had the insane desire to hide under the bed, but instead he leaned over it to shield Peter's body. Laine huddled on the floor beside him, and when the thunder pounded with tangible pressure they flinched in unison.

At last the noise split into discernible sections and abandoned their part of the sky. The wind's fury abated, but rain still battered the roof.

Dainig reached down to caress Laine's head. "I think it's past us now. You can stop hiding."

She let go of him sheepishly. "That was my first end-of-the-world-type storm." She stood up, shivering in a reaction that she tried to excuse by saying, "The hail made this place an icebox. I'll stoke the fire while you see that Peter is warm."

Dainig started to obey—and stopped. Still. Because the child's mouth was open and he was gasping in short, panting breaths.

"Laine, there's something wrong! Peter is… !"

She was beside him instantly. They knelt together, frightened.

"Is it happening?" Dainig whispered. "Is this how he dies?"

"Hold fast to me, Rick, because I don't know. Just hold on to me. We'll do this together." Her hands were on him, searching for a way to steady him.

"Then… you think he is? NO!" He thrust his hands under the boy and pulled him against his chest, gripping hard to build a wall against death. "Peter, it's Danny! Listen to me—I'm here. Peter!"

"Rick… his eyes! Look at his eyes."

The pale lids were jerking spasmodically, and Peter's head strained backward as he gasped for air that wouldn't fill his lungs. It was terrible to see, but Dainig didn't turn away. If this was Peter's death, he had to face it with him.

In the space of a moment, the eyelids stopped twitching and two brown eyes blinked open, unfocused and afraid.

A cry tore out of Dainig's chest. "Peter, can you see me? Can you see me?"

"Daann—nnee?"

"Yes, Peter, yes! It's Danny! I'm here and I'm holding you. Little boy. Look at me. I have you safe in my arms. Tell me you know it, Peter."

"Daa—ny. Where… ?"

"We're safe, little boy. Safe together, away from the city, just like I promised." He struggled for some way to prove it to the child before he lapsed back into the coma again. "The rain! Hear the rain, Peter? Hear the noise? That's rain on the roof—something you've never heard before. You couldn't hear it in the city. You know what rain is. The thunder woke you up and now you can hear the rain."

"Matty… come? Tube?" The child was fearful of his chief tormentor at the complex, Clara Mattison, and the tube she had ordered forced down his throat to feed him when he was too exhausted to do it for himself.

"Never again, Peter. I took you away from her. You're safe with me now, and we'll be together forever just like you always dreamed. Say you know me, little boy. You have to say it so I can be sure."

"Danny… I love. You. For—ever. Lo—vv…."

The brown eyes drifted shut and Dainig was left with a blankness in his soul.

But Laine was smiling. "It's all right, Rick. He's not comatose now, he's just asleep. Can't you see the difference?"

Dainig could, and he laid Peter back on the bed and covered him with blankets, watching them grow wet with his own dropping tears. "He'll make it now," he whispered. "He'll fight back and live."

"Please, Rick…" Laine began.

He faced her, defiant. "Don't tell me how weak he is, or that people often come out of comas just before they die. I know what I know! Peter recognized me. He felt my hands and arms and heard what I was saying. He'll want to live now and he will! Please, Laine. I need someone else to believe it too."

Suddenly she was crying along with him. "Then, I do believe it, Rick. I do."

Gratefully, he took her into his arms.

Peter's condition wavered, and Dainig's emotions wavered in unison. When the child was conscious and able to take water or goat's milk, Dainig was elated. But when Peter sank backward and couldn't be roused, Dainig hovered beside him in a fit of worry and despair. The boy wasn't strong enough to be pronounced stable, and as Dainig's state of mind soared and then plummeted uncontrollably, it was clear that he had no right to the word, either. Laine was the only steady one, and her devotion to Dainig never varied except to grow more and more tender.

During Peter's fifth period of consciousness, the child was sipping milk when he suddenly cowered against his pillow, frightened. Dainig's hands were on him instantly. "What's wrong, Peter? I'm here."

Peter cast his wide brown eyes on Laine. "She!"

"Do you mean Laine?" Dainig was confused. "Why are you afraid?"

"She! Don't let her hurt me like Matty does, Danny. Don't!"

It seemed impossible that the boy hadn't noticed Laine before, but that was the only explanation for his behavior. "She is not like Matty, Peter. No. Her name is Laine and she helped me bring you here. Look at her—at her face and eyes. Is she hard like Matty? Does she look cold and mean?"

Although he huddled closer to Dainig, Peter obeyed, peering at Laine timidly. He said nothing.

"Maybe I should go outside," Laine offered, her hurt plain. "I don't want to upset him."

"Not on your life," Dainig told her. "He'll just do it again the next time he sees you. Besides, he owes you better than this." Hunting for a way to bring the two of them together, he said, "Express what you feel about him. Let it show on your face. He knows the difference between real smiles and fakes."

She was unsure and completely ill at ease with children, since she had never been associated with them, but she made an attempt. "I'll feel terrible if you're afraid of me, Peter. I like you and your Danny. I want to see you get well, and I want to know you better—even join in your games. Will you let me?"

Peter wasn't certain, hesitating a long time before he asked, "Can you stay in the lines when you color a picture?"

The question was so devoid of framework that Laine and Dainig both laughed. "I haven't done it for a long time, but I think so," Laine said.

Peter's attention was already back on Dainig. His expression was one of pleased wonder. "She laughed, Danny. Like you and me. She must be special, too."

"That's what I told you, little boy. And her name is Laine, not 'she.'"

"Laine," he repeated, relaxing. "New special ones are good to have, but you're still best, Danny."

"If that's true, then do as I say and finish your milk, all right? There's a whole world waiting for you, Peter, but you can't enjoy it from a sick bed."

Peter was obedient, but didn't manage to down the whole cup before his eyes grew too heavy to stay open. Dainig set the milk aside, murmuring to Laine, "Every little bit is a step forward. Maybe he'll drink a full cup next time."

But when the time came to wake him, Peter couldn't be roused. He proceeded that way, up again and down again, until Dainig thought he would live forever in a state between joy and despair.

Laine obtained milk from the people she called Torpela's newcomers. Like Dainig, they had been transplanted here to keep them from the labs. Returning from her fourth such trip, she set her basket down with a businesslike plunk and asked, "How is Peter?"

"The same as when you left. In a stupor."

She sighed in disappointment. "I was hoping…"

"There must be something more we can do for him, Laine. One of these relapses could become permanent if he doesn't gain some strength. You deal with weakened people, injured people, so—"

"Don't put that responsibility on me," Laine interjected. "I'm not a doctor. All I know is the amount of applied shock the human body can stand, and what to do if my subject goes into cardiac arrest. That's why I intend to pump every doctor I can find when I get back to the city."

"What?" He was beside her in four strides.

"I'm going home this afternoon, Rick. I'm due back at the lab. I've already stayed three extra days."

"But I'm not ready to handle Peter's sickness alone. I'm not even ready to handle myself. I still need you."

"Not specifically. You only need an experienced teacher, and I've brought one back with me. His name is Mark Damon, and he's waiting right outside. He left his wife and child in Torpela to come and deliver you from your monsters the same way he was delivered from his."

"He's one of us? A feeling human being?"

"And also a fine man, as you'll discover."

"Even so, he's not—"

"It has to be this way, Dainig," she reverted to his last name, sensing the need for authority.

He found her eyes stubborn, so he surrendered. "Then let's get to it, Laine Todd."

The moment they stepped out of the cabin, Dainig's attention was riveted to the figure waiting under the trees. This man was to be his only link to reality when the wild emotions overtook him, yet he was predetermined not to like him. Need him he might, but accept him as a substitute for Laine—never.

He was tall and tanned with brown hair streaked blond by the sun, hazel eyes that seemed to change their color evasively, and a short-clipped beard. Facial hair was frowned upon in the city and the sight was strange to Dainig. Oddest of all were the man's clothes. He wasn't wearing the normal coverall style but was clad in dark brown trousers, a long-sleeved shirt hanging loose at the cuffs, and boots fashioned of untanned animal skins.

The two of them faced each other three feet apart as Laine said, "Rick, this is Mark Damon. And Mark, this is Richard Dainig."

"Richard… yes," Damon copied the change of name.

Damon's hand thrust forward and Dainig clasped it, gauging this new element in his life. There was something "open" about Mark Damon's face now that he saw it closely. It centered in his eyes and continued downward into the upturned curve of his mouth. Unable to put his finger on the difference at first, Dainig finally realized it was the man's very expression—the fact that he had an expression at all. Mark Damon was a feeling person— only the third that Dainig had ever known—and his warmth and decent concern were echoed in his face. Dainig sensed a flicker of self-consciousness, too, and wondered why.

Damon's first words explained it. "It's a great honor to meet you, Mr. Dainig. Being chosen to help you… I swear I'll always give you my best efforts." With the last words, the pressure of his hand grew stronger, his smile resolute, and then his hand retreated.

The man was offering him deference and Dainig didn't know what to make of it. He relieved his discomfort by belittling himself. "Nothing but promethean efforts are going to work with me. You'll be sorry you were chosen once you've been through the fire a few times."

"If you're still calling them 'fires,' then that may be true," Damon laughed. "But Laine warned me and I decided I'm up to you. I wouldn't have come, otherwise. You're too important to us not to be supplied with the best."

"Why?" Dainig asked bluntly. "I'm no different from anyone else."

"You don't want to be, you mean," Laine said, guessing his problem. "You'll have to take this in stride, Rick. The truth is that you're a celebrity in Torpela. All of our newcomers know who and what you are, and they are counting the days until you're stable enough to join them."

"That still doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to be."

"You're the man who beat Re-Conditioning completely," Damon said. "The man who Re-Emerged into more profound emotions than anyone else ever has. And… the man who has a naturally emotional child for a son. You're already being referred to as 'Keeper' by most of the newcomers."

"Keeper!" Dainig was dumbfounded.

"I told you that you and Peter are going to be our models, our ideals," Laine reminded him. "But I am afraid I went a little too far when I put it as being the 'Keeper of our future,' because now you have to face the consequences of my excited labeling." She was smiling, too, enjoying his discomfort at being spotlighted as a symbol.

"This means people will expect things of me?"

"Absolutely. And it's your responsibility to get yourself under control and provide what they need."

"But I only asked to come here to keep Peter safe and give him a world he can handle," he protested pettily. "You've ruined any idea I had of anonymity, Laine. Suddenly I'm supposed to have a mission. A grand purpose."

"We're not in the business of burying our best assets!" Laine shot back. "I gave you Torpela, and now it's up to you to return that gift in any way you can."

Dainig felt betrayed all out of proportion. "Never trust a Re-Conditioner, Damon," he huffed. "It's innate in them to offer you solace in one hand and shock in the other."

Laine's face went white. "You haven't made any progress at all, have you! You're still totally self-centered and nasty."

Damon moved to calm the pair. "I'm probably stepping in where I shouldn't, but isn't Dainig's reaction normal for a man in his state? From amiability to resentment, with nothing in between? Faced with a situation that frightens him, he lashes at the easiest target."

Laine shook her head, disgusted with herself. "You're right, Mark, and you've just proved what I've been suspecting. Rick and I are too personally involved for me to act as his teacher. It's good that I have to leave. Since everything is arranged, I may as well do it now."

"Not with my insult fresh in your mind," Dainig said, catching her arm. "I'm sorry I turned on you with the Re-Conditioner business."

"It wasn't your fault, Rick. I forgot for a moment what a chameleon you are. You're not going to fail us and I know it. Now… kiss Peter for me and… take care."

She was intent on leaving and he had no logical way of preventing it, so he walked with her to the edge of the forest and watched her descend the path toward her hidden traveler. Their parting was over so quickly that it stung him as both incomplete arid final. All he had was her promise to return on every weekend she could manage.

He returned to Mark Damon. "Well, Damon, I guess we're on our own."

"And we'll manage," Damon answered. "Will you take my advice and overlook Laine's touchiness? She didn't want to leave you. She told me so." Not waiting for an answer, he continued, "May I see Peter now? I've been anticipating it ever since Laine approached me about coming up here."

"Of course. Come on inside. But be prepared for a shock. He's not the Peter you're expecting—not if you ever watched his Viewings. He's sick, Mark." It was strange how including the child brought this stranger down to first-name proportions.

"That's just another thing you and I have to set right," was the reply.

Mark drew close to the bed and bent to take in every line of the little boy's sleeping face. He finally reached out to tenderly brush the straggled hair, yet when he straightened up, the sympathy on his face was mixed with awe.

"I never thought I'd actually touch a Viewing Child. He was performing before I Re-Emerged and I watched him twice a day. Sometimes three."

"How did you have that much opportunity?" Dainig asked.

"I worked as a broadcaster so I was on duty during two of the Viewings. After I Re-Emerged, I watched all three just to be part of his real feelings." His glance returned to Peter. "He's very precious. He had such depth in his performances. More, than any of the children who came before him."

"I'll bet you never guessed how those performances were sparked."

"What do you mean 'sparked?' Wasn't it just a matter of tuning in on his normal day?"

"Hardly! He couldn't have lived in such excruciating states all the time. No, those Viewings were all planned, set up, and provoked." He explained how it had been done, using words that grew more dramatic and louder by the second. "He was lonely, mistreated and totally unloved. I was with him through the whole thing, and I can't get it out of my head!"

"Easy, now," Mark's attention fell on him. "You're becoming too worked up. You might wake him."

"I only wish to heaven I could!"

"Oh? What exactly is his condition?"

Dainig took himself in hand and recounted Peter's danger to this man so he would be knowledgeable and more able to help. Relating the past and the present ups and downs made him increasingly agitated. "I have this terrible idea that nothing I can do will save him. That his last siege of being abandoned sucked the will to live out of him forever!"

Mark was no longer a smiling, hesitant man. His hands, strong and unyielding, came to rest on Dainig's shoulders, and he said with command, "All right, I know it all, so we won't say any more about it. You're to come away from this bed and calm yourself. Do you understand? You're heading into a fever and I'm here to stand in your way. Now, turn around and get out of this cabin."

Dainig didn't move. Mark Damon was a stranger and had no right to suppose he knew it all, much less bark orders. But Mark spun him around and relentlessly impelled him toward the door until Dainig found himself fully in the heat of the sun.

"Before you take a bash at me," Mark said from behind, "let me tell you that I understand your desperation over Peter and intend to help you with that part of your life, too. If that's settled, then say so, and start walking off your shakes. We can't talk sensibly until you're steady."

Dainig stood still, feeling those hands just as he had felt the hands of the guards in the lab. But he didn't hate this pair. "It's settled," he said. "And I'm ready to take a walk."

When he returned to the cabin, Mark was crouched before the hearth, building up the fire under a small pot. "How is Peter?" Dainig asked, heading for the bed.

"He's exactly as you left him, Rick. The question is, how are you?"

"Fine, now. And grateful that you didn't leave Peter to check up on me."

"I didn't see the need. With your background, I figure you're your own best help. I'll be here to interrupt the emotional highs, but I expect you to carry the load from that point on."

Dainig sensed a firm capability in Damon; a take-control attitude that was backed by the certainty that Dainig could perform as asked. Maybe Laine was right to think their personal involvement had kept her from being severe enough. With Damon it was going to be self-reliance all the way and, because of it, Dainig felt stronger in himself.

Accepting the terms, he changed the subject. "What are you doing with the pot?"

"Stewing a slab of meat for thick broth. The next time Peter wakes up, we'll give him something more than milk."

"You have a lot of faith."

"I live on it," Mark stood to face him. "Don't you?"

CHAPTER 3

Peter awakened, and under Mark's less sympathetic insistence, drank a full cup of broth. Dainig was afraid to let his hopes rise, but Mark's wouldn't be subdued. Three more days crawled by and Peter continued to gain strength until Dainig was nearly jealous of the way Mark handled him.

Toward evening of the fourth day, Peter dutifully downed everything offered and asked for more. As he settled back for sleep, Mark told him, "Danny and I are going outside to watch the sunset. If you wake up and want us, just holler."

"We'll be very close by." Dainig added his own touch of security for the little boy.

'That's good, because I can't holler very loud."

"Since when?" Mark asked him. "When I watched you in your playroom, you yelled loud enough to break my eardrums."

Dainig recoiled at the mention of the Viewings. He wanted the boy to forget those terrible days.

But Peter responded only with surprise. "Are you one of those faces I saw watching me that one time?" Then he answered his own question. "No, you aren't, because none of them had hair growing under their mouth. Why do you?"

"Because I like it. And it's called a beard."

Peter's face flickered with a small smile. "I think you don't even have a chin," he teased. "You got mixed up in the works."

Mark chuckled and Dainig joined in. He had never truly expected to hear the boy's silliness again, but here it was and here he was, laughing at it. His chuckles kept coming, louder and louder, and suddenly changed into hard laughs. They roared forth until his sides ached and his muscles cramped, doubling him over—laughing, laughing.

"Enough!" Mark commanded. "Get yourself outdoors. Move!"

He obeyed, guffawing his way into the dusk. It was a jag that needed controlling, but he didn't really want to stop.

Mark strode up behind him and spun him around. "I don't see much effort at control," he accused. "You're enjoying yourself, aren't you, and don't want to try."

"So—ho?" Dainig laughed in his face. "Did you hear what Peter said?"

"It wasn't that funny. Come on, pull back from this, Dainig."

Dainig didn't. His laughter continued and built into a hilarity caused by more than what Peter had said. He was laughing at everything and anything; it was glory and freedom, and… frightening. Because the laughter was in control.

Mark's practised eye saw the sudden fear and his hands fell on Dainig, holding him steady. "Can't you stop? Can't you even put in a wedge?"

"Noo-ho-ho," Dainig laughed, the word a staccato. "And I… want to… now. It… scares me Mark. Mark!" He snickered, then roared again.

"Stop being afraid of it. Name it!" Mark thrust his words between the noise. "You're laughing out of relief at seeing Peter well because you don't want to go the other way and cry. Do you understand, Dainig? It's just relief—not a devil you can't conquer."

Dainig clutched the sensible words and pounded them into his mind. With insight, self-mastery came. The roars subsided, but the chuckles still erupted, so he tried the only way he knew to help himself. Chanting. "It's relief, relief, relief…"

Mark chanted with him. "Relief, relief," then abruptly changed it to, "Peter is well, Peter is safe."

As Dainig took up the new chant, his chuckles ceased at last, leaving him spent and sinking to the ground. He sat there, limp, wiping away the remaining tears of his laughter and catching his breath.

"You've never experienced a laughing fit before?" Mark asked.

"No. It scared the devil out of me."

"It won't the next time, if there is a next time. Laughing jags respond to insight just like other emotions do. You supplied the chanting, yourself. Laine didn't tell me to use it. You see? You're not as helpless as you think you are."

"Sure," Dainig scoffed, "after you did the real work for me." He stood and clapped Mark on the back, in a gesture that said "thanks."

"We were off to see a sunset, so let's go."

"You're not going to check on Peter?" Mark was surprised.

"I'm not. From now on I intend to follow your lead. He'll get everything he needs from me plus a little more, but my main job is to stop using him as an excuse. I have to get well, too."

"Amen," Mark sighed. "I think you just hit graduation day."

"Not quite, but it's coming. As for you… Where did you learn to deal with children the way you do?"

"That's easy. I have a little girl of my own named Mandy. She's two-and-a-half and next to my wife, Betty, she's the light of my life."

"You love her," Dainig stated simply, and again it amazed him to realize that other people felt the same emotions he did.

As they sat down by the drop-off facing the spreading orange-pink in the west, Mark said out of nowhere, "Does it disturb you to talk about yourself? I've been holding back some questions."

"I'll answer any of them I can."

"Then, I'd like to know what you experienced when you Re-Emerged. Rumor has it that you felt third-stage emotions that none of us have even approached."

"What I felt was love, mostly."

"Really? Right away? That's almost unbelievable. Why do you suppose you were so different?"

"Because of one extraordinary circumstance, Mark. I was the only person in the world who was loved by someone else, and who had that big emotion lavished on him every day. I'm talking about being Peter's Companion. He loved me before I Re-Emerged and, in fact, caused my Re-Emergence. When it happened, it was natural for it to appear as my own love for him."

"That was certainly some transformation! I learned love after the fact. And I think I'm glad. Starting with it would have been terrifying."

"If you believe that," Dainig snorted, "you should have tried making your way through compassion! I felt that, too, and from the same source. Love, sympathy, pity, humor, guilt—all of them. Topped with compassion."

Mark's hazel eyes were intense. "That's the one that sets you apart, Frederic Dainig. It's what we hope you can teach us because, to this day, no one else, has even come near learning it. Compassion is the factor that earned you the title of Keeper."

"No, no," Dainig denied immediately. "If that's what people choose to whisper, it's only because I have Peter in my keeping. Don't you see, Mark? Wide-scale as they are, my own emotions can't, be relied on to be true. They were tampered with too many times. But Peter was never conditioned by AEC, so he's the only real human in the world."

"I don't sell him short, believe me, but you should take credit for yourself, too. From what I understand, you went through absolute hell to save him."

"So? Peter lived in hell his entire life! If you only knew—!"

"We won't go into that again," Mark stopped the discussion. "It's dangerous ground for you, so we'll just be quiet and watch the sunset."

Dainig complied. He had no desire to create another fever for himself. As he turned his gaze back to the west, his eyes caught something he had missed before. Movement. An old man was walking among the rocks three levels down, precariously near the edge of another dropoff. "Could that be a native Torpelan?" Dainig asked Mark.

"Right you are, so you'd better pull back out of sight. Until you move into the village, you're supposedly still a prisoner in the lab."

Dainig heaved himself up to make his retreat, but a clatter of stones and a sharp cry stopped him. The old man was toppling sideways, stirring up a minor rockslide. He fell on a slanted jut of dirt and pebbles and slid to the brink of the ledge, futilely clutching at loose stones that stayed in his hands and fell with him. His legs flopped over the brink, but at the last instant his left forearm embraced an anchored rock. When the dust settled, he was clinging to it and hanging over the drop-off, supported only by one fragile arm.

"Keep out of sight!" Mark hissed as he leaped away, heading for the only spot that afforded a way down the cliffside.

With every exhaling breath, the old man let forth a wail of anguish, and Dainig couldn't bear it. Mark was a quarter of the way down, but it wasn't in Dainig to simply stand and watch, so he raced for the cabin, grabbed a long piece of sturdy rope and scrambled down the cliff in Mark's wake. No man was going to die just so he could remain unseen.

The villager's fear brayed in his ears as Dainig descended, spilling stones before him. Mark turned at the clatter, "I told you to stay—"

"I will! Just save him before he goes over. Here!" He threw the rope down ahead of him.

Mark scooped it up, then hurried to grab hold of the old man. But Dainig couldn't halt his own sliding descent and catapulted wildly toward the two of them. Frantic in his efforts to conceal himself, now, he gathered his body and flung it sideways, bashing up against a vertical stand of rock. With the breath half-knocked out of him, he edged into its shelter, then peeked around the rock to see what was happening.

Mark was on his knees, leaning out over the drop-off to secure the rope under the old man's arms. "Hang on, Jesse, and I'll have you safe in a moment."

The old man kept on producing crazed sounds of terror and the arm he had around the boulder was shaking—threatening to give way.

Mark finished his knots and jumped up, searching for a solid anchor for the rope. There was nothing but the rocks Dainig hid behind. Dainig stepped partially into sight, stretching out his hands to take the lifeline. He looped it around the rocks and braced his feet, trying to keep it evenly taut as Mark heaved the villager up and onto the flat surface. The moment the man was safe, Dainig scurried back into hiding but stayed tuned to the conversation that began.

"It's all over, Jesse, so stop making so much noise," Mark said harshly. "You had no business up here in the first place. You're a farmer, not a shepherd. Maybe you'll think twice before you come again."

The old man hugged the ground for a long moment as though needing to be sure it existed under him, then rose slowly to his feet. He was quivering with fear from head to foot, and although Dainig could see only his back, there was something about Jesse that seemed incredibly frail and alone as he peered back at the place where he had almost met his death.

"You'd better hurry on home," Mark told him. "It will be dark soon and you'll lose your way."

Jesse faced Mark timorously. "Do I have to go down alone? I mean, I might… You know how to travel these ledges, so…"

He was begging for help, but Mark said coldly, "I have my own work to do. Just keep away from the edge and follow the easiest slopes. You were a fool to climb up here in the first place."

Jesse's old hands groped at him, but Mark turned his back and walked away, taking his first chance to swing back toward the top. Dainig couldn't believe what he was seeing. But Jesse had accepted it and turned around, shuffling his feet and hugging the rock wall, terrified of the sharp drop-off. When he reached the place where he had no choice but to descend, he sat down to accomplish the job with as much of his body as possible touching the ground.

Dainig watched the old man till he was out of sight, then scrambled back to the crest. Mark was waiting to give him a hand, but he refused the offer. "I don't need help from an automaton. Would it have hurt you to guide him down to the valley?"

"Yes, because to Jesse Stack and the rest of the natives, I'm a conditoned man. So are you, Dainig. We can save his life, but we can't care about him or be kind." Mark had stated it gruffly, but now he softened. "Believe me, I wanted to carry him down bodily. The poor old idiot. This is one day he'll never forget."

"I couldn't have refused to lead him."

"Oh? Would you prefer being clamped back on a shock-table?"

"That remark wasn't necessary," Dainig protested. "I thought we were allowed some freedom with the natives since they aren't as nervous and suspicious as the people in the city."

"They aren't blind, either. We have to be guarded around them or we'll give ourselves away. If I had gone soft with Jesse, it would have been the end of me. No, Dainig, living with the natives takes playacting. You do it in order to save yourself. You can be open with the other newcomers, but only when no natives are around."

Dainig bobbed his head. "I'll remember. The sight of that pitiful old man is burned into my brain to remind me." The recollection sent a shiver through him.

"Thanks for bringing the rope, by the way," Mark said, smiling to end the quarrel. "You took a foolish chance, but it was necessary." He halted and the smile left his face as he saw another shiver travel across Dainig. "Are you in trouble?"

"It's just the reaction to seeing death come that close. I got overly excited and—" The shiver changed to a surging shudder and in its wake came tremors that resembled Jesse Stack's. He cursed, "When will I ever grow the backbone to absorb things without going wild? I feel possessed by my own body!"

"Then refuse to be, Dainig. Show it who's in charge and ignore the shaking. If you want my opinion, you're doing damn well."

Dainig looked at him, then down at his own quivering hands, and laughed.

Time devoured two more weeks, pushing them into midsummer. Inspired by Mark's growth of beard, Dainig had begun to grow a mustache, and now as it was becoming quite full, he felt very proud of it; in a way it symbolized his own, inner growth. He was surprised at the light reddish blond color of it though, as the hair on his head was brown.

It was at this time that Peter made his first foray from the bed. Mark laid out the clothing but Dainig dressed the child in it because Peter wanted it that way. Peter liked Mark intensely, but stepping into a foreign world required a tight hold on Dainig's hand.

"You're especially spry today," Dainig said, giving up trying to buckle the belt Mark had provided. Peter's waist was too thin for the holes. "I should have expected it, though. You always bounce right back after you're sick."

"Only when you're with me," Peter said soberly. His fragile fingers reached to touch Dainig's face and mustache, and he repeated the words that were an intrinsic part of his security. "I love you, Danny. Forever."

"And I love you, Peter," Dainig supplied his part of the ritual, meaning every syllable of it.

"Will it be noisy outside like the street?" Peter asked him warily.

"Not a bit. This is a brand new place. You'll see sights and smell smells you've never even heard of before."

"Will I be afraid? No. I think I won't, because I never am when I've got you, Danny. Will the animals be in a bowl of water like my fish?"

"You'll just have to see for yourself, my boy," Dainig laughed. He carried the child into the sunlight. Peter clutched him tighter and said nothing.

Mark was waiting near the drop-off but didn't move to share this experience, leaving it all for the two of them. Dainig knew why he had chosen that particular position. He was protecting Peter from the sudden hill.

He took the boy halfway between the cabin and Mark, then pivoted slowly to allow Peter to see it all. The child was still silent. When a bird swooped by, he cringed and hid his face against Dainig's shoulder.

"That was only a bird, Peter. Nothing to make you afraid. It's little and has feathers and it sings pretty songs."

"But it made a funny noise."

"That was the sound of its wings beating on the air so it could fly. Now open your eyes and see the world I promised you."

Peter obeyed as readily as always and was soon gawking at everything. He proceeded through a series of "oohs" and "aahs", pointing at each unfamiliar sight. "Where did all the green come from, Danny? I never saw so much that wasn't all flat in my coloring book."

Dainig explained the trees and the grass, then added, "Would you like to touch it, Peter? Would you like to feel the grass?"

"Oh yes!"

Dainig put him down and, giggling, Peter rubbed his hands across the blades of grass. "It tickles and bends like your mustache! Can I feel it on my feet?"

Mark laughed, and Dainig indulgently removed the child's shoes. There was no stopping Peter now: He ran this way and that, examining stones, wild flowers and dirt, exclaiming over each one and filling the afternoon with his delight. When a squirrel appeared, he stopped in amazement, then yelled, "I want to feel that, too." He took off in pursuit.

Catching him easily, Dainig cautioned, "That's a wild animal and we don't touch wild animals. Understand? There's a lot for you to learn here, Peter, and until you know it all, you have to mind me."

"I always do, Danny, because I'm a good boy. You said so."

"Then for starters, I think you've had enough running for today. Your strength isn't up to—"

"Let him go," Mark interrupted. "He'll quit when he's tired, and the fresh air and sunshine are just as necessary as food."

"But he never knows when to stop," Dainig objected. He thought better of it and asked Peter, "Will you be careful? And will you sit down when you get tired?"

The big brown eyes stared at him gravely. "I won't play any more at all if it makes you worry."

Dainig suddenly saw himself as denying the child what he needed and wanted most, so he retracted his argument. "Go ahead and play, little boy. It doesn't worry me. I have to stop holding you so close."

"Never stop that, Danny. Please!" Peter had taken the statement literally, and now he grew fearful.

To allay the fright, Dainig hugged him, turned him around, and sent him off again. He was relieved to know that Mark had seen the episode and now understood the depth of Peter's dependence. The child was so uncertain, and so very dear, that he simply compelled anyone with a heart to watch after him.

A week later, Laine called from the woods and Peter ran ahead to meet her. By the time Dainig reached her, the little boy was talking at an incredible rate of speed, telling her about his new world.

At the sound of Dainig's step, she turned expectantly to him. "You're better," she said, taking in Dainig's new mustache with delight, her smile extending to light her dark eyes. "But I knew it when I saw Peter. Thank heaven for both of you."

"You and Danny should hug each other like you did when I was sick," Peter instructed. "I can watch you better now."

Despite the boy's round-eyed intrusion, Dainig and Laine did just that. "I've been waiting for you to come back," he whispered.

"I couldn't make it one day sooner or I would have. But Mark has done well by you."

"Well enough for you to leave my occasional fits to him and stop thinking of me as a subject."

"You still have fevers, then?"

"I said 'occasional.' That pale-haired little imp keeps me too busy to allow for more."

Thinking the mention of him meant he was included, Peter blurted, "Laine, do you know that Mark and Danny have hair on their faces? And that you can touch some things, but you can't ever touch wild animals? Or—?"

"Don't tell it all at once, little boy," Dainig interrupted. "Laine will be here for a while. Won't you?" he asked hopefully.

"Three or four days, and that's stretching what I'm permitted. But we'll pack them so full they'll take the place of a week."

"Never, lady." He hugged her again, compelled by a feeling he couldn't name.

"You have changed, haven't you!" She was elated.

A whisper of grass announced Mark's arrival. Before Laine could say hello, Peter took command. "You can't talk to them now, Mark, because they only want to squeeze each other. We might as well leave them alone. I'll play in the grass and you can see that I don't fall off the hill." He dashed away.

Mark threw up his hands, calling, "It's good to have you back, Laine," then followed Peter to the cabin.

Laine laughed out loud. "When you said Peter was elfin and sweet you didn't mention that he also leads people around by the nose."

"Always. He's a born director.' Since Mark volunteered to watch him, how about a walk in the woods for the two of us? I want to recover the 'feel' of you—emotionally."

"With the Re-Conditioner part laid to rest?" she half-teased.

"Totally, since you had to mention it."

They lolled away three of her four allotted days with strolls along the wooded paths and climbs up the rocky slopes. But they resisted their strongest bodily impulses because they had agreed to explore and grasp the new emotion of love before they submitted to physical passion. Society encouraged the taking of many sex partners, so they had both known passion countless times. Only the chance to love the partner was unique, and they were determined to gain that dimension before they allowed the other.

For Dainig, the hours were intense with pleasure. Life had to be relearned as he discovered that being able to feel added new facets to everything around him. Trees, flowers, animals and panoramas all had a far greater beauty than he had believed possible, now that they stimulated new emotional responses. It was obvious that beauty had to be felt to be truly grasped. He loved this place because it constantly touched him, reminding him that he was alive.

With Nature, there was never a totally quiet moment. The minutes passed in a series of quick startles as squirrels chattered in the trees or a flight of colorful feathers arched overhead. Whenever a bird settled nearby, they flipped through a field guidebook to identify the species. As Laine said, "If you're going to live here, you have to know your neighbors."

Best of all though, Dainig was coming to know her.

On the third evening they came out of the woods to find the air hot and still, gathering itself for dusk. "Only one more day," he lamented. "It won't be enough."

"Your old nemesis, Re-Conditioner Bretton, wouldn't agree. I didn't tell you before, but he's taken such an interest in me that he even suggested we exchange keys to our apartments." She grimaced. "I'd sooner lie down with a shock-table."

"You just increased my revulsion of him a hundred times. But you can hold him off. I know that."

"Sexually, yes. Yet I can't shake the feeling that there's something ulterior in his interest. Sinister."

"Why, for pity's sake? No one can blame him for his appetites, and I certainly can't fault his choice."

"There's more to it than that, Rick. I didn't intend to burden you with this, but I think you should know. Remember that Crime Control officer you attacked when we left the city? Well, he reported that a woman wearing a Re-Conditioner's uniform was driving the traveler that you were in. I think Bretton suspects me and his advances are his way of getting close to me to dig for evidence."

Laine was saying that she might be in danger and the idea jolted Dainig. He wasn't up to handling it, so he hurriedly put it down. "I can't see why he'd link us, Laine. We had no public relationship. It could have been any one of the female Re-Conditioners."

His argument was broken by a sharp scream. The rising, echoing wail from the cabin impelled him forward. Something was wrong with Peter!

Before he'd covered half the distance, the little boy dashed around the side of the cabin, running blindly for the place where he had seen Dainig disappear into the woods. "Danny—where are you?" he screamed. "Danny— I want you! Help me!"

Dainig reached him and scooped him up into his arms.

Peter was trembling violently, his body hot and his hands grabbing Dainig's shirt and hair. "I'm here, Peter. It's all right, now. Tell me what happened so I can help you."

"I was all alone and they came to get me," Peter wailed. "Matty and Coop and all those people wanted to suck me up through a tube and hurt me in the dark. Danny—don't let them get me. Please don't go away from me again!"

He knelt and cradled the child close, aware that he was the only one who could handle this. Laine's face was a mask of pity and Mark, now present, was standing helplessly nearby.

"Ill never leave you, Peter," he soothed. "I promise. I love you."

"But Matty and—"

"That's all over, little boy. They'll never get you again. Now, say this with me, Peter. I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe."

The child began to chant along with him, and between the words of security and the strong embrace, his trembling subsided into shivers and finally ceased.

At last Dainig lumbered to his feet, still holding Peter. "What was it this time, Mark?"

"Some kind of quick panic. He was poking around in that little shed inside the woods and when I called him for bed, it hit with no warning. He ran right out of my hands twice."

"He's ready for bed now, that's for certain. I'll take him and sit with him until he falls asleep."

"All night long, Danny," Peter pleaded.

"Yes, little boy. All night long."

He carried Peter inside, crying silently for this child whose waking nightmares were worse than his own. The moment Peter fell asleep, Dainig's tears emerged from their silence, and because he let them have sway, they took control and he had to be led outside, sobbing.

As he went, he heard Laine tell Mark, "This doesn't change my plans. He'll do it tomorrow in spite of this episode. He must."

CHAPTER 4

Morning arrived dismally under a fall of light rain. Laine didn't help the mood since, for some reason, she was wearing her gray Re-Conditioner's coverall. It evoked Dainig's remembrance of his time in the lab so vividly he found it difficult to stay in the room with her.

With breakfast cleared away, she said, "You're coming with me to Torpela, Rick. It's time to establish yourself."

"Today?" He didn't feel ready for the leap.

"Immediately. I'm sorry you won't have sunshine when you see your fellow villagers, but see them you will."

"Can I see a villagers, too?" Peter asked, not understanding the word.

"You and Mark are staying here out of the rain," she ordered.

Peter accepted the commands and so did Dainig, because when Laine reverted to her icy professional stance, there was no room for argument. He simply trotted through the rain behind her, heading for the shelter of the woods.

She strode along at a good pace, obstinately silent. When they reached the path leading downhill to her traveler, he found out why. She told him, "I don't intend to coddle you with reassurances today. I want to see how well you handle your apprehension. I'll also have enough on my hands playing my own part. But there are two things you must know. One—don't respond to anything while you're in the village, and that means with newcomers as well as natives. They'll catch any misstep you make. Two—in Torpela I'm known as a Re-Conditioner and nothing less. You will use my professional title and pick up my cues. As a man who has supposedly just come from the cells, you will show me special obedience. Act as though you're afraid of me. Understood?"

His response was a totally out-of-place smile. He wasn't that good an actor.

"All right, Dainig," she threatened, "then think of Bretton every time you look at me. Remember what he did to you." Seeing his immediate shudder, she walked on and climbed into the traveler, leaving him convinced that she was actually two women crammed into one body.

Dainig's tension was flying by the time the village came into view before them. Only the farmers of Torpela lived here, plus the proprietor of the supply store. It was a small, far-flung place of rough-hewn, wood cabins smothered by arches of trees. The hill rose steeply at the rear and some of the cabins seemed to be growing from its base. In the center was the main square, a clear expanse of trampled dirt, shiny from the rain. There were no people in sight.

Laine drove across the square and braked at the edge of the forest. She motioned Dainig out of the vehicle to follow her along a well-worn path of red earth that angled sharply downward. After four minutes, she turned left where an obviously new path trailed away, traversing the side of the wooded hill. The thick trees soon ended at a green clearing. Set at the back, and practically part of the hill, stood a large cabin whose unweathered wood declared it newly built.

"Mine?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Yours."

He explored it quickly, finding it bigger than the high cabin in that it had two separate bedrooms. Checking for light switches, he found none. Instead, there were old-fashioned oil lamps.

"Does it suit you?" Laine asked.

"In its isolation, yes. But what guarantee does it give for Peter's safety? The natives can walk in at any time."

"You'll keep to the newcomers. That's been the arrangement ever since we began transferring people here. Newcomers interact with each other and avoid the natives as much as possible. You can even build a reputation as a hermit if you like. No one will care or be overly curious. Your stay in the lab makes you a deviant in the natives' eyes, anyway."

"But Peter will still be seen, and he can't hide his feelings," Dainig insisted. "Besides, his face is so well known, he's bound to be recognized."

"How? There's no electricity in Torpela; consequently there's no television and the natives have never seen a Viewing."

"They've taken their children to the city AEC clinics, so they've spent at least two years where Viewings are impossible to miss!"

"No, again. Parents from these remote areas don't accompany their children to AEC. It would disrupt their work. The clinic sends people to collect the three-year-olds who are then housed in city dormitories. Stop doubting me and take my word. Peter will be safe here."

"When AEC people can come snooping around? No. I'm going to find or build him some hiding places as soon as I move in."

"You're being overprotective again, but do it if you must."

She left the cabin and he stared after her, thoroughly annoyed by her attitude. Listening to her, no one would guess she had the heart to care for the little boy. She played her role of Re-Conditioner almost too well.

They returned to Torpela, but this time the distance was all uphill. Laine drove back to the square and parked under a giant maple tree. Using its leaves as an umbrella, she got out and picked up a large ram's horn set on a stilt-legged frame and blew into it with a breath that puffed out her cheeks. As it sounded hollowly through the mist, the noise was astonishingly loud.

The call had barely disappeared from the heavy air when cabin doors opened and people trickled out into the square. It was the first crowd Dainig had seen since he left the city and, feeling surrounded, he latched his eyes onto their faces to bring them down to individual size. Most of them were clearly hesitant to approach Laine but were obeying out of fear. Some seemed curious. Those had to be the newcomers; curious about him and eager to meet him just as Mark had been. Following Laine's instructions to act like a recent inhabitant of the cells, he put a cringing droop to his shoulders and assumed a dull, tormented, but uncaring expression.

One old man caught his attention because he was staring at Laine with a particularly anxious look. Her glance fastened on him severely for a moment. There was something familiar about him, but Dainig made himself ignore him, too.

When they were gathered, Laine announced loudly, "I've brought you another transfer. He has just been released from a Re-Conditioning laboratory and will be taking up residence in a few days. He has been assigned the new cabin in the woods, and his work will be that of a shepherd." She cast her brown eyes on Dainig. "Step forward where they can see you, Re-Emerger."

He hadn't heard that name spat at him in weeks and it raised bile in his throat, but he did as she commanded.

"His name is Richard Dainig. He has a son, Richard Peter," she continued. "This man was a difficult subject to Re-Condition, as you can readily tell by his haggard appearance, so don't expect much good from him for a while." She swept her gaze across the crowd. "Are there any questions about his place with you?"

A general murmur of, "No, Re-Conditioner," arose, but one man raised his hand timidly. "If he's to be a shepherd, whose flock will he share? Who must give up to him?"

"Anyone I name, isn't that right?" Laine shot back, watching the man flinch. "Actually, I've selected Mark Damon's flock since he's also new here and they can learn together. Dainig is already acquainted with Mark Damon, aren't you, Re-Emerger?"

"Yes, Re-Conditioner," he muttered.

"Is his son with him?" someone else asked. "Or is he still in AEC?"

"Richard Peter has completed his conditioning, although you'll have trouble believing it. His father uses heavy doses of Euphoria and Depressant on his son, so the boy doesn't behave normally. You won't appreciate his exaggerated moods or want your children near him. Since it's not the boy's fault, don't reject him for it. Just tolerate him when you must and, otherwise, keep away."

That sounded brutal, but she had given Peter the leeway he needed to survive near these people. Even so, Dainig couldn't stand any more of her Re-Conditioner's pose, so he shut his mind to her and began sorting through the crowd as she continued to field questions. The old man who had first caught his interest still nagged at him. He was gray-haired, slightly built, and stood among the crowd in a posture of "hiding." As Dainig watched him, he saw why. The man was twitching with anxiety and eyeing Laine with the look of a frightened animal. Dainig swore he had the symptoms of Re-Emergence.

Laine noticed him, too. She stopped talking to stare directly at him, her eyes an inquisition in themselves. "What's the matter with you, old man?"

He backed away, bumping into the people behind him.

"Stand where you are and answer me," Laine commanded.

He shrank from her voice and tried to run, but the crowd was blocking him. He pressed against them harder and cried frantically, "Let me by! Let me by!"

The crowd parted as fast as they could now, fearful of the man's condition. But they couldn't move fast enough to suit him, and he flailed at them, shoving them aside to clear a path. His pleading changed to screaming demands. "Get out of my way! Let me go! I have to runnnnn … and I can't help it!"

The words broke into an ungodly shriek as he stumbled free only to slip and fall on the slick mud. When he hit ground he was whimpering, and by the time he regained footing on his thin legs he was crying full-out, sobs convulsing his whole body.

The people streamed away, their arms extended as though to fend off his emotions. Someone gave the first shout of, "Re-Emerger!" Others joined. "Re-Emerger!"

"Take him!" Laine's voice clapped the riot into silence. "Knock him down and subdue him." When no one dared move, she threatened, "Do it right now or you'll all be under suspicion!"

The crowd jumped on the old man then, and he was lost to sight. Laine rushed to her traveler and jerked the door wide, yelling, "Tie his arms to his sides and bind his feet, then put him in here. I'll take him to the cells, myself!"

A tall man rushed away and returned with thick rope. The job was soon done. The old man was dragged to the traveler and heaved into the back, still sobbing, but now begging for mercy and escape from Laine. She slammed the door on his cries, cast cold eyes across the crowd, searching for infection, then climbed inside and sped out of the village.

Dainig screamed after her in the uproar, "Turncoat! Monster!" He felt a tight grip on his shoulder and looked around into the face of a young woman.

"Stop it," she spat. "Don't react."

"But she's taking him to the lab."

"Get that expression off your face," the woman hissed. "She had the right, but you'll have none at all if you give yourself away. Do you understand me? I'm Betty Damon—Mark's wife. Take yourself in hand, and fast, because the natives will be coming back!"

She was right. They were bound to regather to discuss what had happened. Stirred out of complacency by the fright of seeing a Re-Emerger in their midst, they would be quick to notice symptoms. And Dainig was supplying them. He stood transfixed with shock, anger and abhorrence. With his fists clenched at the ends of his stiff arms, he made a wholly abnormal picture.

And the crowd was beginning to look at him. First two, then five more, and then a clot headed back to where he stood. If they saw too much, they would jump on him as they had jumped on the old man and he would never get away. Yet, no matter how he tried, he couldn't control his damning reaction. Laine's brutality was too fresh and detestable in his mind.

With one look into his eyes, Betty Damon understood. "You'd better get straight out of here. Do you know the way back to the high cabin?"

"I'd find it even if I didn't! I can't stand any more of Torpela or Laine," he pronounced. "That poor old man won't even make it through the first shocks."

"Just go, Dainig, and leave the excuses to me. Run all the way. The exertion will help calm you."

She moved away from him to farce him into a decision and, finding himself alone, he followed her orders. As he trotted back to the road—the only route he knew to the high cabin—he heard her saying, "I sent Mr. Dainig home, and I think we should all leave him alone for a few days. He's still shaky from the lab, and seeing the Re-Emerger go wild was hard on him. It didn't do any of us any good, so maybe Equilibria is in order."

Incredibly grateful for what she had done, he ran faster in the hope that the exertion would calm him as she had suggested. But his anger didn't diminish. It built until it loomed ahead of him on the steep paths. Laine's profession was exactly as vicious as he had always thought it was. Therefore, so was she.

When he reached the high cabin, he was red-faced from strain and added fury because he had passed Laine's traveler parked in its usual place below. At the first sight of Mark, he blasted out, "She dared come back up here? We don't need that kind of contamination!"

"Come down from that right now!" Mark ordered sharply. "You're overreacting, Dainig, and I won't have it."

"Overreacting like hell! After what I just saw in Torpela—"

"Laine wants you at the shed," Mark shouted him down. "She said 'immediately,' but I say you'd better cool down first. If you're bent on attacking somebody, it's going to be me. Understand? I'll lay you out flat if I have to, before I let you near her."

Mark appeared bigger and rougher than before. It was all determination, but Dainig respected it. "I don't attack people. I'm not a heartless Re-Conditioner."

Mark gauged him. "If you're back to simple nastiness, then get yourself to the shed. But remember I won't be far away. She has Jesse Stack back there, and he's all she can humanly handle."

"Jesse Stack! The man we saved from falling over the cliff?"

"Right. Today he collapsed from the trauma of that experience. He Re-Emerged in Torpela."

He had seen the old man before, then. "She brought him here?"

"And wants you with her. Move, Dainig!"

As Dainig sprinted for the shed, Jesse Stack's screams met him halfway. He halted with his hands on the door because he could hear Laine's voice between Stack's shrieks and had to know what she was doing before he faced the situation.

He heard her say, "Lie still, Jesse, so I can inject the sedative. It will make this easier for you. I understand your fear and I want to help you, so lie still and let me— No!" she gasped. "No, Jesse, don't! I'm not your enemy. Don't…"

Dainig charged through the door. Laine was down and Jesse Stack raged over her, still bound at the feet but with one arm free and raised to strike. "Hold it!" Dainig yelled and heaved himself across the shed, rolling the old man away from her. The thin body was no match for his.

Laine scrambled to her feet. "Keep him down, Rick, so I can inject him. He's heading into Totality and we won't be able to handle him without it." She was a flurry of motion, hiking up the man's sleeve and jabbing the needle into his flesh. When it was done she said, "Don't keep him pinned down, now. Face him and put your arms around him. Hold him like a child and tell him that he's safe. Make him feel it. Talk to him, Rick. He's terrified of what's happening to him."

Dainig didn't question. He simply did as she said. When the old man was secure in his arms, he began to talk. "It's all right, Jesse. Your emotions won't hurt you. Let yourself go with them. It's all right to feel, so don't be afraid of it. Relax, relax, relax." He felt the man's terror and responded compassionately. "I've got you safe, Jesse, and I won't let go. Trust me."

Jesse had been stunned to silence by the strange handling. Now he moaned, "Don't turn me in to her. Don't leave me. I'm so afraid. I can't feel, but I am feeling, and it doesn't make sense and I'm feeling happy and horrible and—"

"Ssshh," Dainig soothed. "I know, Jesse. I've felt it myself, so I know. I won't leave you alone, Relax now and let the sedative ease your way. I won't let anything hurt you. Relax, Jesse. Say it with me. Relax, relax…"

The old man couldn't relax. Not with Totality approaching. So Dainig continued rocking him back and forth, gently, kindly, until the sedative took hold and Jesse slept.

Dainig eased the thin body onto the floor and bent to the ropes. "It's all right to untie him, isn't it?" he asked Laine.

"For now. The door has a good lock on it so he can't get out. But if he's still in Totality when he wakes up, you may need the ropes to keep him from banging his head or hurting himself some other way."

"I bashed my head a good lot."

"You were in the lab, Rick. Jesse Stack will never face that place. Not if you can help it. His Re-Emergence is going to be yours to manage."

"What? I don't know how to..."

"You've already begun. You found all the right reactions."! knew you would because you feel compassion for him. I brought him up here for you, Rick. You'll be his re-claimer."

Dainig was scared to death of what she was asking him to do. "I'll have this man's life in my hands?"

"Exactly. And by helping him learn to master his 'highs,' you'll give yourself the best lessons possible."

Shamefaced, he stared at the floor. "You're still watching out for me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because of the things I thought when I saw you drag this old man away. They shame me to my bones, Laine. I hated you. I came back here so mad, Mark was afraid I'd hurt you."

"I'm not surprised. I was acting the complete Re-Conditioner, and your experience with that kind is too recent. Besides," she taunted, "you always overreact to everything."

"That's over. As of right now." He got to his feet, resolute. "I'm going to guide Jesse through this horror and we'll both be better for it. What scares me about it is that I'll be forced to watch everything I'm trying to overcome in myself played out double in him."

"Mark will be here to help you."

"You won't?"

"I'm scheduled to leave today, remember?" Her eyes sparked devilishly, distracting him from his doubts. "I can't let poor Bretton sigh alone any longer."

He laughed, and the relief was welcome. But the sight of Jesse on the floor shortened it. "Tell me what to do for him, then. I want to give him the best possible chance."

"Until he's out of Totality, your only choice is to inject him with the sedatives and Equilibria I'll leave. Once Totality wanes, he'll still be irrational, but don't be afraid of it. Just remember how it was for you. All the emotions he feels will terrify him because he won't know what they are or what's happening to him. He'll think he's being attacked. For a while, he'll have virtual fits-of-feeling with-out any stimulating cause. That's when you're essential. Be here with reassurance and apply a lot of physical touch. That will force him to sense his body as well as his emotions so he has a grounding point. Do you know what I mean?"

He suppressed a shiver. "Only too well. It was like being made of nothing but emotions—battered and disembodied, with nothing solid to grasp. I can give him back his sense of  self by touching him?"

"And talking. I did it for you and I know you remember. Hold him, explain why he feels the things he feels. Use your own judgment, Rick. I trust it completely because, of all of us, you have compassion. Give him that, and you'll have him in your hands."

He hated to ask the next question. "What if he doesn't want to stay emotional after he's well enough to decide?"

"We'll face that when it comes. If he won't join us, he'll…" She swallowed hard, disliking her next words. "He'll have to be put out of the way. If he's just afraid to live with his 'highs' as you're doing, I'll take his case myself and at least make it brief." She looked away.

He sensed her sudden need and put his arms around her. She had too much to fight. Her life was caught up in saving people from the lab's emotional death and giving them back their humanity. Yet she was forced to put so many on her own shock-table day after day, punish them with brutal shocks and listen to their screams.

"Hang on, Laine. Our day is coming."

"That's what keeps me alive," she whispered. "But don't baby me any more, Rick. I can't function with sympathy."

He broke their contact, returning to their previous subject. "I'll get some supplies so I can move in here with him."

"He won't need you constantly. It's important to let him thrash some of it out alone. The hallucinations and fantasies are necessary for his adjustment back to feeling. It seems heartless, but it's true. Right now he'll sleep for hours, so… come back to the cabin with me, will you? I want to say a proper goodbye, away from… from…"

"The sight of another Re-Emerger," he finished for her. "You see, Laine? I'm beginning to understand you, too."

It was a mixture of waiting interspersed with wildness. He waited for Jesse to exhaust himself in frenzies that shook the walls of the shed, then entered to offer comfort and guidance. When Totality had finally spent itself, the fevers raged sporadically. Dainig thrust himself into them, searching through the emotions for their causes and holding the man tightly enough to still his rampage and make him listen. He laughed with Jesse to prove it wasn't dangerous to laugh, and cried with him to prove sobs could be stopped. In doing so, he proved it to himself as well, not winning complete dominance, but progressing. Only the strongest emotions could occasionally overpower him now.

The old man had a quick and easy time compared to his own. With a Sensitivity Score of five, where Dainig's was one and one-half, Jesse rebounded fast and mastered himself. Dainig envied him even as he realized that, due to their intimate contact, he had found a friend.

Naturally, Jesse questioned this strange method that held no physical pain, but Dainig left the answers for Laine, who finally returned to supply them. When she asked her own question, "Do you want to keep your emotions and live your life with them, Jesse, or do you want them erased again?" they held heir breaths until he declared that he chose to keep them. Laine gave him a large bottle of Equilibria to smooth his first adjustments, instructed him to come to Dainig if he needed help, and sent him home.

A week later, Dainig made a few preparations for departure, and he and Peter moved to the new cabin. The first thing he did there was construct a hiding place for the boy.

With Mark's help, he cut a door out of the vertical wall planks at the rear of one bedroom, fashioning it to be undetectable when closed. Next he dug into the hill that pressed against the back of the cabin and shored up a cavelike hole large enough to serve as concealment for the child. Now he had two options open for safety: this place and the high cabin. After pushing a heavy table against the door to increase its obscurity, he finally felt able to breathe easy.

He and Peter went onto the hillsides to spell Mark in watching his sheep, and the boy was given a lamb to call his own. The animal wasn't really a baby any more since it was already about one-third grown, but Peter named it and loved it.

The native villagers accepted Dainig but remained somewhat aloof. He didn't try to mingle with them either, because they were potentially dangerous if he were to slip up in his role of Re-Conditioned puppet. Besides, they were such puppets, themselves. They never laughed, and now he found it hard to live without laughter.

The newcomers were something else again. The Damons were his closest friends, but when their whole group gathered for conversation or picnics away from the village, they created a world Dainig had never imagined. They smiled, they laughed, they commiserated, and from them he learned contentment. He had never sung before, and they taught him little songs. He even learned to dance—simple group steps born of light hearts. Peter was their joy. He met his first children and slowly learned to play their games; slowly, because his slight retardation barred him from complicated rules.

Dainig quickly became their chief adviser. They called on him for assistance, assigning him the quality of wisdom because of his "special" emotions. Many whispered the name "Keeper," and held him in near reverence. He was flattered, but uncomfortable, wanting them as equals, not acolytes. But he tried to live up to their expectations, grateful to share their company and finding out what love meant on a level other than man-to-boy or man-to-woman.

He and Laine explored the man-to-woman part when she managed to visit. Her visits were soon as painful as the separations simply because of the knowledge that she would have to leave again. During the nights when Peter was bedded down on the sofa and Laine used the boy's room, Dainig had to restrain himself. He wanted her now more than he ever had before. He was certain he had fulfilled his part of their promise, for what he felt for her was love in its truest sense. But he wasn't sure that Laine had grown that far. Because of Peter, he had learned to love before he ever tried with her, but she had much farther to go.

So he reined in his desire and kept to his own bed where he recreated her in his mind. She was a woman such as no man had known all through the years of Anti-Emotion Conditioning. With her feelings restored, she was whole. He hoped he was man enough to match her.

CHAPTER 5

The morning was half-gone when Dainig took Peter by the hand and climbed the hill from the grazing meadow, using outcroppings of odd-shaped boulders as handholds in the steeper places. He aimed for the three elongated rocks that were crowded together and promised some shade from the bright sun.

When he reached the spot, he plopped down on the coarse grass, glad to ease his heaving lungs. But Peter loomed over him, his face a caricature of scolding. "You're always huffing and puffing when we get here, Danny. I think you must be pretty weak if you can't climb this far without falling down. I can breathe without making all that noise."

"And just who practically carried you up the worst spots, little boy?"

"Well, maybe you did," Peter admitted, "but I still can't see why you come way up here if it's so hard."

"Look down the hill and you'll see why."

He shifted his gaze downward along with Peter's and knew he would climb hills twice as high and three times as steep just to fill himself and the child with this sight. The brown, sticklike grass and silver rock of the hillside spilled onto the meadow where it turned to shades and nuances of green: the thin green of grass, and the darker leafy clumps of weed and wildflower leaves. The sun cast bright spots, the clouds created mottled patches, and the entire meadow was seasoned with mustard-yellow goldenrod and bright blue chicory. Trees burst upward here and there, their leaves edging away from summer with hints of color. Through it all, the sheep wandered, sending soft "baa-aas" into the brilliance of the chilly air, punctuated by the loud "tchack!" of Brown Thrashers.

Peter sucked in his breath. "Is that what beautiful is, Danny?"

"How does it make you feel?"

"Big. And warm. And… full."

"Then, that's what beautiful is."

Dainig wondered at it. So many terms, used every day without question, needed new definitions now that emotion was an innate part of his reactions. So many things he had previously considered as merely visual or audible now touched emotion in him and grew new dimensions.

Peter plunked down beside him, sitting close as he always did. And, idle.

"Wouldn't you rather be playing with the other children?" Dainig asked. "You could have stayed behind and let me come out with the sheep."

"You wouldn't be there, Danny."

"Mark and Betty Damon can watch out for you just as well."

"I know," Peter said, "but I want to be where you are. Even if we just sit down and look at the beautiful. Isn't that all right?"

Dainig put his palm on the sun-warmed hair and pulled the boy closer. "Of course, Peter. But I do want you to be more independent of me."

The brown eyes were blank when they looked back at him. "I don't know what that means, but if you want me to, I'll try. Just so we can always be together all day long and all night long. You gave me this best world and I want us both to look at it at the same time." His face clouded after this string of decisive statements. "I love you."

"And I love you," Dainig hugged him. The time hadn't come for independence; not when Peter still reverted to his insecure declarations of love.

"I know you do, because now I'm your son and you're my best Daddy. My other one didn't ever hug me or say it was good to have me. Why do—" He broke off in a fit of giggling squeals as Dainig attacked him with tickles to turn his mind from the harsh days of the past.

Squirming vigorously, Peter rolled out of reach, in danger of somersaulting down the slope. Dainig grabbed him and set him back in the shelter of the rocks. "You have to be careful, little boy."

"It wouldn't hurt me to fall down the hill, Danny. I wouldn't cry if it did, because I don't cry any more. All the tears got used up in that other place."

Dainig's effort to distract the boy hadn't worked, but it was no wonder. He had no past but the life of a Viewing Child, and only the passage of time would create another for him.

"Is it time to eat, yet?" Peter asked eagerly.

"Not for two hours, at least. But I'll go down to our packs and bring you something if you really want it."

"No, because you might not get back up here again without me to hold onto your hand," Peter teased.

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you? I think you have an imp inside your head, Peter, and he comes out to pick on me. Just on me."

"I do, I do!" Peter was delighted with the idea. "What's an imp?"

"A little tiny fellow who wears green and yellow clothes and a pointed hat, and who plays tricks and teases."

"Then, yes, I do have one of those. What's his name, Danny?"

"I think his name is… 'Happy.' "

"Yes, and he'll get you if you don't watch out! I like to have him. I'll tell the children about him when we go back."

Talking to the other children about an imp named Happy wasn't such a good idea. "We'd better keep him a secret, little boy. Just between you and me."

"Okay, then. It's nicest that way, anyhow. I never—"

The hollow blast of the ram's horn broke the sentence off, and Dainig jumped to his feet. Sounded only for emergencies, it demanded that every villager return to the square as quickly as possible. Hefting Peter into his arms, Dainig dashed headlong down the slope, sliding and slipping on the loose dirt. At the flat stretch, he traveled at a lope, Peter's legs jouncing against his thighs.

"But, Danny, we can't leave our sheeps!" the boy shouted.

"We don't have any choice. The horn means come, and we obey it!"

He raced across the thin edge of the meadow, urgency propelling him onward. As he passed under the first trees, his breath came in heavy pants. He took the incline that lurched upward for the village, Up and up he went, challenging the easy and the steep with the same speed, aware that his extra haste was an overreaction, yet helpless to still it. An emergency for Torpela was an emergency for him—and for Peter—and he had to beat his misgivings to the village square.

Ahead of him, the thump of another pair of boots intruded between the jarring of his own, becoming louder, approaching Dainig in the opposite direction of the call of the horn. At the boulder that marked the final turn for the village, he nearly collided with a red-faced, gasping Mark Damon, but sidestepped short of impact and bypassed him.

"No… wait!" Mark shouted. "I came to find you!"

Dainig halted and Mark charged to his side, the urgency of the man's face jolting him with anxiety.

Mark blasted it out in one breath, "AEC vehicles have been spotted about four miles from the village, Rick. They're obviously coming to hold an inspection. The horn was sounded to bring everyone in. I came to warn you."

"AEC? Here?" Panic flared up in him and his eyes jerked to the darkness under the trees, hunting for safety. "I have to hide! Fast!"

Mark immediately assumed a state of calm. "Control yourself, Dainig. This is no time to give in to fits. I wanted to intercept you so you wouldn't walk in and meet the situation cold. We'll go to the square together."

"Not me. I don't dare face those people. They'll see what I am!"

Sensing Dainig's fear, Peter uttered small sounds that verged on whimpers, and Mark made use of them. "I said, control yourself. You're even scaring the boy!"

As usual, Peter's needs outweighed his own, and Dainig pressed the rest of his panic away, stroking the child's head with a pretense of security he was far from feeling. Trying to sound sensible, he asked, "I'm expected to be in the square with everybody else? Even in my special circumstances?"

"Absolutely. No one can be absent. Why do I even have to tell you? You've known this day was coming all along, Dainig. Now that it's here, just fight your way through it. If you can." Usually so patient with his counsel, Mark was full of bite.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dainig shot back, anger replacing the last remnants of his panic. "I'm as capable—" He stopped short with the sudden dawning of comprehension. Mark had used his scorn for the exact purpose of erasing Dainig's panic. He stood chastized for blasting at his friend. "You're very skilled, Mark, and I'm back in line. Sorry I went off like that."

"All that matters is your state of mind. Give me some sign that you're opertaing from reason and not emotion."

"There's no time for checks. I have to hide Peter."

"That's sign enough." Mark was relieved. "Let's get to it."

Dainig outdistanced him, lumbering up the steep slope and taking the narrow turn for home. He banged open the cabin door, set Peter down near the cavelike place in the wall and opened the concealed door. When he touched Peter's shoulder to lead him inside, the child's eyes ballooned in apprehension. "There's no reason to be afraid, Peter. Hurry and get in."

"But, Danny… I..."

"You've done this before, little boy. We've practised it and played games with it, so what's wrong?"

"This isn't the same as a game. You're in a hurry and scared and it isn't the same. I'll be all alone. Who will open the door so I can get out?"

"You know I'll open it for you."

"Yes, but…" His voice lowered to a whisper. "Danny? Are Matty and Coop out there? Have they come back to get me?"

Dainig knelt quickly and hugged the small body to him, bestowing everything he could in love and security. "They're never going to come near you or take you away again, little boy. You belong to me, now, and I won't let you go anywhere that I don't take you, myself. Understood?" As Peter returned the hug with more assurance, Dainig added, "Now, be good and get into your place. Remember how you used to hide under the covers and pretend to be asleep to fool me? I want you to play the same game now. For me. Go inside and keep so quiet you can't even hear yourself."

He gently steered the child into the cubbyhole. But Peter still wasn't certain. "I'm not asleep, though, Danny. I'll be—"

"A good boy, like you always are. I don't have time to explain anymore, so just behave yourself. I'll be back before you know it."

Although Peter's eyes still didn't surrender, Dainig closed the door to shut the sight of them away, replaced the table and left the cabin, refocusing on his own apprehension. Because now he had to undergo his own test. For the first time since he had been free, he would be under the scrutiny of AEC professionals and face to face with his future and with Peter's.

He paused outside the door, intent on beginning this test with as much deceny as he wanted from its outcome. "Thanks for coming to warn me, Mark. I would have run straight into it without you."

"That was only one friend to another. Concentrate on confronting the pros. Believe me, they'll look like the devil incarnate, but you must hold steady and move through the whole thing with an expressionless face and body."

"I can do it."

"Don't be cocky, either, because I have something else to tell you—something I saved until you had Peter stashed away. Your real problem came along in a second vehicle, Rick. The clinic sent a lab van this time, which means technicians who will check for Re-Emergence symptoms."

Dainig's blood chilled to ice. The mention of the lab shot him through with remembered, jabs and sounds of agony and terror.

"Don't go pale at the word, Dainig. You can't escape your time with the technicians and you must endure it without emotion. A little anxiety, maybe, but nothing stronger."

Dainig forced determination to be the only thing he felt, and started back up the path. "I've practised. I can manage it."

But, could he? He had to, for Peter's sake as well as his own, but had there been time enough to learn the self-control?

He slapped the doubts back because he had no room for them. Meeting with the denizens of the cells was his ultimate test. There were only two grades given: a pass, which meant being safe for the moment; or a fail, which meant returning to the shock-tables where he would either die or walk away a reconstructed, emotionless nonentity.

The official vehicles entered the village just as he and Mark joined the gathering in the square. A man and a woman dressed in brightly colored coveralls climbed out of the van bearing the AEC insignia. Apparently ready for business, they walked to the approximate center-front of the waiting villagers.

Dainig's attention veered away from them as the doors of the second van opened and four men stepped out. Two were brawny giants, spurring the memory of ungentle hands propelling him along dark corridors. These were lab guards, and their occupation broadcast itself through their bodies.

The AEC woman's voice interrupted before he could measure the other two men, and he returned his gaze to her. She was dressed in yellow, a cheery color to hide grimy business, and the AEC emblem over her breast pocket revealed the deception. She held a clipboard in her hands and stood slightly in front of the man who accompanied her.

"I want your full attention, please," she said, and waited several seconds for all murmuring to die away.

"My name is Harriet Reston and I am an Assistant Director of Anti-Emotion Conditioning. My colleague is Dr. Harris Melton. You have all been waiting for this day, so we will run through the procedures quickly in order that your normal work may resume."

How nice of her, Dainig thought. It's not proper to waste people's time while you steal their children.

She continued, "We have two functions here today, so we must divide into two groups. My associate and I will be in charge of the AEC questioning. The people whose names I call will please step to the right. Bring your children and form a line in front of me. Anyone not called will form on the left to be interviewed by the technicians from the Re-Conditioning Laboratory."

She began reading names, her enunciation loud and precise, and one by one Dainig recognized them as parents whose children were approximately three years old. He wanted to shout, "Don't take them to her!" but swallowed it, caught up in the crowd as it milled about and divided itself into two.

"She means me," Mark said from beside him. "Betty has little Mandy over there and I'd better join them. Not that that monster will get Mandy. She won't be of age for four months yet, and when she is, she won't be here for the finding." He made one silent check of Dainig and added, "Hold steady."

"I told you I can manage it," Dainig's anxiety emerged as impatience. "If you can, I can. We're both products of the same hand."

"That's not true. You're unique, with no Re-Conditioning behind you and only your willpower to hold you up. Use that willpower, Rick, and forget the bravado."

Mark was right. The others' "highs" had been trimmed down on the shock-tables, but he was whole. "Agreed. I'm not ready. And… I'm not sure."

"Now that you've faced it, you will be. Keep your mind on Peter and what this morning means to him. Beat this first confrontation, and the next one will be easier."

Mark clasped his shoulder briefly and slipped away, leaving Dainig to shuffle toward the group on the left. He wanted to stay near the back of the crowd, but was edged forward until he found himself with only one row between himself and the four men waiting to ask their insidiously probing questions.

He centered his gaze on the technician directly in front of him. The man was much like the rest of his kind. His drab gray coverall outlined the straight-shafted indifference of his posture as he stared back at them, sure in his authority. His overall appearance was menacing; at least, it was to Dainig.

Someone standing close by in the crowd whispered, "Not a flicker or flinch, Dainig. Hold firm."

He didn't recognize the voice, but was grateful for the support because suddenly he was scared to death. So many things he had considered as mere memories were abruptly real again. His body began to respond with trembling.

Don't you dare! he told himself. You will not give way. Act the puppet. You don't care about anything. Nothing can move you. You are a stone!

No one around him was speaking out loud, everyone caught up in nervousness at facing a representative of the dreaded labs. Even the natives, ordinarily quite relaxed, were exhibiting tension that overran the bounds of anxiety granted conditioned people. Dainig could hear their apprehensive murmurs.

The shorter of the two technicians cleared his throat, a small thing to do, but because the sound came from him, the crowd's last murmurs were stilled. His cool gaze filtered over them, pausing on a face, then lingering on another, stretching thin the quiet seconds and impressing the crowd with his impassive command. Dainig felt hunted and vulnerable. If the technician were capable of feeling, he would swear the man derived sadistic pleasure from this suspense. He had no shock-table, but he left everyone aware of his power to catapult their lives into agony.

Bluntly, he began, "We are here to uncover Re-Emergence symptoms. If you have noticed odd behavior in yourselves, it will serve you well to confess it. The examinations will be conducted one at a time with my associate, Lab Technician Bench, going through the alphabet from M to Z. I am Lab Technician Traynor. Anyone whose name falls from A to M must come to me. Step forward as your name is called, and be warned right now that any masks of deceit you attempt to raise will be transparent to us. We have experienced eyes, and such evasive actions will only make things harder on you."

It was a list of threats and orders, reminding Dainig of Re-Conditioner Bretton's one-sided conversations. The lab people were patterned alike, all with high Sensitivity Scores and all on the sharp edge of viciousness. He allowed himself one shiver, then refused to surrender to any more. He watched Traynor stride to a portable table that the big guards had set up about 20 feet from the crowd. Traynor sat down behind it and called the first name. Dainig, beginning with a 'D,' wouldn't be far behind.

The first man to go was a native, and he walked the 20 feet hesitantly, having to force himself to cover them at all. When the questions began, Dainig caught only snatches of sentences and gave up trying to decipher it all. Instead, he turned his back to the scene. The time he had to spend with Traynor would be enough, and he didn't dare multiply it by witnessing preceding interviews.

Names stabbed out, one by one. When he saw one of the newcomers respond, he caught his attention and mouthed the words, "Stand firm." But as "Cottren" was called, Dainig's lips went numb. From "Cottren" to "Dainig" was only a short gasp.

He made himself face forward to stare at the scene without blinking, so the reality would blur while he centered his mind inward on Peter. The little boy was alone in the dark, and he himself must be the one to open the door as he had promised.

"Richard Dainig! Come forward."

The name clapped through the air with a cutting edge that hit him in the stomach. Counting three seconds, he unclenched his fists, dared one glance back over his shoulder… and was nearly overcome. The threatening burn of tears stung his eyes as he saw many mouths forming the words, "Stand firm—Keeper." The little he had given them, they offered him in quantity, and their concern touched off quakes in his eyes. To hide the truth, he wiped his eyelids as though erasing the glare of the sun and walked away from his friends.

Traynor sat with his back unyielding and his expression likewise. Behind him, a guard watched closely, alert for a signal that would unleash him to grab a latent Re-Emerger and drag him to imprisonment in the lab vehicle.

Dainig took his position. "I am Richard Dainig."

"Shepherd?" Traynor asked.

"Yes, sir." He offered nothing on his own.

"From the look of you, I would say you're in the wrong occupation. What do you think?"

"It suits me."

"Why?"

Traynor's staccato question startled him, and he stuttered, "Because I-I've never really thought about it, but—" He corralled his tongue and stated, "It's a good life, with lots of lazy moments, and I'm a lazy sort of man." He had recovered himself nicely.

"You enjoy sitting around watching a bunch of sheep?" Traynor was trying to rile him.

"There's more to it than that, sir."

"You just said it's a lazy life, so what am I to believe? What enjoyment do you get from it?"

He didn't know what the man wanted, but an answer was required. Every question from a lab technician demanded answering simply because it was asked. "I appreciate being outdoors and having natural things around me."

"It's like a dose of Euphoria, maybe? A constant 'ride' without the expense of the pills?"

"You might say that." He saw no reason for this subject, so it might be dangerous. He tried to change it.

"Aren't you going to ask me about symptoms, sir? I can assure you—"

"I prefer to discuss the so-called enjoyment you take from a clump of trees and rocks. I don't understand it at all, but then, I was raised in the city. Incidentally, according to your records, so were you."

"I was relocated."

"Obviously. But until you satisfy my curiosity—until you give me a solid reason for your enjoyment of your new life—I'm going to continue to think you should be returned to urban society. We need people there."

"But… No!" It burst out of him. Being sent back to the city was unthinkable. It would strand Peter here or expose him as a child with a defective IQ. A child to be destroyed!

"It means that much to you, does it?" Traynor smiled -one of the non-smiles Dainig detested. "Again, why?"

He was flustered, but had to come up with a good answer. "Because… because there's a certain beauty here. A feeling of peace and freedom and working for yourself that I never had in the city. A feeling of doing something all alone. Of being responsible."

"A feeling?" Traynor pounced on him. "You used that word twice, Dainig. Just how does your 'feeling' feel?"

He had misstepped, and his knees went to cotton. He locked them tight and struggled to right his mistake. "I only meant it figuratively, sir. Figuratively. I could just as well have used the word 'sense.' "

"But you didn't." Traynor kept him pinioned.

Not daring to utter another sound and make the situation worse, Dainig kept silent. Stone. You're made of stone, he chanted to himself.

His pretense seemed to work because Traynor's eyes returned to the paper he had been consulting. "You have a son? A Richard Peter Dainig?"

"Yes, sir. He's eight years old. He helps me with the sheep."

"You will show him to me, please."

His stomach met his backbone in anxiety, but he covered by swiveling to search the crowd as though expecting to see the boy. He shook his head helplessly. "He seems to have run off. Since he's just had AEC and wasn't needed for your examination, I didn't tell him to stay."

"He is needed for my examination, Dainig. And you know it. Six-year-olds show Re-Emergence symptoms, too."

"That young?" He faked surprise to hide his fear. What if Traynor insisted on seeing Peter? It just couldn't happen! And it was up to him to see that it didn't. Feigning cooperation, he said, "I'll bring him to you, then. It may take me a while because he's probably gone way out to the flock, but I can be back within an hour."

"You're very nervous." Traynor spoke flatly.

Dainig started to fidget and fumble, found that he couldn't control it any longer and confessed, "Naturally! Talking to someone from the Re-Conditioning Lab—being checked for Re-Emergence! Certainly you understand. The bare thought of Re-Emerging makes me want to grab an Equilibria bottle."

"Then, calm down, Dainig. You're inflicting too much trauma on yourself. You can swallow some pills as soon as I've finished with you." He glanced at the paper again. "Now about your son…"

"Will you let me go find him?" He prayed Traynor would say no.

"Not this time. I'm not a man to wait for my subjects to be rounded up. And since he's only six, it's safe to skip him. I don't like to interview children, anyway. They're grimy."

They're a lot more than that, Dainig thought, his loathing surging strong for this man who saw only outward flaws because he was blind to the essence of a child. All he said to Traynor was, "Yes, sir, they are. Also, overly energetic."

"I don't need your added observations, Dainig." That statement revealed the true man: the nasty, arrogant lab bully. "I have some quick questions for you, now. Answer them promptly and honestly. Have you been experiencing any undue anxiety?"

"Aside from this interview, no, sir."

"Non-drug depression? Non-drug well-being? Fear? Humor?"

"No to all of them, sir. I'm grateful to say I've experienced nothing out of the ordinary."

"Would you admit it to me if you had?" His eyes caught Dainig hard, ready to ferret out any lie.

"Yes! Absolutely. If I let such things get out of hand…"

"You sound very wise. We wouldn't be half as busy if more people had your common sense."

"Then, I'm all right? I can go?" Apparent eagerness to get away from this man was no sign of abnormality. And Dainig certainly wanted to get away.

"This time, yes. One thing, however. Stop viewing me as an ogre, Dainig. You people in these isolated villages are actually very fortunate. City dwellers don't receive special checks. They often fall because of it."

"I appreciate that fact, sir." He edged away from the table, on the brink of running. "I'll go back to the others, then." Hesitantly, he began to walk away.

Traynor's voice pounded after him. "One more question, Dainig. Just exactly how do you 'feel' beauty?"

Tricked and trapped, Dainig faced his inquisitor with no answer ready. The man was clever, skilled, and had dealt his deathblow.

As he stared back helplessly, Traynor began to laugh—the mirthless, sham of a laugh Dainig had heard before. In the cells.

"How could you possibly know, eh?" Traynor went on laughing. "You can't 'feel'!"

Dainig stood where he was, waiting for whatever would come next, expecting the signal that set the guard in motion. But Traynor's attention returned to his paper and he barked, "Sandra Ferris! Come forward."

Striding blindly away, Dainig saw Sandra pass only as a blur of color. It had been so close. Traynor had held in his hands but hadn't really been aware of it. Hot loathing fled back into the crowd with him: loathing of the man, personally, and loathing of the system he embodied. He halted among the people, needing them as a blanket to shield him from the technician's calculating eyes. When he finally looked at his friends, he saw relief and admiration on their faces and knew he had won his confrontation. But he felt no sense of victory. Only the foul taste of the soul-eaters who ran the labs.

Dainig was headed for his cabin before the dust had returned to earth in the wake of the retreating vehicles. As he crossed the threshold, he yelled, "I'm coming, Peter!", and when he yanked open the fake door, two wide brown eyes gaped up at him. Then Peter's body hit him in a leap that ended with his arms around Dainig's neck and his feet dangling above the floor.

"Danny! I thought you were gone away forever!"

Dainig captured the dangling legs and carried the boy to the couch where he sat down and almost squeezed the breath out of him in one continuous, clenching hug. "I don't go away from the one person I love."

"You love Laine, too," Peter corrected.

"All right, you demon. I don't go away from the people I love. Don't be so persnickerty. Just hang on and let me catch my breath." He pressed his face against the boy's warm neck, feeling strangely breathless.

"Have you been running?"

"To and from hell, little boy. And I managed it mostly because of you. I need you, Peter. Do you know that?"

Suddenly, he did need the child—literally—to give him something to grasp, something to hold his quivering body upright, because what appeared in his mind and dominated his physical senses threatened to drop him to his knees. He was inundated by the antiseptic odors of the cells, could hear his own maddened laughter, his moans and screams and wails, feel the satinlike cold of Bretton's table and the exploding agony of the applied shocks. Traynor had made it a reality and he was lost in it.

Peter didn't protest Dainig's rough clutch or his shaking. He simply stayed quiet to wait it out as he had done all through the summer. It was a sort of "fit" that came and went, and the child was no longer frightened by it.

Gradually the "fit" quieted, the shudders ebbing to trembling, the visions receding until at last Dainig was still.

The boy murmured, "Is it all right now, Danny? Are you fine?"

"I just need one more thing. A hug from you. It seems to me I've done all the squeezing."

Peter's response was immediate. Afterward, he said softly, "It makes me worried when this happens to you. I want you to be happy like I am."

"I'm sorry you have to see it so often, Peter."

"No! I have to be here so I can help you. Only, I never see how I help. I don't do anything."

"You do everything, that's what you do. But I promise, it won't be long before it never happens again. I'm getting better all the time. Don't you agree?"

Peter stared into his face, his own expression sober. "Ab-sloot-ly. And I'm glad." His brief attention span getting the best of him, he added, "Now shouldn't we go back to our sheeps? They might be lonely all alone."

Making a decision, Dainig set him on his feet. "I'm going to ask someone else to keep track of them. After this… trouble… I'd rather just make supper and spend the evening resting. All right?"

"I'll even help you cook. Too bad we aren't sheeps so we could just chew on the grass." He giggled. "We wouldn't even have to wash the dishes!"

Dainig laughed with him. Laughter occurred naturally to him now, although today it stung sharply since he had been in danger of losing it. "What would you like for supper? And you'd better say stew, because I intend to warm up yesterday's pot."

"I choose stew, then. With stew salad and stew bread and stew cookies and…" Peter jigged around the floor, working off his own reaction to the tension. Abruptly, he stopped and faced Dainig. "I love you. And we'll always be together."

It was security ritual for both of them and Dainig answered with his part. "Forever, Peter, because I love you, too. More and more all the time."

"Good! Then start the fire for the pot. You have to feed me, you know."

It was amazing how quickly the child's innocence transformed the knots of fear into giggles. Dainig accepted the reoccurring miracle and bent to strike fire to the wood on the hearth. Peter made a quick foray to the cupboard to cart out the plates and flatware, clunking them down on the table.

"Not yet, Peter. It will still be an hour or more. We'll be eating early, even so."

"I know… so we can have snacks later before bed." Peter grinned, letting it be understood that he had planned it from the start.

"I've got you there, little boy. Those snacks may well be grass because Betty Damon didn't leave any cookies on the step this morning."

As he started to comment that Peter's face had fallen like a boulder, a rap sounded on the door, which burst open, revealing Betty and Mark Damon. Peter yelled, "She brought the cookies!" and ran to meet them, but he was stopped in midstep by the same thing that halted Dainig's greeting. Betty's appearance was contorted. She looked about to cry but was trying to fight against it, her hands held at an odd angle in front of her, seeming empty of more than the lack of anything to carry. She crossed to the table, grabbed hold of the back of a chair and leaned over it.

"I heard Peter laughing," was all she said before the tears won and flushed out through her eyelashes.

Peter was deathly quiet and Dainig turned to Mark, asking a wordless question.

"She just wanted to come and see Peter, Rick," Mark said. "I told her it wouldn't help, but… you can't reason some things away. Besides—"

"For pity's sake, what's wrong?" Dainig demanded. Obviously something was dreadfully wrong, and he had to understand before he could offer a proper response.

Betty's choked voice answered him. "They took our little Mandy. We planned it so she'd never have to face this, but they took her anyway, and now… she'll never laugh again."

"They took her for AEC?" Dainig asked. "But she isn't three years old yet."

"They didn't care," Betty said. "They stole her, anyway."

Dainig groaned with an understanding he wished he didn't have. "Oohh, Mark. I was so bound up in myself that I didn't even see." Little Mandy—the delight of the Damons' life and the vicarious delight of his. "They've already taken her to the clinic?"

Mark nodded, and it was clear why he didn't use words. He was struggling in the same battle his wife had already lost.

"My face was granite while I watched her go," Betty said. "She was so little and unsuspecting beside that woman, but I kept my face pure granite. Only my mind was shrieking!"

Mark went to her, groping for a way to help, but she moved away, her attention riveted on Dainig, determined to display her full torment. "I didn't shed one tear. I didn't dare. I waited until I could get to you—to where it's safe to feel and where there's wisdom to tell me how to survive. I stayed away as long as I could to give you time to collect yourself, but then I had to tell you, and I had to see Peter and hear him laugh and… Mandy will never laugh for me again."

Her eyes were suddenly on Peter, and they contained blazing envy and more than a little hostility. It was unintended, merely the reaction of the moment, but Peter sensed it and edged backward. Dainig placed his hand on the boy's thin shoulder and tried to dredge up words to comfort his friends.

"There's no way to say how sorry I am, Betty, Mark. But Mandy isn't lost forever and you must believe that. We'll all work with her the minute she's returned. I promise to give her special help, to give her Peter as a constant playmate if you want him. Just pray she comes out of AEC with a low Sensitivity Score so we can undo the conditioning in a hurry."

Betty reacted as though he had spat on her. "Is that all there is to your flaunted compassion? Wait for three years and see? Hope and wait some more? How?" Her hands flew to her face and she sobbed uncontrollably. "Then… there isn't any help in you, either. I had a little girl—a tiny little girl, warm and soft in my arms. She loved me and she told me so, but… she won't care at all when I see her again. She won't care at aalll." The word became a moan and she crumpled behind it, falling to her knees, her sobs changing to tiny, breathless sounds. "Maann-dee. Maann-dee—I still love yoo-uuu. Baby?"

"Mark!" Dainig implored his friend. "Can't you… ?"

"Don't ask, Rick. I came for help, too. I want to comfort her but I don't know how. They say you do, so tell me. Show me. Please!"

Stunned out of "feeling" by what was happening, Dainig's mind responded with nothing but his own experience. "I know only one way to do anything, any more. Let your own emotions free to touch hers. Share it with each other."

"But, how? We've never—"

"You're hurting as much as she is. Let Betty see it and feel it. Let her knew. Give in to your own grief and join her."

"There's no way I can do that. This one won't come out of me, Rick. I'm afraid to let it loose and meet it head-on, so I think I'm repressing it." His fingers twitched and he stood taut, wanting and needing to let go, but frightened of what the release might do to him.

Dainig was no stranger to the reaction. Mark's emotions were being shredded and it wasn't fair. None of it was. Not to him nor to Betty. They were decent and caring people who loved their daughter. Society's so-called "normals" gave their children up with relief, but Mark and Betty cared.

As he looked at them—Betty hunched on the floor, clutching herself in lieu of her child while Mark stood by helplessly, needing her as much as she needed him— Dainig suddenly ached with their ache. What he had learned to call "sympathy" instantly mushroomed into compassion.

Overwhelmed, his voice caught as he said, "Hold her, Mark. Hold her tight in your arms just like you hold Mandy when she cries."

"But Betty's not a child. She's a grown—"

"Do it, anyway. Hold her and let her hold you."

Trying to obey, Mark bent hesitantly toward his wife.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Mark. Just do it. Now! Because I swear I will if you don't. Someone has to fill her arms again." And yours, too, friend, he whispered to himself.

Mark knelt in front of her and touched her shoulders, softly, then with deliberate strength, drawing her closer. At his firm grip, she threw her body across the brief space and clutched him in a desperate embrace. The full feel of her broke his resistance. He inclined his head against her and they huddled together, a two-sided figure forming one despairing creature. But at last they were sharing their hurt, and it was made bearable.

Peter pressed timidly against Dainig's thigh. "They're both crying, Danny," he whispered, awed and a little frightened. "Is it all right? Will they ever stop?"

"Of course they will. It's good to cry, Peter, so give them their time."

After an eternity of minutes, Betty's sobs subsided, and as she realized what was happening to her husband, she shifted her concern away from herself. "We'll manage, Mark. We'll make it through this. I promise. Have faith and don't hurt yourself this way. We'll work with Mandy the way Rick said, and we'll soon have her whole again. Now, come, stand up with me. I can't cut free of this unless I know you're free, too."

With effort, Mark took rein of himself and, still holding onto each other, they stood. "Stay near," he told her softly.

"I'm sorry you cried," Peter said to them. "It's not nice to cry, and you were doing it so hard I thought you might not ever stop. But Danny knew you'd be all right."

"Danny knows a lot of things," Mark answered. When his eyes swept to Dainig, they were deep with the same awe Peter had just shown. "Betty was right when she instinctively headed for you and your special understanding. Thank you… Keeper."

Dainig was restless with the title when it came from this source. Mark had never used it, and the way he uttered it now carried a special significance. He could think of no answer, and Mark left him no room, anyway. He put one strong arm around Betty and led his wife out of the cabin. The silence was appropriate.

Finally Peter touched Dainig's pant leg and peered up at him. "Why are you so quiet, Danny? You didn't even say goodbye."

"That's because something important happened, little boy. But I'm not a skilled-enough judge to say exactly what."

"You don't need to. I heard Mr. Damon say it when he said 'Thank you.' He thinks you're very special."

"How do you know that?" Dainig was puzzled.

"I feel it, that's how. Sometimes I 'feel' people say things better than I hear them. Don't you?"

"Not as much as I should. Not yet."

"Well, don't worry. I'll teach you how to do it just like I teached you how to laugh. All right?"

Once again he put his hand on the boy's soft hair, a gesture that had come to have many interpretations. "I only hope you can, Peter. You're the only one in the world who even has a chance."

Peter pulled away, his reaction to the whole afternoon coming to the surface. "I think I'll go out to play a little, Danny. You're being so quiet that it bothers me, and… your face is scary. I won't stay out long."

He darted through the doorway and Dainig was alone. But not quite. The ghost of Mark's word, "Keeper," stayed with him. He wasn't worthy of the name and was violently angry with himself for not really trying to earn it. His vision was filled with the sight of the Damons huddled on the floor, suffering in undeserved grief. Traynor's dead eyes intruded on the picture, along with the unyielding stance of the AEC woman who had come to lead away the lively children so she could return them later as unfeeling puppets.

He had done nothing to oppose any of it: not the source nor its vicious tendrils. His single goal had been to save Peter. That much had been accomplished, but at this exact moment some other Viewing Child was being tormented into performing emotions for audiences unable to care about the child's abuse. Other people were locked inside pitch black lab cells, screaming through holocausts of emotion they didn't understand, or shrieking on a Re-Conditioner's table as those emotions were wrenched out of them with shock-pain.

He hated all of it. He didn't call it loathing or detesting any longer. Those words were puny next to what gnashed inside him. It was pure hate, now, all aimed at the narrow target of AEC and at the unnecessary repetition of a brutal mistake. The world had at last stabilized enough for people to live normally with their emotion, but AEC went right on tearing it out of them before they had a chance to discover the truth.

If he was really the Keeper of the future, then he had to be active in the role. And, he would be. Because anything that could bring a fine man like Mark Damon to his knees was monstrously evil, and even one more child lost to it was too many.

CHAPTER 6

The sun was brilliant with an altered light, moving from the yellow glare of summer toward the whiter light of winter. It still lay warm on Dainig's shoulders as he strolled with Peter through the high-flying leaves of autumn. The hillsides had changed. Quiet and green all summer, individual trees now announced themselves in copper-gold, bright yellow, rust and crimson. They stood outlined against the slate-blue clouds, raised halfway to the vault of the sky on every side, their fiery towers swaying in the wind to lay bright washes of color at their feet.

Eagerly, Peter collected leaves, his hands so full of the brittle stems that they dropped in his wake. Dainig walked casually along behind him with a tree-identification book, teaching both of them to match the leaf to the tree and call it by name.

"This is the best one yet," Peter hollered, racing back in his uncoordinated run. He held the leaf high. "It's a maple."

"It's an oak," Dainig corrected.

"Oak, oak. I never can tell, can I?" Peter huffed at himself. "I'll just call it a leaf, all right?" He put it with the others in his scattering bouquet and dashed off again, unbothered by his mental limitations.

A sudden crunch of leaves caused Dainig to spin around, expecting to face a large animal. Instead, he found Laine approaching, the crackling leaves making her sound bigger than life.

"When did you get here?" He rushed to meet her. There was so much to tell her this time, but first he had a need to feel her live warmth against himself.

She clung to the embrace even after he relinquished it, sighing sighs that echoed of relief more than love. "I'm so glad to be back."

"Are you all right, Laine?" Dainig asked, concerned.

"No… but it doesn't matter. The sun keeps on rising in spite of it." She looked straight into his eyes. "Yet… if you're strong enough now, per—"

"Laine!" Elated, Peter zoomed at her. "Danny forgot to tell me you're back. Come and see my leaves."

"Not now, Peter," Dainig pushed the boy aside. "Laine's tired. Let her rest for a while first."

Not used to being shunted out of the way, Peter concluded he had done something wrong. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to grab or shout. I was only happy to see her."

His face was a mixture of hurt and repentance, and Laine immediately bent to kiss him on the cheek. "I'm happy to see you, too, Peter."

"But you need to rest? Like Danny said?"

"I do. I also need to talk to Danny. Alone."

"Then I'll find some best leaves for you to look at later," Peter announced. "Don't go away while I'm hunting for them." With her promise, he ran off, happy with the peace he had made.

Dainig led Laine into the shade of a maple tree and sat down with her. His news about his transformation would have to wait. She was obviously in need of something other than plans for a coup.

Nevertheless, she didn't pursue what she had begun to say, asking instead, "How are things going for you, Rick? Are the fevers letting up?"

"We're not going to talk about me. I think you're the one with problems this time."

"Nothing but overwork."

"It felt like more while I was holding you."

"Only because you were holding me and making it clear you care. I almost took advantage of your sympathy and I refuse to do that. Especially when my problem is simple weariness."

Dainig wanted no sidestepping. "I won't accept that, Laine. You've never needed sympathy before, so this must be something pretty damn big and pretty damn hurtful. If our relationship means anything at all, then be honest with me so I can help."

"Our relationship is a great part of my trouble." She was strangely angry, almost accusing. "I feel like I'm standing all alone when I'm away from here. The idea of what you have to give me—the ease and sympathy—just underline my frustration because I'm afraid to ask for it. I could too easily hurt you if I hit you with more than you can handle."

"I'm as good as well, Laine, and I'd have the right to help you even if I weren't. So, what's upsetting you? Don't hedge."

She held back for long seconds, then blurted, "It's Bretton. He won't leave me alone. He comes to my apartment, he shadows me at the lab, and no matter how many times I refuse him, he won't stop. The look in his eyes, Rick… I know it's not desire. He wants me, all right, but not as a lover. He's hunting for proof of treason and I can't stand much more. He'll break me down until I show a reaction. I don't even feel free to talk to Hugo except long distance, because I'd only involve him, too.

"I think what I most hate Bretton for is that he's forced me into Re-Conditioning all of the subjects I'm assigned. I'm sure he's checking every one of them I certify. So I go home at night trying to forget the screams of people I should be saving. Screams I caused! Yet I have no choice. If I'm exposed, the whole organization may go down with me—all those thousands and thousands of innocent people—because I'm not sure how much shock-pain I can withstand before I confess and give them all away!"

He caught her hands but they stayed tightly clenched inside his. "You would never give them away, Laine, so forget that idea right now. Let's concentrate on Bretton."

"Why? You thought I was wrong when I mentioned my suspicions about him before." She obviously expected him to repeat his doubts.

"I did that out of my own weakness and I'm ashamed of it. I believe you now. You're sensitive enough to get the true feel of him."

"Which does me no good, because I still don't know what to do about him."

"Put him out of the way," Dainig said bluntly.

"Kill him, you mean? Oh no, Rick, that's not possible. Murder requires passion, and no one is supposed to have that any more. It would only arouse suspicion in people and produce a real inquisition."

"But that leaves you trapped with him. It's not fair, Laine, because I'm the one he really wants. Maybe I'll just have to—"

"You are supposed to be dead," she said, beating down his suggestion. "I wouldn't let you do anything in the first place, and in the second place, you can't because it would lead to the same inquisition. You and Peter both supposedly died in the Crime Control van you stole. We never told you, but our people stole the bodies of a man and a boy from a Re-Emerger's murder-suicide case before it could be reported officially. We put the bodies inside the van and faked a fiery accident. The bodies were beyond identification, even to the dental records, and were officially accepted as yours and Peter's. Bretton's not even after you any more. Since he failed to catch you, he's relieved to have you dead and out of the way."

Dainig sat back on his heels. He hadn't heard this before, and it did effectively block any heroics he'd had in mind. He felt as agitated as Laine had been when she told him about Bretton, and his hands started to tremble. He cursed and decided to ignore their trembling, determined to find a solution for her. He came up with only one. It was connected with his desire to join her group and fight.

"There's just one other course to take, Laine. Your organization has to begin its offensive now—today. Bretton won't be a threat if everything's in the open. He'll just be one more voice on AEC's losing side. We can cut him off and save all your innocent people by forcibly creating the new society they need to survive. You can count me in on the battle, because I'm ready."

She was bewildered. "I don't understand what you're saying. Where did you get these ideas?"

He laid it all out, starting with Technician Traynor, the cruel stealing of Mandy Damon, and ending with his decision that he could no longer remain as a passive Keeper. "I watched Betty and Mark and saw what AEC did to them. It's too evil to be allowed to smother us for even one more day. It must be destroyed and Bretton has forced our hand. We must not lose our chance. I intend to go back to the city and take full part."

Right in front of him she changed from a needful, desperate woman to the role of mentor and guide. "You're leaping at this, Rick. What you're proposing is foolhardy, and if you don't realize that, then you're caught up in another flight of overreaction."

"Don't put that label on me this time. Not when I know I'm right. You asked for my help and I've told you what I think should be done. And what I want to do."

"You can't want anything concerning this, Frederic Dainig. You're not even directly involved. All we ask of you is to stay alive, learn what you can, and teach the rest of us."

He recognized the statements for what they were: her brand of non-lab shock designed to put him off. Angrily, he shot back with his own. "Search yourself a bit, Laine. Are you trying to protect me again? Or are you shutting me up because you're afraid to make your own move against AEC?"

She was startled by his sudden anger. "That was particularly nasty. I make my move every time I offer to free a subject from the cells. A Re-Conditioner's penalty for that is execution as a traitor, and you know it!"

"One has nothing to do with the other. I'm talking about a revolution. The knocking down of AEC, itself. It's the reason for every chance you take, so why not get rid of it altogether? Why wait any longer? It's not in my nature, so why is it part of yours when you've been after this goal so much longer than I have?"

"But we're not ready, Dainig, and if we move too fast, we'll all be lost. The overthrow of a social system is staggering to contemplate. We need a great mass of 'feeling' people to attempt it. That means recruiting lab workers—especially Re-Conditioners who can help supply us with those people. We've more than two million people already, but that's not enough. Eventually we will have a large enough force to support open defiance. Then we can take over the government centers and hold them for our own."

"Your plan is to wait until you've re-claimed an army? So you can win by force of numbers?" He was astounded at the timidity of the idea when the goal was so high. "The whole bunch of you are wrong, because it will never happen."

"Especially not if we jump too soon and give away our existence," she argued hotly. "We'll all be slaughtered and no one will ever take our places."

He shook his head in disappointment, "I'm surprised there isn't more backbone in your group. Your plan sounds timid and I think it should be—"

"Dangerous and full of glory so it would better fit Frederic Dainig's picture of himself," she accused. "So it could all be done tomorrow and the whole world would be forced into line just to insure Peter's security. He's the one you're thinking about, Dainig. He's always the one. You want to fight for him!"

Dainig was too astonished by her tirade to answer.

"Well you can forget about your personal heroics, Dainig, because you won't be fighting when the time comes. I'm not foolish enough to take the very thing I'm trying to preserve and throw it into the battle lines!"

She was stamping on him—on all of his new resolve and visions—but he held back his protest, realizing something was wrong with her. Her behavior was akin to an emotional fever and he had caused it by arguing when she was already too disturbed and fragile. He tried to turn the subject to something lighter. He looked at her in mock astonishment and said, "You certainly change your postures in a hurry. In the face of it, I'm glad I didn't have you for a Re-Conditioner."

He had intended the remark to make her smile, but it backfired. The defiance died from her face to be replaced by a surprising look of remorse. "I wanted you for my subject, you know," she said wistfully. "You wouldn't have suffered a single unnecessary shock from my hand. The way it turned out—with Bretton onto you…"

Something welled up inside her and she reached out for him. Startled, but responding, Dainig circled her with strong arms and tried to understand what was happening.

She drew away quickly, her eyes glassy with tears. "What am I going to do, Rick? My life is split right down the middle, and I don't know how to put it together. Here with you, I've had a taste of what it's like to live freely with my emotions." Her voice heightened until she was almost shouting. "And I can't stand to take Re-Emergers who've just discovered their emotions and change them back into heartless, uncaring puppets. They have the right to our kind of life, too. But, no! I have to clamp their bodies down and bully them into showing me their souls so I can jab electricity through them until they scream those souls away again. I'm worse than the other Re-Conditioners because I know better."

The glassiness in her eyes splintered into tears. Ashamed, she covered her face to hide them. "I need counseling myself, I swear it. Forgive me for this. Please."

She was huddling, not used to the pain of sobbing, and he gathered her against him, trying to communicate his sympathy and offer comfort. Their roles were reversed and he took up his new one gratefully. She had carried everything alone for far too long.

But a minute later, she pulled away and said in self-reproach, "I had no right to put this on your shoulders. I've made a shambles of everything. I'm sorry."

He put one hand on her soft black hair and forced her to stay near. "Don't hold it back, Laine. Feel it through until it's gone."

"No. It's not good for you. It's liable to—"

"This time do as I say, love. Give me a chance to help. Since I can't join your fight, at least let me offer what I have. Willingness and sympathy and… love."

The last word renewed her siege of crying. As he held her, he was thankful that she had finally trusted in him enough to be open with her own feelings.

With the catharsis of the fever behind her, Laine made the decision to handle Bretton just as she had been doing, which meant warily and at arm's length. She claimed that having Dainig aware of the situation and available to her would make it easier.

Since he had never been able to change her mind, he didn't try now. He directed the rest of the day into quiet pleasures, relieved to see the strain leave her face and finally to hear her laugh at Peter's antics. What he felt when he looked at her in those moments could be nothing less than love, and he knew it. He wished the feeling had the power to spill out from him and renew her spirit too.

After a hot supper by the hearth, they put Peter to bed on the sofa. He looked like an elf tucked under the great blanket, and when he demanded a good-night kiss from Laine, she didn't resist. "Will that do for the night?" she asked him.

"Maybe. Do you know that you're softer than Danny? You're like my Mama was. You smell like her, too. Only you're nicer because you kiss me and can even laugh. I love you just like Danny does, do you know that?"

She drew in her breath quickly, surprised and gratified. "Thank you, Peter. I love you, too. Both of you."

"Then, if Danny is my new Daddy. I think you will be my new Mama. All right? I need both, so I choose you, Laine."

"And who could ever refuse?" She kissed him again.

"When you decide you love us well enough, we can all be here together."

"No more talking, little boy," Dainig said as he tucked the blanket in again. "Close those brown eyes and go to sleep. I need you wide awake and strong when it's time to move the sheep to their winter quarters."

"Yes, because I have to count them," Peter said.

Dainig restrained a laugh. With Peter counting the sheep when he had yet to master counting to 15, they would have a strangely numbered flock. Wishing the child a good night, he searched out the wool shawl Betty had left for Laine and took her into the chill autumn air where they passed the evening talking about inconsequential things.

Too soon, it was time to say good night, and it was just as difficult for him as it had been for the little boy. He wanted to stay with her, to envelope her and complete their union, feeling it might somehow give her a sure anchor to grasp when she returned to the city and her duel with Bretton. But she made no sign, so he kissed her and entered his own room.

The thoughts nagged at him as he undressed until they were too great to deny. Nothing but his body was capable of communicating his love for her now, and she needed the proof of it.

He draped a towel around his waist and walked barefoot to her door and opened it without knocking. She was standing by the bed, and when she saw him, there was no reproach in her eyes.

"I love you, Laine." He didn't whisper it.

She looked at him without surprise and answered, "Yes."

"Then, it's time."

She opened her arms and waited for his approach.

CHAPTER 7

It was spring, but one such as Dainig had never known. This one was created of sudden thunder, quenching rain, and softly exploding green. His other springs had been made of hard, damp surfaces, filtered light, and raindrops bound for gutters. Here, life was vibrant and active with new lambs and the move back to good pasture.

Throughout the chill of winter, Peter had gained five pounds, causing Laine quite a struggle when she picked him up. Peter teased her about it, promising to carry her when he grew a little bigger, reveling in the giggles he pulled out of her to match his own.

She had returned to her normal confidence and vitality due to what she called a semimiracle—the end of Bretton's dogging. It hadn't really been a miracle at all, but only a fortunate circumstance that took Bretton away. It seemed that the publicity he had garnered from being the "dead" Dainig's Re-Conditioner had brought him to international attention, and the government offered him the position of director at a western lab. Neither his suspicions about Laine nor his tenacity could keep him from accepting personal advancement, so in December he had gone west.

Once he had left, Laine's visits were full of contentment as Peter drew her inside the secure pact of love he and Dainig had formed. She didn't need coaxing.

On a day when she and Dainig were walking hand in hand from one flowering, wild fruit tree to another, she stopped to kneel beside a quiet pool in the stream. When she leaned out to scoop some water, she saw her reflection and said with surprise, "I actually believe I look radiant."

"I've thought so for a long time. The Keeper around here does pretty good keeping."

"I should have known you'd take the credit," she laughed.

He knelt to kiss her, and her mouth was warm under his, but the good moment was broken by Peter's shout of, "Laine, Laine!" The boy came galloping across the meadow, his arms flailing like a small windmill, sending three straggling sheep veering out of his path and back to the flock. He banged up against Laine, out of breath, but talking anyway. "I found my lamb to show you! We have to hurry or it will get mixed up with the other ones again and you don't have long because Mark's coming and wants to talk to you about an important thing and—"

"Slow down," Dainig urged him. "Mark's coming out here?"

"Yes, he's way back there." Peter pointed to a figure near the foot of the hill walking in their direction. "I ran fast ahead, so you still have time to see my lamb, Laine. Please come see it now or I won't be able to pick it out again."

Laine was grinning. "You really should mark it somehow, Rick."

"Yes, you should," Peter agreed. "You just can't tell the sheeps apart when they get mixed up together. Mine likes its mother better than me, so it won't come when I tell it to. It's like you, Laine. You won't come when I tell you to, either."

"It might be because you should ask Laine, Peter, not tell her." Dainig kept up his struggle to teach the boy manners.

"Yes, I should. Will you, Laine?"

"Of course I will," she answered, but then she saw Mark raise his arm to wave. "Oops, I think it's too late this time. I'll come later on and even help you find him. All right?"

"I guess so," Peter didn't hide his disappointment. "When people learn to laugh like you and Danny did, I always have to wait for things."

"My, my, isn't it terrible?" Dainig teased. "As I recall, there was once a time when you even had to wait for affection."

"You're right! And now I just have to reach for it." Peter threw his arms around Dainig's hips. "So, if you love me, I'll be good and not complain."

"You're turning into the spoiled brat of the hills, but I love you anyway," Dainig chuckled.

Peter devoured the affection for a long moment, then darted away. "I'll go home and get out some cookies so all of you can eat them when you come back," he called, speeding straight past Mark.

Dainig steered Laine in that direction, too, intent on returning to the cabin before Peter decided to provide hot tea as well, possibly injuring himself in the fire.

When they reached Mark, the bearded man grabbed Laine in a bear hug. "You've been scarce, Laine Todd. How can I teach Rick to be a proper shepherd when he's always pining for you?"

She replied in kind, before moving directly to the information she knew he wanted. "I checked on little Mandy for you, Mark. She's healthy and well settled. She's progressed through—"

"Don't tell me about her AEC training," Mark cut her off gruffly. "I'm trying to pretend it isn't happening. By now, she probably doesn't even miss us because she had nothing left to miss us with."

It was mourning, not really a question, and Laine didn't respond. Dainig clapped him on the shoulder and steered them toward the hill and home.

When they reached the cabin, Peter called from the doorway, "I've got the cookies all ready so you'd better hurry."

Mark hesitated. "I wanted a chance to talk to Laine before we included the boy. It's important."

"That's easy enough to arrange," she said and yelled at Peter, "We're not hungry yet. When we are, we'll holler and you can bring the cookies outdoors for a picnic. Meanwhile, stay inside the cabin and play."

Since she made it more command than suggestion, Peter's blond head bobbed obediently out of sight.

"What's on your mind, Mark?" she opened the way, after they had sat down.

"Some rumors I've heard. I haven't seen you for three months and that last newcomer you sent us—Tyler Gibbons—has told us some strange stories about the cities."

"He hasn't said anything to me," Dainig put in.

"He's still too much in awe of you to talk freely. Is the Re-Emergence rate nearly out of control, Laine? Or is Gibbons exaggerating everything?"

"It has sprung sky-high, as a matter of fact," Laine said. "We have a near epidemic on our hands. The labs are so jammed all over the world that some cities are holding people in prisons until space opens up in the cells. We're working double shifts three days a week and have orders to certify subjects who are only partially Re-Conditioned just to make room for others."

Mark heard the news eagerly. "What on earth is causing it?"

"It's something we've never seen before, so there's no official answer. But I think I have a clue—mainly because I really listen to my Re-Conditioning subjects. I've found a common denominator, and no matter how strange it is, I have to accept it. The majority of my subjects claim that the anxiety that led to their Re-Emergence started with missing Peter. And from their realization that they shouldn't be able to miss anyone."

"That's ridiculous," Mark huffed. "People never give a second thought to the loss of a Viewing Child. They simply tune in on the next one."

"I would have agreed three months ago, but not any more. Just look at the facts. The little girl they put in Peter's place didn't work out. She lacked his unique intensity, and people didn't derive what they needed from her. So the authorities put in another child, then another. We're on the fourth one already, and none of them have been terminated because they've caught on to the manipulation and failed to perform. They've been removed because of public apathy. Do you remember the unusual depression that settled over the cities the first time you kidnapped Peter, Rick? Before you Re-Emerged? Well, that depression returned when you stole him for good, and it hasn't lifted since."

"Are you linking this depression with the high Re-Emergence rate?"

"Only because it's logical. The reaction to loss by the public has never occurred before, and this epidemic of Re-Emergence has never occurred before, so it's reasonable to assume they're related."

"But, why Peter?" Mark still wasn't convinced.

"I've searched through every old psychology book I own to figure that out. My idea is that his being 'lost' during that first period when Rick had him—actually lost, so they could dream up pictures of him being afraid and hungry—gave him a special identity. That, in turn, made his death a real blow, don't you see? There's also the fact that before Rick kidnapped him that last time, he was dying right before their eyes and they knew it. He didn't just vanish like the others do. Somehow or other, his condition sparked their anxiety and made them prey to guilt. Since guilt is an actual emotion, its presence heightened their anxiety further, and round and round until they fell into Re-Emergence. And are still falling into it. Farfetched as it sounds, I'm betting that's the answer."

Dainig readily agreed with her. "Peter made a unique Viewing Child, all right. He's supersensitive and it always showed. He's also superattractive. He was bound to hit a responsive note in people."

"I'll bow to your biased view and even add his 'super-attractiveness' to my list of causes. Daddy." Laine was grinning.

"So?" Dainig took offense.

"So… enjoy him and be as biased as you please. You've earned the right, Rick, and in the hardest way possible." She made her peace. "Does that answer your question, Mark?"

"With a bang," Mark admitted. "I'll have to mull it over before I draw enough conclusions to ask some more."

During a subsequent prolonged silence, Peter reappeared at the cabin door. He had been remarkably self-contained throughout their long talk, but now he announced in a caricature of a serious adult voice, "If you are done, I will bring the cookies out on a plate. I haven't eaten a single one of them, either, and that was hard."

"By all means, bring them out," Mark agreed, with a chuckle.

"All right," Peter said. "But when I do it, you must be good and leave some extra ones for me." Thinking that was sufficient warning, he disappeared back inside.

The three of them laughed in unison, and Laine finally said, "That boy has deviltry packed inside his head. How do you ever keep a straight face, Rick?"

"That was nothing. Try convincing him that the lambs aren't eating their mothers when they nurse!"

The image set them all laughing harder, until their laughter mushroomed nearly out of control.

"Laine Todd? Laughing? I don't believe this!"

The voice of an intruder boomed out from behind Dainig but directly across from Laine. It wiped her face clean of smiles and shot her to her feet. Dainig swiveled to look just as she blurted, "Bretton!"

Dainig sprang up, his stomach clenched into a hard, aching knot. It was Re-Conditioner Bretton, and the sight of his sparse blond hair and stony blue eyes rocketed Dainig backward in time to a sense of helplessness and pain too great to endure.

Bretton put the period to the memory. His hand shot out, pointing. "You! Frederic Dainig—the Re-Emerger! Why aren't you dead?"

"Easy, Rick," Laine whispered, and stepped forward to act as a partial shield. "What are you doing here, Lawrenz?" she demanded.

"You're protecting him?" Bretton answered with an-other question. "A deviant Re-Emerger? How can this be? I was told his body had been found. Now I find it was a lie. Surely you were not involved in that, too, Re-Conditioner Todd?"

"I asked what you're doing here," Laine met him head-on. "You're supposed to be 2,000 miles away."

"A condition you obviously would prefer. But you were never destined to have it that way. I've had suspicions about you for months, so I took advantage of my first leave to return and finish the business I left undone. I used my new authority to get hold of the lab's personnel files, checked your sign-out destination, and followed you. However, I never expected to find you a deviant among deviants. It's too late to deny it. I heard you laugh."

His words should have been brittle and furious, but were merely brittle and highly irritated because Bretton could not feel deep anger. "I don't know exactly what this behavior signifies, Laine Todd, but I suspect it has to do with treason. That is a great pity. You were a woman to be admired, but now you're even unfit for my cleansing table."

The man stood so unyielding, so sure in his authority and his right to it, that Laine looked fragile in front of him. When she winced at his words, Dainig reared forward. "Save your viciousness for me and leave her alone, Bretton!"

"Stay out of this, Rick," Laine warned.

"Keep silent, Re-Emerger," Bretton lashed at him. "You know where you'll be by nightfall. Right back on my table. I'll commandeer one at the lab especially for you. So I advise you to watch how you behave toward me. I still have the upper hand I've always had when it comes to you."

Dainig hated the man. Hotly. He wanted to shout him down, bash him down, but the well-taught reflexes still persisted and he could only shiver. Because Bretton was right. Bretton was always right and would always be Dainig's master through dint of pain and force.

As he stood frozen to his spot of ground, a loud panting rasped from the cabin doorway, and the air burst apart in a cry of, "Danny! Are you all right? What's wrong, Danny?"

Before Dainig could warn the child, Peter dashed into the center of the confrontation. Sensitive, he was instantly aware of the threat and its source. "I'll keep him away from you, Danny. I'll keep you safe." Belligerently he faced Bretton. "Don't you dare say mean things to Danny, do you understand? You don't even belong here. I can tell that by your hard face. You don't know how to laugh at all!"

"And that child is Peter," condemned Bretton. "The stupid, emotional monster, Peter. Of course! Wherever Dainig is, that defective would have to be. What did you do, Re-Emerger? Bring your beloved boy back to life?"

Dainig couldn't speak. His hands were the only part of him alive enough to move, and they reached to lift Peter safely into his arms.

"What a sugary sweet picture," Bretton mocked. "Re-Emerger and defective. And you?" he swung on Mark. "Which lab did you foul?"

Mark didn't respond, holding himself straight and tall in spite of the pictures playing through his mind—pictures of his own Re-Conditioner and his own hours under those uncaring hands.

"You're mute, too?" Bretton plowed on. "It makes no difference. You'll speak willingly enough after some prolonged surges of electricity. And that is what's waiting for you. Re-Conditioner Todd will go where she belongs—to her execution as a traitor. A medical team will handle the defective child's death. Unless, of course, I let Cooper and Mattison have him to play with for a while."

"Coop and Matty?" Peter wailed. "Danny, don't let them get me! You promised not to! Please, Danny. Don't!"

"Keep your nastiness to yourself, Bretton," Dainig snarled. "I won't allow Peter to hear—"

"Still acting the savior for him, Re-Emerger?" Bretton cut him short. "How very touching and brave. It whets my appetite for clamping you down again. You are coming straight back to me, you know. To my table. And you will surrender there or die. If you thought you screamed before, wait until I grab the switch this time."

Dainig retreated five shuddering steps. In that moment, he knew he couldn't face this man. Not again.

Mark made up for him. "You're talking damn big for a man facing three opponents all by himself, Bretton. Are you so used to power that you don't even realize when you're completely outnumbered?"

Bretton changed. His eyes widened and anxiety creased his face, as sudden fear grew within him.

At the sight, hatred welled up in Dainig's throat; hatred and ferocity, because now Bretton was afraid, and of him. Raging, he released Peter and leaped at the man, hitting hard and knocking him backward. He thudded down on top of him and beat at the detested face, every pounding of his fist a revenge for each shock and pain he himself had suffered. Bretton struggled and rolled, but Dainig pounced after him, giving no leeway and no mercy. The sounds erupting from his own mouth became animal noises, but this was one fever he didn't intend to control.

Something interposed itself between him and his target. He struck blindly and, at the resulting yell, realized he had hit Mark. As he restrained himself from a second thrust, Mark caught him from behind, heaving him up and away from Bretton, who remained on the ground, unconscious.

"Control yourself, Dainig!" Mark shouted. "Take hold! Do you know what's happening? Are you sane? Dainig!"

As a sign, Dainig relaxed his muscles and Mark released him. When he turned around, he met Laine's startled face. Peter's brown eyes gleamed up at him in awe.

The child broke the tension. "Oooh, Danny, I never knew you could do that. Don't any more—please. You scared me and Laine."

"It's all over now, so quit being afraid and come here."

"Are you sure you're safe for me?"

"Of course he is, Peter," Laine said irritably, still shaken. She looked from Bretton's prone body to Dainig. "You've given us another chance, Rick, but now… I mean, as long as Bretton's alive, he's a threat. So we have to… We've got to…" She couldn't say it.

"Dispose of him," Mark said the words for her. "Kill him."

"If so, you shouldn't have stopped me," Dainig cursed. "Right then, I was able."

"You're not, now?" Mark asked.

"It won't be as easy, but I'm willing." He faced his friend. "How shall it be done? A rock? A rope around his neck? The stream?"

"Stop it, both of you!" Laine snapped. "All you're to do is tie him up and take him to the shed at the high cabin. I'll go to the city for some drugs and have them do the work, not you."

"Drugs for him?" Dainig was astounded. "After the terrible forms of death you once considered using on me when I was a threat?"

"Yes, drugs! I will not let you turn brutal. I know more now than I did back then, Rick. If we intend to make a decent world, we cannot begin it with brutality. We can't regress all the way back to violence. While I retrieve his traveler, you will do as I tell you. Peter… go and bring Danny some rope."

"Yes, Laine," Peter moved to obey. "We'll tie him up tight so he can't ever give me back to Coop and Matty." He faltered. "You won't leave me while I'm gone, will you, Danny?"

"I'll be here, little boy." When Peter was out of earshot, Dainig told Laine, "He'll have nightmares when he hears Bretton yelling in the shed."

"Think of the ones he might have had if he'd seen you commit murder."

She won the argument.

CHAPTER 8

Dainig crouched nervously in a corner of the darkened shed, watching Bretton's unconscious, measured breathing. The man was bound hand and foot and tethered to the wall by a four-foot rope, but he still loomed before Dainig as a menace. He didn't want to hear one more "Re-Emerger" spit from the arrogant mouth or be the focus of those stony blue eyes, but he was determined to face Bretton's awakening and exorcise the specter of his dominance once and for all.

Bretton roused himself in stages. The first sign was a rolling of his head, slowly back and forth on the hard-packed earth. Soon after, lost-sounding moans emerged from him. He tried to move his hands, and the discovery that they were immobile shot his eyes wide open. He gaped at the ropes for one astounded instant, then scanned the bare walls in confusion. He heaved a frightened breath and thrashed about, but only for a moment because he noticed Dainig crouched in the corner and immediately covered the tracks of his fear-reaction.

Struggling just enough to reach a sitting position, he said disdainfully, "The Re-Emerger is still with me, I see. Make yourself useful, Dainig, and untie these crude ropes. I do not appreciate being restricted this way."

"Never felt the bite of your own table's clamps, Re-Conditioner?" Dainig mocked him with the title. He couldn't help it. Bretton deserved anything he cared to throw, and besides, anger helped to still his own nervousness. "Never been helpless in a strange place with someone else in charge?"

The cutting words made Bretton uneasy, but he refused to allow them to affect his attitude. "I've never had the need, Re-Emerger. When you and I are together, you know who is in charge, so do as I tell you."

Dainig laughed at him. "Your face is already turning black and blue, there's blood on your mouth, and you still think you can give orders? This isn't the lab, Bretton. You're on my territory now, and I control the switch."

The blue eyes stared back expressionlessly, but Bretton's hands responded in twitchings. He was afraid and had no way to hide it any more. "You're obviously beyond the powers of reason and operating on sheer hatred. With an emotion that forceful driving an overreactive man like you, there can only be one result. You're going to kill me, aren't you." He hadn't put it as a question but he clearly wanted an answer.

"Exactly. You won't get free of this, Bretton. The choice I had of submitting to you isn't being offered here."

Bretton jerked in a convulsive shudder.

"Was that caused by fear, Bretton? Well, feel it, Re-Conditioner. Feel it all the way to the bottom. It's one of the four measly emotions AEC allows."

He had to give Bretton credit. The blond man almost brought himself under control. But his failure to do so increased his distress. "How am I to die, Dainig? Under your bare hands?"

"All I can definitely say is that Torpela has no electricity, so it won't be by the weapon you're used to. But you don't really care. You don't have a caring molecule in you. What you're displaying now is raw fear, Bretton. That's my diagnosis, and as you once told me, 'Go right ahead and let it show because I know you have it and I don't mind one whit.' "

"You remember every word I said to you?"

"The most abusive ones, yes."

"Then, there's no hope at all." Bretton gazed straight at him. Although his eyes glittered with fear, he held himself apart from it. He was two men: one cringing, one denying. "Oddly enough, Dainig, I never expected this sort of viciousness from you. Not after the secrets you told me when I had you in my care. I didn't approve of your soft tendencies, but I was convinced they were real."

Dainig was astonished at this change of attack. "Are you actually pleading with me, Bretton? Is this your arrogant way of asking for mercy? Well, forget it. I'm as deaf to you as you were to me the hundreds of times I begged for a few minutes rest. The situation is reversed now. My social system labels you as the deviant and names me as your master."

Bretton's legs propelled him involuntarily backward, closer to the wall. His face was that of a trapped animal who knew death was near. But Bretton was helpless under its approach, unlike an animal who would fight to be free. Dainig had no stomach to watch him. He had seen enough bodies quivering in fear to last a lifetime and, if he had to face another, Bretton's wouldn't be the one. Standing up, he turned and walked out.

Mark was waiting just outside. "What happened in there? You look drained."

"Of venom, only." Dainig felt oddly guilty at Mark's decent concern. "I'm not pleased with the way I acted. The man's about to die, and all I could do was vent my hatred on him."

"If anyone has the right, it's you, Rick. The things he did to you—"

"Perhaps," Dainig cut him off. "But it doesn't excuse me. I thought I had grown beyond that kind of behavior. Nobody asked me to be the keeper of inhumanity."

There was no sound from Bretton all through the afternoon, and when Dainig carried a meager supper tray into the shed, he met an unbelievable sight. Bretton was hunched sideways in the corner and tears were pouring down his face.

"What in heaven's name… ?"

Bretton struggled to his knees, putting a sneer in his voice that belied the tears. "I am to be fed, then. You still retain that much decency, at least."

"Do you realize you're actually crying?" Dainig asked, point-blank.

"That's ridiculous. I… it's only…" He started to shake.

Dainig set down the tray and walked halfway across to him. "What's happening, Bretton? Can you name it?"

"No! I… I don't want to. It's just…" He fumbled for words and finally blurted, "I'm afraid. But I'd wipe the damn tears off my face if I had a hand free to do it!"

Incredulous, Dainig stared at him, unable to deny the truth of what he saw. "Trauma," he muttered. "Not even your high Sensitivity Score could withstand the trauma of facing death. It's throwing you into Re-Emergence just as it did Jesse."

"Don't say that word in connection with me," Bretton ordered.

"Then prove I'm wrong. How do you feel, Bretton?"

"I feel nothing! I'm merely overly anxious and… afraid. I can be allowed that much, can't I? It's normal to fear your own death, especially when it's to be administered by a man who could hate you to death without ever touching an instrument." A strangled laugh wrenched from him. "I've never heard of doing it that way, but I'll wager you'd like to try."

"And now you're laughing! Laughing and crying just like your lab subjects. Do you understand them a little better now? And how they can't help themselves?"

"I do not!"

"You will soon, because this is Re-Emergence."

"Even if it is, I can stave it off!" Bretton was furiously stubborn. "I'm not a weak-willed deviant." He clasped his hands together in an attempt to still their tremors.

"But won't it be something if you do Re-Emerge? When I first entered the lab, you were described to me as its most brutal manipulator. Won't it be something if you also become its most berserk Re-Emerger?"

"I don't need your gloating, Dainig. Get away from me!"

"Gladly. Fight this out by yourself, Re-Conditioner. But I won't promise not to watch sometimes."

Night came with incredible slowness as Dainig wondered what was happening inside the shed. The sky had barely sprouted its first faint stars when cries erupted from the small structure: cries of suppressed terror and despair, interspersed with incoherent laughter. Mark finally moved out of range, but Dainig stayed, sure he was only torturing himself, but compelled to wait it out.

By the time the moon had arced into the west, he couldn't stand the sounds any longer. The familiarity of them tore at him, demanding sympathy. The emotion burgeoned automatically, blooming bigger and stronger until he stamped to the door and burst into the shed as though ready to face an opponent. In the light of the single oil lamp, all he found was Bretton floundering on the floor, his tied hands and feet preventing even the solace of hanging onto himself.

The man was fighting valiantly against his re-emerging emotions, and Dainig admired him for his strength. As he admitted that admiration, it spurred his own feelings and his sympathy towered into compassion. He knew what Bretton was suffering because he himself remembered it. Exactly. It was like being tossed in a gale-force wind, this explosion of alien emotions that had no source. There was no past experience to tell a man what they were or even if he could survive their onslaught. It was the height of loneliness and fear.

Everything in Dainig shied away and demanded that he yell for Mark to handle this, because Mark had never lain helpless and naked under Bretton's heartless eyes, he was afraid of this man. But the damnable little voice that reminded him of his name, Keeper, overruled his thoughts, and he crossed to Bretton and knelt beside him. Touching the Re-Conditioner took all of his courage, and his hand barely obeyed as he turned Bretton's streaked and bruised face to the light. When he saw the result of what his fists had done, a surge of guilt and sympathy took him the rest of the way.

"Let go, Bretton. Let it come. You can't stop it, anyway, no matter how hard you try. No one can. It will be easier on you if you quit fighting."

"I can't! I don't dare!"

"It's not a sign of weakness. Believe me. Let it come as it will. Count on me to keep you steady. I know how."

"No, Dainig! Kill me and be done with it. I don't want to reach Totality. Please don't let that happen to me. I realize that you can't care about me, but—"

"I can," Dainig hadn't intended to say those words. "Anyone who feels is human and I care about them. Even you, Lawrenz Bretton. I should curse myself for it, but… even you."

"But Totality! I can't!"

"Don't be afraid of it. I'll ease you through with sedatives and Equilibria."

"You will? No. That's still no good, because then comes Re-Conditioning. I've seen the pain, Dainig. I've heard it. And I don't want it!" Bretton's face was a twisted caricature of itself.

"There is no pain in my method, Bretton… Lawrenz. I'll help you. I will not injure you. Your hardest problem will be to trust me—to accept me as your ally and not just remember me as your subject. Can you do that?"

"Once I could have said—Yes! I can do anything."

"I honestly believe that," Dainig agreed, shaking his head ironically. "You're strong, Lawrenz. Remember that when things get bad." He clasped the man's arm and added, "I'm going to leave you for a few minutes and get the sedative. I think you're close enough to Totality to warrant it. When I return, I'll give you the injection and, once it takes over, I'll untie you. It will be easier when you can move freely."

"Thank you, Dainig. Faces shouldn't be naked when they're going mad. They need hands to cover them."

Full of his own remembered Re-Emergence, Dainig couldn't answer. He merely clapped Bretton's shoulder in reassurance and left to get the vial. Mark confronted him on the way back, but when Dainig explained his decision and awaited argument, his bearded friend refused to comment. Dainig accepted the responsibility for himself.

Bretton went through Totality quickly and rebounded just as fast to the point where he needed constant attention. And Dainig gave it, holding the man, chanting to him, explaining what the feelings were as they came, and using his own body as solid reality for Bretton's lost and clinging hands. Between the semilucid moments, Bretton thrashed around the darkened shed, crying and screaming and howling with demented laughter.

He had a long way to go before Dainig's healing messages could reach him, but he made astonishing progress. Dainig attributed it to his extra-high Sensitivity Score. Laine had Re-Emerged alone and come through it by herself with a score a bit lower than his. In any other circumstance, Bretton would have surpassed her, but the threat of death had been too traumatic and released emotions as frenzied as his previous attitude had been extreme in the opposite direction.

It was two days before they heard from Laine. Her news arrived in the form of a young lab technician who carried the drug—the instrument for Bretton's death—in his hands. His explanations were brief and to the point. Laine herself couldn't return because the lab was swamped with Re-Emergers, and she was tied to a double shift. In spite of this, she had arranged to have Bretton's sign-out destination changed on the register to make it impossible to trace his disappearance to Torpela.

Dainig accepted the drug and sent the technician on his way, innocent of the news of Bretton's Re-Emergence and of his own decision to re-claim the man. When he told Mark that the decision was final, he won the ensuing quarrel by default. Mark had no choice but to surrender to him since he had no way of informing anyone of Dainig's duplicity.

From that moment on, Dainig's deceit shoved him into three terrible weeks of Bretton's company while the blond man raged through fevers of emotions he had never before felt. Dainig talked to him, confined him inside his own arms to provide physical contact, chanted, cajoled and ex-plained proving he was willing to stay and be the secure anchor Bretton needed. Under the massive doses of Equilibria and insight acquired from his work, Bretton responded with a resilience Dainig envied.

One sunny day when Mark was present, Dainig handed the Re-Conditioner a strong dose of Equilibria pills and led him out into the dazzling air. Uneasily, Mark posted himself as a guard, but Bretton merely stood under the trees in silence, watching the passage of birds who trailed grass and twigs from their beaks for nest-building.

"It's like being released from hell," Bretton said quietly. "But you're already aware of that. Both of you. It was a hell, I might add, much less cruel because of your strange procedures." He smiled at Dainig, an expression made twice as unexpected by the light of the sun. "I have the odd notion that I practically belong to you now, Dainig. You saw me in the worst possible situations and heard secrets I didn't even know I had."

"You are your own person, Lawrenz. And on your way to becoming a total one."

"I'm not there yet?" Bretton asked, before answering for himself, "Oh, yes, the occasional fevers and what you said about becoming accustomed to living with feelings. I'm looking forward to it, although I realize I'll never be what you are. Even in your new world of unconditioned people, I will remain quite insensitive."

"What's insentive?" Peter appeared from hiding behind a tree.

"Ah, yes… the child," Bretton acknowledged him.

"You're not tied up in rope any more," Peter noticed. "That's nice for you, but do I have to be afraid?"

"Not of me, boy. I have no reason to harm you."

"Even so," Mark spoke up for the first time, "I'd be happier if you did have some restraints."

"What?" Dainig was surprised.

"Rick trusts me, Mr. Damon," Bretton pointed out.

"Which is unbelievable after what you did to him. He still tends to overreact and trusting you is another proof of it. Since it's my job to see that his special emotions don't lead him into mistakes, I want your hands tied, if nothing else, Re-Conditioner."

"What good will that do?" Dainig protested. "His feet will be free."

"But useless, since he doesn't know where he is and wouldn't dare run off to get lost in the forest," Mark spoke bluntly. "Get the rope again, Peter."

As Peter bounded off immediately, Dainig argued, "Bretton has joined our side, Mark. He wants to stay emotional. We can't treat him like a—"

Mark wouldn't listen. 'The truth of what he claims is for Laine to decide," he said. "Give way to me, Rick. I know my responsibility and I owe you the performance of it."

Dainig sighed in surrender. Mark might be right. He didn't trust himself enough to say he wasn't.

Bretton accepted the ropes good naturedly and simply sat down and leaned against a tree bole, content to enjoy the afternoon free of the shed's confinement.

They finally moved Bretton into the high cabin and even let him go with them to collect some personal items from his traveler. Dainig found it impossible to make sense of his reactions to the blond man. Going through the Re-Emergence with him had aroused his deepest feelings and he felt drawn to Bretton as one more member of the new race of people he was helping to create. Yet that horrible time when he had known him as a tormentor always hovered in the background.

He was compelled to rely on Peter's innocent responses. The child was free of Dainig's past and, never having been conditioned, had a capacity for insight into other people that was both greater and more accurate. And Peter took to Bretton, accepting him as another new friend among many.

Four days after Bretton moved into the high cabin, he was sitting by the clifftop, his tied hands in his lap and his attitude fully relaxed. Peter made forays to him, carrying bits of rock and bright wildflowers to show and recite by name. When the little boy finally sat down and the two began to talk, Dainig moved within earshot.

"I know all about that," Peter was saying. "You have the same kind of fits my Danny has sometimes. I think you need a boy to look after you and love you. I'd do it myself, but I'm still busy with Danny and he takes all my time. Can you find a boy of your own, do you think?"

Bretton eyed the child oddly. "You're actually worried about me?"

"Oh, yes, I was afraid when you were mean, but now you can laugh so that proves you're good. So am I good. That's why I want to help you. Is it all right for me to want to?"

Bretton's face softened with wonder, and he reached forward with his bound hands to touch the boy softly on the cheek. "You are rather delightful, aren't you?"

"Yes, and very special, too. That's why it doesn't matter if I'm dumb."

The laugh that bounced out of Bretton was spontaneous and real.

"Did you ever see me at that awful place I was where people watched me cry?" Peter asked him out of nothing.

"Why would you want to talk about that? I don't," Bretton said to lead the child away from the subject. "I'd like you to keep teaching me about nature. What's that bird over there with the purple green head and the long tail?"

Peter answered importantly, "That is a Tailed Crackle."

"Grackle," Dainig corrected. "Boat-tailed Grackle."

"I'm glad you said it right because I can't ever remember," Peter sighed. He told Bretton, "Danny helps me all the time because he loves me and he wants us to be together forever."

"I also want you to come and help me with the flock," Dainig said. "You're getting lazy, little boy."

"Oh… does he have to?" Bretton sounded disappointed. "That means I'll not only lose his companionship, but I'll be tethered to a tree for the rest of the afternoon. Ah, well. Get the rope for your Danny, Peter."

"I don't think it's a nice thing to do," Peter was reluctant.

Remembering how Bretton had protected the boy from conjuring up his own sorry past, Dainig said rashly, "Neither do I, Peter, so we just won't do it."

"Oh good, Danny. You're nice!"

"As a matter of fact, Bretton, if you'll volunteer to start supper, I'll make this your Certification Day and even untie your hands."

"Mr. Damon might object to all of this," Bretton surprisingly demurred.

"Mark worries too much. Nobody trusts me to make unemotional decisions, but the one I made about you proved right. So will this one. Is the supper a deal?"

"If you'll forgive the bad cooking… yes." As Dainig bent to undo the knots, Bretton added, "It's somehow backward to be certified as emotional when I've spent my career certifying people as Re-Conditioned. I wouldn't have believed it possible to live this way. I'm counting on your help to convince Laine Todd that I'm sincere when I say this is how I want it."

"She'll jump at the chance of having another Re-Conditioner on our side. Even if she doesn't, I can handle her."

"I'm glad someone can," Bretton grinned, his meaning clear.

Dainig straightened up. "Now, you'll be all right alone? You can take more Equilibria if you need it, and if you feel a fever starting, ring the bell we put up beside the cabin. I'll hear it and get back to you fast."

"Don't fret about me. I'm in better control of myself than you think." His blue eyes glinted. "You and Peter go tend your sheep, and I'll handle the cooking pot."

Checking Bretton for signs of stress, Dainig found nothing too pronounced, so he took Peter by the hand and headed for the path leading down to Mark and the flock.

He was deep inside the woods when the unfamiliar sound of a balky engine trying to start whirled him about, hunting to locate its direction. When the realization hit, it hit hard, because the noise originated near the high cabin, and only one vehicle was parked in that area: Bretton's.

"Run and get Mark!" he yelled to Peter and, grinding his feet into the soft earth, leaped back the way he had come. Dashing up the hill and out of the trees, he vaulted boulders and pumped his legs along every shortcut his racing mind could pinpoint. He crashed into the underbrush beyond the cabin and careened down the back slope just as the faulty motor coughed and took hold.

He broke out onto the path in front of the traveler and hauled himself to a stop. The engine was turning smoothly and Bretton sat at the wheel, startled to momentary inaction. Dainig planted his legs and yelled hoarsely, "Turn off the engine, Bretton!"

"Never! I'm going back to the world of the sane where we can put an end to you and your kind."

Dainig's throat locked in speechlessness, and he ran to the traveler and grabbed the door handle on Bretton's side, yanking with all his strength. It was locked. The window was down only a couple of inches, and he tried to thrust his hand through the breach but merely wound up with bruised knuckles. Again he grabbed the handle and hung on, kicking and banging.

Bretton sat calmly, smiling in a way Dainig had imagined impossible for anyone less than the devil himself. "You're a bit too late, Re-Emerger. Now get away from my traveler before you knock yourself into a bloody mess. I have business to finish."

"You'll have to drag me along with you, Bretton, because I'm not going to let you leave. I was a fool to believe you."

"That's your failing, not mine… Keeper." Coming from Bretton, the name was a curse. "It always will be, because you're an emotional sot, a disgusting sponge of ridiculous tender feelings, every one of which proves you're a deviant."

"Then so are you, Bretton. You can feel too!"

"To my disgrace, but not for long. I'm not like you and I never want to be. Watching you with that moron of a boy, listening to you and Damon laugh… You're all insane and not fit to be called human. I'll put an end to it."

"Get out of there!" Futilely, Dainig yanked on the door, then cast his eyes on the ground to find a rock big enough to break the window.

"Don't waste your energy looking for weapons, Re-Emerger. I'm leaving. If you want me to run you down, that's your choice. Otherwise, you can wait for me to come back and put an end to Laine Todd's treason. I'll bring men with me, Dainig. Special Police and lab technicians, and we'll scour this place clean!"

Bretton's calm was collapsing as his own emotions reared up. Dainig homed in on them, stalling, for time, which meant Mark's help. "You can't stop what's happening in the world, Bretton. In the cities and in the labs—you've seen it with your own eyes. We're winning without even fighting, which means you and yours are going down! No more beasts, Bretton—no more you."

The Re-Conditioner's face was red with hatred, but his return threat was stopped by a crash of underbrush behind him. He craned around, saw Mark Damon catapulting toward him at a dead run and gunned the traveler forward. Dainig's arm nearly jolted from its socket as he fell to the ground, skidding along in the dirt for 15 feet before he relinquished his hold on the door. He lay where he was and felt the earth's vibration diminish, damning himself for letting go, yet knowing full well that Bretton had meant to kill him.

Mark turned him over, not bothering to comment on the blood he saw. "Bretton was lying about coming to our side?"

"And I handed him his chance to escape," Dainig choked. "I'm more dangerous than he is because I'm a total fool."

"You don't have time to wallow in self-pity, Dainig. Laine is all-important now. She thinks Bretton is dead, and when he storms into the city, she'll be arrested without knowing why."

Dainig was on his feet instantly. "I have to warn her! But how, Mark? We don't have another traveler, so…"

"There's the village communicator," Mark reminded him.

"Which is useless for this. I can't call her at the lab, and I don't know any of her friends." He realized he was wrong. "Yes I do! Hugo Warner. He's high in her organization and he was my first contact point when I got away from Bretton. He'll serve!" He even remembered Warner's number. It had been so crucial to Peter's safety that he had embedded it in his brain. "See that Peter's all right!" he yelled to Mark and rushed away.

His bloody, disheveled appearance caused a stir in the village, but he didn't stop to answer questions. When Jesse Stack confronted him, he pulled the old man along to the central store where Torpela's one link to the outside world was kept—the communicator plus its self-contained generator. The only hurdle left was Adams, the store manager. Dainig instructed Jesse, "I have to make a crisis call and no one must be allowed to hear it. Keep Adams occupied, understand?"

Jesse accepted without hesitation, and when they entered the cluttered store, he immediately drew Adams aside by professing a long list of goods he needed to buy.

Dainig powered the generator and put through his call.

Hugo Warner was bound to be home. Denied his career because of his own Re-Emergence, he lived on inherited wealth and worked with Laine's group from his apartment. At Hugo's answer, Dainig's words rushed out. "This is Rick Dainig, and before I say another word, is your line monitored?"

"Of course not," Hugo grunted. "I couldn't use it for contact-point work if it were. Now how about a decent 'hello'?"

"There's no time. Just listen, Hugo. Please." Dainig told him what happened, admitting his own deceit and its result, and accepting Hugo's shocked accusations. He cut them off by saying, "Laine has to be warned and taken to a safe shelter. Immediately. You're the only one who can do it."

"Consider it done," Hugo said. "What about you and Peter? You aren't safe, either. None of our newcomers are."

It was the first instant that Dainig had considered their predicament. There was only one answer. "We'll evacuate. We've no other choice. You take care of Laine and leave the rest to me. This time you have to trust me, Hugo, whether you like it or not."

"Consider that done, too, in spite of your past performance. But I do insist that you and Peter return here to me, Dainig. Wherever the others go, I want you here."

"Selfish or not, that was my intention. And I'll need shelter for two more people—Betty and Mark Damon. We'll be out of here within the hour, but I can't promise when we'll make it to you. Four days? Five? How long does it take to walk that far? Our biggest problem will be clothing. We don't have coveralls in Torpela, so if we're hunted, we'll be easy targets."

"I can handle that, plus an intermediate destination. Memorize what I tell you from here on." He mentioned certain backroads and gave landmarks as guides, all leading to the northern outskirts of a small woodland town named Edgemont where some members of the organization lived. Once there, food, clothing and shelter would be supplied. "I'll pick you up in Edgemont, myself. I'll even bring some sort of disguise for Peter, if you like. You once used a little girl's wig, didn't you?"

"Thanks for remembering."

"I could never forget anything about you, Dainig. Or about the night you put me through last summer," he chuckled. "The journey's going to be hard, so be easy on yourself. And remember—we're all behind you. You'll be here with Laine within the week."

Dainig hated to sign off because Hugo sounded so certain and so secure, but it was time to get moving. He made his slightly shaky way to the, maple tree in the square, took up the horn and sounded it. He needed all of the newcomers together and this was the only sure way to get them.

They came quickly, natives and newcomers alike. When Mark appeared, it was without Peter, but he gave a sign that the boy was hidden in the cabin. With all of the faces staring expectantly at him, Dainig plunged right to the point, not bothering to be cautious. The natives would know the truth from Bretton, anyway.

"My news is for the new people, only, and it's bad. We've been exposed and have very little time to save ourselves. Re-Conditioner Lawrenz Bretton knows we're emotional people and is already on his way to bring back a force of men to run us to ground. Torpela is lost to us." He heard their gasps and saw them clutch each other, sharply aware that he had caused it all.

A stir began in the crowd as the natives recovered from their first confusion and started to understand what they were hearing. One after another filtered from the group, suddenly fearful of being anywhere near these deviants.

Dainig ignored them and talked to his own. "We have to leave Torpela—each and every one of us. Since we all have identity papers and certification cards, I believe our best chance is to return to the cities. Our own cities, where possible.

"I can't offer advice on how to get proper clothing, but opportunities are bound to appear, and you'll have to take them even if they're brutal." He paused, guilt stabbing him because his own way had been provided. "Go to the city you knew as home and reestablish your contacts. Try not to… I can't…" He stopped. He was offering them nothing and knew it.

His heart demanded confession. He said, "Look, I caused this whole disaster. I did it—out of the same emotions you've valued in me. And now I'm asking you to walk into the forest blind when I can't promise you safety or success. I'm sorry to my soul, but there's nothing else to be done. Just go. Keep away from the Special Police because they know every one of your names from the transfer records."

That realization quashed any hopes the people had been harboring. Wide-eyed and afraid, aware they had lost their safe home and not sure they could find another, they just stared at him.

His voice was deep with the desire to protect them as he said, "Do your best and take care. If you can, try to forgive me for betraying you, unintended as it was. If I can make Torpela up to you, I swear…"

As his voice faltered, a question arose from the crowd. "What about you? And the boy? Will you be safe?"

That question hurt worse than accusations. "I'll keep Peter secure for you if it takes my last drop of blood. Thank you for still caring." He gazed at them once more and said, "Goodbye." Then he walked away.

He was at the edge of the wooded path before he realized Jesse Stack had followed him. When he turned, the old man said, "You're crying, Mr. Dainig. Are you going to make it? I have to know."

"I'll be all right, Jesse. So will you."

"But… I have nowhere to go. I was born in Torpela.

Cities are mysteries to me and I don't have a certification card because I was never forced into a lab. You handled me, Mr. Dainig. It's best for me to stay here, I think. They won't bother me because I'm not a newcomer."

"No, you mustn't be here when Bretton comes. He's bound to bring equipment—emotion-sensors and their recording dials. You'll never stand against them."

Jesse blanched, afraid of the devices of a lab he had never seen.

Dainig gave him assurance. "Go deep into the woods, Jesse. Please. You know how to survive there, and I don't want anything to happen to you. You're too precious to us. To me."

"Whatever you say," the old man surrendered, flushed with embarrassment. He covered it by saying, "I want a chance at that face of yours. It needs tending." '

"Thank you, but I don't have time. I have to go after Peter, as I promised." He faced the old man squarely, with the feeling-that saying goodbye to him meant saying goodbye to this part of his life. "Take care, Jesse, and stay well. Above all, hang onto your emotions."

"And you do the same—Keeper."

CHAPTER 9

The sights and sounds of the city were magnified by the long absence and Dainig tried to shut them away from himself on the ride to Hugo's apartment. He concentrated instead on Peter, asleep in his arms, worn out from their long hike and the tension of their flight from Torpela. Even so, the occasional rude call of Special Police klaxons stabbed through him three times, projecting images of frantic Re-Emergers being run to ground. His fingers reached up in nervous reaction to smooth his mustache but touched only bare skin. He had been forced to shave to reenter the city safely.

In the back seat, Betty and a now beardless Mark echoed his reaction to the klaxons, but Hugo didn't flinch. He was just as Dainig remembered: tall and blond, broadcasting an aura of dignified decency.

When they finally entered Hugo's apartment, Dainig saw Laine inside and, thrusting Peter into Mark's arms, rushed eagerly for her. But she sidestepped his hands, and the tilt of her head was angry. He tried again and she evaded again. Confused, he lowered his empty hands and asked, "Aren't you even glad to see we're safe?"

"I've known that since you called from Edgemont. No, Dainig, there aren't any embraces waiting for you here. Only bare truth. Hugo was right last summer when he was afraid your presence in Torpela would endanger the whole village. You did exactly that, and worse. You exposed our organization with its thousands of innocent people and ended every hope we had of destroying AEC. All because of overreactive sympathy for Lawrenz Bretton!"

"Wait just a minute, now. You're the one who wouldn't let me kill him on the spot."

"And you had to go one better and try to re-claim him. I could have told you it was impossible. Feeling or unfeeling, Bretton is a monster! But as usual, you followed your own rash notions."

Her accusations stung, and he swung to Mark and Betty for support. But their smiles had vanished as quickly as his, and the pair stayed quiet in the face of the unexpected quarrel. So Dainig defended himself. "It was an honest mistake that had disastrous results, Laine. But it seems that everything I do is disastrous if it turns out wrong, because I do it wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, I won't stop making decisions. Not if they're inspired by the right reasons. If my special emotions mean anything to the world, then I have to take the consequences when I use them."

"They don't mean anything. Not any more. You destroyed the reason for having them."

"I don't believe that," he said flatly.

"You will when you see the enormity of what you've done and stop looking at everything with your particular brand of selfishness."

"Just what does that mean? I'm in as much danger as you are. I hurt myself too."

"Ah, yes," she scoffed. "You've lost eight months and Torpela. Well, Frederic Dainig, I've lost years—and a world!"

He couldn't believe her hostility. "For pity's sake, Laine, don't you think I realize that?"

"Daann-nee?" Peter's voice intruded. The little boy sleepily opened his eyes and peered up from his place in Mark's arms.

Laine laughed out loud—a nasty sound. "Saved again, Dainig, and by the same little hand. It's uncanny how Peter always blunders in at your crucial moments. Well, go ahead and see to him."

Dainig intended to stay right where he was, but Hugo's glance indicated he should do as she said. He took Peter from Mark.

Hugo came closer to whisper, "Give her time, Dainig. Plus some understanding." He led the way into Dainig's old bedroom and lifted back the covers for the child.

Dainig put Peter to bed and stayed with him, needing time to sort out his own emotions before he faced Laine's bitterness again. He had wanted to hold her close while he confessed his guilt and promised somehow to atone for it. But she wasn't going to allow it. None of it. Instead of a reunion, he faced a confrontation.

When he finally returned to the living room, the four of them were talking around a low table that held a coffee pot and four partially drained cups. At the sight of Dainig, Laine went to the kitchen and returned with a cup of hot tea. "I made it for you," she explained grudgingly. "From one traitorous rebel to another."

"It's a malevolent title for us, isn't it?" Betty said lightly to ward off another quarrel. "Laine says Bretton used it during a news conference and it stuck. I've never had a label before and it gives me a strange sense of being something."

Dainig stared into Laine's unyielding eyes and walked away from her to join the others. "Did Bretton arrest anyone in Torpela?" he asked Hugo.

"Five of our people, unfortunately. The rest got out in time, thanks to you." Hugo made this point clear. "The natives are safe, if you've been worrying about them. They tested out as conditioned, so he couldn't touch them."

"But he hasn't given up," Laine said. "He knows there are other Torpelas, and he'll search the world to dig them all out."

"What he doesn't know," Hugo said, still directing his words at Dainig, "is that there are more of us on the city streets than in the safe villages."

"He'll figure that out." Laine refused to be ignored.

"It won't help him if he does, Laine," Hugo said. 'The streets are also full of latent Re-Emergers, and it's hard to distinguish their high anxiety from real emotion. Our people will test as well as any jittery conditioned person."

"I heard three klaxons on the way in," Dainig recalled. "It's just as bad as it was a month ago, then."

"Worse," Betty put in. "Laine says the situation is nearly out of hand."

Dainig looked expectantly at Laine, and she surrendered enough to lay out the facts. The Re-Emergence rate had hit full epidemic proportions with no end in sight, because it had entered a cycle of feeding upon itself. Seeing several Re-Emergers every day raised people's anxiety until they eventually fell prey to the same disaster. Thousands were being released from the labs only partially cleansed to make room for the ones waiting their turn on the tables. In the month since Dainig had last seen Laine, the cities had become mazes of all-pervading tension, as no one dared to trust a stranger near him. The population of partially feeling people was skyrocketing.

"I'll bet the Re-Conditioners are applying extra-heavy shocks to try to cleanse people at a faster rate," Betty said bitterly. "Except for you, of course, Laine."

"Mine, too." Laine's jaw clenched. "Since we've been exposed, not one of them would dare do any less than the law demands. I would have been forced to do it, myself, if Bretton hadn't found me out. I might be thankful for that, if it didn't mean the end of everything we've worked so hard to save."

There were tears in her eyes, and Dainig answered them by taking her hand. It was surprisingly cold and she pulled it away immediately.

Hugo's calm eyes were on her. "This sort of discussion can wait. You're all too tired and emotionally charged to tackle it right now."

"There's nothing to discuss, anyway," Laine remarked unhappily.

"We'll see. For the moment, allow me to advise you on what's best, Laine. Go and lie, down. When you're settled, I'll bring you some more Equilibria so you can sleep."

When she looked at Hugo, her expression said a heartfelt "thank you" and Dainig felt a pang of jealousy. For the present, Hugo had usurped him in her life, and there was nothing he could do about it.

With the talk cut short and Laine gone off alone, Dainig wandered about the apartment, finally homing in on Peter's room. The boy was out of bed and standing at the window, engrossed with the sight of the street below him. He acknowledged Dainig's entrance but offered nothing more, so Dainig sat down on the mattress, sure that Peter was content. He had always enjoyed gazing from a high window and watching life move by.

But after a few minutes, the boy came away from the view to stand hesitantly by Dainig's knee. His face was pale and sober. "Danny? We're back where Matty and Coop are, aren't we." The question had no inflection. "We're going to get caught again."

Dainig lifted him onto his lap. "No, Peter. They don't even know we're here."

"And they'll take you away from me and put me in that place where I'm all alone again, won't they." It still wasn't put as a question but as a trembling statement. "I don't think I can be there again, Danny." The boy was lost in despair.

"Do you really believe I'd let you go, Peter? Think hard before you answer."

Peter's attempt ended quickly. "No you wouldn't because you love me, but—" he hesitated "—but you loved me when I went there the other time, too."

"I see," Dainig sighed. "You've lost your trust. I can't say that I blame you, but it hurts me to realize it."

"Oh, I do trust you, Danny. I do! Only… Matty and Coop are bigger than we are and there's no way to get out of that place." He saw Dainig's sadness and closed his frail arms tightly about his neck. "I'm sorry I'm afraid. You always take care of me, but I'm still afraid. Will you promise we'll be all right and stay here together? Will you smile and say everything's going to be fine?"

Dainig found no way to respond. The horrors and disappointments of the past year and his original betrayal of the child towered above the rest. He had had Peter safe once before, but deliberately returned him to Mattison and Cooper out of fear of his own Re-Emerging emotions. Peter was afraid it might happen again, and Dainig couldn't swear it wasn't possible.

"You're afraid, too," Peter whispered anxiously. "So Matty and Coop are coming!" Like a small animal trying to hide itself, he burrowed into Dainig. "Oh, Danny, please love me. Please!"

As the child's tears dampened his sleeve, Dainig forced himself away from his own ugly thoughts. "Hush, hush," he soothed, rocking Peter back and forth, stroking and caressing. Then he voiced the words Peter needed to hear. "I love you and I'll take care of you forever. How can you even doubt it? Now, let's think of "happier things. Let's play a rhyming game."

"I can't think of one." Peter was still crying.

"Then I'll start it."

"All right, and let it tell me all the things I am."

"Just listen, then. You are precious and you're small, you are innocent and fine, and I love you best of all, 'cause you're really truly—"

"Mine!" Peter sat up with a start. "I did it, Danny. For the first time, I rhymed it myself. Did you hear me?"

"I certainly did." Dainig smiled now. "I always knew you would some day." At Peter's brightening face, he took this opportunity to use the child's brief attention span to his own advantage. "Now, my boy, I want to see a bit of that imp you have in you. Some of that spunk and silliness. That's my favorite Peter, you know."

"Then you'll have him!" Peter jumped from his lap exuberantly, only to suddenly become sober again and draw close. "First I want to tell you thanks and kiss you. Because you always find the way to make me happy again." He gave Dainig a fleeting kiss. "Now I'll do my part of this thing we're doing and figure out how to make you laugh. All right?"

But Dainig grabbed him and changed the subject once and for all by wrestling the child to the floor for a good round of tickling and giggling.

Peter tired quickly. Dainig tucked him into bed for another nap and wandered to the living room, feeling oddly drained. No one was awake but Hugo, who sat quietly reading until he heard Dainig enter. "Has something happened, Dainig?" he asked. "You look miserable."

"Only a bit depressed. Peter had a few bad minutes. He's regressed to the way he used to be and… He gets to me, you know?"

"You can handle him and the memories," Hugo cut through the camouflage. "Give yourself time to regain your strength, Dainig. Everyone else headed for some sleep, so why don't you?"

"I had plenty of that in Edgemont. Besides, I don't think there's time to pamper myself. I feel a sense of urgency and need a chance to think." He sat down opposite Hugo. "I also need facts, Hugo. Laine was so discouraged that she was painting everything too black. What's our true situation?"

Hugo's mouth turned downward. "Blacker than she said—or even knows, I'm afraid. She's been cooped up here, but I've been out checking where I can. There are rumors of a general census call. It's never been attempted before, but the talk is that the government plans to work through the computer files and interrogate every citizen on record, testing for emotional instability."

The prospect was lethal, but Dainig saw some hope.

"Our people can hide and not report."

"I think not. The call-up won't be done alphabetically, and the contacts will be made by surprise visits to the home or place of employment. Search parties, if you will. Eventually every one of us will be found."

"Even Peter," Dainig groaned.

"Yes."

Dainig slammed his hands together, angry that they had begun to tremble.

Hugo saw it and said sternly, "For pity's sake, Dainig, don't prove me wrong! I told you the truth because I believed you'd weather it. I had to share it with someone and I don't want Laine to know it yet. She isn't ready. You must understand what a catastrophe this is for her. She has risked her life and continued in a job that breaks her heart every day just to forward the cause. Now it's all come crashing down. To top it off, the instigator of the crash is a man she loves. I'm worried about her, quite frankly. There's such a thing as emotional collapse, you know."

"I do understand, Hugo. You're not the only man around here capable of insight," Dainig snapped.

"Good," Hugo smiled at him. "If your temper's back, you're in control. You've progressed a great distance from the man I knew last summer."

Dainig ignored the compliment, although it meant a lot coming from this particular source. Finally he stood up. "I'm going out. I want to feel the street firsthand and look for some answers in it. Before you object, remember that very few people know me on sight. Peter's face was famous, but mine was literally unknown to anyone who didn't attend the Viewings in person."

"You're your own man, Dainig," Hugo nodded. "Do accept one word of advice, though. Be careful."

"Keep a stony face and hide my humanity. Don't worry. I'm an artist on that score."

"I meant to be careful of the street itself. You won't find it an easy or familiar place any more. You'll be hurt and offended."

Stepping into the street was as alien as submerging himself in water. The noise of treading feet, roaring commuter trains and jibbering voices wounded his now sensitive ears, and the whirling movement of color and form defied sorting out. He proceeded in spite of it, steadfastly maintaining an even pace against the constant jostling.

The coverall-clad people were the same except for the added tension he read in their faces and nervous fingers.

There wasn't a smile to be seen, but of course there never had been. Feeling only pride, irritation, fear and anxiety, they trudged through life as eviscerated halflings, blameless but doomed.

After four churning blocks, he took refuge in a less crowded arcade, pretending to ponder the goods displayed in the shop windows that lined it. In reality, he was fighting off his own tension. It wouldn't diminish, since even this smaller crowd was too much, so he stepped into the recessed entrance of a store, completely out of the bustling traffic.

A tiny girl darted into his quiet spot, running almost to the door where she scooped up a bright red trinket someone had dropped. He guessed her age at two and a half, and when she straightened, he knew he was right because she had an expression of delight no child past the age of three displayed. She ran toward him on tiptoe, dangling the red trinket high to show him. "See? I find it," she announced. "Pretty? It's yellow."

He almost smiled and said, "Not half as pretty as you are," but caught himself and kept his face immobile.

It was fortunate that he did, because a female voice called, "Susan? Where have you gotten to now?" A young woman stamped around the corner and entered their small sanctuary. "Oh, there you are. What's that you have in your hand?"

"Look, Mama, I find it," the child rushed to her eagerly and raised the trinket high, her face ablaze with a proud smile. "I give it to you, Mama. Pretty for you. Do you like it?"

She was bestowing a loving gift. But the woman grabbed it and tossed it to the floor, rejecting the affection she couldn't return, and grasped the child's hand roughly.

Susan strained away. "Don't lose it, Mama. It's for you. Let me go!"

"I don't want a piece of rubbish."

"Oh, lady, it's so much more than that," Dainig protested silently as she yanked the child back into the arcade, scolding her all the way. He looked at the red trinket lying so unappreciated on the cold cement and, on a foolish impulse, picked it up and put it in his pocket.

He went back out to the street, not eager to brave the city any more, but determined to test its prevailing mood. It required no effort because it radiated strongly from the crowd. These people were anxiety-ridden to the point of explosion, and his increased sensitivity made their tension almost palpable. The city had changed, all right, to a state he had never thought to witness.

When he found himself heading toward the massive, four-block-long AEC clinic, he deliberately turned a corner. There was too great a chance of being recognized by clinic personnel who might happen to be away from their desks. Safely past that danger, he strode on, a nameless atom among the other nameless atoms that formed society, and discovered that he now hated the anonymity. Torpela had made him an individual, while in AEC's uncaring crowds, no one stood unique.

Halfway down the block, a clamor of shouts and motion broke out ahead of him. People were running, and in the center of the turmoil, others violently shoved at something before they made their escape. One crying voice shrilled above the rest, and as the crowd thinned, he saw a woman's head bobbing this way and that as her body was pushed roughly back and forth. "Get away from me!" a man shouted. "Leave me alone!" a woman yelled, running for the curb.

The crowd separated until Dainig found himself alone in a long aisle flanked by people, and faced by one solitary figure—the woman who had been shoved and accused. A Re-Emerger! She sensed him as her last refuge and darted for him, crying, "Don't push me away like they did! I need your help—oh, please!"

His new instincts delayed him long enough for her to grab his arm. Her hands were like talons and, dribbling tears, her face panted into his. She suddenly bent at the knees, ready to beg if he wanted it, and her mouth moved constantly, sobbing, "I don't know what's happening to me, but help me and don't let the police come. Please, mister! I'm all alone and I'm so afraid."

His hands went out to her with wills of their own and he heard his voice begin. "There's nothing to be afrai—" He swallowed the rest of the word, suddenly aware of where he was and what he was doing. He had it in his power to help this woman, but he must not. Even as his heart cried out to her, he clawed her fingers from his arms and shoved her backward to sprawl on the sidewalk. He lifted his head and shouted, "Someone get the Special Police here—fast!"

Someone already had. The klaxon blared behind him, and denying his conscience, Dainig raced away from the sight of the woman, now curled up with her hands over her head in a futile effort at self-defense. He kept on running through the crowd, torn with guilt for betraying her and with resentment that she had singled him out for this special abuse. All he knew was that he had to get away. He had to find a place secluded enough to soothe his flying emotions before the klaxon sounded for him! The city was like a sticky spiderweb to him now, and he had to free himself.

He trotted two blocks before he found a haven in the form of a small café. The interior was dim and the tables nearly filled with people, but they were sitting and stationary instead of milling and jostling. He threaded his way among them to a rear booth and punched the service mike to order tea, then leaned against the cushion to master himself.

By the time his tea was half-gone, he was feeling more secure. A fever wouldn't strike this time, he was sure. He lifted his cup to finish the tea and saw the waiter's hand reach for the television that faced outward from the service counter for the patron's convenience. Before he drained the cup, the picture changed from a news broadcast to the image of a yellow room.

A yellow room. The thought had merely touched his mind when it exploded. The Playroom? The Viewing Room? NO! I have to get out of here!

It was too late. There she was before him, framed neatly on the screen—a girl of about six with long brown hair, a tender pink mouth, and a contorted, crying face. The European Viewing Child. The new retarded innocent tormented into three broadcasts a day, crying all alone in a room that held no comfort, in a world that had turned to ice. As Peter had. As his own Peter had before Dainig had stolen him away.

He wanted to dash from the sight but didn't dare. No one walked out on a Viewing, especially not a "crying'' one. So he turned his head away, refusing to look and remember and cry with her, but the sound of her sobs pounded at his ears. Monsters! he cursed to himself. Abusive monsters! How did you manage it this time? With reminders of her mother? With threats or with pain?

His fingernails dug holes in his palms as his own emotion rose in unison with hers and he felt the start of a fever. It must not happen. I am stone. I do not care, he told himself, chanting it silently over and over, trying to take hold. But the little girl cried on and on and he cringed inside.

How much longer? How long until the end? he asked no one but himself as he waited through the eternity of the Viewing. It has to be over soon or I'll be lost! I won't get back to Peter. Let me get back to Peter!

The whispered comments of the people around him were particularly brutal today because they didn't say, "Look how she's crying—and all without drugs," as they had murmured over Peter's performances. Instead, they watched her with resentment, bearing out Laine's theory as they said, "She's not a very good one, if you ask me," or, "I don't see why they can't give us a better one than she is." This child's suffering truly was for nothing, and it became harder and harder for him to keep himself from lashing out at the lot of them.

At last the sobs were cut off, and as he watched, the waiter turned off the set. Normal conversation resumed around him, and he reeled to his feet and left, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing but a self-erected vision of Peter safe in Hugo's bed. Hugo had been right. The city was no place for Dainig because its inhumanity cut too deep.

When he arrived, he was forced to deny himself the feel of the little boy safe in his arms because he was attacked by a fit of shaking that he had to fight through alone. Laine accidentally walked in during the height of it, gave a "you poor fool" shake of her head when she saw his trouble and started to close the door on him. With a quick change of heart, she opened it again and hurried to him, her hostility transformed by concern.

He pulled away, hugging himself and croaking, "I'll do this alone. If I can't have you back as a woman, I certainly won't use you as a crutch."

The statement sent her stamping from the room.

Once the fit left him and he could think again, he was astonished at his reaction to the people on the street. He had expected to feel sorry for them and sympathize over what AEC forced them to endure. Instead, they meant very little to him. They were faceless entities who didn't care about anyone and therefore didn't arouse his concern, either. He worried only about his friends and the other kindred, feeling people. Their lives were threatened and the future they embodied was slated for doom.

And Peter was worse off than any of them because they at least had a chance to camouflage themselves, while he was totally vulnerable. His retardation was impossible to hide, and once discovered, he would be put to death as heartlessly as every other imperfect child was culled from life.

Hit with the fact of Peter's helplessness, Dainig felt an immediate instinct to protect him. Guiltily he faced the truth—that the child was his chief motivation for the overthrow of AEC. Yet he wasn't surprised. He couldn't envision fighting an intangible social system, but he could move mountains to protect the most important part of his own existence.

With that accepted and out of the way, he stayed alone, searching his experience for weapons capable of destroying AEC, thinking way back to the budding ideas he'd been forming in Torpela before Laine denied him the right to take part. If he was to be allowed into this battle now, he must enter it with some worthwhile options. Two hours later, armed with a few of them, he strode into the living room.

Betty was busy setting a large makeshift table situated at the near end of the room.

"You're feeling better now," she said. "Good."

Her comment humiliated him. "I suppose everyone knows about my relapse, then."

"And… cares." She emphasized the last word.

"It was nothing to create a red face, Dainig," Hugo said. He was seated in the living room with Mark and Laine. "Come and relax for a bit. We've all been working on dinner, and it promises to be ready very soon."

"My appetite isn't for food. I want to talk about our plans for getting out of this mess."

"Those are all abandoned," Laine said. "They rested on time, and we have none."

"Exactly. No more time to wait or to waste. We have to move right now because there won't be another chance. The way I see it, we have an opportunity we've never had before. The very mood of the streets is on our side."

"And we're off on another of Frederic Dainig's gallops into disaster," Laine shot back. "You spend three measly hours on the street and come back fired-up and full of rebellion. Is that sensible?"

"Yes it is, because I saw the full gamut of AEC's monstrosities in those three hours. I even watched the latest Viewing Child suffer through her supposed 'act'!"

"That explains it," said Laine, pouncing on his admission. "You're back to the same tunnel vision you've always had. Peter! You cry out against AEC, but only because it threatens him."

"So? What if I do need a personal reason? At least I have an incentive. What is yours, Re-Conditioner Todd?"

Laine went white and Hugo spoke quickly. "We will have no accusations here, please. We all must realize that we're dealing with strong emotions and that none of us is in complete control."

"Thank you, Hugo," Laine said. "It's probably best for me to stay right out of it. But I warn you—examine everything Dainig says. Weigh it. He can convince you that total lies are true. He's done it to me more than once."

"These aren't fabrications Laine. I'm only facing facts. We must fight now. To save ourselves! It's not rash to contend that it's time for overt action when secrecy has run its course."

"I should think it has! There's nothing like notoriety to finish off a secret organization."

Hugo raised his hand to stay Dainig's retort, and Betty helped by asking a question of her own. "You sounded as though you had some action in mind, Rick. I'm sure we're all willing to listen."

Given the spotlight, Dainig didn't know what to do with it, so he threw it back. "None of my ideas are worth anything unless the background stands a certain way. I need some answers. First—do you have any organization left in the cities?"

"Barely," Laine answered. "Everyone's in hiding, and for good reason."

"We have exactly what we've always had." Hugo paid her no attention. "We used our contact points to warn everyone and we can just as well use them to pass along news or orders."

"And your Re-Conditioners and technicians are still on the job?"

"They're working. Their surest giveaway would be to quit."

"Then there's a way to implement the plan I've been forming." He stopped, aware that he sounded pompous. "I'm only offering it as a possibility, you understand. As my contribution to the list of others you already have."

"You're giving us too much credit, Dainig," Hugo said ruefully. "We were counting on years of time before we faced the need to act, so we're nakedly lacking overt methods of any kind. If you have one, then for pity's sake, explain it."

"All right. The situation stands like this: the government is confused and edgy, the Special Police are faced with a load so huge it's almost beyond their capacity to handle, and the labs are so swamped they're turning out subjects with half of their emotions intact. Half-feeling people who are actually on the brink of becoming just like us. And the labs can't help but release them.

"I think we can use those last facts to enlarge our numbers. Through your technicians, we can apply your own method of putting Equilibria in the drinking water that goes to the lab cells. Superdoses, given secretly, so every single subject can fool the Re-Conditioners' dials and, after only a few shocks, be released with most of his emotions operating.

"If we have enough leeway," he continued, "we can probably double our present force. We'll eventually have to tell them who and what we are. Somehow. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. But they're sure to side with us because they'll know the horrors of the labs firsthand and will do anything not to be dragged back."

"Tell them!" Laine exclaimed incredulously. "That means exposing ourselves completely, and it's deliberate suicide. Cool him down and explain it to him, Hugo."

"No, Laine," Hugo answered. "I have to agree with Dainig. The truth is that it's suicide not to take overt action." He told her bluntly about the government's proposed census search, using clipped words with no attempt to shield her.

She became deathly still as she listened. "When might it begin?" she asked.

"From my own term in government service, I'm sure they can't mount it without a minimum of three weeks' preparation."

"So we'll have time to flood the streets with people ready to listen to us." Dainig saw one piece fall safely into place.

"But then what, Rick?" Betty asked. "There has to be more to your idea, unless you're only counting on force of numbers."

"I know what should come next, but I haven't figured out the 'how' of it. I want to go further and maximize the Re-Emergence rate even beyond what it is at the moment. I've envisioned mass Re-Emergence, because it's the only way to create the chaos I believe we need. Look. We're already on the edge of civil breakdown—of a new form of anarchy where people can't be governed because they're running around berserk and insane. Let's force it to happen. Let's drown the government so deep in Re-Emergers that it can't function and leave ourselves as the only standing solution.

"We only need to worry about the principal cities, since all of the labs and AEC centers are housed in them. And those cities are completely autonomous. They can't beg help from one another if the epidemic is raging everywhere. It would be every city for itself, so we'd have them isolated and vulnerable to concentrated attack.

"Rampaging Re-Emergence will mean terrified, helpless people with nowhere to turn for relief—not even the shock-tables. But we'll be there, and we can prove our contentions by using ourselves as examples of man's restored ability to live normally. We can even demonstrate our techniques of emotion control."

Hugo leaned forward, his blue eyes glittering. "An intriguing idea, Dainig. The authorities would have no way of controlling total chaos, but we would. Our methods can put society back together again where theirs can't, because our techniques don't require keeping people prisoners in institutions."

"Besides," Mark spoke up, "our ways are painless."

"And fast," Betty added.

"Exactly," Hugo agreed. "The frightened people would willingly come to us for help, and the resurrection would be ours, alone."

Laine was determined not to let them get "high" with the steamrolling effect. "And just how do we let them know we exist? We certainly can't make street-corner speeches. That would pinpoint us as targets, and the audience would never be big enough to warrant such foolishness."

"I realized those drawbacks when I pictured myself trying to do it," Dainig admitted. "No. We'll have to go on a grander scale. Maybe even the TV network—I don't know."

"Why not?" Mark jumped on the idea. "I can handle that. I spent my working life in broadcasting—not in this city, but all studios and equipment are standardized. If I can be taken there and protected from interference, I'll give you the TV screens of the world for a platform!" He suddenly flushed, aware of his uncharacteristic increasing excitement. "If I'm, needed, I mean. If this turns out to be our plan, and you want me."

"We'll want and need every one of us, so don't be embarrassed to volunteer," Hugo said, smiling at him. "Since we're bleeding your brain dry, Dainig, I hope you have the next answers too. The questions are: how do we cause the mass Re-Emergence and, in spite of my first quick agreement, how can we be sure the general public will even want to come our way?"

"I have hopes for the second question, Hugo, because the people showed signs of thinking AEC demands too high a price the first time I kidnapped Peter. As for how to cause mass Re-Emergence… You've just put your finger on my greatest ignorance. I don't know."

"You haven't fabricated some way to rush into that, too?" Laine said angrily. "Why stop just when you have visions of helpless thousands at your feet? You must have another shaky method in mind to put them there."

Dainig decided not to take her on, but Hugo did. "Dainig's plan may be fuzzy in spots but, nevertheless, it's ingenious, Laine. I have a feeling that I agree with him. And… trust him."

"You do!" Dainig was dumbfounded. "Last summer you even protested leaving Laine alone in the same room with me."

"I sense a great difference in you, Dainig. You've grown a new dimension."

"Not enough to let him give us orders," Laine insisted. "Not when he's still suffering shaking fits. I'm saying 'no' to his plan right now."

Feeling guilty for doing it, Dainig asked, "You have as much authority as Laine has, don't you, Hugo? She needed your agreement to send me to Torpela last summer, so you're a Leader too, right?"

"I am. But this must be unanimous." Hugo didn't want to take sides.

"I've already cast my vote," Laine was adamant. "I will not let you kill the people I've worked so hard to save. Hugo won't either. He stands with me."

"I stand with myself," Hugo told her. "As for you, Laine… You're not acting normally, you know, and it's time to face it. The shock of seeing what you've struggled to build collapse has made you afraid to move for fear the rest will tumble down. And, going deeper, it's more than just your work and dreams, whether you'll admit it or not. It's Dainig, himself. Before you deny that, think it over carefully."

"There's no need. I'm only concerned with the innocent people I put in his trap," she said bitterly. "I don't care what happens to Dainig any more."

Hugo continued as though she hadn't spoken. "What you must understand is that, because of your help, Dainig doesn't require protecting any longer. That's one weight you don't have to bear. There's no need to shield yourself by pretending you don't care what happens to him. And before you lash at me for saying all of this, remember that I'm as skilled at emotional diagnosis as you are, so I won't take criticism well."

"I won't offer any." She was suddenly subdued. "I also know when I've lost. Dainig could convince the devil himself. Even so, you won't have my blessing on his ideas unless I see some solid results. With that as my final word, I'm going to take some more Equilibria and lie down until dinner."

Mark rose to his feet. "Go on into the bedroom and I'll bring the pills to you."

"I'm capable of taking care of myself!"

"Of course you are, Laine. But you can use a bit of special care at the moment and, believe me, it's my turn to provide it."

She walked away. Mark gave Dainig a small wink and he and Betty followed her.

"I should be the one doing that," Dainig told Hugo. "I want to do it, but I can't break through her anger. Actually, I see her point, when I take a close look at myself. I'm being arrogant by presuming to take charge of an organization that doesn't belong to me. You two have worked at this for years. I have no right to insinuate myself, much less try to be a leader."

"Laine was always sure you would be, Dainig. She'd be proud if she could rise above her shock and discouragement. But don't blame her for anything she says. She has the right."

"That goes without question. I deserve most of it, anyway. As for you, Hugo Warner, I have only immense gratitude for you."

"I don't accept such things," Hugo laughed. "What I want are concrete and workable plans. So, sit down and let's explore your ideas."

CHAPTER 10

There were 20 people classed as leaders of the organization. Ten of them were located in the western hemisphere, and these commanded Hugo's first interest. While dinner was kept warm in the oven, he contacted them by conference call to outline Dainig's proposal. If only five agreed with his own decision to use the plan, it would constitute a majority.

He debated with them for an hour, then called everyone back to the living room. "It's decided," he said. "We'll put Dainig's plan into effect and try to fill the gap in it as we go. Now let's put supper on the table because we're going to need our energy."

"I'll go get Peter." Betty hurried away, her step newly livened.

"This is preposterous, Hugo," protested Laine. "You have no right to place our lives in Dainig's hands. I won't let you."

"It's a majority decision, Laine. Counting you, only three of our hemisphere leaders disagree."

"I'm outnumbered, is that it?"

"I'm sorry," Dainig answered, trying to ease the truth.

"You will be. Because events will prove you wrong, Dainig. I know it. Are you honestly ready to accept responsibility for this imbecilic idea of yours?"

Dainig was hesitant before her, but Mark wasn't. "Trust him, Laine. After all, you were the first one to call him 'Keeper.' Let him live up to it."

"Keeper of compassionate emotions only, Mark Damon. Now that I see where they lead, I'm not sure we want them preserved."

Dainig caught in his breath at that remark, because it hurt, and because it must hurt her even more to say it. Stifling his reply, he headed for the bedroom. "I'd better help Betty with Peter."

But the door opened and Peter appeared on his own. "Laine! I didn't see that you came." He bypassed Dainig and ran for her, his arms out for a big hug.

Laine didn't return the gesture.

Peter drew up short in front of her, dropping his arms to his sides. Unfulfilled and uncertain, he asked plaintively, "Don't you want me to say hello and squeeze you, Laine? I won't, if you tell me to stay away."

She saw his disappointment and his tentative grin and stretched out her arms, surrendering. "Try me again, you little imp."

Peter took it as an invitation to jump on her and, between his smacking kisses, cried, "Now I know we're safe because we're all together. Matty and Coop can never take us apart and get me back again."

"They don't have the smallest chance of that, Peter. That's over for you, forever," she assured him. "Come along and eat your supper. It's so late, your stomach must be growling like a—"

"Sheep!" he said, veering off toward the table.

"Sheep don't growl," Dainig called after him. He turned to Laine. "Does this possibly mean you're back with me again?"

Her dark eyes were level. "Not even your foolproof little defroster can manage that. But I'll go this far. I'll try to keep our differences quiet when he's around so they don't feed his insecurity."

"Thank you." The words sounded stilted in the face of the relationship they had evolved, but she had left him no room to say more. "Coming back to the city has been hard on him."

"As you might have expected if you'd been thinking straight when you were dealing with Bretton," she said pointedly. Abruptly she turned and left him standing alone.

Two weeks later, the secret doses of Equilibria had shunted two hundred thousand partially feeling people into the streets. The tension of the cities increased proportionately as the flagrant instability of these people frightened the so-called normals. But there was still no answer to the problem of how to create mass Re-Emergence.

After the months on the free hillsides of Torpela, the crowded apartment wore on Dainig and, coupled with the plaguing of the unsolved question, led him to pacing. The Damons came and went at will, but Dainig stayed put because of Peter. And Laine. She was caged, too. The only good thing in any of it was her progressively easier mood as the days afforded her enough rest to conquer her first shock. Peter proved to be the best healing agent there. As she diverted his mind from fear, the antics she set off in him made her laugh, too.

Although still unyielding with Dainig, she presented the Damons with a special present. Contacting a lab technician in the city where little Mandy was housed, she had the child removed from the dormitory and hidden in a "safe" home. The Damons didn't have Mandy with them yet, but they celebrated, anyway.

Finally, one afternoon when sunlight was shafting through the windows, Laine approached Dainig while he was alone in the living room. "You're ready to blow apart, Rick," she commented. "You'd better get on top of it before it goes too far."

He caught the gentler use of his first name, but didn't pursue it. "How? And even more importantly, Why? Things should be happening, but they aren't."

"Oh yes, they are. Hugo just called to say that the census search has been definitely ruled out. The first part of your plan has proved better than good. You've protected us."

"But there isn't a second part. You were right again, Laine. I rushed in too soon and carried everyone with me. I won't blame you if you enjoy your chance to gloat."

She was the one who hesitated this time. "Please, Rick, can't we forget… ? I said words I didn't mean and made accusations that sickened me. Can you understand that I couldn't help it? I'm back to myself now and I want to help. If you'll let me."

He was too worried even to respond with the full relief he felt at her admission. "I'll be grateful for every minute you give me, Laine. This thing is too much for me. I didn't count on being left to figure it out alone, but no one else even offers suggestions. I don't see why they think my capacity is any greater than theirs!"

"Because it is. Plotting overt action requires an agitated state of emotion to bring up the possibilities—adrenalin to stimulate your impulses. You're capable of that because your 'highs' were never toned down on the shock-tables. You have a potential everyone else lacks. If you're having trouble channeling your thoughts, I'm offering to help. I've always been best at that. Will you let me?"

As answer, he took a chance and put his arms around her. When she let their bodies touch, he knew their separation was ended.

She drew away after a moment and returned to business. "Your stumbling block is how to create the mass Re-Emergence?"

"Yes, and it's the big one. We have thousands of falsely certified people ready to join us, but we can't tell them about ourselves until we fill the cities with hordes of rampaging Re-Emergers. How do you force Re-Emergence?"

"It's always set off by uncontrollable anxiety, so it's a matter of raising their anxiety levels."

"And every individual has a different basis for anxiety. I've been through all that, and I keep coming back to the only thing I've seen work twice in a row—the threat of death. It sent Jesse Stack over the edge and it even got to Bretton. The idea of violent death in a non-violent society did it in both cases."

"Then you have your answer," Laine said.

"No, I haven't. I only have an impossibility because how in the world do you make an entire population fear for their lives?"

She thought for a moment. "According to the old books I've studied, it used to be easy."

"Easy?" his heart leaped. "Do you have those books here?"

"No, but Hugo's collection is as good as mine. I don't think they can help you, though. Not today. Mass fear was always based on warfare, and we haven't faced a war in 60 years."

"Another hope gone," he sighed. "We don't even have the implements any more. If we had, then last summer when you believed I was a danger to your organization, you could have threatened to shoot me instead of dredging up brutish ideas like cutting off my head."

"I was savage, wasn't I?" she shivered.

"I still have my head," he smiled.

"Solely due to your own, worse savagery," she laughed. "But let's go back to our exercise. You now realize that a threat of death will work, so you've made progress. Or had you thought of it before?"

"I had, and I got nowhere with it. To be honest, Laine, my brain's empty of everything right now but one thought. So, can we save this intellectual exercise until after dinner?" He asked the question with a wide grin and a tilt of his head toward the one unoccupied bedroom.

She laughed out loud and eagerly agreed with his idea.

Despite Laine's admonitions about wasting his time, Dainig spent a week studying Hugo's old books, keeping the facts of Jesse's and Bretton's Re-Emergence in the back of his mind. The threat of death or, at least, severe physical harm, was the only possible solution, but he found no way to employ it.

He finally restacked the psychology books and rummaged through other material, finding some yellowed magazines given over to photographs and news stories. His first look at the giant mushroom of an H-bomb explosion readily explained how mass fear had once been accomplished. Pictures and stories of the destructive capabilities of other weapons even gave credence to the initial need for AEC as a protection against a fast-changing, crowded and frightening world.

He hated the old weapons instinctively, yet was fascinated, too. Given those ugly steel machines, his dilemma could be solved in a minute. Even the small revolvers and artillery were enough to force people into hiding today. Such capacity for violence was unknown to his generation, and mere tales of its effects would make people tremble. Their deadliness almost leaped from the pages. He thumped his hands on the photographs in a sudden effort to repel it… and his answer surged upward from his own visceral reaction.

Weapons! Not real ones, of course, since there was no way to manufacture them, but replicas. If the organization could fabricate deadly looking copies of these weapons and thrust them at the public with bloody descriptions of their use, it would inspire mass fear such as their earlier, more violence-adapted ancestors had never known. The only real weapons in use today were the shock-tables. They caused intense dread although most people were sure they would never feel their touch. Faced with the threat of these old-time, body-tearing instruments, plus the absolute certainty of being hit by them, their dread would change to terror and mass Re-Emergence surely had to result.

He expected opposition when he gathered his cluster of friends and outlined his idea, but there was none. Once again, his was the only plan available, and as usual, they had been waiting for him to come up with it. Now they jumped in to decide methods for implementation. Hugo took away the photographs for secret copying; Laine called the other Leaders and told them to put their groups to work making mock-ups of the weapons as soon as they received the pictures; and Betty started gathering materials they might use to create their own. When Hugo returned, all that remained was to decide a way to publicize the threat when the fake weapons were ready.

Mark had the solution. "As I see it, it's a matter of reaching as many people as possible with one shot. So I say we use the television network, with our own city's facilities running the whole affair. By breaking in on the middle of a Viewing we can insure ourselves of an audience. People may dislike the present Viewing Child, but they watch her just the same."

"You're calling for a physical assault on the network building?" Hugo asked. "That's a dangerous move."

Mark's chin came up stubbornly. "I'm willing. Supply me with a proper force, and I'll go tomorrow."

"We'll go… but most likely next week," Dainig cemented himself into the action. "We have to make our toy weapons first, remember?"

"Be sure you have enough people behind you," Betty said, worried by her husband's proposal. "Assaulting the network sounds deadly to me."

"Dangerous, yes, but not impossible," Mark told her. "TV is so automated that we'll only have to deal with four or five engineers. There's no alarm system, so we can simply incapacitate them long enough to air our message and get out."

"Someone's bound to break in on us the minute our broadcast starts," Dainig said.

"Only a token intrusion, Rick. They won't know where our broadcast is originating, remember, so they'll probably just send someone to check. If the worst happens and some of us are taken… Well then, it will be a battle, won't it?"

Betty said nothing more, but when she shifted her gaze from her husband to Dainig, a request was in her eyes that Dainig sensed ended with the word, "Keeper." He looked down at his hands because that responsibility was one he refused to accept.

Dainig stepped off the commuter train and proceeded to the network building. The jostling crowd was nerve-racking, but he kept his mind on the part of the plan initiated the night before when the organization blew up two buildings at the city's outskirts, leaving 17 people dead in the rubble. Similar blasts had gone off in 29 other major cities. The action had expended one-half of their supply of stolen industrial explosives, but paid off in banner news. Dainig could recall verbatim the most recent newscast when an anxiety-ridden announcer concluded by saying:

"People all over the globe are stunned by this deliberate and savage destruction. Such wanton taking of life is incomprehensible. The government has instituted an all-out investigation, but in view of the unprecedented nature of the acts, cannot guarantee to prevent them from being repeated."

That step was complete and perfectly executed, but the next was waiting for his own hand as he rushed forward to meet it. He had some idea of what to expect as he entered the vast building that housed the local television center. Mark had instructed all the participants on where to go and what to do. The first order was to proceed to the engineering section on the twenty-fifth floor. Mark had assured him that there would be very few people on the upper floors, but here in the lobby, dozens crisscrossed the carpet and clumped together by the elevators. Dainig joined them, so bound with tension that his sweat forced him to grip harder the bundle of pictures he carried just to keep them from slipping away.

At the twentieth floor, the elevator emptied of all but himself and two others—a slender young man and a middle-aged woman clad in soft green. His blood quickened as he guessed they were part of his team, but he stifled his urge to make contact.

The young man was obviously struggling with the same temptation, because he asked the woman, "Do you know if the Viewing has started yet?"

"It's still another three minutes away," she said. "Don't worry, we won't miss it. Not today."

The exchange was sufficient to identify themselves to each other, yet little enough to be innocent. Dainig was stirred to eager apprehension. These people were like him, of him, and "his." Within 20 minutes they would either have succeeded together or be on their way to shock-death in the Re-Conditioning lab.

"25," the elevator's modulated "voice" announced. The three of them walked forward, knowing their destination was the same but pretending it wasn't. As they spaced themselves apart by varying their strides, Dainig realized they were giving him the lead, recognizing him somehow, and showing deference. But it left him to face the empty corridor alone. He quickly followed the wall arrows to the door marked "Green Room"—the place set aside for guests slated for TV appearances. None were due from this station today, so the conspirators would have it to themselves.

There were five figures inside, but the only face Dainig recognized was Mark's, his color high and his eyes feverish with anticipation. When Dainig's trailing covey entered, Mark breathed in relief. Eight was their full number and no one had faltered in coming.

Mark began to speak immediately. "They've just begun the Viewing, so let's run through our jobs again. Mine is to focus the camera on Dainig and then take over the console. Yours is to overpower the engineers. There shouldn't be more than five of them. While we were waiting for everybody to get here, we dismantled a couple of these chairs. You're to use the legs as clubs. Knock the engineers out and— Did you remember to bring the plastic ropes?"

A young woman opened a small case and produced them.

"Fine. Tie them up securely, but most important, keep them unconscious so they can't yell and give away our location." He smiled anxiously. "Are we ready? Okay, pick up a chair leg and let's go."

Dainig hefted a weapon, foreign in his hands, and crept with the others to the designated door. The silence was alive with tension. Mark touched the door, they slithered through, and hell broke loose.

Five men, grouped around a TV monitor, reared up and were instantly inundated in a flurry of bodies and raised clubs. Dainig crashed his own down on the head of a burly man who gaped in surprise even as he crumpled to the floor. Grunts, thuds, and quick cries of pain broke out around him as he obeyed Mark's earlier orders and ran through a second door into a small news studio. It harbored two cameras, and Dainig heaved himself in front of the nearest one. Already warmed up for the newscast that followed the Viewing, its light glared, impaling him to his spot.

Mark dashed behind it, manipulating it into proper focus. "Stay exactly where you are. And here—" he threw an orange cloth at Dainig "—cover the bottom half of your face so you won't be identifiable later. Start talking when you see yourself on the monitor." He sprinted back into the control room.

Tying the cloth in place, Dainig spotted the monitor across from him and to the right. Captured in it—to be pinioned there for the rest of her short life—was the latest Viewing Child, hunched on her playroom floor. A few glinting tears slid down her cheeks as her mouth stretched into an unheard sob. The sight of her gagged him with both love and hatred.

Without warning, she vanished and he was staring into his own maddened eyes. The sensible words he had memorized froze in his throat, and he burst out with a venom that the sight of the child had aroused. "That was the last Viewing anyone will ever see! I promise you— the last! Before this night is over, AEC will surrender its power or be destroyed in violence. This is not a threat. It is an ultimatum. I speak for thousands of reborn men and women—feeling men and women—and we will joyfully see to your destruction. We have the means to stop you, and we'll use each and every brutal one of them."

He pulled the mock pistol from his pocket and thrust it at the" camera. "Look at this closely. It's a weapon from our violent past. It propels metal bullets through a human body, ripping vital organs, shredding flesh, blasting hearts and lungs wide open. Blood pours out in its wake. Thousands of these will be turned against the population if AEC doesn't relinquish its power immediately."

He picked up his pictures of the larger weapons and watched them appear on the monitor. "Now see these. They are grenades and a cannon. You saw their power last night. Just like the one in my hand, they shoot destruction too, but from a greater distance. You'll hear their blast but won't know where they're aimed until a building topples over your head in an avalanche of concrete. This one," he pointed, "is a bomb. Many such will be carried in air commuters and will be dropped to shatter cement and people alike. You'll never know which commuters are the deadly ones."

He quickly explained about his organization, exaggerating their numbers, and told how they had these weapons hidden on the outskirts of every major city. "You are defenseless. Your puny electrical shocks can't reach us. We're ready to unleash our destruction—today, tomorrow—unless there is an end to Anti-Emotion Conditioning. We will give you 48 hours and no more.

"Close the AEC centers. Send the children home. Evacuate the Re-Conditioning labs. Otherwise our weapons will be turned against your cities to twist and blow apart the very material of your existence—human flesh. Human bodies. Step down or be torn down!"

He stopped, his final, emphatic threat dying in his throat. His image lingered in the monitor, then flicked away, replaced by the deathly white face of a news announcer. As he began, "My fellow citizens, this interruption…" Dainig ran from the studio.

"Did they locate us?" he asked Mark quickly.

"They called to check, but they believed me when I said our studio was clear. If we can get out without being spotted, we're safe."

They exited in pairs, the pairs themselves splitting as one member rode the elevator and the other took the stairs. Not until the unconscious engineers were found would AEC know their location, and by then, it would be too late. The city was vast and they knew how to hide.

Hugo was waiting in his traveler, ready to shelter Dainig from any rebound of his own emotion. Mark snaked out of the building and plunked into the back seat along with Dainig. As the traveler surged forward, the pair watched the people on the sidewalks. They were agitated, twitching in a strange, new dance of starting and stopping, walking and running, then halting beside strangers to vent the fear that was apparent in their tight faces and hunched shoulders.

"They couldn't all have heard me," Dainig said.

"The ones who didn't have been told," Hugo answered. "The reaction spread like fire. Four different people came to tell me what had happened."

Dainig's attention was caught by a white-haired old man who stood on the sidewalk, dazed, executing an anchorless slow whirl as he scanned the air commuters passing overhead. He seemed to be cringing inside, huddling in an attempt to protect his flesh and hold his body together against the bloody visions Dainig had painted.

"Oh, that hurts," Dainig moaned. "I left him no security at all. It was vital to underline the horrors and inevitability, but I pushed it too far. Look at them—all of them. They think they're going to be struck at any minute." He bit his lower lip and averted his face to hide the emotion in his eyes.

"You accomplished what was needed, Rick, and you did it perfectly," Mark said. "Smother that compassion of yours for a while because it's harmful right how. If we've succeeded, things will only get worse, and you'll be eaten alive if you let yourself empathize."

"I don't know that I can deny it, Mark."

"Then you'll live with it," Hugo pronounced and, turning the corner, headed for home.

CHAPTER 11

Grouped around the TV screen, they waited for news. At the very least, the government should be plagued by public pressure for action or surrender. But programing continued as usual with only brief interruptions for official injunctions to remain calm. When the next Viewing flashed to life, Dainig grabbed Peter away before he recognized the yellow playroom in the picture.

By nightfall, the authorities had rallied and formed a firm position. Although they had the true picture from Bretton, they belittled the ultimatum as the work of a berserk Re-Emerger, and the blame for the previous day's bombings was directed at the same source, AEC was not ready to surrender because of mere threats and as proof, Special Police could be heard blaring their klaxons even more frequently than usual, and the lab and prison cells continued to be fed with quivering bodies.

At dawn, Hugo raised his weary body up and said, "It's my turn now." He went to his communications center and contacted his deputies around the world, ordering one-quarter more of their explosives expanded in token blasts of destruction. But this time he directed them to the cities' centers, not the outskirts.

The local bombs were audible from the apartment, and soon afterward, an abnormal hush from the street could almost be felt. When Dainig looked, he saw the sidewalk eerily deserted except for an odd figure hurrying here and there. Obviously the people were afraid even if the government wasn't, and the people were their real targets in this bluff.

"Where did they all go?" Peter complained. "It's not nice when I can't see anybody. Can we go out and find them, Danny?"

"We cannot, and don't pester me about it. I've just run out of patience."

"I knew that already. I think you're worried, though, and not mad at me. Can I help you worry?"

"Thanks, but you've already done a good job of that, little boy." He caressed the child and gave him to Betty for tending.

The 48-hour deadline inched nearer and passed. They were right back where they had started.

"We expected too much," Laine sighed.

"So? Do we give up?" Dainig challenged her gently.

"Not when we still have some moves left," she answered hotly. "We didn't order those fake cannons constructed as pastimes. Use them, Rick. I didn't really expect the government to budge, but if we're going to have mass Re-Emergence, the people need another jolt."

So at nightfall, when the shadows were in perfect balance for revealing and concealing, the mock weapons were wheeled into view at various points around the city's edge. They were left long enough to be seen and identified, then vanished to turn up in another place. The tactics worked. By midnight, the news had exaggerated the few pieces into a large surrounding force ready to invade.

In a self-destructive fit of purging, the government placed blame and exacted revenge by executing every official who had even a slight taint of involvement with Laine or Dainig. Bretton fell as their first victim. When pictures of his death were flashed across the screens of the world, Dainig felt relief but no pleasure in them.

After a few more excited bulletins, the news blacked off the air. Dainig had no need to ask why because, by morning, the reason was being shouted from the street and Peter was shouting along with it. "Danny! Lots of people are back again, but they act funny. They're running, but nobody's chasing them. Come and see!"

Dainig pushed in beside him and stared down. A disjointed crowd was scattered over the sidewalk, running, or stopping and gesturing. Some huddled against the light posts and the buildings, screaming, their faces buried in their arms. Some fell down only to rear up and run when someone else approached. Now and then one of them clutched another and clung until the stranger threw him off and escaped.

A Special Police van roared to a stop and four officers jumped out, ready to grab and drag, overpower and capture. But faced with the rampage, they halted where they were, unable to choose a target from the crazed mob. When the Re-Emergers fled from them, they weren't followed.

"What are they doing?" Peter asked.

"Exactly what we want them to do."

"But they look afraid and some are crying. Are they all right?"

"They'll be fine, Peter. Just give them time." Turning around, he called, "It's working, Laine! Our mass effect has started. Now we can let it run until it crushes AEC by its very weight."

The others, oddly quiet in their jubilance, hurried to look out of the windows. If any of the Re-Emergers were staying in their homes it wasn't apparent, because by evening the city was sheer bedlam. People raced and stumbled through the streets, or lay curled in fetal positions on the hard surfaces. It seemed that the earth, itself, would shake with their combined tremors and the buildings twist and waver with their fearful pleadings. Dainig finally had to turn away. It was either that or be compelled to go down and help them.

Laine told him softly, "Compassion is the same as any other emotion, Rick. When it soars, it has to be controlled."

He looked into her dark eyes and gave her proof that he understood. "Tonight they can be free of us, but we'll show the weapons again tomorrow. I may even order more explosions. But it's because of my compassion, Laine. The sooner they accept our way, the less they'll have to suffer."

She tilted her head quizzically, then embraced him. "I won't say another word about compassion until I learn it for myself. In the meantime, I'll just use the love I've learned."

"Me, too!" Peter slithered in between them. "I'm best at that of everything. Only, you don't remember to do it any more, Danny."

The little boy's face was worried, the street scenes taking their toll on his sensitivity. Dainig picked him up. "I love you, Peter, and we'll be together. Forever."

"With Laine," Peter added his own ending.

There were no motor sounds because the air and ground commuters had stopped running. There were no klaxons because the Special Police had fallen into Re-Emergence, too. The TV screen was humming but blank, because the engineers had abandoned their posts in frenzies too great to even allow them to shut down the equipment. The AEC clinics were open but not operating; Laine's enlisted Re-Conditioners had opened the cell doors; and the Viewing Child had been rescued.

AEC was down, but not to be counted out until the population willingly chose to wipe it away forever. Until that decision came, it might renew itself by crawling up the backs of its own remains as, one by one, its minions found sanity and began collecting bodies. As improbable as that seemed, it could happen, so now was the time for Dainig's people to identify themselves to the partially emotioned men and women they had created to increase their number.

Dainig elected himself for the duty and returned to the street with Mark at his side, heading for the network building to refill the TV screens with solace, explanation and life. He kept himself withdrawn from the frantic, pitiful crowds around him, concentrating on spotting the TV sets their organization had spent the morning putting in place. They sprouted everywhere, completely lining the sidewalk in some places, their screens alive but still devoid of movement and their volume controls turned high, but as yet soundless. No one could fail to be aware of them when they spoke with his voice. Hopefully, he would reach enough partially sane ears to set the healing trend in motion.

I must, he told himself. I started this and four days of it is enough. I didn't intend to torture them. He immediately regretted the thoughts because they pulled his eyes off the planted screens and fixed them on the crowd. Once done, he couldn't bear the raging mixture of guilt and satisfaction he had been laboring under for the past four days. As they surrounded him, he saw the people as his victims, their clothing dirty, their hair uncombed, their faces wet with grimy streaks of tears.

A young woman staggered toward him, insane laughter gurgling between her sobs and he automatically reached to steady her. She jerked away in terror, her wild eyes accusing him of attack.

"Leave her alone," Mark ordered.

"But I can help her!"

"You don't have time for them individually, Dainig. Are you coming, or do I have to drag you?"

Dainig walked on, desperately trying to avoid eye contact, but half a block later a middle-aged man grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Please! The Special Police will be here, but no one cares! Will you help me? I begged them but no one cares."

"There are no Special Police any more," Dainig answered.

"I'm afraid!" the man screamed. "I don't know what's happening to me and I'm afraid!" His hands trembled so hard on Dainig's shoulders that the quakes shivered through Dainig, too. "Please just stay and talk to me so I don't get lost!"

"Hold onto me, friend. You're not lost." Instinctively Dainig threw his arms around the man and held him tightly. "Feel my body? I'm real and you're real, and this fear will pass. I've felt it myself, but it goes away. Just hang on."

The man sobbed against him, clinging like Peter. Each tear that fell on Dainig was like a curse. "You're all right," Dainig said again. "Say it with me. I'm all right, I'm real…"

As the man attempted to join the chant, Mark's big hands pulled Dainig away. "That's enough! You're being a fool! If I didn't need you, I'd leave you to this fit and let you go down under the lot of them. Can't you see you're betraying the rest every time you take a chance and comfort one?"

Betraying! The word cut deep. He had used it on himself too often. He wouldn't allow it again, so he shook loose and went forward on his own, his eyes seeing nothing but the cement rushing to meet his striding feet. He continued that way until they entered the network building where the bedlam of the streets was replaced by the eerie hush of the abandoned halls.

When he was in front of the camera, the force of his emotions shoved words from his mouth, and he began with unplanned honesty. "My name is Frederic Dainig. I was Peter's Companion." He repeated Peter's name, sure it would catch the Re-Emergers' attention where nothing else had a chance. "I stood here six days ago and showed you weapons. Four days ago, I ordered some of them used. But today I'm offering you help and a new life. For Peter's sake, you must listen to me. Try to stop shouting and crying long enough to hear what I tell you.

"I am a whole man—a man with my native-born emotions vital and operating in me. I can laugh and cry without taking drugs. And I do these things without being afraid. Above all, I can care—about myself and about you. I know what you're going through because I went through it, myself. When I recovered from the first wildness of Re-Emergence, I discovered that it was worth every tremor and every bit of terror. You must survive it, too. Let your feelings be re-awakened. You must! Because you're not really human the way you are.

"Emotions are what make you human. Emotions are life, itself. You almost realized that last summer when Peter was lost. Do you remember? You almost understood that the price of AEC is too great, and that what Peter possessed—his ability to love and cry and laugh and care—were precious. Remember how you called him the vital heart of humanity, and said that his loss meant the loss of humanity? He was your reminder of what you were meant to be in a world where your own humanity was cut out of you.

"He's not necessary any longer, because right at this moment you're finding your very own spirits, your own emotions and caring hearts. You have the chance to return to yourselves. There are no more labs to fear. No shock-tables or cruel Re-Conditioners. All that's scaring you is what you're feeling, because the emotions are new to you and coming all at once. Don't run from them. You have a right to them, so let them rage. They will not harm you. Welcome them. Experience them. Soon they'll taper off, and you'll be able to name them and grow familiar with them.

"I promise that they're not the horrors you've been taught they are. I promise you there's joy in them. I know this personally, because I Re-Emerged ten months ago and have lived as a true, feeling man ever since. So have thousands of my friends. We're ready to help you if you'll give us the chance. Take our hands and listen to us. Above all, don't be afraid. We'll be in the streets with you. Let us come and help. Let us—let me—make amends for… Please, don't be afraid any more."

His voice broke and he turned his back to the camera, wiping angrily at his eyes. He barely heard Mark's words, "Well done."

Nothing changed except Peter, who gave up his view from the windows to roam the apartment, pestering to be returned to the hills and freedom of Torpela. Dainig heard little of it because he was outside working the streets with the others, trying in vain to corral the Re-Emergers and help them past their first Totalities. It didn't work.

Using Peter's name in his speech had proved to be a mistake. It had backfired by dredging up memories and centering their fevers on grief for the little boy. Between throes of maniacal laughter, they cried for him and shuddered at imagined visions of his death. It produced feelings they couldn't yet cope with—guilt, regret and grief. With emotions flying off into opposite directions, everyone was thrust deeper into hysteria.

In reality, their first rampaging had greatly calmed, yet sanity didn't return because they were feeding off each other. Emotions were contagious and spread through the streets like a visible virus, heightening calms to fits, and fits to fevers in a cycle never to be broken by natural events. Dainig had wanted chaos and now he had it, but no means to extinguish it.

AEC was out of contention, but there was no society left to establish a new order. Worse, people were going hungry. Unable to fend for themselves in their maddened state, they didn't eat or even take cover from the rain. Death reports trickled in from around the world—death from suicide and neglect.

Dainig could hardly face Laine, as every day that passed added to the fact that she had been right from the beginning. He had acted rashly, leaping into the unknown with no solid plans. Yet, she didn't accuse him. Whenever he returned from a possibly dangerous shift on the street, she gathered him in with relief and gratitude.

They were sitting alone one night after the others had gone to bed. Mark was wrapped in a blanket on the floor, but was too sound asleep to overhear. Dainig said, "I never expected to win and lose at the same time. But then, I didn't expect to kill half of them in the process, either. It may come to that, you know. If I don't do something, they'll end their frenzies just as I began mine—crying for Peter."

"It's not your fault, Rick. You needn't shoulder so much of the blame."

"I'll have to shoulder more if I go through with what's on my mind. I've been having some dark thoughts, Laine—instinctive nudgings that urge me to try a remedy I can't quite bear to use. When I think about it, I flinch. On the other hand, if I don't do it, there's no hope."

"What are you talking about?" Laine sat up straighter.

"Peter. Give your honest and best opinion, will you? Do you think the sight of him, the sound of his voice, would relieve the general frenzy?"

She thought for long moments. "It might. It would gather in the flying emotions and focus them on one thing—relief. Bringing the people to a concentrated, happy point like that might relegate the other feelings to the side and give people a chance to sort them out. Yes, I think you have something there, and—" She was suddenly on her feet. "Peter? No! You can't! It means taking him to the broadcasting station and that's too dangerous."

"Worse than that, Laine. Doing it properly means returning him to his old playroom in the complex—a place instantly recognizable to every person who ever watched him."

"Ohhh-nohh," her voice fell about three tones. "That's too—"

"Too cruel to consider," he finished for her. "He'd think he was being given back to Matty and Coop. He'd think he was going to be caged up there again—without me or anyone else he loves. It would return all of the horrors to him, and this time he'd know I was deliberately betraying him and he'd feel totally alone and hopeless. You're right. It is too cruel." He turned away. "But… I think I have to do it."

Her hands grabbed him from the back, pressing in rebellion. "You cannot sacrifice that child's love for you! It's too important to your life."

He faced her. "Do you agree that putting him through it is the only answer?"

She hesitated, not sure which way to go—into truth, or into lies to keep him from hurting himself.

"Tell me, Laine! I've made my decision, anyway, but I want your support—if you think I'm right."

"Then… yes. I believe it's a good chance. But I won't let you do it. I'll take Peter to the complex. When it's finished, he'll still trust you, and perhaps you can teach him to trust me again."

"It would tear you to pieces. Don't deny it."

"So maybe I'm doomed either way. I only know that I can't let you give up Peter's love. He belongs to you, Rick—more than I do. And he needs you more than I do. You're his life and he's yours. So I'll take him."

He caught her close and whispered into her hair, "Right now, no one means more to me than you do, love,. But I'm refusing your offer. If Peter goes back to that hellhole, I intend to be with him. I'm the only one who has a prayer of handling him, and… and maybe even saving him from another collapse into that deadly hysteria. He is mine, and as such, he's also my responsibility."

She looked into his eyes. "Can you handle yourself well enough to manage it?"

"Yes. Because I have no choice."

Her gaze was steady, and for the first time, she saw him as an equal. "Hugo is right. You have grown a new dimension, Frederic Dainig. I'm intensely proud to know you—Keeper."

CHAPTER 12

Laine and Hugo took charge of the arrangements. They alerted the Leaders around the world, ordered thousands more TV screens placed in the streets, and recruited a special squad to stand guard inside the deserted AEC center. They did it all, leaving Dainig to master his dread. The long, sober, understanding stares of his friends were of little help to him.

At breakfast on the designated morning, everyone was strained and silent, unable to pretend that the day held nothing out of the ordinary. Dainig sat there wishing for some assistance, but as usual when it came to Peter, he alone was the only one with strength enough to shield the little boy.

When the clock pronounced midmorning, he picked up the brown, little girl's wig Peter had worn on their return and called the child into the bedroom, forcing his voice to lightness.

Peter raced in, eager to have a change from the mood of the apartment. "Are we going to play in here, Danny? Away from all those sad faces in the living room? I'll think of a game."

Dainig braced himself and began the lie. "As a matter of fact, my boy, we're going out. Into the streets. You always used to like that."

"Oh, yes! I can be with the people again and hear them talk, and—" He stopped dead, instinctively leery as Dainig picked up the wig.

"What's the matter? You always have to wear this when you go 'out. You did before, remember?"

"Yes… before," Peter copied. He couldn't quite remember why the word "before" disturbed him. He suddenly whispered, "Danny, I feel cold. Way down side."

"Then the wig will keep your head warm, at least."

Dainig forced the joke, counting on Peter's chameleon-like mood changes.

As usual, it worked. With a quick hop of delight, Peter answered, "I'll have the warmest head in the world and we'll go see the people and I'll make believe I'm a girl! Let's hurry, Danny, because my legs feel cooped up."

"Get into the girl's coverall, then. I have a blue one for you, see?" He held it out. "It has some fancy furbelows."

"Fancy furblows, fancy furblows," Peter giggled. "I'll be just like a sheep so the people can't tell if I'm a boy or a girl in my furblows."

He was excited enough to relinquish his proud demonstrations of dressing himself and was a flurry of twitching wiggles as Dainig stuffed him into the coverall. The moment it was done, he ran into the living room, shouting, "I'm going to the street, everybody! I'll be back for lunch, though, so don't you eat it all."

Dainig stood alone watching the child kiss everyone goodbye in a grand production of leave-taking. Then, covering the warm, innocent hand with his own, he led the child away.

He's doing it for the people, he told himself to make his feet move forward. He has always loved the people, and if he was bright enough to understand, he would do it happily.

The logic did him no good, and with every whizzing floor down, he felt more and more like a. Judas. At the street entrance, he stopped and asked the boy seriously, "Do you remember what I always say to you? Our special words?"

"You say you love me."

"And do you truly believe that, Peter?"

"I do. It's easy because I love you and I always feel it coming back." He peered up at Dainig oddly. "Do you need me to hug you or something, Danny? You look all white and funny."

"A hug and a kiss," Dainig fell to one knee.

The little boy was on him immediately. "Don't be afraid of the street, Danny. I'll be there with you."

"Thank you, Peter, but hang onto me real hard and don't run off, all right?" He indulged himself in another kiss, his lips soft on the child's warm forehead, then stood up. "Let's go, little boy. There are too many people in the road for us to use the traveler, so we have a long walk ahead of us."

Despite its great change, Peter reacted to the street as he always had—with delight. He was used to the behavior of the people since he had watched them from the window for hours on end. He easily explained their cries and tremblings as part of the same fits Dainig often suffered. Peter felt sorry for them, but he obediently didn't stop to tell them so.

He was mainly engrossed in seeing everything there was to see and in pretending to be a girl. That was his attitude for the first five blocks. After that, a stillness settled over him and he drew closer to Dainig, only peeking at the people now and then. He was gathering a sense of something being wrong, and nothing Dainig could say erased it. At one point the child heard his own name called out in mourning and said, "The people don't look so funny any more, Danny. They make me sad and worried."

All too soon, the massive hulk of the AEC center loomed ahead of them. It stretched for four windowless, unbroken blocks—a giant mass in which Dainig had spent his career and Peter had been imprisoned. It was usually a place swarming with parents and children, but today the main doors stood barren and all the more uninviting because of the lack of humanity.

When they approached it, Peter slowed down. "Have I seen this place before?"

"What difference does it make, Peter? You're going to see it now. Come on and we'll go inside."

"If you say so." Peter was anything but eager. He plodded through the great doors, but when he saw the hallway stretching out before him, he stopped still. "No, Danny," he whispered. "I think you're wrong again. I think I did see this place once—with lots of people in it—that time you brought me to the wrong building."

"Just keep walking," Dainig hurried as though to beat the child's beginning flashes of memory.

"But… but Matty and Coop were in that building, Danny! And they caught me and you. Don't you remember?"

"No one is here. You can see that." He gritted his teeth and led the child along. This first recognition was nothing compared to what was coming.

Peter accepted his word since nothing could be heard in the halls but the tapping of their own shoes. Somewhere, Dainig knew, a squad of burly men was hidden, but Peter was to arrive without seeing them. Everything had been carefully orchestrated. Mark had commandeered the abandoned network building and by the time Dainig was in place, would have activated the equipment to pick up, amplify and relay Peter's broadcast from the machines in the complex. Since the cameras in the Viewing auditorium were preset and never changing, he had come and turned them on earlier in the morning. At the same time, he had rigged a closed-circuit picture of the street and placed its monitor in the playroom so Dainig could see the effects of his speech and guide his words accordingly. Dainig had only to place himself and Peter facing the "wall-that-wasn't-a-wall" in the playroom to transmit a close-up picture of the two of them to every TV screen in the world.

It sounded easy, but Dainig knew how difficult it was actually going to be.

When they turned the first corner, leaving the center itself, and entered the area that was part of the Viewing Complex, Dainig's feet followed the route on their own, having walked it so many hundreds of times before. But his heart knotted at the sight of each sign and door.

Peter didn't remember this place, but Dainig did, and all of the memories were vile.

A turn to the left brought them into the corridor behind Peter's former suite of tiny rooms. Dainig halted at the spot where a door was outlined in the wall—a door with an automatic button in lieu of a handle. It was the Concealed entrance to the Viewing Child's bathroom, and once opened, Peter could never mistake it. He had lived with it far too long.

"Are we there now?" Peter asked warily, picking up the vibrations of Dainig's tension.

"No, Peter. I'm going to show you something you've never seen before. A special, secret door—right here in the wall."

"I don't see any door." Peter was reluctant to be shown.

"Just watch." Dainig's hand reached for the button and stopped—quivering an inch away. He was afraid of this moment and, for both of their sakes, didn't want to initiate it. He was lashed by the ghosts of the emotions he had suffered when he betrayed the child by deliberately returning him to Cooper and Mattison in order to save himself. This might not be exactly the same situation, but it could have the same effect. Being forced back into the playroom could tear the trust out of Peter and leave him with nothing secure in the world. Worse, it might bring on a siege of hysteria that no one could cure and leave him to waste away and die.

"You don't have to show me," Peter said uneasily.

"Yes, I do," Dainig commanded himself, thrusting his finger onto the button.

The door slid open and he rushed the child inside before the wide brown eyes could grasp what they were seeing. He instantly hit the ceramic tile that was the inner button, and the door closed behind them—silently, but with finality.

There was a second's pause as the bathroom registered in Peter's mind. "This is… this…No. No, Danny! Take me out! Let me go!" He yanked his hand away and crashed into the wall where the door had been, beating against it, terrified and screaming. "Out! Out! Don't give me back. Don't leave me here!"

"I won't, Peter. Now, stop this. I'm with you and I'll take care of you."

"Help me! Help, help!" Heedless of Dainig, the child crashed into the wall again.

He was battering himself and Dainig had to stop him. Surrounding the frail body with his arms, he lifted Peter straight off his feet and held him, frantically squirming, small body against his chest. Peter's heels kicked into him and the brown wig fell off as Dainig carried him into the bedroom. He sat down on the bed and forced the hysterical child to face him.

Peter's fists pummeled him in maddened attack, though his face belied it, cascading tears as his shouts for help changed to sobs. Dainig hugged the breath out of him until the boy was too tired to keep on flailing and lay limp. He buried his face in Dainig's chest, and his hair was wet at the back from Dainig's own falling tears.

"I'm sorry, little boy. I had to bring you here," he moaned. "But I'll never, never leave you. We'll go home together. I promise! Please stop being afraid."

"I don't want… I… no tube—no tube. Don't let them!" The child was remembering the forced feedings— the last viciousness he suffered in this place.

"Nothing like that. No one will touch you but me, Peter. You have something very important to do, and once it's done, we can go home—to Laine and Mark and Hugo. I promise. First you have to let the people look at you again."

"No! You said I wouldn't ever! Please, Danny. I loved you so much." He cried harder, his body wrenched with spasms.

There was no sense in trying to explain. The child's state of despair would never allow him to understand. So Dainig simply got on with it, hoping the non-threatening events themselves would convince him.

He lifted the boy and entered the playroom. The sofa had been moved close to the front "wall-that-wasn't-a-wall"—the one-way barrier that appeared solid and yellow from the playroom but was actually transparent from the auditorium side where the camera was. The closed-circuit monitor was perched on a table near it, but Peter noticed none of it, keeping his face hidden after his first peek at the yellow room he hated so much.

Holding Peter more loosely now that he wasn't thrashing, Dainig checked the monitor. The street scene he saw had changed. Many people were still wandering, but most were gathered in small clumps about the planted TV screens. Although they gestured and twitched, they were intent on the picture being broadcast—a photograph of Peter.

Dainig's signal to start talking was to be a knock on the front wall, given at five-minute intervals until he returned it to indicate he was ready. Right now the wall was silent and all he could hear were Peter's hiccoughing sobs.

He gave the child his full attention, trying desperately to help him feel secure. "Do you want to play a rhyming game while we wait, Peter? I'll start it for you."

"No, please," it was a helpless, whimpering protest. "I never want to do that again. I'm too dumb to do it good, and you found it out finally, and that's why you brought me back to leave me here."

"Little, little boy, I'm not going to leave you."

"Yes—I know you are. But I won't smile when Matty and Coop say to." Abruptly, he changed direction from self-pity to wild defiance. "You let me go, Danny! You're mean and bad and I don't want you near me ever again. I have to get away from here, so you let me go!"

The little boy suddenly became an attacking octopus of hard fists and feet. Startled, Dainig loosened his grip for a fraction of a second, and the boy squirmed away and dashed for the bedroom door. He stopped just as suddenly and spun in a slow circle, his hands grasping at the air as he hunted for an escape route that had never been there for him and never would be. A shudder passed through him and he reached his arms toward Dainig, his face white and drenched with terror.

"Danny, I'm afraid. So afraid. I'm too small…"

Dainig was beside him in four steps and the frail arms went around his neck in desperation. The child had tried to face his predicament alone but had failed, and now he wanted to be back inside Dainig's strong arms.

"I'm here, Peter. I'm always here."

"Why did you do this? Why do I have to come here?" Peter pleaded.

"Because the people need you, Peter—just for a few minutes. They need you to smile for them. After that, I'll take you—"

"I don't want them to look at me. Don't let them. Please!" His sobs began anew.

The little boy was too shattered to understand, and Dainig had done it to him—again. He had to take him out of here immediately and hope he hadn't destroyed the child's capacity for trusting and loving.

He was halfway to the door when he halted abruptly and returned Peter to the sofa, his decision as firm as it was hated. It was crucial that the child appear on the TV screens no matter what his condition. If Dainig couldn't manipulate him into giving smiling help, the boy would simply have to be seen crying. Any way it happened, his presence was essential and was going to be supplied, because this time, the world came first.

He was barely situated when a staccato rapping sounded from the yellow wall. He reached out with his toe and returned the signal. The street-scene monitor jumped to new life as the clumps of people drew together, evidence that the still photograph of Peter had been replaced by the live television picture.

There was no sense in starting softly, so he shouted to insure their attention. "Peter is not dead! You don't have to mourn for him because he is not dead. He's right here in front of you—right here in my arms. Look! See him! He's safe. He's well and healthy and alive. Do you see?"

On the monitor, the small crowds were pushing and straining to see the screens. They could only make out the back of the boy's head as it jerked in sobs. That needed explaining, dishonestly or not.

"He's crying for you right now. Because he's safe and happy while you're alone and miserable. He cares about you. So do I. And since he is mine now, I can speak for him."

Individuals, overcome with crying or with fits of laughter, separated from the clumps and headed blindly along the sidewalk. "Come back!" Dainig shouted. "Give me a chance to explain what's happening to you. Let Peter look at you and tell you what to do."

Peter raised his head. "Who… ?" he whispered, frightened. "Where are they, Danny? Please don't let them find me."

As a few individuals returned to the clumps, Dainig cast aside all ideas of speech-making and looked to his child, seeing the chance to maneuver him into helping. "They can't find you because they're not here, Peter. They're out on the street. Look at the TV and you'll see for yourself."

The boy inched toward the monitor, peered at it, and was instantly caught up in curiosity. "I see them. But… why are some of them just standing around together? And why do those other ones walk so funny and cry? I think they might fall down."

"They very well might, Peter, because they're, having the same kind of fits I used to have. Remember? They're shaking and crying and moaning like I did."

Peter's expression changed to understanding. "Then you should put them in the shed and help them, Danny. They need a person to sit on their lap and hug them until they feel better."

Dainig's eyes stung with wet heat as he saw the frightened child forget his terror out of pity for strangers. His maneuver had worked.

He talked to Peter in full view of the Re-Emergers, letting them hear every syllable. "We can't help them until they let us, little boy. First they have to calm down. They have to know it's all right to laugh and cry, the way you showed me. Then they have to come to us so we can give them what they need."

"Won't they do that?"

"No, they won't, because they're afraid. They don't understand what's happening to them. If they knew it was a good thing, we could make them well. But if they don't find out… Peter, those people are hungry and thirsty and cold. They don't have anyone in the whole world to love them."

"I do. I love them," the child responded without hesitation. "I don't like to see them being sad. It's not nice to cry, and I know that best of anybody."

"Then tell them, little boy. Look straight at the wall so they can see you and tell them. Now."

Peter crept off his lap to stand before the wall. His cheeks were still wet from his own tears, but his voice was firm with compassion and conviction as he said, "Please don't be afraid, you people. I don't like you to be afraid. And don't be crying, either, because it's better to laugh. You have to learn that, and I will teach you if you want, just like I taught Danny. He says you don't know what's happening to you, but I know. You're learn to be nice, that's what. And Danny knows how to make it easy."

Dainig knelt beside him. "Tell them to listen to me, Peter. And to do everything I say."

"They heard you, themselves," Peter said; then he asked the wall, "Didn't you hear him, yourselves? You have to listen to Danny because he sometimes has fits, too. I help him get better, and he helps other people get better. I can see you in my TV window and I feel bad when you aren't happy, so will you please listen to Danny and do what he tells you? You make me cry, and I don't want to do that any more. Something inside me hurts when I see you, because I love you. You wouldn't cry if you really knew that. Be good like me, and don't be afraid any more, all right? I'll keep on watching you to see."

Dainig put his hands on the boy's shoulders to stop his flow of words. Peter was too caught up in his feelings. "I'll take over now," he said, drawing the child back onto his lap.

On the monitor, scores of people still lurched about alone, but the clumps at the TV screens had congealed into solid groups with less twitching and wringing of hands. Dainig decided that they were ready to listen.

"Peter told you the truth. You saw his concern for you. If you have enough sensibility left to realize his sincerity, then stand still so you can hear me. I'll tell you what's happening to you—what's happening to the world—and I'll show you how to find peace again."

He began by removing the menace of his own bomb threats, then told them that AEC had capitulated. Keeping to a slow, understandable pace, he described his own Re-Emergence, proving that he had experienced exactly what they were feeling and had survived. Next he explained the organization, perhaps exaggerating its numbers in an effort to make it seem big enough to afford them security.

"The world is ready for us now. It can support us again as what we really are—emotional, feeling, and true human beings. It can let us love and care, dance and laugh, cleanse our sorrows with honest tears, and not be afraid. You only have to brave your way through this first emergence to find the life you were born to live."

He promised them that his organization would be on the streets to guide and to heal. "We'll dress in orange so you can't mistake us. You'll recognize us, anyway, because when we touch you, you'll feel our caring. You can cling to us and we'll never push you away. Our healing is gentle. I promise. When we approach you, accept us and follow where we lead."

"Yes," Peter put in, "because Danny knows what to do."

Dainig smiled at him, aware as he did so that the crowds had never seen an easy smile before. He finished, "We'll shelter you in groups as long as you need it. We'll take full and loving care of you. In the meantime, I want you to help each other. Go to those people lying on the sidewalk or stumbling about alone and put your hands on them. Embrace them and call them your friend. Tell them you'll take care of them. Give to them. If you feel like crying with them, then do it. Give anything you can of yourselves.

"Tell them they'll be all right, because they will be. And tell yourselves the same thing, because you will be. We're all in this together. Remember that. And we'll all survive together. Now, say this with me as you go to help the others. Say it over and over again. I'm all right, I'm safe. I'm all right, I'm safe…"

"I'm all right! I'm safe!" Peter joined in loudly.

Seeing the clumps break up and move toward the overwhelmed ones, Dainig let the little boy carry on the chant by himself. His voice was the better one to lead them.

The mouths of the people were moving in pantomime of Peter's continued chant. Individuals converged on one another. Arms raised hesitantly to embrace a cringing figure, then became bold and caught the stranger close. Heads bent to touch each other and hands met in desperation, holding fast. The people had listened, and even more, they had heard. They were trying. Many still roamed alone, and many others couldn't muster the courage to gather them in, but the lethal tide was broken and a beginning had been made.

"They're doing it!" Peter cried, his grin broad and bright. "Just like you told them, Danny. They are good."

Dainig picked the boy up and whirled him around, filling the playroom with its first real shrieks of laughter.

Suddenly, larger hands were on Dainig's shoulders. Turning about, he found himself eye to eye with Laine. "How did—?" he blurted.

"Through the bathroom door, the same way you came in." She was smiling.

"Laine, did you see what the people did?" Peter pulled her into their circle of arms. "I think Danny saved them."

"I'm sure he did, little imp." She told Dainig, "It was beautiful, and you were beautiful. Our orange-coated squads will be on the streets in minutes to dole out Equilibria. It will calm a good third of them enough to join our force and help with the others. By tomorrow we'll have most of the poor wretches under cover."

"And full of soup," Peter ordered. "Danny said they're hungry, and he always gives me soup when I'm sick."

"Did it have the same effect worldwide?" Dainig asked her.

"I haven't heard, but it couldn't have missed, Rick. People are the same worldwide. I can't really tell you how—" she flushed, and her glance slipped down to the floor "—I'm just so very proud, that's all. You went beyond anything I imagined when I first called you Keeper."

"You still have the wrong person for that title, love. The name belongs to the little demon in my arms, tear streaks and all. He's keeping the real emotions and I'm just shepherding him."

"Me?" Peter asked, before answering for himself, "Yes, me. Because I'm very special. What will happen now?"

"Well, my boy, the world will come back to its senses and find a new kind of life where everyone has feelings. Where all of the children born can be 'Peters,' and the parents will know how to love them. We'll need a new form of government to—"

Peter hushed him. "I don't mean that. I mean about me." When Dainig looked, the child's face was pale and his eyes timid. "Since I'm still special, does it mean I have to stay here? Where the people can see me all the time again? Are you going to leave me, Danny?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm getting you out of this place as fast as I can. I don't like it here, either."

"But… do you still like me? After the bad things I said to you?"

"I love you, Peter, and that will never change. The point is—how do you feel about me, after I made you come back here?"

Peter leaned forward until they were nose to nose. His voice was sober but his face stretched in a big smile as he intoned, "I love you, too, and we will always be together. Forever." He reared back, "But now can we please go away from here?"

"Yes, sir. Carried or walking?"

"Carried, please."

Dainig jostled him into a more comfortable position, threw his other arm around Laine and headed for the door. When it closed on the playroom this time, it closed forever.