"I'm dying! I'm falling apart! Look at me!"

"Indeed, you are. Fascinating."

"Damn it, I'm not a lab animal. I'm not one of your goddamned experiments. You've got to help me, Hart. Look, look at my arms. At my mouth -- look at that. You've got to do something for me!"

"Stop shouting, Drake. You've got plenty of time left."

"I don't want time -- I want you to help me."

"Be patient. Jason's progressing well. He should be finished with the vat in another four weeks or so. Then you go in."

"I won't last four weeks, I'll be dead by then."

"No you won't. You'll be pretty vile, true, but not dead. If it comes to that, I can keep you alive on the machines in Hoku's hospital until the vat is ready for you. Calm down, Drake, there's nothing to worry about."

"You're trying to kill me, aren't you? I'll remember this, Kennerin.

I'm not going to forget what you're doing to me. If you think you'll ever see a fremark from me after this -- "

"Drake. Shut up. You're not going to die. I'm not trying to kill you.

What do you expect me to do, anyway? I can't do grafts and transplants on you.

They don't have the facilities here, and there are no donor banks, either.

Just wait, be calm, be patient. In four weeks I'll give you the body of an eighteen-year-old, and when you run through that one, I'll give you another.

Four weeks is a small price to pay for that."

"In four weeks I'll be dead."

"Only if you really want to be. Here, have some more brandy and shut up for a while, will you? I want to finish this text."

"I won't forget this, Kennerin."

"No, I don't imagine that you will."

Meya put down the saw and pushed hair from her face. Rain beat monotonously against the windows, a hollow, lonely sound. The house creaked in the wind, the chimneys sighed. Quilla and Tabor were in the barn, the twins were at school, and Mim had gone to Haven to visit friends. Ozchan left in the morning to spend the day at the hospital with Hoku; Meya thought about his tall brown body beside Hoku's tiny, wrinkled one, then of his body beside her own. He had left small marks on her shoulders last night. She put her fingers on them and felt suddenly flushed, remembering the tastes and textures of his body. She stripped off the leather apron and hung it on the wall, then washed her hands and went into the kitchen.

Sweet rolls, still hot from the morning's baking. Cool milk. She sat at the kitchen table and ate slowly, wondering how to spend the rest of the afternoon; something to fill the time until Ozchan's return, something to fill her mind. To the barn? No, she didn't feel like listening to important talk about vegetables and grains. Into Haven? Hoku and Ozchan would be busy, would not welcome an unexpected visit. She could visit Puti and play with her new pups, could see who was at Kohl's. But the prospect of dressing in water clothes and slogging through the mud did not appeal to her, and she suspected that, once in Haven, she would head straight for the hospital. Making herself obvious.

She finished the rolls, washed and dried cup and plate, and stood at the kitchen door, staring at the gleaming floors.

She could go upstairs and visit Jason. The twins wouldn't do it, they found the sight disquieting; their grandfather floating, almost shapeless, in a crystal coffin. Quilla, too, tried not to enter the room, and when she did so, looked at the vat with something approaching horror. But Meya found it no more upsetting than the sight of her energetic father lying broken in a bed, or pushed around the house in that silly chair. At least now he had the dignity of mystery, and she found his room to be a place of promise rather than a place of fear.

She would take her newest text chip upstairs and read to him. After all, Mim visited him each evening to gossip about the events of the day, and Tabor often spent hours in Jason's room, playing his flute. Tabor claimed that unborn children could hear music, and didn't see why this shouldn't be true of Jason, too. Hart treated this idea with contempt, but Meya didn't see why.

Besides, Hart would be down at the landing pad now, picking something up that the morning's shuttle had brought. No likelihood of his finding her reading to her unborn father and make her nervous with voiced and unvoiced sarcasm.

Jason's room was quiet save for the hum of the machines, and dark save for the lights of the dials and the phosphorescence of the liquid in the vat.

She lit the lamp beside the vat and sat in the easy chair.

"Hi, Jason. I thought you might be bored, so I brought something to read to you. It's something Ozchan loaned me, a novel about some space explorers who go off the edge of the universe. I'm already on the fourth chapter. Ready?"

Eventually the sound of her own voice lulled her to sleep, and she woke, startled. Some noise. She looked into the vat, but Jason remained suspended, and the dials of the machines seemed correctly set. Noise again, something in the hallway.

"Who's in there?" a voice whispered.

Drake. Her stomach felt cold. No one in the house. She hadn't seen Hart's friend in more than a week, but remembered his prying, his grabbing, his insistence. She turned out the lamp, then crept to the far side of the machines and crouched between them and the wall.

"Anyone in there?"

The door opened, admitting a shaft of light from the hallway. Sounds of scuffled walking, and the lamp was lit again. Door closing, lock locking. She held her breath and looked around for something to use as a weapon. Save for the chip reader, there was nothing.

"Good," Drake said. "All alone now. Very good. Stealing my life, you know that, old man? That's my vat you're using. Yes. I paid for all that research. I funded all those experiments. That vat is mine. And now I'm dying, and your son, your sucking, vicious son, won't let me use it. Makes me wait until you're done. Why should I wait, old man? Tell me that. I'm Tev Drake. I am very, very rich. You, you're just backwash, just colony. I could wipe you out and never notice. Why should I wait for you? You don't need it, you can wait. You weren't dying. Not much. That's my vat, and I'm going to use it. Yes indeed. Now."

Meya poked her head around the edge of the monitor and saw Drake at the vat, his hands reaching for the controls. Red hands, black hands, strips of flesh and strips of skin slack and flapping, something wet. A fingernail hung attached by one thread of flesh. The hand-thing touched the controls.

"Stop that!" she screamed.

Drake spun around, and she screamed again when she saw his face. She jumped away from the monitor and held the chip reader in her hand as though it were a weapon. Drake laughed.

"Stupid girl. Going to stop me with screams and a novel. You've had lots of practice screaming, haven't you? I hear you, at night, rolling around in that bed of yours. Having fun, aren't you? Put that down. Get out and I won't hurt you."

"You stay away from my father."

"Melodrama!" Drake's face appeared to smile. "Think of something new today, little girl. Amuse me."

He edged around the vat toward her. She retreated, backed into the pile of equipment left over from Jason's life before the vat. Things clattered as they fell, and Drake jumped.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "No one at home but you and me. Make noise, girl. Scream some more. It pleases me."

Meya felt behind her. Beakers. Bedpan. Linen. Something cool and round and heavy -- the side pole for the bed. She tightened her grip on it.

"Get out of this room," she said. "Get out and I won't tell anyone you were here."

"Such a generous offer. Come out of there. Now. I haven't time to play games with you."

"Get out of this room!"

Drake paused. "What would you like, little girl? A planet of your own?

A little ship to scoot around the world with? Or just a fortune? I can give them to you, anything you want. Think of that. You could go anywhere you wanted to. You could be so rich you could buy this planet, and everyone on it.

Isn't that nice? Come on, tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you, and you can go away." He edged closer.

"I want you to leave my father alone."

"Oh, not fair. Then what would I get? Something for something, girl.

Name a price."

"No price. Get out."

Drake cursed and leaped at her. She swung the pole. Drake ducked and threw the discarded chip reader at her. It hit her forehead and she fell.

Things went very black and very red. Drake kicked her side, and she couldn't react. Something made a large booming noise in her ears. She struggled to hear through it. When she opened her eyes she couldn't see, then things swam into a very liquid focus. Drake was no longer above her. Someone was talking, almost singsong; she couldn't understand the words. She pushed herself up on her elbow, fighting nausea.

Drake was by the control panels, his hideous hands busy with something.

She groped for the pole, grabbed it, and pushed herself upright. Drake didn't turn around. He talked, talked, the skin of his hands fluttered. The fingernail fell. She staggered around the vat behind him, raised the pole, and brought it down on the back of his head. Again. He fell. Again. He continued falling. Again. Again.

Something oozed from his head. She dropped to her knees beside the vat and vomited.

"Meya!"

Hands grabbed her shoulders and pushed her up. She raised her head to look at Hart's face.

"Drake," she said. "To kill Jason. Did something to the machines."

Hart dropped her. She lay with her cheek against the floor and heard him cursing, doing something to the machines, cursing again. He hauled her up again.

"How long? Since he touched the machines, how long?"

She shook her head, bewildered.

He propped her against the wall and returned to the controls. His hands danced amid the dials and knobs, and he turned his head, controls to vat to controls to vat. She turned her head and looked into the vat. Jason looked the same, and she closed her eyes.

Eventually Hart left the controls and squatted beside her.

"It looks all right," he said, frowning. "I can't see any changes. I think it's all right. Try to remember how long it was."

"Don't know. I was asleep, and Drake came in and talked. Wanted to use the vat. I tried to stop him. He hit my head and I fell down. He did something to the controls. I hit him, and I fell down again." Her throat felt nauseous again. "Is he -- "

"He's dead. Stupid bastard, there were only two weeks to go." Hart took her chin in his fingers and tilted her head. "You're a mess, and we've got to do something about your forehead. It's a good cut there."

"What about ... about him?"

"Drake?" Hart rocked back and frowned. "Get rid of him somehow, then clean up the mess. Shit. He's an important man, he'll be missed. They'll come looking for him."

She put her hands to her face and tried to clear her mind. "What if they find him? What will they do to me?"

"I don't know. It was self-defense, defense of Jason. But he was rich, Meya. I don't think they'll buy self-defense. They wouldn't kill you for it, but they might demand stasis."

"Hart!"

"Hush. I was just thinking aloud. Of course they won't find him. We'll get rid of him somehow, make up some story. Can you stand up?"

She pushed herself up against the wall and swayed. Hart muttered and went to the supply cabinet, came back with a hypo and an ampule.

"It's a stimulant," he said. "Should clear your mind, get you going for a while. It won't hurt you."

She looked at him and held out her arm. He cradled her elbow in his hand and paused, staring at her eyes.

"You trust me?" he said.

She looked into his cold blue eyes and nodded.

It was still early afternoon. That confused her; it should have been much later. Days later. They wrapped Drake's body in a sheet and then in plastic, carried it down the stairs and through Mim's sparkling kitchen, into the rain. Down the hill, away from the Tor, from the barn, and from Haven. She left Hart with the body and the shovel, and went back to the Tor. The stimulant layered an illusory clarity over her nausea. She cleaned the room, swabbing up blood and vomit and what she knew, distantly, to be Drake's brains. The scrubbing made her feel no cleaner, but the work comforted her body, the rhythms. Hart came back and helped, then guided her to the hot tub.

They stripped and washed, then slid into the water. Steam rose from her hands.

Rain beat against the wooden roof of the tubhouse. Sweat stung her eyes. Hart hauled her from the tub and back to the Tor, put her in bed, gave her an injection. She touched his hand and the room disappeared.

When she woke, Ozchan lay beside her, and it was night. She moved away from him on the bed and lay awake, staring at the darkness. The next morning she pleaded fatigue and remained in bed, battered by Ozchan's concern and Mim's home remedies. Hart told people that Drake had decided to leave and had taken yesterday's shuttle. The story was not questioned.

In the afternoon, when the house seemed quiet, she rose and dressed.

Hart was not in his room, and she hesitated, then reluctantly went down the hall toward Jason's room. It looked clean and tranquil, no different from before. Hart looked up from the vat and came to her, guided her to a chair, sat beside her.

"You look terrible," he said.

"Feel it. I can't stay here, Hart. Can't sleep, can't eat. Can't talk to anyone. I keep seeing his face ... feeling the pole hitting his head."

"Think about something else."

"I can't," she said. "I can't turn everything off the way you can. Give me something, make it go away."

Hart shook his head. "Then everyone would want to know why you were out all the time. Meya, you've got to fight it yourself. Be strong."

She stared at her hands. "Maybe it would be easier if we told people."

"For God's sake, Meya! We have enough problems without that."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

Hart made a gesture of exasperation and stood. Meya looked at Jason.

"I'll go away for a while," she said. "That won't be strange. I'll go spend a week with Puti, or Teloret. In the village."