"But how—?" the mother began.

With a quick wave, Alan ducked out and crossed the hall to the next room. He felt exultant, strong, good. It was working! It was still there. The Hour of Power was not perfectly predictable—at least not by him—but he still had it, and he had no time to waste with explanations.

There was work to be done.

Time to quit.

Alan had just effected one of his most satisfying cures. A forty-five-year-old man with a long history of ankylosing spondylitis had come in with the typically rigid spine curved almost to a right angle at the upper back and neck so that his chin was pushed down against his chest.

Sobbing his thanks, the man walked out with his spine straight and his head high.

"That man!" Connie said as she came to the rear. "He was all bent over when he came in!"

Alan nodded. "I know."

"Then it's really true?" Her eyes widened steadily in her round face.

Alan nodded again.

Connie stood before him, gaping. It was making him uncomfortable.

"Is the next patient ready?" he said finally.

She shook herself. "No. You told me to stop bringing them in as of five. It's ten after now."

Five-ten. The Hour of Power was over.

"Then tell them that's it for today. We start again at five tomorrow."

"They're not going to like that," she said and bustled away toward the front.

Alan stretched. It had been a satisfying hour… but he wasn't really practicing medicine. It took no skill, no special knowledge, to lay his hands on someone. The Dat-tay-vao was doing the work; he was merely the carrier, the vessel, the instrument.

With a start he realized that he had become a tool.

The thought disturbed him. The whole situation was bittersweet—emotionally satisfying but intellectually stultifying. He didn't have to get to know the patient or build a relationship. All he had to do was touch them at a certain time of day and wham!—all better. Not his kind of medicine. There was the high of seeing the relief and joy and wonder in their faces, but he was not using any of his training.

Then again, none of his training had anything to do with what he had accomplished today. His fellow doctors would find ways to write off most of the results as "placebo effect" and "spontaneous remission." And why not? In their position he'd do the same. He'd been taught not to believe in miracles.

Miracles—how easily he'd come to accept them after witnessing a few. After causing them. If only he could find a way to get Sylvia to let him try the Touch on Jeffy. She seemed afraid of it and he couldn't understand why. Even if the Touch were useless against Jeffy's autism, he couldn't see how it would hurt to try.

If he could make little Jeffy normal, it would make all the trials he had been through because of the Touch worthwhile. If only Sylvia would give him—

He heard shouting from up front and went to investigate. A number of people from the parking lot had pushed their way into the waiting room. When they saw him they started shouting, pleading, begging for him to see them.

Alan raised a hand in the air and held it there, saying nothing until they finally quieted down.

"I'll say this once and once only. I know you're all sick and hurting. I promise I will see every one of you and do everything I can for you, but my power lasts only one hour a day, no more. I have no control over that. Just one hour a day. Understand? That hour is over and done for today. I'll be back tomorrow for another hour at five p.m."

There was some rumbling from the rear.

"That's all I have to say. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise."

"That's what you said two weeks ago and we never saw you again until today!" a voice called out. "Don't play games with us!"

"Maybe we'll just stay in here until you do come back!" said another.

"If you're going to threaten me, I won't be back at all."

There was sudden silence.

"I'll see you here tomorrow at five."

He watched as they reluctantly shuffled out. Connie leaned her plump frame against the door after she locked it and sighed with relief.

"I don't like this bunch, Doctor. I tell you, there's something mean and ugly about them. They frighten me."

"They're all right one on one."

"Maybe, but not all together. As each cured patient walked out, the rest got meaner and meaner, the bigger and stronger ones pushing the smaller and weaker ones out of the way."

"A lot of them have waited a long time, and they're sick of being sick. They're tired of hurting. When relief is in sight, another night can seem like a year."

Connie shook her head. "I guess you're right. Oh, Dr. Bulmer," she said as he turned to go, "my mother suffers something terrible from arthritis in her hips. I was wondering if…"

"Of course," he said. "Bring her with you tomorrow."

They closed up and Alan walked her out to her car and made sure she was on her way before he got into his own. The crowd had gathered at a decent distance and stood there staring at him like a starving horde watching the owner of a fully stocked supermarket.

But their hunger was of a different sort, and he knew he would have nothing in his cupboard for them until tomorrow.

He drove away feeling tense and uneasy. He wondered if they had believed him.

___29.___

Sylvia

She hated the idea of leaving Jeffy here for one night, let alone three, but Charles insisted it was the best and quickest way to have him evaluated.

"We'll scan him head to foot," he said from behind his desk. "We'll monitor and record him awake and asleep, collect twenty-four-hour urines, and you can have him back in seventy-two hours. By then we'll know everything there is to know about him. Otherwise it will take forever on a piecemeal basis."

"I know," she said, sitting with Jeffy on her lap, her arms tight around him. "It's just that it's been years since he's been away overnight. What if he needs me?"

"Sylvia, dear," Charles said, and she resented the touch of condescension in his voice, "if he calls for you in the night, I will personally send the Foundation helicopter to pick you up and bring you here. It will be an unprecedented breakthrough."

Sylvia said nothing. Charles was right. Jeffy interacted with no one now. Not even the pets; not even himself. She wondered if he would even know she was gone.

"What else is wrong?" Charles said. She looked up to see him watching her face. "I've never seen you so blue."

"Oh, it's a bunch of things. Little things, big things—from my favorite bonsai getting root rot to Alan having his hospital privileges suspended, and very possibly about to lose his license. Everything was going so well for so long; now everything seems to be going sour at once."

"Bulmer's problems aren't yours."

"I know." She hadn't seen much of Charles since the party, so he couldn't know how her feelings for Alan had intensified.

"It's not as if you're bloody married to him." Was there a trace of jealousy in Charles' voice? "And from what I've heard, most of his troubles are his own doing. Sounds to me as if he's come to believe what the yellow press has been saying about him."

"According to Alan, the stories are true. And Ba told me he saw something similar in Vietnam when he was a boy."

Charles snorted in contempt. "Then Bulmer's license should be revoked for practicing medicine without a mind!"

Sylvia resented that and instantly came to Alan's defense.

"He's a good, kind, decent man who's being crucified!" But her anger cooled quickly, for what Charles had said reflected the tiny doubts that had been clawing at the walls of her mind for weeks now. "You met him. Did he seem unbalanced to you?"