"Thanks. I'll remember that." Gin had had no idea Duncan was such a coffee connoisseur. The rituals, the rules .

. . it was like a religion. But the result was awfully good.

They sipped in silence for a moment. Gin wandered along the glass wall and admired the koi pool, the rock garden, and the dwarf shrubs that lined it. She continued on, passing his desk. The top right drawer was open. Inside was a glass injection vial filled with a clear amber fluid.

Something else too. Something metallic, almost like a large trocar .

.

Suddenly Duncan was beside her, sliding the drawer closed.

"You were saying? " "Where was I? Well, the point I was trying to make is that if I can get on a committee member's staff, I can see to it that he gets some straight dope on how these guidelines will affect patient care. And if I can influence him even a little, won't it be worth it? " Duncan stared at her, slowly shaking his head. "For some time now I've been worrying that you had no direction. I was afraid you were just going to drift, make a career of moonlighting and locum tenens work. Now I almost wish that were the case." Had he actually been thinking about her? "Maybe I'll simply devote myself to lexiphania." Duncan appeared taken aback. Had she stumped him?

Lexiphania, the tendency to use obscure and unusual words. The irony would be rich. How wonderful to catch him with a word that described himself.

Duncan laughed. "Where'd you find that one? " "Wasn't easy, believe me. ' '"All right. I plead guilty to compulsive grandiloquism, to singlehandedly trying to correct for the entire language's drift into banality." Damn. He did know it.

She said, "I don't think it's working."

"More's the pity." He gazed at her, smiling. "Lexiphania . . . that s wonderful. How can I stay angry at you? But seriously, Gin, you've been trained for a higher sort of work than being legislative aide to some pretentious pinhead pol. I hate to see you wasting your talents."

For a moment she was struck by how much he sounded like Peter. He'd said almost exactly the same thing when she'd told him she was leaving Louisiana to get involved in medical politics.

Focusing on Duncan, Gin bit her tongue and thought, I could say the same about your facelifts.

As if reading her mind he smiled crookedly and said, "Not that I'm one to talk about wasting training." For an instant there was real pain in his eyes. Her heart went out to him.

"Duncan . . . whatever, " He held up the coffee carafe. "Refill? " '"No, thanks. Can I ask, ? " "I don't envy you, Gin." Obviously he didn't want to talk about Duncan Lathram. "I wouldn't want to be starting out in medicine today and facing the terrain that's ahead of you.

"All the more reason to get involved." Why couldn't he see that?

'"But what do you hope to accomplish? What is your goal down there on Capitol Hill? " "Fair guidelines. Realistie guidelines we can all live with."

"Never happen, " Duncan said. He sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing, Gin."

"I've given it a lot of thought."

"Have you? They're a pretty corrupt bunch, Gin, and, " "And I'm so impressionable? " "No. It's not that. It's just that, well, as doctors, we're a different breed.

Our values are different. We don't speak the same language. We don't walk in the same shoes as other people."

"That sounds just a little elitist to me." He shrugged.

"Maybe. But sometimes I think the weight of the life-and-death decisions doctors have to make sets them apart from the rest of humanity. When you've felt someone's life draining through your hands, and you've reeled him back in and sent him home to his family, it does something to you. You've seen things that regular folk will never see, done things they'll never do, glimpsed them at their most vulnerable, when they're stripped of all their pretenses. You've been master of life and death, and that can't help but change you. It leaves you one step removed from everybody else. ' Gin had run up against this gods-who-walk attitude all through her residency.

"It's time we ditched the god thing, don't you think? We're not gods, and it's damaging to us and our patients to foster that kind of reverence. We can do extraordinary things, seemingly miraculous things.

But we're not gods. We're just people." He was sullen as he sipped his coffee in silence.

Finally Gin said, "Doesn't look like we'll ever see eye to eye, does it? " '"No, it doesn't." '"Can we agree to disagree, then? " "I don't suppose I have much choice." '"You could fire me."

"I don't want to do that. But don't expect my blessing." '"I never did." Bat I want it, dammit. I wish I didn't, but I do. "I don't even know if I'll get the job. But if I do I'll have to adjust my schedule to, " "Cassidy can take up the slack. We'll work it out."

Gin felt a trickle of warmth, seeping through her. This - was a blessing of sorts, wasn't it? If not, it would have to do.

"Thank you, Duncan. I didn't expect, " "I want to keep you nearby .

.

. where I can keep an eye on you.

The warm trickle became a chill. What was that supposed to mean?

"Just don't let us down, Gin, " he said, his blue eyes burning into hers. "Don't betray us." He held her locked in his gaze a moment longer, then turned away.

"I'm glad we had this talk, Gin. The first of many, I hope. I'm sure you've got some dictation to catch up on. ' "Yes. Sure. I'll see you later." '"Be sure to let me know as soon as you hear from Marsden.

As for me, I'm off to the links." He pulled out a key ring and matter-of-factly locked his top drawer. "Surgery tomorrow at eight.

" Idly wondering why he bothered locking the drawer, Gin waved and left him.

This was turning out to be one strange day.

i G IN. \ EASY NOW, OLIVER SAID SOFTLY, WATCHING OVER HER shoulder, coaching her.

"That's it. Just go easy . . . easy . . . " Gin hadn't felt like being alone this afternoon. No word from Marsden's office, or from Gerry, so she'd arranged to spend a couple of hours in Oliver's lab practicing her implant-filling technique. She'd learn and get paid for it.

She smelled garlic on his breath and wondered what he'd had for lunch.

Nothing low cal, she was sure. Oliver had a weakness for Italian food and didn't seem to care what effect it had on his waistline. Probably linguine and clam sauce, don't spare the garlic, Better forget Oliver's dietary indiscretions. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing.

Gin had the 26-gauge needle of a tuberculin syringe inserted in the end of one of Oliver's medium, -size membranous implants and was injecting it with normal saline. Had this been for real, she'd be working under sterile conditions and filling the implant with Oliver's "secret sauce." Staring through the magnifying lens centered in the round head of the fluorescent examination lamp, she watched the half-inch-long tubular membrane swell and stretch. Like filling the world's tiniest water balloon.

"It's full now, " Oliver said. "Feel that back pressure? " She hadn't felt any until now, which was why half a dozen membranes lay ruptured on the side of the tray. But this time she did feel a hint of resistance on the plunger.

"Believe it or not, I think I do."

"Swell! Now it's time for the zapper." Gin repressed a smile as she reached for the cautery handle. Did anyone else on earth still say swell? Oliver had to be the last.

He was a bit of an enigma. Didn't seem to have much of a life outside his lab. No wife or family. No significant other that she knew of.

He'd had the staff over to his house for a dinner party one night and Gin had felt she knew less about him afterward than before.

'"Okay, " she said. "I'm ready."

"You know what to do. Just take your time" Gin had seen Oliver do this a hundred times but had never got this far. She readied the flattened tip of the cautery unit in position near the puncture site, slowly withdrew the needle, then stepped on the round power pedal near her left foot. A tiny blue spark arced from the tip to the implant, searing and coagulating the protein membrane around the puncture.