"The boy?"

"Of course, the boy. I doubt things have changed enough for the system to allow me in by myself." He inhaled from the cloth again. "But as I said, it may work differently this time—I've never tried it when Cho-Cho was awake. You can make sure he doesn't fall off the couch."

All three Sorensens stood in the doorway, watching with the sickened fascination of bystanders at the scene of an accident, even though nothing had happened yet. Christabel in particular looked frightened, and Ramsey felt a sudden tug of shame. As grown-ups, they had all failed these two kids pretty thoroughly, at least when it came to shielding them from life's uglier moments.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Sellars said testily. "I can't get anything accomplished with you all hovering over me. Leave me alone with the boy. Mr. Ramsey will be able to help me if I need anything."

"I still don't understand what you're going to do to him, but I know I don't like it," Kaylene Sorensen declared. "Just because he's a poor little Mexican boy. . . ."

Ramsey saw Sellars bristle. "Madam, he's as much an American as you are, and certainly has a greater claim to it than I do, since I wasn't even born here." His glare softened. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Sorensen. You have every right to be worried. I apologize. I am . . . very tired. Please try not to worry. We have done this several times, Cho-Cho and I. But I do need some privacy so I can concentrate. Time is growing short. Please."

She set her jaw, but took her daughter by the hand and pulled her away from the door. "Come on, Christabel. Let's go out and sit by the pool. I'll get you an ice cream."

"Be careful, Mister Sellars," the little girl called, hesitating in the doorway. "And . . . and take care of Cho-Cho, okay?"

"I promise, little Christabel." Sellars sagged a little as the girl and her mother disappeared.

Major Sorensen was the last to leave. "I'll be in the next room," he said as he shut the door. "Holler if you need me."

Cho-Cho had pushed himself to the far end of the couch where he waited like a trapped animal. "What you think you gonna do?"

"Just what we have done before, Señor Izabal. Except this time, you're going to be awake. I'm going to send you through to that other place."

"How come awake?"

"Because I can't afford to wait until tonight. My friends might have moved again by then."

The boy scowled. "What you want me to do?"

"For now, just lie down."

Cho-Cho did so, but with the kind of careful attention that suggested he expected at any moment to be hit with something. It was not hard to see the fear under the bluster.

If people's insides were their outsider, Ramsey thought, it would be this kid, not Sellars, who was scar tissue from head to toe.

Sellars leaned forward until he could lay a trembling hand along the boy's neck. Cho-Cho shook him off and sat up. "What you doing, loco? Touching me and all that mierda?"

The old man signed. "Señor Izabal, I strongly suggest you lie down and shut up. I'm just making contact with that thing in your neck, your neurocannula." He turned to Ramsey. "I could actually just narrowcast to it, but it's a pretty shoddy piece of street engineering and I get less interference if I'm actually making contact."

"Hey! Me, I racked plenty efectivo on that, old man."

"You were robbed, sonny." Sellars laughed weakly. "No, don't get angry, I'm just teasing. It does the job well enough."

Cho-Cho lay back along the couch. "Just don't get funny."

Sellars made contact again. "Close your eyes, please." When the boy had done so, the old man shut his own, lifting his face blindly toward the ceiling. "Do you see the light yet, my young friend?"

"Kind of. All gray, like."

"Good. Now just wait. If everything goes well, in a few minutes you should find yourself inside the network, as you have before—that place you admired so much. You'll have my voice in your ear. Don't do anything until I tell you."

Cho-Cho's mouth had fallen slackly open. His fingers, pressed into fists only moments before, uncurled.

"Now. . . ." said Sellars, then fell silent. He was still as stone, but unlike Cho-Cho, he seemed not unconscious but vastly absorbed, as distant as a meditating holy man.

Ramsey watched, feeling as nearly useless as he ever had. The silence continued long enough that he was just beginning to wonder if flicking on the wallscreen for some news would interfere with whatever Sellars was doing when the old man jerked upright in his chair, his hand snapping away from the boy's neck as though the skin there had burned him.

"What is it?" Ramsey hurried to Sellars' side, but the old man did not speak. He twitched violently and his eyes opened wide then squeezed shut. A moment later he collapsed forward. If Ramsey had not wrapped his arms around the thin body, light as a bundle of sticks, Sellars would have fallen onto the floor. Ramsey pushed him back upright, but the old man only lolled in the chair, limp and silent. The boy still lay on the couch, equally slack, equally still. Ramsey tried to shake Sellars awake, then sprang to the boy, his desperation increasing with each second. The boy's head bounced on the cushions as Ramsey tried to bring him back, but lay still when Ramsey stopped.

"They're both still breathing." Sorensen let go of Sellars' wrist and stood up. "Their pulses feel regular."

"If this is Tandagore, that doesn't mean anything," Ramsey said bitterly. "My clients . . . their daughter has had normal pulse and respiration for months, the whole time she's been in a coma. Her friend did, too—he's dead now."

"Jesus." Sorensen jammed his hands in his pockets—to make it less obvious how helpless he felt, Ramsey suspected. "Jee-zuss. What the hell kind of situation are we in now?"

"The same as we were, just a bit worse." Ramsey felt so heavy he could not imagine how he would ever stand up again. "Should we take them to a hospital?"

"I don't know. Shit." Sorensen walked across the room to sit down in the other chair. There would have been room on the couch, since the unconscious child stretched only two thirds of the length, but Ramsey was not surprised by the major's choice. "Does being in the hospital help those other Tangadore kids?"

"Tandagore. No. Well, I suppose it keeps them from getting bedsores." A thought flickered past. "And they have to be fed with a drip. And catheterized, I guess."

"Catheterized. . . ? Christ." Major Sorensen seemed more depressed than frightened—Catur Ramsey wished he could say the same of himself. "I'd better go tell Kay what's going on." He frowned. "I don't know how we'll be able to take them to a hospital. The kid, yeah, but we put an advisory out on Sellars from the base to every emergency room on the Eastern seaboard, because we thought he'd be having breathing problems. Shit. Breathing's about the only thing he isn't having problems with right now."

"Don't look at me, Major. Sellars was in charge of this whole thing. I was just along for the ride."

Sorensen regarded him with something like sympathy. "Yeah. Some ride, huh, Ramsey?"

"Yeah. Some ride."

When Sorensen had disappeared through the connecting door, Ramsey went looking for his pad, hoping that he had some first-aid information on Tandagore in the research he had done for the Frederickses. When he picked it up, the small device was vibrating.

Oh, my God, he thought. It must be Olga. She's been waiting for at least an hour—she must be panicked. But what can I tell her? He fumbled the device open to take the call. I have only the most general idea of what Sellars was trying to do, and not a clue as to how he was going to go about it.

"Olga?" he said.