The crisis was approaching. Chan’s body jerked from side to side in the chair. His face was blood-red, with veins in neck and forehead like purple cords. Suffused with blood, medication injection points on his bare arms showed as bright patterns of stigmata. At this point in every treatment, Tatty feared that Chan would die of heart failure or apoplexy.

The Stimulator monitor chattered a final burst of activity. As it cut off a high-pitched scream filled the chamber. Chan writhed against his restraining straps. His body shuddered and shook in the chair.

Tatty went terrified to his side. This was not the normal end point of a special treatment session. Chan was usually loose-limbed and flaccid, now he was reacting as though the session were still going on.

As she placed her hands on his shoulders the spasms ended. Tatty glanced at the monitors. Pulse strong, but blood pressure disturbingly high. All Stimulator functions registered as zero. The session was certainly over, and by now Chan ought to be awake and weeping. Then she would take him in her arms, hold him close, and comfort him. According to Kubo Flammarion that psychological support was supremely important if she was to lower the risk of catatonic withdrawal.

Except that today he was flinching at her touch. “Chan. It’s Tatty. Can you hear me?”

The eyes were beginning to open. Long eyelashes flickered. A slit of white was visible, then blue irises rolled slowly down into view. Chan licked his lips and glanced from side to side. Suddenly he stared right at Tatty as though he had never seen her before.

“Chan!”

Tatty? The voice was as faint and far-off as starlight.

“It’s me, Chan.” Tatty snapped open the restraining straps so that she could draw Chan’s head forward to her breast. “There, baby. You just rest on me. You’ll be all right in a few minutes.”

“No!” He wrenched away from her and spun out of the chair. Before she could grab him he was running out of the chamber and down the outside corridor. He was screaming, and his voice was echoing from the smooth walls.

Something was different — and terribly wrong. After a special Stimulator session Chan always needed soothing, then he would sleep.

Tatty snatched up the Tracker and her case of anesthetic drugs and started after him through the tunnels of Horus.

Within minutes she realized that he was not following any of his usual paths. The Tracker showed that he was off on some wild new excursion, sometimes far away, sometimes veering in close to her, but always inaccessible. Tatty did her best to follow, and found she was running into blind ends. According to the Tracker, Chan was just on the other side of that well — and there was no way to reach it. She hurried on, following the Tracker’s memory of each twist and turn. There was no possibility that he could actually escape; Horus was a maximum security facility, and Tatty had hopelessly explored all the possible routes for herself.

But he could certainly do himself damage. She had to find him, and as soon as possible.

It took over three hours. And when Tatty finally reached him she realized that it was no credit to her. Chan was sitting quietly on an old excavating machine, staring at the molecular decomposition nozzles. The corridor behind him was clear. Had he chosen to do so, he could have gone on running.

Tatty approached him warily. She could shoot tranquilizer from as far away as ten yards, but there was little sign that it might be needed.

“Chan.”

“Here, Tatty.”

“Are you all right?” She saw the dried tears on his cheeks.

“No. Anything but all right. I mean … I don’t know. If was all right before, then not all right now.”

Tatty’s skin quivered into gooseflesh. The baby-talk overtone was still there, with Chan’s awkward articulation. But the cadence and meaning had changed. It was a stranger talking.

“Chan, how do you feel? Are you hurting?”

His long silence was not the usual blank of indifference. He seemed to be pondering her question, searching for an answer and finding it impossible to reply. Twice he began, and twice he halted before completing a word.

“Feel … strange,” he said at last. “Just the same, and not same. All things are … mixed. I don’t know more, all same things in my head. But now …” He frowned. “Same things, but things not the same. Now I can see them. Before, I didn’t notice.” He stood up, and swayed on his feet. One arm went blindly to the side, to support himself against the excavating machine. “I … feel … like …”

He was falling forward, eyes closing. Tatty stepped forward to support him. For a change she welcomed the weak gravity maintained on Horus. She could carry Chan to his bedroom for examination without too much strain on herself.

All the way back he remained unconscious. But his breathing was regular, and when she laid him on the bed the monitors showed his vital signs as normal. Tatty sat next to him as the monitors completed a more detailed examination. She wanted to talk to Ceres and tell Flammarion what was happening, but it was surely more important to stay here. He seemed all right, but suppose that he suffered another convulsion while she was away? She was the only other person on Horus. More than that, suppose this were the breakthrough point for the Stimulator treatment. Then she had to be there when Chan awoke. Flammarion had emphasized that often enough, without ever explaining how she was supposed to manage it and still tell Ceres exactly what was going on.

Tatty made up her mind. Chan might need her help for the next few hours, and that took priority over everything else.

She ran through into the kitchen, grabbed containers of drink and packaged food, and rushed back to sit beside Chan. He remained unconscious while she ate a makeshift meal, but he was beginning to mutter and whimper in his sleep. Tatty was increasingly reluctant to leave him. She glanced at her watch. It was almost time for Chan’s scheduled sleep. She dimmed the chamber lights and quietly lay down at his side.

Such vigil was no novelty. She had sat often with Chan after a Stimulator session, telling him stories until he was relaxed enough to go to sleep. Soon after their arrival on Horus she had changed his bed for a much broader one, so that she could stretch out beside him and tell simple tales of life on Earth and in the Gallimaufries, stories that drew his attention until the tears ended and exhaustion took over.

Tonight was not much different. Chan drifted toward wakefulness, snuggling up close as he did so. His forehead was a little warm, though not enough to be called a fever.

Tatty closed her own eyes. The significance of the day’s events was coming home to her. Suppose that Chan had made a crucial breakthrough? Then he might be on the road to normal intelligence. That was the finest news in the world — she had grown as fond of Chan as she had ever been of anyone. But there were other implications … great implications …

If his treatment is ending, I’ll be free! Out of this prison. Free to leave Horus, free to return to my own life on Earth. Less than two months, but I feel as though I’ve been away forever. Can I go back there, now — and what will I do about Esro? Do I want to torment him, as he has tormented me?

“Tatty!” Chan jerked up out of half-sleep.

“Here.” She put her arms around him. “You’re all right. Everything’s all right.”

“No.” He put his arms around her. “It’s not all right. I wish I could go back. It used to be easy, and now it’s hard. It’s … what is the word? … complicated?”

“That’s the real world, Chan.”

“It was the real world before. My real world. Tatty, I don’t like this. I’m scared.”

“Hold on to me, Chan. You’re right, it’s not easy. Being human is never easy. But you have friends. I’ll help you, and I’ll take care of you.”