THE HOSPITAL

ASLEEP, Jesus Pietro looked ten years older. His defenses--his straight back, tight muscles, and controlled features--were relaxed. His startling pale eyes were closed. His carefully combed white hair was messy, showing the bare scalp over which it had been carefully combed. He slept alone, separated from his wife by a door which was never locked. Sometimes he thrashed in his sleep, and sometimes, ridden by insomnia, he stared at the ceiling with his arms folded and muttered to himself, which was why Nadia slept next door. But tonight he lay quiet.

He could have looked thirty again, with help. Inside his aging skin he was in good physical shape. He had good wind, thanks partly to his borrowed lung; his muscles were hard beneath loose wrinkles and deposits of fat; and his digestion was good. His teeth, all transplants, were perfect. Give him new skin, new scalp, a new liver; replace a number of sphincter and other autonomic muscles ...

But that would take a special order from the crew congress. It would be a kind of testimonial and he would accept it if it were offered, but he wasn't going to fight for it. Transplants and the giving of transplants were the right of the crew and their most powerful reward. And Jesus Pietro was ... not squeamish, but somehow reluctant to exchange parts of himself for parts of some stranger. It would be like losing part of his ego. Only the fear of death had made him accept a new lung years ago.

He slept quietly.

And things began to add up.

Polly Tournquist's films: Someone had slipped through his net night before last. Keller's getaway last night. A gnawing suspicion, only an intuition as yet, that ramrobot package #143 was even more important than anyone had guessed. Wrinkled, uncomfortable sheets. His blankets, which were a trifle too heavy. The fact that he had forgotten to brush his teeth. A mental picture of Keller diving head-down for the mist--it kept coming back to haunt him. Faint noises from outside, from the wall, noises already an hour old, noises which hadn't awakened him but which were still unexplained. His twinges of lust for the girl in the coffin cure, and the guilt that followed. His temptation to use that ancient brainwashing technique for his own private purposes, to make the rebel girl love him for a time. Adultery! More guilt.

Temptations. Escaped prisoners. Hot, wrinkled bedclothes'

No use. He was awake.

He lay rigidly on his back, arms folded, glaring into the dark. No use fighting it. Last night had fouled up his internal clock; he'd eaten breakfast at twelve-thirty. Why did he keep thinking of Keller?

(Head down over the mist, with the fans pushing hard on the seat of his pants. Hell above and Heaven below, going up into the unknown; lost forever, destroyed utterly. The dream of the Hindu, realized in physical form. The peace of total dissolution.)

Jesus Pietro rolled over and turned on the phone.

A strange voice said, "Hospital-sir."

"Who is this?"

"Master Sergeant Leonard V. Watts, sir. Night duty."

"What's happening at the Hospital, Master Sergeant?" It was not an unusual question. Jesus Pietro had asked it scores of times at early morning hours during the last ten years.

Watts' voice was crisp. "Let me see. You left at seven, sir. At seven-thirty Major Jansen ordered the release of the deadheads we picked up last night, the ones without ear mikes. Major Jansen left at nine. At ten-thirty Sergeant Helios reported that all the deadheads had been returned to their homes. Mmmm ...." Shuffling of papers in background. "All but two of the prisoners questioned today have been executed and stored away. The medical supplies section informs us that the banks will be unable handle new material until further notice. Do you want a list of executions, sir?"

"No."

"Coffin cure proceeding satisfactorily. No adverse medical reactions from suspect. Grounds reports a false alarm at twelve-oh-eight, caused by a rabbit blundering into the electric-eye barrier. No evidence of anything moving on the grounds."

"Then how do they know it was a rabbit?"

"Shall I ask, sir?"

"No. They guessed, of course. Good night." Jesus Pietro turned on his back and waited for sleep.

His thoughts drifted....

... He and Nadia hadn't been getting together much lately. Shouldn't he start taking testosterone shots? A transplant wouldn't be necessary; many glands were not put in suspended animation, but were kept running, as it were, with a complex and exact food/blood supply and a system for extracting the hormones. He could put up with the inconvenience of shots.

... Though his father hadn't.

A younger Jesus Pietro had spent much time wondering about his own conception. Why had the old man insisted that the doctors connect the vas deferens during his gonad transplant? An older Jesus Pietro thought he knew. Even sixty years ago, despite the centuries-old tradition of large families, the Plateau had been mostly uninhabited. Breeding must have seemed a duty to Haneth Castro, as it had to all his ancestors. Besides, how must the old man have felt, knowing that at last he could no longer sire children?

An older Jesus Pietro thought he knew.

His thoughts were wandering far, blurred with impending sleep. Jesus Pietro turned on his side, drowsily comfortable.

... Rabbit?

Why not? From the woods.

Jesus Pietro turned on his other side.

... What was a rabbit doing in the trapped woods?

What was anything bigger than a field mouse doing in the woods?

What was a rabbit doing on Alpha Plateau? What would it eat?

Jesus Pietro cursed and reached for the phone. To Master Sergeant Watts he said, "Take an order. Tomorrow I want the woods searched thoroughly and then deloused. If they find anything as big as a rat, I want to know about it."

"Yes, sir."

"That alarm tonight. What sector?"

"Let me see. Where the-ah. Sector six, sir."

"Six? That's nowhere near the woods."

"No, sir."

And that was that. "Good night, Master Sergeant," said Jesus Pietro, and hung up. Tomorrow they'd search the woods. Implementation was becoming decidedly slack, Jesus Pietro decided. He'd have to do something about it.

The wall slanted outward, twelve feet of concrete crosslaced with barbed wire. The gate slanted too, at the same angle, perhaps twelve degrees from vertical. Solid cast-iron it was, built to slide into the concrete wall, which was twelve feet thick. The gate was closed. Lights from inside lit the upper edges of wall and gate, and tinged the sky above.

Matt stood under the wall, looking up. He couldn't climb over. If they saw him, they'd open the gate for him ... but they mustn't see him.

They hadn't yet. The train of logic had worked. If something that glows in the dark stops glowing when it's been in the dark too long, hang it near a light. If a car goes up when it's rightside up, it'll go down fast when it's upside down. If the cops see you when you're hiding, but don't when you're not, they'll ignore you completely when you walk up the middle of a lighted road.

But logic ended here.

Whatever had helped him wasn't helping him now.

Matt turned his back on the wall. He stood beneath the overhanging iron gate, his eyes following the straight line of the road to where its lights ended. Most of the houses were dark now. The land was black all the way to the starry horizon. On his right the stars were blurred along that line, and Matt knew he was seeing the top of the void mist.