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surging through its channels, sometimes flowing freely, sometimes pooling, stagnant and festering. The channels in the boy’s lower body, which normally carried both laran and awakening sexual energy, were dangerously overloaded.
    “How long has he been like this?” Regis heard his own words as if whispered from far away.
    “He was fine this morning,” Dan responded. “Bright, a bit rebellious, a typical adolescent. I thought the trip to the market would do him good. Could he have been made ill by something he ate there?”
    Regis shook his head. “I’m not a trained monitor, but I think it’s rare for the sickness to come on so fast and strong. Danilo, what do you think?”
    With a sense of inexpressible relief, Regis felt his bredhyu’s mind open to his, a flowing unity that he had never experienced with any other human being. Like Regis, Danilo had not trained in a Tower, and like Regis, he was the sole possessor of a rare gift, that of catalyzing telepathy, of awakening latent talent. Unlike Regis, however, his own passage through the tumult of adolescent threshold sickness had been relatively benign.
    Danilo shifted, his mental touch like silk over water, and he said, in a voice that shimmered in Regis’s mind, “Where is his starstone?”
    “His—you mean a matrix crystal?” Dan said. “As far as I know, he’s never had one. Where would he get it?”
    Danilo looked directly at Regis. “I’d stake my life this boy has keyed into a starstone. That’s why—”
    Before he could go further, Felix gave a sudden cry. His body arched upward, straining at the bandages, almost ripping out the needle taped to his arm. Jason sprang into action at the same time Regis did, Danilo a split instant later. Together, the two Darkovans managed to hold the convulsing boy. Regis felt a shock as he touched the boy’s skin with his bare hands. Energy, raw and directionless, surged just beneath the surface.
    Deftly, Jason adjusted the intravenous apparatus. Regis could not see exactly what the doctor was doing, nor would he have understood if he could. Instead, he sensed a lessening of the frantic surge of laran power and a softening of the boy’s muscles. A shudder ran the length of Felix’s body, and he sank back on the bed.
    Regis drew his hands back, frowning. This was not a natural end to the spasm. The convulsions had not run their course, nor had the cause been remedied. He glanced at Jason.
    “That will hold him for the moment,” Jason said. “I’ve increased the dosage of antiseizure medication to the maximum for his body mass. I dare not give him any more.”
    Regis shook his head. “It’s not over.”
    “I know, I know.” Sweating visibly, Jason raked his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know what else to do for him. God help him if he has another attack. He could suffer permanent brain damage. That’s why I sent for you.”
    From outside the door came the sound of a woman’s voice, taut with strain, and Tiphani’s frantic sobs.
    “You’d best see to your wife.” Regis nodded to Dan, who hurried from the room.
    After a few murmured words, footsteps receded down the corridor. The room fell into a hush, the three men and the boy lying so still he seemed to be not breathing.
    “Danilo—” Regis began. “You’re sure he has a starstone?”
    Danilo nodded. “Can’t you feel the vibrational pattern?”
    “Under all that chaotic flow, who can tell anything?” Regis frowned.
    “Maybe . . . I’m not nearly as sensitive as you. If you say so, I’ll take your word on it.”
    “I know what a starstone looks like,” Jason said, puzzled. “When Felix was admitted, he did not have one on his person or among his possessions. I thought that once a person had keyed into a stone, handling it or taking it away from him could kill him.”
    For a long beat, neither Regis nor Danilo breathed an answer. Slowly, Jason nodded. “Oh.”
    If they failed to find and restore the psychoactive gem, the