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expression. Frank stood to one side, careful to keep his face
blank, but his sharp gaze didn't miss anything.
                  Major Limning was one of the top military
doctors, a man devoted to both healing and the military. He wasn't stationed at Bethesda , but he hadn't questioned the orders that
had gotten him up in the middle of the night and brought him there. He and
several other doctors had been given the task of saving this man's life. At the
time they hadn't even known his name. Now there was a name on his chart, but
they still had no inkling why he was so important to the powers that be. It
didn't make any difference; Major Lunning would use whatever weapon or
procedure he could find to help his patient. Right now, one of those weapons
was this too-thin young woman with dark blue eyes and a full,
passionate-looking mouth.
                  "I don't think we can ignore the pattern,
Ms. Granger," the Major said frankly. "It's your voice he responds
to, not mine, not Mr. Payne's, not any of the nurses'. Mr. Crossfield isn't in
a deep coma. He's breathing on his own and still has reflexes. It isn't
unreasonable to think that he can hear you. He may not understand and he
certainly can't respond, but it's entirely possible that he hears."
                  "But I understood that his coma is
drug-induced," Jay protested. "When people are drugged, aren't they
totally unconscious?"
                  "There are different levels of
consciousness. Let me explain his injuries more completely. He has simple
fractures of both legs, nothing that will prevent him from walking normally. He
has second-degree burns on his hands and arms, but the worst of the bums are on
his palms and fingers, as if he grabbed a hot pipe, or perhaps put his hands up
to shield his face. His spleen was ruptured, and we removed it. One lung was
punctured and collapsed. But the worst of his injuries were to his head and
face. His skull was fractured, and his facial bones were simply shattered.
                  "We performed surgery immediately to
repair the damage, but to control the swelling of the brain and prevent further
damage, we have to administer large doses of barbiturates. That keeps him in a
coma. Now, the deeper the coma, the less the brain functions. In a deep coma
the patient may not even be able to breathe for himself. The level of the coma
depends in part on the patient's tolerance for the drugs, which varies from
person to person. Mr. Crossfield's tolerance seems to be a bit higher than
usual, so his coma isn't as deep as it could be. We haven't increased the
dosage, because it hasn't been necessary. In time we'll gradually decrease the
dosage and bring him out of the coma. He's going to make it on his own, but
I'll tell you frankly, he definitely does better when you're with him. There's
still a lot we don't know about the mind and how it affects the body, but we
know it does."
                  "Are you saying he'll get well faster if
I'm here?"
                  The Major grinned. "That's it in a
nutshell."
                  Jay felt tired and confused, as if she'd spent
hours in a house of mirrors trying to find her way out but instead finding only
one deceitful reflection after another. It wasn't just these people, all
insisting that she stay; part of it was inside. Something happened when she
touched Steve, something she didn't understand. She certainly hadn't felt it
before, even when they'd been married. It was as if he were more than he had
been, somehow different in ways she sensed but couldn't define.
                  She wished they hadn't put this responsibility
on her. She didn't want to stay. This strange feeling she had for Steve made
her feel threatened. If she left now, it wouldn't have a chance to develop. But
if she stayed... She hadn't been devastated by their divorce, five years
earlier, because their love had never grown, never gone