There used to be two real doctors at the clinic, she said. Her husband and a Minang woman, both of whom had lately died of natural causes. Only Diane was left, and the only medicine she knew was what she had learned while acting as a nurse. Enough to keep the clinic going: it was an indispensable resource not only for this village but for a half-dozen nearby villages and for the impoverished breakers. Any condition she couldn't treat she referred to the Red Crescent clinic up the coast or the Catholic charity hospital in Port Magellan, though that was a long trip. In matters of cuts, cleanly broken bones, and common disorders, she was perfectly competent. She consulted regularly with a traveling physician from the Port who understood her situation and made sure she was supplied with basic medicines, sterile bandages, and so forth.

"So maybe you should have sent Tomas downcoast," Turk said. "He looks seriously ill to me."

"The cut on his arm was the least of his problems. Did Tomas tell you he had cancer?"

"Jesus, no. Cancer? Does he?"

"We brought him back here because his wound was infected, but the cancer showed up in simple blood tests. I don't have much in the way of diagnostic equipment, but I do have a portable imager—ten years old but it works like a charm. It confirmed the diagnosis, and the prognosis was very grave. Cancer is hardly an untreatable disease, but your friend had been avoiding doctors for far too long. He was deeply metastasized."

"So he is dying."

"No." Diane paused. Once again she riveted him with that stare, fierce and a little uncanny. Turk made an effort not to avert his own eyes. It was like playing stare-down with a cat. "I offered him an unconventional treatment."

"Like what, radiation or something?"

"I offered to make him a Fourth."

For a moment he was too startled to speak. Outside, the music played on, something tunelessly alien beaten out of a wooden xylophone and funneled through a cheap loudspeaker.

He said, "You can do that?"

"I can. I have."

Turk wondered what he had gotten himself into and how he could most efficiently extract himself from it.

"Well… I guess it's not illegal here…"

"You guess wrong. It's just easier to get away with. And we have to be discreet. An extra few decades of life isn't something you advertise, Turk."

"So why tell me?"

"Because Tomas is going to need some help as he recovers. And because I think I can trust you."

"How could you possibly know that?"