A typical adult–kid response came to my mind: Yes, everything will be fine, she will be okay, we can all go home. But I thought I should respect him more than that. “I really don’t understand what’s going on here, Daniel. You know more than I do. And I have no idea if she’s going to be okay.” I felt a stab of anger. “I don’t even know what okay means, for a fifteen-year-old girl who will have had two kids by some guy whose name she doesn’t even know.”

“They had no right,” he said.

“No. Whoever they are.”

“I should be at school.” He spread his hands. “What am I doing here?”

“Look—you did the right thing,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve lived a quiet life. What do I know about how to deal with situations like this? You saw a kid in trouble—a human being—and you responded on a human level. Your parents will be proud.”

He grimaced. “You don’t know my parents. When they find out about this I am toast.”

A junior doctor approached us. About thirty, she was short, brisk, competent, with severely cut hair. She had a yellow notepad in her hand.

Lucia was fine, the doctor said, in accented English. The girl was in the late stages of pregnancy, and it was possible she would soon go into labor. But the doctor looked a little puzzled as she said this, and I realized that she was keeping stuff back from us. Well, they had had only a few minutes to examine Lucia, and if even a fraction of what Lucia and Daniel had told us was true, they had a right to be baffled.

Peter hit the doctor with questions. “What about her breathing? Her metabolism, pulse rate? . . .” She was startled enough to try to answer him, referring to her pad a couple of times, before her customary doctor’s mask of nondisclosure slid back into place. “We’ll let you know as soon as there is more news.” And she turned and walked briskly away.

Daniel said, “What use was that? She doesn’t know what she’s dealing with.” He returned to his seat, fuming, pent up.

I murmured to Peter, “Wish I hadn’t encouraged him to drink caffeine. What about those questions you were firing at the doctor?”

He looked at me. “When we were helping her to the ambulance—didn’t you feel her pulse? Boom . . . boom . . . boom. Given the state she’s in, and given that she’d just thrown up her breakfast, it was bloody slow—I estimated less than fifty a minute—slower than a top athlete’s resting rate. And she was cold. The quack’s first test results confirm it, I think. George, it kind of fits with what you told me of the Crypt. The air down there must be dense, with high humidity, high on carbon dioxide, low on oxygen.”