Toba waved him to the car. The man peered in suspiciously. Then he withdrew his head from the car, visibly wrinkling his nose under his mask. "I don't see a patient. I see an upfluxer. And here..." — he waved the butt of his whip toward Dura and Farr — "I see two more upfluxers. Plus a pig's-ass in his underpants. But no patients."

"It's true," Toba said patiently, "that these people are from the upflux. But the old man's badly hurt. And..."

"This is a Hospital," the guard said neutrally. "Not a damn zoo. So get these animals out of here."

Toba sighed and held out his hands, apparently trying to find more words.

The guard was losing patience. He reached out and poked at Dura's shoulder with one gloved finger. "I said get them out of here. I won't tell..."

Farr moved forward. "Stop that," he said. And he shoved, apparently gently, at the guard.

The man flew backward through the Air, at last colliding with a wooden-paneled wall. His whip trailed ineffectually behind him.

Farr tipped backward with the reaction; he looked down at his own hands with astonishment.

The second guard started to uncoil his whip. "Well," he said softly, "maybe a few spins of the Wheel would help you learn your place, little boy."

"Look, this is all going wrong," Toba said. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Please; I..."

"Shut up."

Dura clenched her fists, ready to move forward. She had no doubt that she and Farr could account for this man, leather armor or not — especially with the immense new strength they seemed to have acquired here. Of course, there were more than two guards in Parz City; and beyond the next few minutes she could envisage a hundred dim and dark ways for events to unfold, flowering like deadly Crust-flowers out of this incident... But this moment was all she could influence.

The guard raised the whip to her brother. She reached for her knife and prepared to spring...

"Wait. Stop this."

Dura turned, slowly; the guard was lowering his whip.

The man who had been supervising the unloading of the other car — tall, commanding, dressed in a fine but begrimed robe, and with a head shockingly denuded of hair-tubes — was coming toward them.

Dura was aware of Toba cringing backward. The guard looked at Farr and Dura with frustrated hunger.

Dura said, "Who are you? What do you want?"

The newcomer frowned. He was about Logue's age, she judged. "Who am I? It's a long time since I was asked that. My name is Muub, my dear. I am the Administrator of this Hospital." He studied her curiously. "And you're an upfluxer, aren't you?"

"No," she said, suddenly heartily sick of that word. "I am a Human Being."