He veered off the subject, then ran the conversation around to it three more times, but could not lull or trick her into telling him any more about himself. Exhausted, he gave up for the night, only to lie awake on his cot worrying the problem as a predator might worry a carcass. But all his bone-tossing did no good but to freeze his mind with frustration. Sleep on it, he told himself. Tomorrow must bring him something new. Whatever else this situation was, it wasn't stable. He felt that, felt balanced as though on a knife edge; below him lay darkness, concealing feathers or sharpened stakes or maybe nothing at all, an endless fall.

*    *    *

He wasn't quite sure of the rationale behind the hot bath and the therapeutic massage. Exercise, now, he could see that; Dr. Chrys had lugged in an exercise bicycle to Rowan's study, and let him sweat himself near to passing out. Anything that painful must be good for him. No push-ups yet, though. He'd tried one, and collapsed with a wide-eyed, muffled squeak of agony, and been yelled at quite firmly by an irate Dr. Chrys for attempting unauthorized bodily motions.

Dr. Chrys had made notes and gone off again, leaving him to Rowan's tenderer mercies. He lay now steaming gently in Rowan's bed, dressed in a towel, while she reviewed skeleto-muscular structure all up and down his back. Dr. Chrys's fingers, doing massage, had been like probes. Rowan's hands caressed. Not anatomically equipped to purr, he did manage a small, encouraging moan of appreciation now and then. She worked down to his feet and toes, and started back up.

Face down, mashed comfortably into her pillows, he became gradually aware that a very important bodily system was reporting for duty, for the first time since his revival. Res-erection indeed. His face flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and delight, and he flung an arm up as-if-casually to conceal his expression. She's your doctor. She'll want to know. It wasn't as if she weren't intimately familiar with every part of his body, inside and out, already. She'd been up to her bloody elbows in him, literally. He stayed hidden in his arm-cave anyway.

"Roll over," Rowan said, "and I'll do your other side."

"Er . . . d'rather not," he mumbled into the pillow.

"Why not?"

"Um . . . 'member how you keep askin' if somethin' has come up for me?"

"Yes . . ."

"Well . . . somethin' has."

There was a brief silence, then, "Oh! In that case, definitely roll over. I need to examine you."

He took a breath. "Things we do fer science."

He rolled over, and she took away his towel. "Has this happened before?" she inquired.

"No. Firs' time in my life. This life."

Her long cool fingers probed quickly, medically. "That looks good," she said with enthusiasm.

"Thank you," he caroled cheerfully.