"What?" she says. "What was it you--"

"Mark's latest tests, we need to discuss their results, " he interrupts with the kind of patronizing abruptness medical professionals seem to take as their right, an exalted privilege bestowed on them the moment they recite the Hippocratic Oath. It is as though even the ones capable of showing some compassion--and Annie acknowledges that Lieberman has, by and large, been decent with her--must insist on reminding you they have other patients, other cases, more urgent demands than having to explain their findings.

"Laparoscopic exam revealed metastic tumors in the liver and gallbladder," he says rapidly. "Statistically common once the disease has spread from the intestine to so many of its associated lymph nodes. Would have had a better chance with three lymphomas, but five is quite a bad crop. Very, very unfortunate. "

Annie sits very still as she listens, but can feel herself crumbling from the inside out, truly crumbling, as if her soul is made of brittle, hundred-year-old plaster. She gives him a decimated look.

"He'll be gone in five months," she says, the absolute certainty behind those words filling her with horror and bewilderment. She feels weirdly detached from the sound of her own voice, almost as if she hasn't really spoken at all, but is listening to a tape recording of herself, or maybe even some flawless impersonation issuing from a concealed intercom.

Dr. Lieberman regards her a moment in that serious yet matter-of-fact way of his. Then he shrugs his sleeve back from his wristwatch, glances down at it, and holds it out to her, turning his arm to display the dial.

"Yes, five months, three days, to be precise," he says. "We're on the fast track now. Time runs by until there's none left. "

Perplexed by his comment, Annie looks at the watch.

Her eyes quickly grow enormous.

Its face is a blank white circle. Perfectly featureless, without digits, hands, or markings of any kind.

She feels another chunk of herself give way.

Blank.

The face of the watch is blank.

"Stay calm, Annie, it tends to run a bit ahead," Lieberman says. "There's still a chance for you to say good-bye. "

Annie suddenly finds herself out of her chair, and this time makes no attempt to catch her magazine as it spills off her thighs, landing on the floor at her feet. From the corner of her eye, she sees that the cover, which has partially folded under one of the interior pages, consists of a photo of a shuttle and launch tower consumed by a roiling ball of flame. Its bold red copy--also less than altogether visible from where she stands--screams something about an explosion involving Orion, one of the mid-schedule ISS assembly flights.

Confusion churns within her. How can this be? Orion's mission is still a couple of years off, and besides, the article had been an overview of the ISS program... at least she'd thought it had ...

All at once Annie isn't sure she remembers, just as she'd initially been unable to remember being at the hospital. Her memory seems a flat, slippery surface without depth or width.