After all this time he still disliked post-mortems.

A surgeon came to know the human body as a wonderful meat machine wrapped in a remarkable epidermal package. The entire thing throbbed with multiple processes. Its juices and fibers, the awesome complexities of its wonderful substance, pulsed with life and constant change. Chemicals reacted to enzymes; cells replaced themselves, sometimes criminally; muscles pulled levers and limbs moved on ball joints; pumps, valves, filters, combustion chambers, neural networks more complex than the electronic circuitry of a giant computer—everything worked while the physician tried to anticipate the needs of the whole integrated organism.

In contrast, the pathologist labored over decaying objects in which nothing worked.

Dr. Sack came in, dour with desire for his morning coffee. “What brings you here?” he greeted Adam. “Thirst for knowledge? Wasn’t your patient, was she?” He prepared coffee for himself in a huge chipped green mug marked MOTHER.

“No, but she was treated on my Service.”

Dr. Sack grunted.

When he had drained the last of his coffee they accompanied him to the white-tiled autopsy room. Mrs. Donnelly’s body was on the table. The instruments were prepared and waiting.

Adam looked around approvingly. “You must have a good diener,” he said.

“Damn right,” Dr. Sack said. “He’s been with me eleven years. What do you know about dieners?”

“I worked as a diener when I was a student. For the medical examiner in Pittsburgh.”

“For Jerry Lobsenz? God rest him, he was a good friend of mine.”

“Of mine, too,” Silverstone said.

Dr. Sack was in no great hurry to begin. He sat in the room’s single chair, reading slowly and carefully through the case history while they waited.

Finally he left his chair and went to the body. Holding the head in his hands, he moved it from side to side. “Dr. Robinson,” he said after a moment, “will you come here, please?”

Spurgeon went and Adam followed. Dr. Sack moved the head again. In death, the old woman seemed to be denying something stubbornly. “Do you hear?”

“Yes,” Spurgeon said.

Standing next to him, Adam was able to detect the small grating sound. “What is it?”

“We’ll soon know for sure,” Dr. Sack said. “Help me to turn her. I think we’re going to find a fracture of the odontoid process,” he said to Spurgeon. “In short, the poor old thing broke her neck when she struck her head in the automobile accident.”

“But she wasn’t in pain when I saw her,” Spurgeon said. “There was no pain at all.”