When he looked again Frances had disappeared before he had had a chance to ask her what to do about Elizabeth, and the little boy was sleeping on the front seat, curled up like a kitten. He began to tremble, but he forced himself to resume driving and returned to Cambridge at twenty miles an hour, hugging the right side of the road.

He never took the boy for a ride in the real car again.

The cannulas festered in his flesh. They moved the shunt several times until the small incision scars decorated his leg. The toxins had been accumulating in his system and one afternoon his entire body began to itch. He scratched until blood came and then he lay in bed and writhed, the tears streaming down his face.

That night he went to the hospital for dialysis, and when they saw the marks of his scratching they prescribed Benadryl and Stelazine, and Dr. Kender told him he would have to go on the dialysis machine three times a week instead of two. They gave him Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. instead of Tuesday and Thursday nights. That meant that even if he felt well on those days he couldn’t come into the hospital to work. He still telephoned Silverstone or Meomartino every night for a report on the Service, but he stopped making any attempt to go on rounds.

Occasionally when he was alone he wept. Once he looked up to see Frances sitting near his bed.

“Can’t you help me?” he asked her.

She smiled at him. “You have to help yourself, Harland,” she said.

“What could we have done for this man, gentlemen?” he asked the Death Committee.

But no voices answered.

He made no attempt to go back to Appleton Chapel or any other church, but one night as he sat and worked on the book he felt a sudden new certainty that he would finish it. The knowledge was very strong. He felt it not in a burst of colored lights or rising music the way such moments were always displayed on the bad movies televised every Easter morning. It was simply a quiet, forceful promise.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

The following morning before he reported to the machine he went into Mrs. Bergstrom’s room and stood by her bed. She appeared to be asleep but in a few moments she opened her eyes.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She smiled. “Not very well. How about you?”

“Do you know about me?” he said with interest.

She nodded. “We’re in the same boat. You’re the doctor who’s sick, aren’t you?”

So even the patients knew. It was the kind of information that swept through a hospital.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he said.

She licked her lips. “Dr. Kender and his people are taking care of everything. You shouldn’t worry. They’ll take care of you, too.”