Only his face and one arm were worked out of the earth. The house was invisible behind him, but he could feel its menacing presence. He hoped she wouldn’t so much as glance out a window—Miriam had the eyes of a falcon.

The roots clutched at him, impeding every movement. He was tiring quickly now that the rush of panic had ended. His heart bounded raggedly along and his lungs bubbled.

It was a triumph when both arms lay among the rose bushes and he could press against the ground. Inch by inch he freed himself. At last his hips jerked through the final impediment and he pulled himself out. He lay beneath the sky of morning, feeling the hunger rising yet again, barely able to move, save only to tear blossoms from their branches. When he was done he rested, then pulled himself to his feet. The house stood in its garden, somber to John’s eyes. He looked high to its roof, to the tiny window of the room where Miriam kept her dead.

There was something he could do there, if he dared, if he could bear it. The house was silent. Taunting. Daring him to enter. He would, when the moment was right. If she captured him first he would lose his revenge forever. And if she did not? Then it would not matter.

The whole clinic was electrified with the news of Miriam Blaylock. By six-thirty A.M. a stunned, hollow-eyed crowd was huddled around Tom and Sarah, watching the monitors. At seven Sarah pressed a button that sounded chimes in the sleep cubicle. Miriam had been awake but motionless for two hours; her sleep had lasted exactly six. She stirred, stretched luxuriously, and opened her eyes. She looked directly into the monitor. Sarah was surprised, it was one of the gentlest, most beautiful expressions she had ever seen. “I’m awake,” said the rich voice.

The whole group stirred. Sarah knew that the others felt as she did. “I’m gonna get on the horn,” Tom said. “I’d better get things moving.” He headed toward his office to call specialists—geneticist, physiological biologist, cellular biologist, psychiatrist, and half a dozen others.

It hadn’t taken long for them to realize that they were in the presence of a potentially marvelous discovery. The gross abnormalities of the blood and the completely alien brain function left no room for doubt: Mariam Blaylock was not a member of the species Homo sapiens.