She would have to “meet” Sarah, and the only fast way she could do it would be to become a patient at the Sleep Research Clinic. It would be the most dangerous thing she had done in a very long time. For the first time in history human scientists were going to get a chance to study a member of her species. They didn’t exist in human scientific literature, only in mythology. What would the scientists do when they tried to take the measure of her mystery?

Most of all, she dreaded captivity.

She was terrified by bars, such as the ones that surrounded Sarah’s ape, the one that had touched so powerfully as it died.

Miriam did not like the feeling of being menaced by humankind. And the thought of being studied by them was even more disquieting. They might consider her to be without human rights and cage her just like an ape.

The risks were frightening.

But Sarah could solve the problem of transformation, could make it permanent. That made all the risks seem trivial. If Miriam could only have known what was going to happen to John, she would have captured the doctor earlier. There might have been some small chance . . .

At the thought, her mood shifted to gray sorrow. But she refused to live in grief. Her life must be rebuilt. She would comfort John and protect him if she could, but she would not obsess herself with his suffering. Life was full of tragedies. You buried the dead.

The touch that had been broadcast through the vast emotional babble of the city by Sarah’s experimental ape was like a beacon to Miriam. It told her how very close Sarah had come to inducing transformation, and therefore to understanding it.

Miriam’s next move had been carefully planned. As soon as she successful touched Sarah she went home and made an appointment for an interview at the Sleep Research Clinic. Now that Miriam had hidden a part of herself in Sarah’s heart the next step was to engage her mind.

A part of Miriam might have enjoyed the danger of all this, just as she might have enjoyed fox hunting with John. There was something exhilarating about jeopardy. Safe air was stale, but dangerous air was silver clear. Love your enemy, her father used to say, for without him you would never taste the flavor of victory.

Yes, the noble sentiment of the past.

Forget the past. Go upstairs, change clothes; you’ll be late for your ten o’clock appointment. She had made it of necessity at the last minute. “We’ll fit you in, but please expect a delay.”