She was the oldest, the others needed her now. Alone in Crete, their Akkadian barely passable, they would certainly be destroyed. Her life was precious. She must choose to preserve it. Her father would certainly have demanded it. As hard as it was she closed her mind to him.

She turned toward the dim gray light of the surface and swam. Once there she began to plan her own salvation. The very morning they left she had taken food and Sleep, so she knew that she could go on for at least three or four days.

She opened her eyes in a chilly dungeon smelling of damp stone. Her mouth tasted awful, she had vomited in her Sleep.

The dream had left her sullen with grief, remembering her father’s face in the waves. “I could have saved him,” she said into the darkness.

“But it’s too late now, isn’t it?” screeched an answering voice.

John!

Something gleamed before her eyes, then she felt the cool pressure of a blade against her throat.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my dear. I wanted you to be awake for this.”

Tom glanced at the admission recommendation on top of the pile. Dr. Edwards had quite properly marked it for special handling. Procedure required Tom to initial any priority admissions. The clinic had a waiting list three months long.

He called Sarah. “How would you like a case? There’s a lady with night terrors of adulthood waiting for admission.”

“Are you nuts?” she roared into the phone.

“Just do an evaluation and workup. It’ll take a couple of hours. Think how it’ll look with the board. Brilliant researcher, and so dedicated she keeps her finger in the clinical pie as well. That’s heroine stuff.”

“Oh for God’s sake!”

“If you will be true to this your oath, may prosperity and good repute—”

“Hippocrates doesn’t enter into this. Night terrors, you say?”

“That’s what I like about you. You’re so damn curious. I like that in a scientist.”

There was a moment’s silence. “When’s she due to start?”

“Seven-thirty tonight. She’s on priority.”

“I should hope so.”

They rang off. Tom had almost laughed aloud. Sarah was so predictable. Her willingness to pitch in tonight was typical. Complaining and protesting all the way, she went through life doing the work of three people. It would be good for her to have contact with a patient again—a real, hurting human being. She needed the perspective.

He snorted at that thought. How the hell did he know what Sarah needed? She was so complex and mercurial, with a dark depth to match every bright height. All he could really do was offer her what he thought might be appropriate. But to assume that he could ever really know her heart, even as her lover, would be very foolish.