“Records says you once lost a lover because he ran the P. His name was Jim. What does it mean to run the P?”

Slowly at first, then in bursts, Waela described The Game, then, seeing the reason for Hali’s question, added: “That has nothing to do with why I believe Kerro’s alive.”

“Why would the hylighters take him away?”

“They didn’t tell me.”

“I want him to be alive, too, Waela, but . . .” Hali shook her head and Waela thought she detected tears in the med-tech’s eyes.

“You were fond of him, too, Hali?”

“We had our moments.” She glanced at Waela’s swelling abdomen. “Not those moments, but good just the same.”

With a quick shake of her head, Hali turned her attention to the pribox, keyed another scan, converted it to code, stored it.

“Why are you storing that record?”

She’s watching me carefully, Hali thought. Do I dare lie to her?

Something had to be done, though, to allay the obvious fears aroused by this examination and the questions which could not be answered.

“I’ll show you,” Hali said. She called back the record and shunted it to the study screen beyond the holofocus. With an internal pointer, she indicated a red line oscillating across a green matrix.

“Your heart. Note the long, low rhythm.”

Hali keyed another sequence. A yellow line wove its way through the red, pulsing faster and with lower intensity.

“The baby’s heart.”

Again, Hali’s fingers moved over the keys. “Here’s what happened when you thought about Kerro.”

The two lines formed identical undulations. They merged and pulsed as one for a dozen beats, then separated.

“What does that mean?” Waela asked.

Hali removed the node from Waela’s hand, began restoring the pribox to its case at her hip.

“It’s called synchronous biology and we don’t know exactly what it means. Ship’s records associate it with certain psychic phenomena—faith healing, for example.”

“Faith healing?”

“Without the intervention of accepted scientific medicine.”

“But I’ve never . . .”

“Kerro showed me the records once. The healer achieves a steady physiological state, sometimes in a trance. Kerro called it ‘a symphony of the mind.’”

“I don’t see how that . . .”

“The patient’s body assumes an identical state, in complete harmony with the healer’s. When it ends, the patient is healed.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s in the records.”

“Are you trying to tell me my baby is healing me?”

“Given the unknowns about this rapid gestation,” Hali said, “I would expect greater upset from you. But you don’t seem capable of maintaining long periods of physiological imbalance.”

“Whatever else she may be, she’s still an unformed infant,” Waela said. “She could not do that.”

“She?”

Waela felt pressure against one of her lower ribs, the baby shifting.

“I’ve known all along that it’s female.”