“Not at all. It sends out sound waves, then reads the reflections. It’s entirely benign, but just to be safe, we’ll only use it for a couple of minutes.”

Miriam lay waiting, her eyes closed, her body trembling. If it was bad news, she did not think that she had the emotional reserves to bear it. She did not think she could live past the loss of this child, but she didn’t know how to die.

She felt the cool instrument sliding on her stomach, which was ever so slightly larger now . . . or was that her imagination?

She put her hand out and Paul took it. They had kissed a few times recently, but he was still being very cool. He wasn’t dangerous to her, though, not since he’d understood that he was partly a Keeper. At least, this was her opinion.

“Miri, look.”

There on the screen was a ghost. It had a small mouth and tiny, still-unformed hands.

She opened her eyes. She stared at the image on the screen. She always had trouble decoding pictures generated by machines, and at first all she saw were red smears.

“There are the hands,” Sarah said, pointing to a slightly less smeary part of the screen.

“Oh, hey,” Paul said, “that’s my boy.”

Miriam still didn’t see . . . and then she did. A tiny face swam into focus. “He’s—oh, he’s beautiful.”

Paul asked, “Does he have teeth?”

“His mouth is human,” Sarah said.

Miriam felt a tingle of concern. “How will he feed, Sarah?”

“Not like you do.” Sarah had tested the blood of the fetus. He was ninety percent Keeper.

“Won’t he starve?”

“Miri, he has what look like normal human organs and something close to pure Keeper blood. He’s going to live—well, maybe forever.”

“As a predator,” Paul said.

“I don’t see any evidence of that,” Sarah replied. “This child has an entirely human mouth and organs.”

“How can you tell? It’s a tiny embryo.”

“I can tell because I’m trained to tell.”

“You’re a gynecologist?”

“I’m a gerontologist. But you’re talking basic medicine.”

Paul’s face went white. He sucked his cheeks in, a sign in a human being of great rage. Miriam watched him, her heart on a shivering edge. She wanted so to love him, but if he threatened her baby, well, she would have to do what she had to do.

When he spoke, his words were knives. “It’s important to me, Sarah.”

“I see a human embryo.”

“Damned, damned important!” Miriam tried to conceal her smile. In that instant, she had understood something new about Paul Ward.