"Stitch him up. I'm going to get W-one." David strode down the hall, not seeing any of the elders who moved out of his way. At the door to the operating room he was stopped by three of the young men. He saw an H-3 and said, "We have a man who's probably dying. Where's W-two?"

"Who?" H-3 asked, almost innocently.

David couldn't think of the name immediately. He stared at the young face and felt his fist tighten. "You know damn well who I mean. We need a doctor, and you have one or two in there. I'm going to bring one of them out."

He became aware of movement behind him and turned to see four more of them approaching, two girls, two boys. Interchangeable, he thought. It didn't matter which ones did what. "Tell him I want him," he said harshly. One of the newcomers was a C-12, he realized, and still more harshly he said, "It's Clarence. Sarah thinks his back is broken."

C-12 didn't change his expression. They had moved very close. They encircled him, and behind him H-3 said, "As soon as they're through in there, I'll tell them, David." And David knew there was nothing he could do, nothing at all.

Chapter 8

He stared at their smooth young faces; so familiar, living memories every one of them, like walking through his own past, seeing his aged and aging cousins rejuvenated, but rejuvenated with something missing. Familiar and alien, known and unknowable. Behind H-3 the swinging door opened and W-1 came out, still in surgical gown and mask, now down about his throat.

"I'll come now," he said, and the small group opened for him. He didn't look again at David after dismissing him with one glance.

David followed him to the emergency room and watched his deft hands as he felt Clarence's body, tested for reflexes, probed confidently along the spinal column. "I'll operate," he said, and that same confidence came through with the words. He motioned for S-1 and W-2 to bring Clarence, and left once more.

At the arrival of W-1, Sarah had moved back out of the way, and now she slowly turned and stripped off the gloves that she had put on in preparing to stitch up Clarence's wound. Warren watched the two young people cover Clarence and strap him securely, then wheel him out the door and down the hall. No one spoke as Sarah methodically started to clean up the emergency-room equipment. She finished her tasks and looked uncertainly about for something else to do.

"Will you take Margaret home and put her to bed?" David asked, and she looked at him gratefully and nodded. When she was gone David turned to Warren. "Someone has to see to the bodies, clean them up, prepare them for burial."