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   Night had fallen, but the doctor could not see it, since his lab had no windows.
   He slid open a drawer of the file cabinet and removed a creased brown folder, carried it to a lab table, and laid it open, exposing the thick sheaf of browned papers inside. The one on top was a medical form, a blood analysis report; attached to it was the photo of a small boy. The report was typewritten, but in the margin the doctor had penciled a supplemental note: "Non-human–further tests indicated."
   As yet Liz knew nothing of the report or the file that contained it, and so for her the arrival of this day was cause for unalloyed rejoicing. It was the day of her release. She got up, bathed, and dressed before dawn and was tiptoeing downstairs quietly (as she thought) when a voice from the stairhead startled her. "Going some place, are we?"
   Liz looked up. "Mom! Good morning." Her mother made a noise which was, strictly speaking, incomprehensible but might have been interpreted (and was, by Liz) as "'morning." She had her robe pulled around her, and she looked tired–but not only on account of the hour.
   "Yeah," said Liz, "Max is picking me up. We made a date to watch the sunrise together."
   "Romantic," Nancy said drily.
   "To celebrate the end of my being grounded," Liz volunteered, feeling for some reason the need to explain further.
   "Which Max was responsible for in the first place. I hope you haven't lost sight of that."
   "But that–he didn't–it was consensual."
   She immediately regretted the choice of word. Her mother assumed that straight-laced pose that made Liz cringe, and all the more because it was never fully convincing. "What was consensual?" she asked. "Liz, how far has this gone?"
   Liz tightened all over–except in her eyes, where the ire of traduced virtue could be seen simmering. "Mom," she said, "if you really knew me you wouldn't have to ask." She clattered down the rest of the stairs, no longer even trying to be quiet.
   "Liz, I'm sorry!" And she was, truly. But it was too late: her daughter was out the door that opened onto the side alley.
   Sighing, Nancy returned to her bedroom and lifted a curtain to look down onto Main Street, where Max was waiting, with his motor running. She understood his appeal to her daughter; he was a good-looking kid. She watched somewhat enviously as Liz climbed in beside him and gave him a joyful hug of reconciliation, long deferred and now come to pass. After they disengaged, Max pulled out, cut a U, and sped off down the otherwise vacant street.
   Nancy's husband sat up in bed. "Was that Lizzie I heard leaving? Where's she going at this hour?"
   "To see the sunrise with her boyfriend."
   "That Max kid?" He shook his head. "Typical adolescent goofiness."
   "First love, Jeff. You remember what that was like." He looked blank. "No, of course not. How silly of me."
   "Well, he'd better get her back in time for her shift. She's got responsibilities, you know."
   "And then we tell her?"
   Jeff looked like a trapped rabbit. "Well, sure we do, Nance. Absolutely. But we don't want to rush into–it's one of those things that has to be done the right way."
   Nancy had had enough of waiting, and of hearing good reasons for it; there always seemed to be an abundance of them. She shut her eyes for a moment and then left for the kitchen, to brew herself a pot of strong coffee. Jeff stayed in bed a long time, regretting a few oversights of the recent (and not so recent) past, and trying to motivate himself to get up.
   Outside the city limits, Max and Liz found themselves a comfortable seat at the edge of a low bluff with an unobstructed view of the eastern sky. The sun had not yet appeared. In its absence they watched the stars, which had already begun to fade as the sky gave the first promise of day.
   Liz snuggled close under Max's chin. "We're ba-ack," she crooned happily. He bent to kiss her hair. At the same time as her senses were indulging the pleasure, her mind (which was never inactive for long) was running on a separate track. "Max?" she said. "You told me you can't shape-shift. But could you shape-shift someone else? The same way you change other things?"
   "Never tried. Doubt it."
   "What about changing part of someone? Like if I wanted, oh, a little more of this or a little less of that?"
   He chuckled. "Do I get a say on which this and that?"
   "Max, I'm serious. What are the limits on what you can change and what you can't?"
   Max could tell this was one of those times she would not quit. He gave up nuzzling her for the moment to frame a reply. "We don't know. We haven't investigated. It's probably high time we did, but Isabel and Michael–" He checked himself. With Liz, he had to keep remembering not to volunteer information unthinkingly. "Why do you ask?"
   "It's a natural question, isn't it?"
   He supposed that for her it was. "Since you're curious, some day I'll take you to where we came from, and then you can see for yourself."
   Liz noticed he had dropped the subject, but she allowed him to, since this interested her just as much. "And where is that, exactly?" she asked.
   Max pointed toward the V shape overhead. "In the vicinity of Aries."
   "One of its vicinities, you mean." The correction came out automatically. "But, Max, do you have any idea of the time that would be required for a trip of that magnitude? Given the propulsion systems currently in existence–"
   Max was smiling. "You romantic, you."
   "I'm romantic! But, I mean, realistically–"
   "Did you talk to Kyle like this when you two were dating?"
   Liz thought about it. "No, not for long. His face would get this kind of waxy look–" She glanced at him. "That's the one!"
   Max adjusted his expression. "All men are brothers."
   "Wait a minute." She had just then processed what she had heard a moment before. "Aries? Max, that isn't Aries."
   "Sure it is. Michael said it was." This was probably the first time he had cited Michael as an authority on any subject.
   "I don't care." She pointed to a spot nearer the horizon. "That's Aries–or that's where it was." Those stars had now disappeared, as had most of the others. "It's a diagonal arc." She stared up at the V, which was still shining out brightly. "I don't know what that is. It's not even supposed to be there."
   "But it is," Max pointed out.
   "If it were a new star cluster, it would have been in the news. And Mr. Seligman would have mentioned it in class."
   Max knew from experience that she could go on indefinitely. "Liz, it doesn't affect us. Let's continue testing our propulsion systems." He began to plant another kiss, but she gently restrained him, with a nod eastward. "What?" Max asked.
   "What we came to see. The sunrise."
   Max gave it a second's attention. "Yeah, pretty," he said, and then he resumed his advance.
   Liz rose. "Sorry, have to get to work."
   Max rose after her with a grunt. "Liz, come on. You work for your dad. I'm sure he'd cut you some slack."
   "Not where you're concerned. He thinks you're a bad influence on me."
   "Do you agree with him?"
   "Why else would I be here?" But as she gazed into his eyes she consciously held herself back. If she were not careful, she would lose herself in them–or lose the power to reason, which amounted to the same thing. She allowed him one more kiss, but that was it.
   "Then after work?"
   "Have to finish my science fair project. And you too, right?"
   "Done." He smiled an apology. "Things like that go faster for us."
   Throughout her morning shift Liz was still thinking about him, and about herself with him, but her thoughts were not romantic ones. As often happened when she was out of his presence, logic reasserted itself, and sparked a chain of observations, inductions, and hypotheses which gave form to fears she had entertained since the beginning of their acquaintance.
   During a rare but welcome lull in the morning's activity, she slow few minutes, she resorted to her fellow server and best friend for advice or, at least, audience. "You think it's safe, what we're doing?" she asked.
   "Before the regulars have had their coffee?" said Maria. "Touch and go there."
   "No, having these–close encounters we're having. Of the alien-slash-human variety."
   "Oh. Yeah." The crush of recent disappointment was evident in her tone.
   But Liz was listening only to herself. "Because how much do we know about their physiology? Nothing! I mean, not to be gross or anything, but suppose Michael's–suppose his–"
   "Would you stop?" said Maria. Liz had already done so, of her own volition, and was blushing for what she had not said. But Maria continued anyway, in a louder voice. "It's not something I'll ever have to worry about, okay?" Then she stamped off to the back room, leaving Liz–and those patrons close enough to hear–surprised at the heat of her outburst. Later in the day Liz tried to elicit the reason for it, but Maria would say no more.
   She carried her silence into the school week, so that for Liz class was relaxing by comparison. After her last period Monday, she retired, as she often did, to the biology lab, where she would unwind by examining some find of hers under the microscope. This afternoon it was a crystal she had left over from her science fair project, and in which she had observed anomalies she had been unable to account for. So thorough was her concentration on it that she did not register the voice addressing her by name, a little more emphatically each time. At last a hand tapped her on the shoulder.
   With a start, Liz looked up. Her biology teacher was standing over her. "Sorry, I didn't want to distract you. I tried to get your attention, but apparently you didn't hear."
   "No, I was looking into my crystal." She heard her own words. "That sounded strange, didn't it?"
   Ms. Quivers smiled understandingly. "Not to me. I know what it is to be caught up in your lab work. If things had gone the way I'd hoped...." She sighed. "But I didn't have the gift."
   "What gift is that?"
   "The one you have. Limitless curiosity–"
   "Everybody has that, don't they?"
   "At birth," Ms. Quivers replied. "Only most of us lose it as we get older. You haven't. Coupled with which, you have originality of mind. An unbeatable combination. Which is the reason"–she handed Liz an application form–"that I've nominated you to represent West Ros in the national science bowl."
   "Isn't that only for seniors?"
   "It's for the most able students. In biology, that's you. Will you do it?"
   "Are you kidding?" But she immediately saw a conflict. "How much time does it take to prepare? Because, you know, my family has a restaurant and we're all expected to do our share."
   "The school can work around that. And most of the faculty are good about easing up on assignments in the weeks just before. But you'll have to apply yourself. Beware of distractions."
   "Liz?"
   Both looked toward the doors. "Max!" Liz exclaimed. "I forgot I was supposed to meet you." He smiled wanly. She was aware that she owed him an apology, but she did not offer one; the awareness was swallowed up in an absorbing but impersonal curiosity that she had transferred, without knowing it, from the crystal to him–as if she were observing him through the microscope.
   She was not smiling at him, and neither was Ms. Quivers, though for a different reason. Max shifted his feet nervously as Liz began to collect her things. "Don't forget about tomorrow." Ms. Quivers reminded her, pointing to the notice she had written in a corner of the chalkboard. "You're signed up as a monitor."
   "Oh, right. 7:30 a.m."
   "Do your other teachers know?"
   "I showed them my pass." Then Liz had one of her perennial bright ideas. "Hey, Max could be one too. I could use some help."
   "We have all the volunteers we can use. Ask one of them."
   "Sure, I just thought–"
   "No, Liz."
   Liz felt rebuked, but did not quite know why. "See you tomorrow, then."
   "And don't forget to fill out the application."
   Liz gave a nod as she left while Max held the door for her. He considered telling Ms. Quivers goodbye, but shrugged it off as wasted effort. "I don't think she likes me much," he said, as soon as he was sure the two of them were out of her hearing. "Or doesn't like me being with you."
   "She's given you A's on every test, hasn't she?"
   "She had to. I got the answers right." This was met with silence; Liz seemed to be preoccupied with some other problem. So Max changed the subject to what had been worrying him all afternoon. "Have you seen Michael lately?"
   He had to ask a second time before he got an answer, if one could call it an answer. "You haven't?"
   "Not since this morning."
   "You don't think that the coach–"
   "No, he's gone. All his classes have been reassigned. I was expecting Michael to be happy about it, but he's not. He seems–more confused than usual."
   "I think something happened between him and Maria."
   "Ah. That explains why he's off humans at the moment. I, however...." He leaned into her. To his surprise, she shied away. "Oh, so now you're off aliens?"
   Again she seemed not to hear the question. "Max, how much do you know about your body?"
   This was a response he had not expected. Maybe the girls' coach had been giving them one of those talks about their bodies. "Sorry, what?"
   "I mean, you've never had a thorough physical, have you?" She answered herself. "Stupid question. Because if you had–"
   "Once, at the orphanage. Both of us."
   "Did they find out about–? You know."
   "Apparently not. Anyway, nothing came of it. The doctor left soon after that."
   "So we have no reliable data on your physiological processes."
   Max smiled. "Any particular process you're interested in?"
   He took another bob at her; she evaded him again. "Max, I'm–"
   "Serious, I know. But we've been apart for so long. I'm feeling incredibly–affectionate. Thought you would be too."
   And so she would have been, if not for the mental cold showers she had been imposing on herself. "Of course," she said, not sounding affectionate at all. "But first we should make sure that we're–that our...." Her cheeks reddened.
   "Bodies?" Max offered.
   "Bodies," Liz agreed, "yes. That they're...." She searched for another word than the only one that occurred to her.
   Max came to her aid again. "Physically compatible?" She nodded soberly. "Liz, you and I have been over this. I'm completely human–well, almost."
   "Almost," she repeated significantly. "And how do we know that for sure?"
   "I can feel it."
   "People feel lots of things, Max. No one's done a comprehensive analysis. If your blood is abnormal, there are bound to be other abnormalities–in the circulation system, the respiratory system.... These factors don't exist in isolation." She sighed wistfully. "Wish I could study you in biology lab."
   "Cut me up, you mean?"
   "Of course not. You can't dissect someone until they're dead." The fact set her pondering. "Which poses a serious obstacle to research because–"
   "Liz!" Max waved her back. "You're not talking to me now."
   "What? No, sorry." But eight tenths of her mind was still fixed on the research dilemma.
   "You do still want my help tomorrow morning? To carry in your science project?"
   This temporarily reclaimed her attention. "You're not backing out now?"
   "No, just reminding you that you'll need me in one piece. In case you're harboring plans to the contrary."
   "Funny man." She punched his arm lightly. Then she returned to her pondering, and Max left her to it.
   The next morning the two of them, along with every other student who was taking science (which is to say, nearly every student), descended on the school gym bearing the fruits of their labors–some whole, some in separate pieces to be assembled on site. From the entrance to the rear ran long rows of folding tables for the exhibits; at the head of each row was stationed a monitor, like Liz, to point the entrants to the proper sections and the available tables. Each monitor wore a chest tag that identified him or her by subject; Liz's read "Biology."
   Upon arriving, she searched the rows for a sign to match her own. Max followed with a cardboard box labeled as containing coffee creamer (Liz had pirated it away from the restaurant). It was so large that as he entered the aisle he could not help bumping corners with another bearer, this one in the employment of Pam Troy. "Sorry, Kyle," said Max.
   Kyle's eyes moved from Max's burden to his own. "Look at us," he said. "A pair of mindless slaves at the mercy of hot-looking babes."
   Max's lips thinned in disapproval. "I don't know that I'd put it exactly like that."
   "Max!" called Liz. "Down here!"
   "Kyle!" called Pam. "Down here!"
   Kyle grinned, as if his point were proven, and the two boys proceeded down the aisle, Kyle taking the lead, to the tables the girls had picked out. These were close enough to each other so that as Liz was assembling her exhibit she heard Pam complain, "God, I hate this science stuff. It's so–scientific." Kyle flashed Liz a wry smile, of a kind she remembered from their months of dating. At his best, he was funny to be with; she just wished he were not so...guy-like.
   Max had left to fetch his own project from the Jeep. As Liz returned to setting up her own, she was sidetracked again, this time by a voice in the next aisle over. She recognized it as belonging to the astronomy teacher. "What did I stress to you in class repeatedly?" he was saying. "That I'm looking for real science, not pseudo-science. No UFOs, no alien abductions, no X files–"
   "But, Mr. Seligman, I thought–" a smaller voice began.
   "You didn't think, Nicky. That's your problem. You realize if the papers got hold of this I'd be a laughing stock to science teachers nationwide? 'Well, he's from Roswell. What do you expect?' You've earned yourself a big fat F today. Now get this tabloid garbage out of here." He left with his head down, as if to shun being seen, so he was not looking where he was going, and ran into Liz, who had stepped out into the cross-aisle to speak to him. Mr. Seligman was much flustered by the encounter. "Liz! Oh, dear! My profound apologies. I can't imagine where my head was. Did I hurt you?"
   His embarrassment spread to her, as embarrassment had a way of doing, but Liz pulled them both out of it by broaching the subject she had wanted to consult him about. "So what about this new star cluster?" she said brightly.
   "New star cluster? What new star cluster?"
   "The one shaped like a V. It's at the zenith right now."
   "Not in this hemisphere, it isn't."
   "But you must have seen it!" Yet even as she said so, she knew otherwise.
   "Ms. Parker, I watch the sky faithfully every night, and I can assure you, if any new object had manifested itself I'd be the first to be aware of it. Whatever you thought you saw, trust me, it was definitely not stars."
   He went on, leaving Liz more mystified than before. Was it possible the stars–no, not stars, seeming stars–manifested themselves only to teens through some hormonal hypertrophy of the senses? But Mr. Seligman would have dismissed this as pseudo-science too.
   Her eye lit on the exhibit he had condemned. Curiosity, and three or four steps, brought her to a closer view of it. The heading froze her where she stood. "Space Child," it read, "Where Are You Now?" Underneath were arranged some photos and documents on midnight-blue posterboard. Liz started forward to examine them.
   Almost at once a girl interposed herself–a tall, droopy-lidded girl clutching an exhibit on a wooden base, one of whose corners kept threatening to stab Liz in the eye. "You the monitor for biology?" she asked. "The guy over there"–she gestured vaguely–"said you were." Liz pointed to her tag. "Where's this go?" asked the girl. Even as Liz led the way, she could not help glancing back at the thing she wanted to examine. After finding a space for the girl's exhibit, she started back in that direction.
   But the girl was not ready to let her go. "Should it have my name on it?" she asked.
   "And your teacher's." Liz pointed to the next exhibit over. "That's the format you should follow." She tried to leave again.
   "You got a marker?"
   "Sorry, no."
   "You're the monitor and you don't got a marker?"
   "Ask at the front table."
   "Where's that?"
   "Where my finger's pointing." She left the girl only partially comprehending, but had concluded that this was her everyday state, beyond her own power to cure. She headed back toward the space-child exhibit, almost frantic by now to see what was in it.
   –or had been in it: the exhibit was gone, and the space it had occupied was empty. Peering around, Liz spied it tucked under the arm of a tall, thin boy, presumably its creator, heading for the hall door, where the big trash barrel was located. She hared after him, dodging other students with armloads of their own, and caught him up at the barrel just as he was about to consign his creation to its depths.
   "Don't!" Liz shouted.
   The boy halted, staring at her. "Huh? Why not?"
   Liz realized she knew him, a little. "Nicky–Grunewald, right? You're one of the Whits, Alex's band. We met in his garage–or somebody's garage."
   "Yeah, garage is where this should have stayed too." He whacked it a hard one. "Bought me an F. Why shouldn't I dump it?"
   Liz tried extemporizing, a skill at which she had never been adept. "Sorry, my mistake. I thought you had mine."
   Nicky had the board positioned so she could now see it clearly: the items on it included a photo of the 1947 crash site, a photograph of a child's tracks in the desert, a blood analysis with the subject's name blacked out and the penciled note "Non-human–further tests indicated".... "Oh, my God," Liz blurted out.
   Nicky took it as another slam. "This was my dad's idea, you know. How many times have I told people, you're right, he is nuts? And the one time I go along with him.... I musta been nuts myself."
   "He gave you these things?"
   "They're just copies. The originals are in his files."
   "Where did he get them?"
   She was conscious that she had no business asking, but Nicky seemed willing to answer. "Where he used to work. At the old county orphanage." Liz's worry mushroomed into alarm; she knew that was where Max and Isabel had been taken after they were found wandering in the desert. "He thought a few of the kids were–well, what it says there," Nicky continued. "He won't tell me the details, so I don't ask. But he's been collecting that stuff ever since."
   "Does he use it in his lectures? I know he teaches at the community college."
   "Nah, nah, that's a whole other thing. This is his–hobby, I guess you'd call it. He calls it research. Every night he disappears into his lab and I don't see him till the next morning."
   "He has his own lab?" Her interest on Max's behalf had suddenly merged into a wider stream–and, it must be admitted, a stronger one.
   "Used to be a summerhouse, but he had it converted over. Why?"
   "Oh, I'm quite the lab rat. What kind of research does he do?"
   "Not exactly sure. Blood tests?" Liz felt her heart take a hop. "You'd have to ask him yourself. Doesn't mean anything to me–except an F on this project."
   To a straight-A student like Liz, F was never an acceptable option. "Why don't you do another one? It'll be marked down a grade for being late, but–"
   "That would take forever."
   "Not if I helped you. I could come over tonight."
   "But you're in biology." He pointed at her button. "This is astronomy."
   Liz began to suspect him of lacking in imagination somewhat. "I'm also interested in other worlds. In fact, I've done some–field work in that area."
   Nicky hunted for the catch. "Well, okay. I mean, thanks–I guess."
   "But I want a favor in return from you."
   His guard went up; so this was it. "Yeah, what?" he asked warily.
   "I want you to introduce me to your father."
   "Is that all? Why would you want to meet him for?"
   "Like you said." Liz smiled. "To ask him myself."
   Just then she spied Max approaching and quickly doubled over the posterboard so that only the bare side showed. "Stash this in your locker," she ordered Nicky.
   "Aw, what's the point?" He stuffed it into the barrel with a vengeance as Liz watched, unable to stop him or, after he left, to retrieve it herself–because there was Max.
   Fortunately he had been paying no attention. "Excuse me, Ms. Monitor?" He held out the box containing his exhibit, which concerned rabbit farming. (Liz had no idea what had led him to choose the subject; like Nicky with his father, she had chosen not to ask.) "I need you to put me in my place," he said. Liz managed a weak smile. Sometimes Max's humor was so–Max-y. As she led him to a table she cast an eye back at the discarded posterboard. She had to finish reading that blood analysis.
   With the science fair continuing all day, she was unable to get to it again until the late evening. She had persuaded Alex into being her wheel man, for which purpose he had borrowed his father's red Volvo. They found the doors to the building locked as expected, but Liz had a master key. Alex scowled as she used it. "Should you really be doing this?" he asked.
   "Ms. Quivers loaned me the key. I sort of forgot to give it back."
   "Yes, one sees you can do it. The question on the table is–"
   "Do you know a better way to get in?" Alex, who believed she was still missing the point, fell silent.
   Silent was the hall also, except for a loud rumble which Alex ascribed hopefully to the air conditioning. When Liz opened the door to the gym, she saw the trash barrel where it had been–but empty. "S-word," she said with feeling as she shut the door back.
   Alex raised an eyebrow. "Liz, you shock me." Then the rumble came again, this time from around the corner, where the hall extended to the right. The two of them went to look. They saw no one there, but halfway down the hall an object was sitting on the floor outside the janitor's closet. Liz gave a little cry. "Is that it?" asked Alex. She nodded. He quickly fetched it and brought it back. "Now let's get the hell out of here."
   One of the office doors swung open to discharge a canvas trash cart–the source of the rumble they had heard, and now heard again–and behind it emerged the janitor called Pete, whom Michael and Maria had seen and failed to recognize on the Saturday before. Seeing the object in Alex's hands, he smiled. "You came for it, then. Knew someone would."
   "Did you?" Alex asked uncertainly.
   "That's why I laid it aside."
   Alex cocked his head at Liz, and they started out. Then she remembered her manners and looked back to say, "Thank you." Pete nodded and smiled again.
   Not until they reached the steps did she stop to look at the exhibit. "Oh, no!" she cried. "The blood analysis is missing! We have to go find it." She started back.
   "Whoa there! Where would you look?"
   "We could ask the janitor."
   "Mr. Creepy? He might have taken it himself."
   "Somebody did. But who else–" She did not have to finish the thought. "Nasedo!"
   "Liz, the fact to focus on is, it's not here. Come on, before the security guard finds us"–he knew there was always one around–"and asks what we're doing here."
   "We'll tell him we're picking up our science project."
   "Oh, uh-huh?" He pointed to the name. "Which one of us will be Nicky?"
   "Okay," she admitted, dragging out the word reluctantly, and with her eyes still on the gym building all the while. On returning them to the front, she found Alex had not waited for her vote; he was halfway down the steps, and carrying with him what they had come there to collect. Liz hurried down the steps after him.
   Once home, he left her in the garage examining their recovery by a work table lamp while he went to fetch something from the house. A few minutes later he returned through the connecting door. "I wanted to show you this," he said. He had a magazine in his hand, and he held it up for her to see.
   The title of it was UFO Enquirer. The cover showed a bulbous-headed extraterrestrial pawing a scantily clad Earth girl, in illustration of the feature article "Earth–Alien Spawning Ground?" Liz showed her annoyance at being distracted from the business at hand by what Mr. Seligman had termed "tabloid garbage." "Your dad actually reads this stuff?" she said.
   "You should see his den. Lined with it. But you're missing the important part." He pointed out the name that was attached to the article: Dr. Otto Grunewald. Liz's eyes widened. Instantly she snatched the magazine out of his hand and began riffling through it. "Obviously a crackpot," Alex commented.
   Liz skimmed the first part of the article. "I'm not so sure. Sounds like he knows his facts."
   "Facts?"
   Liz looked up. "One fact, he's definitely cognizant of. The date on that blood analysis that's missing was the day after Max's birthday."
   "So he–knows when Max was born?"
   "Oh, nobody knows when Max was born. His 'birthday,' so-called, is the date he was admitted to the orphanage."
   Alex puzzled over this. "Then Isabel's birthday should be the same, yes?"
   "It was. Mr. Evans had it changed to her date of adoption so she could have a birthday of her own. But the point"–occasionally Alex tended to miss the point of things, and she had to spell it out for him–"is that Max was the child in that display. Which was Dr. Grunewald's idea. He knows about him, and about Isabel." She slapped the magazine shut. "I need to borrow this."
   "Nothing doing! If my dad notices it's gone–"
   "He won't miss just one." She rolled it up and stuffed it into her purse.
   Alex questioned both the assertion and the likelihood of the magazine's returning to him in something like its present condition. "Careful with that! It's collectible."
   Liz stood and slung the purse over her shoulder. "Look, Alex, Max doesn't know any of this. Please don't say anything to him or to Isabel."
   "I would think it concerns them most."
   "It does, yeah. But I–I need to gather more data first." Alex looked doubtful. He did not like the idea of withholding such news from them, especially from Isabel, and a hunch informed him that the reason Liz had given for having to do so was not the only one, or the main one. "Please, Alex," she said. "For me?" This nearly always worked with him, and so it did now; finally he nodded. But he still looked doubtful.
   When Liz knocked at the Grunewalds' door that evening, it was Nicky who answered it. He was obviously pleased to see her there. "You came!" he said.
   "We kind of arranged it," she reminded him.
   "You bet. Come on in!"
   Liz had never before seen the inside of his house, only the garage, and it interested her as houses always did, her family being without one of its own. This one must have been handsome originally, but it was past due for a fixing-up; the walls needed patching and repainting, and the carpet– She looked back at Nicky to find him grinning at her in a way that made her slightly uncomfortable. "So what do we have to do?" he asked.
   Liz had an answer prepared. "You can start by introducing me to your father."
   Nicky led her through the house and the yard to an outbuilding at the rear. He leaned on the heavy fire door, pushed it open, and called in. "Dad?"
   Steps led down into a long white-walled room, immaculately kept, in sharp contrast to the main house. Liz could not help being impressed. The room contained everything a well-appointed lab ought to have: sinks, counters, tables, racks, and an array of experimental equipment, plus a refrigerator and a freezer. It also looked as though at one time it might have doubled as a doctor's office: one corner was taken up with an examining table and a cabinet of medical supplies.
   "Yes?" said a voice behind them, close enough to make her start. She turned to stare into a face older and gentler than she had imagined, though the suddenness of its appearance had momentarily wiped her preconceptions from her mind.
   "Dad," said Nicky, "this is Liz. The girl I told you about."
   "Charmed." Dr. Grunewald extended his hand.
   Liz took it. "Good to meet you." There followed an awkward silence, and she did not hesitate to jump into it. "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions about your research?" She turned to Nicky. "This'll only take a few minutes."
   "Sure, go ahead." Liz stared at him until he realized she was waiting for something more from him. "Oh, right, I get it. I'll just...." He pointed vaguely toward the house and backed out with as much grace as he could muster for his guest's benefit.
   "Please shut the–" his father began, but too late, and he went to shut it himself. "Well," he said, returning to her, "and what is it you wish to know of me?" His speech had retained, to a degree, the flavor of his native tongue.
   "Nicky tells me you're investigating–" She hazarded a guess. "Blood conditions?"
   Grunewald widened his eyes. "And this interests you?"
   "Oh, I'm very heavily into blood." She did not like the sound of this. "I mean, the whole field of microbiology, I find absolutely fascinating. It's going to be my career, you know."
   "With a specialization in hematology?"
   "Oh, that's definitely an area of interest. Of course, by the time I'm through with college, I'll know where the new ground's being broken, and I'll have a better idea of the specific course I intend to pursue."
   Grunewald could not suppress a smile. "You sound as if you were applying for employment."
   Liz sighed. "I know, it's how I talk." But that gave her an idea. "Though, since you mention it, if you did need somebody to help out here, it'd be great experience for me. If you needed somebody. To help out. Here."
   The doctor was studying her, rather as she had studied Max the previous day, like a specimen under the microscope. When he was done, he clapped his hands together, startling her. "What an excellent suggestion," he said. "When can you start?"
   "Right away!" Then she remembered. "But not tonight. I'm helping Nicky do a new science fair project. His first one–"
   "Yes, I heard about that. My fault, I'm afraid." His eyes lit up. "But wait!" He withdrew to a closet at the rear and rummaged there while Liz, taking his command literally, waited where she was. Finally Grunewald brought out what looked like a shelf with things attached. "Proof one should never toss anything away, eh? I built this myself when I was in school." He carried it to one of the counters and pointed to a paper-towel dispenser over the sink. "Fetch me a brace of those, will you?"
   Once thus equipped, he proceeded to wipe the dust from the object while Liz watched; he did not ask her to help, and so she had plenty of time to examine the object closely. It was a frame fashioned from what might have been coat-hanger wire, with three small balls stuck to the ends; two of them could be swiveled in and out of alignment with the third. A backboard provided supporting text and diagrams. "A lunar eclipse in miniature," Grunewald explained. "And by happy coincidence, another is due next month–revise these dates and, voila! What do you think of that?"
   Liz was thinking that it would save her and Nicky an RV-load of work, but she did not like to say so. "I'm sure this will make Nicky very happy."
   "And restore me to his good graces perhaps. After today he'll never again take my work seriously." He paused deliberately. "Ah, but do you, I wonder?"
   The question took Liz off guard, as Grunewald must have intended; as she spoke he appeared to be studying her reactions. "I don't really know that much about it," she began. Then she realized that this was her big chance and she had to take it, even if it meant losing the place she had just gained. "Except–well, except for this." Her heart was in her throat as she pulled out the magazine and unrolled it to show to him.
   Rather than angry, he seemed somewhat embarrassed. "Ah, yes, well. Have you read it?"
   "Yeah," Liz admitted. "Well, some of it."
   "Then you will be aware that it's nonsense. Not utter nonsense–I take care to propose nothing that may not be true. However, on the other side, there's little to say that it is. The merest speculation." He sighed. "Not that they care, of course." He walked over to a picture on the wall, a blow-up of himself at a lectern on an outdoor stage with a multitude gathered around him. "Thisis my readership–the true believers, ready to soar on any wind of affirmation that blows their way. Yet, say what you will of them, they're the ones who keep the flame alive. Therefore it is to them that I address myself–today. One day it will be otherwise, and then...." He noticed Liz move closer to the photo for a better look. "Something in it interests you?"
   She pointed to one of the multitude, a blonde girl in her teens, with pretty but angular features. "I could swear I've seen her before."
   "You probably have. That was taken near here, at a convocation held to mark the fortieth anniversary of the–celebrated event. You'd have been a child then."
   "I remember the crowds. And...."
   "What?"
   "It sounds silly. I remember feeling expectant. Excited and expectant. Not about the event, but something else." She laughed. "Figure that one out."
   Grunewald tapped his lip. "I should need more data than is presently available."
   This brought Max to her mind again. "Yeah, that's just the problem."
   "Indeed," the doctor concurred. He too seemed to speaking with a meaning of his own. The two of them studied the picture together.
   By the time she and Nicky had finished retouching the planetary model and he drove her back home, the cafe was closed, but Max was standing in the alley at the side door. Liz was less happy to see him than she knew she should be, but why, she could not say. "Who was that?" he asked her, as Nicky zoomed off.
   "No one." She did not want him to know about Dr. Grunewald; not yet.
   "Funny, it looked like someone." Liz did not reply. "I've been waiting for you. Where you been all this time?"
   "I'm working on a–biology project. I'll tell you all about it later. When my findings are conclusive."
   "Sounds mysterious." He tried to hug her, but she dodged him. "Something the matter?"
   Liz did not know, and did not want to think about it just then. "Tired, is all. 'night." She let herself in with her key and then shut the door between them; shut Max out. He left feeling puzzled and obscurely guilty.
   Before he reached the end of the block, a new worry had displaced that one. A figure that looked somehow familiar ran out in front of him with a shout–"Save me, space guy!"–and then out into the street, into the path of an oncoming Jaguar. Behind him a woman screamed. Only when Max saw who she was did he recognize the man. There was no time to prevent the collision–but he had to do something. With a quick power burst, he changed the Jag's front end–or as much as he had time for, starting at the grill and working back–to a softer metal. Combined with the swerve the driver executed at the last minute, it was enough to cushion the impact. The car hit Larry askance and propelled him to the side, but not hard enough to cripple or kill him.
   The driver had no idea of what had happened, and chose not to stick around and find out. Max changed the Jaguar back to normal as it sped away. Then he ran over and knelt beside Larry.
   Jen had preceded him. "Are you hurt?" she asked.
   He sat up with a groan. "Huh! What do you think?"
   "What were you trying to do?" asked Max.
   "I thought you'd stop the car. Like last time."
   "Are you crazy? Nobody can do that."
   Larry rubbed his neck. "Guess not."
   "And even if–" Max gave up. "Oh, you're an idiot."
   "See, Larry?" said Jen. "It's not just me." She helped him onto his feet.
   "Can you walk?" asked Max.
   Larry took an exploratory step. "Ow! But yeah." He pointed after the driver. "That guy's a public menace! Did you get his license?"
   For Max, that tore it. "You ran out in front of him! There's no way he could have kept from–" He curtailed the thought when he realized where it was heading. But Jen had heard enough to realize the same thing, and she was now staring hard at him. "Anyway," he concluded, "you're lucky to be alive."
   "More than lucky, I'd say," Jen observed.
   Her stare was making him uncomfortable. "Maybe you ought to take him to emergency," he suggested, "just in case."
   "No doctors!" Larry decreed. "Some of them are in league with–" He stopped himself. "Okay, no more," he told Jen. "Promise."
   But she seemed strangely less resolute than she had been. "We'll go home. I'll run you a hot bath." She gave Max a last, undecided glance as she helped her husband off.
   If Liz had heard the noise of the accident, she did not attend to it, being, at the moment, too much caught up in family matters. She had just shut the door on Max and was starting upstairs when her mother's voice reached her from the living room. "You still haven't told her?"
   Then her father's. "I thought we agreed we'd do it together."
   "Yes, on Sunday. What happened to that?"
   "She was gone half the day–who knows where?" This was an exaggeration, as he himself knew.
   "And when she was here, where were you?" Silence was his only reply. "We have to let her know. It affects her more than anybody."
   "As it should."
   "Jeff! Shame on you!"
   "Why? Isn't she the reason you're leaving?"
   Liz's breath caught in her throat. She felt as if a vise were pressing on her head, and on her heart. "That's not true," said her mother, echoing Liz's own unspoken thought.
   "It's not another man–or so you say. What else could it be? Hasn't our whole life these past sixteen years been centered on her? We've been so busy keeping her highness happy–Liz!"
   She was now at the archway, staring into the room. She had never noticed before how much it resembled a prison cell on its bricked side. Half one thing, half another–just like her parents. She stood huddled and forlorn, like a street urchin in the rain. But only her cheeks were wet. "Go ahead, talk," she said. "About how I'm responsible for breaking up our family."
   "Your father didn't mean that," her mother said quickly.
   His face wore exactly the look that Liz had foreseen it would. "Lizzie, honey–"
   "If I'd died that day the way I was supposed to, none of this would have happened."
   "Liz!"
   "And as for the highness thing–you put that on me. It wasn't something I wanted." She ran to her room; a second later they heard the door slam.
   "Well, thank you, Jeff," said Nancy. "For telling her."
   After a half hour or so he came knocking at her door, but she did not answer. He tried the knob, but it was locked. He called in to her. "Lizzie? Princess?"
   "Don't call me that!" he heard from the other side. "Don't call me that ever again!" The voice was muffled by layers of bedcovers–the means closest at hand to isolate herself from everyone and everything.
   She did not mention the impending divorce at school the next day; in fact, she hardly spoke to anyone the whole morning. After third period she stopped by her locker and descried Maria at hers, looking almost as unhappy as Liz felt, and keeping her distance. Liz, who could not remember the reason for that, felt a desire to bridge the gap, so she would again have someone to confide in, but before she had made up her mind to it, she spied Max approaching. Not him, she thought, not now.    "Liz!" he called out cheerfully, having made a conscious effort to blot from memory the less-than-friendly treatment she had accorded him at their last meeting. However, it was recalled to him at once by the cool reception he got now. He had hoped for more; hoped he had misread her attitude of the previous night. "Have I done something wrong?" he asked, point blank. Liz shook her head. "Is there–someone else?" He cast around in his mind; only one face presented itself. "It's not Kyle, is it?"
   Liz's eyes bulged. "Kyle? My God, never."
   "That's good. When I saw him looking at you yesterday...." Max laughed in relief. "I should have known you'd have better sense than that."
   The color rose to her cheeks. "Oh, really, Max?" Immediately Max knew he had erred. "Well, guess what, my friend? I don't need your seal of approval on how I conduct my life. What I do about Kyle, or my parents, or anything else is based on my decisions as an independent rational being–a human being. You don't know us enough about us to judge us. How could you? Someone like you?"
   She had not meant to put it like that; she could see that it cut deeply, and she regretted saying it, but also she did not.
   "Someone like me?" Max echoed hollowly. He ran his eyes down her: eyes that no longer beckoned her to lose herself there, but looked lost themselves. "You're right," he said. "I don't know you at all."
   And so he left.
   Maria flung her locker door shut with a clang. "Why would you do that?" It was the first thing she had said to Liz since the day before; she could not help herself.
   "Do what?" said Liz. But she knew.
   "Blow him off that way. The boy adores you!"
   "Yeah, that could change. In a flash, Maria."
   "It's not enough for you he saved your life? When you have someone you can count on, you don't–"
   "You can't count on anyone, ever. Understand? Even people you thought you knew. And Max is different from us. It's a scientific fact. His thinking is different, his blood's different–what else? What's his life cycle? Maybe he's going to metamorphose into a–a giant green blob. And Michael too. Until we can conduct a controlled experimental study–"
   "You want to experiment on them? Like Dr. Frankenstein?"
   Liz was shocked. "Is that how you see me?"
   "Didn't you say once it's all right for scientists to hurt people as long as they get the information they want?"
   "That's not what I said. I said sometimes sacrifices are–"
   "Human sacrifices? Or only alien sacrifices, like Max?"
   "You are so ignorant of the scientific process." Liz could hear how stuck-up that sounded.
   "I know your 'process' has turned you into some inhuman ice maiden–la fría. Why Max even bothers with you, I'll never understand. You don't deserve him as a boyfriend. Or me as a best friend."
   "If you feel that way, why don't you get yourself a new best friend?"
   "All right, I will!" Maria thought of the perfect parting shot. "And I know just the one–Pam Troy. Your last boyfriend had the right idea." She saw this hit home and she was satisfied. Then she left. Liz was alone–all alone. Well, so be it, she thought; she made up her mind to relish her solitude.
   Unfortunately it did not last. Late that afternoon at the Grunewalds', as she turned into the front walk, an all-too-recognizable voice brought her up short. "So is this his place, huh?'
   She whirled to meet the eyes of its owner. "Max, what are you doing here?"
   "Had to find out who it was you've been seeing. I knew there had to be someone."
   "You followed me?"
   "You wouldn't tell me. What other choice did I have?"
   "I don't have to account to you for my movements! Maybe where you come from, this is a normal part of the mating ritual, but down here on Earth–"
   "Where I come from? Liz, I've spent my whole life here–all I know of it."
   "Exactly. But what don't you know?" With the air of having won a point, she started on up the walk.
   Max did the same. "Think I'll have a talk with this guy myself. Straighten out a few things."
   Liz halted and faced him. "Max, do not do this. I'm telling you. Do not."
   "It isn't like you to be so secretive."
   "I never had a stalker before."
   "I'm not a stalker!"
   "Then stop acting like one. Go, Max. Now." She waited. So did he. But she was ready to wait forever and he was not. "All right," he said, with a hint of threat in it. Then he went. Ironic, Liz thought. And here I'm doing all this just for him. She believed it too. Self-justification, frustration, and a measure of regret competed inside her, but ultimately what took first place was the scientific spirit, and it was this which propelled her forward, along the walk, up the porch steps, and inside.
   Her assignment that day–taking an inventory of the equipment–delighted her, not only because she enjoyed compiling lists of things but also because it gave her a chance to nose around, to the extent she could with Grunewald at his microscope only a few yards away. At one point she started to interrupt him, to ask the name of a particular beaker (or was it a retort?), but she stopped herself; best not, for his sake and her own. After assuring herself by a glance that he was not watching her, she pulled a little at the top drawer of the file cabinet: locked, of course. She continued with the inventory, but her eyes (and her mind) kept stealing back to the cabinet.
   A few minutes later the doctor rose. "I'm going out for a little," he said. "Keep on with what you're doing."
   No sooner was he gone than Liz started toward the desk, where the key had to be (if he did not have it with him). But she never got that far. Passing the microscope, she could not resist–she never could–the compulsion to peer in. She was astonished by what she saw: a blood specimen, but of a peculiar type, green instead of red; like so many tiny green eyes staring up at her. She had seen that type before.
   Next to the microscope sat a wooden box containing more slides. She held one of them up to the light. It appeared to be another blood specimen; no doubt they all were. She was eager to work through them before the doctor returned–so extremely eager that when she tried to substitute the new slide for the one in the microscope plate, it slid out of her fingers, fell, and shattered on the floor. "Oh, no!" she cried.
   She knelt and began collecting the pieces that were big enough for her to grasp. Then she heard the door open. She quickly stood, and with her rearmost foot swept the rest of the glass under the microscope table.
   But it was not the doctor who entered; it was Nicky. "Hey, Liz!" he said, looking around. "You seen my dad?"
   "He left for a while. Didn't say where he was going."
   "Oh, no?"
   "No."
   Nicky looked around some more, trying to think of more to say. "You really like this test tube stuff, huh?"
   "Oh, huh–I mean, yes. Yes, I do."
   She was holding her hands behind her back. In her nervousness she closed the left one on the glass it was holding, and one of the shards punctured the skin. She gave a tiny squeal. "You okay?" Nicky asked.
   Liz forced a smile to cover up what she was feeling. "Phenomenal," she said. But she did not look it.
   Nicky was wise enough to be suspicious, but had no way of knowing what to be suspicious of. "You're sure my dad's not here?" he said.
   "Do you see him anywhere?"
   "No," he admitted.
   "Well, then?"
   Nicky looked for the catch and could not find it. "I really should get back to work," said Liz. She turned away, moving her hands to the front as she did so. Nicky was still unsatisfied, but he shrugged it off, as he was used to doing with his father. On his way out he left the door open again.
   Liz uncupped her hand to examine the cut. Her blood had moistened the sample on the glass, and brought it welling to life. The two strains, green and red, pooled together, and appeared to glow for a second. Then the glow faded.
   From the garage the discordant twangs of an electric guitar invaded the quietude; Nicky was practicing. His insistent rhythm matched Liz's galloping heartbeat. She ran to the sink, rinsed her hand, and wiped it dry with a paper towel. Kneeling by the table, she used the same towel to pick up what remained of the glass, fearful all the while that the doctor would return and catch her at it. When she had collected all she could, she folded it up in the towel, stuffed the towel into her purse, and ran from the lab. And then home.
   As she approached the cafe she saw her father and Alex in conversation outside; she did not feel up to meeting either one. So she circled around to the back alley and entered by the fire ladder, the rooftop patio, and her bedroom window. Once inside, she re-inspected the cut, which was now almost unnoticeable. She extracted her journal from its hiding place within the wall, took it to her desk, and began to write up her observations, impartially (as she hoped) and impassively.
   She was interrupted by a knock at her door. "Liz?" Her mother: of course. And the purpose of her visit would be to lecture her daughter on the importance of being sensitive to the needs of one's parents'. Liz knew all about that, but her own needs were all that mattered to her at the moment. And so she ignored the knocking. "Liz, I heard you come in," said Nancy, "so I know you're in there. Open your door, please."
   Her mother's persistency would keep her out there forever, and Liz, having inherited it herself, knew this. "What?" she said finally, with a sullenness she felt sometimes but seldom gave way to.
   "Open your door and I'll tell you."
   Liz smacked her pen down with a sigh of exasperation. Moments later she swung the door open and was staring into her mother's face. "What?" she said again.
   "Well," said Nancy, " some courtesy, for a start."
   "Sorry," said Liz, only half-meaning it, and then, in a tone only a little moderated, "So?"–which was not very far from "What?"
   Fortunately Nancy, from her years with Jeff, was practiced in patience and forbearance. And she truly had Liz's best interest at heart. She tried to stay focused on that. "I'd like to ask you a personal question. If I may."
   "Can I stop you?"
   "Are you and Max not speaking these days?"
   Liz was surprised she would even know that. "Why would you care? You never liked me seeing him."
   "True. But there's also Maria."
   "What about Maria?"
   "She's asked to cut back her hours, to work only the shifts you're not working. Have you quarreled with her too?"
   "She was being completely unfair." She wanted to add, And it's none of your business either, but she restrained herself.
   "Liz, if you're pushing away everyone who cares about you–"
   "I'm not the one who's leaving!"
   This had seemed to burst out of her from nowhere; she had had no idea she was going to say it, and she wished she had not, or not in that way. But now that it had been said, it could not be taken back. That would have been dishonest.
   Nancy had flinched a little at the outcry; she shut her eyes while she recovered her train of thought. "And now you're afraid to be close to anybody," she said. "Not the most positive outcome, Liz–is it?" Liz did not reply. She did not know what to say. The statement was not entirely true–but it was not entirely untrue either.
   Her mother saw there was no point in pressing her to say more. "All right, then do me this one favor at least–spare me two hours of your time. It shouldn't take any longer than that."
   "What shouldn't?"
   Nancy answered with another question. "What time tomorrow are you through with your lab work?" This was what Liz was calling her job at Grunewald's, when anyone asked.
   "Five."
   "That's fine. We can go then. Please try to be on time, will you?" She began to shut the door.
   "On time for what? Where are we going?"
   "A place I want you to see." Liz could not imagine where, but did not expend much thought on the question; she had a more pressing worry.
   She tried not to show her nervousness the following afternoon as she attended to her lab duties, as well as she could manage with her heart pounding inside her like a fist on a punching bag. Grunewald was standing at the microscope table, searching through the box of slides–and then searching through them once again. Liz tried keep from looking at him.
   "Ms. Parker?" he called at last. "Come here a moment, will you?" And she came. "Today one of my slides appears to be missing. Would you be able to shed any light on its disappearance?"
   Liz opened her mouth with the intention of producing a lie. But that was not what came out. "I broke it," she said. Grunewald's face betrayed no expression; Liz felt compelled to go on. "I was looking at it and I dropped it. I hoped–I hoped that you wouldn't notice."
   The doctor's tongue made a clock-like sound. "Wouldn't you have noticed, in my place?" Liz did not reply. "Of course you would. So that was a vain hope, wasn't it?" This time he did not wait for the answer. "May I ask where the slide is now?"
   "It broke, I told you. I threw the pieces away."
   "Yes, but where is it really?" His eyes bored into her. "With Max Evans?"
   This astonished her. "Max? I would never–no!"
   Grunewald took a key from his pocket. "Open the top drawer of my filing cabinet, if you will." Liz did as instructed. "And now remove the last folder–no, the very last one. Open it." Inside she discovered a stack of photos–dozens, maybe hundreds of them–of Max and herself in every place that they frequented: school, the cafe, the park, various sidewalks. Some of the moments pictured, she did not remember herself. In the same drawer, she had seen other folders, with other photos. "You came here spying on his behalf," Grunewald proclaimed, "to find out what I know about him. And you took that slide to show him, didn't you? Eh? Confess it!"
   "No! I'm not here for him. I'm not!" She realized it for the first time. "I told myself I was, but that wasn't true. I'm here for me–because I want to know. Me, Liz Parker. Maybe that's wrong, but it won't make it right to keep deceiving myself." Grunewald's eyes showed a glimmer of satisfaction. "And I wasn't honest with you either. I'm sorry about that. But would you have been, in my place?"
   "No," he said, "I confess I would not."
   "Then that was a vain hope–wasn't it?"
   "Don't be pert." But he sounded amused rather than offended. "Very well, I believe you. You may continue working here." He turned back to his microscope.
   But Liz–forthright, compulsively driven Liz (and therein, though she would have denied it, her mother's daughter)–was not about to leave it at that. "Now hold on a minute! You have a right to be mad at me because I broke your slide and I wasn't up front with you about me and Max. But what about you? You knew about us. Obviously you've been spying on us. The blood on that slide was Max's, wasn't it? How did you get it?"
   Grunewald regarded her with something like amazement. "Then you knew what it was. No one else would have. You're the best possible person I could have found to assist me here." Liz felt herself beaming, and told herself to stop it. "But there are things you don't know. That blood didn't belong to your friend. It belonged to my son."
   "Nicky?"
   "When he was scarcely more than an infant, I was engaged by the county to provide pediatric services to the orphanage–the old one, out on Highway 285. I believe it was later converted to a cheese factory."
   "I know. Max told me."
   Grunewald stood and crossed to the file cabinet. "There was a fire. It was deliberately set. Someone wanted those records destroyed." Immediately Liz thought of Nasedo. "And they were destroyed–all except the carbon copies I'd taken." He pulled out another folder and handed it to her. It contained the blood analysis on Max that she had seen in Nicky's exhibit, an identical analysis on Isabel, and other reports concerning one or the other.
   "As part of my duties," Grunewald elaborated, "I examined every child as it was enrolled. One night, two children, a boy and a girl, were brought in from the desert. I knew from the first that they were different. Their blood had properties that seemed–almost magical." Liz envisioned a makeshift office, occupied by a younger, more fervid Grunewald, and two small, scared children–strangers in a strange land–under his curious scrutiny.
   "Nicky was anemic," he continued. "Rashly, I infused their blood into him, hoping it would strengthen him." Liz surmised that he had done it in secret–taken the magical children from their beds, drawn their blood behind a locked door, sneaked the specimens out under his coat. She wondered for a moment just how ethical a physician he had been. But it was not for her to judge; she could imagine herself in the same circumstances and doing the same.
   "I brought in a colleague to confirm my findings about the children. I gave him the blood to examine for himself. But they changed it somehow–that is, the girl did." This gave Liz to wonder: how would Isabel have known to do that, lacking language, or other data on this world? How would she have known that was what would be required to divert suspicion? Perhaps she had picked up an image from Grunewald's mind and guessed enough of its meaning. Or perhaps she had seen into his own blood, divined that it represented the standard to which they were supposed to conform, and changed Max's to match. Again Liz could envision the scene: Grunewald inspecting the sample again, blaming the children for the change in it, insisting that his colleague wait until he could drag them back in and take another sample, a true one this time....
   "Of course he thought I was insane. Unfit for duty." Of course, Liz agreed silently; anyone would have. "He took his opinion to the county board, and my contract was terminated. Later I gave up the practice altogether to devote myself to teaching–and my research. By then it was vital to me." He stared darkly at the slide box. "You see, the blood I'd pumped into–into Nicky–had had the opposite effect from what I'd intended. It corrupted his blood. It poisoned him."
   Liz felt a chill. She glanced down at her left hand, which the same blood had entered–but just a smidge of it, and the cut had stopped bleeding by the time she got home; so she reassured herself. Of course she would continue to monitor its progress; that was the scientific thing to do. But there was no basis for worry, none at all. She was sure that if she told the doctor, he would confirm her conclusion. But she was not going to tell him.
   She became aware that her attention had strayed. "...find a cure," Grunewald was saying. "But I had only that small sample of donor blood to start. Now it's used up and I need more. From your friend and his sister. If you were to invite them here and I showed them the work I'm doing, perhaps together we could persuade them to work with us."
   Liz did not quite understand. "By giving blood, you mean?"
   "By offering themselves as subjects for experiment." He could not hide his excitement; it would have put Liz off if she had not felt it too. This as what she had been wanting herself, and when Grunewald went on to describe his plan, he was describing her own fantasy. "We could perform every test there is," he said, "and learn all there is to know about their physiology. It would mark a new chapter in scientific discovery, and perhaps it would show me the way to a cure–for Nicky, I mean. Will you help me?"
   Liz hesitated–but for practical, not ethical, reasons. "First off," she said, "you can forget about Isabel. Nobody's ever been able to talk her into doing something that wasn't her idea to start with. Max–maybe, if you put it to him the right way. And if I can get him over here."
   "Yes, yes," Grunewald agreed matter-of-factly, "you do that. I will take care of the rest."
   And so that afternoon Max received an unexpected visit at work. The UFO Center was empty of visitors, as it often was in the late afternoon. He was proceeding up and down the rows of photos and news cuttings, wiping the dust from the display windows, when he happened to look toward the entryway where a flashing green light simulated...something, he was never sure what–the landing lights of a UFO perhaps, or a containment breach at Area 51–and he saw Liz on the steps. The pulsing glow gave her features a sinister cast that came and went, came and went.
   She descended by the steps to the main floor and approached him; her first words were harmless enough. "Hi, Max."
   "Oh, are we talking again?" He continued dusting. "Or is this part of some experiment?"
   Liz paled a little. "Why–why would you say that?"
   "Specimen for dissection, remember?"
   She had to strain to recall the conversation, it seemed so long ago now. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry." Further apology seemed in order. "And for yesterday."
   At last, relenting, he looked at her. "Me too." The fault had been partly his.
   "It's natural we'd have trouble communicating sometimes," Liz offered. "After all, you are different from–the rest of us."
   "Different scary?"
   "No!" But that was not precisely accurate. "That is, not in yourself–"
   "Only as a freak of nature?"
   "No! As a–an undetermined quantity. That is, an anomaly–or seeming anomaly–oh, I knew I'd mess this up." She cut to the chase. "Max, there's someone I'd like you to meet. He's the person I've been seeing after school." She could tell from Max's face what he was thinking. "It isn't like that! He's a doctor. I'm helping him in his research. He's interested in enlisting you to help too."
   Max grew wary. "What kind of research?"
   "He'll explain it to you. I can take you to see him when you're done here."
   Max shook his head. "My parents are expecting me home for dinner. Since I just got off being grounded, I don't want to push it."
   "Then after dinner?"
   Max felt an uneasiness he could not explain to himself, let alone to her. "Liz, are you sure this is something you want?"
   "At the moment it's what I want most in the whole world."
   That settled the question. After his unjust suspicions before, he felt he could not deny her this; he had been wrong then, and probably was now. "All right. I'll come by for you at 7."
   "7 would–oh, no!" She had suddenly remembered her appointment with her mother. "I can't. I have to go now. I'll meet you there at 7:30. 'bye!"
   "Liz! Who are we meeting?" But she was already out the doors.
   She arrived home only a couple of minutes late, and was soon sitting beside her mother in the red Acura, heading south on 285. "Where are you taking us?" Liz asked.
   "You'll see soon enough."
   "Who'll make dinner for Dad if we're both gone?"
   "Liz, we own a restaurant, remember?"
   Liz looked back toward town. She was worried about Max, she did not know why–maybe because when she had left him he had seemed worried himself. But that was usual with him. She had no clue where she and her mother were going, and did not try to guess; it would have been a waste of time.
   At last they turned onto a winding drive which Liz recognized as the approach to Angels' Ground. She wondered why she had been brought there. The parking area was empty; the loving couples would not start arriving for two hours. Nancy swung in at one end and shut off the motor. As the two of them stepped out of the car, a soft breeze welcomed them. They took the path that ran along the west rim, with Nancy leading. She stopped at fifty yards or so. "This is it," she announced.
   Liz made a quick reconnaissance; the spot appeared indistinguishable from any other. "Okay. What is it?"
   "The place where your dad and I used to come every Friday night for our–romantic interludes, I suppose you could call them–both before our marriage and after. For a while at least."
   This disclosure made Liz feel a little squirmy. "Mom, I'm not sure I need to–"
   "One Friday night," her mother went on, ignoring her, "something strange and wonderful happened here. Your father claimed afterward he hadn't seen it, but he had. He blocked it because it didn't jibe with his world view."
   "What was it?" Liz was interested in spite of herself.
   "Well. At the moment when we–that is, when I–the moment–you understand?"
   Liz felt squirmy again. "Mom...."
   "–I saw a glow. Down there." Her eyes–and so, inevitably, Liz's–dropped to that part of her. "And I could feel it. I could feel the glow. That was the moment you were conceived."
   "But how could you know that? I mean, how could you be sure?"
   Her mother laughed. "My little scientist. I just knew. So, you see, your arrival was magical from the beginning. You were–and you are–something very special to both of us."
   "Except Dad didn't see it."
   "He did. The first time he held you." She squeezed Liz's arm. "It's not you he blames, baby. It's himself. He's just taking it out on you. And he blames himself for that too."
   Liz understood her father, for the most part; the physical phenomenon she had just heard described, and which seemed unexplainable, interested her more. "A glow, you said?"
   "I'd sign an affidavit attesting to the fact. And Amy Deluca–"
   "Maria's mom?"
   "She always insisted this place was a center of cosmic power. Of course, that was Amy."
   This set an idea simmering in Liz's brain. "Is it possible Maria was conceived here too?"
   "I wouldn't be surprised. The two of them used to come up here all the time. Amy and that lowlife she ended up marrying–and later divorcing." Another recollection came to her. "'Glowworm'! That's what she used to call Maria as a baby. I wonder–"
   Liz could hardly contain her excitement. "And Alex's parents? Did they come up here too?"
   "We never really knew them. His mother died, didn't she?"
   But Liz had stopped listening, caught up in the wonder of her discovery. "I bet they did. I bet.... It's got to be more than a coincidence. Don't you see?" Of course her listener did not, but the question was rhetorical. "Oh, my God, this is amazing!"
   In her enthusiasm she had all but forgotten the presence of her mother, who had moved to the cliff edge, facing the sinking sun. After a moment Liz heard a sound she had only heard from her once before: the sound of sobbing. "Mom? What is it?"
   Nancy laughed, even as she wept. "She asks what it is. My life's about to take a left turn into a tunnel with no light at the end, my family is disintegrating because of a choice I made–me, no one else–and my only child, whom I had believed to be upset about this state of things–who certainly gave every indication of it up to this evening–she is deliriously happy." She broke out in a cry. "What do you have to be so damn happy about?"
   Under normal circumstances Liz would have felt that a hug was called for. But the two of them had never been like that, or not since Liz had been small. "Mom, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about you and the stuff you must be going through."
   "Guess not," Nancy muttered.
   Liz continued without pausing. "It's just that what you told me is, like, a really big deal–so big you can't even imagine."
   Nancy thought she might. "Does it have anything to do with Max Evans?"
   Liz did not know how to answer. "In a way."
   "I know the two of you are into something out of the ordinary, something you won't talk to your father or me about. We thought at first it might be drugs–"
   "Oh, Mom, no!"
   "We realize that now. It must be something we're too old to understand. Some kind of cult thing. I know how exciting those can be. But they can also be consuming. So, whatever this 'big deal' is–"
   Liz could not tell her; even if she could have done so without revealing the origin of Max and the others, it was too early to regard it as proven. But she did not like to see her mother waste her time in straying down the wrong road. "What it is, Mom, is a–hypothesis. Which, if true, would explain why Max and I are–why we seem to be–destined for each other." Her mother smiled tolerantly. "I know, it sounds all gooey-eyed. But it's totally scientific. Like a unified field theory of my life, or that part of it anyhow. And if Alex can confirm it–"
   "Baby, there are some things you can't predict. As I can vouch from late experience."
   Liz had another of her bright ideas. "Do you think if you brought Dad up here–"
   "Nice thought. But it's too late. That chapter's over. The life has drained out of us." Liz saw this was true, and that she ought to have seen it before; there had been plenty of signs. But she had not been looking. "As you know," said Nancy, "my work has been taking me to Santa Fe lately. That's where I'll be moving. And I was hoping...." She did not have to finish. "It's a big city, Liz. With a lot more to see, more in the way of opportunities–"
   Liz remembered. Soon after Nancy had begun commuting to the capital, twice (and occasionally three times) a week, she had taken Liz there for a day to show her around, even letting her skip school for the occasion. They had taken in the museums and galleries, lunched at the best little Mexican seafood place, which Nancy's boss had recommended, and gone home with dozens of sights left unseen. At the time the prospect of living there some day had tempted Liz keenly, but now....
   "I can't," she said.
   Nancy nodded. "You've always been closer to your father. Even when you're mad at each other."
   "He needs somebody. To remind him of stuff."
   "Don't I know it?"
   "Then there's Max. Things aren't good between us at the moment. I'd like to make them right, if I can."
   "Baby, don't take this wrong, but I wouldn't want to see you toss away your future for something that may only be for the present."
   Her daughter smiled at the obviousness of the advice. "You know, I know that. And I know this chapter will probably end too. But what if it's not for a long time? What if it never ends?"
   "You can't tell," Nancy conceded. "Especially at sixteen." On an impulse, she opened her arms. "May I hug my sixteen-year-old?"
   It was out of character for both, but Liz could hardly refuse. The unaccustomed closeness, awkward as it felt, was oddly pleasing. But after a few seconds she found herself becoming impatient. "Um, this is great, but, you know, I need to get back. I promised to meet Max. And before that, I have to conduct a–field interview."
   Nancy stared at her. "You are the oddest girl sometimes."
   As they walked back to the car, Liz recalled another of her investigations, which was puzzling her increasingly. "That V shape up there–I don't suppose you know what constellation it is?"
   "You're the science mavin." Nancy looked upward where Liz was pointing. "I don't see anything. Must be my aging eyes." And she could not have missed it; at that early hour, it was the only thing in the sky. This corroborated Mr. Seligman's testimony. Then only we can see it, Liz thought, we six. She did not yet know it for a scientific fact, of course. But she would have bet anything on it.
   Before leaving for her interview, of which Alex was to be the subject, she peered into her wall niche, pondering whether to take the artifact along. Following the interview, she would be seeing Grunewald, and she believed that with his knowledge of extraterrestrials, he might be able to infer something of its nature; also, she would have liked to impress him with a find of her own. But she had not asked Max, and suspected he would not approve. So she sealed the niche again.
   When she reached the Whitman house, music greeted her ears, though the garage door was shut. She pounded on it without result. The self-correcting clock she always carried with her read 6:40; she could still get to Grunewald's on time. She walked over to the front stoop, where her ring at the door was answered, though none too promptly, by Alex's father. "You'll be wanting Alex," he said. "I'll take you back to him."
   "I tried the garage door. But with all the noise...."
   "I know!" Donald agreed. "We're trying to hold a meeting here." As she stepped inside, he nodded toward the den, where a group of men like him–middle-aged and dull–were congregated. Liz hated to stereotype people, but after all, some people were stereotypes. "If those kids don't knock it off soon, I'll"–Donald floundered–"declare an adjournment," he ended lamely. Then he led her up the hall toward the garage.
   Liz's eyes kept returning to the den. "What kind of meeting is that?"
   "Not your concern." The rudeness of his answer surprised her. Then he noticed the top of the UFO Inquirer protruding from her purse. "Is that my magazine?"
   "You know, it is. I was just–"
   He grabbed it. "How'd you get hold of it?"
   "Alex loaned it to me to read."
   "He should learn to respect other people's property." He inspected. "Now look at it! The corner's bent."
   Liz began to suspect a strain of immaturity in his make-up, but she also realized he could tell her more about Angels' Ground than his son could. Then she would not have to wait for the Whits to finish rehearsing. "Excuse me," she said to him, "you may think it's weird, me asking you this–"
   That was as far as she got; Donald either had not heard her or was ignoring her deliberately. The two of them had now reached the connecting door. As Donald he threw it open, a tide of noise rolled out and over them. Alex and his bandmates–Nicky on guitar, Markos on rhythm, and Chris on drums–were in full swing. "Alex!" his father shouted over them. "Company!" With that, he went in to his meeting, leaving Liz on her own. But somehow Alex had managed to hear the announcement and he acknowledged her presence with a nod .
   It was not long afterward when Max arrived at Dr. Grunewald's, his apprehensions of ill omen continuing unallayed. He had arrived early, and was standing on the porch debating whether to stay when the door swung open, revealing a figure whom he recognized immediately. "You!" he said–but recovered fast enough to mask the recognition. "–must be the man I'm supposed to meet," he finished. "Liz invited me."
   "Ms. Parker was detained. She asked me to see to you till she arrives." Grunewald's manner was smooth, almost too smooth. "And see to you I shall," he concluded as Max stepped across the threshold, his misgivings blazing more strongly than ever. He hardly had time to see the syringe raised above him, in a hand that had been hidden, before the needle plunged into his neck. And he had no time whatever to act before the drug took hold and the room went black.
    The panic he had felt in those few seconds was communicated to Isabel in a flash. She dropped the plate she was drying, which her mother, next to her at the sink, had just washed. "What is it?" asked Diane. "What's wrong?"
   Isabel stared at the pieces on the floor. If her mother had not been present, she could have reassembled them in a trice. "Slipped out of my hand. Sorry."
   The phone rang in the living room. "You get it," Diane said. "I'm sure it's for you. Meanwhile I'll take care of this." As she swept up, she could half-hear Isabel's side of the ensuing conversation, and moved to the entryway to hear it better.
   "Michael....Yes, I did. But I'm sure it was nothing. I would know....Yes, you'll be the first....Yes, I promise.... 'bye."
   Diane's maternal instinct signaled her that something was wrong. "Was that Michael? What was he calling about?"
   "Nothing that need concern him." Isabel was happy that her mother could not see her face, because in it she probably would have seen the fear that Isabel had successfully hidden from Michael; that had been both for Max's good and for his own. He had received the same flash she had, but she had could not trust him to act, and especially to react, in a responsible fashion; it was up to her alone.
   She tried to sense her brother, but could not. That meant his consciousness was functioning at its lowest level, too low for her to pick up at a distance, or not functioning at all. Either he was out cold, or.... She moved to her room so as not to be seen. Already her mother was hunting for her in the living room; in a minute she would come tapping at the bedroom door. Isabel would have just enough time to do what was called for. If Max was not dead but only unconscious his dreamspace would be out there somewhere, open to her, if she could find it.
   After much searching, she did. He was not dreaming, exactly, but inhabited a hazy limbo in which a fun-house reflection of himself kept materializing and dematerializing, first in one place, then in another. Drugged, thought Isabel. But by whom, and why?
   At that moment the only person (besides the culprit) who could have told her was shrinking against the door of the Whitmans' garage with her hands over her ears; the Whits made a lot of music in a little space. Alex gestured to the others to cut it, and when they failed to comply he stepped to the amplifier and yanked out the feed. The noise subsided with a moan; Liz uncovered her ears. His fellow Whits, released from their trance-like state, looked around, blinking. "Break time," Alex announced. "I have to talk to Liz."
   One of them grabbed a soccer ball from the corner, another lifted the garage door, and all three ran out to the drive. As Alex came up to Liz he pointed to the system he had just silenced. "Isabel tweaked the amp for us. Isn't the sound awesome?"
   Liz declined to express an opinion–and there was something else on her mind, anyway. "Alex, who are those men in your house?"
   "Bunch of UFO nuts. They meet monthly to compare sightings. That's what you came here to ask me?"
   "No, not at all." She took a deep breath. "Okay, I realize how strange this sounds, but just how much do you know about your conception?"
   "My conception of what?"
   "No, the moment you were conceived. Before you were born."
   "Oh, that. I never thought about it." His face wrinkled. "Not sure I want to think about it now. Why?"
   "Is there any chance it could have happened at Angels' Ground?"
   "Possible, I guess. Isn't that where guys take girls to–wait a minute!" He ran into the house. Liz checked her clock again; she had plenty of time left. She watched idly as the other band members kicked the ball around. Soon they moved the activity into the street. Since it was a cul-de-sac, they were running little risk from traffic; not that that would have discouraged them.
   A few minutes later Alex returned with a framed photo, which he handed Liz. It showed his father and his late mother standing side by side at the location she had left less than an hour earlier. "That's the place, right?" said Alex.
   "I knew it!" She felt the thrill of having her hypothesis vindicated, and of being involved in the greater mystery it had opened up–what was Angels' Ground?–which so far lay beyond hypothesizing. It reminded her of the other mystery that had been so much on her mind lately. She took Alex by the hand and led him out to the drive, from which she pointed up at the five points of light twinkling against the deepening blue. "You can see those, right?"
   "Those five stars making a V?"
   Another hypothesis of hers vindicated. "But why?" she mused. "Of course they can see them. They can do a lot of things. But why us humans?" The photo of Alex's parents gave her an inspiration. "Maybe because of that–because we were.... Maybe there's a connection!"
   Alex was at a loss. "Liz, you're rambling again."
   "You'd ramble too, if–" She never got to finish, for at that moment a soccer ball struck her on the hip. "Ow!"
   Markos ran up. "Sorry, Nicky bounced it off his head. He likes to do that." He picked up the ball. "You're not hurt, are you?"
   "Yes, a little."
   "Really?" Markos shrugged. "Happens sometimes." He kicked the ball and ran into the street after it.
   Liz herself witnessed the next use of Nicky's patented head block, which she saw was apt to send the ball flying any which way, and which to her looked painful. "Should he be doing that?" she asked doubtfully.
   Alex noticed her rubbing her sore thigh. "Sorry. Does it hurt a lot?"
   "I'm not talking about me. I mean, is it right for him to be hitting it with his head like that?"
   "Liz, it's not a regulation match. They're just fooling around."
   "But should he be playing that rough? As frail as he is?"
   "Nicky? Frail?" Alex laughed. "He may be skinny, but he's tough as pig iron. Even when we were little–except that Nicky was never little–he was always running his trike into things, skinning his knees and elbows. He always had cuts and bruises all over him."
   "But that's not what–" A suspicion entered her mind. "Alex, how much do you know about his dad?"
   "Aside from the alien thing, you mean? Not much. really. He may be a crank, but he's always been okay with me. You know who had it in for him, though? Isabel's dad. My dad's a building inspector with the city, and he told me Mr. Evans kept a campaign boiling against him for months–filing complaints, circulating petitions, all kinds of stuff. Finally forced Grunewald to shut down."
   "Why would he do that?"
   "Well, you know the rumor. But you can't always–"
   "What rumor?" Sometimes Liz felt as if she had spent her whole life in a vacuum-sealed chamber.
   "You never heard? That he tried something funny with Max and Isabel. When they were kids."
   Liz had been seasick once; that was how she felt now as dread flooded her mind. What if the invitation she had conveyed to Max was just a ploy of Grunewald's to get at him again? He had certainly lied to her about Nicky; what else had he lied about? "I have to go," she said, and she dashed off, fear written in her features.
   "Did I say something wrong?" asked Alex. She was too far away to answer, and so he answered himself. "Yep. Musta said something wrong."
   She knocked insistently at the doctor's door for a long time before he showed his face; she inferred that he must have been in his lab. "Where's Max?" she asked, between quaffs of air; she had run all the way and was still short of breath.
   "He said he had to be getting home. He was early, you see. Waited for you nearly an hour. I hope I was right to let him go?" Liz did not know whether to believe him or not. The words, the look, the air of apparent concern all came too readily; he was not really connecting with her, only making a show of doing so. He looked tired, and that might explain it.
   But it could not explain the lie. "You told me Nicky was frail. That was your word, frail."
   Grunewald guessed why she had brought it up. "Yes, one wouldn't know it to look at him, would one? And I suppose he doesn't take the care of himself that he should." Again the explanation flowed too easily, and again Liz doubted him. But she also doubted herself for feeling that way. Grunewald was recessive at the best of times; tonight she could not read him at all. And she did not want to believe ill of him, or of science and the scientific method. So she gave him the benefit of the doubt. "You're absolutely sure Max went home?"
   "Haven't I just said so, my dear?"
   The sexism, she let pass. "Okay, thanks. I'll try him there." Grunewald smiled at her, rather distantly, and then shut the door; Liz heard the click of the lock, which renewed her suspicions for a moment. But she thought the most sensible course of action was to check at Max's house before anything else. While there she could also ask Mr. Evans for a confirmation of Alex's story.
   When she was gone, Grunewald returned to his lab. Next to the examining table he had moved into place a short stand on rollers with a squarish bag attached to it; from the bag ran a tube that ended in a needle. "Now we will have the blood of you," he said to the subject supine on the table, who could not hear him. "All the blood, I think." Again he smiled distantly. "Yes, yes, that will be good."
   An arch of leaves like a big croquet wicket marked the entrance to the Evanses' front yard. The path was paved with four-squared stones, which Liz normally took the time to appreciate, but tonight she was in a hurry. As she approached the house, Isabel appeared in the drive and crossed the lawn to intercept her. She was in a hurry too. "Where's Max?" she demanded.
   "He isn't here?"
   "Would I ask if he was? He said he was meeting you."
   "Is your dad home? I need to talk to him."
   Isabel laid a hand on the base of her neck with more force than Liz considered polite. "We have to find Max first. He may be in trouble."
   "I know. And your dad can help. He knows about Dr. Grunewald."
   A horrible idea flashed into Isabel's mind–and she was not picking it up from Liz either. "Grunewald! Is Max with him?" Liz's face betrayed her fear, and some of her guilt. Clutching her even more tightly, Isabel shut her eyes. To Liz it seemed as if a light were being trained on the myriad segments of her mind, each in turn, at a speed that was inconceivable. Isabel was scanning her thoughts, public and private, and bypassing all of them, except one. When she opened her eyes again, they were full of accusation. "You invited him there? Liz, how could you?"
   "I didn't know. How could I?" Her voice was trembling; she felt herself about to cry.
   Isabel had neither the time nor the disposition to offer sympathy. "You're going back there with me," she said, "now." She did not offer Liz a choice.
   Seconds later the Jeep, with the two of them in it, was racing through town. "Grunewald was the doctor at the orphanage," Isabel informed Liz–"that is, until they found out he was crazy and fired him."
   "He told me you were responsible for that. That you changed Max's blood sample. Was that true? At that age?" She knew this was not the time to ask, and that she had no right, considering the trouble she had made for them, but she was so curious she could not help herself.
   "I didn't know I'd done it," said Isabel. She did not sound pleased with herself, as might have been expected; she sounded defensive. "I don't know how I did it. It just happened–when I sensed he was going to hurt Max. And did he tell you what he did to us after that? He began stalking us–following us around, taking our pictures." He still is, thought Liz, only you don't know it. "One day he tried to lure us to his office to get more of our blood. We got scared and ran away. He chased us into the candy store, and the lady there called our dad–thank God." Liz wished, wished, wished she had known all this; how could she not have? "The one man Dad did everything he could to save us from," Isabel concluded, "and you delivered my brother into his hands. How loyal of you, Liz."
   This was crushing. Liz searched for some idea, any idea, to contribute. "You could ask Michael to help."
   "I don't want Michael's help. He'd probably kill Grunewald first thing out of the gate."
   "But you won't?"
   "No. Not unless–" She shut off the thought.
   A few moments later they pulled up at the house. "Follow me," Isabel ordered, "and do exactly as I say. Understand?" Liz was gazing at the property, dismayed by the transformation it had undergone in her eyes: once charmingly unkempt, it now loomed up as a ramshackle ruin, with menace lurking in every recess. "Liz!" Isabel said sharply. Liz recollected herself. "I asked if you understand." Liz gave a little nod.
   Isabel led the way up onto the porch. "Go ahead, knock," she said. Liz did, but Grunewald did not answer; Isabel had not expected him to. "Stand back," she ordered. "And don't ever tell anyone about this. Not even Max."
   She turned to the door, and almost at once it began to bubble. It melted away on both sides and ran down the frame to form two puddles of brown ooze on the floor. Liz stared in amazement. "That looks like–"
   "Chocolate," Isabel confirmed. "It's easier if you know the substance you're dealing with."
   She marched into the house, with Liz taking up the rear; a glance back at the door, and it was restored to its former condition. "Rule number one," said Isabel. "Clean up your messes as you go. You might never get another chance."
   Liz supposed she would never get a chance at all. "The lab's that way," she said.
   "I know. I can sense him there–Max, I mean." She headed to the back. Liz cast her eyes around warily, half-expecting the doctor to leap out at them from some corner.
   The lab was unlocked. Isabel entered alone. Grunewald was nowhere to be seen. She rushed to Max, who was still lying unconscious on the table. She shook him, kissed him, called his name, but all to no avail; he remained inert. Eyes shut, she probed his dreamspace. He was no longer skittering here and there as he had been, but his form was semi-transparent; she did not dare to touch it in that state. "Max!" she called. "You have to wake up. I have to get you out of here." At first he seemed not to have heard. Then, as his form grew more solid, he lifted his eyes to hers and nodded slowly.
   As she emerged from the dream limbo into the world of the woken, the body beside her stirred and opened its eyes. She was the first thing Max saw, standing there beside him like Florence Nightingale, wearing an expression that radiated care and gratitude. She did not often show her love so obviously; like, never. "Thanks," he whispered. Isabel dropped a tear, and was mad at herself for it. Damn, she thought, I'm turning into Liz.
   Liz was hovering in the space between the house and the outbuilding, where Isabel had instructed her to wait. She heard a clatter from a shed to the side. A few seconds later Grunewald emerged, his eyes bleary, his shirt hanging outside his trousers. He was carrying a surgical saw. Liz, rather dauntlessly under the circumstances, moved to block the laboratory door, as far as her size would allow. Grunewald stopped; her presence seemed to confuse him. "Ms. Parker," he said finally, as if he had located the name in some long-disused directory. "Stand aside, if you please."
   "You lied to me." Once again her indignation overcame her better judgment. "Nicky doesn't have anemia. He's not dying."
   "No," Grunewald admitted. "I am." He lifted the saw. Liz shrank back. But he was not looking at her; he was staring at his own arm. She turned away as he sliced through his shirt sleeve, just above the wrist. The wound bled, stained the white cotton red, and dripped out of the slash in the fabric onto the red brick paving.
    “You see?” he said. “Poison. That’s why they came here, that was their plan—to poison the blood. My blood. Not Nicky’s, mine.” The syllables came in a slurred monotone, and with a thicker accent than usual. “The blood was the agent. The poison in the blood. It ended”—Liz could not be sure he had not said “undid”—“my practice, ja. It turned Helene against me. She said I was crazy, she would have taken my son. But I stopped her—I told her I would have her declared crazy. You see? The blood drove her away. But his blood will bring her back.” Liz realized he was speaking of Max. His lips gathered into a pout. “But der bag does not work, nein. The blood does not flow. It trickles in dribs und drabs. Mit this, it will flow!” He lifted the saw again and lurched toward her.
   "Drop your weapon!" a voice shouted. Liz looked toward the house. Valenti was standing at the back door, Deputy Owen in the kitchen behind, with both their guns trained on Grunewald. "Drop it, I said!" This time Grunewald complied. Valenti turned to Liz. "Come around to me," he instructed her, "nice and slow." But Grunewald made no move to stop her.
   Owen hurried past her to him. As he was grappling with a set of cuffs, trying to get them open, he noticed the blood-soaked arm. "He's wounded, Sheriff!"
   "Take him to the car and bandage him." They kept a first-aid kit under the dash. "But cuff his other hand to the door handle first." Owen marched Grunewald off toward the street.
   "Come on," said Valenti, speaking to someone in the house. Liz had not suspected there were others with him. But now they were revealed, framed for a second in the doorway as they paced briskly forth: Agent Topolsky and a man in a suit, also obviously FBI. They were headed for the lab.
   Liz thought of Isabel. She lunged out in front of the posse, trying to make it look as if she had stumbled accidentally. "Nice try, Liz," said Topolsky. "Now clear the way."
   Hearing her voice, Isabel instituted a change of plan. Max was safe; that was what mattered. But he was just beginning to recover from the sedative, too groggy to summon his powers to his own aid. "I'll call Dad," Isabel promised; her meaning was somewhat cryptic, but Max was hardly listening anyway. She ran her eyes over the file cabinet, the refrigerator, the slide box–every object in the room that might contain evidence pointing to either of them–and she focused on each in turn, just long enough to do what was necessary. Then she raced to the wall and dived into it–literally, like diving into a pool of water–and was gone.
   The FBI agents and Valenti clattered down the steps, with Liz trotting after them like a puppy. They scanned the room. Liz spied Max straining to sit up. She ran to him and put her arm around him. "Here, let me help you."
   He was conscious enough to understand this. "Help me?" he said, and he shook off her arm. The rejection, and the justice of it, pierced her to the heart. But she got her wish anyway, if only briefly; when Max swung his legs down and tried to stand, they faltered under him, and he had to lean on Liz while easing into a sitting position on the edge of the table.
   The two agents ignored him for the moment as they searched the room for evidence, of which they found none. The file cabinet contained no files, only dust; the slide box contained no slides, only a puddle of what smelled like...the agent elected not to investigate farther; the beakers in the refrigerator contained what looked like Jello. Everywhere, it was the same: the evidence, if there had been any, had either been removed or changed to something useless. Topolsky turned on Max. "Did you do this?"
   "He was unconscious," Liz said quickly.
   Topolsky looked around again. Someone was missing. "Where's the girl who was with you?"
   "What girl?"
   Valenti advanced until he was shoulder to shoulder with his colleague. "Don't play dumb with us, Ms. Parker. Isabel Evans."
   "She must have left by the back way."
   Valenti peered around. "What back way?"
   Topolsky returned her attention to Max. "What did Grunewald do to you?"
   Max was now fully cognizant, though his head still felt heavy. "Nothing. I mean, he was showing me around the place, and I must have fainted. Haven't been eating very well. Stomach problems."
   "What did he say to you?" Topolsky asked.
   "He was raving," Liz interjected. "You saw him. He's a maniac. You can't pay attention to anything he says."
   Topolsky directed the next question to her. "Were you aware he'd been shadowing you and your friends?"
   "I suppose you'd have cause to know, " Liz shot back, a little more tartly than was called for.
   "We have been watching him," Topolsky conceded. "And you were observed visiting this house on numerous occasions."
   "That's right. I was doing some work for him."
   "Why'd you come back this evening?" Valenti asked. "And you, Evans–what were you doing here?" Both were mute. Valenti stepped toward them. "One of you better start talking, or–"
   A voice broke in on him. "Or what?" He and the others turned to see Philip Evans on the steps. "All we need," Valenti muttered.
   Philip hastened to his son's side. "You all right, Max? Isabel told me–"
   "I'm fine." He smiled weakly. "–now."
   Philip turned to Valenti with an air of grievance so self-evidently justified that every right-thinking citizen would certainly support him in it: Liz remembered that he was a lawyer, and she was grateful for it now. "On what grounds are you detaining these children?"
   "Just trying to determine if a crime's been committed."
   "The way you were talking, it sounds as though they're the suspects."
   Valenti made an effort to keep his cool. "We believe Dr. Grunewald may have detained your son with intent to commit bodily harm. But if Max is unwilling to cooperate–"
   "I told you," said Max, "I was unconscious. I don't remember any of it."
   "There's your answer," said Philip.
   Valenti started to reply. Topolsky spoke first. "But Liz wasn't."
   Liz opened her mouth. "Liz, you don't have to say anything," Philip cautioned her. So she shut it again.
   "Maybe Grunewald had an accomplice," Topolsky suggested. "Someone who lured Max to him." She was staring hard at Liz, who could not meet her eye. Topolsky turned to Max. "Why did you come?" she asked.
   Max was staring at Liz. "I thought she'd be here." Liz did not dare to look at him either; her eyes remained fixed on the glossy floor tiles.
   "That's enough," Philip declared. "If you have further questions, you can ask them when Max is rested. Needless to say, I would insist on being present. And on seeing to it that Ms. Parker is properly represented. Kids? Time to go." He ushered them to the steps and out the door. The law officers did not try to stop them.
   "I can charge Grunewald with attempted assault," said Valenti. "Kidnapping–I don't know."
   Topolsky seemed unconcerned. "Let's wait for the psychiatrist's evaluation. I have a feeling the doctor won't be making his rounds for a while."
   "If it wasn't for him being a lawyer...." Topolsky nodded in sympathy. "Tell me something, Agent. You ever want to know the truth of a thing so bad it claws at your gut and you just can't let it go?"
   "You don't know the half of it." She was gazing at the photo of the UFO convocation, and in particular at the girl in the crowd Liz had thought looked familiar. Then she headed out, with her associate following.
   As Valenti started to follow both, he glanced at the photo himself–and it stopped him cold. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. The girl was her–a lot younger and brighter-eyed than her experience with the Bureau had left her but, now that Valenti had caught the resemblance, unmistakably the same person. Never in a million years would he have expected that. He filed the information, in case it should be called for at some time, and exited after her and her colleague.
   Philip's grey Mercedes had Liz home in minutes. Throughout the ride neither he nor his son had so much as glanced into the back seat. Now as she opened the door Philip spoke to her, but without turning his head. "You know, Liz," he said, "I think it'd be best for everyone if you didn't come around any more."
   This stung deeply. "Mr. Evans–"
   "I can get an injunction. If it becomes necessary." He was still facing the windshield. And so was Max. Liz restrained herself with an effort from doing something really immature, like crying. As she stepped out onto the sidewalk, Max rolled down his window. She looked toward him hopefully. Maybe everything was all right, after all; maybe–
   He had on that scowl of his which was almost a frown. "Guess your experiment was a failure, wasn't it?" he said. "And just think–you won't even be able to publish the results." He rolled up the window without giving her a chance to answer. And she would have had no answer in any case. The Mercedes glided off into the night. That was that, then.
   The restaurant was closed, but her father was inside, waiting for her. "Lizzie, finally. You know your friend Maria got herself terminated today?"
   Liz had to struggle to recall what that was about; it seemed like a story from another life. "I thought she was cutting back on her hours."
   "Wouldn't have been enough to justify keeping her on. What the heck happened between you two?"
   "Philosophical difference." That summed it up as well as anything. She looked out the window in the direction Max had gone–for good, she imagined. "And, you know," she said, "for once in her life Maria was right."
   Just before bedtime she extracted a specimen of her blood and put it under the microscope to examine. It had been in contact with theirs, and Grunewald claimed theirs was toxic to humans; the claim was probably a product of his mania, but as a good scientist Liz could not dismiss it out of hand, she must continue to observe and to record her observations dispassionately. Yet now, when she needed it most, her scientist's lack of feeling failed her: she was too scared to look.
   She heard a tap at her window, but saw no one. Max! she thought; apart from herself and her family, he was the only one besides herself familiar with her rooftop retreat. She stuck her head out the window and looked around eagerly, but he was not there. Someone was, however. "Isabel?" said Liz. "Is that you?"
   Isabel was leaning against the wall with her head turned away. "Max sent me," she said, in an oddly clipped manner, and fidgeting with her nails as she spoke. "To pick up that–thing you're holding for him."
   Liz showed her disappointment. "He couldn't come himself?"
   "You honestly think you have a right to expect that?"
   "If I could just explain to him–"
   Isabel felt she had borne more than enough. "Liz, just go get it, will you? And make it fast. I'm only doing this for Max."
   Liz fetched the Balancer from its hiding place. She had never wanted the responsibility for it anyway–so why did she feel such a sense of loss as she laid it in Isabel's hand? "Thanks," said Isabel brusquely. "Oh, and I'm sorry about the handprint." She crossed the roof and, a moment later, disappeared over the side.
   Puzzled, Liz consulted her mirror. Her hair had fallen to one side to expose the back of her neck, which was tattooed with a shining silver residue where Isabel had grabbed her earlier that evening. Luckily, her hair had hidden it from the adults, and the fingermarks were now fading; soon they would be gone.
   Liz no longer felt scared. She took her journal from its niche, which she had left unsealed after removing the Balancer, brought the journal to her desk, and opened it to the first blank page. Then she bent over her microscope.
   Her blood was still red. But not completely; not any more. Now it had a thread of green winding through it, like the swirl of chocolate in marbled ice cream. She kept staring at the swirl, thinking it was a trick of the eyes and would go away. Finally she accepted that it would not, and perhaps never would. But she could not complain. It was what she had wanted: to have a human test subject. She deserved it; she deserved all that had happened.
   She picked up two objects from the desk, sliding one of them out of its frame first, then tore up both of them together, and dropped them into the wastebasket beside her. One of them was her application for the science bowl. The other was a picture of Max Evans.

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