at his passage was Perfectly familiar; it was the pins-and-needles feeling one gets when a sleeping limb starts to wake up. For one moment his aura and Mr. Plum's mingled, and Ralph knew everything about the man that there was to know, including the dreams he'd had in his mother's womb.
Mr. Plum stopped short.
"Something wrong?" McGovern asked.
"I guess not, but... did you hear a bang someplace? Like a firecracker, or a car backfire?"
"Can't say I did, but my hearing isn't what it used to be."
McGovern chuckled. "If something did blow up, I certainly hope it wasn't in one of the radiation labs."
"I don't hear anything now. Probably just my imagination." They turned into Bob Polhurst's room.
Ralph thought, Mrs. Perrine said it sounded like a gunshot.
Lois's friend thought there was a bug on her, maybe biting her. just a difference in touch, maybe, the way different piano-players have different touches. Either way, they feel it when we mess with them.
They may not know what it is, but they sure do feel it.
Lois took his hand and led him to the door of Room 313. They stood in the hall, looking in as McGovern seated himself in a plastic contour chair at the foot of the bed. There were at least eight people crammed into the room and Ralph couldn't see Bob Polhurst clearly, but he could see one thing: although he was deep within his own deathbag, Polhurst's balloon-string was still intact. It was as filthy as a rusty exhaust pipe, peeling in some places and cracked in others... but it was still intact. He turned to Lois.
["These people may have longer to wait than they think.
Lois nodded, then pointed down at the greeny-gold footprintsthe white-man tracks. They bypassed 313, Ralph saw, but turned in at the next doorway-315, jimmy V."s room.
He and Lois walked up together and stood looking in. jimmy V. had three visitors, and the one sitting beside the bed thought he was all alone. That one was Faye Chapin, idly looking through the dOLiblc stack of get-well cards on jimmy's bedside table.
The other two were the little bald doctors Ralph had seen for the first time on May Locher's stoop. They stood at the foot of Jimmy V."s bed, solemn in their clean white tunics, and now that he stood close to them, Ralph could see that there were worlds of character in those unlined, almost identical faces; it just wasn't the sort of thing one could see through a pair of binoculars-or maybe not until you slid up the ladder of perception a little way. Most of it was in the eyes, which were dark, pupilless, and flecked with deep golden glints. Those eyes shone with intelligence and lively awareness. Their auras gleamed and flashed around them like the robes of emperors...
... or perhaps of Centurions on a visit of state.
They looked over at Ralph and Lois, who stood holding hands in the doorway like children who have lost their way in a fairy-tale wood, and smiled at them.
[Hello, woman.] That was Doc #1. He was holding the scissors in his right hand.
The blades were very long, and the points looked very sharp.
Doc #2 took a step toward them and made a funny little half-bow.
[Hello, man. We've bee waiting for you.] Ralph felt Lois's hand tighten on his own, then loosen as she decided they were in no immediate danger. She took a small step forward, looking from Doc #1 to Doc #2 and then back to #1 again, ["Who are you?"] Doc #1 crossed his arms over his small chest. The long blades of' his scissors lay the entire length of his white-clad left forearm.
[We don't have names, not the same as Short-Timers do-but you call us after the fates in the story this man has already told you. That these names originally belonged to women means little to us, since we are creatures with no sexual dimension. I will be Clotho, although I spin no thread, and my colleague and old friend will be Lachesis, although he shakes no rods and has never thrown the coins.
Come in, both of you-please!] They came in and stood warily between the visitor's chair and the bed. Ralph didn't think the docs meant them any harm-for now, at least-but he still didn't want to get too close. Their auras, so bright and fabulous compared to those of ordinary people, intimidated him, and he could see from Lois's wide eyes and half-open mouth that she felt the same. She