It took only a minute to drive outside the house shield's half-mile range and pull over to the curb.

Switching off the ignition, I stretched back against the cold van seat, and for a moment just listened to the background thought-clutter that once again filled the corners of my mind. Gordy's old inadequate image of living by a waterfall flicked to mind....

Dale?

With an effort, I forced my mind from the quiet exhilaration of just being normal again. I'm here, Gordy, I acknowledged.

You all right? Calvin's thought joined in. We've been trying to reach you all day.

I'm fine, I told him. Sorry, about that-I lay down for a short nap that stretched out a bit.

Yeah, we thought that might be it, Gordy said.

Not that it stopped us from worrying, Calvin added dryly. Do remind Colleen to turn her phone back on when you get back to the house, too. He paused, and I could sense him brace himself. So... how is she doing?

The pain's gone, I told them. When I left a few minutes ago she was still sleeping like a baby.

Ah. Gordy's reaction to the simile was brief and low-key, but it was enough to confirm that Calvin had filled him in. As I'd rather expected he would. It was a close-approach problem, then, he added.

Ah. Gordy's reaction to the simile was brief and low-key, but it was enough to confirm that Calvin had filled him in. As I'd rather expected he would. It was a close-approach problem, then, he added.

Not really. Gordy hesitated. We didn't tell anyone else, by the way. We thought that timing should be up to you and Colleen.

Though such considerations hadn't stopped Calvin from spilling the beans to Gordy.... Shaking my head sharply, I cut the thought off. Calvin, Gordy, and I were the only ones of our group Colleen could regularly reach from Regina. It was only fair that her best friends be let in on what had happened, and to hell with Nelson's paranoic tendencies. Thanks, I appreciate that, I said. I take it, then, that you think we should tell everyone?

I don't see how you can avoid it, Calvin said. Colleen's going to have to stay in the telepath shield for the next eight months, minimum, and someone's bound to notice in all that time that she's disappeared from sight.

Besides, why would you want to keep something like this secret? Gordy added. The first child born to anyone in our group, let alone to two of us? It ought to be something to cheer about.

I grimaced. And what about the telepath shield? Should we cheer about that, too?

There was a slight pause, and I felt Gordy's enthusiasm deflate a bit. Ouch, he said.

At the very least, I agreed with perhaps an unnecessary touch of sarcasm. Word leaks out about that and we're going to be right back where we were with Ted Green last month.

They thought about that for a long moment. Maybe we can still keep it private knowledge within the group, Calvin offered doubtfully. Colleen doesn't have any real commitments she can't bow out of for the next few months, does she?

Her doctor knows she's having headaches, I pointed out. If she's at all competent she isn't going to drop it just because Colleen says everything's all better now.

There was another moment of silence. We'll think of something, Gordy said at last. For the moment the main job is to keep Colleen and the baby healthy. Is there anything we can do to help?

Not that I can think of, I told them. If I come up with anything, I'll let you know.

Okay, Calvin said. You think we ought to set up some regularly scheduled contact time when you'll be outside the shield?

Maybe later we'll need to do something like that, I said. For now, I don't think it's necessary. I'll have to leave in a couple of days, anyway, if I'm going to get the van back to Des Moines before the rental period runs out.

You want me to fly in to stay with her while you're gone? Gordy offered.

A brief surge of jealousy flashed through me before I could suppress it. Absurd, of course-Gordy was nothing more to Colleen than a good friend. Let me see how she's doing when she wakes up, I suggested. If she feels like she'd like company, I'll let you know.

Unless you'd rather I not even offer...?

So he'd caught the flicker of emotion. No, of course not, I said, feeling my face flushing with embarrassment. Sorry-Nelson must have taken over for a minute.

There was a short, awkward silence, and I realized my apology had made things worse instead of better.

Neither Gordy nor Calvin had made any secret lately of the fact that they thought my close-approach with Nelson had become altogether too convenient a catch-all excuse for me. Sure, Dale, Gordy said at last. Anyway, let me know what she says.

Right. Well, I suppose I'd better get back. See if she's woken up yet and find an out-of-the-way corner to hook the big shield up in.

Okay, we'll leave you to it, Calvin said. Take care of her, Dale, and keep in touch. Maybe on your drive back to Iowa we can hold a round table on just how we're going to keep all of this quiet.

And who all we're going to keep it quiet from, Gordy added. Say hi to Colleen for us, okay?

Sure, I said, turning the van's ignition key again. And don't worry about it. We've got plenty of time to come up with a workable plan.

And I really believed that as I broke contact and turned around to head back to Colleen's. Really believed that we had weeks-even months-to come up with a good story.

If I'd only known that I had, instead, exactly four minutes....

I saw the flashing red lights two blocks away; but it wasn't until I got past a camper parked on the wrong side of the street that I realized the ambulance was pulled up directly in front of Colleen's house.

I bounced the van half up on the curb right behind it and scrambled out, banging my shin on the door in the process. I hardly noticed, my full attention on trying to see into the slightly ajar ambulance doors.

There was no one inside, which meant she was still in the house. Racing across the lawn, I threw open the front door and dashed into the living room. "Colleen?" I called.

"Over here," her voice said from my right. Skidding to a halt, I turned to find her sitting calmly on the couch, a stethoscope-armed woman seated beside her and a group of three men standing in a loose circle around her.

All of them, at the moment, looking at me. And doing nothing else.

"What's going on?" I asked when I got my voice back.

"This is Dr. DuBois," Colleen told me, indicating the woman beside her. "She tells me-" she swallowed-"that I may have lost my baby."

I stared at Colleen, then at the doctor, then back at Colleen. "I don't understand," I said. "What-I mean how-?"

I was interrupted by a loud beep and a flurry of unintelligible speech from one of the paramedics' belts.

"Doctor...?" he asked, pulling the radio from its holder.

He nodded, acknowledging the call with some kind of number code as he and the other two men brushed past me and left. I closed the door behind them and watched as they hurried across the lawn, my thoughts a swirling mass of utter confusion. Only hours earlier I would have sworn the baby was perfectly fine; and now this....

"How?" I asked the doctor again.

DuBois opened her mouth; but it was Colleen who answered. "Because the headaches have stopped,"

Colleen answered for her.

I frowned at her, saw the tight look in her eyes. As if she was pleading silently with me to understand....

And abruptly, I did. Somehow, probably through all the tests Colleen had been taking, DuBois had discovered she was pregnant and realized where the migraines were coming from. But with the headaches now stopped-and with no way to know about the telepath shield-she had come to the only conclusion possible, that one of the two conflicting minds had ceased to exist.