Wondering, Kayman opened the purple box. It held a rosary, coiled on purple velvet inside the leather case. The Ave Marias were ivory, carved into rosebuds; the big Paternoster beads were chased crystal. “It has an interesting history,” the President went on. “It was sent back to Ignatius Loyola from one of his missions in Japan, and then it was in South America for two hundred years with the — what do you call them? — the Reductions of Paraguay? It’s a museum piece, really, but His Holiness wanted you to have it.”

“I — I don’t know what to say,” Kayman managed.

“And it has his blessing.” The President leaned back and suddenly looked a great deal older. “Pray with it, Father,” he said. “I’m not a Catholic. I don’t know how you feel about these things. But I want you to pray for Dorrie Torraway’s getting her head straightened out enough to last her husband a while. And if that doesn’t work, you’d better pray real hard for all of us.”

Back in the main cabin, Kayman strapped himself in his seat and willed himself asleep for the remaining hour or so of the flight to Tonka. Exhaustion triumphed over worry, and he drifted off. He was not the only one worried. We had not properly estimated the trauma Roger Torraway would receive from the loss of his genitals, and we had nearly lost him.

The malfunction was critical. It could not be risked again. We had already arranged for beefed-up psychiatric attendance on Roger, and in Rochester the backpack computer was being recircuited to monitor major psychic stress and react before Roger’s slower human synapses could oscillate into convulsions.

The world situation was proceeding as predicted. New York City was of course in turmoil, the Near East was building up pressures past the safety valves, and New People’s Asia was pouring out furious manifestos denouncing the squid kill in the Pacific. The planet was rapidly reaching critical mass. Our projections were that the future of the race was questionable on Earth past another two years. We could not allow that. The Mars landing had to succeed.

When Roger came out of the haze after his seizure he did not realize how close he had come to dying, he only realized that he had been wounded in all of his most sensitive parts. The feeling was desolation: wiped-out, hopeless desolation. He not only had lost Dorrie, he had lost his manhood. The pain was too extreme to be relieved by crying, even if he had been able to cry. It was the agony of the dentist’s chair without ahesthesia, so acute that it no longer felt like a warning but became merely a fact of the environment, something to be experienced and endured.

The door opened, and a new nurse came in. “Hi. I see you’re awake.”

She came over and laid warm fingers on his forehead. “I’m Sulie Carpenter,” she said. “It’s Susan Lee, really, but Sulie’s what they call me.” She withdrew her hand and smiled. “You’d think I’d know better than feeling for fever, wouldn’t you? I already know what it is from the monitors, but I guess I’m an old-fashioned girl.”

Torraway hardly heard her; he was preoccupied with seeing her. Was it a trick of his mediation circuits? Tall, green-eyed, dark-haired: she looked so very much like Dorrie that he tried changing the field of vision of his great insect eyes, zooming down on the pores in her slightly freckled skin, altering the color values, decreasing the sensitivity so that she seemed to fade into a twilight. No matter. She still looked like Dorrie.

She moved to scan the duplicate monitors at the side of the room. “You’re doing real well, Colonel Torraway,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m going to bring you your lunch in a little while. Anything you want now?”

He roused himself and sat up. “Nothing I can have,” he said bitterly.

“Oh, no, Colonel!” Her eyes showed shock. “I mean — well, excuse me. I don’t have any right to talk to you like that. But, dear Lord, Colonel, if there’s anybody in this world who can have anything he wants, you’re it!”

“I wish I felt that way,” he grumbled; but he was watching her closely and curiously, he did feel something — something he could not identify, but something which was not the pain that had overwhelmed him only moments before.

Sulie Carpenter glanced at her watch and then pulled up a chair. “You sound low, Colonel,” she said sympathetically. “I guess all this is pretty hard to take.”

He looked away from her, up to where the great black wings were rippling slowly over his head. He said, “It has its bad parts, believe me. But I knew what I was getting into.”

Sulie nodded. She said, “I had a bad time when my — my boyfriend died. Of course, that’s nothing like what you’re doing. But in a way maybe it was worse — you know, it was so pointless. One day we were fine and talking about getting married. The next day he came back from the doctor’s and those headaches he’d been having turned out to be—” She took a deep breath. “Brain tumor. Malignant. He was dead three months later, and I just couldn’t handle it. I had to get away from Oakland. I applied to be transferred here. Never thought I’d get it, but I guess they’re still short-handed from the flu—”

“I’m sorry,” Roger said quickly.

She smiled. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just that there was a big empty place in my life, and I’m really grateful I’ve got something to fill it here.” She glanced again at her watch and jumped up. “The floor nurse’ll be on my back,” she said. “Now, listen, really, is there anything I can get for you? Book? Music? You’ve got the world at your command, you know, including me.”

“Not a thing,” Roger said honestly. “Thanks anyway. How come you picked coming here?”

She looked at him thoughtfully, the corners of her lips curving very faintly. “Well,” she said, “I knew something about the program here; I’ve been in aerospace medicine for ten years in California. And I knew who you were, Colonel Torraway. Knew! I used to have your picture on my wall when you were rescuing those Russians. You wouldn’t believe the active role you played in some of my fantasies, Colonel Torraway, sir.”

She grinned and turned away, stopping at the door. “Do me a favor, will you?”

Roger was surprised. “Sure. What?”

“Well, I’d like a more recent picture. You know what security is like here. If I sneak in a camera, can I take a quick snapshot of you now? Just so I can have something to show my grandchildren, if I ever have any.”

Roger protested, “They’ll kill you if they catch you, Sulie.”

She winked. “I’ll take my chances; it’s worth it. Thanks.”

After she had gone Roger made an effort to go back to thinking about his castration and his cuckolding, but for some reason they seemed less overwhelming. Nor did he have a great deal of time. Sulie came in with a low-residue lunch, a smile and a promise to be back the following morning. Clara Bly gave him an enema, and then he lay wondering while three identical fair-mustached men came in and went over every inch of floor, wall and furniture with metal detectors and electronic mops. They were total strangers, and they stayed in the room, on new-brought chairs, silent and watching, while Brad came in.

Brad was looking not merely ill but seriously worried. “Hi, Roger,” he said. “Jesus, you scared us. It’s my fault; I should have been on tap, but this damn flu bug—”

“I survived,” Roger said, studying Brad’s rather ordinary face and wondering just why he wasn’t feeling outrage and resentment.

“We’re going to have to keep you pretty busy now,” Brad began, dragging up a chair. “We’ve phased out some of your mediation circuits for the moment. When they’re full in again we’re going to have to limit your sensory inputs — let you work up to handling a total environment a little at a time. And Kathleen’s jumping to get you started on retraining — you know, learning how to use your muscles and all that.” He glanced over at the three silent watchers. His expression, Roger thought, was suddenly full of fear.