"What about this woman living with him-Serena Ventress? I take it their affair is common gossip here?"

"Not at all-Ventress, you say her name is? Probably some cocotte he picked up in a Libreville dance-hall."

"Not exactly." Sanders decided to say no more. As they finished breakfast he described his arrival at Port Matarre and the journey to Mont Royal, concluding with his visit to the inspection site. At the end, as they walked out past the empty wards on either side of the courtyard, he hinted at Professor Tatlin's explanation of the Hubble Effect and what he himself felt to be its real significance.

Max, however, seemed to have little interest in all this. Obviously he regarded the crystallizing forest as a freak of nature that would soon exhaust itself and let him get on with the job of nursing Suzanne. Sanders's oblique references to her he sidestepped deftly. With some pride he showed Sanders around the hospital, pointing out the additional wards and X-ray facilities which he and Suzanne had introduced during their short stay.

"Believe me, Edward, it's been quite a job, though I wouldn't take too much credit for ourselves. The mine companies provide most of the patients and consequently most of the money."

They were walking along the perimeter fence on the eastern side of the hospital. In the distance, beyond the single-story buildings, they could see the full extent of the forest, its soft light shining like a stained-glass canopy in the morning sun. Although still held back by the perimeter road near the Bourbon Hotel, the affected zone seemed to have spread several miles down-river, extending itself through the forested areas along the banks. Two hundred feet above the jungle the air seemed to glitter continuously, as if the crystallizing atoms were deliquescing in the wind and being replaced by those rising from the forest below.

The sounds of shouting and the thwacks of bamboo canes distracted Sanders. Fifty yards away a group of hospital porters were moving through the trees on the other side of the fence. They were driving back a throng of natives that Sanders noticed sitting in the shadows under the branches. In what seemed to be a show of strength, the porters blew their whistles and beat the ground around the natives' feet.

Looking beneath the trees, Sanders realized that there were at least two hundred of the natives, hunched together in small groups around their bundles and sticks, gazing out at the distant forest with dead eyes. All of them appeared to be crippled or diseased, with deformed faces and skeleton-like shoulders and arms. Those driven back retreated a few yards into the trees, dragging their sick with them, but the others sat their ground. They seemed unaware of the sticks and whistles. Sanders guessed that they were not drawn to the hospital by any hopes of help and attention, but regarded it merely as a temporary shield between the forest and themselves.

"Max, who the devil-?" Sanders stepped over the wire fence. The nearest group was twenty yards from him, the dark bodies almost invisible in the refuse and undergrowth below the trees.

"Some mendicant tribe," Max explained, following Sanders over the fence. He acknowledged the salute of one of the porters. "Don't worry about them, they move around here all the time. Believe me, they don't really want help."

"But, Max-" Sanders walked a few paces across the clearing. The natives had so far watched him without expression, but now, as he approached them, they at last showed some reaction. An old man with a puffy head crouched down as if to shrink from Sanders's gaze. Another with mutilated hands hid them between his knees. There seemed to be no children, but here and there Sanders saw a small bundle strapped to the back of a crippled woman. Everywhere there was the same stirring movement as they shifted slowly in their places, little more than their shoulders moving as if aware that there was no possibility of hiding themselves.

"Max, these are-"

Clair took his arm. He started to pull Sanders back to the fence. "Yes, Edward, they are. They're lepers. They follow you across the world, don't they? I'm sorry we can't do anything for them."

"But Max-!" Sanders swung round. He pointed to the deserted wards within the compound. "The hospital's empty! Why have you turned them out?"

"We haven't." Clair looked away from the trees. "They come from a small camp-hardly a _léproserie_- which one of the Catholic fathers kept going. When he left they just drifted off into the bush. It was badly run, anyway, all he did for them was say a few prayers, and not many of those, if what I've heard is true. Now they've come back-it's the light from the forest, I suppose-"

"But why not take some of them in? You've got enough room for a few dozen cases."

"Edward, we're not equipped to deal with them. Even if we wanted to, it wouldn't work. Believe me, I've got to think of Suzanne. We all have our difficulties, you know."

"Of course." Sanders collected himself. "I understand, Max. You've both done more than your share."

Max climbed the fence into the compound. The porters had moved along the trees and were now driving back the last of the lepers, rapping the older ones and cripples over their legs when they were slow to move.

"I'll be in my surgery, Edward. Perhaps we can have a drink at eleven. Let one of the porters know if you go out."

Sanders waved to him, then walked away along the clearing. The porters had completed their job and were going back to the gatehouse, canes over their shoulders. The lepers had retreated into the deep shadows, almost out of sight, but Sanders could feel their eyes staring through him at the forest beyond, the one link between this barely recognizable residue of humanity and the world around it.

"Doctor! Dr. Sanders!"

Sanders turned to see Louise Peret coming toward him from an army staff car parked by the entrance. She waved to the French lieutenant watching from the driving window. He saluted her with a flourish and drove off.

"Louise- Aragon said you were coming this morning."

Louise reached him. Smiling broadly, she took his arm. "I almost didn't recognize you, Edward. This suit, it's like a disguise."

"I feel I need it now." With a half-laugh Sanders pointed to the trees twenty yards from them, but Louise failed to notice the lepers sitting in the shadows.

" Aragon told me you'd been caught in the forest," she went on, glancing critically at Sanders. "But you seem all in one piece. I've been talking to Dr. Tatlin, the physicist, he's explained all his theories about the forest-very complicated, believe me, all about the stars and time, you'll be amazed when I tell you."

"I'm sure I will." Happy to listen to her blithe chatter, Sanders slipped his arm through hers and steered her along the clearing toward the group of chalets at the rear of the hospital. After the antiseptic odors and the atmosphere of illness and compromise with life, Louise's brisk stride and fresh body seemed to come from a forgotten world. Her white skirt and blouse shone against the dust and the somber trees with their hidden audience. Feeling her hips against his own, Sanders almost believed for a moment that he was walking away with her for ever from Mont Royal, the hospital and the forest.

"Louise!" With a laugh he broke into her rapid résumé of her evening at the army base. "For God's sake, shut up. You may not realize it, but you're giving me a catalogue of all the exchange officers at the camp!"

"I'm not! What do you mean? Hey, where are you taking me?"

"Coffee-for you. A drink for me. We'll go to my chalet, Max's houseboy will bring some over for us."

Louise hesitated. "All right. But what about-?"

"Suzanne?" Sanders shrugged. "She's asleep."

"What? Now?"

"She always sleeps during the day-at night she has to run the dispensary. To tell the truth, I've hardly seen her." He added hastily, aware that this was not necessarily the answer Louise wanted to hear: "It was pointless coming here-the whole thing has been a complete anti-climax."