chain of ancestors in their infants. You find it everywhere, in many peoples, from Indonesians to Bantus to Druids. You get thinkers like Plato and Empedocles and Pythagoras and Plotinus trying to describe it. The Orphic mysteries and the Jewish Cabala took a crack at it. Even modern science has investigated the activity. It's quite accepted where I come from, a perfectly natural phenomenon.'
'But I just can't accept that, in a laboratory setting, this hadal's soul passed into another person?'
'Soul?' said Rau. 'In Buddhism there's no such thing as soul. They talk about an undifferentiated stream of being that passes from one existence to another. Samsara, they call it.'
In part goaded by Thomas's skepticism, Vera challenged the idea, too. 'Since when does rebirth involve epileptic seizures, homicide, and cannibalism? You call this perfectly natural?'
'All I can say is that birth doesn't always happen without problems,' Rau said. 'Why should rebirth? As for the devastation' – and he gestured at the TV view of destruction – 'that may have to do with man's limited capacity for memory. Perhaps, as Dr. Koenig described, memory is a matter of electrical wiring. But memory is also a maze. An abyss. Who knows where it goes?'
'What was your question about lab animals, Rau?'
'I was just trying to eliminate other possibilities,' he answered. 'Classically, the transfer occurs between a dying adult and an infant or animal. But in this case the hadal had only this young woman at hand. And it found an occupied house, so to speak. Now it's disabling Dr. Yamamoto's memory in order to make room for itself.'
'But why now?' asked Mary Kay. 'Why all of a sudden, like this?'
'I can only guess,' Rau said. 'You told me your mechanical blade was about to dissect the hippocampus. Maybe this was the hadal memory's way of defending itself. By invading new territory.'
'It invaded her? That's an odd way of putting it.'
'You westerners,' said Rau, 'you mistake reincarnation with a sociable act, like a handshake or a kiss. But rebirth is a matter of dominion. Of occupation. Of colonization, if you will. It's like one country seizing land from another, and interposing its own people and language and government. Before long, Aztecs are speaking Spanish, or Mohawks are speaking English. And they start to forget who they once
were.'
'You're substituting metaphors for common sense,' said Thomas. 'It doesn't get us any closer to our goal, I'm afraid.'
'But think about it,' said Rau. He was getting excited. 'A passage of continuous memory. An unbroken strand of consciousness, eons long. It could help explain his longevity. From man's narrow historical perspective, it could make him seem eternal.'
'Who's this you're talking about?' Mary Kay asked.
'Someone we're looking for,' Thomas said. 'No one.'
'I didn't mean to pry.' After all she'd shared with them, her hurt was evident.
'It's a game we play,' Vera rushed to explain, 'nothing more.'
The video monitor on the wall behind them had no sound, or else they might have noticed the initial flurry of action in the laboratory. Mary Kay's pager beeped and she looked down at it, then suddenly whirled in her chair to see the screen. 'Yammie,' she groaned.
People were rushing through the laboratory. Someone shouted at the monitor, a soundless cry. 'What?' said Vera.
'Code Blue.' And Mary Kay flew out the door. A half-minute later, she reappeared on the monitor.
'What's happening?' asked Rau.
Vera turned her wheelchair to face the monitor. 'They're losing the poor girl. She's in cardiac arrest. Look, here comes the crash wagon.'
Thomas was on his feet, watching the screen intently. Rau joined him. 'Now what?'
he said.
'Those are the shock paddles,' Vera said. 'To jump-start her heart again.'
'You mean she's dead?'
'There's a difference between biological and clinical death. It may not be too late.' Under Mary Kay's direction, several people were shoving aside tables and wrecked machinery, making room for the heavy crash wagon. Mary Kay reached for the paddles and held them upright. To the rear, a woman was waving the electric plug in one hand, frantically casting around for an outlet.
'But they mustn't do that!' Rau cried.
'They have to try,' said Vera.
'Didn't anyone understand what I was talking about?'
'Where are you going, Rau?' Thomas barked. But Rau was already gone.
'There he is,' said Vera, pointing at the screen.
'What does he think he's doing?' Thomas said.
Still wearing his cowboy hat, Rau shouldered aside a burly policeman and made a sprightly hop over a spilled chair. They watched as people backed away from the stainless-steel table, exposing Yamamoto to the camera. The frail young woman lay still, tied and taped to the table, with wires leading off to machines. As Rau approached, Mary Kay stood her ground on the far side, shock paddles poised. He was arguing with her.
'Oh, Rau!' Vera despaired. 'Thomas, we have to get him out of there. This is a medical emergency.'
Mary Kay said something to a nurse, who tried to lead Rau away by the arm. But Rau pushed her. A lab tech grabbed him by the waist, and Rau doggedly held on to the edge of the metal table. Mary Kay leaned to place the paddles. The last thing Vera saw on the monitor was the body arching.
With Thomas pushing the wheelchair, they hurried to the laboratory, dodging cops, firemen, and staff in the hallway. They encountered a gurney loaded with equipment, and that consumed another precious minute. By the time they reached the lab, the drama was over. People were leaving the room. A woman stood at the door with one hand to her eyes.
Inside, Vera and Thomas saw a man draped partway across the table, his head laid next to Yamamoto's, sobbing. The husband, Vera guessed. Still holding the shock paddles, Mary Kay stood to one side, staring vacantly. An attendant spoke to her. When she didn't respond, he simply took the paddles from her hands. Someone else patted her on the back, and still she didn't move.
'Good heavens, was Rau right?' whispered Vera. They wove through the wreckage as Yamamoto's body was covered and lifted onto a stretcher. They had to wait for the stream of people to pass. The husband followed the bearers out.
'Dr. Koenig?' said Thomas. Wires cluttered the gleaming table.
She flinched at his voice, and raised her eyes to him. 'Father?' she said, dazed. Vera and Thomas exchanged a concerned look.
'Mary Kay?' Vera said. 'Are you all right?'
'Father Thomas? Vera?' said Mary Kay. 'Now Yammie's gone, too? Where did we go wrong?'
Vera exhaled. 'You had me scared,' she said. 'Come here, child. Come here.' Mary
Kay knelt by the wheelchair. She buried her face against Vera's shoulder.
'Rau?' Thomas asked, glancing around. 'Now where did he go?'
Abruptly, Rau burst from his hiding place in a heap of readout paper and piled cables. He moved so quickly, they barely knew it was he. As he raced past Vera's wheelchair, one hand hooked wide, and Mary Kay grunted and bent backward in pain. Her lab jacket suddenly gaped open from shoulder to shoulder, and red marked the long slash wound. Rau had a scalpel.
Now they saw the lab tech who had tried to pry Rau loose from the table. He sat slumped with his entrails across his legs.
Thomas yelled something at Rau. It was a command of some kind, not a question. Vera didn't know Hindi, if that's what it was, and was too shocked to care.
Rau paused and looked at Thomas, his face distorted with anguish and
