Passage

of all people.

Joanna had said Maisie never told her mother anything. She hid her books from her, her interest in disasters, even the fact that he’d told her about Joanna’s death, and her mother only allowed upbeat discussions. She would never even have let Maisie bring up the subject of coding. Something else must have happened. Maisie must have accidentally mentioned his name, and, to cover, so her mother wouldn’t find out he’d been there telling her about Joanna, she’d said something about the project, and her mother had confabulated it, through her powers of positive thinking, into a miracle cure.

“You’ll need a copy of her medical history,” Mrs. Nellis said, busily planning. “I’ll pick up the project application from Records. Maisie will be so pleased. She was so excited when she was telling me about your project. The possibility of coding again’s really worried her, I know. I told her her doctors won’t let anything happen to her, but she’s been fretting about it.”

But she had coded twice without a quiver. And she had known about the transplant when he and Kit saw her and hadn’t seemed frightened. Her only thought had been to help them find out where Joanna had gone.

“Of course I realize a cure for coding will be tremendously in demand, and that there will be many patients competing for it. That’s another reason I want Maisie in on the project at this stage,” Mrs. Nellis said. “I’ll talk to my lawyer about arranging a waiver for participation by a minor. I’m on my way there now, and I’ll ask him about any other possible obstacles.”

Why would Maisie have told her? She had to know she’d take even a casual mention of a possible treatment and turn it into an accomplished fact. So why had she told her? She had to have known she’d do exactly what she had done, come roaring up to the lab and—

That’s it, he thought. That’s why Maisie told her. So she’d come up here. So she’d insist on my going to see Maisie. Maisie’s found out where Joanna was, he thought, and this is her way of telling me. But why hadn’t she just called? Or had him paged?

“I’ll need to talk to Maisie before I make any decisions regarding the project,” he said.

“Of course. I’ll notify the CICU. Maisie doesn’t have a phone in her room, but I’ll tell the sector nurse to let you speak to her.” Maisie doesn’t have a phone, he thought, and she couldn’t get anyone to carry a message for her. This is her way of paging me.

“…and if you have any trouble getting through, just have the CICU call me,” she said. “I’ll go straight down there from here and have you put on the approved visitors list, and after I’ve seen my lawyer, I’ll talk to Records about the application process. And I’ll leave you to work on your project. I know your breakthrough’s going to happen soon!” she said, smiled brightly, and was gone.

He waited till he heard the elevator ding, then grabbed his lab coat and his name tag, picked up an official- looking clipboard for good measure, and took off for the CICU, taking the stairs to seventh and crossing the walkway, thinking, All those hours of mapping paid off. I can get anywhere in this hospital in five minutes flat.

He ran up the stairs to sixth and down the hall to CICU, where a volunteer at a desk guarded the door. She glanced briefly at his name tag and smiled. He strode through the ward to Maisie’s room. The nurse at the desk outside her door stood up. “Can I help you?” she asked, moving so she was blocking the door.

“I’m Dr. Wright,” Richard said. “I’m here to see Maisie Nellis.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Nellis said you’d be down,” she said and led the way into the room. Maisie was lying against her pillows, watching TV. “Dr. Wright’s here to see you,” the nurse said, moving around behind the bed to look at her IVs. She pushed a button on the IV stand.

“Hi,” Maisie said listlessly, and looked back up at the TV. What if I’m wrong, and she wasn’t trying to send a message? Richard thought, watching her. What if I confabulated the whole thing?

The nurse straightened the IV line, pushed the button again, and went out, pulling the door nearly shut behind her. “Well, it’s about time,” Maisie said, pushing herself up to sit. “What took you so long?”

51

“Nearer, my God, to thee.”

—Last words of U.S. President William McKinley, after being shot by an assassin

Joanna stared at the wireless operator’s blond hair, at his young, open face. The face that had laughed happily at her from the photo in Mr. Briarley’s library. “You’re Kit’s fiance,” she said.

“You know Kit?” Kevin said, yanking the earphones off. “She’s not here, is she?” He leaped up, gripped Joanna’s shoulders. “Tell me she’s not here.”

“No,” Joanna said hastily. “She’s fine. She’s—” but he had already sat back down, was already sending again.

“I have to get a message to her,” he said, tapping out the code. “I have to tell her I’m sorry. It was my fault, I didn’t watch where I was going.”

“Neither did I,” Joanna said.

“I have to get the message to her that I love her,” Kevin said, his forefinger relentlessly tapping out the code. “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t even say good-bye.” He picked up the headphones and held the earpiece to his ear. “There isn’t any answer,” he said. “It’s too far.”

“No, it isn’t,” Joanna said, kneeling beside him, her hand on his arm. “The message got through. She knows you loved her. She understands you couldn’t say good-bye.”

“And she’ll be all right?” he asked anxiously. “I left her all alone.”

“She’s not alone. She’s got Vielle, and Richard.”

“Richard?” he said. An expression of pain crossed his face and was replaced by something sadder. “I was afraid she’d be alone. I was afraid it was too far for the message to get through,” and laid the headphones down on the table.

“It wasn’t,” Joanna said, still kneeling by him. “It isn’t. And I have to get a message through. It’s important. Please.”

He nodded, put his finger on the key. “What do you want to say?”

Good-bye, Joanna thought. I’m sorry. I love you. She glanced at the spark. It wavered, dimmed. “Tell Richard the NDE’s a distress signal from the brain to all the body’s systems. Tell him it—” she said, and was yanked brutally to her feet.

“The collapsibles weren’t there,” Greg growled, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Where are they?” He shook her. “Where are they?”

“You don’t understand,” Joanna said, looking frantically back at Kevin. “I have to send a—”

But Greg had let go of her, had grabbed Kevin’s arm. “That’s a wireless!” he said. “You’re sending out SOSs! There are ships coming to save us, aren’t there? Aren’t there?”

Kevin shook his head. “The Carpathia’s coming. But she’s fifty-eight miles from here. She won’t make it in time. It’s too far for her to come.”

Joanna sucked in her breath.

“What do you mean, too far for her to come?” Greg said, and Joanna understood finally what it was she had heard in his voice in the ER. She had thought it was despair, but it wasn’t. It was disbelief and fury. “Fifty-eight?” Greg said, jerking Kevin around to face him. “There has to be something closer than that. Who else are you sending to?”

“The Virginian, the Olympic, the Mount Temple,” Kevin said, “but none of them are close enough to help. The Olympic’s over five hundred miles away.”

“Then send the SOS to somebody else,” Greg said and pushed Kevin down into the chair. “Send it to somebody closer. What about that ship whose light everybody saw?”

“She doesn’t answer.”

“She has to answer,” Greg said, and jammed Kevin’s hand down onto the key.