a helicopter that clacked overhead. He grasped one ankle and pulled her down. Grim-faced, Johannan took Lala from him.
“Excuse me,” he said, and, facing Lala squarely to him on one arm, he held her face still and looked at her firmly. In the brief silence that followed, Lala’s mischievous smile faded and her face crumpled into sadness and then to tears. She flung herself upon her father, clasping him around his neck and wailing heartbrokenly, her face pushed hard against his shoulder. He un-Englished at her tenderly for a moment, then said, “You see why it is necessary for Lala to come to her grandparents? They are Old Ones and know how to handle such precocity. For her own protection she should be among the People.”
“Well, cherub,” said Mark, retrieving her from Johannan, “let’s go salve your wounded feelings with an ice cream cone.”
They sat at one of the tables in the back of one of the general stores and laughed at Lala’s reaction to ice cream; then, with her securely involved with two straws and a glass full of crushed ice, they returned to the topic under discussion.
“The only way they ever referred to the doctor was just Doctor-“
He was interrupted by the front door slapping open. Shelves rattled. A can of corn dropped from a pyramid and rolled across the floor. “Dern fool summer people!” trumpeted Dr. Hilf. “Sit around all year long at sea-level getting exercise with a knife and fork then come roaring up here and try to climb Devil’s Slide eleven thousand feet up in one morning!”
Then he saw the group at the table. “Well! How’d the hearing go?” he roared, making his way rapidly and massively toward them as he spoke. The three exchanged looks of surprise, then Mark said, “We weren’t in at the verdict.” He started to get up. “I’ll phone-“
“Never mind,” boomed Dr. Hilf. “Here comes Tad.” They made room at the table for Tad and Dr. Hill.
“We’re on probation,” confessed Tad. “I felt about an inch high when the judge got through with us. I’ve had it with that outfit!” He brooded briefly. “Back to my bike, I guess, until I can afford my own car. Chee!” He gazed miserably at the interminable years ahead of him. Maybe even five!
“What about Rick?” asked Mark.
“Lost his license,” said Tad uncomfortably. “For six months, anyway. Gee, Mr. Edwards, he’s sure mad at you now. I guess he’s decided to blame you for everything.”
“He should have learned long ago to blame himself for his own misdoings,” said Meris. “Rick was a spoiled- rotten kid long before he ever came up here.”
“Mark’s probably the first one ever to make him realize that he was a brat,” said Dr. Hill. “That’s plenty to build a hate on.”
“Walking again!” muttered Tad. “So okay! So t’heck with wheels!”
“Well, since you’ve renounced the world, the flesh, and Porsches,” smiled Mark, “maybe you could beguile the moments with learning about vintage cars. There’s plenty of them still functioning around here.”
“Vintage cars?” said Tad. “Never heard of them. Imports?”
Mark laughed, “Wait. I’ll get you a magazine.” He made a selection from the magazine rack in back of them and plopped it down in front of Tad. “There. Read up. There might be a glimmer of light to brighten your dreary midnight.”
“Dr. Hilf,” said Johannan, “I wonder if you would help me.”
“English!” bellowed Dr. Hilf. “Thought you were a foreigner! You don’t look as if you need help! Where’s your head wound? No right to be healed already!”
“It’s not medical,” said Johannan. “‘I’m trying to find a doctor friend of mine. Only I don’t know his name or where he lives.”
“Know what state he lives in?” Laughter rumbled from Dr. Hilf.
“No,” confessed Johannan, “but I do know he is from this general area and I thought you might know of him. He has helped my People in the past.”
“And your people are-” asked Dr. Hilf.
“Excuse me, folks,” said Tad, unwinding his long legs and folding the magazine back on itself. “There’s my dad, ready to go. I’m grounded. Gotta tag along like a kid. Thanks for everything-and the magazine.” And he dejectedly trudged away.
Dr. Hilf was waiting on Johannan, who was examining his own hands intently. “I know so little,” said Johannan. “The doctor cared for a small boy with a depressed fracture of the skull. He operated in the wilderness with only the instruments he had with him.” Dr. Hilf’s eyes flicked to Johannan’s face and then away again. “But that was a long way from where he found one of Ours who could make music and was going wrong because he didn’t know who he was.”
Dr. Hilf waited for Johannan to continue. When he didn’t, the doctor pursed his lips and hummed massively.
“I can’t help much,” said Johannan, finally, “but are there so many doctors who live in the wilds of this area?”
“None,” boomed Dr. Hilf. “I’m the farthest out-if I may use that loaded expression. Out in these parts, a sick person has three choices-die, get well on his own, or call me. Your doctor must have come from some town.”
It was a disconsolate group that headed back up-canyon. Their mood even impressed itself on Lala and she lay silent and sleepy-eyed in Meris’s arms, drowsing to the hum of the car.
Suddenly Johannan leaned forward and put his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Would you stop, please?” he asked. Mark pulled off the road onto the nearest available flat place, threading expertly between scrub oak and small pines. “Let me take Lala.” And Lala lifted over the back of the seat without benefit of hands upon her. Johannan sat her up on his lap. “Our People have a highly developed racial memory,” he said. “For instance, I have access to the knowledge any of our People have known since the Bright Beginning, and, in lesser measure, to the events that have happened to any of them. Of course, unless you have studied the technique of recall it is difficult to take
