Time became meaningless. The voices from the television set changed, but Keating paid scant attention to them. They were nothing more than background sound effects; like the muted organ music played in a cathedral before the funeral service begins.
The click of the lock sounded like a pistol shot to him. He heard the front door open and then softly close. They had the key to the apartment, of course. The jailers always have the keys. The floor was carpeted, but Keating clearly heard the soft footfalls approaching him. Like a man who had been blind from birth, Keating’s sense of hearing seemed magnified, hypersensitive. He could hear the man’s breathing from halfway across the living room.
He knew it was not Lyle himself. The section chief would never dirty his own hands. With something of a shock Keating realized that he hardly knew anyone else at the agency. Four years of service and he had barely made an acquaintance. The voice inside his head laughed scornfully again. You’ve been dead for years, old boy. You just didn’t realize it.
«Wake up, man. Come on, wake up!»
Jeremy’s eyes snapped open.
A swarthy, pinch-faced, dapper little man with a neatly trimmed black mustache was leaning over him.
«Wha … who … ?» Jeremy’s tongue felt thick, his eyes gummy. But he could speak. He could move again.
«Never mind who,» the man said. «We gotta get you outta here! Fast!»
Feeling almost dizzy with surprise, Jeremy sat up straight in the recliner and planted his feet on the floor. «What’s going on?»
«I don’t got time to explain, man. We only got a couple minutes before they get here! Come on!»
He looked Hispanic, or maybe Italian. He wore a white suit with a double-breasted jacket; strange outfit for an undercover agent. Or an extraterrestrial. Confused, Jeremy struggled to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the television set was playing an old black-and-white movie now.
«Splash some water on your face, wake yourself up. We gotta move fast.»
Jeremy tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head. He lumbered to the bathroom and ran the cold water. The little man watched from the doorway. His suit was rumpled, baggy; it looked as if he had been wearing it for a long time. He pulled a small silver flask from his inside pocket, opened it, and took a long pull from it.
«Take a swig of this; it’ll open your eyes for you.» Jeremy took the pint-sized flask and sniffed at its open mouth. Spanish brandy. He took a small, testing sip.
«Where are we …»
He never finished the sentence. A searing explosion of pain blasted through him. The flask fell from his spasming fingers, and the last thing he saw was the little man deftly catching it before it hit the floor.
Jeremy lurched to the sink, then collapsed across it and slid to the tile flooring. The pain faded away into darkness. He could feel nothing. He could not hear his heart beating, could not draw a breath.
Vaguely, far off in the darkly vast distance, he heard the electronic bleep of a pocket radio and the little man’s voice saying, «Okay, he’s had his heart attack. Looks very natural.»
He opened his eyes and saw a featureless expanse of white. For what seemed like a measureless eternity he stared blankly at it. Then, at last, realizing that he was breathing slowly, rhythmically, he deliberately blinked his eyes and tried to turn his head.
The expanse of white was nothing more than the ceiling of the room he was in. He was lying in a bed, covered with a sheet and a thin white blanket. It looked like a hospital room, or perhaps a private room in an expensive rest home. Modern furniture, all in white: dresser, desk and chair, night table beside the bed, comfortable-looking upholstered chair beside the window. Sunshine streaming in, but the window blinds were angled so that he could not see outside. And he noticed that there were no mirrors in the room; not one, even over the dresser. Three doors. One of them was slightly ajar and showed the corner of a bathroom sink. The second must be a closet, Keating reasoned. The third door opened just then and Kabete Rungawa stepped in.
«You have awakened,» he said, smiling. Somehow, even when he smiled, his face had the sadness of the ages etched into it.
Keating said nothing.
«You have returned from the dead, Mr. Keating. Welcome back to life.»
«I was really dead?»
«Oh, yes. Quite. Your agency is very thorough.»
«Then how … ?»
Rungawa asked permission to sit on the edge of the bed by making a slight gesture and raising his snowy eyebrows. Keating nodded and the old man sat beside him. The bed sagged disturbingly under him, even though he looked small and almost frail.
«Your own medical science can bring a man back from clinical death, in certain cases,» the Black Saint said gently. «Our science is somewhat more advanced than that.»
«And the agency … Lyle …»
«Mr. Lyle was present at your cremation. He was given your ashes, since you had no next of kin listed in your personnel file.»
Keating thought swiftly. «You switched bodies at the crematorium.»
«Something like that,» said Rungawa.
«Then you really are … what you said you were.»
Rungawa’s smile broadened. «Did you doubt it? Even when you risked your life on it?»
«There’s a difference between knowing here,» Jeremy tapped his temple, «and believing, here in the guts, where …»
He stopped in midsentence and stared at the hand that had moved from his head to his midriff. It was not his hand.
«What have you done to me?» Jeremy’s voice sounded high, shrill, frightened as a little child’s.
«It was necessary,» Rungawa’s deep voice purred softly, «to give you a new body, Mr. Keating.»
«A new …»
«Your former body was destroyed. We salvaged your mind—your soul, if you want to use that term.»
«Where … whose body … is this?»
Rungawa blinked slowly once, then replied. «Why, it is your own body, Mr. Keating.»
«But you said …»
«Ahh, I understand. We did not steal it from anyone.» The black man smiled slightly. «We created it for you especially, just as this body of mine was created for me. You would not expect a being from another world, thousands of light-years from your Earth, to look like a human being, would you?»
Jeremy swallowed once, twice, then managed to say, «No, I guess not.»
«It is a very good body, Mr. Keating. A bit younger than your former shell, quite a bit stronger, and with a few special sensitivities added to it.»
Jeremy threw back the bedclothes and saw that he was naked. Good strong legs, flat ridged midsection. His hands looked heavier, fingers shorter and somewhat blunter. His skin was pink, like a baby’s, new and scrubbed-looking.
Wordlessly, he swung his legs to the floor and stood up. No dizziness, no feeling of weakness at all. He padded to the bathroom, Rungawa a few steps behind him, and confronted himself in the mirror.
The face he saw was squarish, with curly red-blond hair and a light sprinkling of faint freckles across its snub nose and broad cheeks. The eyes were pale blue.
«Christ, I look like a teenager!»
«It is a fully adult body,» Rungawa said gravely.
Jeremy turned to the black man, a nervous giggle bubbling from his throat. «When you say born again, you really mean it!»
«You spared my life, Mr. Keating,» said Rungawa. «Now we have spared yours.»
«So we’re even.»
Rungawa nodded solemnly.
«What happens now?» Jeremy asked.
The black man turned away and strode slowly back toward the hospital bed. «What do you mean, Mr. Keating?»
Following him, Jeremy said, «As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Jeremy Keating is dead. But here I am! Where do I go from here?»