It was moving so fast. Having decided that someone needed to go for more medical supplies, there had been no point in delay. It had only been twelve hours since they had decided that it should be done and she was already stepping into the same type of craft that was to be Jules' home for the weeks ahead. It made her feel close to him.

Lauria had not tried to define the emotions that she was feeling since he left. Mostly she had just been drifting in a fog through the routine of a medical emergency. That was what life was on board the vessel for her.

To a lesser degree it was what life was becoming for everyone in the healthcare field. Not only were there more people, more ways to get sick, and fewer people to heal them, but health education had reached its lowest point in history during the decade after the millennium's turn.

Professional opinion suggested that the trend toward poor health had to do with a combination of poverty and population density. She had her own theory: people got so convinced that the world was going to end that they had stopped caring about the future. One of the reasons for a very recent improvement in education was a growing awareness that world conditions were very similar to those that existed just prior to the 13th century horror of the bubonic plague.

That reminded her of her own agenda for the trip back to Earth. She was going to personally make the world aware of the disease spreading down the Arctic coastline. There had been a large amount of initial interest in her at the start of the Governance, but as it became more clear that she and Jules would not be joining the hordes of 'Streamers who shared their sexual exploits, requests for personal interviews had faded. But, today, she knew, there would be cameras on her, and she would have, for a moment, the eyes of the world.

There was a personal atmosphere suit on board which she had to don before the ship touched down. She had been told that the trip would last 93 minutes. That was, she decided, the perfect amount of time for a REM cycle.

****

The video footage of the shuttle showed her lying down in bed, rising 91 minutes later, putting on the personal atmosphere suit, and stepping onto the helipad of the VI building 97 minutes later.

That is not what happened.

*****

When Jules shook her awake her first thought was that she must still be dreaming. It took a few seconds for the reality of his nearness to penetrate her awareness. Once it had she put her arms around his neck and drew him towards her.

"I'm so sorry that I had to go. I'm so sorry." He was less controlled than she had ever seen him.

She could feel hot tears on her neck where his face was pressed against her. She surprised herself by having none of her own. She pushed him back but gripped his collar and held him there.

"Why?" She asked.

He pulled back from her, seeing in her face that it was a real question and not an accusation. Pulling his emotions back under control, he spoke. "There is something going on with the five of us. The more I think about it the more I am certain. There is something very wrong with the way that I fell into the Governance and the Conspiracy."

"That's it?" Now all of the emotions that she had been ignoring found their center: anger. "You abandoned me without so much as a goodbye and you expect me to accept that it was something you had to do because you think there is something going on." Her voice felt flat, but Julius' reaction told her that he had heard the anger.

"Tell me, what did I say when I was in the coma? Don't deny that I was talking when I was out."

She was taken aback for a moment. "Well," she began. How does he know so much? "It scared us. At the beginning you were just mumbling, nothing comprehensible really, then all at once your body got tense and you said very clearly. 'So now you are back, and it is time to claim your price.' You jerked awake right afterwards."

"And what were you talking about while I was asleep?" He countered.

"You. No one knew where to start dealing with the aliens and Questro said that we should wait until you were better to start planning anything. That's when Cal said that we didn't know that you would be the same when you woke up. It turns out he was right. You weren't, or maybe you were; you already left the whole world, I don't know why I thought you wouldn't leave me." She started crying.

He rested his hand on her shoulder and stood up. Why doesn't he comfort me? He stepped away from her bed and started pacing the room. "What am I missing?"

Then he stopped sharply and came back to her side. "Sorry, I lost a sense of priority for a minute. I need to tell you about something." He took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. "When we met I had run away from the world. All of the reasons that I have told you for that are true, but they are not the whole truth. During the MDMA therapy I honestly did not remember it; it wasn't until the night that Cal and I ate the cookies that I remembered."

"When I get high the world talks to me." He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but there was nothing that occurred to her to say. "Everything that I hear, even conversations that I overhear in public places, they mean something to me. They have some meaning for the challenges that I am facing at that particular time. The songs I hear on the radio are meant for me. Before my first sabbatical I swear I heard songs that have never existed. Since I started again, I have heard songs for the first time that end up on the B-sides of my favorite artists' albums, but I hear them before they break onto the charts. I know it sounds crazy, but Grace can confirm that much is true."

She had tried to hold his gaze but could not. It burned too wild.

"I set her to try to determine if the pattern was legitimate. She hasn't finished yet, but on the day that I left, she told me that the correspondence of audio input into my system to projected thought processes was higher for me than for any other person for whom she had taken data."

He stood back up and seemed to push the last words out with an audible effort. "Either I am going insane, in which I have no place planning anything, or I am at the center of some web of influence that stretches past my sight. I didn't know what to do and I have learned that sometimes doing nothing is the right thing."

She stood up and drew him into her arms. "Don't think about it for now. Shhh..." Her mind was racing, but she had only one prescription for the kind of anguish that she could feel radiating off of him. She held him and told him it was going to be OK.