tling in my ears. A few drops of rain fell. There were flashes of
lightning in the sky.

Wet leaves whipped against my face and there was a crack of thunder so
close that it shook me. I ran away from the thunder and up another rise
and down into another hollow.

The wind was stronger now. It came in long blasts. Sometimes I ran with
it and sometimes against it. When I ran against it I didn't make much
headway, but my legs kept pumping. There was tall grass to slow me down
and there were roots to trip me. There was the wind and the thunder and
the lightning. And there were always trees.

And then there was a terrible flash and above me a crack that was not of
thunder. Something came crashing down. It was the limb of a tree. It
crashed against my chest and smashed me flat on my back and pinned me
there.

One of my ribs felt broken. It jabbed into me as I fought to raise this
weight from my chest, and this was a pain I could feel.

This was something that hurt as nothing had ever hurt me before. This
was excruciating. But it was the pain that cut through the grayness of
my mind, and because of that I welcomed it.

With the pain would come knowledge. I would know who I was and why I was
running. Already there were figures racing across the blankness. There
were faces and there were names: Ristal, Kresh, Marko, Copperd, Beth.

I was Marko. I knew that much already. Beth was the golden girl. Somehow
I knew that too. But who were the others?

It wasn't coming fast enough. I couldn't find the connections. There was
only one way to bring it back, to bridge the gaps. I had to start
somewhere, with what I knew. I had to start with myself and then bridge
the gap to Beth. That was the beginning.

* * * * *

I checked with the mirror for the last time and decided that I would
pass muster. As far as I could see, I looked like almost any college
student.

There wasn't anything I could do about my hair. It hadn't grown at all.
It was a mass of short, black ringlets that fit my head like a tight
cap. But there was no use worrying about that.

Mrs. Mara came down the hall just as I was locking the door. She looked
hurt when she saw me turn the key.

"You don't have to do that in my house," she said. "There's nobody would
think of going into your room."

"Of course not," I said. "It's just force of habit, you know."

I smiled and hoped she would pass it off as lightly as I seemed to. The
la