"I--I hope you want me," she went on, coyness now mixing with
apprehension.
I gave her shoulder a squeeze. "I do want you, Lucy. More than I can
tell you now. After all this is over, there's something more I want to
say. But right now--" I clapped her arm--"there's a job to be done."
"Yes, Kevin," she said, glaring at me for some reason I didn't have
time to investigate or interpret at the moment. My patients were
waiting for me.
They gave me everything else I could possibly need, except enough
sleep, and I myself didn't want that. I wanted to heal. I wanted to
show my fellow human beings that, though I couldn't receive or transmit
thoughts or foretell the future or move things with my mind, all those
powers were useless without life, and that was what I could give.
I took pride in my work. It was good to stop pain and ugliness, to know
that, if it weren't for me, these people would be dead or permanently
disfigured. In a sense, they were--well, my children; I felt a warm
glow of affection toward them.
They felt the same way toward me. I knew because the secret of the
hospital soon leaked out--during all those years of peace, the
government had lost whatever facility it had for keeping secrets--and
people used to come in droves, hoping for a glimpse of me.
* * * * *
The government pointed out that such crowds outside the building might
attract the enemy's attention. I was the most important individual on
Earth, they told my followers, and my safety couldn't be risked. The
human race at this stage was pretty docile. The crowds went away. And
it was right that they should; I didn't want to be risked any more than
they wanted to risk me.
Plenty of people did come to see me officially--the President,
generals, all kinds of big wheels, bringing citations, medals and other
obsolete honors they'd revived primarily for me. It was wonderful. I
began to love everybody.
"Don't you think you're putting too much of yourself into this, Kev?"
Lucy asked me one day.