He might be lost in the Utah desert with a ruined compass, he might have a half-empty canteen and no shelter, but for Sid Porter, the last straw was his chocolate-coated jeweler's loupe. He wondered again how he could have been dumb enough to save the candy bars from his lunch as an afternoon snack. At least he would have no trouble backtracking to the garnet field where he'd spent a good part of the morning. He could follow all the chocolate smears both rear jeans pockets had left on the rocks where he had sat to rest.

The sun was mid-afternoon high, and not even the steep sides of the arroyo Sid was following offered any shade. He gave up and slung his field pack beside the nearest rock then sat with an oof, like a seat cushion being beaten of dust. Squinting past tumbled boulders toward the next bend, Sid pictured the arroyo opening out onto the flat, dry bed of dead Sevier Lake, where the wulfenite assay camp was set up, with its battered trucks, dusty tents, and boiled, gritty water. But the vision failed to stir him. He made it a point not to get up for fantasies.

The thought of maps hung with him, though, maps everywhere in that camp. Including the one he had forgotten. Although Sid swore he slipped it in his pack just before Ginny came sprinting out of Bill's tent, stark naked, a scorpion clinging to her ass.

He grinned at the memory. The camp had been pretty chaotic for a while, and not just the normal "all Hell's broken loose," sort of chaos, but that new kind of chaos that was being written up in all the journals. What was that term in the "Scientific American" article Sid had just finished? Strange attractors? That was Ginny and Bill, all right.

Sid raised his canteen and sloshed it experimentally. Still over half full. He uncapped it and lifted it in a toast. To unlikely lovers? No, that sounded too much like he and Judy. He would drink to the Lady Molybdenum. Deceptively soft and easy to work with, but she was a tough old bitch, and a little bit of her went a long way. "To Molly Be Damned," Sid muttered. His lips cracked when he pulled them apart, and he winced. Best not to talk to himself anyway. Judy hated it when he talked to himself. She would say, "Hey, Sid. Look at me. Give the words to me." He would try, but talking to her always felt exactly the same.

He squinted up at the sun, letting its light dazzle pictures of Judy away. Then he pulled out his compass. It was filled with sweet brown gook which had oozed through a crack in the crystal. He'd already wiped off the little crispy things. Sid gripped it tight, tighter, felt the crystal give again, and cocked his arm to throw. Let the ants and lizards discover the joys of a sugar high. Just give him one good flare and a gun to shoot it with.

"You're lost."

Sid spun about, trying to track the voice, and slid off the side of the rock, landing on his pack with a grunt. The compass dropped into his lap. Staring into the pure, hot sky, Sid saw the blocky silhouette of a woman wearing overblouse and tiered skirt, standing on the edge of the wash. The sun cutting over her left shoulder made his eyes tear. Cheap trick, thought Sid.

"I'm lost. No shit." Silence. Sid coughed, and it hurt. "I mean, yes, I'm lost. Can you help me get back to camp? Or at least point me toward the highway? I mean, I'm with the USGS assay team, but I got separated--"

"Your pattern," she interrupted him, her voice a low, smooth contralto. "Your pattern is so small round and regular. Like little frozen rabbit turds. How sad."

"Pattern?" Sid blinked; sweat burned in his eyes and he closed them. He had no idea what she was talking about, but thought he should probably feel insulted.

"Pattern," the woman said, agreeably enough. "We each have a pattern. The patterns make our lives, like the patterns of the corn and the sheep." She spoke slowly and deliberately, and Sid, listening to her, felt the tired despair of one so close, yet so far. She wasn't going to lead him anywhere. Except perhaps some nut-filled religious commune.

"The corn grows every summer, but sometimes it grows thick, sometimes it is weak and dry. The sheep lamb every spring, but some die, some twins are born. The pattern changes, but remains the same. And they grow. As we grow. But some men do not grow. They do not change. Their patterns become frozen, like the patterns of a finely woven blanket. Beautiful to see, but never changing. Or a pattern shrinks away to nothing and vanishes, and the man is no more, though he walks among his friends."

"Just like death and taxes," muttered Sid. He squinted up at the sharp silhouette. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"You would ask that," she said, and disappeared.

"Whoa." Sid blinked again. He hoisted himself slowly up onto the rock and stretched out his legs, so he could think. The canteen sloshed at his side.

"Hell." Ray Bearchild. It must have been Ray. Ray, with some elixir of his ungodly mushrooms, in Sid's canteen. All the geologists had their reasons for putting up with fieldwork--Sid himself had found an incredible third of a carat gem-quality sapphire when he should have been drilling for oil shale--but Ray's motive was legendary throughout the region. Ray went out in the field so he could take mushrooms in the desert night and stare up at the stars until his eyeballs dried out.

But Ray was the closest thing Sid had to a friend on the whole crew. Sid rested his forearms on his knees and let the sweat drip off his face. "Don't kid yourself," he said. Ray was the closest thing he had to a friend. They'd met at an auction of loose stones, both bidding determinedly for a piece of fine turquoise. Ray had gotten it, and Sid had almost turned on his heel and left right then, but instead he had gone to the display table to say good-bye to the piece. He'd gotten a closer look at Ray, at the silver and turquoise rings encrusting his fingers, the conches on his belt, the silver around his wrist. It was all very fine, and, although Sid didn't mount his stones--he never wore jewelry, and he never gave his stones away, so why bother--he admired good work. "You do this?" he'd asked. Ray had looked around, startled, then nodded once. "I'm glad you got the piece," Sid had said, and surprised himself by saying it. Ray had invited him to coffee, and they had talked stones ever since.

But he shouldn't kid himself about that, either. Judy was Ray's sister, and Ray, Sid recalled, had handed him his canteen as he fled the uproar that morning. Either that, or--eat your heart out, Carlos Castaneda.

No. The woman was a hallucination. Plain and simple. Not good. Not good at all.

Sid did not know which scared him more--the thought of being lost in the desert, or the thought of being lost in the drug. He managed a dry chuckle. No contest. The discomfort of western Utah was familiar, manageable. He knew the high plateau land, scrubby with sagebrush, rubbled with boulders, inhabited by scuttling lizards the same color as the gritty yellow dust that coated everything: hair, clothes, food, throat.

This he learned while finding the hidden stones: the feces-brown pebbles of garnet; the dull blue-green of malachite; the opal, trapped in its muddy matrix and awaiting a gentle tap of his hammer to split it open and let its rainbows flow. Apache tears, carnelian, agate, quartz. The sun was lover to all of them, and he owned the light born of the union. It paid for scrabbling in the dirt.

Hallucinations, visions--they would own him. Once Sid had dreamed about lying outside at night, in the middle of a vast, flat desert land, under a sky crowded with stars. He was naked, but not cold, and soon a warm, multi-colored light began to drip onto him, as though all the stars were gems, and something was squeezing the gem juice from them. It flickered and splashed onto Sid, and where it touched he bubbled and sizzled like cheese on a pizza. "Help me, I'm melting," he screamed, but no one heard, and Sid oozed down into the earth, past buried dinosaur bones and reservoirs of oil, into hot fire that swept him up like a river. He realized it would be a long, long time before his essence was compressed into diamond.

Sid would much rather be lost than on drugs. And to be both at once--

He closed his eyes, tried to calm his thoughts, tried to analyze what he felt, smelled, heard. Everything seemed normal enough. Perhaps a bit too bright and hard-edged, as though there was suddenly a greater distance between objects and their backgrounds. His sweaty kerchief chafed his neck. His stomach rumbled. No smelling colors, or tasting the feel of the grit that had worked its way into his boots. No tasting much of anything, with his dry, swollen tongue.

"What will you do when you have to drink again?"

He almost elbowed her in the eye as he spun to look at her. She sat next to him, silver conches braided into her black hair and decorating her thick, deep blue velveteen blouse. Her skirt, a dark emerald green, fanned out across the baked mud in ripples of broomstick pleats. She wore a necklace of heavy round beads, turquoise, coral, jet, white shell. Sid ached to run his fingertips across the skin of her face; it was a rich, burnished red-brown, like a polished shard of red obsidian. Like Judy's skin. But with grit and a soft cloth, he knew he could make it smoother.

"Aren't you hot in that get-up?" he asked.

"No." She smiled; her teeth were large and white. Her hands, too, were abnormally large; clasped loosely, they lay in her lap like a grindstone. "And you? Are you hot? Are you thirsty? What will you do now?"

Anger flared, so intensely that Sid's hands began to shake. He took a deep breath before answering. "I'll sit. I'll wait. If I have to, I'll drink the rest of the water in my canteen. Even if it means talking to you for the rest of the day."

She nodded at that. "You asked me for help," she said. "Do you no longer need it?"

"Heck, no. Maybe you can just channel me right back to camp, huh?"

The woman laid a large hand on Sid's thigh. She felt real enough. The heat of her palm made his skin itch. "Have you even considered that you might not be drugged?"

"God damn it." Sid shoved her away and stood awkwardly, clinging to the rock for balance. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

"I want you to ask the right questions," she said, and disappeared again.

"Jesus." Sid looked around for something to throw. "Bitch," he muttered. He hadn't realized he'd had enough experience with women to create such a realistic one. Just like Judy, always thinking he should be able to read her mind, not to mention remember every little detail: birthdays, anniversaries, the perfume she wore when they first met, the clothing he pulled off her when they first made love.

Maybe he should skip being rescued, just stay here in the desert, dig rocks, turn yellow in the dust. Except the desert could be just as demanding as any woman.

If he really wanted to stay alive.

Oh, bullshit. He had options. As much as Sid hated the thought, he would have to keep drinking the water. He was rapidly dehydrating. But, he didn't seem to be on too intense a trip (were they still called trips?) and before he drank again, he would gather a good pile of sagebrush and light a fire. Damn stuff was oily, and should smoke like hell. Next best thing to a flare. He couldn't have gone far from camp; there was a good chance someone would spot it. Then, he could drink up and chat with the weird woman until the others found him.

Climbing up the wall of the arroyo was more difficult than Sid had anticipated. It had been pounded smooth by every flash flood, as solid and forceful as a battering ram, for hundreds of years. He had to chip handholds out with his rock hammer.

Once on the bank of the wash, Sid stopped to catch his breath. He was sweating even more freely now, though the heat and light of the sun seemed distant. Of more immediate concern were the little black dots clustering before his eyes. He dropped to his knees and took deep breaths until the dizziness passed. Then he looked around.

Any faint hope of seeing the camp from the plateau vanished. The camp and the flat, dry bed of Sevier Lake could be in any direction, obscured by the heat waves dancing up from the ground. He did see a rock large enough to cast a shadow, and he headed for it, ignoring the sharp crackles of little scuttling creatures in the brush around him.

Sid glanced at his watch. About four-thirty. Several hours of daylight left. It would be a long time before he was really missed, although they were all supposed to report back to Ryan, the project's chief geologist, by six, to compare and correlate the day's findings. Perhaps he would spot their smoke. Unfortunately, he expected to be higher than a kite by then.

"Sagebrush, sagebrush." Sid told himself to stand up and get busy. But crouching in the shade was so nice. Just being out of the direct heat of the sun seemed to lift a weight from the top of his head. Damn it all, couldn't a guy ever just relax? Did he always have to be pushing, pushing, pushing?

"In this case, yes," Sid told himself. He heaved himself to his feet and took a deep breath, knowing that as soon as he stepped into the heat, his breath would be sucked from him.

After clearing a small fire-pit, Sid scrounged for loose brush. Soon, he was reduced to hacking off branches with his rock chisel, and swearing in a quiet monotone with each stroke. He quit when he thought he heard the brush swear back. He was afraid it might try to bite him next.

When smoke was puffing satisfactorily up into the clear blue, Sid backed away from the sparks into shade. He no longer had to crouch, but collapsed gratefully against the rock anyway, reaching for his canteen. Damn Ray's drugs. The stuff had scarcely affected him, anyway. The dose in his water must be just enough to bring on the weird woman.

"You may call me the Dine'h."

Sid stiffened. She was back, before he'd taken the first swig. The heat, this time. That was it. He drank, and the warm, gritty water had never soothed him so.

It was hard, but Sid forced himself to stop after a few swallows. He capped the canteen, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Then, he looked at her. This time her hair was tied off her neck in a chongo, and her face was patterned in yellow cornmeal. "You are Navajo."

She did not answer.

"Aren't you a ways north of home?"

"My people roamed this entire basin long before your kind herded us into a pen." She spat. "Not even sheep are penned."

Sid raised his hands. "That wasn't me," he said, then realized he had just spoken precisely the wrong words.

Dine'h looked at him, her eyes narrowing. Otherwise her broad face remained impassive. "No, you are correct. It was not you," she said. "You do nothing."

"Well, shit. What do you want me to do? I do my job, I take care of myself, I stay out of people's way. What's wrong with that?" Now it was Sid's turn to glare, though he wasn't quite sure why her words upset him.

"Nothing. I want you to do nothing."

"Well, then, what do you do, besides appearing to poor schmucks who really just want a good canteen of water and a way home? Besides spouting crap, I mean."

"I change."

Sid watched her for a moment. Then he stood and threw more brush on the fire. Almost six by his watch. They should start looking for him soon. But the sun would not set until after

eight. And the air would not start to cool until some time after that. He returned to his seat. "That simple, huh."

"They won't come for you, Sid."

He looked at her suspiciously.

"There's been a storm in the mountains, and your camp is in danger from flash flooding. They must move to a safe place. They will wait for you as long as they are able, then leave. They will return for you in the morning."

Despite himself, Sid almost believed her. She sounded so calm, so reasoned. "I can last," he said. "I've got some water. No food, but hell, if I can't be rich, at least I can be thin."

"Desert nights are cold."

"Stop it." Sid leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes. "Just stop it, please." He had no idea he was such a pessimist. "I'll rest now, and stay up tonight to feed the fire." When he opened his eyes to look at her, she was gone.

Six o'clock came and went, followed by seven, then eight. The sun ballooned as it sank, turning into a huge, red, rippling ball. A sunset breeze kicked up, drying the sweat on Sid's face, making him shiver. He continued to feed the fire and chop more brush. He'd considered taking a nap, but was filled with the restless, nervous energy that sometimes accompanies exhaustion. The Dine'h's words kept playing over in his mind. Patterns that weren't patterns. Growth, stagnation, death. She changed. He did nothing.

He stood and paced around his fire. She was describing attractors. Strange attractors again. Patterns that described the actions of complex systems. Like weather, and drifting smoke, and the beating of his heart. The patterns looked like skewed Spirograph designs that never repeated themselves exactly.

Sid trickled some water in his mouth and waited for the Dine'h to reappear. She did not. He sloshed the canteen experimentally. About a quarter left. "Plenty," he whispered. "Plenty."

No one came. Sid even managed to rouse himself during a magical half hour when the shadows of the rocks looked like portals into night and the whole land was drenched in rose and gold. But the short, beautiful time did not last, and then he had to rouse himself again, as darkness came and the temperature began to drop.

He scooted closer to fire, until he reached a delicate equilibrium between being warm and being able to breathe through the thick smoke. But warm was not warm enough. The sage brush did not burn hotly.

Night sound closed around him and Sid retreated into his own misery. He dared not drink enough to really relieve his thirst, and his hunger had grown to a sharp pain in his stomach and head. His skin, coated with dirt and the salt of dried sweat, itched. He tried to settle himself on the hard ground and wrapped his arms about his knees. He coughed and leaned away from the smoke. For a moment, he was face into a stiff breeze blowing down from the Confusion Mountains. He thought it smelled sweet and charged, like rain. Had the Dine'h been correct about the rain?

What else had she talked about? It was obvious to Sid where the woman and her words came from: all the bits and pieces and misinformation cluttering his own mind. Stories from Ray about his childhood, glimpses of Judy that he got too seldom, articles that he'd read in a magazine. That he could combine them in such an imaginative way surprised him, and he struggled to recall her words. "Or the pattern shrinks away into nothing and the man is no more, though he walks among his friends."

What had she meant by that?

Sid struggled to remember what he'd read in the article. Perhaps the Dine'h had a point. These attractors described energy systems. What was each separate, living creature but a discrete energy system? Perhaps it could be defined by its own specific pattern. In that case, what would happen when the creature died? Could the pattern continue? Or would it decay, into a repeating pattern, and then into the spiral of ultimate entropy and death?

What happened if a pattern decayed while the creature was still living?

"You do nothing," she had said. "I change."

"This is bullshit," Sid whispered. "Sheer, utter bullshit."

One more phrase popped into his head. "Have you considered that you are not drugged?"

Sid drank again, defiantly, and waited for the gem juice.

He almost hoped the Dine'h came back instead. There was one question Sid wanted to ask her. "Hey," he yelled. "Hey. Why did Ray do this?" Sid could usually ignore what other people did to him. But he could no longer ignore the question of Ray and the drugs. From everything Sid had ever heard, friends did not do such things. Friendships were like a nice piece of amber: tough, and glowing, and sometimes more interesting for the bugs trapped within. But this was not a bug. This was a knife in the back.

The Dine'h touched his shoulder, and Sid stiffened, although he didn't turn around. He must be getting used to her popping in like this. She said again, in a voice so warm with sympathy Sid wanted to hold up his hands to it, "You are lost."

"I thought we'd already decided that."

"No. I have decided you are lost. You have decided you cannot find your camp." Sid turned to look at her. She sat next to him, smiling. The fire stained her silver jewelry a ruddy hue, and her eyes were lost in the smoke and darkness. "Perhaps your friend is your friend, and is concerned that someday you will no longer walk with him."

"That's no excuse for spiking my canteen." What happens if I die out here? Sid thought, but he was not yet ready to say those words aloud.

"You are already dying," said the Dine'h calmly. "And when you die your family will gather about your coffin and scatter your stones upon you, and they will break your bones and sink through your flesh." Sid froze, his mind blank. A dark wave washed through him and he raised a hand, turned to strike her. And stopped.

"My children no longer have their own world in which to grow, but they will learn and thrive. They wear your clothes, eat your food, sleep in your houses, take your jobs. And they will live." She disappeared.

"Damn," Sid whispered. "Damn, damn, damn." It wasn't his world. She just didn't realize it wasn't his world either. That's what he tried to make with his stones. A beautiful world. He had tried other ways, too. Judy. He didn't know if he loved her or not, he wanted to see how his friendship with Ray progressed, but he knew he liked to watch the way she moved when she brushed her hair, and he liked to see her smile, and he liked to listen to her soft words.

But she'd given him an ultimatum: stop spending all his time in the field, or stop expecting her to be there when he got back. Fine. He would expect nothing from her.

And Ray--

Sid shook his head, rocked back and forth with his arms wrapped around his knees. He had his stones. He was so certain of them, it was hard to step away toward something else. He reached for the soft chamois bag holding the garnets he'd found that day, and patted at his waist until he remembered, this time he hadn't tied the bag to his belt. This time he'd left it in his field pack.

And his field pack was at the bottom of the arroyo, abandoned as too much of a bother to carry up.

Sid slumped down, coughing weakly at a lungful of acrid smoke.

Damn. This whole ordeal would be for nothing if he lost those garnets. They'd been too dirty to really determine their quality, but they'd all been of a good size, the largest of them as big as the last joint of his thumb.

He wanted his garnets back.

Sid stood, letting the cold wind catch him. Now that the moon was up, he felt certain that he would be able to find the section of bank he'd notched handholds in and be able to climb right down, scoop up the pack, and climb right back.

Sid peered over the edge into the arroyo. He'd been right; he could see the handholds. The first three, anyway. Farther down, they were lost in shadow. His eyes would adjust. Sid sat down, then turned himself carefully about until he was balanced on the edge, hard dirt and rock pressing against his ribcage, his arms trembling as they tried to take his weight. But he was weak, now. For one panicked instant, Sid realized that he would have to find those notches. He could no longer hoist himself out using just his arms. The toe of one boot caught, and he tested it gingerly. It would bear his weight. Sid climbed down.

He paused to rest, forehead against cool dirt. He should wait until morning. But nothing had gone his way the whole damn day. He wanted his stones.

Step after step, he fumbled his way down. Damn, he couldn't remember it being so far to the bottom. The shadow sliced into his legs, then across his waist, then finally split the earth above his head, and Sid paused to let his night vision sharpen. He looked up. The stars sprang at him. He thought again of his dream, and gem juice. He chuckled, and wished he could free one hand to take a drink of water.

Three more steps, a miss-step, and Sid slid down the rest of the way, scraping his shins and landing heavily on his knees while pebbles and clods of dirt rained down. He coughed, waved the dirt away. Just as well. He'd probably have to feel for his pouch on hands and knees anyway. Perhaps he should just spend the rest of the night down here, Sid thought. Away from the wind he wasn't too cold. And it would beat trying to climb back up.

Legs wobbly, Sid dropped onto hands and knees and turned toward where he thought he'd left his pack. A surge of adrenalin had cleared his thoughts, though his heart was now beating far too quickly. He felt alert, but weak. He closed his eyes to speed his night vision and crawled forward.

After a few minutes, Sid decided that he had crawled in the wrong direction. He also noticed that his arms and legs were shaking badly, and if he didn't find the pack soon, he would either have to leave it or spend the night at the bottom of the wash. It wasn't too cold out of the wind. He opened his eyes. The pack must look like one more rock among the tumbled mess. That one to the left looked familiar, though, and he took a deep breath and stood, wanting a different perspective. He lurched and stumbled to his knees again, realizing that his arms and legs weren't shaking. The ground was.

The Dine'h had been right. Flash flood. Sid bit his lip, trying to keep his breathing slow, his heartbeat calm. His first thought was to get out of the wash, and he almost backed toward the wall, but he was too close to the pack to leave now. Stubborn, stubborn, he thought, but he wanted his stones. They were all he had. They would be so beautiful when he finished with them --

His hand brushed something that ran away. Sid almost screamed. Get out, he told himself. Now. He could hear nothing, but the trembling in the ground shook him like holding a chain saw, and around him the rocks were beginning to settle. He closed his eyes more tightly than before and crawled, patting the ground as he went.

He'd given Judy a star garnet once, a glorious six-point star he'd found and polished himself. "Oh," she'd said. "Oh." And that was all. But Sid had known what was wrong. It wasn't either turquoise in silver, to hang around her neck and drag her toward the earth, or clear and faceted and set in a ring, given while he ground his knees into some hard pavement and declared his undying love. He'd given her what he could, and it hadn't been enough. The next day, he'd brought a rough, but clear quartz crystal and tossed it to her. She'd held it to the light and asked if it was a diamond.

No, what he had with Judy wasn't very beautiful. Nor with the other geologists on the team. Nor, it seemed, with Ray. And certainly not with his dad and sister. His grandmother didn't count anymore; she was dead.

He wanted his stones.

But Sid could hear the water now. A dull rumble, just at the edge of sound, that made his jaw hurt. He crawled forward again.

And his hand came down on the pack.

Sid cried out. He gathered it up carefully in both hands, unzipped it, scrabbled inside until he felt smooth chamois and stones within, shifting and playing over each other. He pulled out the bag and let his pack drop, then staggered to his feet, trying to keep his balance.

Sid had never been in an earthquake before. Eastern Washington was not known as earthquake country. But the ground now was giving a good imitation. He stumbled toward the ladder notched into the side of the wash, tripping once and landing heavily on his forearms. He would not let go of the pouch.

A wind had kicked up inside the arroyo, made of air forced before a rushing wall of water, and it dragged at Sid's shirt, whipped his hair about his face. Sid looped the pouch's leather thong about his neck, felt the comforting weight of the stones bump gently against his chest, and fumbled outward for the ladder. He couldn't feel it. He'd crawled to one side or the other while he was searching, and could not feel the notches.

A powerful gust caught him and flung him against the hard packed dirt. The water was no more than a minute or two away, and he could hear it clearly now; a huge, still growing roar that drowned out his own voice as he screamed. Sid looked up.

There. To the right, he could see the notches he'd cut in the dirt as black pockmarks caught in the light of the moon. Quick warred with careful in Sid's mind, and he stumbled down the arroyo, running his hands over the wall. His fingertips slid into the first notch.

Sid hoisted himself up. But his arms were so weak; they trembled already, and he was afraid he would have to pause and rest between each rung. He had no time. He reached for the next rung, and pulled.

Now the shuddering of the arroyo wall was threatening to dislodge his hands. All this for a bag of rocks, Sid thought wildly, and reached and pulled. His head popped up into the moonlight, but Sid knew he would have to make it all the way to the top and over the side before he would be safe.

Maybe he should just let go. Just relax, for once relax and drop back into the coming water. It would be fast, this death, instead of the slow chipping and grinding of the death he lived every day.

A cascade of pebbles rained down on his head, and Sid looked up.

The Dine'h's head jutted out past the edge of the bank above him. She was crouched on the bank watching. Simply watching. The wall bucked under him, and he clung to it. The wind tore at him, and he flattened himself against the dirt. More pebbles fell. She was still there. Damn persistent for an illusion. For a moment, he saw patterns, patterns in stone, never changing except to fade and disappear. Like monuments, carvings, gravestones. He thought again of letting go, of taking the first step toward becoming stone, but somehow he couldn't do that with her watching. He had questions, and they angered him.

What did she want from him? What did Ray, or Judy, or anyone want from him?

The first waves swept past Sid's feet, and he could hear the sticks and small rocks tumble and crash, like the agates he tumbled at home. He could hang here until the water plucked him from the side and tumbled him away, or he could--what?

Ask an illusion for help?

"But you're not real," Sid yelled. Spray splashed him.

He could trust his friend Ray.

Sid looked down the arroyo. The water was coming, gleaming in the moonlight, as high as his shoulders, at least. He thrust a hand up. "Help me," he yelled.

Her clasp was warm and strong. Sid felt the spray sting his cheeks and arms as he was pulled up and over the edge.

"Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus," he whispered, and curled up in a ball on the bank. Dine'h dragged him farther from the edge. He began to shiver. She wrapped herself around him, but Sid could not get warm.

"Not to worry, little one," she whispered in his ear. The words meant something, Sid knew they did, but he could not decide what. "You are cold. I will warm you. I will change."

And suddenly Sid was surrounded by thick, coarse, acrid, wonderfully warm fur. He unfolded into it, stroked it, buried himself in it. After a time, he slept.

Sid was still sleeping when Ray found him about noon the next day. He rolled groggily to his knees and blinked up into the sun. Then he looked about. The desert had bloomed.

"Are you all right, Sid?" Ray asked. "Jesus, I'm sorry we didn't get out a search party until this morning. But first it rained in the mountains, then it rained this morning over the lake, and--"

"I'm fine," said Sid. He blinked again, and let Ray help him to his feet, took the canteen and candy bar his friend offered. "Really, I'm okay. It was quite an adventure."

Ray stared, and Sid realized he must be wondering why Sid hadn't started screaming invectives and threats to sue. Maybe later. Desert flowers were certainly beautiful, Sid thought. He'd slept right through the rain.

Ray sucked in his breath and shifted uncertainly. Sid looked at him, and noticed the fine red lines streaking Ray's eyes, the sweat stains already blossoming on his shirt. They probably weren't all from the heat. "Really," Sid said again, "I'm fine." He didn't know how to speak of forgiveness. He only hoped Ray understood.

Ray grinned. He pointed toward the ground, at a patch of drying mud with a paw print pressed deeply into it. Sid saw more, in a circle about where he'd slept. They seemed to make a pattern, but one he knew would never repeat.

"Bear?" he asked Ray, who nodded. Sid bit the inside of his cheek, considering, then grinned, too.

"Will Josh fix me an omelet?" he asked. "I'm starved."

"I expect so. Then we have to get you to a phone. Judy is worried sick."

"She is?" Sid took a deep breath. The next phase of his pattern would take some getting used to.

"She is." Ray took his arm and helped him toward the jeep, leading him carefully through an opening left in the circle of paw prints. Sid looked forward to the shower he would take after talking to Judy.

"By the way," he said to Ray, "I got some great garnets yesterday. Help me clean them and you can pick whichever one you want."