"Harry, I need your help," the soft sob stirred in his heart and his brain. It felt like something heavy on his chest. He pushed against the haze but it was too great an effort. The clouds closed around his half-thoughts leaving everything disjointed. Like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. Lots of pieces. He could hear Leola breathing as if she was crying. She must be somewhere close by. He had to help her. If only he could see through the mist. Again he strained against lightening darkness but this time the curtain closed.

          "Harry, please," again the entreaty from Leola, "it's too many years. Am I to give up hope completely?" She sounded so pitiful. He searched in his mind for memory, swinging back and forth to see what was there but recognizing in himself a hesitancy that indicated fear. He recoiled from the thought that he was a coward. It took him a moment to recover. This time he probed the depths of his mind slowly, parting the wisps carefully like a panther stalking its prey. He remembered Leola calling him once before . . . an eternity ago or only a moment? He didn't know. Time seemed to have no value. He pushed aside another layer of gauze and saw them there. He dropped the gauze, not wanting to remember but unable to blot out what he had seen. The almost sickly forms with the huge eyes, if they were eyes.

          "Harry?" the weight released itself from his chest but he could not respond. That brief vision was so intense and so sinister that it took all of the little energy he could find. He thought he could hear other voices just as the curtain dropped but was unable to even rouse himself enough to listen.

          The next time she called him to the surface, he listened very carefully. There was something not quite right about the voice. Was it a trick? His heart beat a little faster and the voice grabbed his hand. "Harry, can you hear me?" it asked hopefully. But he hadn't actually broken the surface yet and couldn't answer even if he had chosen to, which he didn't. He was still trying to make sense of things with a seemingly senseless brain; he wasn't sure what had happened. This time, he steeled himself for the vision before he sought it out. And it was there. More painfully graphic than the time before.

          There were six of the creatures clearly visible in front of the craft and the air was full of dust and light beams in the darkness. On the periphery of his vision and almost lost in the clouds of air-borne debris were more. He had no guess as to the total number, though. Poised in the darkness of the desert were combat troops at the ready. He had come here stealthily because he knew something was going on. Something of gargantuan importance was going to happen. He knew it in his blood and he was determined not to miss it. Against orders and all reason he had come. He had eluded security by pure luck and had watched in awe when the craft landed and opened. He saw the first creatures disembarked. And he was afraid. What are combat troops against beings capable of this technology. It was worse than pitting bare hands against machine guns. When the first volley exploded in the night, he watched the two leading creatures crumple to the ground and he knew absolute terror. He saw little of the skirmish that followed because something grazed him on the left temple and he lost consciousness. He saw all this in an instant and held his breath as he relived that moment of horror.

          "Harry!" the not-Leola voice breathed, "I KNOW you can hear me. Please, Harry, open your eyes." He did not open his eyes. The voice took his hand. "Can you squeeze my hand?" it asked. He actually tried, but his hand would not move. Just as well, he needed time to sort it all out. The weight resumed its place on his chest. Tentatively he opened his eyes. The brightness overwhelmed him with searing pain on the back of his eyeballs and shot through the nerve pathways in his brain. He shut them immediately but not before seeing a lump of grey hair on his chest and that the thing clutching his hand looked almost like a claw.

          Now he knew what he had not wanted to know. The creatures from that craft had captured him. He didn't know what their motives were in trying to simulate Leola's voice but it couldn't be good. Leola, after all, was still in Wisconsin and didn't even know he was here. They must have some way of pulling thoughts out of his mind to create this voice. Were they taking revenge for the murder of their own? He could only hope that Leola was safe. He suppressed an involuntary shudder thinking of his pregnant wife. He mustn't let them know he was awake until he could devise a plan. But he obviously couldn't pretend sleep forever. He wondered what time it was just before falling into another deep sleep without pretending and without warning.

          The next time he awoke, the voice had not called him. He carefully opened his eyes. The room was in dim light. It looked like a normal hospital room except the wall in front of his vision was lined with futuristic equipment and screens and control panels. He could not even guess at their purpose. There was clearly an IV bottle (although of some strange plastic shape) hanging on a rack with a tube leading to his arm. He could not turn his head to see to the right and left, however. He attempted to raise his arm and was gripped by panic. His feet and legs, also refused his commands. He was paralyzed. He attempted to make a noise but no sound came from his throat.

          What had they done to him? What were they going to do? His gut turned to jelly. "Damn bastards!" screamed in his mind, "Damn them all to hell!" He had always wanted to believe that creatures from other worlds would come in peace. How naive. How stupid. He was as helpless as a frog in a dissection tray and he was, just as surely, a medical specimen. An ice cold dagger wedged itself into his heart as he thought of Leola and their unborn child.. "I am Franklin Parks Harrison," he thought, "and I am going to die." Then, "Please, Lord, keep Leola and the baby from these creatures." It was almost impossible to contain the anger and hatred he felt over his own impotence. It sucked all of his strength and mercifully returned him to a dreamless sleep.

          "But LOOK!" Leola insisted, "You can see it right here on this print-out. Look! He WAS awake. See here where the brain waves spike? And even the myologram shows some kind of reaction." She waved the print-out strips in the doctor's face. "I TOLD you he'd come out of this."

          "Mrs. Harrison, Leola," the doctor said gently, reaching out to cover her hand with his, "I don't know what you think you see there, but, believe me, he has not regained consciousness. What you do see are involuntary muscle spasms that, unfortunately, verify that his condition is deteriorating rapidly. After fifty years in a coma you must not torment yourself with miraculous expectations."

          "But I've been telling you for almost a year now that he is responding to my voice sometimes and now this . . ." her voice trailed off, but her clear blue eyes were defiant in her seventy year old face.