Slowly, ice in my veins, I turned in her direction. She was coming towards me, but I couldn't tell if she was moving fast or slow. Suddenly something hissed behind my back and a fist of sulphurous steam punched its way of a fissure in the bedrock. Hot and cold met like two hands clapping together thunderously in preparation for a cyclonic arm wrestle. Then, just when things promised to get really interesting, something silver swept up over my eyes and <BINK> I was in a clinic, surrounded by a team of white-haired medical types, poised to throw themselves on whatsoever wounds I possessed. Tongues clicking, they busied themselves with my knife hand. I couldn't feel anything from my shoulder down, and didn't want to.

"Don't move, Mr. Scalpel," Vavash said, her face looming into view above me.

"What happened?" I croaked.

"While I was showing you around the basement at our retreat, there was a small tremor and a minor geyser broke through the floor. You were injured. I managed to surround you with a stasis field and bring you to the Med-Center here for treatment."

"I see. Was there much damage?" I asked carefully.

"Some minor works that had been sitting around for a long time fell into a crevice," she replied evenly.

I looked at her sharply. She met my gaze without flinching. The doctors murmured about tissue grafts. I asked, "Were all the works in that area destroyed?"

"Yes," she answered bluntly.

"You don't seem to be affected by the loss."

"Mr. Scalpel, when one is forced to confront one's feelings... it's been forty years since I stopped doing that kind of work. It was done by a different woman. I realized that I no longer had any feelings at all... for the works themselves. My anxieties were just residue that had been accumulating over the years. Now that the situation is resolved, I feel cleansed. <BINK> and my stasis has been dispelled. Isn't that what you wanted?"