Etheridge had seen Peter more often than Daggett had done – four times in the last year, as it happened – because as Peter grew older he had grown steadily more infirm. But he still hadn't seen him as often as his predecessor … and, she suspected, he didn't have his predecessor's clear-eyed perceptions, either. Or his guts.

From the ward behind them, a German Shepherd suddenly exploded a string of heavy barks that sounded like a string of canine curses. Other dogs picked it up. Peter's ears cocked forward and he began to tremble under Anderson's hand. The Benjamin Button routine apparently hadn't done a thing for the beagle's equanimity, Anderson thought; once through his puppyhood storms, Peter had been so laid-back he was damn near paralytic. This high-strung trembling was brand-new.

Etheridge was listening to the dogs with a slight frown now – almost all of them were barking.

'Thanks for seeing us on such short notice,' Anderson said. She had to raise her voice to be heard. A dog in the waiting room also started to bark – the quick, nervous yappings of a very small animal … a Pom or a poodle, most likely. 'It was very – ' Her voice broke momentarily. She felt a vibration under her fingertips and her first thought

(the ship)

was of the thing in the woods. But she knew what this vibration was. Although she had felt it very, very seldom, there was no mystery about it.

This vibration was coming from Peter. Peter was growling, very low and deep in his throat.

' – kind of you, but I think we ought to split. It sounds like you've got a mutiny on your hands.' She meant it as a joke, but it no longer sounded like a joke. Suddenly the entire small complex – the cinderblock square that was Etheridge's waiting room and treatment room, plus the attached cinderblock rectangle that was his ward and operating theater – was in an uproar. All the