"I will make it easy on you." The chimpanzee Wanda raised her voice over the cacophony of drums and bells. "Tell me the names of apes who have helped you!"

Major Peter Burke, United States Air Force, didn't answer right away. His head ached, he hadn't been given food or water since being captured, and several hours of being forced to stand in place had turned his legs to rubber. His vision had dimmed at the edges, and exhaustion made him feel hollow and stupid. Wanda, his self-proclaimed interrogator, had been asking him the same questions over and over. Names of apes. Names of humans. A death sentence for anyone he betrayed.

"There have been many apes who helped us," he said, his voice lost in his own ears. Only the stone wall behind him kept up upright, and he didn't know how much longer it would be before his knees gave way again. The last time he went down, they had thrown cold water over him. His clothes still felt damp in the chilly cave air.

"The truth!" she screamed at him.

Anger lent him strength. "That is the truth!"

"It is not the truth!" she spat. "Only one ape has helped you, and that's the traitor Galen."

He knew she didn't want the real truth. Wanda didn't want to believe apes besides Galen had helped Burke and his friend Colonel Alan Virdon since they crash-landed their spaceship just two months earlier. In the twisted land they now called home, simians ruled the world and humans were considered animals. In Burke and Virdon's case, the government wanted to hunt them down and silence them before a deeper truth could be revealed; humans had once been the dominant species on the planet Earth, achievers of far more than the apes had ever dreamed possible.

"I don't know what you want," Burke said, only a half-fabrication. The headache that had plagued him since he had first woken up as a prisoner was only getting worse. He remembered his capture only in fragments - a sunny day, apes on the horizon, a net. Virdon and Galen had escaped, and for that he was grateful. He'd be even more grateful when Virdon got his ass in gear and showed up to rescue him.

"I want the truth!" Wanda yelled at him. Such a harsh voice. So unladylike. Maybe she had a deadline to meet, and if he didn't give her the required information she, too, would be punished. Maybe she just liked screeching. He wondered if she had a husband and how he managed to endure her.

"My mind's a blank," he said, no lie there.

She turned to one of the guards, a gorilla who'd been taking a particular delight in tormenting Burke when he could. "Lieutenant. You know what to do."

They dragged him off. The world grayed out and then darkened completely.

2. Truth Be Told

They don't know who they're dealing with, he told himself. They have no idea. Burke lay on the dirt floor of his cell, trying to conserve energy and cheer himself up at the same time. He felt sore all over, but the relief of being out of that wagon and free of ropes was enormous and encouraging. He still couldn't see much - the only illumination came from a flickering torch down the passage - but the darkness didn't bother him much. The only thing he didn't like about it was the faint scratching sound from the corner. Any minute now he might feel the brush of wiry hair, the tap-tap of tiny feet, the sharpness of little rat teeth as they started to gnaw on his fingers or toes.

All in all, though, he didn't feel too bad. Hungry, yes. The pangs in his stomach had started earnest some time ago. His head ached, and the swollen lump behind his right ear hadn't gone down yet. But things could definitely be worse.

They just don't know, he told himself.

They didn't know the Air Force had put him through resistance training, just in case he fell into enemy hands with top-secret knowledge locked in his head. They didn't know that astronauts had to prove their endurance and stamina. They didn't know he came from hearty Burke stock, and that his own father had survived six years of being a POW in Vietnam. And they didn't know he had great faith in Alan Virdon, and in his own ability to outwit his enemies.

Scratch, scratch. Burke turned his head and searched the blackness, hoping he wouldn't see any beady eyes staring back at him. He remembered reading about donkeys used in mines, how the animals were taken underground for the rest of their lives. They never saw the sun again, never saw green grass or blue sky. Not me, he told himself. He shivered from the cool air. He supposed no blankets would be forthcoming, that the apes had never heard of the Geneva convention, and that, truth be told, he was just a little scared. Bravura was always easier in front of an audience. He liked to think of himself as a confident man, pragmatic if not always entirely optimistic, and he told himself that whatever the apes had planned for him, he wouldn't break down and give them what they wanted.

Chinese water torture. Bamboo under fingernails. Skinned alive. The more he tried to think of anything but ways to inflict pain, the more gruesome details his memory conjured out of the twentieth century. Those long-ago years had been rife with cruelty and sadism. Dissidents tortured in South Africa, Russia, Cuba. Prisoners tortured in Vietnam and earlier wars. The topic had been forbidden in his family, but Burke had seen the scars on his old man's body. He tried to take comfort in the fact that apes had yet to rediscover electricity, so they couldn't shock him with a couple amps of current. They didn't have much in the way of pharmacology, so they couldn't give him truth serum. They didn't have trained psychologists who knew a dozen different ways to mess with a man's mind, so whatever methods they tried would probably be crude and direct.

He tried to think of anything other than torture, but failed.

Alan, you better hurry up, he thought.

Something small and furry brushed against his leg.

3. Nothing But The Truth

Loud noises - wood creaking, horses stampeding. He was awake several minutes before he realized his hands and feet were tied and a canvas sack had been pulled over his head. Burke couldn't imagine why, but his first idea was that he must have been captured. The wood beneath him kept dropping away and rising up, rocking side to side, veering in unexpected directions. A wagon. The horses pulling the wagon were being driven at top speed, and at times he could hear the driver's shouts or cracks of a whip. Poor horses. Prisoners just like he was, but at the end of the day they would be cleaned and fed in a stable, and he might be dead.

Burke twisted against the ropes but felt no give in them. He wondered why his arms and legs didn't hurt. Aside from a dull ache in his head, his body seemed curiously numb and leaden. After-effects of being knocked unconscious, perhaps. The sack over his head smelled dusty but he could see the brightness of daylight. How long had he been out, and had Virdon and Galen been captured too?

Fear and helplessness turned to boredom. He quickly grew tired of being tossed around like a sack of potatoes. At the same time, pain ratcheted up in his arms and legs. Cramps knotted up his muscles. The sack only let in a modicum of fresh air, and breathing his own carbon dioxide made him lethargic. In his more energetic moments, he tried twisting his wrists free. At other times, he drifted in haze of discomfort and regret. If only they had walked down a different road that morning. If only he had been faster on his feet.

He didn't know what the apes had in store for him, and he supposed that was a good thing. He would deal with his captivity one moment at a time.

But he knew one thing. Whatever they had planned for him, he was in serious trouble.

4. Truth or Consequences

"Wake up!" someone shouted at him. Burke decided to ignore the command. He felt better floating in the darkness, away from the sounds of bells and drums. Someone grabbed him, shook him. No, he said silently. You can't make me. Then something bitter and pungent wafted up his nose, making him jerk awake. The lieutenant who didn't like him loomed overhead, his features twisted in Burke's vision.

"We built this table for you," he said, his voice oily with contempt. "I hope you enjoy it."

Table? Burke glimpsed smooth wood beneath him, planks that had been cut and nailed together. Restraints jutted out at strategic places. The gorillas forced him to lay flat and snapped manacles shut around his ankles. His wrists were tethered tightly to posts. The world started to go gray again, and the cruel lieutenant waved a vial under his nose.

"You don't want to miss this part," the lieutenant said.

Yes, he did. He surely did. His captors' hands slapped the wood and the table started to rotate. The ceiling spun overhead - slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Jesus, who had thought up this ordeal? A groan worked past his dry lips as centrifugal force pulled at his limbs and drained blood away from his heart. Inertia. Mass. Acceleration. The formulas he'd memorized in pilot training floated through his disjointed thoughts. He had become Wanda's physics experiment. He was going to vomit, or pass out, or lose control and give her what she wanted, simply because he couldn't stand the horrible spinning.

He took refuge in regulations. When the table stopped, when Wanda asked her next question, he responded only with his name, rank and serial number. The Geneva Convention. Rules of another world. Had his father ever revealed more than name, rank and serial number? Had Tom Burke ever given his Vietnamese captors the information they wanted, just to buy a minute free from pain and fear? Burke could forgive him if he had. Maybe Virdon would be just as understanding.

"Burke, Peter J," he mumbled. "Major. 366890367."

At some point the spinning stopped. He didn't remember when. He drifted back to cold, uncomfortable consciousness in his cell. Drums and bells thundered so loudly he immediately covered his ears. Tears burned the back of his eyes. Couldn't they just give him an hour of rest? Ten minutes of silence? He turned away, trying to curl up into a small ball, and his foot brushed against a tray that held a jug of water and a fist-sized chunk of bread.

Burke crawled to it and drank half the water. Tepid, slightly gritty, but a mercy nonetheless. The bread went down next, and he forced himself to chew each bite thoroughly. He had never known true hunger in the twentieth century. Sure, there had been nights his mother had struggled to fix enough dinner for four growing boys. They had been forced to move from the army base and she barely made enough money as a bank teller to support them all. But it wasn't until he'd been flung a thousand years in the future that he experienced true hunger. First the stomach noises, the hollowness, the inability to focus on anything but the idea of hot dogs, hamburgers, lobster, crackers, anything. Urgency came next - had to get something, had to eat something, anything at all. Shakiness followed. Energy dropped. Thoughts became disjointed, fragmentary, unreal. One chunk of bread wasn't going to cure him of all that, but it was a start. Thank God, it was a start.

Even though he tried to pace himself, the bread was gone within minutes and the water soon after. Burke backed into the corner of his cell. He pulled his knees to his chest and shielded his ears again. Surely the gorillas tasked with producing the racket had to take breaks now and again. He had been wrong in thinking they didn't know psychological interrogation techniques. He had seen a book in Wanda's tight-fisted grip, and what she lacked in finesse she made up for with sheer force.

He couldn't think. Couldn't comfort himself. Too much noise. When the racket did stop, it took him a moment to convince himself he simply hadn't gone deaf. He blinked up at the shadow beyond the cell bars.

"Are you ready to tell the truth yet?" Wanda asked, her voice deceptively soft.

Burke put his hands over his face.

5. Stretching the Truth

He knew he was in the hospital. Only half-conscious as they wheeled him in, Burke saw apes in traction, apes on crutches, apes with casts on their arms. It all seemed like some bizarre movie. He didn't care, though. For the first time in a long time he was warm and relatively comfortable, and no one was torturing him. Even his headache had eased away. He shifted slightly and found that he was strapped down, but not even that fact alarmed him. He had edged past the realm of common fear into a duller place where not much mattered except the blessed absence of Wanda's voice and her insane orchestra.

Voices drifted around him, none of them angry. How nice. He heard words like 'instruments' and 'operation' but didn't worry about them. Conversation stopped for awhile, and he floated in peace. Curiosity made him open his eyes, but he saw only gorilla guards and a chimp dressed like a doctor. Nothing to worry about, as long as they left him alone.

A female voice filled his ears, sending a mild tingle of alarm down his spine. Was Wanda back? He forced his eyes open and saw an unfamiliar chimp tell the physician that she was Ann, wife of Councilor Yalu. The names seemed familiar, but he didn't know why. Behind Ann, Virdon stood with Galen slumped against his chest. Galen had a large bloody bandage on his head, which worried Burke for a moment. Had his friends been captured, too? Who had hurt Galen? He pretended he was still asleep and listened for clues about the situation.

"Do you mean a human patient is more important to you than an ape?" Ann asked. Burke had lost the thread of the argument, but he assumed it had something to do with him. She went on to say that he didn't look injured and added, "It's as if there's nothing really wrong with him."

That pissed him off. She had no idea what he'd been through lately. Anger gave him enough strength to open his eyes again. There was Virdon, still, and Galen with his bandaged head. Ann went toward them, and it was only then that he remembered Galen's mother was named Ann, too.

Oh. Virdon and Galen. Virdon, Galen and Galen's mom, all in his hospital room. For the first time it occurred to Burke that he was about to be rescued. It was about damned time. He didn't know how much help he could be, but when the doctor left the room, Ann harangued one of the gorillas into going to fetch Urko. When another turned away, Burke made a grab for his rifle. Virdon and Galen swung into action. Ann called for help, furniture started flying, and all hell broke loose.

Burke tried to free himself from the gurney, but his wrists were still tied and a strap held him down across the hips. No, damn it, no. He wouldn't let them take him back to that cave or do whatever else they had planned. He resisted the urge to shout Virdon's name, but willed him to hurry. Several seconds later, Virdon and Galen returned from barricading the main door.

"Cut me loose," Burke ordered.

"No time!" Virdon grabbed the gurney and wheeled Burke down the hall. Galen undid the restraints as they went. They hauled him to his feet and yanked him into an alcove. The walls spun, and Burke's legs threatened to give way.

"Alan - " he started.

"Ssh," Virdon warned, putting his hand over Burke's mouth.

Gorillas rushed down the hall. From outside, a shout and the sound of horses racing off. Virdon waited a moment, then slung Burke's arm around his neck to support him. Galen grabbed his other arm. They pulled him toward the door and toward freedom. Relief made him want to weep.

"I don't know how you two ever made it in here - " He tried to express his thanks, but Virdon cut him off.

"We're not out of this yet," he said.

Only a minute or so later, they were crossing the road behind the hospital's yard and taking cover in the thick trees. Adrenaline kept Burke going for a hundred more feet, but then he had to sit. Too much fresh air, too much sunshine, too many trees whirling all around him. Black spots danced in his vision. He saw a boulder and sank down on it.

"What is it, Pete?" Virdon asked anxiously, crouching beside him. Ann and Galen, who'd been busy congratulating each other, hovered nearby.

"Give me a minute." Burke put his head between his knees and took deep breaths. He felt Virdon's hand make circles on his back. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Virdon said. "Do you need me to carry you?"

"No." The last thing he wanted was to be carried. Call it stubborn pride, but he had been humiliated enough in the previous few days. "Help me up, okay?"

Virdon eased him to his feet. Burke took in the worried faces of his friends. He wouldn't let them down. He wouldn't be the cause of them all getting captured. "It's okay," he assured them. "I can make it."

"You're okay?" Virdon steadied him. "You're sure?"

"I'm fine," Burke said, a statement far from the truth.

6. True Love

Spinning, spinning, spinning. The world whirled in vicious circles. The sleep deprivation had been difficult. The starvation had been just as hard. But this torment was the worst, because it stripped him of all orientation. He couldn't place himself in relation to the world - was he up, down, sideways? The centrifugal trainer at Lackland had produced the same dizzying effect, but its purpose had been to teach him to cope with the hard facts of air and space travel. This was torture, plain and simple, devised to make him lose control of his own thoughts. And it was succeeding.

Name, rank, serial number. He couldn't keep them in order anymore. He didn't even have his dog tags anymore to remind him - they had been left behind in a bomb shelter near the crash site. Apes, Wanda, don't give her the names she wanted. His father. Six years in a Vietnamese hellhole. Too bad they hadn't talked about it. Some father-to-son advice might have come in handy a thousand years down the road. But Tom Burke hadn't been much of a talker before or after his captivity. His relationship with his sons had always been difficult, and Pete had always found it especially hard to understand what drove his father to rage, to grim silence, to alcohol and the use of violence against children.

Someone grabbed him and yanked him around. Belted him hard, so that he landed in a heap on the floor. Urko? One of the guards? His own father? Didn't matter. The world was spinning again, and he could taste blood in his mouth, feel it in his nose. They stopped only when he began choking on it. Someone turned him on his side and pounded his back. He lay spent and exhausted, unable to form a single coherent thought.

Maybe they let him sleep. Maybe he just imagined they did. Maybe the spinning had never stopped in the first place, and he was doomed to spend the rest of his life pinned on his back with the world a rushing blur around him. The Lackland trainer. His first day in the Air Force. Playing quarterback for the Wolverines. The present was unbearable, but memories gave him refuge.

Until he remembered Karen.

He had never imagined himself dating a girl like her. She wasn't impressed by his Porsche or the way he raced it through the streets of San Antonio. She didn't care much for parties. She never looked at the stars the way he did. But she gave him balance. When he was sarcastic, she answered kindly. When he was frustrated with space program politics, she put her hand on his arm and calmed him down. Quite unexpectedly, Burke had found someone who meant more to him than anyone had before.

The first few months had been rocky, though. She wanted to know about his childhood and his family. Burke had never told anyone about his father before. He didn't know if he could trust her with those intimate truths. One autumn day, while they were picnicking near the base, she pressed him again to open up to her.

"Tell me the first time you fell in love," she suggested.

"This is the first time," Burke replied, using charm in an attempt to deflect her.

Karen laughed and pushed him back on the blanket. Maybe that was what Burke liked best about her. She didn't put up with his bullshit. But he wasn't sure, at the moment, that he loved her. Later that day, after they made love back at his apartment, he rolled over and gazed at her in the moonlight and thought Maybe. Maybe this is it.

Six months later, just before he was assigned to his first Alpha Centauri mission, he bought Karen a ring. They went to the northeast to bring the news to their parents. By then Burke's mother was dead, and his father had retired to a small seaside town in South Jersey. Tom Burke had given up the booze. Age and old injuries made him frail. He was civil, not affectionate, but his youngest son was thankful for small favors.

"I think he's trying very hard to be nice," Karen said.

Burke pulled her closer in the guest bed and nuzzled the back of her neck. "I guess."

They planned on staying through the long Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday afternoon Karen decided to drive down to the store for something. He never could remember what she needed - suntan lotion, maybe, or just a new novel to read. His father went with her. Burke's first suspicion was that Tom wanted beer or vodka, his two favorite drinks, but he said he just wanted to pick up some coffee and milk.

Why hadn't he gone with them? Because he'd been lazy and wanted to do nothing more strenuous than watch TV. Would things have been different if he'd gone? He was a better driver than she was, certainly. The questions haunted him for years. All he knew for sure was that he fell asleep in his dad's worn recliner and woke up around dusk to see the strobe of police lights outside the windows.

Tom went into the same plot as Burke's mother. Karen was buried in Connecticut. He made sure she went into the ground wearing her engagement ring. Burke returned to Texas numb in all the ways that counted and took solace only in work. He didn't date again for a year, and even then, he barely put any effort into it. But here Karen was again, alive and well, her eyes full of sparkle, her cheeks flushed with life. He could hear birds in the trees, the rustle of leaves in the trees, kids playing down by the lake.

"Tell me everything," she said. "Tell me the names of the humans who have helped you."

So pretty. So vibrant and alive. Burke reached to pull her down into a kiss. She had changed her perfume - usually it was light and flowery, but today she smelled different. Musky, almost, with a trace of fruit -

Reality crashed into him like a sledgehammer. Not Karen, no, Wanda was the one he was about to kiss - his interrogator, the chimp who had made his life hell, the ape he would dearly like to strangle if he only had enough strength to do it. Horror made him push her away. He rolled over and tried to burrow against the wood of the table. In that moment he felt Karen's death as if it just happened all over again - the deep stab into his heart, the tightness in his chest, the way his hands had gone icy cold when the police told him about the accident.

"Tell Chief Urko the prisoner is his," he heard Wanda say, but he didn't care. Nothing mattered, because Karen was dead.

7. True Friends

They hid in a house where a blind old lady lived. Virdon said something about the woman being an ex-servant to Galen's parents, but Burke didn't catch all the details. He could barely see straight. The first thing he did when they reached safety was plead with Virdon to find some food. Two bowls of porridge later, Burke fell into the nearest bed and slept for twelve hours straight. When he woke, he ate some more and then went right back to sleep. He woke the second time wishing for morphine, codeine or any other painkiller on the planet. Even his bruises had bruises, and every scrape, cut and sore muscle was making itself loudly and obnoxiously known.

"Drink some of this," Virdon suggested, holding up a cup of steaming liquid. "It's not aspirin, but it might help."

Burke sat up and drank. He was still desperately thirsty, but after a glass of water he began to feel like he might not die of dehydration.

"Better?" Virdon asked.

Burke nodded. He saw dark rings on his wrists, a souvenir of restraints. He eased his sleeves down, hoping Virdon hadn't noticed the marks. He said, "Tell me what's going on."

"Urko's scouring the city," Virdon answered. "I think we're safe here."

"Where's Galen?"

"In the other room, keeping Cora company. She's an amazing old woman. Lives here by herself but manages to do all her own cooking and cleaning." Virdon took the empty cup from Burke's hands and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad," he lied. "Nothing's broken, right?"

"Nothing's broken," Virdon confirmed. "They banged you up a lot, though, didn't they?"

Burke's throat tightened. He didn't want to talk about that, thank you very much. He looked at their surroundings - a small plain room containing only a few pieces of rough-hewn furniture. A red curtain fluttered against the high window. He wasn't sure if it was morning or afternoon, but he felt stiflingly hot, as if someone had turned the room into an oven.

"I'm tough," he assured Virdon. "But I smell horrible. Any chance of hot shower around these parts?"

"How about a bath?"

"Even better."

Virdon rose to go make arrangements. Burke asked, "Alan?"

"Yes?"

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long . . . " Burke waved his hand. "How many days was I there?"

"Three." Virdon waited a moment, almost as if he wanted to add something, but then left the room.

Three days. Only three days. Burke leaned back on the bed. The firm mattress didn't help his aches at all. Seventy-two hours. He didn't know what answer he'd expected, but three days sounded like no time at all. He'd been to three-day bachelor parties. He had once holed up in a Key West hotel room for three days with a Miami stripper named Candi. To have been prisoner for that short span of time made his suffering seem unreal. Exaggerated, even.

But he couldn't deny the ordeal. The twinges along his back, through his jaw and up his legs and arms reminded him all too vividly of what had happened. For three days, all he had been given to eat was that one piece of bread and some water. Not much at all. If he closed his eyes, he could even feel that damned table spinning beneath him -

Burke gasped and sat up. Someone caught him. "Pete! It's okay."

"Al?"

"Right here." Virdon sat on the edge of the bed without losing his grip on Burke's shoulders. "You're safe."

"I know," Burke said, although he wasn't sure of that fact at all. He struggled to breathe slowly and regularly. Sweat soaked his armpits. "Was that a dream?"

Puzzlement crossed the older astronaut's face. "Was what a dream?"

"You said I could take a bath."

"It's all ready for you. You ready for it?"

"Yeah." Burke guessed the part about three days had been real, too, but reality and nightmare had gotten all mixed up in that small, hot room. His memories were all jumbled up. Arms crossed over his chest, he followed Virdon to the kitchen. A wooden tub had been set up next to the table. Steam rose off the water, and a new cake of soap hung on a small hook.

"You need help?"

"I think I remember how to take a bath," Burke replied, sharper than intended.

Virdon didn't look offended. He even smiled. "Okay. Just yell if the water gets too cold."

When Virdon was gone, Burke stripped off his shirt and pants and eased himself into the tub. A Jacuzzi would have been nicer, but he wasn't about to complain. The hot water soaked into all the sore places and made them slightly better. He soaped himself up, scrubbed lightly, remembered the touch of gorillas and began scrubbing harder. A woman's voice from outside the window made him start, but he heard a man's muffled reply, some laughter, and then footsteps.

Normal life, right outside this house. No guards with sticks. No drums and bells to drive him crazy. Burke took a deep breath. He felt wildly relieved to be out of Wanda's grasp, but certain that she wasn't far away. She might arrive even before he finished his bath, and would drag him back to that cave to do more terrible things. Being naked and vulnerable didn't seem like such a good idea. He stood up, splashed out of the tub and belted a towel around his waist. What could he use as a weapon? A spoon, a fork - he searched frantically through a drawer of crudely made utensils. There. A knife.

"What are you doing?" Virdon asked from behind him.

Burke spun so quickly he lost his footing. He landed with a solid thump on his ass. The towel saved his modesty, but he felt his face heat up all the same.

"You said no one would bother me," he accused.

"I didn't think you'd go for the silverware." Virdon approached carefully, his hands in the air. "You all right?"

"Yes." Burke brushed aside Virdon's help and struggled to his feet on his own. Oh, hell, he was going to lose his balance again. He reached for a kitchen chair and slumped into it. Cold air brought goosebumps up and down his back. Cold, hot, cold, hot, what kind of house was this? Or what weird weather was Central City having?

"Pete." Virdon's voice was close by his ear. "Let's get you back to bed."

"No." Burke didn't want to go back to bed. He didn't know where he wanted to go, but bed definitely wasn't it. And, frankly, he was sick of other people controlling his location - cell, cave, table, bedroom. He folded his arms on the table and buried his head. "Leave me alone, Al, okay?"

"That's not an option." Virdon poured two cups of water and sat down across from him. "Want some?"

"No."

"Do you want something to eat?"

"No."

"Do you want your clothes?"

"No."

"You sound like my son when he was two years old."

The mild reproach stung, although Burke knew it was probably true. "I'm sick of people telling me what to do."

"I'm not telling you what to do. I'm offering you choices," Virdon pointed out in a reasonable tone. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Absolutely, positively not." But even as he said the words, Burke knew that he would have to talk about it sooner or later. Three days, six months, didn't matter. Ex-captives got debriefed. Official policy. If he didn't talk about it, the memories would fester and inflame and cause more harm than they already did.

"Pete - "

"Don't say it. I don't want to hear it."

"I was only going to say I'm glad you're alive."

Burke glared at him suspiciously.

"You started to thank us in the hospital, and I cut you off." Virdon looked troubled by the memory. He examined his thumbnail. "I wasn't sure we were going to get out of there. But we did, and we're here now, and I just want you to know I'm glad you hung in there."

Anger drained out of him, leaving only uncertainty in its wake. "I didn't do much."

"Whatever happened, you persevered then and you'll persevere now."

Burke snorted.

"What?" Virdon asked.

"You almost had me there for a moment. Then I recognized the patented Alan Virdon pep talk in one of its many guises."

Virdon smiled sheepishly. "Well, yes, it's that. But it's still true. Whatever you did to stay alive, it worked."

"They didn't want to kill me." Burke closed his eyes, but that made the kitchen spin. He stared instead at a point on the wall beyond Virdon's left shoulder. "They just wanted information. Names. As far as I can tell, I didn't give them any."

"I'm sure you didn't."

Burke wasn't so certain, but he didn't want to admit that. "How did you find me?"

Virdon launched into the details of making their way to Central City, storming the jail and later breaking into Urko's office. Burke only half-listened, comforted more by the sound of Virdon's voice than any of the actual details. The room had warmed up again, but he felt comfortable slumped at the table with only a towel around him. He sipped at the water, found that it tasted amazingly good, and sipped some more.

"We owe everything to Galen's parents," Virdon said. "If they hadn't helped . . . "

"Yeah, well, you don't have to tell me." Burke thought longingly of the bed. Maybe he'd been wrong to reject Virdon's offer. A few more hours sleep sounded very enticing at the moment, and all the little aches and pains in his body were beginning to throb in awful harmony with one another. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"What are friends for? Besides, you would have done the same for either of us."

"Yeah." He would have. And now that the ordeal was past, he was glad neither Virdon or Galen had been subjected to Wanda's cruel methods. Her name left him feeling cold all over again. "You know, Al, that bed sounds pretty good. I think I could use some help, though."

Back in the bedroom, curled loosely under a fresh sheet, Burke felt much better. Not ready to run a marathon yet, for certain. Not even sure he was ready to face the outside world of apes and bullets and danger. But better.

"I'll let you sleep," Virdon said.

"Okay." The minute Burke closed his eyes, though, the room began spinning. He cursed.

"What's wrong?"

Burke glared at the ceiling in despair. "Nothing. Just . . . vertigo."

"You had a lump on your head," Virdon said, his hands feeling behind Burke's ear. "Still there. Concussion, probably, maybe a fracture. How's everything else - any headache, nausea, that sort of thing?"

"It's not from that." Burke wasn't ready to talk about the table. "Something else."

"Oh." Virdon sat in the chair and spread his hands. "Anything I can do?"

"I don't think so."

Virdon didn't reply. He sat quietly, maybe thinking up a nice bedtime story. Burke almost smiled at the idea. Conversely, perhaps Virdon was just waiting to listen to anything Burke might say.

"Alan?"

"Yes?"

Burke almost lost his nerve, then, but anything was better than talking about Wanda. And maybe this topic would help - help forge a stronger friendship, relieve old wounds or put recent ordeals into perspective. He had never trusted anyone quite the same way after Karen. But maybe it was time to start.

"Did I ever tell you about my father?" he asked.

The End