Part 2

His fingers no longer shook. He folded the sheet of paper and handed it back. "Don't put it back in my billfold," he said. "I want you to take that down to the hospital office and have them put it in an envelope and lock it in the safe. Do you understand? I want that taken care of as though it were worth a million dollars. I don't want anything to happen to it. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," she said. "I'll do that."

Lin watched her leave the room, then turned with a grin to the doctors.

"I'll live," he said confidently. "I'll live. _Nothing_ can kill me now--so long as that sheet of paper remains intact."

He didn't mind at all the way the two men looked at each other with lifted eyebrows.

* * * * *

The door swished open. The nurse came in. "There's a man down in the waiting room who wants to see you, Mr. Grant," she said. "He gave his name as Hugo Fairchild."

Lin frowned. "You sure he wants to see me?" he asked. "I don't know anyone by that name."

"Yes, it's you," the nurse said. "I told him you weren't in any shape to see any visitors, but he said he would take only a moment of your time."

"All right," Lin sighed. "Send him up, but make sure he doesn't stay any longer than that."

Lin examined the man the nurse brought in. He was of medium height and of ordinary appearance. A type that wouldn't attract a second glance on the street or anywhere else.

"I'm Hugo Fairchild," the man said. "You're Lin Grant."

"That's right," Lin said.

Fairchild looked down at Lin for a moment, then said abruptly, "I'll come straight to the point. You have a piece of paper that doesn't belong to you. I've come to get it."

Lin's eyes narrowed. "How did you know about it, and why do _you_ want it?"

"There's no need to ask questions," Fairchild said. "I'm here to get that piece of paper. It's of no importance to you."

"You can't have it," Lin said.

Fairchild looked around quickly. "We're alone," he said rapidly. "I could knock you out with one blow of my fist. If you won't make any outcry I'll just take it out of your billfold and leave."

Lin watched, grinning, as Fairchild opened the drawer and took out the billfold and searched it swiftly. When he saw it wasn't there he tossed the billfold back in the drawer and looked grimly at Lin. "Where is it?"

"You think I don't know the value of that bit of paper?" Lin said. "You'll never get it. But you interest me. How did you _get_ here? You know what I mean."

"Look, Lin Grant," Fairchild said. "I'm desperate. I have to have that paper. It means nothing to you. Please let me have it."

"Means nothing to me?" Lin said, his voice soft and mocking. "If I hadn't snatched that paper from the fire I would be dead right now. You know that. And _so long as I keep it nothing can ever kill me_. That's why you'll never get it."

"You're insane," Fairchild said. "How could a mere piece of paper have that power? It has no meaning whatever. The writing on it is merely nonsense."

"Then why are you so interested in getting it to put into the flame?" Lin said. "If you hadn't shown up I might in time have rationalized my memories some way and torn the thing up. But not now. Your coming after it convinces me I'm right. You'll never get it!"

"If I don't," Fairchild said, tight-lipped, "you'll regret every minute you keep it. You're wrong about it. It has nothing to do with you at all." His voice became pleading. "Give it to me and I promise you that you will recover completely as though you were never in a wreck. The doctors can tell you how much of a miracle that will be."

Lin shook his head. "There's more to this than mere superstition or fantastic miracles," he said. "I'll never give up that paper until I know what it means and what it's all about. I know, I should have died. I don't have anything to lose, whatever I do. So I'm keeping it."

"You'll regret it," Fairchild said. He turned abruptly to the door just as the nurse came in. "I was just going," he said calmly.

* * * * *

That night Lin slept, and in the morning when he awakened a nurse was bringing in his breakfast tray. "Good morning!" she said brightly.

Lin yawned and stretched a vague, "Mornin'" coming from his wide open mouth.

The nurse placed the tray where he could reach it easily, and started to leave the room. At the door she stopped abruptly and gasped, then turned and looked at him. She opened her lips to say something, thought better of it and hurried out.

Less than five minutes later she returned with one of the doctors. She was saying, "He did. I saw him with my own eyes," as she opened the door.

"Good morning, Lin," the doctor said. "The nurse tells me she saw you pull your legs up without touching them. Of course she's wrong."

Lin looked at his knees where they pushed the blankets up, a startled expression on his face. "So I did," he whispered in amazement. And he moved his legs again.

"That's impossible!" the doctor said sharply.

"So it is," Lin said, grinning. "I must have established a telepathic bridge across the severed nerves."

"That's impossible too," the doctor said, but his first surprise was wearing off. He came to the bed and pulled down the blankets, and stood there watching Lin move his legs. "Better take it easy until we check with fluoroscopy," he warned. "There's something mighty funny here. I examined the X-ray plates myself. The spinal break was unmistakable!"

Half an hour later Lin was relaxed on the table in the X-ray lab, while a full half dozen doctors studied him through the fluoroscope screen and all talked at once, with every once in a while one of them going to an illuminated plate and tracing what was quite obviously a wide gap in a spinal column.

"I think I could walk without any trouble if you'd let me get up," Lin remarked.

"Good heavens no!" one doctor gasped.

"I don't see why not," another said. "If we had nothing to go on but what we see now you'd agree nothing's wrong with him. Why not let him try?"

There were uneasy mutterings that gradually drifted into a majority opinion that he should try. The technician moved the fluoroscope screen out of the way.

Lin sat up, swiveled gently ninety degrees and lowered his legs over the edge of the table. Cautiously he eased his feet to the floor. Even more cautiously he let his weight gradually settle on them. While the doctors watched without seeming to breathe, he stood up and took a timid step, a more bold one, and then walked several steps and turned around, coming back to the table.

"Feels perfectly natural," he said. "I guess you'll have to admit you were wrong about that spinal cord break."

"But we weren't wrong!" It was the doctor who had had charge of Lin in the first place. "The X-rays prove it!"

"Are you sure they weren't mixed up with those of some other patient?" another doctor suggested.

"Find me another patient in this hospital who has a spinal break half an inch wide and I'll--I'll--"

"Eat him?" Lin suggested.

"Yes. I'll eat him. Gladly. There was definitely no error. A miracle is more possible than those X-ray plates getting mixed up."

"Does this fix me up then?" Lin asked. "Can I leave the hospital?"

"Not for another two or three days under any circumstances," his doctor said. "Personally I think we should put you on display. Permanently. The first proven miracle in two thousand years. Or more! But we'd like you to remain long enough for us to make sure this isn't some freak happening that will undo itself. And also to give us time to get used to the fact that you can walk."

"Okay," Lin said. "I'd just as soon stay another couple of days anyway. Can I go back to my room and have another breakfast? I didn't get a chance to finish my first one."

* * * * *

As soon as he was alone in his room he went to the window and peeked out. Below was the street, and to the left he could see the sidewalk that led to the main entrance of the hospital.

Across the street were office buildings, and after a moment he found what he had half expected to find. Hugo Fairchild was standing on the sidewalk watching the entrance of the hospital.

"You should stay in bed."

Lin whirled at the sound of the voice, then relaxed with a relieved sigh. It was the doctor.

"Okay, doc," he growled. He went and sat on the edge of the bed.

A twisted smile curved the doctor's lips. "You know," he said, "you aren't the only miracle that happened in this hospital today."

Lin blinked. "Don't tell me Dorothy Lake, the girl in that other car, is the other one!"

"How did you know?" the doctor said. "Yes, it was she. Five fractured ribs and a broken right arm. And a severe laceration on the cheek. And not a sign of them now."

"Where is she?" Lin demanded. "I've got to see her."

"I wish I knew what was going on," the doctor said. He studied Lin silently. "I'll ask Miss Lake if she will see you."

Lin lay down and tried to relax while the doctor was gone, but his eyes didn't leave the door. It was over an hour before the nurse came in with a robe and the information that "Miss Lake wants to see you."

He followed her the full length of the hallway. She opened the door for him. He went past her into the room, and saw the face he had seen through the windshield.

"I'll leave you alone for ten minutes," the nurse said.

"Hello," Dorothy Lake said nervously.

Lin saw that she was afraid. "Hello," he said. "You don't need to be afraid of me. I won't eat you. As a matter of fact, I'm awfully sorry I ran into you. If there's anything I can do.... I'll pay the hospital bill of course...."

"I'm not afraid of you," she said. "It's the way I woke up this morning with nothing wrong with me. It scares me. I don't know what to make of it."

Lin started to say something and thought better of it.

"And there's something else," Dorothy went on. "It's the man that insisted on seeing me yesterday. He demanded that I give him a paper I was supposed to have. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I didn't know anything about it."

"Was his name Hugo Fairchild?" Lin asked.

"Yes!"

"I see it all now," Lin said grimly. "Your fate was written on that slip of paper too."

"My fate?" Dorothy said, bewildered.

"And he made us get well so we would have to leave the hospital," Lin went on. "When we leave he'll get us and take it away from me."

* * * * *

Dorothy laughed nervously. "Don't leave it there. I think I'm really insane. The things that are happening can't happen. That's a good test of insanity isn't it?"

"Don't be silly," Lin said. "When a thing happens it _can_ happen, no matter how impossible it may seem. Let me tell you what happened to cause all this."

"Please do," she said. "I'm sure it can't be any more impossible than my bones healing up and a bad cut on my cheek vanishing overnight without even leaving a scar."

"You think not?" Lin said grimly. "Then listen to this. You remember when we were about to hit? A fraction of a second before the crash? At that precise instant when you were staring at me reproachfully I suddenly found myself in--I don't know where it was, but I know it wasn't on this earth. I followed a path up to a high tablerock overlooking an immense valley, and there on that high perch was a statue."

"A statue?" Dorothy echoed.

"Don't interrupt," Lin said. "You can't possibly understand. I don't myself. So just listen to what happened and what I think it means. It was a moving statue. Like a robot, in a way. But it was more than that. I'm sure of that now. It was, in some way, a god. The god of Fate. It was typing on a typewriter of some sort that had an automatic feed to supply a new sheet of paper every time the old one was yanked out. And beside the typewriter was a wastebasket sort of thing with a flame burning at the bottom. This statue would fill a sheet of paper with typing and then yank it out and drop it in the basket, and it would instantly burn. And I know now that the very process of burning that sheet of paper made reality out of whatever was written on it. And to cut a long story short, I yanked a sheet of paper out of the statue's fingers just as it was about to be dropped into the flame."

"But--" Dorothy said weakly.

"That piece of paper," Lin said firmly, "was our fate. Yours and mine. On it was written that we were to die in that accident. And until that paper is returned to that place and burned in the flame, _we cannot die_!"

She was looking at him queerly now.

"You think I'm crazy?" Lin said. "Hugo Fairchild came to get that paper didn't he? And I have it. Fairchild's waiting outside the hospital for me--or you--to come out with it, too. I saw him from my room."

"How...." Dorothy said weakly. "How did you get over into that--that other world?"

"I don't know," Lin said. "I just did, that's all."

"Then ... then Hugo Fairchild is from this other world?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Lin said.

"But it's too late for it to do him any good now, isn't it?" she persisted. "The accident is over. We weren't killed."

Lin shook his head slowly. "It isn't too late, or he wouldn't want it. Don't you see? We, you and I, can't die until he gets it. That's why he wants it. Since it's written on it that we died in that crash, the moment it burns we'll be back where we were when I snatched that paper from the flames, and we'll die in that accident. Then all this, our being in the hospital and all, will never have happened!"

* * * * *

It was the next day. Dorothy had come to Lin's room. She was peeking out the window at Fairchild down on the sidewalk.

"What will we do, Lin?" she asked, turning to him. "We can't hope to fight him. He must have supernatural powers, or he couldn't have caused us to recover so miraculously."

"I don't know," Lin said. "We'll have to sneak out the back way or something. We have to leave tomorrow, you know. Or--Look, he's after the paper and you don't have it. It's me he wants. I'll leave first, with that paper. Then you'll be free and can forget about it."

"I still can't believe it," Dorothy said. "If it weren't for the fact that my ribs were definitely broken, and I saw that nasty cut on my cheek...."

"You know there's no other explanation," Lin said.

"But how could writing on a piece of paper _form_ reality?" she objected. "It just can't!"

"But it does," Lin said. "What is reality? Scientists have been trying to find out since time began. There could be different kinds of reality. Ours could be subject to the minds of beings on another plane of it. This robot could sit there and write out things that happen, and make them happen here. It has to be that."

"I know," Dorothy said. "It has to be that, even if it doesn't seem possible."

She left the window and went to a chair and sat down.

"Lin," she said. "If he gets that paper we both die. I'm going with you. I couldn't stand going out alone and not knowing when he gets it."

"Nonsense," Lin said. "He won't get it. You can forget about it."

"What if he never gets it?" Dorothy asked.

"Then we'd live forever." Lin grinned. "Maybe that's why he has to get it back."

"Suppose," Dorothy said. "Suppose--don't think I'm silly, but suppose we destroyed it on this plane. Then it could never go into that flame."

"I don't know," Lin frowned. "Maybe any flame would make it happen. It would be an awful risk to take."

"We wouldn't have to burn it," she said. "We could tear it into little bits and let the wind carry them away, one at a time."

"I'll have the nurse get it," Lin said.

When the nurse brought it Dorothy examined it eagerly, trying to read what was typed on it. A light of excitement danced in her bright blue eyes. Finally she held it in a position to tear it.

"Shall I?" she said.

* * * * *

Lin nodded. She hesitated a moment, dramatically, then abruptly pulled her hands in a shearing movement that should have torn it easily.

It didn't.

"Here, let me do it," Lin said.

He took it and tried to tear it, without success. He grunted, and exerted every ounce of strength. It remained intact.

"That's funny," he said. "It tore easily when I grabbed it from Fate."

"Let's burn a little corner of it and see what happens," Dorothy suggested.

Lin went to the bedside stand and got his lighter. He held the flame to one corner of the sheet of paper. A minute went by, two minutes. The paper refused to burn or even char.

"Huh!" Lin said, snapping his lighter shut. "Well, it's a cinch that scissors will cut it. I'll ask the nurse to bring us a pair."

Ten minutes later he was trying to cut it, without success. It would bend between the blades of the scissors, or stop them from coming together at all. But it wouldn't cut.

"It's indestructible on this plane of existence," Dorothy said. "Now I believe you, Lin."

"I'm glad you do," Lin said dryly. "So now it's clear what I should do. My job is to hide this someplace where Hugo Fairchild can never find it. You can go your way and forget about it."

Dorothy shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm going with you. We'll face this together. I--I couldn't stand the suspense of wondering when Fairchild would catch up with you and get it."

"You'd get used to it," Lin said. "After all, everyone has to die sometime, and no one spends much time worrying about when it will come."

"But this isn't the same," Dorothy said stubbornly. "That man is after it, and when he gets it we'll die. I'm sticking with you--and that piece of paper."

Lin went to the window and peeked out. Fairchild was still in sight, watching the main entrance of the hospital.

"Okay," he said, turning back to Dorothy. "Go to your room and put on your street clothes. We're going to leave now. We'll sneak out the back way."

* * * * *

Lin watched the door close, then went to work. Folding the piece of paper several times until it was a compact square, he taped it to his side under his left armpit where it couldn't be noticed.

He dressed swiftly, wrote a hurried note informing the hospital he wasn't sneaking out to avoid paying his bill. He left the note on the bed in plain sight and started toward the door. Just as he reached it he remembered Dorothy's hospital bill. He went back and added a P.S. for the hospital to put her on his bill.

Opening the door, he peeked out. A nurse was in the hall. He watched her until she went into a room, then slipped out and hurried toward the stairs.

He was grinning to himself. Dorothy wouldn't have had time yet to get dressed. And he had no intention of waiting for her. It would be too dangerous. She would find him gone. She would be unable to find him. And eventually she would take up her life where it had left off. In time she would forget him and think the whole thing a dream. That was the best way.

He passed people on the stairway without meeting anyone who would recognize him. In the basement the risk was greater. There were dozens of people. But no one stopped him as he hurried toward the exit. They considered him just a visitor, he reflected.

The critical moment was just ahead of him now. A hundred questions were tormenting him. How had Fairchild known which hospital he was in? How had Fairchild known it was he who had stolen that paper?

He shrugged the questions off. There was no way of knowing now. If Fairchild had powers that would enable him to discern that he was sneaking out the back way and be there waiting for him, he'd just have to make the best of it.

At the exit he paused and peeked out. There was a wide concrete driveway. An ambulance was parked there. No one was in sight.

He opened the door boldly and stepped out. He started along the driveway with an appearance of casual unconcern, as though he were a visitor taking a shortcut.

"Not so fast, Lin!"

He turned quickly. Dorothy was half running to catch up with him. He felt his pulse leap and somehow couldn't feel anger.

Dorothy smiled knowingly at him. "I figured you'd try to escape alone," she said. "So I hurried."

"Well, it was an idea," Lin said. "Come on. We've got to put distance between us and Fairchild before he discovers we're gone."

They reached the driveway exit. It was on a sidestreet from the main entrance. Fairchild wasn't in sight.

"Where'll we go?" Dorothy asked nervously.

"How about my apartment?" Lin said. "We can stay there months at a time without going outside."

* * * * *

She gasped, then saw that he was laughing at her with his eyes. "I'll have you know ..." she said angrily.

"Know what?" Lin prompted.

"Let's go _some_ place," she said. "We can't just stand here."

"There's a taxi," Lin said, taking her hand and pulling her after him into the street. In the taxi he gave the driver directions. "First National Bank down on Center Street," he said. "Wait there. We're going to the airport from the bank." And to Dorothy in a lower voice, "We'll put some real distance between us and Fairchild. After that you can go your way and I'll go mine."

"If that's what you want," she said. She broke suddenly. "Oh, Lin. I don't know what I want. I don't want to leave you. I'm afraid. Or maybe I'm not. I don't know. It's all a rotten mess. Why couldn't we have met normally so that if--" She bit her lip and turned away.

The taxi hummed along for several blocks while they were silent. When Lin spoke his voice was low and serious. "Maybe I feel that way too," he said. "But--you know what's wrong with it? We're running away. It's like being an escaped criminal with a death sentence hanging over you."

"But it needn't be!" she said, laying her hand on his arm. "The police aren't after us or anything like that. We've given this Fairchild the slip now. All we have to do is go away somewhere and he'll never find us."

"He'll be looking," Lin said, "and we'll wake up every morning with the knowledge that this may be the day he finds us." He turned and looked through the rear window of the taxi. "Actually I'm surprised we gave him the slip. I can't understand it."

"You feel that way?" Dorothy said with a shaky laugh. "I do too. He found us in the hospital. I keep thinking he just knows things. You know what I mean."

"He didn't know which one of us took that paper," Lin said. He frowned. "But he knew it was one of us. He must know what's on it. He has supernatural powers, too. Look how he fixed us up."

He looked through the back window again. When he straightened he fixed his eyes on Dorothy's face.

"Dorothy," he said, "maybe nothing can stop him from getting that paper back soon. It may be hours or days. But--would you marry me and make the most of it until...?"

She began twisting her fingers together nervously. "I--I don't know what to say," she hesitated. "It seems so wrong in a way. I don't mean wrong. Unfair. That's it. Unfair to--to both of us. Like we were doing this whether we love each other or not. It doesn't give whatever love we could have had a chance."

Lin stared at her a moment. "Then let's turn around and go back and give it to him," he said quietly.

"Let's--let's--" Suddenly she was in his arms, her face buried in his collar, her body trembling. She lifted her head until her cheek rested against his. Her voice was a whisper in his ear. "Let's--get married."

* * * * *

"Boy, have you two got it!" Phil Arnoff said. "You get me on the phone and tell me to rush to town, and you can't wait five minutes. What's the matter? Afraid you'll fall out of love if you don't plunge?"

"We wouldn't have waited for you to get here," Lin said, "only we have to have a witness, they said when we got the license." He looked pleadingly at Dorothy. "Please, honey. Let's skip the church. You don't _have_ to be married in one do you?"

"It's got to be a church," she said. "That's the one thing I've always been certain of."