Dr. Adams smiled. "If you want to put it that way. However, you're fine now."
Ken stared at the ceiling for a few moments. "Will you still say so if I ask again about Tom Doyle?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Was he found?"
"No. Maria actually tried to find him for you. I'm afraid your Tom Doyle was among the dead."
"I killed him."
"We killed a lot of them—and they killed a lot of our people."
"How did it end?" asked Ken. "I remember the darkness and just wandering around the streets shooting, but I don't know what I hit or where I went."
"That's the way it ended," said Dr. Adams. "House-to-house street fighting, and we won. Don't ask me how. You were in a sector that was cut off almost as soon as you entered it. Even where communication was maintained things were nearly as chaotic.
"Johnson says it was just plain, dumb luck. Hilliard says he doesn't think it really happened. Dr. Aylesworth calls it a miracle, a gift and a blessing that shows we're meant to survive. Most of the rest of us are willing to look at it his way."