The leper came first through the swirling mistiness. He walked erect, his back straight and his head up. The light of eager anticipation was still in his eyes but something new had been added now—realization.
"But Tal Bock killed him. I saw it," Ronson whispered.
"No," Les Ro gently negated. "When Tal Bock attacked him, I put him into a trance condition, to save him."
Ronson hardly heard the answer. His eyes were fixed on something else. "The sores—" The sores were not gone but they had diminished in size. Replacing the rotten tissue, new flesh had already begun to form.
"This is what he asked, when he came to me," Les Ro said. "This is what he got."
"But this is a miracle."
Again Les Ro denied the statement. "This is natural law in operation, though to you the laws may be unknown. Watch."
The leper would have dropped to his knees and kissed Les Ro's hand, but the Martian forbade it, sending him to wait elsewhere.
Te Hold came through the swirling light—a Te Hold who was without fear. Then, Kus Dorken came. He was still spitting sand out of his mouth but the bluster and the bravado and the anger were gone from him. He was a new Kus Dorken. Inside, he had been subtly changed. Flowing outward, the change showed on his face as a gentle kindliness.
"He was a killer when I saw him first," Jennie Ware said. "Now—he looks like a saint."