"On the contrary." He smiled. "We've shown that you're very responsive."
"Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm too responsive." I rose and slipped my feet off the bed. The motion brought a piercing pain in my abdomen. "OUCH! What's . . ." I felt my pelvis, only to find it was very sensitive.
Pulling aside my bed shift, I gazed in disbelief at my lower abdomen. There were red spots just above my pale blue panties.
Alex Goddard modestly averted his eyes. "I didn't want to say anything," he explained to the wall above my head, "but you were in pretty delicate shape there for a while. Mild convulsions, and I think your digestive system had gone into shock. The stomach is a center of energy, because it's constantly active. So I gave you some shots of muscle relaxant. Nothing serious. It's an unusual treatment, but I've found it works. It . . . modulates the energy flows. I also took a blood sample for some tests, but the results were all normal."
He then asked me about my menstrual cycle, exact days, saying he wanted to make sure it wasn't just routine cramps. "The seizure you had passed almost as soon as it came, but you might actually have been hallucinating a bit. You had a slight fever all night."
"Well . . ." Something like that had happened to me years ago in rural Japan, when I stupidly ate some unwashed greens and my stomach went into shock. At one point a local doctor, Chinese, was trying acupuncture, which also left me sore.
"Nothing to be worried about," he continued. "But if you're the least bit concerned, maybe we ought to do a quick sonogram, take a sound picture. Ease your mind that everything's okay."
"That doesn't really seem necessary," I said. For a clinic specializing in "energy flows" and "mind-body" programs, there was a lot of modern equipment. Odd.
"Won't do a bit of harm." He nodded at Ramala, who also seemed to think it was a good idea. "Come on, help me walk her down to the lab." He turned back. "It's totally noninvasive. You'll see for yourself that you're fine."
Before I could protest, I found myself walking, with some dizziness, down the hallway. This part of Quetzal Manor, which I had not seen before, was a sterile, high-tech clinic. I realized I was in a different building from the old convent, probably the new one I'd noticed across the parking lot, the one he hadn't bothered to mention that first day. But all I could focus on were the blue walls and the new white tiles of the floor.