"So, we had a stretch of slow, boring developments." Wendy continued "and long boring developments will not do in a show that depends on cliffhangers, so they made up stuff to fill in. Cannot blame them. But of course, I was never in a mental hospital, and while I claimed to have forgotten what happened – same as the others all I got was bed rest for one day and then back to the job. Bills did not pay themselves. But I put that time to good use making plans…"

-0-

Frank was not happy "It is dangerous. How do you know you can trust him... . trust that...?"

"Well, he let me go and apologized. He is a lot less dangerous than the people you deal with."

"I can handle them"

"The sheriff suspects you already. You will end up in jail if you keep on. This is safer. And legal… sort of."

-0-

"I got the history lesson from Beverly" Amos said. "I know they make it look like I was falling in love with her or something, but it was simpler than that. I needed something and she needed something"

"Because on TV in those days women were not supposed to have agency of their own, just be love interest" Beverly added. "They did not realize that I would want something from Amos"

"What did you want?"

"Information. He might well be my ticket out of Benchleytown. I might not get another teaching job. But if I established myself as a historian… if I could write a book about the period between Independence and the Constitution, specially how it impacted local economies and society…well I might not need to. I did correspond with Professor Romney and he might sponsor me… I had all sorts of plans. Amos would be my informant. I would give him what he wanted to know, and blood too. And he'd tell me all I wanted to know. He'd point me out to where I could do research… and he might loan me Danny for digging things up"

"Yes. You were quite willing to exploit me." Amos grinned. "But then I also got value out of you. Not just blood. I could get that from town easily enough… By now I had figured out how to fly under the radar. If someone overslept, or was a little bit pale the next morning no one found it remarkable. But I wanted to know if Kisasi had left us alone at last."

"It was not able to offer much comfort." Beverly sighed. "Yes, the family endured, but there was a price. Lucas got out of the slave trade, switching to other commodities, though the family took an economic beating. He started shipbuilding for whaling and fishing fleets. And he made substantial donations to the manumission societies. So James could grow up and become the next head of the family."

"But James did not understand the bargain by which he was allowed to live and flourish. He thought that the contributions to the manumission societies and abolitionism were of sentimental value only, to be cut when he needed the money elsewhere. So it was that his young wife and his two children were killed in an accident.:

"James resumed his contributions and began being more involved in the movement helping to print and distribute literature on the subject, corresponding with Wilberforce and his collaborators. And ten years later he married again. He had three sons: Raphael, Emmet, and Thomas. Emmet and Thomas were killed in the Civil War. Raphael was badly wounded but he lived, and because of his and his brothers' sacrifice he was allowed to live and start his own family. And so it was. As long as the family fought for freedom first and for Civil Rights later, they would continue. But not cheaply. For all of Louis; and Leonore's involvement they both made disastrous marriages. And Dinah who joined the Civil Rights struggle with plenty of idealism ended up an urban guerrilla and had to be rescued by the Benchley money. Yes, Kisasi is still around, and demands sacrifice if the family should endure."

"It helped me to know, and to accept things…and then Wendy came with her proposal"

…

"Once you bite someone you can put them under your control, right?"

"It works that way… though there are drawbacks.:

"That makes you the perfect survey taker. Once you control them, they cannot slam the door on your face nor refuse to answer"

"Answer to what?"

"Surveys for all kinds of outfits. Some people want to know about politics or trends, some want to know what people are buying and what products they like… They can pay well for that information… And with enough information I can build my own database and sell it…. Amos, I want to hire you…"

"Hire?"

"I know that you got some money from selling old jewels but that money will not last forever. You need an income. This might be it, and later… we will see about later… But I need money. And so do you."

"She is right." Danny said "you need some income. You are already feeding off them. Answering questions will not hurt them any."

….

"And before I knew it, I was hired…."

Heather cleared her throat. "I was busy too. One thing about the show. My character was written to be male, but I guess Orczy could not allow them to depart from reality that much, so for unspecified reasons the writers – or the producer = decided to make the character female…. But what ridiculous idea make her both a blood specialist and a psychiatrist… I know there are doctors with more than one specialty but they tend to be related.:

"So what were you?"

"A biochemist. I was attached to the Willow Sanitarium under George Midler… searching for biochemical basis for mind disorders" she sighed " at least that's how it started… Later I found out what Midler was like, what kind of experiments he ran… but I had been compromised too... Well am getting ahead of myself… and I do not want to talk about it no…. It is over. Midler cannot hurt anyone else now."

She was silent for a few moments. "I am so ashamed of it now…"

They let her be silent for a few moments, then she composed herself "In any case, I had some idea of what had happened and I went to Lawon. I did not tell him what I suspected but I talked to him about doing research. He quickly gave me a reality check."

-0-

"There are not so many cases, and the ones we did seem to be recovering nicely."

"John, you know that for every serious case there are a lot more that give mild symptoms that can look like a cold or flu or.."

"Those subclinical cases I never see. These people are tough. They have to be really sick to call on me. It is enough that I can get them for regular checkups. But if not, they tough it out."

"So you do not get much to do."

"On the contrary, I got lots to do. Fishing is a very dangerous occupation. There are always serious accidents going on, and my job is to patch them up. I get to fix a lot of real nasty wounds… so, you see, chasing something at the subclinical level is not feasible."

"But they come for checkups."

"Yes."

"Well, I let you have this compound. You can add them to the blood samples you take and use to make sure that whatever you had to deal with is not flaring up again and that there are no sequels… after all you said that it was nothing you had run across, so you do not know if it really goes away or keeps dormant to flare up later. Same as shingles."

…

"I talked him into taking the compound and he used it. Did not expect much of it but it was nice to be reassured that whatever he had run into was truly gone.