Lois examined the green specks on his back, gliding her fingertips over one of them. It was raised a little and stuck fast. The surrounding skin had turned angry red in protest at the invasion.

If he lived, he was going to be in agony for days.

But before that, the rock fragments had to be prised from his body.

It was going to be a long and tedious task, even if he were unconscious.

If he were awake, not even Sylva's medicines would dull pain of Lois's knife burrowing into his already afflicted flesh.

Lois brushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead. "Poor guy," she muttered. "It's going to be a long road back."


Part 3

The little fire was flickering steadily inside its circle of rocks when Lois heard two familiar voices floating through the forest from the other side of the moabi tree. She moved away from her patient before calling out, "Diddi, Romaric. Stay back." She rounded the broad trunk and saw her son with the man who lived in the hut next to theirs.

"Are you safe?" Romaric called, speaking heavily accented English.

"Yes," Lois replied, deliberately switching to the native tongue. It was important they communicate clearly, and she was more proficient in Bangala than Romaric was in English. "He's not a threat. He's unconscious and needs my help."

"You're going to stay with him?"

"Yes."

"You know you will be in quarantine for at least five days?"

"Yes."

"I will check the quarantine hut and make it ready for you."

"Thank you, Romaric."

"Will you need help to move him?"

"Maybe. For now, I'm going to treat his wounds and try to determine the extent of his injuries."

"Matymbou says you are to be guarded at all times."

Lois had expected that from her husband.

"I will ensure someone is always within earshot," Romaric said. "Call if you need assistance."

She had expected that from her neighbour.

"Matymbou has ordered Gislane to prepare food," Romaric continued.

"Diddi can bring it to us." Lois looked from the man to the boy standing at his hip, clutching a bag made from antelope hide. "Diddi, you understand that you aren't to come past that point?" she said, still speaking Bangala out of respect for Romaric.

"Yes, Maman."

"Your job in taking messages to the village will be very important," she said. "But I will miss being with you."

"I will keep working on my English letters," Diddi promised.

Lois smiled with maternal pride. For a young man who wasn't yet six years old, he was very conscientious and self-reliant. However, that was standard among Bangala youngsters who were considered to be in training for adult responsibilities from a very young age. "I know I will be very impressed with your progress when I work with you again in a few days."

Diddi slid the bag from his shoulder and carefully laid it on the ground. "Bye, Maman," he said. Both males turned and walked away, leaving the bag and its precious contents for Lois to collect.

After waiting a few moments, she hurried past the moabi tree and picked up the bag. As she returned to her patient, she rustled through its contents. As she had expected, Sylva had included everything Lois had asked for and added a few other items that might prove useful, as well.

The stranger hadn't moved. With a spurt of panic, Lois raced over to him, dropping to her knees beside him. She found his pulse in his throat and sat back on her heels, a little shaken by the intensity of the relief surging through her.

He was still alive.

And Lois was determined to keep him alive. If he could speak English - even haltingly - it would give her a glimpse of the world she had left behind.

But first, the rock fragments had to be removed from his body. She reached into the medicine bag and took out the knife. The blade was sharp, its end honed to a fine point.

She crouched beside the fire and held the blade in the flames, counting her heartbeat to be sure at least a minute passed. After placing the knife on a rock to cool, she took the salve from the bag and positioned them near the man. Then she went to the riverbank to collect a pan of water to set over the fire.

Lois picked up her knife and settled into the spiky grass alongside the stranger. She quickly ripped through his shirt - from the tattered remains near his ribs to the collar - and pushed it aside. Her task lay before her, daunting in its magnitude. She estimated she could see at least one hundred pieces. If they took a minute each, it was going to be nearly two hours before she could even think about turning him over to discover if the rest of his body was similarly stricken.

Deciding to work methodically, Lois chose one of the larger pieces - about size of a pea - in the upper slope of his right shoulder, and with a deep breath, she eased the tip of the knife between the green rock and the puffy red skin. It didn't loosen. She prised a little deeper. After a few seconds of careful jiggling, the lump succumbed to her persistence and she was able to lever it from his body.

A trickle of blood began to seep from the divot. Lois dipped her finger into the pot containing the horsetail and goldenseal salve and daubed it on the wound.

A few minutes later, she had extracted the biggest chips from the area above his shoulder blade. Four pieces of blood-smeared rock lay in the grass.

Lois inspected one of them, holding it up to the rays of light coming through the canopy overhead. Her best guess was that it was some sort of gem. Wasn't emerald supposed to be green?

Had he been in a mine? Could he have endured an underground explosion?

If this were the result of an explosion, there seemed good reason to hope that it had happened behind him and therefore, his front would have taken significantly less impact than his back.

But that was for later.

Deciding to mark her progress by working in batches of five, Lois slid her blade into his flesh next to another pebble and wiggled it loose. She put it with the other four and scraped a generous amount of the salve over the group of divots.

Then she started on the next group of five.

At ten, she applied the salve again and checked his pulse and breathing. His level of consciousness hadn't changed.

At twenty, she salved the steadily growing area, monitored his pulse and breathing, and then stood up, stretching her legs and adding more bark to the fire.

She rinsed her knife in the river and took a moment to draw composure from the steadily flowing water.

She was acutely aware that every puncture made by her knife would add to his discomfort when he awakened. On more than one occasion, she had nicked his flesh as she had tussled with a particularly deep and stubborn bit of rock.

He had given no response - not the twitch of a muscle, not a gasp, not a groan. And although Lois was grateful he was being saved from experiencing her efforts to help him, his deep level of unconsciousness was a growing concern.

He had to wake up. He had to live.

He had to.

~|^|~

Consciousness gripped him slowly, oozing from between layers of pain.

First to penetrate his fuzzy mind had been the voice of a child - the raised, excited voice of a child, taunting him.

He'd tried to retreat. From the child. From awareness. From the excruciating claws of pain that were goring his body like fiery daggers.

From disillusionment. And treachery.

But then …

He'd felt her.

Her hands.

On his body.

Touching him. Magnifying his pain. Intensifying his heartache.

He'd centred all of his brittle resolve and intermittent concentration on maintaining his dark cavern of isolation. He commanded his breaths to shallow steadiness and kept his muscles loosely impassive.

He would not be tricked by the illusion. He would not allow himself to be lured into the charade that she had returned to him. That she cared about him.

For a time, every snatch of consciousness was tainted by her touch. Then he awoke to a piercing stab of pain, fierce enough to rise above the prevailing smog of agony.

She dug deeper. Punishing his body. Penetrating his heart. Piercing his soul.

Then, the pressure eased. The sharp burning pain was replaced by a stinging sensation that squeezed the breath from his lungs. It faded, and she began again.

She worked steadily across his back. Digging, pushing, rasping, escalating the pain, and then, right on the cusp of his tolerance, releasing another small patch to relative respite.

But he refused to embrace the relief; instead, he steeled his heart to remain cold and his body aloof.

He did not want her anymore. He would not accept anything from her.

All he wanted was that she leave him to drown in the churning sea of torment alone.

~|^|~

By the time the pile had grown to fifty pieces, the silence was starting to feel oppressive.

"You're doing so well," Lois muttered to his back. "Your shoulders are clear."

He didn't respond. If he didn't speak English, he wouldn't understand her words, but perhaps her tone would permeate his unconsciousness state and communicate something of her intention to help him.

"I really hope I'm not hurting you too much. If you were awake, I could give you some tea to take the edge off the pain, but I can't give you anything until I know you can swallow properly."

Her words stopped as she concentrated her attention, pushing the tip of her blade into the tiny crevice on the edge of the green pebble. The chip of stone loosened. She removed it, groaning at the drizzle of blood that filled the resulting cavity.

Her words had had no effect on her patient, but they'd made her feel calmer, so she opened her mouth and let them flow. "It's kind of funny. I worked in a big city for years and never felt as if I knew anyone particularly well. But I already feel as if I know you. I certainly know your back more intimately than the back of any other human being. Except perhaps Diddi. I washed him every day for a long time, but he's too big now. I loved bathing him. His black skin would glisten so beautifully when he was wet.

"I don't even know your name. When I turn you over, I'll check your pockets for a wallet. Perhaps I'll find some form of identification, but for now, I don't have anything to call you."

She stopped talking as she carefully manoeuvred the blade deeper into the broad muscle running from his spine and across his ribs. The rock loosened, and she eased it out from its bed, tossing it onto the steadily growing pile.

"I figure you must have been in some sort of an explosion. Perhaps you're a mine worker. Perhaps something happened underground. However, that doesn't explain how you got here, because I don't know of any mines within walking distance. Certainly not for someone in your condition. And then you climbed the corkwood. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. I figure you were looking for something - the Big River, perhaps, so you could try to find your way back."

She reached for the salve, musing over how a man could be so brave as to haul his badly injured body fifty feet up a tree, but so foolhardy as to climb to the very top where the branches were smaller and weaker.

Why had he chosen to climb a corkwood tree when the taller, thicker, stronger moabi tree was just a few yards away?

Perhaps he had been delirious with pain. Or thirst.

"The important thing is that you're still alive," Lois said. "Which seems to me to be a miracle. Perhaps that's what I'll call you - just until I know your real name. Mr Miracle. Anyone who could force his battered body to the top of that tree obviously has an incredible will to survive. And you're going to survive. Because I couldn't stand not knowing your story. What you're doing in Africa. How these green bits got into your body. Whether you have plans or hopes to return. Whether you are running away from someone. Or whether you came looking for something."

Lois stopped talking as she completed another batch of five. If the stranger had come in search of someone, it was most likely to be either her or Romaric.

Could he have been sent by the gun runners? Had they finally tracked her?

Or was he investigating a murder?

If either were the case, the stranger's arrival would mean enormous disruption to the isolated, peace-loving Bangala people.

But, regardless of possible ramifications, Lois had to fight for him.

He was alone in a foreign country. She knew how that felt.

He was injured. He was lost. He was defenceless. She knew about that, too.

Perhaps that was why she could identify with him so strongly. Why his situation elicited such feelings of intense compassion.

Or perhaps it was because each time she delved into his body, she felt their connection strengthening.

He wasn't going to die. She wasn't going to let him.

~|^|~

She'd spoken!

Her voice had sliced through his nascent consciousness like a scalpel.

She wasn't Lana. Her voice was different. Her tone was different.

Who was she?

Could she be a colleague of Tempus?

He didn't know. He didn't care.

All he wanted was to escape.

Escape her voice. Her touch. Her hands.

Her.

~|^|~

A little over an hour later, Lois cleared the final piece of accessible pebble from his exposed skin, lifting the number in the pile to eighty-nine. She rose from her knees, vigorously rubbing her legs to restore full feeling and then stretching skywards to ease her aching shoulders.

After adding more dry bark to the fire, she walked to the river and took a long drink from her cupped hands. As she dried her mouth with her forearm, she moved to the comfrey plants and stripped a handful of leaves from the stems. Back at the fire, she dropped them into a wooden bowl, pummelled them with her digger, and added the warmed water and a few drops of calendula oil.

She knelt next to her patient and said, "I'm going to wash your back. The water is warm and includes some antiseptic agents. It will be nice to feel clean again."

As she swished the cloth through the green-tinged water, she ran her eyes over his pock-marked, red, and weeping back, grimly acknowledging that their greatest battle now was against infection. He had to be weak, and his wounds were many.

"Just relax," Lois murmured as she wrung out the cloth. "I'll try not to hurt you."

She slipped the remnant of his shirt from his arm, revealing the expansive breadth of his shoulders. Other than his injuries, he was a magnificent specimen of the human male. She could feel the hard definition of his underlying muscle network as the cloth slid over his back.

She didn't hurry. She lifted each of his large hands and meticulously washed between his long fingers and around his knuckles.

When she had finished his upper body, she emptied the container and refilled it with fresh water from the pan over the fire, adding a dash of lavender oil. She knelt at Mr Miracle's head, slid her hand under his cheek, and washed his face.

He would probably be considered handsome, Lois reflected. He had a nicely shaped chin, leading to a firm jaw. His eyebrows were dark, his eyelashes thick. What colour eyes did he have? Not blue, she decided. That wouldn't fit with the rest of his colouring. Maybe brown. With satiny brown eyes and a nice smile - not to mention the hot body - he would be gorgeous.

She chuckled under her breath. She hadn't looked at a white man's face for so long that her assessment of attractiveness was probably flawed by now.

"Where are you from?" she murmured as she wiped the dust from around his eyes. "Why are you here? And how did you get into this condition?"

When his face was clean, she laid his head on the small square of antelope hide that Sylva had included in the medicine bag.

Then Lois picked up her knife, settled next to his thighs, pushed up the ends of his jeans, and began the task of removing the rock fragments from his legs.

~|*|~

She'd washed him.

He couldn't remember anyone washing him. His mother must have, but he had no memory of it.

Could she be his mom? Had he died and moved into next world?

No. She couldn't be his mom. He would remember her voice.

Wouldn't he?

She had left him. So long ago. Over time, his memories had disintegrated to blurry fragments.

The cloth had caused discomfort as it had scraped across his back. Her hands on his face had inflicted a different pain.

He'd tried to shut her out. Tried to cower behind the façade of insentience.

He didn't want anyone's help.

He wanted to be alone.

She'd washed his arms, lifting them from the grass.

She'd washed his hands.

He knew she would be there only temporarily.

No one stayed.

Not with him.

Lana had left.

He had loved her. He had loved her touch, mistakenly believing her touch had been representative of her love for him.

But she hadn't loved him.

She had left him. Betrayed him. Lied about him. Destroyed him. Deserted him.

All his life, he had craved belonging and acceptance.

Now, he craved isolation.

~|^|~

Lois reached his ankles and rocked back onto her heels, checking for any piece that had escaped her notice. There was none. His skin - inflamed and raw - was free of the green invader.

As her eyes ran over the planes of his back, she gasped in surprise. The area near his right shoulder - the place where she had begun - was looking significantly improved. The angry redness had faded, and the divots had begun to crust over.

He looked as if he had been healing for a day, not a couple of hours. The deathly green glow had gone, and he no longer seemed so vulnerable or sickly.

A swell of optimism lifted her spirits. She had done the right thing in removing the rock pieces. He hadn't responded to her care, but his body had.

She made another wash of comfrey leaves and calendula oil. As she applied it to his legs, her questions flooded back, no longer constrained by her fears he would die.

Why had he come to Africa?

Years of being a reporter had taught her that coincidence was usually only surface deep. A little scratching and digging was all that was needed to reveal the link.

There had to be a reason why he had ventured into remote areas of central Africa.

And she, the former Lois Lane, Kerth winner, and successful investigative reporter, was not going to rest until she had discovered it.

~|^|~

"OK, Mr Miracle, it's time to turn you over and see what needs doing on your front."

Having already tucked his right arm in close to his body and positioned his ankles together, Lois burrowed one hand under his shoulder and put the other on the side of his neck. She slid her fingers across his skin, checking for hard, raised nodules that would indicate the presence of the green rock chips.

Feeling none, she clasped firmly and increased the pressure on his shoulder while supporting his neck.

His shoulder rose. His chest lifted off the flattened grass. Lois continued pulling until his shoulder was at its highest point. Then, she guided his head onto her lap, using her knee to stop him from collapsing onto his back.

Lois looked down into his face, seeing it fully for the first time.

She gasped.

His eyes were open!