University Hospital, Boston

IT OUGHT TO be raining, thought Luke Abramson. It ought to be gray and miserable, with a lousy cold rain pelting down.

Instead, the hospital room was bright, with mid-December sunshine slanting through the windows. In the bed lay eight-year-old Angela, Lukes granddaughter, frail and wasting, her eyes closed, her thinned blond hair spread across the pillow. Angelas parents, Lukes only daughter and his son-in-law, stood on the other side of the bed, together with Angelas attending physician. Luke stood alone.

Hed been playing tennis in the universitys indoor court when the phone call from the hospital came. Or, rather, doggedly going through the motions of playing tennis. Nearly seventy-five, even doubles was getting beyond him. Although the younger men tried to take it easy on him, more than once Luke had gloomily suggested they start playing triples.

And then came the phone call. Angie was terminal. He had rushed to the hospital, bundling his bulky parka over his tennis shorts and T-shirt.

Then theres nothing? Lukes daughter, Lenore, couldnt finish the sentence. Her voice choked in sobs.

Norrie, Luke called to her silently, dont cry. Ill help you. I can cure Angie, I know I can. But he couldnt speak the words aloud. He watched Lenore sobbing quietly, her heart breaking.

And Luke remembered all the other times when his daughter had come to him in tears, her deep brown eyes brimming, her dear little form racked with sobs. Ill fix it, Norrie, he had always told her. Ill make it all better for you. Even when his wife died after all those painful years of battling cancer, Lenore came to her father for comfort, for protection against the terrible wrongs that life had thrown at them.

Now Lenore stood with her husband, who wrapped an arm protectively around her slim, trembling shoulders. Del towered over little Lenore, a tall, athletic figure standing firmly beside his diminutive, grief-stricken wife. Hes being strong for her, Luke knew. But he could see the agony, the bitterness in his clenched jaw and bleak eyes.

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Transhuman by Ben Bova | 9780765332936 | Hardcover ...