"For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
I above all promote brave soldiers."
As I Pondered in Silence
Walt Whitman

"Sir, we're almost there."

Lieutenant Daniel T. White ignored the voice, letting his head fall against the plush seat of the Vice-President's personal air limo. Behind his closed lids the bright Washington sun burned as red as the fire that had consumed him all those months ago. He rubbed his temples as if he could force that memory back into the recesses of his brain where the rest of his memories lurked, hiding from him.

It was no use. The beginning of his memories, the day twenty months ago, played again and again in his head, like a defective disk caught in an endless loop.

The flash of white on the viewscreen—something heavy and sharp slamming into his thigh—fire bursting in front of his face…

"We'll be in Mount Vernon in about ten minutes, sir."

He didn't bother to answer the aide, he just kept his eyes shut and basked in the genuine warmth of the real sun.

Mount Vernon, his home, where his family waited for him. A cold fear clutched his heart and suddenly the sun seemed to fade, leaving him as chilled and empty as outer space.

His family. All they were to him were faces in holographic video pictures. He'd studied the animated frames for hours, just like he'd studied his face in the mirror, but it hadn't helped. Nothing had.

He was still as lost and alone as he'd been when he'd first awakened. His gut lurched as he relived the panic that had shattered him like glass when he'd realized he was blind and strapped down.

He had screamed, "I can't see! Did the bridge get sealed off? Is the crew okay? Who was in the Rapier?"

He remembered his helpless terror when they held the auto-pen syringe against his neck. "No! Wait! I need to know what happened!" His mouth still burned from the bitterness of the drug. He swallowed hard and shuddered. Sometimes he thought that bitter taste would stay in his mouth forever.

"Lieutenant White? Did you hear me, sir? Is there something you need?" The aide touched his arm tentatively.

Danny slitted one eye as the voice pulled his thoughts back to the present. "No, why?" he asked.

"Nothing, sir. I just thought you said something. My mistake."

The aide's voice was cautious. They were all cautious around him. Even the Vice-President's grip on his hand as they'd boarded the air limos this morning had been careful, as if he were afraid he would break.

Danny sat up. Around him the bright sun played over the cloudless landscape in all the colors of green he'd ever imagined. He didn't remember ever seeing grass before, or feeling the sun's warmth. He didn't remember anything except pain and fear.

Of course, nobody knew that. Once he'd recovered enough to be coherent, he'd figured out that as long as he had amnesia, he'd never be allowed to go home. He would be too big a security risk.

So he'd lied to everyone but Dr. Ganand, the space station's psychiatrist.

He flinched as he relived the endless days filled with surgeries and interrogations. They dissected his brain even while they worked to repair his body. And all of it was brutally painful. Especially the nights, which were worse than the days, because at night there was nothing to distract him from his thoughts—thoughts that never once yielded up a name or any memory earlier than the flash of white.

"Here we are, sir," the aide said. "A number of HSF Special Patrollers are already in place. As soon as the Vice-President is ready to present the medal, you'll be escorted up to the dais for the press conference."

The Hover Vehicle slowed and turned, preparing to land. Its clumsy yawing made Danny's impatient fingers twitch to grab the controls and fly the machine like it should be flown.

Sweat erupted on his forehead and under his arms. Was he remembering how it felt to fly? He looked at his fists clenched on his thighs, and consciously relaxed them, flexing the fingers that felt stiff and new.

Sometimes the visions would hit him that way—sudden, unexpected—and he would explore each one like a tongue on a sore tooth, testing it, deathly afraid it wasn't a real memory, but equally afraid it was.

"Do you have everything you need, sir?"

Danny nodded curtly as the limousine settled perfectly next to the Vice-President's in front of a huge white brick house. More hover vehicles and a few land cars lined the circular drive, and uniformed officers were directing traffic.

Yes, he had everything he needed, except his memories. He had everything he could ever want, except his identity. He swallowed hard against a growing lump in his throat.

He thought about the people waiting for him. His family. Daniel White's father had died five months before, but his mother and his wife were here.

Would they be able to see behind the transplants and the prostheses, past the scars and the careful plastic surgery? Would they recognize the man behind the face?

The aide was talking again. "Now once the VP has presented you with the Congressional Medal of Honor, he will leave and you will hold a brief press conference. You'll be close enough to the front door that after the last question you can just slip into the house. I'll dismiss the media. The Patrollers will remain for a few days, to help with security. Arrangements have already been made with—"

"Ensign," Danny interrupted softly as men in the signature green and gray of the Homeland Security Force swarmed over the yard. His head was hurting, and he needed a couple of minutes to himself before they started jerking his strings again. He closed his eyes.

"Sir?"

"Could you shut the hell up?"

"Yes, sir!" The aide got out of the HV.

Danny waited for the young HSF aide to circle around and open his door, as per protocol. He stared at his hands and gathered his courage. He was about to perform again, like a puppet, saying the things he was supposed to say, and playing the part of the wounded hero to an audience that encompassed the entire world.

Dr. Ganand had warned him. "Americans love a hero, Danny. And like it or not, you're a hero."

He spread his fingers and looked at the tiny scars crisscrossing his palms. Daniel T. White, hero. It didn't work. If everything he'd learned since the accident was true, the word didn't go with the name. Nor did the name go with the man. He pulled on his dress gloves.

A band of pain tightened around his temples. Now he was returning to the waiting arms of a family he didn't remember. They'd been told everything, finally, once the government decided he was no longer a security risk and could be allowed to go home. It was pathetic how badly he wanted to remember them, and how afraid he was that they wouldn't remember him.

Fumbling in his breast pocket, he pulled out a miniature holovid pic. An eager, open face smiled at him, green eyes looking trustingly into his. Surely she would remember him. They had been married. He pressed a small button on the back of the metal box.

"I love you." That was all she said in her laughing, melodic voice. He turned it back over, craving another look at the open eager smile. Her face was filled with love and laughter, and maybe just a trace of sadness. Danny held the picture a bit closer. What gave him the idea she was sad? The eyes? They were green and bright and filled with something he'd like to think was love.

A voice echoed in his head from Daniel White's micro-disk logs. Conniving bitch. He couldn't reconcile the cold fury in those words with the lovely face captured in the snapshot. The face looked like a face he could love. Kee looked like someone he could trust.

If only he could remember. If only he could feel a connection with the angry voice on the micro-disk, or dredge up the resentment Daniel White obviously harbored for his wife.

But there was nothing inside him except the hollow dread. The dread and one other thing, the thing that made him able to get through all this.

Hope.

Hope that, when Kee looked at him, her face would light up like the face in the photograph, and she would open her arms and welcome him home. Hope that when he stood in front of his family, something would click in his battered brain and he would be able to believe his own lies. That he was Daniel White.

Because right now he wasn't so sure.