This is the first chapter of my book, The Visitors' Gifts, available in paperback from Lighthouse Editions . The book can be ordered at Amazon.com .

She looked at me, her face drained of color, her eyes seeing something past me. Her voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear her, but I think I would have known what she was saying even if she had whispered, even if she had said nothing aloud at all.

�He's gone. They've Taken him and I don't know when they'll give him back. If ever. I can't live like this,� she said, her voice expressionless. �It's no use.�

My monitor flashed with various options, suggested pathways to try with a woman in this state. From experience I knew what sorts of things it would be telling me to do. I ignored it.

�Susan,� I said gently, trying to catch her eyes with mine, to bring her back to the room in which we were sitting. If I could only get her to connect, even slightly, with me, it would be so much easier. �Susan, look at me. I know what you're going through.�

She shook her head slowly. She sighed as if she were explaining something for the twentieth time to a very slow pupil. I remembered that she was a teacher. �You don't know. You can't know, because you're on the other side of the table. It's just your job. It's my life.�

I do know, I thought. It's happened to me. I know exactly what you're feeling. I couldn't say that, of course. It was against the Rules. But the bone-deep memory of the day I had sat, stunned, facing the knowledge that the person I loved most in the world had been taken by the Visitors and was gone, perhaps forever, filled me again, and moved under my voice, reaching for her buried emotions. �This is the hardest time, you know. Later, you'll get used to it. You'll build up barriers against the pain. You won't think about him that much, you'll build up routines that allow for his absence.�

She shook her head again, even more slowly this time. �It will never be routine. I will never be free of the pain.�

� Not free of it,� I said, glad that she was listening, and responding, however remotely. �Never free of it. It will be, for the whole time he's gone, like a broken bone that never completely heals. You will never be free of it altogether, but you will learn, over time, how to avoid the thoughts, the memories, that make you feel it more intensely. Have you ever broken a bone? It's like that, at first, learning how not to move in ways that will make you hurt more. That's what I'm here to do, Susan. I'm here to teach you the ways to move so that you won't feel the pain.�

She stared behind me. It was kind of eerie, even though I had seen other people act this way in the past. When I was first a counselor, and someone did this, I felt compelled to turn around, to see what they were looking at. They weren't ever looking at anything.

�When did you see him last?� I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral, as if this were a standard question. It was, in fact, a standard question, but I didn't think anyone but me asked it at this stage.

�When did I - why are you asking me this? What is the matter with you? You're supposed to help me, not - not make it worse!�

Now she was definitely angry, and I began to feel reassured. Maybe it would be easier than I'd thought. �I have to ask you,� I said calmly. �And it's going to help you, you'll see.�

�How can it help me to - to think about him, now, when I know - when I know - that he's gone, that he's been Taken, that they - that he - that I won't - �

Break down, I thought, seeing the change in her face. Break down, cry, it's all right, you need to do this, don't hold back, I'm here to help you. Without looking at the keyboard, I hit the key that cleared the monitor screen. Doing this day in, day out, my fingers knew the combinations so well I could have programmed the machine in my sleep.

�This morning,� I prompted her. �Before you went to work, before you got the official notification from Central Processing. The last time you saw him was this morning.�

�Oh, God.� Her shoulders trembled. Just a little, not a lot; she was still trying to keep in control, but it was getting more and more difficult. �This morning, it was just this morning, and I didn't know - �

Now I sat perfectly still, trying to attune myself to her as closely as I could. �Tell me about him. What was he wearing, what did he do. What did you do. Where was he going, this morning. Where did he think he was going.�

She still resisted. I could read it in the line of her jaw, but I could also see the movement in her throat. She wanted to tell me, wanted to remember, but she was afraid that it would be too painful. Just a little more, I thought, just another step.

�Susan,� I said, my voice as gentle as I could make it. �It's really important that you hold an image of him now, now while it's fresh, now while you're filled with him. We need that image. We're going to use it, you and I, during the time he's gone. You know I can't make him come back, but if your image of him is strong enough, vivid enough, we can make a simulation, and it will be - I promise you it will be - something that will give you strength, that will help you to cope.�

She looked at me, for the first time since she came into the room. Her pupils were large, nearly swallowing up the blue of her eyes. And I could see the shine of the tears she was determined to hold in at all costs. �Are you saying it can - can - replace him?�

�Oh, no,� I said, keeping my voice low and calm, though my heart leaped with joy at our imminent success, �no, it's not possible to do that. Nothing will replace Phil, not for you, not for anyone who knows him. But the simulation will - will ease some of the emptiness. You may even be able to convince yourself, when you're especially tired or lonely, that it's almost as good as having Phil back.�

She pulled herself back a little, her newborn hope warring with her pain.

If I could only show her Lila, I thought, she would see how much a simulation could help, how real it could be, how it could even persuade someone like me, someone who knew, someone who made these things as part of his job. I knew I couldn't show Susan my simulation, and I was glad I couldn't, glad that my Lila was sacrosanct, that I was prevented by the Rules from sharing her with anyone else. Otherwise I would have always fought the internal war between my need to help my clients and my need to keep my Lila to myself.

�Susan,� I said, the image of my simulation burned behind my eyes, Lila smiling at me as if she could see through all my tricks, �I will not lie to you. You have to trust me. I am in this to help you. I tell you that the simulation will help you, will ameliorate your pain. And all you have to do, right now, is picture him, tell me about him, remember him as he was when you last saw him. We will do this together, and you will feel better, I swear it.�

None of the other counselors swore to anything with their clients. At staff meetings when Davida, our supervisor, showed us the edited tapes of various sessions we had done, the others shook their heads at my approach. Not because it wasn't successful; I was very successful. No, they shook their heads because they couldn't imagine putting themselves that nakedly on the line. Even Chris, my own counselor, thought I was crazy for doing this.

But it worked. It worked because I meant it, and my clients could feel that I meant it, that for me this was not just some necessary part of my job. Right at this moment, I really wanted Susan to believe, as I believed, that she could feel better, that we could help her, that this could work. I wanted to heal her. That was all I had ever wanted as a counselor, and after Lila was Taken, the desire, no, the need, to heal my clients, to take away some of their pain, was stronger than before.

Susan looked at me, and it happened. There was a difference in her eyes, and her voice softened, not with emotion, not yet, but with the potential for emotion. �He was late this morning. He got up late because he had - he'd been - we had the new virt set last night and we were playing with it. I stopped around midnight because I knew I had to get up early this morning, but he - it was a new toy, and he was so fascinated with it, like all the new toys he got - �

Right now, she could see him in her mind's eye. Her voice took on a warmth, a richness that I hadn't heard from her before. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to interrupt her flow now, at the crucial point. I reached across the desk and put the handset into her palm.

She stopped for a second and looked at it, surprised, confused, a touch wary again. �What - I don't understand.�

�Just hold it,� I said. �Keep remembering about last night, and the way Phil played with the virt set, and what happened this morning. Keep going. You won't even feel the handset after a bit.�

She closed her hand around it, and it was swallowed up inside her fingers. It would feel warm now, just a little, and then it would adapt to the temperature of her hand. It was surprisingly soft and yielding, considering what it did, and I knew from personal experience that after holding it a few seconds you really did forget that you had it in your hand.

Susan stopped talking, but she was still thinking about Phil. Her eyes blurred a bit, as if she were looking inward, so it was a few seconds before she saw the image beginning to grow in the air between us. Then she gasped.

My monitor showed me pictures of Phil, from various sources, so I could check the progress of the simulation, and adjust it as necessary. Not that I ever needed to do a lot of adjusting, not if the person started working on the simulation the first day like this.

The image was still insubstantial, and I could see Susan's face through the torso of the image, but even from where I was sitting I knew that it looked like Phil. Susan's eyes got wide and rapturous, and she reached out towards the figure, hesitantly, almost afraid of what it would feel like.

�Don't stop,� I said. My keyboard was in my lap, out of her sight, and without looking at it, I punched in the codes to help the process along. �Keep remembering him. You're doing really well, I'm very impressed.�

�Phil,� she whispered, her voice soft with longing. He began to fill out, as if he were turning from a 3-D image to a real person. He had already become so solid that I couldn't see her through him any more. �Oh, Phil, is it really you?�

�Yes,� I said. �It's the Phil you remember, the Phil you know and love.�

She pulled her hand back abruptly. �No,� she said harshly. �No, he's with the Visitors, they've taken him, he's not - this isn't - �

You want him to be here, I thought. I know you do. Listen to that part of you. �Who are you angry at?� I asked quietly. �Phil, for leaving you? Or the Visitors, for taking him?�

She looked suddenly at me, the barriers up again, like a wild animal that scents a trap. �No, I'm not angry at the Visitors - it's not - we don't get angry at them - �

�Of course we do,� I said. The monitor was flashing again. One of these days I would have to reprogram it. When I had some spare time, I would do that. �We're human. We do get angry at them, certainly at first. I know you feel angry at the Visitors for taking Phil.� Even I felt angry at first, I thought, remembering. Okay, for me it was a brief flash, because I knew better, I'd spent my whole career dealing with the Visitors and their Rules, but the point was that even I had experienced that fury, if only briefly. I knew what she felt.

She struggled with herself. �Why? Why do they do that? Why did they have to come here at all, why didn't they pick some other planet, what do they want with Phil, what do they want with me, why do they take people, I just don't understand, I can't understand, it makes me so furious, you have no idea, but then, I can't be furious, I know it's against the Rules, I try to follow the Rules, it's just so - �

�So hard,� I said. �Susan, I don't have the answers any more than you do. I wish I did. I would certainly share them with you if I had them. I don't know why the Visitors took Phil.� Or why they took Lila, I thought, and for a second, all the pain, all the anger, all the loneliness crashed in on me again, and I thought I would die with the despair, but then it was gone again and I was facing Susan, Susan who felt the same way. Susan, whom I could help. �They're not like us, Susan,� I said gently. �You know that. All you have to do is look at them, and you know they're not like us. We don't even know how very different they are, so we can't understand why they take people. But they do Return them.� Most of them, almost all of them, I added in my mind. No point in saying that now. �And in the meantime, it's the Visitors who gave us the technology to make these simulations. We could never have made something like that,� I said, gesturing towards the image of Phil. By this time, he looked like another person in my room. �They did that for us. They gave us this technology, and the exercises, to help us. To make this as minimal a disruption as they can. They even taught us how to help each other through the absences. That's what I'm here for, Susan. Today, and every time you need me throughout Phil's absence.�

The simulation perched himself on the edge of my desk. I could see his face now. He smiled. I hadn't programmed that smile, though I would have if I'd thought of it fast enough. It was a genuine, warm smile, a reassuring smile. He smiled at Susan, and I could see some of the ice in her melting. You want to believe, I thought. Believe. Trust me. Trust the Visitors. It's going to be okay.

Probably there was something about that smile that spoke specifically to Susan, that reminded her of particular moments in her shared past with Phil. She let her body relax.

�Okay,� she said, and even her voice sounded different now. �What do we have to do from here?�

�Give me your hand,� I said. �You're right-handed? Then your right hand. That's it.�

She had extended her hand before she thought about it. It was very important that I do this part of the processing just right, or I would forfeit all the trust that I had gained already. Very gently, I turned her hand over, so that her palm faced upwards. I had already removed the chip from the envelope which came with the intake materials, and I'd been holding it under my watchband the whole time I had been talking to her. It was warm now, so that it would feel like part of her own skin. It took me just a second to position it over the inner part of her wrist, where the veins rose, blue and green, near the surface of her skin, and then I placed it gently but firmly on that spot.

She jerked her hand away in the second that the chip touched her skin, but that was just a startle reaction. It didn't hurt. I knew that from experience. It didn't hurt and after a few seconds you weren't even really aware that it was there. It took longer, of course, for you to forget that you had an implant, but eventually you got to that stage.

�What - what is that?� she asked, turning her arm around and studying the small silver square on her wrist. The edges of the chip seemed to have merged with her skin, so that there was no line where the chip began and Susan ended.

�Your link,� I said. �Your link to the Visitors, and your link to my system. So that any time you need to reach me, or any time they need to reach you, the communication can occur instantly.�

She knew, of course, on an intellectual level, what this was for, and why she had to have one. Everybody knew that nowadays, since they taught the basics of the Rules in elementary school, and the generation that had come of age before the Visitors arrived had all been indoctrinated in the Rules as well. But knowing something intellectually was very different from understanding it in your bones. Even I had jumped back, startled and a little afraid, when I first got my link, and had to accept that I was now connected in some deep, unknowable way with the Visitors. So I was not surprised at the way Susan looked at the link, the way she ran her fingers over the smoothness of the implant, the nervousness on her face as she tried to come to grips with the reality of it.

I knew how to relieve that fear, a little. I smiled at her. �When the Visitors are ready to Return Phil, you'll be the first to know. You'll feel it, right there, through the link.�

She caught her breath. �What? I - how does it feel?�

�It's a jolt,� I replied. �People who've experienced it say that it feels like a sudden awakening, a physical surge of joy. They say it's like nothing you have ever experienced in any other context.�

She smiled, and then immediately wiped the smile off her face, replacing it with a serious look, but I knew what she had been thinking.

�Better than orgasm,� I said, grinning at her. �Or so they say. You'll have to experience it for yourself to know for sure, but everybody has that same skepticism, and then when the person's Returned, they all say the same thing, that it was more wonderful, more intense, even than they would have dreamed.�

I could see some of my past clients, the look in their eyes when the signal came through, the difference in the way they breathed, the way they talked. I could hear the joy in their voices, could see the way they lit up as if they were suddenly illuminated, touched by heaven.

Whenever I gave my clients the implants, I told them about the Returns. I always tried to remember with my whole energy the way others had responded to a Return, so that I could communicate that wonder to my new client. Usually, even on bad days and with indifferent clients, I could summon up some of that wonder, that thrill.

But never like this. As I was talking to Susan, trying to put into words an experience that, by all accounts, was beyond words, I tingled with joy. No, not joy; joy is too meager a word to describe that rush of delight that burned through me as if it were a bonfire and I were dried leaves. I exploded with something so strong, so wonderful that I wanted to laugh and cry and scream at the same time.

I don't know how long this sensation filled me. I think I totally blanked out for a while there, but I don't know how long. I do know that my discipline eventually reasserted itself and I forced myself to look at Susan. I wanted to apologize for whatever I had just done. I was sure I had behaved unprofessionally, and this was when she most needed me to be professional. Though it would be hard to apologize when I wasn't sure what, if anything, I had done.

She was still stroking the implant, very gently and delicately, as if she were afraid she might dislodge it. She didn't seem to have noticed that I had gotten lost there at all. I breathed a sigh of relief.

We went through the rest of the routine stuff, setting up the next appointments, getting together the list of the people who would need to be worked with in connection with Phil's absence. I pretty much worked on automatic pilot from that point; heaven knows I had done this so often, with so many people, that I didn't really need to think about what I was doing.

And Susan didn't object. She had made her decision and she threw herself into the process with energy and determination, as if she could bring Phil back sooner by the power of her desire and the amount of her labor. I didn't have the heart to tell her that nothing she did would have any effect on the length of time the Visitors would keep Phil. Let her have her illusions; at least they would help the process along.

I didn't think about those strange sensations until after Susan left my office. She was my top priority; the rest of it could wait. And anyway in the back of my mind I had some idea of what that was all about. If a client of mine had come in, describing a similar experience, I would certainly have taken it as evidence that the client needed more work, more counseling, to come to terms with the absence of his or her loved one. Especially if the loved one had been gone two years, as Lila had been. Obviously my unconscious mind was trying to reassure me that she would eventually be Returned. Obviously I would need to make an appointment with Chris, my own counselor, as soon as I finished with Susan. This was all so straightforward that I had practically soothed myself into a stupor by the time Susan strode out of my office.

I pulled up the cuff of my shirt to uncover my implant. I never dressed in a way that would allow the implant to show; certainly I wouldn't dream of such a thing at work. It would be much too distracting for my clients. And most of the time I didn't notice it either, any more than I would have noticed a scar from some long-forgotten childhood accident.

But to contact Chris the quickest way, I thought I would use the implant. So I looked at it, preparing to activate it for the signal. I looked at it, and I must have been looking at it for a few seconds, stupidly, before what I saw registered on my brain.

The implant had changed color. It was blue now, a bright, almost incandescent blue. That only happened when there was a change in status. A Return. An imminent Return.

It was true. That had not been a memory, or an imagining. That flood of emotion, that joy, that incredible lightness and power, that had been real.

Lila was being Returned to me.

Without thinking, I let my fingers hit the codes on the keyboard that reshuffled my appointments for the rest of the day.