"What would you suggest?" Edwards said.

"You could destroy his kidneys with that much polymyxin."

"I could save him. too."

"If he's going to die." Johnson said, "he's going to die."

"You sure?"

"Well, he's 80 per cent burned and his blood culture is already growing out Pseudomonas."

When he came back to the ward, he found David lying on his back, and the corpsman was smearing on the last of the sulfamyelon, spreading it over David's charred stomach as if it were butter.

"This stuff stings, honest, Doc," David said, "It just keeps stinging."

"I know," Edwards said. "It does that sometimes, but it will get better with time. You sort or build up a tolerance to it. The point is that you need it now. It keeps your skin from getting infected and gives the new skin a chance to grow. Believe it or not sulfamyelon is one of the major break-throughs in the treatment of burns."

"Can't I have something for the stinging?"

"No, David, I'm sorry."

That evening, down in the hospital bacteriology lab, his second blood culture started growing out another patch of pure Pseudomonas. When Edwards came to work up the new admissions, he stopped by to see David and found him on his stomach again.

"How does the skin grew back?" David asked, speaking to the floor. The day before he had mentioned there were 16 different colors in the floor tiles. "I mean, where's it gonna come from?"

"From you."

"Yeah." David said. "How?"