The Healer (12 page)

They found her in her quarters, huddled in her bed. She shrank at their arrival, prompting the man to scowl and demand that she stand up and look at him. When this achieved nothing, the woman asked his permission to try a gentler approach. Kneeling beside Vecque, she spoke softly to her, and at length was able to coax her to her feet.

Immediately, Vecque started pacing, head down, arms against her sides, hands clenched. The man found this intolerable and ordered her to stop. When she didn't, he stepped forward and grabbed her by the wrist. His grip was strong, his fingers fat with many rings. With the other hand he pinched her chin and raised her head, forcing her to look at him.

But she couldn't. Her eyes darted this way and that, like flies unable or afraid to land. His voice, his grip, and now this, his look, were all too much for her. She whimpered and pleaded to be left alone. A moment later, grim-faced but apparently satisfied, he released her.

Next they sought out Payne. He had just completed an unremarkable extraction from a miner who'd been coughing blood, forming the Concretion into a gooey red rouleau and dropping it down the disposal shaft, when they appeared in the doorway of the healing center. The man he recognized at once as Valid, Doctor of the Mental Latitudes, and lately, it appeared, of the bulging equatorials as well. Jowly-faced,
plethoric, with slicked-backed, scented hair and bloodred lips that gleamed from licking, he had put on weight and girth since Payne had last seen him in the final year of training. What he'd gained in size he seemed also to have gained in vanity. And power, or at least authority. He wore the pin of full Professor now.

The woman was a stranger. She wore loose trousers, a long-sleeved, chambray shirt, and sturdy boots. Unlike Valid's, hers were working clothes, sensible for a visit to a mining camp. Her mass of dark hair was pulled back and gathered behind her ears. High cheekbones, a graceful nose and chin, and pale blue eyes completed her face.

Valid swept into the room, cast a look around, then fixed his attention on Payne. He squinted, as if to draw him into better focus.

“Is it my imagination or have you shrunk?”

Payne, who was shocked enough to see him as it was, had no reply for this.

“Something in the air, you think? The food? The lack of stimulation? Remind me, Payne, how long it's been.”

“How long?”

“That you've been here.”

He knew to the day. “Four years,” he said, rounding off.

Valid looked surprised. “That long? How time flies. I hear that you've been busy.”

“It's a busy job.”

“Yes. And you've been all alone to do it.”

With someone else this might have been a simple observation. Maybe even a compliment. But with Valid there were always double meanings.

“I've managed,” he replied.

“No doubt. No doubt. We hear wonderful things about you. The Pannus Corporation feels very lucky to have a healer of your capability. It understands that productivity begins and ends with the health of its workforce. And the Pannus workforce has stayed remarkably fit and
productive. Profits, I'm told, are at an all-time high. Congratulations are in order.”

Was this a cue? Warily, Payne thanked him.

“Don't thank me. Thank the corporation. It's the one that agreed to keep you on after that debacle of yours.” He paused, and this time Payne had no doubt what was expected of him.

“I'm grateful.”

“Yes. I'd imagine so. And it has every intention of retaining you. For the duration, I might add.”

He paused again, as if to allow this grim reminder ample time to sink in. Pursing his lips, he swept a critical eye about the room and by extension, the entire camp and its surroundings.

“Such a far-flung place. So beyond the gem and jewel of the civilized world. So isolated. Though not without a certain rustic charm. If only there weren't so many trees. And so much…how shall I put it? Emptiness. Still, I could imagine worse. I'm sure we all could.”

Payne doubted this was meant to cheer him up. More likely it was some sort of threat, though why Valid would care to threaten him he had no idea.

“Speak up,” said Valid. “I didn't come all this way to entertain a mute.”

“Why did you come?” asked Payne, risking a rebuke for being impertinent.

“To question you. To observe how you respond. To see if you've changed. To judge for myself if you can be trusted.”

“Ask the men.”

“And what would they say?”

“They'd say yes.” With nothing to lose he went further. “I can heal them in my sleep.”

Valid raised an eyebrow. “And humble, too. That's good. But what concerns me is that other matter. It concerns all of us. Can we trust you not to go off half-cocked? Can we be assured you'll use your head?”

“Yes,” said Payne. “Absolutely.”

“You've learned from your mistake?”

“Yes. I have. Believe me.”

“Let's hope so. I'd hate to discover that you hadn't.”

Valid glanced at the woman as if to share an understanding, perhaps to consummate some prearranged agreement, but her attention was fixed on Payne. He watched her for a moment, hungrily it seemed, then wet his lips and continued.

“We've brought another healer with us. He's getting settled as we speak.”

It was not the news Payne would have hoped for if he had been so brazen or so foolish as to hope, but it was good news nonetheless. He sorely needed a companion.

He thanked them.

“You can thank us by your actions,” said Valid.

“I understand,” said Payne, reiterating that he'd learned his lesson.

“I'm glad to hear it, but you miss the point. We're making a swap, him for you. You're coming with us, Payne.”

Nothing could have shocked him more. His heart seemed to stop midbeat. His voice deserted him.

“We leave tonight. Sooner if at all possible.”

“I'm coming with you?”

“You are.”

“Why?”

“Because we choose to take you,” Valid answered flatly.

“You have a gift,” the woman said. They were her first words.

“What gift?” asked Payne, shifting his attention.

She started to reply, but Valid cut her off. He had the floor, he seemed to believe, until he chose to relinquish it.

“Perhaps he does; perhaps he doesn't. He's hardly been tested now, has he?” To Payne he said, “If it were up to me, you'd serve your sentence. But better minds than mine think otherwise. They think your talents are wasted here.”

Another glance around the healing center, with its muddy wooden floors, shabby furnishings and rudimentary equipment, seemed to convince him that this might well be the case. “There is a world outside, you know. A world beyond this…this hovel. In any case, it's best to keep an open mind. Everyone deserves a second chance. And healers are a precious commodity. There are places clamoring for one with experience.”

“What places?” asked Payne, hardly daring to imagine such a thing.

“Does it matter?” answered Valid.

No. Of course it didn't. “And Vecque? What about her?”

“Vecque?”

“The other healer,” said the woman.

“Ah, yes. Our sad, unfortunate Vecque. What shall we do with her?” Valid pursed his lips in thought. “But of course you knew the consequences. Did you think that somehow you were immune? Or perhaps you blame us for not teaching you properly? For not drilling into your heads what every first-year schoolboy knows?”

“No,” said Payne.

“No what?”

“I don't blame you. I blame myself.”

“Yes,” said Valid. “I'd think you would.”

“We knew the risks.”

“Did you?” Valid struggled with this for a moment before brightening. “Youthful exuberance then. Not so terrible a crime. But how to deter it? How to prevent such catastrophes in the future?”

Hands clasped behind his back, he took a step or two around the room, head bent in contemplation.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

Payne knew enough not to volunteer.

Valid provided his own. “I've one. We'll take her with us.”

Payne's heart leapt. “You can help her?”

Valid snorted. “Help her? Not likely. We'll use her as an example.
An illustration for anyone who thinks he can flout the laws of nature. An object lesson in what? Stupidity? Arrogance? Ambition?” He seemed genuinely perplexed. “Hard to know what you were thinking. If thought, in fact, was involved. The vigor of youth so often resides outside the brain.

“Help her, you say? No, my friend, can't do. So sorry. But she'll help so many others. If you need consolation, and it appears you do, I'd take it in that.”

“You can't,” said Payne.

A furrow worried Valid's brow. Two furrows, in point of fact, troughs in a glistening and otherwise placid surface. Disturbances in the calm.

“Can't?”

“It's wrong.”

“You'd rather she stayed?”

“I'd rather you helped her.”

“I?” He placed a hand upon his chest. A preposterous idea.

At which point the woman intervened. Stepping forward, she faced Valid. They were roughly the same height, and she stood eye to eye with him.

“If you could give us a moment, I think that we can settle this.”

Valid had his doubts, but her voice and manner brooked no argument. Bowing slightly, he deferred to her good judgment and with a parting glance at Payne left the two of them alone.

Payne was relieved to have him gone, although the residue of his presence, like a vapor, lingered. The woman made him nervous, but in a different way.

“You do have a decision to make,” she said. “Your friend's not coming with us. Valid was only goading you with that. And frankly, it's better that she's not.”

“I can't leave her here.”

“No. That would be a cruel thing to do.”

“Then what?”

She didn't answer, but instead invoked a cagey sort of silence that sent the question back to him. But he was out of answers. He didn't know what to do; if he did, he would have long since done it. One thing was certain though: he'd had his fill of guilt and grief and helplessness, standing by while Vecque remained in agony.

“What would you do if the situation were reversed?” she asked at length. “If you were in her place?”

“If I were Vecque? I wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't be able to. If you've seen her, then you know what I mean.”

“But what would you want?”

“Help,” he said, which was all Vecque ever asked of him. “Relief. An end to the misery.”

“Yes. Of course. What anyone would want. So how can you help her? What can you do?”

He was afraid to mention the one thing that had occurred to him. Who was this woman anyway? Why should he confide in her?

“It might help to get it off your chest,” she said.

“Get what?”

She assured him that anything he said would be held in the strictest of confidences. Not a word would leave the room. Valid, in particular, would never hear a thing. She didn't answer to him, or, for that matter, to anyone.

Still, he was reluctant to speak openly with her, and she didn't pressure him. She seemed, in fact, familiar with the concept of waiting, with the idea that certain things required time to mature and ripen. Beyond this, she seemed to have a talent for drawing people out.

In the end he told her. It was surprising, really, how quickly he acquiesced. Or not so surprising, considering how long he'd been alone, with no outlet for his thoughts and feelings, how thirsty he was for contact and conversation with someone else.

“I had one idea,” he said.

She nodded her encouragement.

“I wouldn't actually do it. It was just a thought.”

“I understand.”

“I mean, how much worse can things get?”

“I mean.”

She seemed to be teasing him in a gentle sort of way. Then all at once she smiled. It was a look that lit the room. Payne caught his breath, amazed at how beautiful a smile could be. And how long it had been since he'd seen one.

After that he wanted to tell her everything.

But he contained himself. This one secret would be enough. Drawing his breath, he confessed to the thought of trying to heal Vecque again, then waited anxiously for her reaction.

She didn't look particularly surprised. In fact, it seemed as if she'd been expecting to hear something along this line.

“I haven't acted on it,” he rushed to add. “I wouldn't. It's just a thought. A stupid one.”

“Not stupid. No thought is stupid. I'm glad you haven't tried it, though.” She seemed so very calm and at the same time keyed in to him. So poised and so astute.

“Any other secrets?” she asked.

It was a huge relief to get this one off his chest. If there were others, he couldn't think of them.

“We were talking about your friend,” she prompted him. “Ideas about how to help her.”

“It's been three years,” he said. “A lot goes through your mind in three years.”

“A lot goes through it in a day.” She gave another smile, a sadder sort of smile, this one, it seemed, meant for herself. And then it was Payne's turn to wait, as her thoughts turned inward.

At length she asked him if he'd ever owned a pet. He shook his head.

“My family had a dog. He was already old when I was young, and every year he got older and more crippled and uncomfortable. It got to the point that he could barely eat. And he whimpered all the time. Eventually, we had to put him down. It was hard, but it was right. What I mean is, it was the decent and humane thing to do.”

“I can't do that to Vecque,” said Payne.

“Have you asked her what she wants?”

“I don't have to ask. She's begged me to take her life. A hundred times. But I can't. I won't.”

“Why not?”

“I'm a healer, not a killer. I foster life. I don't destroy it.”

She took him at his word, despite the irony, given what he'd done. “That's an honorable sentiment, but what exactly in Vecque are you fostering? What kind of life is she living?”