Psychicians

by Laurence Dahners

  “Okay! A gold!”

  “A gold and twenty silvers.”

  James gritted his teeth to keep from saying, “You’ll regret this!” Instead, he nodded, “A gold and twenty silvers.” Then he worried that she’d raise the price again anyway.

  The daughter’s voice came from the alcove, “We’ve got two of them, Mom. You want both?”

  The woman’s pleasant tone belied the flashing look in her eyes as she said, “Yes, please.”

  The girl came out and laid two lenses, each three centimeters in diameter, on the table. James picked them up and looked at the fine printing on the sheet of paper, astonished by how sharp and clear the letters were. He used one lens to look at the other and saw the glass looked absolutely perfect. There weren’t any scratches, fogging, edge chips, or any other flaws he could see. As if it’s brand-new! he thought. Someone must be making them nowadays. There’s no way lenses this perfect could’ve survived from ancient times. He switched lenses to look at the other one. It was just as perfect as the first one. He started to stand, then realized Hyllis was holding out a hand for her payment. For an irritated moment, he thought, She couldn’t stop me if I just left. But he dug in his purse and got out two ten silver pieces and a gold.

  When he handed them to her, Hyllis gave him a broad smile. She said, “Thank you. It was exciting doing business with you.”

  ~~~

  James took the lenses directly to Soh jewelers to get them made into spectacles. He was able to negotiate better terms on the frames than he had on the lenses, even though he asked for the wire they were made of to be coated with a layer of gold. As he left the jewelers, he was surprised to see one of the town’s young working men walking toward him wearing spectacles. The thought that a young man already had them took some of the joy out of his own impending possession. James felt fairly sure the man only ever worked as a laborer or a messenger. How could he possibly afford lenses? James wondered. He stopped the man, “Where’d you get those spectacles?”

  The man gave him an excited look, “Oh! Ain’t they wonderful? I can see! For the first time in my life, I can tell who people are without hearing their voices. I mean, from more than a meter or so away anyhow.”

  “Yes, yes,” James said impatiently, wondering whether someone else was selling the lenses for less. “But where did you get them?”

  “Oh, I got the lenses at Hyllis Tavern and the wire holder for them at Soh jewelers.”

  “And how did you save up enough money to buy the lenses? They cost a gold, don’t they?”

  “A gold?” the man said, looking puzzled. “No, Ms. Hyllis gave me the lenses for free. And Mr. Soh, he’s lettin’ me pay a copper a week for… I think it’s ten weeks. He said he’d keep track of it for me.”

  Too furious to speak, James continued on his way without thanking the man for his information.

  ***

  The morning slowdown had arrived in the tavern. Eva, Vyrda, Daussie, and Kazy were all upstairs in the clinic studying. As each of them read one of the new books, they copied the text—and as best they could, the pictures. The copies weren’t exact because they tried to write the contained knowledge as if it had been handed down verbally—hoping to disguise its origin in the banned books of the ancients. Afterward, they read one another’s work to make sure that the changes didn’t alter the meaning contained in the original texts.

  The door opened and they looked up. Tarc was standing in the opening. Eva smiled at her son, “You taking the day off from plundering the facility to actually study medicine?”

  “Much as I’d love to, Mom…” he paused to wait for the snickering to die down. “As I was saying, much as I’d love to, Mom, I need you to come look at a few things in the facility. Tell me whether I can sell them for salvage or whether you can figure out what they’re for. Maybe they have medical uses?”

  “And, I suppose you can’t bring examples of them to me?”

  Tarc shook his head, “Too big.”

  “So big you can’t move them, yet you still think you can take them out and sell them for salvage?”

  Tarc hesitated and Eva thought he looked like he’d painted himself into a corner. Then he shrugged, “I’ll have to tear them apart to sell them for salvage. Besides, isn’t it time you came out and had another look around? It’s been quite a while.”

  Eva looked around at the other women. “What do you think? Want to take a little trip?” She looked at Vyrda, “You’ve never even been down there, have you?”

  Vyrda shook her head eagerly, “I’d really like to see it.”

  ~~~

  They walked to the facility—as Tarc had been doing except when he needed to bring back a load of salvage. That way they didn’t have to tether horses or mules up at the entrance to the facility and worry about them getting stolen.

  Arriving, Tarc made quick work out of taking the steel bars out of the opening, explaining how they were held in place. Once everyone else had climbed down the ladder, he quickly put the bars back. Eva said, “You’re locking us in down here?”

  Tarc paused and nodded, “I don’t want anyone coming down here behind us.”

  She frowned, “What if something happened to you? We wouldn’t be able to get out.”

  He drew back in surprise, “Worst case, Daussie could just cut these bars. Though I’d hope she’d just cut the little bolts that hold them in place. Also, I’m sure Vyrda can pull the bolts out with her ghirit, though she might not be able to put them back.” He grinned at his mother and gave his voice an ominous tone, “So you and Kazy need to keep one of the three of us alive if you want to escape.”

  Soon they were wandering around the facility, oohing and aahing.

  This went on for a while before Eva realized she hadn’t really seen much of anything that was truly new or exciting. Tarc had done an admirable job of cleaning it up, but she’d seen almost all of it before. Certainly, no large devices that would have to be broken up to salvage them. She turned to her son, “Tarc, where are these big things you’re wanting to salvage?”

  He acted surprised, though Eva thought she could see right through him. He said, “Oh, yeah. Right this way.” He opened a door she hadn’t paid much attention to and motioned them through into a very long hallway.

  Eva frowned, “Where’s this go?”

  “A long way back towards town,” Tarc said airily, leading off.

  Eva shone her light down on the floor. “You’ve known about this hallway a long time,” she said accusingly. “Long enough to have swept up the dust.”

  “Yeah,” Tarc said cheerfully, “and in a hallway this long, we’re talking a lot of dust. Seems like sweeping and mopping up dust is the main thing I do down here…” He looked at his mother, “I’m sure you only brought that up in order to express your gratitude for my efforts, right?”

  Eva snorted but kept walking.

  Eventually, they reached a high ceilinged chamber at the end of the hallway. “Are we almost all the way back to Clancy Vail?” Eva asked curiously.

  Daussie answered, not surprising since her ghirit could sense things farther than anyone else’s. She’d also had time to check it out when she’d come with Tarc before to oil the locks, “We’re just a little way from the wall.” She pointed beyond the chamber, “Clancy Vail’s tower is about forty meters that way.”

  Eva looked around at the four doorways, “So which doorway are we going through?”

  Tarc pointed to the door on the right, “That door goes into a stairwell. The stairs go almost up to ground level. It originally led into a building, but the structure collapsed a long time ago. They also go down three levels to a well. It’s cold down there, so it’d be a great place to store hams and cheese and beer. He pointed to another door, “That one’s just a little room where they kept cleaning supplies. And that one,” he pointed to the third door, “was full of the ancients’ electric stuff. I’ve been taking out the wire and selling the copper.”

  “All very interesting,”
Eva said dryly, stepping to the fourth door. “I suppose that means that we want to go through this one?”

  Tarc nodded.

  She pushed it open. “Another hallway?”

  “Yeah, but it’s short. The next room’s the one with the interesting stuff.”

  Eva walked to the end of the hall and opened the next door.

  It was a big room with chairs in a semicircle around a podium like she’d seen in a few of her books. An auditorium for teaching and learning.

  Brightly lit by a big circular area up in the high ceiling!

  Tears in her eyes, Eva turned to hug her son…

  ***

  It was early afternoon and business in the bar was slow. Daum was sitting behind the bar at the end next to the door into his brewing room. He’d fashioned a little desk there where he kept his accounts. At present, he was copying from the “W” volume of the encyclopedia Tarc had found out at the facility.

  Since there was only one set of encyclopedias, Eva had insisted that Tarc only bring back a single volume at a time. Daum had begged for the “W” volume. As he’d hoped it had a fascinating section on winemaking. Daum was copying that section and intended to insist the next volume Tarc brought to the tavern would be the “B” volume so he could copy whatever it had about beer and breweries.

  Daum was wearing his new reading spectacles. If asked, he’d claim he was only wearing them to advertise their lens making business. However, when he’d first started reading and copying extensively, he’d started getting headaches. Eva had told him he was getting something she called presbyopia, which meant the lenses in his eyes were getting stiff. With stiff lenses he had to strain to focus up close. He’d given in and now had both spectacles to see at a distance and different ones he used to read. Once he started using the reading glasses, the headaches went away. Unfortunately, now his nose and ears hurt where the spectacles rested. He’d taken to alternating reading with and without them. And dreading the day when Eva claimed he’d have to have them to read.

  Tarc opened the gate and stepped behind the bar, walking over to Daum.

  Daum closed the lid over the book and his copying operation and looked a question at his son.

  Tarc said, “I’ll cover the bar. Nylin and Grace’re waiting out on the porch behind the kitchen. They’d like to talk to you.”

  Daum frowned, “What about?”

  “Investing.”

  “Investing? Investing what?”

  Tarc gave him a sly smile, “Money.”

  “Just tell them to put it in a bank.”

  “Now, come on. They think you’re a grumpy old curmudgeon and I told them that wasn’t so. I said you’d be happy to talk to them and went so far as to assure them you’d be pleasant.”

  “I am a grumpy old curmudgeon. Why disabuse them of the notion?”

  Tarc snorted, “Because you’ve actually got a soft spot a mile wide. Besides, you’re constantly griping about how you need more capital. You can’t gripe about that on one hand and refuse to talk to investors on the other.”

  “Yeah, but we need a lot more investment than those girls could’ve saved, even if they’ve put away every copper they’ve earned.”

  “Ah, yes, but you see, Nylin appropriated the Ragas’ money the night Farlin rescued her.”

  Daum laughed, “You’re sticking to the story that Farlin rescued them?”

  Tarc gave him a bland look, “Of course. You don’t think those girls could’ve escaped the Ragas all by themselves, do you?”

  Grinning, Daum shook his head, “No. I also don’t think Farlin, with a freshly broken arm, could’ve rescued them.”

  “Hmm,” Tarc said thoughtfully. He shook himself, “Well, whatever happened. When Nylin escaped, she took the Ragas’ money with her.”

  “How much was it?”

  Tarc shrugged, “I don’t know, but Kazy seems to think it’d be a worthwhile investment.”

  Daum’s eyebrows rose. Not only was Kazy interested in business, she was a wizard with numbers. “Okay, I’ll go talk to them.”

  Tarc snorted, “Don’t try to make it sound like you’re doing me a favor. You’re doing yourself a favor.”

  “Maybe…” Daum said, going out the gate at the end of the bar. He turned, “Don’t you mean I’m doing us a favor?”

  Tarc waved the comment away.

  When Daum went through the kitchen he found Daussie kneading bread. He asked her, “Why aren’t you upstairs studying?”

  “I’m covering the kitchen while you talk to Nylin and Grace,” she said, picking up another wad of dough and giving him a little glare. “They’re afraid of you, so be nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” Daum said, realizing he was contradicting his earlier statement to Tarc about being a curmudgeon. He’d thought Tarc was joking. Do they really think I’m mean? he wondered.

  “I know you’re nice,” Daussie said, “but they don’t. So you’ve got to prove it to them. I think sometimes when you think you’re joking, they think you’re serious. So, don’t joke.”

  Daum snorted, “So I’m supposed to be a humorless milquetoast for them?”

  A shaft of sunlight hit Daussie as she flashed him a brilliant grin, “Something like that. Maybe a little bit funny, but try to restrain yourself from the full-on version of your kind of humor.”

  Gods, she’s pretty, Daum thought to himself as he turned away. I hope it helps her find a nice guy without bringing her more trouble with assholes. “Thanks for the warning,” he said, stepping through the door and out onto the little porch.

  Kazy was sitting with Nylin and Grace. Daum looked at her and asked, “What’re you doing here?”

  “Running interference for my friends. You make them nervous.”

  Does the whole world think I’m some kind of a jerk? Daum wondered. He smiled at Nylin and Grace as he sat down, “Nothing to be nervous about. I hear you want investment advice?”

  Though she looked edgy, Nylin spoke with composure, “We think we’d like to invest in the tavern. It’s our understanding you’d like to have more capital so it’d be a win-win situation. We’re hoping to learn what you’d do with our investment and how we’d be repaid.”

  Daum scratched his head, “A lot of that would depend on how much you’re planning to invest.”

  “A hundred and five golds.”

  Daum blinked. After a few moments, he said, “Ah… That’s, um, far more than I expected. And it’d be a welcome investment… How about if I give you some general investing advice right now, before I start thinking too greedily about how I’d like to have you invest in our tavern. Then I’ll take a couple of days to come up with what’s called a ‘business plan.’ The actual plan should give you a good idea of how we’d invest your money and how you might expect to be repaid.”

  Nylin and Grace nodded.

  Daum launched into the basics of running a business and investing in it. Kazy stayed to listen. At first, he wasn’t sure why she stayed since she was pretty knowledgeable. But then she asked some questions indicating she had more to learn. Also, there was her ability to do astonishingly complex calculations in her head. Having her instantly explain what the returns would be in various scenarios didn’t just help Nylin and Grace, it helped Daum as well.

  Chapter Five

  “I think these are them!” Eva exclaimed excitedly, spinning up out of her chair to let the others look.

  Daussie and Vyrda both started to sit down at the microscope. Daussie backed off to let the older woman go first.

  Embarrassed, Vyrda started to step back and let Daussie go first, it was her room after all, but Daussie waved her on. She sat down and put her eyes to the lenses. “It’s dark,” she grumbled, leaning back to adjust the mirror they’d rigged up to bounce sunlight into the condenser of the microscope. Their clinic room was on the north side of the building and so it didn’t get consistent sunlight. Besides, locating the microscope in Daussie and Kazy’s room on the south side kept patients from seeing the ex
otic instrument when they came in to be evaluated. But the table in the girls’ room was flimsy. Bumping it even a little jarred the mirror out of place. Vyrda looked up, “We need a sturdier desk.”

  “We need so many things,” Eva said, “that one has to be pretty low on our list.”

  Vyrda looked back down through the lenses and adjusted the focus, “But couldn’t Tarc bring us one of those steel cabinets…?” She began, then interrupted herself, “Wait! I think I see them too! Lots of little dots in clusters like grapes, right?”

  “Yep,” Eva said. “So, they’re probably Staphylococcus aureus, one of the most common causes of infection. Staphylococci are little spheres and they grow in clusters like grapes. Of course, with only the crystal violet stain, we don’t know they’re gram-positive, which staph is supposed to be. But it’s pretty likely, gram-negative cocci are unusual and the most common ones that cause disease comes in pairs rather than clusters.”

  Vyrda had gotten up to let Daussie sit down. She narrowed her eyes in thought. “Which ones are the gram-negative cocci again?”

  “Neisseria gonorrhea.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hard to forget which disease they cause.”

  Daussie, head still down on the eyepieces of the microscope, said, “I see them.” She looked up at her mother, “Though this feels like knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Knowing which germ it is doesn’t help us treat anyone, does it? Am I missing something?”

  Eva shook her head a little sadly, “Not really.” She formed a smile, though it looked a little forced, “But, someday, when we have antibiotics, it’ll help us know which ones to use.”

  Daussie got up and cheerfully said, “Yes it will. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I’ll go see if Kazy’s done with Ms. Ulrich. I know she’d like to see our first successful stain.”

  As Daussie went to the door, Eva was saying, “I think we’ve been staining them just fine for a while now. This is only our first success because it’s the first time we’ve found a good immersion oil for the objective. It’s just that the oil’s finally given us enough magnification to see them.”