Jedi Healer

by Michael Reaves

  scale plates," he said to Paleel, the circulating nurse who wasn't scrubbed

  sterile. "Find out what does that to a Nikto."

  "Already got it," the nurse said. "Myoplexaril, variant four. Three

  milligrams per kilo of body weight, IV."

  "Okay. What does he weigh?"

  "Sixty kilograms."

  Jos did the math. "Give him one eighty of Myoplexaril, vee-four, IV

  push."

  Somebody had started an intravenous big-bore, TKO, which was good.

  Running IVs was a primitive process at best, and, on top of that, Jos had

  never enjoyed starting them on reptiloids-finding a vein under scaled skin

  was always a challenge. But all the osmotic drips were in use at the moment,

  so he had to make do with what was available. Threndy, the other nurse,

  filled an injector with mus-

  cle relaxant, double-checked the medicine vial and dosage, and pressed

  the injector against the IVs Rx portal.

  It would take a moment for the pharmaceutical to do, the trick. Jos

  said, "Threndy, why don't you finish the instrument sort? Paleel, go and get

  a second reptiloid kit, just m case. Tolk, over here and help me categorize

  wounds."

  The nurses moved.

  With Tolk now standing next to him, if they kept their voices down,

  they could have a private conversation. "You okay?" he asked.

  She kept her gaze on the patient. "I'm fine."

  "You don't seem fine. Since you got back from Med-Star, you've seemed,

  well . . . distant."

  She looked at him, then back at the patient. "Looks like this one got

  hit in the spleen-if they have spleens." She pointed at a puncture wound

  with a stat-patch.

  "Tolk."

  She sighed. "What do you want me to say, Jos? It wasn't a visit to a

  pleasure dome. I saw people spewed into space like ripe poptree seeds. The

  lucky ones died right away."

  "People die here every day," he said. "You seem to be able to deal with

  that."

  "Not the same," she said.

  "It wasn't like you did it, Tolk."

  She gave him a sharp glance, and was about to say something when the

  patient's abdominal plate relaxed and retracted-and a gush of purplish

  hemolymph from one of the now exposed wounds lanced out and hit him squarely

  in the chest.

  The next few minutes were occupied with stopping the flow of vital

  fluid. The nurses and droids handled that, while Jos stepped away from the

  table. He'd have to change clothes and rescrub. Which meant a serious

  conversation with Tolk wasn't going to happen now.

  Blast.

  But he wasn't going to drop it. Something was wrong, something over and

  above the trauma of what had happened. There was something that Tolk wasn't

  telling him. And he wouldn't rest until he knew what it was.

  Barriss Offee was having a hard time concentrating on her work.

  In front of her, in a bed in the recovery ward, a trooper lay-or

  rather, most of him did." His legs had been chewed by shrapnel up to

  midthigh. The solution waste outfit the soldier with cybertronic

  prosthetics-robotic legs that, once covered with a layer of synthflcsh,

  would be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Barriss's job was to

  use the Force to prepare the trooper for the circuit grafts and implants by

  easing systemic shock reaction. It was a fairly easy task-a simple matter of

  soothing the autonomic nervous system and stimulating biological response

  modifiers. She'd done it dozens of times before with no glitches. There was

  no reason to assume it would be any different this time.

  Nevertheless, she could not do it.

  Since experiencing that searing, that "cosmic" connection, Barriss had

  been afraid to reach out to the Force again. Though there was no logical

  reason to fear it, still she found herself paralyzed every time she

  attempted a link.

  She was aware that this was not a good situation, especially given her

  position here on this war-ravaged world, Though the last few days had been

  light on casualties, Rimsoo Seven could be inundated again at any time, and

  when that happened her abilities would be needed to save lives. She couldn't

  afford to remain helpless.

  Her mind knew all this. Her heart, however, still shied away from the

  bond that had been a part of her life for so long.

  That couldn't be any more wrong.

  She told the FX-7 droid on duty to put the clone back in short-term

  cryosupport. She'd be doing him no favors trying to modulate his BRMs now,

  given the uncertain state she was in. She needed to get out, to clear her

  head. Perhaps a game of sabacc was indicated . . .

  Alone in her kiosk, Barriss sat and stared at the wall. She had sought

  out company, but being in the presence of her friends hadn't helped to

  resolve matters. The power of her experience-and she was sure it had been

  real, not a hallucination-still thrummed in her, though it was now but a

  faint echo of what it had been; the drip of a single raindrop after the roar

  of a storm.

  Even so, playing cards in the cantina and exchanging small talk with

  the doctors and nurses hadn't helped her do anything other than put off

  dealing with it. She couldn't talk to any of her colleagues-what was she

  going to say? Hey, Jos, I just became one with the entire galaxy. . . and

  how's that case of Ortolan rhinorrhea you've been dealing with?

  None of them could help her, and there was nobody else she knew of who

  had experienced it-certainly not anyone at hand.

  If anyone else ever had experienced it...

  Barriss knew she wasn't the smartest Jedi who had ever lived, but she

  wasn't anywhere close to the stupidest, either. She knew what had happened.

  She had taken a ther-

  apeutic, if accidental, dose of the bota extract. There was no doubt in

  her mind that the unintentional injection and her sudden, overpowering

  connection to the Force had been cause and effect. She didn't know the why

  or the how, but she was certain that the panaceatic chemical concoction had

  produced yet another miracle, this time by intensifying her connection to

  the Force by an order of magnitude she couldn't even begin to tally.

  When, as a youngling, she had first learned to use the Force, it seemed

  to her as if she had been living in a dark cave, and had finally been given

  a lamp to light her way, She could, of a moment, see, whereas before she had

  been feeling her way in the murk. It had been a most intense and profound

  revelation.

  Compared to that, the experience she'd had after the accident in the

  ward had been like trading in that lamp for her own personal sun-a

  difference comparable to being able to see a vast plain, all the way to the

  horizon, in every minute detail, as opposed to the corner of a single small

  room. It was as if she were a hawk-bat, capable of spotting a rock shrew the

  size of her thumb from a thousand meters away, as opposed to being a blind

  granite slug, grubbing myopically at the few millimeters directly before

  her.

  What did it mean?

  Her first reaction had been to comm her Master. Lumi-nara Unduli would

  know, or she would have acce
ss to somebody with knowledge. In any event,

  there was certainly no reason to try to puzzle it out on her own, certainly

  not when she had the vast resources of the Temple's archives at her

  disposal.

  And so she had tried-but her communications unit was not working.

  Everything seemed fine, all the circuits tested clean, but there was no

  signal. Something was jam-

  ming the frequency; she could not even get an offworld carrier

  hyperwave, and she had no idea why. Possibly it was due to some military

  operation-it was entirely feasible that the Republic or the Separatists had

  recently implemented some device that could blanket a planet and stop

  transmissions such as hers. Or could it be a natural phenomenon? There were

  magnetic and flux storms in realspace that sometimes cast subspatial

  reverberations and interrupted comm signals. Drongar Prime was a hot sun;

  its coronal discharges were certainly strong enough . . .

  Barriss made a frustrated gesture. No point in theorizing-she had to

  talk to somebody who knew more about the Force than she did, to pass this

  along and decide what-if anything-needed to be done about it. She'd tried

  the unit again, as soon as she'd gotten back to her kiosk, but of course it

  still wasn't working.

  There was another way, however, an elegantly simple way: take another

  blast of the bota. She was almost certain that she could figure out just

  about anything, once she returned to that ineffable state in which she had

  been before, if this time she was expecting it and prepared for St. The

  experience held within it all manner of knowledge; she could still feel the

  truth of that. Once she understood the parameters of the event, Barriss

  could present the Jedi Council with something of incalculable value. She

  couldn't even imagine the miracles that a true Jedi Master could perform

  while suffused with such power. Why, even the small handful of the Order

  remaining could turn the course of the war, could easily defeat Dooku's

  forces and restore galactic peace, did they but have access to the kind of

  power Barriss had experienced. She knew this to be true; she had felt as if

  she could accomplish all that by herself, so she knew that, with such

  mystical strength in the hands of Luminara or Obi-Wan or Yoda, anything

  would be possible.

  But-could she prepare herself sufficiently to ride that massive and

  all-powerful wave again? It seemed entirely possible that the next time it

  might roll over her, and she wouldn't be able to struggle free. Maybe it

  would claim her for itself, and never let her go, transform her somehow into

  something totally outside the experience of her or anyone else . . .

  Barriss sighed. This was beyond her skill, her talents, her ability.

  She needed help, but there wasn't anyone here capable of providing it. It

  seemed that, until she could talk to Master Unduli, she would be better off

  doing nothing.

  But that wasn't as easy as it sounded, by any means. The memory of the

  power, frightening as it was, nevertheless cried out to her. Its call was so

  tempting. Even though she was afraid, she longed to try it again.

  It would be easy. There were several skinpoppers filled with the

  distillate literally within arm's reach. It would be but a second's work to

  take one, push it against her flesh, trigger it... So easy . . .

  Barriss wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, feeling a cold

  that had nothing to do with the snow outside.

  20

  Jos, my friend. How are you feeling?"

  Jos looked at the minder. "Well, if truth be known, I've had better

  days. Better months. Decades."

  "Oh?"

  Jos squirmed uncomfortably-a difficult task in the formchair that

  fought to match his every move and make the position comfortable. "You, uh,

  know about me and Tolk."

  The Equani steepled his fingers. "Fortunately, I have not gone blind or

  deaf recently."

  "Yeah, well ... I thought we were flying like a land-speeder with

  custom harmonics. Only lately she's . . . cooled."

  "How so?"

  Jos sighed. Everything about Klo and his office was designed to be

  calming-his manner, the decor, the patient's formchair-but Jos had yet to be

  able to relax when he came here. It wasn't that he felt distrustful of Klo,

  or of the whole minder process, the way many of his family did. Even though

  he came from a long line of medics, many of his immediate ancestors looked

  askance upon the concept of healing through mental therapy. Though his

  father would never come right out and admit it, Jos knew that the senior

  Vandar was much more com-

  fortable curing depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and the like with

  adjustments of dopamine, serotonin, and somatostatin levels, rather than by

  empathetic feedback. Jos told himself he didn't share this bias, but even

  so, he was always tense in Merit's office.

  He wasn't sure why he had come this time. He hadn't had an appointment,

  he'd just taken advantage of Merit's free time. He needed to bounce this

  problem off somebody, and his kiosk mate was not as old as some of Jos's

  boots.

  "Tolk and I were doing fine . . . then she went up to take a CME class

  on MedStar. She was there when the decks blew-and since she's gotten back,

  she's been frostier than the snow outside your window."

  Merit nodded. "Why do you think that is?"

  "If I knew, I wouldn't be here, now would I?"

  "Did you two argue about anything?"

  "No."

  Merit nodded, and leaned back in his own formchair, which adjusted to

  match his new balance and contours. "Well, the accident was distressing to a

  lot of people."

  "The way I heard it," Jos said, "it wasn't an accident."

  Merit shrugged. "I've heard those rumors as well. Of course, the

  powers-that-be might want people to think that way-after all, if it was

  sabotage, that lets Security off the hook. The Republic is not immune to

  watching-your-backside disease."

  Jos knew that. He shrugged. "Barriss says it was deliberate. I believe

  her."

  "Well, it doesn't really matter for the purposes of our discussion.

  Whether the blowout was an accident or on purpose, it seems that the trauma

  of it may have hit Tolk harder than she's letting on."

  "I've thought of that. But I don't see how. We have more people die in

  this Rimsoo in any given month-in a week, sometimes-than died in the MedStar

  blast. Tolk is often working on them when they go, looking them right in the

  eyes. Why wouldn't that bother her more than a bunch of people she didn't

  know, and didn't have to deal with?"

  "I can't say." Klo paused, as if considering something.

  "What?"

  "Nothing."

  "I'm not a face reader, a Jedi, or a minder, Klo, but I didn't just

  fall off the melbulb freighter, either. What?"

  "How well do you know Tolk? I mean, yes, you've worked with her during

  your tour here, and you have established a relationship that, I assume, is

  physical?"

  "You can assume that."

  "But-what do you know of her background? Her people, her politics, herr />
  social development?"

  "What are you getting at?"

  "Perhaps she has reasons to be upset that you can't see. Perhaps

  there's something in her background she hasn't revealed to you."

  "I don't think I like the way this conversation is going."

  The minder raised a pacifying hand. "I meant no insult to Tolk," he

  said. "I'm merely suggesting that, as you point out, there would seem no

  ostensible reason for her to be more upset about an explosion on the MedStar

  than she'd be in the day-to-day goings-on "here in the Rimsoo. Therefore,

  there could be another reason."

  Jos blinked at him. "Are you suggesting that she had something to do

  with it?"

  "Of course not, Jos. Only that there is apparently something going on

  with Tolk about which you seem to be in the dark. If you had any idea what

  that might be, maybe you could resolve this. At the very least, you'd have

  more tools to work with."

  Jos brooded. "So far, I haven't been able to get her to talk to me

  about anything of substance."

  "And therefore you lack enough information to make even an educated

  guess. You might see if you can find out more. It could be nothing

  serious-some past trauma connected to her family or friends that triggered

  old memories, for example. But until you gather more data, all you have is

  speculation," Klo said. "There's no future in that."

  Jos nodded. Klo was right. He needed to talk to Tolk about this, find

  out what was really bothering her. They could deal with it together,

  whatever it was.

  Unless, of course, Tolk had had something to do with the bombing . . .

  Jos shook his head. No way. He wasn't sure of much these days, but he

  was sure that Tolk could never have anything to do with such a horrendous

  crime, no matter what. What healer could? Their job was to save lives,not

  take them.

  "Thanks, Klo. I won't take any more of your time."

  "They're still playing cards in the cantina. I-Five was winning.

  Cleaned me to my daily limit," Klo said with a smile, "which is why I'm back

  here."

  Jos stood. "Maybe I'll go have a drink and play a few hands."

  "Why not?"

  Jos smiled and left.

  He didn't make it as far as the cantina. When he was halfway there,

  crossing the open area referred to as the Quad, he and several others

  braving the cold stopped in their tracks, momentarily paralyzed by an