The Healer

by Michael Blumlein

  He couldn't understand why they hadn't found him yet. Surely by now the shift was over and they knew that he was lost. But maybe not; maybe the men were still at work. He had no idea how much time had passed, except that it seemed forever.

  He was shivering freely now, and his fingers and toes were numb. How much longer would he last? People died like this, and he didn't want to die. He gulped air and took deep breaths, trying to master his fear, forcing himself to calm down and breathe slower.

  And now the cold began to get to him. It had seeped deep into his body, and now it started working on his mind. He began to have trouble thinking clearly. A lethargy came over him. He felt more tired than he had reason to be. Tired and sluggish and apathetic. He began having thoughts not of rescue, but of escape and release.

  His eyelids drifted slowly downward, then closed. Terrified, he snapped them open, knowing he had to fight the urge to sleep. But seconds later, they closed again, and he promised himself it would only be a minute. Just enough time for a little nap.

  It lasted longer than he planned, and would have lasted longer still, too long, had it not been broken by a dream. It was a bothersome, annoying dream: a swarm of insects was buzzing in his ears. He tried in vain to swat them away and stop the buzzing, but the sound persisted, and then they, or something, was jostling him. This was even more annoying, and he shrank from it and tried to get away. All he wanted was to be left alone.

  And then a voice was saying, “There you are,” and then a light was shining in his face.

  “Been wondering where you wandered off to. Guess you forgot rule number one.”

  It was very real sounding to be a dream, though waking up to it was quite a struggle. He finally got his eyes to open but couldn't get his tongue to work. His lips and jaw were numb.

  The voice turned out to be Slivey's; clustered around him were other men, Covert among them. No one looked particularly alarmed or worried about his being lost. If anything, and this was strange, they seemed amused.

  “Up you get now,” Slivey said, offering his hand. “No more sleeping on the job. Shift's over. Everybody's tired and hungry. Time to brass out.”

  He was having dinner in the mess hall several days later when Vecque entered. They had not spoken since the incident in the mine, although everybody else seemed to know about it, and so he assumed she did. She wound her way past the tables to the serving line, getting teased by the miners in the process. They called her uppity for not joining them, not that they wanted her to or would have known what to do if she had. For one thing, she was tesque, and for another she was their healer, both of which set her well apart. She was also female, which to many of the men was the most alien thing about her.

  As a rule, she had the sense to ignore their catcalls. From her point of view, responding only encouraged them and made things worse. Payne was a man, but he was different from the miners. He wasn't hostile and didn't ever laugh at her. If he had a fault (and Vecque was not one to let a fault go unnoticed), it was that he was so damn upbeat. And so fervent sometimes. But she was almost always glad to see him, especially when she compared it to the alternative of eating alone.

  After getting herself some food, she joined him at his table, pulling up a chair. “I heard about your little escapade.”

  “News travels fast.”

  “Like lightning. How are you? Recovered yet?”

  He didn't really want to talk about it, mostly because he didn't want the miners to overhear and get started in on him again. They were ruthless with their hazing. Emotionally, he was still a little raw.

  “I'm fine,” he said.

  She knew he wasn't. “You should have listened to me. I told you not to go.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with going. Only with what happened.”

  “I'll say.”

  “And nothing even wrong with that. It was a learning experience. No harm done.”

  “Oh stop.”

  “It was.”

  “Admit it. You were scared to death.”

  “Not really.”

  “No? I would have been.”

  This was as close to sympathy as Vecque had ever gotten, and it loosened something up inside of him. All at once he was gushing.

  “I was terrified. Beyond reason. And afterward, when we were coming back, they were cracking jokes about it. I felt so embarrassed and so incredibly dumb.”

  “That's just the way they like it. Makes ‘em feel smart.”

  Heads were turning toward their table, and he lowered his voice and leaned forward. “They are smart, Vecque. Down there at least. They know exactly what they're doing. I'm the one who made the mistake of getting lost.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It's what happened. You can't blame them for that.” It seemed stupid, but here he was defending them.

  Vecque regarded him, wondering how anyone could be so out of touch. Was the point even worth pursuing? She had her doubts.

  “I hate to burst your bubble, but you didn't get lost.”

  “Yes,” he answered stubbornly. “I did.”

  “They ditched you.”

  “You're wrong.”

  “I'm not,” she said. “They did. Intentionally.”

  He didn't believe her. “Why do you say that? How do you know?”

  “Because I know these men. I know what humans are capable of.”

  It was just as he thought. This was Vecque speaking; it was prejudice, not fact.

  “That's your fantasy. It isn't mine.”

  “It's no fantasy, Payne. I heard them talking.” She hesitated, not thrilled to be the bearer of this news. “Look, I'm sorry, but I heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “That they let you get lost. That they left you there.”

  “They said that?”

  She nodded.

  “Oh,” he said, then “oh” again. “So that's why they were laughing.”

  “I imagine so.”

  He considered this, and at length he brightened. “It was all a joke.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Sure it was.” He had heard of pranks being played on new miners, harmless things like bolting down their lunch pails or serving them grease sandwiches. Humiliating in the moment but not to be taken personally or confused with the intention of doing a person harm. More like rites of passage, required for acceptance in the group. Which had to be what this had been.

  He took it as a sign of progress. “They were kidding around. It was a joke. I can take a joke.”

  “You're not getting it,” said Vecque. “It wasn't a joke. They were teaching you a lesson.”

  “What do you mean? What lesson?”

  “For what you did to that miner. The one with the failing kidneys.”

  “Covert?”

  “That sounds right.”

  “He was sick. I healed him.”

  “You took away his livelihood.”

  “No. I did the opposite. He could barely walk and hardly work. Now he can do what he wants. He even runs around with that crazy group of his…” He stopped, remembering their confrontation in the snow. “What livelihood?”

  “Musk,” she said.

  “What's musk?”

  She shook her head. At what point, she wondered, did innocence become ignorance and something to be disdained? “Musk is what they make when they get sick. They collect it and then they sell it. An ounce is worth a week of wages. More than a week. It's precious stuff.”

  “So that's what they were doing in the field? Musk is frozen sweat?”

  “Sweat plus what their kidneys make. Frozen just because it's easier to collect.”

  “So all those guys were sick?”

  Vecque hadn't seen them but imagined so. “Not everybody gets that far. You have to inhale a lot of dust. And it has to be a certain kind of dust. Not copper, but one of the rarer ores. Rokonite, I think. Or gravellium. And even then, most of them just get the breathing problems. Only a handful get the kidne
y changes, too. For most of the guys it isn't worth the trouble to find out if it's going to happen the way they want it to. It takes a long time to get sick enough to start producing musk. And it makes them feel awful.”

  “So why do it?”

  “I told you why. The money. It's a business venture. I guess you could call it an investment.”

  “What do they use it for? The musk.”

  “Perfume,” she said with half a smile. “What else?”

  Payne was incredulous. “They make themselves ill so someone else can dab themselves with perfume?”

  “No,” she said. “You're not listening. They make themselves ill to make money.”

  “That's just as bad.”

  “How is it bad?”

  “Trading in your health for money? Getting rich by getting ill? It's perverse.”

  “I doubt they're getting rich. For all we know, they're sending money home to their families. Making life easier for the wife and kids. Raising more snotty humans to lord it over us.”

  “I'm sorry, but I can't condone that.”

  “Who cares?” she said, leading Payne to believe that it made no difference either to the miners or to her. “It's their choice. That's the difference between them and us. They get the freedom to be stupid. We get the freedom to do what they say.”

  “But not that. We don't have to do that.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “We do. Unless you want to have more adventures like the one you had.”

  But Payne was not convinced. Healing was a precious thing to him. It was a gift. In a way it was the only one he had. And he would not have it for long. No healer did. Which was all the more reason not to be reckless with it, or to squander it, or to practice it unscrupulously.

  “They need us, Vecque. We can use that as leverage. When they come to us, we can talk to them. We can teach them. There have to be other ways to make money. Higher wages, better prices for the ore, I don't know. But I do know that they don't have to walk around half-sick. That's no way to live. It has to take a toll on them. If they stay that way too long, the condition might become permanent. They might not ever be able to be fully healed.”

  “You're missing the point again. They don't want to be fully healed. And if at some point they change their minds and do, and can't be, well, that's the risk they take. I'm not a teacher, Payne. Even if I thought that what they're doing is wrong, which I'm not sure I do, I wouldn't interfere. It's not my place for one thing, and it's a waste of breath for another. Besides, I'm not interested.”

  “That's our job,” he said. “We have to be interested.”

  “Not mine,” said Vecque.

  Payne hated it when she acted like this. She could be such an unreasonable, exasperating, bull-headed person.

  Vecque, in turn, hated it when Payne told her who to be and what to do. As far as she was concerned, as soon as he started preaching, that was it for her.

  She turned her attention to her food, which in a world where she was either being lectured or being used, was one of the few predictable pleasures. Lately, though, it hadn't been tasting that good. And her appetite, which had always been robust, was slightly off, too. It would help, she supposed, if she weren't so tired all the time. It made eating, as well as nearly every other activity, a chore.

  She pushed the food haphazardly around her plate. For the past week, the smell alone was enough to make her stomach turn.

  “You know, I didn't ask to be a healer, Payne. I never wanted to be one.”

  “A part healer, you mean.”

  “You make it sound so contemptible. But it's not. Think of it as a kind of maintenance therapy. It keeps them going, which is what they want. If it were you, maybe you'd want the same.”

  He couldn't imagine such a thing. If he were sick, he'd want to be healed completely. And by the same token, if he could heal a human fully, how could he stop at healing only part?

  “I doubt it,” he replied.

  She sighed. Talking to him was like talking to a wall.

  “You really don't understand, do you?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “I think I do.”

  “I'm not just doing it for them.”

  “Who then?”

  “Myself.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it's easier for me.”

  “What? Healing them partway?”

  The boy was relentless. “Yes. It's not such an effort. Such a strain.”

  “That's a pretty lousy reason not to do what's right.”

  “Right for you maybe. Not for me.”

  “It doesn't work like that,” said Payne, high atop his horse. “There's right and there's wrong.”

  She stared at him. “Is that so?”

  He stared right back. “Yes. It is.”

  He was making it personal. Well, she could make it personal, too.

  “So,” she said. “I'm morally delinquent. I'm glad to have that clarified. It explains so much. But enough about me. Let's train the spotlight on you for a minute. Such a pillar of virtue. I'd love to know more. What goes on inside that brain of yours? What makes Payne the healer tick?”

  “I won't heal anybody partway,” he said, oblivious to her tone of voice and the daggers flying. “For me that's not an option.”

  “I understand,” she said. “It's too…what? Easy? Charitable? Indulgent?”

  “It's dishonest,” he said. “It's not why I'm here.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Let's talk about that. Why exactly are you here? You're a conscientious boy. Ambitious, one might even say. You're always looking for more work. Harder work, too. Is that intentional? Is that your plan?”

  Healers didn't make plans. They went where and when they were told. Personal ambition only hastened the inevitable and was disdained by other healers, few of whom lasted long enough to see the distant future, much less make a plan about it. Taking on added work was like slitting one's own throat. It was a nasty and inflammatory thing for Vecque to say.

  But, deaf to insult, Payne took no offense. Instead, he answered her sincerely.

  “I'm here to do my job. That's all. To do it as well as I can.”

  “Which is very well indeed, I'm told.”

  He looked to see if she was making fun of him, and finding nothing in her face to suggest it, gave a modest little shrug.

  “I do my best. It helps, I guess, to like what you're doing.”

  “You like to heal.”

  She knew he did. He'd said as much.

  At the risk of offending her, he nodded.

  Vecque smiled. This was really much too easy. “No you don't.”

  She glanced around the room as if to make sure nobody was listening, then leaned across the table and cupped her mouth with a hand. She had a secret for him, along with a twinkling eye and an evil grin.

  “You love it.”

  It sounded dirty how she said it. Wicked.

  “Don't you?”

  He didn't answer.

  “It's intense, isn't it? You feel attached.”

  He shrugged.

  “Connected,” she said, so close that he could smell her breath. “Don't lie. Connected, Payne.”

  It was true, but the way she said it made him feel that it was wrong. Lowering his eyes, he gave a guilty nod.

  Satisfied, she sat back in her chair, a look of pity on her face. “So does a prisoner with his guards. And a victim with his torturer.”

  “It's not like that.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “It's exactly that.”

  “I'm not being tortured. And I'm not a prisoner.”

  “No? You're free to go? You're free to choose what you do? If you wanted to be something else besides a healer, if you wanted, take my tongue, a different life, you could have one?”

  The thought had never occurred to him. “I don't.”

  “You see? You can't even consider the possibility. That's not loving something. That's obedience. That's blind devotion. A dog has that. A
re you a dog?”

  His face grew hot. “You're cruel.”

  “It's a cruel world.” She pushed her plate away, barely having touched her food, and stood. Payne looked miserable.

  “Cheer up,” she said. “I'm leaving.”

  She turned and walked away, but after a few steps stopped. He was such a child. So guileless and innocent. And she…so full of bile. Both of them were victims of the human world—how sad that they could find nothing better to do than take it out on one another. She through meanness, he through thoughtlessness and self-absorption.

  “Look,” she said, more gently. “I was speaking for myself. I'm having trouble here. It's hard for me. I'm tired and worn-out all the time. Anything to make things easier I'm going to try. It's different for you.”

  “What would make things easier would be if you were nicer.”

  She felt like shaking him. “Maybe so, but that's not the point. You have a talent, Payne.”

  “You have a talent, too.”

  “No,” she said. “That's what I'm telling you. I don't.”

  He had ample time to reflect on what Vecque had said—and what he had—in the days that followed. A weather system ushered in a series of storms, one on top of another, that lasted nearly two weeks. The coup de grace was a raging blizzard unlike anything that he had yet seen. It cut off the One and Two Prime sites from each other and suspended all but the most essential services in camp. Crews worked around the clock and still couldn't keep the streets and rail lines open.

  The storm finally blew itself out and the sky lifted. Staggering outside, the men emerged into a transformed world. Some of the snowdrifts were as tall as buildings. Many of the buildings, in fact, had all but disappeared. Smoke curled and spewed from hidden chimneys, giving the appearance that the snow itself was smoldering. Pannus Mountain was a dome of solid white.

  Payne shoveled out a path, first to the healing center, then to his quarters. He was relieved to get out after being cooped up inside so long. He was anxious to talk to Vecque, for their quarrel had disturbed him. He thought he knew where things had gone wrong.