The Healer

by Michael Blumlein

  These blows against the system did not change the system, but they did evince a predictable response. Healers (and a small number of humans) were rounded up, detained and questioned. Security was tightened. Guards and Enforcers were given free rein in patrolling the streets. There was not exactly panic in the city, but there was fear and consternation. The populace was on alert, which was the perfect time, as any revolutionary—any pedagogue of any merit—knew, to be heard.

  Between his own work, what he was doing for Brand, and his increasingly demanding job as a revolutionary, Payne was running himself into the ground. He was getting by on half the sleep he needed, and the deprivation was beginning to take its toll. When a slight miscalculation in a healing turned a routine Level Three into a nightmare Level Four, replete with auditory hemorrhage, cochlear infarcts and a cerebrospinal leak, he knew he had to get some rest. But when he arrived home from work, Nome was waiting at his door.

  “I've been trying what you told me,” she said.

  It had been a long time since he'd seen her, and he didn't remember what that was, nor at the moment did he especially care. “I'm exhausted. Can this wait?”

  She frowned and pressed her lips together. “It wasn't easy getting past the guard. I had to sneak in.” She lowered her eyes, then lifted them, searching his. “I guess if you want I could try to sneak in again.”

  It was a canny way to phrase it, putting the onus on him, but he was too tired to argue, and instead took the path of least resistance and let her in. Immediately, he sank into a chair.

  She glanced around the room. “It's so neat. Mine's a mess.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “Like me.”

  “Clean it up,” he said.

  “You're supposed to disagree.”

  He looked at her, his mind half-asleep, and stifled a yawn.

  “It's all right,” she said. “Actually, it's true. I am.”

  “You look fine,” he said.

  “Do I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I doubt it,” she replied.

  He couldn't manage any further reassurance and fell silent. A moment later he was nodding off. She shifted on her feet. He jerked awake.

  She was looking at him, a warm expression on her face. “Wish I could do that.”

  “What? Fall asleep when you're tired?”

  “I should put you to bed.”

  He almost asked her to leave at that point, but something in her offer disarmed him. When he was a boy and had nightmares, his mother would let him sleep in her bed. Nome was being nice. She was being motherly. And she was right about how she looked. Not a mess but not entirely put together. Eyes a little bloodshot, bags under the eyes. It occurred to him that she was short on sleep herself.

  “Are you still having nightmares?” he asked.

  Instantly, she came to full alert. “What nightmares?”

  He recalled her having said something about them. “Weren't you worried about being attacked?”

  “Attacked?”

  He remembered. “Eaten, about being eaten.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “No?”

  “It hasn't happened yet.”

  This sounded ominous, and he was about to say something when she rolled her eyes and told him not to take everything so seriously.

  Meaning her, he could only suppose.

  “It's a joke,” she said.

  Somehow it didn't seem funny, but then he wasn't in the mood for laughs. He was exhausted and at the same time all wound up, and it wasn't just from lack of sleep. The struggle for political hegemony, a term that Shay had taught him, was heating up. The city was tense and seemed about to explode. According to Shay, this was inevitable. And welcome. Explosion was a necessary step toward resolution.

  “Hey, look,” said Nome. “You helped. No kidding. You really did.”

  “Some people say it's wrong to help.”

  “That's stupid.”

  “They say it's counterproductive. That slowing the Drain only prolongs the agony.”

  “Who says that?”

  “You don't believe it?”

  “Shay,” she said.

  He didn't reply. Instead he asked her why she left A New Day.

  “Him,” she answered, “mostly.”

  “What about him?”

  “He wasn't nice to me. I didn't like some of the things he said.”

  “What things?”

  “Like what you just said. That it doesn't help to help. That it's somehow wrong. I don't believe that. Do you?”

  He didn't, not really; he'd never fully bought Shay's argument. But that was water under the bridge. A New Day had moved on.

  “He's responsible for these fires, isn't he?” said Nome.

  “I wouldn't know.”

  “He is. And this crackdown by the Authorities. What else is he planning? What's next?”

  It was time to change the subject. “Do you want to tell me why you're here?”

  She gave him a long look, as though she were having second thoughts. Moments later, she started picking at her blouse in the area of her meli. Half a minute passed before she became aware that he was watching her, at which point she glanced down at her hand and forced herself to stop.

  “After what you just said, I'm not sure I do.”

  He gestured toward the remaining chair. “Have a seat. Tell me.”

  She took the invitation and in response to further encouragement confessed that her meli was still sore. It embarrassed her to admit it, and she started rubbing and picking at her blouse again, whose fabric, Payne noted, was worn.

  “Don't do that,” he said, reaching for her hand, taking it in his and stilling it. “It takes time to heal. Playing with it only makes it worse.”

  “How much time?”

  “How long has it been hurting?”

  “A while.”

  “A while then.”

  “Actually, it never stopped.” She glanced at him, then quickly looked away. “I didn't do what you told me to.” Gulping down the words as if afraid to say them.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  She shrugged, conveying many things at once: ignorance of how to answer, helplessness before powerful and unnamed forces, shame, guilt, defiance.

  He pondered this, this nuanced, multileveled shrug. “What exactly did I tell you?”

  “You don't remember?”

  “Not every little thing.”

  She brightened. “Really?”

  “I'm sure we talked about technique.”

  “Yes. Vary the signal, you said. Focus the pulse. Pay more attention to Stages One and Two.”

  He nodded, feeling the specter of Shay's opposition, which was rendered somewhat moot by the fact that she, like so many seeking advice, hadn't listened.

  “Why didn't you try it? What stopped you?”

  Another shrug, but this time she graced it with an explanation. “It's not technique.”

  “No?”

  She shook her head.

  “How do you know if you didn't try?”

  In response, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged herself into a ball, clearly afraid to say more. Payne found this disturbing, on the one hand, that she felt that way, and on the other, that he, the least intimidating person he knew, could be the reason. With a sigh and a silent wish that this would soon be over so that he could get some sleep, he leaned forward, placed a hand on her knee and gently asked her what was wrong.

  Miraculously, this was all it took. Whatever was responsible for her resistance seemed to melt away. Slowly she uncoiled until she was sitting upright. She glanced at him, then, taking her blouse by the hem, folded it back to reveal her bare and naked meli.

  He stared, then averted his eyes.

  “No,” she said. “I want you to look. Please. I want you to see.”

  More than any other part, a healer's gland was private. It was a breach of etiquette, and deeply embarrassing to him, that she would expose herself this way.

  “Lo
ok how red it is,” she said. “Look how sore. It used to be so pretty. Now look at it.”

  “Nome. Please. Cover yourself.”

  But she was in another world. “Ugly little thing.”

  She fingered it and winced, not surprising considering how red and swollen it was. Tiny scratches and ridges of dried blood crisscrossed its lips. She spoke to it as if it were a pet.

  “You used to be so pink and blossomy. Like a flower. Now look at you. So sad. So hurt. And still you make such wonderful things.”

  With a sigh she dropped her blouse, covering the wounded organ. “It's my fault. I'm the one to blame.”

  Payne didn't know what to say. It was a truly alarming display. All he could think of was to reiterate that she might benefit from some help in technique.

  “That's not the problem.”

  “No? What then?”

  “Work.”

  “Work,” he said, nonplussed.

  She nodded. “I'm busy.”

  Every healer was busy. “How busy?”

  “Very.” Her tongue was looser now but still tied up. It needed help to get it working right; it needed Payne.

  He obliged. “How many healings a week?”

  “I don't keep track.”

  “Okay. A day. How many a day?”

  “As many as I can.”

  “What? Seven? Eight?”

  She wouldn't look at him. “I don't feel right when I'm not healing. You know? I don't feel good.”

  He did know, but he also knew to rest. Which at that moment is what he needed and desperately wanted. He yawned and asked again how many.

  She mumbled something. Ten, it sounded like.

  “Ten's too many.”

  Her voice subdued, almost a whisper. “Sometimes more.”

  This was a troubling admission. “What level?”

  “Since when do we get to choose?”

  This was true, although the higher the level, the longer a healing generally took and, consequently, the fewer they were expected to perform.

  “I take it you know a Two from a Three,” he said.

  She glowered at him.

  “And a Three from a Four?”

  “I'm not dumb,” she snapped.

  “Then why are you doing so many?”

  “Because I want to. I like it.”

  “It's hurting you.”

  “I know it is.”

  “Then stop.”

  “Oh, good advice,” she said. “Really good. Why don't we talk about technique? You can lecture me about affinities and plasma nets and how to keep my focus and concentration when I'm doing whatever walks through the door.” She let that bit of information sink in. “That's right. Anyone who wants it. All comers. As many as I can get.”

  Eyes flashing, lips compressed, daring him to do something about it.

  “That's suicide,” said Payne.

  “Is it?” Mock surprise. “How horrible.”

  “Why?” he asked. “What does it get you?”

  “I told you why. I like it. I get pleasure, same as you.”

  He did get pleasure, it was true. He had the healing love but not the craving, not to her degree. And he didn't hurt himself. He didn't inflict himself with pain.

  “I take it you're not impressed,” she said.

  “No. Why would I be?”

  Another wordless shrug. She picked at her meli. “I need someone to heal. Someone to take my mind off this.”

  “You need to rest,” said Payne.

  “That, too.”

  If he had been on the job and she were human, he would have helped her then and there. He would have healed her. In lieu of that, he got her up and coaxed her to his bedroom. His bed was not a healing bed, but it was not without its magic. The mattress was firm, the covers thick and warm. It was the sole luxury afforded healers, and he was grateful for it. The way he felt he could have slept a night and day and possibly another night on top of that, but she needed it more. He got her settled down, and on a whim, he tucked her in. Stationing himself outside the door in the event she got it in her mind to up and leave, he said good night. If life were a bed, he thought, sinking to the floor, nearly asleep himself, it could be made just the way a person wanted it. And if a meli were a flower, it could be allowed to go to seed, and the seeds could then be planted, until there were a field of melis, a hundred fields, a million melis, all pink and beautiful and fine.

  Brand's door was unlocked when Payne arrived several days later, and Brand was slumped in a chair, staring into space. “Resting,” he announced, as he struggled to his feet, fighting gravity, torpor and indifference to welcome his friend.

  His condition had deteriorated. He was now completing only a third of his scheduled healings each day. And these were laborious affairs; each one taxed him more than the one before it. And his patients were filing complaints: he was taking too long; he was sweating too much; he was grunting beside them when he should have been quiet; he didn't jump up quickly enough to dispose of the Concretions; he smelled bad; he was old. All of which were true, and he had no defense. It wouldn't be long before his days as a healer were over, his healing bed given to another, his apartment taken away. After that, if he somehow slipped through the cracks, he might end up on the streets, at least for a while. But sooner or later he'd be sent back to Gode, to his family, if one remained. If not, he'd be placed in the Facility until his death. Or taken to the Building of Investigation in Rampart. Either way his prospects were not good.

  “I want to thank you,” he told Payne, “for helping me these last few months. For coming to visit. For covering for me.”

  To Payne, who had not once heard him complain, this sounded disturbingly like a farewell speech. He didn't want to hear it.

  “Thank me again in a year.”

  “It won't be a year. It won't be a month. I'll miss you, Payne. But if it's possible to be happy, I'll be happy knowing that you won't be working so hard. You've been doing two jobs, yours in addition to mine, and you're not even sure it's the right thing to do.”

  Payne protested, but Brand quieted him.

  “I'm familiar with Shay's argument. Anything we do to put off the Drain is playing into enemy hands. It's a counterrevolutionary act. I know the line.”

  “I don't agree with it,” said Payne.

  “I'm glad. Perhaps you'll have a better chance than I did convincing Shay that there's no shame in compromise. Catastrophes happen quickly, but progress takes time. But perhaps he's changed. We haven't talked politics in quite a while. What's the party up to these days?”

  Payne pulled out his notebook, cheered by Brand's interest. Despite appearances, he was more alert than he had been in a while. He seemed to be having one of his better days.

  He flipped past a recent page, which contained a diagram of a building that was being considered as a target, along with some notes on the properties of various combustible materials. Guessing Brand would not approve, he found a more suitable entry.

  “Here's a poem. Did you know that Shay's a poet?”

  Brand raised an eyebrow. “Is he? How interesting. What does Shay the poet have to say?”

  Payne cleared his throat.

  “‘The os melior is the Mouth of the Creator.

  The os melior is the Gate.

  The os melior is the Flower that Wilts.

  The os melior is the Organ of the State.’”

  Brand listened thoughtfully, digesting the words, then narrowing his eyes. “The rhyming of that poem's off. And the meter's all wrong. The words stick in your mouth like glue. They don't flow. And what does it mean anyway, the meli is the gate? How pretentious.”

  Payne was not expecting such a negative response. He felt defensive, not only on behalf of the verse but on behalf of Shay, the man who wrote it.

  “It's not pretentious. It's true. The meli is a gate.”

  “We need to make it one,” said Brand. “Two-way. Because right now it's one-directional.”

  “What do yo
u mean?”

  “Who heals the healers?” he said cryptically. And then, “So you like the poem? It speaks to you? It strikes a chord?”

  “Yes. I do. It does.”

  “I suppose I should be pleased: it's my own poem. I wrote it years ago. Did Shay by any chance mention that?”

  Abashed, Payne shook his head.

  “Then I owe him,” said Brand. “It's doggerel. Pure pap. He can have it. Let him claim it for his own.”

  Daunted, Payne found something in his notebook he was sure was Shay's, a quote he thought that Brand would like.

  “'The humans turn to us for help,'” he read. “'We must learn from this. No change will come if we think and act as individuals. No bread will rise if the flour is not mixed. We must help each other out and work together. In unity alone are we strong.'”

  Brand was impressed. “Shay said that?”

  Payne nodded, not mentioning that the quote was several months old. “Every meeting we form a circle of unity.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. And we light candles. One to justice, one to democracy, one to steadfastness.” Knowing Brand would like this, too.

  Instead, Brand asked, “And these fires? What do you know of them?”

  “Fires?” asked Payne.

  Brand suffered him a look. “I set fires when I was young. They're what landed me in prison. Is that where you want to be? Think about it. You could be locked up, maybe tortured, certainly mentally tortured, or you could be outside, spreading the word. You've a gift. Don't squander it.”

  He paused, and his voice changed, becoming more passionate and urgent.

  “Listen. There was a time before the os melior existed. Before Mobestis. I believe there'll be another time, when it's no longer needed. When healing is a universal gift. When everything that separates people reaches an end. Once upon a time, tesques and humans were the same. There was no difference. We diverged, but divergence doesn't last forever. Like the worm that swallows its tail, like light, sooner or later it loops back on itself and reconverges.”

  He left the room and returned a minute later with the ortine. Attached to it was a thin chain, a necklace of tiny silver scales.

  “One last dance,” he said, “and then I want you to have it.”

  Before Payne could reply, Brand breathed on it, setting the tiny drum in motion, its rhythm matched to his own internal rhythm. Then he hung it around Payne's neck. “It's said that the Viper Dance, when performed to its conclusion, takes a person's life. Mobestis only resorted to that extreme with his enemies when he had no other choice. I do have choices, but none, I think, as good as this one. Let's pray that death is like the dance, ecstatic.”