The Healer

by Michael Blumlein

  Curiously, Payne found the Boomine synthesizer quite useful in the treatment of the syndrome. Apart from its intended purpose of making him more palatable to his clientele, there was something in the way it seemed to penetrate and ease the human brain. By adjusting its intensity, he could override almost any interference. By adjusting its pitch and timbre, he could simulate virtually any sound.

  Different patients responded to different auditory input. Some did well with bird sounds, some with the wind, some the sea. Some liked to hear a soothing voice, reminiscent, perhaps, of a loved one. Some preferred a loud and harsh reproach. The range of sounds able to affect a beneficial outcome seemed, indeed, as limitless as the range of people to receive them.

  Payne was called upon to disguise himself so frequently that whole days could pass without his hearing his own voice. And then when he did, it was apt to stop him in his tracks, as though he were someone else. It took time to get the other voices out of his head, and until he did, he always felt slightly apprehensive, worrying that one or two of these impersonations, these false identities, might decide to stay.

  Fortunately, not everyone who came to him had ICE, and not all of those with ICE required the synthesizer. A fair number of his patients suffered the misfortune of a more prosaic ill. But all were in the throes of one thing or another, and humans in the throes of one thing or another were not happy humans. They were often cross and grumpy, having neither time nor patience nor tolerance for being ill.

  Nor for waiting, and since the New Day debacle and subsequent reduction in the healer population, waiting had become a fact of life. Before his incarceration Payne had been busy. That was the nature of the job. Following his release, he was swamped.

  He hated it, hated always being behind. His patients were testy enough without being told they had to wait. Their constant carping and the neverending rush and pressure to please them wore on him, even after he'd recovered his strength. He needed help, and since he couldn't turn to any of the other healers, all of whom were wearing down at least as fast as he was, he turned to the only other place that he could think of: his clientele.

  The idea of asking patients to assist in their own healing wasn't new. It was as old as healing was, as old as wisdom. It was logical that people learn to take care of themselves. It was good medicine, and it was also common sense. The incentive was obvious (health), the methods practical, the lessons simple and easy to learn. His patients, on the whole, were all for it. He gave advice, and dutifully, diligently, they listened.

  Where they had more trouble, where in fact they continually faltered, was in putting what he said (or what they heard of what he said) into practice. This they simply couldn't seem to do.

  The problem was that healing oneself was work. Hard work. It took time and effort and energy. It took commitment. Most challenging of all, it usually required change.

  His patients, despite their best intentions, fought change tooth and nail. They fought it nodding yes to him and nodding no. They fought it knowing full well they shouldn't be fighting. It was remarkable how they fought it, but more remarkable still, how much discomfort and suffering they were willing to put up with to avoid having to do anything about it, to avoid having to change.

  They resisted out of laziness. They resisted out of inertia. They resisted out of fear. His patients—patients everywhere—clung to pain and suffering because, quite simply, the alternative looked worse. And when they'd had enough, when they couldn't stand it anymore, even then they tried to negotiate and compromise and gain concessions. It was just too damn hard and inconvenient and bothersome to change.

  Still, some patients tried, and Payne never stopped encouraging them. It was personally rewarding when someone actually listened to him, then did what he suggested and got better. For others it was a hopeless undertaking, but even these he tried to reach. Like the woman with the pimple on her chin. A single pimple, small and white and fluctuant, ready to burst any day. He reassured her that before she knew it, the blemish would be gone, but she could not wait. Frantically, she begged him to get rid of it. It was her honeymoon. She feared the groom, who only days before had betrothed himself to her body and soul, in sickness and in health and in every other state, would be displeased.

  Or the man who was losing his hair. Not much of it to be sure, a few strands on the pillow and in the teeth of his comb, hardly more than a minor, transitory shed. But his hairline, he was convinced, was receding. It made his forehead stand out unattractively. When Payne pointed out that this particular form of baldness was a manly attribute and thus a manly virtue, he scoffed. It was grotesque, he said, without apologies to a man whose head defined grotesque. It made him look top-heavy, like a breaching whale.

  But for all of this, the small and large, the trivial and the consequential, Payne felt a fondness for these humans. Even after everything they'd done to him. He sympathized with their anxieties. He felt a kinship with their strengths and weaknesses. Their vanities, petty as they were, he found endearing, and their pains, whether rooted in the body or the mind, he understood.

  Between work and sleep he had little time for other activities, which suited him, for he had little interest in them. The city had lost much of its fascination for him. He was weary of the crowds and of the gaming houses, and the houses of religion were better left alone. Sometimes he took walks, which were bittersweet, for they reminded him of Brand. He kept his distance from the other healers, who, with one exception, did the same with him.

  Nome was overjoyed at his release from prison. She insisted on personally nursing him back to health, which principally required that he eat more to put back on the pounds he had lost, a feat that he was quite capable of doing on his own. But he allowed her solicitude because it seemed to make her happy, or at least it made her feel useful, which in her case amounted to the same.

  She took to staying with him, in violation of a law against cohabitation among healers. The law, in actuality, was against impregnation, which in a female interfered with healing. In the same way that tesques could not be trusted to govern themselves, healers could not be trusted to live with one another, as it led (by all accounts) to uncontrolled fornication. To head off any possible misunderstanding, Payne made it clear from the beginning that they would sleep in separate rooms. In the event he left Aksagetta, a hope he nurtured in private, he didn't want her any more attached to him than she already was. As for sex, she did not attract him physically. He had yet to meet a tesque who did.

  The weeks passed, and one day there came a knock at his door. Nome was sleeping in the bedroom. Fearing the Authorities, Payne didn't answer, hoping they would go away. But the knocking persisted, and then he heard her voice.

  His heart raced as he unlocked the door.

  She wore a sleeveless dress this time, a pale blue that matched her eyes. Her hair was loose, not pulled back as before, and it brushed her shoulders.

  Politely, she asked if he was busy. She didn't want to intrude.

  No, he said. Not busy. Come in, come in.

  She had some business to discuss with him. But first she asked how he'd been doing. How he was. Any backlash from his patients? From other healers? Any visits from the Authorities? Any word?

  Everything was fine, he said (expecting she would have known if it hadn't been). He was keeping the lowest possible profile. Working hard and staying out of trouble. In many ways, most ways, it was a relief.

  She was glad to hear it. And glad, too, that he seemed to have recovered his health. He looked well, she said. More rested.

  He thanked her.

  She went further. He looked almost happy. Thriving, anyway. No?

  He followed where she seemed to want to lead him, replying that he couldn't complain.

  “And not everyone can say that, can they?” she answered. “Certainly not every healer.”

  “Every healer's different, if you're talking about the Drain.”

  She took a few steps around the room, inspecting this and
that in a casual, offhanded way. “The girl at Pannus. The one you tried to heal. What was her name?”

  She asked it nonchalantly, as if the question had just occurred to her, which Payne doubted. Nonchalance was certainly not his response.

  “Vecque,” he said.

  “Vecque. Yes. What made you decide to do it? To try?”

  “Stupidity,” he answered curtly.

  “Of course. But at the time. What were you thinking at the time?”

  “I was bored. I wasn't thinking.”

  “I doubt that's true.”

  He shrugged. “I don't know. I don't remember.”

  She glanced at him, caught, it seemed, between the impulse to prod and the impulse to let him be. “Is this too hard for you?”

  Her solicitude annoyed him. “No. It isn't hard at all. I just don't see what difference it makes.”

  “You don't think that understanding the past makes a difference?”

  “I understand it well enough.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Love her?” The question shocked him.

  “Yes. Did you love Vecque?”

  “She was being drained.”

  “I understand. Would you have tried with anyone, is what I'm asking. Anyone who was being drained?”

  “No,” he said, then, “Yes.” Then frustrated, he threw up his hands. “I can't answer that. What's the point? I don't know.”

  “There is a point, but we don't have to talk about it, since it obviously upsets you.”

  “I'm not upset.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “No? Then I have another question. Do you know why there's a law against what you did? Why it's prohibited for a tesque to heal a tesque?”

  Yes. Of course he knew. And she knew he knew. And still, she insisted on telling him.

  “Because you die when you try it. One or the other of you; usually both. And from what they say, it's not a pretty death.” She paused, then added pointedly, “The thing is, you didn't. Neither one of you did.”

  “Vecque would have been better off if she had.”

  “Do you think so?” Another pause, followed by a shudder. “It would have been a horrible thing to witness.”

  “It was a horrible thing to watch her being drained.”

  “Yes. You've had your share of horrors.”

  He had, it was true, and he hoped that they were over. “I would have taken her place if I could have.”

  At this her whole body seemed to come to attention. “Really? Do you mean that?”

  “Yes,” he said, because it was true, or it had been. He also said it because he guessed that she would like to hear it, would like the sort of man that it conveyed, someone not above self-sacrifice. And by the look that she was giving him it seemed she did, and he wondered, was it a dishonor to Vecque, or to Vecque's memory, that now, now that he had something to live for, or at least to hope for, however brashly, now perhaps it wasn't true, that faced again with such a choice he might feel less inclined to take her place?

  “You know, you needn't hide your face,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your forehead. With your hair. You have a habit of trying to cover it.”

  There was a softness to her voice, a tenderness, but for Payne it was simply too embarrassing. He turned away, cheeks burning.

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “I thought men liked to talk about themselves. Most of the ones I know do.” She was teasing him, but seeing his discomfort, stopped. “Of course we can. What would you like to talk about?”

  “My reassignment.”

  “Ah. Yes. Good. Let's talk about that.”

  Sadly, he didn't get the chance, as Nome chose that moment to wake up. Tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed, she appeared in the bedroom doorway. Seeing Payne, she smiled and started to recount a dream she'd had that he was in. Then her eyes fell on Meera.

  Who, after a start, quickly regained her composure. “Hello. I'm Meera. And your name is?”

  Nome looked to Payne for help, but he was as mortified as she was. “Nome,” she mumbled.

  “Nome. How nice. Don't mind me. Please, go ahead and finish what you were saying.”

  Nome paled.

  “The dream,” Meera prompted.

  Nome took a half-step back and shook her head.

  “No? I suppose you're right. Keep it to yourself. Dreams are meant to stay private.”

  At which point Payne found his voice. “She's just visiting.”

  It took Meera a second or two to understand what he meant by this. Meanwhile, Nome's face had darkened.

  “Who are you? Who is she, Payne?”

  He had the strongest urge to lie to her. To tell her who she was, her name and such, but not what she represented.

  Both women waited for his response.

  “Meera,” he said at length, which Nome, if she had listened, already knew.

  Meera herself was only marginally more helpful. “I'm a friend.”

  Nome crossed her arms and jutted out her less-than-mighty chin. “Payne's telling you the truth. I was only resting. I don't live here.”

  Meera dismissed her concern with a wave of her hand. “It doesn't matter to me. It's not a law I care about. Although I'd hardly call it keeping a low profile. Or staying out of trouble.”

  She directed this at Payne, who, in fact, already felt in trouble. With Nome on the one hand. With Meera on the other. Mostly, he worried about Meera—that he'd somehow blown his chance to leave. He was also absurdly afraid that she'd assume he was taken.

  Eyes blazing, Nome came roaring to his defense. “He hasn't done anything wrong. Neither of us has.” She stormed over to her man and in support and solidarity with him (as well as to punctuate her claim) laced an arm through his.

  “Go away,” she told Meera. “Pick on someone else. Leave us alone.”

  Payne shifted uneasily in her embrace and tried to calm her down. “She doesn't want to hurt us. That's not why she's here.”

  “No? Why then?”

  “We were talking. That's all.”

  Gently, he freed himself of her, leaving her hands to dangle helplessly, one of which started picking at her meli. “About what?”

  “His gift,” said Meera.

  “What gift?”

  “Of healing.”

  “It's not a gift,” said Payne, tired of hearing this. “Every healer has it. It's a given.”

  But Nome had brightened. “Oh yes it is. It's a wonderful gift. He's a wonderful man. I don't know where I'd be without him.”

  “He's helped you?”

  “Yes, he's helped. In every way.” Revitalized now, hands working the air, eager to sing his praises. “You should have seen me before. I was a wreck. Payne took me in and taught me. He showed me what to do.”

  Meera raised her eyebrows and glanced at him.

  “A teacher, too?”

  He was irritated with the both of them, but Nome especially. “No. Not that either.”

  “Oh yes he is. And more than that.”

  “Even more?” Eyes laughing now, enjoying Payne's discomfort.

  Nome, too, was enjoying herself. Mending the wounds of rejection by getting back at him.

  “He's the best there is. The kindest, nicest, smartest…”

  “Stop it,” said Payne.

  “The absolute best. Who else could have healed me?”

  “He healed you?”

  “Of course. I wouldn't be here if he hadn't.”

  And just like that the fun and games were over. The air grew still, as if a spell had been cast.

  “You healed her, Payne?”

  “No. Not like that.”

  “He did,” insisted Nome. “He helped a lot.”

  “That's not what she means.” He was angry with her now, angry with the both of them. “She means a meli healing.”

  Nome frowned and glanced at Meera. Then at Payne. Foundering.

  “He could if he wanted to. I bet he cou
ld. You could,” she told him. “I know you could.”

  “That's enough.”

  “Do you want to try? I'll let you. I will.”

  She grabbed his hand and tried to tug him toward the bedroom, but he shook her off, causing her to stumble. Humiliated, she let out a little choked cry. Her eyes darted between the two of them, and then she attacked.

  “She wants you for herself. That's what this is all about. She wants you to heal her.”

  “That's ridiculous,” said Meera.

  “Ask her, Payne. Ask her if she doesn't.”

  Payne stared at Nome. “Maybe you should come back another time,” he told Meera.

  She didn't answer him. She too was looking at Nome, shaken, it seemed, by what she had said.

  “I'm sorry,” she said at length. “I truly am. I wish things were different. You deserve better. All of you do.”

  She turned to Payne. “I appreciate your offer, but coming back won't be necessary. That is, unless you plan to stay.”

  The priapic Tower. The Building of Investigation. The sunwashed, treeless streets. The wall. The road to Gode. The guarded gates. The other road. The Pen.

  Rampart was not a city so much as a destination. For some it was the final destination. Healers, for example, would never leave, not with their faculties intact. Once assigned to it, they stayed until they were fully drained. Nor did every human who made their way into the Tower make their way out again. Not alive. Some could not be salvaged or saved. On the whole, though, success rates were respectable; by many measures, they were commendable. Considering the protoplasm that the healers had to work with, success in any form at all was cause for cheer.

  Of the three main elements of the healing triad, two were represented here. The third, instruction, took place elsewhere. Research, which centered on ways to activate inactive melis (for the nine in ten in whom this was the natural state), and, alternatively, to generate artificial ones, was carried out in a low-slung, branching barrack of a building where scientists practiced science and subjects were housed. Healing itself took place in the Tower, a tall, austere, parabolic-shaped monolith that dominated the landscape, rising like a magic bullet above the plain.