by R. Lee Smith
“You are a surgeon?” Meoraq asked, following what he could of this exchange. “You can heal her?”
Yao looked at him calmly. “As I see it, there are three possibilities. If this is sepsis, a worsening of her internal injuries, she will almost certainly die. If she’s exposed herself somehow to an alien toxin against which she has no immunity, she will likely die. If she’s ill—”
A wave of murmured alarm swept outward through the humans.
“—then she might pull through, but her injuries and this environment have surely weakened her body’s defenses. Her chances are not good,” Yao finished. “We can keep her warm and comfortable and hope for the best, but I must tell you, I see nothing hopeful about her condition.”
Meoraq looked from face to flat, ugly face, but no one else had anything more to say. He gathered Amber up and stood, resting the thin skin of his neck briefly over her brow to test for fever. That, he knew how to cure, although it was by no means a certainty that he would find the necessary herbs. In any case, she was not hot with fever, but cold, as cold as if her life were already lost.
“Take her to the fire and build it up,” he ordered, holding her out. His mind was racing ahead already, battering from one point of useless healing lore to another, trying to remember if he had seen anything, anything, on his watch that might help her. There was little enough to look at in the wildlands and medicinal herbs were so precious that his eye had a way of marking them whether he had immediate need of them or not. He knew he had seen no teaberries, no healershand, not even the dangerous comfort of phesok. There might have been gift-of-God and feverleaf by the bushel were this a warmer season, but the coming winter had turned it all to hidden roots. His memory showed him nothing but grass in all directions, dead thorns, and barren trees twisted out of shape by past storms. The only leaf he recalled with any medicine at all was deathweed, down by the stream, and if that was a sign from Sheul, Meoraq chose to ignore it. He…
He was still holding Amber.
No one had come to take her. By the looks of them, no one meant to.
Meoraq’s confusion erupted in an instant to rage. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” he roared. “She could be dying!”
They shuffled back, looking at their feet or their fellows or their leader, and did not answer him. Scott, who was always first to be the voice of his people in every situation, whether it warranted a voice or not, now patted sobbing Nicci and was himself very pale and silent.
“Yeah,” ventured Crandall when it became clear their appointed leader would not step forward this time. “But, I’m sorry, that’s just a really good reason to keep her away from us. Whatever this is, it’s bad.”
And Meoraq’s first impulse, self-defeating as it was, was to throw Amber down and hit him. Throw her.
Like meat.
Amber made a sudden weak gurgling noise. With her head tipped back in his arms, she was choking on her own saliva. Meoraq hurriedly shrugged her forward and drool spilled out in a fall over her lip and onto her chest. She did not seem to be able to close her mouth. A fool’s gape…or a corpse’s.
“Gross,” someone whispered.
His throat too tight for speech, Meoraq turned his back on all the shuffling, staring humans and carried Amber to his tent. She did not resist him when he propped her up on his knee to strip away her soiled garments. Apart from the intermittent twitching of her fingers, she did not move at all as he lay her down on his mat.
So limp. So cold. Pale as snow everywhere that lying in her own urine had not burnt her to a vivid shade of pink, everywhere she wasn’t bruised. So many bruises…
He passed his hand over them, gingerly probing for some sign of a greater injury, but her belly was cool and flat. Too flat. Sheul forgive His errant son, he could see the slats of her ribs and the nubs of her pelvic girdle. But no, he could not look at that now. Whatever this was that worked in her, it was not starvation any more than it was a belly-wound. But what was it? He could see a perfectly round inflammation at her throat, shot through with numerous tiny red dots, but he did not know what to make of it. He had never seen such a bite before, but human hide was thin, as Amber’s many bruises proved. It was entirely plausible that a beetle with jaws far too weak to penetrate dumaqi scales had bitten her. Could beetles be poisonous? Twelve years walking in Gann’s land and he simply did not know.
Meoraq lay down beside her, wrapped them both in his blanket and held her close, willing the warmth of his body into hers. She did not try to speak or move. She gave no sign that she knew who was with her or that anyone was at all. “Great Sheul, O my Father,” he whispered, searching her slack face for life. “Hear Your son’s prayer. You have passed these humans into my care for a reason and surely my ungrateful complaints have made this lesson necessary, but I am humble before You now. Only you can know the cause of this terrible sickness. Therefore, I place myself in Your hands, O Father. Show me the way to heal the woman.”
He shut his eyes and listened, but Sheul did not speak, or if He did, Amber’s wet breaths were louder. And if Sheul never spoke? If He left her life in mortal hands, as He so often did, what then? He needed a surgeon and never mind that no dumaq would have the slimmest idea how to heal a human. He could follow his backtrail to the road as soon as there was light enough to see by, and while he didn’t know exactly where he was along its track, he knew he would find Gelsik to the north and Fol Dzanya to the south, but there were ten days running between them, plus three each way to run between road and camp, and it would take twice as long with the humans dragging at his heels, even longer since Amber would have to be carried. He would have to leave the humans here, leave Amber in their care, and run…knowing she would surely be dead by the hour of his return.
Truth, but against all the truth in the world lay Amber and she needed him.
So. He needed the sun to find the road. And he would have to sleep until then, so that he could make his journey at a run. The knowledge that he might well wake holding a corpse sat in him like frozen clay, but he could do nothing for her here. He had to find a city. He would not bring Amber with him. He would simply describe her symptoms, demand medicines, and return as swiftly as he was able. He would have to trust the other humans to tend her until then, and oh but that thought was as chill in his heart as Amber’s limp body against his breast.
“Father, please,” he whispered, but said no more than that. He didn’t know what else to say. His earlier prayers hammered at him, hammered, with a weight and an impact that left a physical pain inside him: The burden is too great. Her wounds slow us all. Relieve her of her pains.
Relieve me of this burden.
He touched the back of his hand to her smooth brow. Amber did not know he was there.
Meoraq rose and left the tent. He would speak slowly, he decided. He would not be hostile. He would draw no blade. He would say only that he had done much for their (miserable worthless wretched cowardly) lives and he would ask one of them to tend to Amber in his absence. And if they refused, he would politely and without drawing weapons, observe that he could not look after them while tending to a sick woman himself. And if that failed to sway them—
Nicci’s tearful voice cut across his thoughts, bleeding meaning before he consciously translated the words: “We can’t just leave her!”
Meoraq stopped walking. His head cocked. He had not heard that, he decided. Or if he had, it held some other meaning.
Their backs were to him, black shapes in the night, flames making night-terrors of all their ugly faces, making them all strangers. All but Scott. Scott he knew at once.
“The fact that she’s sick at all, in spite of the Vaccine, means we can’t just assume what she’s got isn’t catching,” he was saying in that calm, urgent way he thought hid his mind so well.
“Then why aren’t we all sick?” someone asked. “If the Vaccine doesn’t work—”
“No one’s saying it doesn’t work,” Scott said quickly. “I’m just suggesting
that maybe it only works up to a point. If someone keeps putting themselves in contact with a potential contagion…” Scott paused to let those words work on his murmuring people, then gravely said, “She spends a lot of time with the lizard.”
Meoraq’s head tipped further. He felt his spines flattening.
“Talking to him. Sharing his food. Touching him. Whether or not they’re doing anything…intimate,” said Scott, as his people’s low whispers grew louder, “my point is, they’re always together. Who knows what kind of germs he could be carrying? If she’s caught something from him and it jumps to the rest of us…” Scott paused yet again to survey the effect of his words. He liked what he saw enough to let his thought go unfinished. Instead, he said, “The safety of the colony matters more than any one individual. Miss Bierce and I may have had our differences, but I know she’d say the same thing no matter who was in her place.”
Nicci put her hands over her face and cried harder. She did not protest, not even when Scott came and put his arm around her shaking shoulders.
“I can’t agree to this,” said Dag suddenly.
Meoraq looked at him, curiously unrelieved, waiting.
Dag said, troubled, “How are we going to find this temple-place without the lizard? We need him.”
“We can keep the lizard,” Scott assured them as his humans murmured. “We just need to be more careful about coming into direct contact with him.”
“Hey, I’m all for that,” said Eric, shrugging his arm up around his woman’s shoulders. “Particularly when he gets into one of his slappy moods. But you need to consider the possibility that he might not want to keep tagging along after Amber dies.”
And that was too much.
“After?” said Meoraq with a furious hiss. “Not even if, but after?”
They turned with satisfying leaps and cries. Scott took his arm off wailing Nicci and put more of the fire between them. He was a coward, but not a fool. “This isn’t personal. Everyone here appreciates what you’ve done, uh, Meoraq.”
His spines flattened with a slapping sound. “I do not like the way you say my name,” he said. He did not raise his voice. He did not draw a weapon. He was a Sword of Sheul and he was his own master. “I don’t like much of anything I hear you saying.”
“How is she?” Scott asked, backing up again.
His spines began to hurt. His throat was already throbbing. “She rests in Sheul’s sight tonight. Tomorrow, I go to find a surgeon in the city.”
Surprise in every human face and then unease. “Is there one around here?” Dag asked.
“No,” Meoraq admitted. “I will be away many days. Twelve at the least. Perhaps more.” And as alarmed noise began to whisper through their mouths, he said, “You must tend the woman while I am gone. I will have your word on this!”
“Twelve days? You can’t leave us for twelve days!”
“Anything could happen!”
“What about those monsters? What if they come back?”
“She’s not going to make it anyway!”
Meoraq whipped around to aim his hand like a knife at that one, the female Maria, hissing, “You shut your poison mouth!”
She did, shrinking back while her man shielded her, and all the humans quieted for a time. Again the hateful Scott gauged his people’s mood. Then, with all apparent concern, he said, “Do you really think she’s going to last another twelve days? Really?”
“I think she’ll die if no one cares for her. Or is that your intent?” he hissed.
Scott’s ears pinked and his mouth tightened, but not for long. “Are you calling me a murderer?” he demanded in a very loud, fast, oddly-pitched way.
“Ease up, man,” said Eric, catching at his leader’s arm. “I’m sure he didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Do not tell me what my meaning is, human!” he snapped. “If she dies in spite of your care, that is Sheul’s will and I honor it, but if she ails and you let her die, that I call murder and I will see every Gann-damned one of you judged for it!”
“Easy,” said Eric, his eyes huge and orange in the firelight. “Easy, Meor—”
“Stop saying my fucking name like that!”
Humans scattered back all around him, some with their hands held up and empty, some darting behind others, all staring at him. Meoraq clapped his hands to his face and breathed, battling the killing rage that wanted so badly to take command of him. A Sword of Sheul is a master over his emotions. Six breaths, just as he had trained from boyhood, six breaths deep and slow, like winding steps to peace. Always, he had envisioned Sheul at the last riser, His arms outstretched in welcome. Now, he saw Amber, lying still as death at his feet.
He lowered his arms to his side, calm again, and looked at them. ‘I hate you all,’ he thought, but he thought it calmly.
Scott waited, letting the silence stir at fears, then said, “You’re right. Whatever happens to Amber is God’s will. None of us can change that. But regardless of what happens, the rest of us need to take care of ourselves. Sentimentality has no place in this decision. You knew that when you saw her holding that knife and you have to know it now. I know you don’t like me—”
Meoraq passed a hand over his eyes again, trying to shut out the human’s voice, to seek Sheul’s behind it.
“—but you must know I’m right. Say you do go off to the nearest doctor. Are we really supposed to just stay here and wait for you? We don’t have the resources to wait twelve days without you.”
“There is water at the stream and, if you are sparing, enough meat to last until my return.”
Scott glanced towards the sleds, where slabs of corrokis meat had been wrapped in some of the humans’ packs and stacked in anticipation of the next day’s journey. “I’m sure it would be, if we were moving. But if we’re just sitting here, that much meat in one place is nothing but an invitation to all this planet’s hungry animals to come get an easy meal. How are we supposed to defend ourselves?”
Several watching humans voiced uneasy agreement.
Scott nodded at them in encouragement before turning gravely back to Meoraq. “I have to weigh the risks here and the fact is, Amber Bierce is just one person. It’s difficult to admit this, of course.” He paused and, although his expression remained as grimly serious as ever, something about him smiled anyway, invisibly and fanged. “But a leader has to make difficult decisions.”
“You will not take her in,” Meoraq said. It was not a question. He could feel the color throbbing in his throat, but his thoughts were calm. Black, but calm. “You would let her die to stab at me.”
“She’s not dying!” Nicci shouted before Scott could answer. “Don’t you even say that, you…you…She’ll be fine in the morning! She’s always fine!”
“Will you look after her then?” Meoraq asked her.
Nicci fell at once to a sniffling silence.
Scott patted her shoulder. “If you were offering any kind of real solution, that would be one thing. But to be brutally honest, I’m not sure how we could take care of her for twelve days. She was choking on her own spit a few minutes ago. How are we supposed to give her food and water? I’m sorry, Nichole, I know this is difficult for you. It’s difficult for all of us, but I really think it would be best to let nature take its course. Or let God’s will be done, if you like that better.”
Meoraq’s hand came back to his brow-ridges, rubbing hard enough to hurt. Six breaths, he told himself, and counted them off with his eyes shut. Six breaths, deep and slow, six breaths to Amber.
“I’m not enjoying this—”
“Lies! You’d fuck this moment if you could!” he spat, and took several stabilizing breaths while Scott stood very quiet. At last, Meoraq raised his head and faced them. “I will meditate upon your words and give you my answer in the morning. I don’t want to see any of you until then.”
No one had any reply to that, which was just as well.
Meoraq turned around and went back to his tent, where Ambe
r lay on her side on his mat, just as he had left her. He undressed, placing his clothing in a thin layer atop the blanket before joining her beneath it and pulling her unresisting body against his to warm.
“Father, this world itself moves as You command it,” Meoraq said, pressing his palm gently to her brow. The words were bitter in his mouth, bitter as the bile on Amber’s wet breath. “And whether You choose to heal her or take her into Your halls, I will thank You and love You no less. Only hear the prayer of Your son, I beg, and let Your will be done swiftly, whatever it must be. The hateful little Gann-bastard is right.”
* * *
It was a terrible night that followed. Amber lay silent and cold beside him through every endless hour. He was afraid to give her water, afraid to drown her right there in his arms, but as the day dawned, in a kind of desperation, he did attempt it. She only drooled it out. He tried to imitate the cattle-hands he had seen, who sometimes gave their livestock medicines by stroking their throats to make them swallow. Amber only lay there choking under the weight of his hand. Twice, he brought out the knife of his fathers and held it over her. Twice, he sheathed it again, but he didn’t know if that was the right thing to do. He had dealt deaths beyond counting in his life, but he had never had to wait this way, had never borne the silent struggles of some fragile life his witness and felt so damned helpless and useless and alone as he did now.
He prayed, because that he could do. He said the Healing Chant until the words became as mechanical as any construct of the Ancients. He said the Prayer of Appeal and all forty-three verses of the Bridge of Men. Mostly, he prayed in the words he might use with his father, speaking as thoughts came over him. Sheul might have heard him; Amber never did. He knew long before the dawn showed him her slack face that there would be no surgeon, no medicine, no run to the city. She did not have twelve days to wait for him. She would be dead in three, if she could not rouse to drink. The hope that she might awaken and be miraculously whole had brought him through the night, but when he could see her again and see what those long hours had done to her, he felt even that stubborn hope strain.