Crystal Healer

by Viehl, S. L.

“Uorwlan,” Reever called, trying again to get past the guard.

  More armed oKiaf flooded into the corridor, and it took four of them to pull the feline off the bleeding guard. They dragged her off her feet and carried her into the room.

  Qonja looked over at Reever. “I will try to help her.”

  “Talk to her. Remind her that this is only temporary,” Duncan called back as we were forced into our room. He then spoke to the guard. “I need to see your leader again. I must negotiate for our release.”

  “Your female attacked without provocation,” the guard informed him. “None of you are going to be released now.”

  Uorwlan began to scream, a sound that was abruptly cut off as the door closed and we were locked in the chamber.

  Fifteen

  Reever tried to listen at the wall between our chambers, and then to shout through it, but the rooms had been soundproofed. If Uorwlan was still shrieking, we couldn’t hear it.

  “She will be all right,” I told him. “Qonja is an experienced psychologist. He heard what you said; he will know what to do.” I recalled Hawk’s escape. “Do you think Hawk will be able to find us, or bring help?”

  “Not from the oKiaf, and he can’t fly Uorwlan’s shuttle, not without repairing the stabilizers.” He sat down on the sleeping platform and rested his head in his hands. “Even if he does, the bounty hunters have found us. They’ll attack any vessel we travel on. We’re probably safer here.”

  I checked the room’s storage containers, but found only some nonperishable ration packs that had been left in them. “If you’re hungry, there are field rations.” I checked the container markings. “These are new, like the shuttles and the weapons. They’re not League, either.”

  “They haven’t abandoned their advanced civilization,” Reever said. “They’ve moved it, perhaps redesigned it, but they’re definitely protecting it. The tribes who live on the surface must be the camouflage, to fool the League and anyone else who comes here into believing this story about the oKiaf reverting to the old ways.”

  “I never had the sense that they were acting like primitives for our benefit,” I said. “The tribe seemed very natural and happy.”

  “I’m sure they were, just as I’m convinced the erchepel is only a vacation spot.” He saw my expression. “It’s when civilized people go into wilderness areas and live as their ancestors did for short periods of time. On Terra, it’s called camping out.”

  I made a rude sound. “On Akkabarr, it’s called life.”

  A guard entered the room with an oKiaf wearing a physician’s tunic that had been altered to resemble the other Valtas’s military-style uniforms. He was an older male with a lean face and the infinitely weary gaze of someone who had served on many battlefields.

  “You are the healer who treated the Skartesh for crystal exposure?” he asked me. When I nodded, he gestured to the guard, who reopened the chamber door to admit Jylyj, who looked thin and shaky but was walking under his own power.

  “You will tell me what you did to suspend the crystal’s growth,” the healer said.

  I began to, and then I thought better of it. “I would be happy to share my findings.” I paused, looking into those tired old eyes. “As soon as we are released.”

  “I cannot give the order to release you, not when I have a guard you wounded in my infirmary.” The healer turned to Jylyj. “Things would go better for you if you tell what she did.”

  “I cannot remember,” the Skartesh said. “I was unconscious.”

  “I can have the men beat it out of you,” the healer said, stepping closer to me.

  “Signal your staff first,” my husband said, also moving in. “In a few moments they will be quite busy.”

  “It’s all right, Duncan. It’s interesting to see how an oKiaf physician honors his oath.” I regarded the angry oKiaf. “We have a word for men like you.” I turned to Jylyj. “How do you say fool in their language?”

  The Skartesh didn’t look at me but bared his teeth at the medical officer. “Slizac.”

  Another guard came in and murmured something to the medical officer, who gestured toward Jylyj. “He is coming with us. I suggest you reconsider, if you wish to ever leave oKia.”

  “He’s not well enough to be questioned,” I snapped. “Surely even you can see that.”

  “I do not make these decisions. Our commander has sent for him; he must go.” He hesitated, and then added, “I will escort him and make it clear that he is to be treated carefully.”

  I abandoned my attempt to bargain for our release. “Let me accompany you to medical, and I’ll show you the process I used.”

  “It will have to be after he is questioned.” Without listening to any more of my protests, the medical officer and the guards took Jylyj and left us locked in the chamber.

  “Come here,” Reever said as soon as we were alone, and took me in his arms as if to comfort me, and established a link. They are monitoring us; I count five drones embedded in the light emitters and the furnishings. He slipped one hand between us and passed one of the daggers he kept in his leggings to me. When they come for us, I’m going to insist we be taken together. Don’t try to run, but go along with them. As soon as I see an opportunity to escape, I’ll disable the guards.

  Try not to kill them. I quickly tucked the blade into my belt. What about Qonja and Uorwlan?

  He’ll look after her until we can come back for them or find a way to have them released. He smoothed the disheveled hair away from my face. How long can Jylyj live without the blood treatment?

  I can only guess. I rested my cheek against his shoulder. Maybe another day or two.

  Reever kissed my brow. Then we have to take him with us.

  The oKiaf monitoring us saw us only sit together in silence as if comforting each other. Through our link, however, we discussed everything we had seen during the transport from the launch bay to the holding chamber, and what might be the best route out of the underground city.

  By the time we had put together a tentative plan of escape, the guards came for us.

  Rather than being taken to an interrogation chamber, Reever and I were led outside the building to one of the storage structures surrounding it. There the Valtas’s commander stood watching two subordinates and several drones stock shelves with boxes of new rations. He turned as soon as he heard our approach.

  “Leave us,” he said to the guards. When they withdrew, he turned to Reever and gestured toward a stone path. “Walk with me.”

  I didn’t like being treated like a guest, not when it had been made so obvious that we weren’t. “Why?”

  “I am taking you to medical,” the commander said. “You are needed there. Along the way, I would speak with your mate about matters that concern you both. Is this acceptable, or should I have you returned to your quarters?”

  His politeness dumbfounded me, but Reever agreed and followed him away from the food storage area.

  “These caverns had existed for millennia,” the commander said. “They hold great fascination for the people, and throughout time our tribes have searched for passages into them to explore their secrets. Maps were drawn and handed down for many generations.” He stopped at one of the stone markers and looked out at the diminutive city. “When it came time to deal with the League, we knew these places would serve best as the shelters of our future.”

  Reever seemed puzzled. “So you deceived them into thinking you abandoned technology in order to hide here?”

  “It was not a deception. We left all that they had bestowed upon us on the surface.” The commander glanced up at the cavern ceiling before regarding my husband. “Everything you see was made or manufactured by the oKiaf.”

  “That’s why the rations in our cell were new,” I gestured toward the city. “But why move underground? Why not set up defenses on the surface and in orbit?”

  “It has nothing to do with the League, or rather it has everything to do with keeping the League away from oKia.” He glance
d at me. “No offworlder knows what I am to tell you now.”

  “We are your prisoners,” Reever said. “Why tell us?”

  “I have been convinced that you can be trusted.” The commander’s voice turned hard. “I pray I have not been misled.”

  The commander began to talk about the destruction of Skart near the end of the war between the Allied League and the Hsktskt Faction.

  “The polarization of our orbits around our sun protected oKia from being bombarded by the planetary debris. The remains of Skart were vaporized before they could reach us. We thought we were safe, until the tribes began sending word of hunters falling into pits that opened beneath their feet, and being made into shining stone.”

  “The crystal,” Reever murmured.

  The commander nodded. “We have shared our world with the crystal since the Star Wolf created the first tribe. It has always been found in a solid form. But we now believe that the energy released by the destruction of Skart has caused it to change.”

  Reever’s eyes narrowed. “By change you mean it can now convert itself to liquid form.”

  The commander inclined his head. “The deposits that you and your team found in the mountains are spreading beneath the surface of our planet. Every year they claim more of the land from the trees and the animals that sustain us. “If our scientists do not discover how to stop the growth of the crystal and safely remove it from oKia, in a few decades it will engulf the entire planet.”

  “Why would you keep such a disaster secret?” Reever asked. “There are scientists on thousands of world who might help you find a solution.”

  “This is our world and our problem,” the commander said.

  “You’re afraid to tell anyone,” I said, seeing once more in my mind the crystal spreading over the clearing. “You think the League will try to take the crystal from oKia and use it as a weapon.”

  “The crystal has already consumed other worlds.” His light eyes met mine. “If the League discovered it here, in its liquid form, nothing would stop them. They would invade oKia to mine it, and kill everyone who got in their way.”

  The paranoia and isolationism practiced by the oKiaf seemed more rational to me now. “Have you made any progress in finding a solution?”

  The commander shook his head. “We have found nothing that destroys the crystal. It kills every living thing it touches. We know that Cu2Au repels it; large deposits of the alloy left behind by ancient forests are what protect these caverns. But even that will not save us for long.

  “When the crystal covers the surface of our world, all of our food sources will die. The oxygen once shed into our atmosphere by the plants will dwindle and disappear, and the surface temperature will drop. Then oKia will die, and take us all into the belly of the stars.”

  “You have enough ships to evacuate the planet before that happens,” my husband pointed out. “You can leave your world, as the Skartesh did, and make a home for your people on a new planet.”

  The commander shook his head. “Even if we were to send away enough of our people to keep our species alive, the League would learn of it and wish to know what drove them from our world. They would come with their ships and their probes. We could not hold them off for long.”

  “They will do that after you’re gone,” I predicted.

  “There will be nothing left for them to take,” the commander replied. “When the crystal has taken over oKia completely, it will solidify around it and go back to sleep. Nothing can reawaken it once it has eaten a world.”

  Memories Reever had given me of the year Cherijo had spent on Catopsa flooded into my thoughts. The depot world had been made of the Pel crystal. After he and Cherijo had freed the slaves from the prisons there, the Pel had changed into its liquid form and devoured the slave depot. I opened my mouth to tell the commander this, but felt Reever take my hand in his.

  Say nothing yet of Catopsa.

  “This is a very dangerous secret,” my husband said. “Why are you trusting us with it?”

  “Your mate, and the miracle she performed on your interpreter,” the commander said. “Before him, no one has ever survived exposure.” He turned to me. “Dnoc says you are the Crystal Healer of legend. I do not know if that is true or not, for you are a female, but you did save the life of the Skartesh. Now we would ask that you help us save our world.”

  The commander escorted us by glidecar to the Valtas’s central medical facility, located in one of the largest triad structures in the city. At the entrance the medical officer I had met in our chamber waited, and greeted me with a dour glare.

  “Your patient has been a great trial to us,” he said as he led us through the assessment area and back into the treatment rooms. “He refuses to let anyone examine him but you. I would have sedated him, but for his condition.”

  I stopped in front of the isolation chamber, and through the viewer saw Jylyj’s shadow behind a modesty curtain. “What were you able to do?”

  “I managed to take a hematological scan. The level of crystal infecting his bloodstream is rising. I also detected traces of it in his internal organs.” He gestured toward a portable dialysis machine. “We have attempted to use the filtering treatment that you described to me. It had almost no effect.”

  I checked the machine, and in the reservoir saw blackened pieces of heartwood. “You used heartwood charcoal?” The medical officer nodded. “That is where you went wrong. Most of the resin is burned out. Have someone refit the unit with seasoned, unburned wood.” I tried to open the door to the treatment room, but it was secured by pass code. “What is the entry code?”

  After giving the commander a worried glance, the medical officer told me the code, and I went inside.

  “Healer Jarn,” Jylyj said from behind the curtain. He sounded relieved, but when I reached for the curtain, he added, “No, leave it closed. Tell the others to leave, and then come around.”

  I turned to Reever, who nodded and spoke to the commander. “I would like to see the other members of our team and arrange to contact the one who remains on the surface.”

  After the men had left, I walked around and entered the gap in the curtain. Instantly, I saw why Jylyj had not wanted the others to see him; small spots of crystal glittered in his darkening fur, and the shape of his face had also altered. His once-dark eyes, now a light green, had tiny cataracts of crystal occluding the irises.

  “Initiate sterile field,” Jylyj said, and a bioelectric curtain formed around us. To me, he said, “This will keep them from overhearing us.”

  “Just so.” I found a container of gloves and pulled on a pair before I went to him. “Either the crystal wishes you to be an oKiaf when it kills you, or you lied to me. Which is it?”

  He glanced down at himself. “I told you as much of the truth as I could. Genetically I am Skartesh, or at least I was until an hour ago. My body is reverting to my natal form.”

  “You were born oKiaf, but you were alterformed into a Skartesh.” As he nodded, I used a scanner to detect the level of crystal infection, which was indeed rising, before I checked the occlusions in his eyes. “The League scientists didn’t do this. Their technology is not this advanced.”

  “After the initial alterforming, my body did it on its own,” Jylyj told me. “My immune system must have responded to the changes made to my DNA. Within a few hours, all of my oKiaf genes were gone, replaced by Skartesh.”

  “This reversion could be a good sign. Excuse me for a moment. Deactivate sterile field.” As the bioelectric field vanished, I went to leave.

  “Reinitiate sterile field.” Jylyj seized my arm. “You can’t tell them. I have already violated tribal law. If they learn of who I was”—he shook his head—“it could be very bad for the rest of you.”

  “Why?” Now I felt utterly confused. “Who are you?”

  “I was a major in the Allied League intelligence forces,” Jylyj said. “I was originally alterformed to infiltrate the Skartesh when they fled to K-2,” Jylyj said.
“My real name is Shon Valtas.”

  I frowned. “Then these are your people. Your tribe.”

  “Not since I enlisted,” he told me. “My father forbade it, and when I defied him, he cast me out of the tribe. It’s the same as being dead to them, and as an outcast, I could never return here.”

  “But you did.” My head hurt. “What laws did you break, and how much trouble are you in?”

  “Outcasts are shunned by the tribes and driven from the planet,” he said slowly. “If they ever return to oKia and are discovered, they’re handed over to Elphian for punishment. As is anyone who helps them.”

  “What is the punishment?”

  “Enslavement, or imprisonment for life.” He sighed. “Forgive me.”

  “Oh, now you’re sorry.” I thought fast. “We can probably keep them from finding out who you are for a little while, but we really have to get you out of here.”

  “In a few hours, it won’t matter,” he said. “I regret that I didn’t tell you the truth. I only wanted to die on my homeworld.”

  “You did jump in that pit of crystal deliberately.” I stared at him. “That’s why you kept telling me afterward to let you go. You were trying to kill yourself.”

  “The League has been hunting me ever since they discovered that I was a touch healer. I changed my appearance, assumed the identity of a dead Skartesh medical resident, and even hid myself on Joren. But I knew they would never stop looking, and I grew tired of running.” He lay back on the table and stared into the emitter hanging over it. “My father was like me, although not as strong. He said the crystal was one of the few things that could kill us. After I lost Jadaira . . . I only wanted it to end.”

  I felt like slapping him. “I don’t know who Jadaira is, but you’re a healer with a tremendous gift. You could use it to help so many, but instead you decide to commit suicide. That isn’t as stupid as it is obscene.”

  He propped himself up on his arms. “Do you know what the League wanted me to do? What oKiaf touch healers have always done for them? We’re used in interrogation centers. Prisoners are beaten and abused to the brink of death, and then we’re brought in to heal them, so they can be tortured again. And again. And again.”