Crystal Healer

by Viehl, S. L.

  He was already standing next to me, and placed one of his paws on Reever’s forehead as he closed his eyes. All of the fur on his arm stood up as a faint glow spread out over my husband’s face.

  I bit my lip as I watched, but after only a few moments the glow faded and Shon took away his paw.

  “He is not injured or ill,” the oKiaf told me. “I don’t know what is causing the synaptic overload, but I can do nothing to stop it.” He swayed a little.

  “Get back into your berth and stay there.”

  Desperately, I tried again to forge a link between us, but this time instead of the blank wall, a stream of raw power shoved me back into my own head so hard I nearly blacked out.

  When my head cleared, I called for a gurney. “We’re moving him to the neurosurgical suite.”

  We shifted Duncan’s body onto the gurney and I pushed it out of the isolation room. If I didn’t bring his brain wave activity down to normal levels, and soon, his synapses would overload, become damaged, or even burn out.

  As we moved Duncan from the gurney to the treatment table, I mentally ran through the Terran conditions I knew that caused neurotransmitter disorders. One by one I discarded their treatment options, all of which would either have no effect or were too dangerous to try on a comatose patient. I needed a noninvasive method of regulating brain waves that would not cause his higher or lower functions to be impeded or shut down.

  Excessive, rapid discharge of the nerve cells . . .

  Epilepsy. “Bring the beta-wave generator over here.”

  The nurse gave me a bewildered look. “But, Healer, your bondmate is not suffering from insomnia.”

  I felt like ripping her head off, but forced myself to calm down. “Duncan’s neurons are in a state of hyperactivity so elevated that he is virtually locked in one long epileptic seizure. We’ve got to break him out of it, and we might be able to do that by inducing artificial betas.”

  The nurse frowned. “A presynaptic regulator implant or control medications are the standard treatment for epilepsy.”

  “If he hadn’t spent the last four days in a coma, I’d agree with you. And I’ll be happy to debate this treatment later, when my husband isn’t dying.” I touched her arm. “For now, please, do as I ask.”

  The nurse wheeled the portable unit over to the treatment table. Together we eased the halo over Reever’s skull, attached the wave emitters, and wrapped a cervical collar around his neck. To keep his brain wave activity under close watch, I also attached an EEG lead over his frontal lobe and put the readings on a display monitor above the table. The nurse calibrated the generator’s controls while I placed a mouth protector over my husband’s lower jaw, which would keep him from choking on or biting through his tongue. When I looked up, I saw Xonea, Shon, and the rest of the medical staff standing outside the viewer and looking in.

  “Why is it that every time I tell that oKiaf to stay in his berth, he ignores me?” I asked my husband. “Have you been coaching him on how best to aggravate me?”

  “The generator is ready, Healer.” The nurse sounded as afraid as she looked.

  I bent down and kissed Reever’s brow before I stepped back from the table. “Begin with ten cycles. Initiate.”

  The beta-wave generator made no sound as it sent the first pulses of artificial brain waves through the emitter leads and into my husband’s brain. I watched his vitals and for fluctuations in the dense lines of his synaptic activity displayed on the EEG monitor overhead, but saw no change.

  “Increase to twenty cycles,” I told the nurse.

  At some point during the procedure, Shon came into the suite and took up position on the opposite side of the table, watching the readings with me.

  “Has there been any indication of atrophy or embolism?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No damage yet. No cause for the hyperactivity, either.” I told the nurse to increase the feed again and scanned for any cell loss. “Whatever is doing this isn’t destroying his brain tissue. It’s just taken it over. . . .” I looked at the oKiaf. “Could it be the Jxin? Are they doing this to him?”

  “If they are, we cannot stop them.” Shon took my scanner and passed it over Reever’s body, pausing at midtorso. “There is something embedded in his sternum, just beneath the skin.” He looked up at me. “It is vibrating.”

  I swore under my breath.

  “Shut down the generator,” I told the nurse, and grabbed an instrument tray. I didn’t waste time with pre-surgical procedures but yanked aside the linens, baring Reever’s chest. “I need a specimen container. Shon.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  I used a hand lascalpel to make a shallow incision, and then inserted a probe in the wound, searching until I felt a small, hard mass. The instrument shook in my hand as I seized and tried to extract the shard. It seemed wedged into the bone, and I swore under my breath as I worked to free it. An instant later it came free, and I pulled it out of his chest.

  The nurse held the open container under the probe, and I dropped it and the crystal inside. I turned back to watch Shon heal the incision, and then looked up at the EEG monitor.

  The number of lines displayed slowly began to diminish, one by one, until Reever’s brain wave activity had been reduced to that of a normal sleep pattern.

  “Keep him on monitor and prepare to run a chest series.” My shoulders slumped as my adrenaline ran out and I felt the weight of exhaustion grinding into my bones. “If his vitals remain stable, we’ll move him over to the critical-care room, and then . . . and . . .” I frowned, trying to concentrate. “Do whatever else needs to be done.”

  “Jarn.” Shon brought a linen to me and wiped my husband’s blood from my hands. “Let me see to him.”

  I looked up at him. “You were dying thirty minutes ago. Besides, I have a few hundred tests I have to run on you, too.” If I could just remember what they were.

  “I think they can wait. Come.” He guided me out of the suite. “There are two berths in critical care. I think Duncan would like yours to be the first face he sees when he wakes.”

  So would I.

  I waited until they brought Duncan to the critical-care room before I occupied the adjoining berth. The moment I did, exhaustion became my dictator and I bowed to its will. I closed my eyes, wondering if I might have another of the crystal dreams, but nothing came but blessed, mindless darkness. Later, one of the nurses told me that I had slept so deeply that I didn’t move once in eighteen hours.

  I woke, as Shon had promised, still looking at my husband’s face. I reached across the narrow space between our berths and touched his hand, my fingers pressing against the pulse point in his wrist.

  Slowly, Duncan turned his hand and covered mine. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  I glanced at my wristcom. “Almost five days.” I sat up, wincing as my unused muscles protested, and made my way over to him. “Do you remember anything?”

  “Swap embracing the stars. Pain. Walking with you and Shon through a field of crystal.” He frowned. “It must have been a dream. Your father was there.”

  “You had a piece of crystal lodged in your chest.” I touched the place where I had cut it out of him. “When Swap died, you and Shon collapsed and went into deep comas. He did that to you, didn’t he? Through the crystal.”

  Reever sat up and slowly shook his head. “He wasn’t trying to hurt us. He was a powerful telepath, on an order I can’t even begin to describe. He projected his last thoughts to the crystal, hoping it would relay them to one of us.”

  “His last thoughts plus the crystal could have killed you.” I didn’t want to know what they were. “Shon only remembers the suicide, and nothing after that.”

  “It wasn’t Swap’s fault,” Reever insisted. “We are very primitive compared to him.”

  “Swap was a larval life-form,” I said. “There is very little more primitive than that.”

  “Rogur live for eons. Swap came to consciousness before the Jxin
formed their first tribal settlement. Suppressing his development allowed him to retain his sense of reason and awareness of other life-forms as intelligent entities. Although I could only receive his thoughts, I sensed the knowledge he possessed. He sought to understand everything he encountered, and in the end I think he did.” My husband’s voice fell to a near whisper. “Jarn, compared to us, Swap was like a god.”

  Reever might find that wondrous, but I had seen what communicating with Swap had done to his mind. My husband had come very close to having his brain fried by the telepathic powers of the worm-god. “Why would he bother trying to send a message to us, then?”

  “He told me that we were wrong about the black crystal,” Reever said. “It is not a disease or an enemy. It is beyond that, a part of the fabric of all things that have been or will be. The Odnallak did not create it; they only gave it form. And no matter what we do, it cannot be destroyed.”

  “I don’t understand. Maggie said it was sleeping now, but when it wakes up, it will destroy every living being in the universe.”

  “Swap knew this. He, too, said it would happen—unless we can stop it before it awakens.”

  I threw my hands up. “How are we to stop something that we can’t destroy?”

  “I think that part of the message he meant for you.” Reever took my hands in his. “He said you could stop it. By healing it.”

  I drew back. “Healing a mineral. Daevena Yepa, Duncan, how am I to do that? Rub it down with silica? Feed it iron supplements? It’s not alive. It doesn’t feel pain. It’s barely organic.”

  “I can’t tell you. Even with all his knowledge, Swap didn’t know how it could be done, or I think he would have done it. That is why he sent the message to me and Shon; why he risked killing us to do so. He hoped that one of us would live and remember enough to tell you.”

  “Tell me what? Riddles with no answers? If he did not know how to heal the crystal, then how could he expect that of us? We are only . . .” I trailed off and closed my eyes as I realized the answer to my own question.

  “We are immortal,” Reever finished. “As he was.”

  “So if we do not die, we will have the time to acquire knowledge as he did. Then all we must do is formulate a cure. For sick rocks.” Bitterness soured my voice. “For the sake of the universe, we must stay forever young and watch our friends, our allies, our daughter grow old and die.”

  Xonea came into the room. “It is good to see you awake, Duncan.” He turned to me. “Jarn, there is something wrong with the Lok-Teel. They have gathered in one spot and have attached themselves to the deck.”

  “They’re probably sleeping,” I said. “They prefer to be stationary when they rest.”

  “They’re in the survey lab, and they’re not sleeping,” my ClanBrother told me. “They appear to be melting.”

  Reever felt well enough to accompany me down the corridor to the survey lab, which remained sealed off from the rest of the ship.

  “How did they get past the buffer seals?” Reever asked Xonea.

  “An alarm went off a few minutes ago, indicating that the buffer had been breached, then reset itself. I came down to investigate.” Xonea gestured toward the welded door panels to the lab. “That is what I found.”

  The door panels appeared as if they had been peeled away to form an uneven opening. In the center of the buffer field, a ring of Lok-Teel hung, tightly constricted. Beyond them lay a pile of more mold on the icy deck of the survey lab. Although the airless chamber was open to space, and should have frozen them solid, they seemed to be turning to liquid—melting, exactly as Xonea had described.

  “Have you scanned the lab?” I asked, studying the bizarre scene.

  “I attempted to,” Xonea said. “Whatever is happening in there, it does not register at all on our equipment. My scanner does not even detect the mass of mold.”

  “They absorbed all of the crystal infecting Shon’s body. It must be the reason they’re melting instead of freezing.” I turned and saw Reever’s expression. “What is it?”

  He grabbed my wrist and linked with me. Go back to medical and wait for me there.

  I’m not leaving you. I squinted as a bright light erupted from the interior of the wrecked lab, and put up my hand to block it.

  The Lok-Teel had disintegrated into a pool of clear liquid, which began to shrink in on itself as a column of light rose from the pool’s center. The light intensified, turning all the alloy around it red with heat. Distantly, I heard alarms ringing and the pounding of running footsteps, but I could not move my eyes away from the light.

  The column of light turned to semiliquid crystal, which flowed into the form of a humanoid being. As it solidified, the light dimmed, but the crystal remained transparent. The pool vanished under the feet of the crystal being.

  It had no features or gender, only four limbs, a torso, and a head. When it moved toward the buffer, I was able to turn my head. Reever looked frozen. Xonea fell to his knees beside me and began murmuring a prayer to the Mother of All Houses.

  I moved closer to the buffer, until there were only a few inches between me and the crystal being. I saw the protocrystal form a mouth on the front of the head, which smiled at me before it opened to speak. I heard its voice inside my head.

  Were you able to defeat the mercenaries? it asked.

  “Yes,” I said out loud. “Their ship was destroyed by the larval rogur.”

  The head nodded. You and your comrades have done well, child.

  It felt so familiar to me that I almost tried to reach through the buffer to touch it. “Who are you?”

  The regular and periodic arrangement of atoms within a structure is a characteristic not only of crystals but of nearly all solid matter. It spoke in Reever’s voice, repeating his words to me. In that sense, every inorganic thing you can touch is crystalline in nature.

  “I don’t understand.” Frustration welled up inside me. “Are you alive? Are you the crystal?”

  It didn’t answer me. Add something that is not—heat, radiation, a soul—and the structure is transformed or destroyed . . . or becomes something that cannot be named.

  It was trying to tell me something important. “You mean that you have no name?”

  Before the light was brought from the darkness, they had no name. Before the heavens were lifted above the earth, they had no name. Before the beginning was taken from the end, they had no name. Divided, they chase each other, always apart but forever longing for what was. Needing to be whole. To be healed.

  “Are you Maggie?”

  Light rayed out from its face, bathing me in a cool blue glow. You know what you must do, Daughter.

  I cried out as the light filled my eyes, my mind, and my soul. I felt Reever’s hands pulling me away from the buffer as the crystal being dissolved into pure light. Only when it vanished did I understand what it had said, and what the crystal dreams had meant.

  The time for the sacrifice had arrived.

  I left the Sunlace, and found myself walking along a shore of amber sand. The waves lapped at my bare feet and drew back, leaving small, perfect t’vessna blooms on the shore.

  Mama.

  Marel came running to me, and I knelt and caught her in my arms. My baby. I held her tightly, burying my face in her hair.

  Mama, don’t leave me. Take me with you.

  I drew back and looked into her tear-filled eyes. Do you know how much I love you?

  She nodded, sobbing.

  Remember that, and I will always be with you.

  I picked her up into my arms and carried her across the dunes, where Duncan stood waiting for us.

  No. He was shaking his head. I waited. I believed. Not this. Not this.

  I handed our daughter to him and kissed him. Xonea was right, Osepeke. Nothing that is lost is gone forever. It is my turn to wait now.

  He tried to hold me, but I eased away and turned to face the sea. Light from a figure walking out of the water beckoned to me.

  I gla
nced back at the ones I loved, and then I slowly made my way down the sands.

  She was beautiful and kind, and held my hand in hers. You are ready.

  That she had given me this time with Duncan and Marel made me strong enough to answer her. Yes.

  Then come, child.

  Together we walked into the warm dark sea, and the last thing I heard before the waters closed over my head was Duncan Reever calling my name.

  Someone carried me into medical and put me on a berth. I felt the hands of nurses and the cold touch of instruments. I must have sustained a head injury, because it certainly felt as if someone had bludgeoned me repeatedly with a blunt object.

  “Her vitals are low but stable,” a woman’s voice said. “No evident injuries.”

  “She was exposed to some form of radiation.” That voice belonged to Reever. “It had no effect on me or the captain.”

  I didn’t remember any radiation, only pain and cold, and then a terrible explosion of light. I lifted my hand to my face and groaned. “Ouch.” I tried to open my eyes and squinted. “Could you turn off that light please?”

  “She is conscious and speaking, Linguist Reever,” the nurse bending over me said.

  I blinked a few times before my eyes focused on Duncan’s face.“My head hurts, that’s all.” I didn’t like not knowing why, though. “What happened? Did we transition?”

  A furry paw passed a scanner over my head. “No indications of radiation poisoning.”

  I didn’t know the male standing over me, so I pushed the instrument away and propped myself up on my elbows. I was in the medical bay on the Sunlace—not where I remembered being. “What am I doing here?”

  “You lost consciousness after the crystalline being vanished,” Reever said. He brushed some hair back from my eyes. “I think she’s all right.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but attributed that to trauma-induced amnesia. “Can I get off this berth? I’m sure someone else can put it to better use.”