by Lou Aronica
“Did you take your cutting from a different portion of the field?”
The botanist shook his head. “Just a couple of plants up.”
Chris considered this for a moment. “The blight could be affecting different plants along the same root system differently. That’s something we’ll have to examine.”
The man’s expression showed he wasn’t satisfied with this explanation. “I hope that’s it.”
“What else would it be?”
The botanist touched the screen and then peered into the machine. “We’ve never used an analyzer like this in the field before. We have smaller, less precise tools for that purpose. This is a laboratory machine. I just hope it isn’t proving to be unreliable in the open air.”
Chris sighed. This job was going to be difficult under the best circumstances. If the Tamariskian machines weren’t accurate, it might prove impossible.
Miea no longer believed that Thuja had been editing Dyson’s briefings. That was both the good news and the terrible news. Miea now conceded what she had refused to concede for so long—the minister of agriculture had no progress to report regarding the blight. Dyson’s briefing was concise, and for once, Miea didn’t challenge anything he said. Their business was therefore over quickly.
“Will that be all, Your Majesty?” Dyson said, seemingly a bit unsure of himself.
“I have no questions, Dyson. Thank you for your time.”
Dyson rose slowly. Had he come here expecting to do battle? Had he become accustomed to that? Was he worried about what her concession meant? “Thank you, Your Majesty. I hope to bring you more news at the end of the week.”
Miea nodded and Dyson held her eyes longer than usual. Did he want to say something to her? Could he read something in her demeanor this time that disturbed him or even made him worry about her? He continued to look at her and the moment became uncomfortable.
If you have something to say, say it, she thought.
For a second, Dyson looked as though he were about to speak. Instead, he bowed, turned, and headed toward the door.
Miea had had very few confidantes over the years. She shared secrets with a few childhood friends, but this became harder to do when she became a teenager and began fulfilling the diplomatic duties of a princess. For most of her teen years, she’d talked to her father about what she felt she could and left the rest unsaid.
After she met Dyson, everything changed. He never seemed to tire of hearing what was on her mind and she never tired of sharing it. Those were exciting months, liberating months, intimate months. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the feeling of sharing like that until she met Becky. Now she was losing Becky as well. Maybe there was a message there. Maybe she cursed those with whom she got close.
Dyson had a hand on the doorknob when she spoke.
“Becky is seriously ill.”
Dyson stopped and turned back to her. Again, he seemed confused. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Cancer. Her doctors say she’s dying.” Unexpectedly, Miea’s voice broke on the last word. She covered her mouth her hand.
Dyson took several steps back into the room. “Are they certain?”
Miea shook her head slowly. “They’re trying experimental treatments. Becky doesn’t seem very optimistic about them. I’m taking her to the palace physicians tomorrow.”
“They might be able to make a difference. For the same reason that Becky’s father might have answers about the blight.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. She’s too young to go through something like this.” Again, Miea’s voice broke at the end of the sentence. She had to pull herself together.
Dyson watched her quietly for a moment, his gaze respectful, but more personal than it had been during their briefings.
“Until we know everything, miracles are always possible.”
Dyson was quoting Professor Liatris again. Hearkening back to the most miraculous time of her life. Once more, Miea felt her heart breaking, for too many reasons to count. “I’m having a great deal of trouble believing that lately.”
“Don’t, Miea.”
She glanced up at the sound of her name. Dyson looked back at her with an expression she hadn’t seen in years. There was nothing she needed to see more at that moment. “I’ll try, Dyson. I’ll try to convince myself that miracles are still possible.”
“It’s essential, Miea. Even now. Especially now.”
Dyson smiled warmly and she realized she desperately wanted to take his hand, to pull her toward him and hold him if only for a minute.
She couldn’t do that, though. As much as she needed the comfort, it would be a mistake to complicate her life that way, to complicate Dyson’s life that way. She was the queen, he worked for one of her ministers, and the actions of everyone involved were too critical right now. Her feelings—their feelings—were secondary to their work.
The opportunity to get beyond their responsibilities—if there ever really was one—had collapsed with the Malaspina Bridge several years ago.
“Thank you, Dyson. I appreciate your compassion.”
Dyson looked downward, his lips pursed. “You’re welcome, Your Majesty. I’ll keep Becky in my thoughts. I hope our physicians have good news.”
He bowed again and went to the door, opening it this time.
“We really don’t know everything, Your Majesty,” he said, facing away from her. Then he continued out.
With Dyson’s departure, Miea felt untethered. She had actually felt the connection between them break. For reasons too many to enumerate, a single tear ran down her cheek, perching on her chin, unwilling to fall farther. Sorbus entered and his professional mask betrayed a hint of alarm.
She couldn’t feel like this. She wiped at her face and drew herself up.
“Is the minister of commerce here, Sorbus?”
“She is, Your Majesty.”
“I’d like to meet with her in the small conference room. I think it’s time for me to get out of the office a bit.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He didn’t move from the doorway as quickly as he usually did. “Is there something I can do for you, Your Majesty?”
“I’d appreciate a cup of argo. I’m sure the minister would like one as well.”
Sorbus dipped his head deferentially. “I’ll have it brought to the conference room immediately.”
Sorbus left and Miea stood. It was time to get back to work. She wiped at her cheek again, but it was already dry.
18
Dad was a little concerned about the idea of Tamariskian doctors examining Becky.
“They aren’t going to inject you with anything, are they?” he said severely before going off to the fields.
“I don’t think so. I really don’t know.”
“I don’t want them putting anything inside of your body. We don’t know enough about the differences in our physiognomy.”
“What are they gonna do, Dad?” Becky said flippantly. “Kill me?”
Her father looked at her like she’d slapped him in the face.
“Sorry,” she said, feeling awful about it. “I won’t do that again.”
Entering the examining room now, though, she began to feel a little skittish. Other than a table for her to lie on, nothing else seemed familiar. Her dad and she had invented the tools of Tamariskian medicine (Miea had a little “scare” about a year after they started creating stories) but they’d done it a long time ago and the details were sketchy. In the corner were a couple of okanogan machines similar to the one her father had used in Ribault the other night. She didn’t remember ever putting one of those in a story. A stand next to the table held several coils of tubing. Becky couldn’t tell if there was something pulsing through the tubing or if the colors of the tubes themselves shifted in such a way that they seemed to be pulsing. Becky remembered that the tubing was made from a material known as yunque, a kind of rubber that conducted sound especially well. A different kind of yunque tubing had created the interco
m system that ran throughout the palace.
Becky looked at Miea nervously. “Is this where you come for your checkups?”
“Every month.”
“Every month? Is there something wrong with you?” In the stories she’d created at home, Miea’s bouts of dizziness turned out to be an inconsequential thing about vitamins.
Miea smiled. “You could say that; I’m queen. One of the rules is that the queen gets a full medical examination every month.”
“Ouch. So I guess you know the doctors here pretty well, huh?”
Miea put a reassuring hand on Becky’s shoulder. “They do an excellent job, Becky.”
Becky was sure they did. The question in her mind was how they did their job. While she’d remembered the important details of nearly every Tamarisk story she ever told, for some reason she couldn’t remember any of the ones with the doctors.
Becky sat on the edge of the table and Miea leaned against it next to her. She didn’t look like a queen just then. She looked so casual. If Becky didn’t know that she had to have a million things running through her head, she’d even say Miea looked relaxed.
“Dr. Nella has bad breath,” Miea said in a whisper.
“What?” Becky said with a chuckle.
Miea grinned. “It’s a medical condition. You don’t want to know how we learned that bit of information. Her breath is miserable, though. I thought it would be a good idea to warn you. She is, however, a very fine doctor.”
As nervous as she was, Becky couldn’t help but find this funny. “Anything else I should know?”
Miea leaned closer. “Her eight-year-old daughter made her necklace. It looks incredibly silly on her, but Dr. Nella wears it for sentimental reasons. You probably won’t be able to take your eyes off it. If she asks you if you like it, please be nice.”
“I’ll tell her I love it.”
“You can’t do that, because she’ll know you’re lying. Of course, you do come from another world. Maybe hideous jewelry is normal there.”
This was a very odd conversation. When Dr. Nella walked into the room, though, Miea rose up and resumed her usual stately posture. The doctor bowed to Miea and then turned to Becky. The necklace wasn’t as awful as Miea had made it sound, but it definitely looked like a kid made it.
“Her Majesty has told me fascinating things about you,” the doctor said.
Becky smiled at Miea. “I’m not that fascinating.”
Dr. Nella barely responded to this. “She has also told me that you’re seriously ill.”
Becky looked downward. “I’m afraid that part is entirely true. I wish I was only as sick as I am interesting.”
The doctor moved closer and put her hands on both sides of Becky’s head, holding them there for long enough for Becky to become a little uncomfortable with it. Dr. Nella’s hands were large and unusually warm. It was like she was applying a heat pack to Becky’s face. Miea definitely wasn’t joking about the doctor’s breath.
Suddenly, the doctor released Becky’s head and Becky lurched forward, nearly falling off the table. She caught herself and looked up at Dr. Nella, but the woman had walked over to the shelf of machines to jot some notes. She took several minutes with this, and Becky wondered how she could have learned so much from holding her head.
“I need you to lie down,” the doctor said while still writing.
She certainly doesn’t waste any energy on bedside manner, Becky thought as she lay back.
“Are you okay?” Miea said, taking her hand.
“I’m fine. This just takes a little getting used to.”
Miea squeezed her hand. “I’m sure it does.”
The queen stepped aside when Dr. Nella returned with a cart holding a tray of instruments and a cylindrical canister made of brilliantly polished malheur. For the next several minutes, the doctor glared into her eyes and mouth, scraped under her toenails, and listened to not only her heartbeat, but also something in her forehead, her neck, her stomach, and her abdomen. Then she waved the listening device above her head and between her legs. The waving made her necklace slip around and Becky could see that some of it was held together with some kind of tape. After this, Dr. Nella ran an okanogan comb through Becky’s hair repeatedly in the same spot and examined some kind of reading the comb produced.
While the doctor didn’t say anything during this examination, Becky grew more comfortable with her prodding as it continued. She’d take a comb over an MRI any day of the week, and Dr. Nella’s touch had a soothing quality to it that made up for the gruffness of her personality. Maybe Tamariskian doctors didn’t need to be nice because they had such great hands.
“Please roll up your sleeves,” Dr. Nella said abruptly.
The thought of her father’s warning made Becky nervous. “I don’t want you to inject me.”
The doctor seemed confused by the statement. “Why would I inject you?”
“Why do you need me to roll up my sleeves?”
The doctor reached for the malheur canister. “I need to apply this directly to your skin.”
Becky wasn’t sure what the woman was planning to do with the canister, but she rolled up her sleeves anyway. Miea touched her on the shoulder. “Do they not have foam sensors where you come from?”
Foam sensors! Becky had completely forgotten about those. She’d invented them during Miea’s medical visits in the stories because Becky had become frustrated and skittish from the dozens of blood tests she’d had during her first bout with leukemia. “No,” Becky said, “we don’t have them where I come from, but I remember now.”
The doctor poured a thin stream of pink gel from the canister down each forearm all the way to Becky’s wrists and then worked the gel into her skin. The gel began to bubble and suck. It was a little like being tickled by a vacuum cleaner. As it did so, the gel worked itself into a pearly foam that rose several inches from her arm. The doctor busied herself with other things while Becky watched the foam sensors grow.
When the process stopped, the doctor scraped the foam into a jar, sealed it, marked it, and put it into a cabinet. She handed Becky a damp towel to clean herself.
“The foam will process for three days. To whom should I give the results?”
“Leave them with Sorbus,” Miea said. “He’ll give them to me and I’ll discuss them with Becky and her father.”
Dr. Nella bowed to Miea and then nodded in Becky’s direction, departing without another word.
“I hope that didn’t make you too uncomfortable,” Miea said when the doctor left.
“No, not at all. It was a little weird for a while, but compared to some of the things I’ve been through, this was a breeze.”
Miea put an arm on Becky’s shoulder. “I’m glad.”
“So what happens now?”
“We wait for the results.”
“Do you think she has any ideas?”
“I’m sure she has some ideas. Dr. Nella is much too professional to discuss them until she has all the facts, though.”
The results would be back in three days. That meant that Becky would learn about them four days from now. Was it possible that Tamariskian medicine had an answer the doctors back home didn’t? She’d know soon.
Becky was exhausted by the time she came home from school the next day. As usual, first period was nearly a blur as she tried to get her body going, and then she felt fine for several classes after that. She got increasingly tired after lunch, though, dragged herself onto the bus, and fell asleep, nearly missing her stop. The walk to the house, probably no more than a couple of hundred yards, felt like a couple of hundred miles. She felt stupid asking her mother to pick her up from the bus stop in her car (and she definitely didn’t want Mom to drive her to school), but she realized that it might come to that soon.
Mom was waiting for her at the door. “How was the day?”
“It was fine. We watched part of Pride and Prejudice in English today. Colin Firth is a babe.”
“You were okay, thoug
h?”
Becky nodded her head vigorously. “Yeah, I was fine.” She headed toward the kitchen and her mother followed.
“Do you want anything?”
“I don’t think so. I’m just gonna get a glass of water.”
“Sit down with me for a few minutes.”
Becky could tell from the tone of her mother’s voice that this wasn’t an invitation to chat about her day. Mom had something serious she wanted to discuss. Becky really wanted to go to her room to rest, maybe even take another nap, but that would have to wait. She filled a glass with water and sat at the table. Her mother was already there, fingers steepled together.
“I did some more research and made some calls. I learned about a different experimental drug that I think we should try. It’s called Gleevec and it’s shown some success with advanced cases.”
Becky shook her head slowly. The last treatment they’d tried obviously didn’t do anything, but could they just switch like that? “Does Dr. Harner think I’ll do better with this one?”
“We won’t be going to Dr. Harner for this.” Mom’s face grew tighter. “I called him about it and was extremely narrow-minded. I sometimes think these doctors are like professional athletes—they only endorse products from companies that pay them. Celia put me in touch with her oncologist, but he only treats adults. He introduced me to a doctor in Bridgeport, though, and she was very encouraging. I made an appointment for noon tomorrow.”
“I’ll still be in school at noon.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side. “I’ll come get you from school or you could just skip the day. We need to do this.”
Becky had no idea how to have this conversation with her mother. How could she tell her that she believed none of these experimental drugs would work? Becky had done her own research. She knew what the odds were.
“How terrible are the side effects?”
“There are things like diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and muscle cramps.”
Great, so I’ll spend the last couple of weeks I have before this disease knocks me completely on my back in the bathroom. “That doesn’t sound like fun, Mom.”