Mindline

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "But you haven't messed anything up yet, have you?"

  "No," Vasiht'h said, slowly. "At least, not that we can see. From the patient perspective, anyway. The people who are seeing us have come back, when it's part of the deal with the student clinic that they can request a different therapist if they're not comfortable with the one they've been assigned. They know we're learning... there are safeguards built in so they can feel safe, so they can back out of situations that make them unhappy. No one's backed out. But our methods... they're...nonstandard." He shrugged, helpless. "We don't fit the mold. So I worry they're not going to know what standards to judge us by."

  "You'd think they'd judge you by the standard of whether your patients are happier," Sehvi said with a snort.

  "You'd think. But academia isn't results-driven. You know that. We grew up with professors for parents. It's about process."

  "Maybe over there it is," Sehvi said. "For me, not so much. Maybe that's why I like repro engineering so much."

  "Speaking of which, how's your semester going? Gene theory finally making more sense to you, or is that tutor too distracting?"

  To his surprise, she blushed and started playing with a pen on her desk. "Um. Well... yes, I think I'm finally getting it."

  Vasiht'h set his cup aside and leaned forward. "Finally, a good story on your side for a change! Come on, ariishir, let's have it."

  "Well, you know I had to find the only other Glaseah on campus," she began.

  "We are done?" Jahir asked as KindlesFlame withdrew from the side of the bed.

  "You are, yes. Go on, get up."

  The halo-arch retracted, and Jahir sat up. "It remains a form of magic, that the instruments here can discern anything without requiring someone to disrobe."

  "If I wanted to do specific kinds of imagery, we'd need you to strip," KindlesFlame said absently, studying the read-outs. "But for something this general, there's no need to make you freeze." He shook his head. "You have some of the most mysterious biology I've seen, alet. And I've climbed all over real alien races."

  The word 'climbed' was evocative from someone not given to hyperbole. Jahir ran through his mental catalog of aliens and guessed, "Akubi?"

  The foxine flashed a grin at him past a shoulder.

  "You climbed over an Akubi? Truly?" Jahir said, interest piqued. "What was that like?"

  "Warm, musty, a little bit furry and feathery. I don't know how to describe their integument, except maybe 'variegated.'" KindlesFlame set his data tablet down. "You're looking good. How are you feeling?"

  "I think after Selnor anything feels better in compare," Jahir said.

  "Mmm." The foxine folded his arms. "Would you humor me by allowing me a little granular imagery?"

  "I can't allow..."

  "Not with a machine," the Tam-illee said, smiling a little. He tapped the corner of one eye. "The old-fashioned kind."

  "I... suppose?"

  "Take off your shirt, then."

  Jahir pulled it over his head and folded it, setting it aside and resting his hands in his lap. The metal of his ring felt suddenly cool on his chest, exposed to the air. He ignored the sensation, waiting as the Tam-illee considered him. KindlesFlame walked around him, said, "Bend forward? Head down." Curious, he complied. "Now sit up again and lift your arms—straight up, yes. Like that."

  Wondering what the foxine was looking for, Jahir said, "And have you derived anything from this examination?"

  A tap on his ribcage startled him for being completely without emotional data: the foxine's stylus. "You're getting there. Not quite as much flesh as I want to see, but your skin is finally the right color again."

  "It had changed?" Jahir asked, surprised.

  "Sure. And your smell too." He chuckled, though Jahir had been certain he'd schooled his expression to something a little less incredulous. "No, you don't need to do that little infinitesimal eye widening trick at me. I'm not kidding. Part of being a healer since time out of mind is paying attention to the details. A halo-arch can tell you a great deal, but you need the instincts for the times you don't have them... or they fail you." He canted his head. "You had front row tickets for some of those failures, so don't tell me this surprises you."

  "No," Jahir admitted slowly. He drew his shirt back on, pulling his hair out from beneath the collar, and began adjusting the cuffs.

  "Mm. And now what are you thinking in that too close mind of yours?"

  Jahir tried not to find the buttons he was straightening as interesting as they'd become. "That medicine remains fascinating." No, he thought. To be honest with those you have chosen to trust is important. "That it becomes more fascinating as I study it."

  "Why does this bother you?" KindlesFlame wondered, leaning against the wall as he waited.

  "It doesn't. Not... precisely." He paused, then said, "Have you ever thought of taking up another profession?"

  "Me?" The foxine huffed a soft laugh. "I'm happy where I am. And even if I wasn't, I have too much invested in this one."

  "And if you had more time?"

  KindlesFlame hesitated, then arched a brow. "I see. So this is about confronting our mortality."

  Jahir thought about his enjoyment of the chemistry classes. And the ferocity of feeling he had for what he did with Vasiht'h during their practicum. He loved them both. Knowing that he had the time to devote to both when so many people around him would not have that luxury was... strange. To put his life in an order—first, become a therapist until your best friend dies, then do something new—made him uncomfortable. There was despair in him, with which he had made an uneasy peace, and it made him realize that before he'd left his world he had known very little of either love or grief. He finished straightening his clothes and pushed off the bed.

  "You'd make a fine healer," KindlesFlame said.

  "Do you think?"

  "Oh yes." The foxine smiled. "Gotta eat more first. You're underdoing it still."

  Jahir grimaced. "I thought I was doing better."

  "Better than you were, certainly. I'm sure trying to figure out how much fewer calories you need here than you did on Selnor's a trial. But you need to pay more attention to it." The foxine chuckled. "Eat more ice cream or something."

  Jahir thought of the bizarre medical concoction Vasiht'h had fed him at Mercy and shook his head a touch.

  "You really would," KindlesFlame said as he ushered him out. "Make a fine healer. Thinking about it, someday? You have time."

  "I do," Jahir said. "But I'd like to make a fine therapist first."

  "Convince Ravanelle of it, then." When Jahir stopped abruptly, KindlesFlame said, "I expected to hear something from her by now. She's an talkative sort. It's strange for her to be cagey."

  "We wondered," Jahir murmured.

  "Keep going," the foxine said. "If there's no map, there will always be people who assume you're lost. Prove them wrong."

  Chapter 29

  They continued feeling their way through their patients' problems. The Seersa who couldn't stop eating cheerfully returned every week, and they went through his mundane dreams until they found the inevitable empty pantries, dinners without courses, glasses without drinks, and restocked, refilled and added in all the missing food. They talked with new patients about their anxieties about school, about starting new lives, about family problems, about relationships. Their distressed Asanii returned and did not speak—she curled up on the couch and slept, usually holding one or both of their hands.

  Ravanelle watched it all, silent, until the Asanii's sixth visit. Then she said, abrupt, "Why does she keep coming back?"

  "She's depressed," Vasiht'h said.

  The Seersa eyed him. "I can tell that much. But she hasn't so much as said what's bothering her."

  Vasiht'h looked at him, shared his vague impressions, the needs, the aching emptinesses. Jahir sorted through them, nodded and said to Ravanelle, "She lost both her parents."

  "Suddenly," Vasiht'h said. "Very recently."

  Their
faculty advisor was staring at them. "Did she tell you that at some point? In her head or otherwise?"

  "Not... intentionally," Jahir said. "But it is in her, nonetheless."

  "And your plan for resolving this?" she prompted.

  In the mindline, Vasiht'h's response tasted like hot broth and exasperation. The Glaseah said, "Grief isn't something you cure like a disease. It doesn't answer to a schedule. It doesn't necessarily want to be talked at."

  "And sleeping is going to help her."

  /Don't defend against it,/ Jahir said. /She is not accusing, but testing./

  /I know,/ Vasiht'h replied, testy. /But she could have been saying something all along. And helping us! And now this?/

  "She needs to feel safe, Healer," Jahir said before his friend could speak and prejudice their overseer against them. "She feels safe here. That is our plan."

  Ravanelle nodded and headed for the door. When Vasiht'h would have stepped after her, Jahir held up a hand. /No, arii. Let her work./

  /What work is she doing, precisely?/

  Jahir looked after their advisor, head canted. /Questioning her own certainties, I think./

  Vasiht'h sighed. /You really think she's that confused?/

  Jahir chuckled softly. /Aren't we?/

  "We're students," Vasiht'h pointed out. "We're supposed to be more confused than the faculty."

  "We are pioneers," Jahir said. "And we are going to be late to see the children."

  They still went every week to see the girls in the hospital. On good days, they served as escorts down to the greening hospital garden so Kuriel could point out the waking fish to the two humans and all three children could look for flowers or shiny pebbles. On harder days, they stayed in; Jahir read them poetry and told them stories, and Vasiht'h played games with them. Jill drank her coffee at her station outside the room, or joined them for the jaunts down to the garden. Vasiht'h watched Jahir holding an exhausted Persy in his arms while telling her a fantastical tale about the dragons small enough to steal through her bloodstream and lend aid to the pharmaceuticals warring with the cancerous cells there—the mindline whispered textbook imagery to Vasiht'h, suggesting that at least some part of that story was being fueled by his roommate's studies, and it certainly convinced Persy, who liked the notion of having her own private dragon army.

  "What girl wouldn't?" Jahir said as they made their way off the hospital grounds.

  "Want a private dragon army?" Vasiht'h chuckled. "I don't know. I'm sure Amaranth would prefer a unicorn army."

  "The mind boggles," Jahir said. "A unicorn army."

  "They'd look strange in uniform," Vasiht'h agreed. He felt the Eldritch's enjoyment of the spring sunlight through the mindline; the weather had finally warmed up for long enough to convince the trees that spring was here for good and everywhere around them, things were blooming. The smell on the breeze was intoxicating.

  Vasiht'h glanced over at his roommate, thought the time was about right. If he was wrong... but he trusted his instincts. He made sure the buckle on his messenger bag was secured and trotted along, affecting innocence—probably poorly—and enjoyment of the warmth, far more believably. Jahir said nothing until they stopped on the sidewalk beside one of the university's many broad fields, felted with soft new grass over which at least one butterfly was darting.

  "You have a feel to you, like you have ice cream I don't know about yet," Jahir said, eyeing him.

  "That tree," Vasiht'h said. "Recognize it?"

  The Eldritch lifted his head, and the breeze tugged at his hair, pulled it past his throat. The mindline made it clear that Jahir never posed himself, and yet he always managed to look posed. Vasiht'h guessed that was what being photogenic was, by definition. He couldn't decide if it amused or amazed him. Mostly, he thought, he was glad the Eldritch no longer tied his hair back. That would have been a reminder of memories he was glad to forget.

  "That," Jahir said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. "Is the tree that is good for climbing."

  "Or lounging under," Vasiht'h agreed. "And it is spring. A nice time for climbing or lounging."

  "As I recall," Jahir began, his tone cautious, "the last time I climbed this tree, you berated me for not being more careful of my health."

  "And I am about to berate you again, for the same thing," Vasiht'h said. "Arii... you're not frail. I know you know that in your head. But your head is going to have to teach your heart, because you can't keep going without some kind of exercise. That's part of acclimatization, and even if Seersana's not Selnor, you still have to build the muscle. You got a bit of a head start on that while you were away, but I don't want you to lose it because you're afraid."

  "Am I afraid?" Jahir asked, wondering. Such a softness in the mindline. Vasiht'h found his roommate's capacity for introspection gratifying, if surprising.

  "You are," he said. "A little." He patted his bag and said, "So we're going to fix it."

  "We are?"

  "We are."

  "By...?"

  "By making things right," Vasiht'h said firmly. "In this case... by me getting to that tree first this time, because a biped beating me there is embarrassing. And that's all the warning you'll get because I'm off!" He put his head down and burst into a sprint, claws sprouting from his paws with the force of his lunge. The mindline sparked with Jahir's surprise and then overflowed with laughter. He felt more than heard his friend following, shared his own sense of his body at work: the muscles gliding under his pelt, the tattoo of his paws on the earth and the tickle of grass against bare toes. He was delighted to receive a response: the sough of breath hard in his throat, the breeze on a face unshielded by fur, the joy of a body that worked and, at the last moment, the rough scratch of bark under bare palms as Jahir swung himself up onto the branch. Vasiht'h skidded to a stop beneath him and they panted together, the sun warm on them both.

  Vasiht'h said, "You're out of shape."

  Jahir laughed. "I am out of condition."

  "Is there a difference?" Vasiht'h dropped onto the grass where it had been cooled by the tree's shadow. "But you didn't break a bone getting here."

  "That... I did not."

  The mindline was dense with Jahir's thoughts. Vasiht'h let him have his silence and enjoyed it until he felt some of the busyness clear. Then he said, "The university has a pool, you know."

  The feeling that washed back to him through the mindline gave him great satisfaction.

  Later that evening, Jahir let himself into their apartment, bringing with him the smell of brine and a memory of light shimmering on bright water. Vasiht'h closed his eyes and lifted his head, letting it pour through him, and then smiled as the Eldritch sat across from him at the table. He was wearing his ring on his finger now, and not on the chain around his neck.

  "You still think we should be mindful of Ravanelle," Jahir said.

  Vasiht'h tilted his head, let his agreement seep between them.

  The Eldritch smiled. "I'll wash up for supper."

  Chapter 30

  Ravanelle scheduled a week off for them in advance of spring break, saying they deserved the time. "Use it to catch up on your coursework," she'd said, waving it off. "We see a slow-down around the holidays, anyway. People go home, go on vacation."

  "This sounds fishy to me," Vasiht'h grumbled, ignoring the faint puzzlement the mindline fed him, figuring the Eldritch would intuit the colloquialism from the context. "Why does she want us out of the office?"

  "Perhaps it is just what she suggests," Jahir said. "We do have midterms."

  "So does everyone else," Vasiht'h said. "You'd think the stress of it would inspire more people to show up at the student clinic, not less. And don't say something about going on vacation. That makes sense during the break, not before it. You don't go on a vacation long enough to start before spring break when you're a student. At least, not if you actually care about your education."

  Jahir said nothing for so long that Vasiht'h finally eyed him. "What? The mindline is full of.
.." He paused, licked his teeth and grimaced. "What is that flavor?"

  "Anise," Jahir said.

  "Are you sure?" Vasiht'h said. "I'm a baker, remember? That's not the anise I know."

  "I am from a different world."

  Vasiht'h snorted. "You think I'm overreacting."

  "I think... perhaps you might consider reframing the situation."

  "This should be good," Vasiht'h muttered. "All right. And how exactly am I supposed to reframe this situation?"

  "That perhaps Ravanelle is also one of our patients," Jahir said, and Vasiht'h could sense him feeling his way into the words. "And that by working on our student patients, we are also, slowly, working on her."

  Vasiht'h's brows lifted. "You want me to believe that."

  "I want you to consider that perhaps there is an inelasticity there that suggests... damage. Or anxiety."

  Put that way... Vasiht'h scowled, his stride slowing. Jahir stopped walking and turned, waiting, hands folded behind his back.

  "Yes?" Jahir said. "I value your opinion, arii. Am I right?"

  "Maybe," Vasiht'h said. "But it doesn't make me feel any better when she's the one who has to agree to pass us for us to go forward."

  "Think of it as another test."

  "Another test," Vasiht'h muttered. "As if we don't have enough of them."

  The message Jahir found in his queue a week later surprised him, and spreading it did not cure him of that surprise. Nor did he think his roommate likely to be glad of it. He sent a response and then busied himself in the kitchen, setting out ingredients, pondering. Should he make the cookies? Or put Vasiht'h to work making them? He let his instincts guide that impression and started a pot of black tea. When the Glaseah entered, it had already scented the apartment's great room with its astringent fragrance, and Vasiht'h paused, frowning.

  "Why do I smell more-almond butter?"

  "Because," Jahir said. "I am making tea, and you are making cookies."