Skeen's Return

by Clayton, Jo;

  Pegwai came in on a rush of words. Timka lifted her head but didn’t try to sort them out until he calmed a little and settled into a chair. He flattened his hands on the table and sat staring at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Before she could answer, the three Aggitj came tumbling in; Ders ran at her shouting in Aggitchan; he caught hold of her shoulders, shook her. He was frantic, almost weeping, spitting in her face. Hal and Hart pulled him off her and got him settled in a chair. Looking almost as disturbed, Hal stood beside him, patting his shoulder to keep him from exploding again.

  “Domi’s fine,” she said, “it’s Skeen.…”

  Lipitero came through the door in a whirl of silk and excitement almost as frantic as Ders’. “Skeen? What about Skeen?”

  Timka sighed. “Hart, pull the door shut, will you. Thanks.” She rubbed at her eyes. “Listen a minute, you all can ask questions later. Like I said, Domi’s fine. He’s taking care of Skeen and the boat right now, which is too much for anyone to handle alone, so I want to get back as fast as I can.” She blinked. The ship was rocking. Lipitero stumbled against Pegwai, caught his shoulder with a grip so hard he grunted with pain. Timka smiled, relaxed a little. Maggí was getting underway, Skeen would have the help she needed, Bona Fortuna willing, as she’d say. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers laced. “A woffit chewed up one of Skeen’s hands; it’s a dirty wound and she wasn’t able to tend it for a lot too long, so right now it’s a mess and she’s laid out with fever.” She nodded at the bandages and the small crock of antiseptic ointment. “Maggí came up with that for the wounds. That’s good but what bothers me most is that fever. I want to get it down. Can any of you help me?”

  A knock at the door. Hart opened it, let in Chulji and the cook who was carrying a tray with a pot of tea and some sandwiches. The cook stared around at the stiff faces, raised his brows at the ominous silence hanging about like smoke; he produced half a smile for Timka, gave her the tray, looked round again, sniffed with disdain and waddled out without saying a word. Timka reached for the teapot, stopped with her hand outstretched when Pegwai pushed his chair back and stood. “Let me look through my kit,” he said. “I remember several antipyretics that work across species.”

  Lipitero caught hold of his arm, stopped him. “The Balayar cordial, do you have any of that? It put strength in me when I was very close to dying.” She looked anxiously at him, fingers trembling as she waited for his answer.

  “Yes. I hadn’t thought of that, you’re right.” He edged away from her, almost ran through the door as Hart opened it for him.

  “Skeen mustn’t die,” Lipitero whispered. “She must not die.”

  The intensity in the Ykx’s voice made Timka uncomfortable. She gulped nervously at her tea, looked with distaste at the sandwiches. She could feel the tremble of hunger in her arms and legs, her head was too heavy on her neck, but the thought of eating made her a little sick; she forced herself to bite into a sandwich, chewed unhappily at the meat and bread and washed it down with large drafts of tea. Pegwai was away an eternity, or so it seemed; he came back at that eternity’s end with a stoneware flask of the cordial and a purplish brown syrup in a small glass vial.

  He set these beside the roll of bandage. Hand on the flask, he said, “The cordial. It sits easy on the stomach; get as much down her as you can, at least half a cup before you try giving her this.” He moved his hand to the vial. “The antipyretic. Give her no more than two drops an hour.” He frowned. “If it’s going to work at all, you might see signs of change before the end of the first hour.” He examined his palm as if expecting to read the answers there. “I wouldn’t worry too much if … ah … if you saw nothing happening for an hour, even two. After that, well, I don’t know. Skeen.…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “So say we all.” Timka sighed. “If it does nothing more than bring her awake long enough to answer a few questions … Lifefire grant that happens. Pegwai, take these things up to Maggí; she’s having a bag run up so I can carry them back to the boat. Chul, will you fly with me? I want to make sure nothing happens to that bag.”

  HELLO. DECISION TIME AGAIN. HERE WE HAVE A MAJOR PLAYER AT A TURNING POINT. HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH SKEEN AND HER INJURIES? IF YOU WANT TO BE NASTY AND NATURALISTIC, YOU COULD PULL A WILD CARD OUT OF THE PACK AND KILL HER OFF, LEAVING THE ENDS OF HER LIFE DANGLING, NO ANSWERS TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS PLAGUING HER; AFTER ALL, LIFE IS LIKE THAT; MOST FOLK WHO DIE SUDDENLY DIE IN THE MUDDIEST OF MUDDLES; MALA FORTUNA DOESN’T WAIT TILL THEY TUCK IN THE DANGLES. THIS OPTION WOULD CREATE SOME INTERESTING DIFFICULTIES BOTH FOR YOU AND THE OTHER PLAYERS IN THE STORY; IT WOULD TURN THE ACTION INTO A RADICALLY NEW DIRECTION; WITH A LOT OF SWEAT AND APPLYING RUMP TO CHAIR, FINGERS TO KEYS, YOU COULD MAKE IT WORK.

  SECOND OPTION: YOU COULD HAVE PEGWAI OR ONE OF THE OTHERS DO SOME PRIMITIVE AND PROBABLY DANGEROUS SURGERY AND CUT OUR HEROINE’S HAND OFF. NOW THERE’S A FINE OPPORTUNITY TO DRIVE SKEEN BACK TO DRINK AND COMPLICATE HER LIFE CONSIDERABLY. SHE’D HAVE TO GET USED TO A NEW BALANCE. AND IT’S HER RIGHT HAND, AND SHE IS VERY RIGHT HANDED. AND HOW IS SHE GOING TO TIE KNOTS, AND THINGS LIKE THAT?

  THIRD OPTION: YOU COULD KEEP THE HAND WHERE IT IS BUT GIVE SKEEN RECURRING BOUTS OF FEVER AND DELIRIUM; MAKE IT WORSE, HAVE THE FEVER BROUGHT ON BY STRESS. THINK ABOUT THAT ONE. YOU COULD LOOK TO ONE OF THE MARTIAL ARTS CLAIMS AND DO THE DRUNKEN BOXER BIT, HAVE HER BODY BE GLORIOUSLY EFFICIENT WHILE HER MIND IS OUT IN NEVER-NEVER LAND. THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTING TO WRITE, BUT YOU’D HAVE A TOUGH TIME KEEPING IT REASONABLY CREDIBLE; IF YOU HAD A FEEL FOR HUMOR THAT MIGHT DO IT. QUITE A CHALLENGE THERE.

  FOURTH OPTION:YOU COULD SAY, WELL, SKEEN’S TOUGH AND LUCKY OR SHE WOULDN’T HAVE LASTED THIS LONG; THIS ILLNESS IS A TRYING INTERLUDE, BUT SHE RECOVERS AFTER SOME FINE AND LOVELY SUFFERING. ITS HAD ITS USES; SHE HAS BEEN SCARED INTO TAKING THIS WORLD MORE SERIOUSLY AND PUTTING HER MIND TO WHAT SHE’S DOING, HER COMPANIONS HAVE BEEN SCARED INTO REALIZING THEY ARE TOO DEPENDENT ON HER AND SHOULD START DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THAT AND LET’S GET ON WITH THE GETTING ON.

  WHEN YOU TURN THE PAGE, YOU WILL SEE WHAT CHOICE I MADE. WHY NOT KEEP YOUR OWN STORY RUNNING ALONG WITH MINE, SEE HOW FAR THE TWO THREADS DIVERGE?

  Lipitero sat on the bunk, Skeen’s gear held in the rough diamond space between her legs; a stickum was pasted on the wall giving her a steadier light than the oil lamps that flickered with the motion of the ship. She lifted each tool from the kit, examined it with delicate care, trying to decide without activating it just what it might do; she was not having much success at that in spite of her intimate knowledge of her own instrumentation; alien technologies tend to be incomprehensible to the eye, it’s what they do that provides insight into what they are. If Skeen didn’t come up enough to do some explaining, she planned to take the things on deck where she had room to provide for accidents. For the past several days Pegwai and Timka had been laboring over Skeen, trying infusion after infusion on her; several seemed to work—for a while. Skeen would sweat, grow restless, come close to cooling off; she surfaced twice during those frantic days, but was disoriented, rambling. They couldn’t understand her or she them; she seemed to have forgotten all the Trade-Min that Telka had given her. Lipitero put everything back in the kit, clicked the flap shut with a sigh of frustration and began on the belt pockets. The infusions worked for an hour, a day, once two days—but the fever always came back triggered by the festering hand. Nothing they tried worked on the hand. Timka washed it, changed bandages several times a day, cut away dead flesh, cleaned out the suppuration. And Skeen kept getting worse, rotting hand and draining fever reinforcing each other. Lipitero lifted out a squat cylinder, eased the cap off and frowned at a smaller cylinder with a pinhole in one side.

  Timka knelt by Skeen’s head, held it up while Pegwai pried her mouth open and dropped a new concentrate on her tongue. He pinched her nose, held his hand over her mouth until he felt her swallow. He nodded to Timka, took his hand away. Timka lowered the head back onto the pillow. He mov
ed down, bent over the bandaged hand; the strips of cloth were taut, the puffy flesh bulging, mounded up between them. He slipped a scalpel under a strip, began cutting the bandages off. Timka rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, chewed on her lip, distressed by what she saw. “Worse again, still worse,” she said.

  Pegwai touched the red streaks climbing toward Skeen’s shoulder. “We can’t wait much longer.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s not going to say anything more, too weak.”

  “I know. Petro hasn’t found anything she thinks could help. Which of us is going to do the thing?”

  “I might as well.” He grimaced. “I’ve done rough surgery before when I was traveling around on my Seeker journeys. This one will be easier, we’ve got Skeen’s cutter. Do a fast cut and cauterize at the same time.” He backed away to give Timka room to tend the hand. “That’s a tool I wish she’d leave behind when she jumps the Gate.”

  “First we get her across the Halijara. If she’s alive when we reach Rood Saekol and Sikuro, then we can talk about the Gate. Bring me the bowl, will you.” She swallowed, rubbed at her nose. “Hai, it stinks.” She began swabbing at the slashes, washing loose the putrid matter. “Tomorrow for sure.” She took the scalpel from Pegwai and began cutting off the worst of the rot. “Should do it now; I don’t know about you, me—I’ve got to work myself up to handling the idea. My stomach is saying forget it.”

  Timka wrung out the cloth, folded it and laid it across Skeen’s brow. Lipitero had finally fallen into a restless sleep. She was curled up in her flightskins on the bunk across the room, her head on a folded blanket.

  Timka listened to the breathing of the two women, on one side light and fluttery on the other an increasing struggle; Skeen’s labors made Timka’s diaphragm ache as if she were using her own muscles to keep those lungs working. She hugged her arms across her breasts and began nerving herself to try reaching deep into Skeen’s head. When she fled the mountains and Telka’s spite what seemed centuries ago, she’d suppressed her inreach. It was dangerous among the Pallah to know too much about how they thought or felt; far better to let them feel sorry for her and pleased with themselves for helping her than to make them afraid of her because she knew too much and couldn’t tell them how she knew it. So many years since she’d done the exercises, so many years since she’d tried to remember what Carema had been teaching her. She stroked her fingers down the side of Skeen’s face. The fever was coming down again. Maybe this time it’d stay down. Once the hand was gone. Yes, Pegwai was right about that, it had to go. She sighed and wondered how Skeen was going to take losing her dominant hand. She was used to her body doing whatever she asked of it, that was obvious. She acted without having to think about how she was going to do what she wanted to do. It was going to be awkward, couldn’t get away from that. Skeen’s temper was chancy at the best of times; not that she meant to irritate other folk when she was in a fuss, it just happened. Too bad they were confined to the narrow quarters of the ship. Room to maneuver. Something Skeen said down in that cavern when Angelsin was getting ready to sell them all. No room to maneuver on a ship, you kept bumping into everyone you wanted, no, needed to avoid.

  The window was open. She could smell the swamp, rotting vegetation, the acrid odors of the half-submerged trees. Overhead a Nagamar must have been leaning on the rail, one of their obligatory pilots; the hissing call came in clearly, the answering whistle from the raft drifting ahead of the ship. Pegwai had stretched a fine netting across the opening. They needed the air in here but not the flying biters that swarmed into every corner of the ship. Tomorrow morning they’d be out on the open sea. The Halijara. Three days, five days, somewhere in there, and they’d be dropping anchor at Sikuro. Not enough time for Skeen’s stump to heal. Without understanding quite why, Timka suddenly and fervently wished Maggí would consent to take them straight to Oruda. No stopping for passengers and cargo, no.… She nodded. No stopping in ports where Skeen would be surrounded by all the things that were so very bad for her, things she’d be so vulnerable to with an itchy aching stump instead of a hand, when she was bound to be clumsy and uncertain and she was sure to hate being clumsy and … and dependent. Couldn’t tie a knot, couldn’t even get dressed without help, at least, not until she’d worked out how to do it and the stump had healed enough so she could use what was left of the arm.

  Timka touched the cloth, turned it over, patted at Skeen’s face. She dropped the cloth into the waste bucket, took a fresh one, squeezed it out, folded it and smoothed it onto Skeen’s brow. Maggí would have to throw the bedding out when the ship got to Sikuro. It was already starting to grow mold, the drippings from the damp cloths and the sweat off Skeen whenever the fever broke enough to let her sweat were keeping the mattress and pillow continually damp. Timka leaned against the wall, pulled her legs up and draped her arms over her knees. Face it, Ti, you’re just putting off failure, yes, admit it; Skeen knows what should be done for her, she just can’t tell us. It’s up to you to go in and pull it out of her. It’s possible; remember what she said about how Telka gave her the Trade-Min. If Telka could reach her, so can you. Or you could have if you hadn’t let that part of your brain atrophy. Like trying to walk after staying in bed a decade or two. You were right to run. Telka would slaughter you. Without Skeen’s help. Lifefire, I can’t face her now. My twin sister, a match in everything but temperament. We were a match, but not now, no more. She kept driving, studying, practicing and I rooted out, I am no more fit to face her now than a fledgling for flying. She contemplated her situation for some minutes more but broke off when she heard a moan. She swung swiftly onto her knees and bent over Skeen. The Pass-Through was moving weakly, drenched with sweat. The cloth had fallen to one side. Timka shook it out and patted gently at Skeen’s face, hair, pulled the blanket down, wiped her body dry; a futile operation, by the time she’d finished more sweat had beaded up. Skeen’s eyes cracked open and she started muttering. Timka tucked the blanket around her and got a new cloth. She bathed Skeen’s face again, spoke soft soothing words, hoping her voice would pull the other out of her haze, at least for a short while. “Skeen, ah, Skeen,” she murmured, “listen to me, we can’t help you, tell us … tell me how to help you.” The coated, flaking lips moved, but Timka couldn’t persuade herself Skeen had heard her. She bent closer, tried to make out the mumbled words, but after a moment she sighed and went back to patting at Skeen’s face, washing the crust from the corners of her mouth, the cracklings from her eyes. Never the easy way, she told herself, always complications. I’m going to have to try. You won’t help me, will you. Stand on your own feet, decide for yourself what you want to do. Hah! I remember once … yes, back in Oruda, you asked me what I wanted out of life. Remember what I said? Someone to take care of me, I said, someone who’d provide silk sheets and scented baths and day after day of ordinary days. You didn’t like that, did you? I remember how your face looked then, Skeen my friend. You listened to my tirade, you didn’t say anything but I knew what you were thinking. I was scared then, Skeen, I’m scared now. Scared? No. Terrified. Ashamed of myself for being so lazy, so.… Well, there’s no point in beating myself for what can’t be helped. She set the cloth aside, flattened her hands on the sides of Skeen’s face, slid her fingers up until the tips were pressed against Skeen’s temples. She closed her eyes and tried to feel into the brain beneath the bone. Her own brain creaked, it felt like an ancient wooden clock, nothing broken but all the gears frozen into immobility by an accumulation of grease and dust and disuse. The gears moved a little as she applied pressure. She began to see/feel ghost fragments, no doubt fever dreams too pale and broken to recognize, whispers tickled her ears but she couldn’t bring them clear enough to understand them. Even if I could, she thought, I probably couldn’t understand them … ay! maybe I could, maybe.… Telka gave her Trade-Min, why wouldn’t that work the other way? Her head began throbbing, lines of pain shot up from heels and hands through her spine and exploded at the base
of her brain, exploded again and again. Gradually, as she persisted, the force of those explosions lessened, she got closer to her fingertips, finally felt as if she resided in those fingertips; still she persisted. She battered against the barrier as strong as bone that tried to deny her. The heat and drive grew stronger, she grew frightened at what she’d started, tried to pull back, but the thing that throbbed in her wouldn’t yield; the barrier shattered, she was in Skeen, she was Skeen. She drowned in fever and pain, she struggled to hold on to a thread of consciousness, but the pull of being Skeen was strong, so strong.… Frantic, turned vicious by fear, she clawed her way free, fell shrieking to the floor.

  When she was again aware of things around her, Lipitero was holding her head, dripping Balayar cordial into her mouth. She grimaced, pushed at the Ykx’s hand; the cordial was cloying, unpleasant, as it combined with the sour taste of stomach acid. Lipitero set the flask aside, helped Timka to sit up.

  Timka coughed, swallowed. A flash of memory started her struggling to get up. “Skeen.…”

  Lipitero restrained her gently. “Not worse, not better,” she murmured, “What happened?”

  “Help me up.” She stumbled the two steps to the bunk leaning on Lipitero’s arm, dropped to her knees and peered into Skeen’s face. The sweat was gone, her face was hot and tight again; like so many times before, the infusion’s effect had worn off after a brief respite. She cursed under her breath, lowered herself until she was sitting on the floor, resting her arms on the bed. After a minute she looked up at Lipitero. “I was trying the Min inreach, I thought I might be able to pull out of her some way of … of using something of hers to fight this.” She touched the blackening hand, shivered. “Pegwai’s going to cut it off tomorrow, today, I mean. I wanted.…” She lifted a hand, let it fall.

  Lipitero squatted beside her, stroked the straining bandage. “Did you get anything? Even a fragment might help me.”