He looked away.
Nodding, Levine said. "Tell him, will you? He won't argue with you."
"Oh, he'll argue," Vasiht'h muttered. "But I'll win."
A hesitation. Tentatively, she said, "Is it as good as it seems from the outside?" At his quizzical glance, she said, "To be the one he chose."
Vasiht'h flicked his ears back.
"I know it's a personal question," she said. "I'm sorry. You don't have to answer."
Not so long ago, he could remember his own angst before he'd known whether Jahir wanted to be his friend or not. It gave him an unwilling sympathy for her disappointment, and to honor it, he said, quiet, "It is."
She sighed, head lowered. When she lifted her chin, she had found a smile that looked more natural: resigned, a little sad, but honest. It made him like her, all of a sudden. "I thought so. Anyway. Don't let him come back to work. He's done at Mercy." She paused. "Unless he wants to say goodbye, of course."
"Right," Vasiht'h said. "I'll tell him."
She nodded and headed for the door. As she reached it, she added, "The police say if he hadn't been here, it might have been months before they realized what was going on."
Vasiht'h tried to imagine what months' worth of penetration into the Heliocentrus market would have meant. He shuddered.
"Yeah," Levine said. "Me too." She inclined her head. "Thanks, alet. Thank you both."
For a very long time after she left, Vasiht'h stared at nothing, trying not to imagine the catastrophe they'd averted. Surely the police were overstating the matter. He shuddered again and forced himself to start moving.
Jahir did not wake until several hours after Vasiht'h had put dinner in stasis. The Eldritch appeared in the door, leaning on the frame with bowed head, braid falling in an untidy rope past a neck that had become too hollow, all tendon and sunken flesh. There was a query in the mindline, too diffuse for words, so indistinct Vasiht'h worried that he should still be in bed… and yet they both knew what had brought him from it, for the Glaseah felt the pangs in his own stomach.
"You smell dinner," Vasiht'h said, in response to the inarticulate query. "Stew tonight."
Jahir nodded slowly, and found words, though his tenor remained husky. "I should eat."
"You should. Come sit."
After the Eldritch groped his way into a chair, Vasiht'h said, "It's over. The police broke it open."
Jahir looked up at him sharply, the fog blown from his thoughts. Then he leaned back and some tension he'd been holding in his chest, in his legs, flowed from him and left him limp. "So it's over."
"In more ways than one," Vasiht'h said. Quieter, "Levine came by. They're ending your residency."
He expected something in response to that: dismay. Upset. The defiance Levine had predicted. Something. But the mindline echoed, carrying nothing but the receding sound of his own words, until they too faded.
Very softly, Jahir said, "Arii. Take me home."
Vasiht'h stared at him, quivering. Then nodded and rose to see to their dinner.
Chapter 21
Jahir's personal account was backlogged with messages dating back to the moment he arrived on Selnor: friends at school, patients from his supervised clinical practicum on Seersana, his advisors, his mother, the children from the hospital, their healer-assist, even Nieve's grandmother, sending him well wishes on his new course. There were so many he set the data tablet back on the table and curled up on the bed. Vasiht'h was taking care of their travel arrangements; the Glaseah had not so informed him, but the hum in the back of his mind consisted of whispered flight numbers and memories of calls made to the university and to spaceliners. At some point, Jahir would offer to reimburse him for the money he was spending on his behalf, but not yet. Not yet.
He could not wrap his arms around the past days.
He could not move through any of it at all. The mindline kept him anchored, for which he was profoundly grateful. But he felt nothing at the realization that he had failed to complete a residency which was renowned the worlds over for its intensity and the treasure of the experience it offered. He felt numb from core to fingertips, and even his trips to the private pool did not break him free of that shell.
/You are exhausted,/ Paga signed, unconcerned. /Go, and you will find yourself again./
"I don't recall telling you I was leaving," Jahir said.
The Naysha smiled. /Write me./
Jahir thought of happier moments at the pool and said, "You promised me once... a touch. And I would have it—" His heart constricted, the first hint of emotional involvement he'd felt in what felt like ages. "—and I cannot."
The Naysha's smile grew softer. /Offer stands. Anytime. Come back. I will honor it./
It was harder to walk back into Mercy. To don the clothes of a student and not a member of its staff and to pass through its doors, accept the double-takes. He found Jiron in the break room and the man waved him back out of it and to an empty conference room.
"I would have stayed," Jahir said.
"We all know you would have stayed," Jiron said. "That's not the issue. You and I both know that."
"You have not sent away any of the others."
"On the contrary. We called in relief for everyone who worked those three days, and not just because they needed the rest. Septima's still on leave, in fact. She told us herself she'd come a little unhinged, needed some time to swing back to center before she came back."
"You are here," Jahir observed.
"I am. But I took a day off myself. Alet… sit, please."
It hurt to sit. Not just physically but in some interior space, where he felt frozen and movement threatened to break something entirely. Jahir clasped the edge of the chair with thin fingers and leaned forward a little, bracing himself with the toes of his boots. It was strange to wear them again.
Jiron walked around the table and pulled a chair over, turning it and straddling it, arms loose over the back. "But you are right, in that I haven't sent any of them away. But none of them, not a single one of them, was doing what you were doing, hour after hour. You admit that, right?"
Quietly, Jahir said, "Of course."
"Then appreciate it when I say that your talents… someone's got to make rules for them." Jiron exhaled, shoulders slumping. He rubbed his face. "Watching you and that Glaseah of yours near-kill yourselves here and not having the first clue how bad it was or how hard you were pushing yourselves or whether I needed to pull you back or not… it's like trying to tell a brain surgeon what to do when you don't know basic science."
This image clung to him, faint as a dandelion seed. "You are calling us… soul surgeons."
Jiron chuckled. "It suits." Shaking his head, he continued, "You need to develop a better understanding of these powers of yours, alet, because when you do, they're going to be an amazing asset in whatever you choose to do. But throwing you into the deep end of the medical pool like this isn't going to foster and develop those powers. It's going to shatter you. You have to have more respect for the hand that holds the tool."
Jahir jerked his head up, meeting the human's eyes. In them he saw compassion… and an utter certitude that lent weight to the blade-sharp pain of his last words.
To have respect for the hand that holds the tool. What had he been doing with himself? And why couldn't he stop? And at what point did duty become an excuse for self-harm?
"You're going to go far, alet," Jiron said. "Just don't cut yourself off at the ankles before you start the race."
"I… shall endeavor to avoid that," Jahir answered, still stunned.
Jiron nodded. "Now come on. We've got a little cake out there waiting for you. God knows you could use the calories."
It was a congenial gathering: Paige and Radimir, Maya and Jiron, the staff from the desk, some of the healers-assist from the emergency room, now too well acquainted with him from the past week. He accepted his serving of cake and with it the humbling evidence that he had made friendships here, in as short a time as
he'd had: shallow in knowledge, perhaps, but fast in trust, forged in the crucible of their shared work.
The cake was lemon, with raspberry filling. He wondered what Vasiht'h would have made of it. His friend had not baked since arriving. Of Levine he saw nothing.
"You're leaving?" Sehvi asked, one ear splaying and the other upright. "But you just got there!"
"I know," Vasiht'h said, rubbing his eyes. "But I can't even tell you what we've been through, ariishir. It's been… it's just… it's huge. I think we've lived two years' worth of time in the past week and that's it. We're going."
She narrowed her eyes and asked, thoughtful, "His idea or yours?"
Vasiht'h considered and said: "Ours."
She huffed softly. "I guess that's how it's supposed to work." She folded her arms and leaned back, and her expression gentled. "You look pretty awful, big brother."
"I feel awful," he said. "Mostly on the outside. I'm so tired. I can't remember the last time I was this tired."
"And on the inside?"
"I think I'm okay." He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest. "A little worried, maybe."
"About?"
"This was our decision, and it's the right decision," Vasiht'h said. "But he's still not… well… animated. Part of that is the physical toll, I know. I'm guessing he'll revive once we're off the planet. But I'm a little worried that part of it is still emotional."
"Hmm. What does the mindline say?"
A good question, and what sprang to mind in response was, "To wait."
She canted her head.
"To wait," Vasiht'h repeated, and sighed. "So that's what I'm doing. We're out of here in less than a week."
"Back to Seersana," she guessed.
"Back to Seersana."
"Are you happy?" she wondered.
Was he? "I'll let you know when I figure that out," he said.
The last people they saw before leaving Selnor were Kayla and Meekie. The children came running to Jahir and stopped abruptly a few paces away. Kayla squinted up at him, then motioned him down. Obediently, he went to one knee in front of them, which brought him in range of their very grave faces. Kayla reached out, touched his cheekbone, brushed some of his hair back from it; through her fingertips he felt her sober recognition.
"You look like we used to, before we started getting better," Kayla said, and Meekie nodded.
"Like Nieve, actually," the latter said. "Worse than us."
"I have had…" He paused to clear his throat. "A very long few days, ariisen."
Meekie glanced at Vasiht'h, whom Jahir could feel at his back, still and patient. "You're going to do something about it?"
"Is it his to do?" Jahir asked.
"Well, you're not doing anything about it, obviously," Kayla said. "Manylegs?"
"We're leaving," Vasiht'h replied. "Tomorrow. Back to Seersana."
"Oh, yay!" Kayla exclaimed. "So you'll be there when we get there in a year?"
"Less than a year now," Meekie added.
Jahir thought of all the schooling he would have to retake, of the residency he had to begin anew. "We'll be there."
Leaving the apartment, Jahir thought he should feel something, but he accepted that he didn't, and that this was perhaps not unexpected. He allowed Vasiht'h to help him pack, and to chivvy him to the port, and from there off the surface of Selnor and up to Heliocentrus's geosynchronous station to await their ride out of the system. Sitting on a chair beside one of the great windows looking out on Selnor's crowded orbitals, he breathed freely again for the first time in weeks, lifted a cup without effort, felt his heart slow to a pace he recognized. The physical relief was so acute he couldn't keep up his side of the conversation, and Vasiht'h let it lapse. The mindline lapped him with his companion's understanding, soft as a blanket. He accepted it and watched the ships go by, and wondered when the winter in him would thaw.
Chapter 22
The journey back to Seersana took less time and felt like it took forever. Vasiht'h spent it trying not to let his concern bleed too deeply into the mindline; that it was a futile exercise was at least interesting for what it demonstrated about how broad and full the mindline had grown. He would never have imagined the thin thing that had raveled between them spontaneously in their first years of knowing one another could evolve into this complete communion. Jahir guarded his memories—not intentionally, Vasiht'h sensed, but simply out of deeply ingrained habit—but his thoughts and feelings he shared generously, and the bedrock of his personality, his mere existence, registered in Vasiht'h's consciousness now as a constant as sure as his own breath and blood moving in him. There was no doubt their shared experience at Mercy, so soon after permanent establishment of the bond, had made the intensity of the bond possible. Vasiht'h wondered if Sehvi could tell him about it from her reading. 'Traumatic experiences lead to the strongest ties,' or something.
So he knew Jahir could tell he was worried. But the mindline also reassured him. His friend was withdrawn but still present, and if he spoke very little Vasiht'h could feel how every hour they spent in lighter gravity worked on the persistent physical degradation Jahir had been suffering.
He had instincts—new ones, or old ones given new respect—and every one of them whispered that his friend needed space. So as much as was possible between two mind-bonded, he granted it. Caught up on his studies. Wrote Palland to tell him he was returning. Sent missives to his parents, his grandmother, as many of his cousins as he could manage. Jotted off notes to his friends at the university; tried to figure out what to do with his schedule now that he was once again mangling it with his return after all the trouble he'd gone through to arrange his leave of absence. And as he did so, he remained exquisitely aware of Jahir: sleeping on the bunk beside him, consenting to eat in silence, sitting alongside a window, watching the stars smear past in Well. As he'd told Sehvi, the mindline urged him to wait... so he did.
The first touch of Seersana's light on Jahir's face was benediction—and shame. To have returned so swiftly, and for what felt like so little cause, and yet so much cause.... Jahir looked up at the sky, then suffered himself to be led back to where he'd come. Once they'd reached campus, Vasiht'h said, "I thought I'd go look for a place for us to stay, since our apartment from last semester's been taken."
"I had forgotten," Jahir murmured. "That it would be so."
"It's not important," Vasiht'h said. "Do you want to come with me? Or..."
"I should begin to make arrangements for my schooling," Jahir said. Something in him flexed against the ice: a gnawing anxiety at how much he had put on Vasiht'h's shoulders. "It is not too much trouble?"
Vasiht'h's small smile felt like the first pale hint of dawn. "Not at all. I'll bring back some brochures, you'll see. I'll meet you at Tea and Cinnamon in the afternoon. All right?"
"All right," Jahir said, bowing his head.
Left alone, he contemplated the sky a little longer, acknowledged the ease of standing on the surface of a world that did not want to crush him quite so badly... bowed his head to the grinding ache that remained in raxed muscles and worn joints. It would pass, but for now it remained, along with his other responsibilities. He checked his data tablet for office hours and set off. To put it off would not make it easier, presenting himself to a man he admired as a failure after all that had been done on his behalf.
He had thought Kayla and Meekie's scrutiny had educated him sufficiently in the changes Selnor had wrought in him. He was wrong. Kindlesflame took one look at him and stood from behind his desk, eags flagging.
"I seem to have misplaced a little weight," he said, apologizing in response to that dismay.
Kindlesflame was silent a moment, then smiled faintly. "I suppose that's only to be expected if you're going to be a record-breaking medical hero."
"I... beg your pardon?" Jahir said.
The Tam-illee's brows lifted. "You are here, right?"
"I am," Jahir said. "Because they sent me away. For medical reasons, lest I
wear myself to the fineness of tissue."
Now KindlesFlame was staring at him. "Alet. They didn't send you away. They ended your residency period. The way they're supposed to when they're done with you." Seeing no sign of understanding, the Tam-illee said, "As in 'done and can graduate.' Didn't you read the evaluation Doctor Levine wrote you? You've earned your license. They said after everything you did during the klaidopin outbreak, you've earned it several times over."
His knees quivered, and he grasped the back of the chair facing KindlesFlame's desk. And then, to his everlasting astonishment, his eyes welled and a paroxysm of grief clenched him, and he wept: for all that made sense to him, and everything that didn't, and for the strain, and for the knowing that at last he could let it all go. When the spell passed he had somehow found his way into the chair and the Tam-illee was sitting across from him, close enough that their knees nearly touched.
"All out of your system?" KindlesFlame said kindly.
"I believe so." He gathered in a shaky breath. "How did you know?"
"I was one of your faculty advisors, you'll recall." The foxine smiled. "I was keeping track of you. Besides, I told you I knew someone on the residency application board at Mercy, didn't I? And I do. Grace and I have been friends for twelve years now."
"You know Levine?" Jahir asked, startled.
"Oh yes. And the letter she wrote you is better than any letter I've seen her write," KindlesFlame said. "She was very impressed with you. And not just because she got herself in trouble with you in the break room." He smiled crookedly at Jahir's sudden stillness. "Yes, she told me. That got me a Well-pushed real-time call even. She was falling all over herself with remorse."
"It was a difficult situation," Jahir murmured.
KindlesFlame snorted. "Your talent for understatement has only grown more acute in your absence, I see."
Mindline Page 22
