Jaraidan days were shorter than standard, and the light, even at high noon, had a hazy quality that Dav was just getting used to. By sunset, the light was even more diffuse, and sometimes Dav needed to turn on the light on his helmet to see to do his work.

  He did not mind. If he had wanted to be only in familiar environments, he would not have joined PASS, the PanWorld Alliance Support Service, that had sent him to Jaraida less than a year earlier. Differences in light were to be expected when you traveled to different worlds. He would get used to Jaraida’s light sooner than he would get used to the crumbling walls, the thin air, and the people who avoided him.

  It was not sunset yet, but close, when Dav began the routine tests on the water in the last well on his list. There hadn’t been a contaminated well in Kyeros yet, but PASS didn’t want to wait until there was before they began testing. Elsewhere on Jaraida, water-borne poisons and disease had caused numerous deaths and possibly the loss of plant-life which had afflicted the planet in the past four years.

  The small courtyard where the well was located was separated only by crumbling walls from a larger courtyard or plaza. A few tiny green plants grew out of crevices around the well, but everything else was gray and bare of life.

  Once, he knew, the courtyard had overflowed with plants. Jaraida had been famous for its gardens, its courtyards, and the plant-covered stoneworks inside which the people lived.

  The people still lived in the stoneworks, but the vegetation covering these structures had all gone, a result of plant disease and a related failure of the Jaraidan air canopy. A series of blights and other seemingly natural disasters had destroyed most of the plant life around the planet, with the result that not only had the legendary gardens disappeared but the oxygen levels had gone below what was comfortable without an efficiency filter (EF) mask.

  Dav and most off-worlders had their EF masks attached to protective helmets or visors, but many Jaraidans, wore only a half-mask covering mouth and nose when they went outside—which, from what Dav had seen, was seldom.

  The only time you saw groups of Jaraidans outside the stoneworks was shortly after sunset, when many of the stoneworks were covered with a purplish fungal growth the local people called erthrop and which they collected for food. It was, Dav thought, a sad sight, since too many of those climbing and scrambling over the stoneworks were mere children, not always dressed for what they were doing, and too often without a proper mask.

  He had tried to befriend the children in the past, but they were wary of him. Even though he offered food and EF masks for those who needed them, the children would rarely have more to say than “hello” and “thank you.” He understood their fear of strangers, and he knew that if they were gathering erthrop they had to be quick, but it was frustrating that he could do nothing to earn their trust.

  *****

  Since it wasn’t yet sundown, he did not expect to see anyone, so Dav was surprised to see a slight figure climbing over a broken wall not far from where Dav was testing the water.

  A boy, Dav concluded as the kid jumped from the top of the wall down to the ground. He had an androgynous aura, but he wore a single braid down his back. On Jaraida, that signaled male.

  “Sey n'eco,” Dav called aloud in Arand, the local language he was fluent in. It was the equivalent of “Hello,” though it literally meant something like “glad for the day.”

  Dressed in a gray-brown garment that almost blended into the background and wearing a safety helmet as well as an EF mask, the lad was better outfitted for climbing around the stoneworks than most of the people who gathered erthrop. He was unusual also in that Dav could not sense any fear, only curiosity.

  “Sey n'eco,” said the boy, coming closer. Bundled as the child was, Dav could only guess at his age. Ten or twelve years standard maybe?

  “Are you testing the wells for contamination?” the boy asked.

  “Yes,” Dav replied, pleased that the boy would talk to him instead or running away. “All the wells I have tested so far are free of contamination.”

  “That is good,” the boy said, nodding. Not only was he unafraid, he seemed contained with none of the emotional leakage common in youngster his age. Dav guessed the kid might be a telepath or at least an empath. A lot of Jaraidans were. But what was he doing outside the stoneworks?

  “My name is Davnan Arteyn,” he said, projecting friendliness. “What's yours?”

  “I’m called Taasi,” said the boy after a moment of hesitation.

  Dav noticed the hesitation and that the boy had not offered a family name. Jaraidans used family names, so it was a deliberate omission.

  He was not going to push. That the kid was even talking to him was good enough.

  “Did you want to get water from this well?” he asked, stepping aside and gesturing to suggest the boy should go ahead. Even though the wells were supposed to have outlets inside the stoneworks, maybe the boy had a reason to want water directly from the outside source.

  The boy shook his head.

  “No. I was just bored inside the stoneworks and came outside to get some air. I was hoping it was time to gather erthrop, but I see it is too early.”

  “Are you hungry?” Dav asked. “I have food.”

  Another headshake.

  “I am one of the lucky ones,” he said. “I live with relatives that grow enough food to share. I just like to help the erthrop gatherers. Some of them are really little kids who shouldn’t be out here, but for me it’s fun.”

  “Sunset is not for another hour or so,” Dav said. “Do your relatives really grow enough food inside the stoneworks?”

  This was one of many questions Dav—and PASS—had about how the Jaraidans were managing when most of their agricultural land and the gardens around the stoneworks had been decimated by diseases, drought and in some areas, natural disasters. There were a few areas, mostly to the north, that still had plant growth, but around Kyeros the fields were bare and the stoneworks dusty stone.

  “My relatives,” began the boy, but he stopped, startled, looking up just as Dav heard the first rumble of some sort of an air vehicle, followed by red light flashing in the air. There were a series of booms, and the ground trembled.

  Automatically, from training as well as instinct, Dav fell to the ground in “turtle” position—his head and arms tucked in, his whole body protected by the electro-magnetic “shell” that he always wore in the field. As he did, he heard the boy cry out, but there was nothing he could do to protect the child, who though he had come closer, was still beyond the perimeter of Dav’s personal “shell.”

  He had to wait until the booms and flashes of red ended and the ground stopped trembling before he could do anything, even though he could sense not only Taasi’s pain but that of dozens of others. He had to block and channel as he coded a rescue alert through his aucomm.

  ?Probable terrorist attack,? he reported.

  It seemed too big for anything else. Shifting slightly from turtle position, he was able to catch flashes—no, more like streams—of red as well as tumbling rocks and masonry on his shoulder cam. And though he could block other people’s pain, he could not help hearing the cries. Taasi, however, seemed silent after his first cry.

  When the ground stopped trembling and there were no more flashes of red, Dav stood up quickly. Heaps of broken masonry stood where walls had been, and many surfaces were still glowing. He had a sense that the damage extended beyond the small courtyard where he had been testing the well water, but his focus was on the mound of debris now burying Taasi.

  He was relieved when he sensed out to find that Taasi was alive though in pain. The poor kid! He projected reassurance.

  “Taasi, can you hear me?” he asked aloud—but there was no answer. Still, the child was alive, his brain was active. Was it shock? Fear? Was the child putting all his energy on channeling away the pain?

  Dav stepped carefully towards the glowing pile of rubble, afraid that his footsteps might accidentally jolt something and hurt the boy worse. He hoped the rescue team would hurry, but he could not leave the boy just lying there until they did.

  Taasi might need immediate medical attention, he thought, reaching to lift a big chunk of masonry.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and held him back.

  “Not with those gloves,” said a woman dressed in much the same gray-brown protective coveralls and masked helmet as Taasi. You could not see her hair under her helmet, but her aura, as well as her voice and rounded figure suggested female.

  “There's a child in there,” Dav protested, though he knew she was right.

  It was careless of him to touch anything with only the gloves he had been wearing to test the water supply. They protected against environmental contaminants and disease, but not against rough things, heat, or corrosive elements.

  “We have shovels,” she said gesturing towards the two Jaraidan rescue workers, equipped with power shovels and a blower, who were a few steps behind her.

  Dav stepped back to let them work. He felt dazed and out of sync. It had been stupid of him not to pull on his safety gloves. He was not thinking clearly. Though he had been on several rescue operations since he had been assigned to the Jaraidan mission, this was the first time he had arrived before the incident occurred, the first attack on a stonework that he had witnessed.

  “Pull yourself together,” he admonished himself as he looked around and beyond the small courtyard that held the well. He could see utter devastation in the area on the other side of the courtyard. Most of the wall that had separated the small courtyard from the plaza next to it was gone and still glowing and sizzling red.

  The small courtyard he was in had only caught the edge of what he realized now had been a drattle attack. By whom? And why here? He had not witnessed drattle in use before. The orange-red substance which exploded when it touched earth and stone, burning skin and other organic matter until it lost its potency, was not something insurrectionists or anarchists could get hold of easily. It was a weapon of war.

  Not just the plaza but a section of the stonework had been hit. Some walls had collapsed completely. People were coming out through a jagged opening, some of them bleeding or glowing with the red-hot drattle residue which he knew from his medical training hurt deeply, worse than regular burns. How anyone knew what “worse” was in this context he had no idea, but he would have run to help the people as best he could if he had not seen that Jaraidan rescuers were already there.

  They had arrived on flitters and grandflits far more quickly than the PASS rescuers Dav had called. The flying vehicles were different models than the ones PASS would use, but they were no faster. This meant that they must be based closer, Dav thought, and wondered where, because there were no signs outside the stoneworks of landing strips or hangars. It seemed incredible that the Jaraidans would have vehicle storage and landing facilities inside the stoneworks, yet where else?

  He had been around the edges of the city, and all the gates into the stoneworks were too small for the flitters, never mind the grandflits. When a couple of trekkers—large land vehicles that could handle uncertain terrain—arrived, Dav was even more baffled about where the rescue vehicles could be stored. He set the questions aside for later, however. It was more important to notify the base that this was not an ordinary terrorist attack with a few phosphor bombs and fireballs. The use of drattle was serious.

  Over the aucomm, he urged the base to send a team prepared to deal with drattle-burn. Fortunately, the medicenter was well-equipped with jelly-cribs.

  Because there would be need to investigate the attack further, he took samples of the drattled masonry and other debris around him. It would be analyzed and the origin of the drattle might be determined by its composition.

  When he turned back to where they were digging Taasi out, he saw the child trying to move, which was encouraging. Even better, there was no red glow over the small awkwardly fallen body. The two men and the woman who had stopped him from digging with the wrong gloves were discussing something as they finished removing the debris and lifted Taasi onto a stretcher. He didn’t quite understand what they had been saying because they were speaking Mehland, the local language he was just learning.

  As he watched the woman kneeling next to the stretcher, gently straighten the child’s limbs, and remove the helmet and EF mask before fitting him with an O-mask that would supply pure oxygen, it came back to Dav that she had not addressed him in Arand or Mehland. She had spoken in Panlex. In the stress of the moment, he had answered in the same language—his language—without thinking. Now he thought about what the woman’s use of Panlex meant.

  It was unusual for Jaraidans to speak Panlex. Some spoke the more basic Alspik, developed as a lingua franca in the early days of the PanWorld Alliance, but Panlex, the chief language spoken in the major worlds of the Alliance, was not used in Jaraida. Despite its third-tier membership in the Alliance, the planet had remained somewhat isolated and insular. A local who spoke Panlex would almost certainly have studied off-world and would therefore be on the list of Jaraidans that PASS was trying to locate. He had to talk to the woman as soon as the child was taken care of, but for now, he just wanted to help.

  Dav knelt beside her.

  “I am a level 2 medic,” he said in Panlex, holding out his wrist so she could see the certification disk on his bracelet. If she had lived off-world she would know what it meant. “Let me help.”

  The woman, who had just placed a hand on the child’s neck as if feeling for a pulse, looked at him briefly and nodded.

  Though Taasi’s eyes were closed, Dav could sense that the kid was not unconscious just fighting against the pain. Then the child’s eyes opened briefly. Large eyes ringed with the dark eye-lashes that stood out from the pale face. In the Jaraidan dusk, it was hard to determine eye-color.

  “Mani,” he said to the woman. It meant “guardian” or “foster parent” in Arand and possibly other Jaraidan languages.

  “I’m here, enchkina,” the woman said in Arand. The word sounded like an endearment, but Dav had not heard it before.

  “You have been hurt, but you will be all right.”

  Taasi’s eyes fluttered shut again. The child seemed to be out of pain, which suggested the woman had done something to ease it. A psi-healer, Dav thought.

  Dav, who had been running the diagnostic wand over the child reported a broken right arm, multiple cracked ribs, and bruising to the liver and surrounding organs. The diagnostic wand also told him that Taasi, despite the single braid, was a girl.

  “I thought she was a boy,” Dav said.

  “She feels safer, when she is running off on her own, if she passes for a boy,” said the woman. “It isn’t really necessary, but…”

  She shrugged, setting the topic aside before she stood up and signaled the men who had dug Taasi out. When they each took an end of the stretcher she instructed they should take the girl to what she referred to, in Mehland, as “the infirmary.”

  When they were gone towards the grandflits that he guessed were ambulances, Dav addressed the woman in Panlex.

  “You must have lived off-world at some time,” he said.

  “I studied off-world for a while when I was younger,” she admitted.

  But she had no more to say to him than, “Thank you for coming to Taasi’s rescue,” before she turned and headed to where the ground was strewn with casualties. Dav would have liked to follow her and offer his help again, but he got a strong sense he would be unwelcome.

  *****

  While Dav had been watching Taasi’s rescue, more Jaraidan rescue teams had arrived and were busy dealing with the crisis. The vehicles they used were clearly outfitted for rescue, and the people in them knew what they were doing.

  Dav was impressed by how quickly and purposely they moved. A group sprayed the area with foam, directing the foam anywhere that showed the tale-tell sheen of drattle. They even foamed the people who were suffering drattle burns, an efficient way to stop the burning, even if the foam was probably not medical grade.

  Dav wanted to help, but when he offered, the Jaraidans made it clear he was “not needed, thank you.”

  None of the Jaraidans waiting for their own people to help them would let him use his diagnostic wand much less the healing wand on them. The best he could do was share what supplies he had in his hopper: a handful of EF masks which he distributed to some of the Jaraidans who had come out of the stonework without their own, some absorbent sponges that he handed to a few who were bleeding profusely, a jar of healing ointment that he gave a woman with a badly burned child.

  It was frustrating not to be allowed to help more. People were bleeding and struggling to breathe around him. He had medical training and diagnostic and healing equipment in his satchel but his help was dismissed. He was not even welcome to take the end of a stretcher, or run the healing wand over cuts and bruises.

  Until the PASS teams arrived, he was a lone “outworlder” pushing his way in where the Jaraidans claimed they had everything under control. Why were they so unwilling to accept help? He had experienced some of the reluctance of Jaraidans to be helped on earlier rescue missions, but it had seemed negligible because the PASS rescue team leader assigned tasks based on what needed doing. It was different when you were there from the beginning, saw overwhelming need, and were turned away from helping.

  The local people were amazingly organized and efficient, but Dav thought they could use more hands, more people to bring out the wounded, perform triage, save lives. Yet their message—unspoken as well as politely uttered aloud—was that his help was not wanted.

  The most useful thing he could do was record everything. He took samples of the debris for PASS scientists to test. He aimed his shoulder-cam around the scene, making sure every bit of the damage and suffering he was witnessing as well as the efficient work of the rescuers would be on the record. He made notes of what he observed, the injuries, the people affected, the damage to the built environment. He knew he was gathering useful data, and that was part of his job as a PASS agent, but it frustrated him that he could not do anything to relieve the immediate suffering—a suffering greater than he had expected because Jaraidan efficiency had shielded him from witnessing the worst.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  In the past, arriving after an explosion or other emergency, Dav had marveled at how there weren’t many serious casualties to take to the medicenter. He realized now that the Jaraidan rescue teams would have taken most of the worst injured to their infirmaries before PASS arrived. There were sometimes a few burn victims needing jelly-cribs, and some of the people who were being dug out of damaged structures might need serious care, but most of what PASS had to deal with was simple fractures, surface burns, cuts, bruises and contusions—little more than first aid.

  Being at an incident from the beginning showed Dav how much the Jaraidans were doing before PASS arrived. He made a note to advise the base to send rescuers more quickly, especially when, as in this instance, they received the alarm right away.

  *****

  When the Alliance team finally arrived and medics went to help the wounded. Dav joined them, falling into his usual role as a second-level medic and translator. Though his Mehland was poor, at least he somewhat spoke the language. The average PASS agent had only the basic Arand that they could learn from the AI modules, and only a handful of words in Mehland.

  With his fluency in Arand, which many of the local people at least understood, and his basic Mehland, Dav was in demand whenever there were communication difficulties. He was also kept busy as an emergency medic. His previous assignment had been to a world that suffered frequent earthquakes, so he had a lot of experience.

  He was cleaning wounds and applying the healing wand to a casualty when he was called to help translate for a bare-headed and unmasked woman who was loudly objecting to the medics even touching the child whose head she was cradling.

  “See if you can explain to this woman that we just want to help,” one of the medics said when Dav joined them. “The child is seriously injured and will die if she won’t let us see to him.”

  “And why aren’t they wearing proper EF masks?” demanded the other medic, whose hands had just been pushed away angrily when he attempted to put a pure oxygen mask on the child.

  Dav didn’t bother to explain to the medics that the woman and child had probably been inside the stonework and had time to grab EF masks before they had to leave the protected environment. It was possible to survive briefly at low oxygen levels and if the choice was between fire in the stonework and no fire outside, a lot of people would just escape without masks.

  The woman needed an EF mask now though, and the wounded child, desperately needed an O-mask as soon as possible.

  Dav spoke to the woman in his halting Mehland. “Don't be afraid. We want to help the child.”

  The woman's reply was too quick for Dav to get each word, but her meaning was clear. She would not let the medics near the child.

  “They will not hurt your child,” Dav said reassuringly in Mehland. The woman continued to refuse and screeched in protest when the medic with the O-mask held it over the little bruised and scratched face.

  “The child needs oxygen,” the medic said to Dav. “See how he is going gray, and his fingers. . .”

  Thinking quickly, Dav suggested, “Offer two e-filter masks to the mother and let’s see if she takes them.”

  “The boy needs an O-mask. An e-filter mask is not enough!” the medic protested. “Even then, I don't think the kid will make it without treatment. He has broken legs, and a crushed pelvis, from what we can see, and who knows what else, since the mother won’t let us scan, but imagine the internal damage. And look at that blood! We must get him to the medicenter ASAP.”

  The other medic, however, followed Dav’s suggestion and held out the EF masks to the mother, who took them gratefully, and promptly put one EF mask on the child and the other on herself.

  Taking a deep, breath, the woman nodded at the medics and said, “Inoi sheyai,” which Dav knew meant “thank you” in Mehland. Her gratitude encouraged him to squat down next to where she was holding the child.

  “The boy needs help,” he said as kindly as possible. “He may die without it.”

  The woman's response was angry. She said something about how she would not let “them” kill her cherished one.

  Dav wasn't sure if she meant she feared the Alliance medics might kill her child or whether she was alluding to the attack on the area and declaring her defiance against the attackers. Either way, she wasn't going to let the medics touch the child.

  He wished his command of Mehland were better. He could not discuss the child’s condition and the proposed treatment in in Mehland.

  “I know how worried you are,” he said slowly in Arand, projecting reassurance. “Your child is bleeding,” he went on, gesturing to the puddle of blood that was forming under the boy. “He may bleed to death if we don’t help him. I promise we will not hurt him. Let us at least diagnose what is wrong,” he pleaded.

  The woman’s eyes filled. She seemed to understand, but she still shook her head.

  “No,” she said. The word was essentially the same in Mehland and Arand.

  She hunched over the boy and stroked his head sadly.

  “Feit athen jari” said a woman's voice in Mehland. The tone was commanding.

  Dav turned. Standing a way behind him was the Jaraidan woman who spoke Panlex, Taasi’s guardian.

  The mother stared for a moment and then bowed slightly and pulled back a little.

  Still speaking Mehland, the woman repeated, “Feit athen jari” which Dav thought meant, “Let them look,” then added something about the Code and respect. The mother looked uncertain, but when the woman said something else that Dav couldn’t catch, the mother nodded acceptance, allowing Taasi’s guardian to take her place at the child’s head and moving to the side.

  “Give the boy an O-mask and attach a B-type inhalant restorative to it,” the woman said to the medics, speaking Panlex with the same tone of authority with which she had addressed the child’s mother.

  As they did so, she added, “The mother will let you scan, clean the outer wounds, and stabilize the broken limbs, but nothing else.”

  “He needs plasma now,” said one of the medics as they began the scan. “He will need a transfusion when we get him to the medicenter.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. It’s against his family’s religion,” the woman said firmly.

  “No IVs, no transfusions, or injections, no patches, no transdermals—any medication you give must be oral or a gas like the restorative added to the O-mask. And, of course, no skin-grafts, implants, transplants, or pins.”

  She had her hand on the boy’s forehead, and the mother seemed to be praying by her side. The child needed more than prayers.

  The medics asked Dav through the aucomm if the woman was serious.

  ? I am afraid so, ? Dav replied. ?I hadn’t heard of any problem with IVs, transdermals, and transfusions before, but you must have read about the prohibition against transplants and implants in the orientation materials on Jaraida. ?

  ? The kid will die, ? replied one of the medics.

  ? Are these people crazy? ? demanded the other.

  ?They rely on psi-healers, ? Dav said. He had explained it often enough in other cases that it came automatically, but he had never heard that they didn’t allow IVs, and was not sure what a psi-healer could do in this case.

  “Please tell the mother the extent of the injuries,” he asked Taasi’s guardian after the scan was finished and he’d listed the considerable injuries. “Ask her to allow more treatment. If we take him to the medicenter he might have a chance. I don’t know what we can do without plasma, but we will try.”

  “She won’t let you take him to the medicenter,” said the woman. “But he will be all right. All he needs from your people is to please keep giving him oxygen with the restorative until our healers can get to him.”

  “Couldn’t you just explain to her?” he insisted. He realized it was a long-shot, but he had to try. Maybe if the mother understood the seriousness and that her child’s only chance was to accept PASS help, she would relent.

  The woman shook her head.

  “She knows her son may die, but she will not consent to treatment at the medicenter. She is from a very conservative group. Treatment at the medicenter would be a sort of … sacrilege to her. If we insist, she will only get angry.”

  “Is she willing to see her child die rather than have us treat him?” demanded one of the medics.

  “Probably,” the woman said drily before she added, “but he won’t die.”

  “We have psi-healers,” she went on. “I am not a very good one, but I have already stopped the internal bleeding and reduced some of the swelling of injured organs. That’s all I can do for him, but there are much stronger healers among us who can save the boy. They are just busy right now.

  “You help us a lot by stabilizing him and keeping him comfortable,” she said to the baffled medics. “I am afraid that is all that you can do for now, but it is valuable.”

  She touched the woman’s shoulder reassuringly, murmured something that sounded like encouragement, rose and began to walk away. The woman, who had taken her son’s head on her lap again, looked at Taasi’s guardian gratefully. She did not seem as hopeless as before. The medic who was holding the diagnostic wand reported that the internal bleeding had stopped and the blood pressure was better.

  Dav did not stay to watch them do what they could for the boy. He wanted to talk to Taasi’s guardian.

  He caught up with her as she was answering a Jaraidan’s question about drattle burns, waited, and then followed her as she walked away. She glanced at him, tilting her masked face in a way that suggested she was aware of him and would listen to his questions, but she said nothing, just kept walking briskly.

  “I knew about the prohibition against transplants and implants,” he said as he kept up with her quick steps. “But IVs, patches, transdermals, even pins? This is new to me. How can we help your people effectively if we can’t use IVs and transdermals?”

  “You can in some cases,” she said. “Just not with everyone.”

  “Why some and not others?” he demanded.

  She stopped walking and was silent for a moment as if thinking.

  “There are different … sects,” she went on, hesitating slightly as if unsure of the right word. “That boy’s family belongs to the strictest.”

  After a pause, she went on. “The Code of Jaraida, like any other document, can be interpreted in different ways, and there are sects that form around those differences.

  “The basic prohibition is against inserting foreign objects inside the human body. To some of us, only transplants, implants and replacement parts are forbidden because they are permanent. The most open-minded will accept transfusions and calstone pins because they are absorbed by the body. On the other extreme, there are those who see anything that isn’t swallowed or breathed in, ‘a foreign object.’”

  “Are you saying IVs are accepted by some of your people?” he asked, hopefully. He knew that PASS medics had used IVs in the past. He did not want to think they had been violating a taboo each time.

  She nodded reassuringly.

  “Many families don’t object to IVs. Some of us believe that blood, plasma, saline, glucose, and other liquids that pass through an IV should count as food because they are assimilated by the body. However, there are those who object to plasma or blood transfusions specifically because of our prohibition against consuming warm-blooded animals.”

  She paused again. Although he could not see her eyes clearly behind the eye-shield of her helmet, he had the impression that she was rolling them. She probably knew that the blood and plasma used by the PASS medics was produced in a lab with no “warm-blooded animals” involved.

  “Most Jaraidans will also accept transdermals—even pressure shots—containing medication,” she went on. “But the strictest groups will only accept oral medication.”

  Suddenly impatient, she demanded, “Why doesn’t PASS have all this information already?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We should have it, but we don’t. A lot of information about your planet has been difficult if not impossible to access.”

  “How do you mean?” she asked, sounding not only impatient but annoyed.

  He didn’t blame the woman for sounding annoyed. PASS needed to understand and respect local customs and taboos, and their lack of access to Jaraidan sources was a poor excuse.

  He would have to do some extra research, and put together some information for the medics. As a cultural specialist, he needed to be on top of this sort of thing.

  Suddenly she seemed to let go of her annoyance. He could only see a vague outline of her face behind the EF mask, but he sensed she was smiling apologetically.

  “Sorry to be so cranky,” she said with a sigh. “There’s too much going wrong.” She shook her head as if to clear it.

  “We want to help,” he said. “It isn’t always easy because we don’t know enough and because your people don’t trust us.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “That is a problem. For you and for us. It is hard for the people here. So much has gone wrong, so unexpectedly—and it all seems to come from off-worlders. It is hard to trust.”

  Were off-worlders being blamed for insurgents and terrorists, he wondered? Or was it that the weapons used came from off-worlders? Many Jaraidans did not distinguish between PASS who had come to help and the neighboring planet, Kronval whose response to the crisis on Jaraida was to want to make it a Kron protectorate.

  “PASS is here to help,” he said.

  “That is appreciated, by those of us who know what your agency represents,” she said, almost formally.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Did you spend a long time off-world?”

  She shrugged, the momentary formality gone.

  “Long enough to learn Panlex anyway,” she said with a chuckle.

  Before he could ask anything else, she was called to help deal with someone who was having hysterics. Since he again got the feeling that he would not be welcome, he returned to his work with the PASS rescue teams.

  Much later, when it was just past sundown and the last casualties were being loaded on the ambulances, he saw Taasi’s guardian, standing alone, outlined by a greenish light from the gap in the stonework through which the people had been rescued.

  When he was close enough, he realized from her posture that she was probably telepathing. Jaraidans used psi for communication much the way he used the aucomm.

  Courteously, he waited until she was done and turned to him.

  “I wanted to ask if you had good news about Taasi,” he said, guessing that she would have checked on the status of her ward at some point.

  “She is fine, thanks,” the woman replied. “All healed and just needs a tenday or so to recover fully.”

  “That’s quick for broken bones,” he remarked. “I am not sure our psi-healers can do as much.”

  “If you will forgive my saying so, Alliance psi-healers are not well trained at all,” she replied.

  He thought she might be right, but that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

  “I wanted to ask if you have any suggestion for how we can determine what kind of treatment your people will accept from us—and how we can persuade them to at least let us look.”

  “I suppose you could ask them,” she said, as if it were obvious—and perhaps it was.

  “Reassure them that you will follow the Code, and ask whether they can accept the different treatments,” she went on.

  “Don’t even ask about transplants and implants. It will just frighten them. For those who your medics can’t heal without transplants or skin grafts or anything like that, tell them they need to go to the Jaraidan healers after you patch them up. The majority will trust you more if you emphasize that you are only doing basic things, not trying to practice Alliance medicine on them,” she finished with a chuckle.

  “Did you attend one of our medical schools when you went off-world?” he asked.

  “Briefly,” she said, turning to go. “A long time ago.”

  “You speak Panlex very well,” he said. “Almost like a Civvie.” It was the informal word for those who had grown in the so-called first loop of spinners.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I seem to have a knack for languages.”

  Most telempaths did, of course, but her command of Panlex was too idiomatic for it to be simply that.

  He followed her as she walked away from the foam-soaked area towards walls that were covered with erthrop and swarming with young people gathering the mushy stuff into string bags. It was sunset, after all.

  “I am Davnan Arteyn, by the way,” he introduced himself.

  “How do you do, Agent Arteyn,” inclining her head in acknowledgment, but not giving her name, though by both Jaraidan and Alliance custom she should have.

  “I was wondering,” he said after a pause. “If you would be interested in working with us? As an interpreter, but also a cultural consultant.”

  She shook her head.

  “Sorry, I cannot. I have too many other commitments. I am not even in Kyeros most of the time,” she added. “I am only passing through.”

  “We could use someone like you elsewhere on Jaraida,” he insisted. “We plan to set up more bases to offer humanitarian help. Where do you live?”

  She shook her head again, and made a “stop” gesture in universal sign language, communicating clearly that she didn’t want to discuss it further. It would be rude to insist.

  “PASS is here to help,” he said again, with a gesture of apology for having pushed.

  She nodded slightly and kept walking.

  Further on, before the wall to the right ended in a point connecting to another wall, there was a gate. He guessed the woman might be heading for the stonework gate, and he didn’t want her to go before he had talked to her some more.

  “What should we do when people are unconscious? How can we determine if they would accept our medical treatment?” he asked, returning to the earlier topic.

  She stopped for a moment as if she recognized the validity of the question.

  “Ask their families. If they have no family with them, call on one of our healers—or a priest.” she said.

  Anticipating his next question she said, “Healers and priests usually wear a tabard—a sort of sleeveless smock—over whatever else they are wearing. Yellow and red for most healers, dark green or reddish brown for priests.”

  He had noticed the sleeveless smocks, but “You are not wearing one,” he pointed out.

  “I was not in one of the rescue teams. I came to help Taasi, and just stayed on to help others,” she said with a shrug.

  He wanted to comment on how even without a tabard she had an air of authority and people came to her with questions, but he had a feeling she would not respond well to more comments or questions about herself, and they were very close to that gate. He wanted to engage her in conversation. She was the first Jaraidan he had come across so far who spoke Panlex fluently. She was making it clear that she did not want to engage in conversation, but so far she seemed willing to answer some questions.

  “The erthrop pickers are very busy this evening,” he said. Since they were always busy until they picked the walls clean, it was a stupid thing to say. He needed to do better.

  “PASS mycologists are fascinated by erthrop,” he went on. Would she be willing to discuss it?

  “It is the most highly nutritious mushroom found in any human world. And it didn’t appear on Jaraida until recently, didn’t it?”

  She did not stop walking, but she answered.

  “It was developed by some of our mycologists,” she said. “In response to the damage almost all our food crops suffered in the first sunaround after Nen Gruumiden.”

  Nen Grumiden, he knew, meant “The Troubles.” It was how Jaraidans referred to the time since their capital city had exploded in a horrendous energy-mill failure, and everything else had begun to go wrong for their world.

  “Your people developed it?” he asked. It was what Alliance scientists suspected, but there were lots of questions about how it had been done—and so quickly.

  “Yes,” she said, still walking towards the gate.

  He was trying to think of another question when she stopped and turned to face him.

  “You should head back to your hopper,” she said gesturing towards the area they had left. “There is no need for you to be here.”

  “I have questions for you,” he said frankly.

  She shook her head.

  “I need to go,” she said, beginning to move again.

  Searching for something to say to keep her talking, the best he could do was to ask, “Can you at least tell me the name of the stonework that was attacked?” It was not an important question, but he did want to know.

  “That was the Isol stonework, ‘Ishol’ in Mehland,” she said, giving both the standard and the local pronunciations.

  Both her tone and her aura conveyed slight surprise. Did she expect him to know the names of the stoneworks PASS was not allowed to enter?

  So far, he knew only the name and location of the Omik stonework, which was the only one open to off-worlders. He had heard the names of others but he couldn’t place them on the rather blobby picture PASS had of Kyeros. From the outside, it was hard to tell where one stonework began and the next one ended. Still, he had the feeling that they were no longer next to the Isol stonework.

  She went on walking, but not as briskly as she had before. She had a strong shield so he could not guess her feelings, but here aura was thoughtful. She did not suggest again that he should go back to his vehicle.

  When, after the wall curved slightly, and had a few bumps before continuing at an angle towards another wall with a big gate. He wondered if this was another stonework and asked about it.

  “You’re right,” she said, with a hint of approval.

  “That is the Varin stonework,” she said.

  “And over there?” he asked pointing to their left across a large empty space that might once have been a landock for vehicles.

  “That’s the Adeni stonework,” she said. “Doesn’t PASS have a plan of the city?”

  “If we do, I haven’t seen it. And the only stonework we are allowed to enter is the Omik.”

  She nodded as if she understood.

  “I didn’t even know there was an Adeni stonework in Kyeros,” he went on. “Do many Adeni live here?”

  “Some,” she said with a shrug and began to walk briskly again.

  Concerned that she was headed towards the gate, Dav hurried to ask, “Do you know Gin’va Adeni? She graduated from the PanWorlds Academy.”

  “I am not at liberty to discuss the Tavi,” she said crisply, allowing annoyance to show.

  “Her friends want to know if Gin’va Adeni is still alive,” he said, though he knew there was much more than that involved.

  The Tavi were the leading families of Jaraida, the aristocrats. PASS was very interested in these families, powerful psions who traditionally had roles of leadership on the planet. One of the families, the Thusals, produced the head of state, the Ciardei. One of the main things Dav was supposed to do was gather as much information as possible about the Ciardei. Another was to try to locate Gin’va Adeni, the only Jaraidan to graduate from the Academy. If they could locate her, the hope was that she would collaborate, provide information, maybe serve as a liaison to her people.

  The woman did not reply right away, or slow her steps.

  She is alive,” the woman said eventually. “That is all I can tell you.”

  Hearing the finality in her voice, he asked a different question.

  “Do you know why the Isol stonework was attacked? And by whom?”

  He doubted she knew, but he wanted to keep her talking.

  “‘By whom’ is easy,” she said with a bitter laugh. “Those were Kron drones; couldn’t you tell?”

  Dav had not noticed, but she sounded sure. He would confirm with his shoulder cam recordings when he got back to base. Meanwhile, she had stopped walking, which was what he’d hoped.

  “You think it was the Kron?” he asked. “I know they are rumored to support some of the insurgent groups with the goal of finding an excuse to declare a protectorate, but would they openly send their drones to drattle civilians? It will raise some awkward questions at the Alliance Congress.”

  “It should!” she said angrily, stopping to face him. “There are no ‘insurgents.’ There is no ‘rebellion.’ No ‘terrorists’ either.”

  Before he could say anything, she went on, “Most of what has been happening on Jaraida for the past four years is the responsibility of the Kron, who want to use the alleged unrest on our world as an excuse to take over the way they took over Kib?. The Congress should ask some questions, beginning with what Kronval is doing on Jaraida, and how drattle—a military weapon—is being used against our people.”

  “Part of PASS’s mission on Jaraida is to investigate Kron involvement in all this,” he said. “And there will be a report to the Congress about this incident. We have recordings, and I have gathered samples of what was used to be analyzed.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” she said, her tone cool, detached, almost as if she didn’t believe him.

  He could understand that she was skeptical that the Alliance would do anything. He could anticipate what would happen, because it had happened before.

  When Dav’s report about the use of Kron drones and weapons used against civilians on Kyeros went through, the Kron would reply—as they had on similar occasions in the past—that the drones had been purchased by what Kron traders had believed were peaceful groups, and that Kronval knew nothing about the drattle which must be some black-market purchase unconnected to them.

  “We will raise the questions, but we need more than circumstantial evidence and suppositions. We need data, proof of a definite Kron connection. Can you help with that? Do you know anyone who can?” he asked.

  She did not reply. Indeed, for a moment he could not sense her at all, it was as if she weren’t there, except he could see her. Again, she made the wordless gesture for “stop” which, as a civilized person, Dav had to respect. She began walking again.

  “Do you know why they attacked the Isol stonework and not another— the Varin stonework, for instance?” he asked, going back to the other part of his question.

  The question seemed to interest her because she stopped again.

  “It could just be chance, or they may have known that the outer walls on that part of the stonework are not all made of dreka,” she replied thoughtfully. “There was nothing special about the Isol stonework otherwise.”

  “Is dreka strong enough to resist a drattle attack?” he asked, making a note to himself to research more about the construction of the stoneworks.

  “Dreka is strong enough to resist almost anything,” she said. “Even when the Thualat energy mill exploded, most of the dreka walls held. It was the roof-cover and the walls made of other materials that completely collapsed.”

  Dav had not heard that. A quick search on the infi showed it was not on the record. He made another note. She was a fount of information.

  “You are telling me things that I didn’t know,” he said. “Things that PASS would find useful to know. I will not ask you again that you work with us, but would you be willing to come to the base one day, just so you can answer questions and let us expand our records?”

  The woman shook her head one more time.

  “What is wrong with the infi?” she asked in a puzzled tone.

  Dav was going to point out that when the Jaraidan locnet had collapsed, the infinet lost access to most Jaraidan records, but before he could speak he saw her turning away and begin to walk again, closer to the wall but still in the direction of the gate.

  “I have to go,” she said, when he began to follow.

  “Wait,” he said again. “I still don't know your name.”

  She stopped, but she didn’t turn towards him. Instead, she put her hand on the stonework wall, and looked over her shoulder as she replied.

  “You do not need it.”

  To Dav’s amazement, the wall opened like a curtain, and closed behind her as soon as she was through. When Dav touched the wall, it seemed solid. If he had not seen it, Dav would not have believed there was a door there.

  Languages in This Novel (For those who Care)

  Panlex and Alspik. Panlex is a fully developed, complex language that is spoken in some form on most "First Loop" or "Civvie" worlds. Alspik is a pidgin that came from simplifying Panlex and combining with different local languages. For the purposes of this novel, Panlex and Alspik are all rendered in some form of (mostly American) English.

  Arand is the main language. It is spoken throughout the continents of Jaasin and Daasin. (There should be an accent mark over the second "a" in these words, but I can't figure out how to insert it.) Mehland is spoken in North and South Mehlin. For most Jaraidans, Jarand is a ceremonial language. They only know it in its ancient forms. However, for the Tavi and some Atanavi, it is a living language that they learn as children.