seven
■ ■ ■
Brothers, bear your burdens with a willing heart; lighten the darkness of the mines with the hope of love and home awaiting you. This is your reward for dutiful service to the One.
—Second Homily, The Book of the Second Prophet
Zahra had been fourteen when the first of her circle of friends was ceded. Nura’s husband was a minor official in Road Maintenance, and every Doma Day Nura and Zahra went to the homes of other such men, to visit with their wives and daughters. There were fifteen or sixteen families of their acquaintance, and the women and girls crowded into dayrooms much smaller than Kalen’s, happy to be together, delighted to be free for the day. They filled their hostesses’ modest homes to the brim with laughter and talk and the playful shrieking of children.
Nura was usually tired on those occasions. Her clinic list was a long one, farmers and laborers in addition to middle-class families from the Medah. She would lean her head back against her chair and watch the parties, sometimes even dozing. Zahra frequently left the chattering group of her friends to go to Nura, to be sure she had anything she might want, or if she slept, to slip a cushion beneath her neck or her feet.
Zahra and Kalen met when they were little girls, when Zahra was first apprenticed. They grew tall together, the two of them long-limbed and thin, towering awkwardly over their smaller companions. They would huddle together, bright red curls springing free of Kalen’s cap, heavy dark hair spilling out beneath Zahra’s drape. They spent countless Doma Days planning great adventures, vaguely hoping for the freedom to pursue them.
Zahra was brash in her confidence about the future. Was she not ceded to Nura, who loved her? No one, she declared, would tell her what to do with her life except Nura!
Kalen had no grounds on which to make such a claim, but she would exclaim fiercely, “1 will not marry! 1 will not!” and pound her fist on the tiled floor. At some level, they both knew the decision would not be hers, but with youthful optimism, they postponed understanding it.
Their round-faced friend Idora looked forward to her marriage with enthusiasm. She spoke endlessly about who would sew her wedding veil, how she would behave at her cession, and how large a house her husband would have, with how many servants. She promised that at her house they would eat the best fish and olives and citrus fruits, and trays and trays of sweet cakes.
Tiny Laila spoke of nothing but babies. Her toys were all dolls of various sizes and shapes. When the married women brought infants to their gatherings, Laila spent all the day holding them, cuddling them, sometimes sitting still for hours as one slept against her narrow chest, its round head warm and perspiring on the silk of her veil.
Those happy times were the stitches that sewed the long years of childhood together. The space between Doma Days seemed endless, the day itself short and vivid. From the time she was eight, when she put on the veil and went to live with Nura and her elderly husband Isak Issim, Zahra’s life was a blend of study, clinic experience, and close conversation or frantic play with Kalen, Idora, Laila, and shy Camilla. She imagined sometimes that her girlhood would go on forever, especially because, at fourteen, she had not yet begun her menses. She thought of herself as a child still, devoted to Nura, with Nura and Nura’s anah returning her affection. The days of her own career as a medicant seemed as far away as Irustan’s star.
Isak Issim was no more than a shadow in the background, a dry presence at dinner that meant she must wear her cap and drape, an occasional voice calling Nura away from their work together. Zahra could not remember him ever coming to the clinic, nor to Nura’s bedroom. Zahra gave him no thought for all the years of her apprenticeship. Not until the end, when she learned just how much power he had.
It was quiet Camilla who was first ceded in marriage. Her husband was Leman Bezay, newly promoted to be director of City Power. He was forty-six. Camilla, like Zahra, was fourteen. Camilla’s mother swelled with pride at the exalted match of her daughter with a director. Camilla herself, in Nura’s office for her cession exam, was weak with fear.Zahra had often assisted Nura in the examination of a young girl about to be married, but Camilla was the first she had known well. The others had been distant from her, strange, incomprehensibly marked by their fate. When Camilla came, Zahra could hardly meet her eyes. There was something awesome, something final about what was happening. There was an element of humiliation, an odd shame that Camilla should have so little control over what was to happen to her.
Zahra received Camilla and her mother and an aged uncle in the dispensary. She ushered her friend into the surgery, gaze averted. Both girls unbuttoned their rills when they were alone in the surgery, but there was none of their usual easy chatter. In silence, Zahra helped Camilla to sit on the exam bed. She picked up her portable and it prompted her with questions. She stood close to Camilla, but she stared at the screen.
“Age?” she asked. Her voice cracked and she flushed beneath her veil.
“Fourteen,” Camilla whispered in return. Zahra knew that already, of course, but she could hardly think. It was so soon, too soon for her friend to be crossing this line that separated the girl from the woman! Zahra’s heart beat fast and her mouth was dry. She knew of nothing to do but follow the form, adhere to procedure. It was a ritual in itself, this questioning.
“Menses at what age?”
Camillas eyes flashed up to hers, then away. “Twelve,” she said.
Zahra caught her breath. Twelve. This could have happened even sooner.
“And your genetic history?" Zahra was following the form to the letter, and they both knew it. It made everything easier, somehow. At this moment, Zahra was distanced from Camilla by the formality, the routine performance of her duty. She knew perfectly well Camilla had a clean genetic background. The whole file on her family was right there in the computer. They were all on Nura’s list, and Nura had even helped Camilla into the world—such a short, very short, time ago.
“No problems that I know of,” Camilla answered.
Their eyes met briefly then, Camilla’s gray ones wide and anxious. They were lovely eyes. They darkened and lightened with her moods. Only her friends knew the flashes of vivacity that sometimes made them sparkle with light like that of the little sprinkle of Irustan’s moons. Her skin was clear and white, her brown hair as fine as a baby’s. She wasn’t pretty, but better than pretty, they had always assured her, Zahra and Kalen and Idora and Laila. Her waist was small, her early-budding breasts rounded. Her fingers were long and fine. Zahra remembered saying to her once that she was one of those girls who would one day be a beautiful woman, graceful and soft, her narrow face filling out to match the arching nose that Camilla the adolescent deplored.
“Oh, Camilla,” Zahra murmured, her fingers poised unmoving above the glowing screen of the portable. “I will miss you so.”
Camilla’s eyes filled with tears and she hung her head. “I’m so scared, Zahra,” she said. “What—I don’t know how . . .” She shook her head, words failing.
Zahra gripped her friend’s hand. “Nura will tell you,” she murmured quickly. “I’ve heard her do it before. She’ll tell you what to do! Just ask her.”
Nura came in then, her wrinkled face stern but her hands gentle as she clasped Camilla’s shoulders. “Now, don’t cry,” she said. Zahra knew Nura, knew the compassion in the controlled monotone of her voice. She hoped Camilla could hear it.
Nura plumped the pillow and Camilla lay back with her head on it. Her eyes closed, and only one small tear escaped her. Zahra ran the scanner over her, watching the monitor with Nura. Camilla was perfectly healthy, every reading on the monitor within normal limits. The smallest syrinx of the medicator applied to her forefinger gave them a blood test which confirmed that there were no chromosomal shifts. Another tested her hormone levels, to assure that she was in fact menarchic.
Zahra held up her portable to Nura. “What about this one?”
For answer, Nura pointed to one of the frames on the monitor. “There,” she said softly. “That tells you the hymen is intact.” Zahra tapped in the answer.
Nura turned back to the girl on the bed. “Your babies should be perfectly healthy, Camilla,” she said evenly.
Zahra bit her lip. She couldn’t help wishing that there might actually be something wrong, something that would forestall this cataclysm of change. But of course there wasn’t. There was nothing she could input to the official form that would cause Leman Bezay to reject Camilla as his bride.
The last time the girls had all been together, Zahra and Kalen had played a riotous game of team touch against Camilla and Idora and Laila. Like rowdy children, they had raced up and down staircases, in and out of closets, hid in bathtubs and under beds. But next Doma Day, if Camilla’s husband allowed her to come, she would sit with the married women, sit still all day talking and sipping coffee. Zahra knew that none of them would feel like playing touch on that day, or maybe ever again.
Nura lifted Camilla to a sitting position and drew up a chair beside theexamining bed. Her expression didn’t change, but she placed her wrinkled hand on the girl’s smooth white one. “Now, Camilla, is there anything you want to know?”
Camillas eyes dropped to her lap, and she shook her head.
“Are you sure?” Nura pressed her. “This is the time. I’m your medicant, as well as . . There was a little pause, and Nura allowed the timbre of her voice to change, ever so slightly. “As well as your friend, little sister,” she said. “Have you and your mother talked?”
Camilla nodded, her lips trembling against each other.
“Perhaps, just the same,” Nura began, “I should describe to you what it might be like. ...”
Camilla interrupted her. “No, no! I already know—1 don’t want to talk about it!” She threw up her hands, looking as if she were about to cover her ears, but then she put her arms about herself instead, very tightly. Again she shook her head.
Nura sighed, one small ragged breath. Zahra stared at her. For Nura, these few signs were practically an emotional outburst. But the medicant only said, “Well. We’re all done, then, Camilla.” She held the girl’s arm as she climbed down from the exam bed. Rills were refastened, and then, all of them properly veiled, Nura led the way back to the dispensary where Camilla’s mother and her escort waited.
“Everything is in order,” Nura said to Camilla's mother. She took the portable from Zahra’s hand and inserted it into the desk unit. “Camilla’s report has been submitted to the registry. If Director Bezay has questions, he can ask them there.” Nura’s escort repeated these words to the uncle, who nodded stiffly.
Camilla’s mother embraced her daughter. “Oh, my dear, I’m so proud of you! That’s wonderful. Thank you, Medicant, thank you, Zahra. It’s wonderful, just marvelous.” She bustled out, drawing Camilla behind her. The uncle followed them out and ushered them into the hired car.
Zahra went to the door. She stood just beyond the shaft of hot light glaring against the tiles, and watched the car bear her friend away. She would not see Camilla again until she saw her through the white silk of her wedding veil. Hot tears burned her eyes. She wanted to call her back, call Camilla back to her, back to their childhood. It was so relentless, this change, so disregarding of their youth, their innocence, their helplessness.
She felt the tears spill from her eyes, and she stamped her foot. What’s the point of tears? she demanded of herself. They’re useless, childish. And I will not be helpless!
She set her jaw, and she made a silent vow. No more, she promised herself as she blinked the betraying tears away. I will shed no more tears.
That night, studying as always, Zahra began her secret search, her pursuit of a remedy. She was determined that if the day came that she must be ceded to some man, she, like Camilla, would also pass her exam without difficulty. But she, unlike her friend, would prepare for her marriage with all the knowledge and intelligence at her disposal. Nothing must be detectable, nothing the monitor could read. She would find the way. She had time alone in the surgery often enough. She would do it herself. Over her own body, at least, she would have some control.
■ ■ ■
Zahra remembered that night with great clarity, despite the intervening twenty years. She had been a young girl making a momentous decision, implementing it in secret. She had never regretted it.
Now, seated in the car beside Qadir as Diya drove them through the city, she mused in the privacy of her heavy veil. It was black today, as was her dress, carefully chosen by Lili to protect Zahra from the invasive glances of a thousand men. Never mind, thought Zahra, that any number of those men were on her patient list, having their exams and medicator treatments in her own surgery She could care for their bodies, but they mustn’t be allowed to look on her face. Qadir’s honor might be slighted, and they could be diverted from their sacred duty!
From time to time Qadir took advantage of the fact that his wife was a medicant to emphasize to the miners their need for frequent inhalation therapy. This afternoon they were to visit the eastern arm of the mines, where Omikron Team waited to be addressed by the chief director.
“It’s been a long time since any cases of leptokis disease have appeared,” Qadir had said the evening before. “These men are young, they think they’re invincible—they get careless.”
“And they fear the medicant’s surgery,” Zahra murmured.
Qadir smiled at her and patted her hand. “That’s why your help is so invaluable, my dear,” he told her. “It’s generous of you. No other director has this advantage. I could hardly take another man’s wife with me to speak to the teams, could I?”
Zahra did not say so, but she looked forward to these rare expeditions. The mines stretched in every direction away from the city like the outflung arms of a many-limbed beast. She treasured the opportunity to travel beyond the city, to see the great rolling reaches of the desert, inhabited only by puffers and fithi and a few scrawny, far-flying birds. Even the mines intrigued her. As Qadir helped her from the car she peered through her veil at the adit, neatly shored with curving walls of cement, that led straight into the rocky hill. She couldn’t see the crosscut tunnels, the raises that connected the deepest of them, the stopes where the raw rhodium was broken and mined, but she knew they were there. Fluorescent lights flickered vainly in the afternoon glare, but deep in the mines they were essential. A huge fan system labored above the adit, pumping in fresh air, pumping dangerous gases out. In the early years, the ESC had believed the fan ventilation would be enough.
What must it be like inside? She imagined it cool and dark, the walls textured with different kinds of rock, glimmering under the lights. Did the weight of the planet above bother the miners as they worked? The boys about to go to the mines were often frightened, but they seemed to overcome their fear soon enough, to take pride in their teams, in their squads.
They came to the mines at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, with the expectation of twenty-five years of labor along the buried veins of dull raw rhodium. There were fifteen teams of a thousand or more men, divided into squads that worked together, lived together, usually spent even their free hours together. Squad leaders reported to team leaders, who reported in their turn to the director of mines. Qadir IbSada had been a squad leader, then a team leader, singled out early by the ESC for a directorship. Zahra was sure he had not disappointed the ExtraSolar Corporation.
Zahra looked around her with avid curiosity greedy for anything new. The circled star logo was everywhere, on the half doors of the mining machines they called rock wagons, on the coveralls of the miners, on the doors of the low sandrite building that housed the offices of Omikron Team. On the roof of the building the array of multispectral scanners flashed with the star’s light. Zahra kept her head bent but tipped slightly to the side to allow her to look up at the machinery. She was not permitted to ask its purpose, but she had no need. She frequently used ultrasound in her surgery. It was easy to surmise the way in which the scanners located the scattered veins and cast images to Omikron Team’s computers.
Zahra smiled to herself, but it was a bitter smile. When one of these miners was in pain, crying out, or stoically enduring some injury, did they ever think to be grateful that their medicant was well-versed in the technology that would help them? But then, when their hurts were mended,they snatched that knowledge away, held it to themselves as some sort of obscure proof of their worth, their strength—their maleness.
This was a familiar tumble of thoughts—brooding, futile. Zahra sighed and looked away, out over the scorched hills.
Qadir, misunderstanding, put his hand under her arm. “Don’t be nervous, my dear,” he murmured. “You just talk to me, as always, and I’ll give your message to the men. There’s nothing for you to worry about, I promise.”
Zahra had to bite her lip to keep from laughing aloud.
■ ■ ■
The address by the chief director, with the medicant beside him, meant something of a holiday for Omikron Team. Behind the office building, in an open amphitheater between it and the processing plant, the miners filled rows of sandrite benches. Most of the benches were now shaded from the afternoon heat by the bulk of the building and a few scattered met-olives. Zahra, Qadir, and the Omikron Team leader walked around the side of the building as the men settled themselves with gusts of chatter and calls back and forth. In the back, where the benches were still in the light, the men stood; the stone was too hot to sit on.
Zahra scanned the miners from behind her veil. Above their heads, beyond the little amphitheater, the great disc of an enormous cooler revolved over the roof of the processing plant.
Dust powdered everything. The men’s faces were masked with it. Only their eyes and noses, which had been covered by the protective masks that now hung at their belts, were clean. The circles of paler skin around the eyes, contrasted with the dark dust of the mines, gave them an exotic look.
The men grew quiet as they caught sight of Zahra’s veiled figure. Qadir and the team leader stood with a secretary from the team leader’s office. Zahra stood at Qadir’s right hand, but a pace behind him, in his shadow. The team leader spoke first, introducing the chief director, making no reference whatsoever to Zahra. He leaned too close to the slender wand mike held by the secretary, and his voice boomed, echoing against the sandrite walls around them. When Qadir spoke into it, his voice was modulated, clear and carrying.
“Good afternoon, kiri,” he said. “All my staff have asked me to convey their congratulations to Omikron Team. Your production of pure metal in the last quarter topped eight thousand kilograms. Only one other team has a higher volume—Gamma Team—but Omikron also achieved the highest by-production of platinum of all fifteen teams. Every man of you . . .’’Qadir paused, smiling at the thousand faces turned his way. “Every man of Omikron Team will receive a fifty drakm bonus in his next pay.”
Qadir’s timing and delivery were perfect. A cheer went up, young men slapping each other on the back, standing briefly to raise open hands to Qadir. Qadir laughed into the wand mike, just a chuckle, but audible to everyone. “Now, men,” he said. “We expect you to save this bonus for some worthy purpose!”
There was general laughter. The Omikron Team leader watched Qadir with something like awe. Qadir waited, giving the men their moment, and spoke again just when the tide of laughter began to subside.
“Now, kiri,” he said. “I’ve come to speak to you on a serious subject.” The men fell silent, folding their arms, some leaning forward with their elbows on their knees. The shadows stretched farther over the stone benches, and some who were standing were able to take their seats. Still, the amphitheater was as hot as Cook’s kitchen before a great dinner. Zahra felt perspiration pooling under her drape, rolling in a slender stream down her back and over her ribs. Her verge seemed to stifle every breath. She blew it away from her lips, seeking fresher air.
Qadir spoke succinctly now, briskly. “The Second Prophet instructs us not to be diverted by matters of the body. I know you all study the Book, and follow your Simah in this. But the Second Prophet also reminds us that the mines are an Irustani’s sacred duty. You of Omikron Team are admirable in respecting that duty.”
Qadir let a small silence fall over the amphitheater. “It’s right and natural,” he said, “for a man to avoid the medicant’s surgery when he can. But to fulfill your duty to the mines, and to your team, you must—at least once every fourth quarter—take your inhalation therapy.”
The miners moved a little, shifting in their seats, not speaking. There was a rustle of coveralls against stone, a sliding of heavy boots on sand. Zahra fidgeted too. Perspiration dripped across her flanks.
Qadir spoke more quietly, with an air of intimacy. “Men, you know the rewards that wait for you when you complete your service. My own was marriage to a jewel of Irustan, a devoted wife, who is also a fine medicant respected by everyone in her care. Today she is with me, violating the seclusion that is her right, in order for us to emphasize the need for each of you to see your medicant on schedule.”
Zahra felt the pressure of a thousand pairs of eyes, looking at her, not seeing her, guessing at her face, her figure. Qadir turned to her, his brown face shiny with sweat, and murmured, “Ready.”
She took a half-step forward and tilted her head to Qadir’s. “Remind them of the maximum exposure.”
Qadir hesitated. “What is it?”
“The total of fumes and dust, measured by the mask, must not exceed one milligram per cubic meter. If there is exposure above that, extra treatment is necessary.”
Qadir turned back to the wand mike and repeated what she had said, word for word. When he added, “The medicant wishes you to remember that the therapy is not at all unpleasant,” there was a little uneasy sniggering among the miners.
Zahra murmured to Qadir, “The men in the processors should be particularly aware of the numbers.”
He turned to her, his brows raised.
“The platirig,” she said. “The evaporation releases more fumes. The mask calibration must be regularly checked, because heavy particulates disrupt the sensors.”
Qadir turned back to face the men. “The medicant is aware that men working in the processors must be especially careful. Watch the gauges on your masks, clear the dust from the filters, and adjust the calibration often.”
Two rows of miners looked at one another, and Qadir, sensing their discomfort, spoke quickly. “Any questions? Please feel free. We came just for this purpose.”
A man in the second row stood up. He was tall and strong-looking, clear-eyed. The large letters Theta Ro above the ESC logo on his coverall proclaimed him a squad leader. “I have a question, Chief Director,” he called in a firm voice.
Qadir nodded to him. “Squad Leader,” he said respectfully.
The Theta Ro leader gestured to the men seated around him. “We’ve been taught that there’s been no leptokis disease outbreak for more than thirty years,” the man said. “But if that’s the case, why do we still need treatment?”
Qadir said, “A moment, kir,” and bent his head to Zahra.
She whispered, “All humans, like all animals, carry the prion gene. It’s well-established that exposure to rhodium causes it to degenerate. The altered gene makes anyone, man or woman, fithi or fish, susceptible to the leptokis disease through inhalation.”
“Zahra, they prefer not hearing details,” Qadir murmured. “Can you simplify it?”
She paused. The eyes on her, on both of them, were expectant. There was so much she could teach them, so much these young and old men could know about themselves and the risks they faced. She could have seized the wand mike—a violation in itself—and explained the whole thing, as she had painstakingly learned it, as Ishi was learning it now. It was so clear in her mind: the thin, long string, a single molecule, that was the chromosome, the bright beads on the string that represented the genes. She could see the illustration in her mind as if she had reviewed it this morning, the locus shifting and darkening as the gene changed, making its bearer receptive to the prion, the proteinaceous infectious particle, produced by the small, dark leptokis that infested the mines, scuttling through the darkness.
The disease wasn’t unique to Irustan. Earth had several prion diseases in its past. One called kuru arose among aborigines who ceremonially ate bits of their own dead relatives. Earth sheep contracted a prion disease called scrapie from being fed supplements made of animal products. Zahra had read all the histories when she was no older than Ishi. The worst one, jovially dubbed Mad Cow disease, shocked scientists when they realized it had crossed the species barrier. That had been believed to be impossible. Now, of course, the leptokis disease, aided by rhodium degeneration, crossed the barrier unimpeded. It was a fascinating history, a challenging bit of study. And they didn’t want to hear it.
Zahra sighed. “Ask them, Qadir, if any of them have seen a leptokis in the tunnels.”
He did. At least half raised their hands and nodded.
“Then tell them," Zahra said, “that there have been isolated cases, some time ago, all caused by failure to wear the masks consistently, clean the filters, and take regular inhalation therapy. There has been no outbreak because the ESC has closely monitored these procedures.”
Qadir repeated her words. Zahra watched the Theta Ro squad leader listen to Qadir. He opened his mouth briefly as if to press for more information, but then evidently thought better of it. He touched his heart and called, “Thank you, Chief Director,” and sat down.
“Qadir,” Zahra murmured. “I know none of you wish to discuss it, but surely if they know the symptoms—the dementia, the discoordination— they’ll be more likely to follow the guidelines?”
Qadir’s lips twitched slightly, distastefully, but he nodded and turned back to the wand mike. “The medicant wishes each of you to understand how serious the leptokis disease can be. You’ve all heard rumors, of course.” He hesitated, and Zahra knew he was searching for the words—euphemisms—to express her message. “Whatever you’ve heard, men, remember— contracting the leptokis disease is the end of your work in the mines, the end of your dreams of rewards—it’s quick, and it’s fatal.”
Zahra folded her arms, feeling the dampness on the insides of her elbows, the prickling heat held close to her body by her drape. She had done her best, she told herself. If Qadir could not bring himself to use the words, then he couldn’t. He, as much as these other men, was a product of his upbringing.
There were one or two other questions for Qadir, none for Zahra. She stood silently, waiting, watching everything. Hot though she was, the outing, her brief freedom, was over too soon.
The car, at least, was cool. Diya drove once again, and Qadir sat with Zahra. She was still not at liberty to unbutton even her rill. Someone, some man, might see inside the car, and be diverted from his duty. And of course, Qadir IbSada’s honor would be compromised as well, should she show a sliver of flesh, a flash of eyes as the car passed by.
Qadir sat with his hands on his knees, his strong chin lifted as he watched the city glide past. He looked satisfied, content, safe in his shell of complacency. The urge to crack the shell was irresistible to Zahra.
“Qadir,” she said softly.
He turned to smile at her, eyebrows raised.
“Your men need to understand exactly what will happen if they ignore procedure.”
“But my dear,” Qadir said. “We made it quite clear to them, I think.”
“I don’t think so,” Zahra said mildly. “They should know what it’s like for the victims—falling down as if intoxicated, unable to recognize anyone, all muscle control gone ...”
Qadir stared at her. “Zahra, please! There’s no need to go over this!” She persisted. “In the end, a man loses control of his breathing, but even before that, his bowels.”
“Zahra!” Qadir exclaimed. His discomfort was palpable, and verged on anger. “That’s enough!”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry, Qadir, but it’s the truth.”
He turned away from her. His knuckles were white, and a muscle flexed convulsively under his jaw. Zahra was surprised by a twinge of remorse, and she put her hand over his and pressed it lightly. “Never mind,” she said. “I know you couldn’t say all those things to your men.”
He was silent for some moments. At length he turned his hand up to hers, and said, “You know, my dear, I thank the Maker for Ishi. You must sometimes need someone to talk with about . . . about such things.” He sat straighter, lifted his chin higher. “I have abundant responsibilities, Zahra, but tending to the body is not among them.”
Zahra watched his profile for a moment before she took her hand back into her own lap and turned away to watch the city sweeping past.
■ ■ ■
The alarm jarred Zahra from the deepest cycle of sleep, and she was dressed and on her way to the clinic almost before she knew she was awake. She trailed one hand against the wall for balance, mindful of the little sculptures, not wanting to stumble in the half-dark.
She and Ishi, with Lili and Asa, had returned late from Kalen’s, all of them yawning as they were driven down the dark avenue. Now the moons had risen. The streets outside were brighter than her dim corridor.
She made her way quickly down the back staircase, stopping to veil just before going into the clinic. As she stepped into the surgery, she saw Diya hunched on the stool, his back turned to the dividing screen, his face buried in his hands.
“Diya?” Zahra said. “Is it so bad?”
He straightened his shoulders and dropped his hands, but he wouldn’t turn. She pressed her lips together and went around the screen to see what awaited her there.
It was not so serious, perhaps, but it was messy. A young man lay on the exam bed, clutching a ragged cloth around his head and face. The rag was scarlet with his blood, and vivid spatters marked the white linen beneath him. A trail of droplets led from the dispensary, and his fingernails were outlined in rust, fresh blood still slipping over his hands. It was no wonder Diya had turned away in revulsion. Head wounds could be upsetting, even to those less tolerant than Diya.
Zahra bent over the man. “Kir? I’m the medicant. Can you tell me what happened?" Gently, she loosened his fingers and began to peel the soaked rag away from his face.
He let go of the bloody cloth all at once, and it fell in a sodden mess to the floor. Zahra winced at the sight of him. One of his eyes was swollen completely shut, and something had split the skin of his skull so that a jagged flap of skin and hair hung loose over his brow. It was this that bled so profusely, but his face was also lacerated, a long deep cut from cheek to chin. None of it looked life-threatening, but she wished Diya would help her. Asa would have. She would have to call Lili. She didn’t have enough hands to put all of this back together.
“I want to help you, Zahra.”
Zahra spun about. Ishi had come in behind her on silent small feet. She was veiled, rill open but verge buttoned, ready, as if she had done such a thing a dozen times.
“Ishi!” Zahra exclaimed. “I don’t think—”
She was interrupted by a sound from the injured man, and she glanced down at him. With his own soiled hands, moaning, he was trying to push the flap of his torn scalp back into place. A fresh gout of blood trickled down his face and he gagged.
“No, no, kir,” Zahra said quickly. “I’m going to do all of that for you, please lie still.”
She cast a quick glance at Ishi. The girl looked intent and concerned, but more interested than frightened. Zahra didn’t want her patient to lose any more blood. She decided quickly.
“Ishi,” she said, “you’re a blessing straight from the Maker. Hand me the master syrinx, all right?” She reached beneath the bed for a pair of sterile gloves. “Then sponges and a basin, and when this is cleaned up a bit, the surgical dome.”
Ishi put the master syrinx in her hand, then ducked under its long tube and went to the cupboard. Zahra spoke to the medicator, ordering pain medication and a sedative. She could worry later about what had happened—indeed, she could guess. He would not be the first young man to end Doma Day in a fight.
She glanced over her shoulder at the open door to the waiting room. No doubt one of his friends had swallowed his aversion long enough to bring him here, and now cowered in the dispensary, waiting for the medicant to make everything tidy again. There must be others involved. She hoped no one was hurt worse than her own patient.
Zahra sponged the wounds clean with her right hand, using her left to keep the oozing piece of scalp out of the way. She used one of the smaller syrinxes to spray regen evenly over the lacerations. The man’s moaning had already ceased, and the lid of his uninjured eye drooped sleepily as the medicator measured out the sedative. Ishi wheeled the surgical dome into place with deft movements, no awkwardness revealing that she had never done it before. Zahra nodded to her.
“Excellent, Ishi,” she said. “This would have been very difficult without you.”
Above her verge, Ishi’s eyes curved into smiling crescents. Zahra glanced at her from time to time as she began to suture the edges of the man’s torn skin. Ishi seemed not at all disconcerted by the blood and the mess. She watched closely as Zahra, her hands in the gauntlets, smoothed the skin into place and secured it with infinitesimal bursts from the radiant wand.
“How does that work?” Ishi asked.
Zahra regarded her own hands with new eyes, seeing them as Ishi must see them. “It’s actually a very simple principle,” she said. “In ancient times, on Earth, they would burn a wound to close its edges. Then they used thread, like Lili uses to mend your clothes. Doctors have used all kinds of things to seal the edges of wounds, absorbable sutures, even staples of various materials. The radiant wand uses tiny stitches of regen. The places we touch heal almost immediately, and the wound is held together. I could just use newskin, but this is better for the scalp because it doesn’t interfere with the hair. Our patients,” she added dryly, “are happier if they don’t have reminders of their visits to us.”
She surveyed her handiwork, lifting blood-crusted locks of hair to make certain the scalp wound was securely closed. Satisfied, she sprayed more regen over the scalp and the facial laceration. “Within twenty-four hours, the wound’s edges will be completely closed.”
“How does the regen work? Where do we get it?”
“Like so many things, Ishi, it comes from Earth. We haven’t the materials here to make it, or the knowledge. Regen is just short for ‘regeneration accelerator.’ It speeds the healing process by sort of nudging the immune response, not systemically—that is, throughout the whole body—but locally, at the point of contact. Microscopic bacteria, like little smart bugs, know just which parts of the tissues to talk to.”
“They must know so much on Earth,” Ishi breathed.
Zahra pulled her hands out of the gauntlets and moved the surgical dome away from the exam bed. She smiled at her apprentice as she stripped off her gloves and discarded them.
“Indeed they do,” she agreed. She moved to the sink to scrub her hands. “Perhaps someday we’ll know that much!”
Ishi’s small head tilted to look up at her. “I don’t know, Zahra. We have to do it all by ourselves, don’t we? That slows us down. On Earth, both men and women are doctors, so—”
Zahra quickly put her fingers over Ishi’s lips, and gave a sharp warning movement of her head. With her eyes she indicated the screen that hid Diya from their sight. Ishi’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Zahra smiled down at her, and caressed her forehead with her fingers. Barely audibly, she murmured, “Never mind.”
Zahra showed Ishi where the warm blankets were kept, and they smoothed one over their now-sleeping patient. Ishi, without being asked, crouched with a damp cloth to mop drops of blood from the floor. Zahra raised the bars at the sides of the bed, and then both she and Ishi went around the screen to where Diya drowsed on his stool.
“Did someone come with the patient?” Zahra asked. Her tone was sharp now, and Ishi glanced up at her in surprise. Diya stood up, rubbing his neck.
“In the waiting room,” he said, with a negligent jerk of his head toward the dispensary.
“All right. Let’s go see him,” Zahra said. She led the way, Diya following, Ishi trailing behind.
A disheveled man, no older than the one she had just treated, stood up. He avoided Zahra’s eyes. “How’s Ohannes?” he asked, looking at Diya.
Zahra said edgily, “Diya, please ask this man for information for my report to the chief director. I assume both these men”—she indicated the surgery—“are miners?”
Diya repeated the question.
“Yes,” the man answered.
“And will you ask him, Diya, what happened last night?”
Diya repeated her words again. The young miner had the grace to hang his head, and even to blush beneath his dirt. Zahra doubted he could be more than twenty or twenty-two.
“Well?” Diya asked.
“I’m—I’m sorry, Kir IbSada,” he mumbled. “We were having a drink, after the Doma rites. We were down in the Medah, you know, and there was a—” He broke off in utter embarrassment, eyes shifting from Diya to the street and back again. Zahra tapped her foot and waited, lips pressed together in exasperation. A gentle snore sounded from the surgery, and the miner looked up in alarm. “Is Ohannes all right?”
Diya repeated that, too.
“Diya, you may tell this man that his friend will recover,” Zahra said. “He’s sleeping now, and I still have a lot of cleaning up to do. . . She looked pointedly at the blood-spattered floor. “So if this man doesn’t mind?”
“Yes, yes, I’m—uh, there was a fight over a—um, a woman,” the young miner finished in a mumble, his eyes cast down. “Some of the street women—um, unveiled women—were working the place. There were only three of them, and about fifteen of us. A fight broke out, and somebody hit Ohannes with a broken bottle. I don’t know who the other fellows were.”
At this his eyes met Zahra’s directly, obstinately. She knew perfectly well that was one piece of information she would never get from him.
“Ask if any of the women were injured,” she said to Diya.
He stared at her, his thick lips pursed. “Surely you don’t expect me to ask that?”
Zahra glared at him. “Repeat my question, Diya.”
Diya said offhandedly, “The medicant wishes to know if the women were injured.”
The miner shrugged. “Who knows? They were only prostitutes!”
Diya didn’t bother to repeat the answer.
Zahra was suddenly exhausted, and she was sure Ishi must be, too, though the child stood straight, as tall as she could, right beside her. “Just get our patient’s name and his barracks number, and this man can go. I’ll keep Ohannes in the surgery overnight. Asa will call his squad leader in the morning.”
In a rush of relief, the young miner handed over the other man’s identity card to Diya. He nodded to them both, and backed out the door. Diya passed the card to Zahra.
“Call Asa for me, would you, Diya?” Zahra said, rubbing eyes wearily. “He’ll have to watch over our patient. There’s no danger, I just don’t want him waking alone in the surgery.”
Diya went to the desk and picked up the wavephone.
“And Diya,” Zahra added. She put her hands on her hips. He looked up at her with sullen eyes. “Don’t make me repeat my requests again. Ever. In my clinic, you do as you’re told.”
Diya turned his back on her as he spoke into the phone.
“Come on, Ishi,” Zahra said. She didn’t want to look at Diya anymore. She and Ishi went back to the surgery. Ishi stayed beside her as she bent over Ohannes, her hand on his wrist, her eyes scanning the monitor for anything untoward.
“He’ll be fine,” she whispered. “Let’s go to bed.”
Together they walked down the hall, through the small surgery, into the house. After the brilliance of the clinic lights, the hall was dim, the wall niches in shadow. They trudged up the stairs to their own room. Zahra helped Ishi into her bed, kissing her forehead and tucking her quilt around her, before she climbed into her own rumpled bed, shivering a little with fatigue. She drew the quilt up to her chin.
“Zahra?” Ishi murmured sleepily.
“Yes, Ishi.”
“I think some of us need to go to Earth, to study what Earth knows. Why should we have only what they send us?”
Zahra came up on her elbow and regarded her apprentice. The little moons made the bedroom a patchwork of creamy light and blue shadow, and Ishi’s small face gleamed faintly. “That’s a dangerous question, Ishi, and there’s no easy answer.”
“Why not?”
“Because our world is governed by the laws of the Second Prophet. Men can’t be medicants, and women can’t travel unescorted. To go to Earth to study would mean you’d have to have a husband to take you there, and he’d have to have permission from the directorate. You could get into a lot of trouble even asking for such a thing.”
“I know. But I’d like to go anyway,” Ishi said. She sighed, a tiny breath that trailed away into a yawn.
“You know, little sister,” Zahra answered, “so would I.” She looked out through the window into the deep starry sky, as if she could see past the moons and the stars, see all the way to Earth.
Earth. On Earth a woman could study, do research, use all her resources, explore many opportunities—and share her discoveries, her abilities, equally with men. Was there any place like it in the universe? Surely the paradise promised to the men by the Simah at Doma Day rites had no more delights to offer than did Earth itself. But such delights were out of the reach of an Irustani medicant.
Zahra heard Ishi’s breathing slow to an even rhythm, and she knew the child was asleep. She lay back on her pillow, still gazing at the stars, and whispered up into the moonlight, “Oh, yes, Ishi. So would I.”