You fight dirty.
You bet I do.
I’m not giving up.
You’ve been warned. No more silent treatment.
We thought of other things then, things that didn’t hurt. Like where we would send the Seeker. Mel was all for the Mists Planet after my story tonight, but I thought the Planet of the Flowers would be more fitting. There wasn’t a mellower planet in the universe. The Seeker needed a nice long lifetime eating sunshine.
We thought of my memories, the pretty ones. The ice castles and the night music and the colored suns. They were like fairytales to her. And she told me fairytales, too. Glass slippers, poisoned apples, mermaids who wanted to have souls…
Of course, we didn’t have time to tell many stories.
They all returned together. Jared had come back through the main entrance. It had taken so very little time—perhaps he’d just driven the jeep around to the north side and hidden it under the overhang there. In a hurry.
I heard their voices coming, subdued, serious, low, and knew from their tone that the Seeker was with them. Knew that the time had come for the first stage of my death.
No.
Pay attention. You’re going to have to help them do this when I’m —
No!
But she wasn’t protesting my instruction, just the conclusion of my thought.
Jared was the one who carried the Seeker into the room. He came first, the others behind. Aaron and Brandt both had the guns ready—in case she was only feigning unconsciousness, perhaps, and about to jump up and attack them with her tiny hands. Jeb and Doc came last, and I knew Jeb’s canny eyes would be on my face. How much had he figured out already with his crazy, insightful shrewdness?
I kept myself focused on the task at hand.
Jared laid the Seeker’s inert form on the cot with exceptional gentleness. This might have bothered me before, but now it touched me. I understood that he did this for me, wishing that he could have treated me this way in the beginning.
“Doc, where’s the No Pain?”
“I’ll get it for you,” he murmured.
I stared at the Seeker’s face while I waited, wondering what it would look like when her host was free. Would anything be left? Would the host be empty or would the rightful owner reassert herself? Would the face be less repugnant to me when another awareness looked out of those eyes?
“Here you go.” Doc put the canister in my hand.
“Thanks.”
I pulled out one thin tissue square and handed the container back to him.
I found myself reluctant to touch the Seeker, but I made my hands move swiftly and purposefully as I pulled her chin down and put the No Pain on her tongue. Her face was very small—it made my hands feel big. Her tiny size always threw me off. It seemed so inappropriate.
I closed her mouth again. It was moist—the medicine would dissolve quickly.
“Jared, could you please roll her onto her stomach?” I asked.
He did as I asked—again, gently. Just then, the propane lantern flared to life. The cave was suddenly bright, almost like daylight. I glanced up instinctively and saw that Doc had covered the big holes in the roof with tarps to keep our light from escaping. He’d done a lot of preparation in our absence.
It was very quiet. I could hear the Seeker breathing evenly in and out. I could hear the faster, tenser breathing of the men in the room with me. Someone shifted from one foot to the other, and sand ground against rock under his heel. Their stares had a physical weight on my skin.
I swallowed, hoping I could keep my voice normal. “Doc, I need Heal, Clean, Seal, and Smooth.”
“Right here.”
I brushed the Seeker’s coarse black hair out of the way, exposing the little pink line at the base of her skull. I stared at her olive tan skin and hesitated.
“Would you cut, Doc? I don’t… I don’t want to.”
“No problem, Wanda.”
I saw only his hands as he came to stand across from me. He set a little row of white cylinders on the cot next to the Seeker’s shoulder. The scalpel winked in the bright light, flashing across my face.
“Hold her hair out of the way.”
I used both hands to clear her neck.
“Wish I could scrub up,” Doc muttered to himself, obviously feeling underprepared.
“It’s not really necessary. We have Clean.”
“I know.” He sighed. What he really wanted was the routine, the mental cleansing that the old habits had given him.
“How much room do you need?” he asked, hesitating with the point of the blade an inch from her skin.
I could feel the heat of the other bodies behind me, squeezing in to get a better view. They were careful not to touch either of us.
“Just the length of the scar. That will be enough.”
This didn’t seem like enough to him. “You sure?”
“Yes. Oh, wait!”
Doc pulled back.
I realized I was doing this all backward. I was no Healer. I wasn’t cut out for this. My hands were shaking. I couldn’t seem to look away from the Seeker’s body.
“Jared, could you get one of those tanks for me?”
“Of course.”
I heard him walk the few steps away, heard the dull, metallic clunk of the tank he chose knocking against the others.
“What now?”
“There’s a circle on top of the lid. Press it in.”
I heard the low hum of the cryotank as it powered on. The men muttered and shuffled their feet, moving away from it.
“Okay, on the side there should be a switch… more like a dial, actually. Can you see it?”
“Yes.”