Fish Tails (90 page)

“Does anyone know of something I can get into his blood that will make him sleep? I can put it in from where I'm working right now. I can put him to sleep myself, but he'll struggle against it, so I'd have to sit right beside him for hours and it's very tiring and there's only one of me, so something material rather than mental would be more reliable . . .”

The clinking of bottles drew her attention to Needly, who had not left the room this time but was shuffling beneath her skirts
. Which was evidently where she carried them? What an assortment!
No matter. “Oh, Needly, thank you. Now, what's in this? Poppy, right? I know about that. We have that on Lom, from seeds brought from Earth originally. And there's no other ingredient? And no liquid but clean water?”

“Distilled water,” muttered Grandma.

“Perfect, Grandma. You made this? Well then, you know the efficacy of your materials. This is going to go directly from the wound into his bloodstream a tiny, tiny bit at a time. Will you decide how much would be needed to keep someone his size asleep for several hours if given as an injection rather than by mouth? Better yet, if possible, is there a dose we can give him safely that will keep him asleep for up to a day or so? If that would be too much all at once, we can do a series of doses, whatever we can do most safely. Measure the largest safe dose, then put a little bit of it in a very clean little spoon. We'll need to dilute that, will we not?”

There was a scurry as Mother went to fetch a spoon and, from a neighboring room, a slender glass cylinder obviously made to be used for measurement. There was a quick discussion of using boiled water to dilute the poppy juice. Jinian volunteered to purify the water and did so by murmuring at the cylinder. The water moved into two distinguishable layers, and the bottom bit pretended to be a solid while Jinian poured off the purified top. Arakny handed Grandma a clean towel on which to polish various items. Grandma received this with a nod of thanks, and she, Silkhands, and Needly muttered together. The antidote would be needed to de-­rock the veins while Silkhands moved the blood. Needly poured some of the solution into the glass; Grandma regarded it thoughtfully, gave Willum a calculating look, added a few drops more before transferring some of the liquid into the small spoon.

Silkhands murmured, “Needly, you have a steady hand, will you drip it in slowly, just drop by drop as I ask for it? It will take a while. I won't ask for another drop until I've got the last one moved, and I have to wait for each drop to undo the rock ahead of it before I can move on . . .”

Needly, at Silkhand's nod, dripped one drop at a time into the wound, with long, breathless pauses between.

After what seemed an eternity during which not one of the women in the room spoke or even seemed to breathe (later, Needly was inclined to think this had been a miracle), Silkhands murmured, “Good, let me move some blood in the nearest veins to pull it in through the capillaries and spread that around. Now I want antidote on him, right here where my hand is, so I can get the stone out of the heart. I don't dare try to get it pumping yet; it would be pushing against stone. Better I just move it a tiny bit at a time. It is interesting that once in the vein, the antidote continues to work, removing the stone in front of it. This is going to take a while. I wonder. Considering how the stuff works, let's put quite a bit of the antidote right here, under my hand, and let me see how far I can get it into him. Hmm. That works, it seeps down by gravity, unlocking the flesh as it goes.
Still a little stiff
. I need to push it down farther, just a drop or two more of antidote. Thank you, Needly. Can you and Grandma start at his arms and legs, working down from shoulders and hips, putting the antidote on your hands? His pajama legs are full, just push them up to the hip joint and work down from there. Let's do it as quickly as we can. Think of invisible fingers pushing each dose down into him and then spreading outward. Good. Now that the first dose in the wound is fully dispersed, we need to do the same thing with the next dose, still from the wound directly into the blood.”

The room was utterly silent; ­people seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. After what seemed a silent eternity, Silkhands took a deep, aching breath. “Good. Now he is not going to bleed into the wound. I should have asked before: were there other injuries? I didn't feel any, but there might have been something minor? Good. Now we need not use any more of the antidote. There's enough antidote in the blood that as the blood liquefies, it moves the antidote with it, changing what little stone is left. Right now I'm pushing it. Can't start the heart until it can pump freely. We can let more of it penetrate from outside. Let us turn him over and push a bit more of the antidote into and onto him and get all of him back to flesh.”

In a few moments the contorted arm relaxed. A collective sigh came from the whole room, long-­held breath expelled. Then the legs straightened, and finally the twisted body relaxed. By that time, Willum was in what appeared to be a sound sleep on a blanket in front of the fire, still warming up. A bandage had been wound around his chest, covering the two wounds. He was lying on his back, a pillow under his head, another under his knees. Needly was sitting next to him, wiping tears from her eyes and hoping. From across the room, Abasio could see a pulse beating in the boy's neck. Silkhands had his heart beating.

She said, “If there's any little area of stone left, the antidote in the blood will dissolve it. I'm amazed that the stuff seems to be totally benign. The body accepts it as though it were natural to it.”

Grandma said, “Wouldn't be much good if it couldn't bring life back, would it? Wouldn't deserve the title? The two work together, stone and un-­stone. Like they hold a person's body between two healing hands.”

Silkhands smiled. Yes, they did indeed do that. She very much wanted to learn the constituents of both the stone medicine and its antidote. And
she very much wanted seeds to plant when she got back to Lom. ­People too wounded to treat could be held in stone until one had the right ­people to work on them!
She went to sit next to Fixit, her hands on one of its arms, her senses deep inside it (which tan did not feel), explaining how those with the healing talent had worked on Lom. Perhaps it could assure that the healing talent, at least, would continue.

“It may have been given by Ganver, but there at the end you weren't using anything but yourself,” Fixit said quietly. “Ganver told me about the talents he had given originally. They bear his finger, his . . . signature, one might say. His . . . flavor. They are recognizable. Yours was only you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I think all the talent did was just show me how. Perhaps the ability exists in a good many ­people, and proper training might well let them use it. And I'm wondering if other talents—­Mavin's, for instance—­might not be the same.”

“I wish I could duplicate the Ganver person,” the galactic officer lamented, almost in a whisper. “Such an original thinker. That geographical chemical feedback system it had, making the area where ­people live behave like a body with various organs. Unfortunately it kept everything a bit too placid; the world body wasn't prepared for trauma. It hadn't developed any defenses. Tell me, was fixing this boy your reason for coming?”
Fixit knew very well what the reason had been for the three women's coming. Now the log had to be informed as well. Verisimilitude.
“
See, see, the galactic officer had no prior knowledge at all. None.”

Silkhands yawned, shaking her head slowly, her neck reluctant to move from its concentrated rigidity. “No. We weren't told of the boy originally; his injury was something that happened more recently, and we only heard about it when we were almost here. Our reason for coming had to do more with the flooding situation and some unforeseen problems it had caused with other creatures. Particularly the threat it posed to the Griffins. Jinian can tell you if you'd like to hear more about it.”

It gave her a puzzled look, then bowed in Jinian's direction, saying, “Perhaps I need more of the background, yes.”
As though he did not know the background from one end to the other!

Jinian held out her cup. It was refilled. “Do you know how reproduction takes place on Lom?”

Fixit's mouth dropped open. Of all the . . . Well, no. Self honestly didn't. And what had that to do with . . .  ? Self shook tan's head at her, a very recently acquired human gesture.

“Well then, you do need more of the background, Fixit.” She settled herself to speak.

“You've described Ganver as a world spirit, for that part of the world it controlled. I knew Ganver. Ganver took an interest in me, tried to educate me, tried to help me understand what was going on, and it talked to me of bao.

“At that time I had no idea what ‘having a child' meant to the Eesty race. It takes five individual Eesties to create a new life, one of each of the five genders. The act itself is called ‘a gathering of perfection.' During that act, or one might better say ‘ceremony'—­it's as much spiritual as physical—­one of the five participants dies . . . or rather, gives up its life. One life is given to create one or two new ones: there's usually only one new life, but sometimes the new life splits into two during the ceremony, resulting in nonidentical twins . Almost always, the Eesty that dies has already lived a long, complete life and is willing to take part in a ‘gathering' because its own life is no longer rewarding. The ceremony is performed only among deeply sincere friends—­their meaning of ‘sincere' includes a whole lexicon of positive emotions. Love, respect, honor. It is noteworthy that Eesties incapable of these feelings can never achieve a ‘gathering.' A
bad
Eesty cannot reproduce itself.

“Given this sacrifice on the part of one participant, each new life is deeply freighted with all kinds of generous, loving associations. To have the new life betray everything the ‘gathering' stood for, to denigrate the life that was given, is almost unknown and would be deeply traumatic, particularly for the four surviving gatherers. This betrayal is what Ganver's child did, and Ganver blamed mankind for it to such an extent that he approved—­that is, Lom approved the wiping out of mankind.”

“So, Ganver is assisting to open wormhole to bottom of Earth's ocean,” Fixit mused. “But Lom didn't know there were creatures here that live for a thousand years or more as well as speaking animals who are also self-­aware.”

Abasio nodded. “But the Griffins soon let it be known.”

“That is true. And Ganver heard it,” Fixit replied. “Ganver realized if the Griffins were going to adapt, they'd have to do it in a way that could happen all at once.”

“Didn't I say so!” Abasio reached out to Xulai. “That's exactly what I said!”

Xulai laid her hand on his. “Yes, you did, dear. Is that what's going to happen?”

Fixit went on: “Ganver had, itself, created a life-­form that could change, all at once. It was known as a shapeshifter.”

“Ganver consulted some of us hated mankinds about the problem,” said Silkhands. She smiled wearily. “It held no animosity against healers or against Jinian. After hearing all about the problem, we two suggested that the Griffins—­and perhaps some other creatures—­could be given shifter organs and taught to use them. Shapeshifter talent requires an individual organ, located in the brain. When all the other talents were lost, however, the shapeshifter organs vanished as well.”

“I suggested to Ganver that it create such an organ for us,” said Fixit, making a four-­handed gesture of frustration. During its career it had very seldom felt frustrated, but this
Griffin-­drowning
problem had been confounding from the beginning. “Ganver said it couldn't remember how it had done it in the first place . . .” Fixit's voice trailed away ­dolefully.

Jinian cried, “Ganver really couldn't, Fixit! Ganver was so depressed it was in no condition to do anything, and we couldn't wait for it to recover. Silkhands and I talked about it endlessly, and then she mentioned something about Mavin having been turned to stone for a thousand years. It had happened during an all-­out war with some very unpleasant witches, but her shifter organ was presumably still intact, inside her. AND Fixit said he could make sure we traveled a thousand years on the way here.” She turned to smile at Mavin, who was sitting next to her. “We spun over and over through a great many of what Fixit called ‘time loops,' but Fixit did it perfectly and Mavin woke up when we arrived. Silkhands and I told her about the plan.”

“Which is?” asked Abasio.

“Which is to use Mavin's shifter organ as a pattern from which to assemble a copy inside each of the Griffins, using their own tissue.”

Mavin was skeptical. “Even if you're born with the organ, it takes a lot of time to learn how to use it.”

Xulai shrugged. “We have two hundred years. How much time, really?”

“Well, not that long! I was typical, I suppose. I remember hiding and spending hour after hour making my toes longer and shorter. It's scary. You wonder what will happen to your heart if you change something close to it. Or your brain!” She shook her head, and shrugged again. “I worry that we may get everyone's hopes up when we don't really know whether it can be done.”

Jinian said, “Well, each of us is here to attempt it, and I'm here to assist. Since all this creating and installing and teaching may involve communicating with various kinds of creatures, it helps greatly if someone can reassure each creature in its own language that one is really helping, not threatening.”

There was a long silence. Xulai moved uncomfortably, frowning. “Forgive me but . . . if you create an organ inside a creature, it would not be genetically transmitted to its young, would it?”