The Terrorists of Irustan (9 page)

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.”

eight

*   *   *

Hide your weakness, but show your devotion. If you act as a man, you are a man, and nothing deters you from your duty.

—Fifth Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

“W
here’s our
Ishi this morning?” Qadir asked. He dipped a slice of Cook’s fresh flatbread into fragrant oil from Irustan’s own olives. “I can’t believe she’s let you out of her sight.”

Zahra smiled at that. It was true. Ishi followed Zahra like her shadow, eating when she ate, working when she worked, mourning when Zahra went out with Qadir. “She takes her apprenticeship seriously,” Zahra said. “Indeed.”

“We had a call last night,” Zahra went on. She was almost too tired to eat, but she poured a second cup of coffee. “I wouldn’t have waked her, but she followed me to the clinic. We were there a long time, so I let her sleep this morning.”

Qadir looked around at the servants. “Asa’s still there?”

“Yes. There was a fight last night, after rites.”

He frowned, wiping his fingers. “Whom did you treat?”

Zahra lifted tired shoulders. “Some miner, young, undoubtedly drunk. I’ll have Asa send a message to his squad this morning, but he’ll be back in the mines tomorrow. I’m worried about the others, and about the women involved.”

“I’ll let you know what I hear about the others,” Qadir said. He signaled, and Diya came forward with his case. “But, Zahra,” Qadir added, “I don’t want any street women coming to this house, not even to the clinic. If I had my way, such women wouldn’t be allowed in the Medah at all.” He stood and reached for his case, checking inside and then snapping it closed. Diya went to the door of the dayroom and opened it, waiting.

“But, Qadir,” Zahra protested. “Where are those women to go if they need help? What are they to do?”

“They’re not your concern,” Qadir said. “1 mean this, Zahra.”

She stood, anger pushing away her fatigue. “Qadir,” she began.

He held up one finger, frowning, and she stopped. She knew Diya was watching them, and she ground her teeth in frustration. Qadir leaned to kiss her cheek. She forced herself not to pull away from his touch. “Zahra, I don’t want Ishi seeing unveiled women. She doesn’t need to know there are such people.”

“You underestimate her,” Zahra said.

“No,” he answered firmly. “I know you feel compassion for them, Zahra, and 1 admire you for it. But not Ishi. No.”

She stood with her napkin dangling from her fingers as he left the room. When Diya turned to close the door, he glanced at her beneath lowered eyelids, and she caught the gleam of triumph that flashed in his eyes. With a wordless exclamation, she threw her napkin on the table, where it fell with infuriating limpness. Lili came in at just that moment.

“What is it, Medicant? Do you need something?”

Zahra was too angry to speak. She shook her head and turned to go to the clinic. Cook was waiting for her in the hall.

“Medicant,” Cook murmured. “One of the women is here. One of the—one of the unveiled ones. I heard what the director said, but she’s hurt. There’s no place for her to go.”

Zahra looked over her shoulder to be certain Lili couldn’t hear. “She’s in the clinic?”

Cook’s round face looked uneasy. “No. The kitchen.”

Zahra bit her lip, thinking. “Do you know what she needs?”

“She’s bruised, and she’s holding one arm in the other. She told us she got knocked down. She came to the service door.”

“All right,” Zahra said quickly. “You go and tell her to wait. I’ll come as soon as I can. Don’t tell anyone else! Hide her in the pantry. Let me get this other patient taken care of, and I want Asa to get some rest. I’ll come to you in a moment.”

Cook hurried away, and Zahra went on into the surgery, where she found Asa talking comfortably with young Ohannes. Thank the Maker for Asa, Zahra thought for the hundredth time. Diya would have had nothing to dowith anyone so bandaged and bruised as Ohannes, but here was Asa, leaning comfortably with one hip braced on the edge of the bed, chatting in a low and soothing tone. She remembered at the last moment to button her verge before she came around the bed to look down at her patient.

“How are you feeling, Ohannes?”

His good eye was clear, and the swelling in the other one was already beginning to go down. It would be open by afternoon. “I’m all right, Medicant,” he said. He was shamefaced beneath the wrappings of gauze. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Zahra said absently, checking the monitor, touching the young man’s wrist. “Now Asa is going to let your squad leader know where you are and how you are, and tell him you’ll be back tomorrow, all right?”

“Can’t I go today, Medicant? My squad needs me.”

“No,” Zahra said. “You’ve got a nasty cut on your face, a concussion, and a split scalp.” The young man winced and turned his head away. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about your injuries?” she asked. All at once her fatigue and frustration devoured the last of her patience. “If that’s the case, little brother, I suggest you stay out of fights. And avoid spirits!”

He blushed painfully. He turned his face to her, though he managed to avoid her eyes. “I’m sorry, Medicant,” he said plaintively. “Really. I just want to go back to my team.”

Zahra let out her breath. He was only a boy, after all. In a gentler tone she said, “Of course, Ohannes, I do understand that. Tomorrow. You’ll return to your duties tomorrow.” She checked his bandages with a light finger, and detached the master syrinx from his arm. “Now, Asa will help you to walk about a bit, and I’ll send a light breakfast from the kitchen. Then you have to rest today, and let the medicator help you heal.”

“All right, thanks,” Ohannes muttered. Between them, Zahra and Asa brought him to a sitting position. Asa reached for his cane where it rested against the wall. The young miner saw it, and flinched back from Asa’s hand as if he had been burned. He turned his head to avoid the sight of Asa’s crippled foot.

Asa showed no reaction. With studied calm, he put his hand under the young man’s arm and urged him off the bed. Ohannes complied, but as they left the surgery, he kept his gaze averted.

Zahra bit back another hot remark. It was no use. The miners behaviorwas no different from that of his friend of the night before, or of Diya—or of Qadir.

She called after them. “Asa, call his barracks, please, and speak to the squad leader. I’ll go ask Cook for some soup.”

Asa’s voice was even as he answered. “Of course, Medicant.”

Zahra spilled out a box of sterile gloves and piled supplies into the empty carton—bandages, bottled medicines—curse Qadir, it would be so much easier to treat an injured woman with the medicator! She added a packaged splint, in case the arm was broken. She called one more time. “Then, Asa, you go and get some sleep, all right? Route the phone into your room.”

“Yes.” Asa and Ohannes had made one tour of the dispensary and hall, and were beginning another. Zahra slipped out the door and hurried toward the kitchen, the box hidden under her drape.

The kitchen of the IbSada house was at the opposite end from the clinic. It was wide, high-ceilinged, with beautiful counters tiled in stone. Midmorning light made the fixtures and the polished tiles gleam. Cook was directing her two assistants as they cleaned up the breakfast service and began preparations for lunch. The houseboy sat having his own meal, sipping coffee and chatting with the maids. When he saw Zahra enter, he shot to his feet, but she waved him down.

“Never mind, Marcus,” she said. She raised her eyebrow in question to Cook, who nodded toward the pantry. “Cook, could you put a tray together, broth and bread for a patient? Marcus can take it to the clinic.”

“Of course, Medicant,” the cook answered.

“Excuse me,” Zahra said to the room in general. She crossed the shining floor to the door of the pantry.

The pantry was almost as large as the kitchen itself, with a short stair leading to a storage loft. Every shelf and bin was full. It was unwindowed, kept cool and dim to preserve the fruits and vegetables. The bins of fruit glowed faintly, the deep brown of olives, the purple of grapes still on their stems, yellow and orange citrus. Zahra waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, and then murmured, “Sister? Are you there?”

“Yes,” came the breathy response. “Up here.”

Zahra quickly climbed the five steps leading to the loft. In the back, seated on an upturned basket, the woman waited. She did have a veil, actually, though it was worn ragged. It was unbuttoned, hanging limply from her stained cap. She cradled her left arm in her right, and her face was pale as wax, and damp with perspiration. There were bruises around her mouth and neck. More had happened to her than getting in the way of the fight. “What’s your name, sister?” Zahra knelt beside her.

“It’s Eva,” the woman answered. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“No thanks necessary.”

“But after what happened to your teacher . . .”

“That was a long time ago, Eva. Let’s not think about it.”

The woman sighed and leaned back, closing her eyes.

Zahra saw that the arm was broken indeed. She would have to set it. “Eva, I’ve brought some medicine that will ease the pain, but you’ll have to swallow it. The director forbade me to have you in the surgery. I’m very sorry about that.”

The woman shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. She opened her eyes and managed a grim small smile. “I won’t cry out, I promise you,” she said. “I know it’s broken.”

The woman appeared to be about Zahra’s own age, but so lined and thin she might have been fifteen years older. Zahra patted her shoulder. “I’ll hurt you as little as possible.” She rummaged in her box for the opiate she had brought. She poured out a dose and held it to Eva’s lips, then sat back to wait for it to take effect. “The medicator’s much quicker,” she murmured. “We’ll have to wait a few minutes.”

“That’s all right, Medicant,” the woman said again. Soon her eyelids began to droop and her head wavered.

“Is it helping now?” Zahra asked. She ran her fingers expertly along the forearm, where the ulna and radius were both displaced. She could feel them under the skin, and she knew the pain of fitting them back together would be intense, though brief. “You’ll just have to bear it, sister,” she breathed.

The woman gave a sour chuckle and muttered, “You know, Medicant, I’ll bet I’ve borne worse.”

Zahra met her eyes, saw the bitterness, the resignation there. She had no doubt it was true.

Eva set her jaw and looked away. Zahra put her hands on the arm and pulled.

Not even a groan escaped the woman’s lips. She went utterly white, and then a wave of bright red suffused her thin cheeks.

“You’re brave,” Zahra muttered as she clasped the splint around the arm. It puffed immediately, swelling to make a smooth cylinder to hold the bones in place. “I only wish the miners who come to me had half your courage.”

“But they’re babies,” Eva said through clenched teeth. “And I’m an old woman.”

Zahra smoothed the self-sealing bandages around the splint and then turned to the bruises and abrasions that marked the woman’s head and neck. “You can’t be so old, Eva,” she said as she worked. “I’ll bet you’re no more than thirty-five.”

“Thirty-three, Medicant,” Eva answered. “But I’ve been on the streets since I was fourteen.”

Zahra finished her work and sat back to look into Eva’s bandaged face. “Where do you live, sister?” she asked.

Eva pulled her ragged veil up to try to button it with one hand. Zahra reached to help her.

“You don’t want to come there, Medicant,” Eva said. “In my street, there’s garbage everywhere, and sometimes leptokis run over your feet in the doorways. And there are always miners about, looking for unveiled women.” “I can at least send you some things to help.”

“Medicant,” Eva said carefully. “It’s best you don’t know where I live. You help some of us—it’s why I took the chance of coming—but we don’t want to cause trouble for you.”

Zahra touched the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about the way things are. I wish there were more I could do.”

Eva laughed a little, painfully. “There’s nothing more you can do, Medicant. Unless you change Irustan itself!”

Zahra held out the box. “Take these, at least, to help you heal. They’re clearly marked, if you can read them.”

Eva shook her head. “None of us can read. Who would teach us? We’re born to the street.”

“All right. Listen carefully, then.” One by one, Zahra took the bottles out, and the extra bandages, and explained their use. When she was finished, she helped Eva down the stairs. They paused at the pantry door while Zahra checked the kitchen. Cook was alone. Zahra called to her softly, and Cook hurried to meet them. She and Zahra exchanged places.

Just before she left, Zahra put out her hand to touch Eva’s forehead. “Be well, sister,” she murmured. “Come again if you need me.”

With her good hand, Eva caught Zahra’s, and brought it to her lips, kissing it through the pitiful rag of her veil. Zahra found her eyes filling, and she blinked hard. She didn’t shed tears, she hadn’t in years, and she wasn’t going to start now. But as she walked swiftly away from the kitchen, her throat ached. Eva and her kind were the lost ones, and Zahra could see no way to save them. Frustration made anger of her sorrow.

When she went to check on Ohannes, she was too angry to speak to him. As she adjusted the syrinx on his arm, she let her nails pinch his skin, just a little, and was rewarded with an indignant cry of pain. She did not apologize.