Chapter 89 – A Familiar Voice

"Don't lift that arm. Put the bag where he can see it."

Kai opened his eyes before he knew whose voice had woken him.

Ruth was kneeling beside the mattress. Another woman stood just behind her, one hand on the strap of a canvas bag. There was a fresh dressing on her forearm and dried mud halfway up her trousers.

Mara looked thinner than he remembered. Then he realized he had never seen her with her hair pulled back so tightly.

"You took your time," he said.

He had meant to say something else.

Mara set down the bag. "The runner had to find the loading entrance. Then I had to find someone to cover my patients."

She crouched on his left, where his arm lay supported above the blanket. For a moment she only looked at him.

"Your message didn't mention most of this."

Kai glanced at Ruth. "How long was I asleep?"

"Nearly three hours," Ruth said. "You woke twice when we adjusted that wrist. You answered me both times."

He remembered a hand behind his elbow and being irritated at a question he could no longer recall. The rest was gone.

From the repair bay came the scrape of something heavy being unloaded. Someone called for another pair of hands.

"The water crew brought me back," Mara said. "I have until they've unloaded and finished their checks. Then they take me to the hall."

"Dane let you leave?"

"The yard has water. We have dressings and a healer. He agreed to a visit. I didn't tell him who asked for it."

She pulled the folded delivery slip from her bag. Kai's name was beneath hers in Beck's blunt handwriting.

"Priya's with the patients who can wait. One of the other healers is back on his feet. I couldn't come until he took over the urgent ones."

Mara put the slip away and looked at Ruth.

"Show me what you've already done. I'd rather not start by undoing it."

Ruth reached for the cardboard beside the mattress. She had added more writing while Kai slept. They went through it together, using words Kai understood and a few he didn't. Neither sounded pleased by the state of his shoulder.

Nia lay on the next mattress with her damaged hand supported across her chest. She was awake, watching Mara.

"You knew him before he went into the station," she said.

"I did."

"Then you know he wasn't like this."

Mara looked at her fully. "I know."

"He didn't go in there looking for a fight."

"Nia," Kai said.

She stopped, angry with him now as well.

Mara drew the bag closer with her foot. "I'm not here to decide whether he deserves a bandage. Ruth says you need your hand looked at too."

Nia's eyes dropped to the padding. "After him."

"Ruth and I will decide the order."

The answer annoyed Nia enough that Kai felt reassured.

He let Ruth tell Mara about the active band. Then he filled in the parts she had not witnessed: touching the light at Nia's ankle, the pull changing afterward, the person outside the loading passage. Mara listened without reaching for his right wrist.

"And the core?" she asked.

"Left behind. The case broke. We couldn't carry it."

"Did you draw anything from it?"

"Not when we left it. I could feel it. That's all."

She glanced at Nia, who nodded.

"All right. We deal with what's here."

Mara did not promise that her skills would work now. Before opening any window, she checked his breathing, the bandages at his side, and the exposed fingers of his left hand. Ruth told her where the bleeding had slowed and where the dressing had needed changing.

"Can he be moved back with you?" Ruth asked.

Mara looked toward the repair bay. "Not on the water cart over that road. It shook a packet of dressings off my lap twice."

"We're short of more than gauze here."

"I can see that. Let me examine him before we choose a journey."

Kai had expected her to argue that he belonged at the shelter. Instead she asked for a lamp and worked beside Ruth, making room for the woman who had kept him alive while he slept.

The examination hurt, but it ended with his arm better supported and a plan for what they would need next. The blanket no longer caught the torn skin at his waist every time someone moved past. Ruth left the new dressing visible at one edge so she could watch it.

Kai could follow the conversation without losing whole sentences. He took that improvement before trying to measure anything else.

Mara finally opened her diagnostic.

"Same test as before," she told him. "No healing attempt."

He nodded.

The green light reached the skin above his left wrist. It spread, thinned, and broke apart. Mara read her window aloud for Ruth.

[Invalid target.]

[Foreign circulation detected.]

[Healing route unavailable.]

Ruth looked at Kai's face, not the empty space in front of Mara.

"So we keep doing it by hand."

"For the wounds, yes," Mara said. "Don't try to squeeze that dark line shut. We tried it once."

Kai remembered the cloth tightening above his wrist and the pressure building beneath it. He didn't need her to finish.

Mara closed the diagnostic. "Has the line changed?"

"I can feel warmth there without the core beside me. Yesterday, or before I slept. I don't know what to call it."

"Before you slept," Ruth supplied. "You were trying to move the thumb."

Kai described the two exhalations. He kept the account as close as he could to what had actually happened: warmth near the wrist, a small movement, less pain, then fatigue. He hadn't tried it again since Ruth told him to rest.

Mara put the lamp down.

"Can you stop it?"

He looked at her.

"The warmth," she said. "Before it goes somewhere you don't want it. Not afterward, when it hurts enough to make you stop."

"I stopped trying."

"Did the warmth stop because of that?"

He didn't know. He had stopped, and the sensation had faded. Until she asked, he had treated those as the same thing.

Mara waited while he thought.

"I want to find out," he said.

"Without making it stronger. And without moving the hand. I need to know which thing you're testing."

She asked Ruth to watch the marked right arm. Mara stayed beside the left. Nia shifted her head on the folded coat beneath it so she could see.

Kai began with the small breaths he remembered.

There was no fresh supply of qi pushing into him. He had only the faint warmth already present along the path, and the effort of noticing it while his shoulder continued to ache. For several breaths he found nothing he could separate from the rest.

Mara didn't fill the silence with instructions.

On an exhalation, the familiar warmth gathered near his wrist.

He followed it toward the inside of his forearm. It moved only a little, but his attention went ahead of it toward the elbow. He wanted to know whether the next section of the path was still open.

The ache above his wrist sharpened.

"Stop," Mara said when she saw him tense.

Kai pulled his attention away and held his breath.

The warmth continued for a moment. He felt it spread beneath the edge of the dressing before it weakened.

"It's gone," he said.

"Did it go when you asked?"

"No."

She sat back on her heels. "Then that's the part to work on. Not the elbow."

Kai lay still while Ruth checked that his right wrist had not shifted. The band was tugging toward the bay, quite separate from what he had felt on the left. That pressure did not care whether he breathed in or out.

"How much time have you got?" he asked Mara.

"Enough to wait a minute."

She meant it literally. She watched the second hand on Ruth's wall clock and did not let him try again while his breathing was uneven.

Nia spoke while they waited.

"You were following it."

"Trying to."

"That's what you always do. You feel something farther away and go after it."

He almost argued. Then he thought of the warmth moving beyond his wrist while he was already watching for it at the elbow.

"I was ahead of it," he said.

Mara touched the padding beside his hand, well away from the dark line. "Can you keep your attention here? You don't have to send anything up the arm."

"I can try."

"Tell us what happens. Don't make it fit what I asked for."

On the next attempt, Kai waited for the warmth to become distinct before changing anything. He did not try to lead it into his forearm. He pictured the short length he could already feel, ending at the wrist, and stayed with it.

His fingers remained still.

The warmth grew clearer as he exhaled. Instead of reaching past it, he eased his attention back toward the palm, slowly enough to notice where the sensation weakened.

It faded at the wrist first.

There was no sharp continuation under the dressing. He could still feel a little warmth lower down, near the heel of his hand.

"It didn't go into the forearm," he said.

Mara made him describe the difference. He did, then rested. His shoulder hurt no less than it had before the attempt.

She asked whether he wanted to stop altogether.

"Once more. Then I'm done."

Ruth glanced at Mara. Mara watched his face before agreeing.

This time he let the warmth remain at the wrist for the rest of an exhalation. When he drew his attention back, it faded there again without the spreading ache.

Kai said so before looking at either woman.

Mara had not seen light or movement. All she could check was his expression, his breathing, and what he told her. She wrote down his words anyway.

"That happened twice," he said.

"I heard you. We'll see whether it happens after you've rested again."

He wanted her to name it, or at least tell him that it counted. The desire embarrassed him. She had seen him break open his own arm; she was not going to congratulate him for finding a less destructive way to use it.

Then she added, "It's a better place to start than forcing your fingers."

Kai looked back at his bandaged hand. He still couldn't use it to lift a cup. But the sensation had faded at his wrist twice without another surge of pain. He could not say whether his attention had changed anything, only that it was worth testing again.

"No more today?" he asked.

"No more while you're this tired. Let Ruth check you before you decide the next attempt is harmless."

He nodded and let the left arm rest. The right wrist continued pulling beneath its separate support.

Mara moved to Nia's mattress. Ruth drew the chair back to give her room.

Beck came in while they were examining the crushed hand. He carried two clean bottles and set them on the table, then waited until Nia looked up.

"They took copies of your description," he told her. "The crew asked at the hall too. No one they spoke to could say they'd seen Elise."

Nia's mouth tightened. "Did they ask about the children being moved?"

"Yes. One of the posts has people taking down names. Your message is there. I asked them to send any answer back with the water crews."

"Not just an answer from a screen."

"I wrote that at the top."

Mara waited until Beck had gone before asking Nia about the hand again. She did not offer comfort based on a girl she had never met.

Kai listened to Nia answer her questions. That was easier than listening for a door opening downstairs.

Inez appeared in the mess doorway with the runner who had carried the messages. He was a young man in a rain jacket with a patched shoulder. He held the same delivery slip Mara had brought in; she had given it back to him when she unpacked her bag.

"Ten minutes," Inez said to Mara. "They want to leave before the yard crossing gets busy."

Mara finished what she was doing before answering. "I need two of them in here first."

Kai tried to lift his head.

"I'm not putting you on their cart," she said. "Ruth and I need to agree on how you're moved when the right transport comes. They'll be the ones fetching it."

The runner went to call them.

"What does Dane want for this?" Kai asked.

Mara looked at Inez, who stayed in the doorway.

"Water deliveries. News of the roads. I told you it was a visit, not an order to bring you back."

"Does he know you're leaving supplies?"

"Yes. Ruth's keeping people alive who would otherwise arrive at his door. He understands that much."

Kai let his head settle.

Mara took a fresh sheet from the table and asked Ruth for the measurements of the narrowest turn on the ramp. They worked out what could be brought through it, who would be needed, and which injuries could not bear a hurried lift. Inez went to measure the turn rather than guessing.

The two crew members who came in heard the pursuit warning before anything else. Neither liked it. One asked whether carrying Kai would put the blue mark on him.

"We don't know," Mara said. "You need to know that before agreeing."

Ruth described how they had handled the sheets without touching the mark. She was careful to say that no one had taken it during those moves, not that it could not happen.

The men agreed to look for suitable transport. They wanted to know the route before deciding whether to carry him.

By the time the crew called again, Mara had left part of her supplies in the cupboard and written down what she and Ruth needed someone better equipped to assess. Neither called the patients fit to travel.

She came back to Kai before picking up her bag.

"I'm telling them you need ordinary treatment, not just a higher-level healing skill," she said. "They can look for someone who treated injuries like these before the System. I'll ask at our end too."

"And if they find a core?"

Mara's hand stopped on the strap.

He shook his head before she spoke. "Tell them not to bring it here. I want to know if I can do that again without one."

She studied him, then added the warning about cores to Ruth's supply list.

At the door, Nia asked whether she would come back.

"I'll send word with the next crew," Mara said. "When I know whether I can leave, you'll know too."

She left with the runner, carrying Ruth's list and a copy of Nia's account. Kai heard Inez raise her voice in the bay, making everyone wait while the watch checked the crossing.

Ruth put the notes about his breathing beside the cardboard with his injuries on it.

"Before you try it again, I want to hear what you're planning to change," she said.

Kai looked at the two sheets. He could read the line Mara had written at the bottom of the first.

*Keep attention at the wrist. No finger movement. Describe whether the warmth fades before trying farther.*

"Nothing farther yet," he told Ruth.

Then he asked her to put the notes where he could see them from the mattress.