HELLO. DECISION TIME AGAIN. HERE WE HAVE A MAJOR PLAYER AT A TURNING POINT. HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH SKEEN AND HER INJURIES? IF YOU WANT TO BE NASTY AND NATURALISTIC, YOU COULD PULL A WILD CARD OUT OF THE PACK AND KILL HER OFF, LEAVING THE ENDS OF HER LIFE DANGLING, NO ANSWERS TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS PLAGUING HER; AFTER ALL, LIFE IS LIKE THAT; MOST FOLK WHO DIE SUDDENLY DIE IN THE MUDDIEST OF MUDDLES; MALA FORTUNA DOESN’T WAIT TILL THEY TUCK IN THE DANGLES. THIS OPTION WOULD CREATE SOME INTERESTING DIFFICULTIES BOTH FOR YOU AND THE OTHER PLAYERS IN THE STORY; IT WOULD TURN THE ACTION INTO A RADICALLY NEW DIRECTION; WITH A LOT OF SWEAT AND APPLYING RUMP TO CHAIR, FINGERS TO KEYS, YOU COULD MAKE IT WORK.

SECOND OPTION: YOU COULD HAVE PEGWAI OR ONE OF THE OTHERS DO SOME PRIMITIVE AND PROBABLY DANGEROUS SURGERY AND CUT OUR HEROINE’S HAND OFF. NOW THERE’S A FINE OPPORTUNITY TO DRIVE SKEEN BACK TO DRINK AND COMPLICATE HER LIFE CONSIDERABLY. SHE’D HAVE TO GET USED TO A NEW BALANCE. AND IT’S HER RIGHT HAND, AND SHE IS VERY RIGHT HANDED. AND HOW IS SHE GOING TO TIE KNOTS, AND THINGS LIKE THAT?

THIRD OPTION: YOU COULD KEEP THE HAND WHERE IT IS BUT GIVE SKEEN RECURRING BOUTS OF FEVER AND DELIRIUM; MAKE IT WORSE, HAVE THE FEVER BROUGHT ON BY STRESS. THINK ABOUT THAT ONE. YOU COULD LOOK TO ONE OF THE MARTIAL ARTS CLAIMS AND DO THE DRUNKEN BOXER BIT, HAVE HER BODY BE GLORIOUSLY EFFICIENT WHILE HER MIND IS OUT IN NEVER-NEVER LAND. THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTING TO WRITE, BUT YOU’D HAVE A TOUGH TIME KEEPING IT REASONABLY CREDIBLE; IF YOU HAD A FEEL FOR HUMOR THAT MIGHT DO IT. QUITE A CHALLENGE THERE.

FOURTH OPTION:YOU COULD SAY, WELL, SKEEN’S TOUGH AND LUCKY OR SHE WOULDN’T HAVE LASTED THIS LONG; THIS ILLNESS IS A TRYING INTERLUDE, BUT SHE RECOVERS AFTER SOME FINE AND LOVELY SUFFERING. ITS HAD ITS USES; SHE HAS BEEN SCARED INTO TAKING THIS WORLD MORE SERIOUSLY AND PUTTING HER MIND TO WHAT SHE’S DOING, HER COMPANIONS HAVE BEEN SCARED INTO REALIZING THEY ARE TOO DEPENDENT ON HER AND SHOULD START DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THAT AND LET’S GET ON WITH THE GETTING ON.

WHEN YOU TURN THE PAGE, YOU WILL SEE WHAT CHOICE I MADE. WHY NOT KEEP YOUR OWN STORY RUNNING ALONG WITH MINE, SEE HOW FAR THE TWO THREADS DIVERGE?

Lipitero sat on the bunk, Skeen’s gear held in the rough diamond space between her legs; a stickum was pasted on the wall giving her a steadier light than the oil lamps that flickered with the motion of the ship. She lifted each tool from the kit, examined it with delicate care, trying to decide without activating it just what it might do; she was not having much success at that in spite of her intimate knowledge of her own instrumentation; alien technologies tend to be incomprehensible to the eye, it’s what they do that provides insight into what they are. If Skeen didn’t come up enough to do some explaining, she planned to take the things on deck where she had room to provide for accidents. For the past several days Pegwai and Timka had been laboring over Skeen, trying infusion after infusion on her; several seemed to work—for a while. Skeen would sweat, grow restless, come close to cooling off; she surfaced twice during those frantic days, but was disoriented, rambling. They couldn’t understand her or she them; she seemed to have forgotten all the Trade-Min that Telka had given her. Lipitero put everything back in the kit, clicked the flap shut with a sigh of frustration and began on the belt pockets. The infusions worked for an hour, a day, once two days—but the fever always came back triggered by the festering hand. Nothing they tried worked on the hand. Timka washed it, changed bandages several times a day, cut away dead flesh, cleaned out the suppuration. And Skeen kept getting worse, rotting hand and draining fever reinforcing each other. Lipitero lifted out a squat cylinder, eased the cap off and frowned at a smaller cylinder with a pinhole in one side.

Timka knelt by Skeen’s head, held it up while Pegwai pried her mouth open and dropped a new concentrate on her tongue. He pinched her nose, held his hand over her mouth until he felt her swallow. He nodded to Timka, took his hand away. Timka lowered the head back onto the pillow. He moved down, bent over the bandaged hand; the strips of cloth were taut, the puffy flesh bulging, mounded up between them. He slipped a scalpel under a strip, began cutting the bandages off. Timka rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, chewed on her lip, distressed by what she saw. “Worse again, still worse,” she said.

Pegwai touched the red streaks climbing toward Skeen’s shoulder. “We can’t wait much longer.”

“I know.”

“She’s not going to say anything more, too weak.”

“I know. Petro hasn’t found anything she thinks could help. Which of us is going to do the thing?”

“I might as well.” He grimaced. “I’ve done rough surgery before when I was traveling around on my Seeker journeys. This one will be easier, we’ve got Skeen’s cutter. Do a fast cut and cauterize at the same time.” He backed away to give Timka room to tend the hand. “That’s a tool I wish she’d leave behind when she jumps the Gate.”

“First we get her across the Halijara. If she’s alive when we reach Rood Saekol and Sikuro, then we can talk about the Gate. Bring me the bowl, will you.” She swallowed, rubbed at her nose. “Hai, it stinks.” She began swabbing at the slashes, washing loose the putrid matter. “Tomorrow for sure.” She took the scalpel from Pegwai and began cutting off the worst of the rot. “Should do it now; I don’t know about you, me—I’ve got to work myself up to handling the idea. My stomach is saying forget it.”

Timka wrung out the cloth, folded it and laid it across Skeen’s brow. Lipitero had finally fallen into a restless sleep. She was curled up in her flightskins on the bunk across the room, her head on a folded blanket.

Timka listened to the breathing of the two women, on one side light and fluttery on the other an increasing struggle; Skeen’s labors made Timka’s diaphragm ache as if she were using her own muscles to keep those lungs working. She hugged her arms across her breasts and began nerving herself to try reaching deep into Skeen’s head. When she fled the mountains and Telka’s spite what seemed centuries ago, she’d suppressed her inreach. It was dangerous among the Pallah to know too much about how they thought or felt; far better to let them feel sorry for her and pleased with themselves for helping her than to make them afraid of her because she knew too much and couldn’t tell them how she knew it. So many years since she’d done the exercises, so many years since she’d tried to remember what Carema had been teaching her. She stroked her fingers down the side of Skeen’s face. The fever was coming down again. Maybe this time it’d stay down. Once the hand was gone. Yes, Pegwai was right about that, it had to go. She sighed and wondered how Skeen was going to take losing her dominant hand. She was used to her body doing whatever she asked of it, that was obvious. She acted without having to think about how she was going to do what she wanted to do. It was going to be awkward, couldn’t get away from that. Skeen’s temper was chancy at the best of times; not that she meant to irritate other folk when she was in a fuss, it just happened. Too bad they were confined to the narrow quarters of the ship. Room to maneuver. Something Skeen said down in that cavern when Angelsin was getting ready to sell them all. No room to maneuver on a ship, you kept bumping into everyone you wanted, no, needed to avoid.

The window was open. She could smell the swamp, rotting vegetation, the acrid odors of the half-submerged trees. Overhead a Nagamar must have been leaning on the rail, one of their obligatory pilots; the hissing call came in clearly, the answering whistle from the raft drifting ahead of the ship. Pegwai had stretched a fine netting across the opening. They needed the air in here but not the flying biters that swarmed into every corner of the ship. Tomorrow morning they’d be out on the open sea. The Halijara. Three days, five days, somewhere in there, and they’d be dropping anchor at Sikuro. Not enough time for Skeen’s stump to heal. Without understanding quite why, Timka suddenly and fervently wished Maggí would consent to take them straight to Oruda. No stopping for passengers and cargo, no.… She nodded. No stopping in ports where Skeen would be surrounded by all the things that were so very bad for her, things she’d be so vulnerable to with an itchy aching stump instead of a hand, when she was bound to be clumsy and uncertain and she was sure to hate being clumsy and … and dependent. Couldn’t tie a knot, couldn’t even get dressed without help, at least, not until she’d worked out how to do it and the stump had healed enough so she could use what was left of the arm.

Timka touched the cloth, turned it over, patted at Skeen’s face. She dropped the cloth into the waste bucket, took a fresh one, squeezed it out, folded it and smoothed it onto Skeen’s brow. Maggí would have to throw the bedding out when the ship got to Sikuro. It was already starting to grow mold, the drippings from the damp cloths and the sweat off Skeen whenever the fever broke enough to let her sweat were keeping the mattress and pillow continually damp. Timka leaned against the wall, pulled her legs up and draped her arms over her knees. Face it, Ti, you’re just putting off failure, yes, admit it; Skeen knows what should be done for her, she just can’t tell us. It’s up to you to go in and pull it out of her. It’s possible; remember what she said about how Telka gave her the Trade-Min. If Telka could reach her, so can you. Or you could have if you hadn’t let that part of your brain atrophy. Like trying to walk after staying in bed a decade or two. You were right to run. Telka would slaughter you. Without Skeen’s help. Lifefire, I can’t face her now. My twin sister, a match in everything but temperament. We were a match, but not now, no more. She kept driving, studying, practicing and I rooted out, I am no more fit to face her now than a fledgling for flying. She contemplated her situation for some minutes more but broke off when she heard a moan. She swung swiftly onto her knees and bent over Skeen. The Pass-Through was moving weakly, drenched with sweat. The cloth had fallen to one side. Timka shook it out and patted gently at Skeen’s face, hair, pulled the blanket down, wiped her body dry; a futile operation, by the time she’d finished more sweat had beaded up. Skeen’s eyes cracked open and she started muttering. Timka tucked the blanket around her and got a new cloth. She bathed Skeen’s face again, spoke soft soothing words, hoping her voice would pull the other out of her haze, at least for a short while. “Skeen, ah, Skeen,” she murmured, “listen to me, we can’t help you, tell us … tell me how to help you.” The coated, flaking lips moved, but Timka couldn’t persuade herself Skeen had heard her. She bent closer, tried to make out the mumbled words, but after a moment she sighed and went back to patting at Skeen’s face, washing the crust from the corners of her mouth, the cracklings from her eyes. Never the easy way, she told herself, always complications. I’m going to have to try. You won’t help me, will you. Stand on your own feet, decide for yourself what you want to do. Hah! I remember once … yes, back in Oruda, you asked me what I wanted out of life. Remember what I said? Someone to take care of me, I said, someone who’d provide silk sheets and scented baths and day after day of ordinary days. You didn’t like that, did you? I remember how your face looked then, Skeen my friend. You listened to my tirade, you didn’t say anything but I knew what you were thinking. I was scared then, Skeen, I’m scared now. Scared? No. Terrified. Ashamed of myself for being so lazy, so.… Well, there’s no point in beating myself for what can’t be helped. She set the cloth aside, flattened her hands on the sides of Skeen’s face, slid her fingers up until the tips were pressed against Skeen’s temples. She closed her eyes and tried to feel into the brain beneath the bone. Her own brain creaked, it felt like an ancient wooden clock, nothing broken but all the gears frozen into immobility by an accumulation of grease and dust and disuse. The gears moved a little as she applied pressure. She began to see/feel ghost fragments, no doubt fever dreams too pale and broken to recognize, whispers tickled her ears but she couldn’t bring them clear enough to understand them. Even if I could, she thought, I probably couldn’t understand them … ay! maybe I could, maybe.… Telka gave her Trade-Min, why wouldn’t that work the other way? Her head began throbbing, lines of pain shot up from heels and hands through her spine and exploded at the base of her brain, exploded again and again. Gradually, as she persisted, the force of those explosions lessened, she got closer to her fingertips, finally felt as if she resided in those fingertips; still she persisted. She battered against the barrier as strong as bone that tried to deny her. The heat and drive grew stronger, she grew frightened at what she’d started, tried to pull back, but the thing that throbbed in her wouldn’t yield; the barrier shattered, she was in Skeen, she was Skeen. She drowned in fever and pain, she struggled to hold on to a thread of consciousness, but the pull of being Skeen was strong, so strong.… Frantic, turned vicious by fear, she clawed her way free, fell shrieking to the floor.

When she was again aware of things around her, Lipitero was holding her head, dripping Balayar cordial into her mouth. She grimaced, pushed at the Ykx’s hand; the cordial was cloying, unpleasant, as it combined with the sour taste of stomach acid. Lipitero set the flask aside, helped Timka to sit up.

Timka coughed, swallowed. A flash of memory started her struggling to get up. “Skeen.…”

Lipitero restrained her gently. “Not worse, not better,” she murmured, “What happened?”

“Help me up.” She stumbled the two steps to the bunk leaning on Lipitero’s arm, dropped to her knees and peered into Skeen’s face. The sweat was gone, her face was hot and tight again; like so many times before, the infusion’s effect had worn off after a brief respite. She cursed under her breath, lowered herself until she was sitting on the floor, resting her arms on the bed. After a minute she looked up at Lipitero. “I was trying the Min inreach, I thought I might be able to pull out of her some way of … of using something of hers to fight this.” She touched the blackening hand, shivered. “Pegwai’s going to cut it off tomorrow, today, I mean. I wanted.…” She lifted a hand, let it fall.

Lipitero squatted beside her, stroked the straining bandage. “Did you get anything? Even a fragment might help me.”

Timka closed her eyes, but all she saw was blackness; she couldn’t remember anything but overwhelming terror. “No,” she said. “Maybe after some sorting out.…” She sighed, dropped her head on her arms. “Hai, Petro, I’m tired. Too tired to think, I think.” She giggled, then started crying.

“Yes, I see you are. Come.” She slipped her hands under Timka’s arms, tried to lift her. Timka fumbled with arms and legs, but finally got herself together enough to help. Lipitero got her across to the other bottom bunk and eased her down. With a weary sigh, Timka stretched out, smiled up at Lipitero as the Ykx tucked a blanket around her and fluffed a pillow for her. She closed her eyes, sighed again, and plummeted into profound sleep.

Timka sat on the bunk, Skeen’s head in her lap. She swallowed, looked away as Pegwai brought over an empty bucket and put it down beside the bed. “Do you think you’ll need that?” she muttered. “I thought you said the beam will cauterize.…” She couldn’t go on.

“Think, yes—be sure, no; Besides, there’s the hand; should be something under it to catch it.”

“Oh.”

“Ti, if it bothers you that much, let me get the Mate in here. You don’t have to watch this.”

“I know. Has nothing to do with logic or even feeling, Pegwai. I just have to be here. And don’t tell me Skeen wouldn’t ask it of me, I know that. That doesn’t matter either.”

“She won’t feel anything, it will happen so fast.…” He saw Timka’s face and broke off, grimaced. “I’m not all that happy about it either. Still, it has to be done. Otherwise Skeen is going to die and soon.”

“Stop nattering and do it.”

“Hold her arm out and steady. I’m making the cut about halfway to the elbow.” He turned pale, but stepped around the bucket and waited without comment as Timka slid around, lifted Skeen’s arm and extended it so the hand was centered over the mouth of the bucket. He continued to wait until the arm was steady and still, then he positioned the cutter (Lipitero had set beam length through trial and much error at about a meter, long enough for ease of handling and a clean cut, short enough so he wouldn’t carve holes in the side of the ship) and waited for the ship to drop and start its climb up the side of a swell. They’d left the river not long after sunup and were several hours out on the Halijara. He sucked in a long breath, exploded it out and brought the cutter down through the arm—swift, neat, precise in this as he was in most things. With a smooth continuation of the motion, he brought the beam back and placed the flat of it against the raw flesh until the cabin was thick with the stench of roasting meat and the gush of blood was stopped. He touched the beam off, tossed the cutter onto the bunk and reached for the pile of bandages and pads laid ready. The beam had sealed the blood vessels as he had hoped, but there was still some leakage. He knew he should have left a flap of skin to fold over the end of the arm, making a neater stump, but he hadn’t the skill for that, nor did anyone else on the ship. Maggí Solitaire acted as ship’s doctor when there was need for one, but her training was even cruder than his. He stroked on some of her ointment, pressed the pad in place and began tying it down with strips of cloth. When he was finished, he looked at the arm with considerable dissatisfaction, shook his head and stepped back. Timka settled the arm on Skeen’s stomach, averting her eyes from the bucket.

“Shouldn’t you do something about the veins, sew them shut or, well, I don’t know.” Her fear and frustration shrilled her voice.

“You know as much as I do, Ti.”

“That’s not saying a whole lot.”

“If you had objections, why didn’t you voice them before?”

“You were so sure of yourself, Scholar.” Timka slid off the bunk, settled Skeen as well as she could; still not-looking at the bucket, she gave Pegwai a tremulous smile. “Don’t mind me. That was nerves talking.”

“I know.” He held out his hands. They were shaking. His face was a greenish gray, his eyes glazed. “Lifefire curse and claim the Funor Ashon. They know so much we’ve forgotten or never knew; if I could have taken her to one of their medical centers, well, none of this would have happened. They grudge the Lumat every scrap of knowledge from their store, though they’re greedy enough to claim what we get from everyone else.” He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed a fist into the space below the spring of his ribs. “I’ve got to get out of here. Ti, you able to stay until I can send someone?”

“Yes.” Involuntarily, her eyes flicked to the bucket. She wrenched them away, gazed into the beam of brilliant light coming through the window. “Don’t be too long. Sending someone, I mean.”

For the next dozen hours Pegwai and Timka kept watch, alternately hoping and despairing as Skeen’s fever bobbled up and down; the red streaks began to fade after the sixth hour and after that the peaks of fever were each lower than the one before. Timka fed her cordial and clear soup, changed the bedding with Pegwai’s help, bathed Skeen and collapsed near tears when the fever broke shortly after midnight and left Skeen cool and peacefully asleep. Pegwai helped Timka across the cabin to the other bunk. They sat side by side and watched Skeen, not yet willing to trust this change. They’d been suckered before by one of the infusions when the fever dipped close to normal; the thing that kept hope simmering in them both this time was a small difference. Before, the hand didn’t change—if anything, the swelling worsened; now, the hand was gone, the ominous red streaks were gone. One hour passed. Another. Timka turned to Pegwai. “It’s over; she’s going to make it.”

More cautious, Pegwai hesitated before he answered. Finally, he nodded. “I think so, but I’ll be sure if she’s still improving come the dawn.”

Shortly after noon, Skeen stirred, moaned, opened her eyes. “Wha.…”

Timka bent over her. “Skeen?”

Skeen produced a thin smile. “I’m not too sure of that.” She lifted her head, tried to pull her arm along and raise herself on her elbows; the pain in the stump stopped that. She grunted, tried to raise the arm high enough so she could see it, but she was still too weak for so much effort; she lay back. “Things have been happening.”

“We had to take your hand off. I’m sorry, Skeen, there wasn’t anything else we could do—I’m sorry, yes, but you’re still alive. We used the cutter, you needn’t worry about that, the cut was clean.”

“Pah! Timmy, don’t babble on like that, you make my head ache.” There was a weary fretfulness in her voice, pauses between the phrases. “If you expect me to scream at you, you’re being stupid. And don’t worry about the hand, Once I make the other side, I can drop into a Tank Farm and have the flesh sculps regrow it for me good as new.” She drew her tongue across her lips. “Think I could have some water?”

Timka brought her a cup of water, lifted her head so she could drink. When she was finished, Skeen lay back looking exhausted, great dark smudges under her eyes, so little flesh under the smooth white skin her face was uncomfortably like a skull. Timka knelt holding the cup and wondered not for the first time just how old Skeen was; she’d muttered about ananile shots which kept age at a comfortable distance. Cutter beams, drugs that stopped aging, Tank Farms where you could grow back missing parts; that otherside world sounded more frightening the more she heard about it. Pit Stops, world ships, stars that are suns, suns thick as islands in the Spray.…

Skeen yawned, muttered, “Gonna sleep a while, my gear.…” The mutter sank into inaudibility as Skeen’s breathing went deep and slow.

Timka waited long enough to be sure she wasn’t going to wake soon, then she went out.

She stood a moment blinking in sunlight she hadn’t seen for days. The Aggitj came running and swirled like windblown leaves about her, even Hart excited and babbling. “Yes,” she said, “Skeen was awake for a little. Yes, she’s going to be all right. Yes, you can see her in a little, but she’s sleeping now, she’s very weak. Where’s Petro?”

“Up there, still playing with Skeen’s tools.” Hal waved a hand at the quarterdeck rising over them. “Where she’s out of the way. You want me to fetch her?” He leaned toward her, his thin face eager. The Aggitj had been passionately concerned about Skeen; they had tried to help tend her, but Timka sent them away. They couldn’t control their reactions; they shared Skeen’s every pang and developed sympathetic fevers that rose and fell with hers. Once they were back in the light, with the crew and the scatter of passengers, they recovered some of their ebullience, but nights were still difficult; they took mattresses off their bunks and put them on the floor, slept huddled together in a pile of warm flesh.

“No,” Timka said, “I’ll go. I need to talk to her.” She squinted into the brilliant cloudless sky; the light made her eyes water. She blinked. “When Chulji comes in, let him know, will you?” She turned toward the stairs. The Aggitj parted for her. They watched her climb, wanting (she knew) to ask more about Skeen and why she wanted Lipitero; they were teeming with questions, but they said nothing, not even Ders. Aggitj tact. Lifefire bless them.

Maggí stood in her usual place watching the smooth operation of her crew; she came striding over and met Timka at the top of the stairs. “Skeen?”

“Fever’s gone, I doubt it’ll be back. She’s sleeping now. If you could send down some soup in about an hour? I’m going to feed her a little every hour. She’s pretty dehydrated in spite of what we managed to get down her the past week.”

“Does she know about the hand? How did she take that?”

Timka laughed, shook her head. “She wasn’t impressed. Do you know what she said? You’d never guess it. She said, ‘Don’t fuss, I’ll just take myself to a Tank Farm’—whatever that is—‘and have them grow me a new one.’”

“What? Never mind, I heard. Are you going through the Gate with her?”

“I think so. I haven’t much choice, you know what’s after me.”

Maggí rubbed at her nose, looked thoughtfully at Timka. “Folk who give advice annoy me.” Her mouth twisted into a tight rueful smile. “Keep as many roads open as you can. I don’t know your people or your sister, but from what I’ve seen you could give her one fancy fight if you took a notion to; it might be worth trying. Skeen’s world scares the stiffening out of my bones and I’m not ashamed to admit it. If I had a choice between going home to the Boot or following her, I’d take the Boot and you know enough about Aggitj to know what that means.”

Timka smiled, but shook her head. Without saying anything more she started for the cloaked figure tucked away at the bow end of the deck.

Lipitero heard her before she got close, turned, stiffened.

“Skeen is starting to recover,” Timka said hastily, she squatted beside Lipitero and eyed the array of enigmatic objects spread round the Ykx’s knees. “Found out anything more?”

“A few hints.” She lifted a squat cylinder. “This seems to have a measuring function, something to do with forces and numbers.” She set the cylinder back where she’d got it. “How soon can I talk with her?”

“I’m waking her to feed her some soup in about an hour. She’s very weak yet. Don’t push her too hard.”

“No, of course not. Does she want her gear? That why you came hunting for me?”

“In part, yes. She’s very calm about the whole thing, even her hand. I can’t really understand that. Even if she does think she can get the hand regrown once she’s on the other side. There’s a lot of pain right now; she’s going to have problems with just about everything until she gets used to being without that set of thumb and fingers. You saw what she was like when we were stuck back there in Cida Fennakin, how she hated to have anyone help her with anything. Well, that’s going to be a lot worse now. That’s another reason I’m out here talking to you. You’re going to have to help me with her, Petro. Especially when we reach port. She’s going to be wild, I know if. If you could contrive some way of tracing her, so I wouldn’t have to follow her around, we can give her the illusion of freedom and still be able to protect her if we have to.”

“Ti, I don’t see how I could do it without her knowing; in that place of hers, well, they know a thousand times more than I do about that sort of thing.”

“But we’re not there, Petro, don’t you see? She won’t expect such a thing here. And it’s only for a little while, till the stump heals and she’s able to take care of herself.”

“Yes. We have to make sure nothing more happens to her.” Lipitero bent forward, began gathering up the instruments and tucking them away. “I’ll see what I can do.” She smiled over her shoulder at Timka. “I brought my tools; like Skeen, I’m not comfortable without them. I’ll start working right away, I still want to talk to Skeen, though. An hour, you said? Good. I’ll bring Skeen’s gear when I come. Want to make sure everything’s in its proper place.”

Skeen was still too weak to object when Timka insisted on feeding her, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to put up with that for long. Her arm was paining her, but she refused to let Timka give her some of Pegwai’s drops. “I have to keep my head straight,” she said. She raised her arm, rested it on her stomach. “You and Pegwai did your best,” she said, “but I’d better add a thing or two from my own pharmacopoeia. Djabo bless you used the cutter. That will make things a lot easier for the flesh masons. Where’s my gear?”

“Lipitero has it. She was looking through it to see if she could find something to help. She’ll be down in a minute; she wanted to talk to you, I told her to come.”

Skeen closed her eyes. “And the others? Everyone’s here, safe?”

“Here, yes. How safe it is.… You’d have to ask Maggí that.”

“You paid her? I don’t want her thinking.…”

“I paid her the afternoon we brought you onboard. Don’t fret, Skeen.”

“That’s good. I don’t want her wondering how much we’re taking her for. How is she? Peeved about not opening another market in Fennakin?”

“I saw no sign of that. She’s got her daughter on board now. Tall skinny girl, looks a lot like Ders, poor thing, though that doesn’t seem to bother her. Always got her nose in a book, except when she’s playing with the Boy or talking to Pegwai about the Tanul Lumat. He’s agreed to get her in there, says he’ll arrange with the High Mother Ramanarrahnet to sponsor her once we hit Istryamozhe. Maggí is miserable about losing Rannah, that’s her name, the daughter’s, I mean. Same time she swells up near twice her size with pride every time she thinks about it. Let me warn you, don’t tease her about Rannah; she’s got no sense of humor at all when it comes to that girl. I suspect she’ll be looking in on you the next time Domi brings the soup along here.” A knock on the door. Timka got to her feet, went to open it. Lipitero came inside carrying Skeen’s backpack and belt.

She put the gear on Timka’s bunk, crossed to stand looking down at Skeen. “We worried,” she said.

Skeen snorted. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“That you won’t do it again.” She started to say more but thought better of it, and pressed her lips together.

“Hah! Tell that to Mala Fortuna, then jump back before she dumps on you.” Skeen sighed, closed her eyes; her face was strained, weary. She seemed too fragile to support the spirit that had showed itself a moment before. “Bring my pack over here, if you don’t mind.”

“You should rest.” Lipitero hugged her arms across her flat chest, scowled at Skeen. “There’s no hurry now, is there?” She couldn’t keep the anxiety out of the last two words.

“You want me to rest, bring me the fuckin’ pack. This thing hurts, or can’t you understand that?”

Lipitero turned to Timka. Timka spread her hands. “She won’t let me give her any of Pegwai’s concoctions.”

Skeen produced a tired snarl. “I’m not about to get addicted to primitive painkillers. Scares the shit out of me when I think of the glop you two poured down me before.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Lipitero brought the pack from the bunk, held it dangling by its strap. “What do you need?”

“I need someone to help me sit up.” The irritation was back in Skeen’s voice. It’s starting, Timka thought, and it’ll get worse. She hesitated, shifted her weight from foot to foot as she tried to make up her mind what to do. With an angry spitting sound, Skeen drew her elbow higher and tried to lever herself upright. Hastily, Timka dropped beside her and supported her shoulders. When she was settled to her satisfaction, Skeen said, “I want something that looks like a disc about the size of your palm, Petro, and a cylinder—squat, gray, like the cutter but twice the diameter.” She inspected the bandages on her stump. “Go into my right boot, feel around, you’ll find a roughish spot about halfway up; fiddle with it until you work loose a thing that feels like a flat strip of cartilage, pull it out, but be careful. The business end of that thing can cut a thought in half. That’s all for now, at least, that’s all. I can think of.” She was leaning heavily on Timka. The Min wanted to suggest Skeen lie down until Lipitero was finished, but she didn’t quite dare.

The disc was made of some gray smooth material; it might have been metal, but it was none Timka recognized. There was a knurled knob in the center and a small round hole near the rim on the opposite side. Skeen reached for the disc, then swore with weak fury as she realized she couldn’t work it with one hand gone. “Hold it up so I can see into the aperture,” she said. “Yes, that’s good. Now put your thumb on the knob and turn it. Good. Keep turning until I say stop. Yes, yes, stop.” She made an effort and held out her mutilated arm. “Press the disc against the inside of my elbow, aperture down, then … urn … you see the edge of the knurling, put your thumbnail under there and lift. Right. The knob flips up when you hit the right spot. Ah. Good. When you’ve got the disc in the proper place, touch the sensor once, and keep holding the disc against my skin until I tell you to move it.” She caught her breath as Lipitero followed her instructions with neat-fingered precision, allowed herself to smile when the job was done. “You can take it away now,” she said. “Antibiotic, that was, clean out the blood.” She closed her eyes for a minute, let herself lean more heavily on Timka, then she shivered, sighed and gave more instructions to Lipitero. This time the Ykx touched the disc to the end of Skeen’s shoulder. Skeen sighed with relief. “That one kills the feeling in the arm. Now, we start work. Ti, cut off the bandages will you. Petro, you should look for a pair of dumpy gray cylinders. I’ve got several, I know that, hold each up so I can see it. Ti, use the thing that looks like a glass knife. Be careful with it. It’s flexible enough to fool you and it’ll cut to the bone before you know what’s happening. Yes, I know it’s been in my boot. Trust me, it’s the best thing to use close to the wound.”

The stump was ugly with ooze and suppuration, the blood vessels leaking blood with a freedom that prophesied disaster if nothing was done to check the blood loss. Skeen examined it with an eerie detachment that upset Timka more than the appearance of the arm. “Give me one of those pads.” Skeen’s voice was brisk though weakness produced a few breaks in it.

“Skeen, why don’t you let me do that.” Timka suppressed a shudder and reached for the pad Lipitero was holding. “I’ve cleaned your hand, I can clean your stump.”

Skeen started to protest, then she scowled and nodded, a tight, grudging dip of her head. “Petro, hold that righthand cylinder with the pinhole thing facing the cloth, push on it for a second, let it go. Timmy, hold the cloth steady till the spray wets it.” She gave Timka a sour smile that told her she’d meant to be irritating, using the nickname Timka despised.

Timka ignored that bit of byplay and cleaned the stump, then Lipitero sprayed it with a generous coating of the antiseptic; at Skeen’s bidding she also sprayed the skin of the arm up to the elbow. By that time the arm was shaking and Skeen was near exhaustion. Her eyes looked glazed, her jaw was trembling, she was leaning most of her weight on Timka. “The other cylinder,” she said, her voice slow and wavering. “Uncap it and spray it over the stump, cover all of the exposed flesh, bring the spray around and do the same for the arm skin, about two inches from the end. That should do it.” By the end of this long and difficult speech, her voice was a thread that Lipitero had to lean close and flare her mobile ears to catch.

The second cylinder produced a film that immediately hardened and went opaque; it was tough and flexible as a layer of real skin, porous enough to let air reach the healing flesh. Skeen gazed at the grayish film, sighed. “Help me down. I’ll sleep now.”

For two days Skeen let them keep her in the cabin—well, it might be better to say she hadn’t the energy to argue. On the morning of the third day, she got out of bed and gave herself a thorough sponge bath, ignoring Timka’s protests. If she sat rather heavily on the bunk when she was finished, she ignored that also. She managed to pull on the tunic and press its closures the way she liked them, a little open at the neck, but she had to let Timka help her with the trousers, something that snapped her temper into shards. When she was ready to leave, she wouldn’t let Timka hold her arm, and when Timka tried to walk beside her, she hurried ahead. The ship rolled over a swell, she overbalanced and smacked her arm against the side of the corridor, crashed onto her knees. When Timka hurried to help her up, she swore fluently in at least a dozen tongues, pushed Timka away and staggered on toward the rectangle of brilliant light where the deck door stood wide to facilitate the flushing of old air in crew and passenger quarters. Gritting her teeth, resolved to endure what she knew was going to keep happening, Timka followed her out. She hesitated, then climbed to the quarterdeck and stood beside Pegwai and Lipitero, watching Skeen greet the Aggitj, who danced in circles about her, laughing, throwing questions at her, hardly waiting for her answers, noisy enthusiastic energetic mob of four masquerading as four dozen. Maggí joined the mob, her Aggitj heritage overcoming her usual calm; she whistled Rannah to her, shooed the boys away and introduced her daughter to Skeen. Chulji came swooping down, winged in wide circles over Skeen’s head, screaming a seahawk’s greeting, getting a wave and shriek from her before he sailed off to return to his highwatch duties.

Timka watched Skeen take a step, misjudge her balance and fall sprawling before any of those around could catch her; she made a joke of it, exaggerating her clumsiness, made another joke out of accepting help back onto her feet, got those around her laughing with her. Timka sighed. Not so bad as she thought it might be; Skeen had plenty of experience protecting herself, but bad enough for me and anyone else she knows she can’t fool. Me and anyone else who has to help with the things she can’t yet do for herself. Two days till Sikuro? Three? I suppose I can last that long without—she smiled grimly—killing her or myself. Pegwai coughed, touched her arm, startling her as he seemed to read what she was thinking. “I imagine it’s not so funny for you, Ti. Give me a whistle when it gets too bad.”

“What makes you think she’d let you do for her?” Timka heard the bitterness in her voice with its tinge of jealousy and bit down hard on her lip. Lifefire, do I think I own her? She remembered some things she’d surmised about the relationship between Skeen and Pegwai and had the grace not to question him further. “Don’t mind me—that’s irritation speaking. Thanks. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need a respite now and then.”

Nightmares. That night, then the next and the next.

Timka had sucked more than language out of Skeen.

A compacted darkness inhabited the back of her head. Images peeled off it. Each dream pared it away a little. Gradually it was being absorbed into her consciousness. As she had momentarily become one with Skeen’s body, the dreams were making her one with Skeen’s history.

Images of Skeen’s appalling uncle, her scarcely less appalling aunt whose capacity to not-know surpassed anything Timka had ever seen even among those champion not-knowers, the Mountain Min. Image of a skinny battered child murdering the man and with that image a volcanic rage that terrified Timka. It was beyond anything she’d experienced before; she was unsure she could hold it inside her skin. It passed off and left her feeling gray and lifeless as a handful of ash. Image of Skeen and the old man Harmon, affection binding them, but so twisted and strange Timka could hardly recognize what it was. Skeen being punched out when Harmon was drunk or drugged or feeling destroyed by circumstances so impossible it seemed impossible anyone could endure them. Harmon also taking endless pains with Skeen, protecting her from dangers Timka could only half understand, in the end giving his life for her. Image of Harmon dying. With that scene, a grief so shattering that it could not be endured; Timka was catapulted out of sleep, sobbing, tears flooding from her eyes. Image of Skeen as an unwilling laborer in a fish cannery, one of a cohort of street teens swept up by an amorphous and much hated authority and thrust into indentured servitude that was supposed to train them and give them a means of making a living other than thievery, begging or whoring, though the authority was careful not to educate them beyond the mechanical motions needed to complete their assigned tasks. Reading was far too unsettling, numbers made a pauper uppity and contentious. When she woke from that dream, Timka understood far better what Skeen was groping to express when she spoke of Angelsin and herself being on the same team, the Scum Team. She still couldn’t agree with Skeen’s self-assessment, but she understood better why Skeen felt that way. As if to counter the dark images of the first spate of dreams, she lived with Skeen her first flight in Picarefy, shared with her that transcendent joy. The other dreams on the days while they were crossing the Halijara were ranged somewhere between the misery of the childhood scene and the joys of her flights in Picarefy, her intermittent happiness with an assortment of lovers, the other sort of happiness she found in her work. Timka felt something of a voyeur, but she met sleep eagerly those nights, wanting more and more of Skeen’s life spread before her.

The dreams did more than narrate through sometimes grotesque images and symbols a sketchy history of Skeen’s life. They started Timka reassessing her own; she’d thought herself unhappy, but compared to what she was seeing most nights her childhood had been close to idyllic. Except for Telka. She considered Telka and the Holavish, went over what she and the Poet knew of them. A small group, cohesive and fiercely determined to impose their views on the rest of the Mountain Min, a group far more diffuse and disorganized, without much leadership and generally unhappy with what the Holavish intended. They needed someone willing to stand up to those twisters … I’ve got to go back. The thought startled her so much she exclaimed aloud the single word back without a hint of a question to it. No. No. That’s nonsense. Didn’t they drive me out, at least, let Telka nearly kill me without defending me from her and do nothing, nothing at all, to stop me when I ran? Even Carema didn’t try to help me stay, only to help me run. No, no, be fair, Timka, I wasn’t ready then to face Telka and her lot. She knew that, she knew it was better to get me away until I grew up enough to protect myself. Took my time about it, didn’t I. No, no, it’s absurd, I can’t go back, I don’t belong there, not any more. Lead them? They wouldn’t follow me to a mating feast, what hope they’d follow to a fight? No, forget that. There’s another life waiting for me on the other side. I’ll see that before.… Before I make up my mind? Lifefire, it’s ridiculous.

During the day she called Pegwai to his promise and retreated into a corner of the main hold where she meditated and practiced the ancient skills of the mind duelist for the clash she expected at the Stranger’s Gate. Telka would be waiting there, no doubting that. Surprising how soon the skills came back, how quickly the creaking in her brain subsided. But she had no illusions about the outcome of a duel between her and Telka. A few days of practice and contemplation could never compete with years of discipline and experience, no matter how great the raw talent. And there wasn’t that much difference between her and her sister. She was a little quicker, a little more fluid in her thinking, had a broader range—that was all. In everyday living that might be an asset, in the more specialized world of the duelist, it was a weakness, a diffusion of forces. Were there mind duelists in Skeen’s world? If you ask her, Telka will know. Somehow she’ll know. Sometimes I think the wind itself breathes news of me to her. Better she doesn’t know I’m trying to train, better she keeps despising and underestimating me. I don’t understand her, I never have. She despises me, she knows she can wipe her feet on me, but she’s so afraid of me she won’t let me alone. I don’t understand her. Go back? Nonsense.