'Damn,' she said. 'Aleksi, sit down.'
He sat. 'What is it? Is that Bakhtiian's spirit?'
Dr. Hierakis glanced up from studying the slowly rotating spirit hanging in the air. 'Goddess. I thought you'd stayed outside.'
'It isn't a spirit, Aleksi,' said Tess. 'It's a picture. A picture of his body. It shows what might be making him- ill-what might be making him-'
'But his spirit has left his body,' said Aleksi. 'I know what it looks like when that happens. That's his spirit there.' He pointed to the spirit. It spun slowly, changing facets like a gem turning in the light, little lines hatched and bulging, tiny gold lights stretched on a net of silvery-white wire, brilliant, as Aleksi had always known Bakhtiian's spirit would be, radiant and gleaming and surprising only in that it emitted no heat he could feel. 'I can see it.'
'No, he's just unconscious. That's just an image of his body. The doctor is trying to find out why he's fallen into this-sleep.'
'We know why,' said the doctor in a dry, sarcastic tone. 'I'm trying to find out how extensive the damage is.' Then she said something else in Anglais.
'Oh, hell.' Tess burst into tears again.
'It isn't Habakar witchcraft,' said Aleksi suddenly. 'It's yours.'
The doctor snorted. 'It isn't witchcraft at all, young man, and I'll thank you not to call it that. But it's quite true that we're the ones responsible.'
'I'm the one responsible,' said Tess through her tears.
Dr. Hierakis shook her head. 'What can I say, my dear? The serum has metastasized throughout the body, and for whatever reason, it's caused him to slip into a coma.'
'You can't wake him up somehow?'
'Right now, since his signs are otherwise stable, I don't care to chance it. You knew the risks when you insisted we go ahead with the procedure.'
Tess sank down onto her knees beside her husband and bent double, hiding her face against his neck. He lay there, limp, unmoving. The walls of the tent snapped in, and out, and in again, and out, agitated by the wind. The doctor sighed and spoke a word, and the luminous spirit above the tablet vanished. A single white spark of light shone in the very center of the black tablet. A similar gleam echoed off the doctor's brooch.
Aleksi jumped to his feet. 'Where did his spirit go?' he demanded.
Dr. Hierakis let out all her breath in one huff. 'Aleksi, his spirit did not go anywhere. It's still inside him. That was just an image of his spirit, if you will.'
'But-'
'Aleksi.' Now she turned stern. 'Do you trust Tess?'
'Yes.'
'Do you think she would do anything to harm Bakhtiian?'
'No.'
'Aleksi. This slate, this tablet here, it isn't a magic thing, it's a-a machine. Like the mechanical birds that the ambassador from Vidiya brought but more complex than that. It's a tool. It can do things, show us things, that we could not otherwise do ourselves or see ourselves. It helps us do work we otherwise could not do, or work that would take much longer to do if we did it-by hand.'
Aleksi considered all this, and he considered how many times he had wondered why Tess seemed ignorant of the simplest chores and duties that the jaran engaged in every day. 'Do you have many of these machines in Jeds?'
The doctor smiled. He saw that she was pleased that he was responding in a clever, reasonable way to her explanations. He knew without a doubt that she was telling him only a part of the truth. 'Yes. Many such machines.'
'Then why didn't Bakhtiian see them there, when he was in Jeds? I never heard Sonia or Nadine mention such machines either.''
'Tell him the truth,' said Tess, her voice muffled against Bakhtiian. 'I can't stand it, all these lies. I can't stand it. Tell him the truth.'
Aleksi crouched down and waited.
The doctor placed her tablet inside her bag and followed it with the little black block. 'The truth is, Aleksi, that we don't come from Jeds, or from the country overseas, Erthe, either. We don't come from this world. We come from up there.' She pointed at the tent's ceiling.
He shook his head. A moment later, he realized what she meant, that she meant from the air above, from the heavens. 'Then you come from the gods' lands?'
'No. We aren't gods, nothing like. We're human like you, Aleksi. Never doubt that. We come from the stars. From a world like this world, except its sun is one of those stars.'
She could be mad. But he examined her carefully, and he could see no trace of madness in her. The doctor had always seemed to him one of the sanest people he had ever met. And as strange as it all sounded, it might well be true.
'But. But how can Tess's brother be the prince of Jeds, then? If he-' Aleksi broke off. 'May I see that thing again? Does it show other spirits besides Bakhtiian's?'
'So much for the damned quarantine,' muttered the doctor.
'What are we going to tell them?' Tess asked. She straightened up. Tears streaked her face, but she was no longer crying. 'When they come in and see him like this? How long, Cara? How long will he stay this way?'
'I can't know. Tess, I promise you, I will not leave him. But I'll need some kind of monitoring system. I'll have to set up the scan-bed in here, under him, disguise it somehow. I'll need Ursula.' She glanced at Aleksi. 'And hell, we've got him now. With the four of us, we can keep the equipment a secret. I think. Unless you want the whole damned camp to know.''
'No!' Tess stood up and walked to the back wall and back again, and knelt beside her husband, and stroked his slack face. 'No,' she repeated, less violently. 'Of course not. I just-' She looked at Aleksi. He saw how tormented she was, how terrified, how remorseful. 'Aleksi.' Her voice dropped. 'You do believe that I didn't mean for this to happen. That I'm trying to help-oh, God.'
She was pleading with him. Tess needed him. 'But I trust you, Tess. You know that. You would never hurt him.'
She sighed, sinking back onto her heels. Her face cleared. However slightly, she looked relieved of some portion of her burden. And he had done it. It was almost sharp, the satisfaction of knowing he had helped her.
'But what will we tell the rest of the jaran?' the doctor asked. 'I hope I needn't remind you, Aleksi, that anything you've seen in here must be kept a secret. Must be.'
'Will his spirit come back?' Aleksi asked.
'It will,' said Tess fiercely.
'I don't know,' said the doctor.
Aleksi rose. He shrugged. 'Habakar witchcraft. They're saying it already.'
The doctor grimaced. 'I don't like it.'
'What choice do we have?' asked Tess bitterly.
'Well.' The doctor rose, brushing her hands together briskly. 'There's no use just sitting here. Aleksi, can you go fetch Ursula? Then meet me at my wagons.'
He nodded and ducked outside. A faint pink glow rose in the east. The wind was dying. Up, bright in the heavens, the morning star shone, luminous against the graying sky. Could it be? That they came from-? Aleksi shook his head. How could it be? How could they ride across the air, along the wind, up into the heavens? And yet. And yet.
His tent flap stirred. Raysia ducked outside, dressed and booted. She saw him and started. 'Oh, there you are. Is something wrong?'
'Habakar witchcraft,' he said, knowing that the sooner he let the rumor spread, the more quickly Tess and Dr. Hierakis could hide their own witchcraft. Their own machines. 'The Habakar priests have put a curse on Bakhtiian.'
'Gods,' said Raysia. 'I'd better run back and tell my uncle.' She glanced all around and, seeing that no one yet
