few days before it had suddenly escalated, ebbing occasionally but never going away, and when it hit full force he could hardly think or see, and he just wanted to smash his face into something hard and destroy the bastard tooth. Only, he didn’t because he knew it wouldn’t work.
Doc looked over, her eyes just visible through the round lenses of the gas mask. Doc had weird eyes. They were kind of violet, and bigger than normal. The Arkle had heard that up out of the valley they shone in the dark, and the Doc had to wear sunglasses all the time. He’d never seen it, but he believed it.
“That you, The Arkle?”
Her voice was muffled through the mask and the heavy door, but clear enough.
“Yeah. Can I come in?”
Doc was almost the only person in the Family who called The Arkle by his chosen name. Most of the others called him Arkle, or Ark, or Arkie, which he hated.
“Wait a minute,” called out Doc. “This stuff won’t do you any good. I’ll be out in a minute. Go into my office.”
The Arkle retreated through the outer door. Doc’s office was the biggest room in the old house. She slept there, as well as worked. Her bed was behind the desk. The Arkle looked at it and wondered what it would be like to share it with her. He’d slept with nearly all of the women and at least half of the men on the Farm, because his Change Talent was for seduction, and even the pale version of it that worked down in the valley was enough to help out his natural charm. And since everyone had pretty much grown up in the dorms, there was no such thing as a normal human body anymore. So his snouty face and fangs and slimmest of waists was not a bar to relationships.
The Doc was the one closest to old human, and even then, she had those eyes. The Arkle had never dared try his Talent on her, had never even had a few minutes alone with her to see if it might be worthwhile adding that into the natural equation of liking and desire.
But he couldn’t even begin to daydream about sex with Doc, not with the pain in his tooth. He lay down in the patient’s chair, the old banana lounge that sat in front of the desk, and shut his eyes, hoping that this would somehow lessen the pain.
It didn’t, and the sudden waft of a harsh chemical smell alerted him to Doc’s presence. She was leaning over him, the gas mask off, her short brown hair pressed down in an unnatural way, showing the marks of the straps. Her violet eyes were fixed on his jaw.
“Your jaw is swollen,” remarked Doc. She went behind the desk, put down her mask, and stripped off the suit. It gave off more chemical smells as she opened the window and hung it on the hook outside, ready to be hosed down later.
She was only wearing a pair of toweling shorts and a singlet underneath. The Arkle’s eyes watered as he looked at her ruefully. The tearing up wasn’t from the remnant chemical smell, but from the pain. A pain so intense he couldn’t even appreciate his first real look at Doc without the white lab coat she nearly always wore inside—and there it was, slipping over her shoulders and getting done up at the front, far too swiftly for his liking.
“Is it a tooth pain?” asked Doc.
“Yeah,” whispered The Arkle. He raised one hand and gestured toward the left-hand fang. “It’s got…pretty… bad. Just today.”
“That never got this bad in a day. You should have seen me when it first started,” said Doc. She dragged a box over next to the banana lounge and sat on it. “Open wide.”
The Arkle opened wide in a series of small movements because he couldn’t do it all in one go, it hurt too much. Doc leaned over him, looking close but not touching. Some distant memory made The Arkle shut his eyes. For a moment, he was six again and in the dentist’s chair, and his mother was holding his hand….
“Keep your hands still,” ordered Doc. “Stay there. Just lie quiet.”
The Arkle heard the box slide back and Doc move. He opened his eyes and saw her go over to the door to the cellar. It had two big padlocks on it, and only Doc and Gwyn had the keys. The Family’s hard-won pharmacopeia was stored in the cellar. All the drugs that had been found in scavenging expeditions in the small towns nearby, and in the outer suburbs of the city, plus the things that Doc had been able to make.
The Arkle shut his eyes again. It didn’t really help with the pain, but it did seem to make it easier to bear. He didn’t want to sob in front of Doc. He hadn’t cried since Tira was killed, and he’d sworn he’d never cry again. It was hard not to now. This pain just went on and on, and it wasn’t only in the tooth. It was all up the side of his face, and reaching deep inside his nose and into his brain.
“Ah, it’s getting worse, it’s getting worse,” muttered The Arkle. He couldn’t help himself. The pain was starting to make him panic, fear growing inside him. He’d been afraid before, plenty of times, felt certain he was going to die. But this was worse than that because the pain was worse than dying. He’d rather die than have this incredible pain keep going—
There was a sensation in his arm, not a pain, exactly, more like a pressure inside the skin. Something flowed through his arm and shoulder, and with it came a blessed darkness that pushed the pain away and carried it off somewhere far away, along with his conscious self.
Doc put the syringe back in the sterile dish and placed it on the table. Then she put a blood pressure cuff on The Arkle’s arm, pumped it up and released it, noting the result. A check of his pulse followed, and a look at his eyes, gently raising each eyelid in turn.
Finally she opened his mouth, being careful to place her hands so that some involuntary reflex wouldn’t put a fang through her fingers. Even more gently, she touched the top left tooth. Despite the sedation, The Arkle flinched. Doc curled back the young man’s lip and looked at the gum around the base of the tooth. She looked for quite a while, then let the lip slide back, and stood up.
“Pal! You there?”
Pal came in a minute later. He was another of the oldsters, though unlike Doc, he’d spent time in the dorms. He had been destined to become a Winger, and was hunchbacked a little, and there were stubs on his shoulders where his wings had either failed to grow or been surgically removed.
“You called?”
Pal was the chief cook of the Family, and liked to pretend he was a particular butler, in some reference to the old time that only Doc and Gwyn understood. He always wore the same black coat, with long tails that hung down at the back.
“Go get Gwyn, will you? He’s moving the chicken houses.”
Pal looked down at The Arkle.
“Problem?”
Doc sighed.
“Big problem. Why don’t they ever tell me when they first hurt themselves, Pal? A week ago this could have been sorted out with antibiotics. I mean, I’ve got enough broad spectrum stuff downstairs to treat a thousand patients, but it’s got to be done early! Now…”
“Now what?”
“I’m going to have to cut out the tooth, and he’s practically all Ferret in the jaw. Those teeth have roots four inches long, and nerve clusters around the blood-sucking channels…which I only know about in theory, since I never—”
She stopped talking suddenly.
“Since you never dissected a Ferret?” asked Pal.
“No,” replied Doc. “Never a Ferret. At least a dozen Myrmidons and quite a few Wingers…”
“Which was just as well for me,” said Pal. “All things considered. I suppose you want Gwyn to carry the boy up to the ridge?”
Doc looked at the floor.
“Yeah, I guess I was thinking that. It’s the only way I can do it.”
“Risky,” said Pal. “For everyone. I thought we agreed no more trips out of the valley.”
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Doc. “Arkle will die if I don’t take out the tooth, and he’ll die if I do it wrong. I have to be able to see inside!”
“You could try halfway up,” said Pal. “Some of the Talents seem to work okay there. Gwyn’s does.”
“And mine doesn’t,” snapped Doc. “It kicks in at the ridgeline, never lower down. So can you go and get Gwyn now, please? I can’t keep Arkle under forever. There’s a big enough risk with what I’ve given him
