The Rowan Part 16

Neither of us know that technique, Dean added.

'Then you're about to learn,' the Rowan said, wondering just what Talent medical staff were taught on Deneb, -apart from reviving a faltering heartbeat.

Suppressing the fears which his moribund appearance had raised, the Rowan moved to the bed and placed her hands on Jeff's ankles. The slight chill of the skin was only normal, she told herself, and pressed deeper, feeling the faint shallow pulse at the meridian point. With fingers and mind she could feel the congestion there, as Jeff S system began to close down prior to cessation. She dug her thumbs deep into the soles of his feet, in the solar plexus correlation point, rubbing with a hard, circular motion.

Then she pressed hard on the top of each big toe, again, and again. Then back to the solar plexus reflex. As she pressed again, she heard Rakella's quick inhalation.

There's a response. Whatever it is you're doing got a response!

You've repaired him on the physical level. I will deal with the metamorphic May I a.s.sist you? Rakella asked.

By all means. Copy my manipulations. I admit that I've had few occasions to use such treatment, but it can be quite effective. Any stimulus could make a difference. Right flow, time would have no meaning for him so we use that timelessness to develop a support level strong enough to sustain his life force and restore balance.

She was startled by the muted wail of an angry baby.

Balance yourself, Isthia Raven said in a dry tone, entering the room. Grateful for the tonic of Isthia Raven's presence, the Rowan did. I think, Asaph, that there are far too many unnecessary bodies crowding around my son. Do thank the Fleet men and send them on their way. Their thoughts are too negative, and that's a bad aura to have in here.

With Rakella now following her every move, the Rowan repeated the hard pressure on the sole, began to ma.s.sage the whole foot, warming the flesh, then gently and lightly rubbing the main bones from toe to heel bone. She worked longer at the groove between the internal cuneiform and navicular bones, which should quicken his flagging energies. She moved on to the calcaneum, ma.s.saging the side of the heel back to the Achilles tendon. Lightly her fingers crossed the top of the foot, down, and under the outer ankle bone. Then she repeated the sequence, using hard strokes only on the sole and the big toe, before lightening her pressure up the bony ridge of the arch.

Rakella had acquired the rhythm of the ma.s.sage now, and they worked in unison. Occasionally Rowan tested the meridian above the left ankle, willing the tempo of her own measured heartbeat to echo in Jeff's arteries, willing him to rally, to respond, however faintly, to show them that he clung to life.

The superiluous bodies out of the way, Isthia moved to Jeff's head, smoothing back his sweaty hair. Then she placed her fingers lightly on each temple and looked up at the Rowan. Jeff's mother had the same startlingly blue eyes, the same direct, honest gaze. But neither of them could 'feel' his mind.

We Ravens have hard heads, Isthia said, closing off her emotions to the hope still deferred.

And callused feet, added Rakella.

As the Rowan kneaded the sole, she suddenly felt the breakup of that awful congestion. She glanced at the monitors and they confirmed a slight but measurable improvement. Yet still, there was nothing of Jeff to touch in that special area in which all Talent dwelt.

We will not let him go! Isthia said softly. Her eyes held the contact with Rowan.

No, we will not! And the Rowan renewed her ministrations, sliding her hands up his legs to his knees and the next major meridian. Even lax in his present condition, she could feel the muscular strength of him - memories flooded back.

Even those could help, his mother said drolly.

The Rowan looked up, caught off guard.

Jeff said you had a loud voice, the Rowan said respectfully, gently stroking the bony ridge down the arch. The lightest of caresses now to coax his return. He didn't mention you had a long ear.

Isthia smiled. I'd heard about this sort of hands-on techniques.

Interesting!

It might take time to show results It takes time for most healings, Rowan. And I 'feel' that this is working even if we don't see much progress.

Suddenly Jeff's foot gave a feeble twitch. The Rowan started in surprise.

Now that's a definite reaction, Rowan! Rakella said, looking much encouraged.

So the Rowan pressed deeply in the pad of his left big toe and saw a wriggle in the Alpha line and a minute shudder in the Delta. Rakella gripped the right toe, and again there was a brief response.

'How long do you keep this up?' Medic Asaph asked, returning. He was deeply anxious about Jeff, his broad face reflecting concern and fatigue.

'Until we bring him back,' the Rowan stated flatly.

'There is no time where he is now.' Asaph gave a snort. 'Time?

He gave us a time, I'll tell you! Worth it, though. Jeff's sort of special to us here on Deneb.' Then he added hastily, 'Unfortunately, I need Rakella. Jeff wasn't the only one injured.' Isthia touched the Rowan lightly on the shoulder. 'I should feed the baby,' she said, and through her mind the Rowan could hear the now frantic cries of a very hungry infant. 'If it's necessary he can wait a while longer The Rowan could also feel the dichotomy of her needs: two sons to succor.

'Feed the child!' she said. She could concentrate entirely on Jeff, then, free of the anxieties of others; alone with Jeff, who was her responsibility right now as no-one else had ever been.

Isthia slipped away through the curtains. The patient in the next cubicle groaned, and the Rowan heard the quick, soft steps of the nurse coming to attend him.

Then, in privacy, the Rowan forced herself to look at Jeff's face again, so sickly pale beneath the tan. For a man of such mental and physical strength and vigor, he looked boy like when unconscious, as if injury had wiped clean all traces of his charismatic personality as well as health. The ache within her grew to alarming proportions, an insistent pressure of tears behind her eyes and her throat so clogged that she had to force breath out and then down.

Easy! Isthia's touch, stemming as it must from a pain as severe as her own, soothed her. Do not compromise the good you've already done with negative emotions.

Such a long ear his mother had! The Rowan was both resentful and grateful for that reminder. She paused long enough to bring the stool, the one other piece of furniture in the cubicle, to the foot of the bed. And then renewed the metamorphic treatment. Lightly, lightly, stroking endlessly. Occasionally she placed her fingers on the meridian point, feeling the beat of the arterial blood flow, and trying to bring the tempo up to her own circulatory level.

'Are you there, Jeff? Are you still there?' she whispered, willing him to hear her voice, if not her mind. And as she continued to stroke his feet, she talked to him in that whisper, so low that it would not reach past the privacy screen. Oddly, the sound of her own voice soothed her.

The Rowan had never sat in vigil. Nor had she ever no, once before, a long, long time ago - felt so helpless. In a tumbling stinking darkness? But never had helplessness been so bitter a state.

What good did Talent do her now?

And yet it had! His mind might not know that she was there, but his body did, borrowing her physical strength to holster his faltering grasp on life. She placed her hand on his wrist, her fingers monitoring the slow but not so faint beat. Yes, his body knew that she was there, even If that could not be recorded in the green lines wavering along the screens.

Through her hands she continued to let her energy flow to him.

When Jeff. . . yes, when Jeff was well . . . she promised herself she would take additional training in the metamorphic from those Earth Talents whose healing abilities produced effects close to the miraculous. A miracle was certainly needed here. How long did miracles take on this alternate level?

Had she truly reached it? Be positive! Jeff would live, would revive, be wholly himself again. She flowed life from herself into Jeff Raven in a calm and even stream, laden with love and dedication.

Despite herself, despite her uncomfortable position on the low stool, despite her continued gentle ma.s.sage, the Rowan must have dozed.

For her head was resting against one foot. She shook herself awake, ashamed at such weakness, which was negative, when positivity was so essential. Apprehensively she glanced at the monitors: all registered stronger functions.

The shout that then burst from her, bringing both nurses to the cubicle, was sheer exultation.

Rowan! cried Isthia, hope bursting like a meteor tail through her voice.

Back where she had missed it was the light but tender touch of Jeff Raven's sleeping mind.

He's there! He'll live! He's there! He'll live! she chanted, sobbing with almost unbearable joy and relief.

She intensely resented the nurses who shoved back the curtain and briskly motioned her to one side.

Let them do their job, Rowan, said Isthia in a tone of mild rebuke. It's not as :if he could help raise his endorphin levels and reduce pain. Which I guarantee you he'll feel soon. He was brought in unconscious, bleeding to death, so there was no time to use less stringent methods of anesthesia. It'll take him a while to revive from the chemicals. But at least now we know he will! You have my eternal grat.i.tude.

The Rowan did not like being pushed to one side so arbitrarily, having to watch while necessary things were done to the body of her lover. Then the nurses, with no more than a curt nod to her, left the cubicle, twitching the curtains back in place.

'Don't jump before you can walk, girl,' Isthia remarked dryly as she entered. 'In case you're thinking of singlehandedly nursing him from now on. Frankly, you may know how to deal excellently with the metamorphic levels but not the medical, even as deeply as you can experience.

And don't glare at me like that, child! I willingly accept that my son has chosen you as his life mate but,' and Isthia raised a warning hand, 'you don't try to own a man like Jeff.' The Rowan found herself resenting Isthia's presence because it impinged on her privacy with him. She resented her cautions all the more because she recognized their validity. She did not wish to share Jeff, injured or sound.

She hadn't realized just how much their necessary separations had rankled in her mind and emotions.

'Sort it out in your head now, Rowan,' Isthia continued, ignoring thoughts which the Rowan didn't bother to shield. 'Don't let petty jealousy and other unworthy notions tarnish what you and Jeff share.

Nourish your bond, don't stifle it.' When Isthia placed a rea.s.suring hand on her shoulder, she almost jerked away from it, unused to casual physical contact. Isthia's hand tightened.

Well, we Denebians use a lot of tactile contact, so that's another thing to get used to. It helps us lamebrains to function on the mental level.

'You're no lamebrain,' the Rowan flared, her basic sense of justice denying Isthia's self-deprecation. But in rejecting that, she made eye contact with Isthia and the older woman caught and held hers, using the anger to project a searching shaft past the Rowan's guards.

You have never had it easy, have you, child? Isthia's mind brimmed with compa.s.sion and a generosity of spirit that the Rowan had not encountered since Lusena's death and which dissolved her immediate resentments. You love Jeff but so do most of the people left on Deneb.

You can't deny them their share of his attention. I wouldn't try.

You're smart enough to know what I mean. Be wise enough to accept it.

You hold most securely what you are willing to let go. Then Isthia frowned slightly. 'Who is Purza?' 'Jeff said you had a devastating Talent,' the Rowan said, stunned that Isthia had 'seen'

Purza. 'And I cannot imagine how you managed to access that bit of ancient history.

'It's right there at the top of your mind, my dear,' Isthia said gently and pressed for an answer 'Purza's not a who, it's a what. A monitoring device in any one of a number of comfort forms for a troubled child.' 'Which you certainly were - also very much on the top of your mind. You've too strong a mind for someone untrained like me to pry into very deeply.

The Rowan gave a short ironic laugh.

'That's better,' Isthia said, smiling back. 'You'd got locked into a very bad mind loop there, doing you no good when Jeff is still going to need you. I'll have a meal brought in to you, and a more comfortable chair.' With that she left.

Both the meal, which the Rowan forced herself to eat, and the chair, which was an improvement on the stool, were welcome. The monitors above Jeff's bed all indicated much stronger body rhythms, good Alpha and Delta responses. His light contact remained in her mind but it was still a pa.s.sive one.

It was another hour before he revived enough to recognize his surroundings. At the sight of the Rowan beside his bed, he gave a weak grin which turned into a grimace of pain.

'Rowan?' and he reached for her hand, 'I thought it was you, but I didn't know how you could be here.' His voice was a dry whisper.

Sensing his thirst, she brushed his lips with water as she had seen the nurse do, then dribbled a teaspoonful into his mouth. In fact, I argued with myself that I had imagined you from a deep subliminal level.

'Hush, love. You needed me. I'm here.

You made it on your own? His mental tone was far stronger than his physical voice, and his fingers clutched hers with more force than she had expected.

Your mother.

Trust her to call in the cavalry. But you came? His astonishment and grat.i.tude washed her mind.

Isthia had a.s.sembled a team. And then the generator fell apart!

Relief made her silly.

Reidinger let you come?

Hush, love. I hear the nurse coming.

'Well, back with us again, huh, Raven,' said the sandy haired older nurse who flicked back the curtain. She nodded approvingly at the Rowan. 'Medic Asaph will be very pleased.' Then she turned squarely to the Rowan.

'Now will you leave his bedside and get some rest before I have to clout you on the head with that hardwood bat I keep for obstreperous bedside leeches?' 'I'm fine,' the Rowan said and her voice cracked with fatigue.

The nurse c.o.c.ked one eyebrow skeptically. 'Ha! You've done two and a half shifts already. Raven, you manage her.' Go and rest, darling! Jeff urged. I'll keep you in mind, you know. And he gave her the tender smile that was hers alone.

Over the next two days, now that Jeff was on the mend and she had time to observe her surroundings, the Rowan was increasingly amazed by the resilience of the Denebians.

The planet had lost over three-fifths of its population, its two population centers had been demolished by bombardment, farming communities burned out, and the mines, on which Deneb depended for outworld supplies, were all but useless.

All known survivors of both plague and attack had long since been centralized, along with available supplies and skills. That had happened even before Jeff Raven had contacted the Rowan for a.s.sistance.

Between their first momentous meeting and now, the City's ruins had been leveled, and temporary living quarters erected: rudimentary, to be sure, but supplying shelter for all. The hydroelectric plant, deep in the cliffs through which the broad Kenesaw River surged down to the distant sea, had escaped damage but it was the planet's only operating power source. An immense communal kitchen fed everyone and four facilities scheduled time for personal bathing and laundry.

Except for toddlers and infants, even the children spent half their day on work teams, and schools for the older ones were devoted to on the-job training.

While the Fleet had generously given urgent medical supplies and freeze dried emergency rations to the battered colony, the Rowan began to notice critical shortages . . . such as work boots and warm clothing now that the Denebian winter was closing in. Though the City was located in the temperate zone, winds with bitter chill factors were known to buffet the plain and the hunters could not bring in sufficient pelts from the meat animals they killed to clothe everyone.

The Rowan knew she would receive private a.s.sistance from Capella and Betelgeuse as soon as she asked, but until she had a functioning generator, she couldn't bring any of it in to Deneb. She 'ported herself out to the dilapidated facility to see just what was needed to make it functional. The cracked housing, still on the ground, was not a priority repair. The generator itself was jerry-rigged.

Two slip rings had cracked, there were only the holders of the carbon brushes left, and the drive shaft looked doubtful. She lifted the housing back into place, wondering if anyone in the City had pyrotic Talent to mend the crack and if there were any spare generator parts left on Deneb.

When she entered the shaft (she couldn't give it the t.i.tle of Tower), she realized that sheer blind luck must have been the guiding factor: the instrumentation was minimal, contrapted together out of spare parts not all of which seemed to perform any function when she tried to trace it. She thanked Gerolaman from the bottom of her heart for teaching her so much about the mechanical and electronic workings of a Tower. She might have pa.s.sed the first essential lesson in 'porting herself in her frantic dash to Jeff's bedside, but she couldn't - wouldn't attempt a return without more sophisticated safeguards than these.

Isthia had helped her convince the pro teen Council that the Tower facility was a priority.

'We're sort of used to doing for ourselves, you know,' Makil Resnik, the provisional Governor and Labor Manager, had told her.

'Anything we can't make ourselves, we do without.' Hold it, Rowan, Isthia advised when she felt the surge of the Rowan's protest. 'We can make a great deal ourselves mostly, Makil. We may even get through the winter without suitable clothes. But we must import seed and medical supplies. We've got too few survivors to risk any on the horns of false pride.' 'You got a point there, Isthia. Even so, can't spare a big team to help. Got to open the Benevolent Mine right soon.

They'd just hit a big seam of platinum.' 'I can do a good deal of the contracting myself but I need someone with electronic skills,' the Rowan said, managing a calm tone.

Resnik consulted his compack, tapping keys with a blunt thick fore-finger.

'Zathran Abita's the one she needs, Isthia said calmly.

'She knows more about Towers than Jeff did. Give her a team of kids to scrounge. With any luck, she'll find most of what she needs in the salvage sheds. Oh, and Jeff has those I-beam specifications for you.

You've all this down to a fine art, haven't you, Isthia? the Rowan said, appreciating such deft manipulation. Was it you who taught him how to charm?

No, I learned in self-defense against his father. Bear that in mind! Isthia turned her smile from the Rowan to Resnik, her manner acquiescent and grateful.

'Little thing like you can refit a Tower herself?' Makil asked, peering at her appraisingly. 'Hmm. When d'you want to start?' She who hesitates loses her advantage, Isthia drawled.