"Why?"
"Is protecting one’s home too complicated to understand?"
His fingers tapped against something hard. The tapping stopped. "I was a member of the Christian Mission Council-"
"A minister?"
"Priest… Our mission was invited there by the Jetai Kovveda on Akkujah. A sharing of philosophies. We instructed the Jetai, and, in turn, we were entered into Akkujah’s Talman Kovah. I had been there three years before Amadeen flared up and the war started. By that time we had been in the kovah long enough to read and understand Talma. After studying the diagrams, most of the mission chose to serve the Dracs."
-Diagrams. In that flaming library in the kovah in V’Butaan; on the walls, complicated diagrams, logic circles, flow. charts-
"Mitzak, you gave up your religion for this?"
"A simplistic way to look at it. Yes." He was silent for a moment, then he laughed. "Can you give up yours, I wonder."
"I have no religion."
He laughed again.
…A lull in the fighting, and she had heard Taiseido talking to Sergeant Benbo: "What they say about there being no atheists in foxholes; its true."
For an instant Benbo turned away from staring down the sights of his rifle and glanced at Taiseido, his right eyebrow raised. He turned back to look for Dracs to kill. "What about foxes?"
"You don’t believe in a god?"
"I believe in this rifle, in those yellow bastards down there, and in Amos Benbo…"
Besides Mitzak, the only two that talked to her were Pur and Vunseleh; and their conversations were limited to her health. And, after a while, Pur stopped coming. Eventually her hands and face stopped hurting and began to itch.
Between the silence, the dark, and the itch, her mind felt as though it were beginning to bend.
Mitzak would speak, his voice devoid of sarcasm.
"Now is when the priest would tell you to pray for strength, or to think of those who are injured more severely than you. Perhaps he would call up the image of the crucified Christ, describe in graphic detail the saviour’s suffering, and then demand to know what in the hell you’ve got to bitch about."
"The Dracs have something better?"
"They have talma."
"What is talma?"
A bitter laugh. "talma to a human is like relativity to a cockroach. Even if you could understand it. I doubt that you could use it."
She played every mental game that she could remember a thousand times over. She searched her mind for memories and the memories she could find-Mallik’s corpse, the burning Drac children, the thundering defeat at Storm Mountain-chased her from the past.
She dropped down a bottomless well of self-pity, then shot back up again with an anger so intense that it made her vomit. In the midst of her wretched mess, she passed out…
…"What is Talma. Mitzak?"
"It took me months to understand, Nicole."
"Try."
"Nicole, you are in a place. There is a place that you want to be. Your task is to get from the first to the second."
"How?"
"You must know where you are; you must know where you want to go; you must know the limits on the paths between the two… "
After cleaning had dragged its heels out of the room, Vunseleh entered.
"Joanne Nicole, was there something wrong with the food?"
"Why?"
"Your digestive tract threw it"
"Vunseleh, why won’t the ones who clean, bring the food, and bring the bedpan talk to me?"
"Talk to you! Why… why. they are forbidden. "
"Do you think I’ll sneak bedpan secrets off to the USEF?"
Vunseleh was silent, then Nicole heard its robe rustle as its hands moved.
"I do not understand. They may speak to none of the patient here. The patients would not stand for any talk or other noise. Healing is a time for quiet-meditation."
"Meditation?"
"Joanne Nicole, most of that which we call healing is conducted and performed by the mind."
"Drac, I am just about all meditated out!" She sat up for the first time, her stomach doing flip-flops. "Me! I want talk! I want noise!" Her left hand hung onto the edge of the bed while her right hand fumbled trying to hold the spongy cover to her breasts. How much clout do I have as the ward of Tora Soam? She was in that half-way. I-don’t-give-a-damn state between desperation and prudence. "And, Vunseleh, I want to get up."
"Get up? Walk?"
"Yes; I still have legs. I want to get up and walk around. If I lie here much longer, I’ll turn into a plant."
"This is a joke… of course." Vunseleh made a nervous clicking sound with its mouth. "I can’t have you among the other patient; but I shall tell the Jetah. Pur Sonaan must give its permission."
"Then get it."
Vunseleh’s footsteps left the room.
Nicole remained seated until her stomach stopped heaving. Pulling the spongy cover from the bed, she wrapped it around her shoulders, and gingerly moved her legs to the edge of the bed. She grunted with the effort. How long have I been in bed?
She moved her legs over the edge of the bed, letting her feet touch the cool softness of the floor. The bed was very low. She leaned forward, pushed on the bed, and stood.
Her head reeled, her legs threatened to collapse, and her stomach radiated warning signals. But she was standing and could feel the coolness of the air upon the sores of her back.
Pur Sonaan’s heavy tread raced into the room. "Joanne Nicole, what are you doing?"
"I am standing."
"This you should not do. You are not well."
"If I stay on that bed like a piece of meat in a butcher shop, I will never get well; I will die."
An exasperated silence ensued. Then Pur Sonaan spoke: "Vunseleh gave me your requests. You cannot wander the corridors at will. I must think of the other patients. Also it would not be safe for you. You cannot see. And you are still a human."
"I’ll risk bumping into a few things, Pur Sonaan. I don’t bruise easily."
"But you are still a human, Joanne Nicole. We have patients and staff in this institution that would attack you for that fact alone. You are guarded here, and everyone in this area knows that you are under Tora Soam’s protection. You must stay in this room."
She felt like flopping back upon her bed, but something forced her to remain standing. "I can move about this room?"
"… Yes. But only in this room."
"And I want some noise. Anything. Can I have a…" Nicole couldn’t think of the Drac words. "I want some way to hear the news. Radio… radio pictures."
"Impossible! Patients do not have such things." Pur Sonaan moved a step closer to her. "Your demands test the boundaries of Tora Soam’s influence."
"I want to hear news-something-anything!"
"Joanne Nicole… I will see what can be done." Thoughtful silence. "A receiver is impossible, but I can have Leonid Mitzak talk to you very quietly about current events. Read to you… perhaps some other things."
Pur’s footsteps left the room and Nicole collapsed upon her bed. After a few moments of sitting, she fell over onto her left side and slept.