Moki brought in the tea things then, carefully arranged on a tray. Their guest’s eyes followed his progress from the kitchen to the table.
“Yang Xaviera, this is my adopted son, Moki.”
“I’m honored to meet you,” Yang said. “I’ve heard so much about you and your mother on the Tri-V and the net.”
“It’s good to meet you, too. Do you want to marry my sitik?”
“Moki— ” Juna began, but Yang interrupted her.
“Our family would like to get to know her better. If she likes us, and we like her, then yes, the two of you might join our family.”
“What about Ukatonen?” Moki asked.
“Ukatonen is welcome as well,” Yang said.
“We are a package deal,” Juna informed him. She picked up the folder and paged through it. Holograms of spacious mansions and beautiful gardens leaped off the page, pausing at a shot of a well-equipped playground with a dozen happy children at play. It was tempting, and it would indeed be interesting to be courted by a rich and powerful family. She closed the folder.
“You honor me with your interest,” she said. “I will give your offer serious consideration. I should warn you that the Tendu and I have a very full schedule at present. I don’t know when we can get time off to come and visit you.”
“I understand. This invitation has surprised you. Please take all the time you need to consider it. Our offer is open-ended.”
She stood, and Yang rose as well.
“Thank you, Juna,” he said. “I appreciate your kindness in agreeing to see me.” He took one of her hands in his. “It has indeed been a great honor to meet you and Moki. To tell the truth, I did not expect you to be so young and beautiful.” He kissed her hand, making the antique gesture seem both appropriate and graceful.
Juna blushed, and lowered her eyes. Her pulse was racing. She felt as giddy as a young girl.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Xaviera,” she said, looking up. “We are honored by your visit.” .
He inclined his head. “I look forward to seeing you again, Juna. Our family is eager to get to know you better.”
Then he was gone. Juna stood staring at the closed door for a moment, then leaned against it and began to laugh. This was like something out of a bad Tri-V series.
Moki touched her arm, ochre with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Juna wiped away the tears of laughter. “I’m fine, Moki. It’s just that this is all so strange.” She picked up the elegant folder, flipped through it again, and then tossed it onto her pile of mail. “Cmon, let’s go find Ukatonen and go out for dinner.”
Ukatonen quickly established a routine. For three or four days in a row, he and Moki would go through the wards, healing people. Sometimes it was easy, a matter of adjusting faulty chemistry, or killing off an infection. Other times it was a long, involved process, clearing out plaque-choked arteries, destroying cancer cells, and coaxing damaged tissue to regrow. At the end of each day, Ukatonen went to the Motoyoshi garden, sometimes with Moki, sometimes alone, and sat there in silence beside the trickling water, watching the fish, and drinking in the serenity of the garden.
Occasionally the doctors had them test various medicines to see if they could be changed or improved. Uka-tonen liked that work. It was intricate, and tested his skill at allu-a. He was coming to respect human medicine. Humans had accomplished a great deal, despite the immense handicaps they struggled under. The drugs that they created with their cumbersome chemistry worked surprisingly well. Often, Ukatonen was able to make a drug work more effectively, though communicating what to change proved very difficult. Few of the researchers were willing to link with him, and those that did were faced with the same problem: how to convert the touch/smell/taste of allu-a into the language of chemistry.
And they were discovering ways to help improve a healer’s abilities in allu-a. An intravenous feed of glucose and salts enabled them to accomplish much more during a healing session. He recovered faster, as well. They were working on mineral supplements to speed the healing of bones. He looked forward to taking these ideas back to Tiangi.
As rumors about their work spread through the hospital, patients began begging for their help. Moki found this particularly wrenching. Ukatonen tried to explain to Moki that sometimes it was necessary to turn away from need, but it was a lesson that the bami was not yet ready to learn.
As the appeals increased, Ukatonen came to rely more and more on the sense of peace he found in the Japanese garden.
Then one evening, Ukatonen’s peaceful refuge was shattered. It had been a particularly trying day. While they were preparing for the last healing, a man barged into the room. He seized Ukatonen’s arm and began pleading with him to heal his wife. Security guards rushed in and took him away, but even now, as Ukatonen sat in the garden, he could still feel the hot imprint of the man’s pleading hands on his arms and in his spirit. Trying to heal this endless tide of sick humans was like emptying a river with an open-weave basket.
“Mr. Ukatonen?” a voice broke in on his thoughts.
Ukatonen blinked back the nictitating membranes hooding his eyes. A woman was standing a few feet away, microphone in hand. A reporter.
“I understand that you’ve been performing miracles at the hospital. Would you care to comment?”
“I do not give interviews. You must talk to Ms. Goudrian,” he said, and turned away, hooding his eyes again, and letting a broad streak of yellow fork across his torso to indicate that he was not to be disturbed.
But the woman would not leave him alone. Finally Ukatonen got up and walked back to the apartment. The garden was no longer his refuge. If this woman had found it, then others would follow.
Juna was catching up on her correspondence when her comm program signaled her with Analin’s familiar chime.
Their press secretary’s normally cheerful face looked strained and worried. “There’s an exclusive interview on WorldNet with the mother of a child that Moki healed. It’s gotten so many hits they’ve had to put it on twenty different servers. Here,” she said, reaching forward to touch a button, “listen to this.”
The image on the screen cut to the familiar WorldNet logo, then to the figure of netcaster Natalie Ndabari.
“I’m standing in front of Snyder Research Hospital; Rumors have been emerging recently that Ukatonen and Moki, the two alien Tendu, have been performing miracle cures. I’m here with Loreena Richter.” Juna’s heart sank when she saw the camera pan to include the woman whose daughter Moki had healed.
“Mrs. Richter, could you please tell us about your daughter?”
“Yes. My daughter, Shelley, had a hole in her heart. She was a candidate for transplant surgery, but there’s such a shortage of hearts, I didn’t think she was going to live long enough for a transplant. But then Moki, the younger Tendu, healed her.”
“How did he do that, Mrs. Richter?”
“From what Shelley tells me, he simply clasped her hands and they went into some kind of trance. But now her heart is as sound as a normal child’s. It truly is a miracle.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Richter.”
The camera zoomed in on the netcaster’s face, and she continued. “So far, Snyder Hospital has refused to confirm Mrs. Richter’s statement, nor has there been any word from Dr. Saari or the Tendu. I’m Natalie Ndabari, and this has been a WorldNet breaking news report.”