Advice Naught

Zhea~ Year 7839

Myrtle is used to being ignored, but her strong opinion suddenly brings powerful enemies to bear. 82pp. Novella.

healing of sexual abuse, healing of drug abuse. medical science fiction, romantic science fiction

ASIN: B002IPHBTI File Size: 111 KB (Kindle Edition - July 22, 2009)

Advice Naught - Novella Kindle Edition

Excerpt. © Dannis Cole. All rights reserved.

A man pushed a shopping cart past, but not much traffic on Moreland. Saturday’s not as busy. Fer leaned towards Found Sheep and pulled me faster than I thought he should go. Across the apartment’s parking lot was an old shopping center, and the first storefront had the hand-painted sign, with cartoon sheep in rainbow colors. I started to pull the glass door open, and Fer put his hand on the cold handle. “A gentleman holds the door for his lady, Myrtle.”

I smiled, and let him.

From the back, Asha came running. “Myrtle! Where’d you find him? My son, I was raised in Prov One, and I will not hurt you.”

He giggled. “I know that! I’ve been listening to your healing all night!”

Asha put his hands on Fer’s head, and frowned. His blue eyes went black. “You’re burning out your telepathy, my son! Can you feel it? You shouldn’t reach like that—“

“I am addicted, Asha. I have to have—“

“You can’t link up to people like that! My son, you are damaging yourself, because they use more than I would give—“

“But, I nae listen hard, but lightly, so I nae shake. You can help me, eae? Then, I stop.”

“Let me carry you—“

“Your back hurts! I can—“

Asha picked him up anyway. “My son, you have to stop acting like a diplomat and act like a patient for a while. Do you know what a patient is? Like an unwell.”

Fer clung to him, and to my hand. “I am unwell, but you must help me that I can work. I must support Myrtle! She lost her job saving me yesterday, in Governor Brown’s office.” He shared everything with Asha. I heard it all.

We ran to the back, and Asha put Fer on a twin bed. That’s where he sleeps! Rescued slaves have flimsy donated cots. Asha’s hands shook as he took out a blue pyramid. “My son, are you sure you had elohaia often? If I treat you for it and you only had it once, you’ll be worse off—let me see your healers’ records.”

“They are nae. I asked Ban to delete them. I came to Earth to die, Asha, I nae expected to find a maiden! Can you save me for brief happiness before work ends my life? Waking dreams come, and I am easily taken. Jisch took me and gave elohaia, and the woman gave bismun. I saw the leaf—“

Asha rubbed his head gently. Frowned at clouds of green that came up. “My son, if you suffer from waking dreams, how do you know it’s real? Let me run something.” He waved a coin. “Now, let go of the elohaia and let me see how your body reacts.”

Suddenly, his blue eyes opened very wide, and he shook all over. His body curled up. “I must have—the blue—“

“My son, it isn’t elohaia. This isn’t bismun. How did you come to have waking dreams? Did someone give you coffee? Fea~?”

He shook harder and curled up tighter. “Bokrukzky. Poisoned.” Echoes of that memory came.

“Bokrukzky!” Asha held his head up. “What did they give you? Did you eat anything wrapped in yellow leaves? Did you touch yellow leaves? Do you know Yarap when you see it?”

Fer cried. “I fell in yellow leaves in a field. I rose quickly, and had nae injury—this was Yarap?”

Quickly, Asha got a vial of deep blue gel with green flecks. “Let me try this, my son. If it doesn’t work, it won’t hurt you. Try to sleep.” He put a dot of it on Fer’s tongue.

His eyes flew open, and he giggled.

Asha carefully took his hands off Fer. “Close your eyes, my son. Don’t listen to anyone with your telepathy. Don’t reach with your telepathy. Sleep. You need sleep, to save your life.”

Slowly, his eyes closed, and he breathed very deeply. All the sweat dried. Asha waved up a platter of bahef and piled about eight on Fer’s chest. Nodded furiously. “He’s in terrible shape! How could his healer think he could work as a diplomat, after Bokrukzky? The whole planet’s poison, for anyone! Let me see his records!” A wave, and nothing. Asha startled. “He remembered being in the Governor’s Office! He has to have records!” Another wave, in a diff way. A screen came up. Asha studied it.

I looked over his shoulder. In English, around a holo of Fer that looked so diff, it seemed like another man, a record described a lot of missions before Earth, but— “Fer said he was from Par Vu, not K’hasa Zha!”

He frowned at the healer’s record. “This man was taken to Alb Seer two weeks ago. There is no record for him. He’s not Ferrimer of K’hasa Zha. I’m not sure his name is Ferrimer at all! Sometimes slavers put false memories in a man. Or, he’s a slave and he wakes up and tries to work, but there’s no record, and sometimes his work is good. Nobody checks on diplomats! Too many vanish, and too many come to replace them. Myrtle, this man isn’t able to work, even if I can help him not to have cravings. What I just gave him is a mixture of benau, kuphar, and bis hae. If he is addicted to elohaia or bismun, he should wake up without cravings. It doesn’t help brain damage. I don’t know if it’ll help Yarap. Most zheien get Yarap from a Bokruk healer after a head injury with a lot of other herbs, and we don’t know a lot about what Bokruk herbs do. Most zheien die after exposure. Herbs can have very different effects after a head injury, and without head injury, and in combination. Just learn this from me. If a zheien hallucinates, you have to sedate him. If he shakes, he has to be sedated to stop the shakings. If he sweats, he needs rest, and to figure out what’s making him sweat. May I see his herb terminal?”

I pulled it out of my pocket, and Asha stared at it. Popped it open. Waved his coin over it. Studied the display. “He carried esdeh with him, for the hallucinations. That’s a very strong herb, so his healer wanted to make sure he didn’t get up. That tells me the hallucinations are very dangerous. Also, he’s nearly out of nesfa and ses. He functions with headaches that are enough to stop a zheien heart. Pain doesn’t stop him from overusing his telepathy. He’s badly injured. I can’t understand how a man can sweat this much and live through it! With this kind of brain damage, he should be in a coma. Myrtle, if he goes on a ship, it’ll kill him. Let me try to find something to help him, and let’s get some weight on him. If we can improve him enough to send him to Alb Seer, he might survive.”

I sighed. Sat on the cot next to the bed. “Asha, what if I married him? Would he have a better chance? Can I do anything to make enough trade to get us to Alb Seer, to pay for his healing, to—“

Asha took my hand. “It doesn’t cost anything to go to Alb Seer. They send a daily ship here to pick up—“

“I’m not a slave—“

“They don’t care! They’ll give you an aandat, teach you healing, trading, or whatever you want to do, and find you a trader to ride with if you want to leave! But, Alb Seer’s beautiful, healthy, and full of all kinds of work. You can have a house or an apartment or sleep on a bed full of friends. If you marry him or don’t, your options are still open. I can’t believe you challenged a powerful slaver, in the Governor’s Office! Myrtle, you’re an amazing woman.”

“A sl-slaver?”

Asha laughed. “This neighborhood is full of ‘em. Most of them are too drunk to care what you’re doing. Listen. Today’s a slow day. Why don’t you sit by your friend and read in my herb databases? He shared a lot more memories with you than he did me. You might remember something, or recognize some effect. Make notes on this terminal.” He pressed a coin into my hand. “This is my herb database. If I had a way, I’d make a copy for you.”

I sighed. “Fer has tech—“

“Then, I’ll ask him to copy it—“

“But, the slavers—“

“Look. They know you’re here. They probably don’t care, because they’ve already probed him. He’s too damaged to use for pleasure, with that headache he always has! Even with what I just gave him and intact telepathy, if I tried to link up, I wouldn’t feel much. They would call him burned out. But, you can help him recover enough to enjoy life. If you love him, think about marrying him. But, don’t let him court you. He’s too sick to apply all the telepathic constraints a zheien has to do, and he’s been abused. He’ll need Earthan love for the rest of his life. If you think you can marry him, and he has urges, you’d better marry him fast. His telepathy won’t hurt you but can kill him. The first symptom is chest pain, and he can be dead seconds after it.”

I had a lot to think about as I waved the jeweled terminal’s menu up. It had categories like Slaver Herb-Tents, and Medicinal-Aandat Health. But, it had a cross index for slaver methods for particular purposes and groups of symptoms. That looked overwhelming. I put in all the symptoms I’d noticed in Fer: Sweating Excessive Amounts. Shaking. Headache. Confusion. Cravings. Memory Problems. All of these had subcategories, and asked for known herb traces or incidents. I read up on hundreds of herbs that have known effects on zheien. And, poisons of Bokrukzky. Found at least a hundred combinations that could account for Fer’s symptoms, and that many treatments! But, under Healers’ Methods, there was one useful piece of advice: If an herb has beneficial effect and no aftereffects, try it and see if it helps the symptoms. There were many case histories where an innocent food or benign substance resolved a symptom. Reminded me of a friend long ago who had fibromyalgia, a malady where you hurt all over and all your tests come back normal. She went to a support group. A lot of them tried magnets, herbal remedies, all sorts of things. Every time one had improvement, the horde tried it, and maybe one other person had some luck, and maybe not. The databases warned about using magnets on a zheien’s head. He can get confusion or even amnesia! I learned worlds about common household substances and what they can do to a zheien. Most of the database was incidents reported from households that adopted zheien former slaves here on Earth. Accidental poisonings or cures from innocent foods.