“Come over here and sit down.” The voice was full and strong, accustomed to command. The body was that of an invalid. A blanket covered him to the waist, above that the flesh was sickly white, spotted with red nodules, and hung loosely over the bones. There seemed to be nothing left of the man except skin and skeleton.
“Not very nice,” the man on the bed said, “but I’ve grown used to it.” His tone changed abruptly. “Naxa said you were from off-world. Is that true?”
Jason nodded yes, and his answer stirred the living skeleton to life.
The head lifted from the pillow and the red-rimmed eyes sought h with a desperate intensity.
“My name is Rhes and I’m a… grubber. Will you help me?”
Jason wondered at the intensity of Rhes’s question, all out of propc tion to the simple content of its meaning. Yet he could see no reason give anything other than the first and obvious answer that sprang to Ii lips.
“Of course I’ll help you, in whatever way I can. As long as it involv no injury to anyone else. What do you want?”
The sick man’s head had fallen back limply, exhausted, as Jasc talked. But the fire still burned in the eyes.
“Feel assured-I want to injure no others,” Rues said. “Quite the posite. As you see, I am suffering from a disease that our remedies w not stop. Within a few more days I will be dead. Now I have seen. the city people … using a device, they press it over a wound or ~ animal bite. Do you have one of these machines?”
“That sounds like a description of the medikit.” Jason touched ti button at his waist that dropped the medikit into his hand. “I have mu here. It analyzes and treats most…”
“Would you use it on me?” Rhes broke in, his voice suddenly urger “I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I should have realized.” He stepped forwa and pressed the machine over one of the inflamed areas on Rhes’s che~ The operation light came on and the thin shaft of the analyzer prol slid down. When it withdrew the device hummed, then clicked thr~ times as three separate hypodermic needles lanced into the skin. Thi the light went out.
“Is that all?” Rhes asked, as he watched Jason stow the medikit ba in his belt.
Jason nodded, then looked up and noticed the wet marks of tears the sick man’s face. Rhes became aware at the same time and brush at them angrily.
“When a man is sick,” he growled, “the body and all its senses becon
traitor. I don’t think I have cried since I was a child-but you must i
alize it’s not myself I’m crying for. It’s the untold thousands of my pe
ple who have died for lack of that little device you treat so casuall)
“Surely you have medicines, doctors of your own?”
“Herb doctors and witch doctors,” Rues said, consigning them all oblivion with a chop of his hand. “The few hard working and honc men are hampered by the fact that the faith healers can usually cu better than their strongest potion.”
The talking had tired Rhes. He stopped suddenly and closed his ey~ On his chest, the inflamed areas were already losing their angry col
as the injections took effect. Jason glanced around the room, looking for clues to the mystery of these people.
Floor and walls were made of wood lengths fitteçl together, free of paint or decoration. They looked simple and crude, fit only for the savages he had expected to meet. Or were they crude? The wood had a sweeping, flame-like grain. When he bent close he saw that wax had been rubbed over the wood to bring out this pattern. Was this the act of savages-or of artistic men seeking to make the most of simple materials? The final effect was far superior to the drab-paint and riveted-steel rooms of the city dwelling Pyrrans. Wasn’t it true that both ends of the artistic scale were dominated by simplicity? The untutored aborigine made a simple expression of a clear idea, and created beauty. At the other extreme, the sophisticated critic rejected overelaboration and decoration and sought the truthful clarity of uncluttered art. At which end of the scale was he looking now?