“Welcome home, elder brother,” the little girl said, sounding less like a little girl than Acorna had ever heard her. “I am Maati, born here on narhiiVhiliinyar to our parents before they returned to search for you and our brother. They-they never found you?” She had tried, Acorna knew, not to make it a question but could not quite keep the note of hope from her voice.
“To my sorrow, no. It is also my great sorrow to tell you that our brother has passed this life, but it gives me more joy than I have known in all of these ghaanye to see you and to hear your voice, younger sister. I am Aari, born many ghaanye and a world before you, but I am your kinsman and I love you already.”
“And I you,” Maati said. “Aari, when the doctors come, tell your friend I will come, too. I’ll lay my horn upon you and keep you from any pain and speed your healing.”
Tears did fall from Aari’s eyes as she spoke. “My gratitude, Maati,” he said, but his response was almost drowned out as both Acorna and Grandam said, “And I will do the same,” in response to Maati’s declaration.
“My gratitude, Grandam Naadiina, and to Khornya, who has already-my gratitude.”
“Okay,” Becker said. “But if you ladies are coming you’d better step on it. I see a bunch of people coming up the road right now. I’ll send down the robolift for you so you’ll be on board when they arrive.”
“Thanks, Captain Becker,” Acorna said.
“Thank you, lady. You, too, ladies.”
The physicians were those most skilled in the healing arts, much more than the average Linyaari. Many of them, Grandam told Acorna, had studied offplanet, where there were more ills to be healed. Most Linyaari were never ill or hurt for more than a few moments, or at least not until they found the next Linyaari. In fact, being a physician on narhiiVhiliinyar was largely an intellectual rather than a practical profession. The physicians didn’t gasp when they saw Aari, but they shook their heads, regarded him with clinical interest, tried a few applications of their own horns with little effect, and then turned to look with interest at the piles of bones in the holds beyond their patient.
“So you say, Aari, that after you were injured you dragged yourself to the burial place and the power of the horns of our departed forebears healed you of your injuries-at least to a degree? As much as the lasting damage done to you by the Khieevi would allow?”
“Yes.”
The physicians looked uncomfortably at each other. “Unfortunately, given the special nature of the tortures inflicted by the Khieevi, the horns’ healing power only knit that which was broken-it did not straighten anything into proper position first. Khieevi take special pains when working with Linyaari to try and short-circuit the healing processes.”
“I had suspected as much,” Aari said dryly, regarding his own misshapen arm.
“But now that your arm is healed this way, there is little we can do. The tissue is not injured, as far as our abilities are concerned. As for your horn-well, a transplant might be possible when Maati is older, if she could spare a piece of her horn. But she and it are too immature to risk that at this time. And such a procedure has never been tried, you know. No one has-ever survived such an injury in the past.”
“Oh, do try!” Maati cried. “I don’t care if it hurts. It can’t hurt anything like Aari has hurt. Please, can’t you do something for him?”
One of the doctors, a female, Bidiila, knelt beside Maati and took her hand. “We wish we could, youngling,” she said, and Acorna could see she was close to tears herself. “But he has suffered great harm at the hands of our enemies. Some will see his wounds and blame him for receiving them, as irrational as that may be, but some will be as wise as you and know that he is living proof of Linyaari courage and fortitude. You must be very proud of him.”
“I am,” Maati said, taking the doctors hand and trying to put it in Aari’s, “but he hurts so terribly-am I the only one who feels it? Can nobody help him?”