Off-Grid
Ribbon Dance Village
The News Tree
The air shimmered and solidified into a neat group of buildings forming a town square. The sky was opalescent, and a cool breeze touched his cheek.
Scarcely three steps to his right was the news-tree. Bentamin closed the small distance and put his palm against the smooth bark.
He felt a mild electric prickle against his skin, folded his hands together, and composed himself to wait for one of the villagers to join him.
While in Bentamin’s experience the wait was never lengthy, it could be as much as ten minutes before someone came for him. As he understood it, the tree conveyed his signature to the ranking person of the moment. He had on previous visits been greeted by the village administrator, the village medic, and by a very tongue-tied person wearing an apron and a quantity of flour.
This time, he had scarcely settled himself before a child’s high voice came to him on the back of the breeze.
“I felt it—like an itch inside my head, and the idea of somebody standing at the news-tree!”
“You may have done,” a lower, more adult voice made answer. “Sometimes things echo in the ambient. Or, you know, you might have gotten an echo from me—because that is precisely what I think it feels like—an itchy notion that there’s someone just come in.”
“Do all visitors come to the tree?” the child asked then.
“The polite ones do,” came the answer. “And here you have a lesson. When you go traveling, say to Visalee, or The Vinery, you will be polite and go directly to the news-tree, and wait for someone to greet you.”
“But how—” the child began, and then stopped, as the little group of four rounded the corner of the administrator’s office: A towheaded young woman in a gardener’s smock paced by a large orange-striped sokyum, a dark-haired child walking on either side.
The child on the right stopped, and put a hand out to touch the big cat. The child on the left came on another few steps before he stopped, head tipped to one side.
“Hello, Warden Bentamin,” said Vaiza xinRood.
“Hello, Vaiza,” Bentamin answered, and looked to the child who had stayed with the cat. “Hello, Torin.”
“Hello, Warden Bentamin,” she answered solemnly.
Vaiza had not used to be the twin to put himself forward, but he appointed himself host, now, and turned to the towheaded woman.
“Geritsi, Warden Bentamin is the guardian of Civilization.” He turned back. “Warden Bentamin, these are Geritsi and Dosent, who have been kind enough to let us stay with them at the Rose Cottage.”
Bentamin met a pair of humorous grey eyes as the young woman stepped to Vaiza’s side, so there were two between Bentamin and Torin, and a guard at her side. Bentamin approved.
Geritsi bowed easily, and not as if she were particularly overwhelmed by his office, or even as if she found his presence unusual.
“Geritsi slentAlin, sir. If you’ve come for Arbour—Administrator poginGeist—she’s away for the day. Vaiza, Torin, Dosent, and I are the greeting committee, but—”
Across the square the door to the clinic opened, and a taller, rangier, and altogether more dangerous-looking woman strolled toward them.
Bentamin bowed.
“Medic arnFaelir,” he said. “Precisely who I was wishing to see. Have you an hour?”
The medic came to rest next to Geritsi, and accorded him a nod.
“I’ve an hour, surely. Will you come into the clinic? It’s shielded somewhat.”
And would thus offer some protection to his fragile Civilized senses. It was Haosa courtesy, Bentamin understood, and smiled.
“Thank you, I will.” He turned back to Vaiza.
“I would also like to visit you and your sister, sir, after the medic and I have finished our business. Will you be available in an hour?”
He didn’t see the adults exchange a glance, but he had the distinct impression that they had checked in with each other even before the medic lifted a shoulder.
“We’re helping Geritsi with the garden,” Vaiza said, perhaps having caught that subtle undercurrent, and opening the way to a polite refusal.
“If you finish weeding the peas, you’ll have earned some tea and cookies and a friendly visit,” Geritsi said, as if offering a high treat. Bentamin saw Vaiza glance at his sister. She inclined her head, just a fraction.
“Until soon, then, Warden Bentamin,” Vaiza said, and dodged around Geritsi to Torin’s side.
“Come on! I’ll race you!” he said—and they were both off running, the sokyum keeping pace.
* * *
“I have set a search in train for a discreet Healer from a Hall of good repute who is willing to examine the children,” Bentamin told the Haosa medic, after they had each eaten a cookie, and had a sip of tea.
“Yes, Tekelia had said that you would be handling that aspect of the matter,” she paused before inclining her head in a fair imitation of courtesy. “Thank you for your efforts on behalf of our children.”
Bentamin chose another cookie, and said carefully, “Not only is it my duty as Warden to insure that the vulnerable are protected, but their mother’s husband was my cousin; we knew each other well.”
“Ah.” That earned him a flash of something—perhaps sympathy?—and a murmured, “I’m saddened by your loss.”
“Thank you. You should know that I will be visiting the children after I leave you, and will make my own examination, so that I may offer the Healer corroboration.”
“Of course.”
Bentamin sipped tea.
“In your opinion, Medic,” he said.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
“All right.”
“How critical is it that the children be separated?”
“There’s the question, right there. In my opinion, the sooner they’re separated, the better. You understand that this work that binds them—the threads are growing tighter, as their patterns grow. A longer wait means more delicate work to unbind them, and more chance of error.” She paused, and added, with another lift of her eyebrows, “Understand that I’m not willing to attempt remediation myself even now; the work’s that far beyond me.”
She sipped tea and put the mug down.
“That understood, we next look at survivability. I’m not familiar with the work that’s been done, but I am familiar with pattern growth rates and maturity. I’d put it at a Standard, before they start to feel stretched and maybe a little uncomfortable. P’rhaps two Standards, before damage is done.” She paused to pick up her mug, and looked directly into his face. “That supposes no new trauma occurs to reinforce the weaving, and that nothing initiates an accelerated pattern growth.”
“Soonest done is best, then,” Bentamin said. “I agree.”
“Let us discuss venue for a moment. A Civilized Healer cannot do her best work in an unshielded environment. I am able to offer a parlor in the Wardian as the most secure—”
“Ineligible,” the medic said sharply.
Bentamin felt his own eyebrows lift.
She waved a hand, perhaps in apology.
“Understand that they’re our children, Warden, and we won’t put them into active danger. You’ll know, I think, that Tekelia’s got an idea Civilization isn’t safe for them.”
“There is risk, which is why I am suggesting the Wardian.” He paused, and prodded her a bit. “The most secure building in Civilization.”
“Scary, too, is what I’m told,” the medic said.
“My care is two-fold,” Bentamin said to that implied criticism. “I want to distress the children as little as possible. I’m told that they are settling into the village and feel a measure of safety here. However, a Civilized Healer . . . ”
He paused. Medic arnFaelir sipped her tea and put the mug on the table.
“There’s a shielded suite at Peck’s Market that we use from time to time,” she said, moving a hand in an arc from table to shoulder, possibly showing him the surrounding conditions. “We’re talking on the level of what we have here, for shielding, maybe a bit more, the market being set at a remove from the Hill.”
That might do, Bentamin thought. “May I examine the shielding here?”
“Go ahead. Tell me if you find anything needs patching.”
It was a pleasantry, Bentamin thought. Possibly. He opened his shields somewhat wider.
Had he opened so far at his cousin’s house on the edge of the forest, he would have beheld swirling ribbons of energy, and been buffeted by sound—Tekelia assured him that the Ribbons not only danced, but sang—and it would have quickly become necessary to increase his protections, though he never completely closed his shields, even off-Grid.
Here under the clinic’s shielding, there were a few flashes and flares of color against a pearly aspect. There was sound, but subdued, as if someone were singing softly in the next room.
It did not approach the silence available in the Wardian’s deepest rooms, nor was it the quiet serenity of a Civilized Healer’s examination parlor. But Healers did not always have the luxury of working inside their own parlors, and there were numerous places on-Grid that were every bit as noisy as Medic arnFaelir’s carefully shielded clinic.
“It will suffice,” he said, drawing his shields closer.
He leaned back and smiled into the medic’s dour face.
“I saw nothing in need of repair,” he added.
“That’s to the good. One or two of ours will be with them, when it’s time,” she said, and raised a hand as if to stop a protest. “The village has taken them as ours, and we protect our own.”
The Haosa were great protectors, as Bentamin well knew. He inclined his head.
“That is perfectly understandable, and the condition will be explained to the Healer ahead of the examination.”
He sipped his tea, considered another cookie, and decided against. After all, there were still tea and cookies ahead of him.