The wrinkled man gazed wistfully after him. "Ah, if only I had your talent for that."
Sector Representative DeBloise had for some time considered himself quite an important man, yet it took him a few minutes to adjust to the presence of the individual seated calmly across the desk from him, a man of unmistakable appearance who had gained almost mythical stature in the past few decades: The Healer.
"In brief, sir," DeBloise said with the very best of his public smiles, "we of the Restructurist movement wish to encourage you to come to our worlds. You seem to have made a habit of avoiding us in the past."
"That's because I worked through the IMC network in which the Restructurist worlds refuse to participate ... something to do with the corps' support of the LaNague charter, I'm told."
"That's part of it." The smile became more ingratiating as he said, "Politics seems to work its way into everything, doesn't it. But that's irrelevant now, since it was the news that you'd no longer be with IMC that brought me here to Tolive. I want you to come to Jebinose; our Bureau of Medicine and Research will pay all your fees."
"I'm sorry," The Healer said slowly, "but I deal only with patients, not with governments."
"Well, if you mean to come to Jebinose and practice independently of the Bureau, I'm afraid we couldn't allow that. You see, we've set very high and very rigid standards for the practice of medicine on our planet and I'm afraid allowing you such license, despite your reputation, would set a bad precedent."
"If a patient wishes my services, he or his guardian should be free to engage them. Why should some bureau have anything to say in the matter?"
"What you ask is impossible," DeBloise said with a shake of his head. "Our people must be protected from being duped by frauds."
The Healer's smile was rueful as he rose to his feet. "That is quite evident. And thus Jebinose is not for me."
DeBloise's face suddenly hardened, the smile forgotten. "It's quite evident to me, Healer"—he spat the word—"that you've spent too much time among these barbaric Tolivians. All right, play your game: but I think you should know that a change is in the wind and that we shall soon be running the entire Federation our way. And when we do, we'll see to it mat every planet gets its fair share of your services!"
"Perhaps there will be no Healer, then," came the quiet reply.
"Don't try to bluff me!" DeBloise laughed. "I know your type. You glory in the adulation that greets you everywhere you go. It's more addicting than Zemmelar." There was a trace of envy in his voice. "But Restructurists are not so easily awed. You are a man—a uniquely talented one, yes, but still just one man—and when the tide turns for us, you will join in the current or be swept under."
The Healer's eyes blazed but his voice was calm.
"Thank you, Mr. DeBloise. You have just clarified a problem and prompted a decision that has been growing increasingly troublesome over the past decade or so." He turned and strode from the room.
Nearly two and a half centuries passed before The Healer was seen again.
YEAR 505
Not long after the disappearance of The Healer, the so-called DeBloise scandal came to the fore. The subsequent Restructurist walk-out led to the Federation-Restructurist civil war ("war" is hardly a fitting term for those sporadic skirmishes) which was eventually transformed into a full-scale interracial war when the Tarks decided to interfere. It was during the height of the Terro-Tarkan conflict that the immortality myth of The Healer was born.
Oblivious to the wars, the horrors continued to appear at a steady rate and the psychosciences had gained little ground against the malady. For that reason, perhaps, a man with a stunning resemblance to The Healer appeared and began to cure the horrors with an efficacy that rivaled that of the original. Thus an historical figure became a legend.
Who he was and why he chose to appear at that particular moment remins a mystery.
from The Healer: Man & Myth by Emmerz Fent
XI
Dalt locked the flitter into the roof cradle, released the controls, and slumped into the seat.
("There. Don't you feel better now?") Pard asked.
"No," Dalt replied aloud. "I feel tired. I just want to go to bed."
("You'll thank me in the morning. Your mental outlook will be better, and you won't even be stiff because I've been putting you through isometrics in your sleep every night."
"No wonder I wake up tired in the morning!"
("Mental fatigue, Steve. Mental. We've both gotten too involved in this project and the strain is starting to tell.")
"Thanks a lot," he muttered as he slid from the cab and shuffled to the door. "The centuries have not dulled your talent for stating the obvious."
And it was obvious. After The Healer episode, Dalt and Pard had shifted interests from the life sciences to the physical sciences and pursued their studies amid the Federation-Restructurist war without ever noticing it. That muddled conflict had been about ready to die out after a century or so, due to lack of interest, when a new force injected itself into the picture. The Tarks, in an attempt at subterfuge as clumsy as their previous attempts at diplomacy, declared a unilateral alliance with the Restructurist coalition and promptly attacked a number of Federation bases along a disputed stretch of expansion border. Divide and conquer is a time-tested ploy, but the Tarks neglected to consider the racial variable. Humans have little compunction about killing each other over real or imagined differences, but there is an archetypical repugnance at the thought of an alien race taking such a liberty. And so the Feds and Restructurists promptly united and declared jihad on the Tarkan Empire.
Naturally, weapons research blossomed and physicists became very popular. Dalt's papers on field theory engendered numerous research offers from companies anxious to enter the weapons market. The Tarkan force shield was allowing their ships to penetrate deep into Terran territory with few losses, and thus became a prime target for big companies like Star Ways, whose offer Dalt accepted.
The grind of high-pressure research, however, was beginning to take its toll on Dalt; and Pard, ever the physiopsychological watchdog, had finally prevailed in convincing Dalt to shorten his workday and spend a few hours on the exercise courts.
Wearily, Dalt tapped out the proper code on the entry plate and the door slid open. Even now, drained as he was in body and mind, he realized that his thoughts were starting to drift toward the field-negation problem back at Star Ways labs. He was about to try to shift his train of thought when a baritone voice did it for him.
"Do you often talk to yourself, Mr. Cheserak? Or should I call you Mr. Dalt? Or would you prefer Mr. Storgen?" The voice came from a dark, muscular man who had made himself comfortable in one of the living-room chairs; he was pointing a blaster at the center of Dalt's chest. "Or how about Mr. Quet?" he continued with a self-assured smile, and Dalt noticed two other men, partly in shadow, standing behind him. "Come now! Don't just stand there. Come in and sit down. After all, this is your home."
Eyeing the weapon that followed his every move, Dalt chose a chair opposite the intruders. "What do you want?"
"Why, your secret, of course. We thought you'd be out longer and had hardly begun our search of the premises when we heard your flitter hit the dock. Very rude of you to interrupt us."
Dalt shook his head grimly at the thought of humans conspiring against their own race. "Tell your Tark friends that we're no closer to piercing their force shields than we were when the war started."
The dark man laughed with genuine amusement. "No, my friend, I assure you that our sympathies concerning the Terro-Tarkan war are totally orthodox. Your work at Star Ways is of no interest to us."