Savage Empire

"And you feel responsible." "I told you. I was his teacher."

"But the teacher must let the students grow up," said Aradia. "We hope it is when we feel they are ready, but sometimes they make their own decisions. And sometimes they're wrong. But we ca

Lenardo spent the next two days resting and meditating. The third morning, feeling securely himself again, he ate a light breakfast, bathed, and joined Aradia at her father's bedside.

As she had promised, Aradia had strengthened Menus' body. He was still a very sick man, but his heart beat strongly and he breathed evenly. If they could remove the tumor without doing further damage, there was a good chance he would live. But in what condition?

Presumably, Aradia's values reflected her father's. "Life is the greatest value." Lenardo had to assume that Nerius would want to live, even if the damage the tumor had already done left him blind, paralyzed, or otherwise crippled.

Aradia provided Lenardo with wax to make a model of Nerius' brain. Such modeling was part of a Reader's tram-ing, precisely for showing to non-Readers the things they could not see. Never, though, had he done work so delicate, so impossibly precise. He worked for hours, superimposing what he Read upon the softened wax in his hands, molding, carving, despairing of achieving the accuracy he had to have.

When he finished he was cramped with tension and fearful that he had missed something, somehow. He set the model down and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes.

"Are you finished?" Aradia asked with mingled hope and fear.

"I don't know," he replied, pushing his hair back off his forehead-he really would have to cut it, as it was becoming an a

"Show me."

He had made the model in three parts, so he could take it apart to show the tumor, which he had stained with ink.

"It's close," he said, "but there is a limit to the accuracy human hands can achieve. If only you could Read it as well as destroy it…"

"Do you not know how frequently I have wished that these past few days? But I ca

They started successfully enough, the two Adepts concentrating their powers on the center of the tumor. The bulk of the growth slowly but surely began to evaporate.

"Stop!" cried Lenardo, as Nerius' healthy brain tissue began to relax from its compression to fill the vacuum.

Violet eyes and brown stared at Lenardo from drawn faces. Both Adepts were breathing hard, their hearts pounding as if they'd run a long distance.

"What happened?" Aradia asked warily. "You are succeeding, but the contour of the growth has changed." Hastily, Lenardo remolded his wax model, say-ing, "This is not as accurate, but-"

"We've removed that much? And not touched normal tissue?"

"That's right-but now the shape is changing even as I try to model it. You mustn't destroy normal tissue."

"Lenardo… can you Read the purpose of various parts of the brain?" asked Aradia. "What do you mean?"

"A head injury may mean death, paralysis, blindness, palsy… or no harm at all! I healed a man once who had a spear-point hi his head. All I could do was draw it out, stop the bleeding, and prevent infection. In three days he came out of the healing sleep and walked away as if nothing had happened!"

"It had entered the front of his head?" asked Lenardo. "Yes-fortunately well above his eyes. But how did you know that?"

"We've never been able to Read precisely how the brain works, but over many years of study we have gathered some information, especially the peculiar fact that a very large area of the front does not have a function we can identify. However, your father's tumor is near the back, between the area which controls sight and that which controls muscular coordination. Hence his blindness and convulsions. Now the compressed tissue is moving back into place, blood flowing normally again… but I ca

"Perhaps we should not try to remove the rest of it," said Wulfston. "If we caused bleeding…"

"I know," said Aradia, "but I ca

It had shrunk considerably as they talked, compressed by the brain tissue trying to expand to normal. It could not expand completely, of course, having atrophied. At last the movement seemed to stabilize. Lenardo worked on his model again, and Aradia said, "These are the difficult parts -where the growth is entwined with normal tissue."

"Also, you've been simply cutting off the blood flow as you removed the growth," said Lenardo. "You can't do that indiscriminately-you could cut off a vessel nourishing healthy tissue."

Aradia chewed on her lower lip, studying the model again. "Wulfston-"

"Aradia," the young Adept said, "I haven't that much control. I ca

"Then strengthen me," she said. "I have to do it, Wulfston, or the tumor will grow back again. See that I do not falter."

"Yes, my lady." It was the first time Lenardo had heard Wulfston address Aradia in that fashion.

Aradia now took the wax model in her hands, looking from it to her father, studying carefully. // only I could Read what she was doing, Lenardo thought. But he could Read only the effects.

Lenardo watched the cells disappear as Aradia worked her way into one of the tendrils entwined with the healthy tissue, murmuring, "More to the left… higher… no, you missed some… back to the right-left! Slower! There… that's it."

He could Read the toll such slow, steady effort took from Aradia's body, even with Wulfston supporting her- yet each time she speeded up, a few cells of her father's healthy tissue would be destroyed. It seemed to take forever, but they were determined to leave no alien cell to regrow.

Finally there remained one patch of tumor, twined around a pulsing artery. It was the most dangerous and difficult, because it moved with every pulse. By now, Aradia's pale skin was transluscent. Sweat beaded her face, and the pupils of her eyes were dilated. "Rest," said Le-nardo. "You've got to be-"

"No." She was breathing in shallow gasps. He saw her force herself to take a deep breath. Wulfston was still as a statue, lost to them. "If I stop now, I'll collapse."

Lenardo explained, "It's the last bit of tumor, and the most recent growth. With the constant motion, I don't know how you can destroy the growth without breaching the artery wall-and that would kill Nerius at once. And you can't just seal off a main artery to the brain."

She pressed the fingers of one hand to her forehead, frowning. "At once," she murmured. Then, "No-it's not immediate. Every Adept has saved lives when people's hearts have stopped. A brief few minutes-but the heart can be restarted."

"Aradial You're not suggesting-?"

"Stopping his heart will stop the motion. Here-model just that portion left around the artery, as it is between pulses."

"This is madness!"

"It is the only way," she said. "If I leave it, the tumor will regrow right there, choking off the blood and killing him. Do it, Lenardo."

Helpless to oppose her will, he hastily reworked the model-so little of the ink-stained wax left now. Had they performed this operation at Nerius' first symptoms, how easy it would have been! Just this healing technique alone would convince the senate that the empire and the savages could cooperate-and if Aradia could learn to trust one Reader, she could trust others.