"It's got a flashing yellow light and I don't know what it means."

Tani took the annealer from Astra, checked the screen, then handed it back. "It's warning you to run a recalibration."

"That's right," Astra said, blushing. "How could I have forgotten that already?"

"This is your first time, Astra," Tani said. "We'll write all this down later, okay?" Astra nodded. "Go ahead and run the recalibration, then we'll finish healing this bone." She turned to her patient. "Naran, I need you to stay really still, all right?"

"No problem," Naran said. "Could I get a drink of water please?"

"Yes, of course," Tani said. She turned to go find a glass and water, surprised to see at least a dozen men and women standing along the wall, quietly watching. Drya smiled at her and gestured that she'd get the water, so Tani turned back to the view screen. By the time the second recalibration was complete, Drya had returned with water for Naran and helped him drink it through a straw so that he didn't move.

"It's ready, Tani," Astra said, offering her the annealer. But Tani didn't take it.

"Good," Tani said. "Now, watch the view screen carefully just like before, and place the annealer right above the break. Then keep an eye on the panel. If anything changes, let me know."

"You want me to do this?" Astra asked.

"Yes, I do. Doing is the best way to learn. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere and I'll let you know if you make a mistake."

Astra nodded, then took a deep breath and placed the annealer carefully before turning it on.

"Thank you, Tani, for doing this," Steel said from beside her. "For helping Naran, and for teaching Astra."

"I'm glad to be able to help, Steel," she said, her eyes still on the view screen because it was easier to look at than Steel's face. She couldn't quite figure out why his words earlier had hurt so much. It wasn't like he'd been deliberately rude or mean, and even if he had been, she wasn't the type to let things like that bother her. She sighed inwardly, too tired to figure it out at the moment, so she asked a question that she'd wondered about since entering the little clinic.

"May I ask, how is it that you have all of this equipment but no one knows how to use it?"

"We had one med-tech, and two women who were learning from him, but they were taken along with everyone else a year ago," Steel said. "We moved all of the equipment here, and set it up exactly as it had been in the village. We hoped we'd get him back, but one of the men who escaped told us that he died in a cave-in shortly after the mine was reopened. The women are still there."

"I wish I knew more than I do, Steel."

"You know enough."

"That depends on what's needed," she said. "If he'd had internal injuries, there wouldn't be anything I could do to help him. I can't diagnose or treat serious illnesses or administer medications beyond a few basics. I don't even know enough to sedate Naran for this. "

"True, but you took his pain away, so he didn't need it."

Tani shook her head. "I did nothing of the sort," she said. "I think it probably has more to do with his mahrac physiology."

"No, that's not it," Steel said. "If anything, we feel pain more intensely than normal."

"Well, I don't know how to explain it, Steel," she said tiredly.

"Tani, the last time a man injured both legs, all we could do was make sure he had pain medication and antibiotics. Eventually the bones healed, but they were no longer straight. He couldn't walk at all any more, and his injuries were nowhere near as extensive as Naran's."

Tani shook her head. "That's terrible, Steel. I'm afraid that I don't have the skills to re-break and set bones that heal wrong, but when my parents get here, the physician onboard their ship will be able to do it."

"The man died, Tani," Steel said sadly. "But it's good to know that something like that can be corrected. I will remember that."

"This thing is flashing blue and green, and it says it's at one hundred percent," Astra aid.

"Lift it up and away, then check the battery life," Tani said.

The battery is at twenty five percent," Astra said a few moments later.

"Put this one on a charger and take the other one down and run a recalibration on it," Tani said. Astra nodded, then turned away.

"Now, let's get a good close look at this femur," Tani said. She reached for the scanner control panel again and made some adjustments. After a moment the view on the screen changed, but no one other than Tani knew what it was they were looking at. No one wanted to ask, either, when they saw how intently she was studying the image. She turned a knob and the image changed, then again and again for several minutes. When she relaxed and smiled, everyone else did too.

"Good job, guys," she said, smiling. "You can't even tell where the break was."

Naran smiled with relief. "One down and how many to go?"

"A few," Tani said. "But that was the hard one."

"The pain isn't bad, and even if it was, I wouldn't care," Naran said honestly. He'd gone from thinking he would die, to thinking he would live, but not be able to walk which was worse than dying in his mind. Now, he would not only live, he'd walk, and in a day or so rather than weeks. He truly had no complaints at all.

A couple of hours later all of Naran's broken bones were healed. The fine bones in his hand had given Tani the most trouble because it was a small area with several breaks, and Tani insisted that the breaks were lined up perfectly before healing them. By the time they were finished she was exhausted. Much more tired than she should have been, she thought.

"We can stop now and do the rest in the morning," Steel said, but Tani shook her head.

"Absolutely not," she said. "I'm not stopping until I'm finished, but if any of you want to go rest now, that's fine. I can do the rest on my own."

"No," Steel said. "Tell us what you need, please."

"First, the steri-lamp," she said. "While I'm using that, if someone can lay out the sutures on a tray and get me some more sterile gloves, as well as bandages, that would be great." She thought a moment. "Do you have a laser scalpel?"

"Yes," Marbic replied. "You need that?"

"I might," she said, accepting the steri-lamp from Astra. "If the edges of a wound are jagged, I'll need to even them up before I suture."

"I'll get it and make sure it's charged," Marbic said.

Tani turned on the steri-lamp and held it over the gash on Naran's thigh. Using her other hand, she spread the edges of the wound open so that the light could reach inside, and frowned. She gave her head a little shake, spread it wider. Her frown deepened.

"What's wrong?" Steel asked.

"I'm not sure," she said, turning off the steri-lamp. She went to the scanner control panel and pulled up the images she'd taken earlier. "See here," she said to Steel who'd come to stand beside her. She pointed at the image.

"I see it but I don't know what I'm looking at."

"This is muscle tissue," she said. "See how the wound goes deep into the muscle, here?"

"Yes, I do," Steel said, feeling a little sick as he realized what he was seeing. "What's the problem?"

"One minute," she said, then tapped on the control panel. The scanner lowered from the ceiling and moved into position above the thigh wound. "Remember when I scanned Astra's wound when she was in the hibernation tube, and I thought the muscle was injured?"

"Yes, but later you scanned again and it wasn't."

"Right," she said, then tapped at the control panel again. She placed the new scan on the screen, side by side with the first one, then shook her head. "Do you see what I see?"

"I'm not sure," Steel said slowly. "It looks to me like the injury is nearly healed."

"Yeah, looks that way to me, too," she said. "It still needs stitches, but there's no muscle involvement at all now."

"I told you that you're a healer," Steel said, smiling down at her.

"I've never done anything like this before," she said. "In fact, it would be easier for me to think you did the healing than me."

"No, it's not me," Steel said. "I never touched Astra's wound."

Tani sighed, then picked up the steri-lamp and turned it back on. She sterilized the thigh wound and the head wound, which no longer needed stitches, wondering how she could be a healer and not know it. She'd worked with Doc and Darlene in the clinic for years with no sign of it.

"What's wrong?" Naran asked worriedly.

"Nothing's wrong," Steel said, smiling. Tani stared at him and his expression fell, but he understood. "The initial scans indicated that this wound was a bit deeper than it is."

"That's good news, right?"

"Yes, very good news," Tani said. "We're almost done, Naran. Another hour, no more."

"Then what?" Naran asked. "Will I be able to just get up and walk out of here?"

"Well, that remains to be seen," she said as she looked over the tray of sutures and supplies she'd asked for. "Your body has been through a traumatic ordeal, Naran. It needs rest. Mild anti-inflammatories and pain meds will help with any residual swelling and soreness, but time and rest will help the most."

"I think I can live with that," Naran said. "You've saved my life, Tani. Literally. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Naran," Tani said. She picked up a suture, then put it back, frowning. "A can of topical anesthesia would help a lot. Do you have any of that?"

"I don't know what it is," Steel said, then looked at Marbic, who shook his head. Tani went over to where she'd found the bandage supplies earlier and looked through a couple of drawers and cabinets. "Here it is," she said, carrying it back to Naran's bedside. She shook it up, uncapped it, and sprayed it over the wound on his thigh.

"This will make your skin numb," she said. "You'll still feel a tugging sensation when I put the sutures in, but it won't hurt."

Forty minutes later Tani finished placing the tenth stitch in Naran's thigh wound, and then put tiny strips of adhesive over the cut on his forehead. She pushed the tray back and frowned. "There's one more thing I need to do, but I can't remember what it was at the moment."

"You said there's a wound on his back," Marbic said.

"That's it," Tani said. "Sorry, guess I'm getting tired. Naran, you should be able to roll over without much trouble."

"Sure," he said, then carefully turned to his side, then over to his stomach. "Wow, that didn't hurt at all."

"Good," Tani said, as she leaned over the bed to examine the wound on his back. She frowned and reached out with gloved fingers to lightly touch the partially healed area before realizing she was looking at a burn. A long, narrow burn that ran from one shoulder down to the middle of his back. "How did you get this?"

"What?" Naran asked.

"You have a burn on your back," she said.

"Oh yeah," Naran said. "I guess I forgot about it with everything else. It's a laser burn. Luckily I was in my mahrac form at the time or it would have been much worse."

"Who shot you?" Steel asked.

"Nomen," Naran said.

"Well, I'm just going to go over it with the steri-lamp, though it looks fine. No sign of infection or inflammation. If it hurts, I can spray it with this topical anesthesia."

"No, it doesn't hurt at all now."

By the time Tani was satisfied that the burn on Naran's back was clean, she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She gave the steri-lamp to Astra for recharging, then followed Steel out into the small waiting area. She stopped when a wave of dizziness washed through her, reaching out for the wall with one hand to prevent herself from falling over. She blinked a few times, then stepped away from the wall, heading toward an armchair just a few feet away. The next thing she knew, she was blinking up at Steel's face, which was hovering over her with a worried frown.

"What?" she asked, startled to find herself lying on the floor instead of walking toward a chair.

"You passed out," Astra said. Tani turned her head and saw Astra kneeling on the other side of her, looking just as worried as Steel.

"You scared a year off of my life is what you did," Steel said. Tani rolled her head to the other side.

"I'm sorry," she said, though she wasn't altogether sure what it was she was apologizing for.

"Do you know what happened?" Astra asked.

"No idea," Tani said, and saw the next question in Steel's eyes. "I was walking toward a chair and then I was looking up at you. And no, nothing like that's ever happened to me before."

"How do you feel?" Steel asked.

Tani took a moment to do inventory. "I'm fine, but tired. And really hungry."

"Since you didn't eat breakfast or lunch and its past dinnertime, that's understandable," Astra said. "If you don't mind, Steel can carry you to my cave. Drya brought some soup and fresh bread for us, so dinner's ready. You can eat and go to bed if you want."

"That sounds great," Tani said. "But I can walk."

Astra and Steel both frowned down at her, but she wasn't going to change her mind. The thought of being carried around in public made her shudder. She sat up, then stilled for a moment until a mild wave of dizziness passed. Then she climbed to her feet. Luckily Steel was standing there and caught her before she went face down again.

"Thanks," she said, embarrassed.

"How about you let me walk really close to you," Steel suggested. "I'll put my arm around you and support you so that no one will know that you're so exhausted from healing all of Naran's injuries that you can barely walk, or that you're so stubborn about accepting help that you're willing to break your own nose to prove it." Tani tried to work up a good glare, but in the end she just sighed and nodded. It was this or let him carry her and there was simply no way she would agree to that. She'd sleep right there on the waiting room floor first.

"All right," she said, secretly glad that she was so tired that not even Steel's scent was enough to get a rise out of her. She let him help her out of the cave and onto a narrow stone pathway. When Astra hurried ahead Steel slowed their pace even more and leaned down, keeping his voice low so that only she could hear.

"Tell me, please, what I said that upset you?"

"It's nothing," Tani said.

"It is not," Steel replied. "I know that I hurt you, I just don't know how. I'm not going to stop asking until you tell me, either. You're not the only one who can be stubborn."

"Fine," Tani said, exasperatedly. "I made you a promise, and you disregarded it as though it were meaningless to you. To me, promises are important. I don't make them lightly, and I'd never break one."

Steel stopped and turned so that he was facing her while still supporting her. "I'm sorry, Tani," he said. "I was so worried about your reaction to my...alter form...that it was very difficult for me to accept that it didn't bother you. I didn't mean to hurt you, and you're right, it was wrong of me to disregard your promise. But it wasn't because I didn't believe you. It's because I have a difficult time believing in myself."

"Why?" Tani asked softly.