They pa.s.sed through the chamber where they had met Aske-landa; it was deserted now. They went beyond it to another connector, and then on to an entirely separate habitat. This one was divided up with curtains and part.i.tions, and had an almost human feel to it. The closeness, and the flimsiness of the part.i.tions, reminded Bandicut of Triton Station. He felt a pang of homesickness, and at the same time wondered why he didn't miss his homeworld more; maybe he was just too busy. Still, he half expected his friend Krackey to emerge from the shadows and ask him what was wrong.

You been acting kinda strange there, Bandie. Sure you aren't baying one of those silence-fugues again?

He shivered at the thought, and hurried after L'Kell.

They entered a curtained chamber. The air was warmer, staler, almost stifling. Several other Neri were present, including Askelanda, but it was the one lying on the pallet that drew his attention. It was one of the sick Neri he had watched arriving, and the Neri appeared to have grown weaker since. "This is Lako," said one of those attending the patient. Bandicut turned, and realized that he had seen this Neri before, too. "My name is Corono. I am a healer." Corono indicated Lako. "He will die soon if nothing can be done to help him."

"I understand," Bandicut said.

"And we will see if your offer of friendship is genuine," Aske-landa remarked, before withdrawing into the background.

Bandicut let out a long breath. Ik touched his arm in rea.s.surance.

"John--I had not expected that you could do what you did for me."

"Me neither." Bandicut stepped closer to Lako. "I will do what I can," he said, to no one in particular. L'Kell stood close by, and Bandicut asked, "Is he a friend of yours?"86 * *

"Yes," murmured L'Kell.

Bandicut swallowed hard. "I must tell you, it will be very difficult.

I do not know--" He caught himself and shook away the thought.

"/I have hope,"/ said Charlene, in a voice that was surprisingly calming.

/Do you have any notion of what to do?/ "/Some images.., memories.

Can you touch Lako? "/ Bandicut reached out slowly. He touched the Neri's arm--and almost ierked his hand back. Lako's skin was hot.

"/Is that.., fever?"/ Charlene's voice was quiet, concentrated.

/In humans, we'd call it fever. I don't know if it's the same thing here or not./ "/But {if it's radiation poisoning--?"/ /Charlie, I don't know much about radiation poisoning in humans, much less Neri. We'll have to learn as we go./His hand was resting firmly now on the warm skin of the Neri. Lako was trembling.

His eyelids were fluttering, a disturbing sight on such large eyes. The eyes themselves seemed cloudy.

"/Shall I reach out now...

cross over?"/ -[e was aware of L'Kell standing close./Yes, let's try. But don't lose your anchor in me./ "/Stepping across..."/ It was startlingly different from linking with Ik. The first sensation was of piercing cold. If Lako was burning with fever on the outside, he felt paralyzed and frozen in the strange realm of his nervous system. And yet ... it was not that there was no activity.

But it felt like humming wires, a metallic singing of frantic nerve impulses. This being was struggling not to die. But he was dying.

"/Deeper.

Look forpatbways we can interpret and use."/ /You're going to understand more here than I will, I think. Interfacing with nervous systems is your department./He found the quiet whisper of the female Charlie's voice rea.s.suring. Maybe they*

THE INFINITE SEA * 87.

could really do this. But they had not yet come to grips with the Neri's real physical damage, or even his pain. The test would be trying to guide Lako's own body into healing.

"/Here-- "/ His sight darkened and his ears filled with sound; it was like stepping into a darkened room where an orchestra was tuning up, each instrument subdued, but the combination of reeds and horns and strings and synths sounding like a quake threatening to happen.

He felt hot and cold at once: streams of ice water running through glowing lava. Clouds of steam. He listened for voices.

Could he make contact with Lako's mind? Should he try?

Charlene was either a very fast study, or she had enough memories from her predecessors to perceive the general patterns of a functioning nervous system. She extended her presence until they were touching, ever so gently, the streams of nervous energy. Ice water. They were throbbing with pain, and with conflicting signals.

The network was burning with fever, trying to cool itself; trying helplessly to heal, withdrawing from pain, hopelessly in turmoil. It was edging slowly toward a silent, dark abyss in the distance. Surrender?

Death?

Calm the systems, he thought, and realized that it was Charlene's thought, too. They were moving in lockstep now; he could sense the quarx riffling through his memories even as they moved cautiously through the terrible landscape of the wounded Neri. They were walking among flame and wreckage. Blistering, inside and out.

A question was flickering through his awareness; was there radioactive material still in Lako's body? Not too much, he guessed.

Not too much.

He was feeling dizzy and hot himself. Got to keep cool. Where is the center of the distress? Where is the center of healing? You found the centers in me, he thought, the centers that directed the healing; and you, the Charlies before you, sped everything up, like a master chemist orchestrating the movement of chemicals, firing the motors of reconstruction. But we don't know yet how this Neri is made.

There was something new moving behind him, a presence approaching, from the outside. It was an alien presence; a Neri presence.

L'Kell, bringing his translators close, trying to see what was going on. What can we do, L 7(ell? Can you tell what needs to be done?

The contact was too tenuous to allow words to pa.s.s, but he felt88 *

L'Kell's recognition of their mutual presence. L'Kell was just as confused about what was happening in Lako's body as he and Char-lie; he would not be of much help with physiological knowledge.

But there might be one way L'Kell could help.

If you can calm him, calm Lako, help him relax and let us do our work. Can you calm him?

It was doubtful L'Kell could understand what he was asking. And would he have the power to do it even if he understood?

A moment later, Bandicut felt a buzzing of energy, like feedback in an audio circuit. The Neri was trying to help. At first it was just disconcerting; then it began to rise, and to distort his ability to connect, and to hurt. He was losing his bearings. Stop it/he cried. Too much, too much/The wail lasted for a heartbeat longer, and then began to ebb, taking L'Kell's presence with it. But it didn't fade altogether.

Bandicut heard a sound almost too low to hear, like the invisible muttering of a brook.

Okay, he's doing it. Calming Lako. Work quickly now.

The quarx was already moving; she had found a way to slip through the interstices of the dying Neri's nervous system and get a fix on the control centers. Bandicut felt himself being pulled like elastic thread along the intertwined pathways; then he felt the sudden pulse of neurons firing around him. The quarx was touching and testing, trying to make contact--not to orchestrate the healing herself, but to coax the healing centers to work more effectively, to take over all of the body's available resources, to subordinate all else to the healing of the devastated tissues.

/Charlie, is it working? Charlene?/ The quarx was too busy to answer, but there was a quickening of movement, a rallying of spirits. She was touching something that seemed to be responding. But was it enough?

L'Kell's presence grew a little stronger again, a little brighter, as if he felt it, too.

Don't expect miracles, he thought.

They were making headway. But it was going to be a tough battle.

Waves of sound and sensation came, went.

At one point he thought he heard words. Not from the quarx, not from L'Kell. It was dizzyingly hard to tell.* THE INFINITE SEA.

89.

Help... must.., keep...

Burning.

Shivering.

Must keep...

Waves of nausea rushed through him like an incoming tide. They had touched a vital pathway. He steeled himself against the nausea and kept going.

The inner voice was gone. He thought it had been Lako's, but he wasn't sure. Now he heard other words, filtered through whispering shadows of thought ...

Feel his strength being turned.., his eyes brightening, showing lfe. (L'KelI? Corono?) Bandicut struggled to keep his own strength flowing, to lend what he could to the quarx.

On the outside, he knew L'Kell's hope was growing.

When the breakpoint came, it was like being picked up on a powerful wave and turned inside out, spinning. Something in Lako's body or mind had suddenly retaken control. He felt himself being squeezed.., forced...

Where?

Over a waterfall. Dropping, falling. After about three of his own heartbeats, he began to feel faint around the edges, began to panic.

Was Lako dying? Were these the death convulsions? If he was caught in the middle would he be able to pull himself free? Or would he be dragged down the funnel of consciousness into oblivion?

Yes... no... what's happening... ?

/Charlie ... Charlie ... / His cry and the other sounded faint, like dying moans on the wind. He could no longer feel the quarx's presence, though he was sure she was there. She had to be.

He hit the bottom of the waterfall, and a great hand caught him and squeezed him, squeezed around his lungs. He was losing his breath. He was out of the waterfall, but there was a powerful wind here, howling and spiraling, and it was trying to blow him down a tunnel, a long dark tunnel. He didn't like this, didn't want to go ...90 * .

"/Hang on""

The quarx's voice was the most heartlifting sound he could have heard. Though spinning out of control, he was no longer alone.

"/Trying to find the way--"/ /Where?/ "/Out.

Trying to throw us out."/ /But--/ "/We've set it in motion.

Hold on--see if it works--.""

The wind swept away the quarx's words. He felt a WHOOO- O00SHHH like a balloon letting go ... he was picked up like Dorothy in the cyclone, being lofted to Oz. But Charlie still had some control; everything was being damped down, not in the whirlwind, but in his own senses. Everything was starting to go dark, his consciousness being drained away...

/Charlie, what are you--?/ And then he was flung into the blackness of the void.

Awareness shifted in and out. A light flickering. He worked at clawing his way back.., conscious thought, physical sensation. Sharp pain in his lower back as he straightened from a slump. His eyes flashed open. He was staring straight into the gaze of Ik.

"--" he said, then realized that nothing had come out. He'd meant to say, Did it work? Is he still alive?

Ik clearly understood his intent. He canted his head, directing Bandicut's gaze. L'Kell was bent over Lako, conferring with someone who was touching and examining Lako ... with Corono, the healer. L'Kell raised his head to peer in amazement at Bandi-cut.

"He is fighting. Gaining strength," L'Kell whispered.

Bandicut nodded, swallowing. He wanted to speak to L'Kell; he straggled to form words. He was aware of Askelanda hovering nearby.

"/Don't try. Not yet, "/ the quarx advised.

"/We've just been thrown out by Lako.

It was a tough exit."/ /I wondered who was doing that ... couldn't tell if he was dying . . ./rf *THE.

INFINITE SEA * 91.

"/Not dying, no. Not when we left--"/ L'Kell was trying to explain what he had seen. "--eyes began to sharpen--trying to speak--"

Bandicut tried to listen.

"--movement of gills--lungs--"

Bandicut focused on the trembling form of Lako. The Neri's mus- cles were tensing and releasing in small, spasmodic movements.

Bandicut gazed at the tortured face. The eyes were flicking, blinking; soft moaning sounds were coming from Lako's throat.

Corono was saying, brekk-k "--fever very hot now, but the pres- ence in the eyes--"

Bandicut shook his head and tried to draw a full breath. "L'Kell,'

he said huskily. "Is he going to make it?"

Askelanda was closer now, listening intently.

L'Kell looked at the healer.