Chapter 5 Sam looked up from her dinner as a tired but very satisfied Janet sat down beside her, plate heaped with vegetables, salad, and a slice of bread with butter.“Since when are you a vegetarian?” the major quipped, studying Janet’s meatless plate.“Very funny. I just can’t eat anything heavy when my brain is so full. Gives me indigestion.”“Why is your brain full?”“Because I’ve finally got it, Sam! I’ve finally figured what was eluding me about that damned root!”“Oh?”“It’s a catalyst.”“A catalyst?” Sam asked, skeptical.“Yes! I couldn’t figure out what the common factors were between the plants that could and could not be safely paired with it. That’s what was driving me crazy!”“But now you know what the commonality is?”“It’s in the chlorophyll!” Janet said, quietly triumphant in her revelation. “Only plants and herbs that are green, yellow or blue in color can safely be mixed with the root. Plants of any other color make it toxic. And the pH of the non-toxic plants determine if the effects being affected by the root are enhanced or diminished. The greater the basic or alkaline elements, the greater the effects.”“Okay, give me an example.”“Well, today Tessa made a broth for a little boy to calm his cough and help him sleep. She needed to use taso root to enhance the effects of the satgo leaves, which are used as a low dose cough suppressant and as a light sedative. But in order to negate the psychotropic effects of the root, she mixed it with fan moss. See? The leaves are alkaline, so their effects were enhanced, and the moss is basic, which negated the taso’s harmful effects.“So why not just use fan moss every time you use taso root?”“Because fan moss doesn’t play well with everything. If I were to mix it with an herb called finorala, it would produce a toxic smoke and kill me in seconds.”“Ah. Yes, you dying would definitely be bad,” Sam said, inwardly shaking her head at her friend’s brilliance.Janet smiled and tackled her plate, obviously famished from her day of discovery. Finally she looked up and swallowed a mouthful of greens. “I’m sorry, Sam, I didn’t even ask you how your shooting lesson went.”“Great!” Sam said enthusiastically. “They’re really good. They already knew the basics, I just showed them how to sight the arrow properly to get the most accurate shot.”“Sam, had you ever shot an arrow before coming here?” Janet said, incredulous.The major ducked her head. “Yes, in high school. but I figured it couldn’t be a whole lot different than sighting a P90.”“And it worked?”“Yep. By the end of the lesson, all six of them were hitting the inner half of the target most of the time.”“Wow, that’s…”“HEALER!” the shout rang out and Janet’s head whipped around. A young man, barely more than a boy rushed up to her and dropped to his knees. “Please, healer, my son does not breathe. He is turning blue!”Janet dumped her plate to the ground and raced off after the man, back to the same house she had entered earlier to give the medicine to the newborn. “Get Tessa.” She snapped at someone beside her, plucking the child from his mother’s arms and checking for a pulse. It was there, but it was erratic and faint. Janet turned to Gowen, the child’s mother. “Has he ingested anything besides your milk?”The young woman was terrified, but spoke quickly. “I just gave him his first dose of the medicine you brought me earlier.”“I am here,” Tessa said quietly, moving in beside Janet. “What is his condition?”“Anaphylactic shock,.” Janet said, starting infant CPR. “And I don’t dare use an epi-pen on one so young.”“Here.” Tessa handed Janet a small vial filled with a light purple liquid.Janet took it and poured the substance into the child’s mouth, stroking his throat to induce swallowing.Almost immediately, the child’s airway opened and he started to cry weakly. Janet checked his pulse again. It was stronger, but not enough“The infusion is a temporary measure only,” Tessa said. “You must go and collect some fresh night berries so we may make an antihistamine strong enough to counter the allergy. Hurry!”Janet gave the child to his mother and ran from the room, Sam hot on her heels.“You and you, come with us,” Janet ordered a man and woman who stood gawking outside the door. They took off after the Earthers, loping along gracefully.Janet raced down toward the glade where she and Sam had spent such a lovely afternoon the day before and skidded to a halt beside some innocuous looking bushes. “Here, in here.” She started to poke around inside the branches. “Sam, see if you can find some leaves large enough to wrap the berries in.”“What berries?” Sam asked, though she started searching the nearby trees and plants for something to use as a container.“These berries.” Janet lifted a branch away, revealing a cluster of shining white orbs that seemed to float inside the bush.Sam found several large circular leaves and grabbed them. She handed two to each villager, who immediately went to work.The two had evidently done this before, and had their leaves full and securely tied before Sam and Janet’s were three-quarters done.“Go!” Janet ordered. “Take those back to Tessa. We’ll be along in a minute.”The pair nodded and raced off, moving faster alone than they had with the Earth women.Janet finished filling her leaves and tied the corners together. “You done, Sam? Sam?”When no answer was forthcoming, Janet looked up at her friend.Sam stared into the inky blackness of the glade beside them, and motioned for Janet to get behind her.The doctor looked into the trees but saw nothing. Then she heard a distinct rustling coming from the darkness and the sound of splashing water reached her ears. She froze.“Janet,” Sam whispered. “Walk toward me very slowly. Don’t make any sudden moves.”Janet obeyed, inching away from the tree line and toward her friend, who had pulled a knife from somewhere and was scanning the darkness.Another splash in the stream, much closer this time, set Janet’s heart to racing, and she had to force herself to move slowly, to not bolt from whatever was coming.Finally she was even with Sam, and together, they continued to slowly back away. For a time, it seemed they were safe. They were out of the trees and back into the open grasses, now lit to a molten silver by the full moon.Suddenly Sam flinched, and a ragged gash opened in her sleeve, blood quickly staining the light fabric red. She slashed her knife around in the direction the attack had come from, but it found no purchase.Janet continued to move back, toward the village, keeping a hand on Sam’s back so the major would know she was there. Her heart thudded in her chest, and fear ran like poison through her veins. Keeping in contact with Carter helped her keep a tight rein on her urge to run.A few steps later, and Sam spoke. “Come on, I think it’s safe to move faster now.” She turned and both women began to trot back to the village. But when they reached Gowen’s home, the windows were dark, so they turned aside and headed for Tessa’s. Lights burned brightly in the windows, so Sam and Janet walked in, calling the healer’s name.“It’s about time you returned! What took you so long? It’s a good thing Mariam and Nico had gathered enough night berry to make a medicine for the child.”“Tessa,” Janet said, turning to examine the wound in Sam’s arm. “There’s something out there.”The healer’s face stilled and she paled slightly. “Of what do you speak?”“Look.”Tessa rose from her seat and came around to look at the major’s arm. “What happened?” she asked, turning to her shelves and pulling various ingredients down onto her workbench.“I don’t know. We were gathering berries and heard something in the trees. We started to back away, and could see nothing following us, but something did this to Sam. A couple minutes later, we still couldn’t see anything, so we ran the rest of the way here.”Tessa grunted, and Janet guided Sam, who was starting to sway slightly, toward the fire, where she sat heavily and stared into nothing.“Sam?” Janet said softly, brushing hair out of her friend’s eyes. “Sam, honey, are you all right? How badly does your arm hurt?”“It doesn’t. I’m fine.” But her voice was beginning to slur, and she listed to the side, off balance.Tessa grunted and bustled up with two bowls in her hands, a foul smelling green paste in one, and water in the other. She handed Janet the water and a cloth, and the doctor set about washing the wound. It had stopped bleeding at some point, and she made short work of the dried blood sticking to Sam’s skin Once the wound was clean, Tessa began to slather the poultice over it, taking care to cover every inch.“Can you tell me what this poultice is?” the healer asked Janet as she worked. The doctor ground her teeth; a lesson was not what she needed right now, but she forced herself to think.“Uh, probably essence of willow flower mixed with trail sap and water to form the paste. And you might have added some veil petals to help with the pain.”“Yes. But you left out one thing.”“Which would be…”“I needed something that would pull the poison from her blood.”“Poison? What poison?” Janet asked sharply, looking at Sam. Sure enough, the major looked drugged. Her skin was pasty white, her eyes drooping. Janet put a hand to her forehead, and felt the heat beginning to build. “She’s running a fever.”“Yes. The poison is in her system. The green you see in the poultice is dark fern, which is a very rare plant found only in the wet places many days walk from here. It is a potent antidote against many kinds of blood borne problems, and will pull most of them into itself. It works quickly, so we will soon see if it is what is needed here.”“We will see?” Janet said, helping Sam lie down before she fell over. “Don’t you know whether this is going to work?”“I have never treated a wound like this before.”The full implication of this finally sank into Janet’s shell shocked mind. “Tessa, come on, you can’t seriously think this was the…”“Yes, I can, and I do. I warned you that something was coming, I just didn’t know it would be so soon.” The old woman sighed wearily. “We are all in very great danger.”
Tessa finished wrapping Sam’s wound in clean bandages, then told Janet to take her home and immediately put her to bed. “Be sure to block your door tonight so that she cannot get out.”This dire warning ringing in her ears, Janet helped Sam to her feet and led her out of the healer’s home. They turned down the path toward their own place, Sam leaning on Janet for support, and still staring dazedly out into the darkness. They were about a hundred yards from their door when Sam shook her head once, twice, and her knees buckled, spilling her to the ground. Janet caught her as she fell. “Sam? Sam! What is it? What’s wrong?”“No,” Carter mumbled, her eyes wild as she looked through Janet to the empty space beyond her. “No you can’t take her. I won’t let you!” Her voice rapidly increased in volume as desperation took hold. “No! Janet! No!” Sam jumped to her feet and took off toward the glade, her long legs carrying her quickly away from Janet and toward whatever she was chasing. The doctor raced after her. She was small, but she’d always been fast, and she was able to keep Sam in sight—barely. What happened? she wondered frantically. And what am I going to do once I catch her?But deep down, Janet knew the answer to her first question, if not her second. Sam was running straight into the jaws of the Krallik.
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