I traced my face with my fingertips. They were warm on my skin, skin that was smooth and pretty. I was glad I was giving Melanie her face back the way it had been. I closed my eyes and stroked my eyelids.
I'd lived in so many bodies, but never one I loved like this. Never one that I craved in this way. Of course, this would be the one I'd have to give up.
The irony made me laugh, and I concentrated on the feel of the air that popped in little bubbles from my chest and up through my throat. Laughter was like a fresh breeze-it cleaned its way through the body, making everything feel good. Did other species have such a simple healer? I couldn't remember one.
I touched my lips and remembered how it felt to kiss Jared, and how it felt to kiss Ian. Not everyone got to kiss so many other beautiful bodies. I'd had more than some, even in this short time.
It was just so short! Maybe a year now, I wasn't completely sure. Just one quick revolution of a blue green planet around an unexceptional yellow star. The shortest life of any I'd ever lived.
The shortest, the most important, the most heartbreaking of lives. The life that would forever define me. The life that had finally tied me to one star, to one planet, to one small family of strangers.
A little more time. . . would that be so wrong?
No, Mel whispered. Just take a little more time.
You never know how much time you'll have, I whispered back.
But I did. I knew exactly how much time I had. I couldn't take any more time. My time was up.
I was going anyway. I had to do the right thing, be my true self, with what time I had left.
With a sigh that seemed to come all the way from the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands, I got up.
Aaron and Brandt wouldn't wait forever. And now I had a few more questions that I needed answered. This time, the questions were for Doc.
The caves were full of sad, cast-down eyes. It was easy enough to slip unobtrusively past them all. No one cared what I was doing right now, except maybe Jeb, Brandt, and Aaron, and they weren't here.
I didn't have an open, rainy field, but at least I had the long south tunnel. It was too dark to run flat out the way I wanted, but I kept up a steady jog. It felt good as my muscles warmed.
I expected I would find Doc already there, but I'd wait if I had to. He would be alone. Poor Doc, that was usually the case now.
Doc had been sleeping alone in his hospital since the night we'd saved Jamie's life. Sharon had taken her things from their room and moved them to her mother's, and Doc wouldn't sleep in the empty room.
Such a great hatred. Sharon would rather kill her own happiness, and Doc's, too, than forgive him for helping me heal Jamie.
Sharon and Maggie were barely a presence in the caves anymore. They looked past everyone now, the way they used to look past only me. I wondered if that would change when I was gone, or if they were both so rigid in their grudge that it would be too late for them to change.
What an extraordinarily stupid way to waste time.
For the first time ever, the south tunnel felt short. Before I thought I'd gone halfway, I could see Doc's light glowing dimly from the rough arch ahead. He was home.
I slowed myself to a walk before I interrupted him. I didn't want to scare him, to make him think there was an emergency.
He was still startled when I appeared, a little breathless, in the stone doorway.
He jumped up from behind his desk. The book he was reading fell out of his hands.
"Wanda? Is something wrong?"
"No, Doc," I reassured him. "Everything's fine. "
"Does someone need me?"
"Just me. " I gave him a weak smile.
He walked around his desk to meet me, his eyes wide with curiosity. He paused half a step away and raised one eyebrow.
His long face was gentle, the opposite of alarming. It was hard to remember how he'd looked like a monster to me before.
"You are a man of your word," I began.
He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but I held one hand up.
"No one will ever test that more than I will test it now," I warned him.
He waited, eyes confused and wary.
I took a deep breath, felt it expand my lungs.
"I know how to do what you've been ending so many lives to discover. I know how to take the souls from your bodies without harm to either. Of course I know that. We all have to, in case of an emergency. I even performed the emergency procedure once, when I was a Bear. "
I stared at him, waiting for his response. It took him a long moment, and his eyes grew wilder every second.
"Why are you telling me this?" he finally gasped.
"Because I. . . I am going to give you the knowledge you need. " I held up my hand again. "But only if you will give me what I want in return. I'm warning you right now, it won't be any easier for you to give me what I want than it will be for me to give you what you want. "
His face was fiercer than I'd ever seen it. "Name your terms. "
"You can't kill them-the souls you remove. You must give me your word-your promise, your oath, your vow-that you will give them safe conduct on to another life. This means some danger; you will have to have cryotanks, and you will have to get those souls onto shuttles off-planet. You have to send them to another world to live. But they won't be able to hurt you. By the time they reach their next planet, your grandchildren will be dead. "
Would my conditions mitigate my guilt in this? Only if Doc could be trusted.
He was thinking very hard as I explained. I watched his face to see what he would make of my demand. He didn't look angry, but his eyes were still wild.
"You don't want us to kill the Seeker?" he guessed.
I didn't answer his question because he wouldn't understand the answer; I did want them to kill her. That was the whole problem. Instead, I explained further.
"She'll be the first, the test. I want to make sure, while I'm still here, that you're going to follow through. I will do the separation myself. When she is safe, I'll teach you how it's done. "
"On who?"
"Kidnapped souls. The same as before. I can't guarantee you that the human minds will come back. I don't know if the erased can return. We'll see with the Seeker. "
Doc blinked, processing something. "What do you mean, while you are still here? Are you leaving?"
I stared at him, waiting for the realization to hit. He stared back, uncomprehending.
"Don't you realize what I'm giving you?" I whispered.
Finally, comprehension slammed home in his expression.
I spoke quickly, before he could. "There's something else I'm going to ask
you for, Doc. I don't want to. . . I won't be shipped off to another planet. This is my planet, it truly is. And yet, there's really no place for me here. So. . . I know it might. . . offend some of the others. Don't tell them if you think they won't allow it. Lie if you have to. But I'd like to be buried by Walt and Wes. Can you do that for me? I won't take up much space. " I smiled weakly again.
No! Melanie was howling. No, no, no, no. . .
"No, Wanda," Doc objected, too, with a shocked expression.
"Please, Doc," I whispered, wincing against the protest in my head, which was getting louder. "I don't think Wes or Walt will mind. "
"That's not what I meant! I can't kill you, Wanda. Ugh! I'm so sick of death, so sick of killing my friends. " Doc's voice caught in a sob.
I put my hand on his thin arm, rubbed it. "People die here. It happens. " Kyle had said something to that effect. Funny that I should quote Kyle of all people twice in one night.
"What about Jared and Jamie?" Doc asked in a choked voice.
"They'll have Melanie. They'll be fine. "
"Ian?"
Through my teeth. "Better off without me. "
Doc shook his head, wiping at his eyes. "I need to think about this, Wanda. "
"We don't have long. They won't wait forever before they kill the Seeker. "
"I don't mean about that part. I agree to those terms. But I don't think I can kill you. "
"It's all or none, Doc. You have to decide right now. And. . . " I realized I had one more demand. "And you can't tell anyone else about the last part of our agreement. No one. Those are my terms, take them or leave them. Do you want to know how to remove a soul from a human body?"
Doc shook his head again. "Let me think. "
"You already know the answer, Doc. This is what you've been searching for. "
He just kept shaking his head slowly back and forth.
I ignored that symbol of denial because we both knew his choice was made.
"I'll get Jared," I said. "We'll make a quick raid for cryotanks. Hold off the others. Tell them. . . tell them the truth. Tell them I'm going to help you get the Seeker out of that body. "