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bandage to glue the old skin to the new and cause another tear.
He had turned on the heat under her sand bed. When be took her back there, he
buried her whole body underthe warm, dry sand. This caused the old skin to dry
in large bubbles.
Her molt-venom was coming in long surges. Her face had taken on that
characteristic distance. The molt hor-mones would have their way with her now.
Before her sack had filled to the stretching point, he sat her up and brought
the venom bottle into place, trig-gering the expression with a feather touch.
When it was over, she lay back, helpless. But her eyes focused on him.
"Now I know why Jylyd wouldn't admit me to the blue trials. You can't go
balbhirhir before you've been tended by your true bhirhir."
He felt a moment's resentment at Dennis and a mo-ment's compassion for him,
too. Then he wondered at himself. These were not echoes of emotions. They were
there for him in the present, leaking in through the crack to his private
file.
There was no time to puzzle over it, though. Now that he had the venom, he
began laving it on gingerly. Feebly, the strike reflexes jerked her head up
and down, and she made small protesting sounds about his odor. But as he
worked, his touch becoming more sure and firm, she be-came lost in the
sensations he was causing her. The skin came loose in large patches all over
her body, except the middle of her back, where it was sticking, dry and too
brittle.Neglect, too?
Handling her limp, helpless body brought back a bone-deep tactile memory of
Sudeen's molts. When he expressed her again, he found himself breathing in
rhythm with her as he had so often with Sudeen. A place inside him that he
hadn't known was empty was now filled again.Pledge or no, immunity or no,
leaving her is going to hurt just like leaving a bhirhir.
She seemed to respond to that knowledge, which was communicated through his
touch. All over, the bubbles of skin were cracking open, but neglected patches
on her back and the soles of her feet were bonded to the new skin. When she
began to writhe with the need to shed, he could do nothing but let her go.
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He'd never faced such a problem with Sudeen.There has to be something I can
do, but what?
Curiosity swept through his mind, flinging open the inner barriers.In the
case of premature molt, when partialadherence occurs, the best treatment is
the application of ice packs to the affected areas. This should cause the
shrinking of blood vessels connecting the two layers of tissue and thus allow
removal of the outer skin without appreciable blood loss. Caution: This leaves
the victim susceptible to infection, and countermeasures should be taken.
Before it was all unreeled in his mind, Zref was at the sink, ordering ice
from the dispenser. He dumped the crushed ice into a hand towel. When he got
back to the sand bed, she had thrashed about so that her head was pounding
against the rim.
Carefully avoiding her fangs, he got her back into posi-tion and expressed
the collected venom, laving it gener-ously over the bad patches of skin. Then
he applied the ice packs, and suddenly he didn't know what to do next. Then he
realized that he was following instructions from the comnet.
He was back in the gardener's cottage in his parents' house, bent over Zaviv
and pumping air into the Brenilak's lungs. Sounds of pounding feet, small-arms
fire, and, ripping through his consciousness, the scream.
He heard it clearly this time, words emerging from the inarticulate blur of a
kren in high venom: "Help Zaviv! Zref, save Zaviv! Zref!"
And then the last mind-curdling scream: "Zrrrreeffff!"
But this time he found himself still wide open, more fully open than he'd
been since the very first time. His whole mind was filled with one
thought:Ididn't fail. 1 did what my bhirhir wanted done!
Zref, is that you? Diebold.The message came through the drop.
Diebold? Zref.
I got something unsigned saying,7didn't fail.' Was that you? Diebold.
Yes, I guess it was. I didn't know I was so open. Zref.
Something new? We all thought you must be dead. Diebold.
You may all wish me dead before this is over. Things are complicated here at
the moment. Zref.
Don't stay open too long this time. We'll try not to die of curiosity.
Diebold.
Ithink my problem with opening may be solved. I'll report soonest. Zref.
When Zref focused his eyes again, Arshel had squirmed free of the last
crusted shreds of skin, even the bad patches, and lay on the sand, panting
heavily and staring up at him.
"You were open! Did you lie to me?"
"No, Arshel, I don't think I'll ever be able to lie to you, any more than I
could to Sudeen. Or don't you feel it?"
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"We didn't pledge. You still don't smell right." Breath-ing more normally,
she reconsidered. "But I didn't kill you, either. And you enjoyed it, didn't
you? I didn't know a humancould feel that way."
"Arshel, by serving you, I found out what was crippling my ability to open.
That happened because you gave me what Sudeen had always given me. It's going
to be very hard for me to keep my word and turn you over to Mautri."
He gathered up the last pieces of her shed skin, took them to the disposer
opening in the bulkhead, and picked up the spray bandage on the way back.
"Turn around slowly."
"You're not going to cover me with that stuff? My sack feels like ancient
parchment now!"
"Just these difficult areas here," he said, spraying her back. "Now pick up
your feet, one at a time." He sprayed the bottoms carefully. Then he fed her
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