Her mood soured though as she considered that she was now being sent to the buildings where Marik tended to the ill and injured.
Marik was a natural healer. She knew he had abilities beyond any that she could imagine and that working with him would be an honor. There were many who had tried and who did well. Not that many stayed on because Marik had said that their skill level wasn’t quite up to what it should be in the case of emergency. That while they knew simple healing that would stand them in good stead if someone was injured while they were working on another task, and they could help them there, he would prefer to continue to try out new people.
It was not just that Marik was hard to please. He and his siblings had decided that it would be best if everyone knew some simple healing. At the moment, it was only the small town made up of less than seventy-five huts and a few other buildings on the planet.
That would change though; there would be new life born of those who were already there, and others would come. The population would spread out, and healers would be necessary in every place, even if all they knew how to do was tend to the smallest and mildest of injury and illness.
She was fairly sure, given her background, that she would enjoy the work if only she did not have to see Marik!
Her feet, bare and browned by the sun, carried her through the soft grass and wildflowers. There was a small track, barely visible, running through that grass now. The track had been made by feet, not by tools and she regarded it as she went.
How long would it be before massive cities like the ones on Old Earth took over this planet as well?
None of them wanted that. Not the siblings who had purchased that planet and brought what remained of their families and those most loyal to them there. Not those who would come along. She did not want that either. She liked the fact that things were so simple there.
Jenny knew that it would happen eventually, but she hoped that it would be a long time in the future. Every day was a struggle for survival, but she was used to that. The struggle there on Revant Two was a vastly different struggle than the one she had known on Old Earth.
On Revant Two, everyone shared. Food was distributed equally and evenly. Those who could not hunt or gather or go out onto the waves of the ocean and boats were not denied food because they too had a purpose and a task and everything and everyone contributed to the whole.
On Old Earth, the struggle was for power and just to live. The death of those who had less was so common that those who lived in the Below rarely had time to mourn one death before another one came. In many ways, they had become desensitized to the deaths of their family and their neighbors.
Here, every loss was counted. Just a few days ago an older and frail being had passed away. There had been much ceremony in burying him, and they had all sat around for very long time in the center of their little town listening to those who had known him speak of him and his deeds.
That last part was what touched her heart the most. Here people were remembered not for what they had accrued or what they were born to but what they had done with their lives.
The building was right in front of her now. She put a hand up to the carved wooden door and pressed just slightly. It opened, and she entered. The building had a long central hallway that led both east and west. Small rooms had been placed along the hallways for patients. She could hear voices coming from the eastern side of the building, and she headed that way, the simple blue dress that she wore flapping around her knees as she went.
She rather liked the dress. One of the beings, a gentle and shy creature named Willow, of indeterminate race and species, had begun to make them for the women there on the planet. Willow spun the fabric out of simple things and dyed it with berries and grasses. Jenny had never owned a dress before, and now she had three. She preferred it to the stark tunic and trousers that were given out to every citizen of Old Earth.
Marik stood in a room, conversing with several others. His dark eyes lifted from the thing he was looking at and he stilled.
Again that feeling came back. His eyes were probing deep into her heart and mind and soul, searching out things that she didn’t even know herself yet. Jenny looked away quickly.
Marik’s voice was soft and calm. “Jenny, I’m glad you are here. Come in. Today we have no patients, so we are just discussing ways to treat things.”
Her bare feet whispered across the floor, and she came to where the rest of them stood. On the long table that had been set up there in the room sat a variety of small bowls. Many of the ships had carried in furnishings and other supplies, and even now Talon brought a great deal of things to them that they had much need of.
Her head tilted to one side as she regarded the bowls. “What is this?”
Marik said, “We are trying to figure out a way to stretch the medications that we have here. There’s never enough, and even though the supply ships will probably bring us more at some point, we're going to have to begin supplying those who would create colonies further away from this one.”
Jenny lifted her eyes to his. “And you do not want to rely too heavily on having it brought into a supply ship.”
Marik’s lips lifted his cheekbones. His face lit up. Her heart gave a hard and heavy pound in her chest, and she looked away quickly.
The image of Ben came back up in her mind.
Ben was not much taller than she was, and very slender due to the diet that those who lived in the Below were allowed. His hair had turned gray while he was still in his teens, and they were slight but there were wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His skin, like the skin of all of those who live there, was incredibly pale and slightly gray.
He was kind, considerate, and funny. After her parents died, he had hidden her for weeks just in case the Capo decided to come back and take her and execute her due to her familial connections.
That had not happened, but what had happened was even worse. She had been put on a ship and sent away.
Her eyes went back to the bowls. A frown creased her high brow. She asked, “What is this?”
Marik said, “It is the bark of a tree. It’s known to reduce coughs and other things.”
Jenny’s heart began to pound. There was a secret about her family that she had never told anyone. It was not so much the herbs growing in the small pots that had gotten her parents killed. It was the way that they had gotten the seeds that had begun those things that had done it. And it was not just the seeds either; it was her mother’s vast trove of knowledge, the knowledge of growing and green things that could only be found above ground in the cities massive parks. The parks that were only to be used by those who lived above ground.
