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When the first fireballs began to come down among the assembly, Luz Ariela had run from one victim to the next, giving painkillers to those who might still be able to flee. There was not enough poison in her supply sac for even a part of the remainder, and she soon forgot them anyhow. The process became mechanical, a quick guess at the extent of the damage, a spray of anesthetic or a jolt with her nerve-blocking euphrequency generator set at its broadest range and an urgent push toward the river. She allowed herself to avoid looking in their eyes and the work became a familiar nightmare of tedious problems, screams and stinks. Burning flesh drew fire, she saw, but the seconds between were all she required to treat and drag the patient clear.

She felt invulnerable, aloof and alone. It was the best reaction; empathy would surely lead to madness. Madness-- a hand was clutching at her sleeve; she pulled free-- an outdated concept, except in law. Here, after all, triumphed madness in its most dangerous form. Best not to dwell on that. The hand grasped again. She pushed it away. Indiscriminate thinking had never gained her much. The patient was dead. She moved on.

Burns, fractures; what fragile systems we are, she thought. Beuatiful if you like, with an intricacy only half guessed at, but so easily destroyed. Life was ill-designed. Still, if you knew how, it could be patched and mended-- but really, what was the use? Firebombs were dropping thick as snow. Yet each case was a problem, view it that way, each case a problem and it would not do to leave too many unsolved. See them as problems; what could happen to her?

"It hurts!" a patient shrieked in Outlander. For an instant she thought it was her father-- she had barely glanced at the whole form-- but it was not. It was a short man in a skin coat.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I've sinned!" he howled. "Fiya, shining mother-goddess, holy..."

Luz heard no more, but she looked up for the first time and saw all about her people in awful death agonies, and she knew that it was for no reason. They were suffering, these problems of hers, the lives she had thought so flimsy as hardly to be there. Suddenly with the sound of a tramendous gasp the walls and very ground burst into flame, and she saw the empty darkness coming toward her.

"Must I be alone?" she cried. No one could bear it. Then it seemed she saw the multitudes of the dead. One hand brought the poison to her mouth, the other gave the same boon to the stranger beside her. The sudden tower of flame parted the clouds. Hot gusts drew her up into the vaccuum. She ran to join the others.

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CONTINUE..................... BEFORE THE BOMBING - DAYBREAKERS..................... BEFORE THE BOMBING - AKIVA.....................

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INDEX