EFFECTS OF OPENNESS / CH. 21:LOOK WHO'S HERE!
MESSAGE TO MR THOMAS WHITE, MARS, FRIDAY 26TH OCTOBER.
Dear Thomas, no, you certainly didn't tell us about meeting a mermaid! All you told us was that a pretty girl had asked you if you knew all your ancestors back five generations, and if you met her again you wanted to be able to go back six if you could, just to impress her.
Was she impressed?
Please do send back a picture!
Mum and Dad
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MESSAGE TO MR THOMAS WHITE, MARS, FRIDAY 26TH OCTOBER.
Hey, Thomas!
Any chance of a picture of your mysterious mermaid? I wonder if I met her on the dunes a couple of years ago, singing 'great is thy faithfulness' but really miserably. I asked her if she was OK, and she said, no, she'd been stupid, that there was someone she'd met there the year before and she'd been hoping he'd be here this year so they could talk properly. She said take it from her — make sure you get his contact details even if you can't stop and talk.
I think I said something really naff about trusting God, and she gave me a sad smile and said, yes, but she'd rather she could just phone him up. I did remember your mermaid but thought, no, she can't be a mermaid, she's just a gorgeous girl in a swim-suit with normal looking feet and toes. So it can't have been her can it, since mermaids have webbed toes.
Elsie
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MESSAGE TO ELSIE WHITE, JERSEY. MONSOL, 26TH OCTOBER
Dear Elsie,
Most mermaids have webbed toes, but Ursula is an 'outer Mer' apparently, who get teased about their toes quite a lot by the 'inner Mer' kids at school. Still, after three thousand years of intermarriage. Adults don't do it, but it takes kids a while to get the message.
Ursula says what you said about trusting God wasn't naff at all, and was what she needed to hear, so well done.
I'm attaching two pictures of Ursula: the first is in her going to church clothes from yesterday, the second is from this morning, when she was in her in her full protecting-the-ambassador gear. The box on her belt is, I'm told, a personal forcefield, and the thing that looks a bit like a light sabre on her belt really looks really like a light-sabre when in operation. Apparently it's a mixture of forcefields, lasers and is powered by 'mostly fusion'. Her flute is a musical instrument which doubles as a blow-pipe loaded with a harmless muscle relaxant, which paralyzes people for about an hour — I guess you could liken it to a one-person stunner but without so many side effects.
love,
Thomas.
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MESSAGE TO THOMAS WHITE, MARS. WED, 14TH NOVEMBER
Dear Thomas,
I understand from the covering letter from the ambassador that you've not actually seen the enormous rubies I'm told are now mine. I took them to a jeweler in St Helier to get them valued for the insurance. Sadly, it seems, they're beyond what the insurance company will cover, even as a named item, and so if they do get stolen we'll only get enough to buy a medium-sized house. The girls who delivered them also gave me what they called 'the offcuts', 'in case I could do anything with them'. Some of those offcuts weighed more than a carat (not carrot!). I hope you don't mind but I let the jeweler have them in exchange for his colleague fitting a proper safe in the house, a pair of more modest ruby ear-rings for Elsie and what is probably sufficient spare cash for us to get the roof fixed properly.
The safe is now fitted, and apparently if we forget the combination then we'll need some kind of laser cutter to get in. I understand from Elsie that your Ursula has a hand-held one? Hopefully we don't need to use it.
Anyway, that all happened last week and I've been meaning to write about all the above, but I'm afraid I haven't made time until today. Apparently Elsie's new friend Sathie has been talking to her mother and in the post today Elsie got an royal invitation for well behaved members of her class to visit Atlantis some time during the Christmas holidays. It came with a link to the mainland's mer embassy, about standards of behaviour expected for visitors. Before I pass it all on to the teacher, can I ask... I know Elsie's teacher's just remarried, I think I heard that her first husband abandoned her and ran off with someone else, some years back. Would they consider her an oath-breaker?
Mum.
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LETTER TO MRS WHITE, JERSEY. SATURSOL, 14TH NOVEMBER
Dear Mrs White,
Thomas asked Ursula about Elsie's school teacher, and Ursula felt she needed to ask me. If one party has smashed the oath they took and left someone abandoned, as though dead, then they are an oath-breaker indeed, and surely God's judgement remains on them. From what you write, I can only guess if Elsie's teacher attempted to rescue the marriage for her conscience's sake, or was so injured that she merely wept, and called herself a fool for making vows to such a one. If she tried to mend what was broken, but was consistently rejected, we would see her as having no guilt at all. If she did not try at all, we would see her as bearing some guilt of which she should repent. In neither case would we see her as a dangerous shark, such as her first husband and the woman who broke their vows. They would do well to stay on dry land and away from vehicles or high buildings, and turn to Christ for forgiveness, for otherwise I cannot predict a happy end for them.
Did the invitation mention the teacher by name? If so, then I can assure you that my queen Karella Farspeaker can see the truth of things a long way away, and I would be very very surprised if such an invitation of welcome be issued to a woman who might find herself expecting aid when none came.
To ease your mind, however, I have asked my queen to confirm that she was not too busy to check.
Ruth Emilia Matthew
Ambassador of Atlantis to Mars.
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LETTER TO MRS WHITE, JERSEY. SATURSOL, 14TH NOVEMBER
Dear Mrs White,
You left out an important detail when asking Thomas, that Mrs De Gruchy's sad past was from before she was a Christian.
Surely God will not give total forgiveness through his Son's blood, but hold a past sin worthy of future punishment! A new creation is surely neither shark nor shark-food.
Ruth Emilia Matthew
Ambassador of Atlantis to Mars.
p.s. I don't know if Thomas has told you, but we certainly see him a lot at the embassy here. My own fiancé Robert (who works in the same department) is hoping to submit his thesis in time that we can be married in the new year, so I'm not seeing him much mid-week (boo hoo). Thomas, however, often seems to have tasks that bring him away from the university in the evenings.
I enclose a picture from the top of our embassy's newly finished tower, his 'micro-dome' home-from-home (a life-support shelter permanently mounted above an underground sleeping chamber) is not really visible, but I've marked its location with an arrow.
Ursula helped him build it (surprise surprise!) and it didn't take much to persuade me to allow her to use some of our technology to ensure that it was as airtight as Atlantis. Actually... since he's been helping Ursula and the others working on the tower, I suggested it.
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MESSAGE TO THOMAS WHITE, MARS. THURS, 15TH NOVEMBER
Dear Thomas,
Now we learn why you've not been writing much. Too much time gazing into Ursula's (undoubtedly gorgeous) eyes, no doubt. What's this about you helping build a tower at the embassy? Pictures, please!
Elsie.
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MESSAGE TO ELSIE WHITE, JERSEY. TUESOL, 17TH NOVEMNER
Hi Elsie, Who's been telling you about the tower? Apparently the ones in Atlantis are much bigger, this one's only a hundred metres tall, so it's not even as tall as Marscorp's big domes.
You'll see the walls are all transparent at the moment. It's made of a stuff they call 'crystal' and you need to paint it if you don't want it transparent.
Only it seems that Martian wall-paint is specially made so it sticks to plastic dome walls, but just runs off things like rock. I don't actually know what 'crystal' is, except that it's made from rock, is transparent, insulating and diamond doesn't really scratch it. And Martian paint won't stick. This has put certain other plans on hold, like installing toilets and showers there. Even as offices, it's not great as the floors are made of the same stuff, and it definitely feels odd to look up at the ceiling and notice that someone a floor above is having a quick peak at what you're working on. Ruth has put a notice on the stairs, warning 'strictly no skirts or dresses beyond this point!' after a couple of young boys were apparently spotted laying on their backs near the embassy wall (also made of crystal) with a pair of binoculars.
Have I told you about the embassy's plans for a swimming pool? I don't think I have.
Apparently, the rock which we used for making the crystal tower and still litters the embassy compound came from a five metre wide tunnel that has been dug around the perimeter of the embassy site. This will soon have lights fitted and be flooded using what Ruth describes as 'the alchemy kit.' I asked Ursula if that meant turning lead into gold, she asked me 'Why would you want to do that? Lead is really hard to find.'
love,
Thomas.
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MESSAGE TO THOMAS WHITE, MARS. SATURDAY, 17TH NOVEMBER
Dear Thomas,
We learned about the tower from the ambassador, and about your micro-dome.
Just how old is the lady ambassador? I had her pictured in my mind as the woman my age in the 'we've landed' picture you sent, but it sounds like she's not much older than you. Is that really right?
love
Mum and Dad
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LETTER TO MR&MRS WHITE, JERSEY. WEDSOL, 19TH NOVEMBER
Dear Mum and Dad,
The woman your age is Ruth's mother, Emilia Knifeteacher. She teaches what the mer consider the womanly arts: 'cooking, sewing, weaving, and disemboweling dangerous sharks whether they have two legs or none.' At the moment, she's teaching a mixed-age group, including Hathellah (who's name means she's inherited the title of princess of the Outer Mer, and who is Boris's girlfriend, and twin of Ruth's fiancé) and Professor F.-B.'s 4 year old daughter. They're both learning to play and shoot the Mer pipe, and Hathellah is also learning how to use a knife with another woman called Margaret, who I think works at the embassy of the Restored Kingdom. It seems there's strong links between the two embassies. I understand that James, Margaret's husband is Mer himself, but it seems more than just that link.
Ursula tells me, yes, there are far more links, but any Martian has privacy, let alone ambassadors, so she's not allowed to tell me about them.
Oh, and apparently it's everyone's job to disembowel, behead or kill or otherwise render harmless dangerous sharks, but that men normally use a hunter's tools: nets, slings, hunting spears or hunting knives, whereas women use darts, javelins, spears, or fighting knives, so they're taught separately.
I have ignorantly just asked what the difference is between a fighting knife and a hunting knife. Apparently a hunting knife is any old sharpened piece of metal which can cut due to the force available to testosterone-fueled muscles, whereas a fighting knife is precision made of a special metal which can slice steel and stay scalpel-sharp for fifty plus years, so that even Ursula's grandmother can be armed and very dangerous if cornered. There are different techniques apparently.
Back to your question, Ruth is next to her disabled cousin Boris, and Hathellah granddaughter of Hathellah granddaughter of Hathellah, princess of the Outer Mer is in his lap.
with love,
Thomas.
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MARS HOSPITAL, POST-OPERATIVE WARD, TUESOL, 2ND DECEMBER
“Hello, my Boris, how are you feeling?” Hathie asked in Mer.
“Woozy and probably in pain under the pain-killers and confused. You didn't just say that in Mer did you?”
“What me, speak Mer?” Hathie asked, in Mer.
“Ruth's been teaching you. I thought she had. You did, didn't you?”
“Did what, ask you how you're feeling?” Hathie asked.
“Call me your Boris?”
“Drat he caught me out,” she grinned at him.
“Hathie, you do know what calling me yours in Mer means, don't you?”
“One option is I'm your parent, grandparent or sibling. Nope, can't be that one. And we haven't taken vows yet, either. So I must have meant that between us there is a deep level of commitment which we fully intend to cement with vows, and we're not afraid of letting people around us know it. And if you remember, you did tell me yesterday that you wanted to give me this ring with the pretty diamond on in, just in case something bad happened. And you said I could wear it.”
“My Hathellah,” Boris breathed out, “you've moved which finger it's on.”
“Well, yes, but being able to call you my fiancé certainly made it easier to get past the watchful nurses. And a diamond ring does tend to shout engagement, as I'm sure you know.”
“Aren't I supposed to ask?”
“I thought about that, and then I thought, hey, I've got those ancient rights of mine. You've been thinking of me as your Thellah with a capital T for ages, so I was pretty sure you wouldn't object.
I have decided to choose you, Boris, to be my husband. You just called me yours, so I'm guessing you don't object. Do you? I'm not going to claim you against your will.”
“My gorgeous brunette princess has decided to claim me? Why would I want to object?”
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“But you wanted to ask me? You can ask.”
“Hathellah granddaughter of Hathellah, you have chosen me before I could even summon the courage to ask if you thought we knew each other well enough yet to make such decisions. So instead I ask when will you marry me? Are you thinking of taking vows tonight, or will you wait until we find out if this operation was a success and I'm not in pain any more?”
“Of course I'll wait, my Boris. I don't insist on a hundred percent full strength, but if it's going to be possible, I do rather like the idea of you carrying me into our new home rather than the other way round. And of course we need to decide where that'll be and all sorts of questions like that.”
“And if it's not possible? Sixty-five percent is a long way from certain.”
“Then my Boris, we decide if we take another risk with your life, or if we're happy with you being fully water-proof, not needing batteries, and so on. That's a problem for another day, though.”
“Has anyone else seen your ring on that finger?”
“No. No one's seen it at all, actually. It's a much better fit on this finger than the other one, so I took it off. Why?”
“Then Hathie, my Hathie, will you please wear that ring on that finger as a mark of both our decisions?”
“Of course, Boris.”
“And will you allow me the pleasure of sending Lara and Ruth a picture of your hand, so they can tell the world how happy I am?”
“Of course.”
“And then will you tell me if you're really doing naughty things with your hand?”
“What?” Hathie asked, surprised.
“Oh. I thought I felt someone stroking some skin somewhere. I guess it's just optimistic imagination. They said I might get some feeling back quickly.”
“What are you feeling now?” she asked, tracing circles around his kneecap.
“I'm feeling very happy that it was you.”
“What I think we need to do is a detailed survey of what you can and can't feel.”
“Not too detailed, I hope.”
“Boris what a thing to suggest, and with us almost married, too!”
“That's what worries me,” he grinned at his fiancée.
“What?”
“That my Hathellah might decide she doesn't need to be patient, and can bring the wedding forward just so she can satisfy her curiosity about if certain bits of me are in better working order now than they used to be.”
“Aren't you curious?”
“Hathie, just like my toes, it's a bit of me that I need to keep clean, you know? I expect I'll notice if it starts sending me messages.”
“I suppose you're right.”
“But I do like the thought that some signals are getting through. It bodes well. Ow.”
“Ow what?”
“I don't know. Did you just stab me?”
“No. I just touched a new bit of leg.”
“I think some signals are not — ow — quite connected up right.”
“That could be awkward.”
“Ow. Hathie, can you keep your fingers to bits of me that are connected up right?”
“Sorry, Boris. Do you want to take that picture now?”
“I guess I should, because I think I might be asking for more sedation. Sorry, Hathie, they said it might happen this way... connections working out where to - owwww — go.”
“I wasn't touching anything!”
“No, but I bet the sheet is.”
“Shall I call a nurse?”
“First, ow, can I give you a kiss, my Hathie?”
“Certainly.” She lent towards him and gave him a kiss [How about I get Ruth to take the picture?]
[Sounds good. {pain}]
[I'll get the nurse.]
[Sorry, they're going to give me something powerful I think.]
[They can't disconnect the pain signals,] Hathie thought to him [all they can do is disconnect your higher brain functions.]
[That sounds sounds sort of scary.]
[I think it might be something to help you forget, or something like that. Just don't forget you love me.]
[I won't, that's got to be in long term memory by now, surely?]
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YOUNG HOUSEHOLD, MARS, 2ND DECEMBER
“Hi, Hathie! How's our favorite Gravitymaster?” Hathie's mother asked.
“My Boris is sedated. Well, sort of. I couldn't watch.”
“What's happened?”
“He started getting feeling back, which was wonderful,” Hathie said “then it turned to pain. Every touch a new pain. It happens sometimes, they say, one chance in about ten. He's writhing in pain and every new movement means a sheet touches him somewhere else and it's a new pain trigger.”
“But... getting feeling back is a good sign, isn't it?”
“Yes and no.” Hathie said, “It means his nerves are reconnecting, but they're not reconnecting properly.”
“And they can't give him painkillers?”
“They've given him something to help him forget but they don't dare reduce the pain. It would make it almost certain that it becomes permanent, they call that 'little mermaid syndrome', after the story. Most people say cut my spine again, it was better without any feeling. They can't just wind-back the regrowth, all they can do is stop it and cut the chord.”
“Oh Hathie!”
“We were so happy! Teasing, planning. We're going to get married, he was going to take a picture of this ring to send to Ruth and Lara and tell everyone how happy he was, and then it started, and he's in agony now.” tears were flowing freely now.
“And so are you.”
“I should be there, mum, holding his hand, they asked me to for a bit. But I couldn't cope, and they said it's better if I go. But I shouldn't have.”
“Sorry are you saying you do want to go back or you don't?”
“I should, but I'm scared.”
“To see his pain?”
“I don't want to leave him in pain when I could be there helping him through it. But I don't know if I will be helping him. I feel I should, but I felt so helpless, so useless, so panicked.”
“Pain is scary, yes. Especially in people we love. Is your love strong enough to conquer that fear?”
“I want it to be. I need to pray.”
“Sounds like a good answer. Would you like me to drive you there while you pray?”
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MARS HOSPITAL, POST-OPERATIVE WARD, TUESOL, 2ND DECEMBER
“Hello, I'm Hathellah Young, I've come to be with Boris,” Hathie said, “it might help him for me to be there.”
“It's not going to be easier than it was last time,” the nurse said.
“It might. I know what's coming this time.”
“Miss Young, if anything his pain is worse now.”
“Then I should be with him,” Hathie said.
“You don't need to do this to yourself.”
“Yes I do, we're engaged. I fully mean to stay with him in sickness and in health.”
“You're that determined?”
“Yes.”
“You're right. It might help him a bit.”
“I had an idea. Is there something like a big bath he could be in? Maybe a birthing pool? So it's water that holds him? I've got my swimming costume, I'd be happy to go in with him to keep his head up.”
“It depends how much he thrashes, and panics. We don't want him to think we're trying to drown him. Or for him to drown you.”
“He's Mer, I'm part Mer myself. I'm not saying it's impossible to drown us, but you'd have to wait a long time.”
“I'll talk to the doctor, miss.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't try for long conversations. His short term memory's only about ten seconds.”
“But he'll remember things from before they started the drip?”
“Probably.”
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MARS HOSPITAL, POST-OPERATIVE WARD, TUESOL, 2ND DECEMBER
[My Boris, I'm here.]
[{pain}Hathie? My Thellah?]
[Your Thellah came back. They sent me away, but I'm back.{love}]
[Hurts]
[Yes, Boris. I know. Now Boris, you need my kiss.]
[Nice kisses. Nasty legs.]
[No my mermaid's kiss, and they're nice legs, just silly nerves getting confused. We're engaged now, so you can't refuse me giving you first aid kisses.]
[My Thella came back.]
[Yes. Try to sit up my Boris.]
[Hurts]
[Yes, {love} but try?]
[{PAIN} hurts too much. Why sit?]
[OK, Boris, plan B.] Hathellah swallowed a mouthful, in case that was part of it, and put some more in her mouth. Then she kissed him [Drink, my love. Drink my kiss, and maybe we can swim together.]
[Can't think. Woozy.]
[Yes, you are. And very forgetful.]
[Why does your kiss taste funny?]
[Drink, the kiss I've made for you Boris.]
[What kiss?]
[My forgetful Boris, swallow my mermaid's kiss. Take my kiss, and my love, and we will swim together.]
[Not married yet.]
[Not yet, but we will be.]
[Why are you kissing me like this?]
[I love you, and we're engaged.]
[It hurts, Hathie.]
[Your silly new nerves got confused my Boris. Is this nice?] she stroked his head.
[Touching is nice. Kissing is nice.]
[You tell your silly nerves this is touching then.]
[{pain}Touching?]
[Just touching {love}.]
[My Thellah is here.]
[Yes, my forgetful Boris.]
[Don't go!] He thought as she finally broke the kiss.
“I'm not going, Boris.” Hathie said, “I just thought it might be a bit embarrassing if the nurse came back in.”
“What would be embarrassing?” Boris asked, confused.
“You're very forgetful, my Boris, did you know that?”
“The medicine.”
“Yes, Boris. I know.” She just held his hand for a while, thinking how much she loved him, and praying that his nerves would connect up properly. And reminding him that she was here, and loved him.
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“My Thellah is here!” Boris said, in joy. It was about an hour since she'd come back.
“Of course I am, I've been here something like an hour.”
“Don't go, Hathie.”
“I won't go, Boris, I'm here. Not just Hathie, I'm your Hathie, now.”
“Can I have a kiss, my Hathie?”
“Of course, Boris. As long as it doesn't hurt, you can have as many kisses as you want.”
“Kisses don't hurt.”
[Of course they don't. And we're engaged, so I'm allowed to kiss you.]
[I love my Hathie!]
[Does it hurt if I stroke you here Boris?] Hathie asked, trying to find the first place he'd felt her touch.
[Funny Hathie.]
[Funny?]
[Strokes don't hurt.]
[Do your legs hurt, Boris?]
[A bit. Why do they hurt?]
Hathie looked into his eyes. She didn't see the fear she'd seen earlier, either. [Because your nerves got confused. I love you my Boris.]
[My Hathie is here!]
Hathellah kissed him again, but broke off as the nurse opened the door. “I think the pain is fading,” Hathie said, grinning.
“Really! That's a good sign.”
“Boris, can I try stroking you again?”
“Again?”
“Do you remember where on your leg you first felt me stroking you?”
“Yes.”
“Can I stroke you there?”
“Of course, Hathie. That's nice.”
“And if I stroke here?”
“Hey, no tickling.”
“Does anything hurt, Mr Gravitymaster?” the nurse asked.
“Should anything hurt?” Boris asked, then looked puzzled and asked “Hathie, what did she get wrong?”
“Gravitymaster is not his surname,” Hathellah said, “It's much more of a claim to fame.”
“Gravitymaster, Hathellah-claimed. Famous before I'm thirty!”
“Exactly, Boris. Can the drip be turned off?”
“I'll just check with the Doctor.”
“Does that by any chance mean 'wait an hour and don't interfere?'”
“No! Oh, the bath idea? I'm sorry, it slipped my mind. There is a birthing pool, but it's in use, otherwise there's only normal-sized baths, nothing you could actually not touch the sides in. But the doctor did think it was a good idea.”
Boris looked to see who the nurse was talking to and told her “Nurse, this is Hathellah, granddaughter of Hathellah and so on back for three thousand years. And she's not only the Princess, she's My Thellah! Don't leave, Hathie, please!”
“I've been here a long time Boris, and I'm very very sorry I left you.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because I didn't think I was helping, and I was worried for you and scared because you were hurting so much.”
“I'm not hurting now. But why can't I remember anything? Oh! Nurse, please turn off the drip, it's mucking up my brain.”
“Certainly, sir.” the nurse said.
“How long will it take until his memory works properly?”
“Not long, Miss Young.”
“Please, feel free to call me Hathellah. It's as much a title as a name.”
“My Thellah, not just the thellah!”
“Yes, Boris, but every Outer Mer can call call me their thellah, can't they? Only you get to call me your Hathie.”
“My Hathie has made an excellent point, nurse.”
“I'm getting really confused,” the nurse admitted.
“My name is a title, which means 'the princess', from 'thell', an archaic Mer word meaning prince, or king. Only one person in two generations can be called by it. It means I'm the hereditary heir to the crown of one of two groups of Mer who the then-Hathellah united some centuries before Moses came on the scene. I don't have many powers, but I have a powerful threat to stamp out racial prejudice amongst the mer, because I can say enough is enough, we're leaving. And when my grandmother told me I was a mermaid and the rest I really struggled to believe her.”
“What convinced you?”
“Oh, the normal. She took me swimming one day and we swam underwater lengths for about six minutes. Boris here will probably be able to do fifteen, once his legs have got a bit more muscle on them.” As she said that she took his hand and thought to him [Don't protest; potion's a secret. And also, you had some mermaid's kiss earlier my love. I've got more so you get a proper dose and to remember it too.]
[Whatever happened to not mixing medicines?]
[I asked Karella to check it was OK. You glowed as a Mer it would be perfectly safe and appropriate for me to give some to any time today.]
“Oh, Boris...”
“Yes?”
“I really wasn't feeling like sending out photos when you were writhing in pain earlier, so... do you want to take one now?”
“I was writhing in pain?” Boris asked.
“Yes, and I didn't know what to do, and any time I tried to help it felt like I was making things worse.”
“And the doctor sent her away, because the last thing a patient going through what you went through needs is a distraught relative,” the nurse interjected, “But a determined spouse or fiancée, who'll stick with you though it all is a real help.”
“She told me my legs were good, it was just my nerves,” Boris said.
“Exactly. And you remembered that, and that thought is really important in getting the brain to sort itself out. We think it's related to placebo effect, and somehow the word of doctors and nurses just isn't as convincing. But, urm... it was awfully quite in here, most of the time....”
“More than half of the Mer are long-range thought hearers,” Hathie said, “So do be careful to make any decisions about Boris you want to keep private about thirty metres away with several sealed doors in the way.”
“I've never had that long a range, Hathie,” Boris said.
“Do you remember having working legs?”
“Oh. Good point.”
“I don't know how you test for thought-hearing range,” the nurse started.
“Probably best not to finish that thought,” Hathellah interrupted, “I had the same thought but crushed it.”
“Oh, but the insights it could give...” the nurse started again.
“First question: given the ingrained over centuries terror of being burned alive by the non-thought-hearing population, or dissected in the name of science, do you really think any thought-hearer is going to want to tell people which nerves to cut to make them more vulnerable?”
“Urm, No.”
“Second question: do you have any idea how hard it was to get Boris through the door of this hospital yesterday morning, once he heard he'd be under general anesthetic? Mer children since the nineteen hundreds have been told that if there's a very real risk they'll get dissected in the name of science if they fall into the hands of land-people.”
“Third question,” Boris said, “can you think of any reason that knowing would actually be helpful to anyone?”
“Yes,” the nurse said, “because my aunt would really love to have a lower range sometimes.”
“She has the pain?” Hathie asked.
“Yes, and if I have a daughter then there's a risk she might too. My grandma had it.”
“Greetings, probable very distant cousin.” Boris said.
“Pardon?”
“The pain is only found in girls and women who have both mer and land-folk ancestry,” Hathie said, “If you trace your ancestry back to the late twentieth century you'll probably find connections to instructors or staff at a scuba-dive centre and then a total blank.”
“At which point ask Atlantis?” the nurse asked.
“Exactly.”
“I don't suppose the name Japathe means anything to you?” the nurse asked, “It's my middle name, and I did try to find out about where it came from.”
“It's a mer name, certainly. Any idea which Japathe?”
“She married someone called Smith, if that helps. Oh, and her grandmother was called Karella Abbot. I've seen a letter saying 'her name still gets us a discount if you go to the right dive-school'”
“Oh, descendent of the ultra-rich and ultra-famous,” Boris said, “Every mer has heard of Karella Irontrader. And of course her grandmother, Sathzakara Evangelia.”
“Why would being a descendent of someone rich get you a discount?”
“It'll take a while to explain. We're not keeping you from looking after anyone else are we?” Hathie asked.
“I've just transferred one patient to another ward — that's part of what took me so long — and we'll be getting another patient just as soon as they're out of surgery, so this is what they call the slack period.”
“And there's no heap of paperwork to transfer Boris?”
“No. It's probably all wait and see in your case. No further medication recommended, just regular progress checks. I'd be fascinated to hear about my ancestress, though.”
“For a long long time,” Boris said. “iron was occasionally useful for the Mer but hard to get. Rust-free iron became like gold is for you. For some reason, you kept sinking great ships full of the stuff, but they all went rusty. Often they were rusty before they sank. About the only form of iron that survived long enough for us to be sure you really didn't care about it was cannon balls. And you'd totally stopped shooting those at each other with any regularity by the nineteen seventies.”
“And somehow Karella got hold of some iron?”
“Karella who was already known as a skilled tradeswoman, got married to Rick Abbot of London, a landman who happened to have a pawn shop. How they met is another story, but she thus had access to the local ironmongers' shop. And like most mer children at the time, she thought pearls were something to be watched out for in shellfish soup and given to kids for marbles. She spotted a trading opportunity, and so she found a waterproofing that didn't corrode the steel, and swapped coated nuts for pearls. She got richer — I can't say rich because she was already — and the Mer had time for a graceful transition off the iron standard because she openly told everyone she had no intention of trashing the economy, but really, iron wasn't going stay valuable. And that meant that iron could be used a lot more freely, which was good news in all sorts of ways.”
“I can't imagine not having iron to make things out of. What do you use for scalpels, or hypodermic needles?”
“We call it knife metal. Wander over to the Atlantis embassy and ask one of the guards,” Boris said, “I expect she'll be very happy to show you her knife. Most mermaids treat their knives badly, of course, and don't even notice that it needs resharpening until the cutting edge has been worn down until it's something like ten thousand atoms across. A properly sharp blade is about as sharp as obsidian, about ten atoms. The big advantage knife metal has over obsidian is you can clean it without it shattering.”
“You'd reuse a surgical blade?” the nurse asked in horror, “what about the risks of spreading diseases?”
“If you can tell me of a pathogen that'll survive the whole blade being at yellow heat, we might worry. But then, so would you, since you smelt down your old surgical steel and reuse it.”
“Oh. And that doesn't ruin the temper of the blade or whatever?”
“Naah. Tempering is all about mucking up the natural structure to get the right properties. It's much better to have the right structure to start with. Technically, what we call knife metal is really close to being a bendy ceramic.”
“You ahh, sound like you really know this stuff,” the nurse said.
“Probably because I try to teach people all about it back home. Stop carving bits of steel with your knives, I tell them. Do they listen? Of course they don't, they just carry on whittling any bit of steel they can find to show off.”
“I think you should finish that diatribe with something like 'Mermaids! Teenagers the whole lot of them!'” Hathie suggested.
“Hey, are you trying to get me into trouble?” Boris asked “I know how sharp their knives are, thank you very much.”
“On that note, I'd really better go and find the doctor,” the nurse said.