The Will and the Way

He might have been drowning.

Sound and time and emotion roared around him; crashing waves of sensation. Once or twice the current ebbed enough that he could catch a breath, and then the paralysing rushing power of it swept him away once more. The weight of everything and nothing pressed down on him like an immense load. He could feel stars exploding, atoms blinking out of existence, the swirling forces of the universe. He could see the distant past, endless futures, the tireless, unending motion of the cosmos all enfolded in a beautiful, glorious, burning light. He was scattered, shredded into wisps of bare consciousness, flung out into the dazzling, sublime oneness of every thing.

He tried to fly into the light, but something held him back. Looking down, he saw his own body, a vile sack of blood and tubes and revolting fluids, speared with cracked bones and wrapped with brittle skin. He saw failing organs and dying cells, a stinking mass of necrosis and corruption, struggling for life amidst a sea of writhing fear. He looked on the repulsive thing with pity. It was holding him back from that glorious light, and it would be an act of compassion to let it die, to end its fragile, broken existence. But he found he could not, not while there was life yet. That choice did not belong to him. He relaxed his grip on the grotesque thing, and felt its lungs spasm. Oxygen flooded into its starved cells. The fear which had mired the body in its dark cloud flowed away, and hope fluttered in the darkness.

He had to go back. Something was telling him he had to go back, to take up residence again in that fragile broken shell. To live. To be mindful of this moment. He was not reluctant or afraid, there was no emotion here, only peace. He would do as he was asked. He would become whole again. He drew the scattered pieces of himself together and-

His existence suddenly shuddered. Before he could steady himself, the all-encompassing light flickered and blinked out. The awareness and knowledge and serenity it had left behind was ripped from him. Paralysed by agony, he was once again forsaken; blind and dumb in the dark.

An alarm is sounding.

The pod is out of control. It's all going wrong. He lost consciousness, just for a moment, and now he is crashing; he will no doubt be smashed to pieces on the planet below. He has always said he hated flying and still he-

No. That was before. He had seen the escape pod in the marsh. That was before.

The ringing noise did not falter, however, and he became aware that it was inside his head. Now, he saw a light. Barely a tiny candle flame to the perfect, infinite, omniscient light he had known before, but it was there. There was a distant echo of sound, perhaps a voice, and the feel of hands on his face. That feeble, base light grew in intensity, and soon shards of agony were spearing into his eyes. He tried to block it out, but his body was numb and his hands only twitched uselessly. The light stabbed into his retinas again, and the voice cleared.

"That's it," it said, in Basic. "Blink your eyes again. Come on, Ben, come back to us. I want you to move or say something, so that we know you are all right. Ben?"

He managed to roll his head away from the painful burning brightness that sent nausea coiling in his belly. His body felt unbearably heavy.

"t's not my name," he said, mumbling. The hands that were tapping his face stilled.

"Then what is your name?"Give me the names, he heard, in echo.

The sound of the voices, present and past, blurring together was almost as painful as the light in his eyes.

"Do you know where you are?" Tell me where they are

"Can you can remember my name?" Give me the codes

"Just say something so we can tell if you are okay," Just tell us what we want to know, and I'll stop hurting you

"I'm not going to tell you anything." He laughed as he looked up at the man with the mad eyes. "This little game is completely futile, and you and I both know that. Much nastier and far more creative beings than you have tried to break me, and all of them failed. You may as well save us both the bother and release me. That, or kill me now."

He closed his weary eyes as he continued. "To be honest, I am starting not to care what you do, as long as I no longer have to listen to the sound of your ceaseless babbling. Why don't you go away and let me sleep?"

One of the voices continued to talk for a while longer, but he blocked it out, and eventually it fell silent. He was finally left alone with the pain in his head, to sleep.

He drifted on the edge of consciousness for a long time, and woke up to a jarring sense of deja vu. He was lying on the floor of a room. The light was dull and gloomy, but he could make out some features. The ceiling was very high and shadowed; the curved walls looked like they were made of rough plaster or mud.

Of course. The shipwreck, the village, the Kheelians…

Ben rubbed his eyes and let the memories coalesce. Every muscle and joint in his body ached. He felt as if he had just run a marathon, or fought a long and weary battle. He was in his room in Shaarm's house, lying on his small pallet bed in the side room. There was no way of knowing what time it was, but the house around seemed quiet and still. He sat up painfully, pushing aside a mound of blankets, and the world span. At the edge of the bed was his walking staff, an empty basin and a bottle of water. The presence of the basin, and the taste in his mouth as he drank, attested to the fact that he apparently had thrown up at least once. Had he perhaps been ill?

Ben's nose tickled and he put a hand up to his wet face. Blood smeared across his fingers. He pinched his nose, just as his questing left hand found a towel beside the bed. He clamped the cloth to his face, and closed his eyes. What had happened? He shivered, cold and numb.

After several minutes, Ben finally felt the blood slow, and then stop. As he moved to put the towel down, silver glinted at his wrist. He shoved his sleeve up, heart pounding, and saw that the thin, innocent little bracelet was clasped once again around his arm. The very sight of it made him quake with horror. Ben tried to pull the thing off, but only succeeded in bruising his hand. Wrenching at the clasp did nothing. He even tried using his teeth to pull at the join, but to no avail. The metal disgusted him, the feel of it on his skin was suddenly abhorrent. He had to get it off, and he was going to need help to do it.

Painfully, he staggered up to his feet, mildly horrified at his own weakness. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but before this recent crisis he had been on the road to healing. Now, every part of him hurt; muscles cramping and joints over-extended. His head throbbed with unremitting pain and his ribs and abdomen burned; the surgery wound on his belly an angry tongue of fire. His damaged hip was agony as he tried to put his weight on it. Even the puncture wound in his leg, which had been healing nicely, ached fiercely. It was a worrying relapse.

Leaning heavily on his stick, Ben managed to shuffle to the door, firmly holding the dizziness and pain in check. The living room was quiet and empty. The muted light seeping through the domed roof made his eyes water, but did show that it was midday or early afternoon. Small sounds were filtering in through a corridor, and so he followed them out towards the rear of the house and the garden. The brightness and chill of the day outside was too much for his overtaxed head, so Ben stopped inside the doorway, leaning against the wall and shielding his sensitive eyes with his hand. Squinting he could see Chana quietly working at one of the raised planting beds. The Kheelian was laying a row of small tubers in a hollow in the earth. There was a peacefulness and simplicity to the task that suddenly made Ben's soul ache for the loss of his own fleeting glimpse of serenity. Out here, there was harmony. Inside, he felt nothing but chaos.

After a minute or two, Chana look up and noticed him by the doorway. He put down his tools and softly called out across the garden for Shaarm, quickly moving back over towards the house. Chana's broad arm around his back felt like safety, and Ben revelled in it for a long moment before gently pulling away.

"Get it off," Ben instructed, holding out his arm towards Chana, with the shiny little bracelet glinting in the sun. His voice was hoarse with disuse and caught a little in his throat.

"Ben!" Shaarm had arrived. Her tone was soft and there was soil on her hands as she took hold of his wrist gently. "Ben, what are you doing up?"

He would not be swayed or distracted. "Please, get it off."

The two Kheelians looked at each other, concerned, and clearly out of their depth.

"Come inside," Shaarm suggested. "I can see the light is hurting your eyes. Chana can make some tea and we'll talk about it."

"I can't stand it any longer," Ben told them, pulling at the metal again. "It's wrong."

"I know, I know," Chana said, soothingly. He lifted Ben up carefully, and tucked him into the crook of his elbow. "Let us see what we can do about it."

Chana carried him back into the house and sat him at the table. While Chana brewed the tea, Shaarm quickly inspected Ben, peering into his eyes and ears, noting his complaints of headache and muscular pain, taking his pulse and checking his temperature. The examination had Shaarm frowning, and draping several thick blankets around Ben's shoulders. He huddled into them, shivering.

"Pakat is devastated," Shaarm told him, ruefully as Chana brought over the tea. "He can't bear that he harmed you, even if it was by accident. He was called out to deal with a narm crisis in the night, or he would not have left your side."

"What happened to me?" Ben's voice was still rough. His fingers constantly worried at the bracelet, unable to bear the cold, numbing sensation against his skin. Chana sat down beside him, pulling Ben over to lean against him, sparing his aching muscles.

"You have been asleep for almost forty-two turns," Shaarm told him, softly. "Do you remember deciding to disguise your appearance? Pakat suggested you should remove your bracelet in case someone was looking out for it. Well, the moment you took it off, you collapsed. He thought at first you had fainted, but they could not wake you up. He and Grandmother brought you into your room, just before you had the first seizure. I got back here as fast as I could when they called. It was my decision to refit the bracelet; your breathing was very suppressed and you bleed heavily from your nose. We were very concerned. After about six turns, you started to stabilize, and you eventually regained consciousness although you were very disorientated and in shock. Since then you have been sleeping, although from what we can tell you have been suffering from sound and light sensitivity, nausea and muscle aches."

Ben listened to this litany and slowly sipping the hot tea. His brain, it seemed, was a total mess, and his body not far behind. The Kheelians had clearly been highly agitated on his behalf once again, although Shaarm of course seemed completely calm. Ben hated to be the one to disrupt them once more, but he knew didn't have much of a choice.

"I can't explain what I am about to ask," he said, determinedly meeting Shaarm's eyes, "and I know it is not fair to expect you to keep saving me. But, please. You have to remove it."

Shaarm was already shaking her head. Chana was tense at his side.

"Absolutely not," she said, without pause. "It is clear to me now that you are suffering from more than just the physicals wounds of the ship crash and the torture. You have some pre-existing medical condition; whether your memory loss is related or not, I do not know, but it seems likely. However it functions, this band you wear is some form of medical support. It suppresses your seizures and migraines so effectively that we did not even know about them. You need this device, Ben."

"I have to get it off," Ben tried to explain, hoping he wasn't sounding as desperate as he felt. "There is a wrongness to it. It is suffocating me. Taking it off was like...gaining a sense I never knew that I had, or an entire amputated limb suddenly growing back. Imagine being blind your whole life, only to suddenly see a glimpse of the sky for the first time... How I did not feel it before I have no idea; perhaps simply because I could not remember any other way of existing. Now it is unbearable, like a great rock pressing on my skull."

Shaarm shook her head again, but this time it was Chana who spoke, gently, as if to a child. "I don't think you fully understand how serious this was for you, Ben. You had five seizures before we refitted the bracelet. You stopped breathing several times. For a while, your body seemed to be just shutting down as if it couldn't handle any more damage. For several turns we truly feared that you would die."

Ben rubbed his beardless chin. Five seizures? No wonder his body felt like it had been through a trash compactor. He sighed, feeling guilty for even asking the Kheelians to help him do this. But having even just glimpsed a sense of that perfect light and felt the rightness of it ring through his spirit like a bell….It could not be denied. Something powerful and eternal had willed this, and that was not as frightening a thought as it probably should have been. Perhaps he did have a psychological condition after all….Well, that was by-the-by, because whatever this recent trial had uncovered, it was that Ben's own will had a core of durasteel when he needed it. And this was one of those times.

"I am sorry," he said again. "I did not mean to cause you fear and stress, and I do not mean to now. But this thing must be removed, and if you won't help me, I will find some way of doing it on my own."

It wasn't a fair ultimatum, but he was desperate and exhausted and in pain. It was the best he could do.

"Besides," he added, to soften the harshness of his words a little. "Perhaps it is this device itself that is suppressing my memories. I feel that much of the physical reaction last time was because I was unprepared. I know now what to expect, so hopefully it will not be as bad..."

"Stopping breathing is not the result of a surprise, Ben!" Shaarm said, now sounding properly angry. "You can't choose not have a seizure just because you anticipate it! This is madness. I cannot let you do this."

"Shaarm...I really do not think we have a choice." To Ben's surprise, Chana backed him up. The Kheelian reached across the table, and ran a gentle hand down Shaarm's mane. "Ben is more stubborn even than you, it seems. He is going to find a way to do this. At least we can do what we can to help him."

"I do not know what help we can give if he is intent on harming himself," she said, though her tone belied the sharpness of her words. "I wish you would not do this."

"I know," Ben said, "and believe me, I would not put you through it if I thought there was another way. But I experienced something incredible, and I have to find out what it was."

"Tell us what you saw."

Ben hesitated. "I cannot fully describe it. A bright, encompassing light, perhaps. An omniscient force, a sense of endless peace..."

Shaarm shared a look with Chana. frowning. "Ben. Those are common sights for those near death," she said, more softly. "Caused by the release of chemicals and misfiring electrical currents in your brain as it ceases to function."

Ben shook his head. "I know what I felt," was all he said.

"Even if I did consider letting you remove the band," Shaarm asked, adding; "not that I have any intention of doing so, how could you assure me that the same thing will not happen again? That we will not spend two days watching you slowly die while we fight to save your life?"

It sounded as if she had just managed to avoid saying 'your ungrateful life' at the last moment.

Ben sighed. "I can't," he said. "I have no guarantees. Honestly, I have no idea what is going to happen. I feel like I have been asleep my entire life and have just woken up with a very, very bad feeling about this bracelet. I just really hope that you can trust me."

Shaarm made a surprisingly undignified sound rather like a snort.

Seemingly out of the blue, Chana made a suggestion. "Perhaps if he was sedated, the effects would be lessened?"

The other two looked at him.

"Not fully sedated," Chana hastily corrected. "I just thought that if he breathed enough valiform that his muscles were relaxed, he might not be in as much pain."

Shaarm turned her gaze on Ben. The Pechnar shrugged. "I don't know. It might work. I have to be able to think though, so it cannot be much."

"You will rest for several more turns at least," Shaarm ordered firmly. "I will check your vitals at regular intervals. If I am satisfied that you are gaining strength at a sufficient rate, I may, MAY consider letting this happen. And only then under constant supervision. And I would reserve the right to my medical discretion. If I feel in any way that you are coming to harm through this exercise, I will replace the band immediately, and you will not object."

Ben smiled. Her demands weren't what exactly he wanted, but he apparently knew enough about negotiation to realise it was the best deal he was going to get. Any arguing or attempts to compromise on his part would probably make her withdraw her help entirely.

"I agree to your terms," he said. "We have an accord."

"I have not said that I will permit this yet," Shaarm reminded him, pointedly. "Only that I may consider it. Also you must eat something. You are still far too thin. It concerns me."

Ben did not argue. He just sat back against Chana's warm side, relief flowing through him. In a few short turns, he would be rid of the foul thing. While they had been talking, Ben had been endlessly pulling at the metal band. Shaarm, who had apparently observed this new nervous tick and was not as angry as she made out, gathered up a roll of bandage, and wrapped his wrist from hand to elbow, insulating his skin from the metal. It was not much, but every little helped.

"I have one final requirement," Shaarm said, as she tied off the end of the bandage. "You must wait until the children, Grandmother and Pakat return home. They will be very upset if they did not have a chance to talk to you."

Ben sighed, but nodded. He had been hoping he could convince Shaarm to act now, and that it would all be over by the time the girls returned from their walk up to the waterfall with Grandmother. However, with both Shaarm and Chana so convinced he was going to be dead by tomorrow, Ben could not really protest. Besides, it felt like a long time since he had seen the girls, and he found he missed them.

Shaarm took Ben back to the side room where his little bed was, while Chana prepared some food. Not surprisingly, it was more phuff dumplings in the grey sauce. As he sat up in bed, spooning in the mush, Ben vaguely wondered what it would be like to eat food he actually liked the taste of. Just one more thing he couldn't remember.

He slept again, and woke up two complete turns later, astonished that his body could still need to sleep after two whole days of unconsciousness. But he did not feel much better for it; his head was a pounding mess of pressure, the ache of it spreading down his neck and spine. His eyes were stung by the dim early evening light, and his nose now trickled blood almost constantly.

It was becoming clear that he was running out of time.

The girls, when they got back, were delighted to see Ben awake but picked up on the fact that something was wrong almost instantly. Tiki threw herself into his arms, while Ooouli wrapped her own long arms around his shoulders and demanded to know what was happening of her mother.

"You know Ben is not well," Shaarm told her calmly, no trace of the anger and distress she had displayed earlier. "And that he was very sick the night before last. He wants to try a treatment this evening that might help."

Ooouli, of course, was a smart kid, and instantly focused on the her last words. "Might help? But what happens if it doesn't help? You should have gone to Mama's surgery two days ago, but you didn't. Are you getting sicker?"

Ben tried to allay her fears; a tricky task given they were his fears too.

"I don't know, Ooouli," he said. Tiki, who had remained silent, tightened her grip on his shirt with her hand, and pushed her head into his shoulder. He ran his fingers through her short mane of fur. "I hope that this treatment will work. I believe it will. And I know that your mother is going to be watching over me the whole time, and your fathers too, to make sure nothing does wrong. So don't worry. Think good, happy thoughts all evening, and that will make it better." He tugged on Ooouli's ear, affectionately. "Why don't you tell me about what you got up to at the waterfall today?"

Although he had wanted to, and still wanted to, get the bracelet off as soon as possible, Ben found the last few turns with the family passed in a blur that was over too soon. The girls played and chatted as usual over the course of the evening, but were subdued and quiet when the time came for Grandmother to take them off to bed. Pakat did not return.

"If we are going to do this," Chana said, looking at the other two."We should get on with it. I do not think I can handle any more waiting."

The others agreed. The time had come.

Ben made is own way back in to the room where his little bed was, while Chana and Shaarm gathered up the medical equipment that might be needed. Ben lay back, anxiety coiling in his belly he watched them set up an IV stand, blankets, an array of drugs, oxygen, and the valiform breathing mask. Shaarm took Ben's vitals using the little round metal device that sat on his breastbone. It was called a zol, she told him. She noted his readings down to give them a baseline from which to monitor his condition. Chana handed Ben the breathing mask for the sedative.

"No chance we can talk you out of this?"

Ben smiled. "None. I'm sorry. But I'll do my best to stay alive."

Chana frowned a little. "You had better," he said. "Pakat will never forgive himself." He looked to Shaarm. She nodded.

"Very well. We are ready."

"Just out of idle curiosity," Ben asked. "And given that I'm not exactly a registered citizen...what precisely will you do if I die?"

Shaarm glared at him. "Hide your dismembered body up on the moor and pretend you never existed. So you had better not die."

Ben laughed.

"I won't, then. I promise. See you on the other side. And...thank you. For everything."

He brought the mask up to his face, and took a slow breath in. Chana took up his place at Ben's shoulders, tense and ready. Shaarm raised his arm, and unclasped the bracelet with a click.

The world went away.

TBC!