The Lost Tales

Dawn broke over the horizon in Nan-li City, filling largely empty overnight light rail trains with bleary-eyed commuters still trying to wake up. Dressing, Lady Abbess Cara took the elevator down from the healers’ overnight chambers to check on the injured. Liam’s brother, Lord Healer Ailín greeted her, “Your Excellency, you made it!”

  “Yes – Liam and I stayed late into the night at the mobile healing center, stabilizing and treating as many as we could.”

  “I thank you!”

  “Status report, please,” commanded the abbess.

  “Two hundred residents from the apartment building are still too injured to be released. Six hundred were treated and released either here or at the mobile healing center. Readings indicate every patient was exposed to dangerous levels of bilast, even those with the most minor abrasions. Of the two hundred overnight inpatients, one hundred seventy five are on nirlar respiration therapy,” reported Ailín.

  “That many?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well then, I really do need to speak to Lady Rachel about the mine. No doubt she will be as elusive and hostile as the last time we spoke. I suppose if I were dying from multiple cancers I would be unpleasant and defensive as well. Denial is quite powerful!”

  “Of course.”

  “Please upload your analysis to my tablet computer. I will need to show her our data. Maybe – just maybe – I can get the sort of meaningful information out of her that we need to better help these people.”

  “One more thing, Your Excellency.”

  “Yes?”

  “Every one of the people on nirlar respiratory therapy has irreversible brown eye syndrome. They are trichromatic now; the gene for two of their five retinal cone receptors is gone. Neither they nor their offspring for generations to come will see proper again, not until natural selection can restore those genes to their helices,” advised Ailín.

  Lady Abbess Cara fell back a step, as if kicked in the stomach, “I – thank you! That is most helpful.”