The Book of Rack the Healer - Zach Hughes, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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The Book of Rack the Healer
Zach Hughes
I
For the pleasure of Deepsoft the Keeper, the arching dome of her
chamber was drawn to a thinness that admitted the dayglow. Through the
membranous shell filtered yellowish purple light reflected from the clouds
of noxious gases that, at the end of the sun circle, lifted from dank, dark
valleys and thickened the atmosphere. The shifting light attracted
Deepsoft's wide, pink eyes. Her heavy head lifted, nodded, jerked. Her
long-fingered hands plucked at her coverlet. Her legs moved awkwardly
with a lack of coordination.
She made a sound of pleasure as winds high above swirled the thick
atmosphere, and the dome glowed russet for a long time. The coverlet,
made of the same material as the dome, the sleep-rack on which Deepsoft
lay, and the one chair that completed the furnishings of her chamber,
bunched up and exposed the lower segment of her nude body. Her feet
kicked aimlessly, brushing the warm, soft wall. Her brain registered the
sensations—shifting light, smoothness on the soles of her feet, warmth,
comfort, the flex of the coverlet under her fingers. She lifted her head and
made the pleasure sounds. Time was meaningless.
As her movements jostled her full stomach she burped wetly. A trickle
ran from her full lips down her white chin. Overhead the cooling masses of
polar air caused condensed moisture to fall in huge, fat drops on the
dome. She clucked in delight. One long arm lifted, reached up as if to
touch the splat, splat sounds. The light turned purple again, changing the
shadows on her face. Her mood changed with the light, her face twisting.
Her lips made an explosive, complaining sound; her brain was now
 registering discomfort. She needed. Her entire consciousness sent out the
need and it was urgent. Red Earth the Far Seer left his contemplation in
the adjoining chamber to tend her.
She was momentarily distracted in an amusing effort to stand,
supported by Red Earth. Her legs were rubbery in spite of their firm tone.
He held her and communicated soothing things as he positioned her and
listened as she completed the basic function. Although his smooth knob of
a head had no ears or eyes, he sensed all in great detail. Deepsoft tried to
thrust one of her long-fingered, graceful hands between her spread legs to
feel the results.
"Negative, negative," he sent, slapping her hand lightly. He gave no
pain for it would have taught no lesson, would have registered as a
meaningless hurt having no connection with her innocent desire to thrust
her hand into warmth.
He cleaned her, feeling pleasure in her rounded, full form. Deepsoft. She
was aptly named.
Night was near. He put her into the sleeprack and raised the protective
siding, the siding which was made of the Material. Her hands felt along
the smooth surface of it. His own hands also partook of pleasure as they
caressed her face. Deepsoft made little pleasure sounds and reached for
his hand. Her body moved. In contrast to the awkwardness of her limbs
her body was a sultry entity. Her mid-section lifted in an inviting rhythm.
Red Earth, who had been roused from deep contemplation by her need,
had been about to depart. But now he stood undecided, and then
examined her. His bulky, tough-skinned, bare knob did not move, since
there were no eyes to follow her length, no ears to hear her sounds. But his
hands knew her long, white legs. His hands caressed the firm roundness of
her chest bulges. His senses traced her and measured her and she relaxed
and lay still as his hand teased, pressed. Her pink eyes followed the
shifting light patterns above, but her body was attuned to the sensations
of his fingers pleasing her. Then the momentary diversion was over and he
was gone. Her eyes widened to gather the fading light.
Movements of great cloud masses in the storms that accompanied the
end of the sun circle isolated Red Earth's establishment. The stagnant
gases made the dim distances seem vaster as visibility was reduced.
Light-sensing organs could not penetrate even as far to the north as the
beginnings of the plains of glass. Only the senses of one such as Red Earth
 could see the great river and the high escarpment to the west. Only Red
Earth, in his establishment, could read the density of concentrated gases
in the rift valley to the south and could penetrate the toxic gases to see the
motionless, misshapen vegetation on the valley floor. He saw all. He saw
the shift of frequency in the atmosphere where Deepsoft's inferior
light-sensing organs saw only the shift of color.
In his sanctuary, Red Earth idly noted the condition of the surrounding
environment. The survival factor was low, as usual at the end of the sun
circle. He mourned, the build-up of stagnant poisons and the decline of
breathable air. He could feel the rise in temperature when a particularly
dense cloud passed and the far sun sent its dying rays through the eternal
haze. He shivered internally as he sensed the polar masses moving south
and east.
But even as he registered these impressions, he searched his area of
responsibility. Everything seemed normal. In far-scattered establishments
his people were shut away from the toxic storms, comfortable with their
carefully nurtured hoards of air-making Breathers. During his rounds, he
passed a casual greeting with his coresponsor Growing Tree, who used
only a small amount of energy to answer as he tended a colony of Juicers
at the Eastern Group Establishment. It was a moment of peace, if one
could ignore the storm and the consequent lessening purity of the
atmosphere. But it was always thus and those who cried disaster when the
storms blew had cried disaster before.
A Power Giver soared high above the roiling clouds. Red Earth did not
bother to establish contact or to ascertain identity. Power Givers were
notoriously capricious. The flight, of course, was a shameful waste, but it
was her own energies and substance the Power Giver was consuming. If
one fulfilled one's responsibilities, one's actions were one's own—a
principle that held even for Power Givers.
Yet, the waste vaguely disturbed Red Earth and he sought to distract
himself by watching two young Healers, at the mid-point of their learning.
They were moving outside, using stored life for long periods. As they were
unable to utilize the outside air with its high toxic content, their lungs
held pure air and their gills pumped out poisons. A Webber had escaped
an establishment adjacent to the Eastern Group Establishment. Red Earth
watched anxiously until the two youngsters, moving slowly, not wasting
life or force, herded the weakening Webber back to her kind in the
 enclosure. She would survive.
Near the sea, the process of food-making continued with pleasing
steadiness. And, more exciting, a rare joining was in process. Without
prying openly, Red Earth took satisfaction in the beautiful act. He lifted
his feelings to the toxic sky and, although there was no movement of his
bare knob of a head, the effect was a nod of blessing and pleasure. A new
life was being created.
That he himself would never know the true beauty of the act was
unimportant. He felt no jealousy for the Healer engaged in joining with a
Power Giver, creating life. It was the nature of things. In return, Healers
and Power Givers held no envy for his ability to achieve the pleasure of the
act repeatedly, even though that mysterious force which governed life
allowed the Healers and the Power Givers only one or two unions. Nature
gave the Far Seers pleasure to compensate for their inability to create life,
and, always logical, limited the fertile ones. A dying planet was capable of
supporting just so many.
Red Earth carried many burdens, but the burdens were not without
their rewards. And Far Seers were accustomed to the burdens, having long
since become resigned to responsibility. Deepsoft. Power Givers could
squander their precious substance in meaningless soarings above the toxic
clouds for the simple joys of vision unobscured by clouds of dense gases
and of breathing the thin wisps of pure air. Healers could ramble
aimlessly. Each had his duty and if it were performed the Far Seers would
see to their survival.
The storms would pass. The noxious, heavy gases would settle back into
the valleys. Then even one so fragile as Deepsoft could bask outside in the
glow of the filtered sun. Life would go on under the high clouds of
summer. The new joining on the eastern sea would produce—what?
Hopefully, a Far Seer. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, the long awaited New
One.
That wish, Red Earth knew, was pure indulgence. Nature and nature
alone could anticipate the need for a New One. He, in his limited wisdom,
could not dare to imagine the needs dictated by the planet. Still he allowed
himself to wonder about the New One. Would he be able to eat the
poisonous leafy things? Breathe the toxic vapors? Be warmed rather than
damaged by the projectiles shot down through the perpetual haze by the
sun? Only nature would know. But when the New One came, as he
 inevitably would, then the Far Seers, the Keepers, the Power Givers, and
the Healers and all the rest would be the Old Ones and life would continue
despite the giant flares of the sun that tried their worst to return the
planet to primordial emptiness.
It was a comfort to believe. Red Earth turned back to his tasks. He
recorded the rise of the planet's satellite to the east, his sense bouncing
there and back with a noticeable lag. He felt the solidity there and tested
the depth of the craters. He searched, unsuccessfully of course, for
breathable air, life-giving water, and symbiotic Breathers on the satellite.
Then he turned to the sister worlds circling the sun, other planets unseen
by any save the Far Seers, sensing, measuring, recording.
For his records, Red Earth sent the information he had gleaned into the
vast storehouse of Deepsoft's brain—the rise of the satellite, the noted
moment of the joining, the positions of the sister worlds, the flare activity
of the sun. It was recorded and read back. Deepsoft lay very, very still. He
was pleased. His measurements and the movement of air masses from the
south confirmed the end of a sun circle. Now was a time of beginning, a
time of renewed hope.
He had seen beginnings. He never failed to anticipate each new one.
Moreover, he never lost hope even when his measurements, and the
readings of other Far Seers, were discouraging. He had traveled on the
force of a Power Giver to the vast waters of the south. Hovering high above
he had seen the sea of slime, the natural breeding ground of the Breathers.
Once, he had actually measured an increase in the number of Breathers
—the record of it was stored in his Keeper's brain. But the green slime of
the next sun circle was dense, causing their numbers to decline abruptly.
In all the vast, murky seas there was only a tiny area in the south where
currents, winds, or some other unknown factor allowed a frighteningly
small colony of Breathers to survive. But nature would not allow defeat. A
world was solidity, reality, and to comprehend the solidity and the reality
life, a thinking brain, was required. To envision a world without life was to
negate the basic purpose of all creation. No, the Breathers would adapt;
they would learn to live atop the thick, heavy water. Life would go on. And
someday the New One would be born and the last remaining resources of
this depleted planet would produce dynamic life springing exuberantly
upward.
The thoughts of Red Earth the Far Seer ran on as he lay slumped into
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