The Trouble With Heroes.... Read Free Page B

asked.
    Jenny turned back to see a slight shudder
pass through him as he raised his hands from the boy's leg. "That's
good as new, but take care of my work, okay, Jeff? Let's see if
you've done any other damage." He passed his hands over the boy,
pausing for a moment in one spot, then rose easily to his feet.
"All clear."
    The boy started to sit up but the nurse
beside him held him down. "Oh, no you don’t. We'll help your father
take you home and keep an eye on you until the shock and medicine
wear off." She looked up at Dan as if he was a miracle worker.
"Good job, Fixer."
    Dan gave the nurse his tally and she typed in
the code that would authorize his payment from Anglia's health
program.
    Jenny noticed the expressions of the people
around. Most were awed, but some looked uneasy. They’d be ones who
weren't comfortable with fixing, though they were glad enough if
they needed it. A few nutcases called it sorcery, and some
religious types worried about it being ungodly.
    She'd always thought that daft, but where
exactly did fixing come from?
    As they returned to the tram stop, she asked,
"Does that take a lot of your power?"
    "Not particularly. A string of those and I'd
be wiped for a while. Normally."
    Normally?
    Before she could ask, he said, "As it is, I
welcome the chance. If I don't use the energy it tends to...
flare."
    He was walking so fast she had to work to
keep up. She caught his hand, to slow him. "Flaring's bad?"
    “ It can turn me a bit wild."
    "It's your greatest charm, Dan Rutherford,
and you know it."
    He laughed. "I like it when you call me that.
I know people like my energy, but there's an edge there."
    That put her worry into words. Flaring high
spirits that led to exciting times, but that threatened a
conflagration, perhaps mostly of himself. Though they could fix so
many problems, fixers rarely lived to a hundred.
    "It's the magic," he said. He put an arm
around her, urging her on. “We’re half the town away from the
Merrie. The others must be wondering where we’ve got to.”
    A shiver went up her back at his touch. Not
particularly unpleasant, but a shiver, and for a moment she thought
that’s what he meant. But then she realized he meant the
flaring.
    "You mean fixing?"
    "Magic’s a better word. A more realistic
one."
    "Realistic? Magic doesn't exist.”
    "Who knows? Why so many Earth stories if it
never existed? And they show it as dangerous stuff. Magic creatures
who lurk in dark places and trick people to their deaths. Or seduce
them with gifts and feasts, then keep them prisoner forever. Or
make them dance themselves to death for amusement. That fits."
    She eased out of his arm. "That's
superstition, and it’s nothing to do with what you do. With
fixing."
    "Isn't it?"
    She didn't want this, not now, with her
stomach queasy and her mind jangled by his touch, and by ashes on
the wind. But his silence demanded something, and friends should be
friends, so in the end she asked, "Well, is it?"
    He leaned against the tram shelter. "There's
no way to compare, is there? They say fixing doesn’t work on Earth,
but I’m not sure when they tried. I've thought of going back to
find out, but who can afford it? Someone once said that all
sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. That’s another
way of looking at it."
    The tram glided up and they climbed on. He
led the way right to the back, where they used to sit as kids, but
he talked quietly, even though there was no one close.
    "Fixers aren't normal, Jen. You have to see
that. They warn us to be solitary, that it's safer. Not to return
home. To keep aloof wherever we go."
    "Aloof?" It pulled a laugh from her. "Failed
that part of the course, didn't you?"
    “ Abjectly. And I insisted on coming
back home." A fleeting grin faded. "Sometimes I think they're
right."
    "No, they're not. Bad enough that you had to
leave home for years."
    "People marry out. Your mother did. Or in, in
that case."
    "That's different. That's love. And I wonder
how