Talon strode angrily around the room, his fist smacking into the palm of his hand, and Marik watched him quietly. The four brothers had all adjourned to this one hut where they could speak in semi-privacy.

Talon said, “It’s a disaster down there. The Federation promised aid to Old Earth, but they haven’t given any yet beyond the scant amount of food and drinkable water that ran out way too fast and is long gone now. There are so many people dying from simple illnesses and injuries from the rebellion and the fight against the enemies. We’ve done all that we can. We need more healers.”

Renall shook his head. “We can’t spare them from here, and you know that, Talon.”

Jeval interjected, “And why would we even want to? Do not say that it is because your mate and Renall’s mate are from there. That’s not reason enough to jeopardize the health of the people here.”

Talon slumped into a chair. His hand found a small pitcher. He lifted it then poured a tall glass of water. He set the pitcher aside and drank the water in long and greedy gulps, his throat working as he swallowed it down. When he set the glass aside, his face wore a solemn and pinched expression.

He said, “I would never offer that up as reason enough. The humans have never been our major concern. They aren’t now either, to be honest. What is my concern is that the Federation has lied once again. That planet is not the only one suffering the weight of the Federation’s lies.”

Jeval said, “All of us know what it is to suffer under the Federation. We can’t extend to them what we do not have.”

Marik looked down at his hands. He was a natural healer, one who could heal by touch. His gift was always needed, but he had to be careful how he dispensed that part of his healing abilities because using it too much could kill him. Other than his natural healing powers, he also possessed a wide and vast knowledge of healing thanks to having been raised by a mother who was also a natural healer, as well as a skilled and taught healer. He had also trained with the science makers when he had been very young, and he had deliberately spent a century studying medicine after his escape from the mines.

His voice was soft. “If we turn our back on those who are suffering, does that not make us just as guilty as the Federation?”

Renall said, “No. It makes us smart. We are too few, and if we want our population to grow, we already have to mix our blood with the blood of others. If we want to keep any part of our race alive, we have to maintain this planet. It’s our last sanctuary. It is the only place left for us. We cannot afford to send those who are needed here to Old Earth.”

That was true. Marik knew it was true. He also knew that he was not willing to leave people to suffer and die if he could help it. Every part of his being rebelled at that. “Some may volunteer.”

Talon faced him. “Would you?”

Marik shifted in the chair he had taken. “I would. I don’t necessarily want to, don’t get me wrong, but there are two other natural healers here on the planet. True, they are young and still untested, but they have the ability. I have taught many. Some are very skilled already. Then there are the old ones who escaped the destruction of our home planet and who were already master healers then.”

Renall threw his long hands up in the air. His silver eyes glinted with anger. “We have given enough to the Federation. Now you would have us do their job?”

Talon spoke. “It’s still a battle zone down there. Humans—I don’t even know what to say. There are still those who would try to re-institute the caste systems all over that planet. Right before we left, we found a band of former Capos destroying the belongings of the ones who came up from below the ground. It’s a disaster. It’s a recipe for an even worse disaster.”

Jeval asked, “How will sending healers do any good at all? If they can’t even stop fighting amongst themselves, what makes you think that they’ll start attending to their own?”

Talon said, “There are plenty of good people down there. They want what’s theirs by birth, and I don’t blame them for that. They are doing their best to care for the wounded and the sick and elderly and the very young. They’re running out of ideas and ways to do it.”

Renall snapped, “And you expect us to teach them?”

Talon stood so fast that the chair shot across the room. His fists balled up and his face went red with anger. “I expect you to be better than the Federation! I expect you to have some speck of kindness and compassion! I expect you to understand that if you have a child with your mate, then your child will have a history that goes back to that planet. How are you going to look at your children and tell them that you let others of their race, because that will be their race as well, die because you were unwilling to do something?”

Marik stood. The air simmered with tension. He knew where it stemmed from. Renall had suffered more than any of them. He had been the one to take all of the punishments in the mines, usually pushing his younger siblings aside and standing there stoic and white-faced as the whips came down on his back and belly. He had often made use of cunning tricks in order to give them his rations of food, if what they had been given to eat and drink in the mines could be considered food at all.

He had taken the most risks. It did not seem that way, as it was all of them on the ships doing the wrecking in the taking down of the ships that had given them the credits necessary to purchase the planet. But it had not all come from just the wrecking of the ships. It had been Renall who had handled all the rest of their businesses, making himself the front man so that if the Federation decided to execute any of them for the shady things that they had done, it would be him who took all of the blame.

This planet had been his dream ever since they had stood on the shores of their home planet and watched it being destroyed by the Federation’s greed. For him, the thought of sending away his people to Old Earth was a betrayal of all that he had done.

All that he had suffered and lost and sworn to avenge.

He was afraid that there were too few of them left and too few on the planet to make it work, to have a decent life there.

Marik understood those things, but he also understood exactly what Talon was saying. His older brother may not have wanted to admit it, but now that his mate was pregnant, one day he would have to face down those children and explain to them what happened to the rest of their race.

Marik said, “I shall make this easy for you. I want to go. I am a healer. If I do not go, that thing inside me that demands that I heal might shrivel up and die.”

Jeval shook his head in disgust. “You’re a fool then.”

Renall’s words were even harsher. “What if you die there? Will it be worth it to you?”

Marik said, “I believe the question would be is it worth it to them.”

Talon took a deep breath. “Marik…”

Marik held up a hand to silence his brother. “I will go, and I will take the girl from the slave ship with us. Jenny, that’s her name. She may not be happy about going back, but I think she’ll be of great use.”

She would be. She was human, but she had a natural healing ability. She didn’t see it yet, but he did. It showed in her aura, a bright golden thread running through her otherwise placid and calm white aura.

Talon said, “We’ve brought plenty of supplies, such as building supplies and the like, from some of the trade planets that we stopped at along the way back. I can only stay a few days and then we have to get back.”

Marik said, “I shall be ready. I shall see to it that she knows that she is going back as well and that she will be ready.”

Renall gave up. His face wore a look of both resignation and worry. “I understand what you’re saying about my children. I do. I can’t say that I’m happy about having you go. Talon, you spent far too much time there as it is. You are still one of us, and yet I often feel as though I have lost you to that desiccated and ruined planet.”

Talon grinned at him. “You have it. It’s just that…”

Renall said, with a slight smirk, “Your mate is a mighty warrior who is dead set on seeing to it that her people are free. You are dead set on being at her side, so her mission has become yours.”

All four of them burst into laughter. It was true enough. Talon was madly in love with Jessica, and that she was a warrior had never been in doubt.

Marik’s thoughts turned back to Jenny. Jenny was no warrior; she was soft and sweet and very shy, like one of the flowers that bloomed only in the morning, raising its face to the sun for a few hours and then withdrawing as soon as anyone attempted to touch its petals.

He knew taking her back to Old Earth was risky. She might choose to stay there, and that was the last thing he wanted for her to do. He had never considered that he might have feelings for her until the day he had seen her being pulled out into the ocean by the fierce tides.

He had not even considered his own safety as he had run toward her, his legs and arms pumping and his eyes scanning the horizon for monsters as he had waded into the blood-warm waters that threatened to kill her.

He’d been so scared that she would die and so relieved that he had managed to catch a hold of her hand and drag her back to shore that all he had managed to say to her were a few curt and sharp words. She had stood there with her head down, not speaking as he had shouted those words at her and then she had quietly turned and walked away.

It had been that last part that hurt his heart the most. That she had been beaten down by life was so obvious. Equally obvious was that below all of that hurt and cowed obedience was a bright, articulate, and incredibly beautiful woman who made him have to turn away from her quite often to hide the telltale bulge in his trousers.

She had no idea of how powerfully potent she was, and that made her even more dangerous.

Taking her might indeed be a vast mistake. It was highly possible that once there, she would never want to leave again. Marik already knew that he had deep and true feelings for her, but if she did not return them it did not matter what his feelings were. If she had no love for the planet that she had found herself on and wished to return to her home, he could understand that as well.

He would let her go if he had to.

But only if he had to.

Talon said, “It’s settled then. Two healers are not what I hoped for but if that’s the best I can do, then that is the best that I can do. I will do my best to make sure that I bring you both back alive.”

Marik managed a smile but, deep in his heart, he was absolutely positive that he would be coming back alone.

He was in the med building several hours later when he heard footsteps approaching. His sharp nose caught the scent of flowers, and then he heard Jenny speak.

“Is it true?”

He turned his head to look at her. She stood there, clutching a bunch of what looked like flowers in a large silver bowl. Her eyes were a hopeful expression, and he had to turn away from that look. “Yes, it’s true. Old Earth needs a few healers, and since you and I are the only ones that can be spared, we’re going.”

He had not told her that she was a natural healer. She would have to find her way into that gift herself. She had so little confidence that he was sure that if he told her she would become a wonderful healer before they ever landed, she would never believe him, but he fully intended to make sure that she had all the education that she needed to be just that.

That knowledge that he intended to impart to her coupled with the knowledge that she already had of natural things, and how she’d come about that was a mystery to him, would make very well and sure that she was capable of helping her people.

He also had no intention of telling her just how he intended to give her that education.

Jenny drifted closer. His eyes went to the bowl. The flowers within had bright yellow petals clustered thickly around a small center. “What are those?”

She looked down and then back up at him. Her face colored a little bit. “I thought… Well, I thought that since we were gathering stuff for medicine, it would be okay if I gathered things for food as well.”

Surprise hit. His eyebrow lifted. “What do you mean?”

She looked back down the bowl, and a soft smile curved her lips upward, lighting up her face. An ache started in his heart. When she smiled, she had to be the most beautiful being in the entire universe.

She said, “Well, you see, I saw these before. My mother grew them because the entire plant is edible and it only takes a small plant to feed a person. They grow fast too. They’re actually a weed so all they need is a bit of earth and they will grow away.

“My mother actually sowed them in the seams of the floors in the tunnels that were no longer used back on Old Earth. They grew fairly wild and very well for a very long time. Until the Capo came in and destroyed the entire…”

She fell silent. His eyes rested on her face. Her lips drooped downward like the rim of the cup, and her shoulders slumped. There was real pain written all over her, and not just on her face but in her body language.

Something had happened to her parents. He knew how the Federation was. He knew, but he had to ask, “Was it not allowed to grow things there?”

Her head shook slowly from side to side. She pressed the bowl closer to her chest, and her fingers stirred the petals and stems again. “No. I mean I guess it was if you lived above ground but not where we were. We used them for food, and it wasn’t allowed. If one is to eat in the Below, one must use the credits extended to them from their work. One must… One must never have more than one is allotted by their station and class.”

Maybe Renall and Jeval were right to wonder why Talon was so dead set on helping these humans. It seemed like a great many of them weren’t even worth the effort.

But Jenny was a human. And she was worth so much more than she knew.

She looked up at him. “I don’t know how I feel about going back.”

He said, “I am not sure how I feel about going at all.”

His grin was wry, and hers was as well. Her shoulders came up and then her chin. She asked, “Do you think these would be welcome for food?”

“Yes.”

That smile came back again on her face, warming his heart. That such a small compliment could make her so happy was wrong. She was a woman who had deserved much better than what she had been dished out and now he was taking her back to the planet that had turned her into the shy and frightened thing that she was.

Maybe this was a mistake.

If it was, it was too late to do anything about it.

She said, “I’m going to take these to the food hall. I picked enough for everybody to have a little but there are so much more that we could probably eat them for eternity.”

He stepped closer so that he could see down into the bowl. The flowers had long slender green stems and bulbous pale roots. He asked, “The entire thing is edible?”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes, you have to dig the roots up, but if you want them to continue to grow and you don’t care for the root you can leave the root and just pick the stem and the flowers. They’re edible and quite delicious.”

Her eyes came up, and his went to hers. They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments and Marik forgot to speak. Finally, he found his voice. “Why would you leave the roots? Is it simply so that more can grow?”

“That too. The roots can be a little bland and starchy. Not many people care for them. They can be bitter too if they’re not cooked properly. They’re best if you just boil them a little bit or bake them.”

His eyes went to her mouth. He wanted to kiss her. He glanced away from her full lips quickly. It didn’t matter, her face—all sharp angles and big blue eyes that were a little too large for her face, a short straight nose, and a small rosebud mouth—stayed there, imprinted on his brain.

He said, “If nobody else will try them, I will. Though I’m sure everyone will. It’s not that food is in short supply; it’s that we all have to figure out what it is that we can and will eat here.”

He turned to see her staring into the bowl again. Her voice was hushed. “If I choose to stay… That is to say, if I choose to stay on Old Earth, would I be allowed to?”

The pain that lanced through his heart nearly felled him, but he managed to stay upright. “But of course. You are free, Jenny. Nobody owns you.”

Her head came up. Her nostrils quivered. “The Federation owned us. Did you know that? All my life, everything that we did or said or ate or wore was by Federation rule. I want to go back and make a difference. I need to make a difference there. I’ve seen that there can be beauty and… And… And I want to tell them that if they’ll just… If they just remember that even though the Federation rules over us, they don’t own us, we can all have good lives.”

He was wrong. He had been wrong anyway. There was a warrior below her meek exterior. He had just caught a glimpse of the woman that she might be, given the chance. That revelation struck him so hard that he found he could not form words for a moment.

Jenny took his silence as dismissal. She said, “I shall see you at dinner then.”

She turned and started for the door. He found his voice. “Jenny.”

She turned around, “Yes?”

He said, “You will make a difference. You will. With the knowledge that you have and your willingness to make a difference, you will.”

She gave him another one of those radiant smiles and then she was gone.