Chapter Thirty Nine:     Secrets

Transcribed from dictation, ADAM narrating--
events occurring early January...

Our second day in Aket was launched with a very nice yøramma between Magga and me, but within a few hours we both found ourselves involved in various courses of Nokhon magic, which ended up being embarrassing, as you will hear. So we had to put the lid on having that kind of fun for a while. We could easily get away with sneaking some enjoyable moments in the privacy of Daklakht's chambers, but the whole idea of celibacy in Aket was to focus that energy into magic instead of orgasms. It was also a matter of being honest to our instructors and fellow students.

Not that Magga and I actually had any classes together, males and females tend to practice different kinds of magic. So she went off to study Women's Ways and I went off to visit my once-teacher Sha-haka Dahasset. He'd invited me to visit his current class about managing fire, which I'd always been interested in.

The very word Sha-haka (Nokhontli for "shaman") refers to fire (sha haa) as a force of nature controlled by men since the dawn of time. Fire generates both comfort and danger, is both creative and destructive, so must be controlled and is forbidden to the common Nokhon. Only a Sha-haka may make or use fire. Of course, by the time I joined the Nokhontli I'd been using fire all my life, so I'd assumed they could teach me nothing new. But how about using magic to start it, or snuff it out, to REALLY control it? Or even just to create the illusion of fire-- a light in darkness that needs no fuel?

That class was held in a big empty room inside one of those Greek-style buildings on the second level. Normally classes are held on rooftops for better light, but in this case we needed some dark. It was quite a popular subject: how to control fire. With your mind, that is.

I mean, how cool: there's a raging forest fire, a cataclysmic disaster, nothing can stop it... until you come strolling up, snap your fingers and it all goes POOOF, fire squashed flat. Saved the day, kid. I'd once seen a wizened old Sha-haka who'd been visiting Aket do just that and I couldn't figure out how, even knowing what I do about stage magicians and high-tech trickery-- which is pretty much unavailable to squatches. Although you never know. Anyway, everyone in the class was aspiring to it, but no one was pulling it off. Not even Dahasset and he was the instructor.

However, Dahasset could work an illusion of fire: he created a little point of light that resembled a tiny disembodied flame floating a few feet ahead of him. It looked real, even flickered in the wind, but most important it actually generated light to see by. It wasn't hot, more like a hologram, but it lit up a dark room anyway. A very useful magic for wandering through unlit tunnels, which seems to happen a lot in Squatchland. But it wasn't an easy trick to learn; only one student out of the six present-- the only female among us --began to catch on and produce a wispy glow. Me, nothing.

Dahasset commented, "I would have thought that this would come to easy to you, Dadamet. You're generally more focused than..." He touched my shoulder to read my haka and then he scowled, "...you naughty rascal! You've had yøramma just this morning!" Then he asked me to leave. I mentioned embarrassment earlier, right?

It got very dark, so the Elder did the floating flame trick and we had a little light leading the way.

"Hey, I was trying to learn how to do that just this morning," I mentioned.

"But you couldn't make it work because you and Magga violated the rule prohibiting yøramma," he said, then chuckled.

"Dj'iess, no secrets from anyone around here, I guess."

He laughed some more, quite amused. Then said, "Well, you're about to learn a secret now, but which you must in turn also keep secret. So I now ask for your word as an Orator that you not tell anyone about what I shall show you."

I gave him my word. So although the rest of the day was spent unveiling the amazing mysteries of... no, never mind. It's secret, whatever it was, and I've promised not to tell. Too bad, it would have been a pretty amazing chapter.

However, I may reveal that it was about establishing telepathic contact with Dagrolyt in Shamballah, which craves a group effort involving several relays around the planet. I was instructed in the process and explained how it works, which is part of what I'm to keep secret. Also where in Aket this took place. However, although it was an interesting attempt, it didn't work today. Not just for me, not even Da-nama-hat, who was expert in the technique. We seemed to be blocked. Probably by Da-starda-hat somehow, all the way over in the Himalayas.

It was after sunset when Elder Da-nama-hat and I finally came back down to the town's levels. Town Center already had a scene going on, I found Magga there with her friends Matillsma and Maminkiwa, so I joined them as Da-Nama-hat continued on back to his office. People were asking me to play some myøsik but I begged off, don't really want to hog the scene every day.

The Great Orator Dambaraggan, however, had no such scruples, he came to orate a retelling of our heroic rescue of Daklakht in case anyone had missed it. It was actually propaganda: he was implanting yet again our version of the revolution in everyone's ears. Reminding all listeners that Da-starda-hat was the Bad Guy and we were the Good Guys. Pretty wise, considering that the revolution was not yet complete, the Starda Faction was still governing Shamballah and many Nokhons had not yet decided which side they were on. Then he called me up and we did one of our comedy routines, the fuddy-duddy guru and his smart-ass student. I was reluctant at first, embarrassed that my ego must seem as big as Dambaraggan's, but it actually ended up being pretty funny, we even surprised ourselves.

Magga and I went home together, but decided we'd best not yøramma any more until we leave Aket. Sounds easy when I say it that way, but we'd sort of made a habit of having casual little quickies several times a day, and it was frustrating to have to do without. So I had to take my share of the fir boughs into the other side of the chamber and sleep alone. Or try to sleep: I kept having dreams that stirred me up; about Melly, Lissandra, Masnia. And all the other females I know here and there-- oh, and Matillsma and Maminkiwa. Jeez, am I becoming a sex addict now?

And if I am, the last thing I may do is beat off for relief-- the whole point of being celibate at Aket is to use that energy for magic. Bite the bullet, Dadamet.

The next day I went to Sha-haka Dahassat's class again, still working on the floating flame trick. He touched me to check that I hadn't been a bad boy again and I must have had the proper haka-level once again-- otherwise he wasn't going to let me waste his time. Actually, we've always had a pretty friendly and informal relationship so he wasn't really mad at me-- but he'd been irritated, yes, since he'd always considered me one of his more promising students.

Only that one female student had so far succeeded at generating a floating flame. It was erratic at best, flickering out for seconds at a time. We all concentrated on pulling up our haka, focusing the idea of a floating flame about a yard in front of our eyes, until we were visualizing it, but only in our own heads-- the trick is, naturally, to make it visible to others. Finally I got a flicker... or I think I did, but no one confirmed it because they were too concentrated in their own visualizations. Then it was gone. After a few hours of that I was groggy and decided to stop for the day.

I went downstairs to the bottom level of Aket to get a breakfast of nettles. I wasn't alone, others were also eating from the various greens growing in the little forest that surrounds the lake. Not that it's an actual garden, planted and tended; squatches don't do horticulture, their food grows naturally or not at all. But they do understand not to damage the plants nor to consume everything so that nothing remains to re-grow.

It's actually a pretty nice park, considering that it is deep underground and that sunlight is bent through those crystal rods to make it reach all the way deep inside a mountain. The builders, whoever they were, had a good sense of esthetics as well as practical design, because this was all "man-made" but looked like raw nature.

There were a few other squatches visiting the lake, some swimming and some relaxing on the long flat rocks forming a walkway that juts a ways out into the lake, from which we can dive into the deeper waters. Sort of reminds me of the platform at Naked Lake. Maybe also because everyone is nude-- technically --although squatches are generally hairy enough to cover skin or gender details, so that they (we) never really look naked at all. Except for Magga, that is, with her short-trimmed body hair, who always looks outrageously sexy when wet. Me too, I suppose, since Melly also clips my bushiness to satisfy her own evil desires.

It does not remind me of public beaches anywhere else in the world. For one thing, there is no beach, not the sandy kind anyway, just rocks and boulders around the edge of the lake. But it's mostly that squatches don't do any of the beach things that NokhSos do. There was no sunbathing going on here under a mountain, no ice cream or hotdog stands on the strand, no beach chairs or blankets to lie on, nor any six-packs of beer or dark sunglasses. Okay, I'm being silly, but the point is that squatches tune into nature rather than rearrange it.

Not being silly, the view from down here in the local woods/park is pretty fantastic: it's lush and green at the bottom, bushes and trees illuminated by spotlights of sunshine gleaming down from a dark-gray granite sky; the central lake, shining; at a distance there's the huge egg-shaped hollow of the cavern chamber itself surrounding me and Aket, generously high and wide; there's the prehistoric hand-made (or laser-sculpted?) city perched up and along the surrounding cliff sides, sporting clusters of asymmetric buildings, dramatic non-architectural shapes, all in nice pastel shades of granite and quartz, mellow and dignified. Then there’s the three waterfalls seen from here, each making brilliant rainbows; the long diagonal string of stairs up the cliff wall, resembling a zipper from bottom to top. I could see a couple of Nokhons making their way down those stairs, evidently just arriving to Aket. Oh yeah, it's pretty scenic all right.

I wonder if I could get away with taking some pictures here? To document my anthropology dissertation for the IPR/UW, for example. I won't reveal Aket's location, but pictures taken inside would prove that it exists, which might otherwise be hard to believe. To do that I'd have to bring a digital camera into Aket, which is forbidden skesk, but I do seem to be able to get away with a lot. I'd have to clear it with The Three Elders first, I really don't want to be sneaky about it.

I went for a swim in the lake, let the waterfalls pound on me for some stimulation. Like a giant jacuzzi, fun to be shoved around by the forces of flow. Not many things can push a Bigfoot around, but nature can. Then I squatted on the walkway to dry off.

Off to my right I could see the outlet, where the lake becomes an underground stream-- which we'd taken to escape Aket during the revolution. It was dangerous but at that time had been safer than trying to fight our way up that long exposed stairway. I could see those two new arrivals to Aket now bathing to wash the traditional squatch-stink off their bodies, since it's not considered proper within the confines of Aket. They're supposed to wash all the piss and shit off at the outlet so as not to pollute the lake itself-- squatches are by nature careful about that sort of thing. Then the newcomers finished washing and started towards the stairs up to level of the town itself, happening to take them right past me.

They were two males, I recognized the one of them: Dazlask. The once-outlaw who was also supposedly one of my "four fathers".

Then he recognized me, "Kha, Dadamet. Well, this is a surprise! I'd heard you were living among the NokhSos."

"Ra yr skog, sometimes I am, but not right now, as you can see. And you? They're allowing an old kronoke like you to enter Aket?" I said it with a smile, so he'd understand I was joshing him about once having been so unpopular with polite society.

"Oh, I've changed my ways. Besides, you're the one who constantly violates Atli-- and gets away with it! Do you have your hollow log here in Aket?"

You might remember that Dazlask had been an exile when I'd first met him, a renegade Bigfoot, always in trouble with the community. What cured his aberrant behavior was the disgusting sight of me eating some deer meat he'd offered me. I'd been hungry and had grown up on American food, so I've never been a strict vegetarian, as are most squatches. Later I found out that he was one of the four males who had been bred with my mother: so ostensibly he was a fourth part father to me, although I'm still not sure I believe that Sha-haka-ma magic can actually blend genetic cocktails to determine a child's abilities. I didn't really know Dazlask very well; he'd always seemed kind of scary, violent, crazy, so I wasn't even sure if he knew I was Mayala's son. Anyway, he'd apparently cleaned up his act enough to swing an invitation to Aket.

I told him I might be playing myøsik later on, Dazlask said he'd keep an ear open and introduced me to his companion. Daxaxet bobbed his head in greeting, a guy about Dazlak's age, who said he'd heard of me; my NokhSo/Nokhon reputation preceded me. Sometimes squatches are critical about that, he seemed undecided.

"Speaking of kronokeli," Dazlask mentioned, "there are many exiles waiting out around Aket's mountain."

"Ra, I saw them too on my way here. You say they are waiting? What for?"

"They're waiting for Elder Da-starda-hat to take over Aket again," Daxaxet proclaimed, "so they can come back inside."

"Ra," Dazlask added, "they believe in him."

"Do you believe in Da-starda-hat as well?" I ask, wondering what his answer will be. May as well find out if we're enemies or not.

"Well, I can't help sympathizing with exiles-- I've lived that life and know how hard it is, so I hope they get to come in eventually. But I don't hope that Da-starda-hat will take power again, he's too perverse to be a leader."

"Dake pø," Daxaxet insisted: he's a shit. "And I should know: I was a slave to him for many season cycles."

"Slave? As in personal servitude?"

"I don't wish to talk about it," Daxaxet said, but the look in his eyes told me everything.

I'd already known about Da-starda-hat's tendency to dominate and rape, also the homoerotic. Actually, homosexuality seems to be quite rare among Nokhon males, who are by nature attuned to female shyøma. Daklakht had told me about Dastardat having once assaulted him from behind: but Daklakht was trained to withstand psychic domination and was also about twice the size of the little bastard, so he had easily defended his honor (and his butt). But they were enemies after that. I could sense that Daxaxet had had neither the clout nor the training to resist the demands of Aket's then-current Alutna-jii.

"Why are you guys in Aket?" I asked them, knowing one must be invited to get in. Most squatches never get invited unless they are studying to be Sha-haka or Alutna and I couldn't see Dazlask as either one.

Daxaxet answered, "We've been assigned to take a course in healing."

Usually healing is done by experienced Sha-hakas, like my big old friend Elder Dannet, but it seems there's developed a need for what you might call a medic, a local helper on a less academic level. Probably just massage, since squatches are almost never seriously ill.

Actually, I'd been intending to take healing-massage instruction as well, ever since Melly had asked me to learn how to tweak her body back into shape after the rough stuff that happens to a tiny little white girl at a kha-rat. I have to be careful not to squash her when we make love because I’m so much heavier and stronger than her. So I asked about the class they'd be taking.

I accompanied them up the stairs to the "university campus". Neither of them had ever been in Aket before, so they were two lost hicks from the sticks in the Big City. Just like me last year. So I gave them the quick tour and led them to the building they needed to report to, introduced them to the officials on the studies committee who could tell them where to go and who to meet up with, for which they were grateful. I also arranged to come to the sessions myself.

Then I went back to Dahassat's classroom. But he and the others were gone, only the one female student named Madanda remained; still working on her floating flame. Obsessively, maybe, but she was also the only student who had yet managed to manifest an observable flame-- and had one burning when I arrived. That little point of light was impressively bright in the darkened room, and steady, almost no flicker now. She was deeply concentrated and barely acknowledged me, so I tried not to disturb her. Instead I studied what she was doing: her posture, her breathing, her dedication. She was evidently doing something right.

I tried to copy her: posture, breathing, attitude. Tried to imagine my own little flame floating in front of me, but nothing was happening. Then her flame sputtered out and she slumped back, concentration finally broken. She'd evidently been at it for a long while, seemed a little woozy.

"Congratulations, Madanda," I commended her, "it looks like you've learned the trick even better than our instructor!"

She was a shy girl who almost never spoke in class, and especially not to infamous me. So I was surprised when she said: "Perhaps you could do it too if you did not waste your haka with forbidden yøramma." What she meant was my spilling of orgasm juice (everybody seemed to know) and seemed slightly scandalized about it.

"Oh, I didn't really waste it, I shared it with a female I love." I couldn't resist prodding her back.

"Which is forbidden here in Aket."

"But not in the Alutna-jii's chamber, where we are staying."

"You are not Alutna, you are a student," she reminded me. Embarrassed once again, I knew she was right. "Ra, you got me. I won't do it again while I'm here." "Humpf!" She didn't seem to be appeased much, clearly still frustrated and fussy about something.

"So what else is wrong, Madanda?"

"Is it true you live among the disgusting tiny NokhSoli?"

"Yes. Back and forth, trying to be the guy who understands both cultures. I'm supposed to be The Negotiator, you know."

"But you violate Atli all the time, and no one stops you."

"Why should they? It's time for a change. I've organized a Camp for Nokhons who want to try out the NokhSo way of life."

"I don't want a change. I believe in Atli," she insisted.

"Hey, I respect the Atli as symbolically valid, but what I believe is shaped by what I know, and I happen to know another way of life. I won't say that the NokhSo way of life is any better that the Nokhon, they both have their goods and bads, but it IS an alternative. There's an entirely different world out there."

"An evil world. From which we have always hidden. What gives you the right to let them know that we exist?"

"I received a vision instructing me to do it."

"Visions can be false," she pointed out.

"Sure, but this one keeps coming true, so I can't reject it."

"Oh," she said and went quiet. As mentioned before, squatches respect visions.

I had to ask her, "You have obviously contained your own haka effectively since you can generate a floating flame-- just how long have you been celibate?" I was wondering how far I might have to go to learn this trick.

"I have always been celibate," she said, but didn't sound happy about it. I may as well mention that Madanda is a rather plain-looking female-- and of course, she's a shaggy Bigfoot-- but really no worse than most Nokhon females. Truly "beautiful" squatch chicks like Magga and Masnia are-- well, pretty rare. But anyway, virginity doesn't have a chance in the Nokhon culture because of shyøma.

"You've never been to a kha-rat?"

"They frighten me," she admitted, "too many people acting like crazed beasts."

"Yeah, well shyøma does that to you-- doesn't your own flow every full moon?"

"Ra, but I use that energy for magic instead of yøramma."

"Yøramma can also be magic. I've never believed in that either/or concept."

"Oh really? Then show me your floating flame."

"Here and now? I've just started learning it yesterday. And I've only been celibate for one day, if that actually means anything..." then I had an idea "...but wait! Since you have succeeded maybe I can do it too if you will talk me through it."

"Oh, I don't think..."

"Hey, come on, this is your chance to make a fool of me. Prove that your beliefs are stronger than mine. Besides, I'm sure you know this phrase in Atli: it is always proper to help your fellow aim his/her haka true."

(There's always too many ways to translate Atli texts: "proper" here is e'rah, also meaning "nice", as in Ø'ø'e'rah! or "be nice", which is basically the root message of all Atli. "Fellow" here is interchangeable with "friend", "comrades" or "brothers". I probably don't need to mention that to "aim his haka" can be a sexual innuendo.)

Well, I had her with the Atli quote, she agreed to talk me through her method. So we squatted beside each other in that darkened room and both tried to visualize our own flame. She told me what she was doing: tighten the diaphragm, heartbeat slowed, breathing regulated and spine erect for vertical haka flow. Within seconds a tiny spot of light appeared before her, flickering, then steady. I had nothing, as usual. It was looking like I was gonna lose this bet.

But then I got distracted, thought about Magga, how we could make love again upon leaving Aket. Got horny. Then I was imagining all four of my wives at once for an extremely erotic split second. Ending with a big bright flash of light before my eyes.

I wasn't sure I'd actually seen that or had just imagined it. But Madanda beside me reacted, "Dj'iess! What was that?"

The flash had been real, or at least Madanda had seen it too. It had been much brighter than hers, but very brief. And then I couldn't get it back again, at least not today.

But she was almost impressed anyway.

It was late at night when I made it back to the rooms I shared with Magga. She was asleep, but I felt a strong urge to wake her for a yøramma, which I had to resist. But it wasn't easy, so I went into the other room and tried to sleep. But she soon came in to me anyway and laid down on me, wiggling her bottom against my rock-solid dakh.

"This won't do," I mumbled while playing with her boobs, "we need to be celibate while we're here."

"I can't," she complained, "I want you too much! It feels just like shyøma. I'm out of control!"

"Well, at least we feel the same about each other. But we can't get away with it, we'll both be studying magic tomorrow."

"Oh, I know. Maybe we could just do that kissing thing."

"I'm too aroused," I wheedled, "I'll just have an orgasm if we get any more passionate."

We ended up agreeing that we sleep in separate rooms. But even after she went we kept calling to each other throughout the night: "Can you sleep?" "No, not yet... maybe if you shut up..." "I wish you were in me!" "Me too, now sleep!" It was a long night.

But the next day in Dahasset's class I generated a psychic flame that was so bright that I had to turn it down. I managed to keep it shining for about half a minute before I lost it. Even Madanda was actually impressed.

But floating-flame magic was not the only discipline on my agenda for this visit to Aket, there were several subjects that I'd not yet refined to the standards that most Nokhons my age had already mastered: nature-medicine, haka-control, becoming unseen, tracking in the wild, etc. I'd only been among the Nokhontli for a bit over a year-- and half that time was being spent in the NokhSo world, so of course I was behind other squatches in all the basics-- although most squatches never ever get the kind of education I was getting at Aket.

I found I'd have to wait for those healing massage instructions, until I had finished some of the other courses, since each course was full-immersion, sometimes taking all day long for several days running. They were not paced out like in American schools, designed to fit into the work/play/sleep lifestyle or the economic realities of teachers being employed to do a job. Classes were not scheduled by hours or quarters or semesters or weekend breaks, students were expected to get involved and learn fast.

Friends and colleagues had suggested that I needed to have a better understanding of Syssk-magic. The thing is, I feel ambivalent about Syssk-spells, having been the unwilling victim of them a few times, always a genuinely NASTY experience, so I'm not really eager to use them on anybody else. (Although I had no compunctions about inflicting them upon those evil carteleros Mexicanos. But one must learn the "mechanics" of Syssk-generation to be able to ward off an attack-- or to cure anyone infected. I had been very grateful that Magga could cure me-- and Melly --from a really bad one. Actually, Magga has already taught me a lot about the subject, but she's not among the real experts in the field.

It seems that the guy considered to be the Ultimate Syssk Master is, unfortunately, our great enemy Da-starda-hat. Although my own "Number 1 Father" Daklakht may be right up there as well. But both are off in the Himalayas right now. So at the moment the top Syssk guru currently residing in Aket is a Sha-haka Elder named Da-tarunnget. Normally I would have to wait a long time to ever be one of his students, he had so many, but he just happened to be friends with my big fat friend and Oration guru Dambaraggan, so I was personally invited to attend his classes. Like everywhere else in the world, it's who you know.

Da-tarunnget was such an opposite of Dambaraggan that it was hard to imagine them being friends. For one thing, he was rather small for a Bigfoot, about Masnia's size (6'3", 250 lbs). For another he was friendly and jolly (at first I'd hated Dambaraggan for his unfriendly arrogance), but in both cases all that was just an act, a part they played to facilitate the learning process. Da-tarunnget wore his grey-white hair very long and shaggy, probably never clipped, but kept so clean that it was amazingly fluffy: he looked like a fuzzy cute-toy Bigfoot, almost comical to me. I could imagine mass-produced dolls being sold in our NNP Public Information Office.

But the subject he was teaching was all about being ruthless and cruel. Syssks are not nice-- okay, they're less damaging than knives or guns, but they can cause intense psychological distress that can lead to harm, no doubt about that. I'd once been sent off to attack Felix Sinsley, and could not disobey. Hell, I'd also been forced to rape Melly. Which had infected her with an offshoot of my own syssk so that she had hated me for a while. Until Magga healed us both.

And while Da-tarunnget was teaching us clever ways to mess with our victim's minds, he was also telling jokes and funny stories. Very entertaining, we couldn't help laughing. Of course, that also made him a very popular teacher, so his classes were always filled up. Class was usually taught out upon the highest flat roof of the ancient city, with a nice view of Aket around us, a sunlight crystal rod shining directly down upon us. So we were bathed in brightness as we delved into the darkness of men's subconscious minds. It seemed contradictory, but we learned what he taught us.

Having gotten the gist of generating a floating fire, I could spend less time in Dahasset's class and practice the trick on my own. It was pretty straightforward: you could either generate a point of light or not, adjustments of duration or brightness or range of projection were simply a matter of fine tuning, as with all skills, generally instinctual.

Another aspect of that class had ostensibly been to create and control actual fire, rather than just the illusion of a flickering light, but it seemed that there was at present no Sha-haka fire-wizard in town capable of teaching the course. One might wonder if such a person actually existed, but I remembered that the first time I came to Aket there had been a grizzled old Sha-haka... I never learned his name, and when I asked about him no one else seemed to know it either, not even Da-nama-hata... hmmm!

Anyway, that old squatch was both starting and stopping fires by intensely concentrating on some splinters of dry wood. A poof of combustion, a snuff of extinguishment. On and off, in time to slowly clapping his hands, a pretty good trick, complete with smoke and charcoal-burnt remains. At the time I had supposed it to be a magician's illusion of some kind, like I might have seen on TV back home. I only saw that old guy that one time, but then he must have left Aket-- maybe that same day, I dunno --he was just gone. Mysterious, those grizzled old shamans, hunh?

Thinking about it later on, I realized that anyone capable of igniting even a tiny flame by hands-free telekinesis-- perhaps even at a distance-- could be categorized as the local version of a thermonuclear threat. Camp fires: how handy; forest fires, burning buildings: how frightening. Yeah, that would be an impressively high level ability for a shaman to have. What Stephen King called a "Firestarter" in one of his fantasy books (Melly read it aloud to me when we were kids and it had scared me then). Maybe I felt relieved that those guys were few and far between. Did I want to be one of them? Yeah, sure, if someone could teach me how, who wouldn't? We all want power.

But firestarting got dropped for lack of an instructor. Which freed me the time needed to study Healing Massage. Instead of becoming a deadly weapon I could learn to be a helpful healer. Fine with me.

Healing is a discipline traditionally dominated by females, just like nurses in America, so I found myself in a class with three men and nine women. I happened to know almost everyone involved. In fact, Magga was one of the instructors, and her friends Matillsma and Maminkiwa were students like me. Also my old friend and currently one of Aket's three Elders, Mastinta-hata.

As for the males in class, my maybe-who-knows father Dazlask and his buddy Daxaxet were also there. They were glad to see me-- although I suppose that any other male would have been just as welcome.

Since we were a gathering of girls and guys, most of whom already knew one another, this class became more social than usual. The subject matter of healing was all about making contact with others, helping them with physical problems, very touchy-feely. And even though we were all striving to remain celibate while in Aket, the full moon came around anyway (fifth of January) and all the females got ripe with shyøma, at which point touchy-feely got very intense and celibacy very iffy. It took all of our collective discipline not to find ourselves in the middle of an illicit kha-rat. Instead we found ourselves laughing a lot, almost hysterically.

It didn't help that the healing effects we were learning to administer was so theoretical: our patients were only pretending to be hurting. So we were massaging each other, ferociously horny on shyøma and asking "how does that feel?"

But we did become familiar with the techniques, which are rather advanced. But after that it was a matter of experience in real life, demanding time and opportunity. I'd learned standard squatch first-aid before, emergency treatment to keep someone alive, as do most Nokhons, but this was more focused on alleviating pain. As Dagrolyt had done for Melly when she'd been roughed up by me under the influence of a ssysk, soothing sprains and aching muscles and ligaments. I had promised Melly that I'd learn as much as I could, for her sake, and you know me and promises.