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job, and mine. I have to care about other people's health more than my own."
"Then you are a good healer," Thio said. "We will persuade the others to come
to such a one as you."
Varral, Chlari's enfeebled friend, showed up a few hours afterward.
"We are here for to be looked," Varral said, eying Shona sideways. "I bring
escort two of my family who also so suffer: Parga, my mate, and Dlelal, our
offspring the second."
"We are glad that such the is now public," squeaked the co-mate, a nurturer.
"I am medical for our breed.
What information will serve you best?"
"Where were you when you first noticed the change in your bodies?" Shona
asked, making up a fresh dossier and noting down the ottles' names.
"There has been much conversation since you began to ask questions," Parga
said, cocking her bewhiskered face to one side. "Our social is consumed by
this matter, and all have much to say. Such as this is unprecedented. It is
deemed that in time seven moon-revolutions since the feeling of high good, and
not long thereafter the reaction to same." Shona nodded. It was the same
time-frame as her human patients had reported. The human settlers operated on
a Standard calendar, but ottle months were slightly shorter, with seventeen
months in a Poxtian year.
"And what are your symptoms?"
"At first, activity, and hunger," the nurturer said. "Then gentle feeling of
decline. Much stiff, weak. The skeleton does not knit as before."
"I see. Your bones are getting brittle, prematurely. I haven't got the hang of
ottle physiology yet, but for a human in your condition I'd suggest hormone
replacement therapy. Do you understand what I mean?"
"The substance of genderness," the nurturer said promptly. "I have attempted
to chew roots that so stimulate, but nothing happens."
"Probably the system in your body that produces it has shut down, as would be
normal if you aged. Do fe
I mean, nurturers become frail as they grow older?"
"Yes." The ottle nodded vigorously. "It is as if I am many years beyond which
I am now."
"Fifteen of our number are eldered," the male added. "None so as Shnomri, but
notice is made of them."
Shona chatted with the ottle healer about physiology, and made notes of the
natural remedies that the
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Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show small nurturer used for arthritis complexes and
hypertension. When there was a moment, Shona planned to get the colony
botanist to tell her if the humans had checked out these remedies to see if
they could be used by either species. If so, then probably she could
recommend, even dispense, growth-hormone treatments to stop the symptoms of
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
aging, using synthesized material based on an analysis of Chirwl's secretions.
"Meanwhile," she told them, "I want you to eat a nutrient-rich diet,
concentrating on calcium and magnesium supple-ments. Tell all the others what
to do."
"Do you know ottle well?" The male laughed, a shrill chitter. "You do not tell
ottles. You discuss with ottles. There will be arguments, but many will do as
you suggest."
"Have investigations shown the source, other than humans?" the nurturer asked.
"No success there," Shona said. "It's beginning to look as if it fell out of
the sky."
" " "
"Don't laugh," said Wyn Barri, with a nervous, sidelong glance as he boosted
himself onto the examination table, "but what about biological material
descending from the heavens in a fallen meteor?"
"At this point I'm willing to take any suggestions," Shona said. "The more I
talk to humans and ottles, affected or not affected, the more I'm convinced
there was a single circum-stance that caused this syndrome back on, let's call
it Day X. It isn't spreading, at least not so far. Those of you who have it,
have it. Those who don't are entirely unaffected."
"Well, that's a comfort, I must say," Wyn said waspishly, and Shona remembered
his grimace from the day she had first stated there was something wrong in the
colony. "My compan-ion is one of the unaffected, and while we promised to be
devoted to one another through old age and death, I didn't think it was coming
so soon."
Shona eyed him critically. "You're not as badly affected as some. I don't see
signs of unusual calcification in your joints. Your vitals are good. What's
the specific complaint?" Wyn opened his mouth a few times to talk, then
pressed his lips together, looking embarrassed. To give him time, Shona busied
herself with her instruments, and purposefully took a blood sample and a
tissue scraping from the inside of his mouth. Wyn looked away from her.
"I'm getting fat," he burst out. "I've put on almost five kilos since the
beginning of this year. I've never had a single extra gram since I shed the
baby fat. It's very troubling for me. I'm a nutritionist
. I know what my body needs to survive. I've put myself on a ten per cent fat
diet, and it's still building on. I
admit I ate a lot some months ago. I mean I was starving all the time. But
that should have been gone,
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