Fiery plumes filled with red-black smoke rose from the inferno over what looked like a war zone. Sirens filled the air, along with fire controllers and rescuers from across Xi-Nan Fang. In front of them, a twenty story apartment building in ruins, half of its structure collapsed into an enormous sink hole. Twenty-five zhang张from the perimeter set up by law enforcers, ten healers-in-training evaluated injuries at the mobile healing center setup for the purpose, treating minor injuries and moving more serious injuries into waiting ambulances which zipped in and out from the traffic lanes above, each headed for Nan-li Central Healing Center just one li里away.
Following the directions of a law enforcer, Lord Knight Liam parked their low attitude shuttle close to the mobile healing center, Lady Abbess Cara already scanning the scene with her computer. Disembarking, she headed for a patient being transferred onto a diagnostic table, “I am Lady Abbess Cara, healer-in-chief of house Ten-Ar.”
A late middle-aged man two hundred eighty five yen-ars old with dark brown eyes reached up to her, his face, arms, and legs covered in blood, “There was no warning!”
“What happened?”
“A rumble – then smoke – people screaming, running to escape before most of them falling dead in front of me. I-I rushed down the emergency staircases; all the elevators were down! Debris kept hitting me, but I kept running – all the way from the fifteenth floor!”
A healer-in-training handed Cara a dermal re-generator which she gently moved over his wounds, “You are going to be fine. I do not detect any serious injuries – just these cuts and bruises.” With a steady, patient hand she set the regenerator to first disinfect the wounds, and then stop the bleeding with a sealing layer.
“I did not breathe that smoke; I fear my neighbor – nice lady too – was not so lucky!”
“Your eyes are brown – did you work in the mines?” asked Cara, intentionally distracting him from the slight discomfort of the wound sealing pass.
The man shook his head, “No – I am house Croften – we will not go anywhere near that mine. House Ana runs it! They do not much like we Croften folks. My wife – she was house Skeinera – made beautiful handmade tapestries like our ancestors used to on A672E92 Quintus.”
“Where is she now?”
“I do not know. She headed out for some shopping with our daughter – wanted some more roving from that new konyn breed – you know, the one with the fur that is black at the base and white near the tip? Some special new kind of konyn the breeders developed. I used to raise konynen before I moved to Nan-li for my wife’s job. Gentle, sweet animals! They do not even mind the sheerings three times a yen-ar. Nicest animal on Beinan!” remarked the man.
“Leave your information with my assistant here; we will make sure your wife finds you,” instructed Cara.
“Thank ‘ee,” nodded the man as Cara re-joined Liam waiting for her nearby.
Cara whispered to Liam, “What did you find out?”
“There was a collapse at the mine; some sort of accident sending a shockwave through an area fault-line – right through the center of that apartment building. This far from the mines, no one thought to build for earth-quakes. Nan-li is not exactly near any tectonic plate boundaries,” reported Liam.
“My patient indicated a bilast plume hit the building; killing an unknown number of people.”
“That makes sense; there certainly is enough bilast trapped in the rocks around here. If the miners hit a bilast pocket – “
“Yes, I agree. The effects would be devastating.”
“So what next?”
“We help stabilize these patients – then have a nice talk with Lady Rachel of house Ana about activities at her mine,” directed Cara.
For one point three shir-ors Lady Abbess Cara and Lord Healer Liam cared for what felt like an endless stream of patients. The moons rose high over their heads. Finally, at shir-or 11.3 the last casualty emerged from the building, her body visibly shaking from both the night cold and the claustrophobia of her ordeal. Tired, bloodied by the emergency work, and hungry, Liam and Cara took headed for the healers’ chambers on the top floor of Nan-li Central Healing Center for some badly needed rest.