The healer’s first question concerned the bag.
Not Tessa’s qualifications, not the injuries treated above, not the medicine she hoped to bring. The healer pointed through the boundary at the diagnostic kit the facility deputy carried and asked whether it kept what it learned.
Sera looked up the stair. Tessa had come only as far as the permitted upper step, with the deputy beside her. Eli and the armed party remained at the known relay. The residents had allowed this approach for inspection after receiving the halt message; nothing about it had admitted a medical team into the cavern.
“It measures,” Sera said carefully. “Some measurements are stored.”
The interpreter repeated the answer. The healer drew a line across the small plan of the proposed treatment area and shook her head.
“No recorder by the bed,” the interpreter said. “The patient says that. With the local healer present.”
The seated woman at the doorway nodded. She had wrapped a blanket around the injured leg, leaving the bandage visible. Her companion stood close enough for her to hold an elbow if she needed to rise. Nobody brought her forward to make the inspection easier for the visitors.
Sera turned to Tessa and repeated the condition without softening it.
