THE OLD STONE

The man arrived with one foot bare and the other held inside the shoe by dried blood. The communication was still open on Ilva's forearm. The transmitted face moved forward with a two-second delay, while the body already occupied the threshold. Nael looked from one to the other. Which of them comes in, he asked. The man laughed and set his bag down on the floor. His shirt was darkened at the back, there was dust up to his knees and a burst blister on his heel. He had got off the transport when the axle's magnetic coupling went into wait for a replacement. The part, small enough to fit under the tongue, cost more that week than the rest of the trip. The suppliers had withdrawn the batches after a dispute between buyers. He had walked the last three hours. The threshold kept its blue light. The panel recognised the iris present, ended the route guarantee and kept the lodging balance under review. The rental company could still classify the previous hours as remote service. Ilva told him to sit down. She opened the medical kit and found two strips of membrane, a sachet of decontaminant and three ceramic clasps. Magnetic clasps had disappeared from the shipments six days earlier. The distributor offered replacements for the equivalent of four food portions, with priority for industrial maintenance. She measured the injury with the terminal's projection. Four centimetres of open skin, dirty edges, heat above the limit at two points. She washed his toes first with half the sachet. She used the other half on the heel, from the centre outwards, until the mineral gauze came away less dark. She waited twenty breaths. She dried without dragging. The man held on to the edge of the chair. Do you always receive visitors like this, he asked. Only the ones who promise mango. Nael brought an old stone from the bedroom, clean and polished by use, and set it on the table. This one got here first, he said. The man picked up the stone, smelled it and declared there was still fruit in it. Nael answered that it smelled of pocket. The two of them argued for a few minutes over whether a pocket had a smell of its own or stole the smell of things. Ilva laughed when the visitor brought the stone up to his armpit to test the theory. The stone passed into Nael's hand, then into his, and vanished while the three of them were still arguing. She cut the first strip of membrane into two parts. She covered the deepest area, pressed for thirty seconds and fastened the edges with two ceramic clasps. The second part reinforced the heel. One whole strip remained, meant for changing the short band on her leg, and the cut between her thumb and index finger was still open. The terminal calculated seven hours until the first change. To keep the membrane stuck, he could not put weight on the heel. The guesthouse was still without a habitable classification. The porch had a rough floor and the heat of the ducts. Ilva took out the last strip. She covered the smaller injury near the ankle, where the dust had already got under the skin. The household medical balance fell to zero. Then she wrapped the clean edge of the used gauze around her own finger. The man saw. That won't hold, he said. It holds until it stops bleeding. Nael moved the chair away from the threshold and made room by the table. The visitor rested his treated leg there. Bodily presence replaced the capture, but the human analysis stayed open. On the panel, the company asked for proof of stay until the next cycle. Ilva brought the empty glass to her mouth out of habit, set it down and pulled the reserved bowl closer. There was food for two. Nael divided it into three unequal portions and gave the largest to the newcomer. Under the membrane, the blood took less than a minute to draw the shape of the heel. On Ilva's hand, it went through the gauze in nine seconds.