(I don't feel it; it isn't me); as Stipock slid the kneecap back into position, forced the joint to fit again; as the leg, already used to the torture of the bones out of place, now began to feel the worse torture of the bones back together.
"Is that it?" he heard Noyock ask, from a great distance.
"We need wood and cloth strips," Stipock said. "Straight firm wood, no twigs or branches or green wood."
"I'll get it," Aven said, and "I'll get the cloth," said Esten, Hoom's mother. And then, at last, Hoom fell back down into the sea of pain and drowned in it, drifted down to the bottom, and slept.
He woke again, and it was dark. A tallow lamp sputtered by the bed. His head ached, and his broken leg throbbed dully; but the pain was much better, much eased, much gone, and he could leave his eyes open.
The room focused, and he saw Stipock sitting by his bed. "Hi," he said, and Stipock smiled. "How do you feel?" Stipock asked softly.
"The pain's not as bad."
"Good. We've done all we can do. Now it's up to your leg to heal."
Hoom smiled wanly.
Stipock turned toward somewhere else - a door, Hoom assumed - and said, "He's awake now. You can call the others." Then he turned back to Hoom and said, "I know you don't feel well, but some decisions have to be made, that only you can make."
Footsteps coming into the room, and one by one they came into Hoom's range of vision. First Noyock, looking grave. Then Esten, her eyes red from crying. And then Aven.
Seeing his father, Hoom turned his head upward, to the ceiling.
"Hoom," said Noyock,
"Yes," Hoom answered, his voice soft and husky.
"Stipock wants to take care of you," Noyock said. "He wants to take you out of your father's home, if you want to, and take care of you until you can walk again."
Hoom tried to control them, but the tears dripped out of the corners of his eyes anyway.
"But, Hoom, your father also wants to take care of you."
"No," Hoom said.
"Your father wants to say something to you."
"No."
"Please," said Aven. "Please listen to me, son."
"I'm not your son," Hoom said softly. "You told me so."
"I'm sorry for that. You know how it was. I went crazy for a minute."
"I want to go with Stipock," Hoom said.
Silence for a few moments, and then Aven bitterly spat out his feelings about Stipock, who came to steal children away from their parents. "I won't let you take the boy!" Aven said, and might have said more except that Noyock's voice, harsh with anger, cut through.
"Yes, you will, Aven!"
"Father!" Aven cried out, anguished.
"The law says that after a father has injured his child, the child must be taken by another family, for its own protection."
"Stipock isn't a family," Aven said.
"I will be," Stipock said, "when your son is living with me."
"It only makes sense, Aven," Noyock said. "Stipock can help the boy now - you can't."
"I can help him," Aven insisted.
"By pushing him out of windows?" Stipock quietly asked.
"Shut up, Stipock," Noyock answered mildly. "I'll ask Hoom one more time, and then that's it, and there'll be no complaint, no more discussion, and no resistance, or I swear I'll have you bound up and kept in a locked room until Jason comes again. Now, Hoom, will you stay with Stipock, or with your father?"
Hoom half - smiled. He felt a glow of satisfaction: the broken leg would be worth it, for the chance to make this choice. "Stipock is my father," Hoom said. And Aven's low moan of pain was some measure of repayment, Hoom felt, for the pain he had gone through. With that thought he closed his eyes and dozed.
But he became vaguely alert again a few minutes later. It seemed that Noyock and Stipock were alone in the room, and they were arguing.
"You see the harm it caused," Stipock said.
"The law didn't give you any power to take this boy out of his father's home until his father nearly killed him."
"The law is the law," Noyock said, "and only Jason can change it."
"That's the point!" Stipock insisted. "The law needs to be changed. If Jason were here, he'd change it, wouldn't he?"
"Maybe," Noyock said.
"Then why can't we? Not just you and me, but all the people. Vote. Let the majority change the law."
Noyock sighed. "It's what you've wanted all along, Stipock. To let the majority of people in Heaven