Lin

Uh... hello?

(louder) Hey. Are you [open]?

That depends on your definition.

My definition of [open]?

Of [anything]. Definitions are... [flexible].

(He raises his head. His eyes are bloodshot in a way that suggests the blood has been shot from a considerable distance.) Especially before [noon].

(He squints at the Player. Blinks. Squints again.) You're new.

I've been here a while, actually.

New to [me]. At this [counter], only my calendar matters.

(He sits up, patting his coat pockets with the focused urgency of a man conducting a very important audit.) My... ah.

(He finds a small flask. Unscrews it. Sniffs. Winces. Drinks anyway.) [Hair of the dog].

…This [poison] refers to the {world} fungal absinthe I brewed myself at 3 a.m. while [questioning my life]. Aged. A Monday batch.

Are you the pharmacist? You sell restoration [potions]?

Restoration [tonics]. My own [formulation].

The [red] one repairs tissue — cuts, burns, the general wear-and-tear of not dying on an alien planet.

This [bean] [restores fullness]. When you are too hungry to move, it can fill you up in an instant.

As for this green [Cooling Potion]... it is my pride.

Drink it, and your body forgets the feeling of [inner heat]. [Temporarily] forgets, mind you...

I'm a pharmacist, not a miracle. But sometimes, a good [temporary forget] is enough to save your life.

How much?

Ah. Money.

(He waves a hand dismissively.) Money is the [least interesting] currency on a planet where most things that can kill you are also most things that can cure you. I don't need money. I need ingredients.

Three things. I can't get them myself because — (gestures vaguely at his own condition) — I'm indisposed. [Strategically] indisposed.

You mean [hungover].

I mean [indisposed]. The cause is irrelevant. The need is not.

[First]: [Glowcap Mushroom]. Grows near the foothills, but only beneath north-facing rock walls where the Ionic residue settles after sandstorms.

Pale blue. Smells like lemon. It's the binding agent in my restoration tonics — without it, the other ingredients just argue with each other inside your bloodstream and nobody wins.

Okay. What else?

[Second]: [Nocturnal Globe Bloom]. There's a flower — if you can call it a flower; it's more like a clenched fist made of petals — that grows near the [Black Seams], where the seam energy seeps through.

The pollen sparkles. [Literally] sparkles, not ["sparkles like diamonds"] sparkles, although it is also valuable. It amplifies the body's natural repair cycle.

One pinch in a tonic and a broken rib heals in hours instead of weeks.

Two pinches and you'll feel [invincible]. (He holds up a finger.)

[Do not] use three pinches. I tried. I woke up in [Long John's] kitchen wearing an apron and no memory of the preceding six hours. Long John assures me I was ["very helpful"]. I do not wish to know more.

And the third?

(quieter now, the showmanship dimming slightly) [Third]: [Spider Leg]. The Six-Eyed Spider is a parasite... wraps itself around the larger fungal root systems in the deep caves.

Thick, black, rubbery. You cut it and it bleeds a sap that is — and I mean this clinically — the most potent sedative compound I have ever encountered.

In micro-doses, it's a [painkiller]. In proper doses, it's an [anaesthetic].

In the dose I accidentally gave myself last month, it's a three-day nap and a dream about my ex-wife telling me ["you still have potential"], which was worse than any injury.

Bring me these [three things]. In return, you get a full set of restoration tonics. [Healing, fullness, cooling].

I'm not a [pharmacist].

In {world}, everyone is a pharmacist. The whole planet is the prescription. Just survive the side effects!

Great.

Wonderful. Off you go. Daylight is a scarce resource here, and you're wasting mine.

You don't seem convinced... Hmph... Take these [potions] and try them. Then you'll see I wasn't lying.

Here. All made by yours truly!

I'll pack up and move. No customers here anyway...

What's the place you're staying like? Any life to it?

Not bad... There's a stubborn sergeant, an artist who sings pretty well, an overly enthusiastic merchant...

I've uploaded the [pharmacy] blueprint to {world}'s Mainframe. Help me pick a good spot; once it's built, I'll move in near you.

I can also share the [Potion Workstation recipe] with you. A standing arrangement between [professionals].

Lin? You okay?

(too brightly) Superb. [Business is booming].

I've just finished a new batch... by the way, the [Nocturnal Globe Bloom] you brought back was exceptional. Potency off the charts.

I've already sold four tonics today. Four! That's a personal record on a planet with a population density of roughly one person per [existential crisis].

You're drinking again.

I'm drinking [still]. ["Again"] implies I stopped.

Stopping requires a [decision], and decisions require [clarity], and clarity is — (he gestures at the absinthe) — counterproductive to the evening's agenda.

What's the agenda?

(He picks up that green Cooling Potion, his pride.) You know what this does? [Clinically]?

It interrupts the pain signalling cascade. The nerves fire, the tonic intercepts the message, and the body [forgets] it was hurt.

[Temporarily]. Just long enough to heal without the suffering.

Yeah. It's good stuff.

It's beautiful stuff. Elegant. A precise chemical intervention that removes pain without removing function.

(He sets the vial down and picks up the bottle.) And then there's this. Which does the same thing to the mind. Except... worse. Clumsier. A [sledgehammer] where the tonic is a scalpel.

So why do you keep using the sledgehammer?

...Because the scalpel only works on the body.

I had a wife. Mei. I've told you that. I've told everyone that. It's my — what do performers call it — my [material].

The Funny Sad Story of Lin and Mei, performed nightly to an audience of one and a bottle.

You mentioned her.

She left because I was honest with her. Not sober-honest — sober-Lin is charming, clever, helpful, a [delight].

Drunk-Lin is the one who said, at two in the morning, holding a glass like this... that he didn't [know] if he had ever really loved anything.

(a bitter smile) She didn't find it charming.

That's... a hard thing to hear.

Hard to say... and the worst part? I don't know if it was [true].

I was [drunk] when I said it. Maybe drunk-Lin is a [liar]. Maybe drunk-Lin is the only [honest] one and sober-Lin is the [performance].

I'm a pharmacist. I understand [dosage]. I understand dependency curves, metabolic tolerance, hepatic load... I can calculate, to the milligram, the exact amount of ethanol required to [suppress] prefrontal cortex function without crossing into toxicity.

I know precisely what this is doing to me.

(He drinks again.) Knowledge is not the same as control. That is the [pharmacist's curse]. Knowing the poison's name doesn't make you immune.

You could stop.

(with genuine, tired patience) I could. And some days I [almost] do.

I wake up, the headache fades, the light comes in, and I think: today I'll brew tonics and serve tea and be the version of Lin that everyone prefers.

The sociable one. The helpful one. The one who [remembers] your name and your ailments and makes you feel like old friends.

...And then the afternoon comes, and the quiet comes, and I'm [alone] with the question again — did I mean it? — and the bottle is right there, and it's so much [easier] to pour than to think.

Lin...

(pulling himself together) I appreciate the concern. [Genuinely].

You're a good person. You brought me Glowcap Mushroom and Nocturnal Globe Bloom and risked the Six-Eyed Spider for my sake. That means something.

The spider legs you found are high quality. I've refined that painkiller into a secondary compound.

If you're heading for the [Desert], if... I can give you a [Potion Workstation] and its recipe. It should be enough to get you through the desert's early trials.

Thanks, Lin.

Don't thank me. Someday, I may need you to bring me more [ingredients].

A pharmacist without ingredients is just a man with interesting bottles and [bad habits]. And I've already got more of the second than I need.

(calling after, softer) One thing.

If you run into [Long John] — the chef, the fish — tell him... (He hesitates.) Tell him I remembered.

He keeps calling me [old buddy], and I keep pretending I don't know why, but I remember.

The [sake bar]. The harbour. The night we ended up on a [Starport] platform because I said...

I said I'd [had enough] of everything and was sure the [journey] would kill me.

And Long John said, "[Me too]. Let's find out together."

I remember. I just don't know what to do with it yet.