Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When important work requires privacy, at what point does protecting your process become hiding from the people who might tell you that you’ve gone too far?
The workshop had always been locked.
That wasn’t unusual.
Iven made medicines.
Some ingredients were poisonous.
Some were expensive.
Some smelled so terrible that his wife, Talla, had once threatened to move into the barn.
The children knew the rule.
Do not enter Father’s workshop without permission.
For years, that was enough.
Then Iven added a second lock.
“What is that for?”
Talla pointed at the new iron bolt.
“Security.”
“You already have security.”
“Better security.”
“Against whom?”
Iven kissed her forehead.
“Thieves.”
They lived in a village where people left vegetables outside unattended with signs asking customers to put coins in a bowl.
Talla looked at him.
“Dangerous neighborhood.”
Iven smiled.
She didn’t.
Iven’s work had changed six months earlier.
He had been a competent herbalist.
Not famous.
Not brilliant.
Useful.
He treated burns.
Fevers.
Infections.
Stomach complaints.
People came from several villages.
Then a patient named Haret arrived.
Haret’s leg was dying.
Everyone knew it.
The physician from the city recommended removing it.
Haret refused.
Iven tried everything he knew.
Nothing worked.
Then he tried something he didn’t.
He combined three substances that should not have been combined.
Applied them to the wound.
Haret screamed for nearly an hour.
The next morning, healthy pink tissue had appeared where black flesh had been.
Within three weeks, Haret was walking.
Iven became obsessed.
He called the substance Renewal.
Talla called it the reason her husband stopped coming to bed.
Iven experimented constantly.
Cuts healed faster.
Burns closed.
Damaged plants regrew.
A mouse with an injured leg recovered overnight.
Iven began keeping notebooks.
Then locking the notebooks.
Then locking the cabinet containing the notebooks.
Then installing the second lock.
Their daughter, Neri, became suspicious.
“What does he do in there?”
“Work.”
“He used to let me watch.”
“He’s doing different work now.”
“Why?”
Talla had no answer.
Neri pressed her ear against the workshop door.
Something scratched on the other side.
She jumped back.
“What was that?”
“A mouse.”
“That was a large mouse.”
At dinner, Iven barely ate.
Neri watched him.
His fingernails were stained green.
“Father?”
“Yes?”
“What’s in the workshop?”
“Medicine.”
“What kind?”
“New medicine.”
“Can I see?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
That was unusual.
Iven had always explained things.
Why boiling water mattered.
Why some mushrooms killed.
Why wounds became infected.
Why children should not lick unknown minerals despite how interesting they looked.
Neri looked at Talla.
Talla had noticed too.
A week later, Iven stopped seeing patients.
“Temporarily.”
People complained.
Haret came personally.
“You saved my leg.”
“I know.”
“Other people need you.”
“I am working on something that could help all of them.”
“When?”
“When it’s ready.”
Haret looked toward the workshop.
“What are you making?”
Iven smiled.
“Something better.”
The scratching became louder.
Then came knocking.
Not human knocking.
Irregular.
Heavy.
Talla stood outside the workshop one evening.
“Iven.”
No answer.
She knocked.
The sound inside stopped.
“Iven?”
The bolt moved.
Her husband opened the door just enough to stand in the gap.
His face was exhausted.
“What?”
“What is in there?”
“Experiments.”
“What experiments?”
“I’ve explained.”
“No. You’ve said the word experiments repeatedly.”
Iven sighed.
“Talla.”
“What is knocking?”
“Nothing dangerous.”
“Then show me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t understand.”
The sentence landed between them.
Iven realized too late what he’d said.
Talla’s expression changed.
“I see.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Goodnight.”
Two nights later, Neri entered through the window.
This was an extremely bad decision.
She knew that.
She did it anyway.
The workshop smelled of soil and metal.
Plants filled the tables.
But they were wrong.
A severed branch had grown roots from both ends.
A mushroom pulsed slowly like a lung.
A dead rosebush had flowered so aggressively that blossoms covered the floor.
Then Neri saw the cage.
Inside was a rabbit.
Or something that had once been one.
Its injured leg had healed.
Then continued healing.
Bone had grown past where bone belonged.
Fur covered one eye.
A second ear had begun forming beside the first.
The creature breathed rapidly.
Neri whispered:
“Oh.”
Behind her:
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Iven stood at the window.
Neri began crying.
“Father.”
“I told you not to come in.”
“What did you do?”
“I’m fixing it.”
“The rabbit—”
“I’m fixing it.”
“Does it hurt?”
Iven didn’t answer.
Neri looked at him.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
She covered her mouth.
Iven moved toward her.
“This is necessary.”
She backed away.
“No.”
“Neri, listen.”
“No.”
“If I can control the growth—”
“You’re hurting it.”
“To learn how not to hurt thousands.”
Neri looked at the rabbit.
Iven continued.
“Do you understand? Burns. Lost limbs. Damaged hearts. Perhaps things we currently call incurable.”
Neri wiped her face.
“Then why did you hide it?”
“Because people would stop me before I finished.”
“Would they?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Iven opened his mouth.
Then looked at the cage.
Talla entered through the door.
She had broken the lock with an axe.
Iven stared.
“That was expensive.”
“I’ll buy you another.”
She saw the rabbit.
The joke disappeared from her face.
They argued until morning.
Iven explained everything.
The successful trials.
The failures.
The animals.
The possibility.
The risk.
The months of work.
Talla listened.
When he finished, she asked:
“Do you want me to tell you to stop?”
Iven rubbed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because then I can be angry at you.”
Talla sat down.
“And if I tell you to continue?”
“I’ll blame you if something goes wrong.”
“Yes.”
Iven laughed weakly.
“That seems unfair.”
“It is.”
She looked around the workshop.
“So perhaps you have to decide.”
Iven did not destroy Renewal.
He wanted to.
For several days, destruction seemed morally cleaner.
Burn the notebooks.
Kill the plants.
End the experiments.
Return to ordinary medicine.
But Haret still had his leg.
That mattered too.
The work was not evil because Iven had conducted it badly.
Nor was its promise enough to make everything he’d done acceptable.
Both facts remained.
So he did something much harder than either secrecy or destruction.
He opened the door.
A physician joined the research.
Then an animal keeper.
Then Haret.
Then, to Iven’s irritation, Talla.
“What exactly is your qualification?”
“I know when you’re lying.”
“Useful.”
“Apparently essential.”
They established rules.
Limits on animal suffering.
Independent review.
Records others could inspect.
Experiments Iven was forbidden to perform alone.
Progress slowed terribly.
Iven hated it.
Progress also became better.
He hated admitting that.
Years later, Renewal became a treatment.
Not the miracle Iven had imagined.
It could not regrow limbs.
It could not cure everything.
It became extremely useful for certain wounds and almost useless for others.
The first medical text describing it listed seven authors.
Iven’s name appeared first.
He stared at that for a while.
Then laughed.
He had once imagined his name alone.
The old workshop remained behind the house.
Eventually Neri became a healer herself.
One afternoon, she found her father replacing the door.
“You’re putting a lock back?”
“Yes.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Should I get Mother?”
“Privacy is still allowed.”
Neri laughed.
Iven installed the lock.
Then handed her a key.
She looked at it.
“What’s this?”
“A key.”
“I can see that.”
Iven put another in his own pocket.
“There are things I need privacy to discover.”
He closed the door.
“And things I apparently need other people to help me notice.”
Neri turned the key in her hand.
“How do you know which is which?”
Iven looked at the new lock.
“I’ve become suspicious of any answer that requires nobody else to be allowed through the door.”
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