Ralph and the Pixie

Vries gave him a knowing look. ‘Because you possess skills other than Healing which are vital to making a place of Healing many times more efficient when it comes to treating large numbers of casualties. These “administrative skills,” as I and others have heard you call them; it would take a blind man not to see how important they will become, both in transforming the way in which our places of Healing are organized, and in making far greater use of our limited resources.

‘Consider; it is written on your face that our lack of Healers is a concern to you. But until now we have never had need of many, and now that the need will soon be upon us, those few will have to suffice.

‘Yet you seem to be able to circumvent such obstacles, by improvising quick, simple, easy-to-learn training methods for assistants, in effect freeing our senior staff from all but the most critical of duties.

‘I will not hide from you that our nursing staff was outraged at this incursion; at least at first. Theirs is a jealously insular profession, as is our own, it must be admitted. But your methods, freely taught without hint of personal rivalry or condemnation of ignorance, has won over all those who make up the disparate disciplines of which our Healing profession consists. If nothing else, that in itself would have decided me in making this request of you.’