To Kiss or To Kill
Page 2
From the direction of the river, a wagon loaded with Gens fresh off the boat plodded its way toward the Pen. It was too far behind Baird’s vehicle to make much impression, but he was aware of those brimming lives, and the free-floating anxiety the creatures felt at being moved through strange surroundings.
Traffic slowed even more, vehicles coming to a dead stop while pedestrians and those on horseback filtered between them. Word came back along the street that a wagon had overturned.
Vendors added to the congestion, hawking their wares from wagons at the sides of the street. When a police officer on horseback told them to move, a fruit seller argued, “I got the right to this spot for the whole day.”
“Come back after the congestion clears,” the officer told her. “Right now we have to move traffic through this lane.”
“I’ll follow those wagons off the square,” Baird told Zhag. “It’ll be faster to go around the accident.”
The light buggy was more maneuverable than the lumbering wagons, and Baird knew his spirited mare, so he was able to get into the curbside lane when the vendors began reluctantly to vacate. In the lane he had left, traffic filled in the gaps, bringing the wagonload of fresh Gens close enough to be an irritant to both Baird and Zhag. The fruit seller shouted at the vendor in front of her, who was securing breakable ceramic utensils before trying to move. The tinker yelled back, and traffic once more came to a halt.
Zhag picked up his shiltpron, and strummed a soothing tune. Baird tried to let its nageric resonations wash away his jangled nervousness. He knew he had plenty of time, that he would not run out of selyn before he got to Carre—but his Sime instincts insisted his life was draining away pulse by pulse, and if he did not renew it soon, he would die in agony.
In the crowded street, Zhag’s playing could not affect the ambient as strongly as it did within the confines of a shiltpron parlor. The instrument also picked up and amplified Baird’s Need, the anger of the shouting vendors, and the anxiety of the wagonload of Pen Gens now drawn up close behind them. Baird was about to suggest that his friend was only making things worse when they began to get better—the music was, indeed, soothing the vendors, the Gens, and Baird.
Able to think again, Baird realized that their buggy was going nowhere until the way was cleared. He dropped the reins on the seat and went to help the tinker secure the last crate of tea glasses. “Thanks.” the man told him, and flipped a rude signal at the impatient fruit seller behind him before he jumped up into the seat.
* * * *
JONMAIR, IN DISGRACE THROUGH NO FAULT OF HER OWN, paced ahead of her mother and siblings through the stalled traffic. At least she was relieved of trying to take care of Wawkeen and Faleese. Along with the slow-footed Gen, they would keep Mama from catching up to her and scolding her some more. At least until they got home.
But Mama would kill her Gen tomorrow, and be her normal, rational self again. Then Jonmair could explain what had happened with the kids—there was no use trying to talk to her until then.
This area of Norlea, around the Pens, was especially crowded today because of the delay in Gen shipments. They had passed two wagonloads of the creatures, and down the street she could see another caught in the traffic, green pennant flapping limply in what breeze penetrated from the waterfront to the center of the city.
Jonmair’s eye was caught, though, by a buggy moving toward her from the center of the street into the lane the police were clearing. It was the kind of vehicle she dreamed of having someday, shiny and smart and drawn by a beautiful prancing gray horse.
There were two men in the buggy—master and servant, Jonmair guessed, for one was nondescript and dressed rather shabbily, while the other—
Jonmair’s heart gave a lurch as she looked closely at the driver of the buggy. He was young, with thick black hair cut collar length in the latest fashion, and his skin had a shining copper tone. Despite the whipcord slenderness typical of Simes, his shoulders were broad, making him look as if he could take on the world. His clothes were exquisitely tailored—everything about him signaled “wealth” and “power.”
But as she drew closer, it was the man’s eyes that held Jonmair’s attention. They were very large, gray, and fringed with thick black lashes. Somehow she knew those eyes were capable of dancing with merriment or flashing with anger...but what she saw in them now was Need.
He was in the same state as Jonmair’s mother, yet he was not irritable and annoyed at every little thing. When the other man in the buggy began to play music, the handsome man Jonmair was watching got down from his seat and went to help one of the vendors move his wagon.
Jonmair was amazed to see a man who was not only self-controlled in Need, but able to think about other people. She watched admiringly as he started back toward his buggy, but then she caught sight of her mother approaching, and slipped between the vehicles to get out of her sight.
Once on the other side of the street, though, she could not help but turn to look again at the handsome, wealthy man—just in time to see her foolish little sister, running ahead of their mother, skip right out into the traffic that was ready to start moving again.
* * * *
BAIRD TURNED AWAY FROM THE TINKER’S WAGON and began making his way back toward his buggy.
A woman with two small children and a Pen Gen in tow looked for a path through the stalled traffic. She kept her little boy close by one handling tentacle. The girl had a pinwheel on a stick, waving it in the air to make it spin. She darted between wagons, her mother calling to her to wait.
The child danced to Zhag’s music, oblivious of her mother’s concerns. She moved toward Zhag, laughing and waving her pinwheel—
Right under the nose of Baird’s skittish mare.
No one was holding the reins.
The sparkling object spooked the horse, who reared, backing against the traces and nearly upsetting the buggy.
The music stopped abruptly as Zhag held the seat with one hand, his shiltpron with the other—until he saw the child under the flailing hoofs of the horse. Her mother tried to run to the little girl’s rescue, but she was hampered by her frightened son and the shuffling Gen she dragged.
* * * *
JONMAIR SCREAMED AND TRIED TO RUN, but she had no Sime strength or agility. It felt as if her feet were moored in molasses—she could never reach the scene in time.
Shoving his instrument aside, the musician grabbed up the reins, pulling the horse into a rear.
With speed only adult Simes could muster, the man Jonmair had been watching leaped in to scoop the child out from under the horse before the hoofs came down. Fighting the unfamiliar driver, the mare bucked and kicked, but Jonmair’s eyes were only for the safety of her little sister, and the heroism of the man who had just saved her life.
* * * *
BAIRD DEPOSITED THE LITTLE GIRL in her mother’s arms and turned to rescue his friend and his horse. When he jumped up on the buggy Zhag yielded him the reins, but the mare seemed intent on kicking her way out of the traces.
A heave sent Zhag’s precious instrument flying off the buggy to certain destruction. Occupied with the horse, Baird could only zlin the effort it took his frail friend to rescue the shiltpron with a diving catch—but he made it. Baird sighed with relief. That shiltpron was not merely Zhag’s means of earning a living—his music gave meaning to his life.
But Zhag was too ill to get away with the agile moves that healthy Simes took for granted. Clutching his instrument to his chest, he stumbled in a most unSimelike way, and sank to the ground. He radiated Need—he had expended extra selyn both to hold the bucking horse and to rescue his shiltpron—and with his precarious health he had no control left.
Zhag’s Need grated on everyone’s nerves, Baird’s most of all—he, too, had expended extra energy, bringing him deeper into Need and closer to the moment when he would have to receive selyn or die. Looking down into his friend’s emaciated features, he felt as if he looked into the face of death.
Baird knew what he had to do—lift Zhag back up into the buggy, and get both of them to Carre as fast as possible.
But his Need screamed for satisfaction. The world dissolved into selyn fields as he went into Sime hunting mode, fixing on the bright Gen fields in the wagon now close behind the buggy.
There was no thought now—only instinct. Pure predator, he shoved aside people who would have hindered him as he stalked that source of satisfaction. Some lives there understood enough of what was happening to flare fear.
It was all Baird needed. He leaped—
—and was caught and tossed backwards by the wagon-master’s whip.
Raging with both pain and Need, he landed on his feet next to the woman with the two children...and the Gen she was leading home.
The dull Gen field erupted with startlement, its nearness overwhelming the more tempting fields now at a distance. Baird whirled, he grasped, he connected with the nerve points—and sweet fear laved his anguished nerves as he tore life from his prey as Simes were meant to do—as he was meant to do! Pure energy filled him, soothed his jangled nerves, gave him strength, warmth, joy—
* * * *
JONMAIR STOOD WIDE-EYED, HEART POUNDING with unfamiliar emotion. She had never actually seen a Sime kill a Gen before. It was what Simes were meant to do. They were designed as perfect predators...but she could see that the heroic man she had just watched fulfill his destiny was upset at what he had done.
As the creature’s corpse dropped from the man’s hands and tentacles, his look of feral satisfaction changed to one of mortification.
Of course it was highly improper to kill in a public street, even worse to steal someone else’s Gen—
Jonmair ran to her mother’s side and took charge of Wawkeen and Faleese, both sobbing in shock and horror. She turned the children to her, letting them bury their faces in her skirt to shut out the sight of the dead Gen. They were too young to understand.
Mama was too angry to think—her lateral tentacles, the small organs which actually drew selyn from a Gen, licked out of their sheaths as she clenched her teeth in fury at being deprived of her rightful property. For a moment Jonmair thought she would leap for the man’s throat.
The man immediately pulled out his wallet, and said soothingly, “Ma’am, I am so sorry. It was all my fault. Please, please—here. Take this.” He pressed coins into her hand. “I never meant to deprive you,” he pleaded. “Buy a Choice Kill. I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
And Jonmair, despite not having the Sime ability to zlin emotions, knew that he truly was. Apparently her mother did, too, for she gained control of herself, although she was still shaking. She counted the astonishing amount of money the man had given her, and managed to say, “Yes. I’ll do that.”
Released, the man turned to help the obviously ill musician into the buggy, and drove away through the passage that had finally cleared.
Jonmair stared after him, aware that he had committed a social gaffe that he might never live down—but after all, he had driven himself to the limit saving her undeserving little sister. Jonmair could not help but admire him.
She heard her mother draw a sharp breath through her teeth, and wondered if, especially sensitive right now, she had read her daughter’s sympathy for someone who had stolen her Gen. Jonmair braced herself for another scolding, but, “Take the children home,” was all her mother told her, before turning back toward the Pen.
All that evening, Jonmair’s thoughts turned toward the handsome, brave young man in the square. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that he could not be blamed for stealing her mother’s Gen. The other man, the musician, was obviously very sick to collapse like that over nothing. Her hero must have been taking him for help—perhaps to the Pen for a good Kill. Maybe a Choice Kill that the shabby musician clearly could not afford.
So he was a good, kind man, trying to help a friend or servant when he himself was deep into Need. He had saved Faleese’s life when the girl’s own willfulness had put her in danger, and to do so had used up the last of his selyn reserves. That was what she told her little brother and sister as the task fell to her to explain the Kill they had seen. Wawkeen didn’t really understand, and was soon distracted with his toys. Faleese, though, was pale, fighting down sickness.
“It’s what Mariah told me happened to the Gens our parents bring home,” she explained. Mariah was Faleese’s best friend. “I didn’t believe it.”
“It’s what Gens are for,” Jonmair told her. “They don’t understand what’s happening anyway. We’ll all have to kill when we grow up and change over, Faleese—the Kill is a natural part of life. You’ll see how much better Mama feels after she has her Kill tomorrow. Nature designed it that way—Gens are just creatures who produce the selyn Simes Need. They don’t have any other function.”
The words came straight from the changeover classes Jonmair had just completed. And until somebody—probably Mariah—told Faleese that there were perverted Simes who actually refused to kill Gens, and somehow got their selyn from other Simes, she was certainly not going to confuse the little girl with such unnecessary information. There had never been any perverts in her family, and it was best not to put such notions into a susceptible child’s head.
Mama was certainly pleased with the Choice Kill she had bought, which she placed in the family Killroom as soon as she got home. She even had some money left over, which pleased Dad. “Still,” he commented, “it’s not enough for me to have a Choice Kill too.”
Mama put a hand over his. “Wait and see,” she said. “There might be a surprise for you.”
In all the excitement, Jonmair was glad to be forgotten. She made supper for the children, knowing her mother hated to cook just before a Kill, and then heated water in the big kettle so she could wash out the caramel Wawkeen had smeared into her hair. Afterward, though, her mother took the comb from her and gently worked the tangles out.
At times like these, Jonmair was not so eager to grow up. It felt good to have her mother comb her hair, and braid it so that when she brushed it out in the morning it would have waves in it. She leaned into the massage of her mother’s tentacles, glad to be back in her good graces. But she could feel her mother’s Need and nervous tension in the way her moist lateral tentacles grazed the back of Jonmair’s neck.
“Go to bed,” her mother said. “It’s been a hard day.” There was something odd, ragged, about her voice, but Jonmair put it down to Need, and anticipation of an exceptional Kill.
In the morning, she got up and dressed, then got Faleese and Wawkeen up and gave them breakfast. Her mother came in just as Jonmair was telling her younger siblings to go get their clothes on.
“Yes,” said Mama, “run along and get dressed, and go over to Miz Hetson’s.”
Usually Jonmair was assigned to take the kids somewhere while her parents took their monthly Kills. But this morning Mama said, “Come here,” and when the girl did, she closed her eyes and nodded. “Go put on your work clothes.”
Work clothes? What work would Mama want her to do this morning? Surely she didn’t want her daughter around when—
“Go on!” Mama said irritably, her laterals fluttering in and out of the orifices on either side of her wrists.
It must be the anticipation of a Choice Kill that was making her especially nervous. Best to humor her now. After a good Kill, Simes were affable and in excellent humor.
Jonmair went upstairs and changed into an old shirt with paint on it and a pair of ragged denims that she had nearly outgrown. She didn’t bother to unbraid her hair, but went back downstairs just as she heard the sound of a heavy wagon pulling up outside.
M
ama opened the door before anyone knocked. Two men were coming up the walk, Jonmair’s father and a man wearing the green-and-white uniform of a Gendealer.
No!
Jonmair’s father would not meet her eyes.
She looked past him at the wagon parked at the curb—the wagon with a cage big enough to carry twenty or thirty Gens, although at the moment it was empty.
Jonmair’s mother moved behind the girl, blocking her way to the kitchen and the back door.
The Gendealer moved toward Jonmair, eyes unfocused, laterals extended, zlinning her. “Caught ’er early,” he said, “but yer right. Not much selyn production yet, but a few days and it’ll be ripe and soaring. Choice Kill fer sure.”
“Mama!” Jonmair gasped, as the Gendealer brought out a collar and reached for her. “Dad-dy!”
“Shut up, Gen.” said the dealer, clasping the collar about her neck. “You got no family no more. Don’t make no trouble, you don’t git hurt. Make trouble—” he laughed, “—well, the spirited uns jes bring a higher price.”
CHAPTER TWO
REASON TO LIVE
JONMAIR SAT ON THE THIN MAT that lined her wooden bed, wishing she had a book, some sewing, even cleaning supplies to scrub the already-clean floor of her narrow holding cell. Something to do, so she wouldn’t have to think.
It was three months since her parents had handed her over to the Gendealer and collected the bounty. Jonmair’s first terror was long past—she would not be killed at once. But all she had to do most of the time was think.
It had finally sunk in: she was Gen, and her remaining lifespan was numbered in weeks, perhaps days.
There was no one to blame. A third of all children of Sime parents established as Gens, and no one could predict which ones they would be. It was a mere whim of fate that she was in that one-third, and not in the two-thirds who at maturity changed over into Simes. All she was good for now was to provide a Sime with the life energy to survive for another month. All the years it took a Gen to mature, just to keep one Sime alive for as long as it took the moon to go through its phases.