by Jean Lorrah
Furthermore, everyone was liquidating assets to buy the best Final Kill they could afford. People who had never had a Choice Kill before would be bidding for one final opportunity to experience the best life had to offer. Treavor Axton purchased a Choice Kill—one that Chance was willing to part with at an inflated price—and caged it in The Post’s gambling hall. He made more than he had paid for it the first day they sold raffle tickets.
Like Old Chance, The Post would first profit from the Last Kill, and then, as people no longer got post from the fake Kills of the channels, suffer a decline as months passed. Baird’s father, too, was making his money while he could.
Eventually, of course, there would be more and more Simes who had never experienced the Kill—people perfectly satisfied with channel’s transfer. The Post would adapt to whatever happened—Baird shared a certain pragmatism with his father—but in the meantime, times would be hard. And for Baird, if he did not fulfill what had become a virtual obsession of saving that Gen who intruded on his every thought, life would be nearly impossible.
Even by selling his two fine race horses, Baird was not certain he could afford the only Gen he wanted. His best chance was to attempt to be Most in Need at the auction—and bribe Chance to put the Gen he wanted up early.
But then, everyone else was also bent upon being Most in Need.
At the Choice Auctions the first few Gens went to those Simes who were in hardest Need, closest to attrition. Simes who could afford to bid had been augmenting—doing extra work in order to use up selyn as rapidly as possible—all month long. Some had already taken either a Kill or a free transfer, and were wasting selyn in order to take a second at the last possible moment. There were, of course, plenty of Pen Gens to go around, as none had to be saved for next month. Anyone who missed out on a Choice Kill would not be deprived of a Last Kill of some kind.
Baird gauged his selyn consumption very carefully, beginning to augment only the day before the Last Kill lest some emergency cause him to use up his supply before the Final Auction began. Anyone not in Need at the Final Auction would be obviously intent on saving any Gen he bid on—not acceptable when it deprived someone of a Final Choice Kill. Householders had been firmly barred—a last snub before they were given the power of life and death over everyone else.
Baird’s plan was difficult. He would augment into hard Need, tell Chance that he had become addicted to the nager of that particular Gen, and wanted her for his Last Kill. Then he would bribe the Penkeeper to put her up early in the auction. Despite his Need he would take his purchase to Carre—for if they headed into the part of the Pen already set up as a Tecton selyn dispensary, everyone would know he intended to save the girl rather than kill her.
Somehow, he was determined, he would get the girl to the Householding, where he would turn her over to be trained not to provoke his Need. He would get his transfer of selyn from the channels there—and after the girl was trained, he would bring her home, no matter what his father might say. She would be Baird’s responsibility. Treavor Axton would have no say in it.
Something told him that Gen could keep him sane and healthy while he completed his disjunction—and he was certain that once his father discovered how soothing it was to have a trained Gen on the premises, he would come to accept her to ease his own disjunction as well.
Baird’s plan went well enough until the day of the Final Auction. Bidding would start at noon, and end an hour before midnight, giving even the final bidders time to take their Kills before killing became illegal. Employees of The Post were scheduled to take their Last Kills in shifts, as the establishment would be crowded with people celebrating what might be their last post reaction ever.
In hard Need but still under control, Baird went to the Pen just before noon. Chance knew which Gen he wanted, but, “She’s gone, Baird. I sold her this morning.”
“What?! But you wouldn’t sell her to me a few days ago! You said she had to go into the Final Auction.”
“Now, Son, you know money talks. You just don’t have enough to pay for that kind of favor. The auction starts soon. Come and bid on another Choice Kill—you should have one in your lifetime.”
But Baird felt sick at the very idea.
On unsteady feet, he left Chance’s office and saw Simes streaming into the big room where the auction was about to begin. He had no desire to join them—and no desire, either, for the selyn he knew he needed.
It was the oddest feeling, his life force draining away heartbeat by heartbeat...and he just didn’t care. He thought about collecting a Pen Gen, and grimaced in distaste. He thought about going to the channels for a transfer, and was equally repelled.
Maybe he should just go home and die.
Through the open doorway of the Auction Chamber, the ambient nager hit him like a storm. Sime Need lashed his nerves, while the fearful nager of the first Gens on display punctuated the general stress with flashes of terror.
The nager of the Gen he yearned for was not there. He had no concern he would not recognize it again—after the night they had spent together her signature seemed burned into his soul.
Shen! Why hadn’t he asked Chance who had bought her? He couldn’t think straight in his state of Need and disappointment. His father had taught him that there were things money couldn’t buy—and that equally, there were things to be had for something other than money. The sum in his pocket might not be enough to buy the Gen woman from her new owner, but perhaps that money plus some kind of favor would do it.
He could not just give up! This was his last chance—in a few hours the Gen would be dead...if she wasn’t already.
No—the kind of person who would pay a high enough premium to buy a Choice Kill rather than let it go to auction would not just take his or her prey into a Killroom and have the whole process over in seconds. He was sure the Gen was still alive—but she wouldn’t be for very long.
Baird turned back, and braved the driving ambient to seek out Old Chance once again.
“No!” the penkeeper told him. “It was a confidential deal with one of my best customers. Buy yourself something at the auction before you use up your last reserves. You’re definitely Most in Need right now, Baird—go find yourself a bargain!”
“I don’t want a bargain!” Baird insisted. “I want that Gen and no other!”
Chance stared at him. “Your father was afraid of this—but if you want to kill that Gen—”
“Yes!” Baird lied desperately. “I want to kill her!”
“Your dad will be proud of you,” said Chance. “Come on, then—that Gen and its owner are in one of the Killsuites.”
Chance led Baird through the corridors of the huge pen complex, to the suites where Baird had spent the night that had changed him forever. Here the Tecton had not yet penetrated—the green-and-white decorations were still in place, for these rooms had seen much service in the past month, and would get even more tonight.
To Baird’s surprise, when they reached the door to the Pomegranate Suite Chance didn’t signal, but threw the door open, announcing, “Good news! Here’s Baird, in Need and ripe for that Gen you bought.”
Baird heard and saw no more, for the nager of the Gen he was fixated on assaulted his nerves like lightning laced with honey. He gasped and reached for her, ignoring the bright, recently-renewed field of his father as it flared relief. Then Treavor Axton left, and all was right with the world.
The Gen woman’s field laved Baird with promise. She did not shrink from him, but instead ran into his arms, hands seeking his forearms, face turned up to his, her field a brilliant wash of desire—
—desire—
He had never, ever, zlinned anything like this Gen’s...“Need” was the only term that came anything close to what he sensed. A “Need to Give.” Selyur nager—he had heard the term at Carre when he had studied there, trying to disjunct—the sign of a Companion, a Gen who could be trained to give selyn to a Sime without being killed.
Baird’s thoughts
were all jumbled, but one thing he knew was that this girl was not a Companion. She didn’t know what she was offering—and if he tried to take it, he would kill her!
She had to be trained first. He didn’t know how he could let her go, but he had to get to Carre, to the channels—had to save this woman who was trying to give him her life! Couldn’t she understand? He didn’t want a Kill—he wanted a future!
* * * *
JONMAIR LOOKED INTO BAIRD’S EYES and saw desperate Need. Her last wish was granted: she would die providing life to this fine, strong man.
Overwhelming attraction pulled her to him. She grasped his arms, felt his handling tentacles lash warm and firm about her forearms, binding them together.
But his laterals did not emerge. He could not draw the life he needed.
She tried to press her mouth to his, but he shied away just as he had when she had tried to kiss him on their night together. Then, to her astonishment, she saw his eyes focus on her. “No,” he whispered. “I won’t kill you!”
“Then let me give to you!” she pleaded, her heart telling her that she could, and that it would be wonderful.
But he shook his head. “You can’t. I don’t want you to die!”
“I won’t,” she insisted, not knowing where her certainty came from.
But Baird was not listening. “We have to get to Carre!” he said.
“There are channels here,” Jonmair told him. “I’ve seen them—they must have bought the Pen.”
“The Pen is being turned into a Selyn Dispensary.” She saw urgency penetrate his Need. “Tonight is the Last Kill. Tomorrow you’ll be free—if you can survive till then.”
“What?”
“It’s the law. No more killing after midnight. Come on!”
Somehow he managed to let go of one of her hands to open the door, although he still held tightly to the other with fingers and tentacles. Jonmair followed in his wake, wild emotions chasing one another. Free? If she could just survive until midnight, she would be free?
Treavor Axton stood in the corridor, barring their way. “Get back in there!” he exclaimed. “No son of mine is going to be a pervert by choice!”
“Out of my way, Dad!” Baird replied. “This Gen is mine, and I will do with her whatever I please!”
“You’ll kill it, like a proper Sime!” insisted his father. “This is your Last Kill, Baird. I won’t have you—”
Treavor Axton’s words were cut off with a grunt, as his son’s free hand connected with his jaw.
Baird dragged Jonmair over his fallen father and demanded, “Where?”
She ran with him through the corridors to where she had seen the row of cubicles and the two women from Carre. Yes! Two doors in the row stood open, light spilling into the hallway.
There was the Sime woman Jonmair had seen before! This time the Gen with her was a man, but that didn’t matter. They would help Baird.
As he pushed Jonmair into the cubicle, the Sime woman—the channel—gasped, and reached out a hand. “Baird!”
“Please, Hajene Thea,” he gasped. “I don’t want to kill. Help me save this girl.”
Thea, the channel, turned large brown eyes on Jonmair, then looked down to where her hand clasped Baird’s, his handling tentacles still desperately clutching her. Then her eyes unfocused, and Jonmair knew she was zlinning.
“Ronmat, close the door,” said Thea, and the male Gen followed her instructions. Then he moved back to her side, watching carefully as the channel held out her hands, cupped, and waited for Baird to lay his and Jonmair’s clasped hands across them. “Baird,” she said, “can you hear me?”
“Yes, Thea.”
“All right then. This will be very difficult, but you can do it.” She paused, looking now at Jonmair. “What is your name, Dear?”
“Jonmair.”
“Jonmair,” Baird whispered reverently.
Thea smiled. “Yes, Baird—you must release Jonmair so that she won’t be hurt. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Jonmair, don’t move until I tell you to. Baird, dismantle your grip on Jonmair. She’s not going to desert you. You don’t have to squeeze her hand so hard.”
It seemed to take forever before Baird’s grip slackened. As Thea had instructed her, Jonmair did not move. When she remained holding his hand, he finally withdrew his tentacles. “Very good,” said Thea. “Now, when I ask Jonmair to let go of you, relax and rest on my field. It’s all right. Jonmair is not deserting you—but she can’t give you transfer. You have to turn to me for transfer, Baird.”
Slowly, Baird nodded.
Thea spoke to Jonmair then, as if Baird couldn’t hear. Perhaps he couldn’t—he might be hyperconscious, reading the ambient with only Sime senses. “He’s fixed on you. I’m going to have to entice him from you, and then I want you to leave the room and close the door. It won’t be easy—but we cannot risk his killing you. Do you understand, Jonmair?”
“I don’t care if he kills me, as long as he survives,” she told the channel.
“He wouldn’t survive killing you by more than a few months,” Thea told her. “I’ll explain later—can you accept that, much as I wish you were, right now you are not capable of providing what he needs?”
Jonmair swallowed hard. “All right. What do you want me to do?”
“Ronmat,” Thea said softly, and her Companion moved to stand side by side with Jonmair.
* * * *
TO BAIRD, WHEN THE HIGH-FIELD COMPANION MOVED so that his nager competed with Jonmair’s it was as if his sun was obscured by a thundercloud. “No!” he gasped, trying to zlin his only hope of life.
“She’s still there,” said Thea.
“I’m here,” Jonmair’s voice echoed. He zlinned her field trying to escape from the Companion’s shadow as she began, “Let me—”
“No, Jonmair—you’ll hurt Baird,” said Ronmat. “Don’t compete with me—it will just make it harder for Thea to give him transfer.”
Baird wanted to cry, but could not in his state of Need, as Jonmair withdrew, first her field, then her hand. The murmur of Thea’s voice grew dim as his hope dwindled. He was going to die.
When all trace of the luminescent field he wanted disappeared from the ambient, he felt himself collapsing. Vaguely, he was aware of Thea and Ronmat maneuvering him onto a couch. As he drifted, disconnected from life, Thea tried to coax his tentacles out of their sheaths to entwine with hers.
He didn’t fight, but he had no interest in drawing selyn. Thea tried to imitate Jonmair’s sweet field, but he knew the difference, and rejected it. In desperation, she grasped the fields entirely, and drove unwanted selyn into his parched nerves, while he lay passive, uncaring.
Finally, though, Baird realized that once again he was going to live. He had a supply of selyn—not the sweet, bright life he craved, but energy to keep him breathing, to keep his heart beating for another month.
Thea stood beside the couch, her plain heart-shaped face showing both weariness and concern as she leaned on Ronmat, breathing hard. Baird blinked at her, and whispered, “I’m all right.”
She smiled and straightened. “You will be. That girl—Jonmair—will be able to make life much easier for you. But she has to learn not to be a danger to you or herself.”
“I’ll leave her with you, or else take her to Carre right now,” said Baird. “I want her to have that training.”
“Good,” said Thea. “I’ll take her field down, and then you can take her to Carre. I can’t leave here right now.”
Baird sat up, still feeling hollow. However, his legs seemed to support him, so he stood, and found that he could move—just as if he were well and whole. He could wait, he decided. Jonmair was on the other side of that door, and in a month, perhaps two, she would have the training to be safe around Simes. And once he had her by his side, something told him that he would not feel like such a hollow sham anymore.
So Baird opened the door—
to find his father holding a white-painted chain that he had clipped to Jonmair’s collar. “Well,” said Treavor Axton, “you won’t be needing this anymore. I’ll just put it back in the auction.”
“No!” gasped Baird. “She’s mine! You bought her for me!”
“You’re right on one thing, Baird: I bought the Gen. So I am the one to decide what to do with it.”
“Mr. Axton,” said Thea, “if you want your son to live for more than a few more months, I suggest you think twice about letting anyone kill that Gen.”
“Pervert!” Treavor Axton spat. “Your kind made him into a spineless weakling!”
“No,” the channel replied, “he is actually very brave to go against all that he grew up with in order to disjunct. And he will succeed. Will you have the strength your son has?”
Baird’s father stared at the channel for a moment, then at Baird. “All right,” he said. “You’re the only child I’ve got left—maybe you’ll give me grandchildren with some spunk to them. I won’t sell the Gen. But I’m not handing it over to the perverts, either.”
Baird sighed. “I’ll just have to wait until after midnight to take her to Carre.”
“You haven’t been paying attention, Baird. This Gen is not yours to take anywhere. According to the new laws, any Gen still alive and in the possession of a Sime at midnight tonight becomes the ward of that Sime. This Gen becomes my ward, not yours. I’ll decide what to do with it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
LAST KILL
BEFORE THEY COULD LEAVE THE PEN, Thea, the channel from Carre, said, “I don’t advise taking a high-field Gen through the streets tonight of all nights.”
“I’m not leaving it with you, Pervert!” snapped Treavor Axton.
“What I’m suggesting is that you leave her selyn with me. The Tecton will pay you for it.”
Baird’s father stared at the channel for a moment as if he were going to refuse. But then he said, “All right. It won’t hurt it, from what I’ve heard.” He handed Jonmair’s white-painted chain to Thea. “Go ahead—but don’t take too long!”
Thea took Jonmair back into the cubicle and shut the door. “Jonmair,” she said, “be as cooperative as you can with Mr. Axton. Let Baird persuade him to bring you to Carre for training. You trust Baird, don’t you?”
