To Kiss or To Kill

by Jean Lorrah

  Baird’s father blinked, and his eyes went unfocused as he zlinned what Jonmair was doing. Then he rose and stared at her. “You little bitch! Another wer-Gen’s trick! Get up to your room now!”

  Stunned, Jonmair remembered what the channels and Companions had taught her: don’t argue when disjuncting Simes have these outbursts, don’t try to grasp control, but just get away as quickly as possible. So she did as Treavor Axton told her, pulling her field in tightly and exiting the room at a quick walk.

  * * * *

  BAIRD AXTON MANAGED TO GRASP CONTROL OF HIMSELF enough not to attack Jonmair when she stopped at his father’s table. It gnawed at him more with every passing day that she belonged to Treavor Axton. What if his father decided he wanted her selyn for himself—not just the money he received for it from the channels every month, but the selyn itself?

  The transfer Baird wanted from Jonmair.

  Treavor Axton’s attention was on the Gen, but Old Chance saw Baird pull up short of their table. “Hey, Baird!” he called. “Aincha gonna go git thet Gen?” And he laughed raucously enough that Simes at nearby tables turned to look—and notice Jonmair scurrying up the staircase outside the salon.

  “Yeah—go bring her back, Baird,” said one of the patrons.

  “She was makin’ everbuddy feel good,” slurred a man who was far too drunk for porstan alone to be the reason. “Bring that purty nager back here,” he hiccupped through a giggle.

  “You oughta get more Gens like that one,” a woman added. “I never feel this good after turnover.”

  “Jonmair has just gone to rest a little,” said Baird. “She’ll be back, I promise.” And I will restrain myself somehow, he thought, ashamed at another example of his infamous lack of control. Why had he gotten so jealous when Jonmair was merely doing what was good for business?

  He sat down across from his father at the table. “That lady is right,” he said. “We ought to get more Gens in here, and think about customer satisfaction.”

  “Them fools?” asked Chance. “I tole you, Treavor, the shidoni-doomed Tecton’s gonna have Gens runnin’ the territory. Those idiots have bought the Tecton line—you gonna pander to ’em?”

  “Shut up, Chance,” said Treavor Axton. “Your game or mine, the customer is always right. Baird, was Jonny doing that all over the room tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one complained?”

  “Only me,” Baird admitted sheepishly.

  His father frowned at him. “The Gen is not yours. Get her back here—I want to watch her work, and if I like what I zlin, then we’ll see about getting more Gens to do it.”

  “Bloody shen!” said Old Chance, kicking his chair back against the wall as he rose with a sneer. “Never thought I’d see you bend over an’ ask fer it, Treav. You wait another two, three months and see how you feel!” And he stalked out.

  Baird looked after him, shaking his head. “Everybody’s going to feel worse in two or three months, but what can Chance do about it? He surely can’t think he can get away with arranging ‘accidents.’”

  Then he noticed Kerrk watching him, listening closely. “The Kill in the marketplace last week was apparently accidental,” commented the Inspector, “but they’ve still condemned the Sime responsible.”

  Baird swallowed hard, in his mind’s eye seeing Jonmair fall limp from Old Chance’s tentacles. Or his own. Seeing himself condemned to shedoni—execution by attrition—for killing her. “We have to enforce the law,” he said, facing his fears in an attempt to banish them. “If we let people off because they can’t control themselves, we’d break the Unity Treaty every day. If that happens, what did we fight the war for? What did Elendra die for?”

  Grasping for control, Baird looked across the room to where Conta and her Robert still sat at the bar, a glowing example of what could be. Then he squared his shoulders and went upstairs, stopping in the gold salon on the way to load a plate with Gen portions of Jonmair’s favorite foods.

  * * * *

  ON BAIRD’S TRANSFER DAY, JONMAIR WAS FILLED WITH HOPE. At Baird’s insistence, Treavor Axton allowed her to keep some of the tips their Sime customers gave her—enough to buy a beautiful pendant she had seen at the Keon Emporium, to go with the dress she had made for Zhag and Tonyo’s opening tomorrow night. The musicians had prevailed on Baird and his father to give her the night off, so she could be their guest.

  Even Treavor Axton grudgingly admitted Jonmair had done a good job on their costumes. He also deigned to praise her work in the salons, keeping their customers contented, now treating it as if it were his own idea. Tonyo had easily demonstrated that he could do the same thing, and promised to help Jonmair train other Gens—although where they were to find those other Gens was an unanswered question.

  It was only a brief walk from The Post to the dispensary in the Old Pen, now completely converted into a facility for collecting and dispensing selyn. However, this would continue to be the busiest day of the month until people’s schedules drifted apart. Quite a few had needed transfer yesterday, as disjuncting Simes used up extra selyn in nervous energy. The Axtons had not come up a full day short yet, but their appointments were now early in the morning. Jonmair walked between them, trying to keep both men comfortable and wishing Treavor Axton had his own Gen.

  Although Baird had gone without a Kill twice before and his father only once, Treavor Axton seemed worse off than his son. All Simes got a haunted, haggard look within hours of hard Need, but the lines in Axton’s face were drawn deep, his skin grayed beneath its tan. It was true, then, what Jonmair had heard: the older the Sime, the harder it was to disjunct. Many would not survive the process.

  Baird had a father who truly loved him, for all his gruff, implacable ways. Jonmair didn’t want Baird to lose his father—and to tell the truth, learning her way around Treavor Axton’s convoluted mix of business savvy and sense of fair play, she had come to care about him herself. He had built The Post into a Norlea institution on a rare combination of outrageous ideas and common sense. That same combination would eventually allow him to accept her, she was sure.

  “Tecton Dispensary,” read the sign on the building they approached, but Jonmair had never heard anyone refer to it as anything but the City Pen. It still flew the green pennants, because it was still where any tax-paying Sime was assured of receiving a month’s allotment of selyn. Inside, though, the walls had been repainted in soft pastels, and the hallway where they waited turned into an art gallery with bright, cheery paintings. Channels and their Companions circulated through the crowd, balancing the ambient and looking for anyone who should be moved forward in the queue. When a pair came near to the three from The Post, the channel, a woman with iron-gray hair, smiled at Jonmair and said, “Good job. But please let me zlin your Simes now.”

  Both Simes bristled at being referred to as if they were her property. Jonmair sent soothing thoughts, and then removed her support. The men winced, but Treavor Axton staggered for a moment before he caught his balance. “Please come with us, all of you,” said the channel, introducing herself as Sirya ambrov Keon and her Companion, a male Gen who looked the same early middle-age as she did, as Bevin ambrov Keon. Bevin took all of their transfer cards—Treavor Axton provided Jonmair’s as well as his own—and copied their information onto forms on the clipboard he carried.

  They were taken into a waiting area lined with transfer cubicles. “Now,” said Sirya to Treavor Axton, “I want you to shift your focus from Jonmair to me. Can you do that? Just zlin me.”

  Jonmair could somehow sense when Axton’s attention shifted, and only Baird was focused on her. Bevin moved automatically to compensate for the shift in the ambient. Sirya smiled at Jonmair again. “You’ve done a very good job. Treavor wasn’t fixed on you, and the two men are not competing—not an easy functional to pull off.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of it as a functional,” Jonmair explained. “I want to give Baird transfer, but I want his father to be comfortable too.”<
br />
  “You did an excellent job of showing them exactly that. Now we are going to take Mr. Axton into a transfer suite.” She turned to Baird, and must have done something nagerically because suddenly his attention focused on the channel. “Baird, with Jonmair beside you, you can easily wait another hour. But your father needs his transfer right now. It may take a while. Stay here with Jonmair, all right?”

  Baird nodded. “Take care of Dad.”

  But when the other three had disappeared into one of the cubicles, his logical faculties—slowed by hard Need, when Simes operated on instinct—turned over what the channel had said. “Why should it take a while? Transfer only takes a moment.” His eyes widened. Jonmair knew that at this time he could not truly feel anything but Need, but nevertheless he said, “She thinks he’s going to shen out!”

  He rose. Jonmair moved with him, supporting him as he paced restlessly, shielding him from the Need of two other Simes waiting for their transfers.

  “If it’s starting this early—only his second transfer—” Baird shook his head, trying to focus through Need. “They said older Simes would have it worst, but Dad’s not old. There’s a reason shen is the worst word in our language—it feels like dying, only you live through it and then wish you had died. I used to shen out when I was trying to disjunct before— before—”

  “Before what?” Jonmair asked, remembering what Old Chance had told her about Baird. Before Unity. He had tried to disjunct before...and failed.

  “I wanted to disjunct,” he said wretchedly. “I made it through four months, but the third and fourth transfers were bad and worse. And then—”

  Suddenly he stopped, staring at her. “No. I shouldn’t tell you that! I’m sorry—I don’t want to say anything to frighten you.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, taking his hand. “I know. I was there. The little girl you saved—that was my sister.”

  “What?” He stared at her blankly.

  “In the square that day. You were trying to help Zhag, and Faleese ran right under your horse’s hoofs. You used up the last of your selyn to save her—it was heroic!”

  But Baird didn’t think it was heroic.

  “No,” he whispered. “You were there? You saw my shame?”

  “What shame? Baird, you saved a child’s life!”

  “But afterward...I stole some poor woman’s Gen, and—”

  “It’s all right, Baird,” Jonmair tried to soothe him. “You were just goaded too far—”

  “No!” He pushed her away. “I wanted to stop killing!”

  “I know,” she said, doing everything she knew to soothe his agitation. “You were so brave, doing what you knew was right when everyone else thought it was wrong.”

  “I was wrong that day. Genjacking. A public Kill. I acted like a lorsh—and it keeps happening. I can’t control myself.”

  “You don’t have to,” Jonmair reassured him, “not when you’re in Need. I’m here for you.” She thought of him depending on her as Zhag did on Tonyo.

  “You think I’m going to let a Gen control me?” Baird looked around wildly. “I have to control myself!”

  He flung off her hand on his arm and ran, augmenting through the small waiting area. He tore open the door into the crowded hallway, and bolted into the crowd of Simes in Need. Jonmair pounded after him, parting the Simes with a flick of her field, but Baird remained ahead of her. He bludgeoned his way, raising cries of outrage as he jostled sensitive forearms with their swollen ronaplin glands.

  There were other channel/Companion pairs working through the crowd as Sirya and Bevin had been doing. One such pair moved to intercept Baird. In a flash, the channel, a red-haired man as tall as Baird, grabbed the fleeing Sime, intertwined their tentacles, and pressed their lips together.

  A shock went through the ambient—Jonmair could not have said whether what she felt was the forced transfer, the reaction of nearby Simes, Baird’s shock, or her own outrage. But as tentacles retracted and hands dropped, as Baird stared clear-eyed into the gaze of the intercepting channel, he and Jonmair, half the length of the hall apart, wailed in unison: “No-ooooh!”

  Jonmair dashed up to the channel, raising her fists to pound on his chest. He grasped them before she could jolt the sensitive node she knew lay behind his breastbone. Struggling against Sime strength, she gasped, “You had no right! You had no right! He’s mine!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GRAND OPENING

  ONCE AGAIN, BAIRD AXTON CAME TO HIMSELF BURNING WITH SHAME at a public loss of control. The channel who had intercepted his blind rush away from Jonmair now held the Gen woman at arm’s length as she cried, “He’s mine! You had no right!”

  People were staring, but several channel/Companion pairs converged to insulate those in Need from the nageric shock of high-field Gen fury.

  “It’s all right,” the channel told Jonmair in a soothing voice. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Of course it wasn’t!” she shouted. “It’s your fault, you lorsh! He needed me, and you took him. Simejacker!”

  The channel’s Companion, who looked about Tonyo’s age, burst out laughing at the word Jonmair coined. But then he pulled himself together and said, “Let’s get some privacy.”

  Shocked to realize how badly Jonmair had wanted to give him her selyn, Baird let them lead him back into the now empty waiting area.

  The channel introduced himself as Vent Gascon, not a Householding name, his young Companion as Mern. Mern told Jonmair, “You and I were in the Pen together, Choice Kills. I saw you sometimes in passing.”

  Somewhat calmer now, she nodded. “I suppose your story’s pretty much like mine. You established and your family sold you into the Pens.”

  “Yeah. But I was lucky. The Householders bought up as many of us as they could afford, ’cause they knew we’d be easier to train than Pen Gens. I just gave transfer for the first time a couple of days ago.” He smiled. “I don’t blame you for wanting it.”

  “But she couldn’t control the Sime in her charge,” protested Vent. “I couldn’t let him leave the dispensary.”

  “We’re gonna catch shen from the controller,” said Mern resignedly, “but shidoni, what does the Tecton expect? We’ve got two whole days of experience!”

  “You did fine,” said Baird, realizing that while not as satisfying as a Kill, the transfer had been his best one yet.

  “Thanks,” said Vent, easily understanding his meaning. “That’s because I’m junct.” He shook his head. “Two months ago I took my Last Kill, shenning the Tecton with every breath—and a few days later I got a notice that my selyn consumption profile indicated that I was a channel. Now here I am working for the shenned Tecton!”

  “Crazy world,” said Mern. “If Vent had bought me for his Last Kill, I’d be dead. Instead, two days ago he gave me the best experience of my life. Now we’re partners.” He turned to Baird. “Are you all right now?”

  “Fine,” Baird answered. “I’m sorry I caused a scene.”

  “My fault, not yours,” said Vent. “An experienced channel should have been able to get you to privacy, at the least.” He looked at Jonmair and shook his head. “I can’t tell if it would have been safe to let you have direct transfer. Mern and me shoulda had months of training for this duty. I don’t know how we’re managing not to have Kills in the streets.”

  “You can kill me again any time you’ve a mind to,” Mern said with a suggestive flick of his nager. He was nearly as post as Tonyo had been the day after his transfer with Zhag.

  “Stop that!” Vent said, directing a nageric slap at the boy.

  Mern laughed. “Can’t hurt a Gen that way!”

  “Then how do you know what I did?”

  The Gen merely laughed louder. Vent tried to scowl at him, but couldn’t maintain his annoyance in the face of his Companion’s good cheer and his own post reaction. “We’d better take Jonmair’s donation and get back out there before something else happens,” said Vent. “The Tecton has enou
gh trained personnel for most of the month, but these couple of days we don’t.”

  Jonmair was taken into one of the cubicles, and returned in moments to sit beside Baird as Vent and Mern went back to their crowd control. After a moment, Baird said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run from you, Jonmair.”

  He could zlin that she was far from post—it was beginning to seem normal to think such things about Gens—but she seemed stable. She turned to look at him. “You were upset about your Dad. I’m worried about him too, Baird. It’s taking too long.”

  And it was nearly twenty minutes more before the door opened and Bevin called them in. Treavor Axton lay on the transfer couch, eyes closed.

  “He’s just sleeping now,” Sirya said. “Let him rest until he wakes by himself, then make him take it easy the rest of the day. He’s got a pretty bad nerve burn.”

  Bevin poured fosebine into a vial. “We gave him a dose that will wear off in a few hours. Have him take this if his pain returns.”

  “How would a Sime get a burn?” asked Baird. Nerve burn, not being drained of selyn, was what Gens died of in the Kill.

  “Sirya had to force the transfer on him,” Bevin explained.

  The channel said sadly, “Baird, your Dad has lived almost twenty-five years past changeover. Juncts rarely live that long, even without the strain of disjunction.”

  “What are you saying?” Baird demanded, zlinning his father to make certain he was truly asleep and would not hear the answer. “What will happen next month?”

  “I don’t know,” Sirya said flatly. “He may survive another transfer...and he may not. Baird...he needs direct Gen transfer—a matchmate.”

  Baird felt his teeth clench. He fought down his denial and managed to ask, “Can Jonmair do it?”

  He hated the surge of relief that went through him when Sirya shook her head. “She might have if he were the Sime she had spent her time with since she was released from the Pens. But she is committed to you, Baird—your field and hers have been interacting all this time. Furthermore, she is emotionally committed to you—Gens can become fixed on Simes just as Simes do on Gens.”