To Kiss or To Kill

by Jean Lorrah

  But Jonmair could not imagine inflicting such agony on any Sime, and was learning less harmful ways to abort an attack. “Don’t you realize that any Gen allowed out alone is too sympathetic to Simes ever to hurt one?”

  “Don’t you realize that Simes don’t want their life in a Gen’s hands?” Axton retorted.

  “It’s already there,” she replied. “It’s what nature intended: Gens are meant to produce life energy for Simes. But there’s no reason to die to do so. If we can just find the right Gen for you—”

  He got up, crumpling the newspaper impatiently, started for the door, and fell.

  Jonmair dashed to his side, supporting him with her field and sending a nageric as well as vocal cry for help.

  Chef and his staff ran in from the kitchen. “Bad turnover,” said Chef. “Jonny, keep doing what you’re doing.”

  For the moment her field might be soothing Axton’s, but as soon as he came to—

  “Get away from me!” Treavor Axton tried to growl, but it came out a choked whisper.

  Penta Coyt knelt on his other side. “It’s hard,” she said, “but you’ll be all right. Let us help you to your room, and I’ll bring you some trin tea. You really shouldn’t drink kafi on your turnover day—didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

  Axton scowled, but for some reason Penta’s attention didn’t seem to irritate him as much as Jonmair’s, so she carefully relinquished to the other Gen and let Penta and two of the Sime staff take Baird’s father upstairs.

  When Penta returned for the tea, Jonmair asked, “What did you do different from what I did?”

  “Nothing, really. I just wasn’t arguing with him when he hit turnover. You’ll learn to keep track of the cycles of Simes you interact with every day,” she explained.

  “I do,” said Jonmair. “Mr. Axton is early, by almost a day.”

  “Ah,” said Penta, “that’s a bad sign. Unless he’s been augmenting?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jonmair. “They say the older the Sime—”

  “No,” Penta stopped her. “We can’t lose an entire generation. If Mr. Axton would only cooperate, it wouldn’t be hard to find him someone. Look how many soldiers found matchmates on campaign—from among Wild Gens yet! It’s the channels who are hard to match. If the government would just set up a program—”

  “There aren’t enough Gens,” said Jonmair.

  “Not enough awake and aware ones,” Penta agreed. “But you’ve got your hands full with Baird, so we will just have to set ourselves to find someone for his father.”

  Jonmair was scheduled to serve in the Main Salon that evening. Every Sime with access to a Gen had brought that Gen along to heighten the experience. Zhag’s friend Thea and her Companion Janine were in the front row, both women dressed in pretty summer frocks, only their Householding rings indicating their affiliation.

  At the back, in the cheapest seats, Jonmair spotted Vent and Mern, the young channel/Companion pair who had intercepted Baird at his last transfer. They were not Householders, and Jonmair wondered whether Mern was also forced to take the exam to earn the citizenship that should have been his by right.

  The costumes Zhag and Tonyo had chosen for tonight were new, elegant, but plain. Zhag was in black and Tonyo in white form-fitting trousers and shirt-vests with gold buttons. Zhag fastened his, but Tonyo wore his open almost to the waist. In the early autumn heat they wore no shirts under the vests, so everyone could see that Zhag had almost recovered normal Sime physique, while Tonyo displayed the defined muscles of a healthy Gen. It didn’t require zlinning to see that they had had a grand transfer and were, if possible, more post than the month before.

  Jonmair had wanted to embroider the vests, but the two men insisted that, at least for tonight, they remain plain. When she went to the dressing room before the show, she learned why.

  “Do you have your citizenship tags yet?” Tonyo asked her.

  “How did you know?” she asked, fishing them out of her pocket.

  He laughed and took them from her. “You’re too smart not to take the test. Haven’t gotten up the courage to tell Baird?”

  “He’s been away.”

  “If you’ll join us,” said Zhag, “you can tell everyone at once.”

  He picked up a box from the dressing table and showed her its contents: metal collars resembling the one she had worn in the Pen—but thinner, more flexible, and executed in what certainly looked like gold. Green tags set into gold frames dangled from both. One set were Tonyo’s citizenship tags. Another set bore Zhag’s name and tax number.

  Jonmair stared at the Sime. “You had these made—?”

  “To turn the tables on those lorshes in Lanta. After all, I’m as proud to be a Gulf citizen as Tonyo is.”

  “We had this one made for you,” said Tonyo, picking up a third gold collar. “If you don’t want to wear it, we’ll certainly understand.”

  “If it helps,” said Zhag, “there will be other Simes wearing them tonight.”

  “Conta?” Jonmair asked.

  “Yes,” said Zhag, “and Thea, and all the soldiers who could get in—we have a full house and then some. We’re running ahead of the turnover curve by a few hours, so everyone will be feeling as good as we can make them. It’s the right time to do this.”

  “We’re going to put them on just before ‘My Brother He Turned Out Wrong,’” Tonyo told her, picking up a pair of small pliers from among the coins, pocket knife, comb, string bag, and other odds and ends that he had emptied from his pockets into a box on the dressing table. With fingers as deft as a Sime’s tentacles, he fastened her tags to the gold collar and handed it to her. “You can decide from the mood of the room whether you want to join in.”

  She slipped the collar into her pocket, thinking that if she didn’t know what it was modeled after it could easily be taken for elegant jewelry.

  Zhag and Tonyo’s shows always went splendidly, but tonight was the first time they had been post at The Post. If their first performance had sent the audience wild, this one transported them to another world. There was no uncertainty tonight—everyone was ready for the experience of their lives.

  As usual, Tonyo did most of the talking, but when it was time for the highlight of the show, Zhag came forward and spoke to the audience. After the first night, they had moved their intermission to after what had become their signature song.

  Zhag explained, “We’re about to perform the first song Tonyo wrote, after he and I became transfer mates. As some of you know, Tonyo recently became a citizen of Gulf Territory.”

  There were cheers, and shouts of “Welcome, Tonyo!”

  Zhag continued, “I’m sure all of you know that our new Gen citizens are being given tags to mark that fact.”

  An uncertain murmur, but Jonmair could hear disapproval in quite a few voices.

  “Exactly,” said Zhag. “It doesn’t seem right that Gens wear proof of citizenship and Simes not, so....”

  Both Zhag and Tonyo produced their gold collars with the green tags dangling from them, and put them on.

  There were gasps from the audience—and then people began to look around as other Simes and Gens took out similar collars and put them on: Thea and Janine, Robert and Conta, Vent and Mern, some Sime~Gen pairs Jonmair didn’t recognize—but also here and there Simes not with Gens tonight. Several soldiers donned collars and waved to Conta and Robert. Two young Sime women who had been flirting with Tonyo all evening. And here and there other Simes all through the audience.

  There must have been thirty people, most of them Simes, wearing collars dangling the green tags. Very few were the elegant gold of Zhag and Tonyo’s, but all were the same design and all bore the green enamel tags.

  Wishing desperately that Baird were there and doing the same, Jonmair took out the collar Zhag and Tonyo had given her and fastened it around her neck. She shivered at the memory of Old Chance fastening the cold, stiff, unyielding one when she was taken from her parents’ home—but this
was different, she reminded herself. This collar she could put on or take off at will—it was her decision, and the tags on it said she was a free citizen, not an animal marked for death.

  As the crowd settled, waiting for Zhag and Tonyo to begin to perform again, she suddenly realized how Tonyo felt about changing his name: when it was his choice to mark a passage in his life, it was completely different from being forced.

  No one in the salon ever moved during “My Brother, He Turned Out Wrong.” Jonmair and the other waiters retreated to the bar and let the emotion wash over the audience. As had become ritual, the audience demanded that the song be repeated, and at the end tears fell all through the house.

  After a break, the musicians played their usual variety of songs, and during the Unity Hymn with which they ended their performance everyone stood and sang triumphantly. Afterward, the audience filed out into the other crowded rooms, while Zhag and Tonyo went by the back staircase to the Gold Salon to eat and hold court.

  It was still Jonmair’s duty to join them, adding her hunger to the ambient so that the guests would enjoy the buffet now laid out with dishes marked “Sime,” “Gen,” and “All Larities.” Jonmair wondered what larities other than Sime and Gen the sign painter had had in mind. Although foods suitable for everyone took up most of the buffet table, there were as many special dishes for Gens as for Simes. She tasted them cautiously—growing up in a family of Simes, she had never had Gen foods before.

  Thea and Janine joined the musicians, Zhag and Thea flirting discreetly while their Companions urged them on. Delivering drinks to the table, Jonmair overheard Tonyo tell Zhag, “Go ahead and leave. You deserve some private life. I’ll cover for you.”

  “Robert and Conta will escort me home,” Janine added.

  Jonmair wondered, not for the first time, why Thea’s Companion seemed to have no one to share postsyndrome with. Or perhaps she did, back at Carre.

  When the crowd finally thinned in the Gold Salon, Zhag and Tonyo went to their dressing room and Jonmair reported to the gambling hall. It was still crowded with people waiting for Zhag and Tonyo to make their usual appearance.

  Most of the soldiers who had attended the concert were now at the gaming tables—Jonmair had noticed that the veterans of the Western War preferred either the dice games or poker, and that Simes and Gens seemed equally likely to come out winners.

  All the soldiers wore the collars with green tags, even those who had not been at the concert. The Gen soldiers brave enough to follow their Sime matchmates into Gulf were all as popular with their fellows as Robert was, and their friends resented anything that proclaimed them second-class citizens.

  The soldiers who had saved the continent from Zelerod’s Doom were heroes to most people. The vast majority of Simes populating The Post tonight had known nothing about Zhag’s idea—but naturally people asked what the collars meant.

  Someone found scissors and colored paper, and soon more than half the Simes in The Post wore makeshift collars with green paper tags dangling from them, ID’s and tax numbers penciled on. Jonmair served drinks and collected tips and congratulations, basking in the friendly atmosphere.

  All that was missing was Baird. She had seen him in passing when he arrived home, but he had disappeared upstairs with hardly a word. Was he still with his father? How ill was Treavor Axton?

  Jonmair could not dwell on her concern, for it was her duty to keep up the good spirits of their guests. Tonyo entered the salon with three pretty Sime women, but no sign of Zhag. No one seemed to care, though, as people flocked to talk with the young Gen and bask in his postsyndrome.

  Eventually the crowd thinned, Tonyo left with his entourage, and only inveterate gamblers remained at the tables. Jonmair’s duties were over for the night. Baird would know where to find her if he wanted her, so she went up to her room.

  She had forgotten about the gold collar, which, unlike the one she had worn in the Pen, did not bind or chafe. It was flexible enough to roll up and go into her pocket.

  That was where it was when she went downstairs the next morning. Once again the breakfast hall was empty, but in the kitchen Penta was preparing a tray with trin tea and cereal with a few berries. “I’ll try to get Mr. Axton to eat a little,” she said.

  “Take him kafi,” said Jonmair.

  “But he’s in Need—”

  “Only the beginning of Need,” said Jonmair. “He drinks kafi all month long, Penta. You’re never going to turn him into a Householder.”

  The other Gen woman nodded. “I know. The idea is to keep him alive long enough to find him a matchmate.”

  “You actually like him, don’t you?” asked Jonmair.

  “I don’t dislike him—he’s willing to let me work here.”

  “Only because having Gens around increases profits.”

  Penta chuckled. “What’s wrong with that? Last night was amazing. Who would think that a place like this would take the lead in promoting Unity?”

  Jonmair took some of the cereal with berries and tea, but without company she didn’t feel very hungry. Baird did not put in an appearance, and now that he was no longer studying, Tonyo would not show up until lunch time—especially today.

  She completed the cleaning tasks on her list, then showered, and went to the sewing room. Once again her basket was filled with torn linens, tribute to last night’s revels. How she hated the boring work that kept her from the designs she wanted to make! She would even be willing to make new dresses for Emlu’s girls, something that would make them look just as sexy without appearing so...cheap.

  But she was free now, although she had not told Treavor Axton yet. She could leave here today—Miz Delancy would be happy to hire her. So why didn’t she just go?

  She knew the answer, of course: Baird. If she left The Post she might never see him again, never become his transfer mate. Besides, she liked life at The Post—all but the endless laundry, cleaning, and mending.

  A memory entered her mind, unbidden, for she tried never to think about her family. Yet...about four years ago, her father had asked for a raise at his job, but his boss had turned him down. So he had gone out looking for a better job—and when he found it, he returned to his boss with the news, and was promptly given the raise he wanted if he would stay.

  Perhaps, if she could come to Treavor Axton saying someone else was willing to hire her to do more challenging work than cleaning rooms and mending linens, he would allow her to give up those tasks and take on designing.

  By the time she met Tonyo in the kafi shop, she had decided to talk to Miz Delancy. “You’re looking determined,” he told her. “What’s going on?”

  He was wearing his gold collar and enamel tags, and looked as if he had not had enough sleep last night, for pleasant reasons. It was a feeling Jonmair had known a few times herself.

  “I haven’t told Baird or Mr. Axton about my citizenship yet,” she explained. “I’m going to ask for better use of my skills here...or else I’m going to look for work elsewhere.”

  “Good for you!” said Tonyo. “Zhag and I will give you references—but I can’t imagine the Axtons being crazy enough to let you go.”

  I hope you’re right, she thought, just as Baird joined them. He looked terrible. Jonmair could tell from the way she was drawn to him that he had passed turnover without her help, but that alone did not account for his pallor, or the drawn look about his eyes.

  He glanced at Tonyo’s collar and frowned. “What’s that? I’ve seen half a dozen people wearing them this morning.”

  “Moral support for Free Gens,” Tonyo replied.

  “Huh?” Baird replied blankly. He looked too tired to think. “What are Free Gens?”

  “Gens who have passed the citizenship exam,” Jonmair supplied.

  “Oh, that,” he dismissed it. “If they’ve got the guts and the ability to do it, why do they need moral support?”

  Tonyo took off his collar and showed Baird the tags. “Because these are what they’re giving ou
t to those who pass.”

  Baird squinted at them, and rubbed his forehead with his fingers while his dorsals massaged his temples. “Oh, shen,” he said softly, recognizing what the tags represented. “On a collar like that?”

  “No—the collars are to protest the tags,” Tonyo replied. “Reverse psychology, like Keon’s chain.”

  Baird nodded. “Count me in, but please don’t bother my dad about it. I’ve never seen him have such a bad turnover. He...doesn’t expect to survive his next transfer. I’ve been with him and his lawyer all night, setting his affairs in order.”

  “Oh, Baird!” Jonmair whispered, taking his hand.

  He stared at their joined hands, and then at her face, something dawning in his eyes. He looked from her to Tonyo and back, his laterals out to zlin, leaving pleasant little tingly trails where they touched Jonmair’s skin. “Thank you,” he said. “Both of you.”

  “For what?” asked Tonyo.

  “For letting me feel what I’m feeling.”

  “That’s what we’re supposed to do,” said Jonmair. “I wish I had been there to support you.”

  “Dad didn’t want you there. I’m sorry. I could have used your support, but he would not have Gens present while he set everything up just in case....”

  Jonmair didn’t say anything—what was there to say? Treavor Axton would not allow a Gen to help him, and without a transfer mate he probably would die soon. She didn’t love the man the way his son did, but she didn’t want him to die. What she wanted was for Treavor Axton to accept her as a person, as an equal, and one day...as his son’s wife.

  * * * *

  FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, BAIRD AXTON tried merely to maintain his sanity. He kept Jonmair with him as much as he could, but his father would not tolerate her near him, and she still had her work, while he had his and his father’s as well. After a couple of days, Treavor Axton declared he would have no Gens in his presence at all, ending attempts by Penta Coyt and Tonyo Logan to ease his painful descent into Need.