To Kiss or To Kill

by Jean Lorrah

  “Jonmair,” Baird managed.

  “Were you going to attempt transfer despite Thea’s warning?”

  “She...wanted to,” Baird explained, “but I could sense bravado behind her selyur nager.”

  “That’s dangerous,” said Zhag.

  “I didn’t mean to let it go that far. It felt so good. By the time I realized....”

  Zhag said, “You did the right thing. Jonmair has to have time to recover from last night. But Tonyo,” he added to his Companion, “Baird is not a channel. He can’t bounce back from a Gen’s pummeling him. Be careful what you do to him.”

  “He’s just supporting me,” Baird defended Tonyo, who was indeed as professional as any Householding Companion at that moment, his field easing Baird’s shock without engaging.

  Zhag rummaged behind the bar and came up with a vial of fosebine. Baird accepted a dose, Need for once useful in masking the foul taste as he forced it down.

  “When is your appointment?” Zhag asked. When Baird told him, he shook his head. “You’re in hard Need. Let us escort you to the dispensary.”

  “No,” Baird choked out, refusing to give in to yet another weakness. “I’ll wait for my appointment.”

  “Then stay with us,” said Tonyo. “I have to have a nap before our performance, or I’ll fall asleep on stage!”

  Zhag said, “It’s soothing to be in the room where Tonyo is sleeping.”

  So Baird went with them to their dressing room, where Tonyo sprawled on the divan and dropped off to sleep like the healthy young animal he so often resembled. Zhag dozed in a comfortable armchair. Baird looked through a stack of books piled on the dressing table, and chose one on the founding of Carre, from the Householding library. He knew the general story, but this volume contained excerpts from the letters and journals of those who had dared to try in Gulf what they had learned from travels into other Sime Territories.

  Eventually the fosebine soothed his nerves, and the peaceful nageric interaction between Zhag and Tonyo eased his mood. When Zhag stirred and said, “It’s time for us to get ready for the show,” Baird got up and stretched.

  “Time for me to make my rounds before my appointment. Thank you—both of you,” he added, as Tonyo sat up, yawning.

  “Stay with us till it’s time to go,” offered the Gen.

  “I have duties just as you do,” Baird told him. “I’m fine now, thanks to you. I can hold out for another hour.”

  Although he didn’t want to. When he left the bubble of quiet created by Zhag and Tonyo, the ambient nager of The Post hit like an ocean wave. The familiar mix of humor, lust, and greed was overlaid this evening with bittersweet memories of what had occurred last night.

  The house was small, probably a third of the patrons they had had last night, but the inveterate gamblers were in their usual positions. Others had come seeking excitement, entertainment...anything to escape thinking.

  The main salon was already filling—no one let tickets to one of Zhag and Tonyo’s performances go to waste. Baird supervised the new security measures, but stayed out of the salon itself. Jonmair was in there, serving drinks. He could zlin that she had not donated. Could he manage to be in her company to walk over to the dispensary? If they were finally to succeed at transfer next month, they had to remain on the same schedule.

  * * * *

  JONMAIR HAD TO COVER MORE TABLES THAN USUAL that evening because Baird had stationed Sime staff members at all entrances to make certain no one brought in anything the size and shape of a fear gas cylinder.

  No one minded the security. They probably would have rioted if anyone had tried to take away their knives or whips, but those had never been a problem at The Post before, so there was no reason to ban them now.

  During her first shift in the gambling salon, more people than ever talked to Jonmair, asking her about last night. She didn’t mind telling how Baird had saved her life, although it hurt to remember how he had used his new-found control to refuse her just an hour ago. He’s the one who’s afraid, she told herself, feeling perfectly safe, high-field in a room full of Simes.

  Her tips were bigger than ever before, and she smiled and controlled her field, not wanting to entice anyone but Baird. She could go to the dispensary alone, but always before she had gone with him. She glimpsed Baird once on the other side of the large room, but he was obviously avoiding her.

  It was a relief to go to the Main Salon for Zhag and Tonyo’s performance, for there everyone’s attention was on the musicians. The performance was sold out, as all their shows were, and despite last night’s attack there were few no-shows.

  Zhag and Tonyo were in top form for the day after turnover: musically perfect, but not able to put the emotion into their performance that they did when they were post. They adapted their setlist to their cycle, and both were exceptional nageric actors. Jonmair suspected that the Simes in the audience were less likely than the Gens to notice that Tonyo didn’t bounce as much as usual, or that Zhag was more absorbed in the music and less in the audience reaction.

  When it came to the point at which the attack had come last night, Zhag said, “This is where we showcase Tonyo’s song, ‘My Brother, He Turned Out Wrong.’ Last night the performance was stopped before we could play it. But those thugs only succeeded in interrupting one performance.”

  Tonyo added, “Under the influence of fear gas, none of the Gens here could protect themselves. Not just Zhag, but many Simes here helped get us to safety.”

  “A few people,” said Zhag, “tried to take Gulf Territory back to the days before Unity. Their efforts were thwarted, not by police, not by soldiers, but by good people just like you. In the aftermath, this song takes on even greater importance: no matter how hard life is under Unity, when we remember what it was like before, we know it’s worth the effort.”

  As always, they had to perform the song twice before they could take their break. Then Jonmair began dispensing drinks again.

  Just before the lights dimmed, though, she told Lukis, the bartender, “Time for my appointment to donate,” just as if she were a Sime with a transfer appointment. He nodded, and Jonmair slipped out, looking for Baird. Had he gone without her?

  She could hear voices from Treavor Axton’s office. Thinking Baird was with his father, she started in that direction, but realized as she came closer that neither voice was Baird’s. Treavor Axton was arguing with a woman, the walls muffling their words.

  Jonmair retraced her steps to see if Baird was in the gambling salon, when a man emerged from the winecellar. She had seen him somewhere before—but he was not staff. What was a customer doing in the cellar?

  She would tell Baird, she decided. Holding her field neutral, she walked on toward the gambling hall, her focus on finding Baird. Behind her, the man exclaimed, “It’s young Axton’s Gen bitch!”

  “Let it go!” said another familiar voice, and Jonmair realized the only chance she had to reach Baird was if they thought that because she was Gen she was also deaf and stupid. Fiercely controlling her field, she wished she could control her wildly beating heart. She knew that man—last night he had thrown fear gas canisters from the back of the salon!

  Just then Baird came out of the gambling hall. The other Simes retreated into Treavor Axton’s office.

  “Baird!” Jonmair whispered, trying to shield both of them with her field, “something’s going on!”

  “I don’t care,” he answered. “We have to get to the dispensary. Don’t touch me!” he added as she tried to drag him into the small saloon that was not in use tonight.

  She had to use her field to make him come with her and shut the door. “Jonmair—no! I won’t risk your life!” he protested, obviously thinking she was going to try to seduce him into transfer.

  “No!” she insisted. “It’s that man—one of the ones who threw fear gas last night. He came out of your cellar! We have to get the police!”

  Baird was both staring at her and zlinning her. “The police searched the
cellar last night.”

  “Not then,” she tried to explain. “Now!”

  Just then Treavor Axton’s voice, in a harsh whisper, came clearly through the door they were leaning against. “I told you to get out of town! I won’t have The Post mixed up in your scheme!”

  Then another voice Jonmair recognized: Old Chance, the Penkeeper. “You shedoni-doomed morons! Why’d you come back here? Git the shen out afore someone zlins you!”

  “No,” Baird breathed, hardly loud enough for even Jonmair to hear. But it wasn’t his voice she was concerned about—it was his field. Those Simes out there were both killers and murderers. “Dad,” Baird murmured, and Jonmair realized why he remained rooted here, instead of going out the other door to alert the police.

  The thugs had come to Treavor Axton for protection. Had he known before last night what they were plotting? Had he had a tentacle in it?

  “Come on,” Jonmair whispered, tugging at Baird’s hand. “We have to get help!”

  “But...Dad,” he protested.

  “They tricked him,” she said desperately. “He didn’t know what they planned to do. Come on, Baird, before—”

  Too late.

  “Go out this way,” Treavor Axton was saying. “Take the back streets down to the docks,” and he opened the door to the small saloon just as Baird and Jonmair made a dash for the opposite door.

  In a flash Baird was pulled back and there were Simes on either side of Jonmair, one of them backhanding her. Though her ears rang, she now had a clear view of the curly-haired man she had described for Inspector Kerrk. The other thug held her other arm. Behind them were the woman from the bar, Old Chance, and Treavor Axton.

  Baird shoved the man on Jonmair’s left. Wainscoating cracked where he hit the wall, and Jonmair gasped, realizing how much selyn that augmented move had cost Baird.

  She sensed his increasing Need as he rounded on the man holding her right arm, knocked the whip out of his hand, and kicked him in the solar plexus.

  The second man fell unconscious, but pulled Jonmair down with him.

  * * * *

  BAIRD BENT OVER JONMAIR, FIGHTING DIZZINESS as the last of his selyn reserves whirlpooled away in the highest level of augmentation he was capable of. There was no time to think, only to act on instinct to protect his Gen.

  When he touched her, he zlinned only the selyn brimming within her, carrying a warning—?

  He zlinned two Simes converging at his back, while behind them his father projected a strong negative.

  Baird kicked Old Chance’s feet out from under him, but the Sime woman who followed was young and strong and armed with a knife. The first man he had dispatched climbed to his feet, grasping Baird’s upper arms and turning him so that the woman’s knife—

  “Nooo!”

  Baird was thrown hypoconscious, his Sime senses deserting him as two voices howled the word in concert. His father leaped at the Sime woman, trying to wrench the knife from her hand, as Jonmair’s grip on Baird tightened as if under augmentation.

  Depleted, struggling to remain conscious, Baird prepared to kick the man trying to pull Jonmair from his grasp. Why couldn’t he zlin? Was this attrition?

  The fighting Simes dropped like sacks of meal.

  Baird found himself staring into Jonmair’s eyes. “Genslam,” she explained—and suddenly he could zlin again.

  For all the good it did him. On the edges of his awareness, he sensed other people arriving, too late to help him...but Jonmair was safe. From somewhere, he found his voice. “Live, Jonmair,” he told her, and fell into cold darkness.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  PARTNERS

  JONMAIR GASPED AS BAIRD DROPPED, a dead weight. She fell to her knees beside him, hardly aware of the other Simes sprawled around them.

  Had Baird used the last of his selyn augmenting to protect her, and died of attrition?

  No—she could still feel his Need!

  She had to press his lateral extensor nodes to force the delicate tentacles out of their sheaths, but once they emerged they instinctively sought her arms as she bent forward and pressed her lips to Baird’s.

  A whirlpool of Need dragged her toward a bottomless abyss. Survival instinct told her to resist—but if she could not fill him, Baird would die! Determinedly, she pursued the last spark of life in the man she loved.

  When Jonmair charged forward to meet the void, everything changed. If Baird was cold and darkness, she was warmth and light, spilling joyfully into the space so perfectly made to hold her. It was welcome, exultant, homecoming as she had only felt in her sweetest dreams—everything she could ever have desired.

  Too soon, it ended. Reluctantly, she lifted her lips from Baird’s, but thrilled as she watched the strained lines of Need disappear from his face.

  * * * *

  BAIRD WOKE TO THE MOST INCREDIBLE SENSATION.

  Sweet, warm selyn poured into his depleted nerves, not only giving him back his life, but making it worth living. No transfer, no Kill, had ever been like this.

  He recognized Jonmair’s field enveloping and supporting him, confident, secure.

  The luscious feeling ended too soon, but he was replete, strong, ready to face—

  Memory returned with a sick shock. Baird looked up into Jonmair’s face, seeing the bruise on her cheekbone where one of the thugs had hit her, her hair disheveled, but her smile beatific.

  His awareness moved slowly outward, encompassing the small room they were in—the little saloon, furniture overturned and broken. They were alone on the floor.

  Out in the corridor, though, was a whole crowd of people. He wanted to stay there, reveling in what they had just shared...but memory took him back to what had thrown him into attrition, and he had to open that door. Zhag and Tonyo stood blocking his view of—

  “Where is my father?” Baird asked, the last of his joy and relief dissolving as—

  The crowd parted, to reveal corpses. Sime corpses.

  Old Chance had not survived Jonmair’s Genslam, and neither had the man Baird had kicked in the chest. The other two thugs, still groggy, were held tightly by Post staff members.

  But Baird’s attention went to the third body lying in the corridor, a knife sticking out of its chest. Treavor Axton.

  “We saw it,” said Zhag. “Your father was trying to protect you, Baird.”

  Oh, how he wanted to believe that!

  “That woman was going to knife you,” said Jonmair.

  The police accepted Baird and Jonmair’s story, even though the two remaining thugs claimed that Old Chance and Treavor Axton, now safely dead, had plotted the entire attack on Norlea.

  Baird’s post reaction took the form of grief as he came to understand not only that his father was dead, but that at best he had known about the fear gas plot and done nothing to stop it. He clung to Jonmair’s hand as he told Inspector Kerrk, “Dad’s last transfer—I thought the channels matched him with a Gen, because he was so much better. But—he must have taken an illegal Kill. If anyone had connections to Genfarmers, it was Old Chance.”

  Kerrk eyed Baird and Jonmair’s clasped hands. “I’ll check the dispensary rolls. But I won’t find you two on them, either, will I?”

  “It was an emergency,” said Jonmair. “Baird used up the last of his selyn saving my life. There was no way to get him to a channel.”

  The police officer nodded. “You’re the reason I can believe Baird was not in on the plot.”

  “I think,” Baird managed to get out, “I think I know where they hid the fear gas before the attack. When Dad came home with Old Chance yesterday morning, he brought a wine barrel. He said we’d tap it after it had settled, but...now I think it wasn’t wine.”

  He took the police officers down into the cellar, where he himself had put that insulated barrel yesterday morning. It was still there, but when Baird lifted it he found it far lighter than the day before.

  The top, he now discovered, came off with a twist. It was definitely not a normal win
e cask. Inside, beneath heavy insulation and packed in cotton batting at the very bottom, were a few leftover fear gas canisters.

  He knew, Baird realized, guts wrenching. My father was a part of the plot.

  But Jonmair was saying, “Mr. Axton was a hard man, but he would never commit treason. If Old Chance told him that was a barrel of wine, he’d accept it as a barrel of wine. They were old friends.”

  Jonmair zlinned truthful because, Baird realized, she believed what she was saying.

  “If he broke the law to take a Kill, though...,” Kerrk suggested.

  “We don’t really know he did,” Jonmair said staunchly.

  Kerrk zlinned her, then Baird, and nodded to Gabi. His partner closed her notebook. “Well, Treavor Axton and Old Chance are both dead,” said Kerrk. “They’re beyond our law now. I’m convinced that you were not involved, Baird, but there will be more questions before it’s all over.”

  * * * *

  IT WOULD BE A LONG TIME BEFORE EVERYTHING WAS OVER. First there were funerals. Norlea rang with dirges. People joined funeral processions whether they knew the dead or not, mourning the injury to their fragile, tentative Unity. Funerals for Gens, something rare and private in the past, drew crowds of respectful Simes.

  Nearly everyone was post, so emotions ran high. Conta’s Robert was buried with full military honors, side by side with the man who had killed him, in the Norlea Army Post’s cemetery. A hastily erected marker named them martyrs to Unity.

  Conta herself was exonerated by a military tribune, as were all the other Sime soldiers who had murdered attackers on what had been labeled the Night of Fear. No Gens were even arrested, although a handful had managed to fight back.

  It didn’t appear that Jonmair would be charged with or even interrogated concerning the deaths of Old Chance and the thug who had died from her Genslam, even though it had not happened on the night when Gens could be forgiven anything done under the influence of fear gas. Either Inspector Kerrk discounted the effects of Genslam, or chose to ignore its implications. The official report was that the thug died of nerve and heart damage when Baird kicked him in self-defense, and Old Chance, already suffering from age and abuse of his system, died of selyn system failure from the dual deathshock of that man and Treavor Axton.