by Jean Lorrah
What Tonyo could not understand, what no Gen could, was how close the killer instinct remained beneath the surface. Zhag would never kill again—he would die first—but he knew as the Gen could not how the memory lurked in the blood, in the nerves, a life-long stamp of shame.
“You’ll never understand,” Zhag repeated. “The last thing these Simes need—” he deliberately chose to use metaphorically the word usually reserved to mean only the Need for life force “—is to be reminded of their junctedness.”
“No, Zhag,” Tonyo replied in the identical tone of voice, echoing Zhag’s nageric tone beat for beat, “it is the first thing they...need.” He pushed his blond curls out of his eyes and said, “We know what it means to be junct.”
Exasperated, Zhag shook his head. “You can’t—”
“I can, and you know it!” Tonyo told him. “Any Companion is capable of killing a Sime with a flick of his field—but we don’t. Zhag—” the Gen’s field told him how serious it was to him “—you are less likely to kill than I am. I have the strength. I could underestimate it, or simply be so angry or so frightened that I overreact. I don’t know my limits—but you know yours. You’ve been tested, and I haven’t. You drove the Kill from your life. Why do you act as if it were something shameful?”
And all Zhag could fall back on was, “You’ll never understand.”
“Well, make me understand!” Tonyo insisted.
For answer, Zhag picked up his shiltpron and began to play Tonyo’s song. A channel—a Sime with a dual selyn system—Zhag also performed on the nageric level, imitating Tonyo’s performance of the song that had become the Gen’s signature.
The song was about the old days, and the old ways of...only six years ago for Zhag, less than four years for most of the Simes he knew. And for the Simes here in Pueblo Territory, the days since the Last Kill were measured in mere months.
Tonyo began to sing, his selyn field leading his voice and Zhag’s shiltpron, throbbing with sorrow. It was the first melody Zhag had composed after Tonyo had rescued him from slow and agonizing death. Restored to health by a transfer mate whose field characteristics matched his own, Zhag had also found the musical partner of a lifetime. He had known the boy could sing, but not that the young Gen could write lyrics that wrenched the heart of any Sime post enough to hear them—while his nager worked even more effectively on the rest.
Simes zlinned the world with special senses that enabled them to hunt down Gens, and the closer they came to Need, the more they relied on those senses. Very few Gens could handle a Sime in Need the way that Tonyo did, and none could without training. The current solution was for channels to stand between the Sime and the Kill, taking selyn from Gens without hurting them and transferring it to Simes to assuage their Need. The problem was, junct Simes craved the sensation of the Kill, and very few channels could duplicate that feeling. Especially those who themselves had never killed.
Zhag’s own wife, Thea, a channel who had never killed, could not really understand—so how could a Gen like Tonyo? Untrained Gen reaction to a Sime’s attempt to draw selyn was fear and resistance—and when Simes drew against that resistance, they killed Gens by burning out their nervous systems. Once a Sime had known killbliss, the Sime’s body would crave it forever after, no matter how much his mind abhorred the idea of killing.
Zhag shuddered. The vibration of his field affected the drone strings of the shiltpron, producing eerie notes that Tonyo echoed—and then mutated from fear and shame into—
“Stop that!” Zhag ordered.
“I’m following you!” Tonyo protested. “Zhag, every time we reach this point, you project shame. It’s been worse with every performance since we left home.”
“But what you are projecting—”
“—is Gen response to Sime Need. You won’t finish it, and you won’t let me finish it. You break off when everything is hopeless.”
“That’s what that song is about—the days when it was hopeless if someone turned the wrong larity. You never had a brother turn Sime, but I had a brother turn Gen.”
“I know,” said Tonyo. “And you didn’t look at it as hopeless! You tried to take him to the border.”
“He was killed anyway,” Zhag said bitterly.
“Yes,” Tonyo said, laying a gentle hand on Zhag’s shoulder. “But getting caught doesn’t change the fact that you tried. You were just a kid yourself—never mind that Sime law says you’re an adult the moment you change over. You had the courage to break a bad law. That’s what the song is about: the courage to say, ‘No, I will not kill my brother, my sister, my son, my daughter.’ And for Gens, ‘No, my brother, my sister, my son, my daughter does not deserve to be shot down like a mad dog just because they turned Sime.’”
Perhaps the ultimate cruelty of the Sime~Gen mutation was that no one knew until adolescence whether they would be Sime or Gen. One-third of children born to Gen parents became Sime, one-third of children born to Sime parents became Gen, and there was no way to know which larity a child would be. There was no family, Sime or Gen, untouched by this tragedy.
“Never again,” Tonyo was saying. “That’s what every Sime says who has come to Pueblo Territory. No one should live in fear of puberty. No parents should be afraid to love their children.”
“Perform it that way,” said Zhag. “Perform it the way we always have, Tonyo.”
“I will. But if you put fear and shame into it again, I have to counter. I have to, Zhag! We’re symbols of hope. The people of Pueblo Territory know that ‘junct’ doesn’t have to mean ‘killer.’ They are ready to die for that belief.”
“Most of them will die,” Zhag reminded him. “Or else be forced to—”
“No,” said Tonyo. “That’s the past. For the future there is only hope—the reason they are here. We have to show them what we really are.”
“Junct?”
“But not killers.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not? Why not, Zhag?” His Companion’s dark blue eyes bored into Zhag, the Gen’s field probing, trying to draw from him the shameful truth—
“No!” Zhag took a deep, shaky breath and closed himself off from Tonyo’s field. “We won’t perform the song, then. Do you understand me, Tonyo? If you can’t do it the way we always have, leave it out of the setlist!”
Tonyo nodded. “I hear what you are saying, Zhag. But I still don’t understand why.”
By evening, the little town of Dis Junction was crowded with Simes. Although there were two other bars, the saloon was the only one that could accommodate live entertainment. Designed to seat fifty people comfortably, tonight it was packed with over a hundred patrons, all Sime except for a few children. The single Gen on the premises was Tonyo Logan, for the only other Gens in town were Companions to the channels at the local dispensary. Two channels and their Companions were supposed to be here, but one pair had gone to attend a changeover, and the others were detained with the extra work.
It was the first time on the tour—the first time since they had begun performing outside small, intimate shiltpron parlors—that there was not at least one other Sime~Gen pair to help control the crowd. They had required help only once, in Capital City. But that, Zhag reminded himself, had been a crowd of more than five thousand, their biggest audience ever. Still, it had been fortunate that there were channel~Companion pairs all through the crowd. They had done two more concerts in Nivet, to crowds nearly as large, without incident...but also without performing Tonyo’s signature song.
Zhag quelled his pre-show jitters and followed Tonyo onto the platform. A Gen who walked confidently among Simes meant Companion to these people, but although Tonyo was technically Zhag’s Companion, that was not how he thought of himself, nor was his approach to Simes the least bit clinical.
“Good evening!” he greeted them, his field throbbing a warm welcome that was instantly projected back at him. He grinned, as if he could feel it—and Zhag, seated at the back of the platform, suspec
ted that in some way Simes could not understand, he actually did.
They started with some workers’ songs known on both sides of every border, music to raise spirits and encourage everyone to pull together. They served equally well to bring their audience together for the concert.
It was an easier crowd to please than any in Nivet Territory, where they had had to win over some tough skeptical audiences. But they had given their all, and even the Capital City concert had ended in triumph despite the shaky middle. Tonight, though, everyone present had come to have a good time.
Porstan flowed, and combined with shiltpron music had its usual intoxicating effect. When everyone was feeling mellow, they moved on to the old Sime blues songs that Tonyo performed so well. Zhag grinned to himself as his partner sang of Pen taxes and being shorted, with appropriate nageric accompaniment. Those in the crowd using the senses they shared with Gens kept having odd moments of realization that they were seeing and hearing a healthy young Gen, while they seemed to zlin a jaded old Sime.
The applause shook the crudely constructed building until Zhag feared the floor might collapse under them. It didn’t. Tonyo bowed, and gestured Zhag out from behind his instrument. The roar of appreciation was backed with nageric approval. He bowed shyly, feeling naked without his shiltpron. Without the flamboyant Tonyo Logan to front for him Zhag would never have sought star status.
At this point, they usually played “My Brother, He Turned Out Wrong” before taking a break. With that song out of the setlist, Zhag left the stage, assuming his Gen would follow as quickly as the crowd allowed. Thirsty, Zhag worked his way toward the bar. He tried not to shy away from people who reached out to touch him, explaining that no, he could not accept offers of drinks, the house was supplying them—
Suddenly the notes of Tonyo’s guitar rang out. The crowd instantly lost interest in Zhag.
Zhag was trapped at the bar, where the hostess shoved a glass of porstan into his hand and whispered, “Shen—never thought a Gen could be sexy before!”
But Tonyo’s appeal to women was not Zhag’s concern—the Gen was singing “My Brother, He Turned Out Wrong”!
I’ve got to stop him! Zhag thought, looking for a way to reach the stage before Tonyo started another riot. The crowd was caught up in the familiar tragedy—Zhag remembered the first time they had performed this song, to an audience much like this one, nerves raw with disjunction, reminded of why they endured for the sake of son or daughter, sister or—
Would Tonyo stay with the original song? Zhag prepared to grasp the fields if necessary.
But to control fields, Zhag had to zlin...and when he zlinned Tonyo as he sang,
“My brother, he turned out strange—one day we just didn’t know him—”
“Stop!” Zhag shouted. “Tonyo! Stop it, right now!”
But the Gen continued singing.
Zhag fought his way toward the stage as Tonyo built and built toward the only possible end: pain—grief—fear—shame—
“Noooo!” Zhag howled, trying to stop Tonyo—stop him before the Kill!
Hands and tentacles held Zhag back. Losing touch with any but Sime senses, he threw off some people, but others closed in like water, their fields a miasma of grief, pain, and fear.
Killmode seared Zhag’s nerves—raw Need for Gen pain.
Not again! No! Never again!
But before Zhag regained control, those least in Need among nearby Simes surrounded him, held him back—
—to protect Tonyo!
He was pushed to the floor and literally sat on by junct Simes intent on protecting his Gen partner. No whips were drawn, no punches thrown—
But, Zhag realized as the music stopped abruptly, all Tonyo saw was his partner disappearing under a mass of Sime bodies! Tonyo flared fear—not for himself, but for Zhag.
But Gen fear was Gen fear. Simes near Tonyo turned—
Ignoring them, Tonyo barreled through the crowd by using his field as a bludgeon, charging to rescue his fallen partner.
Zhag tried to call out that he was all right, but there was too much weight on his diaphragm. Tonyo pushed through the last row to where he could actually see—
Zhag zlinned Tonyo’s field pull in sharply and knew what was about to happen. He stopped zlinning, his voice a croak too soft for the Gen to hear him warn, “Tonyo, don’t—!”
The Simes piled on Zhag collapsed—as did the first rank of those surrounding.
Tonyo pulled limp bodies off him. Zhag sat up, gasping for breath and trying to calm the turmoil in his selyn systems. “I’m—all right,” he managed. “You shouldn’t—have done that.”
“I’m sorry,” Tonyo responded contritely—but he meant for the song. What had them in big trouble now was the Genslam.
For Zhag had seen what Tonyo had not: the sheriff’s badge adorning the shirt of a Sime now slumped on the floor.
The law officer moaned and dragged himself to his feet. Unsteady, tainting the ambient with a sick headache, he nonetheless did his job.
“Show’s over, folks. Everybody not hurt, go on home.”
He looked at the bodies on the floor, extended his lateral tentacles, and zlinned. “Nobody’s dead.” Zhag let out the breath he had been holding, realizing he had been afraid to zlin for himself. “Be mornin’ ‘fore we know who wants to press charges.”
Zhag still sat on the floor. Tonyo knelt behind him, hands on his shoulders, laving him with his field.
“I’m all right,” Zhag said. “Help these other people.”
The sheriff turned sharply. “Don’t either one of you touch them! Not with your fields, neither. I’ve sent for a channel. You two are under arrest for inciting a riot, reckless endangerment, assault and battery, and you, Tonyo Logan, for assault on an officer of the law.”
There were only two cells in the Dis Junction jail, and no other inmates, but the sheriff followed the tradition of caging Sime and Gen separately. Handing the keys to the deputy on duty, the sheriff gulped down some fosebine to ease his headache and returned to the crime scene.
Tonyo came to the bars between them. “Come here, Zhag. Let me help you!”
But Zhag was pacing off the dimensions of his prison, locked in his own emotions as much as in the cell. The Gen’s words were mere noise. “Zhag! What’s the matter with you? Talk to me! Tell me it’s all my fault. Say something!”
Zhag ignored him. If he zlinned the Gen held in the next cage while he descended into Need, he would go mad.
And the way of madness led to the Kill.
So he paced, maintaining control by closing himself off to everything outside his own mind.
After a while, Tonyo turned his attention to the female deputy. Zhag became peripherally aware of a flirtation, and some small, sane part of his mind wondered if his partner, who always had his pick of women, seriously thought that he could influence an officer on duty.
But Zhag dared not think of anything except control. Must not zlin. Must not zlin the Gen in the next cage—
There were words he didn’t listen to, shared laughter.
Then the Sime woman left.
The Gen came to the bars again. “I asked her for food. We have a few minutes of privacy, so tell me what’s going on!”
Zhag heard the concern in the Gen’s voice. He resisted, moving as far away as he could get, only a few paces in the small cage. Throwing himself down on the bunk, he stared at the ceiling.
The jail cells were old Gen cages, with wooden roofs of the same rough construction as the rest of this thrown-together town. Such cages could easily hold a Gen, but—
Zhag leaped to his feet, swarmed up the bars separating him from the Gen, and punched a hole in the roof.
“Zhag! What are you doing?!”
With Sime strength, he ripped boards off, leaned down into the other cage, and held out a hand. “Come on!”
“Are you crazy? We’re in enough trouble!”
“I won’t hurt you!” he reassured the reluctant Gen. “We�
�ll run for the border. Come on!”
The Gen gave him a puzzled look, and Zhag grabbed his arm, wrapping his four handling tentacles about firm Gen muscle. The Gen stared at his captured arm for a moment, then accepted Zhag’s help to climb out.
There were lights in all the bars, and horses still tethered up and down the single street. Zhag snagged two that appeared to be in good condition, far enough from the activity that they wouldn’t be heard. Protest in every move, his Gen nevertheless followed.
Once out of town Zhag finally dared to zlin. They rode at breakneck pace, no time to talk now, time to run, to escape—
Just over an hour later they crossed the border. Zhag pulled his tired horse up, and zlinned for someplace safe to rest. Moonlight revealed a rock formation. They dismounted, and Zhag led the way to the sheltered area.
“Now you’re safe,” he told the Gen.
“I may be safe,” said Tonyo, “but if they catch you here, we’re in big trouble.”
Zhag blinked owlishly at the Gen in the light of the waxing moon.
“Do you think I can’t read a map, or don’t know which direction the moon rises?” Tonyo asked him. “This isn’t the way we came from Nivet. You headed for the nearest border, Zhag—we’re in Green River Gen Territory.”
“You’re safe here,” Zhag repeated.
“I was perfectly safe back in Dis Junction!” Tonyo said, concern overlaying everything else in his nager. “Zhag—what did you think they were going to do to me?”
“They’re junct,” Zhag said grimly.
Tonyo said firmly, “They are good people overstressed with the effort of disjunction. Just exactly what you were when we met—and you didn’t kill me, did you?”
