by Jean Lorrah
Carla knew he could zlin that she wanted some private time with Tony. The Sime disappeared into one of the bedrooms, and after a moment, soft strains of shiltpron music drifted out. She was not sure if he was really that eager to play, or if he was reassuring her that he was concentrating on something other than the emotions of the two Gens in the next room.
Tony plopped down on the couch and patted the seat beside him. Carla sat, leaning on him in the old familiar way. “Tony, I have some questions,” she said.
His chest vibrated with laughter. “Even I’m too tired to do anything but talk.”
“I don’t know where to start. For instance, matchmates. Are you the only Gen who can give Zhag transfer?”
“No. He could go for months on transfer from channels or other Donors, but he’s at his best with me. And if I left him...even if the Tecton were willing to try to find him another match, it isn’t easy.”
Carla put the spoken and unspoken thoughts together. “If you were permanently unavailable...?”
“Zhag would probably die.”
“Explain that. Why can’t he kill? It can’t be just having Gen friends—we still get cases right here in which a child changes over and kills a friend or family member.”
“Yes, and they come into Sime Territory as emotional wrecks. Disjunction is very hard, but Sime children of Gens have all the incentive in the world. Carla, I’ve witnessed profound change in the past fifteen years. Parts of Gulf Territory were already Unified before I got there—Norlea was one of them. But Zhag was too old to disjunct when he first went to Norlea.”
“He’s only a few years older than you are.”
“Simes can only disjunct during the year after changeover. Later, they can become semi-junct, killing once or twice a year. When I first went to Gulf Territory it was full of semi-juncts raising their children to be nonjunct. But semi-junctedness is an unstable state. Eventually the Sime sees all Gens as human beings, and aborts out of any kill. Carla...Zhag was already far down that road—but when he accepted a Gen as partner in his life’s work, he speeded the process. The channels couldn’t force transfer into him, he couldn’t kill—if I hadn’t been able to give him transfer, he would have died.”
“But,” said Carla, “other Simes do still kill. You mentioned Secret Pens? In Sime Territory they are still raising Gens like cattle to be slaughtered?!”
Tony’s face was pale beneath his tan. “Yes,” he said flatly. “There are still a few semi-juncts alive. In some Sime Territories the Tecton is so opposed to anyone but channels receiving direct Gen transfer that they won’t even try to make matches. To me, that’s murder—of the semi-junct Simes who die in agony, and all the Gens they kill before that happens.”
Carla stared at him. “This is the world you want me to join you in?”
“Carla, if there were no Secret Pens, there would be far more Free Simes. After only fifteen years, with the exception of the handful of nonjuncts and disjuncts who formed the Tecton, almost every Sime who signed the Unity Treaty is dead. Yes, the Sime governments agreed that all Simes would stop killing. But even in Gulf, juncts far outnumbered nonjuncts and disjuncts.
“But people understood things couldn’t go on as they were. With more Simes living longer, and most Simes killing twelve Gens each year, soon the Simes would have killed all the Gens, and then died themselves. The end of humanity.”
By this time Carla was shaking. “We had no idea what the Simes were promising, did we? An entire generation in essence agreed to die, for the sake of the future.”
“And you wonder why I respect them?” Tony asked.
“It’s going to take me time to absorb all this,” Carla admitted. “Damn you, Tony Logan—you’ve turned my life upside down again!”
“We’ll set it right,” he said tenderly, and kissed her. It was not a passionate kiss, but one of promise. “I’ll see you again when we come back for the Faith Day concert. I hope, before then, you’ll visit me in Norlea.”
“How do you get to be so hopeful, Tony? So trusting?”
But Tony was silent, listening to the music from the next room. It had settled into a melody. Tony sang,
“Come share a dream, my life’s dream,
All that was meant one day to be.
Trust in yourself, trust in my dream.
And we’ll have no more walls between.”
Carla sighed. “If only it were that simple.”
“It is,” said Tony. “Territory governments complicate it. The Tecton complicates it. But it really is that simple, Carla.”
“For dreamers, maybe.”
“Well,” he replied, “if no one dreamed, nothing would ever be accomplished, would it? There’s my second verse. When you hear this song on the radio, remember, you’re its inspiration.”
Carla laughed. “When you had so much trouble with literature in school, who’d have guessed you’d end up a poet?”
“Words are good,” he replied, “but sometimes actions are better. I’m not so tired after all, are you?” And this time when he kissed her it did stir passion.
And dreams.
About the Author
Jean Lorrah lives in Kentucky with her dog, Kadi Farris ambrov Keon, and two cats, Earl Gray Dudley and Splotch the Wanderer. The cats are licensed therapy animals who visit schools and nursing homes.
Jean has published more than twenty books through the years, several of them award winners and best-sellers. She teaches the occasional creative writing workshop in person, and with Jacqueline Lichtenberg runs a free workshop online on their domain, www.simegen.com. For information on her latest publications, essays on writing, and anything else currently going on in her life, visit:
www.jeanlorrah.com
