RenSime s-6

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

They danced around each other on the lawn, and then Fay dragged Laneff inside. The house held odd, heavy cooking odors, and the furnishings exuded a background of smells that added up to different. In a whirlwind tour, Fay displayed the family possessions with pride and explained things with adult-sounding confidentiality. “Now, this is where you’ll get to sleep—right in my room. I made up the spare bed myself.”

  Closing the door, she began hauling out special treasures, chat– tering madly. Laneff remembered how she’d behaved the same way when Fay had come to visit her. They had met at a summer camp in-Territory, and become fast friends when they discovered they were both set on becoming Donors. Laneff had pleaded and begged until she was allowed to have Fay come stay with her at the Sat’htine children’s dwelling where she lived. But she’d won only because she’d insisted on it for the Union Day holiday. Quite unexpectedly, then, Fay’s parents had insisted that Laneff come to their house for Faith Day. The Sat’htine foster parents in charge of the residence had consulted Laneff’s parents, and after much deliberation—during which Laneff piped up with urgent suggestions, begging and pleading and even crying until she was sent from the room, insisting she’d run away if they didn’t let her go—the adults had permitted her to come, but only for two nights and one day in between.

  That afternoon, Fay and Laneff played Sime Center with Fay’s collection of Sime and Gen dolls; she even had a channel doll that lit up to show both the primary and secondary systems in the channel. When she was in transfer mode, the doll’s channeling system was brighter. Otherwise, the regular system was brighter.

  It had been the happiest afternoon Laneff could remember, but it was followed by the most difficult dinner ever. She was very careful to say “Mr. Ravitch” and “Mrs. Ravitch,” but her command of English beyond that evaporated. The food was strange, and though they only gave her vegetables, she knew the gray stuff they were eating was meat. It stank. Her stomach revolted, and she just picked at her food.

  But that night made up for the ordeal. She and Fay lay awake until nearly dawn just talking. In the small hours, the topic naturally came to changeover. “Since I’m a Farris,” said Laneff, “and known not to be a channel, it’s practically certain that I’ll be a Gen, and a whopping good Donor, too.”

  “I’m gonna have to work to get that good,” responded Fay wistfully. “But I have a cousin who’s a four-plus Donor, and he says I have the personality for it.”

  Laneff woke to Fay’s mother calling them to breakfast. She ached from overexcitement and lack of sleep and was wholly uninterested in food, but it was Faith Day today. Mr. Ravitch was already outside cutting the grass, and she and Fay were alone at breakfast, so Laneff got away with eating only a banana and some milk. “I’m saving my appetite for the party.”

  Soon, all Fay’s aunts, uncles, cousins and their assorted in-laws began arriving. A swarm of children, tots to teens, thronged the backyard, playing tag games Laneff didn’t know. But she ran with them anyway and pretended to belong. After a while, one of them took her aside and explained the rules, and she began to play in earnest. She even won a few times, and by the time Mr. Ravitch had a smoky fire going in the stone pit near the patio, she felt a warm friendliness among Fay’s relatives.

  The spring sun was hot, the air still, and the sky almost Zeor blue. Some trees were in bloom, yellow daffodils around their bases. Women were spreading the table, ferrying pitchers of cold drinks and cookies to the children. Laneff drank and ate a couple of the big cookies, but they seemed to settle into a lump in her stomach.

  Not wanting to run anymore, she sat down on the lawn. Soon, the girls joined her while the boys ran off to the front yard. From the open windows of the house, the echoes of utensils clattering against porcelain drifted around them. In some other yard, a radio played. The girls concocted a sedate game of “trin tea and truth” in which they lied and giggled.

  Tardily, Laneff remembered the Faith Day gift she’d brought and sprinted upstairs to get it from her overnight case. She ran back with the flat, polished wood case and presented it to Mrs. Ravitch. Other mothers gathered around exclaiming, “How nice—a Faith Day gift from in-Territory!”

  Mrs. Ravitch opened the case discovering the array of cheeses, each wrapped in a different-colored paper. She put the whole case on the table, making Laneff translate the labels on the cheeses.

  The smoke from the fire hung over the patio tables during the entire festival meal, and the vile odor ruined Laneff’s appetite. She ate a few bites of something she thought had meat in it, thinking, Since I’m going to be Gen, I ought to be able to eat what Gens eat.

  Inside, after the meal, the television was turned on, showing the traditional Faith Day Pageant at Westfield’s Border Stadium. It was the one familiar observance so far, and it made Laneff homesick. One of the men turned from the television, wiping his hands on the white towel around his waist as he returned to the sink where he’d been washing dishes.

  “They’ve got heavy storm warnings up for tonight.”

  A chill foreboding shot through Laneff, and after that families began saying early goodbyes. Soon the house was empty again, bags of litter stacked by the back door, piles of clean dishes on the table. All the toys were out of the toy closet in Fay’s room. “Those boys!” she stormed, about to go yell to her mother, but Laneff promised to help her put them away, and she quieted.

  Outside, the wind picked up, battering trash against the house. Laneff huddled cozily under the blankets. Fay slept. Laneff, though, couldn’t fall asleep. She didn’t feel well. Her head ached and she had weakening waves of nausea. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that stuff!

  She held off as long as she could, then crept to the bathroom down the hall, closed the door, and by the night-light alone, she curled up on the floor by the toilet.

  Gusts of wind drove torrential rains against the window, and whistling breezes filtered through the cracks, chilling Laneff. At last, though, she retched productively, and it Was an immense relief.

  Before it was over, both Fay and Mrs. Ravitch were with her. Laneff had wanted to come here so badly, had begged and stormed as never before in her life, and now she was shamed beyond measure. But Mrs. Ravitch seemed oblivious to that. She provided a mouthwash and a fever thermometer. Laneff had seen such devices on television, but had never had one thrust into her mouth before. A channel merely made lateral contact and zlinned for the problem. When Mrs. Ravitch took the thing out, Laneff said, “It’s probably just another food allergy.” “But you do have a slight fever …” Fay asked, “Could it be changeover?”

  “Oh, shen!” swore Laneff. She’d never given that a thought despite all the years of training she’d had. Fay, whose only real experience had been the in-Territory summer camp, had gone to the heart of the matter. Laneff’s own fingers found the tender spots along her arms where nerves and glands were developing to serve the tentacles that would be there in a few hours. “I should have known hours ago!” Mrs. Ravitch cast a dark glance at the window and then ran a cool hand over the back of Laneff’s neck, probing for the gland at the base of her skull that would swell during changeover. “We’ve got time. Fay, help Laneff get dressed. I’m calling the Center.”

  It was remarkably easy to follow Mrs. Ravitch’s calm orders. When Fay and Laneff arrived downstairs once more, Mr. Ravitch was dress– ing while trying the phone with one hand. He slammed the handset down as they appeared. “Phone’s out. I’ll have to get the car out and see if I can get through to the Center chopper on the transceiver. Fay —why are you dressed?”

  Mrs. Ravitch came in buttoning a slicker. “If we leave, we can’t leave Fay alone. She’ll have to come.”

  “Maybe not,” answered Mr. Ravitch. “Fay, go over to the Milins’ and see if you can wake them. You can stay there.”

  Laneff said, “I don’t see how the Center patrols could be up in this wind.” She was beginning to be scared. Mrs. Ravitch let Fay out the front door, fighting to close it again. “Maybe, but don’t
worry. It’s only about an hour’s drive by car.”

  Laneff had overheard enough of the arguments against her coming here to know that it was actually about an hour and a half from here, and the Center was a small, minimally staffed out-Territory installation for collecting selyn and dealing with ordinary changeover. This was the first moment of her life when she was glad she wasn’t a channel. Such an out-Territory Center would never have anyone on staff who could serve the voracious First Need of a Farris channel.

  Mr. Ravitch tried the car radio to no avail, and Fay came back drenched pleading that she couldn’t wake the neighbors. Then they were in the car, moving slowly through sheets of rain. The two girls had the back seat. Mrs. Ravitch sat beside her husband talking patiently into the car’s radio. Fay coached Laneff through the rough transitions of changeover, holding her reassuringly, reciting the learned speeches with real conviction. It helped.

  But in one place, a tree blocked the road. Another street they tried was flooded out. Laneff’s arms hurt now, her new tentacle sheaths stretching with the fluids, the thinning membranes over the wrist orifices stinging.

  Then the car radio crackled to life, and before long a bright light swept into the car, hurting Laneff’s eyes. Mr. Ravitch opened his window to talk to a slickered man.

  “Road’s closed,” said the man. “Fire.”

  “We’ve got a kid in changeover. Got to get to the Center.”

  “What stage?”

  Fay answered, “Five, I think, but she’s going real fast. She’s a Farris, but not a channel.”

  Laneff could see the wrinkled face of the Gen by the light of his lantern. He chewed his lower lip, then turned away and called to some men. He stuck his head in the window again, and said softly, “Officer Swatek is a Third Order Donor, so don’t worry now. He’s going to lead you to the Center. If it takes too long, blink your lights at him, and he’ll come back and give her transfer. Don’t drive too fast. It’s dangerous out there tonight.”

  As the moment drew closer, Laneff’s world narrowed to Fay’s warm body holding her. She held on, breath after breath. Her insides became a black emptiness, devoid of life, warmth. Despite all her training, the cold void within terrified her.

  In desperate imagining, she thought she could sense the glowing halo of selyn around the adults in the front seat. Am I zlinning?

  As the thought formed in her mind, the spinning world outside the car settled. They were in the courtyard of a large old stone building. Choppers were tied down under wind-whipped canvas. Windows were bright.

  The officer who’d guided them dismounted from his two-wheeler and came to stick his head in the window.

  At that moment, something ticked over inside Laneff and her hands convulsed shut into balled fists. Every muscle strained to press the fluids in her sealed sheaths against the wrist orifice membranes, to break them and free her tentacles. The spasm let up for a moment, and she was being pulled out of the car. Then it happened again, the world disappearing into sparkling blackness—localized balls of warmth that attracted her.

  On the third contraction, her tentacles shot free into the cold wind, spurting fluid everywhere. The shock brought her duoconscious for a moment. She was kneeling in the rain, soaked but laughing wildly over the new freedom. Then the cold numb terror was back, and the world disappeared into shifting points of energy.

  Bright ones far away made the nearby one seem the answer to everything. She reached for that ball of brightness. It withdrew slightly, and that shattered the dreamy state. Suddenly, she knew what she wanted, and she went for it.

  Her tentacles lashed themselves about the bright Gen flesh, the four handling tentacles on each of her arms securing the grip so the laterals would not be dislodged.

  Once she had the grip, the Gen yielded willingly. Selyn blasted into her consciousness for the very first time, and she surrendered to the reflexive draw, slaking the dark need that macerated her insides.

  As she forced selyn to come faster, there was a sharp flash of searing white overload. The selyn changed, became harder and hotter, like a scream of delicious fright, as the Gen resisted. It cut through to her and lit up her innermost being with the exultation of Self over Other: sheer egobliss. But before it was enough, the selyn flow cut off abruptly. Ice-cold needles of pain showered through every cell of her body. She came to bare consciousness, dimly aware of the limp weight sliding from her wet, pain-weakened tentacles.

  One framed moment etched into her consciousness: the Gen officer’s head lolling to one side, mouth agape, eyes staring.

  Then tentacles sought hers, her need still shrieking through her nerves, worse for being thwarted of satisfaction by the Gen who died too quickly. She yielded to the source of selyn that folded her in a bubble of blurred fields—a feeling of utmost privacy and bottomless selyn.

  She began to draw again, seeking to re-create that moment of peak overload. A moment of struggle for control, and the instant of egobliss was on her again—but oh, so briefly.

  She came to awareness again, the stinging rain, the cold bright lights, the surging hiss of rain blurring speech, the scratch of her clothing against her arms, all claimed her full attention. The glowing fields around people had disappeared.

  The corpses of the people she’d killed slumped on the pavement frozen in grotesque positions.

  She was renSime, never to be Gen, never to participate in the channel’s service. She might have lived with that, but now she was also junct. The Gen who’d offered her transfer had known her to be only a renSime, and had been unafraid until her draw had built relentless pain, nerve burn and death. The Second Order channel had understood only that a Farris renSime had killed and still needed. He had not anticipated that her draw speed could kill him. Had he been prepared, he could have aborted on her—but, out-Territory, he had not even considered such a possibility.

  That trip out-Territory had been the last time Laneff had prayed to get something she wanted, the last time she had dared to want something so urgently that she cast aside all thought of consequences. The price of getting what she wanted had been just too high.

  Wakening, she nestled against the massive Gen nager, letting it fill her core with brightness so she could feel as if she were herself Gen, could sense her own selyn building outward in pulse after pulse of clean, sharp energy in eternal abundance.

  Clinging to that illusion, she could admit to herself that her First Kill was still her standard of excellence, her standard of satisfaction by which she measured all other experiences. Small wonder Jarmi fell short, as did every channel who’d ever served her. Even the kill of the terrorist had not been the same. She had not gone at him with that same freedom from considering his feelings and the consequences.

  Shanlun was right. What I achieved in disjunction has held. She knew that in two weeks, she would again go through turnover into need and become a threat to any Gen who couldn’t handle her. She had nothing but her naked will to keep her from the kill, and for a renSime that just wasn’t enough. The craving for killbliss would drive her at any Gen who experienced pain or fear, or who dared to offer her selyn, as that Gen officer had. In need, she would not dream of channels anymore, she’d dream of Gens—in deathscream. And if that’s not junct, then what is? I must be careful.

  Shanlun’s arm circled her, heavy with sleep, possessive. Fully awake now, she heard a distant roaring, and zlinning she discerned a nageric turmoil to match the roar.

  She sat up, shaking the Gen. “Shan! Something’s wrong!”

  He mumbled, then wakened smoothly. “What? What is it?”

  She scrambled to dress. “Can’t zlin much through these walls, but our corridor is full of people in battle dress!”

  He struggled into his clothes. “Could be the Diet attack. What time is it?”

  “Four twenty-three,” she said, heading for her own office to grab up the copies of her notes she’d prepared for just this emergency.

  The two of them were halfway to the lab entra
nce when the door banged open and shut behind Azevedo and the four gypsies. At the same moment, the speakers came on with a squawk and electronic howl. Then a coded horn call played twice through before it was cut off in midnote.

  In the silence, Azevedo said, “That means the Diet has broken into the warren. Yuan has ordered all his people up onto the surface. He’s prepared to blow this place up.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” asked Laneff. “This is a dead end.” But that was irrelevant. “Never mind, we can get out through the hangar. There may just be time enough!”

  She led them back into the corridor where the mob scene had abated. There were sounds of fighting in the distance, and the occasional blunted thud of an explosion. “If they get into the selyn batteries, we’ll be in the dark!” said Laneff.

  Behind her, the Gens linked up with the Simes, prepared to keep moving even in sudden darkness. She stopped beside Azevedo at the intersection with the main corridor. People were running, dressing as they moved. The fighters on watch were no doubt engaging the Diet raiders. These were the noncombatants and the Simes too close to need to be thrown into a melee against Gens.

  Laneff pulled Shanlun up beside Azevedo, giving them directions to the hangar exit. “Stay with him, Shan. I’ve got to go make sure Jarmi woke up. She sleeps like a stone.” And there was now a tang of smoke in the recirculated air.

  She took off, weaving among the Gen figures, augmenting slightly. She’d gotten new shoes since her disastrous slip on the tile floors. And these floors were composition, not as slippery or noisy. But still she moved with utmost caution. Before long, she became aware of Shanlun behind her—and Azevedo with his gypsies strung out in a line behind them all. She shrugged. There was no time to argue.

  Jarmi was dressing when Laneff arrived, and the Gen took time to ask the irrelevant questions Laneff had avoided. Exasperated, Laneff grabbed Jarmi’s wrist and towed her out the door. “Didn’t you hear the evacuation horn? Move!”

  With the Gens to consider, Laneff couldn’t augment. She had to move at their speed. The air was choked with smoke now. The fans were off, producing an ominous silence.