RenSime s-6

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  It has to be the K/A fraction of kerduvon that’s causing the abortifacient effect!

  There were two possible approaches: remove K/A from the purified kerduvon mixture and see if the remainder still acted as a disjunctive, or produce purified K/B and see if it acted as the disjunctive.

  She set Jarmi to work trying to coax their chromatographic technique to extract K/A from kerduvon while she worked at nursing higher and higher yields of K/B out of her synthesis. Meanwhile, she ordered cadaver brains, both Sime and Gen, through Azevedo’s supplier, knowing it would take weeks to get them.

  The bench work was tedious and draining. Time after time, she stopped herself from snapping at Jarmi or Azevedo—or the crippled old Sime man who came daily to clean the apartment. She tried telling herself it was just loneliness for Shanlun, but then came the nightmares.

  The first shattering episode came as she stretched out on the lab cot to wait for a solvent to clean out one of her columns. Her feet hurt, and her back hurt, which was hardly surprising since she’d been at it for nearly fourteen hours without a break. So she gave herself a half hour to relax, knowing she couldn’t sleep because of the need gnawing at her.

  But she drifted just under the barrier of sleep, where half-waking she watched dream images of all the Gens she’d ever known flitting across the screen in her mind. Each nager had an individuality she’d have recognized through a closed door. She dwelled on each Gen nager, savoring the memory, entertaining the tactile fantasy she’d never let herself indulge in when she’d known them: tentacles around cool Gen arms, moist Gen lips on hers, rich fabric of nager penetrating—penetrating …

  No! Shestarted awake, heart pounding, disgusted at herself for she

  realized every last shred of her disjunction conditioning to seek a channel when in need had gone. She was vulnerable to almost any Gen now. And most of them were vulnerable to her.

  She still had twenty minutes to wait. Fixing her thoughts firmly on Jarmi, she lay back, staring at the gray ceiling. She had to let her eyes close.

  She was a child again, playing with channel dolls, fantasizing what it would be like to be a channel.

  She was a channel, experiencing each month the full force of need that the Tecton protected renSimes from—because, tempted, any renSime would kill helplessly. And she was in need now, stretched out on the contour lounge in the transfer suite of a big city Sime Center. Her Donor would arrive any moment now. She could afford to savor the essence of need, to probe her fear of it. She could rely totally on this Donor.

  The door opened, and the room flooded with sparkling gold, like a cascade of powdered gold caught in sunlight, creating a brilliant rainbow of joyful color. The tall blond Gen who followed that nager into the room was a trim, handsomely muscled man, with clean smooth features, calm in the anticipation of real pleasure—the slil only the First Order four-plus channels and Donors could share.

  He spoke, voice as cool as his ineffable skin. The calm penetrated, surety replacing her fear. Need became a pleasure too intense to bear. Anticipating her, Shanlun joined contact, letting his nager turn to a sunlike furnace that raised her intil beyond all flesh-and-blood limits until she was seizing his selyn, drawing it into her dark, aching void in pulse after pulse, giving Shanlun the same life-worshipping satisfaction she was taking …

  No! She woke sweating, her ronaplin glands aching as ronaplin oozed from her lateral wrist orifices, the laterals themselves peeping from their sheaths as if searching for the reality behind her dream. She wiped herself, thinking, Idiot. It could never be like that with Shanlun. I’m no channel.

  She forced herself to get up and find something to do until Jarmi got there at dawn. The Gen was aware of Laneff’s strain and went out of her way to be kind. Several times, she tried to start a conversation about the qualities of transfers, but Laneff shied from it. That night, Laneff was determined not to let the nightmares overtake her again, so she rested sitting up poring over her notes.

  And she fell into a light doze, head cradled on her arms. She was in the disjunction class at Teeren, the Rialite Last Year House, going on their first excursion. The class was taken into the closed wing where the in-crisis cases dwelled.

  They were obliged to watch a disjunction attempt. A Sime woman

  with long, stringy brown hair and a twisted scar on her calf, was brought into the disjunction theater. The room was built on two levels—an open pit surrounded by balconies where students could watch undetected because of the thick selyn-field insulation woven into the glass.

  Laneff had a front-row seat, peering down Into the white circle of the floor. A trained Gen Donor stood to one side; a Tecton channel to the other. The brown-haired woman was in need, her long-fingered hands clutching themselves nervously. There were dark hollows around her eyes, and dreadful fatigue in every line of her body.

  The woman stood, searching between the two offers of transfer, zlinning the fields and comparing them. Laneff knew that to disjunct was to choose the channel, to choose freely to eschew all transfer contact with Gens forever. She watched the woman in the scene below, begging her silently to choose the channel, to be free and live.

  She took a step forward, wavered toward the channel, another step, arms reaching out embracing both channel and Donor, and then she plunged, swift as lightning, for the Gen!

  The contact was joined before Laneff absorbed the fact, and as she gasped, the Gen below was thrown clear of the Sime as if by an electric shock. The Sime woman fell to the white floor, convulsing, thrashing and screaming. Instantly, the channel was on her, fighting her movements, capturing her arms to force a lateral contact.

  One moment he had it, the next she ripped free. Again, and again they fought, the Gen now joining the battle. The Sime’s struggles became ever more feeble. Laneff caught only glimpses of the twisted grimace on the woman’s face, but it turned her stomach to see such agony, for she understood it now. A trained Donor couldn’t be killed by a renSime, and only the kill could sustain that woman’s life.

  Gradually, the thrashing subsided. Laneff’s fingers against the glass no longer registered the vibration of muted screams. At last, the feeble protests, the mewling cries of desperation, ceased, and the Sime woman slumped into a boneless heap—forever still, forever free of need—dead.

  Not

  She woke, mouth gaping, throat open in what might have been a soundless scream or a retching. Her tentacles were clutched around her fingers so hard she had to pry them loose and wait for the pain to stop before she could resheath them. It shouldn’t be this bad yet! I’ve so much more work to do!

  All the next day she could hardly think two thoughts connected. She was sitting despairingly over the disjointed scribbling that should have been a cogent experimental plan, when Azevedo came into the lab.

  “Oh, at last!” said Jarmi. “Azevedo, will you talk that stubborn woman into quitting for the day?”

  Azevedo came close, zlinning her. “You’re hungry, Laneff, and tired. When was the last time you took a shower? When was the last time you even poked your nose out of the lab?”

  She couldn’t remember. “Not very long ago.” Three days?

  Jarmi came over. “I cooked her a marvelous dinner last night, but she wouldn’t come up to eat it. And when I brought her a tray, she left it untouched. I still have a good four portions in the refrigerator upstairs. Azevedo, why don’t you and Desha join us for some really exotically spiced food?”

  The channel smiled, coaxing Laneff to her feet by tugging on one elbow. “Laneff, I have about as much appetite right now as you do, but Desha will be hungry. She’s got her class out in the courtyard drilling them in coordination. Why don’t we just pick her up on the way?”

  Agreed, they shut down the lab. Laneff grabbed a journal to read during the break, aware of how behind she was in her reading. They climbed the front stairs to the courtyard door where she’d said goodbye to Shanlun, and she asked Azevedo for news. “Nobody has heard a word, nor has ther
e been anything from Mairis. But Shanlun can take care of himself, don’t worry.”

  She discovered to her dismay that it was a torrid summer day outside, with lowering clouds and no wind. The city drowsed about them, people outside the gypsy bands living indoors under air conditioning. The gypsies, however, preferred nature unalloyed and had their windows open. As always, gypsy children, dogs, cats, and family tumult abounded in the yard.

  Amid all this, Desha had a class of young Simes jogging around and around the courtyard, leaping obstacles, tossing objects, and chanting. Meanwhile, their fields were doing the oddest gyrations, flickering through a wide inventory of emotions and degrees of intil. In the center, near the fountain, Desha trotted about in a smaller circle, tracking them and shouting instructions. Among the Simes, Gens wove some sort of braided pattern, further churning the already dizzying nager.

  Laneff had never seen or heard of anything like it. Gypsies watched from the open windows, as awed as Laneff, but amused by people who’d work so hard in such heat. Azevedo beat a straight path through to Desha, spoke a few words, gesturing toward the doorway where Laneff and Jarmi waited, and Desha called out something to the class. They stopped in their tracks, folding gracefully down to rest.

  While Azevedo and Desha spoke, other children scattered about the court began to yell, running toward the alley that led to the main street. It was no game. The Simes of Desha’s class rose, most augmenting slightly, and followed the children to the mouth of the alley, forming a cordon.

  Azevedo walked along behind them, Desha at his side. The children’s yelling became belligerent and rose to hysterical pitch as they swarmed into the alleyway. A second-story window opened over the alley, and a Sime man leaped to the ground just in front of the children, facing the distant street. Another window opened farther down on the other side, and a Sime woman leaped out.

  Laneff looked at Jarmi. “Invasion?” They shrugged at each other, then began walking across the court. They’d always had the impression that this place was deliberately kept private, but they’d never seen an outsider attempt entry. They were barely halfway across the court, mixing with the Gens of Desha’s class as they pulled into position behind the Simes. The ambient nager was thick but firm with a kind of menace in it.

  Through it all, though, Laneff zlinned something familiar. Gen. She ran, augmenting, leaving Jarmi far behind.

  She came even with Azevedo as he breasted the double row of Simes across the alley mouth. Cutting through the cordon, she zlinned the Gen nager. Not Shanlun. Yuan!

  Azevedo, too, had made that identification. “Desha!” he called over his shoulder, running down the alley. The close, damp stone walls framed Yuan, cloaked from hair to boot tops in a forest-green and chocolate Householding cape, woven with heavy insulating fabric. He was swaying on his feet, facing the two Simes who’d jumped down to challenge him.

  Unable to muster the strength to speak, he crumpled to the ground —unconscious. Laneff arrived at his side just as Azevedo did, opening the cloak to find a bloody mess of a shoulder wound, pluming selyn– and roaring pain through Laneff’s raw nerves. The thrill of that washed the shock away, and she went hyperconscious, soaring into high intil and lusting after killbliss as she never had before.

  The next thing she knew, with a rending shock, she was in Jarmi’s arms, two channels shielding her from Yuan’s pain. She barely had time to catch her breath when two more Simes arrived with a stretcher, and they bundled Yuan off into Thiritees, leaving only two Simes behind to explain to the gypsies.

  Several anxious hours later, Laneff and Jarmi were called to the Thiritees infirmary. Laneff thought she had her reactions under control, more worried now about Yuan—and Shanlun—than about her own peaking need.

  The infirmary was located on the top floor of a two-story addition to the building that stuck out at an odd angle to the bathhouse wing. It was painted inside in dozens of colors, with filtered lighting adding more color—like living inside Shanlun’s nager. Speakers provided soft music and potted plants hung everywhere, flowering in many colors.

  Azevedo came out of one of the rooms. He seemed tired but triumphant. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked. The bullet went cleanly through his shoulder, nicked a tendon. But it should all heal very nicely now. He’s lost a lot of blood. This must have happened three, four days ago. Laneff—you should take transfer before you try to talk to him.”

  She shook her head. “The longer I can delay, the better chance my baby has of being viable—when I die. It’s not bad, now.” She nodded to the two channels who’d worked to stabilize her. “They’re good. Thank them for me.”

  Azevedo said something in the Rathor dialect, and the two channels responded politely. But he was zlinning Laneff the whole time. “All right,” he agreed, “but they have to come in, too. I can’t do it all.” He seemed like a weary old man. Need is eating him up, too. He’s waiting for Shanlun.

  As they entered the sickroom, Azevedo muttered instructions to the two channels escorting Laneff. A sort of misty cocoon formed around her in the ambient nager. Jarmi was like the sun, hidden in a fog just tattered enough to show a glowing disk. Yuan was another diffuse center, like the moon.

  Two channels flanked by their Donors attended Yuan, one on each side of the high wicker-frame bed. A wicker nightstand held a lamp, lit because the drapes were pulled shut. There was a pitcher of a dark fluid by the bed. The whole room was done in shades of orange and cream. Yuan was propped up against a huge pile of pillows. “Laneff!” His eyes slowly refocused. “Jarmi!”

  “Yuan!” they said in unison, then Laneff asked, “What happened?”

  Azevedo added, “We all want to know everything, but now isn’t the time for details. Is there anything we must know now?”

  Yuan swallowed, thinking. “I don’t know how to say this. I think– I’m not sure, understand—but I think Shanlun is dead.”

  The silence in the room broke as someone translated for those who hadn’t understood Yuan’s Simelan dialect. And then the shock echoed even through the damping nageric fog.

  Gradually, the story came out, amid many halts. Shanlun had found Yuan in the small depot which he’d chosen to go to if the first had been hit by the Diet. He’d gathered his lieutenants for a conference, taking stock of the losses which were still going on. His Distect forces, however, had given as severely as they’d gotten.

  Even handicapped by their Sime contingent’s being unable to operate out-Territory, the Distect organization had been able to cripple the nerve center of the Diet. Nevertheless, the Distect was in ruins. Top executives had been assassinated, funds were choked off, communications broken down.

  “I told Shanlun to tell Mairis that the Distect was gone. I told him to tell Mairis that if they wanted me to, I’d come out in the open and repudiate our alliance with him in person. But I also told him I didn’t think this would be a good idea. Given time, I can rebuild.”

  “There’s been remarkably little of this in the news,” said Azevedo. “The assassinations were attributed to organized-crime syndicates.”

  Yuan nodded, obviously hurting, but Laneff felt none of the pain. “And the rest of the violence has been reported as mysterious fires, explosions due to sewer gas, and they’re calling my headquarters labs a sinkhole!” He frowned. “I’ve assumed Mairis has been requesting the media to downplay it. He is winning in the polls now.”

  “That depends on which poll you read,” said Azevedo.

  Laneff hadn’t read any papers, and the building had no radio or television. “Yuan, what about Shanlun?”

  “The Diet—I believe it was the Diet—hit us just before dawn, when he was about to leave. Everything went up in fire and smoke– one of my Simes killed, and I was too slow to stop one of our newest recruits from shooting him down. I pulled a burning timber off Shanlun, and we dragged each other away from the building. I’m not sure when I got shot. Somewhere, I passed out. When I woke up, I was alone. Some branches had been piled over me,
and I was half buried in earth—though I expect my nager was plain enough to zlin. I hurt! All but three of my Simes were dead, and the others burned or suffocated in the basement of the farmhouse we were using. We were out-Territory, you understand; I shouldn’t have had Simes there, but we really had no place else to go. Most of my Gens were dead, too. We took a lot of those shendi-fleckin’ Diet lorshes with us, but we’re effectively dead now. That was all the rest of my leadership! I should have died with them!”

  Denial rung in Azevedo’s nager, but he said nothing until Yuan looked up at him. “Shanlun wasn’t among your dead?”

  “Not that I could identify. He’s the crazy hero type. He might have gone back into that building. Burned like that, there’s no way we could have identified his body. He wasn’t even wearing his Householding jewelry!”

  “I don’t believe he’s dead,” said Azevedo thoughtfully.

  “We have to face facts,” said Laneff, gritting her teeth. “He’s probably dead—or, worse, prisoner of the Diet!”

  “I didn’t think Shanlun would have just left me like that. So when I

  couldn’t find him, I hiked on down the road, across the border. Found some picnickers and stole the cloak—House of Gabriel, I think. Got to return it …” He trailed off into sleep.

  One of the Gens took the glass from his hand, and silently they all left the room. “I imagine,” said Azevedo out in the hallway, “Shanlun told Yuan how to find us here without realizing how badly Yuan was wounded, and then went on with his mission.”

  He’s in need and wants Shanlun. It’s wishful thinking. But everything in her cried out for it to be true. She couldn’t bear to lose Shanlun after everything else. Yet another side of her, a self that seemed a stranger, said, It’s better this way. Now, when you die, he won’t suffer this. And the baby would live on after both of them.