Ambrov Keon

by Jean Lorrah

  Rikki went back to working on the schedule board. Risa said, “Tell me about everyone on today’s schedule. I’ll observe them all eventually. If I can’t channel until I disjunct, maybe I can help with scheduling.”

  Before she knew enough for that chore, though, Risa found another job she could do for Keon.

  On her way to observe donations one day, Risa passed Nedd’s office. He should have come out at that moment; instead, the insulated door remained closed as she walked past and continued a few steps down the hall. She had never known anyone at Keon, Sime or Gen, to be late. She went back to the office. Despite the insulation, she could zlin faintly that he was in there, alone. And upset.

  “Nedd?” She tried the door, which opened to her touch. “Nedd, is something wrong?”

  He looked up from a mass of papers, deep frown lines etched in his face even when he relaxed so as not to disturb Risa in her approaching Need. “Just bookkeeping.”

  “Can I help?” Risa asked. “I’m good at bookkeeping.”

  “It’s taxes,” said the Sectuib. “According to this statement, we owe twice as much as I had figured—and I don’t know where we’re going to get it.”

  Risa had never seen such a shambles. “Who’s your bookkeeper?”

  “It’s my responsibility. Technically, I own Keon’s land, and all the Gens here. It’s not really that way, but by territory law—”

  “I know the law,” said Risa. “Look what you’re doing here—the tax assessor won’t allow you farm credit because you don’t sell your produce. But you use it for Gen food—put it in that column, and you receive full credit. Where are your receipts?”

  He handed her a box overflowing with slips of paper.

  “But they’re not in order! Here—leave this stuff with me and go take your donations. I’ll straighten this out.”

  It took until dinner time, when Sergi came to get her, but Risa matched the receipts to the credit categories on the tax form, reducing land and Gen taxes dramatically.

  The next day she attacked the householding account book. With the receipts already sorted, it took only a few hours to bring all up to date. In doing so, she found out precisely how precarious Keon’s financial state was. “Sergi, you don’t have any choice,” she told the Gen that evening. “If Keon does not start producing a salable product, you will bankrupt yourselves and be turned off your land.”

  “I’m working on it,” he replied, and took her to the metal shop. There he showed her six beautifully crafted teaglass holders in base metal. “I’m going to reproduce these in silver—” he began.

  “No, no—at least not now. These people can afford. Let me take them into town tomorrow, to the general store. I’m sure they’ll buy them—or at least take them on consignment. Start making more, in this metal and in brass. There’s only one person in Laveen I know of who can afford silver—and if I work it right, he’ll order them on commission, and pay twice what he would if I walked in with them ready made.”

  Risa spent a restless night, for she refused to allow Sergi to sleep in her room as Nedd insisted she ought to when she was approaching Need. She had never been so sensitive to Need before, nor had such nightmares. Over and over Alis died in her dreams, or Kreg, or Sergi; over and over she relived her father’s death, selyn pluming away to nothingness—

  She woke in a cold sweat, and realized she had slept less than an hour. It had seemed like hours on end while she was enduring it. She got up and paced. Kreg slept soundly in the next room; she would not disturb him.

  It was cold tonight—autumn came early in the northern hills of Gulf Territory. Risa flung a cape over her shoulders and left the guest quarters.

  The Gen dormitory lay over to her left, a small building similar to the guest quarters. There lived all the young people who had established but were not yet capable of handling themselves among Simes without supervision. Even those who did not become Companions soon learned to gauge Sime Need, keeping out of the way of Simes past turnover unless they had recently donated. In the daytime, with all the Gens awake and active, Keon was a ballet of shifting fields, choreographed so as never to place a Gen in jeopardy or a Sime in discomfort.

  And all that could be interrupted so quickly by juncts barreling through the gates or over the walls, to kill—

  Risa walked over to the walls. They were high enough to keep one Sime from vaulting them, but a group of Simes would be over in no time, climbing on one another’s shoulders. Was that how the juncts from Laveen had come in? There was a lookout, who zlinned Risa as she passed but did not challenge. The gates were closed—constantly closed, only a small door opened to let a person leading a horse in or out.

  There had to be a way to make Keon so acceptable to the local Sime community that those gates could stand safely open

  * * * * * * *

  DESPITE THE PROTESTS OF BOTH NEDD AND SERGI, Risa took the teaglass holders into town the next afternoon. She stopped at the bank, and displayed them to Tannen Darley. He was now in an expansive mood, having recently killed. “Fine work,” he said. “Where’d you get ’em?”

  “What do you care? They’re for sale.”

  “Hmmm. Nice design, but cheap metal. Can you get more—maybe in silver?”

  “I can commission some for you in silver,” she replied.

  “Ahah! Now I know where I’ve seen work like that! Keon,” he said, comparing his ring to the work before him. “What’re you doing trading with householders?”

  “When did you trade with them?” Risa countered, placing the tip of one handling tentacle on his ring.

  “I didn’t—I don’t want anything to do with them. But...they do make fine jewelry, and now this— All right, you want to trade with the perverts, you’ll make a profit. I’ll take a dozen, in silver.”

  Risa collected a deposit from Darley, gave him a receipt, and started out of his office in ill-concealed glee. Making money, even when it was not for herself, made her forget the discomfort of Need.

  Darley moved around as if to open the door, but instead barred her way. “Risa—you’ll have to kill in the next couple of days. Let me show you something.”

  “Uh—”

  “Right this way.” He led her out another door, and down a back street to a house that faced out onto the next street. He unlocked the back door, and Risa entered warily. He knew she was in Need, couldn’t want—

  “Daddy? Daddy, you’re home early!”

  A little girl of ten or eleven came running to meet them, dark curls bouncing. She wore an apron, and there was flour on the end of her turned-up nose. A smell of baking warmed the air, but in Risa’s condition it elicited no appetite.

  “Mmm,” said Darley, picking up the child, “what smells so good?”

  “I baked you a cake, Daddy—it’s s’posed to be a surprise. You’ll be hungry tonight.”

  “That I will, sweetheart. Risa, this is my daughter Susi. Susi, Risa Tigue,” he finished the introduction as he set the girl on her feet.

  “How do you do, Miz Tigue?” the girl said in practiced tones, dropping a curtsey.

  “I’m very well, thank you,” Risa replied, charmed by the beautiful child. With her huge blue eyes, dark hair, and delicate complexion, she would grow up to be a striking beauty.

  Susi’s father was clearly schooling the girl not to rely on looks or charm, for he said, “You’d better get back to the kitchen, Susi. You wouldn’t want that cake to burn,” and the girl left without protest.

  “What a lovely child,” said Risa. “You must be very proud of her.”

  “She’s everything I have to live for, since my wife died,” he replied. “Now, let me show you what I brought you here for.” He led her through an elegantly furnished parlor and down a hall.

  “I bought two Gens at the choice auction,” Darley said. “I was going to keep this one for next month, but if you’d like to make a whole day of it tomorrow—maybe the next day if you want to be really keen—”

  He went to his ho
lding room. Anxiety permeated the ambient nager the moment the insulated door was opened.

  Without thought, Risa was drawn a step into the small room, toward that tempting field. With a shock, she brought herself hypoconscious, denying her Sime senses.

  No! I don’t want fear!

  But she did when it was offered. Horrified, she faced the knowledge that since her first transfer with Sergi she had not been near a frightened Gen when she was in Need. The Gen she had taken to Carre—the ones they had passed in the caravan—all had been stupefied, not frightened.

  All but one, the girl who had been all defiance—and who now sat staring at her from the depths of Tannen Darley’s holding room. It was the same girl with the almost-white hair and pale blue eyes. She was now dressed in the culottes and shirt put on Choice Kills for transportation, but Sergi’s starred-cross still hung on her breast. She clutched it as the two Simes looked in at her.

  “Do you want it?” Darley was asking. “I thought tomorrow, Risa, but if you need it right now—”

  Risa’s Sime senses took over as the girl’s anxiety sparked to real fear at Darley’s words. Risa had never had a Choice Kill, a Gen who understood, delicious terror ringing in sweet thrills along her nerves.

  Risa’s laterals slipped from their sheaths, drinking in the luscious emotion. This was what she needed! This was the true Sime nature—not what they were trying to do to her at Keon!

  Alive in every cell of her being, she stalked toward the trembling Gen.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE GEN BECAME LESS FEARFUL—still anxious yet hopeful. The shift brought Risa duoconscious, and she saw recognition in the pale blue eyes. The girl clutched the starred-cross so tightly that Risa could feel its points digging into the palm of her hand.

  The girl took Risa for a householder come to rescue her, a miracle unquestioned in her desperation.

  I want to kill her, Risa realized. I want the pleasure of shattering that pale hope into shrieking terror.

  I am no better than Brovan—worse, as I am still a day away from hard Need.

  Never in her life had Risa been so out of control at this point in her cycle. Must get away from here!

  Fighting intil, grasping the shreds of her dignity, she squared her shoulders and sheathed her laterals by force of will. “No, thank you, Mr. Darley,” she said with a calm she did not feel. “I will not become addicted to Choice Kills.”

  “Have you seen what’s in the Pen?” he asked. “My wife caught shaking plague from a Gen from that pest hole! I’ve never touched one of them since, nor will Susi.”

  His mixed anger and grief cleansed the ambient, and Risa regained control. “Surely the health inspector—”

  “They closed the Pen, destroyed the Gens, and fumigated—and Nikka went right back to her old habits. So if you want this Gen—”

  “Not now,” said Risa. I can control!

  Fate had thrown this girl in her path twice now. If she could talk Darley out of her, how would she get her back to the householding without killing her along the way?

  “Mr. Darley, your generosity overwhelms me,” she said as she looked around the holding room for what had changed the girl’s attitude from defiance to fear. There were half-healed cuts and bruises on the Gen’s arms and neck, and a dark contusion on her left cheek. None of the marks were fresh, though; no whip hung in the room, nor did Darley carry one.

  Risa judged that the dealers at the choice auction, not Tannen Darley, had beaten the defiance out of the girl. She was still staring at Risa with those strange pale eyes.

  “Let’s...move out of this nager and discuss it,” she said, although her nerves screamed, Stay, terrorize, kill! The Gen’s nager lit with pleading at Risa’s words.

  When the insulated door was closed, Risa released control and almost collapsed. “Mr. Darley—”

  “Tan.”

  “Mr. Darley, I cannot accept such an expensive gift—”

  “It wasn’t that expensive—they had to knock it senseless to bring it to auction. No good for a Prime Kill then—but I meant to kill it next month. It’s already recovered nicely.”

  “Then let me buy...it.”

  “Risa, call it business if you prefer—a gift to a depositor likely to bring in a great deal of money. No more arguments. Stay the night, and enjoy your Kill tomorrow.”

  “No, I—my brother—” she fumbled, then, drawing on all the acting ability she could muster, she said, “I told you I refuse to become addicted to Choice Kills—you know I haven’t that kind of money. I will not accept the Gen as a gift because I would sell it—at a profit. If you will sell it to me, I know a buyer.”

  He burst into laughter. “Well, I’ve heard it said, for the right price a Tigue will sell you his boots in snake country! Now I’ve seen it, and I still don’t believe it.”

  His laughter died to a smile. “At least you’re honest. And you’ve saved me a trip to Nashul next month. I wish you the best of Nikka’s Pen...but do come back after your Kill, Risa. Surely even a Tigue has some relationships that are not purely business?”

  So Risa escaped with her secret and her dignity—but the Gen girl was still in Tannen Darley’s holding room. She avoided thinking about it while bargaining with the proprietor of the general store over the teaglass holders, but as soon as she was on the road to Keon her guilt rose again.

  She wasn’t superstitious. Her father had taught her to disregard tales of ghosts and wer-Gens and gypsy magic. Yet she could not shake the feeling that it was more than coincidence that she should twice have opportunity to rescue that same Gen girl...and twice fail.

  She allowed Sergi to sleep in her room that night. All the guest rooms had two beds, and the Companion was very much attuned to her, not questioning her agitated state.

  Risa presented Nedd with the money from the store and Darley’s deposit. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” she told him. “Make pots and kettles and—”

  “Risa, slow down,” said the Sectuib with a sad smile. “You’ve done us a favor, for which we thank you. We can and will make more teaglass holders, and other small items that can be made of base metal—but no food or drink containers.”

  “Why not?” she asked blankly.

  Sergi replied, “The lead in the base metal is poisonous. Pots and pans must be made of iron and tin.”

  “Well, make them of iron and tin, then!”

  “Where do we get the metal?” asked Nedd. “And if we could, how would we pay? We make small, artistic objects because we cannot obtain the raw materials to open an ironmongery.”

  Risa had no more answers. After bludgeoning down intil she had no energy to think, so she let Sergi take her back to her room, her Need distanced by the promise of his selyn.

  That night she slept, as Sergi assured her that she would not have nightmares. He was half right.

  Risa dreamed that she was a berserker—a child born in Gen Territory to Gen parents, but turning Sime at adolescence. In terror, she left her bed in a comfortable farmhouse and hid in the barn. There, among the horses restless in their stalls, changeover progressed through pain, blackouts, near-suffocation—and then the breakout of hideous tentacles on her arms, and the yawning vacuum of First Need.

  The sun was up—she was supposed to have finished her chores and be in at breakfast, but she couldn’t see or hear—only perceive in some strange new way that said she was dying, and life was clustered somewhere nearby—

  Life moved toward her!

  She sprang up the ladder to the loft with new agility, and crouched as a man entered the barn. He wore a faded plaid shirt and denims, his face tan and weathered, his dark eyes concerned...and he carried a shotgun.

  She saw and heard again—the man calling, “Fight the demon, son—go to God’s glory with your father’s blessing. Lest you kill, come out of the shadows—”

  Need outweighed his words. She leaped!

  The man struggled, but her strength was greater now—the gun dropped as she shook
him. His energy field was charged with utter surprise, then soaring terror as she gripped his arms, forced her face to his—

  Fed by fear, life seared through her nerves, untold relief, bliss greater than any she had ever known—

  Sensing of energy was gone. She saw, heard, felt the limp body fall. “Father!” she screamed in agony at the twisted, dead face. The eyes were open, accusing—not the familiar dark eyes but very pale blue eyes—

  Risa woke, unfrightened, but very confused. The dream was clear in her memory—a nightmare without the terror of a nightmare, yet she had seen, heard, zlinned everything. Such odd things. Go to God’s glory? She had never heard anyone say such a thing. And now she realized that although she had experienced the dream from inside the berserker’s head, she had been a boy, not a girl.

  How very strange! Was it her anxiety for Kreg? He would never be a berserker. Although she had had a few terrifying Need nightmares in her time, she had never before been anyone but herself in them. The man identified as “Father” in the dream bore no resemblance to Morgan Tigue, either.

  Only the transformation of the man’s eyes to the pale blue of the Gen girl’s made sense. Guilt could certainly cause nightmares.

  Now that she was awake, Risa was disturbed as much by her lack of emotion as by the strangeness of the dream. Sergi stirred and woke. “Risa—are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

  But the dream would not leave her. She dreamed it again, identical in every detail. When she woke it was only an hour till dawn, so she got up and read more of the history Nedd had assigned her until Sergi woke with the sun.