RenSime

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “You said yourself it works better, safer, when it’s purest.”

  “That has been our experience,” he conceded, but argued, “but there’s no reason to do it now. We can save this as a last resort, continuing the research to improve our understanding. I’ve sent another messenger to Mairis—while you were so ill. The security cordon was so tight she couldn’t get through at all. Rumor is that a big Diet attempt on Mairis’ life is cooking. So I sent a messenger to your father. Sat’htine can surely find us a Farris expert who can handle your case. We’ve been lucky so far you haven’t suffered complications. Why try to precipitate them? I’d have a hard time facing your father’s expert if I’d participated in a drug experiment with you—and made matters worse.”

  They argued for hours, but Laneff was adamant, the fire of her new vision of herself driving her. She’d never felt so sure about anything before. But Azevedo, too, was intransigent. She’d never thought to meet up with such entrenched scientific orthodoxy in the midst of a gypsy camp.

  At last, she stood, gesturing with hands and tentacles as she paced. “You’re not the only channel in this outfit trained to handle that stuff, and there are Gens who know how, too! I’m not going to be stopped this time!” She started toward the lab door.

  He called after her, “Whatever you do, don’t try to involve Yuan in this. He has the nageric power, but a total lack of the control necessary. He’d leave you both insane.”

  If, she thought, K/B itself is responsible for the hallucinations—which hasn’t been established.

  Frustrated, disconsolate, she stalked out into the halls to walk off the spurt of fury that had built when Azevedo had denied her. I feel betrayed. It’s nonsense. He’ll do my transfer—even if only his way. And he thinks he’s not Tecton! Ha!

  She realized she knew not a soul she could go talk to. She regretted not paying more attention to the language lessons, trying to develop contacts among the other students. And her feet knew only one path through the sprawling building: the one to her apartment.

  She found the newspaper outside the door. She usually had no time for it, but she took it inside and threw herself onto the floor cushions in the sitting room to read. All the news seemed strange, continuations of events she’d never heard of. But when she got to the back page of the world political news, she stared.

  Mairis’ face leaped out of the page, paired with the photo of a woman she’d never seen before. The caption identified her as Hajene Malry Remuns, a newly declared candidate for World Controller. She was calling people to come back to traditional basics in Sime government, not to take risks with the world balances achieved at such great cost to our ancestors.

  She wasn’t opposing Mairis directly. He never mentioned her in the interview published with the pictures. But they stood for opposite paths. With a shock, Laneff realized the election was barely a week away now. And the published polls suddenly indicated Mairis was trailing Remuns by nearly 20 percent.

  In a sidebar, Laneff found itineraries for the two candidates. The day after tomorrow, Mairis would be touring the Embankment—the Sime~Gen mixed-law experiment. Here! The day she ought to be having transfer.

  She punched up the newspaper service on her own screen and discovered that the parade route of Mairis’ tour would pass right by their court. There was no mention of Shanlun.

  I have to see Mairis. He has to know about Shanlun, and the baby—even if none of us survive.

  Visions of herself being shot crashing his security lines danced through her head, but she dismissed them. She grabbed up the paper and plunged out the door, heading down to the lab to find Azevedo. This changes everything!

  Her path through the front lobby was blocked by a surging crowd of gypsies knotting themselves around the front door. Somewhere among them, she caught a whiff of Azevedo’s nager, and as she squirmed toward it, her senses keen with need, she sorted through Azevedo’s formidable nager and found—Shanlun!

  She leaped ahead, breasting the crowd, leaping up and down to cut a path, yelling with the rest of them, “Shanlun!” She flung herself into his arms.

  He staggered back under her weight, and she realized he’d lost a lot of weight. Her hands found something under his shirt, and zlinning, she discerned a huge scar running across the backs of his shoulders—a burn scar.

  It barely registered in his nager, which was replete, sparkling pyrotechnically with relief, joy, anxiety, tension, and even—Laneff drew back surprised—overtones of guilt.

  When everyone had said their welcomes to Shanlun, Azevedo had Yuan summoned, and they all met in the privacy of Azevedo s office.

  Yuan came in as they arrived, embraced Shanlun, and said, “I’ve never been so glad to see someone! You’ve got to tell us all what happened to you!”

  But Laneff sensed a reservation in Yuan that distressed her. The two men had never been friends, but—and then it dawned on her. Why had Yuan nursed her, when he was the one who required nursing? Hoping that her affection would turn from the presumably dead Shanlun—to himself? Of course, then he wouldn’t rejoice too much if Shanlun turned up alive. Could I have been so blind? Or did Yuan hide it so well?

  He wasn’t one to put the pressure of his emotions off onto another. He’d been willing to wait patiently for her. Her heart went out to the man, and her whole being turned from hurting him. Yet the presence of Shanlun filled her with rising hope flooding upward against the downward tide of her own increasing need.

  Shanlun would work the disjunction with me, no matter what Azevedo says. And afterward… She remembered how Shanlun made love into a celebration of life.

  Azevedo served trin tea all around, his nager trembling as he neared Shanlun. He let his tentacles linger over the Gen’s fingers as he gave him the glass of hot tea in its wicker holder. Shanlun let his eyes close raptly at that touch, then met the channel’s eyes and nodded, “Soon.”

  Azevedo, she realized, had been severely shorted in his last transfer, repeatedly losing Shanlun after anticipating him. He’d be ready for Shanlun about the time she would have to seek transfer. She chided herself for regarding Azevedo as a rival; what had she to offer Shanlun? And Shanlun, with that nager, could serve them both without ever noticing!

  The byplay did not escape Yuan. He strove to mask his disappointment, and Laneff understood that he’d been anticipating serving Azevedo. He doesn’t realize he was inadequate, just as Jarmi didn’t!

  Azevedo took his tea and folded himself cross-legged onto the cushioned platform amid the arc of plants, under the skylight, as they took places all around at his feet. He said, “So you’re the one arranged for Mairis to come here!”

  Shanlun asked, “Have the marshals come here already?”

  “No. You know they’d never get through the alley! The tribes would never let Tecton officials in here, regardless of local law. The marshals will have to content themselves with sealing us in here for that day.”

  Shanlun sipped tea. “Do you think you could talk the tribes into letting Mairis in here? I’ve told him everything about Laneff. He wants to zlin her condition and then leave someone here with her; he’s not sure who yet. It depends on her.”

  “He could even give her transfer,” mused Azevedo.

  “No!” said Laneff. He can’t work kerduvon!

  Shanlun raised an eyebrow at her in silent query, but Azevedo answered. “There has been—an event—while you were gone.”

  Azevedo and Yuan looked to her, and Shanlun followed their gaze, frowning, head tilted, hands held in the gypsy position of inquiry. In his rough gypsy traveling clothes, he still looked gypsy, not Tecton.

  The silence stretched until Laneff said, “I—killed—Jarmi.”

  “Oh, Laneff!” Shanlun cried in sympathy. He set aside his glass and came to her, enfolding her in his arms, his cheek next to hers. His nager was politely neutral, not engaging with her needing body at all, yet soothing, and carrying the honest throb of sorrow he felt. Then he sighed, pulling away, kissing her
forehead. “I should have seen that coming. She was too eager and lacked the strength of discipline.”

  Azevedo said, “Yuan and I also felt our part of the responsibility for it. But Laneff has suffered the most.”

  Shanlun resumed his seat, asking the channel, “But the baby is all right?”

  “Couldn’t be better, though I’m glad you’re here to coax her to eat! She argues too much with Yuan.”

  Shanlun flashed the other Gen a brilliant smile, and Azevedo told how Yuan had put aside his own injury to care for Laneff, and Yuan told his side of the tale from when he woke under branches near the burned out farmhouse to when he arrived at Thiritees, ending, “So now it’s your turn! What happened to you?”

  “Oh, I was the one who covered you with those branches, and then I went back to see if I could save anyone from the fire. Only a few of the Diet got away. I got one woman out of the fire, but she was dead. I passed out from smoke, and the next thing I knew, I was in the back of a truck, a Diet prisoner. When they camped for the night, leaving me for unconscious, I escaped, flagged down a car, and rode to the nearest town. I was going to call—either one of our locals, or even Mairis’ private number. But I passed out again on the street. Woke up in a hospital, and they identified me by fingerprint and retina scan.

  “Mairis sent a squad for me, and they squashed the news coverage under his security blanket. I tried three times to get word to you, but I didn’t want to take any foolish risks, and…” He shrugged a gypsy shrug. “Azevedo, I’ve never seen anything like this. I had to escape from Mairis’ traveling team.”

  “He wouldn’t let you go?” cried Laneff.

  “He didn’t have the authority to! The World Controller’s Security has taken over. There’ve been innumerable attempts on Mairis’ life. It’s quarantine to go near him!” He smiled tightly. “He didn’t think I could get away. Now I’ve almost no way to get word to him until he shows up on our doorstep. He plans to stop the cavalcade right in the street out there, and spontaneously—at random—investigate our dwellings here.”

  “You told him—about Thiritees?” asked Azevedo.

  “Just what Digen knew, and that Laneff’s here.”

  Azevedo ran fingers and tentacles through his thick white hair. “I don’t see any way to convince the tribes to let him in; but I’ll have to try.”

  When Shanlun and Laneff were alone with Yuan in the apartment, Azevedo off in conference with the leaders of the surrounding tribes, the inevitable moment came when Laneff had to relate to Shanlun all the details of what had happened with Jarmi. Yuan told of her illness, and she hardly recognized the story from his point of view.

  Hurting, as if he himself had killed, Shanlun wrapped her in his nager and said to Yuan, “Thank you. I’m so glad you managed to get here.”

  “Yeah, but what will Mairis think when he zlins my presence? He’s not likely to miss it, you know!”

  “I’ve told him all about you. You may be in trouble with Tecton law for kidnapping Laneff, but Mairis is on your side because you kept her alive and well. With his backing, the legal problems can be straightened out, though I don’t know if the Tecton will want to put you back to work as a First!”

  Yuan frowned. “Shanlun, I’m not Tecton. I don’t want to go back. And I honestly don’t care that”—he snapped his fingers in the gypsy manner—“for Tecton law!”

  Shanlun eyed him levelly. “You’re feeling defiant because you’re overdue for transfer, and I just came along and took your best prospect away.”

  “Mairis himself couldn’t make me feel Tecton!”

  “I know,” answered Shanlun kindly.

  Fuming, Yuan said, “I’ll go make dinner.”

  Then Laneff had to tell Shanlun of her progress with kerduvon, and her plan to use K/B on herself. “And that’s what we’re going to do. Azevedo said you know how to use it.”

  “That’s an insane plan!”

  “Anything else is insane, too. You’ve never been junct. What do you know!”

  Shanlun squeezed her shoulders. “No hysterics. Listen, there’s no reason to contemplate desperation yet. At least not until after Mairis can examine you—and after I’ve taken care of Azevedo. He’s in no shape to do such a high tolerance job right now.”

  “And what can Mairis’ examination tell you that Azevedo doesn’t already know? That I’m junct? That I’m healthy for now? Shanlun, I want this baby—and I want to live to raise her!”

  “And that’s what Mairis wants, too! You don’t know what he went through to arrange this meeting! His advisers say he’s losing the election, and this stop isn’t going to gain him any votes. With so little time left—”

  “Then he shouldn’t come.”

  “Do you honestly think he wouldn’t? His own security won’t be able to stop him. You mean a lot to him, Laneff, and not just for your project. For you. I asked him; he told me he’d be delighted to accept your pledge to Zeor, if you can survive disjunction. I told him he’d better mean that because I was going to see that you survive! He meant it.”

  How will Dad feel if I pledge Zeor? He’d lost members before, but never one of his own family. But Sat’htine isn’t really my House anymore, she realized, and her father was Sectuib enough to recognize that kind of personality change.

  Shanlun kissed her lightly, aware that she couldn’t respond sexually. She let her tentacles ease onto his arms, hyperconsciousness overtaking her. His nager responded gently, masking his core from her even at such close range. Carefully, without denying her the selyn she craved, he disengaged contact, and brought her down to duoconsciousness.

  “Shan, I don’t know if I can take transfer from a Gen. I’m scared of Gens now. They die too easily!”

  “You can’t hurt me, or Yuan, no matter what, so relax. This evening, you’re safe. And tomorrow we’ll face tomorrow.”

  “How gypsy!” remarked Yuan with mock scorn from the doorway.

  “Yes, I suppose,” replied Shanlun evenly. “But I don’t know what I am anymore, or where I belong, except with Laneff. Anywhere with Laneff.”

  They ate the good food Yuan had prepared, and then Shanlun went off in search of Azevedo, admonishing Yuan to make sure Laneff got enough sleep. Laneff marveled that Shanlun couldn’t conceptualize Yuan as a rival lover, and that Yuan had put all of that aside for Shanlun. No matter what they say or think, they’re both Tecton Donors to the core!

  But Shanlun hadn’t been raised Tecton, and she wondered if his lack of jealousy was simply gypsy-Rathor. She didn’t know, but she knew she loved him for it.

  Shanlun turned up the next morning for breakfast, reporting that Azevedo had spent most of the night with the tribal leaders and was back there again this morning. She realized the gypsy tribal politics were as complex as any Tecton hassle, and the Rathorites might be held in awe but they weren’t bosses by any means.

  Yuan was called to the infirmary where his Donor’s training could help a Sime who’d been injured, and Laneff took Shanlun down to the lab.

  Immediately when she opened the door, Shanlun fell in love with the kittens, who had become socialized through constant handling, though Laneff thought they preferred tentacles to fingers. Shanlun insisted on feeding the cat himself and then sat on the floor and fed the kittens with little drops of milk on the ends of his fingers. She watched, thinking of the way Yuan had virtually ignored the brood, and was reassured she had the right man.

  Eventually, Shanlun peeled the last of the kittens from his shirt, put them all to nursing, and rose. “That’s the most incredibly marvelous thing. Laneff, somehow, this whole mess is going to work out right!”

  “Funny, that’s just what Azevedo said when he saw the kittens, and I felt the same way. Illogical, but—”

  “No, it’s not illogical. Life has a certain symmetry, and when one can find the axis of reflection, lots of unrelated things form patterns that make sense. And that’s an intoxicating beauty that’s everywhere about us! Haven’t you seen the candlebox
yet? The symbol of Thiritees?”

  And that led her into a discussion of her discoveries and her hypotheses. Just being within his nager cleared her head of the fog of need enough that she felt she was making some sense.

  Azevedo found them there, having gathered Yuan from his work. “The tribes won’t go for it. They don’t pay much attention to World elections, and don’t know who Mairis is other than Sectuib in Zeor, and they don’t care.” He shrugged. “I could have told you that last night.”

  “I was sure you could sway them,” said Shanlun.

  “I tried. It’s going to look bad when they turn him away.”

  “But Mairis has never claimed gypsy support, and everyone knows we keep seclusion.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have told the tribes,” said Laneff. “Mairis could’ve slipped through before anyone knew.”

  Azevedo and Shanlun shook their heads. “That alley is guarded. No one gets in without being recognized!”

  She looked at Yuan and remembered his arrival. He could have been tossed back out in the gutter. She wasn’t sure she liked gypsies anymore.

  Azevedo sighed. “We’ve got to get word to Mairis.”

  Yuan said, “Surely you could get through to him by phone, Shanlun. They know you’re alive.”

  “His phone operators know me, true—but the call would be traced. I’m in trouble for leaving without a security pass, without waiting for a proper Tecton Assignment for transfer! Those paranoids will probably be thinking I’ve gone to spill state secrets or set up a trap for Mairis. Anything I might say would be interpreted in that light. Besides—our purpose was to get Mairis and Laneff together.” He nibbled a fingernail. “Azevedo, what exactly is her condition now?”

  “You’re not thinking of exposing her to that crowd! The streets will be full of people—even nondonor Gens!”

  “Suppose she has transfer before Mairis gets here?”

  “No!” Laneff objected. “I’m going to disjunct this time!”

  Ignoring that, Shanlun asked, “Would she abort off a Gen?”

  The channel had zlinned Laneff deeply on many occasions. “Maybe,” he admitted. Then to Laneff, he added, “Not as big a possibility as you think. The baby is draining you. You’re a mother. You’ll do what you must for your child to survive.”