Solamar compared the nageric haze of juncts camped in the hills between the Fort and Shifron with the bright blaze of selyn from the massed Gen militia that had moved in from the border. So far, the Freebanders hadn’t stirred from Shifron. “I’d say the Patrol is making the town juncts wait because they’re professional militia and figure the Gens are professionals too. They’re not Raiders. They’re not going to gallop into battle, each one for himself, just for the fun of it. The town juncts want Shifron back not a war with the local Gen militia or us.”
BanSha complained, “They’ve been sitting there looking at each other for a whole day.”
“The juncts are wondering when the Freebanders will attack them,” said Tuzhel astutely. “If the Patrol and the town juncts attack the Gens, the Freebanders will attack the juncts from behind. But if the juncts attack the town, then the Gens will attack the juncts from behind. Who knows what they’re thinking we’ll be doing during all this.”
Solamar noted that we’ll be doing. He said, “They’re both doing what we’re doing; trying to figure out what everyone else is going to do.”
“We have to rescue Rimon, now!” said Tuzhel. “The juncts will take Shifron. The Raiders will escape, run south into the Gens, snatch a supply to Kill later, and head for the pass taking Rimon with them into Gen Territory. Maybe they’ll raid High Crossing while all the Crossing Gens are here, then they’ll ride around back across Molland Pass into Sime Territory and we’ll never get Rimon back.”
As Tuzhel spoke, Jhiti had come to lean on the railing beside them. “A very astute analysis, accurately repeated from Oberin’s lecture. Tuzhel, hanging out with the channels won’t teach you much about being a guard.”
“I thought you were in favor of rescuing Rimon!” accused Tuzhel.
“I am. I will. I just know that Rimon would throw me out of the Fort if I led our people out there now.”
“I’d go,” offered Tuzhel. “So would Bruce. It’s my fault Rimon got captured. I don’t understand what I was thinking! This is all my fault for being such a complete...oh, it doesn’t translate!...horse’s ass!”
Solamar noted to Jhiti, “Well, he’s old enough to know what sex is all about!”
“Sex?” asked Tuzhel.
“‘Ass’—what the stallion looks at when checking out a mare,” offered BanSha wisely. The young channel’s maturity was coming along nicely, observed Solamar.
“Don’t zlin me like that,” complained BanSha, hardening his showfield and forgetting to project the right appearance to the juncts. Solamar picked up the fields. BanSha put his mind back on his training.
Dizzy, Jhiti went hypoconscious. “Solamar, is Lexy up to attending another planning meeting tonight if we can’t move out until then?”
Their last planning session had ended at noon. “She’s in Need too, you know, and Garen’s being a tyrant. I’ll come and then report to her. There’s time. It zlins as if a storm might be gathering off to the west there.”
“I don’t...oh,” said Jhiti. The western rim of the valley had started to boil with black clouds. “Tuzhel go alert the duty scouts. A dark, rainy night is a good chance to scout the Gen camp. They can’t zlin.”
Stubborn Lexy dragged Garen, Kahleen and Bruce to Jhiti’s planning session.
The new Council had intended to meet in their usual space near Sian’s big looms, but with the juncts gathered on their perimeter, all the Gens had to stay behind insulation. So they met in the underground shelter. Gens who had to move outside had to be escorted by a channel muting the fields to mask their presence.
The big question Sian put to them tonight was, “Can we assume those juncts are from Shifron come to take their homes back and not the Patrol bringing other juncts to take the town? If they’re our old neighbors, maybe some would talk to us?”
Jhiti said, “From what my scouts report, the juncts are mostly uniformed Border Patrol, mixed with civilians. I’ve sent three teams out tonight each with someone who’s done business in Shifron to see if they can recognize anyone.”
Oberin asked, “If they find Shifron folk who know us, what do we do? Offer an alliance against the Raiders?”
The Councilors who were from Forts that had been overrun shattered the ambient with alarm, horror, and real fear. Lexy cut into the miasma nagerically and Solamar helped her. She said, “True, an alliance with the juncts could easily lead to our own destruction. We don’t want them to learn to fear us because we fight more effectively than they do.”
Solamar watched BanSha think that over. Of all the channels, this youth was the most gregarious. He’d heard every detail of how each Fort had failed.
Jhiti summarized, “So if we can make contact with someone we know from Shifron, we should tell them our objective is to rescue Rimon, not to interfere with them?”
Sian listened to the Council debating whether they could rescue Rimon without alliance with juncts, and what the juncts might assume if they succeeded.
It took less than an hour to list the Fort’s priorities: rescue Rimon, then Clire. They’d tell the juncts the Gen Militia was here because the Raiders had captured too many people from High Crossing that winter. Let the Patrol figure out that the neatest way to get rid of the Gen Militia was to give the Wild Gens in Shifron’s Pen back to the Gens. Of course, the juncts might not see that. Each of those Wild Gens could be worth a year’s salary at a Choice Auction.
Without taking any votes, the Council and the channeling staff agreed on what Jhiti had to do, and what everyone had to do to support him. They even agreed that if the scouts found anyone they knew, the Fort’s mission to Shifron’s juncts would be headed by Pearl, the woman who traded with Shifron for kitchen supplies.
As the meeting broke up, Kahleen said, “Solamar, you are out on your feet. You haven’t slept in two days.”
“Neither has Lexy. Need does that to channels.” They had been giving transfers and tending ills to prepare the labor force to pull stumps and plow, but those were same people Jhiti relied on. “We’ve been too busy to sleep.”
Kahleen dutifully produced a laughing sound but it didn’t reach her nager. “Then get Lexy and Garen and we’ll see if we can give you two some rest. Benart designed some nice shielded cubicles down here, and this is a good time to test them. Maybe you’ll find Delri.”
Both sides of the tunnel were rigged with drop-down cots, like the original underground shelter. The aisle was wider, though, and at the north end of this new branch of the tunnel, another tunnel set off at a right angle. It was lined with insulated cubicles for critical patients. At the end it connected to a stair to the channels’ on duty sleeping rooms.
The contagious patients had been moved to these little rooms, most of them suffering from coughs with fever.
Kahleen led him to a room where Garen had Lexy trapped in one of the two bunks inside. She was saying, “I admit it’s good to put my feet up. My back is strained.”
Alarm vanquished fatigue. “Let me zlin you.”
“Oh, you fuss too much,” Lexy fretted.
“No he doesn’t,” said Kahleen. “If you don’t want Solamar, I’ll see if I can find BanSha and Rushi.”
“I don’t require a midwife yet!” Lexy sat up.
Solamar pushed her back down, altogether too easily. Sitting beside her, he offered his laterals. She twined her lateral tentacles around his allowing him to zlin her as best he could, which they both knew wasn’t clearly enough.
“You’re fine, but your back muscles are spasming. You want Garen to work that out for you?”
She whispered, “If I fall asleep now, you’ll regret it. I dream loudly, remember?”
He brushed his lips over her hair. “Oh, yes I remember. I’ll be asleep too. Kahleen’s a bully.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” asked Kahleen from the open door. “He knows the real me.”
Solamar straightened and flipped a blanket over Lexy, tempted to tuck the sides in so she’d be warmer, but they might have to leap and run
at any moment. He favored the Companions with a weary smile. “Close the door and get to work. Don’t let us sleep more than three hours.”
The Companions took places in the two crude chairs made from what looked like kindling. The seats and the backs had nice thick cushions though.
There was a ventilation shaft near the ceiling and a slot under the door for air. At the moment there was a fire in the hearth and the chimney was drawing nicely. Solamar wrapped himself in a blanket and stretched out on the other cot, Kahleen in the chair near him.
Sleep billowed up around him within a few minutes of Garen’s starting to work on Lexy’s back muscles.
He set himself to go out of his body, though he’d been taught it was inadvisable when having such a difficult time with Need. And he was having a more difficult time than usual. He shouldn’t be feeling quite so desperate. His father would seriously disapprove. Don’t think about him, he admonished himself. The last thing he wanted was an encounter with his father during this foray.
It came to him why he was so tense. Fort Faraway had been destroyed during a very similar situation, surrounded by juncts, Raiders and Wild Gens. Then he had lost his Companion to the Raiders only three days before his scheduled transfer. By the time he’d reached Fort Tanhara, he could only throw himself on their mercy.
From Fort Rimon, though, there was no place to go.
Acknowledging his fear didn’t help as much as his teachers said it should. Eventually, he felt sleep take him and surrendered to it, focused tightly on Kahleen’s vigilant nager. She was his security now.
Slowly, he became aware of himself outside defined reality, in the familiar realm that was always strange. He built his anchor to himself as he’d been taught, visualizing his body, identifying his psychospatial position and running selyn up and down the chord that connected him to his body even as he separated himself from his flesh.
He built an image of Rimon Farris, tall, lanky, weathered old skin, long face, huge narrow nose, black eyebrows and piercing black eyes, but hair streaked with gray. He added the man’s graceful tentacle gestures. Even adding details of shirt, pants and boots didn’t summon Rimon. He added the impenetrable Farris nager, uniquely Rimon, not a bit like Lexy, though the quality was similar.
Rimon’s nager could grip Solamar’s own systems, soak into and through him and draw him out beyond reality. He remembered the blending they’d accomplished on the wall during battle, and again driving a transfer into Tuzhel.
It didn’t help. He was still lost in a strangely thick grayness.
Then he was standing in the rain, though the drops fell through him leaving odd little cold streaks but no wetness. Around a fire before him sat five male Gens, wrapped in oiled cloth coats against the rain. Broad brimmed hats with narrow crowns shaded their bearded faces.
They watched Rimon pace in the shadows at the edge of the fire, explaining in labored Genlan pointing with one hand and tentacles. Under his other arm he cradled a small coffer that sparkled in the firelight.
“...I know this is true because they had me prisoner and I heard them talking. Then I died, but I couldn’t let you people go to your deaths too. You have to turn around and go home tonight. You’re in more danger than you know.
“The people who raided High Crossing also raided that town up there behind the hill. They stole the town and stayed there all winter. They’re the ones who have been Raiding High Crossing and tricking you into thinking it was the people on that little hill over there. They spoke Genlan and let you overhear comments about a raid on that new Gen settlement you traded leather to. You found the ruins of that settlement, but there never was such a settlement. It was a trick. Nobody ever lived there. Nobody was Killed or captured there, certainly not by the people on that little hill.
“It was the Raider Simes in the town behind that ridge of hills over there! They took that town and threw the owners out. Now the real owners have come to take it back. As soon as the owners attack the town, the Raiders will run in this direction, heading for the pass you just came through. They’ll Kill any of you they can catch, then raid your town again since you’re not there to defended it now.
“You have to go home. Leave the people on the little hill over there alone. They’ll never harm you.” He stopped pacing. “Can you hear me? I’m trying to explain this.”
Clearly the Gens saw the frantic ghost limned against the shadows by flickering firelight. Solamar thought two of them actually heard him, too, which was surely a marvel to behold. Farrises are definitely a breed apart.
Rimon resumed pacing. “I know I’m repeating myself, but you have to understand this. That other Sime army up there is the Border Patrol. They’re trained fighters and they have the town’s owners with them. They don’t care where the Raiders go as long as they leave this valley. You have to go home now, rain or no rain.”
He stopped again and glared at his audience in pure Farris exasperation. “Listen to me!” he shouted. “Go!” He charged at them waving his arm and tentacles yelling, “Go! Go home you stupid Gens! You’ve got to defend your families!” He ran right through the fire and kept yelling.
The Gens around the campfire scattered in every direction screaming. Satisfied, Rimon stopped, turned and paced back to the fire. He passed his hand through it, shook his head at the lack of heat, and walked back through it.
Then he spotted Solamar. “You found me! I’m so sorry I’m dead! I really didn’t mean to die. Here,” he held out the coffer, sparkling in the firelight, “I’ve made something for Lexy. Here, take this!” He held the coffer out to Solamar. Its top was decorated with a replica of the Starred Cross belt buckle that Bruce now wore.
Solamar propelled himself toward Rimon, numb with the shock of the Farris’s death. When he got a little closer, he saw with that odd sense native to this realm that a very thin pale thread stretched from Rimon’s navel, twisted around him several times in tangled knots, and disappeared into the granular grayness behind Rimon.
“You’re not dead! Rimon, return to your body!”
“I would if I knew how.”
“You’re almost there. You’re in Shifron. Just turn and head back up the trail and you’ll find it.”
“I’ll try. Here, take this to Lexy. She’s got to have it. Here!” He held the coffer out, striving to reach Solamar but somehow unable to approach.
Rimon was lost, and of course it was Solamar’s fault for not having been able to get him to learn how to navigate the formless levels. If he was wandering in time, that would explain how his cord got so tangled.
Solamar reached for the coffer that Rimon held out to him, planning to grasp Rimon’s arms and tentacles and take him back to his body which must still be in Shifron.
Rimon pushed the coffer at Solamar and pulled his hands back. The coffer stuck to Rimon, and suddenly he was spinning away into the gummy quicksand beyond him, not up the trail toward Shifron.
Solamar felt contact with Farris nager, and with a charge of nageric power like nothing he’d ever felt before. Then the contact slid away from him. “Rimon!”
And he was sitting bolt upright in the narrow cot he’d gone to sleep on a few minutes, no over three hours ago. His stomach insisted he’d just fallen from a great height.
“...quickly! Tuzhel’s missing.”
Heart hammering, Solamar was on his feet and moving before he knew which reality was he was in.
At the doorway, Bruce stepped aside to let Lexy and Garen out. Kahleen was untangling herself from the blanket she’d wrapped up in. Her chair tipped. Solamar righted it, and straightened without breaking stride. He reached Bruce, took his arm as he urged the Gen along the underground hall, noting he still wore Rimon’s belt.
Loudly enough for Lexy, Garen and Kahleen to hear, he told the Gen, “I found Rimon. I think he must be in a coma. He thinks he’s dead. I didn’t have time to convince him otherwise.” Lexy clamped down on the fields.
Bruce stopped. “He thinks he’s dead?”
&
nbsp; “He’s not dead!” insisted Solamar.
“He’s in Attrition?”
“He’s not at the verge of death for lack of selyn. His selyn consumption rate flattened when he slipped out of his body when Clire took the belt. We can still get him back alive if nobody does anything stupid.” He told them what Rimon was saying to the Gens. “If he spooked the Gens enough that they move out tonight, Jhiti will be able to make a deal with the Border Patrol more easily.”
Garen said, “If the Patrol moves to capture Tuzhel, the Gens may attack thinking the Patrol is moving to attack them.”
Lexy’s alarm shuddered through her fields leaving Bruce’s upset clear for all to zlin.
Sometimes, thought Solamar, a Companion’s brilliance isn’t helpful. “Where was Tuzhel last seen? Are you sure he’s out of the Fort?”
Kahleen said, “Don’t put anything past Tuzhel. BanSha is his best friend, and everyone loves BanSha.”
...and would do anything for him. “Yes. Let’s check with Jhiti and see if we can get above to search.”
“From the middle of the yard, I could zlin Tuzhel if he’s in any non-insulated room in the Fort,” said Lexy.
“You,” Garen decreed, “are not going out there until the combat situation is fully resolved.”
Kahleen just tapped her foot and distributed her weight evenly. Her nager never even flickered. Gen menace could be truly unnerving.
“Only if Jhiti says it’s clear,” assured Solamar. He led the way back to the new shelter’s stair up into the on duty sleeping rooms. The channels masked the Gen fields, then started up the stairs.
They ran into Cody, the chief messenger, near the insulated room where Tuzhel had been quartered before his disjunction. “You’re not supposed to be up here.”
“You’re looking for Tuzhel?” asked Lexy. The children could move freely about the Fort because they barely registered nagerically. They had their safe retreats assigned in case of attack, though.
The Farris Channel Page 31
