The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted to suck them back in again. He remembered how the criticism of his little piece hurt. They both knew everyone was reading Killroom and fewer and fewer following Aunser except when she posted junct transfer descriptions.
Her reaction was deadened by Need. “Yes, probably.” She climbed to her feet, gathering her books. “I’ll see what Morry can do about checking transfer schedules.”
* * * * * * *
Over the next three days, Vret passed Ilin on the path but only exchanged a few words: “The boards are generating conspicuous spikes in mainframe activity every time Blissdrip posts.”
“Any progress on accessing transfer schedules yet?”
“I think Morry’s given up on transfer schedules. If he trips an alarm, we’re caught.”
And one time, he told her, “Rumor counts five intil incidents in the last two days, nothing as bad as the first one though.” By some miracle, neither of them had been involved in any of the intil incidents, unless you counted Vret’s indiscretion in the cafeteria that one time. Neither of them had seen a shakeup in the transfer schedule for Thirds.
Chapter Twelve
ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT
Four days before his transfer, Vret was sitting in the cafeteria staring at a bowl of stew and waiting for Joran Nah, deliberately early to recoup his reputation as best he could at this point.
“I hear you’re up for Second now.”
Vret turned and found Iric Chez behind him, carrying a tray with a glass of iced trin and a salad. “Not that I’ve heard,” answered Vret.
“When they start on you, they don’t give you any warning. I’m almost finished with the Accelerated Development program for First Qualification now, and they did the same thing to me again. No warning. But you can back out, you know. It’s voluntary.”
“Why would I back out?”
“Well, they put you through hell the last three days before your transfer. And it doesn’t always work. Sometimes you go through all that for nothing.”
“All what?”
“Exercises to stretch and develop your systems.” Chez leaned closer and whispered, “I’ll bet that’s where Blissdrip gets all those gruesome ideas!”
Vret couldn’t make out whether the Second was kidding him or not, even though Chez was in Need. “If it’s that bad, why do it? Isn’t being a Second enough for you?”
“Afterwards, if it does work, you don’t have to study as hard to learn all this stuff, so there’s more time to read you know what. I get another session day after tomorrow, and just in time, too. I haven’t done half the changeover pathology reading for weeks because of all the long posts and I have to pass that course! But who can read textbooks when there’s something so much more important waiting?”
Just then Joran Nah arrived with a tray heaped with food and Chez went off to help his Donor carry a tray.
The next day, three days before he and Sumz were both scheduled for transfer, Vret arrived at Kwotiin’s vriamic functionals room ready for his workout only to find that Kwotiin wasn’t there and neither was Joran. In their place were three strangers and Saelul Farris.
One of the strangers, a Gen stepped to Vret’s side, grabbing control of the fields. He felt a sigh escape as the nagging thrum of Need abated under the Donor’s expert ministrations. He must be a First at the very least, thought Vret, possibly Farris trained. When Joran’s abilities had made no dent in the insistent pulsing of intil he’d suffered since reading that last Killroom installment, Vret had thought nothing could stop it. Suddenly, it was gone.
The Farris nodded. “Much better. Vret, although your work has not been top of your class, your improvement lately has prompted your instructors to nominate you to the Accelerated Development track.”
Vret swallowed his excitement and allowed curiosity to suffuse his showfield.
“So you’ve heard of the program? It is entirely voluntary,” assured the Farris. “And whatever you’ve heard, the reality is—worse.”
Vret was sure that the man was zlinning him from behind that granite showfield while he was getting absolutely nothing from the Farris. But the way the man said Voluntary made it sound very bad indeed. He flipped a tentacle to acknowledge understanding though he felt as if the man were reading his mind. But of course, since he’d never had his mind read, how would he know for sure?
“If you sign into this program, from now until your transfer you will be sequestered in a field controlled environment, your class work suspended. This month, you will work to develop your secondary system capacity. If you succeed, next month we’ll focus on your primary system development”
Normally, secondary system development came right after ninth transfer. “During Need?”
“This method is extremely effective and may lead to your opportunity to Qualify Second before you leave Rialite. But you are correct. It is not a pleasant experience, and there are no guarantees.”
“Three days?” A lot could happen on the boards in three days. In three days, the administration might raid the boards and discover all the readers—and posters. He was now a poster.
“Three days is a long time when you are working this hard. You must decide now.”
On the other hand, here was the opportunity he’d been yearning for. Here was a chance to have a real Tecton career—contribute something meaningful with his life.
Suddenly, he found himself flashing into the Killroom scenario “What Does It Take”—in all nageric dimensions. Torturing Gens to get the satisfaction that spelled life. Without the Tecton, it could become that bad again. And with the huge Sime population in the world now, Zelerod’s Doom might be only a matter of months—perhaps weeks—if the Tecton collapsed. Not that it was likely to collapse, not that his efforts alone would make a difference, but Vret knew what side he was on.
But he wasn’t getting any closer to Blissdrip, and with his mind dulled by Need, he probably wouldn’t until after transfer. And if this program made him faster, maybe he could find Blissdrip.
“What happens afterwards? Do I get Joran for transfer?”
“Probably, but you won’t be working with him in this program. And after transfer, you’ll be back on your normal class schedule. Next month, we’ll see.”
Still he hesitated. “What about my room?” Was this what had happened to Halarcy?
“What about it?”
“My things. Do I keep the same room?”
The Farris looked as if that were the oddest question he’d ever been asked. “Yes, of course. You’ll only be gone three days. Your roommate probably won’t even notice.”
There was truth to that anyway. He hardly ever saw his roommate.
“Vret,” said the Gen next to him. “Ordinarily Thirds don’t get a chance to enter this program until after their ninth transfer unless they’re expected to Qualify First before leaving Rialite, and you don’t have the profile of a First. You have earned your instructors’ very high opinion of you. You can do this.”
“But do you choose to?” asked the Farris.
“Yes,” Vret heard himself say with just a hint of repressed horror. “I want to have the skill and ability to serve the Tecton well for the rest of my life.”
At that, he felt the Farris drop that impossible showfield and bring his full attention to bear. It only lasted a moment, but Vret felt thoroughly zlinned to his very core and beyond.
“Good, then you’ll start immediately. Grig, take Hajene McClintock to Lelange Hall. Grig will be your Donor for this exercise. Use his abilities to the fullest.”
With that, the Farris and the Gen with him left. The Gen picked up Vret’s books from the table where he’d dropped them and led the way out the door.
Lelange Hall was mostly underground. By the time their elevator had descended four levels, Vret felt a strange sensory deprivation closing in. The Donor beside him, bright fire in the velvet nageric darkness, was the only feature in his whole world.
At last they
reached a three room suite where Grig told him he would be living and working. It was painted soft beige and the furnishings were white. They had walked half a mile of corridors to get here. The underground structure had to be huge, but there was absolutely no sense of any other living soul in the whole world.
The next three days whipped by in a slow-motion blur. From time to time he thought surely Chez had been right and this was Blissdrip’s source of inspiration. Vret felt as tortured as the Gens in a Killroom. Other times he wondered how his instructors could have been so wrong about his abilities. Then he concluded they had discovered all about the secret boards and this was his punishment.
They worked in two cubicles, the third room being Grig’s bedroom. Three channels worked with him, and a constant stream of Third Order Donors presented themselves to have their fields lowered. It wasn’t transfer and it wasn’t the standard donation from a General Class Donor.
He had to siphon large amounts of selyn into his secondary system, and moments later, push it into a battery.
He had never been good at battery charging exercises, but he knew Seconds had the duty of charging the smaller batteries, not the big ones such as ran the campus computers. This would be a useful skill if he survived.
There were many times he thought he wouldn’t. They allowed him so little time for recovery that he stumbled from room to room, reeling with fatigue. Two channels often supported him as he took selyn from the Donors.
After an uncounted number of these exercises, they stopped bringing Third Order Donors, and another channel came and presented a Third’s showfield.
Vret knew by that point they didn’t trust him. His Need was high, his intil higher, he was deep in recovery, and not fit to tie his own shoes. He was so tired he could barely zlin. They didn’t make him stop to eat—which was good because he couldn’t have swallowed anything—and they didn’t let him stop to sleep—which was also good because he would have had the worst nightmares he’d ever had.
It went on forever.
He kept reminding himself he had volunteered. But he had forgotten to ask what percent of the students died during this training exercise. He was also pretty sure it wasn’t doing any good.
The only thing that kept him going was being bathed in the constant attention of a First Order Donor. When Grig was sleeping, others took his place. Vret didn’t learn all their names, didn’t know the names of the channels who worked with him and on him either, but he was certain he’d know them nagerically if he ever met any of them again.
And then, one fine moment came when it was over. Hanging between two channels, he crept out into the relentless scorching sunshine of what the locals called late spring, and gloried in a cheerful blue sky, ugly green cacti, scraggly, shade-less trees, and realized that though his systems declared him in attrition, while the channels all said he was fine, he had survived.
Two channels and three Donors accompanied him across the pathway to the infirmary, the channels gripping his elbows so his feet barely touched the ground. He’d never been to the infirmary before, but they had set up his transfer with Joran where all treatments would be available to cover any event. They hadn’t said what events.
The walk took six and a half minutes, with him staggering whenever his weight came down on his legs. But nobody seemed to notice. Then they were in a large, fancy transfer room.
It contained Joran and his exquisite nager, so Vret didn’t much care what else it contained. He did notice though that it had a window, and though the insulation was incredible, that intense nageric silence he’d come to hate wasn’t there. It felt like he’d come back to the living world after an indeterminate time in a grave.
“Here he is,” announced one of the channels as they all opened a nageric wedge into the cubicle and gently inserted Vret into the room so that he hardly felt the transition into Joran’s care. “He performed admirably, but that just means he’s more tired than the usual trainee.”
His escort deposited him on the transfer lounge where he sat staring ahead wondering why he was seeing double. As his escort withdrew, murmuring to Joran and handing over several sheaves of printouts, the ambient in the little cubicle dimmed and softened and ebbed into being just Joran and one channel and her Companion, wrapped in a shimmering nageric fog of not-there-ness.
A few days ago, Joran’s intense brightness had seemed like a wall of dazzling cascades, impenetrable sheets of selyn fields. Now, after being marinated in the First Order Donors’ fields, Vret zlinned Joran’s nager as dull. But still the Donor’s field wrapped him in peace. Here at last was a Donor who was intending to serve him in transfer.
Finding he’d drifted hyperconscious and was only zlinning his surroundings, he groped for duoconsciousness. Amazingly, considering his state of Need, he was able to get his eyes and ears working again. Maybe I’m not really in attrition. That was a frightening thought. It meant it was possible to feel worse.
The channel was saying, “...so you don’t have to be concerned about Qualifying. He can’t make it this time.”
Blearily, Vret asked Joran, “Is there something wrong with your nager? You’re not as high field as you were.”
Now that is a nonsensical thing to say, he thought, but he was so tired he couldn’t care very much. He just wished the channel would leave so he could have his transfer.
Joran hitched up on the edge of the lounge to sit beside him. “Actually, I’m much higher field than the last time I saw you. I’ve been working with Firsts in Need.”
Vret scrutinized the channel and Donor in the corner, a truly high field First Order Gen, and compared with Joran.
The channel likewise zlinned her Donor and then Joran. “Yes,” she said, “Joran is considerably higher field than the last time we met—what? Three days ago?”
“Something like that,” said Joran, his attention centered on Vret. “Are you two leaving or monitoring?”
“Monitoring,” answered the channel.
“What did I do wrong?” blurted Vret. He thought he’d earned his way out of monitored transfers.
“Nothing,” assured the channel. “Standard procedure at this point. We want a complete record on you.”
Well at least she’s no Farris. She wasn’t going to be reading his mind during his Post reaction.
Vret’s internal clock ticked closer to his assigned transfer time. The channel and her Donor were not managing his fields, leaving him to Joran’s ministrations.
Drawing a deep breath, Vret reached out a tentacle to encircle Joran’s wrist, and the Donor moved to ease Vret back onto the lounge. The tension flowed out of his back muscles and that somehow released his iron grip on himself.
Need blossomed, but he clamped down on his vriamic node in the way that had become a habit when his intil spiked just from reading a story. He forced himself to wait. Joran sat beside him, letting the single handling tentacle remain around his wrist. The Gen wasn’t going anywhere. He could wait. Intil obediently subsided and he relaxed his automatic clamp on it.
The channel prompted, “It’s time.”
Joran slid his hands up Vret’s arms and Vret’s tentacles curled into a secure grip as Vret made the fifth contact point, lip to lip. Vret drew, and selyn rushed up his lateral tentacles, flowed in sizzling streaks into his chest, through his vriamic and this time—oh, blessed wonder of wonders, this time—it flashed into his primary system and washed through his whole body like golden nectar warmed to exquisite perfection.
And then it was over. Joran waited and Vret dismantled the contact, holding his breath, savoring the moment of perfect balance and vibrant life. And with his next breath the post reaction hit.
He was aware of the channel and Donor still standing off in the corner, but he couldn’t stop the tide of emotion that seized him. What if they find out?
It was everything that had happened to him for the last two weeks coming in on him all at once. Every emotion he hadn’t been able to feel when hearing of another intil incident, or hav
ing another failure in one of his schemes to locate Blissdrip, or knowing that if he couldn’t flush out this writer, they would either be caught or have to confess—all of it washed over him in one gigantic tidal wave.
He felt as if he were standing off to one side watching himself writhe under Joran’s protective fields. He twisted from side to side, wanting to run, to hide, to curl up and be a rock. Sweating in fear, guilt, embarrassment, panic, he identified frustration and despair too. It all warred for the upper hand, slamming him back and forth to the extreme in a dizzying whirl.
The wild emotional experience had no name other than just post reaction because it was never the same twice. Sometimes you know what to expect—sometimes it hits you blindside because you have no idea some situation during the last two weeks had really meant that much to you. Vret could do nothing but hang onto his Donor and wail out his anguish and terror until the incredible surge abated.
As the world came back into focus, he heard Joran urging, “. . . there, now hang on tight.” His nageric grip was gentle but firm. “Just come duoconscious, focus on me, zlin me. You’re going to be fine now.”
Slowly, the internal storm abated.
Most of the time his Donor had coaxed and pleaded and even ordered him to talk about what he’d felt. As a student, he had no privacy at all. Ordinarily, or so he’d been taught, the content of a bad post reaction was politely ignored by a Donor, unless the Donor was a therapist trained specifically to deal with such things.
Joran just held him, washing him in kind emotions and giving him something solid to hang onto. Maybe I’ve earned a new privilege.
At some point, unnoticed by Vret, the channel and her Companion had departed. As he caught his breath, he asked Joran, “When did they leave?”
Joran flicked a glance around the room. “They’re gone!” He grinned at Vret. “I have no idea. I had my hands full.”
Personal Recognizance (Sime~Gen, Book 9) Page 7
