by Ron Goulart
“We erase you. Your choice.” He nodded at the other bald man in the suit, who moved to inject me in the neck with the syringe.
VIII
I found myself sitting at the table with Allison, eating the linguini and baked potato she had prepared.
“Well?” she said.
“It’s wonderful,” I said.
“A woman who can cook! A solider and a chef,” she said, grabbing my hand.
“A keeper,” I heard myself saying, groggy and stifling one last giggle.
IX
The pages on my desk were quite curious, and something I may have thought up myself: a group of soldiers who believe the government enhanced them in a secret program band together to learn the truth, and help others in need along the way. They were called the Idyllwild Group.
What the hell. I took it and pitched it to Croker along with three of my ideas. I thought it was a good pitch meeting. My agent called ten minutes after I left Croker’s office on Wiltshire and Santa Monica, as I was about to get on the freeway and return to Allison, who was waiting for me, our camping gear packed.
“You certainly made an impression, Brad,” said agent. “Croker wants to buy The Idyllwild Group right off, and for half a million. Can you believe that? Hey, what is this storyline anyway? You never drove it past me. Never mind, he wants to go for it and get it on the fast track for his Fall season line-up. This could be big, buddy. You were on you’re a-game and it paid off. Now go out and celebrate.”
Yeah, I could go along with this life change, and everything else in the deal.
I felt damn patriotic.
X
Allison and I finished packing and headed to Big Bear with her sister and fiancé, who also happened to be in the Army, and bore a strong resemblance to the fellow in the black jeans who had injected me with the wonder drugs. But he wasn’t bald, and that toupee was impressive. I took it in stride. They had to keep an eye on the merchandise.
It was going to be a nice week, I knew it; and maybe a nice life. Sure, I could marry this solider girl, and if I ever got tired of her, and decided to kill her again, she would simply come back to me, bright shiny new.
I would have more Allisons than I’d ever know what to do with.
REFLECTION OF A DREAM, by Jean Lorrah
The concert was reaching its peak. Police Lieutenant Carla Stenner, in charge of security, had seen no sign of anyone trying to disrupt the concert or harm the Sime shiltpron player.
It was the first time since Unity that a Sime performer had appeared in Gen Territory. The audience, half won over before the music began, were in total accord now, absorbing the most moving music Carla had ever experienced. Such performances would do far more to promote Sime/Gen Unity than any laws or treaties.
Tonyo Logan and Zhag Paget’s recordings could not even half convey the experience of seeing, hearing, and…somehow feeling them in live performance. Tony, Gen like Carla, sang and danced and pranced in denim trousers tight enough to provide evidence of how inspired he was by the music…or was it by the young Gen woman in a pink dress, dancing before the stage? Echoing each other’s movements, they appeared oblivious to the crowd.
But Tony was not truly oblivious. He never missed a word or a note—and now he danced to the other side of the stage, where Carla stood near the barricade separating stage from audience.
Despite the backlighting that silhouetted Tony and turned his blond curls into a halo, Carla saw the wink he gave her. When she smiled in return, he grinned and bounced back to center stage as the brief instrumental interval concluded.
Tony wore a sleeveless shirt, open down to his belt. A white enamel chain about his neck supported a black-and-white starred-cross of a design Carla had never seen before. Against his plain dark shirt, Zhag Paget, the shiltpron player, wore an identical emblem. His hung just beneath his closed collar, so as not to interfere with the instrument from which he brought forth a variety of sounds.
The girl in pink, as well as most others pushing their way down front, might be trying to attract Tony’s attention, but Carla saw as many eyes fastened on the shiltpron player as Tony concluded his vocals and danced once more into the shadows. The light came up on Zhag.
The Sime’s dark hair and pale skin made a strong contrast to Tony’s golden mane and suntan—they were like the sun and the moon, emblemizing the roles of Gen and Sime, producer and receiver of energy. That was the theme of numerous interviews they had given throughout their triumphant tour. Logan and Paget might be the first, but they did not intend to be the only Sime/Gen ensemble to perform in Gen Territory.
The press was here in force. After this experience, Carla could not imagine even the most conservative journalists rejecting the cultural exchange. The eyes of the Gen audience fastened on Sime tentacles in admiration. Tonight that outward mark of the difference between the two kinds of humans produced not fear, but pleasure.
The shiltpron solo swelled out into the auditorium. The light on Zhag dimmed. A faint green glow developed around the Sime performer, brightest near his hands, where his tentacles emerged from their wrist openings.
Carla looked away and back again, trying to locate the source of light. The girl in pink was pressed against the barricade. A taller girl with eyes made up to look twice their size nudged her and pointed toward the Sime performer.
Carla also looked back at Zhag. The glow was stronger now. She made out Tony behind him, invisible except where his pale hair picked up glints of green light.
Zhag seemed to control the glow with his music. Tony’s voice joined the rising crescendo, no words now, an organic instrument playing counterpoint to the shiltpron. A pyramid of green light formed around the Sime, expanded, took in his Gen partner. The music pulsed, as if the hearts of the performers beat with those of the audience.
More than two thousand people participated in a celebration of pure life energy! Carla looked around at the enraptured faces—and saw the gasp that overcame them as her own insides were startled by an orgasmic shock of pleasure.
Her eyes caught movement at the other side of the stage. The girl in pink and her friend had slipped around the barrier.
Carla shifted instantly back to security mode.
A hand touched her shoulder. She turned to face Madson Quint, a channel from the Sime Center. “You’ve got to stop them!”
“Those kids won’t get backstage,” she assured him.
“No—stop the show! That idiot is raising Paget’s intil in an auditorium full of untrained Gens!”
Carla didn’t understand all the Sime jargon, but she saw that the channel sensed danger. Yet stopping this incredible show would surely start a riot.
The pyramid of green light pulsed in changing patterns. Notes and rhythms intertwined in ever more complex combinations—
—and shattered!
The instrument stopped abruptly. Tony’s voice continued for a moment as the pyramid of light collapsed and disappeared.
Carla barely made out movement on stage by the glitter of the strings and frets of the shiltpron and the pale mass of Tony’s hair. The Sime thrust his instrument into the Gen’s hands and dashed offstage on the opposite side.
Quint made as if to leap over the barriers, but subsided, gasping and rubbing his forearms where his tentacles were trapped in their sheaths by the retainers he wore. Someone had the presence of mind to bring the house lights up. Tony was just disappearing backstage, charging after his partner.
Carla displayed her badge and shouted “Police!” so the crowd would let her through. As she could not leap over barriers like a Sime, it would be fastest to go around the far end.
Quint kept pace with her. A Sime like Zhag, he could have practically flown past her, but he didn’t dare provoke Gen fear.
Or was it the retainers that slowed him? He had worn them for almost three hours. They made ordinary Simes sick and dizzy in far less time than that, and Quint, a channel, was more sensitive than most.
They heard the firs
t shrieks as they reached the door to the backstage area: two screams, followed by one voice alone, building in hysteria.
Thank goodness the crowd was buzzing loudly in suprise at Zhag’s abrupt departure—the screams would be covered.
Carla pushed through police and Sime Center Gens, and pounded down the steps to the hallway leading backstage.
Halfway down the corridor, the girl in pink pressed against the wall on one side. Zhag Paget was pressed as tightly against the opposite wall. Between them, on the floor, lay the motionless form of the other girl, the one with the painted eyes.
The dead girl’s face was frozen in the rictus of fear indicative of the kill—attack by a Sime to strip a Gen of selyn, the life energy Simes consumed to survive. Except for channels like Quint, no Sime in need could control the kill reflex.
But Zhag Paget had not been in need. According to the carefully negotiated agreement for permission to perform tonight, Paget had filled up only yesterday with a month’s worth of selyn.
Paget stood, as pale as the dead girl, clutching his starred-cross. All six tentacles on either hand were extended. His lateral tentacles—the ones with which Simes drew selyn—were slimed with selyn-conducting fluid. The stuff smeared his hands, too, and the front of his shirt. The Sime was shaking, his eyes closed as if to shut out the sight of what he had done, and he was muttering something.
Placing her trust in Madson Quint to intercept if Zhag tried to attack her, Carla allowed the channel to go first, but stepped closer to hear what Zhag was saying.
“I couldn’t stop her! I couldn’t stop her!” His fingers were pale at the knuckles from his grip on the starred-cross.
From the stage end of the hall, Tony Logan arrived, followed by two of Carla’s officers, Similla Gordon and Rafe Belius.
Belius sealed off the scene, calling to other officers to hold Logan and Paget’s crew back from one side, the audience and the press from the other. Gordon went to the girl in pink, and began to talk soothingly. The girl’s screams subsided into sobs.
Tony went straight to Paget and put his hands on the Sime’s shoulders. At once Paget’s eyes opened. “Tonyo!” he whispered. “I couldn’t stop her!”
“It’s all right,” said Tony. “I’m here. You’re safe.” He placed his hands over the Sime’s, prying the clutching fingers loose from the talisman, bloodied from Paget’s frantic grip. Then he slid his hands gently up the Sime’s forearms. Handling tentacles lashed around muscular Gen arms, binding the two men together as the small moist laterals seated themselves.
But Paget made no attempt to create the fifth contact that drained a Gen of life. He rested his head on Tony’s shoulder for a moment, gave a shuddering sigh, and let go, withdrawing his tentacles into their sheaths. “Thank you,” he said softly.
Neither musical magician nor killing monster now, he looked like nothing more than a rather frail, ordinary man. Tony put an arm around his partner’s shoulders and turned. “What happened here?” he demanded, as if he were the one in charge.
Carla said, “Zhag Paget, I am taking you into protective custody until you can be transported into Sime Territory.”
“No!” exclaimed Tony. He looked down at the corpse. “Zhag couldn’t do this!”
“After what you did to him?” Quint spoke up. “Of all the irresponsible Gen power plays I have ever witnessed, that was the most blatant, the most—” He ran out of words. “You don’t even know what you’ve done, do you? How horribly he’s going to—” Again the channel stopped, looking with pity at Zhag Paget.
Carla didn’t care what the Sime government did to Paget. She had a corpse, a killer Sime in custody, and a mission to get them all out of there before word reached the audience.
And the press! It was a diplomatic disaster.
“Tony,” she said, “go out on stage. Say Zhag’s been taken ill. Make up something. But tell the audience the concert is over, and ask them to leave quietly.”
“I can’t—” Tony began.
Zhag said, “Carla’s right—the audience can’t be allowed to know there’s been a Kill. But the concert isn’t over. Go out there and perform, Tonyo.”
“Zhag!” Tony gasped.
“I’ll join you as soon as Carla finishes investigating. Now go!” he insisted, unwrapping Tony’s arm from around his shoulders. “Sing to them. If they see you they won’t panic.”
But Tony insisted, “Two songs. If you’re not back on stage, I’m going to end it there.” He turned to Carla. “Don’t take him anywhere till I get back!”
She followed him for a few steps, out of Zhag’s hearing. “Tony—there’s no choice. If I don’t take Zhag into custody, when people find out what he’s done they’ll murder him.”
He stopped, turning to stare at her in astonishment. “You think he did it!”
“Zhag was the only Sime here.”
“When you got here. Why aren’t your people looking for the killer? That girl provoked someone. It had to be her spike of fear Zhag sensed from the stage—he certainly wouldn’t be attracted to some out-Territory groupie!”
“You’ve lived in Sime Territory too damn long if you blame that poor child for getting killed!” Carla exploded.
Tony’s face showed a mix of frustration and bewilderment. Then, “You’re as bad as the rest of them. Zhag’s the nearest Sime, so he has to be the killer.” His blue eyes were dark with fury. “Go conduct your shendi-fleckin’ investigation—but for Unity’s sake, get a channel to search the building! And when you’re through, send Zhag out on stage to me.”
Carla stared after Tony as he disappeared backstage. He was so close to this…Sime…that he could not accept the evidence of his own eyes.
She pulled herself together, realizing that on one level Tony was correct: she had to keep an open mind. Both Tony and Paget seemed certain it would clear him…but then, they were probably thinking of Sime Territory law. Simes were not allowed to kill, but she was sure there were plenty of technicalities. In the Sime courts where Paget would be tried—if they bothered to try him at all—the death would probably be ruled accidental.
Whatever happened later, Carla had to investigate now. “Seal this corridor,” she told Rafe Belius. “We know no one left at either end. Check for any other exits.”
Rafe went to the door to the auditorium and returned with three uniformed officers. They started checking the length of the corridor.
Meanwhile, Paget turned to Quint and asked in Simelan, “You didn’t zlin what happened?”
“Retainered, from the middle of a crowd of Gens you had whipped into a frenzy?” Quint demanded angrily. “The Tecton opposed this foolish experiment all along—look where it’s led!”
“If you didn’t zlin what happened, zlin me!” Paget said, now in English. “And once that poor girl calms down, ask her.”
The girl in pink sat on the floor now, her back to the corpse of her friend. Gordon had put her jacket around the shaking girl, and was still talking to her.
Although his annoyance was obvious, Quint turned to Carla. “May I?” The channel indicated his retainers.
“You’re taking evidence at a crime scene,” said Carla. “I’ll take responsibility.”
Retainers could not be removed quickly. With the help of a Sime Center Gen, Quint began the slow process. Muffled sounds of the shiltpron reached them. Carla hadn’t known that Tony could play the Sime instrument. His voice rose, a sad song in a minor key, but she could not understand the words through the walls.
She focused on her job: to find out what had gone wrong. The channel could go very far toward telling her. One by one, the four small handling tentacles of Quint’s left hand emerged from the openings at his wrist, and stretched to full length—only reaching the tips of his fingers, two over the back of his hand, two under the palm.
Sime handling tentacles were actually quite small, less than the diameter of a finger and covered with ordinary skin. Gen drawings of Carla’s childhood had made them appear as huge as
rattlesnakes, dripping venom, glowing with some strange magnetic force. In plain fact, they were just little extra appendages.
As the slow process continued, Carla reviewed what she knew of Zhag Paget. She had known him less than a day. But Tony Logan she had known all her life, and she didn’t understand him at all. How could she possibly know Paget well enough to place the trust in him that Tony did?
She thought back to their meeting, only a few hours ago, at the police station.
“Hey, Lieutenant—I hear you know Tonyo Logan.”
It was going to be much worse than the last time Tony had visited. He had been moderately famous then, a minor celebrity.
Now he was a star. And he would have that Sime with him.
Carla turned, saying with careful casualness, “We went to school together. He was just Tony in those days.”
Individually misfits, together they had made one of their school’s most popular couples. She had tutored him in literature, and he had brought her out of her shyness into the spotlight that always shone where Tony was. They had shared their first fumbling sexual experience, planned to share their lives…and then Unity had changed everything.
Tony lived and breathed music, but to make a living from it was so far from their working class upbringing that Carla never took his dream seriously. He also had a talent for mathematics—she recalled his explaining something called the Numbers of Zelerod while her head was spinning with his proposal that they get married and move to Sime Territory.
It had seemed worse than insane at the time. Simes might have signed a treaty by which they agreed to stop killing Gens—but who could trust Simes? Could you trust a hungry wolf not to attack you because his pack leader signed a treaty?
But Simes had indeed stopped killing Gens—or rather, accepted being prevented from doing so. In her police duties, Carla often worked with the channels at the Sime Center built here after Unity. Channels were Simes with the ability to take selyn from Gens and transfer it to Simes, with no harm to either. Every month she herself donated selyn, law officers being expected to set an example.
