by Ron Goulart
“I’m sorry,” said Paget, with what sounded like genuine remorse. “I had no idea anything like this could happen.”
“She was supposed to be safe!” Charmion protested. “She donated day before yesterday. She was so scared—but she did it for you! And now she’s dead!”
Carla noticed the First Donation badge on the dead girl’s dress. She couldn’t have had enough selyn to satisfy any Sime.
“Her fear killed her,” Paget replied. “I felt it right through the wall. When I realized no one else was responding.…” He shook his head, sorrow in his eyes and voice. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
A confession in front of witnesses. “All right, Zhag,” said Carla, “let’s take you in before the audience finds out—”
As Carla held out retainers, Charmion demanded, “Why are you arresting Zhag? He didn’t kill Letty.”
Both Carla and Quint turned to face the girl. “I think you had better explain,” said Carla.
“I wanted to meet Tonyo. Letty wanted to meet Zhag. We thought the light display was our best chance to get backstage. We were trying to be real quiet. Letty got ahead of me—and then there she was!”
“…she?”
“A Sime. A berserker, I guess.” A changeover victim without the sense to go to the Sime Center. Some families still kept their children in such ignorance and fear that they denied the symptoms until it was too late.
Quint said, “I have had channels in this building all day. No changeover victim could have been hiding here.”
The girl shrugged. “She was there. Letty screamed—and the Sime grabbed her and—and—killed her! It happened so fast! She dropped Letty and came for me—” Charmion caught her breath and continued. “Zhag was just there—like magic, out of nowhere. He grabbed the Sime, wouldn’t let her get to me—”
She blinked, and looked at the musician in sudden realization. “You saved my life! She would have killed me, too!”
“How could another Sime get in here?” Carla asked.
“With a ticket,” replied Rafe Belius, displaying a stub from the concert. “We found this in the boiler room down the hall. The outer door’s locked from the inside, so she’s holed up in there. But there are a thousand nooks and crannies.”
Zhag said, “I didn’t think to warn you. It just never occurred to me—”
“What didn’t occur to you?” Quint asked.
“Fans. They do crazy things at times. You understand, Hajene Quint: a Sime in need, an audience of Gens, my shiltpron, and Tonyo’s nageric manipulation…?”
Again Carla was lost in the Sime jargon—but from Quint’s reaction she understood a little. “Fanatics,” the channel spat. “Thrill-seekers. That’s what your so-called ‘culture’ attracts! I suppose you can’t be held responsible for the acts of your followers. But now that you’ve juncted someone—”
“Hajene Quint,” said Belius impatiently, “would you help us find this killer Sime?”
As Quint went off to zlin for the other Sime, Carla turned to Zhag Paget. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We thought our security was better. An unretainered Sime should never have gotten in.”
He managed a wan smile. “A few determined fans always get past security. But there’s never been…a Kill.” He turned to Charmion Johnson. “I have to go back on stage. If you feel up to it, come and meet Tonyo.”
The girl came forward eagerly. “I’m not afraid of you.”
The building shook with applause when Zhag Paget returned to the stage. The concert continued for another hour, long enough for the body of Letty Meech to be taken away, and an officer sent to notify her family.
With Quint’s help, they found and arrested the killer Sime, an adult Sime woman in a loose, long-sleeved tunic over full-cut trousers. She could have bought her ticket, or ambushed someone on the way to the concert and stolen it. She had obviously relied on the idiotic law that kept the channels retainered to prevent them from zlinning her amid the Gen audience.
Tony and Zhag came offstage to more thunderous applause, grinning, Charmion Johnson walking between them. Madson Quint stopped them. He beckoned Carla to witness as he addressed the girl in the pink dress.
“I need your testimony to support what I zlinned in the Sime who killed your friend. Just exactly how did Paget ‘grab’ that woman?” Quint demanded.
Charmion found the courage to relive the scene of an hour ago. “It was like—like he was gonna kill her. Or she was gonna kill him. I was so scared!”
“It’s all right,” Carla said soothingly. “Just tell us what you saw and heard.”
“The Sime yelled at Zhag. I didn’t understand. She was real mad, and she wiped her mouth like he’d made her sick.”
“That’s it,” said Quint. “Zhag Paget, the Tecton charges you with manslaughter and reckless endangerment. You have contributed to the death of a Gen and the juncting of a Sime. Antoine Logan, you are an accessory—you balanced Zhag’s fields before I zlinned him, hiding the evidence. Lieutenant Stenner, please take these two into custody until I can arrange transport into Sime Territory for a hearing before the Tecton Council.”
Charmion protested, “But Zhag saved me! You can’t arrest him!”
“Go home,” Quint told her, “and count yourself lucky that you were not the one killed.”
Charmion tossed her head, started to snap back at him, but changed her mind and instead marched down the corridor toward where the audience could still be heard applauding, hoping to coax the performers back for one last encore.
They were to be disappointed. Carla had to take Tony and Zhag in, as the police station had the only holding cells for Simes. However, she wanted answers before she released them to their fate. Therefore she gathered Tony, Zhag, and Quint in the interrogation room, told both Simes to remove their retainers, and demanded, “What exactly are Logan and Paget charged with—in plain English, not Tecton jargon.”
“Zhag gave that woman transfer,” Tony said as he and Quint traded glares of anger. “He did it to save Charmion Johnson’s life.”
“He’s junct,” Quint repeated. “Fifteen years ago we had to use junct channels because there were not enough nonjunct channels to provide transfer for everyone. Paget would have been drafted anywhere outside Gulf Territory—there they had almost enough channels, and this dangerous practice of matching up the worst juncts with Gens.”
Zhag shook his head. “I was far too ill by Unity to become a practicing channel. When I met Tonyo, I was dying.”
Carla was becoming exasperated. “You might as well be speaking Simelan! Zhag, what were you dying of?”
“I couldn’t kill anymore,” the musician explained.
“But no one was killing anymore.”
There was sudden silence around the table.
Carla looked from one to another of the three men. “The Unity Treaty says that all Simes in all the signatory Sime Territories will immediately stop killing Gens. Zhag, you told me you haven’t killed in fifteen years.”
“That’s the truth,” Zhag replied.
“It’s not the whole truth,” said Carla.
Tony’s response earned him another glare from Quint. “If the whole truth becomes known, it could be the end of Unity.”
“What whole truth?” Carla asked. “Why do you say Zhag is junct? He doesn’t kill.”
She was looking at Quint, but it was Zhag who answered. “Because no Sime can disjunct more than a few months after changeover.”
“But that would mean…Quint? It is against Sime Territory law to permit the Kill?”
“Not to…save a life,” the channel said reluctantly.
Tony took it up. “It’s almost over. In another five years there won’t be any more juncts…or Secret Pens.”
Quint went white with fury, gripping the edge of the table with his hands, tentacles tightly retracted as if to keep from strangling the Gen. Tony continued, undaunted. “Since Unity, the Sime population has grown only because Sime children of Gens are take
n to the channels instead of murdered. The young Simes are all nonjunct or disjunct. But almost all the Simes who were too old to disjunct after Unity are dead, unless they were fortunate enough to find matchmates.” He looked disdainfully at Quint. “What the Tecton ought to do is teach every Gen to give transfer. We all can, you know, if we’re not raised to fear it. Simes would find their matchmates, and everyone would live as nature intended.”
“That argument always comes from Natural Donors,” said Quint. “You have no idea how many Gens you might inspire to die!”
Carla said, “Stick to the point. Zhag, how can you be junct and not kill? If Tony didn’t give you transfer, would you kill someone?”
“No,” Zhag replied. “I would die.”
“Would he?” Carla asked Quint.
The Tecton channel nodded. “Almost his whole generation is dead. That woman in the holding cell will die—how long depends on her perception of Gens. She accepts the partnership between Logan and Paget, or she wouldn’t have come here. The more she sees Gens as people, the less capable she is of killing.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Carla asked.
“Not when it means she’ll die in agony,” said Tony. “Carla, what the Tecton didn’t tell us when they promised to disjunct all the Simes in their Territories was…it’s not possible. At least not by the only methods the Tecton will allow.”
“You can’t understand,” said Quint. “Because of you, Zhag Paget doesn’t kill—but he is as junct as he ever was.”
“That’s a technicality,” said Tony. “Junct means killer. Zhag doesn’t kill. That’s the only definition that counts to Gens.”
“He’s right on that one,” said Carla.
Quint shook his head. “There’s no use trying to explain—you can’t zlin what I’m talking about.”
“All right,” said Carla, “then explain what Zhag did wrong in saving Charmion Johnson’s life.”
“He gave junct transfer. The few junct channels still working give transfer only to the few surviving junct Simes.”
“Quint,” said Carla, as if she were speaking to a not very bright child, “that woman was junct before Zhag gave her transfer. She became junct when she killed Letty Meech.”
Tony gave her a big smile of approval.
Quint, though, shook his head. “We can’t have renegade channels providing junct transfer!”
“I see,” said Carla. “The Tecton will permit a Gen to be killed to save a junct Sime’s life. But it’s wrong to allow a junct channel to transfer a little selyn to save a Gen’s life?”
Tony laughed. “You should be our advocate, Carla.”
“You should know better, Logan,” said Quint. “You’ve lived in-Territory long enough to understand how dangerous you are. What you did in that auditorium tonight—”
“I enhanced Zhag’s playing, that’s all. Did you think I put him in killmode? He faced a terrified Gen in a corridor reeking of the Kill. He didn’t touch the Gen, and gave transfer to the Sime. Instead of arresting him, you should give him a medal!”
The media agreed with Tonyo Logan. When they left the interrogation room, the radio was blaring with a Logan/Paget song—one of the rarely-played ones in Simelan. Carla put Tony and Zhag in one of the Sime holding cells; the newly juncted Sime woman was in the other.
The song ended as Carla went to her desk to write up tonight’s—no, by now it was last night’s—incident. But she paused to listen as the announcer reported, “That was Logan and Paget, of course. Quite the heroes! The mayor and the city council are in emergency meeting with representatives of the Tecton at this very moment, trying to find out why the channels didn’t prevent a Kill at tonight’s concert, and why it was only the action of Zhag Paget himself that prevented a second.
“Before the meeting the mayor announced that Logan and Paget are to be presented with the keys to the city tomorrow morning, and that they will be invited back to perform at this year’s Faith Day celebration.”
So—before his meeting with Tecton representatives, the mayor hadn’t known that Tony and Zhag had been arrested. Carla knew the mayor. He would not be pleased to be given a bunch of Sime technical jargon about Zhag’s committing a crime when he had saved a life and the voters thought him a hero.
Of course when it came out that the killer Sime had not been a berserker, but one of Logan and Paget’s fans who had sneaked across the border….
Carla got the packet of trin tea from Tony’s belongings, and made up some to take in to Tony and Zhag. The radio was playing another of their songs now.
Probably, she thought, that Sime woman would appreciate some trin tea as well—what she had done was probably just dawning on her. So she took a steaming cup over to the other selyn-shielded cell, and opened the small hatch that allowed food and drink to be passed in and out.
Carla’s Simelan was good enough to offer a cup of tea—but she was not sure she understood the response, except that it was a rude refusal. She went in to Tony and Zhag. “That’s strange. I’m sure she’s upset, but why would she call me a wild animal?”
Tony snickered. “I heard that one often enough when I first went into Sime Territory.”
Zhag frowned. “But you don’t hear it nowadays. Carla, no one but some lowlife would use that term today—and no fan of ours would refer to a Gen that way. How could she be a Logan/Paget fan without respecting Tonyo?”
“I think I’d better question her,” said Carla. “I’ll send for a Tecton channel.”
“Why, when you’ve got us?” Tony asked.
Zhag had been able to stop the woman earlier, while Tony…well, she understood that in the years he had spent in Gulf Territory he had learned to manipulate selyn fields, even control Simes’ emotions. Between them they could probably prevent the woman from making a break for freedom, and there was little likelihood now of her attempting a Kill. Carla held her gun on the woman until they were safely in the interrogation room, with Belius stationed outside the door, also armed.
Glaring angrily, the woman sat in silence. “Who are you?” Carla asked. Her Simelan was easily up to these basic questions. “Where did you come from? You had no identification, only your concert ticket.”
Silence.
Tony said, “You know you’re in big trouble. But Zhag and I can help you if—”
“A channel and a Wild Gen!” the woman spat. “You make me sick.” She lifted her head proudly. “I am a Free Sime.”
Carla looked from Tony to Zhag. “What’s a Free Sime?”
Both men shrugged. The Sime woman remained stubbornly silent.
“In Gulf Territory I’m a Free Gen,” Tony offered. “It means I have the same rights and responsibilities as a Sime—and pay the same taxes, too.”
Zhag chuckled. “I guess that makes me your tax collector.” At Carla’s questioning look, he explained, “He pays them in selyn. I pay in money, which I actually have to earn. There’s been some griping, as Gens can produce enough selyn to live well without doing a lick of work.” He looked at the Sime woman again. “Is that what this Free Sime business is about—a tax revolt?”
The woman retorted, “My family never objected to pen taxes! We were civilized in Nivet Territory when Gulf was nothing but settled-in Raiders! And then you channels had to start in, taking away the kill, treating Gens like people. It’s sick!”
Carla was quite sure she understood the woman’s words. She just didn’t understand the sentiment. “What exactly are you saying?” she demanded.
The woman looked her in the eye. “Simes are predators. Gens are prey. Anything that gets between Simes and the Kill is unhealthy. We Free Simes won’t accept the Tecton. Sime/Sime transfer is a perversion! So we have been forced to leave our homes and start new communities outside the Territories.”
“Is that why you came to disrupt the concert,” asked Carla, “because you are opposed to Unity?”
“Yes,” the woman replied.
“You are not a citizen of Nivet or Gulf Te
rritories?”
“Not any longer. But I will not tell you where my home is. I don’t care how you torture me.”
“I’ll get it out of her!” said Tony angrily.
Zhag put a hand on his arm. “That’s Carla’s job. Which she is very good at. Do you realize what she has done, Tonyo?”
What Carla had done was to free Tony and Zhag. Even Quint had to agree that Zhag’s providing transfer to this Free Sime was no violation of Territory or Tecton law. The woman had not been enticed to the concert by Logan and Paget’s music—any similar event would have done—so the charge of being a dangerous nuisance was dropped as well.
Despite a night without sleep, Carla was buoyed up by her success…but at the same time weighed down by new knowledge. Free Simes weren’t the half of it. They seemed to be news to the Tecton channels as much as to the Gen government—but now both would be alert for further attempts to sabotage Unity.
No—the difficult knowledge for Carla was that there were still killer Simes in the Sime Territories despite the Unity Treaty. Not technically junct, like Zhag, but real killers. After the mayor’s press conference, she determined to corner Tony for a few final questions.
The groundswell Charmion Johnson had started increased as the press ran with the best story since Unity. Letty Meech’s father blamed the city for inadequate security. Still under the spell of the performance, most reporters chose to emphasize the restrictions on channels. Not the concert, but the retainer laws, became the scandal.
Nevertheless, Zhag was back in those restraints for the public ceremony on the steps of City Hall. It was amusing to see the Simephobic mayor cautiously shake hands with him, thank him for saving a life, and invite him to perform at the Faith Day celebration. Charmion Johnson, though, gave Zhag an enthusiastic kiss—and an even more eager one to Tony.
The mayor delivered a prepared statement about the Free Simes, and the fact that the only way to prevent them from disrupting similar events in the future was to allow channels to work security without retainers. The circumstances would be carefully controlled, he promised, and warnings clearly posted.
