The Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “No, he finished doing what he could with Tuzhel’s sores and went to sit with Sian who’s right across the hall.”

  “Good. I’ll see to Sian first, then I’ll have a long talk with Tuzhel.”

  “There’s no point, Rimon!” said Xanon. “He’s a Raider! He must be from Gen Territory. He barely speaks Simelan, and wanted to Kill Bruce. We had to tie him to his bed! He’s nothing but a wild animal.”

  Maigrey nodded. “He is from Gen Territory. His parents were Gen. That’s why he speaks Genlan! His Simelan isn’t all that bad. It’s just accented.”

  “Did he say how old he is?” asked Rimon.

  “No, but he says he’s Killed three times. He’s a little vague on elapsed time.”

  “You see?” said Xanon. “We shouldn’t waste precious resources on this one.”

  “Xanon,” instructed Rimon, “Tuzhel is a person, not an animal. If we can save him, we will. Policy.”

  “He’ll betray us to the Raiders first chance he gets.”

  “He might. Though, if we don’t give him every chance, we’ll have betrayed ourselves. The Church of the Unity may not be a dominant force in this Fort as it was in Fort Freedom, but it represents our origins and its founder began adult life as a Freeband Raider. Then he helped my grandfather discover how to channel.”

  Rimon remembered the moment when Solamar had looked at him in the underground shelter as they prepared to attempt a transfer for this Raider. Never for one instant had Solamar considered not trying to help Tuzhel. It was not that the Tanhara channel was resisting the temptation to let the Raider die, but that he felt no such temptation. Maigrey and Bruce felt the same way and none of them were adherents to the Church of the Unity.

  “Xanon, go check with Val for your schedule. I’m going to look in on Sian before talking to Tuzhel.”

  “Sian will never recover use of his left arm, or his legs either,” declared Xanon. He wasn’t glad about it, but it was as if an injury like that somehow diminished the value of the man. “Maigrey, let’s see what Val has decided now.”

  Rimon tossed Maigrey a sorrowful look at having assigned her to Xanon. When the door closed, he took an apple from the sideboard and poured himself some tea, waiting for his nerves to settle after exposure to Xanon’s abrasive selyn fields. He couldn’t identify why the Fort Butte channel set his teeth on edge, but clearly it was mutual. A lot of the Fort Butte people are like that! Maybe it was that the Church of the Unity hadn’t survived in Fort Butte. That made him wonder about Fort Tanhara.

  Carrying his tea and munching his apple, Rimon walked down the corridor of the infirmary’s second floor, zlinning patients in the rooms on either side, watching the various channels, some of whom he hardly knew, work with the selyn fields around the wounded, spurring their healing.

  Usually, most of the first floor was offices, but now they were using all but his own office for patients. Val had commandeered his office for her big schedule board and they were running supply logistics out of there too.

  He found Bruce in Sian’s room at the end of the second floor hall.

  The infirmary rooms were barely big enough for a narrow bed, a couple of chairs for the channel-Companion pairs working on the patient, a counter with a pitcher and basin, and normally well stocked cabinets. Tonight, the medicinal supplies were dangerously low, and the counters littered with used bandages. Soiled bedding was piled in the corridor, and the trash bin held scraps of ripening food, and bits of bloody refuse. A candle basket overflowed with candle stubs to be melted down for reuse.

  “Sian,” greeted Rimon.

  “Delri, I was hoping you’d come by. That’s why I kept Bruce here. Bait.”

  “You know I can find him from the other end of the flax fields.”

  “If he was mine, he’d never get that far away!”

  “Great,” observed Bruce. “Now I’ve got Simes fighting over me! I must be very skilled at sowing strife.” Bruce tried for a glum nageric effect. It didn’t work.

  The two Simes shared a chuckle. Then Sian said, “No kidding Delri. You’re in Need.”

  “Not much,” Bruce answered for him. “Only about two days. He hit Turnover the morning of the attack.”

  Turnover was the point, halfway through the month, when a Sime had used up half the selyn taken in that month’s transfer. It was often accompanied by an alarming, sinking sensation, and always followed by the increasing awareness of life trickling away, of death approaching, of the Need for more selyn.

  Rimon moved to where Bruce sat in one of the polished hardwood chairs. “Sian, we’re going to make a long, slow, deep examination of your injuries and see if we can relieve some of that paralysis.”

  “Just give me my arm back. We can build me a loom that doesn’t require feet.”

  Weaving was his art, his pride, and other than his children, his greatest joy. He was married to the master dyer of the Fort, a woman who had borne him four children. For him, life and weaving were all of one piece.

  Rimon leaned on Bruce’s fields. The Gen felt the nageric shift and brought his attention to focus on Rimon as Rimon focused on Sian. Rimon smoothly supplied the nageric support for Sian as Bruce withdrew. For a moment the renSime didn’t even notice. Then he smiled and shook his head. “I never believe it when you two do that.”

  Grinning back and nagerically accepting the compliment, Rimon moved to the bedside and hitched one hip onto the edge of the bed, reaching for Sian’s arms. “Let’s see how much progress you’ve made.”

  “Not much. You got one transfer into me, but I don’t think it’ll work again.”

  “It wasn’t fun, I know,” Rimon finished the thought as he slid his hand under the flaccid arm, cradling the elbow. “Oddly enough your laterals aren’t much affected by this injury.”

  A Sime took in selyn through the lateral tentacles that normally lay sheathed along the sides of the arms. Those tentacles were almost all nerve with little muscle. They were protected during a transfer grip by the strong, dextrous handling tentacles.

  Rimon extended his handling tentacles to secure the grip, and pressed just so on the reflex node, forcing the renSime’s laterals out of their sheaths. That wouldn’t have worked if the paralysis were total. “Just relax and let me zlin your tissues.”

  Rimon twined his lateral tentacles around the two flaccid ones on Sian’s left arm, and the two normal ones on the renSime’s right arm. He felt the contact with Sian’s nervous system open. Then he bent and made the necessary fifth contact, lip to lip, searching the nerve rich skin of the lips for the match that would allow his Sime senses access to the body before him.

  Trusting Bruce’s trained attention not to waver from him, Rimon completely let go of his awareness of touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell, then immersed himself in the purely Sime perception of reality, the shifting, surging, billowing fields of energy generated by the incessant motion of selyn through a living nervous system.

  He narrowed and refocused, letting his awareness trace the selyn flows twining up and down his patient’s arms. He zlinned the damaged tissue near Sian’s shoulder joint. The swelling he’d zlinned before was nearly gone, but some of the nerve cells controlling the muscles were dying. Some were already dead, the faint glow of selyn extinguished. He narrowed focus again to separate one cell from another, almost impossible with nerve cells.

  Delri spent so much of his time in this healing mode state of awareness that it had become a restful norm for him. As he worked, he felt tension dissipate and the surrounding room disappeared from awareness, and suddenly he zlinned how the nerve canal itself was intact, but only some of the nerve cells were recovering. Sian would have to grow new tissue there or lose the use of his arm. Or maybe not.

  He switched his attention to the lower spine injury that had left both legs paralyzed. The situation there was worse, but it gave him an idea.

  He dismantled the contact, brought himself to awareness of his ordinary senses, thinking furiously, weighing risks he
couldn’t begin to assess.

  He rose and paced in front of the workbench up to the small hearth where the fire had died to embers. Bruce followed him. Rimon turned and put his back to the faint warmth. He stared at Bruce.

  “You,” said Rimon to his Companion, “are still the best Companion in this Fort, the best I have ever found.”

  “Why does that sound ominous?”

  “Because what I have in mind will work only if you exceed even your highest standard. This will be fine, fine work. Your unwavering concentration will be even more critical than ever. The risk....” He shifted attention to Sian. “The risk is death, Sian. This would be an all-or-nothing experiment.”

  The renSime pulled in a deep breath, his skin paling in time with his escalating alarm. “And the reward?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe restoring most of the use of your arm, possibly restoring some sensation to your legs. I really don’t know what will happen. Clire tried this on Garath, and you know what happened.” He watched Sian absorb that while Bruce attempted to stifle his reaction.

  Garath had been a renSime from Fort Butte who suffered a full paralysis of his right arm when a building collapsed during construction. He had lost all ability to draw selyn through his right side laterals.

  Xanon and the other Fort Butte channels had failed to get a transfer into Garath. Clire, with Rimon’s help, had attempted to induce healing in those nerves using a procedure she had only heard about.

  Bruce said, “Delri, Garath died and you barely managed to save Clire, and that almost cost you your life.”

  “I remember,” assured Rimon.

  “And it took Clire nearly ten days to recover. Aipensha isn’t here to save you this time. Do you want Lexy to watch you die?”

  “Lexy isn’t to be involved, no matter what. This is between Sian, me, and unavoidably, you.”

  Sian said, “No. We can’t afford to risk you.”

  Rimon sat down on the bed again, motioning Bruce to take a chair. “Your injury is much less severe. Clire had never watched the procedure and was caught off guard by a side effect. I zlinned what happened. I think we can use this procedure, not so intensely, and still get some results for you. It’s a judgment call, and not mine to make alone.”

  “Definitely not alone,” injected Bruce glumly. “This is not a good idea.”

  “Will I be less at risk in four or five days?” asked Rimon, keenly aware of Need creeping up on him as every heartbeat used up selyn while every one of Bruce’s heartbeats left the Gen’s body surging with new selyn his tissues created. Need was what being Sime was all about. Gens were a lot more complicated.

  Bruce sighed but didn’t answer aloud.

  Rimon asked Sian, “Are you willing to risk your life for the possible, partial, use of your arm, maybe a little improvement in the legs? Think about it for a....”

  “I don’t have to think about that. I’d risk anything. My family might have other ideas, but I wouldn’t want you to tell them until it was over. They’d worry, and it would be wasted if it turns out all right. Everyone knows I’ve not much chance of surviving this.”

  “Oh, but you do, Sian, you do.” Sian had four children to think about. “You could live for years in this condition, with maybe a little improvement with time.”

  In great stillness, Sian confronted that vision. Utterly still for more than a minute, he did think, hard. Then he shook his head. “No, that’s not life. If you think this will work, it’s worth it to me. But it’s not worth any risk to you, Delri. I’m just not worth that.”

  Rimon held the ambient nager firm and steady and just returned the renSime’s gaze, waiting silently.

  Eventually, Sian took a deep breath and threw his head back to moan at the ceiling. “All right. I see your point. It’s up to me to evaluate the risk for myself, what my life would be like if I say no. I can’t say how it would be for you. Delri, what would you lose that’s so valuable you’d rather not live without it?”

  “Self respect. The knowledge that I’ve done my best, used all my strength to make the world a better place. Clire...no matter if we recover her and try to save her child, Clire is dead to us. This procedure is her legacy, the legacy of her Fort. It shouldn’t die with her. It should be here for her child.”

  “Then,” said Bruce, “you must bring Lexy in to monitor. Nobody else would have any chance of zlinning what you’re doing.”

  Trapped by his own logic, Rimon sighed. He turned a smile to Bruce. “Agreed.” Gens!

  Sian laughed. Bruce looked bewildered then shrugged, and asked Sian, “Should I go get her?”

  Sian looked at Delri. Sian had grown up under Delri’s leadership of Fort Rimon and was now in his prime, master of the weaving craft, respected among the Fort Rimon natives. In the weaving shed, his word was law as was his wife’s among the dyes. Almost half the Fort’s buying power came from selling their linen and wool blends in their special bright colors. Livestock and food didn’t bring in nearly as much.

  “Yes, Bruce, go get her,” agreed Sian. His nager rang with confidence and even joy. “Delri is going to cure me.”

  Delri, thought Rimon, is not going to live without trying. That was as far as he could go.

  They spent the wait discussing the cloth supplies that would be required for their increased population, and how much would be left over for sale to buy the items they couldn’t make for themselves. They ignored the difficulty that permanent loss of Shifron might cause. If the juncts didn’t rebuild their town, the Fort would just have to go bartering down at Turen Gap.

  The discussion was getting interesting when a veritable crowd arrived. Lexy came in first followed by her Companion, Garen, whom Rimon was not happy to see. Garen was Garath’s brother and really shouldn’t be involved in a repeat of the procedure that had failed for his brother. Yet here he was at Lexy’s side, and obviously committed.

  Behind them came Xanon and Maigrey making it six people and their patient crowded into a room just barely big enough for three.

  “Xanon, out,” ordered Rimon with the flick of a tentacle. “If you’ve nothing to do, go rest. Bruce! Garen, watch your fields.”

  Rimon grabbed Bruce’s hand, turned around and edged back into his place beside Sian, dragging his Companion along, forcing Xanon and Maigrey out of the room. Maigrey gave a sheepish shrug as she herded her protesting channel out. Finally, the door closed, leaving Lexy, Garen, Bruce and himself with the patient.

  As carefully as everyone had tried to protect the renSime from the massive shifts in the fields when so many channels were crammed together, they all felt Sian’s relief as the ambient around him firmed up again under Rimon’s attention. Rimon was acutely aware of how his fields dominated any environment, even with Lexy present, and did his best to soften the effect.

  Rimon noted Xanon and Maigrey lingering outside the door. He traded knowing glances with Lexy. She said, “He’s not going to leave. He heard Bruce say you’re going to try Clire’s Stitch.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “He’s sure nothing can be done. But I think he came to watch you die trying.”

  “I won’t,” Delri told his daughter, his heir. He explained what he wanted to do, and then she had to examine Sian again.

  She agreed there had been good progress over the last few hours. “It could work. But I ought to be the one to try it.”

  Oh, no! “I watched Clire do it, so I know what went wrong. Bruce wanted you here to watch it go right, to learn how to do it.” He pointed out how this was Clire’s only legacy to the Fort unless they could save her baby, which was less likely with every passing day they didn’t get her back. And that did it.

  “All right. Show me how it’s done.”

  “Sian? Ready?”

  “Just do it. Lexy, don’t let anything happen to him.”

  “Lexy,” countered Rimon. “Zlin me. Lock hard.” He felt the rhythmic life pulse of her body fall into sync with his own. “Good, but whatever happens stay clear. Bruce.
Hold steady and don’t let the fields around me shift.”

  Rimon took his place on the side of the bed and in one, swift, continuous move he made the five contact points and sank back into that state of non-awareness of his physical surroundings. Leaning against Bruce’s control of the ambient, he focused down into the renSime’s cells, found the nerve canals, went deeper and found the individual cells trailing tiny connectors that almost touched.

  He zlinned how the cells traded energy pulses, the dimmer, dying cells blocking more than they transmitted. Clire had shown him how to use selyn to stitch those nerve cells together, bridging the gaps left by dead cells, leaving behind an invigorated cell ready to divide again. The trick, she had explained, was to make sure the cell only divided once or twice, replacing the dead nerves and no more.

  Delicately, concentrating wholly on what he was doing, Rimon imagined tiny threads of selyn energy, and allowed selyn to flow into the renSime to form those imagined filaments.

  At first he knew he was just imagining how the selyn he was feeding into the renSime’s system stitched the broken nerve connections together. Then he was zlinning a duplicate image of the renSime body, a hazy outline true in every detail superimposed on the physical body.

  He focused on the duplicate, noting the severe gapping in the lower spine and the dim area near the left shoulder. He knew how it should zlin. He could zlin it as it should be. It was more than just imagination. It was as if he were creating a virtual image etched in selyn.

  A frisson of startlement crackled behind him. In the pearly haze floated a glowing image of Solamar. “Rimon, what are you doing...oh, I...oh, Rimon!”

  “You’re not here. You’re asleep,” accused Rimon.

  “Pay attention!” Two tentacles gestured and Rimon’s attention snapped back to his patient.