The Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “I’d guess sooner rather than later,” Lexy shrugged. “As we’ve discovered, you really can’t ever tell.”

  “I’d guess sooner rather than later, too,” agreed Rimon. It was what he’d been thinking since Bekka’s Establishment party. They could only guess. “I’ve noted he’s stressed, vacillating between eager acceptance of a place here and morose rejection of all our rules. He’s made some friends though. That may be the deciding factor.”

  “According to the Council,” said Lexy, “we should keep him locked away from his friends until he disjuncts.”

  Solamar added, “The Council will not accept that a disjunct Freeband Raider can earn a place in a Fort, and they’re not sure about the other disjuncts we already have. It’s just that Tuzhel was a Freebander for a very short while.”

  Rimon said, “The most crucial short while of any Sime’s life.”

  “Exactly, and now his upbringing is asserting itself.”

  Rimon wondered why they were repeating what they all knew so well. “Tuzhel must have had a loving family,” agreed Rimon and repeated his prescription. “Let him roam within the limits we’ve set before Turnover, but be sure he’s always boxed in by channels because you can’t predict when he’ll spike intil or hit a premature Turnover. Don’t let him zlin the surveillance.”

  Solamar took the game to a new level. “Disjunction crisis is like First Need. We’ve all seen it. Soaring, spiking intil, that ravenous, desperate and terrified Need, driven, instinctive. Only death by Attrition comes any worse than that. At least in Disjunction there’s some cognitive ability left and that’s the crucial element because there has to be a deliberate choice to accept satisfaction from a channel....”

  “...forever leaving the Kill behind,” finished Rimon, nodding. What were they trying to say that they couldn’t just say? “Without that conscious choice, the decision doesn’t have the strength to withstand future temptations.”

  Solamar said, “The sooner Tuzhel makes his choice the better chance he has of choosing channel’s transfer, setting a new pattern for the rest of his life. I want to be that channel for him.”

  Surprised, Rimon buried his reaction behind a tranquil showfield. Lexy wasn’t buying it though Solamar deduced Rimon’s real reaction from Lexy’s skepticism.

  Solamar, guilt politely buried behind a bland showfield he knew was transparent to both Lexy and Rimon, confessed, “I told her why you’re wearing that belt, Rimon. I had to because everyone who’s been on your side has been pressuring her to get you to put that belt away again. The opposition keeps pointing to it as clear evidence that you think you’re above the Council’s authority. Lexy was upset over it because she started to believe it too.”

  She discussed this with you but not me? That explained the roundabout approach to claiming Tuzhel’s disjunction transfer, which Rimon had planned to handle.

  Solamar added, “Besides, I wanted to make sure she hadn’t been hiding any similar experiences. I know you hadn’t zlinned anything amiss with her, but I can’t zlin an inch into her showfield most of the time.”

  Lexy countered, “More like two or three inches. He’s too modest.”

  “So the belt buckle has become a major issue tangled into this whole disaster of a Council,” said Solamar. “Lexy had to know what was really going on. So I told her.”

  “Executive decision,” sympathized Rimon. “A hard call, but not at all a bad one.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” explained Lexy. “That belt was your father’s. With Aipensha gone, and no time for any of us to grieve properly, I thought it was just your way of being close to Grandfather, and I couldn’t bring myself to suggest you should give that up when so many of us are depending on you. I knew you had to have a good reason to ignore what people were saying. You should have told me.”

  “I should have,” agreed Rimon. He zlinned his daughter, four months pregnant and still carrying it lightly. Gen or renSime for sure. Still, family lore said Farris women tended to die in childbirth.

  At least she hadn’t been affected by whatever he and Solamar had done on the wall during the battle. He and Clire were the only ones wandering around outside their bodies. “So” he prompted Solamar, “you judged it was less stress for her if she knew than if she didn’t?”

  “I should have talked to you first, asked you to tell her, but....” Solamar shrugged with an eloquent ripple of handling tentacles.

  Rimon had been studiously avoiding Solamar, and when he couldn’t, he’d refused to talk about curing his sliding out of his body by sliding out of his body on purpose. Besides, the problem was gone.

  Rimon took his right ventral handling tentacles away from clutching the belt buckle and unfolded the hands that lay over the innocuous bit of artwork, a symbol of Unity. He placed his hands on the desk and sat up.

  Lexy continued, “So since the origin of this problem is either the stunt you two pulled on the walls during the battle or that First Transfer you forced into Tuzhel, I don’t recommend you doing his disjunction.”

  Solamar added, “She wanted to do it, but I figured it’d be better if I did.”

  “And I figured,” countered Lexy, “it would be far better for Tuzhel if I did. I’m in much better shape than you give me credit for, and I’d be glad of the work.”

  “So we decided,” ended Solamar, “to ask you to decide before we talk to Dakin or Val about the schedule.”

  Having delivered themselves of all these guilty burdens, they both pulled chairs up before Rimon’s desk and sat down. They behaved as if they’d been married for ten years already.

  Which, Rimon felt deep inside, was a very good thing. Despite pestering about the out of body thing, Solamar was an ethical, reliable, skilled channel with a generous heart and steady, kind disposition who was totally besotted with Lexy. He couldn’t imagine a better son-in-law. Rimon just hoped he didn’t get Lexy pregnant. Such a child would be a channel with a truly deadly pre-natal selyn draw.

  He made a mental note to make family record updating a top priority. He might be able to find a father for Lexy’s next child among the new people who would not be so likely to produce death rather than an heir.

  “So?” asked Lexy.

  “Quiet,” admonished Solamar. “He’s thinking and I want him to get the right answer.”

  The only answer Rimon had right then was that Kahleen would make a much better candidate for mother of Solamar’s children than Lexy would. From all signs, he thought Kahleen might well agree.

  “Oh!” Rimon thought, “I’ll do Tuzhel’s transfer this time, and then I think I’ll be doing his disjunction.”

  “You’re sure that’s wise?” asked Solamar. “He might be a major source of your problem.”

  “I’ve been doing his transfers without incident, and in fact haven’t had any incident in a long while now. I think what’s best for Tuzhel is the more crucial consideration.”

  Tuzhel favored Rimon but would have gladly accepted Lexy or Solamar. If he had a free choice though, he’d have chosen BanSha, and Rimon was not about to allow that.

  Lexy said, “That’s your decision?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.” I’m old enough it doesn’t really matter what happens to me, only I do so want to live to see this grandchild grow up.

  She sighed. “I’ll go tell Val, Dakin’s on duty in scheduling. Then Ill find Garen and get some sleep.”

  They rose in unison, in totally unconscious coordination. “I’m on duty,” said Solamar. “I told Kahleen to meet me...there she is now.”

  They all turned as Kahleen and Bruce entered with Garen trailing behind calling, “Wondered where you three had gotten to. Imagine hiding in Delri’s office! I’d never have thought to look here if Jhiti hadn’t suggested it,”

  Solamar enjoyed the way Garen molded Lexy’s fields. Rimon thought it zlinned comforting, too.

  Rimon dropped the fields and watched the two channels and their Companions
weave complex patterns as they bade Rimon both hello and goodbye and whirled out of his office. Bruce edged behind Rimon’s chair and put both hands on his shoulders. Warm selyn fields shafted down into Rimon’s tense muscles. “Benart says you’ll get your underground shelter just the way you want it.”

  “Good. Once that’s built, we’ll be asking the families in the houses nearest the entries to the new shelter to switch with any channel or Companion families we have scattered about. We’ll want to arrange things so that during an alert, the channeling staff won’t have to move into the on-duty building just because it’s the only entry into the shelter.”

  “Jhiti will be ecstatic.”

  “Oberin will dance for joy.”

  “That might be fun to see.”

  “What? Are you still Post? My Turnover’s in two days!” He relaxed into his Companion’s therapy.

  “Two whole days to Turnover, so I wouldn’t have expected this much tension. What’s going on, Delri?” He paused, feeling Rimon cooperating. “That’s much better.”

  “Let me enjoy what you’re doing, then I’ll tell you.”

  “Sometimes I wonder why I ever got involved being your Companion. Don’t you realize how hard it is? There are so many new channels here now, maybe I can....”

  “All right,” surrendered Rimon, as if unaware the Gen was teasing. “I’ll tell you now. Then you’ll owe me a good hour of this.”

  “Deal.”

  Rimon told him everything, saving his speculation on who should father Lexy’s children and who should bear Solamar’s for last. He knew Bruce would have a number of opinions on that, some of them very good, too.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  REVERSALS

  Rimon knew that Tuzhel been told to expect ever deteriorating satisfaction from channel’s transfer until after the crisis, and then his Need would be adequately met. He was an intelligent lad who had taken it all in, asked endless questions, and did a little better with each try.

  Rimon had great hopes. So the day of Tuzhel’s sixth transfer, Rimon decided to let Tuzhel ride through Rimon’s own Turnover with him instead of scheduling Tuzhel’s transfer before or after his own Turnover.

  The experience should convince the non-logical part of Tuzhel that Simes live through it. Raiders, unlike the juncts who lived on Pen Gens, typically took a Kill at or before Turnover, believing Turnover was death. Fort lore said dispelling that notion was the key to disjuncting a Raider.

  Bruce and Rimon had spent nearly two hours with the junct, and Tuzhel was now nearly berserk with what felt to him like hard Need, but was actually just an edge on his intil. Fear of Need magnified it monstrously.

  Rimon explained his offer to Tuzhel fifteen minutes before his scheduled transfer time, ending, “This might let you wait a few more minutes before your transfer.”

  “If I do it, I’ll have more control around Gens after I disjunct?” Clearly that had become important to him.

  “That’s the theory,” agreed Rimon. Bruce was being part of the walls and doing a good job of it too. Rimon felt his Companion had something to add but couldn’t disturb the working ambient to insert his comment. Rimon made a mental note to ask him later.

  Tuzhel paced the room, body rippling with the oily grace of full hunting mode, though he was duoconscious, seeing and zlinning. “You won’t let me die?”

  “No, there’s no danger to you. It’s just difficult.”

  Tuzhel paced again. “I can’t zlin you all the way through. How do I know you’re telling me the truth! Why would you want me to live?”

  This was the problem all the new people from other Forts had with Rimon. They hadn’t known him all their lives. They had no reason to trust him, and the one way they had of determining trustworthiness didn’t work. Even when he dropped his showfield, they couldn’t tell if he really had dropped it or just altered it to make it seem so.

  Rimon’s hands strayed to his waist where he’d been accustomed to resting them on his belt buckle. It wasn’t there. Yesterday, since it had become so important to people, he’d put it in its drawer, sure he didn’t require it.

  Solamar had been horrified, Bruce worried, and Lexy didn’t know yet. Others were beginning to notice. So far nothing had happened, even when he was working, except he no longer knew what to do with his hands.

  “Tuzhel,” said Bruce as Rimon’s hands searched, “we want you to live because too many people died in the battle that brought you to us. You survived against all odds. So you have become the symbol of our hope for the future.”

  “And more than a symbol,” added Rimon. “Already you’ve saved us by helping with the leather trade. You’ve worked in the stables when you could, and helped with that play the children put on. You’ve earned your place here.”

  Bruce’s flat, honest sincerity impressed Tuzhel. Bruce was capable of lying to a renSime, but Tuzhel believed him.

  “All right, I’ll wait and watch your Turnover. Just don’t blame me if I die on you. Or worse, take your Gen.” He zlinned Bruce and slid hyperconscious, zlinning without being able to see, hunting mode.

  Rimon flashed Bruce a smile and went to Tuzhel, pulling him back to duoconsciousness. “Don’t worry, I won’t blame you,” answered Rimon. “And I’m not worried about my Gen. He can take care of himself.”

  That stopped the junct in his tracks. “You’ve never, ever, referred to Bruce as your Gen!”

  “Not to his face, no,” said Rimon giving Tuzhel a Sime-to-Sime nageric twinkle.

  Bruce let his own comment on that seep into the ambient, then sat down in the only chair and disappeared back into the furniture. Tuzhel blinked at him.

  “If I didn’t feel so bad, I’d be laughing my head off.”

  “Bruce does have a sense of humor, for a Gen.”

  Prepared for Rimon’s ploy this time, Bruce didn’t react, at least not where Rimon could zlin it. No doubt I’ll pay for this later.

  “Gens don’t have a sense of humor?”

  “Not where their selyn is concerned, anyway.”

  Tuzhel circled the seated Gen who never let a quiver disturb his attention even as Tuzhel deliberately went into hunting mode as a Raider approaching a Kill, then struggled to suppress it again, horrified when Rimon had to help him.

  “I guess they really are unKillable. What’s it like to have a Gen of your own to supply your selyn.”

  “He serves my Need as I serve yours. I pass my experience with him on to you. Right now he’s working to me. It’s a little rude to try to disturb his concentration.”

  Rimon shifted his attention to Bruce, then slowly dropped his showfield, letting Tuzhel zlin his primary field, letting the creeping tension of approaching Turnover fill the room. Bruce’s body adjusted to the shift in the fields. The insulated room filled with the incessant thrum of the Gen selyn production pacing Rimon’s selyn consumption. “Zlin that, Tuzhel? If he weren’t working to me, he wouldn’t adjust so smoothly. Then you and I would be tripping all over each other unless I managed the fields with my secondary system. So it’s rude to him and to me to disrupt his concentration.” Bruce didn’t react.

  “Rude? You should have heard what Solamar said when I was teasing Kahleen while he was trying to zlin me for disjunction crisis.”

  “Solamar’s a little hard on the discipline, huh?”

  “Only when I’m...what’s that word?”

  “Incorrigible?”

  “I think that’s the one he used.”

  “I’ll just bet he did.” Rimon had heard him use that word to describe BanSha, usually while laughing.

  Then suddenly Rimon drew a long, deep breath and put his hand out to stop Tuzhel in mid-stride. The junct turned, attention pulled away from his own internal misery as the bottom fell out of Rimon’s stomach.

  When caught in public by Turnover, Rimon masked this plummet into the Need half of his cycle with his showfield. For him, the shift was a longer, scarier fall than for most Simes, even channels. But he let Tuzhel ride t
his out with him, making no effort to protect the renSime from his spiking intil.

  As they had planned, Bruce let him fall free, plunging past that halfway point in his Need cycle, all security gone, suddenly ignored by his Companion. Every Sime cell in his body yearned to reach out to the Gen and clutch at the selyn he had to have to survive. He didn’t. He just let Tuzhel zlin a channel at Turnover, reduced to being just an ordinary Sime without any of the comforts a Companion provided.

  Rimon’s internal time sense clocked about five seconds before his brain made the adjustment from relative security to the thrumming beat of ever increasing Need. The shock passed, but Tuzhel reflected it back as an echo, junct Need shrieking into the ambient.

  Rimon reconstructed his showfield, and signalled Bruce to go back to work as he gathered the renSime in a transfer grip. “Now you see. A channel is just a Sime. We all share that experience, Tuzhel. That was easy for me this month. I had a great transfer last month, and I expect another great one in a couple weeks. Bruce is right here for me as I am here for you.”

  “Now? Do it now!”

  “A few moments. Remember you can always come to the channels for your Turnovers, though eventually you’ll gain confidence, knowing Turnover is a much longer way from death by Attrition than it seems now. We all feel that panic at Turnover, and we all feel Need and routinely survive them both.”

  Tuzhel begged, “Is that enough lesson now?”

  Rimon closed the contact and poured selyn into the renSime, letting Tuzhel draw as much as a junct renSime could. He portrayed the Gen terror he had so studiously learned, infused with his fresh memory of Turnover and its savage impulse to rip selyn from any nearby Gen.

  Right in the middle of Tuzhel’s frantic selyn draw, suddenly the ambient in the room shifted and Clire stood behind him, wrapped around him like a cold vapor, oozing over his hands on Tuzhel’s arms.

  “Watch what your baby is learning to do before he’s even born!” She paused at his shock. “Oh, yes, Del Rimon Farris, I’m carrying your son!” With a laugh of cold hatred, she whipped her lateral tentacles over Rimon’s and around Tuzhel’s, surrounding the junct’s laterals with insubstantial shadows fraught with twisted, distorted streams of selyn.