The Farris Channel: Sime~Gen, Book Twelve

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Xanon, who had positioned himself behind Alind at the center of the Council table, bent over the speaker’s shoulder and told him something. The man shook his head stubbornly. Xanon insisted.

  Silence fell as everyone tried to hear the quiet exchange. Solamar heard the Councilor concede that Rimon could have zlinned Clire with the Freebanders if she had in fact been there.

  So why would Rimon have lied? These people just made no sense to him.

  Jhiti reported on the shifting of Tuzhel to Jokim’s horse and his worry about Rimon’s horse. Jhiti had figured they could reach the Companions who had brought remounts for them all and then they’d make it home fine.

  Jhiti, his renSime nager trembling, choked out, “Then Delri’s horse foundered. Delri catapulted over its head. He didn’t make the tuck. I saw Delri hit head first.”

  BanSha lunged forward, drawing breath to contradict that, but Solamar and Lexy pulled him back between them. Rushi edged closer, chewing her lip to keep from crying.

  Jhiti glanced at them, then said into the thick pall of gloom, “I was too far away to feel any deathshock. Kreg and Lhazron were closer when Delri started to go down. They didn’t react as if Delri died when he hit the ground. I saw the Raiders whips get Kreg, one around the neck and the other around one forearm, lashing his tentacles. They rode their horses in opposite directions. Pulled him apart.

  “I saw Lhazron un-horse a Raider. They went down in a heap and rolled and I think the Raider must have died. Another Raider reared his horse and the hooves and full weight of the horse came down on Lhazron’s chest and the Raider’s too. I felt neither deathshock. Delri’s would have split the ambient like a thunderbolt. I was too far, I wouldn’t have felt it. I don’t think I would have.

  “The Raiders did react as if Delri’s deathshock had reached them. They didn’t come on after us. They dismounted and crouched down around the dead. Then they picked Delri up, slung his body over the horse of the dead Raider, and set off for the Raider band. Trees and then the hills cut us off and I never saw them again. If the band had continued south toward Gen Territory to raid, we’d have seen them along the road before we reached the Fort. I’m sure they turned back to Shifron.

  “If Delri didn’t die when he hit the ground, he must have been dead when the Raiders took him. After all, who would move a living Sime who was unconscious?”

  Who indeed? Solamar glanced at Lexy and knew they were both thinking of poor Tuzhel who had been shoved around while he was unconscious and just barely alive. It was relatively easy to bring a renSime back to psychospatial orientation. A channel was another matter, and a channel like Rimon, maybe Bruce could manage it, but few others would dare try with a head injury. Maybe Clire would.

  Why would Raiders take Rimon’s dead body? That made no sense to Solamar. Raiders didn’t even stop to collect their own dead.

  He whispered as much to Lexy, offering her hope, but she replied, “If Clire sent them to capture my father, they’d bring his body as proof they’d done what she ordered.”

  If Clire is alive? She’d be, Solamar calculated quickly, twenty-four weeks pregnant now. Would she still be capable of the intricate nageric control necessary to offset another channel’s psychospatial disorientation? If not, we might go out there to rescue a raving lunatic.

  Lexy squeezed his hand as she worked through the same thoughts, then she strode into the clear space before the table. “If he’s that badly injured, we have to get him back into Bruce’s care. We have to go, now.”

  Suddenly everyone was talking at once. Alind consulted the other Councilors and Xanon, but Solamar couldn’t hear.

  Alind called for attention. “If Rimon did survive that fall, and was moved while alive after a head injury, he’ll have used up a great deal of selyn, and even more fighting through disorientation. We’ve all noticed how unstable Farrises are. Clire went junct at the slightest provocation. If Rimon has survived, even for a short while, he will be junct by now too. Clire will see to it in revenge.”

  BanSha lunged forward shouting, “He was alive! When they took him, he was alive. I zlinned it clearly. The Raiders didn’t murder him. I would have zlinned the deathshock. I zlinned the guards dying, like it seemed to take a thousand years. The whole ambient went stark white! That was the first deathshock I’d ever zlinned but I knew what it was. Solamar and Lexy taught me. I know what I zlinned and he’s not dead!”

  The crowd broke into murmurs and Alind called them to silence. “He’s just a First Year channel,” explained Alind dismissively. “We forgive that outburst, young man, but it was not appropriate. When you finish your year, you’ll be allowed to testify officially, but not now.”

  Alind then moved the discussion on to setting a time for Rimon’s funeral and assigning someone to dig the grave. Solamar drew BanSha back between him and Lexy where they could shelter him from the room’s ambient.

  As the Council began to debate which to discuss first, where to put a monument to Rimon or who to appoint as the new head for the channeling staff, Solamar met Lexy’s glassy eyes. He had to get her out of there.

  They worked their way back through the crowd as people expressed condolences to Lexy. Even supporters of the Council were listening to these new plans with dismay.

  They emerged into bright daylight, the sun shafting between two black clouds. Ahead of them to their left, the sheep shearing was in progress, a portable pen filled with shorn sheep set up before the stables.

  Solamar always thought that shorn sheep looked like the world’s most pathetic creatures, but today the ridiculous sight didn’t move him even to a smile. He just thought it was much too cold still to be denuding the animals.

  Behind them people emerged from the dining hall, gathering in tightly clustered groups and talking earnestly.

  Some of the runners Solamar had sent to gather the group he thought of as the real Fort Council found them marching across the yard toward Sian’s looms at the west end of the factory building.

  BanSha and Bekka, not being children anymore, were no longer among the messengers. The leader was now Cody, a very young boy whose family had arrived with the Fort Unity people. A serious, earnest youngster, he was suitably impressed with being successor to BanSha. His parents were, as far as Solamar knew, staunch supporters of Rimon.

  “It’s all set. Half an hour at Sian’s,” panted Cody. “We found everyone but Jhiti.”

  Lexy looked at Solamar who returned her gaze gravely. “Jhiti has just finished his report,” she told Cody, “and he has to rest. We’ll talk to him later about the meeting, so you children can go on back to your schooling. Cody, aren’t you scheduled for cabinetmaking lessons?”

  “Yes, and I’m getting good at it. I’m putting the finish on a table for Rimon’s new house. My last one was too rough, but this time I’m doing much better.”

  Solamar stepped in front of Lexy who suddenly couldn’t breathe. “That’s great. I’ll come by to look later. Right now, you can all get back to what you were doing. I’ll certainly call on you the next time I have a confidential message to send around.”

  All the children beamed, then ran in every direction. A few even headed directly for the school building.

  Lexy began to breathe again. “Thank you.”

  “Welcome,” he said, overcome with a tender love.

  She injected a sad smile into the ambient that wasn’t on her face. “Not now, Solamar. I have to get through the real Council meeting. Let’s go talk to Sian.”

  But the meeting didn’t get all the way to planning a rescue mission. They arrived while Sian was supervising the stowage of bales of raw wool near the dyeing vats. The place was almost empty, no one working in the carding room, nobody at the spinning wheels, and the looms were all empty. Some of them had parts missing.

  Before they’d finished briefing Sian, people started arriving, each group with their own agenda for this meeting.

  Last to arrive was Rinda, the Gen who represented Fort Hope on the new Coun
cil. Her nager was marbled with joy backed by grief and fear. She whirled right up to Lexy who was standing in the middle of the circle and said, “That Council has dug its own grave!”

  She proceeded to tell everyone about the schism throbbing through the Fort.

  The Council and a few supporters insisted they had to bury Rimon in absentia and put up an impressive monument to him, then forget him and go on to make the Fort into their own Fort. They were split, though. Many of those who had supported the new Council, because of Rimon’s disregard of the voice of the community, now remembered how his plans, schemes and preferences always worked out well. They had shoes, clean water, and good health because of Rimon’s choices. So some wanted to send a rescue party.

  “They’re still arguing it among themselves,” the old woman reported. “If we send out a rescue party before they’ve convinced themselves, we’ll lose them all.”

  Being young, BanSha was against waiting and here in this Council, his young voice mattered. “This is the second time the Raiders have gotten one of our channels.” In the sing-song chant of the Zeor game, he pointed out, “This time we’ll do better!”

  Without Jhiti and Oberin, though, there wasn’t much they could do. They brainstormed four plans but all depended on the scouts and guards volunteering to go. It would take time, and much talking especially while Jhiti still believed Rimon to be dead.

  They broke up to go their separate ways. Each had a list of people to talk to privately while BanSha exhorted them to remind everyone that this time they will do better. “We’ll rescue both of them!”

  Solamar watched the meeting dissolve without Lexy’s objectives being met. They had respected her leadership, but the talk had erupted again and again with reports of key people wavering in their support of the Council.

  Val motioned her Companion, Merie, on ahead and stopped by Lexy and Solamar. “You’re both off-schedule until noon tomorrow. Alind called a shutdown of the schedule tomorrow afternoon for Delri’s funeral.”

  She choked up, took a deep breath, and adjusted her showfield. “I told him he couldn’t have a shutdown until sunset and he threatened to have me replaced. Frankly, that’s fine with me. I’m only doing this because Benart is way overloaded with the expansion for all these people. If we’re going to shut down for a couple of hours for the funeral, then I’ve got to double-schedule both of you between noon and shutdown to clear all the transfers. I can’t ask people to go to Delri’s funeral in Need. His ghost would haunt me forever!”

  Lexy said, “He surely would! If he were dead!”

  “But,” added Solamar, “don’t over-schedule Lexy. I’ll make up the slack.”

  “Don’t worry, Dakin and I will manage. You two are exhausted. Go rest.” She hurried off after her Companion.

  Lexy sighed. “She should take her own advice.”

  Benart had lingered, talking to Sian, and had overheard Val’s admonition. “Is Val as tired as I think she is? She’s been both channeling and covering the scheduling board for weeks. I don’t know where we’d get someone else as good at juggling details as she is.”

  “She’s fraying around the edges. We all are, and we won’t rest until we get my father back.”

  “I agree, Lexy,” said Benart. “We’ll do it. Just remember the scouts and guards will follow Jhiti. I talked to Oberin. She says she can’t ask anyone to risk their lives on such a mission without better information. I don’t know how to convince Jhiti to rely on BanSha’s zlinning ability. So somehow we have to change Jhiti’s mind.”

  Lexy nodded to the Gen. “I’ll think of something. If you can keep tight control over our material resources so the Council doesn’t pull another shoe affair on us, I’ll handle the rest. My father will be back within a few days. I expect his new house to be ready for him. Is that practical?”

  “Yes, I think so, and the new underground retreat is almost finished just the way he wanted it. I think everything will be finished before we have to pull all the labor for work on clearing the new fields.” He went to the rear door, threw his cloak’s hood over his head, tucked his notes under his cloak and dashed out.

  Outside, it had started to rain again, and the temperature was rising, the white world turning brown.

  Lexy said, “Let’s go talk to Jhiti. I expect he’s feeling he hasn’t a friend left in the world because he wasn’t able to save my father.”

  Solamar followed Lexy out into the rain, and together they both zlinned Jhiti up on the walls talking to Oberin. She was pointing him toward the stairs, obviously arguing he was way too tired to be commanding a watch. They met him at the bottom of the stair next to the stables.

  The new stable construction had added two wings onto that building, and the sheep shearing was still going on under a broad canopy between the two wings.

  Jhiti tried to avoid them by veering off toward the laundry, but Lexy lengthened stride and cut him off.

  Her showfield enfolded the renSime gently, supporting his fatigue. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

  He stopped, head down, enduring.

  “It really wasn’t your fault. My father had no business riding out like that. It was just something he felt he had to do, and it would have been all right if the Raiders hadn’t chosen that particular moment to ride.”

  “I should have brought remounts with me. I’ve thought of a hundred things I should have done and didn’t.”

  “And I’ve thought of a hundred things my father should have done and didn’t. You haven’t failed us. You rode out as fast as you could and left others to bring the remounts and supplies. They’d have been faster if the Companions hadn’t insisted on riding too, but if I were Bruce, I’d have insisted.”

  He looked up, as unable to zlin through the Farris nager as anyone else. “You believe he’s alive.”

  “I think there’s reason to doubt he’s dead.”

  “I expect,” said Jhiti to Lexy while looking at Solamar, “you’d have gone in his place if you could have.”

  “Of course. Tuzhel trusted us, and we let him down. He’s very near his crisis. Don’t take this as any kind of reflection on who he really is underneath it all. He’s going to be one of the finest people in this Fort. Next time he breaks, I’ll be there for him and he’ll find out what a channel really is.”

  “I...I wish...I really wish I could have been there for Delri. Lexy, we have to face it square on and move ahead. He’s gone.”

  She met this with silence both audible and nageric.

  “You’re going to ask me to send my people out?”

  “No. Just when you’re ready to do that, let me know.”

  “You think I’ll change my mind.”

  “I know you will.” The ambient rang with certainty.

  “If you weren’t pregnant, you’d be at Shifron now.”

  “There’d be nothing I could do once I got there.”

  Privately, Solamar thought that a good contingent of the guard would follow her. They could do plenty.

  “We can’t live with Freebanders for neighbors.”

  “The new Council seems to think they can ignore the Raiders until they just leave.” Solamar watched Lexy work the fields, giving Jhiti a quiet space for thinking.

  Jhiti said, “They will attack us again, and this time we’ll do a lot better at thinning their ranks. Our strength is Delri’s doing. Nobody’s forgotten that. We’ll destroy those who have destroyed Clire and Delri.”

  “I don’t want revenge. I want my father back.”

  “So do I.” They were in total accord until Jhiti added, “He might have been alive when they took him, but he’s dead by now. I can’t order my people into a battle they would likely lose in order to rescue a corpse.”

  “Will you prevent them from going on their own?”

  That stopped Jhiti cold.

  Solamar said, “Lexy would never subvert your authority with your people. The security of this Fort is in your hands. You’re trusted.”

  “Until
now. I’ve lost one of our most valuable channels, and I know Aipensha’s death and Clire’s juncting were my fault too. That’s three of our most valuable channels lost because of me.”

  Lexy said, “What matters is how well you do next time. Do you believe that?”

  “Yes. I always have held my guards to that standard. Why not myself too?”

  “Right. So we start our next attempt now. When you’re ready to send out a rescue party for my father, let me know. I promise, I won’t ride with them.”

  She hugged Jhiti, wrapping her showfield around him like a warm blanket, supporting the renSime’s exhaustion and not letting him zlin her own. “Ask for me when you come in for transfer.”

  She took off across the yard, picking her way between sheep turds and mud puddles. Solamar followed, his whole heart and soul caught up in pure revelation. Though he couldn’t zlin through that Farris mask, he knew in his bones that she was being perfectly honest with Jhiti. She couldn’t find it in herself to blame him for what he truly believed.

  Solamar could barely contain the fountain of joyous love that had erupted within him during that conversation.

  He followed her through gathering dusk to the door to the channels’ on-duty dormitory. She turned to scrutinize him with her eyes and her Sime senses as she kicked at the boot scraper by the door. “Yes, I know he’s not dead. And I know Jhiti will realize it soon. It’ll be soon enough. It will be!” She pulled the door open.

  He held the door open for her as he kicked mud off his own boots. “Think about this. Clire is still pregnant. She wants Rimon alive, to deliver her baby. She may not care if he goes junct to survive, but she wants him alive.”

  She ducked under his arm and entered the building. “I have to find Garen, look in on Tuzhel, and talk to Bruce.”

  “The minute Garen lays eyes on you, he’ll sweep you off to the dining hall to eat then make sure you lie down.”