The Channel's Exemption (sime-gen)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Turning on her heel, Livya walked out from between the branchesthat isolated them from the main group. Her mother followed,and as they emerged they heard voices to their left. Cheryl Inikar,too, had heard the men's voices raised in brittle anger, and shecame striding past them straight for the area to their left whereBrian Inikar tended Yone. Drawn irresistibly, Livya, trailedafter Cheryl around the end of the branch.

  Yone had struggled to his feet and though he sagged like a manbeaten in a fight, he faced off against Brian spitting words likebullets. "YOU. I. Forbid. To. Touch. Me!"

  Brian sighed hugely and picked up his hat, slapping it againsthis knee to dust it off. Livya had only a moment to realize thatYone had used none of the filthy epithets, the handy labels andmeaningless catch phrases with which everybody else addressedthe Distect conspirators.

  Then Cheryl started toward Yone, finally stung to a tearful rage. "You ungrateful savage! If it weren't for Brian you'd bedead right now. You can't possibly think that bumbling incompetentAlamain could have done what Brian –"

  Her husband stopped her advance with one out-flung arm and turnedher to him. "Forget it, Cheryl. How else would you expecta Tecton channel to behave? He'll be all right now, for awhileat least." He turned to Yone. "You better get Alamainto finish the job I started for you or you'll be in convulsionsby midnight."

  "I don't require your advice."

  Brian's lips compressed briefly over a retort, but then he relaxedand said gently, "You may hate me, but you're alive so we'veall still got a chance to survive." He turned to his wifeand walked back the way she had come. When they reached Livyaand her mother, Brian stopped to look down at the girl with atrace of sourness.

  Livya tilted her head back, and for the first time since beingmarooned with the Distect convicts, she examined his face. Brianwas a tall, lanky Gen with a face to match. But what she sawin those narrow features was a kind of hard-bitten integrity incongruousin an outlaw. And it was coupled with self-control not unlikethat she'd found in Yone.

  When he spoke, his voice was low-pitched, roughened by suppressedemotion. "You. You ought to be ashamed for what you didto him. But it's not surprising, considering your upbringing!" He raked Evelyn Jeter with a glance of unfathomable contemptand took his wife on toward the spot where the other Distect convictswere gathering.

  For long moments afterwards, Livya stood in a paralysis of mixedemotions, not hearing her mother's voice or seeing Yone pullinghimself together to face the next task. She knew only that BrianInikar, the one man who had every reason to feel shame beforelaw-abiding folk such as herself had the incredible power to makeher feel guilty. Not only that, but he had selected the one insultwhich she had never been able to ignore urbanely – that she waswhat she was because of some external influence and not by herown choice.

  Swamped by this nameless guilt, she was unable to defend herselfagainst the insult and instead searched inwardly for the causeof her shame. How could saving myself be wrong? But at whatprice? He looked like death! I'm not responsible for that. Brian Inikar thinks so. He's Distect. He's an expert on Simes. But he's a convicted criminal, a conspirator bent on overthrowingthe Tecton! I can't accept his values. Then why do you feelshame and guilt?

  Never had she known such confusion in all her seventeen years. She was so intent that she didn't see Valyu Alamain finally makehis way up from the rear of the column and start toward Yone. She didn't see Yone start to walk out to meet his Donor. Thechannel was just suddenly there before her and she had to grasphis words by force of will.

  "Miss Jeter, my oath requires that I apologize to you. AndI do offer that formal apology. But I want you to know, in addition,that I am personally shamed by my lapse of control, I have neverregretted any act so much."

  Her mother spoke from behind her. "You don't regret it halfas much as you're going to! When we get back, I'll see that theright people learn that you let Brian Inikar –"

  "Mother!"

  As if realizing for the first time that she was giving the Simea good reason to see that she, at least, didn't get back, EvelynJeter subsided. Livya met the Sime's eyes firmly. And with alittle shock, she realized that in the three months of walkingwith him, depending on him for her very life, she had not exchangedmore than a few words with him. Now, suddenly, she wanted toknow everything about him.

  Yone Farris did not look like a typical member of the celebratedFarris family. There was only a shadow of family resemblancearound his fine-sculpted lips, prominent nose, and wide forehead. His skin was lighter than the typical Farris, and his hair wasalmost ash-blond instead of jet black. His face was too youngyet to show character lines, but now it revealed an inner tensionvery much like a man forcing himself "just-one-more-step"beyond endurance. He had, however, the solid black eyes typicalof the Farrises. Those eyes now locked onto her gaze as if hewanted to tell her everything about himself in one word but couldn'tfind the word.

  "You must not worry, Miss Jeter. I will see to it that youall get home. But I can't promise that my reflexes won't betrayme again, so I advise you to stay as far away from me as you can."

  "I ... will ..." The tremble in her voice embarrassedher. "I can forgive your refusal to offer me the Exemption. I do not wish you to feel guilty or ashamed about it."

  Her eyes were suddenly fever dry, and her voice steadied. "Ihave done nothing wrong to be forgiven for."

  "You cannot comprehend the wrong that you have done, andso for you it isn't wrong. That is the only kind of wrong thatI forgive."

  "Then don't forgive me, because I do comprehend. Your 'right'demands prostitution, and I reject that as 'wrong'."

  He sighed and shivered suddenly as if from a chill, clenchinghis teeth momentarily. "So do I, Miss Jeter. Utterly. I could gain nothing from such a person, and so could not be attractedto one."

  "You must mean something different by it than I, then."

  He drew himself together and took one step toward Alamain. "Possible,but I doubt it. And now," he said raising his voice towardthe donor, "Valyu! Come, we must see that they are makingcamp. We can't go any farther today. You and I must do somerecruiting among the donors."

  Livya went about the business of making camp mechanically. Sheand her mother chose a spot against the giant fallen tree trunkbetween two of the large, lower branches which they shared withseveral other families they always camped near. While the menwent out hunting dinner, she helped the women spread their porta-tentsusing the tree trunk as one side of the tent and anchoring thecorners of the flat sheeting with small boulders.

  The porta-tent was a thin film of shiny material on one side,black on the other. Powered by a small selyn battery, the sheetingwas a very efficient heat pump. In the desert where they hadcrashed, the self cooling tents had saved their lives day afterday. Here they used the heat at night.

  Now, Livya wondered if Yone would be able to recharge the selynbatteries for them. The accident with the tree had suddenly drivenhome to her just how vitally dependent they were on the channelwhile before it had just been a phrase said by rote. Their firestrikers were selyn powered – how could they even make a cookingfire without the strikers? And most of their cutting tools, thereally useful ones, were selyn-powered vibro-blades. The handtools took hours to cut down a little tree, and once she had takena turn using the hand machete to hack a way through the underbrush. They couldn't survive without repowering their tools.

  Livya had become the fire-specialist among these families, learningquickly which woods would burn best and how to design a safe fireplace. As she worked that afternoon beside the majestic tree trunk,she found a renewed awe at the size of the thing, and the incrediblehardness of the wood which wouldn't burn. The trunk itself wasmore than thirty feet in diameter and some of the branches weremore than six feet thick. She couldn't calculate how much selynit had cost to deflect its fall, but she reached a kind of numbastonishment that such a feat could be done.

  The tree had stood with its roots on the bank of a stream. Undercutby recent floods, the bank
had given way and the tree had falleninto the forest. The campers used the stream for water and evencaught a few fish, while they grumbled about how they were goingto cross it.

  As the hunters returned and the women began dressing the carcassesand digging up roots to make soup, the leaders gathered for mutteredconferences at the tent of K. Martin Flick, their elected spokesmanto the Tecton which consisted here among the refugees only ofYone and Valyu Alamain. There was much coming and going of grimfaces past Livya's fire, and the air of crisis did not escapeher.

  Yone's tent had been set up, as always, a little apart from themain group. This time, it was on the opposite side of a ratherlarge boulder, using the rock face as one wall, spreading overa convenient limb of a tree, and anchored on the forest floorwith heavy branches. The side-flaps were tied down for privacy,and all afternoon, a trickle of Gen volunteers had been goingto and from his tent, donating selyn. But the grim faces toldher quite plainly, it wasn't enough.

  Eventually, word came down the line that they would have to dowithout heat for their tents this night. "Conserve whatyou have left, and pray your batteries don't leak. Light firesfrom your neighbor's when possible, and conserve your vibro-blades,too."

  When her mother heard that they would sleep cold this night andfor the foreseeable future, she was indignant. "We can'tget along without heat! You'll catch your death, Livya. Theycan't do this to us!"

  "They? They! What do you mean, 'they'? That man,"Livya said, waving the firestriker wand toward Yone's tent, "savedyour life today, and nearly died for it. But he didn't use onebit of your selyn to do it."

  Evelyn Jeter recoiled. "You don't talk to your mother inthat tone of voice! You have to respect your mother. Remember,it's your welfare I'm looking out for."

  "How can I respect someone who can't even stick to a subjectfor two sentences?"

  "And I suppose criminals and weaselly Simes are respectable! Standing around in public talking to such riffraff as if theywere worth listening to, and they don't even make sense. Thenyou turn around and won't even speak civilly to your own mother!"

  "Riffraff! That ... that ..." she pointed a shakingfinger in the direction of Yone's tent "... that 'riffraff'talks better sense than you ever did. Why can't you see truthwhen it happens before your eyes? You're wrong about their tentaclesbeing slimy, and you're probably wrong about everything else too!"

  "You don't contradict your –"

  "I don't, facts do. That man saved us all from getting crushedtoday. That's a fact. He refused to let himself take advantageof me. That's a fact. He's the only thing that stands betweenus and death. That's a fact. And you refuse to donate even atiny dribble of selyn to run your own tent's heating unit. That'sa fact.

  "Right now, Mother, it seems to me that you're the riffraffaround here, and everybody thinks I'm just like you. I'm so ashamed!"

  Mrs. Jeter gathered herself up into her most self-righteous stanceand pointed, "Go to the tent and get to bed. You'll getno supper tonight. Think what you've said about your own mother,and tomorrow you'll apologize on your knees. You're almost awoman, and you're going to learn respect if it kills me."

  "With you as a teacher, I haven't got a chance!"

  "Go!" Their screaming had attracted the embarrassedstares of half a dozen people, but none would intervene.

  For one tense moment, Livya teetered on the brink of total defiance,but her own feelings were so confused that she didn't know whereelse she wanted to be except huddled in her own sleeping bag whereshe could fight her way through the whirlwinds that seethed inher. She would not refuse herself what she wanted simply to defyher mother, and so she fled to her sleeping bag. At first, whilethe camp was having supper, she surrendered to gales of tearsthat seemed to feed on themselves. Eventually, she cried herselfinto a feverish slumber.

  When she woke, the deep silence of late night was on the camp,her mother asleep beside her. In the clarity of emotional exhaustion,she realized that her anger at her mother had stemmed from herneed to make her mother earn the 'respect' she demanded and Livyaherself so desperately wanted to give. She had never found anyoneshe could really admire. Except, maybe, Yone Farris.

  He had used the community selyn reserves to save her life. Thatwas selyn collected in tiny bits during the last three monthsfrom forty-four General Class donors out of the seventy-sevensurvivors. There were twenty-four kids not old enough to createselyn. And there were six Distect Gens he wouldn't touch witha waldo let alone a tentacle. It seemed fair enough to her thatthe community should support the kids. And it seemed reasonableto keep the convicts away from their only channel since it wasknown that any Sime exposed to a Distect Gen inevitably goes Distect,not caring whether they kill in transfer. (But Yone had rejectedthat lure, her mind told her.) The prisoners made themselvesuseful around camp, and then made themselves prudently scarce. They weren't freeloading.

  But she and her mother were freeloading because they could donate,but didn't.

  And that, she realized, was the basis of her reaction to Brian'swords. Brian had called her a freeloader, and she agreed. Hehad implied that she was a freeloader because her mother was afreeloader, and thus she couldn't help it. That infuriated her,and she did not agree. She could always help it.

  She had struggled half way out of her sleeping bag before sheremembered Yone's warning: "But I can't promise that myreflexes won't betray me again, so I advise you to stay as faraway from me as you can."

  It was one thing to donate selyn, even over her mother's authoritative'forbid.' When they got home maybe they'd put her in reform schoolfor being intractable, but at least she'd be in the right. Itwas something else to compromise her own integrity by riskingsomething she had agreed was wrong.

  Suddenly, the whole thing became too complicated for her, threateningto smother her in frustration and ignorance. She felt an irresistibleurge to move and after a few restless tosses that threatened towake her mother, she pulled herself out of her sleeping bag, wrappeda blanket around herself, and went out into the chill night.

  She stood a moment, trying to catch a glimpse of the stars throughthe trees. In the distance, she heard the night watch trompingthrough their rounds, tending the fires. There were dangerousnight-prowlers in this forest. Twice, Yone had saved them fromlosses, once wrestling a toddler from the very jaws of a cat-likehunter. He'd killed it bare-handed.

  She set off through the trees towards Yone's boulder refuge. He had warned her to stay away. The responsibility was now hers. Somehow, accepting that eased her restlessness. Whatever happened,her action wouldn't smudge anybody else's record.

  But it was there, in that tent, that the answers lay. She feltthat without those answers, the problem would surely smother herto death. Yet, when she drew near and heard footfalls to herleft, she hung back in the shadows behind a boulder.

  The steps came purposefully nearer and an arm drew aside the tentflap, spilling dancing firelight out onto the ground, and ontoCheryl Inikar. She was dressed in her hiking clothes, but herhair was down about her shoulders.

  From within came Alamain's tenor voice. "You! Haven't youdone enough for one day? He doesn't want you here. Go back toyour tent."

  "My God! What are you doing! Give me that! Didn't Brianwarn you?"

  "Get out of here," said Alamain coldly.

  Yone's voice, choked up as if he were suppressing a cough, said"Please!"

  "Don't worry, Hajene," said Valyu, "I won't leaveyou."

  "Oh, yes you will!" said Cheryl. "Yone, giveme that."

  Unable to contain her curiosity, Livya crept around the rock tothe end of the tent not being used as a door. Her mind was atumult of questions. Was the Sime injured? By her or the tree? How bad? There was a crack through which she could see whatwent on inside, and a little of the warmth spilled out.

  The tent floor had been swept clean, and on a ledge outthrustfrom the rockface burned a merry little fire, heating and lightingthe tent. It was vented through a small hole formed where thetop of the boulder drew back from the materia
l of the tent. Thespace within was just large enough for the three of them withYone stretched out on his sleeping bag. A few steaming pots ofwater were set about him.

  The 'that' they were fighting over was a folded strip of materialbeing used as a hot compress around Yone's forearms, As Livyaset her eye to the crack, Valyu began to wrap the length of steamingcloth around Yone's arm, starting at the elbow. Cheryl streakedacross the tent and ripped the cloth from his fingers. "No,not like that!"

  Caught off balance, the Donor went over backwards, the Donor hisfeet kicking in the air. Cheryl circled the sleeping bag on whichYone lay helpless and took the Donor's place, deftly wrappingand twisting the compress from wrist to elbow, finishing beforeValyu could regain his feet.

  Then she moved to Yone's other side where his other arm was cladin a similar, but cool, bandage and unwrapped it, dunked it intoa steaming pot, wrung it out gingerly, and said to Alamain, "Youmay as well go. This is going to take a while, and you aren'tvery much help."

  Valyu made a grab for the bandage. "Maybe, but he certainlydoesn't want you in here!" However, as Valyu's hand closedon the material Cheryl had begun to twist, Yone's other hand cameover to clamp firmly over Valyu's fingers, keeping him from pullingthe cloth. "Don't. Valyu, she's doing it right. It's helping. Let her finish. Watch."

  Valyu withdrew his hand obediently and watched, but although Cheryllet him see, she said, "He'll never learn by watching, Yone. It's something you have to know by experience. Look," shesaid as she finished the wrapping and fished a chain from aroundher neck. Taking the chain over her head, she slipped a ringoff of it and held the crest to the firelight.

  Livya choked back a gasp. The Distect outlaw had a Tecton ring,and not just any ordinary donor's ring either, but one of therare First Order Donor's rings with the additional four stars,the very highest ranking of all the professional donors.

  Lunging across her lap, Valyu grabbed for the ring, "Thief!"

  With one hand, Yone caught Valyu's shirt and pushed. The Genstaggered back a few paces and stayed there. Shocked beyond words. "No," said Yone. "Not thief. It's hers. Traitor,perhaps, but not thief."