“Enemy?” said Klyd, as if tasting the word. “No, the reason this war hasn’t been resolved is that we’re all actually on the same side. There are no enemies, and nobody is in the ‘wrong.’”
“We don’t have time for any Sime philosophy,” said Valleroy, brushing that aside in unconscious imitation of a Sime gesture. “It seems to me our deaths can serve the cause best if we take Andle with us.”
“That loathsome beast?” said Aisha. “I’ll vote for that. But how.”
“I’m not sure. Depends on what he decides to do next. But I think your hand will be our only weapon. It’s going to take courage, but your father always said you were stubborn, and stubbornness is a good substitute for courage.”
“What if he drugs her?” asked Klyd wearily. “That fear-inducing compound shatters the mind. The victim doesn’t remember much but nightmare.”
“The victim,” said Aisha, “remembers all too much! I think if they threaten me with that again, I’ll die of fright on the spot.”
“Here’s another ‘what if,’ “ said Valleroy. “Suppose he drugs her and puts her in there with you. What would happen?”
Klyd took time for a long, deep sigh before he answered. “Without the drug, I probably could manage to avoid killing her. Just barely. But with it, I doubt if I would have any control at all.” He shuddered. “It would certainly please him to watch the pride of Zeor so stained. But I don’t think he’d do it.”
“Why not? I called him a coward. He wants to get me for that.”
“If he made me kill Aisha, I’d still be alive. He requires me dead, preferably this month, in order to make the charge of high treason stick. If he can show that I died of attrition when my so-called Companion was taken by an ordinary Sime in the kill, the entire Tecton will come under official investigation. Our way of life would probably be outlawed. Then where would we go? Gen Territory?”
Shaking her head bewilderedly, Aisha said, “How is it that the Householdings were ever allowed to organize legally?”
“Before the channels, nobody thought of making such a law against us. After all, do Gens have a law forbidding them to breathe water instead of air?”
Aisha laughed. It was a delicate, bell-like sound that aroused memories for Valleroy. He’d forgotten how good her laugh made him feel. She said, “I see what you mean. All Simes kill, so why make a law against not killing? A good question.”
“And by the time somebody thought of it, we had too many friends in high places.”
“Couldn’t those friends squash the treason charges?”
“Not any more. Our sympathy with the Gen Government is an open secret. Sentiment has been running very much against us for several years. Andle’s faction has been waiting for a test case, and now they’ve got it. Even if they have to invent the evidence.”
“And you can’t fight it,” said Valleroy, “because the manufactured evidence happens to be real.”
“None of this is real for me,” said Aisha, slumping back against the bars.
“It will be,” answered Valleroy, “when he gets his tentacles on you. And that will be your moment to strike...for us, for Zeor, and for the whole human race.”
“That sounds so melodramatic. How can a Gen do anything once a Sime gets hold of him? And how could I do anything that would save the world?”
“With Andle gone, his movement will collapse,” said Valleroy, “at least for a while. That will give the Tecton time to consolidate. Public opinion is antichannel right now, but it’s changing, isn’t it, Klyd?”
“Slowly. Andle’s death won’t win peace. But his continued existence is all that holds his movement together. He’s been careful to expunge every leader of ability from his organization. There’s nobody to take his place. His death would stave off Zelerod’s Doom for a few more years perhaps.”
After they’d explained the Sime mathematician’s forecast to her, Aisha said, “I see. Then I’ll have to kill Andle. But I’ve never killed anybody before. I wouldn’t know how. Do you have a knife or a gun hidden on you somewhere?”
“No,” said Valleroy, pulling the starred-cross from the neck of his jacket. “All we have is this.”
“It doesn’t look very sharp. I could scratch his eyes out more efficiently with my fingers. Not that he’d give me the chance.”
“No,” said Valleroy. “The power of this lies in the faith you have in it.”
“But I don’t have faith...I’m not even sure I believe in God any more. I’ve prayed, oh how I’ve prayed!”
“Well,” said Valleroy, fingering the talisman, “it worked, didn’t it? You prayed, and here we are.”
“With all due respect to the...uh...Sectuib...some rescue party!”
“Not rescue party,” corrected Valleroy, “strike force. We’re going to put Andle’s whole operation on the scrap heap. Or rather you are.”
“You haven’t told me how yet.”
Valleroy switched to Simelan. “Klyd, you pointed out that she reacted as a typical Gen...kill all the Simes and solve the problem. Is she too typical to be trusted with the secret of how to kill Simes?”
Pursing his lips in consideration, Klyd shifted his weight. Restively, he massaged his laterals in that peculiar mannerism that so disturbed Valleroy. “Aisha,” said the channel slowly, “tell me what would happen if all the Simes now alive suddenly dropped dead.”
She frowned in concentration, sensing there was more to the question than showed on the surface. “Well, it would certainly take a long time to get all the bodies buried. There’d probably be plague from that.”
“Hmmm,” agreed Klyd. “And after that? Would the world be a better place to live?”
“Oh, no! Simes would continue to go through changeover. But there would be no adult Simes to teach them. They’d have no language, no culture, no technology...no way to live except killing and raiding and no place to live except the wilds. Before long, we’d be right back where we were eight hundred years ago. We’d have to start all over. And we might not be lucky enough to get channels the second time.”
“What would you do if you could teach your Gen friends how to kill Simes?”
“You mean all at once, in a massacre?”
“No. One at a time.”
“Well, I don’t know. Take Ginnie Simms, for example. She’s the kind of fanatic who’d jump at the chance to make all Simes drop dead at once. She’d never think about plague and future Simes. I don’t think I’d tell her even to save her life. But Mildred is different. She thinks Simes are evil people, but she’s content to let the Lord take care of them. The only trouble is, Mildred is a gossip. Tell her, and Ginnie will know by sundown.” She thought a moment. “I can’t imagine anybody I would trust...except...Hugh.”
“Now,” said Valleroy, “you understand why we hesitate to show you. And there’s another factor. The method is even more cruel than what they’re doing to Klyd. The victim suffers...terribly.”
“And,” put in Klyd, “if he happens to survive for a while, he develops what amounts to a phobia against taking selyn. I had the misfortune to attend the death vigil of such a victim. Can you visualize an armless man dying of thirst within reach of a water faucet?”
“Horrible. Most ordinary people wouldn’t deserve it, but someone like Andle...I think I would like to do unto him as he’s done unto others. Besides, when somebody is killing you, you don’t worry about hitting back painlessly.”
“If you’ll promise you won’t be unnecessarily cruel...even to Andle...I’ll teach you what I can.”
Aisha pondered that. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to torture even the likes of him. But I won’t promise to be careful either.”
It was Klyd’s turn to consider carefully. Because of her high-field and his growing need, he couldn’t read her anger accurately. He decided to gamble. “Naztehr,” he said in Simelan, “I think she can be trusted.”
“All right. You explain it to her, then I’ll give her the starred-cross.”
&
nbsp; The three of them worked through the afternoon, pausing only for meals or when Raiders passed by to see if Klyd had broken down yet. The jeering taunts of the Simes served only to reinforce the captives’ determination.
It was after dark when the sorely abused girl had fallen into exhausted slumber that Klyd said, “I’m beginning to hope she might be able to do it, if he doesn’t drug her.”
“I just don’t think he’ll drug her...not after the way I called him a coward for it right in front of his men.”
“You did that perfectly, Naztehr. They knew what he’d been doing, but they never thought of such a novel explanation.”
“You think I might be right about him?”
“Partially, perhaps. I’ve never known an ordinary Sime to develop a fixation on Sime-Sime transfer before disjunction. True, there might be some variant strain of Simes that might react that way...but I doubt it.”
“It was just a shot in the dark.”
“You did hit him where it hurt, Naztehr. Close, but not close enough to make him order your execution.”
“I’m glad of that!”
“From what you’ve said, his followers may figure out the truth.”
“Which is?”
“I have observed that channels who are junct often develop just such characteristics...a near inability to kill...after one exposure to a Companion.”
“You think Andle is really a juncted channel?”
“It’s possible that he isn’t aware of it himself. But he’d never be able to function as a channel. He’s been junct far too long. What worries me is what he’ll do to you for exposing him like that.”
“If Aisha is successful, he won’t have a chance to do anything to me.”
“And if she isn’t? I’ve never known a Gen not to panic at first experience of a lateral contact.”
Valleroy thought of the little nameless refugee girl the Raiders had killed before their eyes. She’d been brought up among Simes. She even had the starred-cross. Yet she had panicked. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d panicked, too, the first time...and also when Enam had come at him. There was something about Simes that was just inherently terrifying.
“Well, if she doesn’t make it,” said Valleroy, “we’ll just have to devise a new stratagem.”
“It’s Andle who’ll be devising the stratagem. I’m afraid I won’t be good for much by morning. You’ll be more or less on your own.”
“The cruelest thing he could do would be to have me killed right before your eyes. But suppose, just suppose, I survive it.”
“That would be just about the worst eventuality. You would be alive, but unable to serve.”
“No, not the worst. Because if I survive, it proves I’m a Companion. His treason case will be thrown out of court.”
“Sorry, I’m not thinking clearly.”
“That’s all right. I understand. I just wish I could help.”
“Your desire to help is comforting.”
“But you require more than comfort.”
“Yes.”
Valleroy shook the bars of the cage, hissing through his teeth. “There’s got to be a way!”
Klyd recoiled from that blast of frustration, massaging his laterals ruefully. The night lights of the camp showed Valleroy the ronaplin fluid oozing from the lateral offices. The swollen glands were visible lumps, stretching the skin halfway up the forearms. Valleroy said, “Need must be...painful.”
“Oh,” said Klyd, seeing Valleroy eyeing his tentacles, “it’s not just the laterals, it’s the whole body. Metabolic rate increases, sensitivity up fifty per cent, the entire system primed and yearning to function. The Sime is a predator by nature, and need is the hunting mode. Even the personality changes. We become insufferably aggressive, inconsiderate....”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Thank you. Channels pride themselves on controlling it.”
“If you’ve read Andle right, things may start to break early tomorrow. Try to hang together that much longer. Zeor requires your leadership.”
The channel rose and moved carefully to the farthest corner of his cage, where he sat down again, carefully, as if any sudden movement would dislodge his control. Valleroy, too, moved to the far corner of his cage, afraid to allow himself to feel a frustration that would only add to Klyd’s misery.
He knew he couldn’t sleep, so he was surprised when he awoke with bright sunlight in his eyes and a mob of Simes crowded around the cage bars. But the visitors weren’t interested in him. It was the channel that drew them, and they showed their appreciation with taunts and jeers half of which Valleroy couldn’t understand except for the intent.
Klyd was standing at the corner bars, clutching them with whitened knuckles, handling tentacles lashing about in unrestrained futility. Every few moments, an inarticulate snarl issued from the channel’s lips. His body went rigid with strain. He was augmenting, trying to break the bars. But they didn’t even bend under his fiercest assault.
The only results of the channel’s berserk effort was an increase in the number of Simes laughing at him. But after a fairly large contingent of new onlookers arrived from the barracks, another more disciplined group marched up from the other direction. They placed a ladder to the top of Aisha’s cage. Three of them mounted to the roof, and one of those three called out to the crowd below him. “Break it up! Orders are posted for Ten, Twelve, and Eighteen to move out on sweeps today. Better check the rosters!”
Every man there scrambled for running room and within a minute there wasn’t a Raider in sight except the guards who were hauling Aisha up in a sling. Valleroy shouted, “Where are you taking her?”
They didn’t answer until they’d carried her, biting and kicking uselessly, down the ladder. Then one of the guards came around the cage to inspect the channel’s efforts with the bars. Satisfied that the pervert couldn’t get loose, he paused near Valleroy and said, “Runzi always delivers merchandise cleaned and inspected...and at the appointed moment. We’ll be back for you...later.” He cocked his head toward the raving channel. “You can tell him so if he’ll listen. I hope he doesn’t suicide before we can have our turn with him.”
That worried Valleroy. He’d never heard of it before, but he supposed that a channel could void selyn thoroughly enough so that it would amount to suicide. But he was helpless to affect Klyd now. The mere desire to do so only attracted the Sime to the bars between their cages. But there was no recognition in his eyes.
It was at once both pitiful and frightening to watch what had been a rational human being behaving like an orangutan run amok. Safe behind three layers of unbendable bars, Valleroy wondered if he could face the channel’s madness without flinching. He looked into those feral eyes that no longer seemed human, and he was almost glad he wasn’t going to get the chance to try.
Valleroy left his breakfast untouched.
Several times during the hours that he sat and watched what had been Sectuib Klyd Farris, the pride of Zeor, he heard the thunder of departing riders. In the back of his mind, the part of himself he’d programmed to collect every detail of their prison noted the departures and recorded the fact that the camp was now nearly empty. But Valleroy himself was too emotionally involved with the immediate agony of his friend to absorb the fact and interpret it as opportunity. He vacillated between a firm resolve to help Klyd and a bone-chilling horror that seemed not part of himself at all, but rather a sort of primeval racial memory.
When this primitive part of himself arose, it chased all rational thought from his mind. He had to begin from scratch and rebuild all the reasons why the service of the Companions was necessary, and why his service to this particular channel was both imperative and possible. In the end, it wasn’t the cold, logical objective of saving Zeor, the Tecton, and the human race that brought Valleroy back into the safe frame of mind. It was the memory of the warmth he’d felt when Feleho had called him Naztehr.
With that memory came a flood of associated moments. The insta
nt praise his work had earned at Hrel’s disjunction party. The unparalleled satisfaction of finding a part of himself that responded to Zeor and pouring that vision into his Arensti design. The thrill of having that design accepted and understood by so many whose praise he’d come to value. The look on Sectuib Nashmar’s face when he saw the sketch of Enam and Zinter. And finally the great, overwhelming joy that he felt whenever someone at Imil took his achievements for granted because of his association with Zeor...synonymous with the best in everything.
All of this had occurred within the space of four weeks, while nothing at all similar had happened in nearly thirty years of his life. He knew where he belonged. To Zeor. But Zeor depended on Klyd’s skills both as a channel and as an unusually adept administrator. And, Valleroy realized, Klyd’s life now depended on Valleroy’s own ability as a Companion.
Time and time again, he reached the decision. Klyd’s life was more important than Valleroy’s own, since without Klyd there would be no Zeor and nothing to go home to. Therefore, let Klyd try to kill him, and if he died, at least Klyd would live. It was an emotional decision that agreed with the more rational factors he had to consider. But every time he was secure in that decision, he pictured himself actually reaching out to touch the mindlessly raging channel with no bars between them...and the primeval terror rose again to choke him.
He fought it down only by reminding himself that he was in a cage and it wasn’t his decision to make.
Finally they brought Valleroy a lifting harness and hauled him out of his cage. It was the opportunity he’d been waiting for, but the cyclical thoughts of the morning left him too numb for triumph. A part of his mind recorded the number painted on the trap door of Klyd’s cage, but he knew of no use for the datum. Even though free of the cage, he was not free to act.
The straps that bound him were stronger than rawhide. All the thongs joined at a point in the center of his back where a lock mechanism secured them. The four Sime guards that escorted him allowed not the slightest chance for action. So he went peacefully. He hated to admit, even to himself, how glad he was to get away from the raving channel and the dilemma he caused.
House of Zeor Page 24