Ambrov Keon

by Jean Lorrah

  “Exactly,” he said. “That’s why householding Simes are much healthier than juncts. Not only do they not abuse their systems by killing, but they live side by side with Gens, as nature intended. They eat right, suffer no Need tension—”

  “What do you mean, abuse their systems?” Risa interrupted. “The Kill is normal. Your way is unnatural.”

  His blue eyes studied her. “Do you know mathematics?”

  “I’m probably the best bookkeeper in Norlea, now that Dad’s gone. Why?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Numbers of Zelerod?”

  “Who?”

  “A Sime from Nivet Territory—a junct, but a mathematician. He did a study of Sime longevity and population growth...and discovered that in a few generations the world will reach a point at which there will be an equal number of Simes and Gens. Do you realize what will happen in the month in which precise balance occurs?”

  “Theoretically, the Simes would kill all the Gens.”

  “And the next month?” he pursued.

  “The Simes would all die of attrition. Theoretically,” Risa repeated. “Life doesn’t proceed according to theory.”

  “No. It wouldn’t happen that neatly. As soon as the Gen shortage becomes acute—maybe fifty years from now—Simes will start violating the border treaties in masses, not occasional raids. Civilization will collapse, Sime fighting Sime over the remaining Gens. Do you want to live in such a world?”

  “Fifty years from now I’ll be dead.”

  “Not if you come to Keon. But never mind that. Do you want your children or grandchildren to live in such a world?”

  “I don’t believe it will happen,” she replied. “There are far more Gens than Simes. Show me the proof.”

  “I can show you at Keon—or Carre. We have copies of Zelerod’s Numbers.”

  “Suppose—hypothetically—this Zelerod were right. What can be done about it? What did he do?”

  “Disjunct,” Sergi replied. “Zelerod died trying to disjunct, but he was too old. You are not.”

  “Disjunct? You keep calling me junct.”

  “Joined to the Kill,” he explained. “It is an unnatural state, Risa, but an addictive one.”

  “How can it be unnatural? It’s how every Sime lives.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Not every Sime. Most of the Simes at Keon have never killed. Risa, you just said you expect to be dead fifty years from now. If you remain junct you may live fifteen, perhaps twenty years past changeover. You are a channel, though—so make that seven to ten years, even less because you are female. If you have no training in control of your dual selyn system, you are likely to die in childbirth.”

  “You are trying to frighten me into doing what you want.”

  “No. Fear is not adequate incentive. Disjunction requires positive commitment. Forgive me—I should not dwell on negatives. Come observe our way of life at Carre or Keon. Both householdings have healthy Simes forty or fifty years past changeover. The really old Simes live sixty or seventy years past changeover. One channel at Carre is seventy-three years past. There is no one that old at Keon only because the house was founded thirty years ago, with young people.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Come and see for yourself. The householdings are the answer to Zelerod’s Doom. All those Simes living long, healthy lives—and never killing. Gens living without fear, providing new selyn each month without dying—it is what nature intended for Simes and Gens. It can be yours, Risa. All you have to do is come inside the walls.”

  * * * * * * *

  ALL THE WAY TO NORLEA, SERGI WATCHED RISA, wondering how effective his words had been. They rode in silence most of the way, Risa deep in thought.

  Storm damage was worse farther south. Even though it was late in the day, some causeways were under water, and no detours had been marked. Risa zlinned the way through the swamps, and took the lead on the eyeway as darkness fell. Neither suggested stopping so close to their goal.

  Closer to the city there were marked detours—deliberate frustrations, it seemed, to keep them from getting where they were going. The city gates were a heap of rubble, blocking the direct route into town. Sergi could see nothing but wreckage beyond where the gates had stood—the storm had demolished this whole section of Norlea.

  “We’ll have to go around to Rivergate,” said Risa. “That will bring us to my place first. You can sleep there for the rest of the night, and I’ll take you to Carre in the morning.”

  Although Sergi was concerned about the householding—a short distance inside the main gate—he was glad to spend more time persuading Risa. He would meet her brother Kreg, too—a boy who was not yet certain he would be Sime might be more receptive to new possibilities.

  The road around the town had been cleared, the debris piled up on either side. Their tired horses plodded between banks of broken trees, pieces of houses and furnishings—even boats thrown far inland on the hurricane winds.

  Rivergate was open—was, as a matter of fact, gone altogether. Only the stone arch that had weathered many a storm stood gaping a welcome to the weary travelers.

  Sergi had never been in this part of Norlea before, but no Sime city was ever so quiet, even in the hours after midnight. Simes normally slept only part of the night—but in the last two days the people of Norlea had spent their strength against the storm. Probably no one had slept last night. Sergi and Risa rode through a silent city.

  Jagged mounds of collapsed buildings added to the effect. Risa urged her horse to a faster pace. Sergi knew she feared to find her own home a pile of rubble.

  Not all the buildings had fallen. They rode through a narrow passage between solid walls, echoing the muddy plopping of their horses’ hooves. As they came out, there was a rustle and skitter. Something fled at their approach.

  “Looters!” Risa exclaimed in a sharp whisper, and kicked her horse into a trot.

  Her goal seemed to be a building farther up the street, where shadowy figures were stealthily moving objects Sergi could not make out from the porch to a cart.

  Before he could even think to stop her, Risa kicked her horse viciously and rode straight at the looters, shouting, “Stop, thief! Off my property you shedoni-doomed lorshes!”

  She was unarmed, galloping into the midst of a swarm of Sime looters, kicking at them as she slid off her horse and sprang to the porch. “Get out of here, you scum!” she threatened, picking up an ax and clanging the head loudly against more loot they had piled up.

  Two of the thieves took off at the noise, but the others quickly saw they were five against one small girl. They rushed Risa, who disappeared in a tangle of bodies.

  Sergi forced his horse to a gallop, hoping to pick Risa out of the heap and go for help—but he could not even see her in the mass of writhing Simes. He saw the glint of a dagger, and without another thought dived into the fray.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RISA SQUIRMED, KICKED, BIT—TRIED TO SLASH WITH THE AX, but there were too many people on top of her.

  Augmenting, she bent her knees and drove her feet into one man’s solar plexus. He staggered back, but someone wrenched the ax from her hand while another raised a knife—

  A giant hand closed over the upraised forearm—closed and squeezed—the knife fell as the man let out a howl of agony at the pressure on his laterals.

  Sergi tossed the man aside and picked up a woman by belt and collar, throwing her off the porch into the street. She sprang back, as did the man Risa had kicked, augmenting as they grabbed at Sergi.

  From inside the building rose a mad caterwauling. Risa was only half aware of it as she scrabbled for the knife.

  She zlinned Sergi’s incredible nager charge with fury as he flung off Simes. One of them wrapped tentacles and both hands about his left arm, and hung on tenaciously.

  Fighting with a tall man who breathed foulness in her face, Risa had only a fragment of her attention on Sergi when his field flared with a jolt of searing energy. The w
oman clinging to him screamed and dropped, radiating pain.

  A beam of lamplight sprang from the back of the building, and a mass of fur, claws, and teeth leaped screeching onto the man struggling with Risa.

  Risa grabbed his knife and sprang to her feet, backing against Sergi. Back to back, they faced a circle of four Simes. The woman Sergi had burned sagged, half-fainting, on the steps. But the others were ignited to madness.

  A blur of gray-and-black stripes, and Risa’s cat, Guest, was at her feet, arching and spitting at the attackers.

  “Get out!” Risa panted. “Leave, and you won’t be hurt!”

  The man whose arm Sergi had squeezed rasped, “Gimme that Gen! You don’t need no Kill.”

  Neither did he, but in his pain he was raising intil—the state in which he would kill, Need or no. He circled, trying to face Sergi. Risa could zlin the Gen’s efforts to control his emotions, but anger charged his field enticingly.

  “Get outa my way, bitch!” the Sime said, trying to come in under Risa’s knife.

  “You let my sister be!”

  A whip slashed out of the doorway, stinging the buttocks of the man facing Risa—only irritating him more.

  “Kreg!” It was her brother who had lit the lamp, his child’s nager hardly affecting the highly charged scene on the porch.

  The man turned in fury, and jerked Kreg onto the porch. He threw him at Risa, who dropped the knife to catch him.

  Kreg’s weight knocked Risa against Sergi. Risa and Kreg went down, and Sergi whirled to face the angry Sime—who had the knife again. He got in a glancing blow to Kreg’s shoulder—at her brother’s pain Risa crouched to charge—the Sime raised the knife—

  Sergi stepped over Risa, his field pure enticement, his hands outstretched.

  Helpless before that nager, the Sime dropped the knife and reached for Sergi in killmode. The Gen let him make contact, allowed one instant of selyn flow—and shenned the Sime to a screech of abused nerves.

  The shock ricocheted through all the Simes. Even Risa, full to brimming with selyn, doubled over with the pain of denial.

  The agony cut off as abruptly as the selyn flow. The Sime fell dead at Sergi’s feet.

  The other looters stared, zlinned, their fields wavering with shock and fear to equal any Gen’s. Then, as one, they fled into the night.

  Sergi knelt beside the fallen Sime, feeling for a pulse. “I only meant to shen him, not kill him!”

  There was no excuse under the law for a Gen murdering a Sime. Risa picked up the knife one last time and plunged it into the dead man’s heart. “I am responsible,” she said.

  Kreg was kneeling, staring wide-eyed at Risa and Sergi. “Risa,” he said at last. “Risa, you’re alive! They found Dad’s body in the river, and everyone thought—” He leaped into her arms, hugging her as if he would never let go. How much he looked like their father, especially the gray eyes.

  Risa held her brother close, and felt a trickle of blood. “You’re hurt, Kreg. Come inside. Where’s Jobob?”

  “He helped me board up the windows this morning, then went to help his ma clean up her house. They asked me to stay with them, but what if you came home and I wasn’t here? And you did come back! Oh, Risa, everybody said you were dead!”

  “Well, I’m not.” They walked through the store. Sergi picked up the lamp and followed. One corner of the roof was gone—the looters’ entry. The windows were boarded up, and the front door showed no sign of being forced. “Jobob may wish he was dead by the time I get through with him,” Risa muttered, “leaving you with that open invitation to thieves!”

  “We were gonna fix it in the morning,” said Kreg. “Besides—I was locked in the back, with Guest to protect me.”

  The cat walked between Risa’s feet as they entered the living quarters. The big main room was kitchen and sitting room in one. Risa sat Kreg at the table and turned on a water tap. “Hot water. Good.”

  “I stoked it,” said Kreg.

  “Good boy. Now take your robe and shirt off.”

  The wound was little more than a scratch—but she shuddered to think what that looter’s knife might have been used for. Sergi said, “If he shows any sign of infection, bring him to Carre.”

  Kreg looked up, studied Sergi’s bare forearms, and asked, “Risa, what are you doing with a householding Gen?”

  “He saved my life—twice now. I think we owe him a bed for the night, don’t you?”

  It was of Risa that the boy asked, “Did something happen to Carre? I know that part of town got hit bad.”

  “I don’t know. We came around by Rivergate. Now back to bed. And you,” she added, bending to pick up the cat, who had been rubbing her ankles all this time, “You dumb animal! I always thought you were good for nothing but keeping mice out of the storage bins. You sure proved yourself tonight.”

  She hugged Guest, burying her face in his soft fur. He stood it for a moment, even rewarding her with the rumble of a purr, then squirmed to be let go.

  “I’ll see to the horses,” Sergi offered.

  “The stable’s gone,” Kreg said. “One of our horses was hurt—ol’ Brink had to destroy him. But the rest’re all right. Me and Jobob fixed ’em up with hay out back.”

  “Then I’ll put our horses behind the building,” said Sergi—but as he got up there came a shout out front.

  Risa took the lamp from Sergi, and opened the door. There stood the local constable with two other officers. “Well now, what’s been going on here?” He gestured with two tentacles toward the corpse on the porch. One of the officers bent over the body, laterals extended, zlinning it.

  “And where were you twenty minutes ago?” Risa retorted. “Looters broke into my store—look, their cart’s still in the street with my goods on it. I got home just in time to run ’em off. My little brother could’ve been murdered in his bed. Where were the police my tax money pays for?”

  “We been runnin’ in circles keepin’ order.”

  “Sergeant, come and zlin this,” said the officer examining the body. “This man didn’t die of—”

  Kreg padded quietly up behind Risa and slipped something into her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I was caught in the storm, too. It must’ve been terrible here in Norlea. There’s no harm done. I dispatched that lorsh when he attacked my little brother. Here—zlin Kreg’s shoulder.” She pushed the boy forward.

  The three police officers zlinned them, then the body again. “You’re Risa Tigue, ain’cha?” the constable asked.

  “That’s right. We were fortunate. This is for the fund for those left homeless.” She proffered the purse Kreg had put in her hand. The weight was just right—not too much, but enough to remind the constable that Tigues had money...and knew which tentacles to warm with it.

  “But Sergeant,” the officer protested, “the wound—”

  “Shut up, Neski,” he said as he took the purse from Risa. “Any fool can see he died from bein’ stabbed through the heart—in self-defense.” He wrote it down in his report book. “If you’ll just put the body in your disposal area, I’ll have the pickup crew get it in the morning. Now,” zlinning Sergi, “what about this Gen?”

  “Salvage,” Risa replied, staking her claim.

  “Eh?”

  “It belongs to a householding. I’ll take it to Carre in the morning. Likely they’ll pay me a nice salvage fee, rather than have to bail it out of custody. They set store by their tame Gens. Can’t understand why—no good for the Kill.”

  The constable laughed. “If you think you can hold that one till morning, good luck! I’ve known ’em to disappear out of a locked holding room. It’ll be inside Carre’s walls afore you wake up tomorrow. Come on, boys—we got patrolling to do. Miz Tigue, if I uz you I’d get this stuff outa the street.”

  When they were gone, Sergi said, “Thank you,” rather stiffly.

  “We’re even,” said Risa—for if the police had realized that Sergi had killed the looter they would have dispatched him
on the spot.

  Would he have fought for his life to the extent of murdering a police officer? She didn’t want to know—almost hoped that the Gen would indeed be gone in the morning. She understood now why he called himself a lethal weapon...and yet, after they had taken care of the horses and stowed the looted goods back in their proper places, Sergi sat drinking tea at the kitchen table, Guest purring in his lap, looking and zlinning as harmless as Kreg.

  “Why do you call your cat Guest?” he asked.

  “Because he acts like one, expecting to be waited on. But after tonight, he’s family.”

  “Then you must bring him to Keon,” the Gen said with a contented smile.

  “I’m not going to Keon, and neither is Kreg. Tomorrow you go to Carre, and that’s the last I will ever see of you.”

  Kreg stared from Risa to Sergi and back. “What really happened, Sis? You had a Kill a month ago, and you’re not in Need now. There’s something funny between you and this Gen.”

  Sergi took a breath as if to speak, then let it out and waited. Finally he said, “You must tell your brother, Risa.”

  “Later,” she said. “Kreg, you’re a growing boy. Back to bed—and I mean it this time!”

  She got up, took her brother’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. Suddenly she realized she was looking up into his gray eyes. He had grown again in the month she’d been away—almost as tall as their father. What if he did turn Gen? He was all she had left! Did she have to lose Kreg, too?

  * * * * * * *

  WHEN RISA RETURNED SERGI TO CARRE the next morning—and did not ask for a reward—he walked into so much work that he had no more time to think of the young junct channel. The householding had opened its gates to the hurricane victims.

  Carre was in the oldest section of Norlea. Its stone buildings had suffered only superficial damage. The renSimes—Simes who were not channels—had roofs replaced and windows glazed in three days’ time. The grounds were quickly cleared of debris, and except for the sick and injured, everything appeared normal.

  As First Companion in Keon, Sergi was qualified to work with Yorn, Sectuib in Carre. Often after an eight-hour shift with Yorn Sergi would work with one of the other channels until he was so exhausted he fell asleep at his work.