Ambrov Keon

by Jean Lorrah

  Left homeless by the storm, many children ate and drank whatever they could find. When they became ill, they had not yet the pride of adult Simes to keep them from Carre’s gates—but often there was little the channels could do for them. Cholera claimed dozens—and the householders ached with the double knowledge of young lives lost and the rumors that would surely follow that the householders had murdered them.

  But Carre turned away no one. They were able to save some children with medication. They were close to one hundred percent successful in saving adult Simes...except for those with lateral injuries.

  Whirling winds through a thriving city had turned windowpanes, shingles—any sharp object—into instant death. Reaching out hands to secure a rope, rescue a child, stuff wadding under a door where water poured in, meant exposing a Sime’s vulnerable forearms—and hundreds were critically injured. Some died quickly, like Erland. Some sustained only bruising, and would recover after days or weeks of pain.

  But many were injured just badly enough to use up selyn in healing the delicate laterals, to descend then into Need—and die of attrition because the healing was not advanced enough to allow them to draw selyn.

  Sometimes it seemed punishment for allowing Erland to die that Sergi was assigned to sit for hours with dying Simes, his field easing their death agony. On one level his instinct to ease pain made him glad to accept the task—but as nights passed with too little sleep, and days with no answer to the message he had sent to Keon and no word from Risa Tigue, he felt trapped in a nightmare of endless death.

  Eventually the Simes in the lateral-injury ward either recovered or died—all but one.

  Verla was her name, her story the same as all the others. Her arms had been around her eight-year-old son, her infant daughter protected between them. She never even knew what hit her, badly bruising both her inner laterals.

  Her right inner lateral was so badly crushed that the channels had no hope—yet day by day she had healed, soon alert enough to ask about her children.

  Disorientation and healing plunged her into Need by her seventh day at Carre. Both Yorn and Sergi expected a repetition of previous deaths.

  She had never had channel’s transfer before, and her body rebelled. Sergi saw the injured lateral—an ugly purple instead of the normal pinkish gray—spasm and retract despite the promise of life Yorn offered.

  Sergi put his hands over Verla’s right hand, adding true Gen enticement to Yorn’s projection. When the recalcitrant tentacle licked toward him, Yorn captured it with his.

  Verla screamed with the pain of contact. Sergi’s stomach knotted in empathy, but he controlled at once, then relaxed his own system to allow Yorn control of the fields.

  The hardest lesson Sergi had had to learn as a Companion was to let go totally, to give up his will and become for a moment a channel’s instrument rather than fellow physician. Situations requiring it were rare—but always critical.

  Using Sergi’s field to control Verla’s pain, Yorn completed the contact by touching his lips to Verla’s. Selyn burning through her injured nerves made her shen out twice before Yorn managed to hold on and drive enough life force into her to support her for a few more days—precious days in which that lateral would heal.

  When Yorn lifted his lips from Verla’s, his face was strained but triumphant. “You’ll be all right now,” he told her, and sagged against Sergi.

  The woman’s face was contorted with pain—for a moment it resembled the face of a Gen killed for selyn, the rictus of agony from having one’s nervous system burnt out.

  Then she relaxed as her body adjusted to the new life flowing through it—and she managed a weary smile. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now my babies....” She was asleep before she could finish her sentence.

  Yorn, his strength returning, grinned at Sergi. “That’s what we do it for.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  The channel laughed. “Of course you do.” Then he sobered. “You know, Sergi, you were not my choice of Companion tonight, but Lorina and Quis are both completely exhausted. You’ve always had that incredible strength—but I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to give it over to me.”

  “It’s not easy,” Sergi admitted.

  “Nedd would be proud of you. Which reminds me, if you want to leave tomorrow I’ll arrange an escort. I’m sorry I can’t spare another channel for Keon, but—”

  “No, I’m not leaving,” said Sergi. “I will take a channel to Keon, but I must wait for her to come to me.”

  “Her? What are you talking about?”

  Sergi had told Yorn about Erland’s death, but they had had no time to talk further about anything but work.

  “I met a girl in the storm,” said Sergi. “A woman, technically, since she’s Sime, but obviously just past changeover. She was disoriented, into attrition...and the transfer she gave me—”

  The channel studied him, zlinning. “You didn’t overmatch me a month ago,” he said. “Now I suspect you do. You met a channel all right, Sergi—but if she didn’t come from Keon or Carre, where—?”

  “She’s junct,” Sergi said flatly.

  “A junct channel? You can’t think—”

  “She’ll have to disjunct, Yorn. Once a channel has had one good transfer—”

  “Oh, she’ll crave it again,” Yorn assured him, “but she’ll deny it. Juncts don’t disjunct because we think they ought to. And junct channels—” He shook his head. “You’re Gen. You’ll never truly understand Need—the devastation in every nerve, the emptiness yawning to claim you. Be glad you’ll never know it, Sergi—but try to understand that in a junct Need is not just for selyn—it is for the Kill.”

  “I know. She tried to kill me, but...the pain turned to pleasure.”

  “No, you don’t know,” Yorn insisted. “Even I don’t know. I’ve never killed.”

  “I have,” Sergi said softly.

  “...what?”

  “I killed a Sime who tried to kill me. I shenned him, and he dropped dead.” He managed a grim smile. “I don’t think it’s addictive for Gens—it was disgusting.”

  “You’re back in last century, up there at Keon,” said Yorn, assuming Sergi was speaking of an incident long past. “Killmode attacks.” He grimaced. “We’re harassed aplenty, but never with juncts trying to kill our Gens. I suppose we’ve been here so long, they know better.”

  Sergi really didn’t want to talk about the incident—it was the first time he had thought about it since it had happened, and he realized that he felt no guilt at all. Was this the way a junct felt about the Gens he killed?

  Yorn continued, “You have no idea what you’re getting involved with, Sergi. But never mind—you won’t be involved because you’ll never see that girl again.”

  That was after midnight. Sergi slept until just before noon the next day. He showered, ate lunch, checked the schedule board, and found that his name no longer appeared. He was now a guest in Carre. A polite way to drive a working Companion home was to give him nothing to do.

  Sergi, however, had his own plans. He strode across the square lawn that formed the center of the householding grounds, but as he passed the central statue of a man on horseback—supposed to be Rimon Farris, the very first channel, although no one knew what he had looked like or how much that was told of him was legend—he came upon a sight he could not resist stopping to watch.

  Verla was sitting in a lawn chair, her baby on her lap, while her eight-year-old son demonstrated cartwheels. He tumbled to the side as often as he completed one, but his enthusiastic audience cheered just the same.

  Sergi waited until Verla noticed his field and smiled an invitation. Then he went to her, and examined her arms. The left appeared completely healed; the swelling was gone from the right, and only a slight discoloration of the inner lateral showed through the sheath.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” he told her.

  “Oh, I know I am. I can raise my babies, thanks to you and all th
e others who cared for me.” Her little boy started chasing a butterfly, and she called, “Dinny!”

  “Let him run,” said Sergi. “He can’t get off the grounds, and he’s safe anywhere on them.”

  “Safe,” she pondered. Then, “Sergi, do you have to work, or can you spare me a few minutes?”

  He sat down on the warm grass. “What can I do for you?”

  “I...don’t have anything left but my children. I never saved much money—”

  “Verla, you are not expected to pay for the help Carre gave you,” he assured her.

  “But I want to!” she protested. “I’ll save it up, and then...Sergi, what does it cost to join a householding?”

  “To join—? Verla, you can’t.”

  “Yes I can. I can work hard. I’ve got good reason—I want my children to grow up here, where it’s clean and safe and people care about each other. I don’t want them dragged up in the streets, like I was. Look—I know it means I’ve got to stop killing, and let the channels...like last night.” She shuddered. “But I’ll do it! It’s for my kids.”

  Sergi fought back tears. How little juncts understood!

  “Verla, it’s not that Carre would not want to have you—and I assure you money has nothing to do with it. But...you’re too old to disjunct.”

  “Disjunct?”

  “Stop killing. You’re what—ten, twelve years past changeover?”

  “Nine. I got pregnant with Dinny practically right away. But I’m not old. I’m strong. I can work hard.”

  “But your body cannot adjust,” Sergi explained, trying to hide his disquiet at the thought of Verla pregnant during First Year. Even juncts should know better than that.

  “Disjunction can only happen in First Year,” he continued, “when a Sime’s system is very flexible. Disjunction crisis comes six or seven months after the last Kill. A Sime must start disjunction in the first half of First Year, or the crisis comes after flexibility has ended. The body cannot adjust. It’s not the Sime’s fault—it is a physical condition. You cannot disjunct now, Verla. You can only die trying.”

  Sergi left Verla pondering, and went to the stable. Soon one of Carre’s renSimes, a young woman named Etta, came to saddle a horse. “Are you going into town?” Sergi asked her. “I’d appreciate an escort if you don’t have to come right back. I want to go down to the docks.”

  “Sure, Sergi. You’re a pleasure to be around any time.”

  They stopped at a pharmacy, where Etta paid twice the going rate for a supply of fosebine—Carre had used up huge amounts of the analgesic since the storm. Sergi was accustomed to householders being cheated...but he wondered how Risa might handle the situation. He didn’t know how much she had given the constable as a bribe. When he had tried to pay her back, she insisted that she had done it only to avoid an incident on her property.

  Sergi and Etta rode on through town. Stares of annoyance and anger followed the householders.

  The resentment rode on a wave of Need—unnatural Need, it seemed to Sergi. Many Simes would have taken Kills since the storm, thrown off schedule by injury or augmentation. There should be fewer Simes in Need than on an average day.

  Near the center of town they came upon a queue—Simes in Need lined up almost two blocks from the entrance to the city’s central Pen. Sergi looked ahead to where the green pennants flew—and saw only one, atop a makeshift pole. The Pen, source of life force to the Simes of Norlea, had been a casualty of the storm!

  “Come on!” said Etta, turning into a side street. “Shen! I’m sorry, Sergi—we heard that the storm wiped out more than half the Pen Gens, but it never crossed my mind that they wouldn’t be restocked yet. It’s over a week!”

  Sergi noticed posters—new ones, not faded from the weather. Headed “EMERGENCY,” they listed priorities for receiving Gens: changeover victims, the injured, pregnant women, and those within twenty hours of critical Need. Even as they were reading, a police officer came along, protecting a boy pasting “twelve” over the “twenty.”

  “This means trouble,” said Etta. “Come on, Sergi—your errand can wait until the Pen is resupplied!”

  “It’s only a few more blocks,” he protested.

  Another boy came down the street in the opposite direction, also putting up posters. Sergi recognized Kreg Tigue. His posters read, “STORM SALE. BEST BARGAINS EVER AT TIGUE’S. DON’T MISS IT!”

  She’s liquidating her property! Sergi thought with a surge of hope.

  The police officer and his charge were well up the street, out of hearing, when Kreg stopped to post a notice nearby. Sergi said, “Hello, Kreg. How is your sister?”

  The boy looked around furtively before replying, “She’s fine, but don’t you go near her!” He came closer. “The Gen shipment didn’t come. They’re talkin’ ’bout raiding Carre!”

  “Kreg,” said Sergi, “if they didn’t threaten—if they would just come and ask—the channels could satisfy everyone in desperate Need until the shipment arrives.”

  The boy turned astonished gray eyes on Sergi. “You’re crazy!” he whispered fiercely, and ran on down the street.

  “You are crazy,” Etta agreed, turning her horse.

  “Because I suggest preventing a Need crisis? You know I’m right, Etta—it’s those juncts who are crazy. I know; they’d never consider approaching the channels, even to save their lives.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said as she led the way through back streets. “All Companions are soft in the head over Simes in Need. What I mean is what your field did when you asked that boy about his sister—your little castaway? You really have lost your mind, Sergi. The First Companion in Keon is in love with a junct!”

  * * * * * * *

  RISA HAD THE STORM-DAMAGED GOODS PRICED and set up at the front of the store by the time Kreg got back. Most would be perfectly usable after a good washing—but it was cheaper to sell at reduced prices than hire people to clean them up.

  Back in the storeroom was her secret treasure: nearly half the cargo she and her father had brought from Nivet Territory had been carried on the violent currents of the river to the mud flats near Norlea...along with Morgan Tigue’s body. Kreg, despite grief and fear, had laid claim to the property in Risa’s name—and she had arrived home before the authorities could declare her dead, confiscate the goods, and hand Kreg over to a foster home.

  Her little brother was growing more like their father daily; she was so proud of him she could have burst.

  Jobob and his younger sister Alis—Kreg’s age and also still a child—finished the last display. By morning most of Norlea should have seen Kreg’s signs. Maybe she shouldn’t have lowered prices quite so much...no—it was good business to provide bargains this week. Next week, when she unveiled the rare metal goods at high prices, those same people would flock in and fill her coffers.

  Kreg looked around. “Hey—it looks really good, Sis.”

  “Did you put up all the signs?”

  “Every one. I stopped by the newspaper office. They expect to have an issue out by the end of the week, so I placed an ad.”

  “Kreg, you’re a wonder. Are you tired?”

  “Naw—just hungry. Risa—come on in back with me, okay?”

  “Jobob—Alis—call us if you get busy,” Risa instructed, and followed Kreg back into the living quarters. As he made himself a sandwich, he told her what he had seen in town.

  “People are really bad off. No one can have a Gen till they’re twelve hours to critical Need. The Gendealer’s tryin’ to get people to keep ’em in the Pen and come kill ’em there, but people don’t trust that they’ll be there in twelve hours.”

  Risa knew the paranoia that came with Need. Zlinning the nager of a Gen in his holding room enabled a Sime to think of something other than his slow descent toward death.

  What would it be like to live side by side with a Gen like Sergi ambrov Keon, knowing he would always be there—?

  She shook off the thought. That shidoni-be-
shenned arrogant Gen wanted to run her life. His way was unnatural.

  Kreg, not noticing her lapse of attention, continued, “The storm flooded the big Genfarm near Lanta. Over a thousand Gens drowned. The government says not to panic, there’ll be a Gen for everyone—they’re just having problems transporting them. They’re s’posed to bring Norlea’s shipment over to the river to ship ’em down.”

  Kreg fell silent as he ate. Then he added, the ring of curiosity in his childish nager belying the casual tone he attempted, “It’s a good thing you don’t need another Kill soon. You’re not coming up short this month, are you, Risa?”

  “No, I’m not,” she replied before she realized that his sharp mind was calculating even as those innocent gray eyes studied her. She had been home six days and had sidestepped Kreg’s questions about when and where she had killed. By now she thought he had forgotten.

  “You’re not at turnover yet,” he observed, “and you must’ve augmented a lot with the storm and all.”

  His attitude invited comment, but Risa remained silent, calculating to herself. Eight days since Sergi had given her his selyn—and she had augmented since. Yet she had not reached turnover, the point at which she would use up half the selyn in her system and begin the slow descent into Need.

  In most Simes that point came two weeks aftera Kill. In women it generally coincided with menstruation. Risa, though, might feel the first tentative tickle of Need anywhere from ten to twelve days aftera Kill—and once it had been only eight. Considering the way she had used extra selyn in the past few days, no wonder Kreg was already watching for the crankiness that marked her turnover day.

  But she was definitely pre-turnover...and feeling more relaxed and confident than any month since her changeover. Maybe my cycle is stabilizing at last. Dad hoped it would before the end of First Year.

  Then she realized that Kreg had something else to tell her. “I saw that Gen in town,” he said tightly. “You know—from the householding.”

  “Sergi.”