Ambrov Keon

by Jean Lorrah

  “Actually, it led me into this very profitable venture.”

  “Which will pull money from the pockets of transients and into my bank, so everybody profits,” he said with a smile. “Nonetheless, I do apologize. Susi told me everything. The Gen tricked Susi into helping it escape.”

  Risa wondered how he could refer to Triffin as “it.” Even the poor creature Nikka had killed by now was a person.

  The junct defense mechanism became glaringly obvious. Risa felt a surge of sympathy toward Tannen Darley and all his kind: good people who could not survive if they acknowledged that their lives continued at the expense of other people’s.

  Darley misinterpreted Risa’s sympathetic response. “Susi’s been ill. I hoped you would explain to her—”

  The child’s huge blue eyes fastened on Risa’s. “Why can’t you give my daddy selyn every month, so he won’t ever have to kill somebody?”

  Darley waited in painful silence for Risa’s answer. With equal directness, she replied, “Because if your daddy tried to stop killing now, at his age, he would die.”

  Shock rang through Susi’s childish nager. Then she flung herself onto her father’s lap, hugging him tightly. “Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry! I love you. I don’t want you to die!”

  Darley looked over the girl’s head, and mouthed the words, “Is that true?”

  Risa nodded solemnly, wondering why Verla hadn’t told him, then remembering that her profession included listening to men’s troubles, not telling them her own.

  People were looking at them from the corner table. Darley said, “It’s time to go home, Susi—past your bedtime.”

  Susi stretched out her hand to Risa. “Please,” she said, “come home with us. I have to ask you things—”

  Darley added, “Please, Risa. And tell her the truth. I’d rather lose her to Keon than to Kill trauma.”

  Kill trauma was a leading cause of death in changeover. A child who saw a Kill—especially of a family member or close friend—might become hysterical during his own changeover, using up his last reserves of life force before his tentacles emerged. Unable to draw selyn, he died of attrition. Susi might never have actually seen a Kill, but she had all the warning signs of traumatic changeover.

  It could have happened to Kreg, after he saw Alis killed.

  So Risa went home with the Darleys, ignoring the flare of denial in Sergi’s nager when she stopped at the Keon table to tell them not to wait for her.

  She helped Susi get ready for bed, explaining that a Sime need never kill if started on channel’s transfer at changeover. “But even if you kill, you don’t have to continue. You have First Year to disjunct—to stop killing. It’s much harder, but it can be done. I did it.”

  “You killed?”

  “Yes—but in First Year I decided to stop. You can make that decision, too, Susi—if you want to.”

  “I won’t ever kill at all,” the girl said determinedly.

  Her father, who was standing in the doorway listening, said, “I’ll take you to Keon, Susi—I promise.”

  Risa expected Darley to tuck his daughter in, but he left the room after his painful promise. So she pulled the covers up to the girl’s chin and kissed her on the forehead, saying, “Sleep now. Your daddy will take care of you.”

  With an angelic smile, Susi fell at once into the deep sleep of childhood.

  When she had been in this house before, Risa had had only a quick impression of the elegant parlor. Now Darley stood before the fireplace. Sparkling crystal tea glasses gleamed on the mantel in Sergi’s silver holders. Darley was looking up at the portrait of a woman...obviously Susi’s mother.

  “Tan—”

  He turned when she spoke, and she saw tears on his face. “Oh, Tan, don’t! You’re not going to lose your daughter—now you can’t possibly lose her.” She looked into his troubled eyes and added, “Not even if she turns Gen.”

  His last control gave way when she voiced every loving parent’s greatest fear. He sat down on a small, elegant sofa, and cried—deep, cleansing tears.

  It didn’t last long—he was not a man to indulge emotions. He wiped his eyes, and looked at Risa. “I can’t go with her,” he said flatly.

  “No...but you wouldn’t want to. After all you’ve built here—”

  “What good is it? All my money couldn’t save Lita’s life. It couldn’t do anything for Susi. Risa—are you sure I can’t stop killing? What you did to me—mostly you scared shen out of me. Why can’t you—?”

  “We can’t do it to you, Tan. Even if you were young enough, you couldn’t do it because Susi rejects the Kill. Only because you do.”

  “I could learn. I had almost made up my mind—”

  “Susi accepts the facts. Now you accept them, Tan. You cannot disjunct, but your daughter can be nonjunct.”

  She felt his emotions normalize. He was very much her kind of person, a realist. She liked him—and he felt it. He took her hand, his handling tentacles sliding over her skin.

  He was lonely. How easy it would be to slide into his arms and ease his loneliness, her desire—

  But he was zlinning her deeply, and a rueful smile curved his lips as he said, “It’s not me you want, Risa.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be. I’m going to need a friend much more than a lover.” She noticed his deliberate use of the word “Need.”

  “I’ll be your friend, any time you want me. Susi’s friend, too.”

  “I’ll take you back to Verla’s,” he said.

  “Susi—”

  “One of my men is outside. And for the first time in two months I know she won’t wake up with nightmares.”

  As they walked through the cold, crisp darkness, Darley commented, “That shiltpron parlor may be the best thing that’s ever happened to Laveen. I thought it would be disruptive—you know the kind of goings on they usually have.”

  “What Nikka expected.”

  “Yes. But Verla will keep the riffraff out.” He laughed. “I never thought Tripp Sentell and I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder. That a shiltpron parlor owned by householders should bring the farmers and the town together.”

  “I’d like to see even more cooperation,” Risa said, and told him her idea for mining in Gen Territory. “Keon has the knowledge, but not the funds to build an ironmongery, or access to enough metal to make it worthwhile.”

  “Now that is an idea worth exploring!” said Darley as he opened the door to Verla’s for her.

  Ambru was playing and singing, the audience spellbound, listening and zlinning. Only Sergi remained at the Keon table. Risa was momentarily indignant that he had assumed she would come back for him—but the music was too beautiful to spoil with opposing emotions.

  Ambru’s voice was as worn as his body, carrying an overload of experience. He sang an outlaw ballad in which the hero outwitted the law time after time, only to end his life by fleeing into Gen territory, shot down by Gen militia rather than facing death by attrition if captured by Simes.

  Shifting mood, Ambru broke into a rollicking changeover celebration song, setting feet tapping all around the room. Sergi’s nager pulsed in rhythm to the joyful music. People turned toward them, encouraging more.

  Ambru changed the mood again, to a love ballad. Sergi’s field amplified the emotions flowing on the nageric level. Risa felt a pang of sympathy that his Genness cut him off from experiencing the combination of audial and nageric music.

  Risa was seated to Sergi’s right. He put his right arm around her, taking her hand, then took her left hand in his.

  Risa was overwhelmed. She seemed not only to hear and zlin the music, but to feel, see, taste, smell it. They became both performers and work, building their own world.

  When the music ended, Risa looked up at Sergi, and realized that he had missed nothing.

  Always she had thought, He does amazing things...for a Gen. He’s very perceptive...for a Gen.

  She had thought she accepted Gens as p
eople—but she had perceived them as handicapped, incomplete people...or as children. No wonder she had not seen Sergi as a man.

  Without a word, they got up and went outside. On the porch, Sergi drew Risa into his arms, wrapping his cape about both of them against the sharp wind. He kissed her, his lips warm and yielding. Risa, balancing on her toes, became breathless and had to break the kiss, although she wanted more. “Let’s go home,” she murmured.

  He smiled and replied, “This place belongs to us. One-quarter yours, one-quarter mine. We’d better hurry if we want to find an empty room.”

  Sensing her shyness, he led her around to the back door. They went through Verla’s kitchen, where one of her employees was boiling up hot water to wash glasses, and into the hallway lined with bedrooms. The insulation was entirely adequate, for Verla had taken Risa’s sensitivity as her standard. Risa ducked into the first empty room, watched with great relief as Sergi closed and latched the door, then felt herself blush violently, her heart pounding, as he turned to face her.

  He was so large, so masculine...nervousness prickled her skin as she felt his desire. He paused, puzzlement in his nager. “Risa...don’t tell me you’ve never—?”

  “O-only with a Sime,” she managed.

  He laughed, but it was in delight, not derision. He took off her cape and his own, hanging them on the pegs provided. Then he kissed her again—and again as he began to undress her, layer by layer of winter clothing giving them time to become accustomed, to become aroused....

  Caught up in Sergi’s desire, Risa participated in the unveiling, her tentacles undoing all his shirt buttons at once, sliding cloth over skin until at last skin met skin, the full length of her body pressed to his cool/warm Gen strength.

  He laid her down—but when he put one knee on the bed to lie down beside her, she said, “Wait. Let me look at you.”

  Not only had she never seen him naked before—he had never been so much as shirtless with her, even in summer.

  The night they had met she had stripped and bathed in the rain, unselfconscious because he had been Gen, not person, to her then. But he had preserved his dignity and her growing sensitivity. Thus his nudity was new to her, in keeping with her new perception of him. She smiled in appreciation.

  “You’re beautiful,” she said. “Like one of your own sculptures.” She laid her head on his shoulder and let her hand and tentacles play across his chest.

  He pulled her close and kissed her again, then murmured, “I love the way you see me. I love to look at you. I love you, Risa.”

  Passion surged quickly, then grew again more slowly, with time to explore and experiment until they lay quivering in each other’s arms. Sergi said, tightening his arms around her, “I can’t imagine anything better.”

  “There isn’t,” Risa said, snuggling closer.

  “Lortuen—the LOT relationships. They’re supposed to be better.”

  “What’s a lortuen?” Risa asked languidly.

  “When a Sime and a Gen are perfect matchmates nagerically, and also happen to be of opposite sexes, their transfer relationship carries over into their sexual relationship. It’s supposed to be beyond anything we mere mortals ever know.”

  Risa lifted her head so she could look into his eyes. “But that’s what we have,” she said.

  “No—although I never want to have transfer with anyone but you, it is still physically possible. In a LOT relationship, the systems of the Sime and Gen become so perfectly attuned that they cannot touch anyone else. If they can’t have one another for transfer, they will die.”

  Sergi was speaking dreamily, a soft smile curving his lips. “You’d like that!” Risa said in astonishment.

  His smile changed to a laugh. “Lortuen’s probably just a myth anyway.” He kissed her. “We have love—and that’s enough for anybody. Nedd was right not to pressure you. Now we can have your pledge ceremony and our wedding at once.”

  With a hard shove against his chest that knocked the breath out of him, Risa sat up, staring. “Shen and shid! If you can’t chain me with some weird nageric thing, you want to tie me down with vows! I’m not ready to get married—and certainly not to a—”

  “Gen?” he asked, his nager as icy blue as his eyes.

  “To a householder,” she said, hoping he could tell she meant it. “Is that why you seduced me? Was this all Nedd’s idea? Won’t you people ever trust my word? I gave Keon a promise—and that’s bloody-shen good enough for a Tigue!”

  * * * * * * *

  SERGI WAS TOO STUNNED TO MOVE. Risa pulled on her clothes, and with the thick braid of her hair hanging down her back like a child’s, she grabbed her cape off the peg and stormed out, slamming the door.

  As if released from a spell, Sergi grabbed his clothes. It was one time he desperately wished for tentacles, as his fingers fumbled at buttons while his feet met no success at getting into his boots without the help of his hands.

  By the time he reached the front door, Risa was gone. His horse was still tied where he had left it—but he could not even hear the hoofbeats of Risa’s.

  His impulse was to ride after her, but it was nearly midwinter. Dawn would not break for several hours, and the overcast sky provided no light.

  He turned—and faced a roomful of junct Simes.

  The shiltpron parlor had emptied out until only about twenty people remained. Several were still drinking. Ambru was sitting at the largest round table with Tannen Darley and almost a dozen other men and women.

  Before someone noticed him and started trouble, Sergi went up to the bar and told Verla, “I’m afraid I’ve lost my escort. Nedd will send someone for me, but....”

  “Don’t you worry,” she told him. “You’re my guest. I’ll escort you to Keon later this morning. I’m gonna close up pretty soon anyway.” She leaned across the bar. “What happened? Risa ran out of here like her tail was on fire.”

  “We...had a misunderstanding.”

  Verla sighed. “That girl! Don’t worry, Sergi—she’ll soon realize that you’re the best thing ever happened to her.”

  Verla began doling out steaming glasses, saying, “No more porstan, folks! We’ll reopen at noon—have a nice glass of tea now and go home and sleep it off. Anybody want fosebine?”

  There were ritual protests, and one man proceeded to pass out, but no one was angry or vicious.

  Verla collected empty porstan glasses at the big round table, and without thinking Sergi picked up the tray of tea glasses and started passing them out, mindless work to keep his attention off his latest rift with Risa.

  He sensed that he was being zlinned. He kept his thoughts, and hence his field, neutral. He was low-field, but he knew perfectly well that he far outshone any Pen Gen.

  Any abrupt change could provoke a junct. He continued smoothly setting out glasses, as if he had noticed nothing. The tray empty, he started to retreat to the bar, intending to try to blend into the furnishings—

  “Sergi.” It was Darley. A junct calling him by name? “Come join us. You can probably answer our questions.”

  “How may I help you?” Sergi asked warily, taking the empty chair between Darley and Zabrina, owner of the largest saloon in town. What was she doing patronizing Verla’s?

  “Risa says Keon could make many useful implements, if you had a good supply of metal.”

  “That’s true,” said Sergi.

  Darley picked up a glass holder. “We’ve all been using these the past few months. Beautiful craftsmanship. Applied to plowshares, wheel-rims, knives, ax-heads....”

  There were nods all around the table. “Good money in all that,” said a man dressed as a farmer. “I pay enough for it!”

  “Sergi, can Keon do it?” Darley asked.

  “Make knives and plowshares? We could, but—”

  “No more buts,” said Darley. “We’ll get you the metal. But Keon has to cooperate.”

  “Cooperate?”

  “We’re going into Gen Territory—Risa’s idea. Mine those
deposits the Gens aren’t using. People we’ve got—there’s not much work till spring planting. The farmers have wagons, horses, and mules. Zabrina, Quent, Brevit and I will put up money for mining tools. Will Keon do its part?”

  “What part is that?” Sergi asked, quelling astonishment.

  “Keon has Risa, to guide us to where she zlinned those metal deposits...and Keon has Gens to front for us.”

  “Front—?”

  “How’s your English, Sergi?” Darley asked in that language.

  “Supposedly perfect,” he replied in the same language. “My teachers came from Gen Territory—I’ve never lived there.”

  “But some Keon Gens have?” Darley switched back to Simelan, both because his English was not particularly good and because several people around the table obviously understood nothing of the exchange. Sergi followed suit.

  “Yes, but...I have no authority to involve Keon,” he explained. “Only our Sectuib can make such a decision.”

  “Well,” said Darley, pushing his chair back, “we’re all agreed.”

  “I’ll get my friends together this evening,” said the farmer. “This is the best deal we’ve had in years!”

  “I’ll ride out to Keon today,” said Darley. “Sergi—will you ride with me, so they’ll let me in?”

  “Of course,” Sergi replied, holding in utter incredulity.

  “Good. Finish your business with Verla. I’ll go check on my daughter, and be back for you at dawn.”

  Darley seemed to think Sergi was doing him a favor, and the Companion did not disabuse him. When they reached the hall outside Nedd’s office, though, the truth was driven home very quickly. The office might be selyn-shielded, but shouts came through the door rather well. It was Nedd shouting, angrily, a sound Sergi had rarely heard before.

  “I don’t care what he did—you had no right to desert a Companion in a town full of juncts! Now you hie yourself back there, young lady—if anything’s happened to Sergi—”

  “Nedd—Nedd, I’m perfectly all right,” Sergi said as he pushed open the door and let his field soothe the emotions pulsating in the small room.