by Jean Lorrah
The mules pulling the wagon being unloaded took fright. A wheel caught. The wagon overturned, spilling people into the water.
The Gens drew closer—nearly fifty of them! Bullets splashed in the water.
“Run!” Risa shouted to those still on the Gen side of the river. “Cross the river! Hurry!”
Where had fifty Gens with guns come from? The border patrol should be ten or fifteen men—
Ambush!
Risa and Sergi rode to the end of the train, urging those who hesitated to leave the loaded wagons.
“Our mules!” wailed Joi Sentell. “We have to have them on the farm!”
“Save your lives!” Risa insisted, pulling the reins out of the woman’s hands. “Run! Swim for your life!”
Husband and wife finally jumped down from the wagon and ran for the river.
The Gens were on them!
A scream and a flare of pain—one of the swimming Simes was hit.
Risa couldn’t tell who it was—but across the river eager hands reached out to help people ashore. Everyone else was off the bank now. “Sergi—come on!”
“Halt! You’re under arrest!”
But no Sime would stop for the Gen patrol. Better a quick death from a bullet than torture in a Gen prison.
Risa pushed her horse forward, into the swiftest current.
Sergi was right behind her, his big bay horse stronger than hers. He tried to maneuver to cut the worst of the current for her mare—
Sheer agony sliced through Risa’s head—jolting white pain—
Not herself.
Sergi!
Sergi was hit!
She turned to see him falling toward her, blood staining his yellow hair.
His huge, heavy body sagged against her, and fell into the rushing water.
CHAPTER TEN
RISA DIVED OFF HER HORSE, REACHING FOR SERGI..
She could zlin his field—he was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound, but alive.
As she struggled in the freezing water, she remembered her father dying in the river—
Not Sergi too!
Someone bore down on them—Gens on horseback with guns.
Risa pulled Sergi under water and let the current carry them. When she surfaced, the puzzled Gen patroller was looking around for his target—
From behind him, one of the town Simes leaped, twisting the man’s gun out of his hands. The Gen flared fear.
That was all the Sime needed. He hauled the man off his horse, forcing his mouth to the screaming face—
Killbliss!
Keon’s nonjuncts flared intil—but controlled it.
The juncts did not control. Several had passed turnover on the journey, and were close enough to Need—
The Gens who had ridden into the river realized their mistake—too late—and their panic made them targets. Kills splintered the ambient.
Risa dragged Sergi ashore. Still unconscious, he was shivering uncontrollably. His skin grew paler.
She had no way to warm him. He was going into shock.
Despite her terror, she remembered her lessons. Channel’s mode. Imitate hard Need—
She extended trembling hands over his head, laterals seeking the wound, concentrating on encouraging selyn production—
His field was flatter than she had ever zlinned it. Selyn was there, unmoving—almost like the wisps of flat selyn pluming off a corpse!
He stopped shivering and lay motionless, skin gray.
“Sergi!” She grasped his arms, seating her laterals, and pressed her lips to his, trying to waken his Need to give. Nothing. His lips were cold beneath hers.
She lay down on him, trying to will her own warmth into him—but she was cold herself.
She heard a wagon roll, and horses ride off. They were being deserted! How could she save Sergi? The Gens would cross the river and—
A Gen presence—and a Sime. Tannen Darley and Kreg had cut through the woods to them.
“Is he dead?” Kreg asked as he knelt beside Risa.
“No—it’s shock,” she replied. “I can’t get him warm.”
“Here.” Darley produced a small flask. Risa smelled the sharp tang of brandy. “It’s a stimulant.”
“But he has a head wound—”
“His body’s shutting down with cold, Risa. Do you have anything else to give him?”
Risa shook her head.
They pried Sergi’s teeth apart, and poured a small quantity of brandy down his throat, Risa zlinning carefully that it did not go into his lungs. He swallowed reflexively, but did not cough or come to. His heart rate increased.
“That won’t last,” said Darley. “We’ve got to get him dry and warm before the stimulant wears off.”
Between them, Risa and Darley picked Sergi up and moved through the trees at a diagonal toward the road. Despite their burden, they caught up with the single plodding wagon.
Hal Raft was already in the wagon, bleeding from a bullet in the shoulder. Sintha held his head in her lap, her field soothing—Risa spared a moment to zlin that the bleeding had almost stopped. A flesh wound, not serious.
But Raft, too, was cold and wet.
“Who’s got dry clothes?” Tannen Darley stripped off his jacket. Those who had ridden their horses across were soaked to hips or waist, but their upper garments were only damp.
Risa and Kreg stripped Sergi. Others did the same for Raft, despite his protests and the pain when he was moved. Darley gave him some brandy, which he swallowed gratefully.
They wrapped the two injured men in the dry clothes. “Kreg—get over there with Sintha,” Risa directed. “One of you on each side of Mr. Raft.”
Risa tried to take Sergi in her arms, but she was too small against his bulk. “He Needs body heat—and stimulation to produce selyn. Who’s close to Need? Help me warm him up.”
But most of the Simes were fleeing ahead.
“Hey—you fools!” Tannen Darley shouted after them. “Get back here!”
His authoritative voice was enough to make them hesitate. He added, “That’s how the Gens got us—we were spread out! Stick together so we can fight if we have to!”
The riders, several doubled up on horses now, returned to the wagon. Risa asked, “Did everyone escape?”
“Where’s Tripp Sentell?” someone asked.
“He stayed to see if the Gens followed,” his wife replied anxiously. “He should have caught up by now.
“Fivvik—Quent—go back and—”
“No—he’s coming,” Risa zlinned.
Sure enough, Sentell came out of the woods onto the road. “They’re not following,” he reported in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “They’re too busy claiming their loot—our wagons, our animals, our metal!”
“Why did we ever go along with perverts?” Joi Sentell complained. With an angry glance at Risa and the Gens in the wagon, her husband joined her, and they rode ahead.
Tannen Darley’s attention returned to Risa and Sergi. He plucked one of the Simes off his horse. “You’re close to Need, Fivvik—get in there and warm up that Gen.”
Gingerly, the man entered the wagon. Risa placed him on one side of Sergi, herself on the other, imitating Need.
The momentary stimulation of the brandy had worn off, and Sergi’s heartbeat slowed. “No!” Risa gasped as she zlinned his blood vessels contracting against the cold.
“What’s wrong?” Kreg asked. “Can I help?”
“Stay where you are,” she told him. “He’ll respond to our Need!”
It was more hope than fact when she said it...but slowly she felt Sergi’s field recover. Production began, pulse by pulse, his field meshing with hers. Without regaining consciousness, the big Gen began to shiver again.
They were leaning against some slabs of metal. Despite the layers of clothing they had wrapped Sergi in, the metal was conducting warmth from his body. “Fivvik,” said Risa, “help me lift him away from this stuff. Can you hold him?”
Darley zlinned
what was happening, and swung off his horse and into the wagon with a grim laugh. “Pretty crowded back here, but it’s one way to keep warm!” He slid between Sergi and a sheet of enameled iron. This put the two junct Simes, both past turnover, under Sergi, and Risa virtually on top of him—she could zlin warmth transfusing into his body as his own system began steadily producing selyn.
Risa smiled at Darley. “Thank you. And thank you for the brandy earlier—I don’t know if he’d have survived without that stimulant. How did you know it would work on a Gen?”
Surprise rippled through Darley’s nager. “I didn’t,” he replied. “It works that way on Simes. I forgot he was Gen.”
“Yes,” Risa observed, “Sergi has that effect on people. I’m certainly glad you had the brandy.” She tried not to let her misgivings show, for Simes rarely drank anything stronger than porstan. Brandy was for the jaded, along with Choice Kills. Was Tannen Darley, for all his superficial good sense, overstimulating himself toward an early grave?
“My wife was a healer,” Darley explained. “She would never have let me go off in cold weather without a flask of brandy.” He swallowed hard. “She healed other people all her life—but no one could do anything for her.”
“Did you try the channels at Keon?” Risa asked gently.
“She wouldn’t let me,” he said in a tight whisper. “I don’t know why—something Nedd had told her once. I could afford extra kills for her. She made me promise not to call for Nedd.” He looked at Risa out of painfilled eyes. “I should have anyway. If I had known you people then—”
“We can’t change the past,” Risa said, remembering what her father had always told her. “We can only learn from it to change the future.”
“Susi’s future,” he said. “Shen—I wish this trip had come off better! What rotten luck that the patrol was out. At least we’re alive. I’ve never seen so many Wild Gens!”
She let him change the subject, which soon came around to what they had salvaged. What was in the one wagon, they calculated, might pay for the wagons, horses, mules, and mining tools they had lost. “All that effort for nothing,” said Darley. “We can’t go back—the Gens will back-trail to where we found it, and dig up the rest for themselves!”
“Well, it is their territory,” Risa pointed out, and told him about Sergi’s revelation concerning smelting metal.
“All the more reason to keep him alive,” said Darley.
On the road to Laveen, Sergi came to enough to broadcast a sick headache. Risa’s horse, with her medical kit, had been lost to the Wild Gens. But Darley carried fosebine as well, and Sergi drank down the foul-tasting stuff without protest, falling into a restless sleep.
When Verla zlinned Sergi, she wanted to put him to bed at her place. “No,” Risa said, “I want him in Keon’s infirmary. We’ve got him warm enough now.”
Melli Raft claimed her husband. The single wagon went on to Keon. There they would do what they could with the metal they had salvaged, to make it sell for the highest prices.
Only Keon members traveled on along the road, as snow clouds gathered overhead. Gloom lowered like the clouds as Risa waited to face Nedd’s “I told you so.”
But there was none. Instead, he examined Sergi, said, “You handled it exactly right,” and helped Litith install the Companion in the infirmary.
“It could have been such a disaster!” Risa confessed to Nedd over trin tea. “If those Gens had better aim, or better guns, we could all be dead!”
“But you’re not,” said the Sectuib. “Risa—that wagonload proves that your idea was sound.”
“I don’t think the local Simes will cooperate with us soon again.”
“Not until we sell what we make from that metal in Lanta and Nashul—and everybody gets his share. Much as I hate to admit it, money does break down certain barriers.”
Risa looked up sharply, and Nedd smiled at her. “You’ve really shaken up this old place, Risa. Now get some rest—you’re back on the schedule at midnight.”
“I want to check on Sergi first,” she replied.
As they walked back toward Sergi’s room, Risa asked, “Nedd...what did you tell Tannen Darley’s wife, so that she would not accept your help when she was dying?”
“So she never told her husband. She was a channel, Risa—a junct channel. It’s amazing she lived as long as she did.”
“Why?”
“You remember being shorted. That’s only the beginning. Untrained, improperly exercised, a channel’s dual system is nothing but trouble. It’s especially bad for a woman, since pregnancy complicates everything.
“Lita Darley managed to survive childbirth, but her systems were in chaos. She needed extra kills—and of course she went to the junct remedy of Choice Kills. Do you understand why that is the worst thing for a channel?”
“Combine a channel’s sensitivity and a self-aware Gen—” Risa shuddered. “How could she help feeling guilt?”
“But in junct society one doesn’t feel guilt over killing Gens. I told Miz Darley she was a channel, and that we could help her control some of her problems. She refused. In fact, she called me a liar.”
“But why?”
“She came from a very old, very wealthy family near Lanta—you know the kind of people. Claim there hasn’t been a child turn Gen in their line for ten generations?”
“I never did understand how being rich kept kids from establishing,” Risa said, “but I’ve heard those claims.”
“Sime, junct, and proud. Lita defied her family to marry Darley, a self-made man. She married the man she loved—but she could not face being something, physically, that her family considered shameful. Ironically,” he added, “her family is probably full of channels—and so are all those other families that have been intermarrying for generations.”
“Then it does run in families,” Risa observed. “That...that could be why my mother died in childbirth. She had me, then Kreg—but the third pregnancy—”
“She bore a channel and a Companion,” Nedd agreed. “She would have to have been a channel to survive those births. But don’t you worry. You’re disjunct, you’re in control of your systems—and you’ve got Sergi. When you’re ready for children, you’ll have the best possible care.” A warm glow suffused his nager. “Which reminds me—we haven’t made the announcement yet. Litith and I are going to have a child.”
Blushing, Litith accepted Risa’s congratulations, then left her with Sergi. He was sleeping peacefully now, healing rapidly. His field was lower than it should be at her turnover, but rising steadily.
Satisfied that Sergi was all right, Risa let her thoughts turn elsewhere. Litith was considerably younger than Nedd. She had no idea how long they had been married—knew so little of the private lives of Keon’s membership. And I walked in here and started trying to change everything—
The infirmary was well-insulated in every way—not just selyn-insulated, but sound-insulated as well, to guarantee the patients their rest. Thus Risa did not know what was happening outside until Rikki threw open the door. “Risa—bring Sergi. It’s an attack!”
The only other patient in the infirmary just then was a child with a broken arm. Litith was hurrying him out the back door as Risa helped a very groggy Sergi down the hallway. “Where are we going? Who’s attacking?”
“Into the main house!” Litith called over her shoulder. “All channels, Companions, children, and pregnant women!”
“But who’s—?”
The cold night air revived Sergi, and he ran with her, his arm about her now for protection rather than support.
Buildings were burning. People ran in the lurid light, shouting. There were no gunshots. Not Wild Gens. Instead, the sound of cracking whips shattered the cold night air.
Pain seared the ambient—whip lashes on a frightened Gen—then the Kill! Sime pain—a Keon Sime who had tried to rescue the Gen, being slashed by the same whip—
Pain and death blossomed on every side. From the burning b
uildings, Simes and Gens ran screaming with burns, suffocating from smoke inhalation.
Killust followed them—killer Simes come over the wall and moving in a band through the householding grounds.
Kreg and Triffin charged past, carrying knives from the kitchen. “No!” Risa cried. “They’ll murder you!” She darted after the young Gens, caught Triffin, wrested the knife from her, and shoved her toward Sergi. “Take her inside!”
Risa augmented and caught up to Kreg—just as a Sime loomed out of the night at him: Tripp Sentell!
The junct was not in Need, but the pain in the ambient had spurred him to a fever pitch. He grabbed Kreg, squeezing his forearms with a shock of pain. Kreg dropped the knife—but did not flare fear. “You can’t kill me!” he sneered.
“I c’n slit yer throat!” the man growled, wrapping the tentacles of one arm about both the boy’s wrists.
But as he started to bend for the knife, Risa poised to throw the one she held into his back—
Sentell froze. “So. The little troublemaker! You want the Gen, pervert?” He held Kreg in front of him as a shield, shoving him backwards toward Risa as he squeezed his arms bruisingly, causing Kreg to gasp with pain.
Risa zlinned, for she could not see well enough in the flickering firelight to throw the knife at his head—and Sentell knew it. He laughed, ducking behind Kreg, who already had enough Gen bulk to shield him completely. “You’ll have to get the Gen first, pervert!” he taunted. “Gen lover! I wish it was that big buck o’ yourn—I’d fix him so’s he’d never touch no Sime woman agin!”
He squatted down, still using Kreg as a shield, and picked up the knife. “Think I’ll fix this one.” With one quick flick of the knife, he slashed through Kreg’s belt. The boy jerked reflexively, and the Sime laughed.
Risa circled to find a target before Sentell really hurt Kreg, zlinning other Simes coming up behind him—two channels, holding their show-fields so the junct would not perceive them over the high-field Gen. They were supposed to be safe inside the house! But only channels could sneak up on another Sime.
She forced her own show-field high, and tried to soothe the junct before her, dilute his rage so that he would not take out his hostility on her helpless brother!