First Channel s-3

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Afraid to zlin, Rimon watched his father, feeling for the first time slightly shabby, definitely not up to what his father would have expected. But then he also saw the sprinkle of white hairs through his father’s thick black thatch—surely that had not been there two years ago? Or all those lines around his eyes? Come to think of it, why was Farris here early? He looked prosperous enough—but then he always took pains to look prosperous. The wagons passing by were loaded with unestablished children and older Gens—he was selling off breeding stock! Things were not going well on the Farris Genfarm, no matter what face Syrus Farris showed the world.

  On one of the Farris Genfarms, came the disquieting thought. He would have to encounter his father with a freshly made deed to a Genfarm in his pocket. But perhaps he could avoid it. Did his father know he was here? Would he want to know?

  Tentatively, Rimon dared to zlin his father. Even from a distance, over the fields of others, he could easily sense that distinctive nager. There had always been a barrier that kept him from reading his father; now it was gone. No—my sensitivity has increased. As he reached the core of Syrus Farris’ being, he saw something else, something that stunned him, forced him to lean on Kadi’s field. She looked up at him, and he muttered, “Kadi—he’s like Jord and me: two selyn systems!”

  “Then Zeth will—” she whispered.

  “He’ll have it, tool And be able to learn not to kill! Jord and Willa—Kadi, it does run in families!”

  Rimon’s eyes were still on Syrus Farris. The older man turned slightly toward where Rimon and Kadi stood, frowning. Rimon froze, waiting to see if his father would look at him; he was certain his father had zlinned him. But Farris did not turn. He doesn’t want to recognize me.

  The last wagon passed, and the crowd began to move. Rimon held Kadi right there, waiting. I’ll let Father make the decision. He can walk away, or he can turn and recognize us.

  Slowly, as if fighting a force he could not resist, Farris turned. Father and son faced one another over a distance of only a few paces. “Rimon,” he said softly. Then, flatly, “I see you’ve kept that Gen.”

  “Kadi is my wife, Father,” said Rimon. “I told you that.”

  Farris ignored that, openly zlinning his son. “You’re well,” he said, unable to keep surprise out of his voice. It was so long since Rimon had left behind the chronic shorting, the never-quite-healthy feeling, that he’d forgotten about it, until he’d seen that same tiresome strain in his father’s field. “I’m pleased to see your health is good, at least.”

  “It’s because I don’t kill,” said Rimon. “I didn’t kill Kadi, as you see—and I’ve learned to draw from other Gens without killing.”

  Farris brushed that aside. “I heard you were homesteading at the border. Have you been successful?”

  “I just got the deed to my land this morning.”

  His father nodded, holding back a faint surge of pride. “That is good. What will you do now?”

  “Farm. We’ve had some success marketing trin, and now we’re trying mushrooms. In a few years, you may find our produce on your table, Father.”

  “Perhaps,” Farris said bleakly. “Did the drought hit badly in your area?” A safe topic, the weather.

  “It’s been difficult, but we can survive one bad year.”

  The twinge of irritation building in Farris suddenly broke free. “We! You and this Gen?”

  “Yes,” replied Rimon. “Kadi and I—and our son.”

  Farris stared at his son, going so pale Rimon feared he would faint. But he was back in control immediately. “You have a son, Rimon?”

  “Kadi and I have a son.”

  “The Gen is alive,” said Farris, as if that were enough proof that Rimon was lying. So Rimon had been right– Farris wives died in childbirth.

  Kadi spoke softly, “You’re welcome any time you wish to visit your grandson, N’vet Farris.”

  At being addressed by the term of respect between equals, Farris looked directly at Kadi for the first time. But he spoke to Rimon. “She still has you in her power.”

  “And Rimon has me in his. It’s called love.”

  “Rimon,” said Farris, “I must supervise the unloading of the stock. Will you join me?”

  A courteous invitation between equals. Rimon could not refuse—and he didn’t really want to. They walked down the lane to the large tent assigned to Farris. The crew had scrubbed and disinfected everything, and the flaps were up to air it out. The wagons pulled up one by one, unloading their cargo carefully, no cruelty allowed. That had always been important to his father. Farris Gens were treated kindly, never unnecessarily hurt, never left in discomfort. But nonetheless, his father was cruel. All the gentle treatment went only to assure the buyer a Gen who would be responsive to the pre-kill routines. Prime Farris Stock. Human lives bought and sold.

  Rimon wanted to lash out—to demand that his father recognize Kadi as a person, all Gens as people—but as he watched Farris carefully inspecting, helping to lift one of the pre-Gen children down from a wagon, he was suddenly reminded so powerfully of Abel Veritt that it took his breath away. He can’t recognize Kadi as a person, any more than he dare think of the Gens he raises as more than animals. He doesn’t have Abel’s faith to sustain him. If he knew—he’d die!

  For the first time in his life, Rimon perceived his father as weaker than himself—there was a definite frailty at the edges of his nager that could only become worse with advancing years. And what does he have to live for? His wife is dead, his son gone to a life he can’t understand. “Kadi,” he said softly, “we should leave now.” Before we do any more damage.

  As Kadi stepped to his side, Syrus Farris turned back to them—and Rimon realized that he had perceived that strange state of their fields when Kadi was high-field and he was low.

  “We’re still here,” he said with a chuckle, knowing others” perceived it as if they disappeared nagerically. “But we must get on to our business.”

  Farris ignored that. “Let me zlin you without the Gen.”

  Obligingly, Kadi went over to watch the children being unloaded. Farris zlinned his son. “You’re in need.”

  “Still a few days from it.”

  “But you’re steady, calm—Rimon, I must admit that you’re healthier than I’ve seen you since your changeover. If it’s from living without killing, so be it. Come home, Rimon. I won’t ask you to kill—you say you can draw from any Gen. You can have all the Gens you want. Come home, find a wife—”

  “I have a wife.”

  Suddenly, from Kadi, he felt a shock, and she cried, “Rimon!”

  Another wagon had drawn up; several Gens were being herded into the Pens—and one of them was Nerob.

  “Kadi!” exclaimed Nerob, but she turned and ran to Rimon.

  The Gen was the same mixture of defiance and cowardice Rimon remembered. He looked at them. “Rimon? Rimon!” The Gen began to beg, frantic as his line moved toward the holding cage. “Buy me, Rimon! We were always friends —don’t let them sell me for a kill. I’ll work for you– anything!”

  As if he’d never tried to take Kadi away from me. Nevertheless, Rimon felt pity for Nerob. Kadi was silently pleading for mercy. He could send Nerob across the border and be rid of him. The money—shen! He’d get it somewhere. Nerob—Yahn—was a person. A person Rimon detested, but a person even so.

  “All right, Yahn, I’ll see what I can do,” he said, marshaling his mind for a bidding duel with his father. “N’vet Farris, that old breeding male can’t be worth much. Name a fair price, and perhaps we can do some business.”

  His father zlinned him, bringing his eyes to focus on him as well. There was astonishment and grudging approval in the older man’s nager, and for a moment, Rimon thought he’d deal.

  “I won’t sell him to you,” said Farris. “For your own good, Rimon, I won’t sell Nerob at all. I’ll put him back to breeding—if you’ll sell me Kadi as a mate for him.”

  Such utter rage thrilled thr
ough Rimon’s body that Syrus Farris took an involuntary step back, holding just as Kadi’s field gripped and held Rimon, her hands clamped about his biceps to prevent him from going for his father’s throat. Gone was every trace of sympathy he’d felt for him. only moments ago.

  Savagely, he said, “So this is how you choose which promises to keep! And I always wanted to be just like you!”

  “Rimon!”

  “If the Farris honor means anything to you, Father, then sell Yahn to me—for the sake of your promise to Keslic!”

  “I can’t do that, Rimon. I’d pay anything to get you to come home—live a normal—”

  “Normal! I’ll tell you how normal your life is. Mother died. Lenara died!” He paused as his father registered shock at the name. “All the Farris women die—but not Kadi. Kadi’s given me a son, and I know from the way it happened he’s going to be Sime like you and me. I’ve found the way Farrises can have children—without killing their women. We have to have them by Gens, Father. Take a good look at Kadi. Remember her. And remember that she has given me one child already. There will be others– and she won’t die. You just think about that!”

  And he turned and stalked out, Kadi close at his side.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  COMING HOME

  It took the entire walk to the Varnst tents for Rimon to stop shaking. He had lost control again—control of his temper, this time. Even though he knew his father would never have sold him Nerob, the thought persisted: I lost him his last chance to live.

  Kadi, too, was silent, her emotions in turmoil. Only when they reached their destination did she begin to give Rimon any support. Finally she said, “Your father was never like that.”

  “I think we’re the ones who’ve changed. We’re building a little corner of the Territory where people don’t do things like that to other people. But I’ve been contaminated by just two days back in this environment—the way I lashed out at Father was meant to hurt him.”

  “You just told the truth.”

  “Maybe. I think so. But what good will it do him to know it? If he believes it, it can only hurt him. Kadi, let’s check out the pre-Gens and get out of here.”

  They found their way to the small tent Varnst had set up to display children. “We got twelve for sale,” one of the men told him, “from nine years on up. You buy a young one, you can get several years’ work even if it changes over.” He had sized Rimon up as a young man shopping for a servant. Amazing—someone who didn’t place him as a Farris. Thinking of the way prices would rise if he were recognized, he kept quiet and looked over the children while the salesman was looking over Kadi.

  “Now, that’s some Gen! Want to sell her?”

  “No, thanks,” said Rimon. “There’re only eleven children here.”

  The man turned, looked over the group of children in red Varnst smocks, and said, “Trouble again! Hey, Treen, you were supposed to keep an eye on Trouble! He’s escaped again.”

  “Shen!” said a young Sime woman at the end of the tent. “I only turned my back for a minute!” As she went out of the tent, zlinning, Rimon started to laugh.

  “You’ve got one there who’s already learned how to hide from Simes,” he said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “He’s under the platform.”

  The salesman zlinned, but obviously could not detect one child’s nager separate and beneath the others’. “I don’t think so, but I’ll check—” He went to the back of the platform, looked under, and said, “Well I’ll be shenned! How did you zlin him through the field of that crazy Gen?”

  He hauled out a boy of about twelve, earning several ill-aimed blows and kicks in the process. He pulled the boy’s hands behind his back and held him as the child regaled him with imaginative invective. But while the boy’s Simelan was fluent, as far as it went, it was strongly accented.

  While the salesman was distracted, Rimon whispered to Kadi, “Talk to him—I don’t want them to know I speak English.”

  So Kadi asked, “Were you captured out-Territory?”

  Hearing his own language, the boy stopped his struggles to study Kadi. “What do you care?”

  “Tell me your name,” she said. “Hurry, before they stop us from talking.”

  Perhaps it was the inclination to trust a Gen, or perhaps simply another chance to defy his captors, but the boy drew himself up proudly in spite of the hands and tentacles holding him. “My name is Henry Steers, Jr.”

  Rimon felt the thrill in Kadi’s nager, but she did not betray her recognition of the name. Most Gendealers picked up a few words of the Gen language, and she wasn’t going to risk being understood. “Henry, if you’ll stop struggling, perhaps Rimon will buy you.”

  “He’s got no right to buy me! I’m a freeborn man!”

  “The only way you’ll get out “of here is if someone buys you—and you’ll be best off with Rimon.”

  “Quiet that Gen of yours! She’s exciting this one!”

  “That’s enough, Kadi,” said Rimon, catching her eye. “We don’t want a troublemaker.”

  She fell immediately into the game. “I’ll win his confidence, Tuib. Look, he has good, strong shoulders. I can train him.”

  Rimon purposefully zlinned the boy. “No telling what he’ll be—might be months of work in him if we can get him to do anything. If he turns Sime—well, he could work out his indenture—if he doesn’t run away.”

  Spotting a chance to get rid of the troublesome child, the salesman said, “Oh, no, N’vet—he’s spirited—he’ll make a prime kill as a Gen, or a good worker as a Sime. It’s just the carnival atmosphere made him play tricks today. Why, he didn’t even try to escape, just hid. He’ll probably become attached to you.”

  Rimon pretended reluctance long enough to purchase the boy for much less than the sum with which Fort Freedom had entrusted him. But he had purchased Trouble indeed. Twice on the way back to the hotel, the boy squirmed out of his grasp, and had to be plucked up bodily. When they finally reached their room, Rimon tossed him onto the bed and said, “Stay there while we pack, or I’ll lock you in that cage!”

  “You shendi-flayed, shidoni-be-shenned—Hey, you know English!”

  “That’s right,” said Rimon, “and I also know who you are. In fact, I came here to find you—Hank.”

  “Who told you my nickname?”

  “Your father told us,” replied Rimon. “We’ve been looking for you ever since—since your father died.”

  “You killed him!”

  “No. He died of pneumonia. He wasn’t killed by a Sime.”

  Kadi sat on the bed next to Hank. “We’ll take you to a place where Simes and Gens live together—the way Rimon and I do. See?” She held out her arms. “I’m Gen, but Rimon is Sime, and he’s my husband. We have a little boy of our own.”

  Hank stared at Kadi’s arms, then at her face. “You’re crazy! How do you keep him from killing you?”

  “Rimon doesn’t kill. Ever.”

  The boy absorbed that slowly, then looked up at Rimon.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. Nonetheless, Rimon could read a faint hope in the childish nager.

  “Give us a chance to prove it, Hank,” said Rimon. “I don’t want you to ride for five days tied up and thrown across my saddle, but if that’s what it takes to get you to Fort Freedom, I’ll do it. If you’ll promise not to try to escape, you can ride the horse we brought for you.”

  “You’d take my word?”

  “Your father was an honest man. He wouldn’t give his word unless he meant to keep it. I expect you to do the same.”

  For a long, quiet moment, Hank studied them. “You’ve got my word. I won’t try to escape until after I see this Fort Freedom.”

  They discarded Hank’s red smock, and dressed him in a spare set of Rimon’s clothing, sleeves and pant legs rolled up. Clean, with hair combed, he emerged as a good-looking boy, with dark brown hair and wide blue-gray eyes like his father’s.

  When they fin
ally had everything packed, and were looking around to see if they’d left anything, someone stopped at the door. Wondering who it could be, Rimon opened the door and found himself face to face with Erd Keslic, the father of Yahn, who had become Nerob. When Rimon invited him in, he glanced at Kadi and Hank and shook his head nervously. “I just—I’ve been looking for you all over, Rimon. It’s—”

  No—oh no, I can’t go back and try to buy Nerob again!

  But Keslic, radiating embarrassment, was saying, “When I got back today, N’vet Farris told me to put Nerob back– he isn’t selling him. He said, bad year or no, he kept his promises. But then—the others told me what happened, and I—Thank you, Rimon.” Having gotten the words out, he spun and hurried away. Rimon stared after him, a weight lifted from his soul.

  Kadi put her arm around him. “Oh, Rimon, I’m so glad. You did the right thing—and so did your father!”

  The ride home was uneventful. Hank tried to keep Kadi between himself and Rimon, but made no attempt to escape.

  They reached Fort Freedom late in the afternoon, Rimon choosing to cross the creek below town and skirt Del’s fence rather than take Hank through town. Let him see Fort Freedom first.

  The crops were withering for lack of rain; nonetheless it was easy to see the care that had gone into the fields. Three houses by the creek were still lived in, but no one was in sight.

  When they rode up to the stockade, though, the woman on guard called out in English, “You found him!”

  “We found him,” Rimon agreed.

  “God be praised! Welcome, son—welcome to Fort Freedom!”

  Hank stared at her, then looked at the neat, well-kept houses that made up the community. “It looks like home!”

  People came out, sensed Hank’s uneasiness, and hung back. When they reached the Veritt home, Abel came out, followed by Margid with Zeth. “Mama! Daddy! Come see. Puppy!” cried Zeth, tugging at Rimon.