Tears blurring her vision, Laneff turned to those below, but they required no report. Azevedo gripped Shanlun’s shoulders once, hard, and then raised his face to the sky. The two rose and faced the rising sun.
As if by some unspoken signal, the four gypsies around Laneff and Jarmi also rose, facing east. The silence of the dead fields seemed to be dispelled by an even larger silence—the silence of living Sime and Gen nager, pulsing with life in clear concert.
It was only an instant, but the gypsies held them all breathless. Afterward, Laneff felt normality return, but now the horror was dispelled. Laneff went back down to Shanlun and Azevedo. Yuan had lapsed into unconsciousness. The others gathered around.
To Shanlun, Laneff whispered, “You call that prayer?”
“No,” he answered. “Just a salutation.”
Azevedo said, “We must move swiftly now. We’ll require a litter for Yuan.
One of the Distect Simes said, “We can’t afford to drag these three along, too.”
Azevedo walked over to the prisoners, zlinning, then took one of the dart rifles and without preamble shot each of the Gens in the thigh. They each recoiled in anticipation of horror, but that faded as the drug put them to sleep.
Desha said something, objecting in the gypsy dialect. Shanlun answered, and one of the other gypsy Simes argued. While they spoke, Laneff heard the Distect Simes remark on how the gypsies will argue until doom strikes. They made shift to construct a litter out of the splintered wood about them and jackets they took from the three Gens.
The slit in the clouds had closed, darkening the day ominously. A damp, cold wind skirled about them. Laneff cut into the gypsy discussion. “It isn’t so important where we go as that we get out of here—now.”
Shanlun looked at her, surprised, and she decided they had indeed been discussing destination. Azevedo replied, “We’re in Gen Territory here. It’s imperative that we cross over before nightfall—sooner if possible.”
Desha again objected in the gypsy language, though Laneff had once heard her speak perfectly intelligible Simelan. Azevedo answered, “We can if we must. We’ll discuss it later.” He went to talk to the Distect Simes who were securing Yuan to the litter.
“We’ll head north,” announced Azevedo.
“We don’t accept a channel’s leadership just because he’s a channel,” answered one of the Simes.
“There are six of us and four of you,” said Azevedo, counting Jarmi as Distect. “We know this country. You’re welcome to join us if you like.”
There was a bristling moment, and Jarmi said, “I think Yuan would go north with Azevedo. Shall we wake him and ask?”
The Simes zlinned their burden. “No,” one said. “Let’s move.
They helped one another up the path they’d cut into the rubble on one side of the crater, and when they got to the churned ground, they circled to stay on the matting of branches until they reached a stream that was now cutting a new bed. They tromped along the watercourse until they came to the spot where it joined the old bed and continued on the rocky wet pathway.
It was hard going. The air was chill enough to bother the Gens, so the Simes shivered, too. Before they’d reached the cover of a tract of woods, Laneff called out a warning. Moments later, Tecton reconnaissance planes zoomed out of the rising sun and circled the battlefield.
“Run!” called one of the Distect Simes.
But Azevedo overrode that. “Circle!” he commanded.
Immediately, the four other gypsies formed a circle with the channel, leaving the two Simes carrying Yuan balanced on their toes, ready to dash for the woods.
Azevedo motioned the Distect Simes to put Yuan in the center of the circle. “To move now is to attract attention. We must disappear into the landscape like a frightened rabbit.”
The planes would carry Third Order channels as spotters. The sparse woods would not hide them then, nor would simple stillness. Jarmi complained, “This makes no sense.”
“It will in a moment,” replied Azevedo, arranging the gypsies in some special order and placing Shanlun and Laneff on the circle while herding Jarmi inside with the other Distect followers. Then he stepped into the ring with them. “Lie down. I’m going to put you to sleep.” As they complied, his nager expanded to include the two Simes, Yuan and Jarmi inside a distorted shifting blur. He spoke to them softly.
At the same time, Desha and Shanlun got into another tart discussion in the gypsy dialect. Dividing her attention, Laneff missed watching the odd hypnotic sleep overcome Jarmi.
Azevedo turned back to his two Gens. “Now our secrets are safe from outsiders.”
Desha challenged that, and Azevedo answered, “Shanlun vouches for her. She is sworn.” Then, comparing Shanlun and Desha with one eye on the Tecton planes, he said, “Shanlun will work this with me.”
A flush of pleasure suffused Shanlun’s nager, but he protested, “I haven’t since—”
Azevedo snapped, “They have a Second Order channel up there. Desha couldn’t handle this. Come!”
As the gypsies settled cross-legged about the circle, Laneff was drawn in between Shanlun and Desha while Azevedo placed himself opposite Shanlun. The brilliant confetti nager faded into a dark purple shadow. In the space of a deep breath, the entire circle turned to purple mist.
Azevedo seemed to reach out to embrace Shanlun’s intensity within his own blurred nager, and the two flowed into that same oneness she’d zlinned in Yuan’s office.
The bubble of nageric shadow misted and smeared by channel’s shimmer grew to encompass them all, drawing them outside of time. She gave herself to that nonexistence, reveling in the freedom of existing in the now. She was no longer stretched on a torture rack between past and future. Enraptured, she contemplated the now and found it exquisite.
Reluctantly, she was drawn out of that contemplation to find that nearly an hour had passed. Three times, planes had looped low over the nearby stand of trees, but without spotting them. Azevedo bent over the Distect group, waking them one by one. The others were rising, moving stiff limbs, brushing ants and leaves off. Shanlun remained, eyes nearly closed, nager still as a tidal pool, shrouded in dark purple. His face was as wiped clean of character as if he were a babe. Yet she knew he was aware.
She rose, feeling as if she’d just wakened from the most refreshing posttransfer sleep of her life. Zlinning, she reckoned that the Gens had all produced more selyn in that single hour than they normally would in a day, though the Simes seemed to have used less than a fifth the selyn for an hour.
She bent over Shanlun, worried, but Azevedo intervened. “Not yet. Leave him.”
He drew her toward the center. “Yuan wants to see you.”
The Sosectu was propped up against one of the Simes. He smiled. “Laneff! It wasn’t a dream. You made it!”
“I wasn’t even hurt! But you—”
“I’m fine now,” he said, but it wasn’t true. He was hungry, cold, but only a bit weak from his injury which was healed totally. He pulled his feet under him, struggling to stand. “I’m going to get a drink of water. Join me?”
“In a moment,” replied Laneff, glancing back at Shanlun.
Yuan followed her gaze. “His people will care for him. Come.” Unsteadily, he made for a nearby brook.
She knew, and Yuan knew, there was more to this moment of choice than a drink of water. Laneff compared the two Gens and wondered how she could ever have thought them similar.
Yuan shuffled toward the brook, not looking back to see if Laneff followed. But she could feel a thread of his attention on her. What they’d felt together was real. What he’d promised—and delivered—was real, and she was grateful. But what she knew Shanlun to be drew her to his side. That clear motion told Yuan all he wanted to know.
Azevedo, having checked each of the gypsies, now turned to Shanlun, motioning Laneff back. He hunkered down before the Gen, smiling, his nager reaching into the dark purple shadow. Gradually, Shanlun grew aware, character r
eturning to his face as he opened his eyes. He smiled up at Laneff, and it was as if she were engulfed by a rainbow.
Laneff asked, “Was that a demonstration of Endowment?”
Azevedo laughed. “No! Just part of the training that leads to the ability to control an Endowment.”
The other Distect people and now some of the gypsies followed Yuan to the brook to drink.
Shanlun accused the channel, “No, that was no training exercise. You used yourself unmercifully.”
“Nonsense. I’m more comfortable now. Not so post.
“You haven’t been post since I left!”
They were arguing now in English, and Laneff caught a whiff of the same tensions they’d argued with before.
“The Tecton has taught you to be too domineering.”
“And perceptive.”
“If I can grant you the right to cope with your own problems, can you not grant me the similar right?”
“As long as you acknowledge the problem.”
Azevedo wilted. “Yes, I know it’s a problem. You’ve made your point, Shan. And we will take both of you to Thiritees. But I don’t know about the others.”
Yuan and the rest were returning from the stream. Leaning on one of the Simes, Yuan came toward Azevedo, and the old man went to meet him halfway. They discussed what to do next while Shanlun slipped his arm inside Laneff’s so their forearms lay alongside each other, him gripping her wrist.
“You know why he’s willing to take you with us?” asked Shanlun rhetorically. “Because he feels responsible for what happened to you at the funeral oration. His intuition—an Endowment of a sort—told him to come right over to me at the rotunda when you were talking to Mairis, and to insist I give him transfer, Tecton and Zeor notwithstanding. Then you’d have been on the platform with Mairis, out of reach of those terrorists.”
She couldn’t quite picture even Azevedo breaking through a security cordon and wreaking havoc with a Tecton Controller’s transfer schedules. “Why didn’t he do it then?”
“Because I refused him. So, you see, it’s back in my lap again. If I hadn’t been unable to control my nager, or if I cared for you less so it would have been easier to keep my attention off you, then you and Mairis wouldn’t have had to decide to put you in that box.”
There were other considerations, Laneff remembered. But he started her thinking, and as they formed up to move north together, she mulled it over and decided that many people had made responsible decisions contributing to the disasters they’d suffered. When she put it to Shanlun, he replied, “Yes, we’ve all had a hand in making this mess, and we’ve all got to pitch in and clean it up.”
“Let’s get out of here before the Tecton is back with ground patrols!” said someone, and without further argument they marched, Yuan’s group accompanying them to the Sime~Gen border. The long, hard walk wearing House sandals made Laneff’s feet hurt. And they were all hungry and tired when they reached the border, here marked only by a thick hedgerow set in a barren corridor between vineyards. It was raining, soaking and chilling everyone. But at least it kept the bees and flies down.
One by one, they wriggled through a small rabbit run through the hedgerow, snagging hair, clothing, and skin on the brambles. In the center it was dry, and Laneff was almost tempted to curl up and sleep. But she crawled out the other side and came out headfirst in Sime Territory.
Yuan and Azevedo were standing in the middle of the muddy road circling the fields. They’d walked together most of the day, conversing quietly. Now Laneff heard them at last in agreement. “Then,” said Azevedo, “I’ll be sending our messenger to you on the regular schedule.”
“Not that there’ll be anything to report. My organization can’t be a voice in world politics again for a long time to come.”
“Yuan, you’re not certain the Diet also destroyed your other centers. You won’t be until you get back in touch. Now, are you sure you can make it to Bayerne?”
Yuan glanced from his two Simes to where Jarmi stood beside Laneff. “We can make it,” he assured Azevedo. “Laneff, I didn’t deliver on all my promises. I can’t hold you to yours. It could be a year before I could again provide you lab space.” He eyed Jarmi. “Though we could still provide your transfers—and you might live long enough to use that lab.”
He wanted her to come with him. And there was a part of her that responded. Her hand sought Jarmi’s fingers. The Gen tightened her grip reassuringly. Jarmi didn’t want to betray Yuan, but her nager told Laneff that Jarmi’s first loyalty was now to her. On the march, Shanlun had explained that Thiritees held labs as well equipped as Yuan’s, if older, and Azevedo had the authority to emplace her there. Shanlun was sure he and Azevedo could provide her the pure killbliss transfer she craved, and he’d pledged to stay with her, letting Mairis and the Tecton presume him dead. Labs now, and probably good transfers against labs later and only Jarmi; Yuan had lost his best channel, and she had been virtually useless to Laneff. Suddenly, Laneff was unable to stomach such a cold blooded calculated decision. She asked, “Yuan, are you going to pull out of the alliance with Mairis?”
“Now it won’t be necessary. We’re going to disappear and let the world think we’re all dead. At least for a while. That should help Mairis’ political position. And, frankly, we couldn’t help him much right now, anyway.”
“You’re going to rebuild—and so will the Diet.”
“But it’ll be years before they can do any damage. If Mairis’ elected, by the time the Diet’s organized again, there won’t be a Gen in the world who doesn’t have a Sime friend or business partner. The Diet’s line doesn’t work where people know each other.”
“Do you still hate them?”
“Right now I’m too tired and hungry to hate anything but this rain.”
Zlinning, she realized that his essential nature remained unchanged, though his spirits flagged now. Shanlun was glued to Azevedo’s side, awaiting her decision tensely. He wouldn’t go with Yuan. And she couldn’t see herself chancing that, either. With only Jarmi—no. She turned to the Gen, squeezing her hand, “I’m sorry.” Then to Yuan, she said, “I’ve got to go with Azevedo and Shanlun.”
Yuan’s shoulders slumped further, but he only nodded.
Jarmi looked to Azevedo. “Do you think you could take me along?”
Laneff found a smile blooming on her face, a grinding tension in her midsection letting go.
The channel answered, “It’d be awkward for you, Jarmi. Gypsy tribes don’t mix with outsiders. You’d have no friends.”
Jarmi shrugged. “If I have Laneff, it’s enough. And, I do know my way around her lab work. I can be useful.”
“She could,” declared Laneff, surprised she hadn’t thought of that. “It would take a lot of time to train a new assistant.” But she also knew there was no way Jarmi could be trusted with the secret of the Endowment and all the rest. “But, Jarmi, once there, you’d probably have to stay for many years. They won’t let you go back to Yuan after I die.”
“Maybe you won’t die.”
“You’ve got to adjust to that idea, Jarmi. Think. After I’m gone, will you be glad to have left your life behind?”
Jarmi stared down at the mud with a pained expression, and Laneff realized everything Jarmi cherished had been brutally destroyed just hours before. Yet with an air of real decision, Jarmi said, “Yes. I want to be part of what you’re doing.” She looked apologetically toward Yuan.
Azevedo had zlinned her deeply as she spoke, and now he said, “Then I’ll permit you to come with us.”
As the two groups parted, trudging in opposite directions, Jarmi clung to Laneff both for balance in the slick mud and for security.
Laneff said, “I know why I’m glad you’re coming. But why are you so happy, Jarmi? This is going to be hard on you.”
“Laneff, you came back for me. It would have been saner for you to go directly to the hangar from the lab, but you went all the way back into the residence wing for me
. I’ve never known anyone who’d do such a thing for me. I couldn’t turn my back and walk away from you—not even with Yuan.”
They trudged through the unrelenting downpour, some of them resorting to bare feet when their shoes were soaked. At dark, the Simes each took the arm of a Gen, enduring the increased hunger, cold, and aching muscles. Shanlun walked with Azevedo, and Laneff had Jarmi, zlinning the path through trinrose fields, apiaries, and clumps of houses.
Twice, Tecton patrols flew overhead, and once they crossed a road where buses whizzed by at speed. Then they came to a slideroad bed and had to wait for a train to pass. Later, they followed a road, taking to the drainage ditch when cars approached.
After one such episode, Jarmi reamed muddy water out of her face and said, “I hate to complain, but does anybody have any idea how much longer until we find something to eat?”
Azevedo apologized. “We all know where we’re going. With luck, we’ll be warm and dry and fed before dawn.”
At midnight, they broke for a rest. Jarmi and Laneff huddled under a deadfall while the gypsies and Shanlun made one of their salutes. Afterward, they seemed refreshed, but Jarmi’s fatigue and hunger dragged at Laneff. They slogged across alfalfa fields, skirted a new vineyard, scrambled through another hedgerow old enough to have been there when the Ancients held the world, and eventually came out in a gully sloshing through a torrent of dirty water.
A large clay culvert pipe emerged from beneath a roadbed. Above, houses were packed as densely as ever one saw them in-Territory. One of the gypsies worked at the mesh screen that closed the culvert and it swung aside.
“Now only our feet will be wet,” said someone.
“Yeah, but with what?” commented another.
Yet, gratefully, they trooped into the dark. The center of the pipe was a juncture of two sections, both tall enough for them to stand upright. Azevedo and one of the other Simes scrabbled at the seam, and then another door opened, a narrow slit leading into even deeper darkness.
With trepidation Laneff followed, towing Jarmi and reminding her, “They say gypsies go where they will, without regard of civilized rules. This must be one of those ways—and no doubt a tribe secret.”
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