Personal Recognizance (Sime~Gen, Book 9)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “I know. I have been trying.” And if I get caught reading that shenning novel, there goes my out-Territory license. To get a license to go out among untrained Gens, the student had to demonstrate a serious respect for rules in general, and safety rules in particular. The Secret Boards were technically a violation of the rules, though a minor one.

  “I realize that you have been trying—we all realize it. So I’ve found a tutor for you, a Third who is only a month ahead of you but has a thorough knowledge and understanding of history—made something of a hobby of it as a child— and is a very neat match for you, nagerically. You should communicate very well. Are you willing?”

  Tutor? Someone to waste all his secret reading time on? “Sure, if you think it will do any good.”

  “Get History out of the way, concentrate on developing a stronger vriamic control, work on your capacity—and I’ll test you again next month.”

  “Test?” He could never tell if Kwotiin was drilling him or testing him.

  “Today’s test didn’t go too well, Vret. You’re not ready to try for Second yet. And besides, if you’re going to pass History, you’ll have no time for the Seconds’ Physiology course. Seconds can zlin deeper, so they have a lot more technical material to learn about the tiny but significant differences among the sub-mutations.”

  The ambient in the small cubicle was suddenly clear and fresh as a spring breeze. Only then did Vret’s systems suddenly relax, and he knew how much pressure he’d been under. His vriamic node ached with fatigue.

  “Your new tutor will meet you in the Janroz Library, study room six, at ten tonight. Be there and bring your Cassleman and Logan.” Kwotiin gathered his jacket and briefcase and was out the door before Vret could say anything.

  I failed a test today. It would be nice to know if you were having a conversation or being tested with your whole life hanging in the balance.

  He collapsed onto the transfer lounge, shaking as if he’d just spent fifteen minutes holding a functional.

  Chapter Three

  THE TUTOR

  By ten that night, Vret had barely stopped shaking with fatigue. The long Third Order recovery period was another reason he so desperately wanted to Qualify. He hated being too tired to think straight—and as a Third, he’d be in that condition almost all the time. As soon as he recovered, from a functional, there’d be another.

  It had taken his assigned Donor more than half an hour to get him to stop sweating from what he diagnosed as a mild case of vriamic shock. “Kwotiin is harsh on his trainees, but if he thinks you can make Second, you can; no doubt about that.”

  Vret heaved his Cassleman and Logan and other books onto the desk in the study room. His name had been on the reservation sheet outside the door, though he, himself, had never reserved the room.

  He had Collection Lab at four the next morning because he was past turnover but not yet in serious Need and they wanted him to work directly with a Gen. He hoped he’d be able to finish here and get some sleep before then. Taking donations always wore him out fast.

  But...A tutor! Only the most uneducated kids from the back of nowhere ever got assigned a tutor. But he had said he’d do whatever it took, and he had to show Kwotiin that he meant that.

  And then heaven rained peace upon his ravaged vriamic.

  He whirled to find the door filled with the most incredible nager a Third Order channel could ever display. He struggled to duoconsciousness, and gaped like a first-week student zlinning a Farris for the first time. “Ilin Sumz!” The woman who had changed his life by uttering a few simple words he himself had said. And she’s going to tutor me in history!

  “You must be...why are you so surprised?” The throbbing wonder abated as she controlled her showfield. “Kwotiin said he told you I’d be glad to tutor you in history if you’ll help me out with my lousy vriamic control. It’s been getting worse, lately, not better.”

  “Um.” Words vanished from his mind as if he’d never learned to speak Simelan. Then they flooded back in a rush. “He didn’t mention that, but I would be most pleased to provide whatever help I can.”

  She smiled, and it filled the cubicle with bubbles of anticipation of delight tingling his skin everywhere. When she zlinned him, he felt her smile all the way to his bone marrow and suddenly he knew she was as interested in him as he was in her.

  “Sorry.” Her nageric effect toned down a bit. She went on talking in a serious, businesslike tone as she set her books down and positioned a chair, but he didn’t track what she said.

  I do not know that she’s Bilateral, author of Aunser ambrov D’zehn, he reminded himself sternly. Participants on the secret board used nicknames for anonymity. If caught, no one person could betray everyone else, but just the person who got them onto the boards and those they, themselves, had introduced to them.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to come up with any more witty comments. They fell right to work, seated side by side, his fields interpenetrating hers. She felt as tired as he did, he noted. But after that he began to track what she was saying about the socio-dynamic causes of Unity and why attempts to create something similar had failed all around the world so many times before Klyd Farris and Risa Tigue made it happen.

  For the first time since he’d arrived at Rialite, history started to make sense. The words in the book actually registered, and he could remember the meaning even a half hour later. Events hadn’t just happened, people didn’t pop out of nowhere, they had childhoods and failed marriages and wayward children, and then made world shattering decisions based on what they’d learned from their lives.

  Everything these historic figures had done had a cause somewhere back in time, and left an effect propagating through to the present, two and a half centuries later. history wasn’t unlike forensic science, his favorite subject.

  Sitting with Ilin Sumz, he learned how many clues could be found in how the languages changed with public attitudes. History records might say anything, but linguistic clues told the truth.

  That study hour turned into an amazing night—one of many in quick succession. The mysteries of history lay bare and revealed before his inner eye.

  But the highpoint of the evening came as they were parting. As he turned to walk away, he felt her attention on his back, sweeping lower, to hips, thighs, calves, and back to his shoulders. And the whole ambient glowed with pure approval. Oh, we will be good together!

  Chapter Four

  WHY THE TECTON?

  Over the next two weeks, he passed three of the diabolical history quizzes Annana Menfild crafted for the Thirds. Ilin had scored a perfect thirty on each when she had taken them. But he was well satisfied with his achievement.

  He’d always thought of himself as trailing the class in vriamic skills too, and had no idea how to teach such skills. But after two weeks of spending hours a day huddled over history books with him, Ilin skipped two levels in one day’s testing, and caught up with her class in vriamic control. And he hadn’t done anything except study with her.

  Afterwards, she told him, “I just wanted to show you my best, and I guess the exercise made me stronger.”

  But she had an unexpected affect on him as well. While coming to see the sweep of history creating the Modern Tecton, to see the disasters miraculously averted, the terrible chances taken by ordinary men and women, the huge lies told to save lives and give merciful deaths, Vret came to understand the Tecton in a new light.

  It became his Tecton, an enterprise he could give his life to—even die for—not merely the only career opportunity available to those born as channels.

  The sudden fierce loyalty seized him during the monthly graduation ceremony. Each month, when the train brought the entering class across the desert and took away that month’s graduating class, the ranking Faculty gave speeches to the departing class assembled on the platform.

  The other students didn’t usually stop to watch, but this time Vret wanted to see off the friend who had introduced him to the Secret B
oards, so he paused on his way to his class on Gen Law. The graduates stood tall in their new Tecton uniforms, the ambient about them vibrating with a clean joy. His friend, still a Third, caught sight of him and smiled, straightening to show off his insignia.

  The Farris who headed up Rialite was speaking and all attention was on him. Vret didn’t hear the words from so far away, but the nageric message was so clear, so filled with confidence, that Vret felt the stalwart tradition of Rialite being passed down into these young hands.

  Ilin Sumz had given him the understanding of history, the origin of that tradition, the harsh, ugly necessities that had given it birth. All at once, he felt as if he were listening to Klyd Farris giving hope to the world, and he wanted with all his heart and soul to become a part of that.

  He walked away as the train chugged out of the station knowing he would give the Tecton all he had in him.

  * * * * * * *

  One fine day in late spring, they both had transfer on the same day—Vret’s seventh and Ilin’s eighth. To his vast disappointment, they were separated during the next three days of their post syndrome.

  Unfortunately, Ilin’s nageric control progress meant that she didn’t absentmindedly flood the ambient with that wondrously unstressed, positive, serene ambition that had first unlocked the grip of fear from around his heart. She didn’t effervesce by accident anymore either, nor broadcast sudden intil spikes or sizzle with sexual interest. And when she sank into a nageric fugue, studying a field pattern, she didn’t drag everyone around her into it. At least, not unless she intended to.

  When Vret asked Kwotiin about getting a post assignment with Sumz, the trainer just laughed. “You’ll be free to choose for yourself soon enough!”

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and worse yet couldn’t stop reading her novel, night by night, installment by installment. He even read all the commentaries other people were posting about it.

  Sumz had taken the well known historic figure of Aunser ambrov D’zehn and magnified him into a fantasy hero by giving him the legendary ability to read minds.

  Out-Territory Gens had created the legend that all Simes could read minds. Vret had found even his own abilities could seem like mind-reading to a Gen. His first couple of months here, he’d enjoyed startling the Gens who trained him by reciting their thoughts back at them.

  In more recent times though, in-Territory legends had grown up around the First Order Channels, particularly the Farrises. Some of them were reputed to have used arcane abilities to make their marks in history, powers like telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance. One scoffed-at superstition said Farrises could raise the dead.

  But here in Rialite where the Farrises were revered by innocent youths, exaggerated legends were used by the older students to haze the younger who had yet to study the facts of the matter.

  Vret had found a kernel of truth within all of these legends, even about Farrises raising the dead by restarting a heart. But the First Order channels, The Endowed, who could do these amazing things were rare, their abilities erratic and in most cases impossible to demonstrate under controlled conditions. But Vret was certain they were very real.

  Bilateral had taken that spooky Rialite legend, mixed it with fact and grafted it onto the historic figure to create a compelling fantasy character—a telepathic channel assigned to treat dying semi-juncts whose lives could be extended by a Kill.

  Bilateral’s Aunser dared not ask for a different assignment for fear of revealing his terrible secret—that the out-Territory Gens were right, he did read minds. He dared not stay where he was, living in the miasma of aborts, attrition and death. So he argued, begged, favor-traded, and played inter-Householding family politics to establish secret pens where those who could benefit would get two Kills a year.

  His primary argument was that civilization couldn’t afford to lose a whole generation of Simes at once. The semi-junct adults had to live long enough for their non-junct children to take over running the world.

  Vret couldn’t stop reading the discussion board arguments among the readers—and writers of other stories on the boards—about what would have happened if there had never been any Secret Pens. Some even suggested that in reality there hadn’t been any Secret Pens—that there might have been one or two such pens, but nothing systematic and legally sanctioned and that Gulf Territory’s system of assigning carefully matched Gens to give transfer to renSimes accounted for the survival of that final generation of juncts.

  Having read Bilateral’s version, Vret was sure history as it was recorded was...incomplete if not actually just plain wrong. What intrigued Vret most about Ilin Sumz was how she could be Bilateral, the author of the hottest, frankest narrative of the founding of the Secret Pens, having such field-splatter accidents all over campus, and never once betray that secret to the faculty—so many of whom were Firsts.

  Chapter Five

  THE SECRET KILLROOM

  One evening, a new story started to appear on the Board titled The Secret Killroom. It took Bilateral’s character, Aunser ambrov D’zehn, the secret telepath, Householding Statesman and martyr to Unity, and morphed him into a sadist and Householding blackmailer.

  One plausible step after another, explaining junct psychology with textbook accuracy, the alternate-history novel seduced readers into the mind and heart of unrepentant juncts, while an imposter had taken the place of Aunser in charge of the Disjunction Center at Poliston.

  In this twisted version of Aunser’s story, Aunser politicked, threatened and blackmailed to get his already operating Secret Pen legalized. And he used an exaggerated telepathic ability to rewrite people’s memories, and warp his victim’s values until people did his bidding.

  The writing was powerful, compelling, absorbing, every bit as good as Bilateral’s but signed by a newcomer to the Board called, obscenely, Blissdrip.

  Chapter Six

  HELPING THE TUTOR

  Two days after he passed the final History of Unity test, Vret learned more than he ever wanted to know about Ilin Sumz’s spare time activities.

  Sumz came up to him on the path that curved around one of the dry washes protecting the campus from flash floods. “Vret, I have to talk to you—privately.”

  Vret gestured to a polished stone bench in the wash, shaded by tall and short cacti, some spiky stick things clinging to a fence, and a few scraggly trees. Little ceramic plaques adorned each plant with its species name.

  At intervals, glass cases displayed genetic information on each species. “We can study some botany,” he suggested, his mind more on biology. Just because they weren’t post didn’t mean they couldn’t have good sex. Tonight maybe?

  They seated themselves and pulled out some books. Even Ilin’s new tight vriamic control couldn’t hide her apprehension. “I’ve got to ask you something, and it’s not something anyone should be asking. I mean it’s personal.”

  “The answer is yes!” he blurted every nerve in his body on high alert.

  “The answer to what?”

  Oh, no! “Uh, well, if you want help with anything, I certainly will be glad to!” His interest had to be plain in his nager, even to a Third.

  “No, not that!” Her nager shouted otherwise. “I mean, well, not today. I mean...”

  Clearly, she had been quite willing to think what Vret had been thinking. He infused his showfield with a warm smile. “Another time. What can I do for you today?”

  Two deep breaths and her showfield settled into business. “Look, I really shouldn’t—wouldn’t at all if—well, I believe I can trust you, and we have to recruit someone, so we’ve chosen you. So can we get very—personal—and confidential?”

  “Recruit?” His bewilderment permeated his nager.

  She was zlinning him hard. Gulping, he relaxed his showfield and gave her an honest answer with his nager. He was definitely going to volunteer for anything that would mean he could spend time with her. “Confidential. Yes.”

  She nodded and gathered
her courage. “Tremind took your bribe and told you my nickname on the boards because I told her to. And I know you’re Asymmetric.”

  He started talking just to cover his shock. “I thought nobody was supposed to know anybody. Tremind told me she’d found out only because your roommate told her.”

  “Halarcy didn’t tell her, I did. One day I passed you on the pathway, and your nager—well, it was just riveting. I’ve been zlinned by Farrises without feeling like that. So I asked around and found out your name—and that you were asking about me and reading my novel. I told Tremind to see that you found out my nickname.”

  “But I haven’t told anyone my nickname.” The password to sign onto the secret boards for the first time changed daily. Only someone already signed on could find out that password and invite another person to use it to sign themselves onto the secret board. Not even the mainframe administrators who were in on the secret were supposed to be able to read a person’s nickname.

  “Shen, Ilin!” With the hope of making Second had come the glimmering of a new ambition beyond that. “If they find out about me reading the secret boards, there goes all hope of ever becoming a Troubleshooter. You have to have an impeccable record to get into the training program and stealing mainframe space and bandwidth is bad enough without adding the Kill descriptions and other infractions of board rules in all these stories—and now there’s this Blissdrip stuff that’s glorifying the junct lifestyle. I can’t even count the number of rules it all breaks!”