Personal Recognizance (Sime~Gen, Book 9)

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Ilin looked up at Rimon, too. “It has always seemed to me that the people who shaped the world we live in today had the courage to do what was right, no matter what custom or law said. This is the same sort of situation—well, on a much smaller scale. I got these people in trouble, and I’m willing to take a risk to get them out, and to get help for those I can’t help. It’s going to cost me. But that’s the price of living with myself.”

  Vret said, “One thing I learned about history from you. It was made by people who had to act, even though they weren’t sure, didn’t have the authority, and knew they didn’t know what they were doing. According to one of the myths anyway, Rimon was in First Year when he changed the world.”

  “That sounds like us,” allowed Morry.

  “So,” said Ilin, “if it takes another month, or more, can you give us the time?”

  “The truth is I don’t know. We could get caught. One of those intil accidents could become a Kill. Look how close Iric came to that, and the reason it didn’t happen had nothing to do with Iric’s or Joran’s will, values or conscience. It had to do with the training, skills, hard won internal stability of the channels who aborted Iric out of it. If Blissdrip’s posts are causing this year’s class of channels to be unable to attain that kind of internal stability, where will the Tecton be?”

  “Maybe they’re not being caused by us,” wished Ilin.

  “But I do have some ideas for misdirecting the searchers,” allowed Morry. “The faster you can make this happen, the better.”

  “I’ll write up the story and discussion posts tonight,” said Ilin. “I think we can do this in a week or two.”

  “I’ll set up a database and log the responses,” agreed Morry. “I have a list of the board users at the point where Blissdrip joined. I’ll set up delivery for your special post.”

  “I’ll see about a meeting place and an excuse,” said Vret. “Right now I haven’t a single idea, and I’m due at an accounting class.” And after that he had a Language class where they were reading and comparing three versions of a play purportedly written in the archaic Genlan, but rumored to be a translation of an Ancient masterpiece. He much preferred Math where they were hand calculating algorithms to duplicate some tables found in an Ancient text.

  If ever we get out of this mess, I’ll never even look at another historical novel.

  * * * * * * *

  Ten days later, both Ilin and Vret went through turnover. Vret was beginning to get used to it, and the consequent loss of a sense of independence when his Donor for his next transfer showed up at his room and essentially moved into his life.

  But it wasn’t so bad this time. Ever since his last transfer, Vret had been thinking and moving faster somehow. The world just seemed easier to cope with, so he was able to get a lot more done in a short period of time.

  The effect lasted through turnover and into Need. He scraped up enough time to research their prospects for holding a private meeting in public. It turned out it wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had sounded at first.

  He found they could reserve the Rialite campus Memorial To The One Billion for any meeting purpose as long as it was open to anyone who wanted to come. He could arrange to have the hall assigned to them from early evening all the way through midnight. And it was easy to work up a program boring enough that few would actually come, and most would be eager to leave early.

  Vret only had to ask his Accounting teacher, Hajene Lassin, to give a special lecture and she came up with a topic instantly, “Gulf Territory’s Failed Experiment: The Tragedy of Direct Transfer” presenting her personal theory of why the Direct Transfer experiment in Gulf had failed, using an advanced calculus method to show it wasn’t possible to bring enough Pen Gens to full awareness where they could give transfer to a renSime, nor could Gens from out-Territory, be found and trained fast enough, to do any good on a Territory-wide scale.

  In the end, Gulf had reluctantly turned to the same solution Nivet had found, the Secret Pens, and politics had nothing whatever to do with it. It all came down to Accounting. Quantities of selyn, distribution of it, and satisfactory delivery modes. Modeling the selyn system for Gulf during the years surrounding Unity seemed to be her main hobby and she put great enthusiasm into Vret’s lecture project.

  Vret was certain his meeting would draw only a scattering of attendees besides their invited group.

  The lecture would last about an hour, and their message would specify that their own meeting would start an hour after the official meeting ended.

  All that was left was to pick a date. He flagged Ilin down one noon as they raced past the cactus gardens.

  “And,” Ilin said when he told her his brilliant idea, “we can assign a password to get into our meeting in case anyone is really interested enough to stand around and talk for hours.”

  “Who would be interested?” asked Vret and immediately regretted it.

  She just zlinned him while averting her eyes.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. They were both ten days past turnover and feeling hair-trigger intil surges, especially when their Donors were absent. Right at that moment, Vret was glad he’d be meeting his Donor in a few minutes, even though it meant having to eat lunch.

  “Has Morry got his part of the plan in place?” asked Vret when she didn’t answer. “When should I reserve the Memorial for?”

  “I don’t know,” she muttered absently, still gazing into the distance, “but you’re in that Accelerated Development program again starting tomorrow and I have tenth transfer and my Farris Screening to see if they’ll let me try to Qualify Second. That’s the day after your transfer. Morry has transfer right after that. He said he’ll have the final list for us the day after his transfer and we should allow three days for everyone to see it.”

  Vret counted days and they set the date. “As I recall the schedule, the Memorial will be available then. I’ll check with Hajene Lassin to make sure she’s available and put in our reservation—if I hurry, I can get it done before lunch.”

  With elaborate casualness, Ilin turned to him sweeping her showfield around them as if about to kiss him and muttered, “Look, don’t zlin, over my left shoulder. See that tall man with a green tool case studying the purple fruit on that tall cactus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Notice anything strange about him?”

  “No. Looks like a typical Farris. But it’s not Saelul.”

  “Zlins like a channel. Carrying what seems to be a plumber’s tool kit? How many Farris channels have you heard of who are plumbers?”

  “Not many. Could be any number of reasons he’s got that tool kit though.”

  Intil sizzling to the surface, she snapped, “Vret! He’s watching us—maybe zlinning, but I didn’t feel anything. Wouldn’t though.”

  “You’re up for Farris Screening—maybe they’re starting early.”

  “And maybe they suspect something?”

  “And maybe they’re just guarding the campus against another intil incident.” He wasn’t feeling too steady himself. If a Gen walked by and stubbed his toe, Vret thought he’d leap as high as the roof of the gazebo in reflex.

  “And maybe they’re really watching us.”

  “And maybe if they’re not watching us now, they will be if you keep that up!”

  Her vriamic control seemed shaky, her showfield laced with so many emotions he couldn’t read it, and she was telegraphing her intil.

  “I don’t see how you can just stand there like a rock,” she complained. “That Farris could be reading our minds!”

  “If so, then we’re caught already and there’s no reason to fret and panic. If not, we should work through our plan—it’s not much, but we agreed it’s our best chance.”

  “Maybe I am just spooked. I’ve got a training session to get through—transfer deferral this time. I’m not fit company for a mouse. I’ll see you after transfer.”

  They parted then, and despite his bravado, Vret watched to see which of
them the Farris would follow. To his immense relief, the man hefted his case and went in another direction paying them no heed.

  Vret summoned all his new and growing vriamic control and marched himself off to meet his Donor. As eager as he was for that meeting, he took time to call Hajene Lassin, fighting down intil with all his might to keep his voice from shaking.

  As eager as she was to do the speech, she wasn’t available until four days before Vret’s next turnover. He made an executive decision and booked the Memorial for that date. He left a message telling Sumz of the new date so she could tell Morry, and raced to make his lunch appointment, carefully avoiding augmentation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  PRIMARY SYSTEM

  And the next day he was catapulted headlong into the next phase of his Accelerated Development program.

  This time they focused on his primary system, and the whole session was worse torture than anything in the Killroom stories. This was real, not fantasy, real and very personal.

  Months ago, he’d thought he’d mastered the technique of the internal shunt—moving selyn from his secondary system to his primary system and back at will. Kwotiin Lake had made sure he practiced shunts until his vriamic nerve plexus just refused to function at all. What more could there be to learn?

  Plenty.

  While he was in serious, hard Need, Vret’s Donor forced his intil into sharp peaks, and just as he was about to flip into Killmode, one of the channels would ram selyn into his secondary system and right through his vriamic nerve, into his Primary.

  Every time it hurt worse than death, and every time his Donor pulled him out of it, and they’d go at him again. With each passing hour, he was deeper into Need and the torture became worse and worse.

  Oddly enough, the worst part was being full of selyn, to the depths of his primary system, and still feeling that weird, off-kilter, throbbing demand of Need sans intil. He guessed that had to be what a junct felt after taking channel’s transfer. It certainly matched the descriptions in Killroom.

  Sometimes, when his primary system was full and his secondary system nearly empty, his vriamic would knot up in the most horrible spasms he’d ever felt.

  One time, he had to wait an entire hour in that condition while the channel-Donor teams worked on someone else in the program who was in worse shape.

  Intellectually, he understood that this training was expensive. They carefully chose only those who had a real chance to Qualify Second—or if already a Second to Qualify First—because it took so many trainers to get students through it.

  But intellect counted for nothing when he was the one curled into a fetal ball on the transfer lounge, stifling screams of agony.

  The three days leading up to his transfer appointment passed in a haze in which he barely remembered there was such a thing as a story posting board, nevermind the complex disaster it had turned into. Even up to his elbows in Farrises, he had no worry they would read his mind—he had no mind to read.

  In the end, he finally decided it was better to be full of selyn and in Need anyway than to be empty and in convulsions. But the worst part of the whole thing was that they didn’t even let him skip meals. Discipline they called it. He had to learn to care for his body no matter how he felt about it. It was all right with him as long as they cleaned up the vomit and other effluents.

  When they led him into the transfer room wearing the fourth disposable paper suit of the day, he didn’t even bother to greet his Donor. He couldn’t remember the Gen’s name, except it was something Tigue. He didn’t care. It was a Gen—replete with selyn.

  His primary and secondary systems were empty. Once again they’d driven him to the brink of attrition. He knew he was in Killmode, by now, a familiar state. The moment Gen flesh touched his extended laterals, he would rip selyn from the Gen system with savage glee. This time they wouldn’t stop him. This time he wouldn’t find a channel’s tentacles twined around his own instead of the Gen arms he had thought he’d zlinned.

  I will not grab this Gen.

  He flung himself on the transfer lounge, reaching for the Gen he could zlin but not see—and stopped. Time slowed to a standstill, and the pulsing throb of Need went oddly quiet. He forced himself duoconscious so he could see as well as zlin the font of life that was rightfully his.

  “If you would, please...,” he asked as quietly and calmly as he could. “I am in something of a hurry.”

  The Gen grinned and thrust his arms forward, folding down onto the lounge to offer the fifth contact point.

  Selyn gushed into his emptiness in rich, royal abundance. He was not conscious of drawing but of receiving a bounty.

  Of course, he’s a Tigue, a First. The Gen could deliver hundreds of times more selyn than Vret could ever take, and do it faster than Vret could accept. He relaxed and just let the transfer happen. And it didn’t stop until he was totally full, nerves ringing with blissful satisfaction.

  The First gently wafted him down to hypoconsciousness, aware only of the physical sensations, and unconcerned with the complexities of the ambient nager. Vret floated there for a while, just breathing in deep, painless, free breaths, noticing smells and temperatures, hearing sounds echo from the cabinetry around the room.

  In the observer’s corner, a channel and Donor he didn’t remember seeing before sat at a little table and made notes. The Tigue held out a tall glass of cold trin tea. Sitting up, he took it, swiped it along his cheek to feel the coldness, and drank.

  It was the most delicious tea he’d ever tasted. His post reaction was dawning gently within him, fear, anxiety, even dread, coupled to a burning sexual desire. It was the mildest, most orderly post reaction he’d ever had. Maybe the Tigue reputation is well deserved?

  The channel was satisfied with his performance and sent him off with his Post Assignment card—not, alas, Ilin Sumz—and words of advice. “Get in some heavy augmentation practice now you’ve got a generous budget for it. It’ll work the knots out.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  CAREFULLY AND PERSONALLY SELECTED

  Four days later, the private message was posted.

  Greetings!

  You have been carefully and personally selected to see this message, either because you are one of the earliest members of this group, or because you have expressed misgivings about the work of Blissdrip and his fans.

  Those who started this board see Blissdrip’s contributions as a problem so important it warrants partially compromising our anonymity so that we can call a private and confidential meeting.

  At this meeting, we will present additional information, make decisions and take immediate actions that will affect all of us.

  If you’re seeing this message, we require your help. Do not miss this meeting.

  You’ve all seen the notices for a lecture by Hajene Lassin six days from now in the Great Hall at the Memorial for the One Billion. Arrive one hour after the end of this lecture. When all the attendees have gone, we will have our meeting. If you can’t make it that early, get there before midnight.

  You may be asked for a password. It is: “The Mellow Ambient.”

  This meeting must remain absolutely private. Do not tell anyone about it, or bring anyone to it. All those who should be invited are seeing this message when they connect to the board. It is necessary that no one else have knowledge of this meeting.

  This is for your protection. Your anonymity is at stake—guard it as carefully as we will. Do not give your board identity to anyone at the meeting.

  Vret read the message himself, wondering if it was good enough. Would the right people show up? Would anyone tell one of the wrong people?

  He alternated between knowing that this was the best way to handle the problem, and fearing he was making the most colossal mistake in history, endangering people just on his own judgment.

  That was the day he was first able to meet Ilin on the path since before his Accelerated Development session.

  “Vret, you look wonderful—ama
zingly wonderful actually.”

  She wasn’t looking or zlinning so well, but he didn’t mention that because she was very, very clearly post. She had taken her tenth transfer the day after Vret took his ninth so she should not be so haggard.

  He grinned as seductively as he knew how and toyed with her nager. “I didn’t know it showed, but I’ve been feeling pretty amazing. Maybe almost dying does something to your perspective, even if it’s only a training exercise.”

  It had certainly done something to his learning rate. He’d whizzed through all his catch-up work and was actually ahead in most of his studies for the first time at Rialite. After three days in a hell-hole, life just didn’t seem so hard anymore.

  She marveled at him, walking all around him while looking him up and down. “It didn’t feel that safe when they did it to me.” Her appreciation of his appearance seemed to vanquish her own fatigue. “You saw the message this morning?”

  “Yes, and I checked with Hajene Lassen. She’s all set to give the lecture, and notes have gone up everywhere about it so we might actually have a couple people there.”

  “More than that, I’ll bet. It’s a fascinating topic—anything about the Tigues is riveting and Gulf is legendary.”

  One arm around her waist, he walked her to the private room they had made their own, and wooed her with details of his transfer with a Tigue Gen.

  And they had a wonderful hour all to themselves. It was just so much better with her than with anyone they’d ever assigned him that at the end he complained, “When oh when will they let us pick our own post-syndrome partners?”